Wilfred Owen, Dunsden Green - a personal memoir

Wilfred Owen died 100 years ago, but his poetry has made him immortal.  But what shaped Owen's personality, and his singular art ? Unlike Siegfried Sassoon, who recognized Owen's potential when Owen was a gauche nobody, Owen didn't come from an elite background.  Owen's parents were not well off, not poor but not secure. After many years moving from place to place they ended up in a two-up two-down Victorian terrace, now facing a downmarket shopping mall on a rough estate.  Nonetheless, for years the tenants hung hanging baskets outside, a display so colourful that the houses were a local landmark.  Owen's parents and sister are buried in All Saints Church in Dunsden Green, (pictured above) a few miles away, where Owen served as lay assistant to the Vicar from 1911 to February 1913.  That connection must have meant a lot to them.  Inside the Church, there's a memorial plaque on the wall in Wilfred's honour. 

Owen himself might not have been quite so genteel. Though the Vicarage where he stayed was luxurious (it's a local landmark, too), many of the people of the parish were desperately poor, living in overcrowded hovels, employed seasonally, often insecure. Disease speads quickly when people are overworked and underfed.   Owen used to visit  these tenements and must have been well aware of the contrasts between the Vicar's life and the lives of those in his parish.  Whenver he had the opportunity, he'd walk miles into town, visiting a bookshop for "modern" literature, different fare no doubt to what was in the vicar's library.  The route he walked is pretty much as it was then, despite the traffic. Until recently, you could still see painted signs on buildings advertising hay and coal.  The hovels are now renovated,  some of them weekend homes for the rich from London. The thatched pub at Binfield Heath, which Owen would have known, but was probably not allowed to visit, dates from 1300 and served travellers taking sheep and cattle to market. 

On 15th October 1912, one of the villagers, John Allen, set off to a new job in Maidenhead :  a  step up in the world, away from rural slums.   Full of hope and anticipation, the family loaded up a horse cart with their belongings and set off to their new life.   On the way to Playhatch, the road becomes extremely steep : even in a modern car, you notice the gears change.  A huge sofa - a status symbol - shifted and tipped the cart over, killing Mrs Allen and her daughter. The Allens are buried in the chucrhyard at All Saint's, too. Owen assisted at the funeral. This shook whatever faith Owen might have felt in the church, and in the social order.  It compounded an emotional crisis, which he resolved by getting as far away as possible, to France, where he had no connections.  And so,Owen's distinctive personality was moulded, long before the trenches and the Somme.  Below, the  poem he wrote about the Allens's tragedy,  Deep Under Turfy Grass. 

Deep under turfy grass and heavy clay 

They laid her bruisèd body, and the child 

Poor victims of a swift mischance were they, 

Adown Death’s trapdoor suddenly beguiled.

I, weeping not, as others, but heart-wild, 

Affirmed to Heaven that even Love’s fierce flame 

Must fail beneath the chill of this cold shame. 

So I rebelled, scorning and mocking such 

As had the ignorant callousness to wed 

On altar steps long frozen by the touch 

Of stretcher after stretcher of our dead. 

Love’s blindness is too terrible, I said; 

I will go counsel men, and show what bin

The harvest of their homes is gathered in.

But as I spoke, came many children nigh, 

Hurrying lightly o’er the village green; 

Methought too lightly, for they came to spy

Into their playmate’s bed terrene. 

They clustered round; some wondered what might mean 

Rich-odoured flowers so whelmed in fetid earth; 

While some Death’s riddle guessed ere that of Birth. 

And there stood one Child with them, whose pale brows 

Wore beauty like our mother Eve’s;whom seeing, 

I could not choose but undo all my vows,

And cry that it were well that human

 Being
And Birth and Death should be, just for the freeing 

Of one such face from Chaos’ murky womb, 

For Hell’s reprieve is worth not this one bloom.
 

Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen 11/11

Only the monstrous anger of the guns. 

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle 

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; 

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all? 

Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes 

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. 

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; 

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, 

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

 Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Illuminating Britten War Requiem Nelsons CBSO Prom

Andris Nelsons conducted Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at Prom 47. Nelsons' War Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Birmingham is legendary, but the Royal Albert Hall is a unique setting. It illuminates even relatively straightforward performances, like Bychkov's on 11/11/13 more here)  But whatever the reason, Nelsons' Prom Britten War Requiem was exceptional. You can never say "the finest ever" but this came close. Wh ? I think because Nelsons brought out its fundamental musicality. The War Requiem carries emotive baggage, which is perfectly valid, but Nelsons emphasizes its musical depth, making its impact even more powerful.

