THE ANTHEM: RHYFEL (“War”) by Stephen Bartlet-Jones

The anthem today is based on a Welsh poem whose author died at Passchendaele. Hedd Wyn (Ellis Evans) was a farmer and Christian pacifist whose name meant “White Peace” – his description of the sunlight shining through the mists which collected in the valley bottoms of Meirionydd, much as they do in the Chilterns at this time of year.

Shortly after he died, he was awarded the Chair at the National - the highest award that can be bestowed on a Welsh poet. Prime Minister was present when his , “Hedd Wyn”, was called three times. After no-one came forward, a black sheet was draped over the Chair with the words, “The festival in tears and the poet in his grave.” The Eisteddfod is still known as the “Eisteddfod y Gadair Ddu”: the Eisteddfod of the Black Chair.

In “Rhyfel”, the poet wonders why he must live in these barbarous times, in which God seems to have passed away. In His wake, mankind is seized by a frenzy which causes him to take up arms and slay his fellow man, with no-one suffering more than the poor. Today, this part of the poem is set to a tune based on the Last Post. The male parts become increasingly carried away by the rush to arms, whilst the female parts sing the same words with the poet’s own sigh, knowing the grief and destruction war will bring to their families and homes.

From the chaos of war, the poet’s mind turns to peacetime , whose young men now litter the battlefield. As he reminisces, the music becomes a traditional folk tune, lively but steeped in "hiraeth" - a yearning for a childhood home which one knows can never be the same again. It is in this context that the poet writes the most famous lines in the poem: “Our old harps which used to sing / are now slung up on willow boughs.”

The realisation of what this line means gradually sinks in, and the lively fervour with which the folk tune starts turns slowly to a lament as the choir reaches the second line. With part of the folk tune still being hummed, now no more than a remote memory, the sopranos break into a chilling wail: “The wails of the boys hang on the wind, and their blood is mingling with the rain.” As the violently spilt blood and the innocent rain mix and become indistinguishable in the soil, the tension in the music slowly dies away and the whole choir is left singing a single note: the Last Post hauntingly rising up in the background is all that is left to remember their suffering.

The setting you will hear today was written for the choir by our parish organist, Stephen Bartlet-Jones. Today is its first performance, almost exactly a century after the Eisteddfod of the Black Chair in .