Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Last updated

The Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was a professional symphony orchestra based in Birmingham, England between 1906 and 1918. [1]

The orchestra was founded as a self-governing organisation run on cooperative lines by musicians from George Halford's Orchestra, [2] which had been performing annual series of concerts in Birmingham since 1897. [3] George Halford remained the new orchestra's Music Director, though he would only conduct half of their concerts. [4] The new body included fifty of the musicians from the previous organisation. [5]

The inaugural concert took place in Birmingham Town Hall on 4 April 1906 and was conducted by Henry Wood, [5] with further concerts in the 1906-1907 season being conducted by Halford, Hans Richter and Landon Ronald, and the Musical Times describing as a "splendid concert" a performance conducted by Halford in March 1907. [2] For the 1907-1908 and 1908-1909 seasons concerts by the BSO were promoted under the auspices of the "Birmingham Concerts Society" and took place on Tuesday evenings, conducted by Halford, Frederick Cowen, Charles Stanford, Allen Gill and Henri Verbrugghen. [6] From July 1910 it was the "Birmingham Philharmonic Society" that promoted eight concerts a year featuring the BSO players and conductors including Halford, Wood, Ronald, George Henschel, Vasily Safonov, Thomas Beecham and Fritz Cassirer. [7]

The orchestra also gave popular Saturday night concerts at the Town Hall that continued until 1918, [8] and performed widely alongside many different choral societies with conductors including Edward Elgar, Henry Coward and George Robertson Sinclair. [5]

Although there was no institutional connection between the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the later City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, [5] fifteen of the players who founded the earlier organisation in 1906 would also play with the later orchestra when it was established in 1920. [9]

Related Research Articles

Adrian Boult English conductor

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later.

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its administrative and rehearsal base is at the nearby CBSO Centre, where it also presents chamber concerts by members of the orchestra and guest performers.

Boston Symphony Orchestra American symphony orchestra in Boston, MA

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, the BSO performs most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an English orchestra with a remit to serve the South and South West of England. Founded in 1893, the BSO has developed a reputation as one of the UK's major orchestras and has worked with many of the world's leading composers, conductors and performers. Originally based in Bournemouth, the BSO moved its offices to the adjacent town of Poole in 1979.

Granville Bantock British composer and conductor (1868-1964)

Sir Granville Ransome Bantock was a British composer of classical music.

Karl Muck

Karl Muck was a German-born conductor of classical music. He based his activities principally in Europe and mostly in opera. His American career comprised two stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He endured a public outcry in 1917 that questioned whether his loyalties lay with Germany or the United States during World War I. Though he was a Swiss citizen, he was arrested and interned in a camp in Georgia from March 1918 until August 1919. His later career included notable engagements in Hamburg and at the Bayreuth Festival.

sThe New Philharmonia Orchestra of Massachusetts, founded in 1995, is a 75-member mostly non-professional regional orchestra based in Newton, Massachusetts. The "New Phil" performs in at the First Baptist Church in Newton (Massachusetts), and on occasion at Mission Church in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, as well as other locations in the region.

Wilhelm Gericke

Wilhelm Gericke was an Austrian-born conductor and composer who worked in Vienna and Boston.

Appleby Matthews

Thomas Appleby Matthews was an English conductor and organist.

Michael Seal is a British orchestral conductor and classical violinist. Since 2011 he has served as the Associate Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), having served previously as the orchestra's Assistant Conductor. He is only the second conductor to be given the title of Associate Conductor at the CBSO. The first was Harold Gray who served in that capacity for several decades until his retirement in 1972. In addition to his conducting, Seal played in the violin section of the CBSO from 1992 to 2014.

Andris Nelsons Latvian conductor

Andris Nelsons is a Latvian conductor. He is currently the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Richard Burgin was a Polish-American violinist, best known as associate conductor and the concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO).

Russian Symphony Orchestra Society

The Russian Symphony Orchestra Society was founded in 1903 in New York City by Modest Altschuler, and functioned for fifteen years.

George Halford's Orchestra was a professional symphony orchestra based in Birmingham, England from 1897 to 1907 and an important precursor of the later City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

George John Halford was an English pianist, organist, composer and conductor.

British Symphony Orchestra

The British Symphony Orchestra is the name of a number of symphony orchestras, active in both concert halls and recording studios, which have existed at various times in Britain since c1905 until the present day.

William Stockleys Orchestra

William Stockley's Orchestra was a symphony orchestra based in Birmingham, England from 1856 to 1899. It was the first permanent orchestra formed of local musicians to be established in the town, in contrast to the earlier Birmingham Festival Orchestra, which consisted largely of outside musicians and only performed during the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival.

New Birmingham Orchestra

The New Birmingham Orchestra, sometimes called simply the Birmingham Orchestra, was a professional symphony orchestra established by Thomas Beecham and based in Birmingham, England between 1917 and 1919. Although it was short-lived, it was succeeded the year after its dissolution by what is now the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which was run in its early days by many of the same individuals.

William Stockley (musician)

William Cole Stockley was an English organist, choirmaster and conductor.

References

  1. ↑ Handford 2006, pp. 215, 217.
  2. 1 2 Handford 2006, p. 215.
  3. ↑ Harlow 1999, p. 49.
  4. ↑ Harlow 1999, p. 53.
  5. 1 2 3 4 King-Smith 1995, p. 12.
  6. ↑ Handford 2006, pp. 215-216.
  7. ↑ Handford 2006, pp. 218-219.
  8. ↑ Handford 2006, p. 217.
  9. ↑ Handford 2006, p. 216.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.