Not just the Hallé: Manchester's concert scene 1860-1900 (Manchester Sounds volume 9: 2013)

THE achievement of Charles Hallé and his ‘Manchester Orchestra’ can easily overshadow the rest of an extraordinarily vibrant musical life enjoyed by citizens of Manchester in the latter half of the nineteenth century. I have previously[1] attempted an overview of operatic performances in the city in that period – which, while numerous, were rarely originated here. My account of Hallé’s life[2] describes most of the groups and individuals active in the city’s musical culture around the time of his arrival here in 1848 and through to the early years of his own orchestral concert enterprise, begun 10 years later, as these are all part of the background to his achievement. It also follows the activities of the Gentlemen’s Concerts Society, of which he was the leading light from 1848 until his death in 1895, throughout that period, and refers to most of the major artists who visited the city on tour.

This is a provisional outline of some other, mainly local-enterprise, concert performances which were contemporary with Hallé’s heyday, and they were likewise manifold over most of the period.

There was, however, a considerable hiatus in concert life in the early 1860s (Hallé persisted through those years, but even he had to limit his ambitions), undoubtedly due to the catastrophic effect of the ‘Cotton Famine’ which affected the city in the later part and aftermath of the American Civil War. The popular Monday Evening Concerts, begun by David Ward Banks[3] at the second Free Trade Hall as soon as it opened in October 1856, ceased in December 1859. Nonetheless annual Good Friday and Christmas Day oratorio performances, which preceded the building of that hall and were, as in other provincial cities, a shared event of civic tradition, were conducted by Banks from 1857 to 1860, and the Christmas Day Messiah was reinstated by him in 1862 and continued until 1871.

Another entrepreneur, who kept a New Year event going almost every year from 1859 to 1868, was ‘Dr Mark’, the founder and director of the ‘Royal College of Music, Manchester’ and of ‘Dr Mark and his Little Men’ (I wrote about his enterprise in the last issue of Manchester Sounds[4]). His performances were given at the Corn Exchange in 1859, his own premises in Bridge Street in 1860, and subsequently at the Free Trade Hall.

But economic improvement came, and the improving state of people’s disposable income in the second half of the 1860s resulted in new activity at the Free Trade Hall, in particular a variety of Saturday evening concerts and entertainments, from organ recitals by W T Best, readings by Charles Dickens and appearances by the actress Fanny Kemble to classical chamber musicians and singers from Chappell’s London ‘Monday Pops’ (Arabella Goddard, Ludwig Straus, Louis Ries, Alfredo Piatti and Charles Santley appeared on 24 November and 8 December 1866: Clara Schumann, Joachim, Ries and Piatti on 19 January 1867, ­and Sims Reeves sang, with Hallé as his guest soloist, on 2 March 1867: it was two days after he had appeared in Hallé’s own series, in Handel’s Jephtha). There was also the newly popular genre of ‘ballad concerts’, and programmes by ‘the united choirs’, ventriloquists and others.

If some of these entertainments seem ‘down-market’, they should be compared with the fare on offer at the new music halls which sprang up in Manchester with great rapidity from the mid-1860s on. Some recalled the days of Louis Jullien’s ‘concerts monstres’ and ‘grand classical nights’ (one hall, the London,[5] advertised the younger Jullien, who had had modest success in London in recent years, as ‘M. Jullien and his unrivalled band’) – others specialised in such delights as ‘classical living statuary [ie nudes] illuminated by limelight’, juvenile negro minstrels, and vocalists of all varieties.

A measure of rationalisation was inevitable, and the Free Trade Hall’s programme became more exclusively classical after 1867. A Sims Reeves Concerts series was presented by Chappell in spring, 1868, with Clara Schumann on 22 February, and Arabella Goddard, Joachim and Piatti on 10 March – and Anton Rubinstein gave his first Manchester piano recitals on 28 May and 15 June. But culture was uphill going: the first appearance of Rubinstein (promoted by Forsyth’s), might have provided ‘perhaps the most wonderful exhibition of pianoforte playing ever heard in Manchester’, but still drew only a ‘meagre attendance’, said the Manchester Guardian. 

Clara Schumann did not make large waves, either: her two appearances in 1869 were on 26 January and 23 February, in a Forsyth’s series which also featured Sims Reeves (though he failed to show at the second), Joachim, Ries and Piatti. At the first she played solos by Robert and accompanied Joachim in Tartini’s ‘Devil’s Trill’ sonata and Sims Reeves in ‘Devotion’, followed by a performance of Beethoven’s op.70 no. 2 with Joachim and Piatti. Clara was to appear for Forsyth’s only once more at the Free Trade Hall: on 6 March 1871, at what was described as her ‘annual piano recital’. If it was annual, it was a series of one.

It is perhaps only as straws in the wind that we should notice two names which first appear in Manchester annals in the latter part of 1870: one was involved in the farewell concerts of Mario (the singer who took part in the concert when Hallé made his Manchester debut, in 1848) at the Free Trade Hall on 2 and 5 November 1870. The acting manager for the company was (as the Guardian gave it) a ‘Mr R Doyle Carte’.[6] And at a Gentlemen’s Society chamber concert on 13 December that year, Hallé played with Risegari, Charles Baetens, Piatti and a guest violinist named Carl Rosa.[7] (Carl Rose, later Rosa, 1842-89, was born in Hamburg and made his English debut at the Crystal Palace in 1866 – unless, that is, he was the same person as the “Carl Rossi” who appeared, described as ‘a young German’, at David Banks’ Manchester Monday Evening Concerts early in 1859.[8] He met Euphrosyne Parepa while on tour in the USA in 1867 and married her, forming the Parepa-Rosa Opera Company there in 1869. The venture was revived in the UK in 1873, using Carl Rosa’s name only, and Parepa died in 1874).

