#WWII history music

[gamethon-official]

The Midnight Telegraph - A Soldier’s Love Letter That Moved a Nation | Gamethon Music

[awhitewomansinstagram]

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club spoilers

DUDE IDK WHY I DIDNT REALIZE THIS BEFORE, BUT I FIGURED OUT WHY THEY CHANGED THE ENDING OF THE CABARET REVIVAL ON BROADWAY

Ok so the way the cabaret ending is traditionally done is everyone shows up on stage in the striped concentration camp uniforms. That’s what I was expecting when I saw it (which, by the way, oh my GOD I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like this production of the show and I have no clue how it didn’t sweep the revival categories at the Tonys).

Except that is not what happened. Everyone instead joined the stage in brown jackets. They weren’t exactly the uniform of the brownshirts/SA, the Nazi paramilitary organization, but I’m sure it’s a reference. Those jackets also mimic the costume the emcee wears about halfway through the show when he starts to reflect the nazi takeover with the blonde wig and everything. So instead of putting them in prison uniforms, they put the characters in the clothing that the show (and the color of the jacket) most strongly associates with the Nazis. The message shifted from “your silence ended up killing you” to “your silence made you one of them”

[shosty-we-understand]

While you may recognize famed Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (right), it's less likely that you know the man on the left.

In 1937, Shostakovich took up a position teaching composition at the Leningrad Conservatory. Come 1939, one of his students was a young man by the name of Veniamin Fleishman (left). While studying under Shostakovich, Fleishman began working on a one-act opera called Rothschild's Violin, based on the story of the same name by Anton Chekov. However the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941 forced Fleishman to put his composition aside and he enlisted in the Red Army within the first days of the war. He would never finish his beloved Rothschild's Violin, as he was sent to the front and killed on September 14th 1941.

During his time at the Conservatory, Fleishman proved himself to be a promising young composer, and Shostakovich would soon look back and scold himself for not taking Fleishman's incomplete manuscript out of Leningrad with him when he fled. Luckily, he still had connections in the besieged Leningrad, and soon had the manuscript sent to his residence in Moscow. Shostakovich, in memory of Fleishman, completed the manuscript in 1944.

While he seldom used it for personal gain, Shostakovich made use of his influence and public stature to make sure that Fleishman's opera was recognized. Dmitri Shostakovich's insistence that the opera be published and performed made sure that Veniamin Fleishman's memory would not die along with him.

[uncanny-tranny]

There's something so insane to me about being able to create and recreate vintage or even ancient music, clothes, fabrics, building architecture, anything, really.

I watched this video about a lady who knit a WWII-era vest, and it was really unique, because the cable work would eat up yarn, when there were shortages of fibers. This pattern would have likely been used by people to send overseas to soldiers, and now it's being created in a time where this war has been over for generations. What were the people making this pattern thinking of? What about the people making the vest? Could they fathom a world where world wars didn't happen back to back? Could they imagine what peace felt like, or did it fade like a distant memory, a faint friend? All we have now are the remnants of their efforts, a "simple" vest that would warm the bodies of countless people the knitter would never have imagined were here on earth with them.

We're reaching across time to learn about other people - we're reaching our hands out just to grasp anything tangible. And when we've take hold of something, all we can do is say I love you I love you I love you

[todaysdocument]

Jazz pianist Dorothy Donegan performs with sailors at Camp Robert Smalls, Great Lakes Naval Training Center, June 16, 1943. 

Record Group 80: General Records of the Department of the Navy

Series: General Photographic Files

Image description: Dorothy Donegan sits at a piano with her hands on the keys. She is wearing a light-colored strapless gown, flowers in her hair, and a lace veil. Around her are four men in U.S. Navy uniforms. Three of them hold instruments, and one holds a conductor’s baton. In the background, more sailors set up a drum kit. All of the people in the photo are Black; they are at a segregated facility. 

[omg-hellgirl]

At one point, in England, David had gotten out at Victoria Station in an open-topped Mercedes Landau limousine and did a Hitler salute, which was on the front page of three English newspapers. And I'll be honest with you, after that I never wanted to see him again.

— Angie Bowie, David Bowie's wife during the 70s.

[historyandarthijinks]

Art of War (12)

Christmas Song by Kim Gannon, Walter Kent, and Bing Crosby

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Lyrics

I'm dreaming tonight of a place I love Even more than I usually do And although I know it's a long road back I promise you

I'll be home for Christmas You can count on me Please have snow and mistletoe And presents under the tree

Christmas Eve will find me Where the love light gleams I'll be home for Christmas If only in my dreams

I'll be home for Christmas (I'll be home for Christmas) You can count on me (you can count on me) Please have snow (have snow) and mistletoe (yeah) And presents under the tree (under the tree)

Christmas Eve will find me Where the love light gleams I'll be home for Christmas If only in my dreams If only in my dreams

In my dreams, my dreams My dreams

Context

I'll Be Home For Christmas (1943) - Kim Gannon (1900-1974), Walter Kent (1911-1994), Bing Crosby (1903-1977) [United States]

This Christmas song was performed during the middle of WW2, depicting a soldier singing out a letter to his wife and family back home while fighting in the war overseas. The song instantly became popular, especially among soldiers and civilians alike in the United States. The military would go on to endorse the song, saying it has raised the morale of deployed soldiers. Unsurprisingly, Great Britain would not feel the same. It was banned from broadcast for the idea that it could cause British soldiers to miss home and lower morale.

The song wasn't originally written with WW2 in mind. In fact the song wasn't originally a song either, but a poem written by Buck Ram to his mother in 1922 about WW1. One day Ram, Kent, and Gannon would go to meet up and discuss creation of the song following the eruption of the Second World War.

[classicalwondersdotcom]

Shostakovich - music under siege

The Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 was an act of courage and resistance against the brutal Nazi 1941-1944 siege of Leningrad. To make this performance happen, a massive effort was put in place from musicians, officials, and citizens, for battling the life-threatening conditions caused by the blockade. Context: The Siege of Leningrad The Nazi siege on Leningrad began in…

[jbfly46]

The silent generation had a lot of music without lyrics.

[emmathompsonegot]

Open night nothing to do no one to see!! What should I do!!

[skitskatdacat63]

Agh got to the part in this Shostakovich book where he got denounced by Stalin and man. It's so painful 😭😭😭

[thisiswasabis]

I made a NoP outro not so long ago. Well, more edited the already existing song into something that would be it's outro, because I can't do music

Here it is

Neither the song or the art is mine, I only edited it

The song:

[luminouslumity]

One of favorite stories from WWII!

[shosty-we-understand]

During the Second World War, Dmitri Shostakovich tried to join the Red Army three separate times. He was turned away at every attempt largely due to his public stature. Though he wasn't exactly in Stalin's good graces at the time, the government knew how influential a person like Shostakovich was to the morale of the country, and keeping him alive was of the utmost importance.

Had he joined the army in 1941, he would have surely been sent to the front and died. The life expectancy of a Red Army soldier at the time the Soviet Union had joined WWII was extremely short.

He was able to fulfill his sense of moral obligation to his country by joining a volunteer fire brigade, keeping watch on top of the Leningrad Conservatory's roof, until his family was evacuated in October 1941.

[opera-ghosts]

February 13. 1985 the reopening of the Semperoper Dresden after 40 years was a great moment in the History of this Operahouse. A fire destroyed the House after bombing in the WW2 at February 13. 1945 Here we see the Building on a nice colored antique Postcard.

[nyeeeah]

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/justin-bieber-visits-anne-frank-house-offends-with-belieber-note-1557433/