>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> David Plylar: Good
evening, everybody.
Good evening.
My name is David Plylar.
And I'm pleased to welcome you
to this evening's event on behalf
of the music division in
the Library of Congress.
We are thrilled to
continue our collaboration
with the American Musicological
Society in presenting a series
of talks at the library given by
scholars whose work has benefitted
from the vast resources that
the music division has to offer.
Tonight's presentation
is a departure
from the usual solitary lecturer.
Instead we have multiple speakers
and performers who have created a
through composed venture
into the music of World War I
that was important to the English,
Canadian, and American allies.
Speaking tonight will be Christina
Bashford, Williams Brooks,
and Gayle Sherwood Magee.
And we will hear performances
by singers Laurie Matheson
and Justin Vickers along
side pianist Jeffrey Dukes.
This event will be recorded
and available online.
And you can supplement
your experience
by visiting the library's exhibition
in the Jefferson Building,
entitled Echoes of the Great War,
American experiences of World War I.
There is also an online version of
this and other related exhibitions
and resources that can be
found at the libraries website.
Following today's presentation,
anyone with questions
for our speakers or performers
are invited to come up
and speak to them individually.
To more properly introduce
our guests, it's my pleasure
to invite a member of the
American Musicological Society,
who has traveled here
today to be with us.
Susan Weiss is professor of
musicology at the Peabody Institute.
And we thank Dr. Weiss for
offering greetings from the society.
[ Applause ]
>> Susan Forscher Weiss:
Thank you, David.
Can you hear me?
You'd think coming from
Baltimore would be easy.
But afterwards, I'll tell
you how difficult it was.
Thank you to David.
And also, to Martha Feldman,
the President of the
American Musicological Society
who couldn't be here to
these two institutions,
the American Musicological
Society and the Library of Congress
for this 19-year collaboration.
And this one Johnnies,
Tommies, and Sammies.
I love that title.
Music and the World War I Alliance.
And it's also presented, I
understand, in association
with the exhibition, World War I,
the American Artists
View of the Great War.
As you've heard from David, these
lectures have been given by scholars
who have conducted research
in the music division.
As my colleague at Princeton, Scott
Burnham, said a couple of years ago
in his introduction to the
17th lecture in the series,
"Many members of the American
Musicological Society delight
in the music division of the
Library of Congress as a kind
of treasure chamber here in the
very heart of our nation's capital."
I don't think I could
have said that better.
"For them being inside the
beltway most likely means headed
to the Library of Congress."
Today more than ever this treasure
chamber provides a safe haven
from the insanity and
dystopia of the walls outside.
For the first time in
19 years, as David said,
this year's event is not devoted
to the work of one scholar
but instead a team of
speakers, six of them.
I just found out it was six,
keeping with the sports metaphor
I had thought it was a basketball
team, even though they
might not be tall enough.
But it could be an
augmented basketball team.
On the other hand, if we
go back to music metaphors,
this dream team would form a
sextet of British, Canadian,
and American musicologists.
I guess there are four
fighting in line.
And two redbirds.
Is that right?
Because they're a team, one long bio
is splintered into six smaller ones.
And you have most of
them in your program.
I'm going to add just a
little bit to two of them.
Because these are two women who had
an effect on my life and the lives
of my students 40 minutes
away from here.
A little longer than that maybe.
The first of these is Gayle
Sherwood Magee who holds a BM
from McMaster University
and a PhD from Yale.
Her scholarship is
mentioned in the program
with the wonderful
things that she's done.
And over the years, I've had the
great good fortune to collaborate
with the library in
a variety of ways.
I'm either aiding my own research,
hiring students as interns,
hosting them for presentations
of the treasures,
manuscripts, books, instruments.
There is a Dayton Miller
flute collection,
which they love to come and see.
And the Stradivarius instruments.
It's just a treasure as Scott said.
In 2005 with gratitude to members of
the Performing Arts Library staff,
especially Susan Clairmont and Ray
White, we were able to borrow some
of these treasures for the
exhibition reading and writing
of pedagogy of the past held
at Peabody and John Hopkins.
As part of an NAH crowd, that
we would not have received
without the support of Gayle Magee,
then editor of Indiana Press,
thanks to her stewardship,
Indiana University Press published
our volume, Music Education
in the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance.
Another personal reflection
concerns a volume that just came
out last June, A Cole Porter
companion, edited by Illinois Press
under the magnificent
baton of Laurie Matheson.
Who has a master's in music
from Westminster College,
near and dear to me because one of
our editors is now the Dean there.
And a DMA from the
University of Illinois.
Shout out to members of the
performing arts division,
especially Walter Zahn
Kanko [assumed spelling]
and Mark Eden Horowitz.
Neither of them could be here.
But Mark's chapter on Porter's
material in the library is one
of the jewels in the volume.
There was an interview
on a website at Illinois
that I found, written two years ago.
And Laurie said, I'm a
professional musician.
I play the organ, direct a
church choir, compose choral
and vocal music and
direct a community choir.
Last winter I composed
a set of songs
for a production at the Tempest.
A colleague of mine put on at
St. Mary's-of- the-Wood College.
I do as much music as I can.
