The Morning Heroes Choral Symphony Analysis

The Morning Heroes Choral Symphony Analysis

There is beauty in art when an author combines different related pieces of art like poems and songs to make a collection. Such collection is not only resourceful to the reader, but also entertaining and educative to the reader. One may decide to combine different pieces of art to achieve a certain goal and purpose either in literature or in expounding a particular theme. “The Morning Heroes” is a piece of the choral symphony by Arthur Bliss written in 1930. The choral symphony has some pieces written as a poem while others are written as songs. This paper concentrates on the Spring Offensive Poem by Wilfred Owen and Dawn on the Somme Poem by Robert Nichols pieces as used in the Morning Heroes.

Bliss has set Wilfrid Owen poem as a recitation and Robert Nichol poem as a choral song in the Morning Heroes as a way to end his choral symphony because the last line of Owens poem has imagery that is more poetic. In addition, only a single voice is speaking in the poem, which can only be accompanied by, few instruments compared to Nichol’s poem where there are several voices speaking. These voices can be accompanied by several instruments to make it more choral than a recital. Besides, Wilfrid Owen’s poem has regular rhyme which makes it easier to recite than Nichol’s poem. There is harmony and symphony in the piece when he uses this style to write poems. This order appears as the best since it uses fast –slow-fast symphony movement in the two pieces. The reader can correlate the tone of the poem with different symphony movements.
The two poems are written symphonically because; Dawn on the Somme Poem by Robert Nichol backs up events and themes that are covered in the Spring Offensive Poem by Wilfrid Owen. Therefore, it can be concluded that Dawn on the Somme Poem compliments Spring Offensive Poem by giving more details about the events and themes. There was no other order that Bliss would write the two poems because foreshadowing in most cases comes after the actual events not only in literature but also in real life situation. Bliss chose these two poems to end Morning Heroes because they explain the last events of the First World War.
Bliss brings in some woodwind instruments just before the final line of Owen’s poems, and the rest of the orchestra gradually follows because he was to want to bring a balance and flow when connecting from one poem to the other. Since only a few instruments that can be accommodated by Owen’s poem, Bliss introduces some woodwinds instruments and continues and adds the instruments as he connects to Nichols poem which can accommodate more instruments. The last line of Owens poem is set in that manner because it splits bliss last thoughts from in relation to the whole event.
Concisely, there are several ideas and conclusions that one can make by analyzing the Morning Heroes choral symphony by Arthur Bliss. Several reasons covered throughout the discussion justify the order in which the two poems appear in the choral symphony. Additionally, there is a reason that makes one poem favorable for recital while the other poem is choral in the Morning Heroes as discussed and analyzed in this paper.