Choral enterprise

Purely local enterprise was it seems at first on the choral front. A body called the Manchester Vocal Society made its first recorded appearance, at Hulme Town Hall, in October, 1867. It took Manchester Town Hall for a series the following year, and from 1869 (the year from which the Gentlemen’s Concerts Society, for financial reasons, made its hall available for hire by other organizations) it gave regular performances – usually six in a season – at the Gentlemen’s Concert Hall in St Peter’s Square, continuing these until 1883. It was sufficiently successful – or at least confident – to engage nationally known guest soloists such as Charles Santley, A. J. Foley (‘Signor Foli’) and Janet Patey in some years. Its creator and director throughout this period was one Henry Wilson.[9] It also appeared in the Gentlemen’s own chamber concerts series from 1872 to 1875 (and in 1882 in the Gentlemen’s main series on one occasion).

Wilson retired from the role of musical director in 1883 (there seems to have been a hiatus in its activity the following year), but from 1885 we find an extraordinary situation (lasting until 1888) which with hindsight is quite comical. In that period there were two different groups, both claiming to be ‘Manchester Vocal Society’, performing in the city. It appears that the conductor of one, a singing teacher called John Towers, believed that he had purchased the right to the name from Wilson, even without securing the allegiance of the members.[10] The choir itself, however, whose president was the organist of St Peter’s Church, Manchester, Benjamin St J Joule, asked its accompanist to be its new musical director for the 19th season in October, 1885, onwards. That accompanist was a musician called Henry Watson – the founder of the music library which, as part of Manchester Central Library, still bears his name.

Watson, born in 1846 in Burnley, was a largely self-taught musician who gained a Cambridge Mus Bac in 1882 and Mus Doc in 1887, and was composer, organist and the conductor of Manchester Gentlemen’s Glee Club, Stockport Vocal Union, Stretford Choral Society and several others. He made a ‘very profitable’ purchase of the copyright to Cellier’s The Sultan of Mocha for £40 in its heyday. He lectured on musical history and instruments at the Victoria University of Manchester and in 1893 was appointed professor of the choral and ear-training department of the new Royal Manchester College of Music. He donated his musical library of over 30,000 books to the city of Manchester in 1899 and his collection of musical instruments to the RMCM in 1900. [11]

The Watson version of the Vocal Society performed four times a season at the Gentlemen’s Concert Hall (and was still going strong in 1895) so was clearly the authentic one. [12]  Though Towers put up a fight, hiring the Free Trade Hall on 20 January 1886 (Watson took it on 18 October) and the Memorial Hall[13] on 15 November, after that he managed only two more concerts – still using the Manchester Vocal Society name – at the Athenaeum in November 1887 and February 1888.

Henry Watson’s Manchester Vocal Society, however, was the one chosen to appear at the Golden Jubilee exhibition at Old Trafford on 1 September 1887,[14] and it also sang as a guest choir at others’ promotions – including a performance of Watson’s own A Shakespearean Cantata, under his baton, at a De Jong concert on 14 February 1891[15].

A new Manchester orchestra

And who was De Jong? In the 1870s and 1880s any devotee of orchestral music would almost certainly have been aware, not just of Hallé’s Thursday concerts in the winter season but also the Saturday ones featuring the orchestra of Edward De Jong. The new conductor was born in 1837 and had already played in the orchestra of Louis Jullien, the travelling conductor-promoter who did much to popularize orchestral music in Britain,[16] when he joined Hallé as principal flautist for the Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857 and remained with the orchestra for the winter seasons that followed. His entrepreneurial streak first made its mark in 1869, when he appeared as conductor, alongside Hallé, in two Catholic charity concerts in the Free Trade Hall on 1 and 4 October (Henry Walker, Hallé’s long-time Free Trade Hall organist and an experienced choir-trainer, conducted the chorus).

Then, for two Saturdays in March, 1871, De Jong put on his own ‘Grand Promenade Concerts’ in the hall,[17] and followed them with the announcement that he would mount a series of 25, weekly, in the autumn.[18] His admission prices at first were 4s, 2s and 1s, similar to Hallé’s. These did not always feature an orchestra (the bands of the King’s Regiment and Coldstream Guards appeared in some), but the series ended with a Messiah, and in January, 1872, De Jong announced that he had formed his own choir for future performances: its first rehearsal was on 9 January,[19] and its first performance on 3 February. He also announced that J T Carrodus[20] was his orchestra leader,[21] and hired London opera soloists and chorus to present the complete final act of Il Trovatore on 20 January.[22]

These ‘Promenade Concerts’ continued until 16 March and were followed by a choral programme of oratorio excerpts on Good Friday (reviving the old tradition which had ceased in 1860), and autumn weekly ‘Popular Concerts’ from 12 October, again concluding with a Messiah, which was repeated on Christmas Day. Thus De Jong had stepped into the shoes of David Banks, whose last Christmas Day Messiah was in the previous year. Although the Good Friday performance did not become an annual fixture again (though he gave The Creation on Good Friday, 1876), De Jong’s Messiah repeat on Christmas Day in the Free Trade Hall continued until 1886, and even beyond that on a near pre-Christmas date. It was held again on Christmas Day in 1891, the year De Jong finally bowed out from Manchester concert promotion.

But we have jumped ahead in the story of his orchestral concerts. Once they began, Hallé recruited a new principal flute and was hardly affected by the Saturday competition. De Jong did not look back, either. He was clearly an opportunist: in January, 1873, he engaged the soloists Hallé had obtained for his concert performance of Le Nozze di Figaro on 23 January and presented them in a ‘miscellaneous’[23] programme two days later. This seems, incidentally, to have been the first time a Manchester appearance was made by Frederick H Cowen: he was the pianist for the operatic stars at De Jong’s25 January concert. Cowen (1852-1935), a child prodigy pianist and one of Hallé’s own pupils, was later to be the conductor asked to succeed Hallé immediately on his death. For De Jong, Cowen appeared as solo pianist on 8 January 1876,[24] and many times subsequently. The Belgian cellist Jules de Swert (1843-1891) appeared on De Jong’s bill the following week[25] – it was not until 1885 that he was invited to Hallé’s platform.

