NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

local affair) but I suspect they outlived their appeal and the initial enthusiasm of
the 18 th century for the uplifting choral works of Handel waned. The Three Choirs
Festival lived on through Edward Elgar and its ability to adapt to more modern
choral works by contemporary British composers but in Newcastle; music in St
Nicholas’ was frowned upon by a certain section of the community. In other
words, religious bigotry, which showed itself at the last of the festivals in 1842,
proved hard to overcome.
The first Music Festival took place in October 1778 and was held in the
Assembly Rooms. Four days were devoted exclusively to the performance of
choral works by Handel. These included ‘Alexander’s Feast’, ‘Judas Maccabeus’,
‘Acis and Galatea’, and ‘The Messiah’, and the whole thing seems by all
accounts to have been a great success. The artists appear to have been local, as
was the festival’s conductor, Mr Hawdon. A comment in the press pointed out
that ‘between acts attention was relaxed by an organ concerto by Signor Rush’,
which if nothing else proves what wonderful staying power the audiences who
attended these festivals had back in 1778. City records show that the next Music
Festival was not until 1791, which saw a move toward the ‘Grander’ Music
Festival. The 1791 Music Festival boasted ‘a grand selection of music as
performed in Westminster Abbey’ and the programme was again made up almost
entirely of works by Handel; ‘Joshua’, ‘Israel in Egypt’, ‘Jephtha’, ‘Samson’,
‘Omnipotence’, ‘Solomon’, ‘Athalia’, ‘Theodoro’, ‘Saul’, ‘Nabal’ and the ever
popular ‘Messiah’. There was also an extensive selection of pieces from Handel
compositions given in St Nicholas’ but to list them all would run the risk of giving
the reader musical indigestion. Nor shall I list all the artists, but I must make
mention of Madame Mara, the star of the festival. Gertrud Elizabeth Schmeling,
born 1749, spent her childhood touring the Continental and British provinces as a
sort of Wunderkind on the violin, to keep her father out of debtor’s prison. After
some vocal training she got herself accepted at the court of Frederick the Great.
Thereafter she led a highly colourful life and by 1784 had established herself in
London, where for the next eighteen years she remained unsurpassed in the
oratorios of Handel and Haydn. She left London in 1802 and sang her way to
Moscow, where she hoped to retire but lost her home and all her belongings in
the siege of 1812. She died in 1833 at the age of eighty-four. The festival, by all
accounts, seems to have been a great success, which was not the case of that
held five years later. The 1796 Grand Music Festival, under the patronage of
Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, and the management of Messrs. Meredith
and Thompson, was a financial disaster. Again the music was almost wholly
Handelian with performances in St Nicholas’ and the Assembly Rooms. The
band which comprised professional and amateur musicians was lead by Mr
Cramer from London. It was said that the failure of this festival might be partly
accounted for by the fact that other attractions in the town during the week
divided the patronage of the public. Incledon’s production ‘Fascinating Notes’
was drawing all the ‘gay, the tasteful and the polite to the theatre’. It being assize
week, the ‘assemblies were numerous and brilliant’. These do not sound to me
like the sort of people who would want to sit on hard wooden benches and listen
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