Performed in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the composer s birth on November 22, 1913.

Transcription

1 Program One Hundred Twenty-Third Season Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, November 14, 2013, at 8:00 Friday, November 15, 2013, at 8:00 Saturday, November 16, 2013, at 8:00 Charles Dutoit Conductor Tatiana Pavlovskaya Soprano John Mark Ainsley Tenor Matthias Goerne Baritone Chicago Symphony Duain Wolfe Director Chicago Children s Josephine Lee Artistic Director Britten War Requiem, Op. 66 Requiem aeternum Dies irae Offertorium Sanctus Agnus Dei Libera me There will be no intermission. Performed in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the composer s birth on November 22, The appearance of the Chicago Symphony this season is underwritten in part with a generous gift from Jim and Kay Mabie. Saturday s concert is endowed in part by the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to 93XRT, Redeye, The Onion, and Metromix for their generous support as media sponsors of the Classic Encounter Series. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

2 CommeNTS by Phillip Huscher Benjamin Britten Born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft, Sussex, England. Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, England. War Requiem, op. 66 Roger Burney died aboard the French submarine Surcouf in February David Gill was killed in action in the Mediterranean. Michael Halliday was declared missing in action in Piers Dunkerley was wounded and taken prisoner during the Normandy landings in 1944; he was released at the war s end, returned to civilian life, and planned to marry, but killed himself on June 7, Photographs of these four men were found in an envelope among Benjamin Britten s belongings after his death. They all knew the composer, none of them especially well, but to Britten they were the faces of the dead hauntingly familiar victims of war. As he sat down to write a requiem mass for the rebuilt cathedral in Coventry (the original church had been bombed to rubble during nightly air raids in mid-november 1940), these four young men brought immediacy to the vast and unmanageable subject of war. As the War Requiem took shape, they personalized the tragedy of battle and helped him never to lose sight of individual private lives against the background of world history. It is these four names, unfamiliar to all but their families and friends, that Britten put on the dedication page of his War Requiem. It was another dead soldier, the victim of an earlier world war, who gave voice to Britten s lifelong pacifist views and provided much of the text for the Coventry requiem. Wilfred Owen died in action on November 4, 1918, while leading his troops across the Sambre Canal in northeast France, exactly one week before the Armistice. (His parents didn t receive the telegram of their son s death until November 11, the news bringing them face to face with grief ComPoSeD FirST PerFormaNCe May 30, 1962; Saint Michael s Cathedral, Coventry, england FirST CSo PerFormaNCeS June 27, 1972, Ravinia Festival. Phyllis Curtin, Robert Tear, and John Shirley-Quirk as soloists; Chicago Symphony (Margaret Hillis, director), Northwestern university and Concert Choir (Margaret Hillis, director), and Glen ellyn Children s Theatre (Doreen Rao, director); istván Kertész conducting the orchestra, György Fischer conducting the chamber orchestra, Margaret Hillis conducting the children s chorus February 13, 14 & 16, 1986, Orchestra Hall. Margaret Marshall, John Aler, and Benjamin Luxon as soloists; Chicago Symphony (Margaret Hillis, director) and Glen ellyn Children s (Doreen Rao, director); Leonard Slatkin conducting the orchestra and chamber orchestra, Doreen Rao conducting the children s chorus most recent CSo PerFormaNCeS May 9, 10 & 11, 2002, Orchestra Hall. Olga Guriakowa, ian Bostridge, and Andreas Schmidt as soloists; Chicago Symphony (Duain wolfe, director) and The American Boychoir (Vincent Metallo, director); Mstislav Rostropovich conducting the orchestra, Duain wolfe conducting the chamber orchestra, Vincent Metallo conducting the children s chorus instrumentation soprano, tenor, and baritone soloists; a mixed chorus, children s chorus (accompanied by organ), a full orchestra, and a chamber orchestra. The main orchestra consists of three flutes and piccolo, two oboes and english horn, three clarinets, e-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, six horns, four trumpets, three trombones and tuba, piano, organ, timpani, snare drums, tenor drum, bass drum, tambourine, triangle, cymbals, castanets, whip, chinese blocks, gong, bells, vibraphone, glockenspiel, antique cymbals, and strings. The chamber orchestra consists of flute and piccolo, oboe and english horn, clarinet, bassoon, horn, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbal, gong, harp, two violins, viola, cello, and bass. approximate PerFormaNCe Time 77 minutes 2

