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FEATURED WORK
"In Flanders Fields" (2013)
The poem “In Flanders Fields” was written in
1915 by Canadian physician and soldier John
McCrae. His earliest poetry had been published
in the 1890s. It was inspired by the death of a
friend in the second Battle of Ypres in early
1915, and after publication became one of the
most popular and widely quoted poems of the
Great War. He had seen how poppies quickly grew
around the graves of the soldiers in the
Flanders area. McCrae continued to serve in
Europe during the remainder of the war,
eventually succumbing to pneumonia and cerebral
meningitis early in 1918.
Often used for propaganda purposes, it has been
said that “Soldiers took encouragement from it
as a statement of their duty to those who died,
while people on the home front viewed it as
defining the cause for which their brothers and
sons were fighting.”
This setting of “In Flanders Fields” was written
for a commemoration of the Passchendaele battle
in October 2013 at which members of Auckland
Choral were to sing. A request had been made for
music which referenced the war and, if possible,
Flanders. Not finding a suitable piece, I
offered to write a new setting of this
well-known poem. Originally for solo voice, it
was re-scored for mixed-voice choir.
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