I think that's an understatement.
This presentation is in
the form of a conversation
between representatives
of three countries,
Christina Bashford
represents Britain,
William Brooks represents
the United States
and Gayle Magee represents Canada.
The assignment is not arbitrary.
Each was actually born in
the country represented.
But in keeping with the presentation
about alliances all
presently work elsewhere.
Bashford and Magee in the
U.S. And Brooks in Britain.
Communication between the
allies is precisely the point
of this presentation.
Communication in the form
of music, in particular,
and its role in shaping
relationships during
and after World War I.
What was the nature of the alliance
just after the start of the war.
For King and Country
can be an entry point.
A song expressing loyalty
to England's King.
Written in 1914 by Robert Harkness,
an Australian living in London
and published a few months later
by Gordon B. Thompson in Canada.
Where were the Americans?
Looking on for the
moment, but with interest.
The recording you will hear
was issued by Victor and is
by Brooklyn born Reinald Werrenrath.
And so, the conversation begins.
I welcome you.
[ Applause ]
[ Music ]
>> Christina Bashford: The song
we just heard echoes another
recruitment song about
loyalty to King and Country
by British composer Paul Reubens.
It was published in London
by Chappell Co in late 1914.
Just weeks after the British
Government had declared war
on Germany and had kicked off
a major recruitment campaign
which Reuben's song refers
to and subtly manipulates.
It was immensely popular and surely
helped establish a role for women
in the bid to enlist young men.
A role that would become highly
visible in Britain within months.
And also in Canada.
In entering the war, Britain was
not only aligning itself with France
and Russia against German and
Austria-Hungarian aggression,
it was also creating the crux
of what became known
as the Allied Forces.
And defending its position
as the world's pre-eminent
imperialist power.
Over the course of the war,
a staggering 2.7 million men
from the British colonies
would serve the British army.
Fighting for a tiny island
thousands of miles away.
Now one of the signal features
of the so-called great war,
is that it was not one
conflict, but many fought
in several parts of the world.
Thus, Japan soon entered on the
side of the alliance pushing back
against German naval ships in
the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
However, in August 1914, with the
British military under resourced,
the Colonial armies were
all that Britain could count
on to defend its territorial
interests.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: When
Britain declared war on August 4,
2914, Canada had an
insubstantial army of 3000 soldiers.
Through the late summer and
fall of 1914 men from most parts
of the country rushed to enlist.
Within one year 35,000 troops
were fighting in Europe.
Music, often British, resolutely
fed the recruitment drive.
For King and Country was issues
in a Colonial edition in Toronto.
Together with a piano version
with an all-purpose red,
white, and blue cover.
Despite an official show of unity
and allegiance to Great Britain,
however, the first World War
would deeply divide Canada along
linguistic, political,
and religious fault lines.
Particularly between the
anglophone half of the country
and the roughly quarter
of the nation
that claimed French
as it's main language.
>> Christina Bashford:
By April 1915,
it was clear that the war had
become to become that expected to be
over by Christmas was looking
like a much longer term haul.
A significant development
came in May when Italy,
which had initially been poised
to support the Central Powers,
switched allegiance and entered
the war on the other side.
This moment was crystalized in
music by one Francesco Paolo Tosti.
Tosti was an Italian born singer
and prolific song composer
who had settled in London
and become a British citizen.
He'd had a successful career
and had even been knighted.
He was living in retirement in
Italy when Britain declared war.
And shortly after Italy
entered he wrote his one
and only political song,
The Allies March to Freedom.
Which we'll hear in a moment.
Chappell published it with Italy
and English text and a lavish cover
that depicted the flags of the
major allies, Britain, France,
Belgium, Russia, and Japan.
We see it here.
The Italian flag at it's center,
snuggled close to the Union Jack
with gleaming finials that seemed
to be standing next to bayonets,
which for now at least were still
the soldiers' quintessential weapons
of war.
Chappell who'd already
published many
of Tosti's songs could
expect to trade on his name.
But the firm might also have hoped
to market the work to
Italian immigrants.
There were nearly 20,000
Italians living in London in 1915.
We should note, too, the
American import stamp.
And that the song was
sold in the U.S.
where Italian immigrants
were much more numerous.
And where that population
might also have been willing
in spirit to join the march.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> William Brooks: At the beginning,
the United States viewed
the European War
from a comfortable distance.
Despite political and
fiscal entanglements,
the immediate political
objective was
to keep Wilson's presidency
on track.
After decades of work, American
Progressives finally had a president
and a climate that
supported their reform agenda.
The war threatened to deflect
attention and resources
from the domestic tasks at hand.
And they wanted no part of it.
Moreover, even in its early
stages, the war threatened
to set ethnic groups
against each other,
fracturing the Progressive
community.
German-Americans wanted
strict neutrality.
English-Americans favored
support for Britain.
And Irish-Americans
were with the Germans,
since their homeland was gearing
up for the uprising of 1916.
French and Belgium Americans mounted
relief efforts for the citizens
of the beleaguered countries.
Italian-Americans, initially
confused, rallied behind Britain
after Italy changed sides.
All this was reflected
in the country's songs.
