Dave Stewart: >1. Owen sees the world leaders at the time as Abraham and deliberately >destroy one-by-one the seed of europe. Britten simply for irony's sake >sets it against Owens old testament and the boys who are to die make their >presence felt which gives more weight to the 'crime' of the world leaders >as they are responsible for their deaths. I go with 1. The "lightness" of the "et semini ejus" is almost a fingerprint in Britten's work: personal musical iconography for a kind of danse macabre. I don't know which performance you've been listening to. At any rate, to my mind, those "et seminis" should crack like a whip. Steve Schwartz