The Birth of the Hallé (Manchester Sounds volume 7: 2008)

The most significant date in the whole cultural history of Manchester is probably 5 May 1857.

It was the beginning of the Art Treasures Exhibition – the great display of visual arts objects collected from every corner of the kingdom and presented in public exhibition in a specially built glass and iron ‘palace’ in the semi-rural district of Stretford, just beyond the Manchester Botanical Gardens (part of their site is now the ‘White City’ shopping centre – which retains the original classical portico) and close to the recently built Altrincham railway line. The spot is close to the Lancashire County Cricket ground today.

It was to open daily until mid-October (after a few days’ extension, it finally closed on October 18). There had never been anything like it before. The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 had been all about manufacture. Now Manchester, in the industrial and supposedly less cultured North, was to show that things of beauty could be a joy for all classes of people: indeed, by having admission at one shilling on most days (it was half-a-crown on Thursdays and some special days, to make sure of some degree of selectness among the clientele) it was intended that a mass audience would be attracted.

The very concept of putting works of art on public display was a novel one. Municipal art galleries did not then exist: most of the pictures and sculptures presented were loaned from private collections – including the Royal Collection. The exhibition committee expressed the hope in their prospectus that their initiative might give rise to the establishment of a national gallery or portrait gallery.

On some Saturdays admission was reduced to sixpence for all or half the day, at which ‘the working classes began to pour in by thousands’, said the Manchester Guardian. The last 6d day produced an attendance of 21,700. By early September the daily attendance had exceeded 15,000 anyway, and was almost 30,000 in the final few weeks. News of the ‘Indian Mutinies’ during the summer caused the exhibition to be closed on one weekday only: 7 October, a National Day of Fast and Humiliation called by the Queen.^[1]

The exhibition was served by its own railway station as well as an entrance through the Botanical Gardens. Thomas Cook, famed for his railway excursions, brought visitors from Ireland and Scotland^[2] – and ‘Moonlight Trips’ from the north-east, which left Newcastle upon Tyne at midnight, carrying hundreds – on one occasion, over 1,000.^[3]

The newspapers carried daily accounts of celebrities who visited the site and events taking place there. In addition to the royal, the titled and the worthy, Prosper Merimée, for instance, was seen on 15 June, Charles Dickens^[4] on 1 August, Dr Livingstone (‘the African traveller’) on 7 September.

There were great opening and closing ceremonies, and Queen Victoria visited on 30 June. These were characterised by massed musical performances, with forces assembled mainly through the city’s main amateur choir, the Sacred Harmonic Society, led by Mr Henry Walker^[5] – who did much of the basic choir training.

Most significant of all was the involvement of Charles Hallé, already the conductor of the city’s Gentlemen’s Concerts Society and promoter of its Classical Chamber Concerts. He had essayed a couple of choral-orchestral concerts in the newly built Free Trade Hall in Peter Street on 16 and 17 December 1856, and had gone as far as to advertise, on 7 February 1857, ‘his intention to give, during the spring and summer, in the Free Trade Hall, a series of four grand subscription concerts on an extensive and complete scale ...’^[6] 

What changed his plans – and Manchester musical history – was that the exhibition committee contracted him to provide an orchestra of 50^[7] to give daily afternoon concerts in its ‘palace’ throughout the summer, and undertook to pay him £4,515 to cover all expenses.

Hallé recruited players not only from the north of England but also from London and Paris. The Musical World reported on 7 March 1857 that he had ‘gone to Paris for the purpose of engaging an orchestra to perform at the series of concerts to take place during the progress of the great art exhibition in Manchester’. It added that some players had declined his terms, instancing that the ‘exhorbitant’ sum of £2 10s had been offered for the services of a first violoncello for a whole week – obviously lean pickings by the standards of London musicians, but an amount which, with the security of a complete summer season, did prove adequate for Hallé to secure a number of top-quality foreign players.

