Music in WWII by Kathryn Gauci

 

Music has always had the power to move us in ways we find both sentimental and stirring. Throughout history, armies have gone into battle to the dramatic accompaniment of musicians, the sound meant to arouse the soldiers and put fear into the enemy. The bagpipes and beating drums at the  Battle of Culloden are one such example. Military bands during WWI also spring to mind, and when not on the battlefield, ballads - both patriotic and sentimental - were created to keep the glories of battle alive. The human voice too, has the power to stir us, e.g. the trilling sound known as Zaghareet, or Ululation, used by the Arabs and which dates back to the pre-Islamic era. In addition to the drumbeat, this ululation stimulated excitement on the battlefield.

WWII was no different, but unlike WWI, radio was the cheapest form of entertainment, and it was the most popular medium during those dark days. The accessibility and availability of radios meant they fueled propaganda and could reach a vast number of citizens. Radio helped entertain and inform the population, encouraging citizens to join in the war effort. German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, called the radio the “eighth great power”, noting the influence of radio in promoting the Third Reich, and approved a mandate in which millions of cheap radio sets were subsidized by the government and distributed to citizens. 

Britain’s wartime government created the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts in 1940 to promote musical activity on the home front, while the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) brought a range of concerts and live music to the troops at home and overseas. 

Petula Clarke sings for the BBC during WWII

The BBC quickly realised that listening to radio newscasts about the war was not enough and saw one of its main wartime missions as nurturing civilian morale, and “taking people away from thinking about the war”. Plus there were thousands of men and women working in civilian defense bases, such as anti-aircraft batteries, with many millions more working in factories. One woman’s diary entry for 9 April 1940, in the midst of the Norwegian campaign: read, “I felt so nervy and jumpy after tea – could not settle – I kept turning the wireless to see if there was a news bulletin anywhere in English – not German – and wondering if our sailors were winning in the reported sea battle.” In contrast, Adelaide Poole, a diarist in Sussex, avoided listening to the news at all, because she believed it was responsible for the premature death of her own sister in the United States.

Light entertainment, especially music, became extraordinarily powerful at motivating people and the programs soon expanded. Archives reveal how the BBC actively aided the resistance during the Second World War, partly by sending coded messages in music. However, because of the secrecy of the message in the music, things sometimes went wrong. “The studio engineers might look for a record, see a scratch, or they don't like it, or they think it's not the appropriate mood for the occasion — and they play a different recording”. This kind of thing meant if the wrong piece of music was played, then quite possibly the wrong bridge was blown up. Studio engineers were not privy to this secret information, and it was the job of BBC staffer, Alec Sutherland, who oversaw the program, therefore, to sit in the studio and to shout at them and say, "I don't care if you think there's a scratch on it or it's not very good. That is the track that has to be played."

                                                             Music While You Work

Music While You Work, a program specifically designed to relieve the monotony of production line working became very popular. Famous bands toured hundreds of factories, playing light music at 10.30am and 3pm - the times of day when workers' concentration dipped. A 10.30pm show was also put on for night shift workers. The program’s signature tune was, Eric Coates’ quick-march 'Calling All Workers': The BBC’s basic principles of Music While You Work, were that it should always offer music that was ‘unobtrusive’, ‘monotonous’, yet always ‘cheerful’ – and ignore ‘subtlety’ and ‘artistic value’.

As the war progressed and the V for Victory sign became common, the BBC used the first few bars of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony, as it had the same rhythm as the Morse for the letter ‘V’. The Nazis were enraged but in the end, recognizing that they couldn't win, adopted it as their own, putting a V on the Eiffel Tower, and renaming one of Prague's main thoroughfares Victoria Street. But what of other music? "Lili Marlene" became the most popular song of World War II with both German and British forces. Based on a German poem, the song was recorded in German, English, and Italian. Joseph Goebbels hated the song and promptly banned it, but it eventually made the airways, and by the time Rommel landed in North Africa, the song was being played over Radio Belgrade in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Because of its popularity, Rommel always began his broadcast with it. It became a hit. “Lili Marlene” was a poem set to music in 1938. The British Troops in the North Africa Campaign also started to enjoy the song; so much so that it was quickly translated into English. The song was used throughout the war as a propaganda tool. In German, Lale Anderson’s was the most favoured, while in English, there were versions by Vera Lynn and Anne Shelton, but it is mostly remembered now by Marlene Dietrich, who sang it in both English and German. It was also a hit in French and Italian.

