VA - Songs of the Spanish Civil War, Vol. 2 (1962)

Written in July 2011:

July 18 marks the 75^th anniversary
of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Time Magazinze, Monday, Aug. 04, 1941, writes about "We Behind the Barbed Wire":

"World War II has yet to produce a great song, but last week some of its saddest were heard in the U.S. The League of American Writers produced an album of records ($2.75) called "Behind the Barbed Wire" - six songs of the French, Spanish, Italian and German anti-fascists who now rot in the French concentration camps of Gurs, Vernet d'Ariège, Argelès-sur-Mer.

The six songs were recorded in Manhattan by a Netherlands-born fighter in the Spanish Civil War, Bart van der Schelling. He wears his chin in a brace, is called "official singer" for the U.S. survivors of the International Brigades of the Loyalists. Singer van der Schelling is backed by an "Exiles Chorus" directed by Earl Robinson (Ballad for Americans). Some of the songs - the Spanish "Joven Guardia", the Italian "Guardia Rossa", the German "Thaelmann-Bataillon", the French "Au Devant de la Vie" (music by Soviet Composer Dmitri Shostakovich) - were composed during the Spanish War. Most of them are in rough, plodding march time. The one which gives the album its name was composed by a German, Eberhard Schmitt, in the camp at Gurs. Its chorus, translated (not quite so lame in the original):

Behind the wire, our courage is unbroken

We yield to no one! We're not broken reeds!

Jail or internment, we're masters of our lives,

Nothing counts with us but deeds!
For where Germany's and Austria's sons may be,
One goal they cling to: Liberty! . . ."




Tracks:

Woody Guthrie and Ernst Busch accompanied by Chorus and Orchestra01- Jarama 2:55

02- On the Jarama Front 2:46
03- Ballad of the XI Brigade 3:10
04- Hans Beimler, Comrade 2:55
05- The Thaelmann-Column (German) 2:45
Songs We Remember
06- Santa Espina 2:21
07- Sevilllanos 2:24
08- The Road to Aviles 2:41
Behind the Barbed Wire, by Bart Van Der Schelling and the Exiles Chorus directed by Earl Robinson
09- La Guardia Rossa (Italian) 2:24
10- Wie Hinterm Draht (Behind the Barbed Wire)  (Composed in French internment Camp of Gurs by Eberhard Schmitt) 2:49
11- La Joven Guardia (Spanish) 2:20
12- Au Devant de la Vie (French) Music by Dmitri Shostakovich 2:48

VA - Songs Of The Spanish Civil War, Vol. 2 (1962)
(320 kbps, front cover included)