Swinging into action

Whereas it is generally agreed that music has charms to soothe a savage breast, Congreve might have added that music also has the power to inflame bellicose fervour. Patrick Bade, who lectures at Christie’s Education and the London Jewish Cultural Centre, has written a commendably exhaustive history of how all sorts of music were used to strengthen civilian and military morale and to demoralise enemies immediately before and during the second world war.

The BBC radio programme Music While You Work, for example, was believed to help make British factory workers contentedly productive. Musical propaganda broadcasts were supposed to convince Germans that we were patriotically more ardently motivated than they. ‘Music wars’ of the 20th century were waged with demonstrations of high culture and popular entertainment. Every national anthem was a militant Christian proclamation of superior righteousness, strength and joy. According to Bade:

The endless stream of military marches broadcast from German radio stations was intended to induce a state of mindless obedience and aggression in the German military and civil population, particularly towards the end of the war, when authorities feared a breakdown of resolution and discipline.