“Music, Noise, and the First World War: ‘All of Us’,Bay andAaron’s Rod”, traces Lawrence’s retreat from large-scale musical productions in episodic works that challenge the extent to which music could continue to offer consolation in a shatteringly noisy, war-torn world. In “All of Us”, the militaristic imperialism of Verdi’sAïda depicted inAaron’s Rod is counterpointed by translations of the songs of the Egyptian fellaheen (labourers). Analysis of the war poems ofBay (1920) suggests thematic and structural interests in song and silence that resonate with Debussy’s muted response to the war, and also with the loose-knit structure and themes of Schubert’sWinterreise, including the notions of wintering and fragmentation that helped to shapeAaron’s Rod.

1. 1.

   The poorly understood condition of shell-shock accounted for 10% of British battle casualties during the First World War, although a study conducted by C.S. Myers in 1915–1916 had found that “many shell-shocked soldiers had been nowhere near an explosion but had identical symptoms to those who had” (Jones et al.2007: 1641).

   The extent to which Lawrence experienced war trauma—resulting from the banning and burning ofThe Rainbow, examinations for military service for which he was repeatedly found “unfit” and his expulsion from Cornwall under the Defence of the Realm Act—is a contested topic. Paul Delany (1979) was one of the first to extrapolate from “The Nightmare” chapter ofKangaroo, a thesis that the war was an overwhelming “nightmare” for Lawrence. For a more recent discussion of Lawrence’s neurasthenia caused by the war, see Krockel2011: 65–66, or of Lawrence’s “disenchantment” caused by the war, see Frayn2014: 119–137. For a lucid summary of “wartime neurosis” inAaron’s Rod, see also Vine xxviii–xxx.

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   Tennessee Williams also began a dramatisation of Lawrence’s experience titled “Night of the Zeppelins”, of which a fragment survives (Williams2015).

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   For further discussion of the part and whole in a musical context, in Lawrence’s work compared with Dorothy Richardson, see Reid2015.

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   Other French songs mentioned are “Trois jeunes tambours”, “En passant par la Lorraine”, and “Auprès de ma blonde” (AR 259), also “Malbrouk” that the Marchesa refuses to sing (AR 255). Catherine Carswell recalls that Lawrence had “a little manual of French songs which he carried about everywhere like a Bible” (Carswell1981: 105). In September 1926, he sent “a book of French songs” to his niece Margaret Needham to help her in learning the language (5L 564).

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   Number 13 Guilford Street was the house of Barbara Low (5L 329), since replaced by an apartment building, which Lawrence visited briefly on his way to stay with Kot at 5 Acacia Road, St. John’s Wood. The Foundling Hospital was extant in 1919. In the 1920s, it was relocated outside London and a property developer demolished the hospital buildings: seehttps://www.coramsfields.org/who-we-are/our-history/

   Almost a decade later, in Florence, Lawrence noted in a letter that Frieda is “trying to play Handel, theMessiah” (6L 207).

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   For a recording of “Honour and Arms” visit:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM1RoF_ly8c

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   At their first meeting, Crawford sang Scarlatti’s “O cessate di piagarmi” (an aria from the operaIl Pompeo of 1683), which she says “became the signature tune of this new friendship”, and also that she sang “a lot of Italian folk songs he had never heard and liked very much” before “All too soon he had to rush away to Charing Cross to get a train to Croydon” (Lovat Fraser1970, 135).

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   Italy had a strong tradition of pastoral Christmas music dating back to at least the sixteenth century, probably originating in folk songs but the genre was also taken up by Baroque composers, including, for example, Scarlatti’s Christmas oratorio (Cantata Pastorale per la natività di Nostro Signore Gesù Christo) and Corelli’s “Pastorale”, either of which make a striking contrast with the pomp and circumstance of Handel.

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   Crystal Palace was visible “on fairly clear days” (1L 83) from Davidson Road School, Croydon, where Lawrence was employed as a teacher from 1908–1912, but there is no evidence that Lawrence attended any concerts there. For a description of the mass performances of Handel, see, for example:https://www.ram.ac.uk/public/uploads/documents/6c453a_henry-wood-crystal-palace.pdf. “The Handel Centenary Festival of 1859 inaugurated the triennial Handel Festival and, in 1882, a large amateur choir and orchestra was formed as the Handel Society, dedicated to the revival of the composer’s less familiar works and the practice and performance of other music”; for example, Sir Henry Wood directed “the Handel Festival, Crystal Palace, June 1926, with a chorus of 3500 and orchestra of 500”.

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    Implicitly, the war has numbed the Marchesa into a dormant state. InDie Walkürie, Brünnhilde disobeys her father Wotan by protecting Sieglinde and her unborn child, who will become the hero Siegfried (who gives his name to the third instalment of theRing cycle). As a punishment, Wotan sends Brünnhilde to sleep on a hillside protected by a magic ring of fire, which can only be penetrated by a hero (namely Siegfried who returns to rescue her). For Alex Aronson,Aaron’s Rod is an “anti-Wagnerian novel” that “appears to be an unintentional contribution to the dispute (of which Lawrence in all likelihood was unaware) between the Wagnerians and the anti-Wagnerians in literature” (Aronson1980: 98). However, the evidence presented throughout my study (particularly in Chap.3) suggests that Lawrence consciously engaged in discourses concerning literary Wagnerism.

