NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CULTURE AT A PRICE
Unlike the First World War a conscious effort was made to uphold cultural
standards in the Second and after the initial panic, when all places of
entertainment were closed, a body calling itself the Council for the
Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) was independently founded.
Through the auspices of this organisation concerts were made possible even
through the darkest days of the war and gave many people their first taste of
music and the arts. One of the ways in which Newcastle benefited musically was
through a series of lunchtime concerts held in the Laing Art Gallery. Using an art
gallery for musical events was a break with tradition but proved very popular.
This wartime concert series ran from 1941 until 1947. The story of the Laing Art
Gallery, itself, is very interesting and serves as a further indication of how little
regard the town had for the Arts in general, prior to its cultural rebirth in the
1950s. Newcastle gained the gallery not through any desire on the part of the
City Council or its citizens but because of a wealthy man in the liquor trade who
in 1904 was public spirited enough to realize what the town needed and was
unlikely to get at its present rate of progress. The gallery was largely stocked
from private sources and even by 1940 Newcastle had spent comparatively little
on its art gallery for the purchase of masterpieces. A bitter comment by an
observant newspaper man shortly before the outbreak of the war summed up the
situation:
‘This lack of dignity in our towns (Newcastle and Gateshead) has been only too
painfully obvious for years. Why they sold their well-nigh priceless treasures from
the Mansion House, and apparently thought little of what they were doing. The
castle was allowed to fall into ruin and decay. The city walls have been allowed
to melt away. It is a wonder someone has not suggested the Castle or the
Cathedral as likely site for a new Super Cinema.’
The first curator of the gallery, Bernard Stevenson, from Nottingham, who had
been appointed in 1904, was still in post in 1941. He was described at the time
as a clever man, an art expert and an authority on many things besides. It was
said that the well filled, beautifully arranged galleries were a tribute to his genius
and that the success of the Laing Art Gallery was the story of his work. It was he
who put out the notice introducing the lunch time concerts to be held at the
gallery, at the same time expressing the hope that if the series proved a success
they would become a permanent feature of life in the city. But how long is
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