NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...
NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...
NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN<br />
NEWCASTLE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA<br />
‘An Association has been formed in Newcastle for the purpose of giving Concerts<br />
of the best<br />
Orchestral Music. It is proposed that during the coming season four matinee<br />
Concerts should<br />
be given by the Newcastle Philharmonic Orchestra under the conductorship of<br />
Mr Edgar L. Bainton.’<br />
This was the opening paragraph in a notice put out in 1911 announcing a<br />
series of concerts by the newly formed Philharmonic Orchestra comprised of<br />
around fifty professional musicians. The movement leading to the establishment<br />
of the orchestra began in the previous year when Mr Rogers, conductor of the<br />
Tyne Theatre Orchestra, was asked by some members of the band to institute<br />
rehearsals for the purpose of practising good music. As a result of these<br />
rehearsals an invitation concert was given on Thursday , May 12 th 1910. The<br />
programme included Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Sir William Sterndale<br />
Bennet’s Overture ‘The Naiades’, and the Hungarian March from Berloiz’ ‘Faust’<br />
and was so successful that it encouraged the idea of placing the orchestra on a<br />
more permanent footing. A provisional committee was formed and for the season<br />
of 1910-11 a series of three orchestral concerts was given in the Tyne Theatre.<br />
The first programme included Haydn’s ‘Clock’ Symphony and Mendelssohn’s<br />
‘Hebrides’ Overture and subsequent programmes included Brahm’s Third<br />
Symphony, Wagner’s ‘Siegfried Idyll’, Stanford’s First Irish Rhapsody and<br />
Schubert’s C Major Symphony. The press welcomed this new venture, which the<br />
following review testifies and I make no apologies for quoting it in full:<br />
‘The announcement of the formation of another orchestral organisation for<br />
Newcastle suggest the adage ‘It never rains but it pours’. Only a fortnight has<br />
elapsed since I announced the formation of the Newcastle Symphony Orchestra<br />
and now comes the news that the local theatre players have banded themselves<br />
together under the title of the Newcastle Philharmonic Orchestra with Mr E. J.<br />
Rogers as their conductor. At the annual concert under the auspices of the<br />
Amalgamated Musicians’ Union, and also at the Good Friday concerts given in<br />
the Theatre Royal during the past few years, these players have shown genuine<br />
musical ability and temperament and many local musicians have expressed the<br />
wish to me that this fine body could be brought together on more frequent<br />
occasions. At the time of writing this paragraph I am in the dark as to the aim and<br />
objects of the new organisation but if present expectations are realised, my<br />
impressions of the Newcastle Philharmonic Orchestra, who gave their inaugural<br />
concert yesterday, will be found recorded in another part of this mornings issue.<br />
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