#ClassicsaDay #ArmisticeClassics Week 4

November 19, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The #ClassicaDay team asked participants to post classical works related to the conflict. 

For my part, I tried to find examples from both sides of the war, and from as many different countries as possible. Here are my posts from the last week of November.

Rudi Stephan (Germany) - Music for Orchestra (1912)

Stephan's "Music for Orchestra" marked him as one of the most promising composers of the early 1900s. His music pushed past post-romanticism into an early form of Expressionism. He was killed by a sniper at the Russian front in 1915. He had completed only about twenty works.

Benjamin Britten (UK) - Diversions for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra, Op. 21

Pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm while serving in the Germany army during World War I. Determined to carry on after the war, he commissioned left-handed piano works from composers across Europe. Wittgenstein commissioned this work from Britten in 1940. He premiered it in 1942 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Like all of his commissions, Wittgenstein retained exclusive performance rights during his lifetime.

Arthur Benjamin (Australia) - Viola Sonata

Australian composer Arthur Benjamin was serving in the Royal Flying Corps when he was shot down in 1918. He had lost the dogfight to Herman Goering. Benjamin was sent to the Ruhleben internment camp, where several other professional musicians (mostly enemy civilians) were held. He wrote an unpublished violin sonata for performance at the camp.

Charles Ives - They are There! (1918)

Charles Ives wrote "They Are There!" to stir patriotism for the war effort. It's pure Ives. The music mashes up several patriotic songs. According to the lyrics, "Most wars are made by small stupid selfish bossing groups, while the people have no say. But there'll come a day when they'll smash all dictators to the wall."

John Foulds - A World Requiem, Op. 60

Fould's World Requiem is a memorial to all the casualties of the Great War, regardless of nationality. It required over 1,200 performers. The Requiem premiered in 1921. Initially popular, A World Requiem was seldom performed after 1926, when attitudes towards the conflict changed. Foulds career faded along with the popularity of A World Requiem.

#ClassicsaDay #ArmisticeClassics Week 3

November 19, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The #ClassicaDay team asked participants to post classical works related to the conflict. 

For my part, I tried to find examples from both sides of the war, and from as many different countries as possible. Here are my posts from the third week of November.

Edward Elgar (UK) - The Fringes of the Fleet

Elgar set Rudyard Kipling's poems in 1917. They were performed throughout the UK to boost patriotism. The tenor who premiered the work, Charles Mott, was killed in action in 1918. After the war, attitudes changed, and the song cycle was seldom performed.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Austria-Hungary) - Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in C-sharp major, Op. 17

Pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm in World War I. Determined to carry on after Armistice, he commissioned left-handed piano works from composers across Europe. Wittgenstein was so pleased with Korngold's 1924 concerto, that he also commissioned a chamber work from him.

Ernest MacMillan (Canada) - String Quartet in C minor

Canadian conductor/composer MacMillan was attending a Wagner festival at Bayreuth festival when hostilities broke out. He was sent to Ruhleben internment camp, along with Edgar Bainton. His string quartet was written his fellow prisoners, who put on a series of chamber music concerts.

Alban Berg - Wozzeck

Berg began composing "Wozzeck" in 1914 and continued working on it while serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army. The grim story of the hapless private Wozzeck resonated with post-war audiences. "Wozzeck" was frequently performed in Germany until 1933, when it was banned by the Nazis as degenerate.

Ivor Gurney (UK) - War Elegy

Gurney wrote poems and composed music while serving with the Gloucester Regiment. He was wounded in 1917 and gassed in 1918. His promising postwar career was soon derailed by mental illness. He was institutionalized in 1922 and remained so for the remaining 15 years of his life. He completed his War Elegy just two years before his breakdown.

#ClassicsaDay #ArmisticeClassics Week 2

November 19, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The #ClassicaDay team asked participants to post classical works related to the conflict. 

For my part, I tried to find examples from both sides of the war, and from as many different countries as possible. Here are my posts from the first full week of November.

George Butterworth (UK) - Banks of Green Willow

Butterworth was just starting his career when WW1 broke out. He was killed at the Battle of the Somme, 8/25/16. His body was never recovered. His tone poem, "Banks of the Green Willow" became an anthem for the War's Unkown Soldiers.

