Trench Carol

Chorus and Piano

Poem by Rebecca Brothers
Music by Aric Vyhmeister

Performed by the Renova New Music Ensemble, Boulder, CO
Conducted by Blake Clawson

Trench Carol is a setting of a poem by Rebecca Brothers, a friend with a gift for words, depicting the events of the famous truce between German and British soldiers on Christmas Eve of 1914 amidst the hostilities of World War I. The poem captures the warmth and humanity shared between sworn enemies during a moment that briefly transcended the relentless violence. The music is intended to evoke a sense of bitter reminiscence, of bleak hopelessness that is slowly warmed over as the soldiers cautiously approach each other and disarm, figuratively and literally, ending on a note of universality as the soldiers finally return home. The story can be heard as being told from either perspective, emphasizing the universality shared across lines in this brief period of peace.

“Trench Carol”

Poem by Rebecca Brothers

The gath’ring gloom, the smell of guns,
Another night on no man’s front.
No candle lit, no friendly hearth,
No table spread with meat and peace.
Only the cold, the smoke, the groans,
A whispered prayer to stars no one could see.

But then a light across the way,
A single voice, a tune they know.
Then yet more voices joining in,
A ragged patchwork of the song.
From trenches east, and trenches west,
A choir of men who’d sworn
To bring each other to their knees ---
“By Christmas Day, we’ll all be home.”

And now the dawn, and now a form
Arising from across the way.
Is this a trap? another trick?
And yet this man is like them all ---
Begrimed and weary, sore and cold,
A man with eyes too timeworn for his face.

A cake he’s bearing, and a smile,
And so another man ascends.
Then more and more, with gifts to share,
For men they might have once called friends.
From trenches east, and trenches west,
A corps of men who’d sworn
To bring each other to their knees ---
“By Christmas Day, we’ll all be home.”

With three more Christmases, they find
That most are home, or lame, or blind.
The fight they thought would soon be o’er
Has carried on far past their power.
The peace they found that Christmas night
Now seems to be nowhere in sight.

One hundred Christmases ago,
The men remembered who they served.
No greater captain had they then
Than every brother in the world.
In trenches east, and trenches west,
A choir of men who’d sworn
To bring each other to their knees ---
It’s Christmas Day, and now they’re home.