De Jong’s programmes were nothing if not varied: one concert would feature operatic soloists, another handbell ringers, another a “Scotch night” of popular airs, another a military band, and so on. He even began an “extra” series of Monday concerts in autumn, 1874,[26] but it seems these were not successful, as only three took place. He presented Thérèse Tietjens[27] and Zelia Trebelli[28] early in 1875,[29] but in the autumn of that year cut his series by half, presenting 10 subscription concerts at (more or less) fortnightly intervals, instead of 20 weekly: the season tickets were available from Hime & Addison (still the chief rival music business to Forsyth’s in Manchester).[30] He now sold all seats at 1s.[31]  In late 1875, J Kendrick Pyne, newly appointed as organist of Manchester Cathedral, made his debut as organ soloist at them.[32] (Pyne, 1852–1938, the younger brother of the opera singers Louisa and Susan Pyne and a pupil of S S Wesley, was to be appointed organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the great hall of the new Manchester Town Hall – it opened on 15 September 1877. He gave the first of what was to become a legendary series of recitals there on 15 December,[33] which were continued, weekly, throughout most of every year until well into the 20th century).

The De Jong 10-concert pattern (plus a benefit)[34] continued in subsequent years, with an orchestra of 60[35] and occasional well known soloists, including Arabella Goddard on 25 November 1876,[36] Wieniawski on 2 February 1878,[37] Adelina Patti on 12 October 1878,[38] and Trebelli on 4 January 1879,[39] (and repeatedly thereafter). He offered Sims Reeves[40] on 17 February 1877, but the celebrated tenor pulled out: De Jong printed his back-word telegram as an advertisement and offered to refund money to those who wanted it.[41] He booked Reeves for his end-of-season benefit on 3 March, but was again disappointed.[42] He was ever-alert to changing tastes: early in 1879 he offered a selection from H M S Pinafore (which had been seen on stage in Manchester only a few months before), “as performed at the Promenade Concerts in Covent Garden”,[43] and repeated it a fortnight later.[44] He continued to present star names as soloists in the 1880s: Bottesini, for instance, on 24 October 24 1885, Sims Reeves on 7 November, and Sims Reeves and Bottesini on the same bill on 21 November.[45] Bottesini was back on 13 February, 1887,[46] and in his later years De Jong presented two concert performances of Gounod’s Faust (on 7 December 1889, and 18 January 1890[47]), the first Manchester appearance of Isaac Albeniz as solo pianist (on 1 February 1890[48] – De Jong offered him again on 31 October 1891[49]), and the return of Madame Trebelli to the provinces, for the first time since 1888, in 1891[50], in a concert which also featured “Mr [Michael] Maybrick, the eminent vocalist and composer” (aka ‘Stephen Adams’, now chiefly remembered for writing The Holy City), and Auguste van Biene (1850-1913), the conductor, theatrical manager and cellist (who made a later career almost entirely out of appearances in a play called The Broken Melody, in which he took the role of a disabled cellist, playing solos including the Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana).

Manchester tradition has it that Hallé would not allow any member of his orchestra to play in De Jong’s,[51] and, while this was probably true of principals, it seems likely that rank-and-file string players, and possibly some others, would have been able to take work when it was available (not all Hallé’s string players were engaged on his exclusive ‘weekly band’ contract, though it appears to have been introduced around this time, presumably to ensure that principals and some key string players would not be shared). Antoine-Joseph Lavigne, Hallé’s principal oboist since 1861 (and like De Jong a former member of the Jullien orchestra), was advertised as a principal by De Jong at the beginning of the 1872-73 season,[52] and, according to Batley,[53] was not a member of the Hallé Orchestra that season or during the next two: he rejoined in 1875. The same is true of Risegari, who rejoined Hallé in the second violins and became principal.

In October 1882 a fortnightly series of Saturday ‘Working Men’s Concerts’ began at the Free Trade Hall, alternating with De Jong’s existing fortnightly ones and under his overall direction. They were promoted by the Council of Working Men’s Clubs Association,[54] had lower admission prices than the De Jong Concerts themselves (6d, 4d and 3d), and did not feature well-known names. But a choir was formed under the name of the ‘Manchester Musical Union’: it was conducted by C E Rowley, organist of Warrington Parish Church.[55] It is an indication of the extent to which De Jong’s series had become established in the middle ground of the city’s taste that he could afford to be associated with a cheaper series running at the same time. He was also increasingly seen as the city’s focal musical figure on a popular level, in a way that Hallé, despite his acknowledged high standards, was not. The annual Christmas Day Messiah under De Jong’s baton was the mark of this, of course, and he also conducted at a concert in aid of the Royal Infirmary at the Gentlemen’s Concert Hall on 21 April 1882, in which choral societies from Higher Broughton and Knutsford sang and R H Wilson (later to become Hallé’s chorus-master) was the pianist.[56] Frederick Bridge’s new cantata, Boadicea, was performed, along with excerpts from Beethoven’s The Ruins Of Athens.[57]

This interlocking arrangement continued (from October to March in most seasons) until 1891, under slightly varied banners. In early 1888, for instance, the Working Men’s series briefly became ‘Workmen’s Concerts’, and from 1889 they were re-named ‘Saturday Pops’. In the autumn of 1891 De Jong’s subscription series became weekly, but it ended in December with the Messiah mentioned above, and De Jong retired from the Manchester scene as a promoter-conductor (he announced a move of his permanent residence to Blackpool in 1887).[58]

