Endless latin church chants of “eternal rest.” One note soft, repeated, staccato. Another note soft, repeated, staccato. Again and again and again as if that’s all that mattered. Twelve gassed soldiers move slowly, stumbling from left to right. They lightly touch or hold on to each other, the blind leading the blind but not one of them as blind as the society’s choir that led them to blindness. Heads lowered or bowed as in prayer, defeat, shame, weakness. Latin chants alternate with short, jagged phrases in the strings. Upward straining, upward sighing. Chimes or bells ring in the background, calling everyone to church or death. Dissonant tritones everywhere. No rest, no rest, they proclaim. You can feel it in your nerves, your bones. The tenor soloist sings “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?* A chamber music ensemble echoes the war poet’s language of rifles, shells, bugles, dissonance. Dusk slowly appears. Sargent’s blind, stumbling soldiers cannot see the dead and dying all around them. Can we? Way off in the distant background, young men or boys play soccer. Britten’s children’s choir begins its prayer: “let all flesh come before thee.” Sargent’s setting sun, its rose yellow lime green fingers.
*This line from Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” from WWI. The entire poem’s text is sung in the first movement of Britten’s War Requiem. Only the first movement is discussed here.
Performance of Britten’s War Requiem. Conducted by Marin Alsop.
Sargent’s Gassed taken from Wikimedia Commons.
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