NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

Concerts, Mrs Bramwell’s Concerts and Count Boruwlaski’s Concerts. There
was, however, a sameness about the programming of these concerts with
Handel, Haydn and Pleyel prominently featured along with a string of other
composers whose names would mean little to the average music lover today.
Ignaz Joseph Pleyel’s music was very popular with Newcastle audiences in the
1800s. He was born in 1757, the 24 th of 38 children in an impoverished family of
mixed Austrian and French parentage. A one-time pupil of Haydn, with whom he
lived for a while, he wrote forty symphonies, nine concertos, eighty-nine quartets
and amongst other numerous quintets, trios, duos and masses, he also wrote
two operas. As well as being a composer he was a concert pianist, piano and
harp manufacturer and music publisher. Truly a man of many talents. The first
music society formed in Newcastle in the 19 th Century was the Harmonic Society
and we are fortunate in having many of its programmes preserved for us in the
archives of the Newcastle City Library. As the Harmonic Society’s concert
meetings were typical of many of those that followed it is worth looking a little
closer at the make up of its programmes over the first two seasons, which gives
us a feel for the period.
Their first concert in 1815 opened with an Avison concerto, which was
followed by a glee for four voices by William Horsley, born 1774, composer and
organist. Next came a Grand Pianoforte Concerto by Viotti. Giovanni Battista
Viotti was then considered the greatest violinist of his time and wrote 29 violin
concertos but arranged some of them for piano. A duet by Braham (the same as
appeared at the Grand Music Festivals) followed and Act I (concerts were then
still thought of as theatrical performances) ended with an air for violin and piano
by Beethoven. Act II opened with a concerto by Corelli. Arcangelo Corelli had
died in 1713, therefore, his music would have been looked upon as ancient
music in 1815. Unlike today much of the music performed at these concerts was
by living composers. The Corelli concert was followed by one of William Shield’s
songs and then a vocal duet by Stevenson. Sir John Stevenson was an Irishman,
who composed songs and glees. He collaborated closely with Thomas Moore,
the Irish poet, who exerted a strong influence on English song making at the
time. Then came a quartet by Pleyel, followed by another glee, this one by
Clarke, who could well have been the same Jeremiah Clarke, of Trumpet
Voluntary fame, who became a victim of unrequited love and blew out his brains
with a pistol. The evening’s entertainment was rounded off with a catch by
Samuel Webbe, the foremost composer of this sort of thing. He was a
carpenter’s apprentice who had studied music on his own, between 1766 and
1792. He carried off twenty-six prizes for his glees awarded by the Noblemen’s
and Gentleman’s Catch Club in London. He was also an organist and composed
a good deal of sacred music.
We can see immediately from the above programme that the late Georgians
went to concerts for entertainment rather than intellectual stimulation. The
audience would have been small by today’s standards; ten members of the
Society with invited guests some of whom may well have performed. There
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