He had a fruitful retirement, however. He joined Hallé’s Royal Manchester College of Music’s staff in 1893 on its foundation, continuing as professor of flute until 1906 (alongside Firmin Brossa, the man who had replaced him in Hallé’s orchestra in 1871). He continued to appear as a solo flautist for many years, in Britain and abroad (he visited Cape Town, South Africa, in 1904) and died in 1920, aged 84, at Sudby on the Isle of Man.[59]

De Jong and his orchestra performed out of Manchester as much as Hallé and his, if not more frequently. One of De Jong’s advertisements gives an indication of the scale of his enterprise at this point: Reeves (notorious for his sudden indispositions) “sang for Mr De Jong on Saturday in Manchester, on Tuesday in Huddersfield, on Thursday in Bolton, and will sing TONIGHT.” He would also appear the following week at Macclesfield, St Helens and Rochdale, it continued. Reeves was announced again, for De Jong’s first Elijah, on 16 January 1886 – but did not appear.[60] The Working Men’s Concerts included an Elijah on 6 February[61] too (Hallé performed it on 4 February), and De Jong repeated the idea the following year, presenting Judas Maccabeus on 15 January, with the same chorus performing it at the Working Men’s Concert on the 22nd (Hallé had it in preparation for 3 February).[62]

It was no surprise, in view of this record, that when an orchestra was needed to supply daily music for the 1887 Jubilee Exhibition at Old Trafford (held in a new specially-created hall on the same site as the Art Treasures Exhibition had been 30 years before), it was now De Jong and not Hallé who was asked to supply it (Hallé was not best pleased to learn this,[63] but he was able to preside over the grand opening ceremony, with a massed choir and his own orchestra). In fact De Jong’s musicians shared the task with the Band of the Grenadier Guards under Dan Godfrey,[64] and the City Police Band.

De Jong’s programmes, at least at the outset, may now seem crowd-pleasing by contrast with Hallé’s, but if we are inclined to condemn his taste we should first consider that the entertainments he was competing with in the 1870s and 1880s included such delights as those offered by the New Royal Alhambra (a music hall) – Herr Unthan[65], a violin solo player without arms (known as The Pedal Paganini), “two grand ballets nightly”, female acrobats (perennially popular), and Mr Natt Emmett and his performing goat.[66]  

The origin of the ‘Brand Lanes’, the Manchester School of Music, and T A Barrett

The year 1881 was an auspicious one in Manchester. Two long-lasting musical enterprises, and an auditorium with a brief but dazzling role in the city’s music, emerged that year. One of the former was to result in a series of orchestral concerts which in later days would be performed by the Hallé Orchestra and would welcome conductors including Richard Strauss and Serge Koussevitsky – while the other was to have its memorial in the Manchester School of Music; and the new St James’s Hall in Oxford Street was to bring some of the biggest classical stars of the day to a mass audience in the years from 1889 to 1894. All three were closely allied to the flourishing amateur choral groupings that emerged around this time in the city.

The Manchester Philharmonic Society was one such, and under its conductor Mr G W Lane gave its first concert at the [Young Men’s Christian] Association Hall, Peter Street, on 12 February 1881, with a programme of “ballads, glees, madrigals and part-songs”.[67] George William ‘Brand’ Lane, born in Brighton in 1854 (he died in 1927), held weekly singing classes in Manchester and formed the Manchester Temperance Choir, and later the Manchester Philharmonic Society. In October 1881 he took a choir of “100 voices” to the Free Trade Hall for a “Grand Concert”,[68] and they appeared there in February, 1882,[69]  at the last of H W Dodd’s ballad concert series of 1881 and 1882,[70] and again in two concerts at Easter 1883.[71]

The Association Hall was also the venue for a new series of Saturday concerts for working people by John Albert Cross, beginning in November, 1881. Cross was born in 1844, and ultimately made his concerts ‘one of the most popular institutions in the north of England’, according to his Musical Times obituary[72]. To begin with he had solo singers, child prodigies, reciters, ventriloquists, handbell ringers and talent competitions on his bills, but also periodic oratorio[73] performances. He claimed his orchestral players, though only about 20 in number, were ‘selected chiefly from Mr Hallé’s and Mr De Jong’s’.[74] For 1884-5, Cross announced that certain of his concerts would be “special high-class” ones, and one included a performance of a cantata entitled The Magna Charta [sic] by Mr Henry Coward of Sheffield, conducted by the composer.[75] Thereafter they were held every season from October to March (sometimes April), with regular choral performances – Messiah, The Creation, Elijah, Judas Maccabeus, Israel in Egypt, Samson and (first in 1893) Cavalleria Rusticana, with a Mozart Mass in autumn 1888.

In 1892 he began his ‘newly and rather grandiloquently announced’ Manchester School of Music – a project which the Musical Times diligently warned its readers was not to be confused with the then imminent Royal Manchester College of Music created by Hallé.[76] His concerts might not have survived, but his school outlived Hallé’s RMCM, at least in name: it still exists.

The story of St James’s Hall and the concerts promoted there by T J Barrett (aka composer ‘Leslie Stuart’)[77] has been told in this journal by Andrew Lamb[78] and I don’t intend to duplicate it.[79] It is worth pointing out, however, that the huge new concert-cum-exhibition hall[80] which opened in September, 1881, began with “A Series of Grand, Instrumental, Operatic and Vocal Promenade Concerts”, boasting an orchestra of 80 and chorus of 150, conducted by Auguste van Biene. The line-up included the London-based tenor Bernard Lane,[81] who sang ‘Come Into The Garden, Maud’ and ‘If With All Your Heart’ (from Elijah), and several instrumentalists were advertised as having appeared at the Richter Concerts (the “librarian” was Alfred Mapleson).[82]

