Dawn on the Somme

Available for over a year

Kate Kennedy explores the Somme history and legacy through the lives of British composers and musicians who fought on the battlefields of Picardie in 1916. She follows in the footsteps of George Butterworth, Ivor Gurney, Arthur Bliss and his clarinettist brother Kennard, and Frederick Septimus Kelly. Some of them returned home, but others lost their lives. Through their own words and their music, Kate traces the human stories and examines some of the wider questions which historians still argue about today, and looks at the role which music plays in this complex narrative. With contributions from the historians Gary Sheffield and Marjolaine Boutet, the cultural historian Jay Winter and the director of the Historial Museum in Péronne, Hervé François.