A notebook in Hallé’s writing in the Henry Watson Library tells us the total wage bill for the orchestra was £116 2s 0d for the first week (50 members), and £107 17s 0d for the following weeks, as the orchestra’s size in fact went down to 48. From week five it was £109 19s 6d (48 players), and from week 12 there were 49 players (42 for the last two days of the exhibition). Hallé’s total wage bill would be about £2,700, though it is possible that Charles Seymour, his regular orchestra leader and later assistant conductor, had to be paid in addition when he appeared.^[8]

String players’ rates varied from £1 10s 0d to two guineas (more for a few individuals, and £3 and £3 10s 0d for principal viola and principal cello respectively – the number two cello, a M. St Salvy, took the £2 10s). Principal flute De Jong was paid £4, principal oboe three guineas, principal clarinet Grosse two guineas, principal bassoon Raspi £6, principal horn Lebon £5. Other wind and brass players earned between £1 10s 0d and £3 10s 0d. The deputy conductor, Becquié de Peyreville, was paid £6 a week.

That £6 was well earned. Generally Hallé conducted only on Thursdays, when the 2s 6d people were there. Probably all the other performances^[9] were conducted by de Peyreville, described by the papers as an assistant conductor of the Royal Italian Opera in London. He had been leader of the orchestra of the first London promenade concerts, given in the Regents Park Colosseum in 1838.^[10] Hallé, however, took his place as musical director for the opening and closing ceremonies, and the performances accompanying Queen Victoria’s visit.

On the opening day, with a ceremonial attended by Albert, the Prince Consort, ‘a line of carriages and cabs, without a single break, extended from All Saints to the Exhibition’,^[11] and omnibuses brought others, including most of the choir and orchestra, from the town. Rehearsal began at 10am, with 500 voices assembled, and the Guardian noted the ‘broad chests that tell of the volume and timbre for which a real Lancashire choir is so justly renowned ...’

Manchester pride had rarely swelled so fulsomely. The Guardian account went on in tones as sonorous as those of the ‘magnificent’ organ, built by the local firm of Kirtland & Jardine (then based in the city centre, off Mount Street), which was lent to the exhibition for the duration. Daily recitals were given, usually at noon, but on Thursdays at 5pm. In addition to a number of distinguished visiting organists (including W T Best on 13 July), most performances were by Henry Walker, later to be Hallé’s Free Trade Hall organist for many years.

The organ was indeed a substantial, three-manual instrument, and was later to be the backbone of many a performance at the Free Trade Hall – to which it was moved by the end of the year. It survived (though rebuilt and slightly enlarged) until the Second World War blitz of 1941: several recordings preserving its sound exist. It was originally blown by hydraulic (ie water mains) pressure – a popular power source at the time for machinery.^[12] But the mechanism broke down on a number of occasions, evoking some comment, although manual pumping was available, too.^[13] Another report of the opening day mentioned a different obbligato to the music: the ‘not very agreeable accompaniment, at times, of the neighbouring railway whistle’.^[14]

The programme for the opening ceremony, during which an illuminated address was presented to Prince Albert by Sir Thomas Fairbairn, chairman of the organising committee, was as follows:

National Anthem

Haydn - “The Heavens Are Telling” (from The Creation)

“All people that on earth do dwell” sung to the Old Hundredth

Mendelssohn - March from Athalie (the “War March of the Priests”) as the official procession appeared

Purcell - Ode To St Cecilia (part) played by the orchestra

Handel - Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah

Soloists: Clara Novello, Sims Reeves and Willoughby Weiss

Clara Novello (1818–1908), the soprano, was the fourth daughter of Vincent, the organist, conductor, composer and publisher. She made her debut at Windsor in 1833, married and temporarily withdrew from public life in 1843, returning in 1850 and later becoming the favourite of the Crystal Palace Handel festivals. She was famous for her singing of the National Anthem, ending with a ringing top note.

