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Keep calm and carry on singing: why Britons fell in love with opera during World War Two
As the conflict with Nazi Germany raged on, British tram drivers tuned in to Tchaikovsky and waitresses revelled in Wagner. But why? Alexandra Wilson explores the surprising Second World War obsession with opera
Glasgow, 1942. The Carl Rosa Opera Company was in town to perform Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Tickets had been snapped up by local people – including many who didn’t really know what an opera was. The soprano Joan Hammond, who sang the title role that night, later recalled that there were always newcomers in the audience wherever the Carl Rosa performed, searching for something different to do – but also for some kind of transcendental escapism. Invariably, they cheered the singers to the rafters. Surprising though it may seem to us today, opera was hugely popular during the Second World War. This was part of a broader surge of interest among the British in the so-called high arts – a sudden and rather urgent desire to ‘become cultured’ and to enjoy the best that life had to offer – when every day might be your last. Guy Ramsey reported in the Daily Mail in 1943 that “every day in every way Britain’s musical and dramatic taste is becoming more and more ‘highbrow’”. Tram drivers were listening to Tchaikovsky, waitresses were revelling in Wagner, and operas were drawing large audiences at provincial theatres. This war, Ramsey wrote, was more personal than any before it, and felt closer to home. Serious times called for serious art, and popular variety shows no longer seemed in step with the national mood. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/2X2FXR2webready-9f2accf-e1767623285427.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph shows a man in a cap with round glasses and a cigarette in his mouth sitting on one of many stools outside a theatre. In front of him to the right, a billboard advertises the Sadler's Wells Opera" title="Stools for hire by people queueing for Sadler’s Wells Opera Company performances at the New Theatre, 1943. Tickets started at just 1/6 (about £4 today) (Image by Alamy)" /> Workers’ playtime Opera had already enjoyed reasonably wide popularity in Britain during the interwar years. In London, the enterprising impresario Lilian Baylis had set up companies at the Old Vic in the 1920s and Sadler’s Wells in the 1930s that were explicitly aimed at fostering a love of opera among local working-class communities. And over in the East End, people could regularly watch operas at the People’s Palace, a large entertainment complex on the Mile End Road. Touring opera companies regularly visited towns and cities around the country, and were eagerly anticipated by people of all social classes. Operatic music could also be widely heard in restaurants, hotel foyers and cinemas, and broadcasting and gramophone records had done a great deal to popularise and democratise the art form. But the opera boom of the early 1940s was in a different league. It would have been logical if opera had ground to a halt during the war, given the large resources conventionally needed to stage performances. To be sure, the most prominent venues did close: the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden was turned into one of the most popular wartime dance halls, and Glyndebourne in East Sussex became a home for evacuees from London. Read more | The War of the Operas: new money vs old in The Gilded Age Sadler’s Wells soldiered on during the early months of the war, staging matinees to get around the problem of blackouts, but soon enough the Blitz put paid to this, and the theatre became a refuge for the newly homeless. However, the company moved its operations to Burnley and toured extensively from there, putting on works including The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto and La bohème with a scaled-down cast, piano accompaniment, a simple painted backcloth and a sofa. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/La-Traviata-9c942fb-e1767623963300.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing two women sharing an afternoon tea on a tray, in a theatre auditorium" title="Audience members sip tea during the interval in a 1943 matinee performance of La Traviata at the New Theatre in London’s West End. The soaring appetite for opera among all classes fuelled a wartime renaissance in Britain (Image by Imperial War Museum)" /> The Times praised Sadler’s Wells for “Making converts to the art of music-drama” in places such as Oldham, Accrington and Stockport. Performances were so popular that theatres were desperate to book the company. The manager of the Hull New Theatre reported that his postbag was constantly full of letters from audience members “representing a cross-section of the community” who wanted to see the troupe. Periodically, when it was safe to do so – and even when it wasn’t – the company returned to London to perform in the West End. The soprano Elisabeth Parry recalled a performance at the Haymarket Theatre in 1944 when the show went on even while alarms rang and ‘Doodlebugs’ (V1 flying bombs) could be heard buzzing overhead. Audience members remained in their seats, and the singers and orchestra carried on as if nothing was happening. The success of the Sadler’s Wells tours showed that the British would happily embrace opera if only they were given the opportunity. Journalists expressed frustration that there had never been a move to set up a similar opera company in every major city around the country, because there was clearly plenty of demand. “No doubt there are as many busmen as there are butchers, bakers, baronets and bankers who enjoy a good opera when they can get it,” argued The Times. And the Times Literary Supplement proposed that, with a dozen more companies along the lines of Sadler’s Wells, “we should have a genuine art of opera in England as we already have a genuine public for it”. Sadler’s Wells worked in partnership with the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), which also arranged concerts in which professional musicians, including opera singers, performed in factories, air-raid shelters and hospitals. CEMA’s broad aim was to “carry music, drama and pictures to places which otherwise would be cut off from all contact with the masterpieces of happier days and times”. Operatic performances also featured in the Holidays at Home initiative organised by the Ministry of Labour, which turned open areas in cities into makeshift seaside resorts, and put on a wide range of entertainments. One such scheme in Liverpool, which included performances of opera, ran for 11 weeks in 1942 and attracted an audience of three quarters of a million. Arias on the airwaves Of course, there was also plenty of opera on the radio. In 1941, regular monthly broadcasts of studio operas resumed for the first time since the outbreak of war. The emphasis was primarily on well-known classics such as La Traviata and The Barber of Seville because, as the conductor Sir Adrian Boult said, “The evidence is general that the musical public turns to these sources for mental and spiritual recreation more eagerly than ever today.” BBC listener research from 1943 revealed that the numbers listening to variety shows were down by 20 per cent, whereas audiences for classical music and serious drama were on the rise. Read more | The biggest misconceptions about WW2 evacuees? This historian has the answers Victor Hely-Hutchinson, the BBC’s director of music from 1944, wrote that one of the few benefits of the war was the rise of an immense public enthusiasm for good music. “Go to an orchestral concert, or a fine operatic performance,” he said, “and you will find a corporate appreciation and desire for music of a kind, and on a scale, that has never been seen in Britain before.” Radio broadcasts allowed audiences to enjoy the highest standards of singing, which were not always evident in rough-and-ready touring productions. “Stayed at home tonight to listen to Faust – complete – on the wireless,” wrote one unnamed office worker in a diary submission for Mass Observation in 1942. “Feel very grateful to the BBC for giving us first-class opera; it is not often we get first-rate opera in Manchester, and there is nothing worse than good music badly executed.” Many people, men in particular, first encountered opera in the forces. Some took part in amateur operatic productions of works such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at military bases in Britain. Others stationed in the Middle East with Paiforce (the Persia and Iraq force) had the opportunity to hear operatic arias in concerts organised by the Entertainments National Service Association. Some of the most respected British opera singers of the day, such as Walter Widdop, Dennis Noble and Miriam Licette, toured