On the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice

Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 11 November 2008 02:15.

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

AE Housman’s remarkably prophetic “The Lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair”, from his collection “A Shropshire Lad” of 1896, later set to music by George Butterworth.

Last Sunday afternoon BBC Radio 3 broadcast a highly interesting contribution to its Discovering Music series titled Vaughan Williams and the Lost Generation. The highly interesting aspect of it was its concentration on early 20th century English music thematically drawn from some deeply recondite folk sources - what presenter Stephen Johnson terms “music of the people”.

This reaching towards the life of the rural people by artists and intellectuals was a political fashion on the left at the time, but a rather honourable one given that Marx was already entering the working class movements of the industrial centres. The leading musical spirit of the time was Ralph Vaughan Williams, who died fifty years ago this year. He, along with other young composers, broke with the High Victorian conventions and sought out ancient English folk songs at their source. Vaughan Williams spent his entire professional life in the act of reaching musically for a spirit of landscape and of people, and he is probably known and loved for it by English music-lovers more today than at any time in the past.

On the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of the signing of the Armistice (as I post this it is already the 11th day of the 11th month in England), it is mete to remember the meaning of this search for an English essence. The search for self, and a putting away of falsehood, is always a valid exercise. When the French speak of La France Profonde, this self, ageless and unchanging, is what they mean. For those lingering romantics at the turn of the 20th century who looked at urban life and saw nothing but falsehood and artifice there was only one, now all-changed place to search out a cure.

But as an intellectual fashion, the search itself died in the trenches of Northern France. When peace finally returned it was gone. One can argue, I think, that with the witness died the thing itself. The connection to the land, the character of place were greeted thereafter with a general disinterest. The national focus was on the city and on the struggle of the industrial poor, which meant that the spirit of a deeper and more inchoate English reality ceased to be any kind of professionally useful metric.

To lose this intellectual and artistic anchor did not prepare us well for what was to come. Once modernity - a mess of Marx and Ford - had taken us away, and the men left the land for a second time in 1940, it could not be recreated and could not be replaced. That second damned war and the selfishness of my generation left us high and dry, utterly estranged from ourselves and wide open to the attack on our culture and our residual common sense which the Frankfurt Jewry had so assiduously designed.

What we have left to tell us something about our truer nature now is the music of Vaughan Williams and Butterworth - the folk songs they gathered, of course, are long lost from our country pubs and May Days. Stephen Johnson, in his radio presentation, correctly identifies Vaughan Williams’ ethereal and perfect “The Lark Ascending” as the epitome of this thin record - not a song, but a poem on the violin. It was based upon a poem of the same name by George Meredith. In the absence of an mp3 recording for you here are a few poignant lines of Meredith’s:-

For singing till his heaven fills,
’T is love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labor in the town;
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe,
And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart of men shall see,
Shall feel celestially, as long
As you crave nothing save the song.
Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink:
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,
Our passion is too full in flood,
We want the key of his wild note
Of truthful in a tuneful throat,
The song seraphically free
Of taint of personality,
So pure that it salutes the suns
The voice of one for millions,
In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.

lines 65to 98 of The Lark Ascending by George Meredith (1828-1909)

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Comments:

Posted by Bill on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:48 | #

The BBC do this so well, superb in fact.

One can only conclude they are laughing at us at the same time.

Posted by BGD on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:55 | #

YouTube video of the Lark Ascending here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKz6XJlI_jk

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:29 | #

Beautiful. All greens and gold, chalk streams and churches. An eternal home of the spirit.

Posted by martin_uk on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:08 | #

Vaughan-Williams is a dreadfully overrated composer. His music is slow, predictable, monotonous, and lacking in ideas. “The Lark Ascending” is too long and slow! There are plenty of much superior but unsung British composers one hardly ever hears or hears of, such as Frank Bridge. The best of all is Elgar, followed by Tippett, who unfortunately was a typical left wing queer.

Posted by torgrim on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:15 | #

GW, thank you for this post.