John Sims Reeves (1818–1900) was ‘the greatest tenor Britain ever produced’^[15], and 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 1848, 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.

Weiss (1820–67) was born in Liverpool and associated with Michael Balfe.

Hallé’s new orchestra gave its first performance in its own right that afternoon. The programme was as follows:

Weber – Der Freischutz overture

Beethoven – Andante from Symphony no. 5

Mozart – Minuet from Symphony no. 39

Mendelssohn – Symphony no. 3 (complete)

Rossini – William Tell overture

Mozart – selection from Don Giovanni

Mendelssohn – March from Athalie

Auber – Fra Diavolo overture.^[16]

The next day’s was similar:

Weber – Euryanthe overture

Mendelssohn: Scherzo from Symphony no. 3

Beethoven – Symphony no. 1 (complete)

Auber – Fra Diavolo overture

Rossini – Semiramide overture

Boehm – Theme allemande (flute solo)

Mozart – selection from Don Giovanni

Mendelssohn – Wedding March (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).^[17]

Hallé’s principal flute was the young Edward de Jong, who was kept that position until 1871, and then conducted his own orchestra in Manchester for 20 years. A recording of his solo playing, made in 1904, still exists – the only recorded sound, it would seem, of any member of the original Hallé Orchestra.^[18]

Hallé, under the auspices of the exhibition committee, also conducted two dress concerts in the Free Trade Hall, to mark the opening and closing of the exhibition.

The first was on the evening of the opening day (5 May): Prince Albert was to have been present, but was unwell. The soloists were the same as at the opening ceremony – Clara Novello, Sims Reeves and Weiss, with the addition of the contralto, Mrs Lockey^[19] ­– and Hallé had in front of him ‘the leading instrumentalists of the day, and the élite of the Lancashire and Yorkshire choirs’. The virtuoso violinist and composer Bernhard Molique led, and the great cellist Alfredo Piatti played in the orchestra.

This concert – despite the now more familiar ‘foundation’ date of 30 January, 1858, when Hallé’s regular concerts were to begin at the hall ­– may be seen as the true birth of the Hallé Orchestra.^[20] Hallé’s own first biographer, E J Broadfield, wrote that it ‘may be almost called the preliminary concert of the Hallé series . . .   the excellence of the orchestra was first fully realised at this Free Trade Hall concert. . .’^[21]

Its programme was:

Weber – Overture to Der Freischutz

Beethoven – Symphony no. 5

Mendelssohn’s – First Walpurgisnacht

Beethoven – Piano Concerto no. 5 (Hallé soloist; Molique conducting)

Other items included:

Gluck – Che faro from Orfeo (Mrs Lockey)

Mozart – Ma qual mai soffre from Don Giovanni (Clara Novello and Sims Reeves)

Festa – Madrigal, Down in a flowery vale (the Chorus, encored)

Mozart – Soave si il sento from Cosi fan Tutte (Clara Novello, Mrs Lockey, Weiss)

Weber – O ‘tis a glorious sight to see from Oberon (Sims Reeves)

Gluck – Wo bin ich from Alceste (Clara Novello).

Hallé ended proceedings with two Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte as a final encore – the concert, beginning at 8, was over at 11.30pm. ^[22]

It was in aid of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and, although there were fewer chorus singers than earlier in the day, Hallé could still boast ‘upwards of 300 performers’, including the choir for the Mendelssohn.^[23]

The concert brought about a special one-way traffic order in Peter Street, for carriages ‘taking company to and from the new Free Trade Hall’.^[24] The Courier said it was ‘one of the finest performances we have listened to for a long period’, and added that Gluck’s music ‘will live long after the insipid creations of modern Italy [meaning Verdi] are entirely forgotten’.

Hallé’s exhibition orchestra at this stage consisted of 29 string players, 20 wind players and one percussionist.^[25]  Its daily performances were mainly classical in their first half, with ‘works of a lighter and more popular character’ after a break, the Guardian observed.

