It feels appropriate that music – surely the ultimate expression of freedom – is playing such a key role in marking eighty years since Victory in Europe.

Seven military bands marched in the parade from Parliament to Buckingham Palace on Monday; members of the London Youth Choirs sang at the Tower of London as an installation of nearly 30,000 ceramic poppies was unveiled this week, the flowers cascading down from Tower walls that were bombed during the Blitz; John Rutter’s setting of Psalm 46 – written for the 75th anniversary of VE Day in 2020 – was sung at the Westminster Abbey Service of Thanksgiving this morning; and this evening Horse Guards Parade plays host to a multi-genre concert, with classical representation from Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Willard White.

Music is the ultimate symbol of what was fought for and gained at great sacrifice: a voice, then and now, able to speak its mind and open its heart.

Here, through music, Gramophone pays tribute to those who made VE Day possible.

Manning Sherwin and Eric Maschwitz – A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
Elena Urioste (vln) / Tom Poster (pno); ‘The Jukebox Album’, Orchid Classics, 2021

Penned in a French fishing village just before the onset of War in 1939, one of the most poignant wartime songs offers a chance to remember a songwriter-spy. Eric Maschwitz was a popular lyricist until he was recruited into the famous Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Intelligence Corps. By 1945 he was a Chief Broadcasting Officer and Lieutenant Colonel, helping organise broadcasts to troops worldwide and inaugurating what would become British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), which continues to this day.

Glenn Miller – Moonlight Serenade
Boston Pops Orchestra / John Williams (cond); ‘Unforgettable’, Sony, 1993

It’s estimated that Glenn Miller’s wartime US Army Air Forces Band entertained a whopping 1.25 million troops in Europe, testament to the power of music to lift the spirits and bring people together. Tragically, Miller was among those lost when a military aircraft flew through thick fog over the English Channel in 1944.

Elizabeth Poston – Festal Te Deum
Bristol Choral Society / Hilary Campbell (cond); ‘Praise Him With Trumpets’, Delphian, 2025

Working for the BBC in the War, it’s believed Poston embedded codes into music broadcasts to communicate with Resistance fighters on the Continent.

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Coastal Command Suite
RTÉ Concert Orchestra / Andrew Penny (cond); ‘Vaughan Williams: Coastal Command’, Naxos, 2016

RVW might have been in his 70s come the Second World War, but he played his part scoring propaganda films, collecting scrap metal for aircraft and weapons use, filling sandbags (alongside far younger men) and helping to co-ordinate the housing of European refugees. This score comes from 1942 and a part-documentary, part-drama which told the story of the Flying Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Richard Rodgers – Victory At Sea: Symphonic Scenario
New York Philharmonic / Richard Rodgers (cond); ‘Rodgers Conducts Rodgers’, Masterworks Broadway, 2009

In 1952, the Broadway composer-producer legend was approached by the US Navy to score a new TV documentary series charting their role in the Second World War. At twenty-six episodes (each one using over fifty thousand feet of film), it was a huge task. Indeed, the lack of any lyrics would also make it a new challenge for the composer.

Despite having the acuity to remark that airplanes flew in the key of F sharp (but which aircraft, cries this geeky writer), Rodgers declined full compositional roles but agreed to pen the key musical themes; his regular theatrical collaborator, orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, then translated these into a full symphonic score of epic proportions. It took eight months to complete, and the total score runs to a full thirteen hours! Just as well: Rodgers later drew on certain melodies from the series for his musicals that followed.

George Lloyd – Symphony No. 4 in B minor, ‘Arctic’
Albany Symphony Orchestra / George Lloyd (cond); ‘George Lloyd: The Symphonies – Nos 1-6’, Lyrita, 2024

Lloyd had been a Bandsman in the Royal Marines, and then a radio engineer on the Arctic Convoys. His ship was torpedoed in 1942 and Lloyd was the last to escape alive from his compartment; suffering severe shellshock, composing became a form of therapy. In 1946 alone, he wrote two symphonies. Consider this a testament to the enduring power of the human spirit.

Nigel Hess – Chansons de Normandie
The Band of HM Royal Marines Portsmouth / Nick Grace (cond); ‘Metropolis 1927’

A nod to D-Day here with three traditional Normandy folk songs, the basis of a lively arrangement from Coronation composer Nigel Hess (doubly appropriate since he is the great nephew of pianist Myra Hess, who organised the wartime concerts at the National Gallery through the Blitz). The piece was commissioned by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force and premiered on BBC Radio 2 as part of their D-Day Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 2014.

James P Johnson – Victory Stride
Leslie Stifelman (pno) / Concordia Orchestra / Marin Alsop (cond); ‘Victory Stride: The Symphonic Music Of James P Johnson’, Musical Heritage Society, 2008

Best known as the Father of Stride Piano, Johnson was also a prolific composer who penned sixteen musicals, a concerto and a Harlem Symphony. Jazz and orchestra combine in this gem, written in 1944; it captures the optimism of a turning tide, looking ahead to the party atmosphere that filled the streets come May 1945.

John Addison – A Bridge Too Far
BBC Concert Orchestra / Rumon Gamba (cond); ‘The Film Music of John Addison’, Chandos, 2007

Imagine: the soldier asked to score a movie all about the campaign he had fought in. Such was John Addison’s position when he wrote the music for A Bridge Too Far (1977), three decades on from having fought in Operation Market Garden. He had been in the 23rd Hussars as a tank officer and went into action one week after D-Day; he was wounded in action at Caen, but continued the push through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. After the War, he scored over 100 films and TV series and won a BAFTA. Appropriately enough, he also wrote the music for another war film favourite, Reach for the Sky; his brother-in-law was Battle of Britain hero, Douglas Bader.

Debbie Wiseman and Grahame Davies – A Day May Come
Voces8 / Barnaby Smith (cond); Silva Screen Records

An anthem written especially for the 80th anniversary of VE Day and VJ Day this year, Debbie Wiseman – familiar for over 200 film and TV credits and her musical contribution to the Coronation – sets the words of Welsh poet Grahame Davies. His text speaks of sacrifice and hope, underlining the power of living life through the example of others. It was recorded at the historic Voces8 Centre in the church of St Anne & St Agnes, a Christopher Wren building in the heart of the City of London; the building dates back to 1137 and has endured plague and fire, including bomb damage in the Second World War. So bad was the Blitz damage that only the shell and tower of the church remained intact, and fittings from other London churches were used to help restore it once the conflict had ended. The backdrop to this recording, then, is a powerful symbol of perseverance, community and continuity.

As the anthem proclaims: 'the fears they faced, the faith they found / their common cause and common ground / we carry with us, come what may / as we now face our destiny, our day.'