When America entered the war, the U.S. Army began broadcasting from London during World using equipment and studio facilities borrowed from the BBC. Fearing competition for civilian audiences, the BBC initially tried to impose restrictions on AFN broadcasts within Britain. Nevertheless, AFN programs were widely enjoyed by the British civilian listeners who could receive them, and once AFN operations transferred to Europe (shortly after D-Day) AFN was able to broadcast with little restriction with programs available to civilian audiences across most of Europe, (including Britain), after dark.

As D-Day approached, the network joined with the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to develop programs, especially for the Allied Expeditionary Forces. Mobile stations, complete with personnel, broadcasting equipment, and a record library, were deployed to broadcast music and news to troops in the field. During the dark days and nights on the home front and abroad, songs from both sides of the Atlantic encouraged people onto the dance floor and lifted spirits. It was songs like the following that kept people going.

                                                                    

Vera Lynn

Great Britain

"The White Cliffs of Dover" was recorded in 1941 by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra, but it was Vera Lynn’s 1942 recording that captured the hearts of listeners. 

"We’ll Meet Again" (1939) Vera Lynn

“There'll Always Be An England” Vera Lynn.

 "Run, Rabbit, Run" (1939) Flanagan and Allen

"Everything Stops For Tea" (1935) Jack Buchanan  

 ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ was recorded by several artists including Kitty Carlisle and Jerry Wayne.

"We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" (1939) It was recorded often during WW2, with notable recordings by Flanagan & Allen, Arthur Askey, and Vera Lynn.

‘When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)’ (1943) Vaughan Monroe & His Orchestra: Vera Lynn

"Lili Marlene" Vera Lynn

While the was plenty of Elgar and Vaughn Williams, the BBC played down the music favoured by the enemy and did play Beethoven, Mozart, some Richard Strauss, Italian Operas, Sibelius’ Finlandia, and even Wagner.

Glenn Miller

United States                                                                                                                                        

“God Bless America” was the first patriotic war song of WWII in the U.S. Written by Irving Berlin for a WWI wartime revue, it was withheld and later revised and used in WWII. 

 "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" by Glenn Miller and "Arms for the Love of America", written by Irving Berlin in 1941.

‘As Time Goes By’ (1931) made famous over a decade later by the film Casablanca (1942). Rudi Vallee’s version remained the most popular

“What a Diff'rence a Day Made" - Andy Russell with Paul Weston & His Orchestra (1944)

"When The Lights Go On Again
 (All Over The World)" - Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra (1943)

You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To - Composer: Cole Porter - From the musical Something to Shout About – (1943)

"Yours" - Jimmy Dorsey & His Orchestra

‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ (1941) The Andrews Sisters

‘In the Mood’ (1930/38) Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.

"Don't Fence Me In" - Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters

"Don't Get Around Much Anymore” (Never No Lament)" - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra

"Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree” (With Anyone Else But Me)" - Composer: Lew Brown, Sam H. Stept, and Charlie Tobias (1942)

"Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" - Composer: Cole Porter - From the musical Seven Lively Arts (1944)

"Lili Marlene"  Hildegarde

                                                                           

Rina Ketty

France

Being under Occupation, France also had its Resistance songs such as the Marseillaise and The Song of the Partisans, and the most popular songs were also sung in German, English, and Italian.

“J'attendrai” ("I will wait") Recorded by Rina Ketty in 1938, became the big French song during World War II. It is a French version of the Italian song Tornerai (“You Will Return”) The German version was equally as popular.

“Nuages” Django Reinhardt

“J'ai chanté sur ma peine” Lucienne Delyle

“La Romance de Paris” Charles Trenet 

“Seule ce soir” Leo Marjane

“Où sont-ils mes petits copains?” Edith Piaf

“Ca set ci bon” Maurice Chevalier

“Lili Marlene” Suzi Solidor

 “Dans le chemin du retour” Raymond Legrand et son Orchestre – Irène Trèbert

French composer, Olivier Messiaen, wrote his ‘Quatuor pour la fin du temps’ (Quartet for the End of Time) when he was a prisoner of war in a German camp in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered WWII and was captured shortly after by German forces. He was imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany (now Zgorzelec, Poland). The powerful piece of chamber music was premiered by Messiaen’s fellow prisoners in the camp – on ruined instruments. Messiaen later said of the performance: “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension”

                                                                            

                                                                     

Italian Partisans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyh_OVeQZH0

Italy

WWII produced many songs of propaganda suitable for radio broadcasts, and like other countries, it was Lili Marlene that made a big impression. However, in Italy, it was primarily the Resistance that originated a vast songbook opposing the regime.