Natalie Townsend, born in Paris and
a Belgium resident for six years,
wrote Belgium forever
with her daughter, Yvonne,
which enjoyed some success in
a recording by Herbert Stewart.
The amateur Irish-American composer
John J. Donohue wrote Don't Blame
the Germans, which predicted 'The
French and the Belgians misled
by England's greed must
very soon surrender
for they know they can't succeed.'
It had no success whatsoever.
More than one song took a humorous
view of conflicting allegiances
or turned a Civil War
song on its head.
But most Americans
felt, rather smugly,
that they were above the war.
A sentiment captured in two
songs by the novelty specialist,
Jack Frost and James White.
If They Want to Fight, sets a
stereotypical Germans and Brits side
by side with the prescient lyric,
I'm over here, they're over there.
And in Neutrality Rag, Frost
plays several national anthems
against each other.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee:
The majority of Canadian
enlistees during the first year
of the war were, in fact, not born
in Canada but in Europe, Britain,
or other British and
European colonies.
And many were veterans
of the Boar War.
Joseph Fairholme, Sr, for example,
served in the British
Imperial Army Rifle Corp
for 21 years before retiring
to a farm in Alberta in 1913.
In November 1915, he enlisted in
the Canadian Expeditionary Force,
or CEF, and was assigned to the
rank of Company Sergeant Master.
Fairholme's two teenage
sons enlisted as well.
The British character of
the Canadian armed forces
in the first year of the war
explains a large part the slew
of songs issued in
Canada and dedicated
to King George and the Union Jack.
Canadian World War I
songs made common use
of imported British imagery,
including easily recognizable
British tunes,
such as Rule Britannia and God
Save the King, often in conjunction
with British themed lyrics.
Just as the Fairholmes enlisted
together based on close ties
to Britain, the French
speaking Belaire brothers signed
up for military service that would
return them to a familiar landscape.
Born in Geneva, Etienne, Andre,
and Phillipe Belaire immigrated
with their parents
and other siblings
to a comfortable suburb
of Montreal in 1908.
French speaking non-Quebecca
[assumed spelling] soldiers
in the allied forces such as
the Belaire brothers were part
of a large number of ex-patriots
from France, Switzerland, Belgium,
and Francophone colonies, to enlist
during the first nine of the war.
For whom a song such as Mon
Soldat served a recruiting role.
The lyrics contained no hint
of empire, nor king, nor duty.
And little mention of
actually fighting the war.
Instead the song focuses on a
soldier's sweetheart promising
to return to wait for
him until he returns.
Notice as well, that the song
was published within Britain
and distributed throughout Canada.
In this case, the Atlantic
Canadian province of News Brunswick,
which had the largest Francophone
population outside of Quebec.
The alternative English lyrics
by contrast reinforced the
standard imperial tropes of duty,
defeating the foe, and
fighting for the community.
[ Music ]
>> William Brooks: Like
Canadian songwriters,
American composers
have always linked
to their creations to
songs from the past.
And never more so than
during the Great War.
Iconography, too, built resonance
and cultural connections.
A favorite image was of
the Statue of Liberty,
both because of its symbolic meaning
and because it embodied the
countries long-standing alliance
with France.
Mothers inevitably were trundled
out as iconic representation
of inspiration, nostalgia,
domesticity,
or occasionally good sense.
And musical quotations
were pervasive.
Sometimes offering comment
on the subject matter,
sometimes alluding to
other current hits.
But most often, linking
the current conflict
with wars America had
fought in the past.
The first megahit of the war
brought all these strands together
in an explicit refusal to fight.
The cover puts mother, hearth,
and an imaginary battle
scene in counterpoint.
The title message is unmistakable
reinforced by the tag at the top,
Ed Morton's sensational
anti-war song hit.
The verse opens with a quotation
from Thomas Moore's
The Minstrel Boy.
The minstrel boy to
the war has gone .
. . and follows that with a
quotation from Auld Lang Syne.
There is no question about
the political message here.
But not all Americans felt that way.
Even at the start of 1915.
Just two months later Charles
Bayha wrote a rebuttal.
Bayha was pro-engagement.
He tried twice to enlist.
And when he was rejected
he went to Camp Dix
and produced shows with
the soldiers there.
Bayha's song is not as
powerful as Piantadose's
and it had less impact at the time.
But it makes clear the very real
conflict of opinion in the country.
Here's a sample of both songs.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Christina Bashford: In Britain,
home-front anxiety emerged as early
as 1915 when the first zeppelin
attacks brought casualties
and destruction to towns and cities.
Fears also arose for
civilian travel.
When Germany declared the
waters around Britain a warzone
and began launching
torpedoes at allied ships.
Simply on suspicion
of carrying war cargo.
In 1915 the United States
was still officially neutral.
But it was supplying food
and weapons to Britain,
sometimes concealing them in
commercial passenger liners.
Civilian sea travel started to
become a very risky undertaking.
And after an American ship
sailing to France was attacked
in April, jitters abounded.
In May, as the luxury passenger
liner, the Lusitania prepared
to set off on the return leg
of a round trip from Liverpool
to New York, tension mounted.
Some newspapers published the German
Embassy's now prophetic warning
of the potential dangers
for travelers.