that region. But by far the most significant boom in enthusiasm for opera among soldiers was seen in Italy. In 1944, the Daily Express reported that “one of the biggest surprises of our ‘invasion’ of Italy has been the way the men have become opera fans”. Some enterprising army captains reformed the mothballed opera company at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Word soon spread that watching opera was a good way to spend an evening, and British troops took to queueing around the block to get tickets. The 1,600-seat theatre was always full to capacity, and two performances a day had to be scheduled to meet demand. A similar enterprise was also set up at the bomb-damaged and abandoned Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Sicily and, as the Allies moved north, more companies were founded in major cities across the country. Naomi Jacob, who in 1948 wrote a book about opera aimed specifically at the soldiers who had come to love it in Italy, recalled that when the idea had first been mooted, there had been a lot of scepticism about whether British and American troops would be willing to listen to opera. But houses sold out in advance, and audience members often came back several times. Jacob reported that “no better audience ever existed… they were punctual, they gave rapt attention, and their appreciation was unstinted”. From September 1943 to the end of the war, countless British servicemen watched performances of opera in Italy. The composer and broadcaster Spike Hughes reported that “in every town the same thing happened: the British soldier took to grand opera as if it were in his blood”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-1754686839webready-9635b10-e1767623396598.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a stage show. A large ensemble crowd stands at the back of the stage, while one man stands at the front, crouched down with his arm held backwards" title="A 1940s opera performance in Rome. Many British servicemen first experienced – and came to love – opera while stationed in Italy during the war (Image by Getty Images)" /> Exposure to Italian opera in Italy helped soldiers to become more discerning listeners. In Britain before the war, opera was performed in English translation everywhere except Covent Garden and Glyndebourne, two ‘luxurious’ venues that sat apart from the national norm. But here, suddenly, was an audience that had shown itself perfectly capable of appreciating opera in the original language. The Rome correspondent for the Sunday Express reported that “an ‘opera-conscious’ audience is being created for Britain after the war, but if any theatre magnate wants to cater for them he must offer something better than a third-rate touring company”. Optimism for opera Hopes were high, then, for what Britain’s operatic landscape might look like in the postwar period. Even the most sceptical commentators were coming round to opera: the Daily Express reported that “the most ridiculous art-form ever invented” was “proving more popular than anybody ever imagined”. Of course, many people who had encountered opera in pared-back productions during the war had no idea what it really could be. The public was, as The Liverpool Daily Post put it, “as ignorant of the real taste of opera as a wartime infant is of the taste of bananas”. But appetites had been whetted, and Britons emerged from the war wanting to see not only more opera but better opera. To a large extent, these expectations were met. The theatre director Tyrone Guthrie argued after the war that London was becoming the musical centre of the world, with opera at its heart. In the autumn of 1947, audiences in the capital had the opportunity to watch no fewer than 23 different operas performed by five companies. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-1360190650webready-ae6a690-e1767623509642.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing five women dancing on a stage, in front of a large crowd of men in military uniform, who are all sitting on the floor" title="Servicemen watch a wartime rehearsal by the Entertainments National Service Association, which toured combat zones (Image by Getty Images)" /> A new company based at the Cambridge Theatre in Seven Dials performed Italian opera in Italian to groups of former servicemen and West End shopworkers. For a while, even glamorous Covent Garden presented a form of “opera for the people”, running regional auditions and recruiting talented opera-singing coalminers, secretaries and milkmen as soloists for a new company. Read more | "Hooray! The war is ended": 5 people's recollections of VE Day Some of these initiatives were only short-lived. Even so, there was very much a buzz in the air around opera after the war, with the Musicians’ Union declaring in 1947 that classical music had become “a necessary part of the life of the people”. The wider acceptance of opera as bona fide popular entertainment seemed to be summed up by the fact that when the San Carlo Opera Company from Naples visited just after the war, it performed not only at Covent Garden but also at Butlin’s holiday camps in Filey and Skegness. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/San-Carlo-Opera-Companywebready-ce0beda-e1767624438971.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of a crowd of women, dressed in dresses and frilly white pinafores. One sits at a piano, surrounded by the others" title="Members of the San Carlo Opera Company of Naples perform at a Butlin’s holiday camp in the mid-1940s. Classical music was now, so the Musicians’ Union declared, “a necessary part of the life of the people” (Image by The Butlin’s Heritage Collection, History of Advertising Trust Archive (HAT))" /> Sadler’s Wells, meanwhile, made a triumphant return to its Islington home, where on 7 June 1945 it staged the premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes – a rapturously received work that seemed to signal a hopeful new beginning for British operatic composition. New troupes formed to take touring opera around the country in the late 1940s. The 1940s also saw the foundation of Welsh National Opera – a group of talented amateurs at the outset but later a major player on the British operatic scene. Perhaps most importantly, thanks to the huge explosion of interest in the high arts that had taken place during the war, the nation was far more open-minded towards the possibility of funding it afterwards. Up to this point, public subsidy had only ever been a pipe dream. Now CEMA provided a model for the new Arts Council of Great Britain, which leaned heavily towards favouring opera. Thanks to subsidies, opera could be staged at Covent Garden year-round rather than just for a three-month summer season, and prices could be kept low. The Arts Council also undertook local measures to foster music-making and music appreciation, setting up clubs in workplaces and lending gramophone records. Meanwhile, opera featured prominently on the BBC’s new Third Programme. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/WNO-Chorus-in-Ebenezer-Chapel-1946-Idloes-Owen-front-6th-from-the-leftwebready-12658e1-e1767624255173.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A black and white photograph of a large crowd of men and women, sitting in rows" title="Singers with the Welsh National Opera in the 1940s. The company made its debut with a double-bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci in 1946 (Image by Welsh National Opera)" /> “Fifteen years ago I should have felt obliged to defend opera as a form of art,” said the critic and academic Edward J Dent in a lecture delivered at Liverpool University in 1945, “but that is no longer necessary.” Opera continued to be enjoyed by large, socially mixed audiences through the 1950s, sixties and seventies, and was drawing record audiences in the eighties and nineties. But by those later decades, the media had begun to circulate a simplistic idea that opera was elitist, and by the turn of the millennium the idea was so entrenched that it was deterring newcomers to the genre. Opera was also becoming more expensive, declining on television and disappearing from the school curriculum. Today, opera still has something for everyone, but it has receded from the mainstream cultural conversation. Regrettably, it has become necessary, once again, to defend it as a form of art. Alexandra Wilson is a senior research fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford. Her latest book is Someone Else’s Music: Opera and the British (Oxford University Press), published in September 2025 This article was first published in the Christmas 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Is Amadeus a true story? The real history of Mozart's feud with Salieri
A new Sky Atlantic miniseries revives the tale of Mozart’s supposed rivalry with Antonio Salieri. But how much of it is based on truth?
The Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stands as one of the most iconic figures in musical history. In his short life, he produced more than 800 works, giving him a firm place in the canon of classical music. Amadeus, a Sky Atlantic miniseries starring Will Sharpe as Mozart, dramatises his ‘golden years’ in Vienna and the rumoured feud between him and fellow composer Antonio Salieri. Is Amadeus a true story? No, Amadeus is not a true story. While Amadeus centres on an assumed rivalry between Mozart and Salieri, the story owes far more to theatre than genuine biography. The miniseries draws heavily on Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, also called Amadeus, which was inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s 1830 short drama Mozart and Salieri. This was a reimagination of the rumour that Salieri murdered Mozart in a final act of revenge. The miniseries clearly embraces this dramatic tradition, with Paul Bettany’s Salieri declaring: “He [Mozart] had written a masterpiece, and I was nothing but a spectator.” There are strands of truth, however. The miniseries takes place during Mozart’s years in Vienna where he did experience huge success, and when he was married to a woman named Constanze Weber (played by Gabrielle Creevy). He and Salieri did also compete as musicians, but in a way that seemed much more professional than vengeful. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/01003Amadeus-ceb6d1c-e1766423415885.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Paul Bettany's Salieri (left) watched on amid a crowd as his purported rival Mozart (Will Sharpe) dazzles at a piano" title="Paul Bettany's Salieri (left) watched on amid a crowd as his purported rival Mozart (Will Sharpe) dazzles at a piano (Photos credit Sky studios_Adrienn Szabo)" /> Did Salieri murder Mozart? There is no good evidence that Salieri murdered Mozart. Mozart died on 5 December 1791 in Vienna, at the age of just 35. His early death has led to much mythology, including the theory that his rival Salieri murdered him in a final act of revenge. This is likely fuelled by Mozart reportedly believing he had been poisoned while on his deathbed, which led people to blame Salieri. The rumours continued for decades afterwards, and Alexander Pushkin strengthened them with his 1830 play Mozart and Salieri. Templeton addresses this directly, stating “He wasn’t poisoned by Salieri. That’s another myth that we have. He was ill.” There are also rumours of Mozart being buried in a pauper’s grave. “They’re not true,” says Templeton. “He is buried in an unmarked grave in Vienna because that was the custom of the time for ordinary middle-class people.” So how did Mozart die? It remains the subject of speculation, but Templeton puts it down to rheumatic fever, an inflammatory disease affecting the joints. This is in line with what was described on his death certificate as a ‘heated miliary fever’. Read more | Chevalier de Saint-Georges: how the mixed-race musical maestro Joseph Bologne became a star in 18th-century France Who was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, Austria, and is now famous for his talents as a composer. Some of his most famous operas include The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, alongside instrumental works including Symphony No. 40 and No. 41 Jupiter, and choral compositions. He was the last of seven children, though only he and his sister Maria Anna (known as Nannerl) survived infancy. As might be predicted, the family were not short of musical talent. His father, Leopold, was a court composer and a highly educated man. As Hannah Templeton explains on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, “He taught his children everything they knew musically – but they were also educated in maths, languages, religion… he was a very educated man and he ensured that his children were as well.” Mozart’s brilliance emerged early. By the age of three, he could play keyboard pieces and at five, he was taken to Vienna to perform for Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa. The success of this performance resulted in a grand tour, where the young Mozart dazzled audiences across Europe. After his return, he was granted an honorary role as Konzertmeister (concert master) of Archbishop Colloredo’s orchestra at the Salzburg Court, later securing a paid position. But his time there grew strained; he and his father clashed with Mozart’s employer Archbishop Colloredo, whom they felt favoured Italian musicians and restricted creative freedom. Seeking greater opportunities, Mozart travelled widely in his early adulthood. His ultimate break came in 1781 when he moved to Vienna, marking the beginning of his ‘golden years’ as depicted in Amadeus. Read more | From a scandalous threesome to classical stardom: the actress who found redemption in Handel’s Messiah Who was Antonio Salieri? Although less famous than Mozart today, Antonio Salieri was an incredibly successful Italian composer during his lifetime. His operas include Armida, Les Danaïdes and Europa Riconosciuta. Also a teacher and subject of the Habsburg monarchy, he was appointed as the director of Italian opera by the Habsburg court and held the post between 1774 and 1792, making him the name in Italian opera in Vienna at the time. But his name stretched beyond Vienna; he performed throughout Europe and wrote for opera houses in Venice, Rome and Paris. ven once his own professional career was waning, Salieri was sought after for his teaching ability. His pupils included Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven and even Mozart’s son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. Were Mozart and Salieri rivals? The idea of a bitter rivalry between Mozart and Salieri owes more to later retellings than reality. As Templeton notes, “They were friendly colleagues. There was a little bit of rivalry there as well, but no more than professional rivalry.” This is a very different picture to Amadeus, where Salieri declares “From this time on we are enemies, you and I.” In real history their relationship could be described more as one of competitors than rivals – a dynamic that would have been encouraged in 18th-century Vienna. Musical contests, including one in 1786 that is often cited as evidence of a conflict between the two men, were standard practice in the court of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1780-1790). In fact, Mozart and Salieri even composed music together. In 1785, they co-wrote the cantata Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia to celebrate singer Nancy Storace’s recovery. Would two bitter rivals really compose a song together to mark such an event? What was Mozart’s relationship with Constanze Weber? Constanze was Mozart’s wife, but she was not his first choice within the Weber family. He first fell in love with Constanze’s older sister Aloysia, though she did not return his feelings. Years later, while lodging with the Weber family, he began a relationship with Constanze. “The circumstances around which they got together are a little bit unclear,” says Templeton. Rumours might have circulated about their inappropriate behaviour before marriage, and Mozart briefly moved out of the Weber home. Constanze’s mother might have also pressured Mozart to marry her daughter. His early letters also reveal mixed feelings; Templeton notes that Mozart described Constanze as having “no wit, but … enough common sense to enable her to fulfil her duties as a wife and mother”. Despite this rocky beginning, and his father Leopold’s initial disapproval, their marriage seems to have been affectionate and supportive. “By all accounts, those letters read really tenderly [and are] quite witty. They clearly have a really good relationship,” Templeton observes. Tragedy, however, marked their family life. Of their six children, only two survived to adulthood, a stark parallel to the experiences of Mozart’s own parents. Was Mozart a prankster? Mozart did have a reputation as a bit of a prankster. In fact, the same man responsible for beautiful compositions wrote a piece in around 1782 titled Leck mic him Arsch, which means ‘lick me in the arse’ and can be understood in English as ‘kiss my arse’. It didn’t stop there, and he wasn’t afraid to use scatological humour in his correspondence. His mischievousness began early. It would be easy to view the young Mozart travelling around Europe as a serious young prodigy, but stories recount how he would deliberately play wrong notes during concerts to see if the audience would notice. This continued into his adult – and professional – life. For example, he would test the musical abilities of those performing his compositions, writing piano pieces that leapt between high and low notes, intending to frustrate the performer. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week
When Bob Geldof exhorted audiences to fill Wembley Stadium and empty their pockets for famine relief in Ethiopia, he changed the face of charity fundraising – and of live music. On its 40th anniversary, David Hepworth – one of the BBC presenters on the day – explores the legacy of Live Aid