 “Bella Ciao” A mixture of peasant folklore, artisan tradition, popular songs, and urban ballads, would survive in the golden age of protest songs along with the vast Alpine song repertoire.

“Lilli Marlene”  Orchestra della Canzone A. Angelini Lina Termini

“Caro papa”· Jone Cacciagli con Orchestra di Carlo Zeme

“Sole d'Italia” Francesco Albanese e coro

“Ninna nanna grigioverde” Gianna Pederzini

 

                                                                         

Rosita Serrano

Germany

There were songs written specifically for the Nazi Party, and much older German patriotic songs from before WWI that have become associated with them.  Das Lied der Deutschen ("The Song of the Germans") is one of them. It was written in 1841 and became the national anthem of the Weimar Republic in 1922. During the Nazi era, only the first stanza was used, followed by the SA song "Horst-Wessel-Lied".  Many of the Nazi Songs were marches and are banned in Germany today.

“Deutschland Erwache” also known by its original name, Heil Hitler Dir ("Hail Hitler to Thee"), otherwise known as Sachsenmarsch der NSDAP, was written by NSDAP member Bruno C. Schestak and premiered in the celebrations of Hitler's 48th birthday on 20 April 1937.

“Erika”  is A marching song used by the German military. It was composed by Herms Niel in the 1930s and soon came into usage by the Wehrmacht. No other marching song during WWII reached the popularity of Erika.

“Komm Zuruck” Rudi Schuricke

“Hm hm, Du bist so zauberhaft” Rudi Schuricke & Hans Carste and his Orchestra.

“Einmal wirst Du wieder bei mir sein” Rudi Schuricke 

“Bei Dir war es immer so schön” Rosita Serrano 

“Schön ist die Welt” Hans Carste and his Orchestra.

“Vim Schlager” Lotte Werkmeister.

“Ich tanz’ Fräulein Dolly Swing”- Fritz Weber & his Dance Orchestra.

“Jawohl, meine Herrn” Die Goldene Sieben.

"Lili Marlene" Lale Anderson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIc9kddJT6M

Goebbels commissioned a swing band called "Charlie and His Orchestra" which existed for supplying propaganda to British and American troops over the radio. Popular tunes were sung in English with Nazi propaganda. Winston Churchill particularly loved listening to their songs.

                      

German mother with her children listening to a Volksempfanger receiver

Classical music: According to Hitler and Goebbels, the three master composers that represented good German music were Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, and Anton Bruckner. Jewish classical composers including Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn, Arnold Schoenberg, George Gershwin, and Claude Debussy (because he had a Jewish wife), were banned. The only exception was a non-Jewish person who demonstrated a "genius" for music and was a member of the Reich Music Chamber. This allowed conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and composer Richard Strauss to continue working.

Adolf Hitler (front row on aisle) listens as Wagnerian conductor, Dr. C. Muck, leads the Leipzig Orchestra.

                                            

Mark Bernes perform "Dark is the Night" in 1943     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjmmxX5U2VM     

The Soviet Union

With so many millions lost, and others fighting, the Soviet Union was a powerhouse when it came to rousing Patriotic songs such as “The Sacred War”. On the other hand, “Dark is the Night”, a song from the wartime movie "Two Fighters", filmed in 1943, during the hardest battles of WW2, is a love song; a window into the soul of a Soviet soldier that resonates with sadness and longing. In classical music, Hitler’s attack on Russia in 1941 inspired one of Shostakovich’s greatest works, his Leningrad’ Symphony No. 7. The composer dedicated his work to the city of Leningrad in 1941, and the Leningrad premiere of the piece took place while the city was still under siege by Nazi forces.

