A CD, "War Cantata, War Poems", has just been launched which combines war poems and music, to evoke the 1940-43 siege of Malta.

The siege has previously been narrated by historians and chosen as background by novelists and film makers. It has now been captured in eight poems, which Prof. John Cremona wrote at the time, set to music by Prof. Mro Charles Camilleri.

The CD was launched during a presentation ceremony at the War Museum, during which Bank of Valletta chairman Joseph Zahra presented the master CD to the president of the National War Museum Association, Prof. John Rizzo Naudi, in the presence of Prof. Cremona, author of the War Poems, and Mro Charles Camilleri, composer of the War Cantata.

The launching coincides with the 60th anniversary of the award of the George Cross to Malta.

The bank financed the production of the CD master, while the National War Museum Association has taken on the CD's production and marketing.

Prof. Rizzo Naudi augured that the money that will be generated from the sale of the disc will assist the association, formed in 1974, to continue safeguarding and promoting the island's wartime historical heritage.

Prof. Cremona said that some of these poems, written in the war years, had appeared in English poetry reviews before being included in his book "Malta Malta". But the significance of these poems, both as a literary and a historical document was enhanced in a very special manner when Queen Elizabeth II read one of them when she dedicated the Siege Bell memorial in 1992, he said.

Mro Camilleri recounted how Prof. Cremona had first approached him some eight years ago with his proposal. It was, however, only last year that the project started to materialise with the composition of the War Cantata for an ensemble consisting of three solo voices, a narrator and a small ensemble made up of violin, cello, clarinet, piano and tuba.

"In addition, I made use (in trying to recreate the sounds I heard as a little boy of eight years!) of the human voice as an instrument creating the sound of airplanes, the sound of guns and the many other sounds associated with war," Mro Camilleri said.

In the booklet accompanying the CD, which also contains the text of the poems, Rev. Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott vividly brings out the remarkable artistic significance of the production.

A number of established Maltese artistes feature on the CD - Marita Bezzina as soprano, Claire Massa as mezzo soprano, Joseph Aquilina as tenor and Kevin Drake as narrator. Musicians include Sarah Frendo on violin, Simon Abdilla-Joslin on cello, Godfrey Mifsud on clarinet, Paul Borg on tuba and Ramona Zammit Formosa on piano.

The CD is available for sale from the National War Museum, the Aviation Museum at Ta' Qali and from leading record shops.

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