“For the Fallen” was written for Bec Beall and her choir “Lux Alba” and was premiered by them in 2019 at St Matthew’s Church, Albury, NSW, Australia. The words of this choral suite were written by the English poet Laurence Binyon in 1914, immediately after the Battle of Mons, where the British Expeditionary Force suffered a serious loss, soon after the start of World War I. The fourth verse (“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old”) has become known as the “Ode of Remembrance”, regularly recited at memorial services. This suite uses the words of the Ode for the first movement, with echoes of the bugle call “The Last Post”. The second movement, “They went with songs to the battle” portrays the soldiers as young men in fine fettle, physically and mentally fit for what lies ahead of them. The third movement, “As the stars that shall be bright as we are dust” compares the war dead to stars and constellations. They move “in marches upon the heavenly plain”. Will Longstaff’s painting “Menin Gate at Midnight” (reproduced on the cover of this score) movingly illustrates this concept, with ghostly soldiers marching by the Menin Gate at Ypres, Belgium. The work concludes with a further setting of the opening movement “They shall not grow old”. A version of this suite with piano accompaniment is also available on this website.