NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

vacancy at the Charterhouse in London. He chose instead to return to Newcastle
and take up a position as parish organist at St John’s Church. In that same year,
1736, when only 26 years old he was offered the post of organist at St Nicholas’
Parish Church – now Newcastle Cathedral - at a salary of £40 a year, which he
accepted. He was to remain in the post until his death thirty years later.
Soon after his return to Newcastle, on 15 th January 1737, he married
Catherine Reynolds, a seamstress, and they had at least four children and
probably nine, most of them dying in childhood. Two of his sons succeeded him
as organist at St Nicholas’; Edward in 1770 and Charles, jnr., in 1789. The
appointment of Charles Avison, senior. to the city’s parish church made him at an
early age the leading musician in the district. He developed close musical links
with, amongst others, the Durham musician John Garth, (1722 –1810), who
assisted him in some of his musical compositions and in arranging concerts.
Other active musicians at the time included, Thomas Ebdon (1738 –1811), also
from Durham and Matthias Hawdon from Newcastle (1732 –1789). There
appears to have been created about this time, for a brief period, a North East
Vogue in musical composition style largely due to Avison’s influence but it had no
known effect outside the region.
In 1738 Charles Avison became head of the Newcastle Music Society (it had
been founded just before he came back to the town from London) and was also
director of the Community Concert series. He was active in organising the first
public subscription concerts to he held in Newcastle, which took place in the
Groat Market during the 1730s and 1740s. This was probably an idea Avison had
picked up in London where subscription concerts had begun almost a century
earlier. At these concerts, it is said, he introduced the works of many new and
important composers to the public, including those of Handel and Geminiani,
whom he considered superior to Handel. He no doubt also used these occasions
to showcase his own compositions. It seems that the young Avison from the
industrial north was greatly impressed by the colourful, larger than life personality
of Geminiani, who has been described as a romantic born before his time,
washed up in London on the tidal wave of Continental musicians in 1714, after
which he quickly established himself as a highly paid and much lionized society
violin teacher. Although Avison may have been impressed by his master he was
obviously not sufficiently influenced by him, or able to comprehend, the
opportunities Geminiani was bringing his way, which would have launched him
into leading musical circles in London and helped establish him on the road to a
successful and possibly lucrative career.
Richard Welford in his ‘Men of Mark Twixt Tyne and Tweed’, published in the
mid 19 th century, gives us an interesting insight into Avison’s concerts, which is
worth quoting in full.
‘As soon as he had settled down to his duties at St Nicholas, Mr Avison took
the lead in organising a series of subscription concerts – the first that had been
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