Tunes for Tyrants with Suzy Klein...

[Petrushka]

That indeed, seemed to be the main thrust of the programmes/series. If not exactly misleading - then certainly slanted.

Television doesn't have to provide sources as books do so feels free to play fast and loose with the facts.

[Belgrove]

It is possible that Hitler attended a Mahler performance - but there is no evidence (as far as I'm aware - and no one has offered any here) that he actually did so. The facts were moulded to fit an attractive idea - a feature of the series.

This source

https://www.gustav-mahler.eu/index.php/perioden/88-1898-1907-vienna-court-opera-vienna/280-1906

states that Hitler was in the audience of a production of Tristan, but I could not trace the reference on the site.
Hitler also attended, along with Mahler, the Austrian premiere of Salome in Graz eight days later - which is also recounted in Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise.

On the whole I found these programmes rather trite.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Television doesn't have to provide sources as books do so feels free to play fast and loose with the facts.

Yes - that's why it's essential that TV documentaries should be presented with impeccable scholastic expertise (as they are in science and history docs, for example). Not left to the equivalent of someone looking at Henry VIII's garters and concluding therefrom that the Reformation was a Good Thing.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This source

https://www.gustav-mahler.eu/index.php/perioden/88-1898-1907-vienna-court-opera-vienna/280-1906

states that Hitler was in the audience of a production of Tristan, but I could not trace the reference on the site.

That's very interesting - I've been hunting around in the Alma, Nathalie, and Bruno memoirs to see if there was any help there. Too simple, of course - others would have found them long before me if there were any. I suppose that the Vienna Opera might have kept archived records of which of the Staff conductors conducted on which nights (if only for salary reasons) - but that after 111 years and a couple of World Wars they'd been lost.

On the whole I found these programmes rather trite.

- and if any topic should NOT be treated tritely ...

[pastoralguy]

On the whole I found these programmes rather trite.

I feel that comment needs rather more explanation.

[Richard Tarleton]

- and if any topic should NOT be treated tritely ...

Indeed - I'm trying to work out what the problem is, why classical music is not treated on BBC TV with the same seriousness as the other disciplines you mention. Not a serious subject, in the way the others are? A difficult pill to be sweetened by a right-on presenter, rather than a scholar? (Lucy Worsley is a scholar, but neither early music nor opera is her field.) Are they scared of it, in a way they didn't used to be?

[muzzer]

Call me a pedant but when was the last time you got round the old Joanna in a pub to sing We’ll Meet Again? Cringe.

[teamsaint]

At a slight tangent, Simon Schama seems to be no longer flavour of the month at the BBC.

Which is a pity on the History and Art History side of things, what with him being a Prof. of History and Art History 'n all....... too busy marking essays in NY, I suppose....

[Richard Tarleton]

Call me a pedant but when was the last time you got round the old Joanna in a pub to sing We’ll Meet Again? Cringe.

Indeed, see #104 - who are those people, as the Sundance Kid would say.

[Lat-Literal]

I have now watched the first half of the programme. The part where the presenter takes part in "We'll Meet Again" is not the only one in which she herself is "musical". But I think the point was twofold - to indicate the inclusive nature of the song (she is Jewish) and the enduring nature of it (it isn't simply of the past). The latter probably did need explanation, not least as British broadcasting today has to be designed for a wide range of people. There will be many young immigrants for whom this part of our culture is unfathomable so hopefully the programme was helpful to them in that regard. I have written before of how while I am able to name traditional musicians from Albania and Sri Lanka when talking with local shopkeepers who were originally from those countries, they themselves are quite unaware of them. So it is hardly surprising that when one mentions, say, Suffolk there is no concept of such a place in them at all. I like these people well enough. They appear not to dislike me although I can tell that the instinct to mention matters unrelated to our transactions is seen as unusual and even bizarre. But my motivation is clear to me. I am simply not prepared to enter into conversations with anyone, even if their families are wholly British going back to the 1800s, purely on the basis of money. To be a citizen isn't simply about robotically doing business, making lurve and having families. It requires more knowledge and effort.

I also found the section educational. I hadn't realised that Vera Lynn at her most slushy had been regarded by the BBC as the original Johnny Rotten. It was all rather ludcicrous, I reckon, given that the WW1 campaign was ably assisted by the similar "Keep The Home Fires Burning". That the composers of the Lynn hit, Hughie Charles and Ross Parker, who was one of Britain's top five songwriters in 1938, are barely known today may well be a carry across from the ban that was imposed. "We Are The Ovaltineys" was in many ways the children's equivalent to "Worker's Playtime" which was also mentioned in the programme. Interestingly, it existed only in memory as Radio Luxembourg on which it had been broadcast was closed down in 1940 because of the war. The BBC had always opposed it on the grounds of competition but in psychological terms it was to prove useful in the longer term with its emphasis on the upbeat and common purpose. Given that it was originally just advertising, such is the power of the commercial. And as it happens, my first introduction to Zarah Leander was via commercial radio in this country in the 1970s. She was featured regularly on Kenny Everett's "The World's Worst Wireless Show" which was broadcast on ILR's Capital Radio in the 1970s. Russian agent or not and some suggest it - her star never waned in her home country. There may be huge gatherings round her memorials before the year is out.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I also found the section educational. I hadn't realised that Vera Lynn at her most slushy had been regarded by the BBC as the original Johnny Rotten. It was all rather ludcicrous, I reckon, given that the WW1 campaign was ably assisted by the similar "Keep The Home Fires Burning". That the composers of the Lynn hit, Hughie Charles and Ross Parker, who was one of Britain's top five songwriters in 1938, are barely known today may well be a carry across from the ban that was imposed.

