Chapter 1: What significant event did Pink Floyd's concert in Venice spark?
From the brilliant and bizarre. It was really surreal. It was a surreal kind of atmosphere there. You couldn't really see anybody. To the shocking and unexpected. I'm just wondering, what are we going to do now? This was really my worst fear. He found 100% horse meat that was labelled as beef. Witness the stories that have shaped our world. Told by the people who were there.
When he went to the factory, the poodle went in front of him. So the work was on you. Oh, the boss is here. Many people had many things to lose by our victory. The future was not so bright. We had a designer. He brought in a fully storyboarded idea about how the Queen would arrive by jumping out of a helicopter. And we all said, that's brilliant, but it's never going to happen.
Or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the History Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson, featuring interviews from the Witness History and Sporting Witness podcasts with people who experienced major events firsthand. This week we're focusing on stories from Italy's past, including an Italian Nobel Prize winning scientist who battled against prejudice.
It was not persecution like in Germany, but it was an unpleasant environment, you know. We've got one of the men who built the Mont Blanc tunnel, which was finally completed in the 1960s. When I saw the first vehicle come through, I felt happy because it was a wonderful end to a long story, a story of almost a century of hope, of expectations.
Plus Gina Lollobrigida and the flooding of Florence in 1966. The water kept on rising and rising and rising, impossible to stop, fast noisily. But first we've got a moment of musical history from Venice. In July 1989, the British band Pink Floyd played a concert in the historic city. The show was also broadcast worldwide to a huge television audience.
Artistically, it may have been a success, but its planning was mired in controversy. Emma Ford has been hearing from people who were closely involved in that event. It was a Venice and a free concert and a special venue as well. You can imagine the stage on the water. So they came from all over Europe, from Germany, from the UK and France. Meet Italian music promoter Fran Tumazzi.
Fran's worked with some of the biggest names in music. I did more than 160 tours with many other bands like Talking Heads and Weather Report, Simple Minds and many others. U2, Rolling Stone and many, many others. I can send you a list of artists. In the late 1980s, he began working with Pink Floyd. I did eight concerts, Milan, Verona, which is three wonderful shows, Naples and Livorno.
And then they asked me, they're looking for a special venue. They asked me if I have something nice and special to propose. And I was living in Venice and I have my office there and they come out, why not Venice? And they was enthusiastic about the proposal. But not everyone was on board with the idea. The town council of Venice was 49% against the council, 51% in favour.
They said, no, no way, because they're going to ruin the city. Some local officials were worried that the crowds and amplified noise could damage ancient buildings and threatened to pull the plug. At the last minute, a deal was done to keep the volume down, a limit of 60 decibels, to be precise. The band was ordered to lower the sound because it could have damaged the frescoes.
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Chapter 2: How did Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini overcome challenges in her scientific career?
There were so many boats. I just saw the water in front of me. You understand that you are in the centre of the story. And you had a responsibility too, like a journalist, how to make the story, you know? I am a photographer for 40 years. Absolutely, the Pink Floyd concert was one of the most important works that I've done. But backstage, Fran Tumazi was sweating.
With just half an hour until showtime, an important piece of paperwork was missing. We didn't have the permission for the show. The town council should authorise a concert, an event. But the mayor left the town and didn't sign it. So I found the deputy mayor in a boat in front of the stage and he signed it. With paperwork finally in hand, the concert got going. Grazie, thank you very much indeed.
Buonasera. Right, we're just going to get on with some music, OK? Have a good time. We're going to. Take it away, gal. The show was also broadcast globally to an estimated 100 million viewers in over 20 countries. Fran watched from a water taxi with his family. with my wife Rita and my son Tobia. So I really enjoyed the show. It was wonderful. And the sound was perfect in front of the stage.
So I think it was a wonderful show. And what about the band? They were all happy. Yes, very happy. They did it. It was a very special event. They realized it was a unique event. But the happiness was short-lived as Venice awoke the next morning to the aftermath. Thousands of fans had slept on the streets, in doorways and alleyways. A reported 300 tonnes of rubbish littered the historic city.