If not quite the moon landing or the shooting of JFK, 13 July 1985 remains a day on which most people who were alive remember exactly where they were – a day marked by a seismic social and cultural shift. The defining moment came around seven o’clock in the evening. Queen, a rock band whose star had seemed to be on the wane, was performing ‘We Will Rock You’ at Wembley Stadium. The audience seemed almost possessed – overwhelmed at simply being part of the occasion. Frontman Freddie Mercury pointed the cameraman at the crowd – more than 70,000 people clapping in perfect synchrony, hands above their heads. In this instant was born a new age of musical performance that would be notable as much for what things looked like as for the way they sounded. The road to today’s special-effects-packed, big-ticket concert experience was laid at Live Aid. The Age of Spectacle started here. Essential viewing What was to climax with a TV event that everybody watched because they wanted to began with a TV event that many watched because they had little choice. That was Michael Buerk’s report from the camps on the plain of Korem in Ethiopia’s Tigray region where, in October 1984, many thousands were dying as a result of famine and war. Bob Geldof was at home on the evening of Buerk’s broadcast – because his career as the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats was no longer quite as chart-busting as it had been. Moved and enraged by what he saw, he took the prodigious energy that would ordinarily have been put into plugging a new single, and dragooned his pop mates into singing on a charity record. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-90764827-2c6c58c.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A man in a stripey shirt stands around with several young children. The children are thin, barefoot and mostly dressed in cut-offs" title="Photojournalist Mohamed Amin and BBC reporter Michael Buerk at Korem relief camp, Ethiopia, in 1984. Buerk’s report on the famine inspired Bob Geldof to use music to raise funds (Image by Getty Images)" /> One of the most widely held misconceptions about the popular music scene of today is that it moves swiftly. That is not the case. It’s glacial. Glastonbury now involves more planning than the Normandy D-Day landings. By contrast, Band Aid (and the concert that followed, Live Aid) came together so quickly they took your breath away – and nobody realised the extent of what had been achieved until long after it was over. When I went to Sarm West Studios on Sunday 25 November 1984 to report on the recording of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, there was no guarantee that the project would fly at all. Bob Geldof’s doing a charity record, the murmurs went: we’ll believe it when we see it. Two weeks later, it was number one – the biggest story in music – and all of your neighbours had snapped up a copy. Read more | My history hero: Aled Jones chooses Freddie Mercury (1946–91) Why? Were they seized by altruism? That’s impossible to know. The motivations of those people who grabbed the single in Woolworths and Our Price and a thousand other retail outlets that December were probably as mixed as those of the people who had been invited to sing on it: happy to do something for a good cause, and also rather enjoying feeling at one with the national mood. Today we would call it a vibe shift. The record was such a phenomenon that it demanded some kind of follow-up. By some extraordinary stroke of good fortune, Geldof – whose personal success had ebbed – had caught a wave of public sentiment. Suddenly, everybody in his orbit – the broadcasters, the acts, the record companies and the media – looked to see where he might lead them next. A show of some kind? There had been benefit concerts before, of course, with proceeds donated to help the victims of wars and humanitarian disasters in Biafra (Nigeria), Bangladesh and Kampuchea (now Cambodia). In the years following Live Aid would come Farm Aid, Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday, The Concert for New York City, and so many others that they swiftly hardened into ritual. But only Live Aid reverberates strongly enough in the public memory that it inspires people to recall where they were that day, and to reminisce about how they felt history was being made. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/shutterstockeditorial117568h-0606d46.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A massive crowd of people stand together to watch singers on stage at Wembley Stadium. Above the stage, a banner reads 'Feed the world, July 13th 1985 at Wembley Stadium'" title="Performers gather at the close of Live Aid Wembley to sing ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ (Image by Shutterstock)" /> Benefit of experience The big pop names of the early 1980s – the likes of Elvis Costello, Boy George, Paul Weller, Ian Dury and Joe Strummer – were notable for two things. The first was their readiness to opine on a wide range of subjects without fear of cancellation; the second was their awareness of where their predecessors – and here they were thinking about the likes of the Beatles, Stones and David Bowie – may have gone wrong back in the days when they were the new kids on the block. None of this new galaxy of stars, whose profile was heightened thanks to MTV and the sudden ubiquity of the pop video, was more garrulous or more aware of their part in carrying on the tradition of big gestures and good works than Irishman Geldof. When he decided to follow up the roaring success of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ with a benefit concert to be called Live Aid, he consulted a former Beatle for advice. In 1971, George Harrison had organised the earlier star-studded Concert for Bangladesh in New York. Sort out the charitable side first, advised the Beatle who wrote ‘Taxman’, or the Inland Revenue will take most of what you raise. Unlike Harrison’s Bangladesh show, which was poorly filmed and given an underwhelming cinema release months later, Live Aid would be planned from the start as event television. It was designed to be experienced by as many people as could be reached on the day – and in this it was a child of the times. It would be staged at two venues on the same day, with an impressive roster of mostly British and Irish acts playing Wembley Stadium in London, and an equally stellar line-up of largely American artists at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. (In the event, Phil Collins jetted across the Atlantic to appear in both venues.) Live Aid proved an even better use of Geldof’s talents than Band Aid or any number of Boomtown Rats records. It was precisely because his group had failed in the US that he understood the importance of appealing to the American market. He could no longer allow the likes of Paul Weller and Status Quo to be his event’s only stars. He had to browbeat The Who and Led Zeppelin to get back on stage. He had to attract musicians of an older generation – veterans such as Elton John, David Bowie and Queen, most of whom were keen to be invited while wary of having their thunder stolen by each other. And, in order to ensure that the event was perceived as must-watch TV, Geldof had to get everyone to submit to playing no more than a handful of numbers – a difficult sell in a business where the pecking order is measured in stage time, and everybody wants to go on at dusk. Having worked as a journalist, Geldof understood the importance of building Live Aid as a story that the popular press – still a big deal in those days – would get behind. He knew that the attendance of Princess Diana – who liked to have it known that she was a fan of George Michael and skated the halls of Kensington Palace to the songs of Dire Straits – was far more important than that of her husband, Charles. Geldof, a media tycoon in waiting, was able to put pressure on the BBC to bring its unmatched experience of outside broadcasts to bear on the day. Nobody else would have been able to bring it off, before or since. Independent spirit Although most of the acts involved would have blenched at the idea, it owed a lot to a can-do spirit that Margaret Thatcher would have applauded. Many of the prime movers had come up via the independent record labels of the late 1970s, where they had realised that nothing got done unless you did it yourself. Furthermore, since Live Aid was being planned during a ‘Second British Invasion’ when the commanding heights of American pop had been conquered by Annie Lennox and Boy George, the British music industry was going through one of its sporadic cocky periods. The Band Aid Trust – the charity set up to ensure that the mistakes of 1971 were not repeated – may have been powered by established names such as promoter Harvey Goldsmith, artist manager Chris Morrison and television mogul Michael Grade, but it was Geldof who provided the leadership. He employed every inch of the bully pulpit provided by his unsought elevation to ‘Saint Bob’ status to pull everyone into line, from British Airways to Robert Maxwell to the trade unions. It couldn’t possibly happen today. The world in which someone like Bob Geldof could pick up the phone to a handful of powerful, well-intentioned people in the media and have them order the clearing of whole TV schedules and entire newspapers to make room for this biggest of splashes has evaporated in the 40 years since 1985. At the same time, the conquest of public discourse by social media has resulted in a world where well-meant initiatives are lambasted for falling short of perfection rather than modestly applauded for giving things a try. Back in 1985, very few people pointed out that there were relatively few women and next to no people of colour on the bill at Wembley. When you look back at the footage today, when identity politics is to our era what respectability was to the Victorians, those sins of omission are the first things that strike you. We would never be so innocent again. Read more | From Ancient Greece to Glastonbury: a brief history of music festivals Sunny disposition As proceedings got under way in Wembley at noon that July Saturday, though, I remember looking out at the spectacle and thinking: somebody must have lit a candle for Geldof. At the time, the ticket price of £25 seemed a bit on the stiff side, but people were prepared to overlook that fact because half of the proceeds were going to charity. And on the day, it was easy to see that the crowd – far more ecumenical than the standard partisan audience at rock concerts – was in a good mood. That was partly because the sun was shining – rarely something Londoners take for granted. It glinted on the trumpets of the Coldstream Guards as they played their fanfare (a very Mary Poppins touch for people tuning in overseas) before Status Quo got things up and running with the most perfect song choice of the entire day: John Fogerty’s ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’. In that glorious sunshine, the BBC’s live television coverage of the spectacle was pleasing to the eye. In retrospect, it felt as if that day had successfully sold Middle England the idea of a rock concert not as a brow-furrowing ordeal but as a festival in which you and your fellow audience members linked arms to join in with songs you had known since your teenage years. The experience of open-air live pop music, now as much a part of the British summer as Wimbledon, was at the time in its infancy. Yet throughout that afternoon, swelling numbers of Britons abandoned mowing the lawn or cleaning the car to watch Sting and Phil Collins or Sade perform at Wembley – albeit from the comfort of their living rooms. Live Aid had other unintended consequences. It confirmed the end of a generation gap that punk had done so much to foster in the previous decade. For several chart acts of 1985 – Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, the Thompson Twins – it marked the high-water mark of their popularity. For others, such as U2 – who had feared that the whole experience would prove to be a career-ending disaster once Bono had disappeared into the crowd, unable to find his way back – it proved an accidental triumph. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-52983114-907d8a0.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="Dressed in a black, gold and red shiny jacket, Elton John sits at a piano. Behind him, a cameraman dressed in all white films him. In the background, a band plays various instruments" title="Elton John was one of a number of long-established artists for whom Live Aid helped revitalise flagging careers, argues David Hepworth (Image by Getty Images)" /> For older acts that Geldof had attracted because he considered them vital to overseas sales, it came as a massive bonus. Overnight, the likes of Queen and Elton John went from being mildly passé to becoming bona fide ‘legends’, embraced by all and sundry. And, of course, what nobody noticed at the time was that we were entering a future in which the majority of pop stars would be old ones – not that it’s dented their popularity one bit. When Paul McCartney closed out the London side of Live Aid, we looked in wonder at this venerable figure taking to the stage to sing ‘Let It Be’, and wondered at his great age. (He was 43.) But he wasn’t retiring: as we were to discover over the next 40 years, he was just getting started. Aside from all that, Live Aid provided the model for a new kind of media event on which burgeoning broadcasters would converge: World Cups, Glastonbury, the Oscars and state occasions across the world, consumed on more and more channels. Phenomenal start As it turned out, 13 July was just the start of the Live Aid phenomenon. Over the days and weeks that followed, the newspapers went all out with wall-to-wall coverage of the event, its organiser and participants. The campaign for Bob Geldof to be given a knighthood began next day, and the musicians who took part were most commonly described as ‘heroes’. Of course, most of them weren’t any such thing: they were just glad to be included, and happy to have the exposure. Yet there was no getting away from the fact that the way people seemed to feel about stars who play guitars was different from how they felt about actors or novelists. Live Aid played a key role in burnishing the status of these people to being somehow on the side of the angels. The road to the present, in which any rock star over the age of 60 has a good chance of being invited to Buckingham Palace, runs right through Live Aid. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-75502707-e5dbe39.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="Tina Turner, wearing a black leather dress, stands and sings alongside Mick Jagger, dressed in a blue T shirt" title="Tina Turner and Mick Jagger duet during the US section of Live Aid in Philadelphia. The two-venue approach was a pivotal part of Geldof’s strategy (Image by Getty Images)" /> Some £40m was raised that day for famine relief in Ethiopia, and the events of 13 July 1985 changed the face of charity. Suddenly, it was no longer the kindly old lady coming down your street with the collecting tin. It was the most famous person that the organisers could find, looming out of your TV set in a T-shirt bearing a provocative slogan, demanding that you get involved. And something else happened to us that day: we fell in love with scale itself. You can detect this every time you go to a big concert, which more and more of us do. Before anything has happened – often before a single note has been played – the crowd will begin roaring their approval, whooping and hollering to express their delight at simply being part of something. This being 2025, they will also be capturing their own film of the occasion on their phone. Will they watch it back? Probably not. But it will live long in their memory. Like Live Aid. David Hepworth is an author and broadcaster. His latest book is Hope I Get Old Before I Die: Why Rock Stars Never Retire (Bantam, 2024) This article was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
My history hero: Richard Coles chooses Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838)
Broadcaster, author and clergyman Richard Coles chooses Lorenzo Da Ponte as a history hero
In profile Lorenzo Da Ponte was an opera librettist, poet and Catholic priest. He wrote the libretti for a string of operas by various composers, including three of Mozart’s best-known works: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790). After a spell living in England, he became a professor at Columbia University in New York City. When did you first hear about Ponte? I discovered Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro when I was 18, and instantly fell in love with it. When I got to know the libretto in English, I realised just how funny and clever it was, and thought: “I wonder who wrote it?” That’s when I discovered Lorenzo Da Ponte. What kind of man was he? He was full of life and literature, and liked adventure and misadventure. Born a Jew, he became a Christian priest after his father converted to Roman Catholicism. He had several children, took a mistress and was found guilty of running a brothel. He was friends with Casanova as well as working with Mozart. He was a grocer in London before running away to New York City to escape his debts – and became professor of Italian literature at Columbia College (now University). What a life! Read more | 10 milestones in the history of western music What made him a hero? First, the quality of his work. Librettists sometimes get overlooked; for instance, Burt Bacharach is rightly acclaimed while his lyricist, Hal David, gets rather forgotten, even though they were equal partners. Similarly, Mozart’s great operas wouldn’t be what they are were it not for Da Ponte, who was immensely gifted. Second, his colourful life story. There’s something irrepressible about him that I admire. To me, Da Ponte is a bit of a Cinderella figure, because very few people know of him, whereas everyone knows who Mozart is. I’m intrigued by the way that he hides behind a brighter light [Mozart], even though his life was just as bright in its own way. What was his finest hour? His libretto for The Marriage of Figaro – one of the greatest operas of all time. One of the things I admire about his work is its vivid brevity. Is there anything you don’t particularly admire about him? I imagine that he was one of those people best enjoyed from a distance of about 20 feet. He certainly wasn’t a man you should marry – I think he was too busy off having adventures to make a faithful and diligent partner. Can you see any connections between his life and your own? I once pinched a little bit from The Magic Flute for a Communards album, though nobody noticed. I’m also fascinated by the idea of someone who was both a priest and sensuous. What would you ask Da Ponte if you could meet him? Classical music is my first love – though I’m currently obsessed with the rock band The 1975 – so I’d like to know what it was like working with Mozart. The Reverend Richard Coles is a broadcaster, author, priest and former musician with synth-pop duo The Communards. His novel A Death on Location (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) is out in hardback, ebook and audiobook This article was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
From a scandalous threesome to classical stardom: the actress who found redemption in Handel’s Messiah
Susannah Cibber’s journey from abuse and scandal to a role in the debut of Messiah is one of the most remarkable stories in music history. Elinor Evans spoke to Charles King, author of Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah, to reveal how an actress embroiled in a salacious courtroom drama became the emotional heart of one of the most enduring pieces of Western music
When George Frideric Handel’s Messiah was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, the audience could not have anticipated the weight of emotion the work would carry. Now one of the most beloved compositions in the classical canon, Handel’s Messiah is an oratorio with powerful choruses and solos that tells the story of Christ – from prophecy and birth to passion and resurrection. The German composer hoped his new work would not just entertain, but cause an awakening of the soul in those who listened, to bring about, as he saw it, a kind of redemption through art. Listen on the podcast | Handel's Messiah: the scandalous birth of a classical masterpiece On the night it debuted as part of a concert to raise funds for the poor, perhaps no one better personified this narrative of suffering and redemption better than one woman central to the work’s debut: Susannah Cibber. Cibber was a celebrated actress and contralto, who gained a name for herself in the mid-18th century for her remarkable stage presence. But by the time she arrived in Dublin, she was infamous for another reason: a scandalous court case that had laid bare the intimate details of her personal life. As Messiah debuted, “she was notorious,” explains historian Charles King on the HistoryExtra podcast. “Everyone knew intimately these quite embarrassing details of her sexual life.” The rise and fall of Susannah Cibber Born Susannah Arne in 1714, she was raised in the Covent Garden area of London, which by the early 18th century was an area famous for its theatres and music halls. Though her father and grandfather were upholsterers by trade, a musical vein ran through her family. Her elder brother, Thomas Arne, would later compose Rule, Britannia!, and another brother also trained as an actor and singer. Though she sang from an early age, Susannah was never taught to read music (Handel would later coach her through her singing parts note by note). Susannah would soon find her calling in the theatre, making her debut in 1732, at the age of 18, in John Frederick Lampe’s Amelia, based on a drama by satirist Henry Carey. Though her singing was noted by some for a lack of polish, “she had this power on stage to make an audience feel something,” says King. Writing on the impact of Cibber’s performances in the 19th-century Annals of the English Stage, one Dr Doran recorded how “for 14 consecutive nights Susannah drowned houses in tears, and stirred the very depths