English city. A commercial and industrial centre, its musical importance lies chiefly in the concerts of the Hallé Orchestra, which was founded in 1858 by the émigré German pianist and conductor Charles Hallé. Since his death in 1895 the most eminent of the orchestra's permanent conductors have been Hans Richter, Hamilton Harty and John Barbirolli. Hallé also founded the Royal Manchester College of Music, of which he was the first principal.
2. Concert-giving organizations.
4. Educational institutions and libraries.
MICHAEL KENNEDY
It would be misleading to suggest that Manchester's musical tradition dates only from the 19th century. Provision for ‘singing-men’ was made in the charter granted to the collegiate church (now the cathedral) in 1421 and in its renewal by Elizabeth I in 1578 and Charles I in 1638. Manchester Cathedral in modern times has played an encouraging role in helping to promote musical activities in the city. While Allan Wicks was organist (1954–61) the Cantata Choir was formed and took part in performances of several ambitious works. This policy was continued by his successors, Derrick Cantrell (1961–77), Robert Vincent (1977–9), Stuart Beer (1979–96) and Christopher Stokes (1996–); many famous instrumentalists have given concerts at arts festivals organized by the cathedral. The cathedral's organ was destroyed when the building was bombed in 1940. A new instrument, designed by Norman Cocker, the cathedral organist at that time, was built by Harrison & Harrison of Durham. It was inaugurated in the spring of 1957 by Allan Wicks. Another magnificent organ in Manchester is the 5000-pipe Cavaillé-Coll installed in the town hall in 1877. Restoration work on this instrument was completed in 1970 by Jardine & Co. and involved complete renewal of the internal mechanism, restoration and cleaning of the pipes and the replacement of the console's pneumatic action by an electro-pneumatic system.
The first report of public concerts in Manchester was in 1744 (they served, it is thought, as a cloak for meetings of Jacobites, and Prince Charles Edward Stuart almost certainly attended one of them). The subscribers came mostly from the landed gentry, whose homes were close to what was then a small country town. The ‘orchestra’ comprised about three or four players and a harpsichordist. Works by Handel, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Tessarini and Arne were performed. Concertos for the German flute were favourite items. Evidently the flute was the most popular domestic instrument in 18th-century Manchester: 24 flautists began regular gatherings in 1770 at a tavern in Market Street. These activities came to be known as the ‘Gentlemen's Concerts’ and gradually developed until in 1777 a concert hall was built to hold about 1000 people. A season of 12 concerts was given each winter, six miscellaneous and six choral. The subscription was four guineas; subscribers could invite guests; full evening dress was obligatory for the ‘public concerts’, but the ‘private concerts’, despite their name, were less formal. At the turn of the century the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart were regularly performed. A ‘Grand sinfonia’ by Beethoven was played in 1806. At this period Manchester was expanding rapidly as the textile trade grew under the impetus of the Industrial Revolution, and among the increased population were many German families who had settled there because of their business connections. Their support for cultural activities was immediately forthcoming, but the oft-repeated statement that Manchester's musical life was founded by the German immigrants needs qualification.
The Gentlemen's Concerts played their part in four major musical festivals held in Manchester in 1777 (initiated by Sir Thomas Egerton), 1828, 1836 and 1844. At one of the concerts of the 1836 festival, on 14 September, the celebrated mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran sang for the last time in public. She died aged 28 at the Mosley Arms Hotel nine days later, and her body was temporarily interred in the south aisle of the collegiate church before removal to Brussels. It was a member of the committee of the Gentlemen's Concerts, a calico printer named Hermann Leo, who in 1848 was to bring about the most significant single event for Manchester's musical future. His brother August was a banker in Paris, and while visiting him earlier in the 1840s he had heard the young Westphalian pianist Carl Halle, who since 1836 had been well known in Parisian musical circles both as a solo player and as the organizer of chamber concerts. Among Halle's friends were Berlioz, Liszt, Heller, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Wagner. After the Revolution of 1848 he took his wife and family to London; and it was there in June of that year that Leo called on him to propose that he settle in Manchester and ‘take it in hand’. Hallé – who had added the accent to his name, so it is said, to ensure closer approximation to its correct pronunciation – agreed, provided that a certain number of pupils was guaranteed. He paid his first visit to Manchester in the summer of 1848, attending the Gentlemen's Concert at which Chopin played. On 13 September he himself played Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto. In his memoirs he described that occasion:
The orchestra, oh, the orchestra! I was fresh from the Concerts du Conservatoire, from Hector Berlioz's orchestra, and I seriously thought of packing up and leaving Manchester …. But when I hinted at this my friends gave me to understand that I was expected to change all this.
