NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

of his besotted folly. It is lucky the gentleman in question is not so fierce in his
manner as he is described to be in his flute playing, otherwise the reptile might
again have received the chastisement, unhappily too much neglected by his
infatuated parent, and which he has more than once before received from
persons he has insulted; but, alas! you may bray a fool in a mortar and his folly
will not depart from him. Should he persist in his past and present courses, he
may find that the public opinion will force him again upon his travels.
I am, Sir, &c
A CORRESPONDENT’.
Although this exchange of insults between rivals makes for interesting reading
it is not typical of the period and where concert meetings were commented upon
in the press they tended to be self-congratulatory. The Phil-Harmonic was not of
course the only society giving concerts at this time. There was a series of
Miscellaneous Concerts also being given in the Turk’s Head Long Room in 1825,
the Amateur Music Society were doing the same at about the same time and by
November 1826 The Amateur Harmonic Society was giving its twenty-sixth
concert (all songs) in the Joiners Hall. Further down the social scale the
Newcastle and Gateshead Choral Society were giving what they termed as
public exhibitions. The Society proudly boasted that its members came from the
humbler walks of life but in talent and perseverance had set an example worthy
of the highest imitation. It was the choral societies perhaps more than any other
that brought together people from all walks of life with the one aim of making
music. A Mr Ingham was giving concerts in the Music Hall on Blackett Street in
November 1830, under the patronage of the Town Mayor and a Mr Richard Carte
did even better during the period 1839 – 1843 in securing the patronage of Her
Grace, The Duchess of Roxburghe, The Hon Lady Williamson, Lady Blackett,
The Right Worshipful Mayor of Newcastle and The Sheriff of Newcastle for a
series of Grand Subscription Concerts in the Assembly Rooms. So the musical
life of Newcastle went on through the 1840s and the 1850s with the Newcastle
Sacred Harmonic and Choral Society giving performances of the ever popular
‘Messiah’ in the Music Hall, Nelson Street and the Temperance Choral Society
(one imagines not very well supported in Newcastle) announcing a Musical
Soiree on Boxing Day 1849 with the words ‘TEA ON THE TABLES AT 5
O’CLOCK’ prominently printed on their leaflet.
In the 19 th Century concerts also took place in the theatres of Newcastle,
which with the opening of the first Theatre Royal in Mosley Street on the 26 th
January 1788 became a great attraction for the growing pleasure seeking society
of the early 1800s. That is not to say that the concerts put on in the theatres were
all froth, far from it. The Theatre Royal, Mosley Street presented a grand concert
of selections from Handel’s sacred oratorios on 3 rd March 1819, between two
plays and seven days later repeated the formula. In August 1840 a series of
Promenade Concerts were tried in the Theatre Royal, Grey Street but proved to
be a dismal failure. However, other performances seem to have proved more
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