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BBC Radio 2 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Light Programme.

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World War One

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World War I

Music and documentaries marking the centenary of World War One

World War One: The Songs and Shows of World War I

World War One: The Songs and Shows of World War I: Episode 3: 1916

Documentaries

Factual: History

The Songs and Shows of World War I

Episode 3

Episode 3: 1916

1916

BBC Radio 2 - World War One, The Songs and Shows of World War I, 1916

Russell Davies explores the music that accompanied the conflict.

Russell Davies returns for the second part of his exploration of the musical background to World War I, from the Broadway stages to the whistling in the trenches.

Russell Davies presents the third part in Radio 2's five-part exploration into the music of the First World War which was played in the halls, the theatres, the salons or the pub pianos, and so much of which was taken off to the war to be sung by the soldiery. 

1916 was a terrible one, as the programme makes graphically clear through many accounts from the BBC archives: from sailors who survived Jutland, Tommies who went through hell at Gallipoli and on The Somme as well as from those who suffered on the Home Front: civilians and politicians. The music, generally, had become more sombre than in the previous year.

Russell illustrates, via archive memories, the importance for morale of music: How the voice of a lone tenor singing " A Perfect Day" could cheer weary troops. How a sentimental tune from a popular stage show could become a rousing march, as Laidman Browne, later a distinguished actor, describes. The show was "The Bing Boys Are Here"; the song - "If You Were The Only Girl In The World."

There's much more to savour in this brilliantly researched and copiously illustrated programme - Harry Lauder, whose son was killed in the last days of 1916, singing his song "The Laddies Who Fought And Won"; Fritz Kreisler playing the American hit song "Poor Butterfly"; Alfred Lester's topical music-hall song "A Conscientious Objector" ... but Russell saves the most nostalgic song of the year, maybe of all the war years, till last. 

It was in 1916 that Haydn Wood set to music the poignant words of Frederic E Weatherly's poem "Roses Of Picardy". The show closes with the verse, sung at the time by Lambert Murphy followed by Frank Sinatra's fine 1962 rendering of the chorus.

Amazing music. Played by an amazing line up.

Radio 2: Amazing music. Played by an amazing line-up. The home of great music, entertainment and documentaries

Music historian Russell Davies unearths the stories behind the music of World War I

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Episode 3: 1916

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