The 10 best: First World War music

• Published in: The Observer (London) p. 6
• Main Author: Maddocks, Fiona
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 09.01.2014
• ISSN: 0029-7712

Morale-boosting songs, stirring marches and elegies for the fallen, are chosen by classical music critic Fiona Maddocks. Ivor Novello was only 21 when he wrote "Keep the Home Fires Burning (Till the Boys Come Home)" in 1914, which touched all families at the outbreak of war with its hopeful message. "Pack Up Your Troubles", this cheery, upbeat marching song was written in 1915 by Welsh brothers Felix Powell and George Henry Powell. "Le tombeau de Couperin", each movement of Ravel's piano suite is dedicated to friends of the French composer who died in the Great War, in which he himself served as a truck driver. Popular entertainer, producer, playwright and composer George M Cohan, the man who owned Broadway, wrote "Over There" after hearing the news, in April 1917, that America had declared war on Germany. The Gloucester-born Ivor Gurney, 1890-1937, wrote poems and songs in the trenches, where, already physically and mentally frail, he was shot at and gassed. "In Flanders" is a setting of words by his friend William Harvey. "Noel des enfants", a little-known song, was written by Claude Debussy in 1915 when he was ill and depressed by news of war. "Slavic Woman's Farewell", a Russian patriotic march, was written for the first Balkan war in 1912, but in the First World War became a familiar marching song for the imperial Russian army. Gustav Holst always denied that Mars, the Bringer of War in his orchestral work "The Planets" was a direct response to the onset of war. The wistful, tender "To Gratiana Singing and Dancing" was composed by William Denis Browne, 1888-1915, who forged a close friendship with poet Rupert Brooke. "The Last Post" is played every Remembrance Day; and since 1928 it has been played each evening at 8pm at the Menin Gate, Ypres.