DESCRIPTION:
The French organist and composer Claude Delvincourt (1888-1954) signed up for military service right at the start of the war. He was gravely wounded on 31 December 1915 in the Argonne, and given up for dead by the surgeon who attended him; fortunately, a nursing sister insisted he received attention. Delvincourt lost the use of his left eye and his path to recovery was slow (a selection of Delvincourt's letters from the war can be read on http://www.rouxmesnil-bouteilles.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lettres-de-guerre-de-Claude-Delvincourt.pdf). Demobilised in 1919, Delvincourt resumed his musical career, and eventually became director of the Paris Conservatoire.

His Méditation Op. 4 No. 1 dates from 1913, the year Delvincourt won the prix de Rome. The music is accompanied by images of the trenches in the Argonne.