3 while the rest of England cheered the end of World War I.) In later years, Owen slowly gained acclaim for the terse and moving verses he wrote in the trenches and on the battlefield. Britten knew him as the greatest of the First World War poets. He owned a volume of Owen s work, and, in 1958, when the BBC radio program Personal Choice asked him for his favorite poems, he included Owen s Strange Meeting, the text he would ultimately use at the end of the War Requiem. That same year, Britten was approached by a member of the Coventry Cathedral Festival, which wanted to commission him to write a large work to consecrate the new cathedral nearing completion next to the ruins of the ancient building. By the time Poet Wilfred Owen Britten began to compose the score for Coventry in the summer of 1960, many deeply personal strands had come together the loss of four friends, his interest in the war poetry of Wilfred Owen, his own staunch pacifist beliefs, the unshakable memory of visiting the concentration camp at Belsen with Yehudi Menuhin in 1945 before playing a recital for the victims families, his shock at the death of Gandhi in 1948, and a long-held desire to write a significant large-scale choral piece. Almost inevitably, this great public work also became one of his most private statements. Britten rarely referred to the requiem in his letters during the many months when he was hard at work on it, as if it were too personal to mention. In his copy of Owen s book, Britten marked nine poems he intended to set to music as part of the requiem. Almost from the start, Britten knew he wanted to weave Owen s texts in with those from the mass for the dead the juxtaposition of the ancient Latin service with these more recent reports from the battlefield underlining the confrontation of public and private, and of past with present, giving the War Requiem its unsettling power. Before he sketched any of the music, Britten wrote out his libretto in an old school exercise book, with the mass text on the left page and the Owen poems facing on the right, arrows carefully showing just how they were to dovetail. He set to work, declining three new commissions and postponing work on Curlew River so that he could concentrate on the Coventry mass. In the two decades since Britten s other requiem, the purely instrumental Sinfonia da Requiem, events had moved from bloody combat to the sobering reality of devastated cities, heartbroken families, and mass graves. And 1961, the year Britten devoted to the War Requiem, was marred by the building of the Berlin Wall, an ominous escalation of U. S. action in Vietnam, and the incident of the Bay of Pigs. Owen s poems, full of the hate of destruction, and Britten s new score, with its call for peace, couldn t have been more timely. In February 1961, Britten wrote to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, asking him to sing the baritone solos. Britten s partner, Peter Pears, had already agreed to take the tenor part. Britten s scheme was carefully drawn: these two soloists, accompanied by a chamber orchestra, would sing the Owen texts as a kind of commentary on the mass. The Latin text itself would be given to full chorus and orchestra, along with a soprano solo and boys choir (performed by a children s choir at these performances). It s a blueprint shrewdly designed to point out the individual amidst the crowd, to acknowledge personal grief while preaching pacifism. That summer, when Rostropovich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, came to the Aldeburgh Festival, Britten found his soprano. Vishnevskaya gave a recital in Aldeburgh only days after Rostropovich played the premiere of the new cello sonata Britten had written for him. The night Vishnevskaya sang, Britten told her that he wanted to write the War Requiem soprano solo for her. She was the final link in his plan to bring together representatives of three nations devastated by the war: an English tenor, a German baritone, and a Russian 3