Rossini’s Stabat Mater was the highlight of this clearly London-based troupe’s week of performances (tickets were sold through Forsyth’s), and on the Saturday they offered a “Grand Irish Festival”.[83] This was followed by “Grand Instrumental and Operatic Promenade Concerts” in the first week of October, with admission 1s for all, concluding with a Messiah on Friday 7 October (“band and chorus of 350”), and a Saturday night concert by seven military bands, giving Jullien’s famous British Army Quadrilles “with all the original effects, in which 450 performers take part”.[84] The next week, Joseph Yarwood[85] (whose previous claim to fame was being announced as conductor of the traditional Christmas Day Messiah at the Free Trade Hall in 1878 – though De Jong in the event presided) began a series of nightly “Concerts For The People”, claiming a band and chorus of 100, but these petered out quickly.[86]

St James’s Hall was not in fact to find its role as a regular concert venue until several years later. In 1884, however, there was a promenade concert there to accompany a floral exhibition, followed by a Christmas Messiah, and in 1885 an exhibition of musical instruments brought forth its own ‘Festival of Sacred Song’ and solo recitals. Cross organized a ‘Great Choral Festival’ there in 1886. Even Lewis’s, the new department store, played its part by sponsoring a “monstre vocal and instrumental contest” on 9, 11 and 12 February 1884, with £120 to be won (the judges were Dr William Spark, organist of Leeds Town Hall,[87] George Mellor of Blackburn Parish Church, and Thomas Batley,[88] described as “bandmaster of the Lancashire Hussars and Third Manchester Rifles, and of the renowned orchestra of Charles Hallé Esq”), followed by a “grand popular concert” on 1 March.[89]

Barrett’s new enterprise began in 1888 – again with the formation of a choral society. He first tried regular promotions at the Free Trade Hall in 1885-86,[90] for which he announced a choir of 40 voices,[91] but quickly abandoned these, announcing that his “indisposition” was “the result of the great exertions demanded by these concerts”.[92] He then kept a low profile[93] until January, 1888, when he advertised that he had “resumed lessons in singing and pianoforte”.[94] His choral society was to rehearse in “the new and splendid rooms at Messrs Forsyths, Deansgate”.[95] He also essayed a solo piano recital on 21 May 1889, at Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall.[96] His Saturday concerts at St James’s Hall – which now had ‘heating apparatus’ – followed in the autumn. He booked soloists such as Nikita, a star soprano of the day,[97] J A Muir (the Mikado from D’Oyly Carte’s company), Seymour Jackson, Charles Manners (the famous baritone who sang for Carl Rosa and the D’Oyly Carte),[98] and Marie Roze, as well as “Mrs Alice Shaw, the famous society whistling lady” and “Alfred Phasey, the greatest trombone player living”, and presented selections from Gilbert and Sullivan’s new The Gondoliers before the operetta itself had been seen on stage in Manchester.[99]

By 1894, when he gave up the concerts and moved to London and the musical theatre, he had engaged artists such as Paderewski[100], Ysaye[101], and Melba[102], as well as nationally known singers such as Albani, Charles Santley, Janet Patey, ‘Signor’ Foli, Marie Roze (accompanied, on 19 March 1892, by Henry J Wood), Fanny Moody and Charles Manners (and even Sims Reeves, who had officially retired[103]), and performed a complete Act 2 of The Flying Dutchman, included a selection from Patience, Frederick Cowen’s orchestral suite The Language of Flowers and a Messiah (he also ran an enterprise based on Lytham pier and pavilion).[104]

But let us return now to G W Lane, whose choral work grew into something much more long-lasting and remarkable. His Philharmonic Society choir sang in Cross’s series on 20 November 1882, but from early 1883 Cross had his own choir, called the Manchester Choral Union,[105] with an advertised membership of 150.[106] The Philharmonic Society performed in its own right at the Association Hall on 12 March 1883, and on 17 November figured in De Jong’s Working Men’s series at the Free Trade Hall. It was to become a regular guest at them until 1888, and gave an annual concert, in February or March, at the Free Trade Hall from 1884 to 1890 (and it made an appearance at the Gentlemen’s Concert Hall on 4 May 1889). Lane’s Manchester Temperance Choir gave ‘annual’[107] concerts at the Association (YMCA) Hall which were advertised in the Guardian in 1887, 1889, 1890 and 1891, and, in November, 1889, appeared at a Saturday concert at the Free Trade Hall, described as “first prize winners, three times in succession, at the Crystal Palace”.[108]

Lane’s regular Free Trade Hall concerts with his Manchester Philharmonic Choir began in autumn 1890 on Wednesdays, with concerts on 19 November and 3 December.[109] They appeared on Barrett’s platform on Christmas Day, 1890,[110] as well as performing a Messiah at the Free Trade Hall a week beforehand (which seems to have taken the place of the Christmas Day one that year),[111] and on 1 January 1891 Lane promoted afternoon and evening New Year concerts[112] (De Jong, as mentioned above, bowed out with the Christmas Day Messiah and New Year concerts in 1891-92).

Lane presented a fortnightly series on Wednesdays at the Free Trade Hall from 4 February to 15 April 1891, at lower prices than Barrett’s, and ambitiously announced a weekly series of 20 on the same weekday later that year.[113] He also attempted to take the place of the De Jong concerts and Saturday Pops in 1892-93, with a weekly Saturday series of 20, but, despite engaging artists ranging from Nikita, Trebelli, Santley and Albeniz[114] to “Madame Burrelli, the English whistling lady”[115], does not seem to have been able to match the success of Barrett at St James’s Hall.[116] In autumn, 1893, he returned to a modest set of four, on Wednesdays and all choral (Judas Maccabeus on 25 October, Cavalleria Rusticana and Sullivan’s On Shore And Sea, conducted by Eugene Goossens, on 22 November, Messiah on 13 December, and Elijah on 24 January 1894).[117] He was able to announce a chorus of 300 voices,[118] and the concerts moved to Saturdays as a subscription series in 1894-95 and were sustained subsequently at four a season.

