Opening of A Symphony of Trees:
Central Tenor Aria "The Silent One":
Finale of A Symphony of Trees:
In the Spring of 2015, 138 memorial trees were planted in Ypres. Each tree was planted where roads leading out of the city crossed the curved frontline forming the infamous Ypres Salient of the First World War. This salient stood as a semi-circle around the medieval city from October 1914 to October 1918. During those four years the line moved back and forth several times, but the salient never broke. The trees were planted on the 100th anniversary of the line formation that was the closest to the city centre, and stayed there for the longest period – some 27 months. This so called “small salient” is now recognisable in the landscape through elm trees, trees that were very common before the First World War in the Ypres area. In fact, the word “iep” (for elm) and “Ieper” (the Flemish name of Ypres) are etymologically the same in Flemish. After the war a lot of elms were planted back, but in the 1980s and 1990s most of them died as a result of elm disease. In 2015 a new resistant breed of elms were chosen to become the memorial tree, thus symbolising a double process of loss and resurrection.
When British soldier, poet and composer Ivor Gurney came to the Ypres salient in August 1917, a lot of trees had vanished already. As the British offensive was creeping slowly towards Passchendaele, in an attempt to break the salient, more and more trees got smashed up, as happened to the rest of the countryside. Gurney, who in peace time was an avid walker and lover of the countryside, was shocked by the sight of such utter destruction of life and nature. As a Private with a Machine Gun Company attached to the 2nd/5th Gloucestershire Regiment, he spent weeks watching out over the barren battlefields east of Ypres.
Gurney’s poetry is always about his experience and that of his fellow soldiers. In some poems he also explicitly describes the “dreadfulness” of the destroyed landscape. As a composer in those days he was stirred by A.E.Housman’s poem, On Wenlock Edge. This poem, from Housman’s immensely popular cycle A Shropshire Lad (1896), also uses the image of distressed woods as a symbol for men’s suffering. In Ivor Gurney’s mind, who considered himself a composer first and a poet second, nature and music mingle in a true sense. And in nature trees are a formidable, direct inspiration for his music. In an essay on music he wrote: “From poplars has come much: the larch has given grace to thought in many of the smaller forms. The oak has strengthened many, and in the shady chambers of the elm many have found peace. Trees are the friendliness of things: the beech with its smooth A major trunk, its laughing E major foliage; the Scotch fir which, passionate or still, is always F sharp minor!’” (Ivor Gurney, The Spring of Music, in: Music Quarterly 8, July 1922)
Such imagery is at the core of this new work by Piet Swerts, dedicated to the memory of Ivor Gurney and to the destroyed and resurrected City of Ypres. Using Gurney’s descriptions of broken trees in the destroyed Flemish countryside to express the destruction of man and nature alike is certainly fitting, especially as a homage to Gurney - the man, the poet, the composer. When also looking for a female counterpart and perspective on the war, the imagery of broken trees returns in poems by Margaret Postgate Cole and Charlotte Mew. In the epilogue, which pays tribute to the resurrection of the once destroyed city, reference is made to Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees (L’Homme qui plantait des arbres, 1954). It is yet another work about trees, symbolising life and leading the way to resurrection. This magnificent short-story was also written by a veteran of the First World War and of the battlefields of Flanders.
As such, A Symphony of Trees has become a true homage to Ivor Gurney and to Ypres. The city was the centre of terrible fighting in Flanders during the First World War, and was entirely destroyed. In the 1920s it was resurrected and ever since bears witness to the world of the utter destruction of war.
Upon arrival in Ypres, Gurney described the ruins of the city at dawn. When out in the line, he saw the destruction of the entire landscape. It made such an impact that after the war, he would often think back on the horrid scene. Although he’d wished he could only have had sweet memories of Ypres...