Some people delayed.
Most did not.
And as the ship set off on May the
1st, carrying nearly 2,000 people,
including Britains,
Canadians, and Americans.
On the 7th of May, as the boat
skirted the south coast of Ireland,
it was struck by a German
torpedo and sank rapidly.
With the loss of nearly
1200 civilian lives.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: An
estimated 360 Canadians or more
than a quarter of the
total casualties were lost
in the sinking of the Lusitania.
Many were wives and children of
British-Canadian soldiers training
in England who looked
forward to renewing ties
with extended families
still in Britain.
Other Canadian travelers
on the Lusitania were British
citizens living in Canada hoping
to enlist in the British
army once they returned
to their country of origin.
Immediately the Lusitania
became a rallying cry
for the Canadian war effort.
>> Christina Bashford: Most of
those who drowned were from Britain.
Where the atmosphere in the days
following the atrocity was one
of deep shock.
Several of the dead were
considerably wealthy.
The ship being famed for
its opulent accommodations.
And many of the fatalities
were women and children
who had not been helped off
first as was the traditional code
of conduct in maritime emergencies.
Worst of all, most of the children
drowned, a shocking 91 out of 124.
This figure included all six
children of Paul Crompton.
A successful British businessman
who had been living and working
in the U.S. and was
relocating his family to London.
I tell you this because the
Crompton's are connected with one
of the most poignant musical
responses to the tragedy.
A short piece by the English
composer Frank Bridge.
His Lament for String Orchestra.
Written in June in 1915 in memory
of Crompton's 9-year-old daughter,
Katherine, a well-loved
child friend.
The Lament was performed at a
major London concert in September.
But it attracted little
public attention.
It's expression of
sorrow being out of sync
with the more upbeat
mood of patriotism.
Actually, the reporting
of the Cromptons' deaths
in the British press was
fairly restrained, too.
Compared to coverage
in American papers,
which emphasized the tragic loss
of an entire family including
a baby and its nanny.
This poignant photograph
from a Philadelphia newspaper was
republished widely in the states.
The piece itself is a
little gem of lamentation.
With downward chromatic emotion and
accented sighs in the violins melody
that emulate the pained human voice.
As we listen, you may feel that
the rocking meter evokes the sea
and the residence of the deep base
line conjures up the ocean's depth.
Kevin Sultan has noted that
the swaying motion seems
to suggest a lullaby.
We might further position this piece
in the cross-cultural tradition
of what has been termed
the lullament.
Music of mourning that
integrates elements of lullaby.
In fact, that's highly
appropriate for a work
that commemorated the
death of a child and one
that could symbolize
the children of all ages
and nationalities who
drowned that day.
Moreover, with its
Anglo-American subject matter
and its public performance
by a large string assemble,
the Lament seems with hindsight
a British gesture of solidarity
and grief with North America.
[ Music ]
>> William Brooks: The United
States lost fewer people
on the Lusitania than did Britain.
But the shock was far greater.
The country had imagined
itself safe,
protected by distance
and by neutrality.
Now clearly it was vulnerable.
The war had come home, and
death had touched the country.
Tin Pan Alley reacted
with two songs published
within two weeks of the tragedy.
But neither of these attained
the status of a true memorial
or expression of the
country's grief.
That task was undertaken
by Charles Ives.
Who composed an orchestral work,
From Hannover Square North,
at the end of a tragic day the
voice of the people again arose
in the months that followed.
The piece is an impression
of an incident
that Ives witnessed
the day the news broke.
And his description is remarkable.
>> Justin Vickers: Leaving the
office, I took the Third Avenue L
at Hannover Square Station.
As I came on the platform
there was quite a crowd waiting
for the trains.
And a hand organ where Hurdy Gurdy
was playing in the 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 joined in the chorus.
And the next pan the Wall
Street Banker joined in.
And finally, it seemed to me that
everyone was singling this tune.
And they didn't seem
to be singing in fun.
But as a natural sound
of what they're feeling
as they [inaudible] all day long.
[ Music ]
>> William Brooks: Ives
perfectly captured the crisis.
Not merely of war and peace but
of the country's very identity.
He reacted as a Wilsonian
idealist with a faith
that all factions would come
together, workmen and banker,
rich and poor, immigrants
and native born.
But events would overtake him.
After the Lusitania, Wilson moved
very carefully, squeezed as he was
between militants like
Theodore Roosevelt and advocates
of neutrality which included the
majority of Congress and the nation.
His primary policy was preparedness.
The nation would get
ready for war but seek
to avoid it, if at all possible.
This campaign also
had musical results.
But the great consequence was
that Wilson managed to squeak
through the 1916 election by
promoting himself as the man
who kept the country out of war.
In 1917, however, things
quickly turned ugly.
At the beginning of February,
Germany announced it was resuming
unrestricted submarine warfare.
And in March, the so-called
Zimmerman telegram was made public,
in which Germany proposed
an alliance
with Mexico suggesting
another border war
to keep the United
States busy at home.
American sentiment shifted
overwhelmingly to the Allies
and on April 6, 1917 the United
States officially entered the war.
There followed a great
up swell of patriotism.