Unfortunately, I know very little of English song or poetry from the rural days of England. Very telling, the loss of connection with the Land, this has happened in America too. And for the same reasons, the tearing away of the young men from the connections with tradition, family, and land.
It was the way with my father,... he was born on the Land, in So. Dakota, in a sod house, miles from town, he still remembers, with fond memories of growing up in a large family, speaking, the Old Norwegian, language, a heartfelt fondness, that has given him strength, throughout his life. He too, left the rural security of, “place”, only to be thrown into a senseless war, never to return, to the familiar, the security of belonging, with his own.
The old culture from Norway, died, in America, along with the rural culture, only to be replaced with mass consumerism and a jingoism, patriotism.

There are places where the music from the Western Isles has survived, such as Appalachia, songs recorded in the 1920’s hearken back to the 17th century, ballads that crossed the Atlantic with the pioneers from England.

We are still, men of the Land, and that is where we will gather our strength, for the survival of our people.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:21 | #

Torgrim writes with that mid-line caesura typical of Anglo-Saxon poetry like Beowulf, which is closely related to Old Norse poetry. Maybe he got that from being steeped in Old Norwegian. Garrison Keilor HATED those upper-midwest Norwegians Torgrim descends from; couldn’t WAIT to get the hell out of there. That’s one reason I hate Garrison Keilor (there are plenty of other reasons as well).

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:56 | #

Vaughan Williams, Ursula (1964) R.V.W. A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Oxford University Press. The preface, Notes on Names, says “Ralph’s name was pronounced Rayf; any other pronunciation used to infuriate him.” (from Wikipedia)

Though I’ve never read this anywhere, Vaughan Williams must have been an important influence on Stravinski, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich: just listen to all their music — you’ll hear it unmistakably.

Posted by Carsten Westermarck on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:02 | #

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084697/I-dream-says-black-president—Oxford-Union-calls-British-Obama.html?ITO=1490

‘I have a dream too,’ says first black president… of Oxford Union as he calls for a British Obama

Anything is possible, as the racial replacement/dispossesstion of the native stock in the British isles continues unabated. The English are already a minority in London. It would be impossible for someone of immigrant stock to become the leader of any non-White nation. Whites are the only ones of whom it is demanded that they enthusiastically cheer their own demise and dispossession. I note that the young man doesn’t wish to participate in the development and leadership of his ancestors’ continent.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:41 | #

Excuse me, Keillor has two Ls:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrison_Keillor .

He is a basically good but extremely confused man. I recall reading him say he hated the upper-midwest Norwegians where he came from (and the other Scandinavians there) so much that wherever he lived after moving away from the upper midwest he voted against anyone with a Norwegian-sounding name in elections by pure reflex, while reveling in all the non-whites he was encountering for the first time in places like (hell holes like) New York City. This man, basically good, is very, very, very, very, very, very confused. I recall his biggest loathing was reserved for what he always described as “the Norwegian bachelor farmers” of Minnesota and adjacent states. He also loathed the Lutheran religion and anything that had a flavor of Christian “calvinism” or fundementalism which apparently the upper-midwest brand of Lutheranism of his formative years somewhat resembled. I thought for a while he’d come to appreciate the land of his roots, small-town Scandinavian, Lutheran Minnesota, once he’d gotten a really good, close look at New York City and similar places, but he never did: he’s still to this day in full-bore rebellion against his small-town-and-rural upper midwest roots, roots lots of people raised in places like NYC would love to have had instead of what they got.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:46 | #

He’s also extremely ugly. When I read he’s had three wives and a girlfriend, I ask myself how four women could be found to take up with a man this ugly. Of course for the last three it was his money (but still ....) so I guess the amazement applies truly only in the case of the first wife he snagged. But of course the fact he was divorced twice (and never married his G/F) may mean even money couldn’t compensate for that face of his forever.

