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.

        

 

某天突然听到收音机传来的英国作曲家Edward Elgar 的《Soupir d'Amour》，非常感动，  《Soupir d'Amour》作曲于一战前， 难道艺术家对世界风云变化有预感， 音乐就像暴风雨来临前一样的沉寂不定， 一战二战都是那么遥远的事， 可却是真真实实发生了， 夺去了那么多年轻的生命，昨天和朋友正好去了伦敦西敏寺， 在其中的无名英雄墓前站了许久：黑色的比利时大理石， 鲜红的Poppy 罂粟花， 法兰西土壤， 英格兰橡木， 还有那无名的英魂....

《Soupir d'Amour》, 甚称《Salut d'Amour》的姐妹篇， 都来自于埃尔加那颗易感的灵魂

也借此机会， 学习了有关一战的一些背景知识， 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