Hallé's first winter in Manchester was spent mainly in establishing a series of chamber concerts. It was not until November 1849 that he was appointed conductor of the Gentlemen's Concerts with wide powers to call more rehearsals, make changes in personnel and place the concerts on a broader basis. His efforts were rewarded by a renewal of interest in the concerts. The orchestra numbered about 40. How long Hallé might have remained in Manchester in this capacity is a matter for speculation. But in 1857 Manchester organized a vast exhibition of art treasures lasting from May to October. Hallé was engaged to provide daily concerts with an enlarged orchestra in the exhibition hall, though the inaugural concert on the evening of 5 May was given in Edward Walters's new Free Trade Hall, which had been opened seven months earlier. When the exhibition closed, Hallé was distressed to think that the enlarged orchestra would be disbanded and
to prevent it I determined to give weekly concerts during the autumn and winter at my own risk and peril, and to engage the whole band … I felt that the whole musical education of the public had to be undertaken.
So began the Hallé Concerts, on the wet Saturday night of 30 January 1858. His profit on his first season of 30 concerts was 2s. 6d. Within eight years it was over £2000. He also continued to direct the Gentlemen's Concerts, but with the success and growing importance of the Hallé Concerts these declined in interest over the years and were wound up in 1920. Hallé directed his Manchester concerts for 37 years. He conducted almost every one and also played the solo part in a piano concerto and/or short solo pieces at almost every concert. Each season comprised about 30 concerts in the Free Trade Hall. The orchestra also played regularly in Liverpool, Bradford and Edinburgh; it visited other northern towns and, in the 1880s and 1890s, London. Three outstanding features marked Hallé's work: his insistence on the provision of a large number of cheap seats, his gradual but steady education of the public, and his willingness to perform contemporary music. Nearly every famous executant of the 19th century appeared at his concerts. Within his first five seasons he had conducted concert performances of Die Zauberflöte, Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride and Orfeo, Fidelio and Der Freischütz. On 12 February 1874 Hallé and Hans von Bülow gave the first performance in England of the two-piano version of Brahms's St Antony Variations. Verdi's Requiem was performed in Manchester within two years of its first performance. Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique had its first British performance at Hallé's concert on 9 January 1879, his La damnation de Faust on 5 February 1880 and L'enfance du Christ on 30 December 1880. When Hallé was 63 he played the solo part in Brahms's Second Piano Concerto (23 November 1882) and in 1889 played Grieg's Concerto with the composer conducting. The works of Brahms and Dvořák were rapidly absorbed into the orchestra's repertory and Hallé conducted the first British performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony (2 February 1893).
To ensure that the concerts continued after Hallé's death three Manchester businessmen – Gustav Behrens, Henry Simon and James Forsyth – guaranteed them for the ensuing three seasons. An invitation to become conductor of the orchestra was extended to Hans Richter, then principal conductor of the Vienna Opera and the Vienna PO. He accepted, but because of his fear of losing his Vienna pension the matter hung fire for a few years. In the meantime Frederic Cowen was appointed conductor on the clear understanding that he would eventually make way for Richter. This situation led to considerable acrimony when eventually Richter let it be known that he could take up his post in October 1899. There was much public sympathy for Cowen (whose musical contribution had included a concert performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens à Carthage on 2 December 1897), but a meeting of the newly formed Hallé Concerts Society in October 1898 endorsed Richter's appointment.
