Morning Heroes

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Morning Heroes is a choral symphony by the English composer Arthur Bliss. The work received its first performance at the Norwich Festival on 22 October 1930, with Basil Maine as the speaker/orator.[1] Written in the aftermath of World War I, in which Bliss had performed military service,[2] Bliss inscribed the dedication as follows:

"To the Memory of my brother Francis Kennard Bliss and all other Comrades killed in battle"

The work sets various poems:[3][4]

  • The Iliad
    , passages from Book VI (translation of W Leaf) and Book XIX (translation of Chapman)
  • Walt Whitman, "Drum Taps"
  • Wilfred Owen, "Spring Offensive"
  • Li Tai Po
  • Robert Nichols, "Dawn on the Somme"

The extracts are spoken by a narrator and sung by a large choir. Juxtaposing the harsh images of trench warfare with the epic heroes of Ancient Greece, the parallels Bliss draws are essentially romantic, and the work as a whole has been criticised as being rather complacent.[5] Bliss himself said that he suffered from a repeating nightmare about his war experiences and that the composition of Morning Heroes helped to exorcise this.[6][7]

Movements

The work falls into five sections, in the structure of a palindrome, with the first movement acting as a prologue, then fast, slow, and fast movements, and the final movement acting as an epilogue.[6] The work includes the respective texts.:[4]

  • I: "Hector's Farewell to Andromache"
  • II: "The City Arming"
  • III: "Vigil" - "The Bivouac's Flame"
  • IV: "Achilles goes to battle" - "The Heroes"
  • V: "Now, Trumpeter, For Thy Close" - "Spring Offensive" - "Dawn on the Somme"

Recordings

References

  1. JSTOR 914304
    .
  2. JSTOR 965884
    .
  3. JSTOR 855527
    .
  4. ^
    JSTOR 916872
    .
  5. ^ Penguin Guide to Classical Music
  6. ^
    JSTOR 965037
    .
  7. JSTOR 954592
    .
  8. ^ A studio recording made in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the composer's death. See the BBC Radio Classics 15656 9199-2 CD booklet note by John Mayhew, page 3: "This recording was made more than ten years after the commercial record made in Liverpool by Sir Charles Groves, at a BBC Invitation Concert in Studio One at Maida Vale in March 1985."
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