UNDER A CLOUDLESS BLUE SKY
(THE SOMME)
a setting from
Fragments: Voices from the First World War
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DETAILS AND TEXTS/TRANSLATIONS.
Under A Cloudless Blue Sky: Composer's note: I was struck by the army report
of the Battle of the Somme, which starts, 'Under a
cloudless blue sky'. Before the battle, the Somme was a
beautiful area of rich farmland, and this phrase
somehow conjures up this idyllic pastoral image. This
was probably the hardest section to write, and even to
approach it felt like an imposition, but my aim in
contrasting the pastoral imagery of the opening with
the starker, denser orchestration of the later passages
was to portray the physical and psychological
devastation of the Somme campaign. In using a variety
of texts, I wanted to juxtapose the personal with the
official versions. Further extracts from Helen Jowett's
poem about her grandfather show the Devon farm boy
discovering that war was difficult, dangerous and
terrifying. Yet the image presented by official army
correspondence, whether reports or letters of
condolence, was often of honourable battle and
painless, peaceful death. The appalling conditions in
the trenches - lice, gangrene, body parts, mud - that
both sides experienced is, I think, well known, and I
have supplied my own words to represent
this.14
Texts:
Under a cloudless blue sky hay meadows ready and dry
[14]
Troop mass of thousands, two mighty Empires
all standing ready to die
Promise of hot summer sun, bayonets glistening as
one
Wave upon wave come, bayonets shining
This is the place called The Somme.
Big boots - can't walk
Out of breath - can't talk
I'm here in War, no going back
The losses were terrible, men fell in their
battalions
The very first day they counted sixty thousand
(Can't walk - out of breath...)
Three lines of trenches, three lines of barbed
wire
Many will die in the mire
There is trench foot, body lice, surgery without
morphine
Untended wounded, sweet stench of gangrene
There's a war - I came and I'm no damn good
Please God stop it all now - if only I could
(Under a November sky ...the mire...)
I see their faces scare, eyes wide
Boys just like me, inside I cried
Screams and blood, bodies out of control
Waves of colour, silver hole
Your Johnny died peacefully, he felt no pain
[14]
He died for his country, did not die in vain
Walter starb ruhig, Schmerz fühlt' er nicht [Walter died peacefully, he felt no pain]
Er starb für die Heimat, er starb für das
Licht [He died for the Homeland, he died for the
Light]
No shrapnel dismembered his limbs or his brain
No lying in shell-holes in the Somme's lethal
rain
No long drawn-out death surrounded by blood
No helpless drowning in gangrenous mud
We don't know where he died, where to find his
remains
but we know he died peacefully and felt no pain
under a cloudless blue sky.
REFERENCES:
14 Emily Feldberg, 2018, combined with
extracts from Open Fire by Helen Jowett, 2014.
Used by kind permission of the author.
AUDIO EXTRACT (voices
and orchestra)
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