Manifested musically in
George M. Cohan's Over There,
allegedly written in a couple of
hours the day after the U.S. entry.
We see it here in a later edition
with a famous cover
created by Norman Rockwell.
But Over There was a
harbinger of times to come,
in that it was popularized as much
by recordings as by sheet music.
First off the mark was
the American quartet.
Followed a week later by Nora Bayes,
who was pictured on an early cover.
But the most remarkable recording
was made by legendary tenor
and Enrico Caruso who recorded
two verses in two languages.
This disc of a song written
by an Irish-American,
recorded by an Italian
singing in English
and in French was hugely
successful in the United States,
Britain, Canada, and Australia.
There was no better musical instance
of the alliance that
had been formed.
[ Music ]
>> Christina Bashford: As early as
1915, the popular music industry
in Britain moved beyond its
patriotic role as a recruiter of men
to buoy up spirits both at
home and further afield.
Publishers mailed sheet
music to troops stations
or training camps where, with
the aid of an upright piano
that had been commandeered
locally and a willing pianist,
soldiers' morale could be maintained
and boredom averted through song.
Men who had brought instruments
from home, a cornet, a violin,
a banjo, might join in, too.
Phonograph companies likewise
supplied free recordings
of wartime hits.
And entertainers were
ushered off to Flanders
to help keep up soldiers' spirits.
Some of the performers were
well known musical personalities
such as the singer Harry Lauder
celebrated for his comic routines
and performance of
stereotypical Scottishness.
Also, important to the story is Lena
Ashwell, a key figure in setting
up entertainments for the troops.
Already famed as a
Shakespearean actor and a supporter
of women's rights, she campaigned
strongly during the wars early
months for the creation
of touring programs.
She raised considerable
sums of money to fund them.
And she also got the YMCA involved.
Promoting and improving
diet of accessible items
of classical music alongside
recitations and group singing.
Most of these concert
parties, as they were known,
performed well back
behind the lines.
And they, no doubt, provided relief
for soldiers who had been there
for weeks without a break.
But when the momen
[assumed spelling] moved
up to the trenches life
was very different.
As was any music making.
Instruments were few.
One British private recanted.
>> Jeffrey Dukes: There'd
be times when you would sit
around on the firestop, the
lads would talk and sing.
We had one chap who was
a very, very good singer.
And he used to indulge in his
singing and lead us in the choruses.
And he was always inclined
to get a bit sentimental.
We had to shut him up
for obvious reasons
as we couldn't stand
too much of that.
>> Christina Bashford: With
sentimentality to be avoided,
clever parodies of popular
songs proved much more the norm.
It's a Long Way to Tipperary
famously became It's the Wrong Way
to Tickle Mary.
Yet most soldier songs
were far more graphic.
The book of Tommy's Tunes compiled
by Frederick Thomas Nettleingham
and published in 1917
gives many glimpses
of the psychological reality
of being on active service.
Numbers such as I Don't
Want to Be a Soldier,
or I Want to Go Home are
complemented by others
that are glossed with
sarcasm or biting satire.
Church of England hymns became
especially favorite targets
for parody.
An apt means of attacking
the establishment credo
but wartime sacrifice was
all for God and country.
[ Music ]
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee:
Canadian troops struggled
to keep up morale, too.
And began creating their own
concert parties on the front lines.
The most famous comedy troop was
The Dumbells formed in mid-1917
from active duty soldiers
in the CEFs third division.
A typical Dumbell variety
show featured wartime hits
such as It's a Long Way to Tipperary
alongside send ups of military life.
After the war, the
Dumbells would find fame
in London's West End
and on Broadway.
Other Canadian entertainers included
Nova Scotia born Lieutenant Gitz
Rice who performed as singer
and pianist in concert parties,
in addition to his
duties as a soldier.
Rice's musical training
at the McGill Conservatory
in Montreal along with his
firsthand military experience
as a gunnery officer inspired
his work as a songwriter.
Rice's songs achieved
widespread fame in Canada
and the United States, especially
after the American
entry into the war.
His most successful song
was Dear Old Pal of Mine.
Which he wrote while on duty
in Ypres and which became a hit
in sheet music and recordings.
During the Battle of Vimy Ridge
on April 9 through 12, 1917,
Rice was gassed along with
thousands of Canadian soldiers.
He was discharged from
the CEF and worked
in Vaudeville through the 1920s.
He died at age 56 in 1947 of
complications from bronchial asthma
and long-term damage to his lungs.
>> William Brooks: In the United
States enlisted vaudevillians
and musicians produced
entertainments both
at home and abroad.
Possibly the most famous musical
soldier was Irving Berlin,
whose score and performance in
Yip, Yip Yaphank was seen first
in a New Jersey training
camp in summer 1918.
And then before and after
the armistice on Broadway.
Nearer to the action,
though, was Elsie Janis.
A vaudeville star who not
only entertained the troops
but incorporated ex-soldiers into
her review Elsie Janis and Her Gang,
which ran for over three
years in various venues.
In Europe, however, the unexpected
musical stars were African-American
soldiers and ensembles.
Most famously, James Reese
Europe's Hellfighters Band.
