War music

[schweitzeralan]

I checked through several of the earlier threads But did not notice any questions or themes related to music that was influenced or dealt specifically with war.  Again a vast subject.  What occasioned my posting on this subject was my recent listening to Vaughn William's 4th Symphony. It's been years since I heard it, and I consider it (along with others who have mentioned this work plus VW's other symphonies) a masterpiece.  The Fourth is quite rigorous in its harmonic and rhythmic (even fugal) structure.  It is ominous and suggests throughout the impending doom and terror associated with imminent invasion and destruction. What other works are similar; or, what other orchestral works deal specifically with war themes? I'm certain there must be many.

[DavidW]

Shostakovich's 7th immediately springs to mind, but I usually don't go for extra-musical associations and tend not to notice them.

[Elgarian]

I checked through several of the earlier threads But did not notice any questions or themes related to music that was influenced or dealt specifically with war.

I put a couple of 'War music' posts in the Elgar thread a while ago - maybe I could copy them over to here? Here's the first one:

I've been dipping into a collection of essays: Oh, My Horses: Elgar and the Great War, published by the Elgar Society and edited by Lewis Foreman.



It's a well-researched, scholarly volume, and the first essay ('Elgar's War' by Andrew Neill) is interesting both for the perspectives it gives, and for some of the information that emerges, about Elgar's attitude to the First World War and its effect on his composing. For instance he writes about what confronted Elgar, at the age of 57, when the war began:

"Elgar faced a challenge which, if not dangerous, was nonetheless a demanding one. He had to provide what was required and expected of a major artistic figure during a catastrophe unprecedented in his lifetime and that of his fellow countrymen."

Elgar took the role very seriously. The catastrophe was now upon the nation whether he or anyone else liked it or not, and he saw it as his responsibility to respond accordingly. Neill (rightly, I think) thinks of The Spirit of England as Elgar's Requiem, and offers some useful material about the background to its composition. It was based on three poems by Laurence Binyon (The Fourth of August, To Women, and For The Fallen), and initially the future of Elgar's involvement in the project looked uncertain: Cyril Rootham, a pupil of Stanford's, had already begun to set For The Fallen to music and Novello had agreed to publish it. Novello were reluctant to publish two such works, and in any case Elgar was reluctant to tread on Rootham's toes. But Binyon tried to persuade Elgar that he had a higher duty - and this is how he expressed it, in the letter he wrote:

"Think of the thousands who will be craving to have their grief glorified and lifted up and transformed by an art such as yours. ... Surely it would be wrong to let them lose this help and consolation."

It's interesting to see the approach Binyon used here - playing on the idea that Elgar's music would be of help and consolation to people whose lives had been broken by circumstances beyond their control. There's no notion of drum-beating or jingoism - just the concept of attempting to provide the only kind of support he could. At any rate, Elgar was persuaded, and as a result composed what I believe to be one of his greatest and most unforgiveably neglected works. This is how Neill writes of it:

"The Spirit of England, the music of the war that he had been destined to write. The public could hear his reaction to a changed world. His response is both angry and sad for the waste, horror and carnage that would destroy the life he knew. Although for 'England', these pieces are for any country and its dead."

Elgar's response was based on a deeply-felt sympathy for the sorrows and agonies of his fellow man in the face of catastrophe. Put aside 'Land of Hope and Glory', and listen to The Spirit of England. It can break your heart and inspire you, both at once.

Here's my recommended recording: this is by far the best version to buy, and costs less than a fiver on Amazon. Alexander Gibson rises magnificently to the occasion, and Teresa Cahill sings like one inspired.



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Coronation-Ode-Spirit-England/dp/B000000A9N/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1247511957&sr=1-2

[Elgarian]

And here's the second post copied over, carrying on from the first:

Neill's essay is leading me to revisit some of Elgar's other war music, in the first instance Une Voix dans le Desert (1915). It's the kind of thing we might tend to walk by, these days - 7 or 8 of its 12-minutes consists of a narration against a background of music - but to walk by it is actually to miss something important.

Emile Cammaerts was a Belgian poet, and wrote the narrated text (translated into English by his wife). In October 1915, Alice Elgar recorded in her diary: 'M. Cammaerts came to talk about "Voix dans le desert" - E. played it to him & wept a little. Cammaerts profoundly moved'. It's not surprising to read of the tears; the piece is heart-breaking. The setting is not far from the battlefront, 'a hundred yards from the trenches'. There's a small cottage that has had its roof damaged by a shell. Everything is silent - nothing but 'the stillness of the great graveyards. Only the crosses, the crooked wooden crosses, on the wide lonely plain'.

