NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CELEBRITY CONCERTS
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There was a feast of music to be found in Newcastle in the late Victorian Era and
whilst much of it was generated within the town by enthusiastic amateurs
standards were gradually being raised by an increasing number of visiting
orchestras and solo artists on national and international tours. The Town Hall in
the Bigg Market was the main concert hall and from all reports it was an
inadequate building for the purpose. Unlike some other larger provincial cities
Newcastle not having shown any great civic interest in music (beyond bands in
the park) and as a consequence presumably had never considered a purpose
built concert hall a priority or a necessity for that matter. Concerts were held in a
variety of rooms and halls around the town. Mr Hares, who owned a pianoforte
and harmonium warehouse on Grey Street, was advertising his 300 th Grand
Concert to be held in the Town Hall by 1881. These concerts comprised mostly
the usual vocal and solo instrumental pieces but in 1892 he did manage to tempt
Pablo de Sarasate, world famous violinist, to come to Newcastle and play.
Eleven years later he presented (as they used to say in those far off Musical Hall
days “Our very own”) Marie Hall, violinist, age nineteen. The North East has
given birth to many fine singers and musicians but few more famous than Marie
Hall, who was born into poverty but rose to become an international artist. At an
early age she was befriended by Edward Elgar and his wife, who wrote in her
diary in 1895, when Marie was only eleven years old, ‘(Elgar) gave the little girl
Hall a lesson and some chocolates’. Years later Marie Hall was to make the first
recording, with the composer, of his violin concerto. Immediately prior to her
appearance at Mr Hare’s concert she had made her debut in Prague (1902),
Vienna (1903) and London at St James Hall on 16 th February that same year.
She appeared in her home town many times thereafter and at one of her
concerts in 1905 she had printed programmes listing eighty-six pieces numbered
1 to 86 and a note at the top of the programme that read ‘Items will be selected
from the following and the number displayed at the side of the stage’. But
perhaps the best known European woman violinist of her time was Madam
Wilma Norman-Neruda, who appeared in concert at the Town Hall in December
1883. Few of these early instrumentalists, however, could have claimed a
reputation to match that of Anton Rubinstein, who at the peak of his fame played
a recital in Newcastle’s Town Hall on 20 th March 1877. He had performed before
Chopin and Liszt and left a deep impression on Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.
He founded the St Petersburg Conservatoire and established what is even today
recognised as the Russian school of piano playing.
With the growth of the professional symphony orchestra and the rise of the
Impresario Newcastle began to enjoy an unprecedented period of music making
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