Lane’s choir had long held a considerable reputation. In 1887 it formed a substantial part of the massed chorus for the Jubilee Exhibition opening ceremony, and Hallé told James Forsyth that it ‘did very well indeed’[119]. It was established, by the time of Hallé’s death in 1895, as the second strongest amateur choral body in the city – being employed, along with Hallé’s choir and orchestra, for a charity Messiah in the Free Trade Hall on 11 May 1895, in aid of the Railway Servants’ Orphanage.[120]

But in 1893 times were hard. After a drastic dip in concert profits, Hallé himself abandoned his ‘weekly band’ contracts which, though no doubt useful to prevent too great an overlap between his orchestra’s membership and De Jong’s, had preserved a reliable level of earnings for his players. Lane was retiring from the Saturday scene temporarily, and Hallé’s players themselves set up the Manchester Orchestral Association of Professional Musicians, which began with a St James’s Hall popular concert on 15 March 1893 and gave a Good Friday Messiah a week later, conducted by Hallé. It claimed that all the performers were ‘members of Sir Charles Hallé’s Band’ – but the Guardian pointed out that “they do not include all or the most distinguished” of the real Hallé Orchestra.[121]

The Manchester Orchestral Association provided a Christmas Day Messiah at the Free Trade Hall in 1893 and 1894 (Lane had conducted one on Christmas Eve the previous year, which was a Saturday),[122] and presented four “popular” Saturday concerts, all conducted by Risegari, in January and February 1894 and again in March and April, 1895.[123]  In October 1895, Simon Speelman, one of Hallé’s long-serving players, was to establish a series of ten Saturday Popular Concerts at the Free Trade Hall, with an orchestra of 60[124] – probably a continuation of the same project under another name (“The Manchester Orchestra Ltd” continued to perform popular Saturday concerts in the Free Trade Hall until 1915, when the Hallé Society took them over under Beecham).[125]

G W Lane, however, kept going – in 1899 he was reported to be ‘expanding his programmes’ and planning to present artists including Mme Marchesi, Busoni and Lady Hallé,[126] and for a time his enterprise, using a mainly London-based orchestra conducted by Henry Wood, was a serious challenge to the Hallé Concerts. In 1907 he adopted the name of The Brand Lane Concerts, hiring the Hallé Orchestra – in this series it was conducted by Richard Strauss in 1922 and 1926, and by Koussevitsky in 1925 – which were to continue after his death, carried on by his son, Newton Lane, until the Second World War.[127]

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[1] ‘Opera in Manchester, 1848-1899’, Manchester Sounds vol.6, 2005-6, pp71-97.

[2] Charles Hallé: A Musical Life, Ashgate, 2007.

[3] Banks’ role as choral conductor seems to have been mainly in performances by ‘professional’ choristers (for which the North of England had a considerable reputation at this time), but he had also been conductor of the Manchester Harmonic Society, a chorus founded in 1840 as the Amateur Choral Society. He was also a presenter of chamber music concerts, accompanist and piano soloist – though outshone by Hallé once the latter arrived. Hallé co-operated with him in promoting two Manchester orchestral concerts in 1849 (featuring Heinrich Ernst), and in 1880 gave a special Messiah performance in aid of a fund to aid the now elderly musician.

[4] ‘Dr Mark and the first Royal Manchester College of Music’, Manchester Sounds vol.8, 2009-10, 67-83.

[5] The building, at 42 Bridge Street, originally a hotel, had housed Dr Mark’s ‘conservatory’ in its brief life from 1859 to 1862.

[6] Manchester Guardian, 29 October 1870.

[7] Manchester Guardian, 3 December 1870.

[8] Musical World, 19 February 1859.

[9] Wilson, ‘a noted local teacher of singing’, started the choir in 1867, with, at first, no visible conductor – Musical Times, 1 June 1909.

[10] See his advertisement in the Guardian on 19 September 1885.

[11] Musical Times, 1 June 1909, 365ff.

[12] Both parties advertised in the Manchester Guardian, 3 October 1885.

[13] On the south-west corner of Albert Square – later the Square Albert pub.

[14] Manchester Guardian, 27 August 1887.

[15] Manchester Guardian, same date.

[16] Jullien died in 1860.

[17] Manchester Guardian, 4 March 1871.

[18] Manchester Guardian, 20 May 1871.

[19] Manchester Guardian of that date.

[20] John Tiplady Carrodus (1836-95), born in Keighley and formerly leader of the Gentlemen’s Concerts orchestra in Manchester, often appeared for Hallé as co-leader or soloist and was in demand in London, too.

[21] Manchester Guardian, 13 January 1872.

[22] Manchester Guardian of that date.

[23] ‘Miscellaneous’ was the term the 19^th century applied to any concert programme not of a single work. Most, including Hallé’s throughout his career, comprised of solo vocal as well as orchestral items.

[24] Manchester Guardian, 8 January 1876.

[25] Manchester Guardian, 15 January 1876.

[26] Manchester Guardian, 26 September 1874.

[27] 1831-1877, one of the leading dramatic sopranos of the mid-19^th century.

[28] 1838-92, born in Paris and famous as one of the first Carmens.

[29] Musical World, 6 and 20 February 1875.

[30] Manchester Guardian, 13 March 1875.

[31] Manchester Guardian, 16 October 1875.

[32] Manchester Guardian, 27 November 1875.

[33] Manchester Guardian, that date.

[34] A ‘benefit’ concert was a frequent 19^th century way of adding an extra date to a concert series which had gone well. It did not necessarily mean that performers other than the beneficiary gave their services free of charge.

[35] Manchester Guardian, 25 November 1876.

[36] Manchester Guardian, 18 November 1876.

[37] Manchester Guardian, 26 January 1878.

