# Great works from the Great War



## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Today marks 101 years out from the Armistice that ended the first World War. While this monumental conflict resulted in much more destruction than anything the human world had hitherto seen, it also spawned some extremely beautiful and moving music, art, and literature.

What are some of your favorite works to come out of WWI? A couple come to mind for me, written by veterans from France and England:






*Maurice Ravel* wrote _Le Tombeau de Couperin_, modeled after a Baroque suite, in memory of several of his friends and colleagues who were killed in the war. It's some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. He later orchestrated several movements, and I am a big fan of the orchestral version of the suite too, but I think I prefer the piano music. It's one of his greatest achievements as a composer.






*Ralph Vaughan Williams* wrote the _Pastoral Symphony_ in the early 1920s, supposedly inspired by reflections upon his time spent fighting in France during the war. I don't know what else to say about it, but to my ears it is a beautiful ode to peace.

If anyone wants to share other favorites, that would be awesome. I'm sure there are some real history buffs in our ranks who know much more about the War and the music it inspired than I do.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Frank Bridge's beautiful Oration I believe was inspired by the horrors of the war.

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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

George Butterworth: Banks of Green Willow. The composer was killed in the war - an enormous loss to the music world.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Two choral settings of Walt Whitman by Gustav Holst - _A Dirge for Two Veterans_ and _Ode to Death_. The first was composed just prior to the war but presaged the horrors to come, and the other was composed near the end of the war (or just after) in tribute to those whom Holst knew who had died fighting. In the same year as Holst Ralph Vaughan Williams also set _A Dirge for Two Veterans_ as part of his cantata, _Dona nobis pacem_.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I will say it just like I do every time I link this piece. The first piece---"Requiem" to me is one of the most deeply sad pieces of classical music; a profound farewell to the pre-war world. European civilization's funeral.





This piece has been written by a clearly pre-war mind, throughout and right before the war ended. I would say it's the last pre-Great-War masterpiece of European classical music. Holst hated the programming with Jupiter as the final piece, because he thought that the end of life is miserable and so should be the ending of this constellation. I wonder whether anyone ever told him that the audience is not going to be dead at the end of his piece, but rather return to their lives. So it is only best when the concert ends with celebrating life. And nothing celebrates life like Bernard Herrmann's savouring tempo.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Nielsen: Symphonies IV & V
Glazunov: Two Prelude-Improvisations for piano.
Langgaard: Antikrist
Myaskovsky: Symphony V
Bax: In memoriam


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Ravel - La Valse....Ravel took the most characteristic dance of the pre-war "Gilded Age" - the Waltz, and presented a wild, frenzied version, which effectively mirrors the terrible, tortured struggle of the Great War, which caused such catastrophic social and political upheaval in Europe, and across the globe.
Vaughan Williams - Syms 3, 4 - #3 may indeed be a statement of peace and tranquility..the winderful trumpet solo 8n the slow mvt certainly seems like a memorial call to all those souls lost in the struggle....even tho composed later, #4, seems to explode with anti-war anger and fury....this isn't the glorified, heroic vision of, say, 1812 Overture...thus is modern, mechanized horror, grinding, tearing, gnashing in its tempestuous fury...VWms did serve in WWI, IIRC...


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Elgar's cello concerto


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## leonsm (Jan 15, 2011)

Elgar - Spirit of England


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Szymanowski Violin Concerto


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The most obvious remembrance of the Great War:


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

*Nørgård'*s chamber opera _La Nuit des Hommes_ is a dark vocal work, based on the ambivalence of Apollinaire's brutal WWI poems:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2000/july00/norgard.htm
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/nørgard-nuit-des-hommes

*Elgar*'s lesser known _A Voice in the Desert _is quite captivating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Une_voix_dans_le_désert


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Kurt Weill - _Johnny Johnson_.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Johnson_(musical)

EDIT: perhaps this doesn't qualify - although the story is based around an American pacifist who still enlists Weill didn't compose the work until the mid-1930s.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

KenOC said:


> The most obvious remembrance of the Great War:


I associate this work more with WWII, but I'm just now reading that some of the text was written by Wilfred Owen who wrote and died during WWI (when Britten was a toddler). Very interesting... I think I will be getting my hands on this work soon. I enjoy what I have heard.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Elgar - "The Fringes of the Fleet" -*

Link to complete album -

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nlunVY13dbCZCd2gCbpo1aoIxtQG1HEjk


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Percy Grainger - "The Warriors" *


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

*Stravinsky: The Soldier's Tale, Divertimento, etc
*
*London Sinfonietta, Riccardo Chailly*


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

yes, L'Histoire du Soldat...excellent example...


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Two symphonies by Villa Lobos. The 3rd (War) and 4th (Victory). A lost 5th symphony called (Peace) was also part of the cycle.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Of course, how could I forget the Soldier's Tale. I have only heard the suite. But I feel like the general sound pallet of the music really sums up the absurdity of the war in the musical language of the times. I don't consider it Stravinsky's greatest works but it's near perfect for what it is.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I agree about the Britten; he wrote it after the second war and gathered the international soloists from nations of the war.


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