When you see the millions of the mouthless dead

This setting of Charles Hamilton Sorley’s war poem was composed for Genesis Sixteen to perform at the 2015 Cumnock Tryst, James MacMillan’s own music festival in Ayrshire, Scotland, marking the centenary of Sorley’s death at the Battle of Loos aged 20. Sorley was born in Scotland and educated in England, with further study in Germany, where he was at the outbreak of World War I. A homophonic, expressive setting of a secular and non-partisan remembrance text, of particular interest to choirs performing war-themed programmes.