                                                                 

Władysław Szpilman

Poland

As the Germans bombed Warsaw in September 1039, the last radio broadcast was a piano nocturne played by Władysław Szpilman (of the film, The Pianist). Like most of the arts in Poland, music, including orchestras, went underground, and important Polish musicians and directors performed in restaurants, cafes, and private homes, with the most daring singing patriotic ballads on the streets while evading German patrols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9oQEa-d5rU

Patriotic songs were written, such as “Siekiera, motyka”, the most popular song of occupied Warsaw. Jewish musicians ended up performing in ghettos and even in concentration camps. Polish tangos were extremely popular leading up to the outbreak of the war, with many of them, written in Yiddish and Hebrew. One of the most popular “Old Polish Tango in Polish and Hebrew” was written by Władysław Lidauer, who died in the Warsaw ghetto. Adam Aston under the name of Ben Lewi recorded it in Hebrew in the 30s. During WWII, this record found its way to Tel Aviv. “Play Fiddler, Play” is another by Lidauer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEL0RL_bBkw

                                                                            

Sofia Vembo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8JzuSXs0GU

Greece

At first, Greece had to contend with the Italians and won. Unfortunately, The Germans came to their aid. Therefore many Greek songs are directed at either the Italians or both. Important musicians at the time wrote wonderful songs. Sofia Vembo, known as the “Songstress of Victory, and a great singer of love songs during the ’30s and 40s, sang songs that rallied the soul of the Greek people.

“Children of Greece, Children,” by Sofia Vembo, was written after the Italian attack on Greece, on 28. October 1940. This famous song encouraged the Greek soldiers during the Greek-Italian Wars.

“The Song of Freedom” Sofia Vembo

“How I’m sorry” Sofia Vembo

“I love you and I like the life” Sofia Vembo

“Mussolini, allaksa gnomi” (Mussolini, I Changed My Mind) Markos Vamvakaris

“An fygoume ston polemo” (If we go to war) Markos Vamvakaris

‘I’m not afraid of the Centaurs” Bagianderas.

 

A Fine Song of Love - Katherine Langrish

The past is a different country which requires a great deal of research and imaginative effort to recreate in its multilayered richness of sights, sounds, smells, textures and tastes. Visiting the  Chiltern Open Air Museum a few years ago I found myself shouting to be heard over the almost unbearable thunder of iron-rimmed cartwheels rolling over cobbles. I’d had no idea carts were so loud – and that was one single, large, four-wheeled wagon pulled by a single horse. Imagine the din around the warehouses of London Docks in the 1880s! 

Music goes beyond natural sound, though. Music is a cultural construct full of meaning; it reflects, interprets, and to a large extent creates the manners and desires of its own time. It's natural to refer to music as we construct history. Swingtime, jazz, rock and roll, punk, reggae, hip-hop – all tell something about the decades in which they flourish. Impossible to imagine the sixties without the Beatles or the Kinks. The same must be true for the deeper past. I once thrilled to a British Museum reconstruction of a Roman trumpet call, and what about the prehistoric bone flutes that were played in caves like Lascaux?

My children’s novel DarkAngels (HarperCollins) is set on the Welsh borders in the 1190s, and features a flawed heroic figure, Hugo of La Motte Rouge, Norman warlord and ex-crusader who believes his dead wife may – just may – not be dead after all, even though seven years have passed since he buried her. She may have been spirited away by the elf-folk and taken into the tunnels under the hill. In which case, there may be a chance he could rescue her.

There are a quite a few 12^th century legends on this mysterious subject, the idea of lost lovers re-encountered in some fairy land of the dead. Walter Map, a courtier at the court of Henry II, tells the story of a Breton knight who rescued his dead-and-buried wife when, months later, he saw her whirling in a fairy dance. And the retelling of the Orpheus myth, Sir Orfeo, probably also ultimately dates from this time, from a Breton lai subsequently translated into Middle English.

So there I was with the idea that my knight Lord Hugo would be a sort of Orpheus figure. Therefore he needed to be musical. Now the Breton lais are lengthy stories in verse; they were performed by minstrels who probably chanted them with a musical prelude and interludes. And of course the 12^th and 13th centuries were also the time of the troubadours of southern France, whose songs were primarily songs of fin’ amour – of romantic love in high society.

Garden of Pleasure, Harley 4425, 15th C.

It’s been suggested that the notion, even the emotion of romantic love was created by the troubadours, a product of the hot-house needs of often very young noblemen and noblewomen living with nothing much to do in close proximity in small castles, spending time together every day, yet with sex strictly off-limits - marriage being a formal matter of property and alliances arranged by their elders. So this new music arose, a music of youth, full of expressions of forbidden desire: subversive, exciting, dangerous and fashionable.