Like Francophones in Canadian
and the Irish in Britain,
African-Americans would take a
large step on the road to acceptance
and respect during the Great War.
Although initially Wilson's
administration avoided recruiting
African-Americans, and although
African-American regimens never
served under American officers,
their troops fought with the French
and compiled a remarkable
record of service and valor.
James Reese Europe had enlisted
in the National Guard even
before the American entry
on September 18, 1916.
He assembled a band of
remarkable musicians
and the music they made caused
a sensation when they appeared
in France on New Year's Day 1918.
The stylistic innovations that he
and other African-Americans produced
would transform popular music
in the post war decade in
America as well as France.
Gone was Ragtime.
In its place, Jazz.
Gone were mournful ballads.
In their place the Blues.
Even more importantly,
gone were coon songs
and the most despicable
of racial stereotypes.
In their place arose the
beginnings of dignity
and honor for people of color.
>> Christina Bashford: By the
time the U.S. entered the war,
Britain was fully operating
under wartime conditions.
Right from the start, the
government had taken control
of its citizens lives,
mobilizing a mass male army,
initially through volunteers,
and from 1916 by conscription.
Along side came a reconfiguration
of Britain's industrial economy.
As women took jobs in factories
or worked with munitions,
communication, farming, nursing,
and other war effort duties.
Encouraged by national advertising
and the temporary dissolving
of gender stereotypes.
In the musical world the empty
chairs in orchestras created
as men went to war were
temporarily taken over by women
who had long been denied such
professional opportunity.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: In Canada
government censorship controlled the
publication and distribution
of sheet music.
Authorized songs reflected the
official narrative of progress
from colony to nation and to a
unified anglophone Canadian culture
loyal to British rule.
These songs served to
recruit the army's volunteers
and to build popular
support for the war at home.
Criticism of the war and realistic
representations of suffering
by Canadian soldiers
were not allowed,
at least during the first
few years of the conflict.
And official reports of the
war were relentlessly positive.
On the home front, families were
encouraged to write cheerful letters
to soldiers in training
and on the front lines.
For their part, soldiers
tried to make light of life
in the trenches in letters home.
Even as their private journals
expressed the harsh reality
of the western front.
These documents reflect
a personalization
of public discourse
concerning the war effort.
A denial of the horrors of war in
all but the most private spaces.
>> William Brooks: June 6, 1916.
Dear Mother, you have probably
received my card telling you
that I was wounded.
It's happily nothing very serious.
And I think that I will
be cured in a week.
Andre.
>> Justin Vickers: July 20, 1917.
My Dear Parents, I am writing
to you from a little paradise
where we are resting after
a stint in the trenches.
Our camp is set up in a
field completely surrounded
by a beautiful forest
in the French style.
Hardly touched by the bombardments.
It is so restful to be in a
normal corner of the country.
Phillipe.
>> Laurie Matheson: August 29, 1918.
My Dear Boys, We will read a few
short verses from the big Bible
and pray for the victory that may
follow the uninterrupted march
that we have just read about.
And we also pray for the European
families that we love so much.
And especially for our soldiers.
We are presuming that the Canadian
advance is giving the topographers
so much work that Andre
finds it impossible to write.
Mother.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: Privately
soldiers recorded a different
version of their experiences.
>> William Brooks:
December 16, 2916.
We had quite a night
of it in the barn.
It was cold and the rates
danced over us all night.
April 12, 1917.
Mud up to our thighs.
I've had no sleep whatsoever.
October 31,1917.
I shall ever remember
the Hell we went through.
The United States entered the war
with a great show of
collective resolve.
But the country quickly
began to divide.
On the one hand, there were great
national campaigns for support.
Manifested especially by promoting
a series of Liberty Loans support
for which transcended
class and region.
These were boosted by
promotional music written not only
by Tin Pan Alley but by locals
like Earl Threlkeld of Charleston,
Illinois, whose Buy a Bond was
adopted as an official song
of the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign.
Publications like this produced by
people living in small communities
and motivated in large
part by patriotism
or civic duty played a large
part in home front displays
of support for the troops.
Such support was actively
promoted by government agencies
like George Creel's committee
on public information
which produced posters, issues
press releases, and recruited a corp
of Four-Minute Men who boosted
morale at rallies and in theaters.
Creel's committee also sponsored
music in training camps run
by professional musicians and with
an approved uplifting repertoire.
But Creel's committee had
a darker side as well.
One that reflected a see
change in American culture.
The country was coming apart
despite the forced show of unity.
Americans began to view
each other with suspicion.
German-Americans, in particular,
were forced out of jobs
and isolated from wider communities.
Now, there were two
views about foreigners.
On the one hand, the United States
continued to think of itself
as a refuge, give me
your tired, the poor,
your huddled masses
yearning to be free.
But on the other, vigilante groups
sanctioned by the government began
to persecute immigrant
and ethnic minorities.
At times government interventions
constituted censorship,
pure and simple.
Just after the war was declared two
obscure songwriters in New Jersey,
Joseph Woodruff and E.J. Pourmon
self-published After the War is
Over Will There Be
any Home Sweet Home?
With disturbing lyrics and
an equally disturbing cover.
