y 16 del artículo 46

The analysis of the post war 1940s content is based the only available pamphlet:

1948: Autumn Term

Tracing even a single booklet from the 1940s proved to be a challenge. No information was available regarding when the BBC recommenced printing documents to accompany school broadcasting. In more than three years of regularly checking saved searches on several online retail and auction sites, no pamphlets prior the early 1950s came up for sale. The folkinfo archive at Joe-Offer.com had no content prior to 1957. Periodical image searches produced no definitive proof, only a partially cropped image claiming to be a booklet from the late 1940s on Broadcastforschools.com. For several years, this was one of the only clues that pointed towards any published material prior to autumn 1949. Initially, even the existence of an Autumn ’49 booklet was conjecture: a deduction based on the knowledge that a booklet for Summer 1950 had been printed, and it was highly unlikely that the BBC would have begun supplying schools in the middle of an academic year rather than the beginning. A

conversation with a veteran choral musician acquaintance in early 2015 seemed to confirm this.

This acquaintance, Mr. Johnson, remembered singing along to the programme aged eleven, at the C of E primary school in Alnwick, Northumberland, during the 1949/1950 school year; he was absolutely certain of the year, having begun attending Grammar School in autumn 1950. The school did not yet have electricity at that time, and he recalled singing by gaslight to a wireless set ‘running off a great big charger and accumulators’. He believed that the pupils had to bring in a sixpence to pay for their own booklets, which he recalled having a plain blue cover with white text. His memory of the content included ‘some Irish songs’ and hymns (one of which was ‘Jesus God Above All Other’). His memory is mostly of having enjoyed and looked forward to the show, and he gave it at least partial credit for his continuing singing to this day; he had kept one of the booklets as a memento up until early 2015, when it was lost during a house move.

A copy of 1948’s autumn term booklet was finally located from a private seller on the Isle of North Uist late in 2015. By chance it was the exact booklet pictured in the partial image

discovered prior, and the price of 6D was printed on the cover. Although only five years prior to the first of the available 1950s booklets, the Autumn 1948 booklet feels far older. The front and back cover images are black and white images of photographs depicting panels from Italian renaissance sculptor Luca Della Robbia’s Cantoria (a marble ‘singing gallery’ in Florence cathedral commissioned in the 1430s), depicting classically robed figures singing music read from a book and a large scroll. The inside cover has a photograph of a page from a book of William Byrd’s songs published in 1588, listing ‘reasons briefly set downe by

th’author, to perswade every one to learn to sing’: an image used with permission of the British Museum. Illustrations within the book are small, intricate pen-and-ink drawings, similar in style to many of those provided in the 1950s pamphlets, although the artist receives no credit in the 1948 booklet. The paper used has a gloss sheen and slightly slippery texture to it; this kind of finish is not seen again within the series until the format change in 1987.

Two of the folk songs—‘Strawberry Fair’ and the shanty ‘Donkey Riding’—are provided as texts without any musical notation, suggesting that at least part of the folk repertoire was still being taught by ear. This feature of the 1948 pamphlet is unique amongst the collection assembled for this chapter section; none of the 1950s, 1960s or later examples contain songs without provided notation. It seems likely that this is a continuation of the wartime necessity of teaching by ear in the absence of printed booklets, with the conflict having ended only three years prior to the publication and broadcast of this material. Whilst it would have been perfectly possible to learn songs from later period without reading the music (simply by listening to the broadcast), this is the only printed example of concession to the traditional practice of folk song being taught aurally.

Also unique to this pamphlet is the inclusion of hymnody. The last two pages of the Singing

Together portion of the booklet contain three hymns. Little information on their provenance is

provided, suggesting that they would have been well known to the intended audience. Let Us

With Gladsome Mind and Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise can be both found in a hymnal

which had been in common schools usage from the latter part of the 1920s: Songs of Praise.139 Neither of the BBC versions of these hymns is accompanied by more than half of the verses originally given in Songs Of Praise, meaning they would have taken only a short time to sing through (the verses being only 8 and 16 bars long respectively). It is more than possible that their inclusion is explained because each broadcast was ended with a hymn, as was the contemporary practice with school assemblies.