What "ban" was that, Lats?

A quick Googling of "Vera Lynn banned by the BBC" gives links to the Suzy Klein Programme (which nonetheless misspells SK's name) ... and not much else. A Telegraph list of 30 songs banned by the BBC does not include We'll Meet Again (which it surely would):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/30-songs-banned-by-the-bbc/

- and this article puts the story in less sensationalist light:

http://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-world-war-ii-backlash-against-vera-lynn-27305

No "ban" on broadcasting the song - the article is unequivocal about this;

The BBC at home also announced a “crooner ban” in July 1942. The new Dance Music Policy Committee was tasked with censoring “slushy” songs, male crooners, and insincere and over-sentimental female singers. Ultimately, the committee banned more than 30 singers and cautioned nearly 60 more. But Lynn remained untouched. By this point she was too popular — and too sincere — to ban.

Her Radio Series was not renewed for 18 months, but her records and live performances continued to be broadcast by the BBC during that time.

[Lat-Literal]

What "ban" was that, Lats?

A quick Googling of "Vera Lynn banned by the BBC" gives links to the Suzy Klein Programme (which nonetheless misspells SK's name) ... and not much else. A Telegraph list of 30 songs banned by the BBC does not include We'll Meet Again (which it surely would):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/30-songs-banned-by-the-bbc/

- and this article puts the story in less sensationalist light:

http://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-world-war-ii-backlash-against-vera-lynn-27305

No "ban" on broadcasting the song - the article is unequivocal about this;



Her Radio Series was not renewed for 18 months, but her records and live performances continued to be broadcast by the BBC during that time.

It came across to me as a ban as she said that Lynn's BBC programme "Sincerely Yours" had been taken off air and added "I can't listen to slushy ballads - what can I listen to?" Later in the war, Vera hit back.....via cinema. I accept what you say - that there was no ban - but that was not implied and the broader picture hardly suggests it had the hugest airplay. My guess is that contexts mattered. If families were waiting for news, it was probably thought that anything with a maudlin quality that emphasised distance would encourage 21st Century style mass hysteria but if it could be broadcast as if live in the field it would show how the troops were all matey and keeping their chins up and hence a boost. I am sure that she also had a lot of songs in her repetoire that were the equivalent of packing up your troubles in your old kit bag and much better suited for efficient, robust factory lines.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It came across to me as a ban as she said that Lynn's BBC programme "Sincerely Yours" had been taken off air and added "I can't listen to slushy ballads - what can I listen to?" Later in the war, Vera hit back.....via cinema. I accept what you say - that there was no ban - but that was not implied

EXACTLY - the programme took the different facts (that "overly sentimental songs" were banned from the airwaves, and that Vera Lynn's Radio Show was dropped for 18 months) together with the singalong of We'll Meet Again to imply that "Vera Lynn was banned by the BBC" - an implication so strong that it led you (and me, before I checked the facts) and several other viewers to believe it was fact. Shoddy, tabloid manipulation of facts - sums up a lot of the whole series.

and the broader picture hardly suggests it had the hugest airplay.

What "broader picture", Lats? SK's - or the Conversation article, which says

To help calm this "rather wild criticism", the BBC’s leadership decided to “rest” Sincerely Yours. Lynn, whose career was flourishing, still broadcast, but it was 18 months before she had another solo series.

... what leads you to think that there was "hardly ... the hugest airplay", beyond SK's suggestions?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My guess is that contexts mattered. If families were waiting for news, it was probably thought that anything with a maudlin quality that emphasised distance would encourage 21st Century style mass hysteria but if it could be broadcast as if live in the field it would show how the troops were all matey and keeping their chins up and hence a boost. I am sure that she also had a lot of songs in her repetoire thatwere the equivalent of packing up your troubles in your old kit bag.

You still sound as if you believe that Vera Lynn was subject to a "ban" - she wasn't. We'll Meet Again, Yours, There'll be Bluebirds and her other songs were broadcast on the BBC throughout the War. (Others of her contemporaries were not so lucky - their removal from the airwaves were indeed in response to fears that sentimentality was undermining morale, as you suggest - and which the Conversation article also mentions. But these restrictions did not apply to Dame Vera.)

[Lat-Literal]

You still sound as if you believe that Vera Lynn was subject to a "ban" - she wasn't. We'll Meet Again, Yours, There'll be Bluebirds and her other songs were broadcast on the BBC throughout the War. (Others of her contemporaries were not so lucky - their removal from the airwaves were indeed in response to fears that sentimentality was undermining morale, as you suggest - and which the Conversation article also mentions. But these restrictions did not apply to Dame Vera.)

Yes - for 18 months they were principally there in live broadcasts. Those do need to be defined. But anyhow, a more substantial point is that SK was wrong in expressing a slightly mocking incredulity about the approaches - she said to Vera Lynn but we can say to crooners etc - because it flew in the face of what the series was saying generally about the power of political decisions in terms of music plus those approaches were part of a war-winning formula. We haven't won wars since and will not win future ones without huge state censorship of the modern mass media as is deemed appropriate. 24 hour news, commercial radio and television, the internet....for a start, they will all have to go overnight. Hooray.

(The problem with maximum liberty is that it doesn't operate as such. Rather it goes wherever money is to be made. That focus is always narrow. Hence it becomes cultural tyranny.)