The locals weren't pleased. The backlash made headlines around the world. The concert had taken place with few facilities laid on for the fans and virtually no public toilets. Some fans had clambered on to whatever vantage points they could with inevitable results. At least one historic monument was also said to have been damaged. 200,000 people who had no accommodation and no rooms.
Nobody who saw that will ever forget it. Nobody who smelt it will ever forget it either. Venice may be regretting the day Pink Floyd came to town for a very long time yet. Hey, teacher! There was a lot of rumors about three people died and windows of shops broken. Most of the town was very upset. For a couple of days, there was a lot of discussion about the rubbish and told it was my fault.
But people's anger soon turned to the authorities. They faced heavy criticism for allowing it to go ahead without providing enough facilities for the fans and for taking too long to clean up the mountain of rubbish. After the concert, the mayor of the town resigned and in a few months the entire town concert had to resign because they made a disaster happen.
They didn't really take care of the town and the interests of the city and the audience and the citizens as well. So how does Fran look back on it now? Jesus, we have to talk about that again? That's what I think. No, I will never do it again because I have to face so many problems. But at the end, I'm quite happy that I did it. It was an incredibly special experience to my life and career.
The music promoter Fran Tumazi and photographer Andrea Pataro were speaking to Emma Ford. Venice may have taken time to recover from that famous 1989 Pink Floyd concert, but how has it gone down in the annals of live music history? Arusa Qureshi is a writer, editor and music programmer based in Scotland and joins us now.
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Chapter 3: What was the impact of the Mont Blanc Tunnel on Italy and France?
He was known for his kind of harsh and dissonant sounds. But at the time when this premiered, it really shocked people. And I think it was the partnership between his score and Nijinsky's ballet choreography that And at the time, it reportedly led to audience members shouting and physically fighting. And you can read more about this in Stravinsky's 1936 autobiography. And it's really interesting.
He talks about there being derisive laughter, which really started just after a few bars of music played. And there was a terrific uproar from the audience. And that was because people were shocked by the style of the music and the choreography. Exactly. And I think it really offended the audience's idea of what a ballet should be, I guess. And that's why it was so controversial at the time.
And more recently, there have been concerts or events, if you like, which have been more overtly political or at least have turned out that way. What stands out for you? Yeah, so the first one that comes to mind is when Manic Street Preachers played in Cuba in February 2001.
And this was really interesting because it was the first time that a Western rock band had played in Cuba in around 20 years. And Fidel Castro was actually in attendance in the audience. He met the band before. And before this time, really, the government in Cuba had banned quite a lot of Western rock and pop music. And it was kind of deemed subversive.
Hardly anyone played, so this was really unique. But my next few preachers had agreed to defy a long-standing cultural embargo and play this concert in Havana. And it took place in front of an audience of like 5,000 people and tickets were around 17 pence.
And I think it just is a really important concert because it helped usher Cuba into the kind of modern world and it helped establish live contemporary music as part of wider Cuban culture. And nowadays, it seems with some bands or indeed organizations, the music event is more political, if you like, than the music. Yeah, absolutely.
So first one that comes to mind is when Dixie Chicks, who are now called the Chicks, played at London's Shepherds Bush Empire in 2003. And at the time, the Iraq War was going on in the background. And singer Natalie Maines, she told the crowd, we don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas. And that was a reference to George W. Bush.
And, you know, it seems like an innocent enough statement in terms of what we know of the Iraq war. But at the time, it led to huge backlash, mostly from their right wing fans in the US. And it resulted in them being totally blacklisted from country radio stations and fan protests. They even had death threats.
And as a result, Natalie Maines was forced to apologise because I think she had no other choice. But I think they never really came back from it and they broke up shortly after before eventually coming back. And if you come to more modern times, you think of, for example, Pussy Riot in Russia. That's an art group, if you like, which is more about the politics than the music even.
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