Richter was conductor from 1899 to 1911. Although in retrospect the Edwardian era in Manchester music appears as a golden age, the reality was less luminous and was marked by controversy. On only four of Richter's 12 seasons was there a financial profit. Complaints soon began to be made that he was not enterprising enough in his choice of programmes. This agitation stemmed from a feeling that, as was to be expected, there was too much stress on Wagner, Brahms and Beethoven and very little on composers such as Debussy, Delius and Franck. Nevertheless, Richter introduced the most important works of Richard Strauss and Elgar to Hallé audiences. He particularly championed Elgar, who rewarded him with the dedication of his First Symphony and its first performance on 3 December 1908 in the Free Trade Hall. Richter conducted the first performance in Britain of a Sibelius symphony (no.2; 2 March 1905) and of Bartók's symphonic poem Kossuth (18 February 1904). He founded the orchestra's pension fund and constantly encouraged young soloists.
Not only was a minority of the public dissatisfied with Richter's regime; the Hallé Committee was disturbed by his association (from 1904) with the London SO and Covent Garden Opera. In addition there was a steadily growing section of opinion that considered that the orchestra should be conducted by one of the leading British conductors – Henry Wood, Beecham or Landon Ronald. But when Richter resigned in 1911 because of failing health the committee's first thought was to try to persuade Richard Strauss to succeed him. Eventually the post went to Michael Balling, a German and another Wagnerian, who had conducted performances of the Ring in English for the Denhof Opera Company. He was 46 when he began his duties in the 1912–13 season. He showed every sign that he would attempt to accomplish some revolutions in Manchester's cultural life: he was the first to advocate municipal aid for the concerts, he suggested that the orchestra should be on a weekly salary instead of a fee per concert (this was put into effect), and he advocated the building of an opera house. In the two seasons for which he was responsible he introduced several new works into the programmes and conducted the first Manchester performance of a Mahler symphony (no.1).
The outbreak of war ended Balling's tenure. Several guest conductors were engaged during the wartime seasons, of whom the most active and popular was Beecham. He was unable to continue his association after the war and the years 1918–20 were black ones for the Hallé, which was now feeling the effect of rival popular concerts promoted by the impresario Brand Lane and conducted by Wood. Matters were resolved by the appointment of Hamilton Harty as permanent conductor in 1920. This brilliant musician and attractive personality revivified the concerts and trained the orchestra to become a responsive and versatile instrument. He continued the de-Teutonization of the programmes that Beecham had begun. Music by Bax, Sibelius, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky entered the repertory. But Harty will be best remembered for his marvellous Berlioz performances, notably a historic one of the Requiem on 12 November 1925, also for the first public performance of Constant Lambert's Rio Grande on 12 December 1929 and for the first performance in Britain of Mahler's Ninth Symphony on 27 February 1930 and of Shostakovich's First Symphony on 21 January 1932. Under Harty's guidance the Hallé was engaged for municipal concerts, and it made its first gramophone records with him. In 1933 he resigned after a quarrel over his guest engagements elsewhere and was not immediately replaced.
For the next few years the committee engaged only guest conductors, chief among them Beecham and Malcolm Sargent. The number of concerts given outside Manchester dwindled and finances suffered accordingly. In 1934 an agreement was reached with the BBC whereby a number of the best Hallé players were also employed in the BBC Northern Orchestra, thus guaranteeing their income. In 1939 Sargent was appointed conductor-in-chief, but the outbreak of war and his association with other orchestras meant that he never took up the post in much more than a nominal capacity. The enormous extra demand for concerts stimulated by the war exposed the limitations of the Hallé-BBC agreement. Engagements could not be accepted without prior consultation with the BBC for the release of 35 players. This became even more irksome when in 1942 the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, which for nearly a century had used Hallé players in its orchestra, formed an autonomous orchestra with Sargent as conductor. Its hall, moreover, was intact, whereas the Free Trade Hall was destroyed in an air raid, thus condemning the Hallé to a peripatetic existence in suburban cinemas. If the Hallé was to survive it had to make a bold gesture. Under a new chairman, Philip Godlee, it was decided to sever the connection with the BBC, offer the players a yearly contract, give more than 200 concerts a year throughout the country and engage a major conductor. A cable was sent to New York inviting John Barbirolli to take over this position. He accepted and arrived in Manchester in June 1943 to discover that, of the 35 players shared with the BBC, only four had elected to throw in their lot with the Hallé. Within a month he engaged over 30 new players – at a time when talent was extremely scarce because of the war – and trained the orchestra to a standard it had not reached since Harty's day.
