9 March 2012
In 1964 the BBC produced a major documentary series about The Great War, feted with prizes and widely seen as the precursor to ITV’s landmark World At War. I toyed with buying the box set off Amazon but it’s a surprising £60 and I suspected would join all the other half-watched box sets in the cupboard.
Whereupon I discovered the whole thing is available free on YouTube! Just search for the titles of each episode, as listed on Wikipedia.
Having watched 23 episodes I’m struck by a) just how much footage seems to exist of specific events and b) the cumulative effect of hearing just a few pieces of classical music over and again: the brooding opening of Shostakovitch’s 11th symphony, the most intense parts of his 5th and 7th symphonies; the titanic opening chords of Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antarctica (occasional snippets of his pastoral…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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