Arnold Schoenberg (Austria-Hungary) - Die eiserne Brigade, March for string quartet and piano (1916)

Schoenberg was conscripted at age 42. An officer demanded to know if he was "this notorious Schoenberg, then." He replied, "Nobody wanted to be, someone had to be, so I volunteered." He composed this march for his regiment, but it was rejected as too dissonant.

Sergei Bortkiewicz (Russia) - Piano Concerto No.2 (for the Left Hand), op.28

Pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm fighting in the German army during World War I. Determined to carry on after the war, he commissioned left-handed piano works from several European composers. Wittgenstein premiered Bortkiewicz's concerto in 1923, and he performed it quite frequently in the 1920s and 1930s.

Frank Bridge (UK) - Lament (for Catherine, aged 9 "Lusitania" 1915)

The sinking of the "Lusitania" by a German U-boat shocked the world because of the large number of civilian casualties. 1,198 died, including several children. One of them was a family friend of Bridge, who wrote this Lament to exorcize his grief.

Albéric Magnard (France) - Symphony No. 4 in C sharp minor, Op. 23

When war broke out in 1914, Magnard sent his family to safety. He remained behind to defend his home. When German soldiers arrived, he shot at them. They returned fire and set his house ablaze. Magnard and all of his unpublished scores were destroyed in the fire.

Frederick Septimus Kelly (Australia) - Elegy for Strings "In Memoriam Rupert Brooke"

Australian Frederick Kelly was a champion rower -- he won gold at the 1908 Olympics. He was also a talented composer. Serving in the Navy, he was wounded twice at Gallipoli. His elegy was written for a fallen comrade. Kelly died in 1916, rushing a machine gun nest at the Battle of the Somme.

#ClassicsaDay #ArmisticeClassics Week 1

November 19, 2018, is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The #ClassicaDay team asked participants to post classical works related to the conflict. 

For my part, I tried to find examples from both sides of the war, and from as many different countries as possible. Here are my posts from the first full week of November.

George Butterworth (UK) - Banks of Green Willow

Butterworth was just starting his career when WW1 broke out. He was killed at the Battle of the Somme, 8/25/16. His body was never recovered. His tone poem, "Banks of the Green Willow" became an anthem for the War's Unkown Soldiers.

André Caplet (France) - Les Prières (1914-1917)

Serving in the French army, Caplet was wounded twice. He was gassed, which severely damaged his lungs and lead to his death in 1925. Caplet was a close friend of Debussy. His song cycle Les Prières as completed during the war.

Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (Russia) - Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 17

Myaskovsky was wounded on the Austrian front and suffered from shell-shock. He was transferred to Tallinn to work on navel fortifications. While working and recovering, he produced two symphonies - Nos. 4 and 5.

Maurice Ravel (France) - Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm in WW1. Determined to carry one, he commissioned left-handed piano works after the war. Ravel's Concerto is one that's entered the repertoire (both one- and two-handed versions).

Edgar Bainton (UK/Australia) - String Quartet in A (1919)

Conductor/composer Bainton was attending a Wagner Bayreuth festival when WW1 broke out. He was sent to the Ruhleben internment camp outside Berlin. Bainton soon became its music director, working with fellow prisoners Arthur Benjamin and Edward Clark to produce chamber music concerts, operetta productions, and musical lectures. His String Quartet was one of the first pieces completed after the War.

Paul Hindemith (Germany) - String Quartet No.2 in F minor, Op. 10 (1917)

Hindemith's father enlisted at age 44 when the war broke out. He was killed in hand-to-hand combat in 1915. Hindemith was conscripted in 1917. He served in Flanders in 1918, according to his diary "surviving grenade attacks only by good luck." His second string quartet was written for a quartet he formed with fellow soldiers.

Enrique Granados (Spain) - Canción del Postillón (1916)

Granados was in New York when war broke out in Europe. Because of the conflict, he was unable to return directly to Spain. Granados sailed to England, then booked passage on the passenger ferry SS Sussex to France. The ship was sunk by a German U-boat. Granados, who was afraid of water, drowned while unsuccessfully trying to save his wife. The Canción del Postillón is one of his last works.