Posted by torgrim on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:34 | #

“Garrison Keillor Hated those upper Mid-West Norwegians”.... Fred

Thanks for the heads up Fred, I didn’t know that about Keillor. I do know that there are two Minnesotas, one in the Twin Cities and the other, the rest of Minnesota. As with many mega cities, they require taxes from the rest of the State and do they ever tax the farm folk! Imagine, owning a farm for 130 years and loosing the farm for the death tax, er, inheritance tax? Just have to re-distribute from the “wealthy” to the poor….I notice too, mention rural, upper-mid-west connections to liberals, and right away you are suspect of having xenophobic thoughts and in need of therapy…

As for Old Norwegian, (with exception for, Bok Mal in Norway), it is gone, but the way we learn our language is from our parents and english is my fathers second language.

Posted by Fr. John on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:06 | #

Torgrim and Fred, what’s going on? Are you in my home state?

Ya sure, you betcha.

VW, for the record, is one of the most LYRICAL composers I have EVER encountered. His music is the aural equivalent of the Anglican Chant at its’ best, and English Pastoralism at its’ most lovely.

The Five Mystical Songs, the Flos Campi, even his opera, “Sir John in Love” are all faves of mine.

As to Gary Keillor, my wife (Good Scandinavian that she is!) says, “Gary hates his parents, and the Church. It’s that simple”

Or, as the old Catechism says, “This is most certainly true!”

Uff da.

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:49 | #

Note that the organisers of yesterday’s Laying of the Wreath ceremony at the Cenotaph in London managed to place a negro and an Indian with the three surviving WW1 veterans as they laid their own wreaths.

If challenged, the culture warriors who determined upon this would undoubtedly say, “Oh, but there were Commonwealth troops in the trenches too.” Yes, a few. And they have their place in the parade to the Cenotaph, and their own wreaths to lay.

But this was something else. “Not even in your remembrance of the sacrifice of your own lost kinfolk,” it was telling us, “will we allow you to forget your exciting new diversity, and your salvation from the racist feelings of which we accuse you.”

I really would pull the trigger myself.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:59 | #

[quote}“Torgrim and Fred, what’s going on? Are you in my home state?” (—Fr. John)

No, I’m in the northeast, but I read a fair amount by and about Keillor many years ago and I still run across stuff about him on occasion. No biggie, I just commented on him because of Torgrim’s ancestry and cultural background.

Here, let’s sum it up this way: Torgrim good, Keillor bad.

That says all I had in mind to express, I’d imagine. That’s a wrap, as they say in broadcasting.

Posted by Captainchaos on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:09 | #

GW: “...managed to place a negro and an Indian…”

I can barely tell which is which. They all look alike.

Posted by Dave Johns on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:30 | #

“GW: “...managed to place a negro and an Indian…”

CC: “I can barely tell which is which. They all look alike.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ha ha!

Yes, but they don’t all behave alike. There is nothing worse than Negro behavior. Nothing!

Posted by Bill on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:55 | #

GW 2.49pm

“Not even in your remembrance of the sacrifice of your own lost kinfolk,” it was telling us, “will we allow you to forget your exciting new diversity, and your salvation from the racist feelings of which we accuse you.”

Exactly! This is what prompted my 11.11 @ 07.48. They are laughing at us.

I wonder who dreamt that one up? Were the two old timers consulted - will we ever know what they thought about it all. The BBC establishment and all are sick.

What continues to baffle me is why don’t our people catch on? They seem oblivious to such pokes in the eye.

To cap it all, they can complain in their thousands about the behaviour of the like of Wossy and the other guy, when oh when are we going to see thousands protesting about the likes of what happened at the Cenotaph.

Such action could stop them, (est.) dead in their tracks.

One last question. If they (est.) behave like this when we outnumber them by millions to one, what are they going to do to us when we’re past the tipping point? The mind boggles!

Posted by torgrim on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:35 | #

“Are you in my home state?”—-Fr. John

No, unfortunately, I live on the Left Coast of the US. But originally came from, Red Oak Grove, Freeborn County, Minnesota.
That’s all…no biggie.

UFF DA!