By Catherine Watson
MORE than a century after the First World War ended, the poetry it spawned still haunts us. A new work from Melbourne Symphony Orchestra violinist and curator Sarah Curro draws that poetry into a concert performance.
The Poetry of War will premiere in Wonthaggi’s Union Theatre on Saturday, August 2, ahead of its first Melbourne showing the following day. It brings together music and poetry in a 90-minute work of reflection and remembrance.
MORE than a century after the First World War ended, the poetry it spawned still haunts us. A new work from Melbourne Symphony Orchestra violinist and curator Sarah Curro draws that poetry into a concert performance.
The Poetry of War will premiere in Wonthaggi’s Union Theatre on Saturday, August 2, ahead of its first Melbourne showing the following day. It brings together music and poetry in a 90-minute work of reflection and remembrance.
Sarah Curro: “We need that moment to reflect.” Photo: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
This is Curro’s maiden voyage to Wonthaggi but she says it feels right to premiere the work here. “I know Wonthaggi has a strong sense of community and history. It feels right to begin here, before the city, in a town that understands what remembrance really means.”
She has wanted to do something like this since she was a teenager. A respected violinist with a wide-ranging repertoire, Curro’s early introduction to war poetry came through Britten’s War Requiem, with the words of Wilfred Owen woven into the music. “I just want as many people as possible to hear Wilfred Owen’s poetry,” she says. “It’s some of the greatest poetry about war ever written.”
She has wanted to do something like this since she was a teenager. A respected violinist with a wide-ranging repertoire, Curro’s early introduction to war poetry came through Britten’s War Requiem, with the words of Wilfred Owen woven into the music. “I just want as many people as possible to hear Wilfred Owen’s poetry,” she says. “It’s some of the greatest poetry about war ever written.”
Wilfred Owen: “My subject is War, and the pity of War.” Owen served in World War I, dying in action a week before the war ended, aged 25. His poems strip war of any glory. Pain, bitter, and achingly beautiful, they are the emotional core of The Poetry of War.
The music traverses a wide emotional range, from the dreamy strains of Debussy and Saint-Saëns to the sharp edges of Webern and Britten, anchored by familiar anthems like It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, We’ll Meet Again and And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.
The instrumentation – string quartet, flute, trumpet and piano – reflects the theatrical vision. Between the solemnity of the poems and the serious music, the popular upbeat war songs provide some light in the darkness. “That’s what they would have done, gathered around the piano at the pub or at home and sung these songs. Or performers would take music into the fields to entertain the troops. We throw all that together, but in a more casual way.”
This isn’t a concert in the traditional sense, more like a piece of theatre with incidental music. The music doesn’t follow a strict narrative or chronology – it’s there to enhance the mood and underscore the emotion of each moment.
The Last Post is sounded midway through the performance, followed by Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen and a one-minute silence.
“Without that pause, it’s just music and applause,” Curro says. “We need that moment to reflect.”
The music traverses a wide emotional range, from the dreamy strains of Debussy and Saint-Saëns to the sharp edges of Webern and Britten, anchored by familiar anthems like It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, We’ll Meet Again and And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.
The instrumentation – string quartet, flute, trumpet and piano – reflects the theatrical vision. Between the solemnity of the poems and the serious music, the popular upbeat war songs provide some light in the darkness. “That’s what they would have done, gathered around the piano at the pub or at home and sung these songs. Or performers would take music into the fields to entertain the troops. We throw all that together, but in a more casual way.”
This isn’t a concert in the traditional sense, more like a piece of theatre with incidental music. The music doesn’t follow a strict narrative or chronology – it’s there to enhance the mood and underscore the emotion of each moment.
The Last Post is sounded midway through the performance, followed by Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen and a one-minute silence.
“Without that pause, it’s just music and applause,” Curro says. “We need that moment to reflect.”
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Later in the program, the focus shifts to the Vietnam War with two powerful modern inclusions: Ode to Vietnam, a rare poem by veteran Barry Heard, and the iconic lyrics of I Was Only Nineteen by Red Gum’s John Schumann. “That song still resonates,” Curro says. “The randomness of the conscription ballot – if your number came up, you were off to war.”
While the tone of the show is deeply respectful, The Poetry of War avoids politics or moral judgments. “It’s not about sides,” Curro says. “It’s a reminder of the realities of war – not the glory, but the tragedy, the cost.” |
Noel Counihan: Here Peace Begins
The Poetry of War marks the end of an exhibition of prints from the Robert Smith collection in the Wonthaggi Union Theatre. Titled Power to the People, the exhibition includes works by Kathe Kollwitz and Noel Counihan focusing on the tragedy of war for ordinary people. |
Curro hopes the program reignites an appreciation for poetry itself. “I love poetry probably more than anything,” she says, “but I don’t always understand it. I don’t think we read or teach it much anymore, and that’s a tragedy.”
In curating the program, she deliberately chose poems that would be accessible to a wide audience, works that speak plainly but profoundly to the human cost of war. “I want people to be moved. That’s what art is for.”
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: The Poetry of War, Union Theatre, Wonthaggi, Saturday, August 2, 2.30pm. 80 mins, no interval. Book at Trybookings.
In curating the program, she deliberately chose poems that would be accessible to a wide audience, works that speak plainly but profoundly to the human cost of war. “I want people to be moved. That’s what art is for.”
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: The Poetry of War, Union Theatre, Wonthaggi, Saturday, August 2, 2.30pm. 80 mins, no interval. Book at Trybookings.