Of the 15 songs included:

5 are English folk songs (4 of which were collected by Sharp/Baring Gould) 2 are poems set to a traditional tune (one of Irish, one of Scottish origin) 3 are Christmas/New Year carols (all tunes traditional, 2 of which British) 3 are Hymns

1 is a (relatively contemporary) art piece (Vaughan William’s ‘Linden Lea’).

In total, 11 of the 15 songs are either wholly traditional or have a traditional melody, and of these, ten originate within the British Isles. Whilst this is only a single sample, and thus there is no way to establish to what extent this breakdown is representative of broadcasts from the decade from which it is drawn, it sets a benchmark against which the latter content can be measured. The heavy use of folk material also moves away from the prior youth club style model as set out by MacMahon, who considered the contemporary relevance of songs to be of paramount importance: ‘…it would be little short of disastrous if such a folk song as “Sheep- Shearing” were chosen for the lads of a youth club in an industrial town’.140 In using songs drawn from otherwise easily obtained sources, such as ‘The Oxford Book Of Carols’, Sharp & Baring-Gould’s ‘English Folk-Songs For Schools’ or the common schools hymnal ‘Songs Of

Praise’, the BBC was once again drawing on material which would have been in wider

circulation, but the focus had begun a shift toward a more child-centric selection of music; pre-existing popularity was no longer the primary selection criterion for the songs.

A Note about Rhythm and Melody: One distinguishing feature that sets the 1940s and

1950s examples apart from those published after 1960 is that the pamphlets were shared across two programmes, the second being Rhythm and Melody. Running from 1942 until the early 1960s, Rhythm & Melody was conceived as a partner programme for Singing Together. Published in the same booklet, the aim was of complementing the immense popularity and accessibility of Singing Together by placing a greater emphasis on teaching skills such as musical and rhythmic literacy, instrumental recognition and music appreciation. Broadcast weekly at 11am, each show ran for eighteen minutes. As Gordon Cox reveals from internal BBC memos, there was a feeling within the corporation that Singing Together should be used as a gateway to more instructive programming that actually taught music, and Rhythm and

Melody’s focus on the rudiments was a part of that wider strategy.141 Ultimately Rhythm & Melody did not fare as well as Singing Together, with broadcast ceasing in the early 1960s, just a few years after the combined booklet was discontinued in favour of individual

publications.

Gordon Cox uncovered archived documents showing that at least one BBC committee secretary considered Singing Together as a short term means to gain greater audience for more overtly instructional broadcasts such as Rhythm and Melody. Rhythm and Melody occupies the second half of each booklet, and was broadcast on the Home Service at 11am on Thursdays during term time. Despite containing a good number of Folk songs, and having a fair degree of cross over with songs from Singing Together when viewed across the course of the decade, the Rhythm and Melody material is not included in content analysis in order to maintain the focus on the single series.

2.5.2 1950s: A More Stable Curriculum

Analysis of the 1950s output is based on the following six volumes:

1953: Autumn Term 1954: Autumn Term

1955: Summer Term & Autumn Terms (this latter copy is damaged and missing the first and

last pages)142

1958: Spring Term 1959: Autumn Term

The appearance, layout and illustration of the booklets can tell us almost as much about their intended use and audience as the song choices themselves. The staple-bound booklets of the 1950s, still shared with Rhythm and Melody, are slightly shorter and considerably narrower than the later examples from the 1970s onward, which can probably be attributed to the older Imperial Foolscap paper sizes in use at the time. This gives the 1950s pamphlets a very

141 _{Cox, 1996, 369.}

142 _{The damage means it is missing the first song, but also missing the information as to which year and term it is}

intended for. The monochrome colour palette and illustration style placed it clearly as a 1950s example. This year was established by cross referencing the date/day of the week of the “Rhythm and Melody” broadcasts – 22nd _{September was a Thursday only once during the 1950s, and that was in 1955. The term was easily}

distinctive feel in the hand when compared to their later counterparts, and is arguably a more child-friendly size. Despite this, the internal layout of the books shows no particular tailoring towards the intended audience. The text is presented in relatively small print, with a style much like songbooks of the era published for adult consumption. Information such as the source, publisher and rights holder was included on each page below the title, despite being irrelevant to the nine to eleven year old age group who were to be the recipients of the booklets. The only real concession made to the age of the reader was in the illustrations, which are black and white throughout the decade, often pen and ink drawings or woodcuts, usually depicting scenes from the narrative songs within the booklet; being dual use booklets, some of these scenes on the cover were necessarily from the Rhythm and Melody show’s content.