Thus began Barbirolli's 27-year association with the orchestra. Under his tireless and devoted guidance the Hallé won increasing, but at first grudgingly given, financial support from Manchester Corporation; it toured regularly in Britain and made several overseas tours. The scope of the concerts was vastly extended, and although Barbirolli's tastes were regarded by some as conservative he conducted an extremely wide range of music, excelling in the symphonies of Mahler, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, Nielsen and Bruckner and in works by Ravel, Debussy and Strauss. Barbirolli's identification with the orchestra was wholehearted, and he became the life and soul of the Hallé, building for it a reputation for versatility and ardour. In 1951 the Free Trade Hall was opened after reconstruction with a capacity of 2500, and in 1958 the Hallé reached its centenary, an occasion marked by the conferment on Barbirolli of the honorary freedom of Manchester. At the same time he slightly reduced his commitments with the orchestra, becoming conductor-in-chief instead of permanent conductor. From 1952 to 1963 the orchestra's associate conductor was George Weldon; on his death his duties were shared for three years by Lawrence Leonard and Maurice Handford, the latter becoming associate conductor from 1966 to 1971. After completing 25 years as Hallé conductor in 1968, Barbirolli became conductor laureate for life. He died on 29 July 1970. His successor as principal conductor, James Loughran, took up his post in September 1971. Under his guidance the concerts continued to prosper and the orchestra maintained high playing standards. While preserving the Barbirollian tradition of Mahler, Elgar and Brahms performances, Loughran introduced new works by Ligeti, Thea Musgrave, Gordon Crosse and John McCabe, and provided more opportunities to hear music by Ives, Schoenberg, Goehr, Shostakovich and others. Loughran left in 1983 and was succeeded by the Polish-born American conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski, in whose appointment the vote of the orchestral players was taken into account for the first time. He continued to promote contemporary works and was responsible for appearances as guest conductor of the Hallé of his friend Lutosławski. He was also an exceptional interpreter of Bruckner. He was replaced in 1991 by another American, Kent Nagano, whose title was music director and principal conductor. From 1993 to 1995 Thomas Adès, who wrote These Premises Are Alarmed for the opening of the Bridgewater Hall, was composer-in-association. Nagano brought the music of Stockhausen into Hallé programmes in addition to works by his compatriot John Adams. Nagano's appointment coincided with a decline in Hallé audiences which was partly attributable to disenchantment with the Free Trade Hall where facilities for performers and public were deemed to be poor compared with those offered elsewhere. Spurred by an unsuccessful bid to stage the Olympic Games, Manchester embarked on the construction of a £42 millon concert hall, the Bridgewater, to be home of the Hallé, BBC PO and Manchester Camerata (see illustration). The hall, seating 2395, was opened on 11 September 1996 with a Hallé programme conducted by Nagano. The Chicago SO conducted by Barenboim was the first overseas visitor. The hall contains a four-manual mechanical pipe organ with 75 stops and two consoles, one of them movable. This was built by the Danish firm of Marcussen.
The Hallé toured Europe and North and South America under Barbirolli. With Loughran it visited Australia and Hong Kong and with Nagano it went to Los Angeles, Japan and Salzburg. The BBC Philharmonic has also toured Europe and America. Financial support for the Hallé Concerts today comes not only from members of the society but also, more substantially, from the Arts Council of England, Manchester City Council and the Cheshire and Lancashire County Councils.
Manchester's other professional symphony orchestra is the BBC Philharmonic. This was formed in 1934 from Hallé players as an augmentation of the earlier Northern Studio Orchestra. It was originally known as the BBC Northern Orchestra, and then the BBC Northern SO. Its conductors have included Stanford Robinson, Charles Groves, John Hopkins, George Hurst, Bryden Thomson, Raymond Leppard, Edward Downes and Yan Pascal Tortelier. Since the 1950s it has given an increasing number of public concerts in addition to its regular broadcasts and has made a special feature of awarding apprenticeships to promising young conductors. In 1973–4 it launched an annual series of public concerts in the Free Trade Hall which quickly attained a very high artistic standard, but its base is Studio 7 in New Broadcasting House, Manchester. Its main public concerts are now given in the Bridgewater Hall.
