Digitizing History: Palestine Broadcasting Service, 1936-1948

MUSIC: The Studios, Pre-Recordings and Outside Broadcasts

The PBS needed to learn who are the current local leaders, influencers, the so-called "movers and shakers". To be in regular contact with them, open conversations. Learn from them, hear what they have to say and report back the issues of the day from their perspective. These links were also communication lines to pass on the message or messages that the British Government wanted to relay to local leaders, political, social, economic and commercial. How did they identify current leaders and potential future local leaders? What methods were used to bring them into PBS's orbit? Were there any rivalry among the local leaders that they could identify?

The PBS from the outset partnered with the Vaad Leumi, the local governance of the Jewish Yishuv of Palestine. They made similar outreach to the Arab elites. This way PBS would be in regular contact with the leading personalities of the Yishuv, movers and shakers, "influencers" as they would be called today.

There were many barriers to communication: language, culture, religion, and geography. One way of crossing these barriers was thought to be music. In his inaugural address on opening the PBS transmitters in 1936, the High Commissioner, Arthur Wauchope said:

"There are thousands of people in Palestine who have a natural love of music, but who experience difficulty in finding the means, whereby they may enjoy the many pleasures that music gives. The Broadcasting service will endeavour to fill this need, and stimulate musical life in Palestine, so that we may see both Oriental and Western music grow in strength, side by side, each true to its own tradition..."

THIS WEEK'S MUSIC, presented by Sydney Seal

There was a lot of planning that went into choosing the music that was to be broadcast over the radio. Contracts had to be written up and signed with artists, sometimes for individual one-off programs, other times, series of programs with similar themes. When should they use commercial recorded music, not to mention keeping track of royalties that needed to be paid, and other general administrative work. This planning made it possible to have a weekly review series of programs highlighting the music to be broadcast that week. One of the earliest regular series was entitled "This week's Music". It was given a five to ten-minute slot on Sundays. It was presented in English by Sydney Seal (1898-1959), an English pianist, and director of the Jerusalem School of Music. There was a parallel program in Hebrew, presented by Herman Swet (1893-1968), Swet later changed his name to Gershon Swet. The first program of "This Week's Music" series starting on August 9, 1936. the last broadcast of this series in English was February 20, 1938. However, a week later, Febrauary 27, 1938, Seal presented a new weekly series entitled "Music and Musicians." This lasted for about 14 broadcasts and ended June 27, 1938. From all accounts Sydney Seal was popular for the listeners, and a second series of "This Week's Music" was started on April 22, 1939, ended a year later with the last broadcast on Sunday, April 28, 1940. Seal was still popular and gave regular recitals and or talks until he returned with a new weekly series of "illustrative talks on British Music" entitled "From Harmony to Harmony" which started on Sunday, January 11, 1942, the twelfth and last broadcast in this series was heard on Sunday, June 28, 1942. But once again Seal, still popular with the public, and presumably with security clearance, World war Two was still in full swing, he was back on the radio with recitals and talks on an adhoc nature.

Crawford B. McNair

One of the early directors of PBS was Crawford B. McNair, not only was he seconded from the BBC, he was also a professional conductor of the BBC Northern Region Orchestra.

Crawford McNair, Director of Programmes of the Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS), conducting the PBS Choral Society and the PBS Orchestra, at the inaugural concert of the Choral Society, at the YMCA, Jerusalem, 1938.

"Although Crawford McNair, Director of Programmes of the PBS, appears in this picture as the conductor of the newly-formed PBS Choral Society, he is equally at home in pantomime and variety productions and in dramatic shows. He received his early training in radio in London and is the composer of the music for Geoffrey Bridson's 'Dove Days' which was given a repeat performance on the National Programme in London a short time ago."

Crawford McNair conducting the inaugural concert of the PBS Choral Society and the PBS Orchestra, YMCA, November 22, 1938. Broadcast live on radio.