Laid out on the page, each individual song has a bold print title, under which is written the country or region of origin if the song is traditional, or the composer, arranger or lyricist if not. Performance directions, where provided, are given either in the conventional Italian or in English, although there is no obvious reason as to which was chosen for each piece; an English folk song such as ‘The Brisk Young Widow’ has the direction ‘allegro moderato’143, whilst Robert Burn’s ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ is to be sung ‘rather slowly’.144 The provided notation is a single stave melody line with tonic sol-fa annotation above each note, and lyrics to the first verse and chorus below. The presence of several bars rest at the start of some pieces indicates an introduction is expected; this is the only sign that piano accompaniment is to be provided by the radio. There are none of the chord symbols or suggested harmony and rhythm parts which appear in later decades of the show, suggesting a relatively simple model of participation was called for, in keeping with the ethos of the previous decade: singing along to the radio was the BBC required of the listening children.

Turning to the actual broadcasts, the show’s new presenter, William Appleby, was a

controversial choice within the corridors of broadcasting house, but appears to have been well received by the school children.145 His cheerful greeting of ‘hello schools’, with which he began each show, was notable for its northern accent: a rarity in an era when Received Pronunciation (RP) was the accepted tone for delivering what became known as BBC

143 _{Autumn Term, Singing Together (BBC, 1953), 2.} 144 _{Spring Term, Singing Together (BBC, 1958), 7.} 145 _{Archive on 4.}

English.146 Appleby had succeeded Wiseman during the late 1940s, having previously worked as schools music administrator in Doncaster. Already a capable choirmaster, his charismatic guidance would be the enthusiasm and driving force behind the show until the early 1970s.147 Many of his arrangements of songs for the show were later published for wider use in schools, including notation of his characteristic piano parts.148

Concurrent to developments on the show, 1950s also saw the BBC’s development of schools content for television broadcast. The ‘Middlesex experiment’ saw a series of experimental shows broadcast daily to 6 specially chosen schools in the County throughout May 1952.149 The research and development process was thorough and time consuming, but it allowed the BBC to refine the product before launch, and also to herald the launch of the new series with much publicity. This slow start allowed for an unfortunate side effect, as the new

Independent Television Company was able to rush through its own development process, ultimately launching their ITV School broadcasts on the day before the BBC’s much vaunted service was due to begin: the thirteenth of May 1957.150 _{Sparring between TV companies}

over the Schools audience was to continue through the following decades, but the BBC’s dominance of school radio was to remain unchallenged.151 The lack of competition from commercial radio stations allowed for the relative stability of the school’s radio schedule continuing into the 1960s and onward, and this in turn protected Singing Together from major changes in direction: the only potential challengers came from within the BBC’s School Radio department itself.

The content of the 1950s booklets was largely drawn from pre-existing books of music for schools, which can be easily verified as the sources and relevant permissions are clearly printed on the same page as the song entry in the pamphlets. Eleven of the sixty-five songs within the six booklets available for the 1950s are taken from ‘The New National Songbook’. The single most used source for the booklets in the 1950s, it had also been a popular source in the previous decade: it contained many of the wartime choices featured in the 1940 list. Published in 1906, and edited by the renowned composers Charles Villiers Stanford and Geoffrey Shaw (both deceased by the 1950s), it had been advertised as containing all of the

146 _{Anon, ‘Singing Together: The radio show that got children singing’, BBC News Magazine,} http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30210485, 28/11/2014 (23/10/16).