The principal chamber music society in Manchester is the Manchester Chamber Concerts Society, founded in 1936. It promotes an annual winter series of six concerts by international string quartets and similar combinations. Also well established is the Manchester Mid-day Concerts Society, formerly the Tuesday Mid-day Concerts, founded in 1915, at which young singers and instrumentalists often make their professional débuts. The director of these concerts from 1923 to 1953 was the pianist and composer Edward Isaacs. In 1976 they moved their venue to the Royal Exchange Theatre, and in 1996 moved into the Bridgewater Hall. In 1972 BBC Radio Manchester formed a chamber orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, which rapidly attracted a regular following to its winter series in the RNCM concert hall. This later became an independent body and extended its operations outside Manchester, as well as giving concerts in the Free Trade Hall and the Bridgewater Hall. Its first conductor was Frank Cliff. After him came Szymon Goldberg, Manoug Parikian, Nicholas Braithwaite, Nicholas Kraemer and Sachio Fujioka. Since 1979 the orchestra has frequently played for opera performances at the Buxton Festival. Also in 1992 the Forum Music Society was formed to promote concerts and recitals at the Forum Centre, Wythenshawe, on the outskirts of the city. International artists feature in its programmes, which are now given in Stockport.
Opera in Manchester has never had a permanent home, despite the existence of a theatre called the Opera House. Various attempts have been made to establish permanent companies, but all have failed. Charles Hallé took part in one of these ill-fated attempts in 1854–5. Thereafter touring companies included Manchester on their regular schedule, and it is worth recording that Puccini's La bohème had its English première at the Comedy Theatre in 1897. The city's brief operatic heyday was in 1916 and 1917, when Beecham's company gave two memorable seasons, the success of which prompted him to offer to build Manchester an opera house on certain conditions, but the matter was not pursued because Beecham's personal financial situation enforced his temporary retirement from the musical scene. Since then, except during World War II, all the leading British opera companies have visited the city. In the 1960s an ambitious scheme was presented to the city council which included a large opera house as part of an arts centre. But this was abandoned in 1975 and Greater Manchester Council opened negotiations during 1976 to purchase the Opera House theatre and to enlarge it so that major London operatic productions could be accommodated. Nothing came of this proposal, however, and in 1978 a Manchester businessman bought the other chief commercial theatre in the city, the Palace, and formed a trust to administer it. It was closed in the same year for extensive refurbishment. It was hoped that the Palace would become the northern base of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet. The Royal Opera gave a month's season there in 1981 and 1983 and the Royal Ballet in 1982. The ENO also performed at the Palace. But the London companies adopted a no-touring policy and Manchester had to rely for opera on visits from Opera North and Glyndebourne Touring Opera. The Palace reverted to its old role as a home for musicals.
The (Royal) Manchester College of Music was opened in October 1893. Sir Charles Hallé was the first principal and professor of piano. Successful students were entitled after three full years to a performer's diploma that designated them Associates of the college. The main study courses were piano, singing, string and wind instruments, organ and composition. When Willy Hess, the first professor of the violin, resigned in 1895, Hallé engaged Adolph Brodsky to take his place. No sooner had Brodsky arrived in Manchester than Hallé died. Brodsky became principal in his stead and held the post until 1929. Despite the inadequacy of the college buildings the college maintained high standards; it was granted a royal charter in 1923. A succession of its gifted pupils became well known, among them the violinist Arthur Catterall, the bassoonist Archie Camden, the composers Alan Rawsthorne, John McCabe, Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr and Peter Maxwell Davies, the pianist John Ogdon and the singers Elizabeth Harwood, Richard Lewis, Anne Howells and Ryland Davies. Brodsky and his successor R.J. Forbes (principal from 1929 to 1953) were able to attract distinguished teachers, among them Egon Petri and Wilhelm Backhaus. From 1953 to 1970 the principal was Frederic R. Cox, who laid much emphasis on operatic work and gave the RMCM's operatic productions a distinction that spread their fame far beyond Manchester.
