‘The concertina's deadly work in the trenches’: soundscapes of suffering in the South African War
‘The concertina's deadly work in the trenches’: soundscapes of suffering in the South African War
Under the recurring headline 'the Concertina's Deadly Work in the Trenches', several British newspapers reported in early 1900 that, during the ongoing siege of Mafeking, British army concertina players were capturing enemy soldiers by simply playing strains of the concertina to distract them out of their hiding places. 'One is sorry to learn that the art of music should be pressed into service to lure persons to destruction', a commentator in the Musical News noted, but then, it was rationalized, 'all's fair in war'. This hybrid use of the concertina during the South African War was further employed as a metaphor for the decay of the physical body itself: as has been noted by Elizabeth van Heyningen, food in Boer concentration camps was so meagre that the meat served to prisoners was once described as coming from a 'carcase [who] looks like a concertina drawn out fully with all the wind knocked out'. Likewise, Krebs (1999) has discussed the presence of the concertina in the trenches as an example of contemporaneous stereotypes about the susceptibility of Boer soldiers to music in relation to perceived notions that they were backwards and easily manipulated. Drawing upon references to music - particularly the ubiquitous, anthropomorphised, instrument of the concertina - in concentration camps during the South African War, this paper will situate the use of British military music at the dawn of the twentieth century within the framework of trauma studies, proposing that the soundscapes of imperial war were implicitly tinged with traces of physical suffering.
119-151
Johnson-Williams, Erin
96cfc0a3-3282-4311-b72b-44018dc13400
6 April 2023
Johnson-Williams, Erin
96cfc0a3-3282-4311-b72b-44018dc13400
Johnson-Williams, Erin
(2023)
‘The concertina's deadly work in the trenches’: soundscapes of suffering in the South African War.
Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 20 (1), .
(doi:10.1017/S1479409822000040).
Abstract
Under the recurring headline 'the Concertina's Deadly Work in the Trenches', several British newspapers reported in early 1900 that, during the ongoing siege of Mafeking, British army concertina players were capturing enemy soldiers by simply playing strains of the concertina to distract them out of their hiding places. 'One is sorry to learn that the art of music should be pressed into service to lure persons to destruction', a commentator in the Musical News noted, but then, it was rationalized, 'all's fair in war'. This hybrid use of the concertina during the South African War was further employed as a metaphor for the decay of the physical body itself: as has been noted by Elizabeth van Heyningen, food in Boer concentration camps was so meagre that the meat served to prisoners was once described as coming from a 'carcase [who] looks like a concertina drawn out fully with all the wind knocked out'. Likewise, Krebs (1999) has discussed the presence of the concertina in the trenches as an example of contemporaneous stereotypes about the susceptibility of Boer soldiers to music in relation to perceived notions that they were backwards and easily manipulated. Drawing upon references to music - particularly the ubiquitous, anthropomorphised, instrument of the concertina - in concentration camps during the South African War, this paper will situate the use of British military music at the dawn of the twentieth century within the framework of trauma studies, proposing that the soundscapes of imperial war were implicitly tinged with traces of physical suffering.
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e-pub ahead of print date: 6 April 2023
Published date: 6 April 2023
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Funding Information:
This research is a part of a larger project funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship grant. Enormous thanks go to Jillian C. Rogers and Michelle Meinhart for inviting me to be a part of this special issue, and for your generous and insightful support as this article developed. You have not only introduced me to trauma theory, but have also inspired me as academics and friends. Thanks also to Erin Books, Sarah Gerk, Elizabeth Morgan, Philip Burnett, Bennett Zon and Tim Barringer for your ongoing support and feedback on my work.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022.
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Local EPrints ID: 478657
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/478657
ISSN: 1479-4098
PURE UUID: 996243c9-296c-4c5b-adef-26fb8af97cd7
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Date deposited: 06 Jul 2023 16:46
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:20
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Erin Johnson-Williams
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