Lament
(This page)
Lament
(This page)
DETAILS AND TEXTS/TRANSLATIONS.
Lament:
Composer's note: This segment acts as a sort of
punctuation, appearing three times in the full work,
with a baritone solo on the second occasion. The theme
is based on part of the chord progression of the
Agnus Dei from Mozart's Requiem. After
the initial blast of grief, the repressed sob of the
accompaniment emphasizes the sorrow of the whole piece,
which lasts exactly two minutes: a reference to a
minute's silence each for the English and German sides.
The section begins with diary extracts from the German
artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) 6,
whose 18-year-old son Peter was killed in Flanders in
October 1914. Writing 3 years later, Kollwitz was
reflecting on what 1917 had brought and what it had
taken away 7. This is followed by a phrase
from Vera Brittain, 'Life on its way to death'
8, and another from a wounded Indian
officer's letter, written from the Indian General
Hospital in Brighton: 'There is no counting the number
of lives lost'.9 Subedar Mohammed Agim was
one of the nearly 1.5 million Indian volunteer soldiers
who served in the war.
Texts:
Lament:
Schmerz! Schmerz!
[Pain! Pain!]
Genommen und genommen [6] [7]
[Taken and taken]
Menschen genommen, Glauben genommen
[People taken, faith taken]
I walk in the half-light, I walk in the
half-light
The pain has left weariness, the pain has left
weariness
Life on its way to death [8]
Schmerz! Schmerz!
Schmerz! Schmerz!
Ich geh' im Halbdunkel
[I walk in the half-light/twilight - lit.
half-dark]
Der Schmerz hat Müdigkeit zurück
gelassen
[The pain has left weariness behind it]
No counting the lives lost, none are left
[9]
Schmerz!
REFERENCES:
6 From Käthe Kollwitz, Die Tagebücher. btb
Verlag (Random House) 1999. First published 1955,
edited by Hanz Kollwitz. Retrieved from www.adelinde.net/kathe-kollwitz-zeitzeugin-des-1-weltkrieges//
7 With thanks to Trevor Brawn for advice on
translation.
8 Vera Brittain, 1916, in Vera Brittain: A Life by Paul
Berry & Mark Bostridge (1996). Pimlico,
London.
9 Courtesy of the British Library: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/excerpt-letter-from-mohammed-agim-to-subedar-major-firoz-khan#sthash.k2V5hSR0.dpuf
Shelfmark IOR/L/MIL/5/825/4 f.425
© Emily Feldberg 2017-2018.