The Northern School of Music became a public institution in 1942, having developed from the Matthay School of Music founded in 1920 by Hilda Collens. It accepted many more part-time students than the RMCM, and its remarkable success can be attributed largely to the spirit of loyalty and enterprise engendered by Ida Carroll, who succeeded Hilda Collens as principal in 1957.
After several years of delicate negotiations which involved the RMCM in surrender of its royal charter, the decision was taken in 1962 to amalgamate the RMCM and the Northern School into a new Northern College of Music financed by Lancashire and Cheshire County Councils and Manchester and Salford City Councils. Formal approval of the scheme was given in 1966, and the building of the new college, which includes an opera theatre, concert hall, organ and 90 tutorial rooms, was begun in 1969. John Manduell was appointed principal, and the college opened in September 1972. The following year permission was granted for the prefix ‘Royal’ to be added to the college's name. The operatic traditions of the new college's predecessors were maintained, and because of the excellence of the college's facilities it rapidly became an integral part of Manchester's musical life, with several organizations using it as a venue. Manduell was succeeded as principal in 1996 by Edward Gregson. In the same year the college added new undergraduate degree courses to its range of diplomas.
The Manchester University Faculty of Music offers the degrees of Bachelor of Music (ordinary and with honours), Master of Music, Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. Candidates for the MusB must attend for three years or may enrol for the joint course, resulting in a MusB after three years and a graduate diploma at the RNCM after four. A MusM in performance, accredited by the university, can be taken at the RNCM.
The Chair of Music was instituted in 1954. Its first occupant was Humphrey Procter-Gregg, who had been head of the faculty since 1936. His successor from 1962 to 1968 was Hans F. Redlich, who greatly expanded the faculty's concert-giving activities. Later professors have included Philip Cranmer, Basil Deane, Ian Kemp and John Casken. The university library houses a substantial music collection, and the faculty has a library of music and recordings and an electronic studio. A one-time lecturer at the RMCM gave his name to the Henry Watson Music Library, one of the finest music reference libraries in Britain, including a number of valuable holdings; it is now administered by Manchester Corporation (see Libraries, §II, 1(xi) and Collections, private). A valuable collection of keyboard and other instruments is held at the RNCM.
Mention should also be made of Chetham's Hospital School, one of Manchester's oldest establishments, founded in 1653, which became an independent grammar school in 1952. In 1969 the school decided to admit girls and to select pupils, on a fee-paying basis, solely on grounds of musical accomplishment and potential. It thus became Britain's first large-scale junior school of music, accepting up to 375 students from the ages of 7 to 17.
T. Batley, ed.: Sir Charles Hallé's Concerts in Manchester (Manchester, 1896)
C.E. and M. Hallé, eds.: Life and Letters of Sir Charles Hallé (London, 1896, abridged 1972 by M. Kennedy as The Autobiography of Charles Hallé)
Mrs A. Brodsky: Recollections of a Russian Home (Manchester, 1904)
N. Cardus, ed.: Selected Criticisms of Samuel Langford (London, 1929)
J.F. Russell: An Outline of the Hallé Concerts (Manchester, 1938)
N. Cardus: Autobiography (London, 1947)
N. Cardus: Second Innings (London, 1950)
C. Rigby: Sir Charles Hallé (Manchester, 1952)
B. Pritchard: ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, RMARC, no.7 (1969), 1–27
M. Kennedy: Barbirolli: Conductor Laureate (London, 1971)
M. Kennedy: History of the Royal Manchester College of Music (Manchester, 1971)
J. Robert-Blunn: Northern Accent: the Life Story of the Northern School of Music (Altrincham, 1972)
P. Hammond: ‘The Hallé Years and After’, Hamilton Harty: his Life and Music, ed. D. Greer (Belfast, 1979), 35–50
M. Kennedy: The Hallé 1858–1983: a History of the Orchestra (Manchester, 1982)
P. Williams: Chetham's: Old and New in Harmony (Manchester, 1986)
C. Fifield: True Artist and Friend: a Biography of Hans Richter (Oxford, 1993)
G. Thomason: The Royal Manchester College of Music 1893–1973 (Manchester, 1993)
M. Kennedy: Music Enriches All: the Royal Northern College of Music, the First Twenty-One Years (Manchester, 1994)