The song became locally popular and
later that year it was purchased
by the Joe Morris Music
Company, a major New York firm.
Morris reissued it, dressed up
with slightly softened lyrics
and its popularity continued.
But in spring 1918, the
song came to the attention
of the army's military intelligence
division and as reported
by author Rupert Hughes, Joe
Morris' patriotism was appealed to
and as a result he promptly
changed the words to others
of a more inspiring
and cheerful nature.
He also deleted the title tag
and replaced the cover image.
And in it's new upbeat version,
After the War is Over was printed
and reprinted to the end of the war.
Justin and Jeff will give
us both versions now.
First the original as
self-published in April 1917.
And then the more inspiring
and cheerful song
that the government imposed.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Christina Bashford: In and out
of the British trenches despite
the dankness and squalor,
verse of another sort came to life.
Some of it was written by amateurs
who made forays into poetry clinging
to religion or patriotism
as a means of coping
with their military assignments.
As with this one, later printed
privately for the soldier's family,
which you can see for
yourself on the screen.
But the most famous
of the soldier poets,
when they entered the military,
were already living lives
through the written word, teaching
English, publishing poetry, essays,
novels, working as
journalists, and so forth.
Today enshrined as the war poets,
this group includes Siegfried
Sassoon, Edward Thomas,
Rupert Brooke, Wilfred
Owen, and Isaac Rosenberg.
And their work vividly communicates
the mix of fear, routine,
and searing horror that they
experienced on the front line.
Again, you can see some
of it on the screens.
Musicians signed up to serve
their King and country, too.
Many of them were on the
threshold of significant careers.
Such as the young classical
composers George Butterworth,
Arthur Bliss, Cecil
Coles, and Iver Gurney.
All fought, some were killed.
The older Ralph Vaughn Williams
volunteered for the medical corp
and was deeply disturbed
by the experience.
In practical terms, writing music
in the trenches was much more
challenging than writing poetry.
In as much as it required
special paper and a certain amount
of silence if not a
piano within reach.
As a result, most war
pieces were composed
after the conflict had ended.
With a few exceptions.
Coles was working on an orchestral
suite entitled Behind the Lines
when he died.
He had sent its third movement
back to his friend and mentor
in England, Gustav Holts.
Then there was the
brilliant Iver Gurney
who was both poet and composer.
In France he produced poems as
well as a few songs settings.
Though he is experiences of war
would soon unravel through injuries
into serious mental collapse.
And he would write most of
his war induced art songs
in an asylum back in
post-war Britain.
Gurney's songs from
the front are imbued
with poignant pastoral yearnings
for his native Gloucester.
But there are also traces
of anger and revulsion
at what was happening around him.
His powerful setting of John
Masefield's By a Bierside,
written in a disused trench
mortar emplacement in August 1916
and a spell away from front line
duty puts the soldier's distress
center stage.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: Canada
had its own war poet as well.
An obscure physician from
the small town of Guelph.
In late April 1915, Canada's First
Division fought alongside French
and British troops at the
second battle of Ypres.
And as was reported in the British
and Canadian press, the untested
but tenacious Canadians
performed valiantly.
Despite the division
having more British veterans
than Canadian born soldiers,
the victory became part
of national lore almost
immediately with accolades
by British leadership praising the
"grand colonial type of manhood
that we now recognize as
the cream of the race."
Behind the public relations campaign
that emphasized glory and sacrifice,
the CEF suffered horrific losses.
Around a third of the divisions
18,000 men were killed,
wounded, or missing.
With many casualties resulting from
the war's first use of chlorine gas.
The battle inspired one
of the Canadian brigade's
physician's Lieutenant-Colonel John
McCrea to write the most famous
poem of the war, In Flanders Fields.
With McCrea's permission
the poem was used
to sell war bonds in
Canada and elsewhere.
It inspired the symbolism
of the poppy as a means
of keeping faith with
those who died.
Which remained central to memorial
efforts through the present day.
>> William Brooks: McCrea's
poem had an even greater impact
in the United States
than it did in Canada.
It first appeared in 1916 but it
wasn't until the following year
that it took hold with the public.
Reprinted in almost
every American newspaper,
the poem inspired nearly 70
settings between 1917 and 1922.
Composers ranged from a LaCrosse
housewife, Mrs. Percy Lloyd Cilley
to the internationally known
pianist Josef Hoffmann.
From Denver piano teacher Dolsey
Grossmyer [assumed spelling]
to Boston composer Arthur Foote.
Nearly all these settings
share one characteristic.
They are among the very best music
that their creators ever made.
The demographic breadth
of the composers
and the deep feelings they attempted
to express make the settings
collectively a final impassioned cry
from America's Progressives.
They are truly remarkable.
The first recorded performance was
in Vancouver on March 28, 1917.
Of a setting by John Deane Wells,
an expatriate Australian organist
that was published
separately in Canada, England,
and the United States and
went through four editions.
The second performance
was on April 15, 1917,
of a setting by Charles Ives.
It was not nearly so successful.
Sousa's setting probably was
heard most frequently simply
because his band played it on tour.
On April 14, 1918 Frederick Donaghey
noted in the Chicago Tribune
that four settings of In Flanders
Fields had been heard recently.
