 He chose to set the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead interwoven with nine poems about war by the English poet Wilfred Owen.Owen, who was born in 1893, was serving as the commander of a rifle company when he was killed in action on 4 November 1918 during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal in France, just one week before the Armistice.Although he was virtually unknown at the time of his death, he has subsequently come to be revered as one of the great war poets.