" His duties as Director of programmes include a heavy schedule of administrative work and certain members of the Palestine Government are still puzzled by McNair's intricate and - may it be said - Scotch financial transactions which have greatly benefited the PBS, but which in their effectiveness have tleft the government a little bewildered. His Master of Arts at Oxford did not include Semitic Languages but he is in daily contact with Hebrew and Arabic and one month - July of last year [1938] - he spent 31 "horrible nights" editing the news bulletins. Many there are who will break with him on his pronunciation of the King"s English but Mr. McNair holds steadfast to his own firm ideas."

"To his credit during the past year must be placed the following achievement: noonday transmissions with a wide extension of the news bulletins both at midday and in the evening; proper stabilization of the Children's Hours in all three languages; extension of the PBS Orchestra and the formation of the of the PBS Choral Society; and last and most certainly not least, but for his timely intervention "Jerusalem Radio" would still be only an idea on paper mouldering away in the files of Government for "future action". It was his confidence in the the ultimate success of "Jerusalem Radio" that brought about the early appearance of the paper."

One of the most prominent guests he hosted in Palestine was the conductor, Sir Malcolm Sargent, then just Dr. Malcolm Sargent. He traveled to Palestine three years in a row 1937-1939, while it was still possible to travel there safely by air, before the war (this period is now known as the Arab Riots, 1936-1939). In May 9, 1937, Dr. Malcolm Sargent gave a 15 minute PBS radio broadcast talk on Elgar. A year later, Friday, May 13, 1938 , he gave a 10 minute radio broadcast talk on his trip to Palestine. In the days before radio, for example, giving a talk or lecture from a stage, was straight forward. There was a direct connection between the guest speaker and his/her audience. But not so radio. Radio was a new technology that had to be learned from scratch. The broadcaster or guest had no idea if anyone was listening to them at all. The message could fall on deaf ears. They had to find out who was listening to them and what the thoughts on the programs were. They developed many creative ways to reach the audience. There were many routes to reaching a wide an audience as possible. The PBS set up programs that targeted schools, the home, and youth, among others.

The Structure of PBS

"From 1936 to 1945, The PBS was part of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, under the administrative direction of the deputy PMG [Postmaster General] who also supervised the radio engineering services. The program director in the early years, had been seconded from thr BBC in London. These directors included Randall, Stephen Fry and Crawford B. McNair. ... The PBS was divided into a number of sections, three of which were determined by the language used - English, Hebrew and Arabic (including Arabic music). Two more dealt with the nature of the programmes, regardless of languages: news (in English, Hebrew and Arabic) and music (for both Hebrew and English programmes). There were two further common services - engineering (under the GPO) and administration, making seven sections in all..."
From A Lifetime in Jerusalem, by Edwin Samuel.

For music to be enjoyable the quality of the service had to be probably a lot better than it was. The quality was based both on the technology of the transmitter and the quality of radios receivers. Music was at that time best heard via 78 RPM acetate records locally produced or imported, to be heard on imported gramophone players. Although to most people in Palestine that was a luxury they could not necessarily afford. PBS hired studio musicians, Jewish and Arab, to perform in the studios.

The PBS was made up of 120 permanent staff members (apart from a further 60 GPO transmitter and studio engineering staff). The PBS studio orchestra, or more accurately chamber orchestras, was made up of some 15-20 full-time employees of many years standing. Further research is needed to find out what proportion of the programs were actually live performance and what proportion pre-recorded.

Arab musicians: The Studio Group (Leader: Jamil 'Aweis (Violin); Mohammed Atia (Kanoun); Ramez Al Zagha (Oud); Artin Santurji (Santur); Jalil Rukab (Violin); Tewfik Jowharieh (Nay); Basil Sarwa (Tambourine). Jewish Musicians: Hans Schlesinger (conductor); Arieh Erich Sachs (piano); Rafael Kagan (Cello); Moshe Lustig (piano, harpsichord); Karl Beren (clarinet); Eliyahu Turner (Oboe) Wihelm von Bleize (flute); Meir Frankel (violin); Uri Toeplitz (flute), among others.

Pre-recording had obvious advantages to the quality of the music heard by the listener. Rehearsals could iron out most/all the mistakes before going on the air. Also if the program was delayed for any reason, and there were many reasons why programs were delayed or had to be rescheduled, this could be done without too much effort.

