Last Post to get modern treatment under WW1 centenary plans

A Government-backed scheme to mark the First World War centenary will see hundreds of modern arrangements of the Last Post performed, featuring instruments like bagpipes, guitars and steel drums

 

A bugler plays the last post during a special remembrance blessing at the war memorial in Brighton  

Its simple and sombre tune has become synonymous with the sacrifice of the First World War.

Now, to mark the centenary of the conflict’s outbreak, a new Government-backed project will see hundreds of modern arrangements of the Last Post performed, involving instruments as diverse as bagpipes, guitars and steel drums.

The mass participation Last Post project, announced today by Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, will see more than 1,000 war-themed musical events held across Britain, at which songs linked to the conflict will be played.

In addition to performances of the Last Post, the scheme hopes to revive other tunes, such as: “Keep the Home Fires Burning”, composed by Ivor Novello in 1914, “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit-Bag” and “Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty”, music hall songs published in 1915 and 1916 respectively.

^{Keep the Home Fires Burning}

The project, which is receiving around £35,000 from the Department for Communities and Local Government, will run throughout the centenary, from 2014 to 2018, and each year, with a series of “Last Post fortnights” held either side of Remembrance Sunday. During each of these periods, 300 groups – scout troops, schools, churches, musical societies and community organisations – will hold their own events. Each year will have its own theme, with 2014’s centred on the “Outbreak of War”.
Pilot projects are already planned in Bradford, Bristol, Haringey, in London, Knowsley, in Merseyside, Cramlington, in Northumberland, and Portsmouth, where the local festival choir, which will stage choral versions of the Last Post and other bugle calls.
^{Pack Up Your Troubles}
Mr Pickles, who on Thursday attended a Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate, in Ypres, Belgium, said: “The poignancy of The Last Post is something that everyone in Britain recognises as a way of remembering those who lost their lives in war in service to this country fighting for liberty.
“This is a fitting time to bring that music back home, closer to the heart of communities and use it to remember the remarkable role so many local people played in the First World War.”
^{Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty}
The Last Post itself far predates the First World War. The bugle call was used in British Army camps to mark the end of the day’s labours and the onset of the night’s rest.
It was also sounded at the close of a day in battle, when it signalled to those who were still out and wounded or separated that the fighting was done, and to follow the sound of the call.
From these uses, it has come to represent a final farewell to the fallen at the end of their earthly labours and at the onset of their eternal rest.
It is still sounded at military funerals and commemoration ceremonies, including, nightly, at the Menin Gate, in Ypres, which honours the dead from the First World War fighting around the town.
It has been performed every evening there at 8pm since 1928 – apart from the four years of German occupation during the Second World War.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10595124/Last-Post-to-get-modern-treatment-under-WW1-centenary-plans.html

NWN: Steel drums playing the Last Post ?

"Pilot projects are already planned in Bradford, Bristol, Haringey" ?

Is nothing sacred anymore ? And this from the Tory party !

DISGRACEFUL!!!