We Will

Remember

Them Saturday 1st November 2014 Queens’ College Chapel, Cambridge

In aid of the Poppy Appeal

and Queens’ music

Founded by graduates from Cambridge chapel choirs, the Godwine Choir was set up

to capture the atmosphere of chamber music at university and bring it to London as

part of professional life.

The group is comprised of twenty-five young singers who rehearse together weekly at

the church of St George the Martyr in Borough. The choir specialises in a capella music

from the 20th and 21st century; they have recently performed works by a number of

contemporary composers, such as Gabriel Jackson. Future plans include performances

in several London venues, a recital in Buckfast Abbey and a tour to the Amalfi coast.

This evening we present a reflective sequence of music and readings for All Souls' Day.

We especially remember all those who lost their lives in the Great War.

Find out more about us at godwinechoir.org

PROGRAMME

When David Heard | Thomas Tomkins

Reading: Anthem for Doomed Youth, by Wilfred Owen

Heraclitus | Charles Villiers Stanford

Lay a Garland | Robert Pearsall

Reading: Remember, by Christina Rossetti

Valiant-for-Truth | Ralph Vaughan Williams

Greater Love | John Ireland

Reading: Lament, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

And I Saw A New Heaven | Edgar Bainton

Geistliches Lied | Johannes Brahms

Reading: Drummer Hodge, by Thomas Hardy

Lord, Thou hast been Our Refuge | Ernest Walker

My Soul, There is a Country | Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

Reading: Ecclesiastes, Ch. 3, v. 1-8

For the Fallen | Douglas Guest

Bring us, O Lord God | William Henry Harris

Reading: A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, by John Donne

Justorum Animae | Gabriel Jackson

When David Heard

Thomas Tomkins

When David heard that Absalom was slain

he went up to his chamber over the gate and wept;

and thus he said: O my son, my son, Absalom my son,

would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Heraclitus

Charles Villiers Stanford

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;

I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,

A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;

For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

Lay a Garland

Robert Pearsall

Lay a garland on her hearse

Of dismal yew.

Maidens, willow branches wear,

Say she died true.

Her love was false, but she was firm

Upon her buried body lie

lightly, thou gentle earth.

Remember

Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Valiant-for-Truth

Ralph Vaughan Williams

After this it was noised abroad that Mister Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons

and had this for a token that the summons was true, ‘That his pitcher was broken at the

fountain’. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said

he, “I am going to my Father’s, and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now

I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I

give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him

that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have

fought his battles who now will be my rewarder.” When the day that he must go hence

was come, many accompanied him to the riverside, into which as he went he said,

“Death, where is thy Sting?” And as he went down deeper he said, “Grave, where is thy

Victory?” So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

Greater Love

John Ireland

Many waters cannot quench love,

neither can the floods drown it. Love is strong as death.

Greater love hath no man than this,

that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,

That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.

Ye are washed, ye are sanctified,

ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation;

That ye should show forth the praises of him

who hath call’d you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God,

that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy,

acceptable unto to God, which is your reasonable service.

Lament

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

We who are left, how shall we look again

Happily on the sun or feel the rain

Without remembering how they who went

Ungrudgingly and spent

Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings –

But we, how shall we turn to little things

And listen to the birds and winds and streams

Made holy by their dreams,

Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?

And I Saw A New Heaven

Edgar Bainton

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth:

for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;

and there was no more sea.

And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,

coming down from God out of heaven,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying,

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,

and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,

and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;

and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying,

neither shall there be any more pain:

for the former things are passed away.

Geistliches Lied

Johannes Brahms

Laß dich nur nichts nicht dauren mit Trauren,

sei stille, wie Gott es fügt,

so sei vergnügt mein Wille!

Was willst du heute sorgen auf morgen?

Der Eine steht allem für,

der gibt auch dir das Deine.

Sei nur in allem Handel ohn Wandel,

steh feste, was Gott beschleußt,

das ist und heißt das Beste.

Amen.

Drummer Hodge

Thomas Hardy

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest

Uncoffined – just as found:

His landmark is a kopje-crest

That breaks the veldt around:

And foreign constellations west

Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the drummer never knew –

Fresh from his Wessex home –

The meaning of the broad Karoo,

The Bush, the dusty loam,

And why uprose to nightly view

Strange stars amid the gloam.

Do not be sorrowful or regretful;

Be calm, as God has ordained,

and thus my will shall be content.

Why worry today about tomorrow?

There is One who stands above all

who gives you, too, what is yours.

Only be steadfast in all you do,

stand firm; what God has decided,

that is and must be the best.

Amen.

Yet portion of that unknown plain

Will Hodge for ever be;

His homely Northern breast and brain

Grow to some Southern tree,

And strange-eyed constellations reign

His stars eterna