The Songs And Shows Of World War I [World War One]

Episodes

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011914: We Don't Want To Lose You20141202Russell Davies discovers what the troops were whistling as they marched to war.

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One

0219152015112420151222 (R2)This is the second in a five-part investigation (one each year) by Russell Davies of the music, from theatres and music halls and from the soldiery, that came out of The First World War, together with the voices, from the BBC archives, of some of those who went through it.

Alongside those famous songs indelibly associated with this period ('Pack Up Your Troubles', 'Keep The Home Fires Burning') Russell unearths rarities such as 'When The Lusitania Went Down', 'Sister Susie's Marrying Tommy Atkins Today' and 'Don't Take My Darling Boy Away' - in original 1915 versions.

Also recorded that year was Percy Grainger's 'Shepherd's Hey', which we hear as played by The Victor Concert Orchestra, while other compositions of that year include the poignant Frank Bridge piece 'Lament: Catherine, Aged 9; Lusitania 1915' (he'd known the child who went down with the ship) and an excerpt from a piece that US composer Charles Ives wrote as a reaction to the same tragedy in America. The Scottish Pals' Singers reprise trench songs 'Far, Far From Wipers I Long To Be' and 'Gassed Again' and US reactions to the war include 'Don't Bite The Hand That' Feeding You' and Afro-American comedian Bert Williams's 'I'm Neutral'. Popular songs and standards that lasted well beyond the war are Jerome Kern's classic 'They Didn't Believe Me' (Russell compares the original 1915 recording sung by Alice Green and Harry MacDonough with Elvis Costello's more recent version), a famous music-hall classic from Ella Shields - 'Burlington Bertie From Bow' and 'Balling The Jack', a tune that helped introduce the Fox-trot to these shores, in another extraordinarily clear 1915 recording, by Elsie Janis and Basil Hallam.

Britain's Best Recruiting Sergeant' was how another music hall artiste came to be described, thanks to her songs like 'The Army Of Today's All Right' and her wartime efforts are recalled by Pat Kirkwood, who played her in a 1957 biopic. The whole programme is a rich tapestry of sounds that includes many memorable voices; old soldiers recalling their experiences, Lady Violet Bonham-Carter remembering the poet Rupert Brooke on his way to Gallipoli and death; Londoners remembering the first bombs that fell on London ... from Zeppelins. Extremely well researched and written by Russell Davies, The Songs and Shows of World War I is a Wise Buddah production made for the BBC by Roy Oakshott.

Music historian Russell Davies unearths the stories behind the music of World War I.

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One

03191620161228Russell Davies presents the third part in Radio 2's five-part exploration into the music of the First World War which was played in the halls, the theatres, the salons or the pub pianos, and so much of which was taken off to the war to be sung by the soldiery.

1916 was a terrible one, as the programme makes graphically clear through many accounts from the BBC archives: from sailors who survived Jutland, Tommies who went through hell at Gallipoli and on The Somme as well as from those who suffered on the Home Front: civilians and politicians. The music, generally, had become more sombre than in the previous year.

Russell illustrates, via archive memories, the importance for morale of music: How the voice of a lone tenor singing ' A Perfect Day' could cheer weary troops. How a sentimental tune from a popular stage show could become a rousing march, as Laidman Browne, later a distinguished actor, describes. The show was 'The Bing Boys Are Here'; the song - 'If You Were The Only Girl In The World.

There's much more to savour in this brilliantly researched and copiously illustrated programme - Harry Lauder, whose son was killed in the last days of 1916, singing his song 'The Laddies Who Fought And Won'; Fritz Kreisler playing the American hit song 'Poor Butterfly'; Alfred Lester's topical music-hall song 'A Conscientious Objector' ... but Russell saves the most nostalgic song of the year, maybe of all the war years, till last.

It was in 1916 that Haydn Wood set to music the poignant words of Frederic E Weatherly's poem 'Roses Of Picardy'. The show closes with the verse, sung at the time by Lambert Murphy followed by Frank Sinatra's fine 1962 rendering of the chorus.

Russell Davies explores the music that accompanied the conflict.

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One

04191720171122The Songs and Shows of World War I: 1917. The year was militarily just as grim as was 1916, if not more so - and in this thoroughly researched programme, writer and presenter Russell Davies does not spare the listener the often terrible and tragic news from the various fronts. However, musically it is considerably more uplifting than the previous three, for one simple reason: the Yanks were coming and with them a great deal of more positive music. Where in the previous year we ended with 'Roses Of Picardy', this year we have John McCormack asking to 'Send Me Away With A Smile'. In 1916 , The Peerless Quartet sang 'I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Stranger' while this year it's 'America, Here's My Boy!' Of course conditions in the trenches became worse and worse, so the soldiery were still cynically creating alternative lyrics to old marches and hymn tunes, like 'We're Here Because We're Here' to the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne': In fact the programme opens with the poignant sound, from 1915, of Sgt Edward Dwyer VC singing this 'absurd and helpless' ditty which he and countless other Tommies marched to as they headed for the front. He was dead by 1917.