4 A rehearsal for the War Requiem in Coventry Cathedral in Peter Pears stands far right. Seated to his right is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. In the foreground, Meredith Davies stands on the podium and the composer is to his right. soprano a symbolic casting that is replicated in our Chicago Symphony performances this week. During the summer, Christopher Isherwood sent Britten a book containing a photograph of Wilfred Owen. I am delighted to have it, Britten wrote. I am so involved with him at the moment, and I wanted to see what he looked like: I might have guessed, it s just what I expected, really. That same summer, William Plomer, a friend of Britten, tracked down Owen s brother Harold, but the composer decided not to visit him, no doubt fearing that it might somehow disturb the affinity he felt for the poetry itself. By August, Britten told his publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, that he had completed the first large chunk of the War Requiem (the title he had finally settled on), but two months later he said it is always with me. It was finished at last in January, while Britten and Pears were in Greece. I was completely absorbed in this piece, as really never before, he wrote to a friend. In the spring, Britten heard from Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya, who had received the score and were both mad about the work. But a few weeks later, Britten lost his soprano: the Soviet authorities refused to allow Vishnevskaya to participate in the premiere the combination of 4 Cathedral and Reconciliation with W. Germany... was too much for them, Britten said. How can you, a Soviet woman, the minister of culture asked Vishnevskaya, stand next to a German and an Englishman and perform a political work? Heather Harper stepped in, learning the role just ten days before the performance. [Galina Vishnevskaya, who later recorded the War Requiem with Pears, Fischer-Dieskau, and Britten conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and, died last December.] Five days before the May 30 premiere, the critic William Mann wrote in The Times that the War Requiem was Britten s masterpiece, a verdict that, though premature, proved accurate. The performance itself, despite the patchy rehearsals and the new cathedral s lunatic acoustics, was stunning. Fischer-Dieskau was moved to tears. The first performance created an atmosphere of such intensity, he wrote in his autobiography, that by the end I was completely undone; I did not know where to hide my face. Dead friends and past suffering arose in my mind. The newspapers printed a uniform chorus of praise Stravinsky quipped that to criticize the work would be as if one had failed to stand up for God Save the Queen but Peter Schaffer, later the playwright of Amadeus, came closest to the mark when he wrote that the work was so profound and moving that it makes criticism impertinent. During composition, Britten deviated very little from the scheme he had first written out in his exercise book: the six parts of the Latin text interwoven with nine poems by Owen one in each part, except for the Dies irae, which includes four. The intent, as in the great Passions by Bach, is of text combined with commentary, although the effect particularly in Britten s assured mix of opera and oratorio is closer to Verdi s grand nineteenth-century requiem. Britten divides his cast of characters into distinct groups: two soldiers, sung by the tenor and baritone soloists and accompanied by a chamber orchestra; the celebrants of the mass, which include the soprano soloist, a full chorus, and