[38] Manchester Guardian, 24 August  1878.

[39] Manchester Guardian, 28 December 1878. She was also to appear for the Gentlemen’s Society, with Hallé, on 27 January  (Manchester Guardian, 11 January 1879).

[40] John Sims Reeves (1818–1900), ‘the greatest tenor Britain ever produced’, according to Brown: British Musical Biography (1886), made his debut in 1839 in Newcastle upon Tyne, and at La Scala, Milan, in 1846. He sang at Drury Lane in 1847 under Berlioz’ baton and Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1878, and subsequently on practically every English stage. In later years he was famed for his singing of ballads such as Tom Bowling and Come Into The Garden, Maud.

[41] Manchester Guardian, 10 and 17 February 1877.

[42] Manchester Guardian, 24 February  and 3 March 1877.

[43] Manchester Guardian, 11 January 1879.

[44] Manchester Guardian, 25 January 1879.

[45] Manchester Guardian, 17 October, 31 October and 14 November 1885.

[46] Manchester Guardian, 8 and 22 January 1887.

[47] Manchester Guardian, 7 December 1889 and 11 January 1890.

[48] Manchester Guardian, 25 January 1890.

[49] Manchester Guardian, 17 October 1891.

[50] Manchester Guardian, 24 January 1891.

[51] See Stuart Scott: Hallé Flutes, 1998, 9; Michael Kennedy, The Hallé Tradition, 1960, p44.

[52] Manchester Guardian, 31 August 1872.

[53] Batley, Thomas, Sir Charles Hallé’s Concerts in Manchester, 1896)

[54] Manchester Guardian, 14 October 1882.

[55] Manchester Guardian, 1 April 1882. Musical Times, 1 October 1879.

[56] R H Wilson (1856-1932) was born in Manchester, gained his FRCO and Oxford B Mus under instruction from Sir Frederick Bridge and was Hallé chorusmaster from 1889 to 1925 (Musical Times, 1 April 1932).

[57] Manchester Guardian, 1 April 1882. Dr (later Sir) John Frederick Bridge (1844-1924) was organist of Manchester Cathedral from 1869-75, and moved to Westminster Abbey that year. His brother, Dr Joseph Bridge (1853-1925), assisted him at Manchester and in 1877 became organist of Chester Cathedral: he was Hallé’s chorusmaster for the Bristol Festival and on some other occasions.

[58] Manchester Guardian, February 19th, 1887.

[59] See Stuart Scott: Hallé Flutes, 1998, pp7-13.

[60] Manchester Guardian, 9 January 1886.

[61] On 6 February. See Manchester Guardian of that date.

[62] Manchester Guardian, 6 February 1886.

[63] See his letter quoted in my article in Manchester Sounds, 2005, pp133-4.

[64] 1831-1903. Father of Sir Dan Godfrey of Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra fame.

[65] Or possibly Huntan – the form of his name given in Musical World, 28 May 1881.

[66] Manchester Guardian, 20 May 1871.

[67] Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1881.

[68] Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1881.

[69] Manchester Guardian, 18 February 1882.

[70] Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1881, and later.

[71] Manchester Guardian, 17 March 1883. Dodd retired from Manchester concert promotion after this.

[72] 1 September, 1926.

[73] The persistence of oratorio as a genuinely popular entertainment in this setting should serve to qualify its depiction as purely a social ritual for the aspirant middle class in the later 19th century – cf Ehrlich: The Music Profession in Britain, 1985, 68-9.

[74] Manchester Guardian, 1 September 1883.

[75] Manchester Guardian, 1 November 1884; 21 March 1885. Sir Henry Coward (1849-1944) was born in Liverpool but moved to Sheffield in childhood. Starting from a career in education, he became a famous choral conductor.

[76] 1 October 1892.

[77] Two careers which he ran in parallel, if his early advertisements in the Manchester Guardian are anything to go by: immediately under his vocal society advertisement on 15 December 1888, was one for Leslie Stuart’s song, Cherished Vows, “as sung by Barton M’Guckin, Seymour Jackson, and all the London tenors and sopranos”. T J Barrett (1863[?]-1928), a stage carpenter’s son, claimed to be a former pupil of Hallé (at the age of 10) in “My Bohemian Life Story” in The Empire News, 14 August - 23 November 1927 (quoted in Lamb: Leslie Stuart, Composer of Floradora 2002, 10-11). He was organist of Salford Cathedral c. 1880-1887, and of the Church of the Holy Name, Oxford Road, Manchester from 1887-1895. His brother, Lester Barrett, was a comedian.

[78] ‘Mr T. A. Barrett’s Saturday Concerts, 1889-1894’, Manchester Sounds, 2002, 5-21.

[79] I referred to it, and a suggested connection with Hallé himself, in Charles Hallé: A Musical Life.

[80] On the site now occupied by the St James’s Buildings.

[81] 1846-1915.

[82] Possibly an indication of the impresario’s partnership in this enterprise.

[83] Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1881.

[84] Manchester Guardian, 3, 4 and 5 October 1881.

[85] A glee composer, born in Manchester in 1829 (Musical Times, 1 November 1902).

[86] They did include the comparative rarity of a performance of Locke’s music for Macbeth, on 15 October (Manchester Guardian, 10 and 15 October 1881).

[87] 1824-1897, a pupil of S S Wesley and from 1842 his deputy at Leeds Parish Church.

[88] Batley occasionally conducted orchestral concerts, too – eg at Cross’s series on 14 April 1894 – see Manchester Guardian, 31 March 1894.

[89] Manchester Guardian, 9 and 23 February 1884. Orchestral music was on offer in the Manchester suburbia, too. In 1885-86, a Mr T M Ferneley offered a series of four grand orchestral concerts in Sale Town Hall, with nationally known soloists including Clara Samuel, Seymour Jackson and Amina Goodwin (piano). He moved to the Free Trade Hall the next season, announcing a series of 10 fortnightly promenade concerts, and repeated the exercise in 1887-8, but seems to have fled the scene thereafter (Manchester Guardian, 17 October 1885; Manchester Guardian, 6 November 1886 and 15 October 1887).

