For noted pacifist and conscientious objector Benjamin Britten, his opera Peter Grimes – its premiere a month after VE Day marking the reopening of Sadler’s Wells – was a landmark. Hailed as launching the revival of British opera, it also established Britten as the leading British composer of his generation. The Four Sea Interludes, which would become the opera’s concert hall calling card, were premiered a week later.

Meanwhile, in America, Bohuslav Martinů, resident there since 1941, was in the midst of writing his Symphony No. 4 when news of Germany’s capitulation broke. Perhaps not coincidentally, the work is suffused with optimism and joy. For Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the end of the war marked a release from his self-imposed vow that he would concentrate solely on film music – the source of financial security for him and his family – until Hitler had been defeated. The first of these compositions, encouraged by violinist and fellow émigré Bronisław Huberman, was his lush and enduringly popular Violin Concerto.