[btimeline id=“2070″]
| Country: | : | Denmark |
| City | : | Copenhagen |
| Date | : | 21 March 1964 |
| Host | : | Lotte Wæver |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1964 was the 9th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the country’s victory at the 1963 contest with the song „Dansevise“ by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR), the contest was held at Tivolis Koncertsal on Saturday 21 March 1964, and was hosted by Danish TV speaker Lotte Wæver.
Sixteen countries participated in the contest. Portugal made its debut this year, while Sweden decided not to enter.
The winner of the contest was Italy with the song „Non ho l’età“, performed by Gigliola Cinquetti, written by Nicola Salerno and composed by Mario Panzeri. At the age of 16 years and 92 days, Gigliola Cinquetti became the youngest winner of the contest yet; a record she held until 1986.
Location
The host venue for the contest was Tivolis Koncertsal (Tivoli Concert Hall) in Denmark’s capital city Copenhagen, which lies within Denmark’s famous amusement park and pleasure garden Tivoli Gardens. The park, alluding by its name to the Jardin de Tivoli that existed in Paris, was opened on 15 August 1843, and is the second oldest amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg.
Format
Each country had 10 jury members who distributed three points among their one, two, or three favourite songs. The points were totaled and the first, second, and third placed songs were awarded 5, 3, and 1 votes in order. If only one song got every point within the jury it would get all 9 points. If only two songs were chosen, the songs would get 6 and 3 points in order.
The contest this year was highly politicised with demands that right-wing dictatorships in Spain and Portugal should be excluded from the contest. This controversy became apparent during the contest as just before the Belgian entry, a man entered the stage holding a banner saying „Boycott Franco and Salazar“. He was quickly removed from the stage. This alarmed the audience, to where the camera footage cut to the scoreboard, however, photographs were taken and released after the event. This would be the very first stage invasion in the contest’s history.
The immediate response of the Koncertsal audience to the Italian entry was markedly enthusiastic and prolonged and, most unusually for a contest performance, after leaving the stage Gigliola Cinquetti was allowed to return to take a second bow. Her performance was given an unscheduled repeat on British television the following afternoon. In the event, she won the most crushing victory in the history of the contest, with a score almost three times that of her nearest rival, a feat extremely unlikely ever to be beaten under the post-1974 scoring system.
Lost recordings
As with the 1956 contest, no complete video recording of the actual contest is known to have survived; however, unlike the 1956 contest (where the interval act is mostly missing), a complete audio recording does exist in the form of the DR radio broadcast. Some clips of the contest survive, including part of the opening ceremonies, including some of presenter Lotte Wæver’s welcoming remarks, as well as the majority of the repeat performance of „Non ho l’età“ from the end of the broadcast. For some time, there was a rumour that a copy of the entire contest existed in the French television archives. In 2021, INA confirmed to Wiwibloggs that the French television archives do not possess a copy of the contest.
A persistent myth, even repeated on the official Eurovision site, is that the tape was destroyed in a fire in the 1970s. More recent interviews with DR, however, state that the broadcast was never recorded in the first place, allegedly due to no tape machines being available at the studio at the time. The audio of the entire show, however, is still available online, and fan reconstructions using available clips, press photos and other sources have been made.
YouTube channel ESCstuff released their full reconstruction of the contest in December 2020, using footage recovered from Germany. It is the second reconstruction using the German footage uploaded on YouTube, as an earlier reconstruction uploaded by the channel ESCplus from 2013 was taken down.
In October 2021, YouTube user wilke qwieke reuploaded a low quality 3-minute rehearsal clip by Belgian broadcaster BRT, which featured a 7-second clip of Robert Cogoi performing his entry. The original video was uploaded by YouTube user qqtwee on 25 March 2011.
In December 2021, after purchasing it from the Finnish broadcaster Yle’s archives, Reddit user DYLCWS uploaded a 3-minute clip of the televised broadcast of the contest, including Gigliola Cinquetti being presented as the winner, the presenter Lotte Wæver introducing the award presenter Svend Pedersen, a shot of the medal, a shot of the audience, and a portion of the winning reprise of „Non ho l’età“ at a front facing angle unlike most of the preexisting footage.
Participating countries
Sweden did not participate this year because of a boycott by singers. They did however broadcast it. Portugal competed in the contest for the first time, however they became the first country to score nul points on their début entry. Germany, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia also scored nul points for the first time. The Netherlands became the first country to send a singer of non-European ancestry, Anneke Grönloh who was of Indonesian descent. Spain decided to send the Spanish group Los TNT who were the first group of three or more participants in the history of the contest.
Returning artists
| Artist | Country | Previous year(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Anita Traversi |  Switzerland | 1960 |
Conductors
Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.
