Shortly before he was due to leave for America, Britten completed at high speed a choral setting of texts by W.H. Auden and Randall Swingler (the latter the editor of the Communist Daily Worker newspaper in London) for a commemorative concert to honor the fallen British members of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, an anti-Fascist fighting force that came increasingly under Soviet domination as the war progressed (hence the interest of the Daily Worker). It may be that the defeat of the anti-Fascist forces contributed to the dissolution with the European scene that prompted his planned migration to America. All such speculation aside, the result is that Ballad of Heroes is Britten's most politicized scores.

It is also one of Britten's least known major utterances (major, despite its 15-minute length). The two central movements are the pair of pacifistic W.H. Auden settings, including a poem, "Farewell to the drawing room's civilized cry." But the Swingler verses which frame Auden's are militant; their tone is to honor those Englishmen who voluntarily fought fascism. More than that, these verses bitterly chide the blindness or cowardice of those who stood by and declined to fight. In short, as a setting by Britten this work is unique in including an anti-pacifistic sentiment, surely being the only instance in his work that he promoted the idea that there is "a time for war."

The work begins in a somber, processional tone, including violent images in his "Dance of Death" mode. It ends with a consoling gesture with some resemblance to a lullaby. Naturally, there are military tattoo figures for drums, fanfares, and spatial off-stage brass effects. This is an important, entirely characteristic Britten work which ought to transcend its political origins and take a rightful place on concert stages.

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