Pieces/songs written by musicians who witness war, etc?

January 17, 2005 7:32 PM

Haydn wrote "Mass in Time of War" as Napoleon was advancing on Vienna; Shostakovich wrote his seventh symphony during the siege of Leningrad. I'm looking for other pieces/songs written by musicians living under conditions of war - under siege, in the thick of battle, or in similar dire straits.

Google turned up this essay, but that's all I've been able to find. Oh, and music written by folks on the home front during wartime doesn't count; there's tons of that, I know.

posted by mediareport to Media & Arts (23 answers total)

Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time is amazing and comes immediately to mind.
posted by josh at 7:50 PM on January 17, 2005

Also apparently in a Napoleon/Vienna context, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 26, Op. 81a, the "Lebewohl." From half-remembered liner notes; see what you can find.
posted by mcwetboy at 7:51 PM on January 17, 2005

"Mars" from Holst's "The Planets."
posted by mds35 at 8:08 PM on January 17, 2005

I suppose "The Star-Spangled Banner" is too easy?
posted by goatdog at 8:12 PM on January 17, 2005

In Dire Straits, you say?

Sorry, it had to be done.
posted by nervestaple at 8:13 PM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: mds35, "The Planets" was begun in 1913, with Holst living in England; this page says he sketched "Mars" just before WWI began. Again, I'm looking for stuff written by folks in battle, under siege, or in similar situations of immediate threat. The question came out of a discussion of the Minutemen line, "If we heard mortar shells/we'd curse more in our songs/and cut down on guitar solos," so non-classical music is welcome, too.
posted by mediareport at 8:22 PM on January 17, 2005

Well, they say the American National Anthem was written during a bombardment (words only).

And Django Reinhardt recorded "Nuages" during the occupation of France, though I don't know how dire his particular straits were.
posted by kenko at 8:26 PM on January 17, 2005

Um, yeah, kenko. It's called "The Star-Spangled Banner."
posted by goatdog at 8:50 PM on January 17, 2005

You've already mentioned Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, but his Eighth and Ninth were heavily influenced by WWII as well. The Eighth, in particular, is a phenomenonal piece — the musical equivalent of "Guernica". I always feel like I've been hit by a truck after listening to it, albeit in the best possible way.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:03 PM on January 17, 2005

"Phenomenonal"? Must be past my bedtime.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:07 PM on January 17, 2005

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture dramatizes Napoleon's invasion of Russia (you can hear parts of "La Marseillaise" as the French army advances).
posted by kirkaracha at 10:16 PM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: But it was written in 1880, kirkaracha, and not by someone in battle, under siege, etc. It would be easy to generate a "songs about war" list on my own.
posted by mediareport at 10:28 PM on January 17, 2005

Don't know if this counts, but Paul Hindemith wrote one of the great works of the twentieth century, the Mathis der Maler Symphony, while being pushed out of Germany by the Nazis. In fact, its controversial political theme (which may perhaps be formulated as: "how should an artist react to political turmoil and great tragedy around him?") forced him to finally flee to the United States. I think that's as good an example of what you're thinking of that I can think of in the last century.

(If you weren't limiting me to just music, of course, and were allowing films, I would suggest all of the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, and especially Andrei Rublev and The Sacrifice, as meditations on the torture of living in the Soviet Union. But that's sort of off-topic.)
posted by koeselitz at 10:36 PM on January 17, 2005

The English poet & composer Ivor Gurney apparently wrote some songs while in the trenches. Also from WWI, the music of Cecil Coles. From WWII: this article mentions at least one symphony composed during the London Blitz.
posted by misteraitch at 5:50 AM on January 18, 2005

...and Viktor Ullman wrote a string quartet, songs, three piano sonatas and an opera entitled Der Kaiser von Atlantis while in the Terezin concentration camp. See also Music of the Ghettoes and Camps.
posted by misteraitch at 6:17 AM on January 18, 2005

I believe Debussy's Piano Etudes, blanc et noir, and some of his sonatas were written while Paris was under German control.
posted by mosch at 12:27 PM on January 18, 2005

Actually, it seems I was a bit wrong. Debussy died during a German bombardment of Paris in 1918, and wrote while the French were at war. My knowledge of World War I history is weak.
posted by mosch at 12:29 PM on January 18, 2005

British composer Ralph Vaughn Williams wrote the beautiful and very powerful "Dona Nobis Pacem" (i.e. "Give Us Peace") in the late 1930's during the looming threat of war from Germany and Italy. He had served in WWI and knew how awful war could be. The piece uses poetry from Walt Whitman, written about Whitman's service in the American Civil War, as well as biblical passages. It also quotes from a speech given by a Quaker minister about the Crimean War. I sang the piece in high school glee club, and the "Is there no balm in Gilead...?" part always made my hair stand on end.

So, no, he wasn't exactly under bombardment yet when he wrote the piece, but he knew that war and bombardment would be all but inevitable several months later. He also finished his Fifth Symphony around 1942, and so presumably wrote at least some of that piece during the Battle of Britain, though the topic of that piece seems to be more about Buddhism (!) than specific anti-war sentiment. (On second thought, re-reading that, I guess maybe there's a connection after all.)

Aaron Copland wrote "Fanfare for the Common Man" during 1942-43, in honor of the American G.I.'s. Again, not directly under bombardment at the time, but still...

Also, if you want to deal with pop culture, there are lots of WWII-era popular songs that would fit the bill, from "White Cliffs of Dover" to "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" to "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", written by people whose countries were at war (or, in Britain's case, also under bombardment).

Er, and not to veer too far off topic, but part of the Lord of the Rings was written or at least heavily sketched out while Tolkein and his boyhood friends were actually in the trenches of WWI.
posted by Asparagirl at 12:52 PM on January 18, 2005

That should be Tolkien, sorry.
posted by Asparagirl at 12:55 PM on January 18, 2005

"Polish National Anthem (Dabrowski's Mazurka) [was] written shortly after the country lost its independence in a series of partitions by Austria, Russia, Prussia (1772, 1791, 1795)." It was adopted as the National Anthem when Poland regained its independence after WWI. This song, the Polish language, and Catholocism helped maintain the Polish national identity for over 100 years of occupation by Austria, Russia, and Germany (Prussia).
posted by Doohickie at 1:17 PM on January 18, 2005

Gorecki's Third Symphony wasn't, but the words of the second movement were.
posted by monkey closet at 1:02 AM on January 19, 2005

Decca did some interesting releases in their Entartete musik series, although they've only got 4 left in their catalogue now. A shame.

Hindemith was heavily slated in the Nazi's entartet purge - other big names were Kurt Weill and the relatively obscure Krenek. Korngold was in there too - it's generally reckoned that so many composers like him ended up in the USA writing film music that it's Hollywood soundtracks that provide the continuation of the pre-war European classical tradition, while what subsequently happened in Europe (particularly with rise of the avant-garde) was in some way disjointed from, or even a reaction against, that tradition.
posted by monkey closet at 1:15 AM on January 19, 2005

Sorry to monopolise, but I just remembered another. Jehan Alain had the manuscripts of his Trois Danses (which he was in the process of orchestrating) when he and a fellow soldier were killed by Nazi forces.
posted by monkey closet at 1:36 AM on January 19, 2005