Music of the armistice

It's ANZAC Day on Thursday and in 2019 we're now at the end of WW1 centenary commemorations. 

But of course the end of the war wasn't a clean break in 1918 and the end of the war was an enduring cultural moment - and that was reflected in it's music. 

George Nepia and Kingi Te Ahoaho Tahiwi, ca 1935. Photograph taken probably in 1935 at the Sydney Cricket Ground showing George Nepia and Kingi Te Ahoaho Tahiwi just before a Maori v New South Wales match. Photo courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library,Reference Number: 1/2-C-22477-F.

Invercargill March sheet music cover: A piano arrangement of Alex Lithgow’s ‘Invercargill March - National Library of New Zealand.

Good Bye Maoriland cover

Alex F. Lithgow, composer of the 'Invercargill March'. Photo courtesy John Whiteoak.

Chris Bourke is the content director of music website AudioCulture.co.nz, and the author of the books Good-bye Maoriland: the Songs and Sounds of New Zealand's Great War  - and Blue Smoke: the Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music, and he's in the Wellington studio to play some of the music from the end of the war.

: Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library

Links: 

'Invercargill March' performed on a pianola

New Zealand written First World War songs, recorded for the first time in 2015 by RNZ Concert

Three 1920s recordings by Ernest McKinlay, including 'E Pari Ra'

Mad Jazz Razz – Manhattan Jazz Band 

The 1930 promo film of Epi Shalfoon and his Melody Boys performing 'E Puritai Tama'

The Royal NZ Artillery Band performing 'Invercargill March'