At first there was criticism that too much classical music was played (despite a good number of instrumental solos and operatic selections), but as the weeks went by this changed noticeably to approval for ‘the higher class compositions’, and other concert-givers were criticized for their lack of them – it being noted that ‘the executive committee of the Art Treasures did not attempt to popularise paintings in this fashion ...’^[26]

Music for the Queen’s visit on 30 June was left in Henry Walker’s hands to rehearse, Hallé being busy in London with his usual teaching during the social ‘season’ and his annual series of solo piano recitals (see below).^[27] It was preceded by a period of extremely hot weather, during which fire hoses were played on the roof of the glass ‘palace’ to cool the atmosphere inside.^[28] The Queen stayed at Worsley Hall with Lord Ellesmere the night before, and was accompanied by Prince Albert and Prince Frederick William of Prussia. Her procession moved via Salford, through a triumphal arch over New Bailey Street into Manchester and so to the exhibition (and another triumphal arch), where 10,000 people, including the prime minister, Lord Palmerston, awaited her.

The orchestra numbered 100 for this occasion, and the chorus 580, including singers from Bradford and Liverpool as well as the Manchester area (130 of whom were ‘of the best professional Manchester singers’). Again Clara Novello and Sims Reeves were soloists. Hallé had to watch for a signal for the National Anthem to be given as the Queen entered the building – she was 21 minutes late.

The music as she arrived was as follows:

National Anthem

Handel – ‘The Coronation Anthem’ (presumably Zadok the Priest)

Haydn – ‘Achieved is the Glorious Work’ from The Creation

Handel – ‘Deeper and deeper still’ from Jephtha (Sims Reeves solo)

Mendelssohn – First chorus, Hymn of Praise

‘Luther’s Hymn’ (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott)

Haydn  –  ‘In native worth’ from The Creation

Handel – Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah  (‘given with immense force and marvellous precision’)^[29]

Hallé added extra players from the exhibition orchestra to his Gentlemen’s Society forces wherever possible that summer. This was reported of their concerts on 24 July^[30]  and 8 September,^[31] and on 8 October the orchestra was announced as ‘augmented by members from the Art Treasures band’, with a ‘powerful chorus ... engaged’ for Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9. It was ‘the most successful ... for many a day’.^[32]

Military bands played in the exhibition grounds on several occasions during the summer, and on Friday 2 October there was a ‘grand military day’, with the bands of the 4^th Dragoon Guards and the 36^th Regiment playing inside before the regular concert, then with the orchestra under Bequié, and finally under Hallé’s baton in the Grand Polonaise from Spohr’s Faust, the Grand March from Tannhauser and the National Anthem.^[33]

                                               

The exhibition closing ceremony was on 18 October. Three military bands performed as well as the orchestra. The programme was:

Arne – Rule Britannia,

Partant pour la Syrie

Auber – Haydée overture

Meyerbeer ­– Coronation March from Le Prophete

Spohr – Polacca [presumably from Faust]

Wagner – Festmarsch

National Anthem

Hallé’s conducted all available forces to accompany the audience (numbering almost 18,000) in the final National Anthem. There was, the Guardian said, ‘an immense volume of sound ringing through the building’.

  There was also clearly great excitement, as speeches were made, with three cheers for the Queen, the executive committee, the contributors, the police, etc (. . . and, finally, ‘three groans for Donald’, the provider of the refreshment facilities, and ‘three for his waiters’).^[34] A clue as to why this was so comes in the Courier’s edition of 17 October. The exhibition committee had ordered posters to be displayed in the refreshment area stating that customers should pay only the officially advertised prices. Some of these posters had been removed, and those affixing them assaulted by the waiters. One customer had to be ‘rescued’ who refused to pay 3d for a glass of ale, instead of the posted price of 2d.

