Music and the Soldier

Extract

In his broadcast message at the opening of ‘Forces Music Club’ in the autumn of 1942, Sir Henry Wood spoke of the present revival in orchestral music in this country as the climax of his long career. Representing the Forces on this occasion I remarked that had anyone suggested to me in 1939 that the war would bring about this great awakening in music, and that the Services would play a vital, though happily unconscious part, I should have been most sceptical. The reason for that revival need not concern us here. The problems it has raised in this vast organization called the Army have provided a handful of young musicians now in khaki with a Herculean task without precedent in the history of Western music.