Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida
RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump digs into the archives, as well as the station’s record collection to bring you an hour of music and voices revolving around our national experience of war, and aspiration for peace, mixing music with gems from Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision to create a commemoration of Anzac Day.
If you'd like to know more about these sounds from the archives, you'll find a link to the Nga Taonga website, and a reference number next to each item.
This is what is included, in the order it appears in the audio above:
NZ Prime Minister Savage declares war on Germany, September 1939: Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 31615
Music: Mark Sheaf and Anaia Amohau: Maori Battalion March to Victory (Sung by the Maori Battalion) Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 41351.
Battling the elements — Mud and barbed wire during the Battle of Passchendaele Photo: The Great War Exhibition / Library and Archives Canada
Returned First World War soldier Joe Cody recalls the Ypres and Passchendaele battlefields during World War I, and what it was like revisiting many years later: Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 40090
Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pastoral Symphony (No 3) 2nd Movement.
A NZ nurse interviewed in a war hospital in Vietnam, 1966: Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 27568
1969. Vietnamese women and children awaiting treatment at the Bong Son district dispensary during the Vietnam War - Photographer unidentified. Dominion post (Newspaper) :Photographic negatives and prints of the Evening Post and Dominion newspapers. Ref: EP-Defence-NZ Army, Vietnam-03. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22889569 Photo:
Music: Edwin Starr: War
Second World War "Land Girl" Mary Seddon recalls seeing the "Battle of Manners Street" riot between NZ and US soldiers during a trip to Wellington in 1943: Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 15045
Music: Glenn Miller and his Orchestra: In the Mood
Music: Bob Dylan: Masters of War.
Greenpeace Activist Stephenie Mills locks herself in the Rainbow Warrior's radio room to talk to Radio New Zealand, while French commandos who've boarded the ship stand outside the door. Near Mururoa 1995: Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 8936.
Music: Gareth Farr/Sam Hunt: Ballad of Grady's Dream (based on James K Baxter poem).
Photo: Supplied / The Great War Exhibition
Music: (Nurse) Wiki Katene (Ngāti Toa) and members of the Maori Batallion sing Tapu te Po (Silent Night) - recorded in an army hospital in North Africa 1942: Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision 17321
Music: Herbet Hupfeld: As time goes by (sung by Billie Holiday).
Defence Minister Judith Collins discusses increase in defence spending. Morning Report, April 8th 2025 (RNZ Website).
Music: Benjamin Britten: Sanctus from War Requiem (Annette Dasch soprano, Christian Gerhaher baritone. Stuttgart Festival Orchestra and Chorus).
Music: Robert Wyatt: Shipbuilding (sung by June Tabor)
Music: Ruru Karaitiana: Blue Smoke (sung by Pixie Williams).
Ataturk Memorial on Wellington's South Coast. Photo: Bryan Crump