Hallé’s concert to mark the close of the exhibition, on 22 October at the Free Trade Hall,^[35]  is notable as the first solely orchestral one he gave: the programme was:

Beethoven – Overture Leonora

Rossini – Overture William Tell

Spohr – Power of Sound symphony (two movements)

Beethoven – Symphony no. 5 (two movements)

Mendelssohn – Piano Concerto in G minor

Clarinet solo

Selections from Don Giovanni and Il Trovatore

Piano solos by Hallé

Baetens – National Fantasia of English, Irish, Scotch and Welsh Melodies

It seems to have been a summary of the whole summer’s music making (although the intended Mendelssohn Midsummer Night’s Dream music was omitted in the event, according to the Courier).^[36]

The Baetens Fantasia – first performed, as far as we can tell, under Hallé’s baton on Thursday 20 August – was rather like a precursor of Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs. A medley of well-known Scottish, Irish and English songs (it even includes Home Sweet Home and Rule Britannia), it was written specifically for the new orchestra to play at the exhibition and dedicated to the exhibition committee. The piece – evidently the first world premiere ever performed by the Hallé Orchestra – has been preserved in later 19^th century arrangements for American ‘reed’ and military band, from which (along with a piano reduction of 1904 in the British Library) it has been restored to its presumed original scoring for Hallé’s 1857 orchestra by Dr Valerie Langfield, with my encouragement, and is to be given its premiere in modern times by the Hallé Orchestra under John Wilson in the Hallé Proms of 2008.

Six programmes for the exhibition orchestra’s afternoon performances (with details of the daily organ recitals), two conducted by Hallé and four conducted by Becquié, are in the Henry Watson Music Library. The Hallé ones are from 4 June and 3 September.

4 June:                Overture Jessonda – Spohr

                            Polonaise from Struensee – Meyerbeer

                            Incidental music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Mendelssohn

                            Overture The Siege of Corinth – Rossini

                            Selection, William Tell – Rossini

                            Overture: Le Pré aux Clercs - Hérold

3 September:       Overture: Euryanthe – Weber

                            Polacca, Faust – Spohr

                            Selection, Don Giovanni – Mozart

                            Andante in A – Beethoven

                            Overture Semiramide - Rossini

                            Overture Neron – Reissiger

                            Scherzo in C – Gade [possibly from Symphony no. 1]

                            Selection, La Traviata – Verdi

                            March Athalie – Mendelssohn

                            Overture: Le Dieu et la Bayadere – Auber 

(The first also contained two instrumental solos: the later programme did not).

                           

The Becquié programmes are from 4, 5, 7 and 8 September, and not dissimilar, though instrumental solos are present in all of them. Baetens’ National Fantasia figured in two; the La Traviata selection was played again on 7 September, along with a Strauss Waltz; and the Manchester Exhibition Polka, by Becquié himself, was included on 8 September.

By combining these with references in the Manchester Guardian, which printed daily accounts of the exhibition throughout its duration, a summary of much of the repertoire performed by the Art Treasures Exhibition Orchestra can be made.

The orchestra’s task was probably seen by most attenders as background music, and Hallé had to provide programmes, without vocal solos or chorus, of an attractive nature that would enable viewers of the paintings to come and go in the course of an afternoon’s concert. The fact that he included symphonic movements, and won approbation in the press for doing so, is testimony to his subtlety and determination in ‘educating’ taste. There is no evidence that complete symphonies were included, however, except on a very few occasions – despite Hallé’s own claim that ‘thousands heard a symphony for the first time’, often quoted.^[37] But even August Manns, who launched his Saturday programmes at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, south London, in early 1856, and included major classical works from the outset, was not credited with complete symphonies in his programmes until early 1859.

The few surviving programmes and the newspaper reports of the Art Treasures Exhibition concerts enable us to say that the following works (some of whose identities are not fully clear) were performed under Hallé’s own baton there:

Auber: Overtures to Les Abencerages, Fra Diavolo, La Dame Blanche, La Sirene, Olympia, Preciosa, Robert le Diable, Zanetta, Le Dieu et la Bayadere, Haydée.