So the narrator sets the scene. Then out of the desolation, from the cottage comes a single soprano voice, singing: 'When the spring comes round again', looking ahead to the time when all this will be over. She sings for about five minutes, but those are five of the most moving minutes in all Elgar's music. When she stops, the narrator continues. It isn't over. Now there's only 'the sound of our boots on the muddy road'.

This kind of narration spoken over music is much of its age, and not my kind of thing; but even so, this breaks through all my prejudice. It's hard not to listen without tears.

I have two versions, but by far the best is the one on this disc. Teresa Cahill sings the central soprano section with total conviction, and the CD is worth buying for that alone:

[schweitzeralan]

A lot of Ives's music, but to me the most poignant is "From Hanover Square north at the end of a trajic day the voice of the people again arose" from the 2nd Orchestral Set.

..There's a personal experience behind [the third movement], the story of which I will now try to tell. We were living in an apartment at 27 West 11th Street. The morning paper on the breakfast table gave the news of the sinking of the Lusitania. I remember, going downtown to business, the people on the streets and on the elevated train had something in their faces that was not the usual something. Everybody who came into the office, whether they spoke about the disaster or not, showed a realization of seriously experiencing something. (That it meant war is what the faces said, if the tongues didn't.) Leaving the office and going uptown about 6 o'clock, I took the Third Avenue "L" at the Hanover Square Station. As I came on the platform, there was quite a crowd waiting for the trains, which had been blocked lower down, and while waiting there, a hand-organ, or hurdy gurdy was playing on a street below. Some workmen sitting on the side of the tracks began to whistle the tune, and others began to sing or hum the refrain. A workman with a shovel over his shoulder came on the platform and joined in the chorus, and the next man, a Wall Street banker with white spats and a cane, joined in it, and finally it seemed to me that everybody was singing this tune, and they didn't seem to be singing for fun, but as a natural outlet for what their feelings had been going through all day long. There was a feeling of dignity all through this. The hand-organ man seemed to sense this and wheeled the organ nearer the platform and kept it up fortissimo (and the chorus sounded out as though every man in New York must be joining in it). Then the first train came and everybody crowded in, and the song eventually died out, but the effect on the crowd still showed. Almost nobody talked-the people acted as though they might be coming out of a church service. In going uptown, occasionally little groups of would start singing or humming the tune.

Now what was the tune? It wasn't a Broadway hit, it wasn't a musical comedy air, it wasn't a waltz tune or a dance tune or an opera tune or a classical tune, or a tune that all of them probably knew. It was (only) the refrain of an old Gospel Hymn that had stirred many people of past generations. It was nothing but--"In the Sweet Bye and Bye." It wasn't a tune written to be sold, or written by a professor of music--but by a man who was but giving out an experience.

This third movement is based on this, fundamentally, and comes from that "L" station. It has secondary themes and rhythms, but widely related, and its general makeup would reflect the sense of many people living, working, and occasionally going through the same deep experience, together...

'

Intersting.  You lived the experience.  Another British composer, George Lloyd, lived and survived the Battle of the Atlantic ( I believe).  Many of his later symphonies are laden with images and memories of his wartime experience.  He became a "shell shocked" victim.

[karlhenning]

Vaughan Williams, A Pastoral Symphony
Ravel, Le tombeau de Couperin

[Dana]

What occasioned my posting on this subject was my recent listening to Vaughn William's 4th Symphony. It's been years since I heard it, and I consider it (along with others who have mentioned this work plus VW's other symphonies) a masterpiece.  The Fourth is quite rigorous in its harmonic and rhythmic (even fugal) structure.  It is ominous and suggests throughout the impending doom and terror associated with imminent invasion and destruction.

      While Vaughan-Williams didn't write program music  he was certainly influenced by the events of his times, the Pastoral Symphony being exhibit A. I've always thought that Vaughan-Williams' music was a sort of audible commentary on world events - he once said "I'm not sure if I like [the fourth symphony], but it's what I meant." Naturally such a sturmisch work appeared while the clouds were gathering. The 5th symphony was premiered during the Battle of Britain, showing a light at the end of the tunnel, a goal of absolute resolution. I'm also pretty sure that I heard somewhere that early in his career, Vaughan-Williams swore off the symphony, intent to dedicate his life to smaller, more people-oriented forms. And then he starts writing symphonies with the proclivity of a Sibelius, or a Shostakovich. Interesting. It raises the question (one that is especially pertinent in the 20th century) of how pure the art form of composition is. In the romantic and classical era, the music certainly reflects the tastes and currents of the times, but I wonder whether the Eroica Symphony, for example, would have even been published at all, had the circumstances surrounding the name taken place in the 20th century.

