Description
Musical instruments diverting helmets and cannisters to turn them into violins, mandolins… Songbooks, little printed images, soldiers' newsrags… These hitherto neglected items and sources, conveyed by older or else trendy tunes, humorously at times, bring back to us the daily life, murderous happenstance, geographical separation, the grime and doubts of the soldiers in the Great War. Four 'stage settings' form a frame for the tuneful and musicianly creations of the soldiers in the Great War: mobilization, garnison training and the beginnings of the conflict; the first and second lines, the leaves of absence; the prisoners' camps; the Eastern Front.