Volume 23 Issue 3 - November 2017

FEATURE
MUSIC OF
REMEMBRANCE
continued from page 9
To commemorate Remembrance
Day this year, the Toronto
Symphony Orchestra and guest
conductor Tania Miller will give the
Toronto premiere of Afghanistan:
Requiem for a Generation. The
TSO production features soprano
Measha Brueggergosman, mezzosoprano
Allyson McHardy, tenor
Colin Ainsworth and baritone
Tania Miller
Brett Polegato with the Toronto
Mendelssohn Choir and the Toronto Children’s Chorus. TSO music
director Peter Oundjian has written: “Of course, Jeffrey Ryan is one
of the country’s most distinguished composers, and his work as our
affiliate composer some years ago was outstanding. I am always keen
to hear the most recent works by our former affiliates, and when our
creative team brought this Requiem to me, I knew that we should
program it. It is truly an epic work. Suzanne Steele’s moving poetry and
Jeff’s powerful music make for an unforgettable experience.”
The performances take place in 8pm concerts on November 9 and
11 at Roy Thomson Hall. The concert also contains music by Vaughan
Williams, the Scottish piper G.S. McLennan and a short so-called
“Sesquie for Canada’s 150th” by Julien Bilodeau. Jeffrey Ryan will
attend both Toronto performances, as well as a November 10 Calgary
Philharmonic performance, in Calgary.
Steele and Ryan’s Requiem adds to the ever-growing repertoire
of musical works honouring the sacrifices of Canada’s soldiers over
the course of our history and makes for a poignant reminder of the
reasons behind their creation. Ever since Canadian poet, doctor and
soldier, Lt. Col. John McCrae (1872–1918) wrote In Flanders Fields,
composers have been drawing inspiration from it and setting it to
music. In 2006, Kingston, Ontario composer John Burge composed
his Flanders Fields Reflections. Burge called McCrae’s work, “Perhaps
the most famous poem ever written by a Canadian.” The recording of
Burge’s work by Sinfonia Toronto on Marquis Classics won the 2009
JUNO for best classical composition. McCrae’s poem has been set
numerous times by composers around the world. Interestingly, the
very first setting was by American Charles Ives, in 1917. More recently,
Canadians Stephen Chatman, Eleanor Daley and Alexander Tilley have
also used the poem. In Chatman’s case, it was a setting commissioned
by the Vancouver men’s choir, Chor Leoni.
McCrae’s poem is of course not the only literary source for
music of remembrance by Canadian composers. Chatman has also
made Remembrance Day settings using poetry by Walt Whitman
(Reconciliation) and by Christina Rossetti (Songs of Remembrance).
(Music by Chatman, Daley and Tilley will be sung in a concert titled
“Acquired Taste: Music for Remembrance,” at 7:30pm on Sunday,
November 12 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Anglican Church in Toronto’s
west end.)
Born in England, Healey Willan (1880–1968) came to Canada
in 1913 and lived and worked through both world wars. He wrote
An Apostrophe to the Heavenly Hosts in 1921 for the Toronto
Mendelssohn Choir. It’s a work that was dedicated to the memory of
those members of the choir who had been killed in WWI. Then, in
1939, as Canada entered WWII, Willan composed A Responsory for
Use in the Time of War, while serving as precentor of the Church of
St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto.
Near the end of his life, Harry Somers (1925–1999) composed A
Thousand Ages, a major work for boy soprano, men’s choir, orchestra
and electronics. The title comes from a line in the hymn, Our God,
Our Help in Ages Past. Somers’ father had served in WWI and was
haunted by severe nightmares throughout his remaining life. Somers
recalled how as a youth he had often awoken in the middle of the
night to the sound of his father’s screams. A Thousand Ages is one of
Somers’ most personal works, and it received its premiere during the
Winnipeg Symphony’s New Music Festival in 2000, with Bramwell
Tovey conducting. Tovey was so impressed with the work that he
made a version that replaced the orchestra with silver band. This is the
version that I recorded with my production team, for a CD featuring
the Hannaford Street Silver Band and the men of the Amadeus Choir
at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Toronto. It’s a powerful, visceral
work that conveys the horrors that soldiers experience. Personally, I
feel it’s an impactful work that should be performed more often at
Remembrance Day observances.
The same CD, on the Opening Day label, also contained an
important work by Tovey. This was his Requiem for a Charred Skull,
written as Tovey’s reaction to the war in Kosovo. It was this recording
that won Tovey the 2003 JUNO for best classical composition.
David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster
based in Toronto.
86 | November 2017 thewholenote.com