@tim-beck and I went to a Remembrance Concert commemorating the Centenary of the [Armistice] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_of_11_November_1918) which ended World War 1 on November 11th, 1918 at 11:00 Paris time. It was performed by the same choir, the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg as the Benjamin Britten concert I wrote about a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we arrived a few minutes late so someone had taken the tickets and programme that would have been waiting for us at the front desk. Not to worry, we stood at the back and enjoyed an excellent view of the performance. We arrived as the choir was in full throat for "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" in the second entry into the programme, the First World War Medley.

Gladys Irene Sare, Canadian Nursing Sister killed in World War 1, was with me

I put the memorial brooch to Gladys on so that I could share her story with others I met during the day.

Full Programme

Here's the listing of the musical offerings this morning.

The soloist and Reader were special choices too.

The Tenor

While the tenor experienced some vocal glitches (which I suspected may have been to do with emotion - I noticed several players in the orchestra wiping away tears throughout the concert, and apparently the conductor, Richard Cock, was crying throughout the concert), his tenor style was so apt for today. He has a gentle and beautiful voice, which allows songs like Bring Him Home and Danny Boy to lead and create a reflective mood rather than having the voice overpower the song diva-style. When he found his voice, his interpretation of the songs was exquisite.

The Reader

I was expecting only music, and hadn't twigged to the idea that we would have a Reader as well. Peter Terry spoke between vocal and choral performances - sharing devastatingly emotional short poetry readings which further set the tone of remembrance and commemoration for the event. He read one poem we are now familiar with, the one so seamlessly woven into the Britten concert, Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (in conversation afterwards he said he was "discouraged" from reading a less abstract, bloodier one). Among the other readings was one from a group he said is often neglected - the women poets of World War 1. Until this morning I had no idea women had written poetry about World War 1.

You can find connections everywhere if you let them happen

You might be wondering how I have these photos of the programme if we didn't get a programme. The organisers kindly offered to look around the hall after the concert to see if someone had left one behind (such a keepsake - I wouldn't think so!) and a lovely lady named Heidi hunted high and low throughout the building to find any strays. No such luck, so she let me take photos of hers.

We started chatting with her and her partner, and to my surprise, what did I find when he gave me his business card? Turns out we have a dear friend in common and have probably been to social events together before. It feels like we've made new friends, and all because we were late and someone took the programme waiting for us. Johannesburg is a huge city, I assure you. But connections are available everywhere if you allow them to show themselves.

Performance Standouts

Danny Boy, a perennial favourite, was particularly poignant in this context...and perhaps also because I've been following Danny Boyle the last two days as the press has covered his masterly Pages of the Sea commemoration of the fallen - teams sketch out images of the fallen in the sands of England's beaches...and then the tide washes them away forever.

Bring Him Home was achingly appropriate and appeared to bring many audience members to tears.

The piece which took the concert to another level for me

The performance that brought me to uncontrollable tears was the Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber. I've always associated this ineffably sad piece of music with war, since it was used so anachronistically in the movie Platoon as background to mayhem, death and destruction. It's one of the most beautiful and in many ways uplifting pieces of modern music - who would have thought to use it in a movie about war? (Oliver Stone.) But this time, as the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra was playing it, I felt something more.

Music waves spiralling into silenceImage source

As the strings swelled to express the depths of heartache (if you listen to the link above, that happens around minute 5:30 - and I defy you not to feel turned inside out at that point), I suddenly heard their vibrations channelling the heartbeats of the millions of soldiers who gave their lives in that war. Each of those little spikes - a heartbeat. The spiral - their extinction. The hearts beat, they lived, they fought, they survived...then they died. And there was silence. And who can't see the trenches of World War 1, the mud, the craters from the mines and bombs, the denuded terrain, the scorched earth, when the music suddenly goes silent? Then the strings resume as we pick up our hearts and lives, and we are grateful to be alive and not at war.

The concert end

At 12:00 (11:00 Paris time), the audience stood and a single bugler played Reveille.

There was no applause. It was the perfect ending to a concert which did the subject justice and honour.

As the Centenary closes

I'm deeply grateful not to have lived in a country at war. I'm deeply grateful for the sacrifices of each of those soldiers whose heartbeats were extinguished in terrible ways during World War 1, or afterwards as they tried to cope with the after-effects and reintegrate into society with civilians who had no comprehension of the nightmare they'd been through. May we never experience anything like it again.

Lest We Forget

Image source

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