100 years ago tonight

25th December 1914
Private Frederick W.Heath :  Still looking and dreaming, my eyes caught a flare in the darkness. A light in the enemy's trenches was so rare at that hour that I passed a message down the line. I had hardly spoken when light after light sprang up along the German front. Then quite near our dug-outs, so near as to make me start and clutch my rifle, I heard a voice. there was no mistaking that voice with its guttural ring. With ears strained, I listened, and then, all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: "English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!"

Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons: “The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.”

André Devaere d.14 November 1914

On 17th May 1914 André Devaere played his last recital in the Kortrijk town hall. He performed Bach´s Toccata and Fugue in c minor, some CPE Bach, Beethoven´s Waldstein sonata,Schumann´s "In der Nacht", Kreisleriana no.5 and Novelette no.2, a Chopin prelude, and "Islamey" by Balakirev.

At the outbreak of war he was conscripted into the 27th line regiment. On 10 November 1914 he was shot in the lungs near Nieuwpoort, Belgium and died in the Pensionat Sophie Berthelot in Calais on 14 November.

remembering

gassed   sargent

August Macke d. 26 September 1914

Expressionist German artist August Macke was killed on this day in 1914 aged 27 on the Western front. This painting from that year. Clearly such an influence on Klee!
He was perhaps the first of that generation of artists, poets, musicians, writers and scientists killed during the Great War.

His wonderful self portrait (1906)

Dave Moore: "music makes God smile"

perhaps it really is as simple as that 

 . . . . . although I am wondering how Dave Moore can be sure. . . . .