Night Bombers is a setting of a poem that was probably written in the latter part of the Second World War. The poem was copied out by a bomber pilot, Peter Payne, because it encapsulated so accurately his own feelings about the bombing campaigns. The identity of the author remains unknown, despite numerous attempts to trace him/her, but the specific references to Hamburg and Milan make it quite likely that it was written some time in 1943-4. In 2008, Peter Payne and his wife Daphne commissioned me to compose a setting of this poem to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

The setting, for mezzo-soprano solo, chorus and organ is divided into three sections, corresponding to the three verses of the poem: (1) Night Flight; (2) The Raid; (3) The Plea.

One of the first images that came to my mind when I started to think about Night Bombers was the flight into enemy territory - the incessant drone of the aircraft engines, the rising intensity of anti-aircraft fire and the increasingly erratic flight path as the bombers try to evade the flak. These elements are symbolised in the first section, Night Flight, by the low F#/Gb that sounds throughout the section, the increasingly intense outbursts from the chorus and the ever more frenetic vocal line for the mezzo-soprano soloist. For much of this section the mezzo soloist sings only the first line of the poem, "Oh beautiful brave young flyers".

In the second section, The Raid, the poem dwells upon the horrors experienced by those on the ground. The deeply traumatic images in this verse give rise to music that is dissonant and dramatic. In this section I borrow a device used by Mahler, in whose works the most searingly emotional passages often find themselves juxtaposed with snatches of popular song. It is as though, when the emotion becomes too much to bear, the mind seeks refuge in familiar things and I imagined fragments of music passing through the flyers' minds as the raid reaches its climax. As a result, several parts of The Raid are based on the RAF March and the mezzo-soprano solo line also quotes from one of the most popular wartime songs.

In the final section, The Plea, the poet asks "What judgement shall we receive who send you out in the dark with death?" - could this be a clue to the poet's identity? This section starts with a quiet wordless phrase for the chorus which later develops into an extended meditation on the word "dreaming". This contemplative feeling is, however, supplanted by one of mounting desperation in the closing lines of the piece, "Will you pity us? And forgive?".

Jonathan Darnborough