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Voices of Vimy (2017)

for SATB (divisi) choir and cello

Text: Grahame Davies (b. 1964)
Duration: 30 minutes
Difficulty: 4/4

Written in collaboration with composer Tom Harrold and poet Grahame Davies. Co-commissioned by Pro Coro Canada and the John Armitage Memorial to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

First performed by the BBC Singers (Daniel Cook, cond.) with cellist Jamie Walton at the JAM on the Marsh Festival in July 2017. First performed in Canada by Pro Coro (Michael Zaugg, dir.) with cellist Rafael Hoekman in November 2017. Also performed in London by the Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge (Michael Bawtree, cond.) with cellist Molly Parsons-Gurr in March 2018, and in Dorset by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir (David Gostick, dir.) with cellist Philip Daish-Handy in November 2018.

In 2016, I was commissioned, along with Tom and Grahame, to create a work commemorating the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a seminal World War I conflict which saw the successful collaboration of Canadian and British troops. Our finished work, Voices of Vimy, is a complex and idiosyncratic piece. My music, which begins and ends Voices of Vimy, is structured entirely around Grahame’s text, capturing the raw emotion of each stanza through a varied landscape of musical episodes. Part I, which follows the soldiers from the trenches to the grave, uses hymnsong and chant in dense homophony to imbue the music with weight and sorrow. Part III, which gives voice to the widows and survivors of the war, reflects these musical elements with renewed hope and passion. As a Canadian, this is our heritage and our identity: not loud or forceful, but soft, caring, resilient.

Click here to see the score (Parts I and III only).

Watch a score-video of the complete “Voices of Vimy” over on YouTube.

The audio below is from the first Canadian performance by Pro Coro (Michael Zaugg, dir.) in November 2017.

Full Text (Parts 1&3 only)

Part I

The Tunnel
From dark to light
on Easter Day,
the Saviour rose
and went His way,
from grave to garden,
earth to air,
and God it was
who set Him there.

When our day came, 
with no such aid,
we cut our way
with pick and spade,
and climbed the stairway
out of night
from kindly dark,
to deadly light.

Message
Say them for me,
the things I could not say:
gratitude, grace,
greeting and goodbye.

Say them for me.

Go there for me,
the places that I loved:
forest or prairie,
solitude or street. 

Go there for me. 

Seek those places,
speak those words
if you love them too,
the good words and the good places,
because I came here for you.

The Hill
If I had known beauty could cause such pain,
I never would have raised my head above the plain.

But knowing now, the price they paid for me,
I hold it high for all the world to see.

The Cemetery
Because they loved it more than we can say,
they left their country half a world away.
Because they loved them more than we can know,
they would not leave their comrades, so they stay.

Part III

Epitaphs (Reprise)
Sleep on dear one.
Rest, dear one, rest.
Sleep on my son and take thy rest. 

Our loved one is sleeping here.
Our one and only.
Our dearly beloved and only son.
Our son.
Our son.

So lay him down to rest his hard fight won
My brave …
My loving ...
My darling son.
My son.
My son.
My son.

La mère canadienne (reprise)
Un sort cruel me séparait de toi.
Pour consoler mes ans et ma souffrance,
au ciel, mon fils, tu prieras Dieu pour moi.

Remembrance
Let their monument be our humanity,
and their memorial the world we make.
The debt that we can never pay to them
let us repay to others for their sake.
The gift of life they gave us, let us give.
The unlived years they left us, let us live. 

And let this be the truth of what we are:
kindness, compassion, courage, Canada.

© Grahame Davies, 2016. Used with permission.