Now that the video is publicly available, I wanted to reflect a little bit on my recent work ‘will we…’ written for Georgina Aasgaard, for cello and electronics.
The circumstance of the commission was this — something to conclude the two minutes silence on Remembrance Sunday. The performance was to take place as part of the ‘Breaking the Silence’ event curated by the Imperial War Museum North and Drake Music.
Such a circumstance, was difficult, mostly because I have very particular vision and understanding of this part of history; but I did not want to come off sanctimonious, disrespectful, or just looking to be edgy. So the challenge was to find a way to be respectful, but poignant. Not to lower my standards, but to cut off the edge a little bit.
One of my biggest concerns surrounding Remembrance Sunday is that the pomp and circumstance of certain events almost look like it revels in the horror of war; while at the same time, concern about the victims of war seems to only focus on very certain victims — namely, saving Jewish refugees in World War Two was a good thing, helping Syrian refugees is a step too far.
The other concern, is how, due mostly to fewer and fewer veterans living any longer, history is being revised throughout Britain, Europe, and North America. Be it the EU ruling equating the actions of the Red Army akin to the Nazis, nations like Poland or Lithuania passing laws that make it criminal to imply they as a nation took part in the Holocaust, revising Nazi sympathisers as ‘National Heroes’ for fighting the ‘scourge of communism’ or simply ignoring the vested interests that existed at the time — Winston Churchill praising Mussolini, or the Daily Mail praising Hitler and the Blackshirts.
Now, regardless of justification or opinion of these circumstances, the reality is and always has been that the Second World War was a complex and multifaceted conflict. There was a lot to be won and lost for every group or political ideology present.
The other thing that fascinated me are the heroes who are often overlooked because of circumstances surrounding their relationship to the conflict. This could be the efforts of Italian anti-Fascists, Dutch trade unionists, the French resistance, the Partisans across Eastern Europe, and even the valiant fighters in the ghettos.
All of these groups go unrecognised or ignored, especially in Britain and America as we are eager to paint ourselves as the ‘good guys who saved Europe from Hitler’. I did not want my piece to suggest Britain and America did not play their part, but in short it was the united effort of all fronts — The Soviet Union, Britain and it’s Empire, America, the resistance fighters in France, Austria, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, and other nations, the partisans, the trade unionists, the working people, and the men, women, and children who laid their lives on the line just trying to survive the horrors of Fascism.
Another element of the performance was the displayed images to be on display in the space. I was invited by the Imperial War Museum North to look through archives and find images I wanted to accompany the performance. There was many wonderful things I found, sadly many that did not get used due to copyright issues, but what I loved most was seeing the variety and diversity of people fighting against Fascism, I wanted to display all of the unexpected heroes and fighters and draw attention to them (some of my favourites are in this blog).
The process of composing the piece was relatively simple, because I had the metaphor in mind I wanted to use to demonstrate this forgetting of history. I scoured sources looking for recordings of songs by these various groups. One, music is an easy thing to build around when composing. But also the importance of songs to collective memories. These songs had many uses and fitted many situations but ultimately united the specific group around their ideology.
The songs included — Zog Nit Keynmol — a Yiddish song from the Warsaw Ghetto. Fischia il Vento — an Italian anti-Fascist song which uses the same melody of Katyusha. F.P.O., Partizaner Marsh — a Yiddish anti-Fascist song which uses Hanns Eisler’s Das Einheitsfrontlied. Aušvits — a Roma song to highlight the suffering the Roma community suffered at the hands of the Nazis. And finally, Warszawianka — a Polish song which originated from the 1905 revolt against the Tsar, but became a collective song of rebellion for many Slavic nations.
These songs were then snipped into tiny microsecond chunks, which meant that at most you heard a vowel or consonant. The songs were literally so forgotten they could not be recognised. From there I played around with the illusion, creating moments of clarity or density to create this dialogue between the cello material and the resistance songs.
The rest, as they say, is history. The process of composing the cello part is much more simplistic. The cello needed to create a space in which the snippets could jump from. This meant producing a ‘quartet’ for cello which recorded three of the parts, and the final part being performed live. As a process this piece gave me a lot to think about, and is arguably the most ‘outspoken’ piece I have written.
I do have a sense of contentment with the work, however my piece means very little compared to the sacrifices made by those who fought Fascism. These are lives that cannot be forgotten and I am happy to do what I can to bring attention to these heroic people.
