The
auguries are not good. Off the top of my
head I cannot think of a single work written to commemorate a great battle
which could be regarded as anything like a masterpiece. Indeed, the only one which comes close in my
book is Arthur Bliss’s Morning Heroes;
the fact that virtually nobody reading this blog will have ever heard a live
performance of it probably undermines my claim that it is something approaching
a masterpiece. More than that, not only
did Bliss fight in the Battle of the Somme and lost his brother during the
Frist World War, but Morning Heroes commemorates
far more battles than just those that took place during the First World War.
Beethoven’s
Wellington Victory is certainly a
novelty but by no stretch of the imagination a masterpiece; ditto Tchaikovsky’s
1812.
Shostakovich’s symphonies commemorating various of the battles that
underpinned the creation of the Soviet State are possibly not among his best,
unless you consider them more social statements than celebrations of
warfare. And while there are tremendous battle
scenes in Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, these
depict imaginary rather than real battles.
(On
an aside; why do Russian composers seem so open to inspiration from wars and
battles? Is it because Russians are a particularly
aggressive people? I sat next to Russian
violinist Alexander Souptel at a concert last night, and a gentler, more
harmless man you would be hard-pressed to find in today’s society; unless, that
is, he and his compatriots have one personality for public display and another
lurking underneath of an altogether more violent bent. If you read the regular diatribes sent in to
this blog under the guise of “comment” by my Russian readers, virtually all of
which have to be removed due to their willingness to utter spiteful, offensive
and libellous comments about named people, you would begin to suspect that
Russians do have a bitter and twisted inner persona which only comes out in
their writings.)
Of
course there are several memorable works depicting battles from the Second World
War; not least by Eric Coates, Vaughan Williams and William Walton. But these were film scores that supported
powerful visual images rather than standing on their own two musical feet.
What
all these musical battles have in common is that they were contemporaneous with
the composers’ lives; they wrote with close association to the battles they
depicted. True, Walton did write
memorable music to go with the Battle of Agincourt scenes from Olivier’s
classic film version of Henry V, but
outside the cinema and theatre I can think of no significant musical work commemorating
one of the great battles from history. Where
are the great musical masterpieces depicting the battles of Hastings, Trafalgar,
Waterloo, Gallipoli, Boyne, Bulge, or commemorating the Iranian Revolution or
the Malayan Campaign (my wife is in the heart of Borneo right now researching
her book on that – but I fear her musical accompaniment is more Sheila Majid than
Peter Sculthorpe)?
One
battle which has largely escaped musical notice is the Battle of Stamford
Bridge. Rather overshadowed by the Battle
of Hastings, which it preceded by precisely 19 days, this was a battle for
control of the British crown in which several thousand Vikings landed on the
north east coast of England, invaded Yorkshire, captured York and were finally
repelled by King Harold, who had rushed up from the south coast where he had
been awaiting the invasion of Normans under William. The battle took place on 25th
September 1066, but Harold had only three days to savour his victory before the
Normans landed near Hastings and he had to hurry south to meet his doom.
To
mark the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, the
modern-day Stamford Bridge Singers are putting on a concert there which
features the world première of a new work – Battle
Cantata - by their conductor, Stuart Nettleship. The choir is locking horns with Viking - or,
at least, Norwegian - singers, and the concert combines music drawn from the
two cultures which collided so dramatically on that day back in 1066. The text is a setting of a poem by Laurence Binyon. He is best remembered for his poem For the Fallen, with its haunting second verse;
While several composers have set this text, with varying degrees of success, and Elgar went on to set several more of Binyon's poems (most notably in his cantata The Spirit of England), he is a poet whose work has not hitherto brought out the best in those who use it as the basis of a musical work. This, and the fact that good and lasting concert music depicting historic battles has hitherto been in remarkably short supply, should not deter Nettleship, who has always been a composer with a distinctly original way of responding to his musical challenges. I am inclined to think that if anybody could produce a lasting musical memorial to a long-forgotten battle, he can, and I am trying to move Heaven and Earth to get away to Yorkshire for the event; although I fear I shall be unlucky.
However,
anyone who is around that part of the world – now blissfully peaceful – on Sunday 16th October
should get their tickets now from https://battle950.eventbrite.co.uk
This is very interesting. There are spiteful, libellous and offensive diatribes regularly sent to this blog by russian readers?? Please please consider publishing these "comments" as they will liven up discussion. No. I mean, get discussion going. It's getting quite lonely out here in "comment" world since I appear to be the only one bothering to post comments and show support for this blog. Here is food for thought, Dr Marc. You will definitely get more than 12 followers if you allow the diatribes to be published.��
ReplyDeletePS: ABBA wrote a Great song about Waterloo �� OK.. so it isn't exactly the 1812 Overture. But it is still a great song
My, My,
ReplyDeleteAt Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah !
Sadly, that is about as far as the historical content of that song goes.
Still a great song.
Thanks for this, Marc. I agree with almost everything you have written. Do try and attend.
ReplyDeleteStuart Nettleship.
Any music lover has possibly dreamed at one time or another about writing music, singing or playing an instrument in front of a group, and gaining mass exposure and celebrity to dependable fans and media. It does sound glamorous to some. Pop
ReplyDelete