5 orchestra; and, from afar, a boys choir accompanied by organ. The scene shifts seamlessly from one group to another cutting back and forth from the church to the battlefield. Only in the last pages of the final Libera me do all the performers come together. Requiem aeternam. As the orchestra begins a solemn processional, interspersed with the chorus s chanting, bells toll on F-sharp and C, notes as distantly related as any, lending the music a sense of unease from the start. From afar, the children sing the Te decet hymnus. Our sense of music from different spheres is quickly emphasized by the first of the Owen settings, Anthem for Doomed Youth, sung by the tenor, accompanied by just a small circle of instruments. From the first line by Owen, What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?, it s clear that the role of these inserted poems is not only to add a parallel modern-day text in the language of the composer, but also to question, to criticize, and to accuse. Dies irae. The longest section of the piece begins with snatches of military fanfares, evoking war. The key, G minor, and the brass volleys at Tuba mirum recall the Day of Judgment from Verdi s Requiem. The baritone sings Owen s Bugles sang, as fanfares still echo in the distance. The soprano, the last of the participants to sing, enters with the imperious phrases of Liber scriptus. The mood changes abruptly for Owen s bitter poem, The Next War, which brings tenor and baritone together in a duet of chilling gaiety. The rest of the Dies irae is a swift unfolding of vivid scenes: the chorus s solemn Recordare (with its violent Confutatis conclusion); a setting for baritone of Owen s Sonnet: On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery Brought Into Action ; the chorus s shouts of Dies irae followed by the soprano s anguished cries of Lacrimosa. Britten then clears the air for the tenor s pleading Move him into the sun almost a dramatic reading rather than a musical setting of Owen s poem Futility intercut with the soprano s fading phrases. The bells return at the end with their uneasy F-sharp and C sonority. Offertorium. The movement begins with the children in prayer. Their music is quickly followed by a big fugue for full chorus at Quam olim Abrahae that moves imperceptibly into a setting of Owen s The Parable of the Old Man and the Young. Here, for the first time, the mass and the commentary share the same music, underlining the connections between these texts. (In the background, the children s serene Hostias adds another layer to this complex scene.) The fugue returns, now hushed and furtive, transformed by the shift of tone in Owen s poem. Sanctus. Britten begins with the soprano, in full operatic mode and accompanied by clanging bells and chimes, followed by a stunning crescendo of choral chanting, an explosive Hosanna, and a gently rocking Benedictus. The baritone closes the movement in a dramatic, volatile rendering of Owen s The End. Angus Dei. A single span of music, alternating the tenor s high, quiet intoning of Owen s At a Calvary near the Ancre (smoothly flowing, even with five sixteenth notes to each measure) and the chorus s simple scales, up and down B minor and C major. It ends with the tenor singing in Latin for the only time: Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace). Libera me. A funeral march introduces a large chorus of desolation and despair. The soprano enters (her dramatic stammering recalls Verdi s setting of Tremens factus sum ego ) and the music builds to a chilling outcry. Slowly, Britten clears the scene for the stark realism of Owen s Strange Meeting, the poem he had long loved a harrowing encounter between two enemy soldiers. With their last words, Let us sleep now, Britten weaves together all the performers in a slowly enveloping web of music. For a moment, he suggests a sense of universal understanding. But then the bells intone their anxious harmony, and the voices of the two soldiers can still be heard, before the chorus calls for peace. It s a strangely uncertain ending, and we are reminded of the words by Owen that Britten chose not to set, but to place instead as an epigraph to his score: My subject is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity... All a poet can do today is warn... Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. For more on Britten, please see On this island, a personal reflection on the composer by Gerard McBurney, which begins on page 4. Supertitle system courtesy of DIGITAL TECH SERVICES, LLC, Portsmouth, VA 5

6 War Requiem REQUIEM AETERNAM Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion; et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem: exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet. Children s Tenor What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them from prayers or 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 good-byes. The pallor of girls brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. To you we owe our hymn of praise, O God, in Sion; to you must vows be fulfilled in Jerusalem. Hear my prayer; to you all flesh must come. Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. DIES IRAE Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla. Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus! Day of wrath, day of anger when the world will dissolve in ashes, as foretold by David and the Sibyl. There will be great trembling when the judge descends from heaven to scrutinize all things. 6

7 Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulchra regionum Coget omnes ante thronum. Mors stupebit et natura, Cum resurget creatura Judicanti responsura. The trumpet will send its wondrous sound into the earth s sepulchres and gather all before the throne. Death and nature will be astounded, when all creation rises again to answer to judgment. Baritone Bugles sang, saddening the evening air, And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear. Voices of boys were by the river-side. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad. The shadow of the morrow weighed on men. Voices of old despondency resigned, Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet, apparebit: Nil inultum remanebit. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus? Cum vix justus sit securus? Rex tremendae majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis. Soprano and A book will be brought forth, in which all is written, by which the world will be judged. When the judge takes his place, what is hidden will be revealed, nothing will remain unavenged. What shall a wretch like me say? Who shall intercede for me, when even the just ones need mercy? King of tremendous majesty, who freely saves the worthy ones, save me, source of mercy. Tenor and Baritone Out there, we ve walked quite friendly up to Death; Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand. We ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, Our eyes wept, but our courage didn t writhe. He s spat at us with bullets and he s coughed Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft; We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe. Oh, Death was never enemy of ours! We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum. No soldier s paid to kick against his powers. We laughed, knowing that better men would come, And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags He wars on Death for Life; not men for flags. (Please turn the page quietly.) 7

