VIOLINS made in the memory of war poets were brought together for the first time yesterday at the tree from which they were made.
The instruments were created in tribute to Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, who met while undergoing treatment at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh in 1917.
Their first meeting happened some time between August 15-19 and Edinburgh Napier University, which now includes the former hospital, will be commemorating it next week with a week of events.
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These include a performance by violinists Thoren Ferguson and Lewis Kelly using the unique instruments.
The Owen fiddle was created from a branch of a sycamore on the hospital grounds to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One in 2014, with the Sassoon violin following this year.
While each has been played individually before, this will mark the first time they are used together.
The concert will take place next Tuesday at a Royal Society of Edinburgh lecture by Neil McLennan, author of a forthcoming book about Owen’s time in Edinburgh, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 programme World War One: The Cultural Front at 10.30am on August 19.
Catherine Walker, curator of the Craiglockhart-based War Poets Collection, which offers an insight into war through the words and memories of officers, medical staff and relatives, said: “Both Owen and Sassoon loved and appreciated music, so the two violins are a wonderful and fitting tribute.”
Instrument maker Steve Burnett used the same branch of the same sycamore tree to make the items, with one using “green” wood harvested in winter and the other using seasoned wood with a reduced moisture content. He said: “The Sassoon violin was made in a more traditional way, using seasoned wood, but like the Owen violin it was created as a symbol of peace and reconciliation through the power of music and it will be played as a tribute to two great poets and a lost generation.
“The Wilfred Owen violin has travelled widely over the last three years, being played in schools and at World War One commemoration events. It has also been played at a Royal Shakespeare Company production in Stratford and at a service to mark the Quintinshill rail disaster.
“Now we have the Sassoon violin too, it will be great to hear them being played in duet at events.”
Owen was sent to Edinburgh to recover from shell shock after serving on the front line in France, with Sassoon referred there after being declared unfit for service following a public letter written “as an act of wilful defiance of military authority”.
Both men returned to action and Owen died one week before Armistice in 1918.
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