Anthem

Anthem

Deeply moving, Anthem, is part of our centennial remembrance of the onset of the Great War. The performance is inspired by Wilfred Owen’s iconic poem, Anthem for Doomed Youth, published posthumously in 1920. Weaving together poems, diary entries, letters to loved ones, and music from the era of The Great War, we trace the tremendous worldwide outpouring of emotional and philosophical response from soldiers, composers, and poets who were so deeply impacted. The poignant and fervent words and music of Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Thomas, Apollinaire, Debussy, Hindemith, Ives, Stravinsky, Elgar, Britten, Milhaud, Ravel, Bartok and Webern find harmonic resonances with the passionate letters of the soldiers, proof of the universal and profound pathos of the turbulent era.