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In Flanders Fields is a poem which, in various musical settings, has become a traditional part of Remembrance Day services commemorating those killed in the First World War and subsequent conflicts.
In Flanders Fields Poem
“In Flanders Fields” was written in 1915 (after the Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium) by a Canadian medical officer, Lieut-Col John McCrae, "to pass away the time between the arrivals of batches of wounded, and partly as an experiment with several varieties of poetic metre" (a letter from McCrae to Sir Andrew Macphail). The poem was published first in the English magazine Punch (8 December 1915).
Musical Settings of In Flanders Fields
Musical settings of the poem include those by J. Deane Wells (Harris 1917), John Philip Sousa (G. Schirmer 1918, recorded by Joseph Phillips, Okeh 4013), Frank E. Tours (M. Witmark 1918), W. H. Leib (Summy 1918), Harold Eustace Key (McGill Song Book 1921), Charles Ives (G. Schirmer 1921, recorded in 1969 by Thomas Stewart, Col M-30229), William H. Hewlett (Canada Publishing 1934), Joseph Roff (published 1948), William Ramsey Spence (Ditson, no date), Guelph musician Greta G. Hurley (Col J. McCrae Birthplace Society 1972), and Derek Healey (a commission for the Festival Singers; Chanteclair 1976).
Alexander Tilley’s setting of the poem (Frederick Harris Co, 1985-86) has been widely performed, as has Eleanor Daley’s setting (Gordon V. Thompson, 1993). Stephen Chatman also wrote a setting of “In Flanders Fields,” originally for men’s chorus (commissioned for Vancouver’s Chor Leoni, 1998) as did Paul Aitken (1999). Christine Donkin (2004), Evelyn Stroobach (2006) and Laura Hawley (2010) have also set the poem to music. Hawley’s version, “Au champs d’honneur” is the first French-language version of the poem for choirs. The Ottawa Children’s Choir performs the piece annually at the National War Memorial on Remembrance Day.