of men’s hearts”. A sensational trial Susannah had gained a name for herself on the stage, and her 1734 marriage to Theophilus Cibber, a fellow actor and prominent theatre manager, was meant to cement her status as one half of a power couple in the theatrical world. Instead, it became a source of misery. Theophilus was a reckless spendthrift who was known to “sleep his way around the cast”, says King. He also reportedly misappropriated Susannah's earnings and sold her personal belongings to satisfy his debts. Perhaps most shockingly, Theophilus began orchestrating liaisons between his wife and wealthy young men for his own financial gain. One of these men was William Sloper, a squire and the son of a wealthy MP. Sloper began to lodge with the couple, and then reportedly began an affair with Susannah at Theophilus’s behest, paying for the privilege. “Susannah fell in love with Sloper,” King recounts, suggesting that Sloper perhaps saw himself as someone who could rescue Cibber from her torrid marriage. It wasn’t to be. Instead, the affair between Susannah and Sloper led to a sensational court case when Theophilus sued Sloper for “alienation of affection”, a legal means of seeking damages for a wife’s infidelity. The trial became one of the biggest scandals of the era, partly, King explains, because they centred on “the private life of an acting couple – very public figures – and the wealthy son of a parliamentarian”. “There’s a threesome involved,” King notes. “This is big news.” Read more | A threesome with his wife and mother-in-law: the scandalous story of why one Anglo-Saxon king skipped his coronation The courtroom drama, fuelled by prurient gossip, saw Susannah’s name dragged through the mud. The proceedings were transcribed and widely sold, often accompanied by lurid illustrations, and she became a symbol of public disgrace. Faced with humiliation and social exile, Susannah disappeared from the stage for three years. Though little is known of her life in this interlude, she resurfaced in Dublin in 1741 – just in time for the first performance of Handel's Messiah in 1742. An invitation for redemption Handel was himself in a precarious position by the late 1730s. Though he was the most famous composer in Britain, his career had stalled. “There was a little bit of a sense that this was the stage of his career when he should start doing his ‘greatest hits’ tour,” King observes. But financial troubles, changing musical tastes, and declining health had left the famed German searching for a new direction. An invitation to stage a series of subscription concerts in Dublin provided him with an opportunity to reinvigorate his career. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/06/GettyImages-1151169742-41cd7c3.jpg" width="773" height="1024" alt="The German-British Baroque composer George Frideric Handel. We have to dispense with the idea of Handel in a fit of religious inspiration composing 'Messiah',” King explains. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="The German-British Baroque composer George Frideric Handel. We have to dispense with the idea of Handel in a fit of religious inspiration composing 'Messiah',” King explains. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> With him, he carried the manuscript of a new oratorio: Messiah. It was a work composed to a set of verses by a man named Charles Jennens, a deeply religious person who saw the work as an act of devotion. Yet Handel was not particularly religious himself. “We have to dispense with the idea of Handel in a fit of religious inspiration composing Messiah,” King explains. Instead, the composer approached the piece as a theatrical event – one that required compelling voices to bring it to life. Despite her scandal-ridden reputation, Handel turned to none other than Susannah Cibber to be one of his soloists. He had worked with her years before, when she had appeared in a minor role in one of his compositions – but this time, she would be at the heart of his new work. Did Handel select Susannah in order to court publicity? It’s plausible, as King notes. “It’s certainly something – if not a scandal – that audiences would have noted,” King says. “She was notorious by this stage.” The first performance The performance on 13 April 1742 was unlike any other. The venue, Neal’s New Musick Hall, was not a grand cathedral but a modest concert hall on Fishamble Street, Dublin. It was not held for personal profit or royal patronage, but to raise money for local charities. It drew an overflowing audience – so large, in fact, that women were asked to attend without their hoop skirts to make room. Many were surely present to witness the voice of the now notorious Susannah Cibber. When she stepped forward to sing the lyrics written by Jennens – “He was despised, and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” – the significance of Cibber’s position in a work that sang of redemption was not lost, says King. “Anyone in the audience could have done the gender switch for themselves,” he explains. “She was a person of sorrows. She was acquainted with grief.” The emotional impact was profound. “We know from a later account that the audience behaved very unusually,” King says. “Throughout the performance, people were quiet. That would have been very unusual in a theatre of this time.” One respected clergyman in the audience, Dr Patrick Delany, was reportedly so moved by Cibber’s performance, that he jumped to his feet, overcome with emotion, and is said to have exclaimed: “Woman, for this, be all thy sins forgiven!” Read more | The history of London’s 10 greatest live music venues At that moment, Susannah Cibber was no longer the woman at the centre of a scandal; she was the voice of redemption, embodying the very essence of Messiah’s message of suffering and salvation. “People sensed the connection between the redemption of this individual and the redemptive message of the text,” says King. Susannah Cibber’s legacy The Dublin premiere of Messiah was a triumph, setting the stage for its enduring place in the western canon of classical music. For many, to this day, explains King, the power of Handel’s Messiah lies in its spiritual depth, emotional range, and “universal message of hope and redemption”, forever linked with Cibber’s own resurgence. Over time, the work has transcended its original context to become a cultural and seasonal tradition, especially tied to Christmas. Read more | The history of Christmas, plus 10 festive facts you might not know “Messiah is so much a part of the holiday season that it’s always there in the background,” King muses. “But its earliest audiences thought of it as a species of music like no other.” As for Cibber, she would go on to become one of the most celebrated actresses of her time, commanding the highest salary of any female performer and earning accolades from critics and audiences alike. For this Georgian actor, Messiah was not just another performance – it was a second chance.
Troubadours: everything you wanted to know
Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
Linda Paterson answers your questions on the innovative poets and composers of the Middle Ages
Composing songs of courtly love and war in the High Middle Ages, the troubadours were the poet-musicians of western and southern Europe – especially southern France. But were they really the lovesick wandering minstrels popular culture would have us believe? Or was there more to their artistry? Speaking to Emily Briffett, Linda Paterson answers your top questions on the troubadours and their enduring poetic and musical legacy. Linda Paterson is the author of The Troubadours (Reaktion Books, 2024) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones
How Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been an ode to peace around the world
From the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has served as a symbol of hope and unity for 200 years. Bronwen Everill examines the piece’s legacy through five key performances...
The Ninth Symphony bursts into life Theater am Kärntnertor, Vienna, Austrian empire 7 May 1824 When Ludwig van Beethoven completed his Ninth Symphony in the early months of 1824, he gave voice to humanity’s desire to make order out of chaos, to overcome division, and to create joy through brotherhood. Over his lifetime, the wars and revolutions that shook Europe had transformed politics; now the composer wanted to offer a cultural transformation through his music. Beethoven had first begun writing his last, great masterpiece – the world’s first choral symphony – after receiving a commission from London’s Philharmonic Society in the November of 1822. But although London had commissioned the work, admirers in Vienna published an open letter calling for Beethoven to premiere the symphony there instead. Vienna was the ideal location for the piece’s first outing. As well as being familiar territory for the composer (he had lived there on and off for much of his adult life), the capital had also been the setting for the 1814–15 Congress of Vienna – the series of diplomatic meetings that had sought to create a lasting peace after the Napoleonic Wars. The symphony’s final movement – requiring the services of four vocal soloists and a full chorus – had been written to include words from Friedrich Schiller’s 1785 poem An die Freude (‘Ode to Joy’), and its message of “all men becoming brothers” thus felt fitting. Read more | What was the global impact of the Napoleonic Wars? But despite the piece’s bold statements, the first performance was informal by modern standards. Vienna did not have its own concert hall in 1824, and Beethoven was instead restricted to using the modest Theater am Kärntnertor. Furthermore, many of the performers were amateurs rather than professionals, and there was only time for two full rehearsals before the symphony received its premiere on 7 May 1824. The performance could have easily been a disaster, but when the final movement reached its conclusion, the theatre was filled with the sounds of applause – even if Beethoven did not initially realise it himself. According to violinist Joseph Böhm, the profoundly deaf composer (who had spent the evening on stage next to conductor Michael Umlauf) had to be turned around by one of the soloists to see the audience waving their handkerchiefs in celebration. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/19thCenturyPrintofthefirstperformanceofBeethovensNinthSymphony-2f0b60b.