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    The original one-hour version, written in 1913, was premiered at Queen’s Hall, London, in March 1914. It was revised and cut in 1920, for publication, and again in 1936.

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    For an outline of the dispute between Wells and James regarding form see Dirda2011: “Wells himself famously disagreed with Henry James about the nature of fiction. While the Master argued that exacting control, a consistent point of view, and close attention to form were essential to true literary artistry, Wells was convinced that we shouldn’t allow the novel to be so straitjacketed or constrained. ‘Tristram Shandy’—a loose and baggy masterpiece in which almost anything goes—was, significantly, Wells’ choice for the greatest English novel. Authorial voice matters, he believed; it gives charm and humanity to a narrative”. Lawrence had also been reading Lev Shestov’sAll Things Are Possible; his Foreword to the translation by his friend S.S. Koteliansky posits that “the real unification lies in the reader’s own amusement, not in the author’s unbroken logic” (IR 7). For further discussion of this, see Park2001.

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    Steve Taylor, for example, perceives that Lawrence’s “attitude is as far removed from the optimistic humanism of his contemporary H.G. Wells as it is possible to be” (Taylor2004–2005: 65).

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    For parallels with Mozart andThe Magic Flute, see Reid2011. There are also a number of references to magic inAaron’s Rod, including the reference to “incantation” as discussed above (AR 273).

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    Aïda had been performed at Covent Garden Opera on the day on which the Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded Serbia, signalling the start of the First World War (Franchi2014: n.p.). For much of the war the opera house remained closed, but Thomas Beecham’s opera company performed in other West End theatres and around Britain.

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    In Exodus 7: 20, Aaron uses his rod to turn the river Nile into blood (killing the fish and making the water unusable) as one of the plagues sent by God to persuade the Egyptians to free the Jews. In Lawrence’s novel, it is Aaron’s flute that is tainted by blood and its spell is broken, symbolically freeing Aaron to pursue a new path.

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    There are many references to Egypt inWomen in Love—for example, Birkin “would be night-free, like an Egyptian” (WL 319)—and in the imagery of Lawrence’s late poem “The Ship of Death”.

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    See, for example, the sketch “Registering Fellaheen for the Conscription”, by Elizabeth Butler (Alice Meynell’s sister) in herFrom Sketch Book and Diary (1909):https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_Thompson_registering-fellaheen-for-the-conscription.jpg

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    For the complicated evolution of “All of Us”, see Christopher Pollnitz’s comprehensive Introduction toPoems 696–700.

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    The diversity of locations, as well as voices in these poems makes the title “All of Us” very apt, as Kate McLoughlin notes in her analysis of the sequence as war poems (McLoughlin2015: 59).

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    The Beaumont edition ofBay is available online athttp://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22734

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    The ill-matched and brightly coloured illustrations by Anne Estelle Rice may also have hindered: Lawrence thought “they’re pretty bad: no good at all” (3L 366).

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    “Obsequial Ode” is also dirge-like, or “monotonous” to use the word repeated twice in “Rondeau of a Conscientious Objector”, in which the evocation of “a dull grey heap in the west” mocks the nostalgic song “There is a little grey home in the west” (Poems 125, n.904). This song written in 1911 was popular in the early stages of the First World War. Words by D. Eardley-Wilmot and music by Hermann Lohr; the lyrics and a recording from 1912 are available here:http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/littlegreyhomeinthewest.htm. Lawrence also references it in Part I ofMr Noon to satirise Emmie’s prioritising of domesticity over passion (MN 87). Lawrence may have resurrected this early poem in response to John McRae’s ubiquitous rondeau “In Flanders Fields” (1915), sinceBay contradicts its themes of heroic sacrifice. Instead of the glorification of home invoked by wartime songs such as “Keep the home fires burning”, the final poem of Lawrence’s sequence “Nostalgia” depicts home as a haunted place, “no longer ours” (Poems 131).

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    Soon after the start of the war, Debussy abandoned his oriental balletNo-ja-li because “I should not like this music to be played until the fate of France is decided, for she can neither laugh nor cry while so many of our people are being heroically mutilated” (qtd. Orledge1982: 186).

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    Fittingly, Owen’s poems were included in Britten’sWarRequiem.

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    Ian Thomson briefly notes some similarities with Schubert’sWinterreise (Thomson2018: 176 n.14).

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    The final song ofWinterreise, “Der Leiermann” (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man), depicts a debased version of the artist, who “grinds away, as best he can”, but “No-one wants to hear”. The cycle ends with a moment of identification as the singer wonders: “Strange old man, / Should I go with you? / Will you to my songs / Play your hurdy-gurdy?” (qtd. Bostridge2015: 463).

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Northampton Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK

   Susan Reid

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Correspondence toSusan Reid.

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