All first-world-war articles

  • IMG-20250311-WA0003
    News

    Violins to honour war poets at Wilfred Owen Festival

    11 March 2025

    The instruments, dedicated to Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, will be donated to the town of Oswestry at the festival’s opening on 15 March

  • Jelly d aranyl in exotic dress
    Blogs

    How Schumann’s suppressed Violin Concerto made history – and the ideal subject for a novel

    29 September 2017

    A glamorous violin virtuosa, a hidden masterpiece, a ouija board, Nazis, Ravel’s Tzigane.  It’s not hard to see why author Jessica Duchen was attracted to the story of Jelly D’Arányi. As her novel becomes a UK touring concert, she writes about the strange facts behind the fiction

  • marechal
    Article

    The 'violoncelle des tranchées'

    4 August 2014

    In the August 2014 issue, The Strad reports on how string players in the trenches of the First World War kept up their playing by creating makeshift instruments. Made from packing crates or cases for gas masks and ammunition, the instruments were often described as 'friends' and 'comrades' ...