Songs for squaddies: the war musical Lads in Their Hundreds

What do you get if you mix AE Housman with Elgar, a little bit of music hall and a dash of Whitney Houston?I'm a big fan of this paper's Readers Recommend column, about the best election songs, or songs about the moon, or fighting. But it frustrates me that classical music gets sidelined. Why no Britten ploughboy, climbing the greasy pole into power? Why no Schubert gazing into the night sky? And most especially, why no George Butterworth soldier songs?Butterworth composed these songs before dyi...

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