Songs for Canada from the Great War
Bach Elgar performs recruitment songs, marches, laments in honour of the centenary of the end of the First World War
It was the cataclysm of the 20th century that sadly never lived up to its billing as “the war to end war.”
The First World War was the bloodiest conflict in our nation’s history, taking the lives of more than 60,000 Canadians. And now, 100 years on, the exploits of Canadian troops on the battlefields of Ypres, the Somme and Beaumont-Hamel, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele are well known and trumpeted far and wide.
But today, who among us knows the title of one Canadian song from the First World War, let alone its lyrics?
“Over There” was on the lips of many a solider, but that ditty was written by an American, George M. Cohan. “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” may also come to mind, but it’s a British music hall song.
Rushing to the rescue are Alex Cann and his 60-voice Bach Elgar Choir with their “WWI Centenary: Songs for Canada, Songs for Peace” concert this Friday night in Melrose United.
The first half of their bill is comprised of eight First World War era songs originally for solo voice and piano, which Cann selected from the archives at McMaster University.
“Right off the top, you look for stuff that in your judgment might work in a choral context. So, that eliminates a lot of them,” said Cann who estimates he went through 60 to 80 Canadian titles
and 40 or so international titles in Mac’s archives.
“I started noticing trends and patterns within the literature and so then I tried to find a representative sampling of those trends,” added Cann.
Among the varieties that emerged were propaganda songs, recruiting songs, laments, and music hall-style numbers.
“They’re all written by a stable of professionals, they were all conservatory trained professionals,” said Cann of the various songwriters. “The music does follow pretty strict standard formulas. You get the marches, and you get the waltzes, and you get the laments ... and then you
get some stuff that doesn’t fit.”
Opening the set are two flag songs, Will J. White’s 1916 “Hats Off to the Flag and King” as arranged for choir by Cann, and M.F. Kelly’s “We’ll Never Let the Old Flag Fall.” The latter, a 1914 marching song about the Union Jack, was a mega-hit that reportedly sold 100,000 copies throughout the British Empire by 1916. Richard Cunningham’s choral arrangement will feature guest mezzo soloist Cassandra Warner.
Thereafter come two international tunes, “Your King and Your Country Want You” a British recruiting song from 1914, and “Annemarie,” a German song from 1907. Both have been
arranged by Cann, the latter in part-song style.
Warner will also be featured in a pair of laments, “Take Me Back to Old Ontario,” written from the perspective of a dying soldier, and “His Name’s on the Roll of Honour” by Sgt. J. Bruno and Bomber Harry Rose.
The loneliness and despair of those laments will be dispelled by W.J. White’s “The Hearts of the World Love Canada,” which Cann and the BEC will also perform at the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra’s “From Broadway to Tin Pan Alley” concert this Saturday evening in FirstOntario Concert Hall.
“I think it’s significant culturally
as a Canadian piece,” said Cann of White’s song, which contains no references to Britain. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a confident Canada, but it’s a Canada standing on its own.”
Closing the set will be the aforementioned “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Bagpiper Philip Farrauto will bookend the first half with “The Somme” and “The Bloody Fields of Flanders.”
The concert’s second half is largely devoted to British classical composers. The six songs from George Butterworth’s 1911 “A Shropshire Lad,” with guest baritone soloist Alexander Dobson and collaborative accompanist Krista Rhodes, will be sprinkled in between C.E.H. Parry’s “Songs of Farewell,” Henry Walford Davies’s “A Short Requiem,” Healey Willan’s 1917 “How Softly They Rest,” composed one year into his tenure at St. Paul’s Bloor Street in Toronto, and Edward Elgar’s “My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land,” which predates the First World War by a quarter of a century.