In Memoriam is a settling of four poems by Edward Thomas for tenor and string quartet. Written for the New Zealand String Quartet (for initial performances in Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington, 2018) and for the Hong-Kong based Romer Quartet, initial performances were in Beijing and Hong-Kong.
The Wellington performance was recorded by Radio New Zealand. Most of Edward Thomas’s poetry was written shortly before his death at the Battle of Arras in 1917. The music reflects the poet’s desire to celebrate the loveliness of his world, his emerging belief that war may a necessary mechanism for protecting that loveliness, and his uneasy sense that this conflict (both specifically and generally) cannot be resolved. |