Many troubadours were high-born men and women, whose songs would usually be performed by a joglar or jongleur, a professional singer. Still, it seemed to me quite possible that my own Lord Hugo might on occasion be prevailed upon to sing his own songs – especially if he thought that doing so might help win back his wife from the dead land.   

So now I needed to listen to troubadour songs. Here's one anonymous 13th century song, performed by Conjunto de Camara de Porto Alegre. They don't sing it all: as you can see, below, it's quite long. I made a free translation to get myself in the mood for writing songs for Lord Hugo.

Volez vous que je vous chante             Would you like me to sing you

Un son d’amours avenant?                 A fine song of love?                          

Vilain nel fist mie,                                By no peasant it was made,               

Ainz le fist un chevalier                       But a gentle knight who lay

Sous l’ombre d’un olivier                    With his sweetheart in his arms

Entre les bras s’amie.                          In an olive tree’s shade.

Chemisete avoit de lin                         She wore a linen chemise,

Et blanc peliçon hermin                      A pelisse of white ermine –

Et bliaut de soie                                   Of silk was her dress,

Chauces ot de jaglolai                         Her stockings were of iris leaves

Et solers de flours de mai                    And slippers of mayflowers

Estroitement chauçade                        Her feet to caress.

Ceinturete avoit de feuille                    Her girdle was of leaves

Que verdist quant li tens meuille,        Which grow green when it rains,

D’or est boutonade                             Her buttons of gold so fine,

L’aumosniere estoit d’amour              Her purse was a gift of love

Li pendant furent de flours                  And it hung from flowery chains

Par amours fu donade.                       As it were a lovers’ shrine.

Et chevauchoit une mule                     And she rode on a mule,

D’argent ert la ferruere                       The saddle was of gold,

La sele ert dorade;                              All silver were its shoes;

Sus la croupe par derriers                   On the crupper behind

Avoit plante trois rosiers                     To provide her with shade

Pour faire li ombrage.                         Three rose-bushes grew.

Si s’en va aval la pree                         As she passed through the fields

Chevaliers l’ont encontree                  She met gentle knights

Beau l’on saluade:                              Who demanded courteously:

“Belle, dont estes vous nee?”             “Fair one, where were you born?”

“De France sui la louee,                     “From France am I come.

De plus haut parage.”                        And of high family.”

“Li rossignol est mon pere                  “The nightingale is my father

Qui chant sor la ramee                       Who sings from the branches

El plus haut boscage.                          Of the forest’s highest tree.

La seraine est mon mere                     The mermaid is my mother

Qui chante en la mer sale                   Who sings her sweet notes

Li plus haut rivage.”                           On the banks of the salt sea.”

“Belle, bon fussiez vous nee!               “Fair one, well were you born!          

Bien estes emparentee                         Well fathered, well mothered

Et de haut parage.                               And of high family.

Pleüst á Dieu nostre pere                    Might God only grant

Que vous ne fussiez donee                   That you should be given

A femme esposade.”                           In marriage to me!”

Could a song be more sensual, the object of desire more dangerous? The lady in this chanson is a headily-erotic blend of wildwood flowers, songs and the fairy world; that purse which hangs from her girdle on flowery chains ‘like a lover’s shrine’ is certainly a metaphor Freud would have recognised. No wonder the young knights acknowledge her ‘high degree’ and long for her hand in marriage. It’s enough to turn their parents’ hair grey.  

Lady out riding, 16th C, by Gerard Horenbout

Troubadour songs often use images such as the coming of the green leaves in spring, and the song of the nightingale, to express the pain and delight and longing of love. Here’s Guillem de Peiteus, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine, comparing love to a hawthorn bough:

As for our love, you must know how

Love goes – it’s like the hawthorn bough

That on the living tree stands, shaking

All night beneath the freezing rain

Till next day, when the warm sun, waking,

Spreads through green leaves and boughs again.

(Tr. W. D. Snodgrass.)

In the end I wrote this for Hugo to sing of his love:

When all the spring is bursting and blossoming,

And the hedge is white with blossom like a breaking wave,

That’s when my heart is bursting with love-longing

For the girl who pierced it, for that sweet wound she gave.

And I hear the nightingale singing in the forest –

Singing for love in the forest: “Come to me, I am alone…

Better to suffer love’s pain for a single kiss

Than live for a hundred years with a heart of stone.”

It’s Hugo’s love and pain that drives the plot of Dark Angels and I really needed the plangent, beautiful music of the 13^th century to get it right.