ANZAC Voices is the story of Gallipoli, told by those who lived through it: regular troops, senior commanders, stretcher-bearers, signal operators, a nurse and a Turkish general, as well as Australia’s official war correspondent.

The transcendent voice of music interweaves these accounts, providing a poignant musical reflection on this nation-defining event from composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards and Frederick Septimus Kelly, whose Elegy was sketched behind the lines at Gallipoli.

Recorded between 1953 and 1990, the compelling and deeply emotional first-hand accounts drawn from the ABC Archives recall in graphic detail the circumstances and events of the Gallipoli campaign, from the innocence of enlistment to the horror of the landing and - for those who lived to tell their story - the bitter relief of homecoming.

Track Listing:

CD 1

1. Enlistment ‘Most of the fellas treated it as a bit of a joke’

2. Albany to Lemnos ‘We never did give the Dardanelles a thought’

3. Towards Gallipoli, 24/25 April ‘Butterflies in the tummy’

4. Gallipoli, First Landing, 25 April ‘They weren’t prepared for the slaughter’

5. Gallipoli, Subsequent Landings, 25 April ‘I expect they can all swim’

6. Reflections on Mortality ‘Death was funny in those days’

CD2

1. The Turkish Offensive and Armistice, 19 - 25 May ‘They were going to push us back into the sea’

2. Life on Gallipoli ‘Everything on Gallipoli rattled your nerves’

3. Johnny Turk ‘I had no ill feelings about him’

4. Lone Pine, 6 - 10 August ‘The fiercest battle you’ve ever seen’

5. The Evacuation ‘I wanted to run’

6. Aftermath ‘I was one of the lucky ones’

FEATURING THE VOICES OF

C.E.W. Bean - Official War Correspondent, AIF

Harry Benson - 5th AIF ambulance

General Rustu Erdelhun - 2nd Army Turkish Land Forces, Caucasus Front

Colonel Ormond Metcher - 1st Division, Lighthorse Brigade

Ethel Wilkinson (‘Sister Peters’) - Staff Nurse, AANS

and many others

FEATURING EXCERPTS FROM

ELGAR Symphony No. 1

GLASS Metamorphosis II

EDWARDS Symphony No. 1 ‘Da pacem, Domine’

SCULTHORPE Mangrove and Earth Cry

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2) and Symphony No. 5

KELLY Elegy ‘In memoriam Rupert Brooke’

and traditional songs including The Blue Cockade and The Unquiet Grave