World+War+1

. Britten said of his music, "I hope it'll make people think a bit." On the title page of the score he quoted Wilfred Owen: > My subject is War, and the pity of War. > The Poetry is in the pity ... > All a poet can do today is warn. > > STRANGE MEETING recounts a dramatic meeting between two dead soldiers who had fought on opposing sides. No longer enemies they find it possible to see beyond conflict and hatred in a shared awareness of "the truth untold" and the need for the poet to proclaim that truth in the face of a world set to "trek from progress". In the words of Owen's famous Preface, "All a poet can do today is warn". > “I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now. . . .”