Luxembourg – Jacques Denjean
Netherlands – Dolf van der Linden
Norway – Karsten Andersen
Denmark – Kai Mortensen
Finland – George de Godzinsky
Austria – Johannes Fehring
France – Franck Pourcel
United Kingdom – Harry Rabinowitz
Germany – Willy Berking
Monaco – Michel Colombier
Portugal – Kai Mortensen
Italy – Gianfranco Monaldi [it]
Yugoslavia – Radivoje Spasić- Switzerland – Fernando Paggi
Belgium – Henri Segers
Spain – Rafael Ibarbia [es]
Grand Final
| flag | Country | Artist | Song | Lyrics | Composer | Conductor | Place | points | Nationals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxembourg | Hugues Aufray | Dès que le printemps revient | Jacques Plante | Hugues Aufray | Jacques Denjean | 4 | 14 | |
| The Netherlands | Anneke Grönloh | Jij bent mijn leven | René de Vos | Ted Powder | Dolf van der Linden | 10 | 2 | |
| Norway | Arne Bendiksen | Spiral | Egil Hagen | Sigurd Jansen | Karsten Andersen | 8 | 6 | |
| Denmark | Bjørn Tidmand | Sangen om dig | Mogens Dam | Aksel Von Rasmussen | Kai Mortensen | 9 | 4 | |
| Finland | Lasse Mårtenson | Laiskotellen | Sauvo Puhtila | Lasse Mårtenson | George de Godzinsky | 7 | 9 | |
| Austria | Udo Jürgens | Warum, nur warum? | Udo Jürgens | Udo Jürgens | Johannes Fehring | 6 | 11 | |
| France | Rachel | Le chant de Mallory | Pierre Cour | André Popp | Franck Pourcel | 4 | 14 | |
| United Kingdom | Matt Monro | I love the little things | Tony Hatch | Tony Hatch | Harry Rabinowitz | 2 | 17 | |
| Germany | Nora Nova | Man gewöhnt sich so schnell an das Schöne | Niels Nobach | Rudi von der Dovenmühle | Willy Berking | 13 | 0 | |
| Monaco | Romuald | Où sont-elles passées? | Pierre Barouh | Francis Lai | Michel Colombier | 3 | 15 | |
| Portugal | António Calvário | Oração | Francisco Nicholson, Rogério Braçinha | João Nobre | Kai Mortensen | 13 | 0 | |
| Italy | Gigliola Cinquetti | Non ho l’età | Nicola Salerno | Mario Panzeri, Genne Colonello | Gianfranco Monaldi | 1 | 49 | |
| Yugoslavia | Sabahudin Kurt | Život je sklopio krug | Stevan Raičković | Srđan Matijević | Radivoje Spasić | 13 | 0 | |
| Switzerland | Anita Traversi | I miei pensieri | Sanzio Chiesa | Giovanni Pelli | Fernando Paggi | 13 | 0 | |
| Belgium | Robert Cogoi | Près de ma rivière | Robert Cogoi | Robert Cogoi | Henri Segers | 10 | 2 | |
| Spain | Nelly + Tim & Tony | Caracola | Fina de Calderón | Fina de Calderón | Rafael Ibarbia | 12 | 1 |
Scoreboard
| Participant |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | Points | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxembourg | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 14 | 4 | ||||||||||||
| The Netherlands | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 | ||||||||||||||
| Norway | 5 | 1 | 6 | 8 | ||||||||||||||
| Denmark | 1 | 3 | 4 | 9 | ||||||||||||||
| Finland | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 7 | |||||||||||||
| Austria | 1 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 6 | |||||||||||||
| France | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 4 | ||||||||||
| United Kingdom | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 17 | 2 | |||||||||
| Germany | – | 13 | ||||||||||||||||
| Monaco | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 3 | |||||||||||
| Portugal | – | 13 | ||||||||||||||||
| Italy | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 49 | 1 | |||||
| Yugoslavia | – | 13 | ||||||||||||||||
| Switzerland | – | 13 | ||||||||||||||||
| Belgium | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 | ||||||||||||||
| Spain | 1 | 1 | 12 |
Incidents
Stage invasion
A political protest occurred after the Swiss entry: a man trespassed onto the stage holding a banner that read „Boycott Franco & Salazar“. Whilst this was going on, television viewers were shown a shot of the scoreboard; once the man was removed the contest went on.
About the winner
Italy celebrated its first victory with the song Non Ho l’Età, performed by 16-year-old Gigliola Cinquetti. Gigliola would also take part in 1974 and would become the host of Eurovision Song Contest of 1991, together with Toto Cutugno.