NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

CHAPTER SEVEN
DR WILLIAM REA
I had not heard of William Rea before I began researching Newcastle’s musical
history and, I am sad to say, nor had anyone else I spoke to in Newcastle. All my
inquiries met with a complete blank, it were as though he had never existed. Yet
it would be no exaggeration to say that after Avison he did more to promote a
higher musical culture in Newcastle than anyone else did. As I thumbed my way
through collections of old programmes his name kept reappearing. It seemed at
various times he fulfilled the role of council and church organist, pianist,
conductor, choir master, arranger, organizer, lecturer and many other things
besides. The man’s energy astounded me and very soon I found Dr Rea
demanding my full attention. Unlike Avison, Rea was not a native Tynesider and
I very soon found myself puzzling again over what made this man with such
musical potential decide to bury himself in an organist’s post in England’s most
northerly outpost I don’t profess to know the answer even now and may never
know but I can say that the town’s musical history would have been the poorer
without him. In the same way as Charles Avison had done he did much to
promote Newcastle as one of the leading provincial music centres in the country
and much more than Avison he worked hard at bringing music of a high standard
to the ordinary people of the town.
William Rea was born in London on 25 th March 1827. From being young he
showed a remarkable aptitude for music and at an early age was placed under
Mr Joseph Pitman, an eminent musician, who invented the pedal organ and
introduced Bach’s fugues into England. Rea made such rapid progress that
before he was in his teens he was acting as deputy to his master, who held the
appointment of organist at Spitalfields. In his eagerness to study harmony under
Schnyder von Wartensee, Rea took himself to the Continent. At sixteen years of
age he was studying piano, composition and instrumentation under Sterndale
Bennett (1816-75) and by 1843 had secured an appointment as organist at Christ
Church, Watney Street. Two year later he appeared as soloist in a piano
concerto at a concert sponsored by the Society for British Musicians, formed in
1834 with the objective of advancing native talent in composition and
performance. Shortly after, he was appointed organist at St Andrews Undershaft
but soon vacated the post to go abroad again. In 1849 he went to Leipzig, where
he studied under Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870), a brilliant pianist and head of the
Piano Department at the Conservatory, and also under Ernst Friedrich Eduard
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