147 _{Simon Elmes, Hello Again: Nine decades of radio voices (London: Random House, 2012), 251-252.} 148 _{William Appleby & Frederick Fowler, Sing Together! 100 Songs for Unison Singing (Oxford: OUP, 1967).} 149 _{Crook, 2007, 222.}

songs which Arthur Somervell and the BoE had suggested for school use: the very list which had so incensed Cecil Sharp. It should be stressed that the book contains a fair number of genuine folk songs: Sharp’s objection was that it also contained other material that he deemed unacceptable, such as national, historical and art songs. Based on the evidence of the available booklets, the choices taken from it in the 1950s booklets erred towards the traditional rather than the national, rather than the more populist choices drawn from the same source in the 1940 list. Other recurring sources on which the 1950s booklets drew included OUP’s

‘Clarendon Songbook’ series (edited by former Singing Together Presenter Herbert

Wiseman), Curwen’s ‘Shanty Book (Part 1 & 2)’, as well as folk song collections by Cecil Sharp, Lucy Broadwood and John Lomax.

The presentation of the folk songs shows a certain degree of English bias: examples from England often have their county of origin clearly indicated, but Scottish Welsh and Irish songs are not given any further indication of regional roots. Whilst the emphasis within much of the folk material chosen favoured the Home Counties, some concessions were made to regions other than the South of England in the selection and broadcasting of songs. Spring 1958 contained the Welsh song ‘Planting Trees (Plannu Coed)’ with not only an English text (provided by Imogen Holst) but also a full Welsh Language version alongside it.152 This is the only example of a song in any of the sixty assembled booklets across five decades that is completely and equally bilingual, despite thirty-seven non-Anglophone speaking national or linguistic origins being represented throughout the series.153The lack of any similar examples may be partially explained by the fact that the BBC produced a limited number of specialist Welsh language programmes already, and may well have diverted any such material toward those shows. The closest equivalent to Singing Together was Storïau, Rhigwm a Chân (Stories, Rhymes and Song); a Welsh language Primary Schools programme, broadcast only within Wales from 1948 to 1958.154 Although the exact titles changed during the decade there were, according to Radio Times listings, approximately ten Welsh language programmes for schools at any one time during the 1950s, on subjects such as Geography, Science, Religion and History as well as Music and Language.155 No similar Scottish or Irish programming

152 _{Spring Term, Singing Together (BBC, 1958), 8.}

153 _{Within this category are Welsh, Irish and Scots, as there is at least one example of songs that had a text}

originating in the corresponding indigenous Celtic language. Basque and Flemish are also included as regional languages or minority language groups.

154 _{Anon., ‘Storiau, Rhigwm a Chan’, Broadcast for Schools,}

http://www.broadcastforschools.co.uk/site/Storiau,_Rhigwm_a_Chan, 31/12/11 (23/10/17).

155 _{Anon., ‘List of schools programmes broadcast in Welsh’, Broadcast for Schools,}

http://www.broadcastforschools.co.uk/site/Special:BrowseData/Programmes?Decade=1950s&Presented_in_lang uage=In_Welsh, (23/10/17). NB: Link now generates a lot of code at top of page – scroll down for resource.

appears to have been provided by the BBC, nor was it represented within the song choices for Singing Together, although there were attempts to transliterate regional variations of English. Generally, dialect terms arising in the songs are explained in a short glossary on the same page, but there was one exception to this rule. Due to differences in regional school holidays, the song ‘Aiken Drum’ was only taught to schools in Northern Ireland and Scotland on Whit Monday 1955, with none of the dialect words ‘translated’ for English listeners, as was otherwise the custom: the eponymous hero’s coat was made ‘…o the gude saut meat’, in which he ‘luiket weel as ye may suppose’. 156

Based on the contents of 6 booklets, and the 65 songs they contain (none of which are duplicated), the breakdown is as follows:

Number of Booklets: 6

Total Number of Songs: 65, no duplicates.

Songs from Worldwide Folk Sources: 42, equivalent to 65% of total songs

Songs from British Isles Traditions: 28, equivalent to 43.08% of total songs and 67% of

folk/trad/world songs present.

The songs selected for the 1950s booklets follow a similar course of Folk, National and Art song (with a limited number of European and American choices) to those found in the 1940s, but have been drawn from a much wider selection of resources, allowing for far greater