"Kleenex at the ready… one goes from the critics to the music, knowing that if one should dare to disagree with ‘practically everyone’, one will be made to feel as if one had failed to stand up for ‘God Save the Queen' " said Igor Stravinsky. He had a point, for the image we get of the 1914-18 war is distorted by media emphasis on the Western Front. Stravinsky knew that what happened on the Eastern Front was arguably far more catastrophic. Famine, ethnic cleansing, the rise of Bolshevism and the collapse of the Old Order.  "Which war, whose requiem?" as Ian Bostridge wrote in A Part of History: Aspects of the British Experience of the First World War (Continuum, 2008) . Can a piece commissioned to commemorate Coventry tell us about Dresden, Stalingrad, Nanjing, Hiroshima and the Holocaust?  Nelsons' magisterial account connected the War Requiem to the ages, and made it timeless. Exceptionally good choral singing (concert master Simon Halsey) and playing made this a Prom to remember.

The long chords of the organ thundered into endless resonance, searching infinity. Shimmering brass, and the bright, younger voices of the BBC Proms Youth Choir: a Requiem Aeternam that truly felt eternal.  "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? " comes as a shock. The brutality of Wilfred Owen's imagery emphasized by the quiet menace of the tolling bells in the orchestra.  Trumpets led forward, dazzling in their brightness, percussion at once beautiful and brutal, in telling contrast. For whatever reason, mankind is seduced by war.  Hence, perhaps, the contrast between "bugle" and solo flute, and the first appearance of the soprano.. The elegance Nelsons draws from his players and singers is far more unsettling than straightforward dissonance.The swirling counter-rhythms in the chorus  further shake us from our bearings. Nelsons defined the critical descent into silence from which the soprano (Susan Gritton) rose. Lovely back and forward rhythms, yet chilling, for they suggest the swaying of a body being carried on a stretcher. "Move him into the sun " thus felt surprisingly physical, even earthy, for Owen's poem refers to clay and the fields unknown soldier might have tilled. The poem, however, is titled "Futility" for the sun's rays cannot revive the dead.

What "offering" is this Offertorium?  jaunty rhythms like a mad folk tune from the ancient past. This sets the context for the "Abraham and Isaac" passage, where Toby Spence and  Hanno Müller-Brachmann sang together, victim and killer bound in an unclean pact.  We're in the trenches but the weight of  Biblical forces bears down. "Half the seed of Europe, one by one" is destroyed. Nelsons marks the silences between each repeat, so the portent sank in fully .

The Sanctus refers to the sacrament of consecration. Bell sounds rang out, as in the most holy moment in the Mass. Susan Gritton's voice shone on the word "Sanctus", but also picked up on the "medieval" decoration Britten wrote into the part, not always observed so cleanly. From cataclysmic tumult to all-illuminating transfiguration. All the forces Nelsons had at his command united in a glorious pinnacle of overpowering brightness. Truly, "after the blast of lightning from the east, the flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne".

In the Agnus Dei, Britten quotes Owen's "At a Calvary near Ancre" which mentions a wayside calvary with the image of a crucifix and priests whose proud faces are "flesh-marked by the Beast". How few conventional performances recognize the irony!  Britten's sympathies are not with the Church. This Libera Me was driven by powerful forces indeed. Gritton's voice marked the choppy, deliberately breathless excitement which culminated in a glorious  crescendo.  Insistent tappings in the orchestra, machine-gun staccato deployed with purpose, mixing death and transition. A transformative Liberation indeed. We've passed through Owen's "profound dark tunnel"  (a reverse of birth) into a new , strange plane of existence where earthly enmities have no meaning. Listen to the quiet drone behind Spence's voice on the rebroadcast,  it's very atmospheric. The baritone's final words need no accompaniment. Müller-Brachmann intoned the words "I am the enemy you killed" so it felt personal. At the culmination of his War Requiem, Britten brings back the youthful chorus, the blending of orchestra, organ, massed voices and soloists suggesting a glorious rebirth, a bright new tapestry looking forwards. This time, when we hear the bells and the words "Requiem Aeternam", we are on another plane.  Best Prom of the 2014 season so far!

Please explore my other posts on Britten and Britten's War Requiem on the BBC Proms and on war. More on this site about Britten than any non-dedicated site

Please also see Claire Seymour's review in Opera Today

photo of Andris Nelsons : Marco Borggreve

The Fourth of August

The Fourth of August 1914, when Britain declared war on Germany. When war seemed a glamorous, jolly jape.  Lawrence Binyon's poem "The Fourth of August". Yow! Rhyming couplets and a beat as rigid as marching footsteps. The banality is terrifying. Then look at the penultimate verse. At least when Elgar set the poem to his Spirit of England  (read more here) he moderated the violence. I grew up with Lawrence Binyon books on art,  never connecting him to poems like this. It's much more belligerent than the more famous "For the Fallen" but there's time for that in the years ahead.  Yow, the rhyming couplets and steady best, like automatons Lots more war poetry on this site - look up Ivor Gurney and Wilfred Owen.

The Fourth Of August

Now in thy splendour go before us.
Spirit of England, ardent-eyed,
Enkindle this dear earth that bore us
In the hour of peril purified.

The cares we hugged drop out of vision,
Our hearts with deeper thought dilate,
 We step from days of sour division
Into the grandeur of our fate

For us the glorious dead have striven,
They battled that we might be free.
We to their living cause are given;
We arm for men that are to be.