One by Sousa, two others
by the Chicagoans,
Susan Weare Hubbard,
and Alfred Hiles Bergen.
And the fourth by Frank E. Tours.
Tours was English by birth.
From a musical family, educated at
the Royal College of Music, London.
He conducted and wrote
operettas and musicals.
And in 1910 he came to the States.
For the next 15 years he was
active on both sides of the ocean.
But he became an American
citizen on October 2,1917.
And increasingly his
career was concentrated
in the U.S. His setting
is remarkable.
Very unlike his music for shows.
And it was taken up by John
McCormack who first performed it
at Carnegie Hall on
Easter Sunday, 1918.
We have then an Englishman's setting
of a Canadian's poem performed
by an Irishman in a
New York concert hall.
Again, a perfect example of the
musical alliance that was firmly
in place by the final
months of the war.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Christina Bashford:
The armistice,
signed in a French railway carriage
in the early hours of November 11,
1918 came into effect at
11 a.m. Paris local time.
And with it, an end to
the formal hostilities.
The negotiation as to the terms
of the peace were to follow.
In Britain the news spread rapidly.
But even on this day of
wide jubilation and relief,
death hovered in new guises.
The flu epidemic which was
to wipe out vast numbers
of the population world
wide had already taken hold
in Britain that spring.
It soon intensified
bringing more grief
to families in the months to come.
The disease often carried home from
the trenches by returning Tommys.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: The last
year of the war saw the introduction
of conscription in Canada.
Which resulted in violent
deadly riots within Quebec
as French-Canadian citizens
took to the streets.
The post war era witnessed a new
low in English-French relations
that would fuel separatist
sentiments
for the rest of the century.
Meanwhile, monuments to the
60,000 Canadian soldiers who died
in the conflict and
the more than 130,000
who were injured were erected
throughout Europe as symbols
of Canada's dedication
and sacrifice.
>> William Brooks: Wilson had argued
that the war would make the
world safe for democracy.
And in negotiating the
Treaty of Versailles.
And proposing a visionary League
of Nations as an instrument
to preserve peace, he attempted
to extend a Progressive political
agenda to the world as a whole.
But he suffered a stroke.
The Treaty and the League
went down to defeat.
And the Progressives
lost the 1920 election.
>> Christina Bashford: In the
1920s Britain attempted to reach
out to Europe with international
veteran's organizations,
economic alliances
and social action.
It had its place at the League of
Nations, which was up and running
without the United States.
Though it aimed to prevent future
world conflict the League was
to prove incapable of
stopping the aggressions
from Germany and Italy in the 1930s.
Meanwhile, anxiety about
the prospect of another war
against France remained
high in Britain.
And its relations with both Germany
and the U.S. were tended
to with care.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee: Canada
signed the Treaty of Versailles
as an independent sovereign nation.
And served as a founding member
of the League of Nations.
As one Canadian commentator
described it,
"The next great achievement of the
human society heralded by the League
of Nations in all its
ramifications is what I venture
to call nothing less
than the beginnings
of a new international
civilization."
>> William Brooks: The United
States was having none of this.
It refused to join
international organizations.
It sealed its borders.
And it severely limited immigration.
It removed many of the mechanisms
that had been put in place
to regulate the economy and to care
for the country's underclasses.
Racism, lynching, and
bigotry surged.
The rich got richer.
Nine years later an overheated,
underregulated economy
would plunge the country
into the Great Depression.
>> Christina Bashford: In 1930s
Britain, problems mounted.
Unemployment forged
to unheard of levels
as the U.S. crash impacted
the U.K. In India,
civil disobedience campaigns set off
alarms in the British government.
But the deepest consternation
arose from awareness
of what was happening in Germany.
Still sore at its treatment by the
terms of the Treaty of Versailles,
Germany and Hitler
was rearming itself
and expanding its territories.
British policy, which above all
else, sought to avoid the slaughter
of another war was
one of appeasement.
And it was popular with a fair
segment of the population.
In September 1938, the Conservative
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain,
along with the French Prime
Minister signed an agreement
with Hitler permitting
his recent invasion
of German speaking Czechoslovakia.
Chamberlain came home falsely
believing it guaranteed peace
for our time.
>> Gayle Sherwood Magee:
In 1931, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand became
independent nations with control
over their militaries through
the Statute of Westminster.
It made no difference.
In September 1939, when
Britain declared war
on Germany, Canada followed suit.
More than a million Canadian
fought in the second World War
and nearly 100,000
died or were wounded.
>> William Brooks: Charles
Ives saw most of this coming.
And he lived long enough to witness
the tragic sequel of World War II.
In the aftermath of
the 1920 election,
he wrote a bitter indictment
of the American retreat
from progressive thought
setting his own text to music.
His lyrics are a litany of
ills that resonate still today.
Money interfering with democracy,
an electorate led by headlines only,
politicians that distort the truth.
But at the end he reaffirms
his faith, Progressivism,
belief in the freedom
and dignity of all,
and a society that promotes
the welfare of all will return.
Ives was, eventually, proven right.
Progressivism did return.
And it will return again.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.