      David mentioned Shostakovich's 7th symphony, I've heard of his set of symphonies from 4-10 as being his war symphonies - his war on Stalin. If you don't buy that theory, the 8th is certainly a war symphony just as much as the 7th.

[Maciek]

I should also mention Ives's Three Songs of War: He is There (later They are There  in response to WWII), Tom Sails Away (a very touching reminiscence from childhood filled with images and creating a spell broken with Goerge M. Cohan's "Over There") and his setting of "In Flanders' Fields."

'

I'll have to check those out.

[Franco]

In my opinion, much of the music written from 1950-1970 is in response to WWII, or more specifically the atomic bomb - composers who took the ball from scientists and said "we can do that".  And the neo-romantics and minimalists from 1975 on, came in the wake of the Vietnam War era of almost total cynicism and loss of trust in government - which caused a yearning for the good old days when things were simple, good and obvious.

[Sergeant Rock]

Two of Haydn's Masses were directly inspired by war:

MISSA IN ANGUSTIIS "NELSONMESSE"

MISSA IN TEMPORE BELLI "PAUKENMESSE"

I recommend Harnoncourt's performances with the Concentus Musicus Wien, especially the Paukenmesse where the terror, pathos, and pity of war is conveyed like no other version.

Sarge

[val]

Janequin, "La bataille de Marignan".

[Grazioso]

And thinking of the Haydn Napoleonic masses, there's Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and LvB's Wellington's Victory.

There's Handel's Fireworks Music, commissioned to commemorate the end of the War of Austrian Succession. Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky film score. Britten's War Requiem.

Englund's 1st symphony, "War". Some info about his war experiences and his view of the symphony:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-einar-englund-1105147.html

[Ten thumbs]

Bonis' "La Cathèdrale Blessée" (1915) specifically deals with war damage in France. This is one of the composer's very few works during the war years, which she spent caring for war orphans and prisoners of war.

[The new erato]

 I certainly find Honeggers 2nd and 3rd symphony closely related to the V-W "war trilogy" and somehow dealing with the same subject matter. All 5 symphonies are major masterpieces.

[Maciek]

Panufnik's Tragic Overture - first written (sounds odd? wait a sec) during WWII in 1940. The score did not survive until the end of the war however (apparently, it did survive the Warsaw Uprising, but was used as burning material by some oblivious folk afterwards). Reconstructed from memory in 1945 and revised in 1955. It is dedicated to Panufnik's brother who fought and died in the Warsaw Uprising.

Description by Paul Conway from musicweb:

it marks the beginning of the composer's stringent economy of expression and is the first work in which he started his great quest to find a perfect balance between emotion and structure. Panufnik achieves this in his Tragic Overture by making use of a four-note cell, which pervades the entire eight-minute work, sometimes transposed, augmented or inverted. This sequence of notes is sustained within a framework of repeated rhythmic patterns, which gradually increase in tension, building to a shattering climax. Despite this rigid framework, the composer could not help but include such programmatic elements as the sound of a falling bomb in the percussion, trombones describing the sound of a distant aeroplane and the final chord, a cry of despair. This Panufnik work is essential to an understanding of the composer’s entire output.

Gorecki's 3rd Symphony - in a sense, the general theme is the despair of parents who lose their children (not necessarily to war) and the suffering of children (though this interpretation can be expanded even further, especially if you take into account the religious thread of the piece). The theme of war is very strongly present, though. One of the texts is a note found scribbled on the wall of a Gestapo cell in Zakopane (by a prisoner), another is a mother's song about a son killed in battle.

What about Prokofiev's War and Peace? It's obviously about war (not so much about peace though ) and it was written during WWII.

[Gabriel]

Biber, Battalia a 10. Amazing work.

[techniquest]

Britten: War Requiem

Shostakovich: Symphony No.8 (not as obviously descriptive maybe as the 'Leningrad', but definitely a war symphony)

Dare I also suggest Tchaikovsky's 1812...?

[Nunc Dimittis]

Pendereki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" is obvious. 
David Diamond's Symphony No. 2.  It was written during WWII.  The first legthy movement is a funeral march.  The third movement offers consolation and a vision of a more peaceful time. 

So much music has been written in response to war.  Whether as a direct depiction of its horrors; it tragic consequences; or as escapist fantasies.

[Tapkaara]

Khachaturian's 2nd Symphony.

[schweitzeralan]

Pendereki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" is obvious. 
David Diamond's Symphony No. 2.  It was written during WWII.  The first legthy movement is a funeral march.  The third movement offers consolation and a vision of a more peaceful time. 

So much music has been written in response to war.  Whether as a direct depiction of its horrors; it tragic consequences; or as escapist fantasies.

Pendercki is a signifacant composer.  I'm not familiar with his works.  Thanks for the reply.