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The first performance of the Ninth Symphony was conducted by composer Michael Umlauf – but with Beethoven (centre) gesturing alongside him (Public Domain)" title="The first performance of the Ninth Symphony was conducted by composer Michael Umlauf – but with Beethoven (centre) gesturing alongside him (Public Domain)" /> One London music journal reported that the new symphony would need “to be heard frequently in order to be duly appreciated” – and appreciated it certainly has been. In the 200 years since its debut, people all over the world have come together to perform its call for peace, its ode to the brotherhood of all humanity, and its celebration of freedom. Americans unite on the eve of civil war Odd Fellows’ Hall, New Orleans, United States 10 November 1859 The first US performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony took place in December 1824, a mere seven months after the piece’s Vienna premiere. In this period, it was typical for the country’s largely amateur orchestras and music societies to perform extracts – one movement of a symphony, for instance – or arrangements of the music for smaller chamber ensembles. Indeed, for the first few US performances of the Ninth, only the final movement and its setting of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy was heard. Read more | The soundtrack of Beethoven’s life Interestingly, this was also the case 35 years later, when the final movement was performed in venues across the US as part of an International Schiller Festival marking the 100th anniversary of the poet’s birth. In a country that had welcomed more than a million German-speaking immigrants over the previous decade, the Württemberg-born writer remained an important cultural figure, and his call for brotherhood was well-received as fresh arrivals settled into their new home. In New Orleans – which hosted a Schiller play, Schiller parade and ‘grand concert’ featuring settings of the writer’s poems to music – there was strong encouragement for people of all nationalities to join in. One newspaper noted that, “we hope to see at the festival this evening a mingling of the lovers of poetry and song of various races, and tongues, for they are no barriers to brotherhood”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/gr0007918H-2-28c11a2.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, 1861, the first engagement in the American Civil War (Photo by Granger, NYC/TopFoto)" title="The bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, 1861, the first engagement in the American Civil War (Photo by Granger, NYC/TopFoto)" /> This warm-hearted sentiment, and the performance of Schiller’s Ode to Joy at Odd Fellows’ Hall, was not, however, open to the 13,385 people who were enslaved in New Orleans. And the message of peace in Schiller’s poems that Beethoven’s music hoped to capture would be shattered with the secession of the Southern states in late 1860 and early 1861, and the outbreak of the American Civil War soon after that. At the end of the conflict – the bloodiest in the country’s history – the Ninth Symphony was supposed to be performed by the Philharmonic Society of New York on 29 April 1865. But the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln a fortnight earlier led the Philharmonic to change the programme at the last minute. Instead of the Ode to Joy, which the New York Times reported “would have been manifestly improper to have performed”, the orchestra instead played the sombre Funeral March from Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony after the first three movements of the Ninth. WWI prisoners play Beethoven for their captors Bandō Prisoner of War Camp, Shikoku, Empire of Japan 1 June 1918 In 1898, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the construction of a new naval port in the Chinese bay of Jiaozhou. The territory next to the port, Qingdao, had been seized by the German empire as part of its 19th-century scramble for colonies, and the area was to be transformed into a formidable east Asian stronghold. But when the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914, Japan – allied with Britain – attacked the port and captured nearly 5,000 soldiers. The men were subsequently taken to live in prisoner of war (PoW) camps across Japan but, surprisingly, were still allowed to indulge in their musical hobbies. This included teaching music lessons to Japanese troops and playing concerts as members of amateur orchestras and choirs. One of the most powerful concerts was undoubtedly that staged at the Bandō PoW Camp on the island of Shikoku in June 1918, when its resident orchestra played Beethoven’s Ninth. Building their own instruments where none were available, and with a chorus made up entirely of men, the soldiers made every effort to perform the symphony in its entirety, and even produced a homemade concert programme. Then, when the war ended later that year, the Bandō PoWs performed the Ode to Joy again – for the general public – to celebrate peace. The prisoners were repatriated the following year, but the Ninth remained, with its Tokyo premiere taking place in 1925. The symphony soon gained the nickname Daiku, meaning ‘Number Nine’, and Japanese orchestras began performing it to coincide with midnight on New Year’s Eve. The Daiku has since become a part of Japanese musical tradition, and at the annual performance in Osaka, the chorus is 10,000 singers strong. Leonard Bernstein calls for freedom as the Berlin Wall falls Schauspielhaus, East Berlin, German Democratic Republic 25 December 1989 The Ninth Symphony has been used time and again as a call for human brotherhood in times of revolution and conflict. But in 1989, the words were rewritten to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. When the colossal structure started to come down on 9 November, it was largely unexpected. The German city was reunited for the first time in decades, and the end of the Cold War looked imminent. The conductor of the West German Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Justus Frantz, came up with an idea to put together an impromptu orchestra made up of musicians and singers from both sides of the Cold War divide. He approached the famed US conductor Leonard Bernstein to conduct a performance of the Ninth to celebrate the fact that Germans were again “brothers”. Bernstein was in London to conduct a performance of his operetta Candide, and asked several of the lead singers to perform the solos in the final movement. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/D3G0HM-7666087.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="American conductor, composer and writer Leonard Bernstein conducting an international ensemble shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, 1989 (Photo by dpa picture alliance/Alamy)" title="American conductor, composer and writer Leonard Bernstein conducting an international ensemble shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, 1989 (Photo by dpa picture alliance/Alamy)" /> They were joined by members of the Kirov Theatre, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris. The group were no amateurs, but they had had little time to rehearse between the inception of the idea in mid-November and the performance on Christmas Day. Reviewers noted as much, just as they had at the piece’s debut in Vienna. But Bernstein didn’t merely want to conduct the celebration of reunification – he wanted to commemorate it. He therefore decided to change the words of the chorus, with Freude (‘joy’) becoming Freiheit (‘freedom’). Beethoven brings hope to the DRC Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo 30 June 2010 Beethoven’s Ninth has long been a favourite of amateur orchestras, united in their aim of bringing people together through music. One such ensemble – the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste – was established in Kinshasa, capital of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC), in 1994. The orchestra’s founder and conductor, Armand Diangienda, had previously been a pilot, but decided to pursue his musical dreams after being laid off from his job. Two years after Diangienda’s life-changing decision, however, the First Congo War began, culminating in the overthrow of the nation’s authoritarian ruler, Mobutu Sese Seko, in 1997. But the orchestra remained resilient throughout the conflict and the Second Congo War that followed. Recalling the events years later, Diangienda claimed that “making music together [became] a compensation for lots of problems”. Beginning with just 12 amateur players, the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste eventually grew to comprise more than 200 members, including singers. As a result of the turmoil and hardship caused by the wars, members of the group were forced to make some of their own instruments and sheet music: violin strings were improvised from bicycle brake wire, and scores were meticulously copied out by hand. In 2010, the orchestra put on an open-air performance of Beethoven’s Ninth to mark the 50th anniversary of the DRC’s independence from Belgium – a musical experience that inspired the ensemble’s concertmaster, Héritier Mayimbi Mbuangi, to become a composer himself. Mbuangi’s new solo piano piece, Kintuadi (‘Let’s Unite’), receives its premiere in May 2024, and is dedicated to the victims of the latest tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, which began in 2022. Two hundred years after Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony entered the world, its message of peace lives on. Bronwen Everill is a historian and fellow at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge. Her books include Not Made by Slaves: Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition (Harvard University Press, 2020) This article first appeared in the May 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
When was the first Eurovision and who won? Plus 6 facts on the history of the song contest
When did the Eurovision Song Contest first take place? What was the first competition like? And has it always been rocked by voting scandals? Ellie Cawthorne speaks to Dean Vuletic, a leading expert on the history of Eurovision…