[90] 9 and 23 November, 7 and 21 December and 4 January.

[91] Manchester Guardian, 2 January 1886.

[92] Manchester Guardian, 16 January 1886. He later wrote: “I broke myself twice in bringing talent to the city of cotton” – Empire News, 4 September 1927 (quoted in Lamb, Manchester Sounds, 2002, 21).

[93] Musically, that is: he was involved in Irish republican politics and married and started a family (Lamb: Leslie Stuart, Composer of Floradora, 2002, 27-29).

[94] Manchester Guardian, 21 January 1888.

[95] Manchester Guardian, 10 November 1888.

[96] Manchester Guardian, 27 April 1889 – one of several, according to My Bohemian Life Story: see Lamb in Manchester Sounds, 2002 and Lamb: Leslie Stuart, Composer of Floradora, 2002, 19.

92 On 26 October Barrett claimed she had been induced to postpone her departure for St Petersburg and Rubinstein’s concerts, to appear for him (Manchester Guardian).

93 Real name Southcote Mansergh (1857-1935), created Private Willis in Iolanthe in 1882 and was the first English Gremin in Eugene Onegin in 1892. In 1890 he married the soprano Fanny Moody (1866-1945), forming the Moody-Manners opera company, which at its peak had three separate troupes on tour, one with 115 members, and a repertory of 30 operas.

94 Manchester Guardian, 12 October and subsequently. See also Lamb: Leslie Stuart, Composer of Floradora, 2002, 31-2 and Lamb in Manchester Sounds, 2002.

95 The first appearance for Barrett was on 15 November 1890, but it was not Paderewski’s first in Manchester: the Gentlemen’s Concerts featured him on 3 November that year (Manchester Guardian, 1 and 15 November 1890). He gave a solo recital on 14 October, promoted as part of Barrett’s series (Manchester Guardian, 3 October 1891) and a “farewell” appearance before a U.S. tour, on  24 October (Manchester Guardian, same date). He was announced for 8 October 1892 – in what was described by Barrett’s advertising as “the only series of concerts throughout the world at which he will appear” (Manchester Guardian, 20 August 1892), but apparently fell victim to rheumatic fever and was not able to fulfil the engagement. Barrett knew in time to arrange and announce the “extraordinary and unprecedented engagement . . . of Mme Melba, the world-famed prima donna” for 1 October (Manchester Guardian, 1 October 1892). The 1893 appearance was on 18 November (it followed a solo recital at the Free Trade Hall on 3 November and preceded another on 19 December, both announced by Forsyth’s (Manchester Guardian, 7 October, 11 and 25 November 1893). The pianist was to appear for them again on 13 January 1895 – Manchester Guardian, 5 January 1895 – and in Hallé’s Concerts on 7 February 1895.

[101] Eugene Ysaye (1858-1931) was born in Liege, Belgium, and a pupil of Wieniawski and Vieuxtemps, making his English debut in 1889.

[102] (Dame) Nellie Melba (1859-1931; real name Helen Porter Armstrong), Australian soprano and pupil of Mme Marchesi, made her English debut in 1888.

[103] 28 October 1893 – Manchester Guardian, same date. He announced Reeves again for 6 January 1894, postponed him to the 27th and finally gave up – this time the fish had got away (Barrett offered stars from the Carl Rosa company instead) – Manchester Guardian, 23 December 1893, 6 and 27 January 1894.

[104] See Lamb: Leslie Stuart, Composer of Floradora, 2002, 47.

[105] Manchester Guardian, 3 February 1883.

[106] Manchester Guardian, 1 September 1883.

[107] According to the Manchester Guardian advertisement of 15 October 1887.

[108] Manchester Guardian, 23 November 1889.

[109] Manchester Guardian, 15 and 29 November 1890. He had also given “Saturday Popular Concerts” in Leeds before this – Musical World, 15 January 1887.

[110] Manchester Guardian, 13 December 1890.

[111] Manchester Guardian, 6 December 1890.

[112] Manchester Guardian, 27 December 1890.

[113] Manchester Guardian, 11 April 1891. The Musical Times said on 1 March that he ‘very frequently crowds the Free Trade Hall’, as the weekly half-day holiday was ‘now pretty firmly established here’.

[114] Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1892.

[115] Manchester Guardian, 26 November 1892.

[116] Though Lamb: Leslie Stuart, Composer of Floradora, 2002, 46 (and Lamb in Manchester Sounds, 2002), implies that he damaged Barrett’s business. The Musical Times, wisely, commented on 1 October 1892 that Barrett had ‘apparently ransacked the whole musical world in search of novelty and talent; and Mr G W Lane has in a spirit of emulation seized upon the Free Trade Hall for the Saturday evenings which Mr De Jong has vacated … The rivalry is costly and its advantage extremely doubtful.’

[117] Manchester Guardian, 30 September 1893.

[118] Manchester Guardian, 11 November 1893.

[119] Letter to James Forsyth, 19 April 1887 (Beale in Manchester Sounds, 2005, 135).

[120] Manchester Guardian, 7 May 1895.

[121] Manchester Guardian, 16 March 1893.

[122] Manchester Guardian, 24 December 1892 and 16 December 16 1893.

[123] Manchester Guardian, 20 January 1894 and 19 January 1895.

[124] Manchester Guardian, 26 January and 21 September 1895.

[125] See Kennedy, 1960, 199-200.

[126] Musical Times, 1 October 1899.

[127] See Kennedy, 1960, 109, 174-5, 182, 189, 195, 199-200, 201, 220, 256.