Bach: Andante Pastorale.

Baetens: National Fantasia; Furioso Galop.

Beethoven: Symphonies (in whole or part) 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 (second movement only); Meeresstille; overtures Fidelio, Leonora (?which).

Flotow: Stradella overture.

Gade: Symphony in C minor (scherzo only).

Cherubini: Anachreon overture.

Handel: The Harmonious Blacksmith (piano solo).

Haydn: Symphonies (in whole or part) in D, B flat, and ‘Military’.

Hérold: Le Pré aux Clercs overture.

Lindpaintner: Zeila overture.

Lortzing: Czar und Zimmermann overture.

Mendelssohn: Symphonies (in whole or part) 3 and 4, piano concerto, Fingal’s Cave and Ruy Blas overtures, Midsummer Night’s Dream music, March from Athalie.

Meyerbeer: Selections from Les Huguenots (arr. Baetens) and Le Prophete; Polonaise from Struensee.

Mozart: Symphonies (in whole or part) 31, 39 and ? in D. Don Giovanni selections. Die Zauberflote overture.

Nicolai: Merry Wives of Windsor overture.

Reissiger: Neron and Yelva overtures.

Ries: Symphony (finale only).

Rossini: William Tell selection. Overtures William Tell, La Cenerentola, Semiramide, Le Siege de Corinthe.

Spohr: Power of Sound symphony (in part), Polacca from Faust, Jessonda overture.

Verdi: Selections from Il Trovatore and La Traviata.

Weber: Overtures Der Freischutz, Ruler of Spirits, Euryanthe, Oberon, Jubel.

Wagner: Festival March and Grand March from Tannhauser.

                            Other performances also included:

Adam: Giselle selection.

Auber: Overtures to Le Cheval de Bronze, Le Domino Noir, Le Duc D’Olonne and The Crown Diamonds.

Balfe: Overture to The Siege of Rochelle.

Beethoven: Symphony no. 1 (first movement).

Becquié de Peyreville: Manchester Exhibition Polka[38].

Boieldieu: Overture Le Caliph de Baghdad.

David: Selection from Le Desert.

Flotow: Rubezahl overture.

Gungl: Waltz.

Haydn: Symphony no. 98 (second movement).

Hecht: March.

Hérold: Zampa overture.

Lanner: Waltz.

Kalliowoda: Overture in F.

Mehul: Overtures La Chasse, Henry IV.

Lindpaintner: Jocko overture.

Mozart: Selection from Die Zauberflote, Symphonies no. 6 (Andante), and 41 (first movement), Overture La Clemenza di Tito.

Rossini: Finale of Le Barbiere di Siviglia, Overtures Tancredi, L’Italiana in Algerie, Le Barbiere di Siviglia.

Strauss: Iris waltz. Galop (unidentified).

This, therefore, represents the earliest Hallé Orchestra repertoire. Clearly there was a wide variety of music, and one of the most striking features is the number of up-to-date items included. Wagner was still regarded as a modern and ‘difficult’ composer, Lanner and Strauss’s waltzes were novel, and La Traviata and Il Trovatore had been premiered in Italy only four years previously (and the former, on its first Manchester performance in August, 1857, was rebuked by the Manchester Guardian as ‘a compound of vice and sickly sentiment’).^[39]  Hallé, despite his long-term desire to promote the serious and lofty, was by no means averse to providing the popular and even somewhat disreputable as well.