Why did the Eurovision Song Contest begin? Eurovision was started by the European Broadcasting Union in 1956. “I think a lot of people mistake the establishment of Eurovision as some sort of postwar expression of Europeanism, a desire for European integration,” says Dean Vuletic, a leading expert on the history of Eurovision. “But it wasn’t really about that.” In fact, the creation of the show was driven by commercial imperatives. “In the 1950s, television technology was still nascent and there was a lot of scepticism across Europe as to whether it was worth investing in. The European Broadcasting Union was formed a way to pool resources in developing television technology, and in the production of programmes that could be shared. And the Eurovision Song Contest happened to be one of those programmes.” On the podcast | Eurovision: a political history When was the first Eurovision, and what was it like? The first competition took place in 1956, in a theatre in Lugano, Switzerland. Seven countries entered, with two songs each. People were formally dressed in tuxedos in evening gowns, and performers were accompanied by an orchestra. “Today, this seems rather quaint”, says Vuletic. “But it doesn’t mean however that they were singing old fashioned songs. For example, one of Germany’s entries, ‘So Geht Das Jede Nacht’ by Freddy Quinn, was in an early rock and roll style.” View oEmbed on the source website And politics were at play from the very beginning, says Vuletic. “This automatically sent a message to the rest of Europe about how the West German state was trying to reinvent its identity following the Second World War.” The voting was done in secret and not made public. The contest was won by a Swiss singer, Lys Assia, who sang a chanson in French called ‘Refrain’. She returned to the contest again to represent Switzerland in 1957 and 1958. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/05/GettyImages-51141054-8e920f8-e1715269321395.jpg" width="618" height="413" alt="Swiss singer Lys Assia, holding a bunch of flowers after winning the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956" title="Swiss singer Lys Assia, shortly after winning the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 with her song Refrain (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> 6 facts about the history of Eurovision 1. Voting scandals are nothing new In fact, they can be traced back to the very first contest in 1956. Voting was done live, but Luxembourg’s jury was unable to make it to the contest, leaving the Swiss jury to vote in their place. “Lo and behold, the Swiss entry won. So from the very beginning, you had politics, you had scandal and Eurovision was ready to go,” says Vuletic. Another voting scandal erupted in 1963, when Norway had to give its results twice due to a technical error on the first attempt. Second time round, the Norwegian jury swapped its second highest points to go to the Danish entry, meaning that Denmark won over a French language entry by Switzerland – the competition’s first Scandinavian win. “This switch in the vote could have been because the Norwegians and their allies were rather annoyed that French language entries had dominated the wins since 1956,” says Vuletic. 2. Voting for your neighbours isn’t just political “Studies have shown that there have been voting blocs in Eurovision – we’ve seen them in the Francophone part of Europe, the Balkans, in the former Soviet Union, between Britain and Ireland and among the Nordic countries as well,” says Vuletic. “But they're actually more cultural than political, based on common languages, and common popular music industries. If the voting blocs were purely political then we wouldn't see as many votes being shared between countries like Croatia and Serbia or even Ukraine and Russia.” Read more | The big question: has the European Union been a success? 3. Language is important “I’m always asked why the UK has done so poorly in Eurovision in recent decades,” says Vuletic. According to the history, the change in British fortunes came in 1999, with the introduction of new rules under which countries were no longer required to perform in one of their official languages. This led to more entries being performed in English. “This had always been one of the advantages the British and Irish entries had – and with the change in rules they lost that advantage,” says Vuletic. “The contest likes to promote itself as a promoter of cultural and social diversity in Europe. But when it comes to linguistic diversity, since 1999 it has done a very poor job,” argues Vuletic. “That is changing though – as Måneskin’s Italian-language win last year proves. And if there is more linguistic diversity in Eurovision, we might also be more likely to see a UK entry win, because it will stand out more.” 4. There was a rival communist singing competition during the Cold War From the late 1950s, Western Europe’s European Broadcasting Union began to cooperate more with its Eastern European equivalent. Suggestions of a joint competition were rejected, and instead, Eastern Bloc broadcasting organisations created their own contest – called Intervision – based on the rules of Eurovision. Whereas Eurovision remained closed throughout the Cold War to states that were not members of the European Broadcasting Union, Intervision allowed participants from outside Eastern Europe, making it the first truly pan-European song contest. Read more | Did the Cold War ever really end? “Intervision was staged in Czechoslovakia, and in 1968 the Prague Spring saw the Czechoslovak media liberalised and open to western influences. And by the late 1970s, there was an idea that Intervision should not just be pan-European, but global,” says Vuletic. Intervals acts were welcomed from West Germany and the US – including Gloria Gaynor. And there were other innovations that might seem surprising for a communist-run competition. While Eurovision was plagued by recurrent complaints that commercial record companies were influencing the competition, Intervision embraced commercialism in the late 70s by staging two contests – one based on national entries, and another based on entries submitted by commercial record companies. Read more | The Beatles: 8 landmark moments that chart the changing face of sixties Britain 5. People have complained about the quality of the music for a long time “There have long been criticisms about the quality of Eurovision’s music from media commentators, public viewers and even by the organisers of the contest itself,” says Vuletic. “As early as the 1960s, there was a feeling that the contest wasn't reflecting modern trends in popular music. Surveys were showing that young viewers weren’t interested.” In the 1970s, rules were changed to try and keep up, allowing for more people on stage, bands, and electronic instruments rather than orchestral accompaniment. These changes began to see the contest not just keeping up with new trends but setting them. “Just look at Abba’s 1974 win with ‘Waterloo’ – this not only launched Abba's international career, but also helped Eurovision take off as a major force on the international popular music stage,” says Vuletic. 6. And while political messages are now banned, that hasn’t stopped performers in the past While Eurovision has always advertised itself as apolitical, there haven’t always been rules against political messaging. “In 1976, the Greek entry protested the Turkish invasion of Cyprus,” says Vuletic. “Turkish television sent a letter to the European Broadcasting Union saying the song should be removed as it was political and anti-Turkish. But the European Broadcasting Union wrote back and said, ‘Look, we have no rules against politics, there can be political messages in Eurovision.’” But things have changed a lot since then, and since 2000, political messages have been banned under rules about bringing the contest into disrepute. Nevertheless, acts have nonetheless found ways of sneaking in messages over the years. “The Ukrainian entry from 2005 is an example of that – a protest song that had been an unofficial anthem in the Orange Revolution,” says Vuletic. “Then there was the 2007 Israeli entry, ‘Push the Button’. Even though it was considered by many to criticise the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel, it wasn’t banned. In 2009, there was a Georgian entry ‘We Don't Wanna Put In’, which came just after the Russian Army invaded Georgia and was read as criticism of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and that was withdrawn from the contest after it was requested that Georgia rewrite the lyrics or chose a new song. But the list is endless. “I think the rules against politics are really about not scaring away potential sponsors and advertisers. So, you’ve just got to be subtle in how you get your messages across,” says Vuletic. Interestingly, though, political songs haven’t always attracted votes. “In 1993, entries from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia both referred to the wars that were happening there, but they didn't win, despite widespread sympathy across Europe,” says Vuletic. Dean Vuletic is a leading expert on the history of Eurovision and the author of Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest (Bloomsbury, 2018). He was speaking to Ellie Cawthorne on the HistoryExtra podcast The final of the 2024 Eurovision song contest will be held in Malmö, Sweden on 11 May 2024. You can watch the final, as well as coverage of the semi-finals, on BBC iPlayer
Jacob Bloomfield explores the long-lasting popularity of British drag, from Victorian music hall to Second World War revue shows
Drag is an art form that's seen a great deal of success – and a little controversy – in recent years. Yet, as Jacob Bloomfield argues in his recent book, Drag: A British History, it's also entertained British audiences for decades, stretching back to the music halls of the Victorian era and revue shows of the Second World War. Matt Elton caught up with Jacob to find out more. Jacob Bloomfield is the author of Drag: A British History (University of California Press, 2023) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones
A history of song: from Schumann to Sting
John Potter charts the evolution of songs and songwriting over the past thousand years, covering medieval troubadours, English folk music and more
Songs can trigger a range of emotions in their listeners: intense joy, sadness or even disgust. But how did this type of musical composition develop and become what it is today? The acclaimed singer and author John Potter takes Jon Bauckham on a tour through the history of song in Europe, covering everything from the works of Schumann and Sting to the musical troubadours of medieval Provence. View Green Video on the source website