'I am truly sorry that I will not be able to attend this memorial performance. Music can express and invoke our deepest emotions, and it is important that we remember with sorrow the pain and suffering of war, and the enormous sacrifice of human life with which we often connect the words of Jesus: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." Britten imaginatively uses the liturgy of a Eucharist in memory of the dead - but the Eucharist is always a celebration of Jesus' resurrection, and even in solemn remembrance of the pain of war, we celebrate the hope of resurrection which he has given us. I am sure that this performance, this act of remembrance, will inspire all of the themes of life, death and resurrection.'
+ Tim Winchester
The Rt Revd Tim Dakin