The Beginning of the End of Something

World War I, with its attendant music and noise, was followed immediately by an influenza epidemic (the “Spanish flu”) that was met by a resounding silence. To meet the epidemic, theatres closed and gatherings were prohibited; Western culture itself paused until the danger passed. Realistic portrayals and responses through music were rare (in contrast to the war), but they may be detectable in works by artists as diverse as Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Blind Willie Johnson. The nationalism of the conflict yielded to a new transnationalism, neither peaceful nor stable, described most memorably by Randolph Bourne, himself a victim of the disease.