8 Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viae: Ne me perdas illa die. Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: Redemisti crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus. Ingemisco, tamquam reus: Culpa rubet vultus meus: Supplicanti parce, Deus. Qui Mariam absolvisti, Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti. Inter oves locum praesta, Et ab haedis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra. Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis, Voca me cum benedictis. Oro supplex et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis: Gere curam mei finis. Remember, sweet Jesus, that my salvation caused your suffering; do not forsake me on that day. Faint and weary you have sought me, redeemed me, suffering on the cross; may such great effort not be in vain. I groan as one who is guilty: owning my shame with a red face; suppliant before you, Lord. You, who absolved Mary, and listened to the thief, give me hope, too. Give me a place with the sheep, and separate me from the goats; lead me to your right hand. When the accused are confounded and doomed to flames of woe, call me among the blessed. My prayers are unworthy, but, good Lord, have mercy, and rescue me from eternal fire. Baritone Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm, Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse; Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm, And beat it down before its sins grow worse; But when thy spell be cast complete and whole, May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul! Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla. Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus! Lacrimosa dies illa, Qua resurget ex favilla, Judicandus homo reus: Huic ergo parce, Deus. and Soprano Day of wrath, day of anger when the world will dissolve in ashes, as foretold by David and the Sibyl. There will be great trembling when the judge descends from heaven to scrutinize all things. Full of tears and dread that day when the dead arise to be judged for their lives: therefore, God, spare us. 8

9 Tenor Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds, Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved still warm too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth s sleep at all? Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen. Lord, sweet Jesus, grant them rest. Amen. Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de profondo lacu: libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum: Sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam: quam olim Abrahae promisisti, et semini ejus. OFFERTORIUM Children s Baritone and Tenor O Lord Jesus Christ, King of Glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the bottomless pit; deliver them from the lion s mouth, that hell swallow them not up, that they fall not into darkness, but let the holy standard-bearer Michael bring them into that holy light which you promised of old to Abraham and to his seed. So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this burnt-offering? Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, And builded parapets and trenches there, And stretched forth the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, (Please turn the page quietly.) 9

10 Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus: tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus: fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam. A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one. Children s We offer you, O Lord, sacrifices and prayers of praise; receive them on behalf of those souls we commemorate this day. Grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to life. Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis. SANCTUS and Soprano Baritone Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of Lord. Hosanna in the highest. After the blast of lightning from the East, The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne; After the drums of Time have rolled and ceased, And by the bronze west long retreat is blown, Shall life renew these bodies? Of a truth All death will He annul, all tears assuage? Fill the void veins of Life again with youth, And wash, with an immortal water, Age? When I do ask white Age he saith not so: My head hangs weighed with snow. And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith: My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death. Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified, Nor my titanic tears, the sea, be dried. AGNUS DEI Tenor One ever hangs where shelled roads part. In this war He too lost a limb, But His disciples hide apart; And now the Soldiers bear with Him. 10

11 Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world: grant them rest. Tenor Near Golgotha strolls many a priest, And in their faces there is pride That they were flesh-marked by the Beast By whom the gentle Christ s denied. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world: grant them rest. Tenor The scribes on all the people shove And bawl allegiance to the state, But they who love the greater love Lay down their life; they do not hate. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam. Dona nobis pacem. Tenor Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world: grant them eternal rest. Grant us peace. Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda: Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra: Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira. Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde. Libera me, Domine... LIBERA ME and Soprano Deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death on that day of terror: When the heavens and the earth will be shaken. As you come to judge the world by fire. I am in fear and trembling at the judgment and the wrath that is to come. When the heavens and the earth will be shaken. That day will be a day of wrath, of misery, and of ruin: a day of grandeur and great horror. Deliver me, O Lord... (Please turn the page quietly.) 11

12 Tenor It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands as if to bless. And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. Strange friend, I said, here is no cause to mourn. Baritone None, said the other, save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world. For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress, None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Miss we the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even from wells we sunk too deep for war, Even the sweetest wells that ever were. I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now... In paradisum deducant te angeli: in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen. Tenor and Baritone Children s,, and Soprano May the angels lead you into paradise: may the martyrs receive you at your coming, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, once poor, may you have eternal rest. Eternal rest give to them, O Lord: and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen Chicago Symphony Orchestra