ABSTRACT
Alfredo Campoli's position as an Italian national living in Britain was not a pressing problem until Italy entered the conflict. He had been granted exemption from Italian military service back in 1926, applied for, perhaps, as a precaution in case he went back to Italy for some reason and found himself called up, a situation not uncommon in some European countries. The policy was still in force in March 1941, by which time the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Music Department was putting up a case for a more flexible approach. The BBC Salon Orchestra was placed under the direction of Leslie Bridgewater who had at his disposal some of the finest soloists and orchestral players in the country. Equally unsurprising was that this refinement of execution was not to all BBC tastes, some wanting a more robust style of light music than the Salon Orchestra was able to provide during the war.
