Edward Elgar - Sospiri op.70

Adagio for string orchestra, harp and organ. 
First Performance : Date : 15 August 1914
Venue : Queen's Hall, London
Conductor : Sir Henry Wood
Dedicated to : W H (Billy) Reed, 
leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, 
close friend and confidant of Elgar
Elgar provisionally called this short work Soupir d'Amour, intending it as a companion piece to Salut d'Amour, a light popular work for the masses. What emerged, however, was a work of considerably greater substance. He composed it in the months leading up to the outbreak of the First World War and it was perhaps the gathering stormclouds of war that moved him to write a heartfelt, bleak adagio that would not be out of place as the slow movement of an Elgar symphony.

        

 

某天突然聽到收音機傳來的英國作曲家Edward Elgar 的《Soupir d'Amour》，非常感動，  《Soupir d'Amour》作曲於一戰前， 難道藝術家對世界風雲變化有預感， 音樂就像暴風雨來臨前一樣的沉寂不定， 一戰二戰都是那麽遙遠的事， 可卻是真真實實發生了， 奪去了那麽多年輕的生命，昨天和朋友正好去了倫敦西敏寺， 在其中的無名英雄墓前站了許久：黑色的比利時大理石， 鮮紅的Poppy 罌粟花， 法蘭西土壤， 英格蘭橡木， 還有那無名的英魂....

《Soupir d'Amour》, 甚稱《Salut d'Amour》的姐妹篇， 都來自於埃爾加那顆易感的靈魂

也借此機會， 學習了有關一戰的一些背景知識， 很震撼

Some WW1 facts that you probably don't know

1. An explosion on the battlefield in France was heard in London

2. Journalists faced execution

3. 12 million letters were delivered to the front every week

4. War work turned some women's skin yellow

6. Wilfred Owen was unknown at the end of the war

7. The youngest British soldier was 12 years old

8. WW1 nearly caused a financial meltdown in Britain

9. Blood banks were developed during WW1

10. Colourful makeovers meant WW1 ships hid in plain sight

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/26936615