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Rare Random Images From WW2: Part 3

Greek soldiers taken prisoner sit around as a German guard watches over them. May-June 1941. Mussolini attacked the Greeks first but was thrown back by the tough Greek fighters. Hitler then steeped in. He wanted to protect the Balkans to keep the British out from getting a toehold. The Greek army however brave was no match for the Wehrmacht.

For propaganda? Or kind Germans? Two German soldiers support a wounded Canadian soldier after the Dieppe raid. August 1942.

French legion of the German army (638th Infantry Regiment) on its way to Moscow from Smolensk. November 1941.

German soldiers prepare a "Goliath" during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. August 11, 1944. (Image by Gutermann)

A Waffen SS soldier chats with Soviet women at Belgorod. 1943. It would be interesting to know what the conversation was about. We will never know.

Occupied Greece. April 1941. Sepp Dietrich of the   1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler"  talks to Greek prisoners.

Soviet citizens about to be hanged by the Germans. Hitler's orders for Barbarossa was that all Soviet Commissars and partitions were to be executed immediately. The so-called "Commissar Order".

German soldiers listen carefully to what this Russian lady is saying. Novorossiysk, 1942. Why do men always listen carefully when a woman speaks? Be it war or during peace.

September 18, 1944. Germans carry their wounded during the Warsaw Uprising.

 German soldiers crouch behind a Stug 3 assault gun in the outskirts of Stalingrad. 1942

German soldiers in a ruined factory in Stalingrad. November 1942. The photo was published on the cover of "Munchner Illustrierte Presse" of 10 December 1942.

French soldiers in the German army. French Legion of Wehrmacht soldiers during a show in Smolensk before the march on Moscow. November 1941.

American Lieutenant General Mark Clark sits on the window sill of a house in liberated Rome. 1944.

Mussolini with a group of German and Italian military at the "Campo Imperatore" after release. He was rescued by a group of SS soldiers led by Otto Skorzeny (seen on the left of Mussolini) in September 1943.

1940. Captured French pilots chat with German soldiers.

 Not a very nice man. A Waffen SS soldiers kicks a captured Russian pilot. Kursk, 1943.

Near Leningrad. This German hardly seems to have any reverence towards Lenin. He is using the statue as a sign-post.

Tough battle-hardened Waffen SS soldiers at Kharkov. 1943. They were by now fighting a losing war.

Polish employees of the Post Office at Danzig along with a few militia put up strong resistance. The Germans had  to blow down a wall using three guns and use flame-throwers to subdue them. September 1939.

 War destroys. Soviet soldiers walk through a devastated Warsaw. 1945.

A horse stands shaken amidst a destroyed Stalingrad. 1942.

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Rare, Random Images From WW2: Part 1

Rare, Random Images From WW2: Part 2

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FEBRUARY 12 = "Rhapsody in Blue" Premieres

"This composition shows extraordinary talent, as it shows a young composer with aims that go far beyond those of his ilk, struggling with a form of which he is far from being master... In spite of all this, he has expressed himself in a significant and, on the whole, highly original form.... His first theme... is no mere dance-tune... it is an idea, or several ideas, correlated and combined in varying and contrasting rhythms that immediately intrigue the listener. The second theme is more after the manner of some of Mr. Gershwin's colleagues. Tuttis are too long, cadenzas are too long, the peroration at the end loses a large measure of the wildness and magnificence it could easily have had if it were more broadly prepared, and, for all that, the audience was stirred and many a hardened concertgoer excited with the sensation of a new talent finding its voice... There was tumultuous applause for Gershwin's composition."


Paul Whiteman Commissions "Rhapsody in Blue"

This was the review of Olin Downes in the New York Times for George Gershwin's work "Rhapsody in Blue" which premiered on this date, February 12, in 1924. The "young composer with aims that go far beyond those of his ilk" was a theme that Gershwin had frequently to deal with. Jazz was still an up and coming art form back in the early 1920's, and it had yet to win broad acceptance within the world of the arts, particularly the rarefied world of the concert hall. To base what was effectively a symphonic concert piece on something as modern and free-wheeling as Jazz was a decidedly bold step on the part of the young composer. But band leader Paul Whiteman thought that the time was right for such a move. Whiteman had performed in a classical/jazz concert the previous November with the Canadian-French singer Eva Gauthier and it had been a success. Now he wanted to try something more ambitious. He convinced Gershwin with whom he had worked before to compose a Jazz Concerto for piano and orchestra.

Gershwin Composes "Rhapsody in Blue"

It was during a train trip to Boston that Gershwin came up with most of his ideas for the piece.

"It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise... And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece."

"Rhapsody in Blue" is a Success

Gershwin's piece proved to be an immediate success. From the very start, with it's clarinet 16-note slide into the opening theme, the audience was electrified. Michael Tilson-Thomas has said of the work that it "expressed what it was to be alive at that moment as an American .... to let people know what it feels like to stand right here on this street corner and hear this elevated train go by and hear this building being built and hear this wail from a jazz club."  Author Peter Gammond has said that "It is only the fact that Gerhwin's music is tinged with the colours of Jazz that makes both his songs and his other music seem slightly to come from the other side of the tracks to the classical world. And strangely for the jazz world as well. Ever since it burst upon new York in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue has had a cool reception from purists on either side of the musical fence. This has never prevented it from being played and recorded incessantly."

READERS!! If you would like to comment on this, or any "Today in History" posting, I would love to hear from you!!  You can either sign up to be a member of this blog and post a comment in the space provided below, or you can simply e-mail me directly at:  krustybassist@gmail.com  I seem to be getting hits on this site all over the world, so please do write and let me know how you like what I'm writing (or not!)!!

Sources:

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/nov98/gershwin.htm

"Classical Composers" by Peter Gammond, Colour Library Books Limited Godalming, Surrey, 1994.

Image:

Rhapsody in Blue Cover at the top of this posting =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhapsody_in_Blue_cover.png

+ 98.
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