Just before the King's Royal Rifle Corps embarked for North Africa in June 1942, Lieut. Michael Heming went to John Barbirolli, onetime conductor of New York's Philharmonic-Symphony, with a postdated request. Barbirolli knew of Heming's work at London's Royal College of Music, readily promised to give the only son of opera singer Percy Heming a postwar chance to learn conducting.
In the troopship going out, Michael Heming scribbled melodies, started to outline a score for a threnody on war. He did more work during the blazing African summer, by autumn had a pocketful of penciled notes. The day before the tide turned at El Alamein, Lieut. Heming was killed in action. His mother found the notes in the packet of his personal things sent home.
In Sheffield last week, the Hallé Orchestra, John Barbirolli conducting, played the world première of "A Threnody for a Soldier Killed in Action, by Anthony Collins, from Fragments Left by Michael Heming." Lieut. Heming would have been 24 that day.