Among the nations nobliest chartered,
England recalls her heritage.
In her is that which is not bartered,
Which force can neither quell nor cage.

For her immortal stars are burning
With her the hope that's never done,
The seed that's in the Spring's returning,
The very flower that seeks the sun.
 
She fights the force that feeds desire on
 Dreams of a prey to seize and kill,
The barren creed of blood and iron,
Vampire of Europe's wasted will.

Endure, O Earth! and thou, awaken,
Purged by this dreadful winnowing fan,
O wronged, untameable, unshaken
Soul of divinely suffering man.

Britten War Requiem Royal Albert Hall Bychkov BBC SO

On Remembrance Sunday, Semyon Bychkov conducted Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus, Crouch End Festival Chorus and choristers of Westminster Abbey.  The sense of occasion was overwhelming. The vast auditorium was packed, and the arena area, where Prommers throng in summer, was filled with seats. Before the performance began, the house lights were turned, not onto the stage but onto the audience. It was a moment of sheer theatre, but utterly appropriate, for everyone in the building must have known, or know of someone affected by the barbarity of war. No-one could remain unmoved. Wilfred Owen wrote about the First World War, and Britten wrote to commemorate peace after the Second World War. But the world is still wracked by conflict. Wars of attrition continue, millions of people still suffer. Turning the spotlight on the audience reminded us that Remembrance is more than "Lest we forget" but also implies moral obligation.

How amazing it must have been for the performers to look onto the Royal Albert Hall and see the lights shining on thousands of faces!  This was infinitely more a communal experience than just a musical event. The lines between performance and reception blurred.  Normal measures of performance were largely irrelevant. We were all participating in something much greater than ourselves.

Because the War Requiem was commissioned to mark the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral, it has become associated with vast venues and ostentatious displays of public piety.Although it's written for some 300 performers, at the really critical moments, Britten silences the tumult. Britten was essentially a private man, not given to big public gestures of emotion. The heart of the piece is the twelve member ensemble that accompanies the two male soloists. The choruses and the female soloist sing in Latin, and sing words that would fit neatly into any standard Requiem Mass. Significantly, Britten sets the key texts in English, using the words of Wilfred Owen, who wrote from personal experience.  Owen does not celebrate public victory: quite the opposite.  He fought bravely, but eschewed formal religion. Britten doesn't quote the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, but Wilfred Owen's Parable of the Old Men and the Young, with its reference to the wilful slaying, not sanctioned by God, of "half the seed of Europe, one by one"

"Move him into the sun" sings the tenor (Allan Clayton). The quote is from a poem titled "Futility". A corpse lies on snowbound ground.  The soprano and choruses sing "Lachrymosa", of tears and the conventional expression of sorrow. The music is beautiful, but Owen, and Britten are having none of this. "O what made fatuous sunbeams toil, to break earth's sleep at all"?  Unlike seeds in the soil, the dead don't re-sprout. In the Sanctus, the choirs sing "Hosanna in excelcis". But Britten has the baritone (Roderick Williams) sing, quite pointedly: "Mine ancient scars should not be gloried. Nor my titanic tears, the seas, be dried". Britten's War Requiem isn't designed to comfort, but to provoke.

Bychkov places the chamber ensemble to his immediate left, "the heart side" in theatre parlance..The instrumentation mimics that of a large orchestra - five strings, four winds, horn, harp and percussion - but the individual voices are heard clearly: It's another indication of Britten's "inner" programme.

"Lbera me, Domine" the soprano (Sabina Cvilak) sings, haloed by the chorus. "Tremens factus sum ego" (I tremble  and fear)  The orchestra screams, cymbals crashing, suggesting the chaos of battle. Bychkov's definition of horns, trumpets and trombones was specially good, emphasizing military conflict. But Britten deliberately shifts focus. To minimal accompaniment the tenor sings ""Strange friend, I said, here is no cause to mourn".  Tenor and baritone face each other in a strange No Man's Land where  nations do not fight. There are no "Germans" or "British" here, but two human beings, man to man. Their voices blend. "Let us sleep now", singing in unity.  They are turning away from the vast forces around them. Perhaps Britten recognized that social forces dominate over the private. The War Requiem ends on a wave of uplifting glory, sending the audience out into the world feeling  the better for having been part of the experience.

 Please also see my reviews of the War Requiem with Jurowski, the LPO, Bostridge and Goerne (best soloists), and of Antonio Pappano's recording with  the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome,, Academia Stana Cecilia Rome, Bostridge, Hampson (best orchestral playing). Semyon Bychov, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Clayton, Williams and Cvilak, however, won hands down on atmosphere. More on this site about Britten and war than any other, bar Britten-only sites.

This review also appears in Opera Today.

Apropos to the ideal of "conventional piety" please read this article "This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time" by a 91 year old veteran.  He's right. Piety is a good thing but it can be hijacked by commercial and political interests. To honour those who have fallen, we should care enough that we don't let these things happen again.

Wilfred Owen Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

 Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Here is my review of Britten's War Requiem, Royal Albert Hall 10/11/13