Russell explains the various circumstances that led to President Woodrow Wilson reluctantly bringing the United States around from their position of neutrality with his historic pronunciation 'The World Must Be Made Safe For Democracy'. He relates the heroic tale of telephonist Tessie MacNamara, who saved over a thousand lives at a munitions plant that was about to go up, through, it was told, German sabotage in January. And he tells how composer and performer George M Cohan, on seeing the newspaper hoardings announcing the declaration of war in April of that year, promptly wrote his famous song 'Over There', a song which did service in both world wars and is still heard (albeit as an advertising jingle) today.

The rise of Jazz was another important development in the musical world of the time, the first 'jass' record, by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band being recorded for Victor in January 1917 and we hear an example of their work on the cacophonous 'Livery Stable Blues'.

Reports of short-lived successes and catastrophic mis-judgements are described by voices from the BBC archives and, after a particularly harrowing account of the Flanders offensive that was Passchendaele, infamous for its deep, deep mud which itself killed many of the troops, mules and horses who slipped off the duckboards into it, there is an especially poignant description of a General, found seated outside a staff hut, convulsed with sobs, unable to accept the realisation of the hell into which he'd been sending his men. The exploits of famous and infamous names come briefly into focus: Harry Lauder, whose son was killed in 1916, is heard in a moment from a fund-raising appeal for injured service-men; Albert Ball, the most famous pilot and most decorated (VC, DSO and 2 Bars, MC) in the Royal Flying Corps died in this year at the age of twenty. On the middle-eastern front, the exploits of T.E. Lawrence, 'Lawrence of Arabia' are described by one Colonel who knew him well - and by General Sir Edmund Allenby, who much admired him.

Then there was the Dutch-born courtesan and dancer, convicted of espionage in February that year who met her death before a firing squad in October, leaving behind her the legend of the mysterious agent, the subject of numerous romantic books - and a novelty song which we hear from some years later performed by Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra: 'Olga Pullofski, the Beautiful Spy'. The hit musical of the period was 'The Maid Of The Mountains', which ran to well over a thousand performances in London, though a mere thirty seven on Broadway. Much of its tuneful score lived on in the British concert hall for many years and we hear Olive Groves (again with Henry Hall) singing 'Love Will Find A Way'. Another long-lived tune from the time - 'The Dark-town Strutters' Ball' - is heard, complete with vocal chorus and in amazingly good sound for the period, recorded for HMV by 'The Savoy Quartet'; while arguably the best-remembered of all the 1917 crop of songs, 'For Me And My Gal', appeared in the show 'Here And There' and was reprised by the vaudevillians Van and Schenck in March 1917. Vaudeville and music hall songs remained, for the time being, the order of the day, hence The Two Bobs' rendition of 'Paddy McGinty's Goat', replete with reference to German submarines off the west coast of Ireland. America began to make a serious impact on the battlefields of France and Belgium towards the end of the year but their greatest impact - and also the impact of American music - lay ahead in 1918.

Russell Davies explores the music that accompanied the conflict.

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One

191820181204This programme concludes BBC Radio 2's exploration of the music of the Great War. Russell Davies and archive voices tell the story of the last year of the war, illustrated with the music of the time.

While some songs from the era have lived on to this day (After You've Gone, Over There. K-K-K-Katy, I'm Always Chasing Rainbows) there are plenty of excellent, witty and amusing compositions that are rooted in their time (If He Can fight Like He Can Love; You'd Better Be Nice To Them Now; I Don't Want To Get Well).

As Russell and the many voices tell the story of the final year of the war, we learn of the birth of the RAF, the death of both The Red Baron (Manfred Von Richthofen) and the man who introduced The Foxtrot, Vernon Castle.

Poignant moments in the programme include Harold, brother of the great War Poet, Wilfred Owen, describing their last meeting before Wilfred's return to the trenches – only to be killed a week before the Armistice; and citizens of Paris, receiving the news that “La Guerre Est Gagnee ? .

Russell Davies concludes his exploration of the music of the Great War

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One

This programme concludes BBC Radio 2's exploration of the music of the Great War. Russell Davies and archive voices tell the story of the last year of the war, illustrated with the music of the time.

While some songs from the era have lived on to this day (After You've Gone, Over There. K-K-K-Katy, I'm Always Chasing Rainbows) there are plenty of excellent, witty and amusing compositions that are rooted in their time (If He Can fight Like He Can Love; You'd Better Be Nice To Them Now; I Don't Want To Get Well).

As Russell and the many voices tell the story of the final year of the war, we learn of the birth of the RAF, the death of both The Red Baron (Manfred Von Richthofen) and the man who introduced The Foxtrot, Vernon Castle.

Poignant moments in the programme include Harold, brother of the great War Poet, Wilfred Owen, describing their last meeting before Wilfred's return to the trenches - only to be killed a week before the Armistice; and citizens of Paris, receiving the news that `La Guerre Est Gagnee` .

Russell Davies concludes his exploration of the music of the Great War

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One