At one point, PBS reportedly had a library of something like 18,000 recordings of music, speeches and other programs! The recordings were in the format of fragile acetate discs/records (78 RPM), many were either brought over from Britain, music and/or speeches, or recorded locally and archived in the PBS library, for broadcasting purposes.

Studio recordings available to the public: Further research is needed to locate, list and digitize the recordings that still exist in public archives or private collections. The National Library of Israel has started to digitize its collection. Hopefully something will emerge from this...

Regarding the quality of transmission of the spoken word, the President of the Brighter English League, a fictitious organization created by Edwin Samuel, said humorously, in his one of his broadcasts entitled "Let's Speak English", August 14, 1939: "I'm never quite sure whether listeners can follow clearly what I say. One listener came up to me the other day and told me how much English he'd learned from my talks. But he must have been using a cheap wireless set which made lots of noises which he thought were part of the English language. He talked to me like this: 'Mr. President, (click, click! ) see how well (whistle) I speak English'. "

The same Edwin Samuel, before taking up the position of director of PBS, in May 1945, wrote to Wing Commander A. H. Marsack, BBC offices, Cairo, requesting that he send him some of the Arabic recordings made by him for short wave programs for the BBC. "Could you make for us [Edwin Samuel and Azmi Nashashibi (MBE), Controller of Arabic Programmes] duplicate copies of any such recordings in the future? If so what would be the cost of each? How many such recordings are made each month and how many are Koran, music, talks, etc? Nashashibi is particularly interested in songs from the latest Arabic cinema films... one important point is that of copyright. We would presumably need the expressed rights of the artists that the recordings could be broadcast from the PBS without payment of any additional fee by us..." (1)

In another letter, Edwin Samuel wrote to Rex Keating , broadcaster at the Egyptian Broadcasting Service, in Cairo, who was shortly to becoming Samuel's deputy director : "Our existing blank records are old stock and do not wear well after recordings have been made.
We have a large supply of new blank records on order from the United Kingdom but they may take some time to arrive.
Meanwhile, are you in a position to sell us some blank records of recent manufacture, or to lend us some on the understanding that we will repay any kind as soon as our new ones' arrive? If so, please let me know the specifications, the quantity available (and the price)..."(2)

Experimenting with Multitrack recording in the studio

Somehow the musical director and presumably the studio recording engineers found time or maybe made time in the busy schedules for experimentation in what would become the new concept of multitrack recording, in 1946, before the advent of tape recording.

"Rex Keating: ... That was in 1938.

During the same year the PBS Light Orchestra was re-organized. Foundations were laid of the orchestra that listeners know today.

That was the PBS orchestra as it was eight years ago. Then as now, the musical director was Karl Salomon, an admirable musician with a strongly developed sense of humor. Here it is in action. Karl Salomon singing all the parts of a vocal sextet.
This may sound miraculous, but in fact is simply a matter of patient and careful technical trickery and timing. All the parts are recorded separately and then re-recorded on a single disc.

FromThe First Ten Years, Rex Keating, broadcast March 30, 1946. (From Rex Keating Collection, 2/6/1, MEC Archive, St. Antony's College, Oxford).

Photo reconstruction, for illustrative purposes only, of an acetate record with PBS label.

From left to right. Edwin Samuel, Director of PBS; William Phillips, a career United States diplomat; and Dr. Frank Aydelotte, Director, Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Photo taken in the record library during an official visit to the PBS studio in Jerusalem, 1946. Phillips and Aydelotte were there as members of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. (Photo appeared in Hagalgal, vol 3, no.35, March 28, 1946, p11).

What happened to these recordings? A handful has been preserved in the Rex Keating Collection, British Library, London, and St Anthony's College, Oxford, but most have completely disappeared from sight. Acetate discs are fragile, so many may have been broken in the final days of the studio, May 1948. Some may have been taken as "souvenirs", see article "I capture the Public Information Office Bell ..." by Theodor F. Meysels, Palestine Post May, 1948. Hopefully that there are still some recordings out there somewhere, preserved in private or public collections. Unfortunately, there is no known list locating their whereabouts.