And so it was in summer music – promenade concerts, in fact – that the Hallé Orchestra was born. One account of the effect of the orchestra’s playing survives in a treasured letter sent to Hallé some years later:

In the glass building prepared for the exhibition of Art Treasures we first listened to him, and the strains of that delicious music floating through the building became so associated with all that is most beautiful in painting and sculpture, that it is almost impossible to separate them And when the first notes of his band peal through the Free Trade Hall, that noble, but now somewhat dingy, room becomes transformed into a fairy palace, bathed in summer sunshine, and instead of a closely-packed and (except in the reserved seats) plainly-dressed audience, we see groups of gaily-attired ladies, or distinguished-looking men sauntering through the galleries of paintings or gazing on the glittering armour, or students intently absorbed in the contemplation of some remarkable work of long ago. But we will suppose the day a Thursday, the time 2pm, and by one accord the loungers are drawing towards the orchestra; the discordant sounds emitted from various instruments being tortured into tune subside; a slight, fair-haired man bows slightly around, takes his place, raises his baton, and the first note of some lively overture, or it may be of some enchanting symphony, floats through the nave, enchaining the listener, who perforce almost holds his breath, lest he should lose one note of that sweet music; while over all glows the brilliant sunshine, and the scent of summer air floats through the building.^[40]      

Hallé probably made a net profit of about £1,815 from the entire exercise. In addition, he kept up most of his London commitments throughout the summer, despite having to be in Manchester on Thursdays. He appeared at the Philharmonic Society, playing Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto, in mid-June (a date postponed from April because of an accident to his finger^[41]), as well as at the Musical Union in the second week of May. If he missed any possible engagements, he could console himself by reflecting that both Clara Schumann and Anton Rubinstein were being lionised by piano-fanciers that year anyway.

His annual series of London piano ‘recitals’ – begun in 1855, they were still something of a novelty, as few pianists attempted to draw an audience by their own efforts alone, without interspersed vocal solos – was that year given on 8 and 22 June and 6 July at the Dudley Gallery, in the home of Lord Dudley, the patron of the arts and lessor of Her Majesty’s Theatre.^[42]

But the profit he made from the Manchester exhibition experiment – which is what it was – enabled him to take the risk of setting up a weekly orchestral concert series early the following year. That (with a few hiccups) has lasted to this very day.

---

[1] Manchester Guardian, 7 May, 24 August, 14 and 25 September 1857.

[2] Manchester Guardian, 3 August 1857.

[3] Manchester Guardian, 9 and 14 September 1857.

[4] He was toured around the country by T Frederick Beale, partner in Cramer & Beale (later incorporated in Chappell & Co.), former impresario of the Royal Italian Opera and founder of the New Philharmonic, and ‘the first who made musical tournées, on a large scale, in the country respectable’ (Musical World obituary, 18 July 1863).

[5] Later for many years Hallé’s organist at the Free Trade Hall concerts.

[6] Manchester Guardian.

[7] The orchestra was not any larger than that of the Gentlemen’s Society, as it was now, though some term it Hallé’s ‘enlarged’ orchestra – see Michael Kennedy: The Hallé 1858–1983: A History of the Orchestra (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 17; Cyril Ehrlich, The Music Profession in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 62; Kennedy in The New Grove, 2001; Kennedy, DNB, 2005).

[8] He was not there the whole time: on 28 September for instance, he played in Liverpool, as his ‘Scrapbook’ (Hallé Archives) shows.

[9] Too few original programmes survive to be completely sure, and it is possible that Charles Seymour directed some performances from the first desk, or wielded the baton himself.

[10] Adam Carse: The Orchestra from Beethoven to Berlioz (New York, Broude Brothers, 1949), 229–30.

[11] Manchester Guardian, 6 May, 1857.

[12] Though a novelty for organ-blowing. It had been tried in Leeds shortly before (Musical World, 25 April  1857).

[13] Manchester Guardian 26 June, 26, 27 August, etc, 1857.

[14] Manchester Guardian, 6 May 1857.

[15] Brown, James D. and Stephen S. Stratton, British Musical Biography: a Dictionary of Musical Artists, Authors and Composers born in Britain and its Colonies (Birmingham: S. S. Stratton, 1897).

[16] According to the Manchester Courier, 9 May 1857.

