The Bach Choir To Sing A 'Thank You' Concert To Benefit The Royal British Legion

As this year of 2018 draws to a close, a century since the end of the First World War, The Bach Choir of London will sing a 'Thank You' concert in support of the British Legion's 'Thank You' movement of Remembrance and Freedom at the Royal Festival Hall on November 8th.

The Bach Choir will offer a concert of Remembrance that in a very English way gives us time to reflect on the suffering and sacrifice and how it shaped who we are.

Catherine Davies, Head of Remembrance at the Royal British Legion, said: "We owe the First World War generation a huge debt of gratitude for helping shape the world as we know it today. Not only the 1.2m British and Commonwealth Armed Forces who lost their lives on the battlefield, but also those who kept the home front going. Women played a huge part, taking on roles traditionally done by men, children ran errands, and there were many pioneering innovations. The First World War also reminds us of the pivotal role the arts can play in keeping the memory of those that sacrificed so much at the forefront of our minds. We are grateful for the support of the Bach Choir for our Thank You movement.

The Bach Choir's Concert offers a time to reflect on the catastrophic war a century ago. Music brings its own arguments to bear and may offer deeper insights than that provided by the daily round of debate in the press.

Conducted by David Hill The Choir will sing works by Elgar: The Spirit of England; Nimrod from Enigma Variations arr. David Hill for chorus & orchestra (Requiem Aeternam); Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis; Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (Adagio for strings arr. for chorus). The orchestra will perform Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. Vaughan Williams was for a time musical director of The Bach Choir. The Choir is joined at this concert by soprano Giselle Allen and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Elgar would have been regularly played by orchestras in 1914 and concert goers would have heard works by British composers Elgar, Parry and Stanford that were largely influenced by their German forbears. But they would have also have heard new modern music by Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

German composers Wagner, Brahms, Beethoven and Bach were popular, but when war broke out there was an attempt to ban German music.

Composers Ivor Gurney, George Butterworth and Cecil Coles were among the young men who signed up to fight at the front. Ralph Vaughan Williams was 41 when the war began and could have avoided active service, but chose to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

By the late 1920s, war end celebrations were replaced by more sombre acts of remembrance like the two-minute silence. The British Legion 'Festival of Remembrance' first took place in 1927 and featured communal singsongs of popular trench songs.

The Armistice Day concert broadcast by the BBC in the same year was a more sombre affair and featured music by Elgar and Parry. Parry's 'Jerusalem' was linked to the 'Fight for Right' movement of 1916 that attempted to raise morale.