[17] Ibid.

[18] See Stuart Scott: Hallé Flutes: Flautists of the Hallé Orchestra 1858–93 (Sale: S J Scott, 1998).

[19] Née Martha Williams, contralto. She died in 1897.

[20] It is easy to confuse details of Hallé origins: his first self-promoted orchestral-choral Free Trade Hall concert was 16 December 1856; the orchestra he formed in his own name was inaugurated on 5 May 1857; the first concert series he promoted began on 30 January 1858 but faltered after three seasons; the continuous Hallé ‘tradition’ of Thursday night concerts on a regular pattern every winter did not begin until the autumn of 1861.

[21] Broadfield E. J.: Sir Charles Hallé: A Sketch of his career as a musician (London: John Heywood, 1890), 42-3.

[22] Manchester Courier, 9 May 1857.

[23] Manchester Guardian advertisement, 8 April and 1 May 1857.

[24] Manchester Guardian advertisement, 4 May 1857.

[25] Manchester Guardian, 7 and 8 May 1857.

[26] Manchester Guardian, 22 September 1857.

[27] Manchester Guardian advertisement, 26 June 1857. He gave two recitals in Manchester Town Hall (the old one, in King Street, where his chamber concerts were held) on 16 and 25 September also.

[28] Manchester Guardian 29 June 1857.

[29] Manchester Guardian 1 July 1857.

[30] Manchester Courier, 25 July 1857.

[31]  It was not advertised as such, but the Courier stated that the Concert Hall band was ‘again reinforced by non-resident members of the Art Treasures Exhibition orchestra’. Michael Kennedy, following Russell J. F.: ‘A History of the Hallé Concerts’ in Hallé magazine (Manchester: Hallé Concerts Society), 1948/3, says that the inclusion of Berlioz’ Le Carnaval Romain overture in the programme indicates the use of an enlarged orchestra, because it needed three trombones. See Hallé ed. Kennedy: The Autobiography of Charles Hallé, with correspondence and diaries (London: Paul Elek Books Ltd, 1972), 17; Kennedy, 1982, 4. The Gentlemen’s Society Orchestra did, however, have three trombonists on its books by this time, anyway. The augmentation almost certainly would have been in strings numbers.

[32] Manchester Guardian, 9 October 1857.

[33] Manchester Guardian, 29 September and 3 October 1857.

[34] Manchester Guardian, 19 October 1857.

[35] Manchester Guardian  20 October 1857.

[36] Manchester Courier, 24 October 1857.

[37] Hallé ed. C. E. and M. Hallé: The Life and Letters of Sir Charles Hallé (London: Smith Elder & Co., 1896), 129; Hallé ed Kennedy, 1972, 136; quoted by Ehrlich (1985, 62). Russell, 1948/4, paraphrases Hallé as follows: ‘The importance of the programmes played . . .  cannot be overrated. Symphonies . . .  which had hitherto been confined to the . . . concert-halls, were made familar to a wide audience . . .’.

[38] A piano version of this piece, “The Manchester Exhibition Polka Galop”, by John Holford, survives in the British Library.

[39] Manchester  enjoyed a summer season of opera at the Theatre Royal that year in addition to the Exhibition Orchestra performances.

[40] Letter to Hallé quoted in C E Hallé’s memoir of his father. See Hallé ed. Hallé, 1896, 144–5; Hallé ed. Kennedy, 1972, 166–7.

[41] Musical World, 18 April 1857 (vol. 35, 249).

[42] Liszt and Mme. Pleyel were among the first to advertise solo ‘recitals’ in London, but their programmes were unlike the classical fare Hallé offered. The term came into more general use with the passage of time, and Hallé’s ‘recitals’, previously normally performed to select audiences at his own residence, moved in 1861 to St James’s Hall, with guest singers or soloists every time. In later years they were in fact chamber concerts very similar to the ‘Classical Monday Pops’.