British Symphony Orchestra
The British Symphony Orchestra (BSO or BrSO) 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. There were gaps of several years when the orchestra's name disappeared from the public view (see § Historical overview). The various orchestras were only active for about fifteen years between 1905 and 1939. The conductors of the orchestra's first incarnation from 1905 included William Sewell, Julian Clifford senior and Hamilton Harty. After WW1 Raymond Roze reformed the orchestra  as a properly-constituted, full-time body of musicians. Roze died unexpectedly in 1920 and was succeeded as chief conductor by Adrian Boult, who gave numerous public concerts over several years. Other musicians conducting the orchestras at the time included Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Franco Leoni, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Edward Elgar. Members of the orchestra during this period included Albert Sammons and § Frederick Holding as leaders, and Eugene Cruft on bass. In the early 1930s the name 'British Symphony Orchestra' appeared on the label of many recordings by the Columbia Graphophone Company as a cover name or pseudonym for the  orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Conductors during this period include Ethel Smyth, Oskar Fried, Bruno Walter, Felix Weingartner, and Henry Wood. A few public concerts were given in London with an orchestra of this name during the years leading up to the Second World War. More recently, the music for the 1989 film "La Révolution française" was composed and conducted by Georges Delerue, and played by the British Symphony Orchestra. Since 2016 an orchestra of the same name founded by Philip Mackenzie has made a number of concert appearances in Britain, and also toured in the People's Republic  of China. Historical overview. The history of the various British Symphony Orchestras seems to fall into five approximate periods. Without access to contemporary concert programmes and lists of orchestra members it is difficult to arrive at any sense of continuity of membership. For orchestras with a similar name or initials, "see also § Disambiguation" First formation: 1905 - c1910. In October 1905 William Sewell, organist at the Birmingham Oratory, director of the Midland Gleemen and later sub-organist of Westminster Cathedral, placed an advertisement in "The Musical Times": One of the newly-formed British Symphony Orchestra's first concerts took place at  the Æolian Hall, London, on 7 December 1905. The Irish violinist Rohan Clensy who had studied with Eugène Ysaÿe, played Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 2. "The Standard"s critic thought that Clensy was "a clever and thoughtful artist, whose playing shows intelligence and taste. His performance [...] was, on the whole, artistic. The phrasing was clear, and the execution facile, but there was sometimes need of more life and passion, and the tone was somewhat cold. The orchestra gave him good support, and their playing of Schubert’s overture. "Alfonso and Estrella", an attractive work, which is not often heard , was virile and effective." The programme also included Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D and Grieg's "Norwegian Dances". On 18 December 1905 Sewell conducted the BSO with Maria Sequel in Mendelssohn's G minor piano concerto. The music critic of "The Standard" noted that in the orchestra's playing "there were some rough places, however, which doubtless will become smooth with more practice and experience in their performance of the "Figaro" and "Hebrides" overtures." Again at Aeolian Hall, on February 16, 1906, Lucia Fydell and Atherton Smith with the British Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sewell, gave a recital  consisting chiefly of excerpts from Saint-Saens's "Samson and Delilah". "Miss Fydell has a powerful voice and dramatic perception, but she would be heard to greater advantage on the stage than in the concert-room." The agents for the British Symphony Orchestra in March 1906 were Concert-Direction Limited, originally founded in August 1905 with Louis and Laurence Cowen as directors. It changed its name in July 1906 to Vert and Sinkins Concert-Direction Limited in 1906. Fernando Vert was the brother of Narciso Vert, whose musical agency later became known as Ibbs and Tillett. Hamilton Harty who, like  William Sewell, had been a church organist (in County Down) conducted what seems to be his first London orchestral concert on 5 April 1906, with the British Symphony Orchestra at the Queen’s Hall. Winifred Christie played César Franck's Symphonic Variations and Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 2. Another concert followed at the Queen’s Hall on 21 April 1906, and one on 24 May 1906 at the Aeolian Hall. National Sunday League concerts. The orchestra appeared at a number of concerts organised by the National Sunday League, which was opposed to sabbatarianism, and promoted rational recreation on Sundays . The light soprano Isobel Jay appeared with the BSO at the Alhambra Theatre on 7 April 1906. Harty conducted again on 21 October 1906 at the Queen's Hall, with Edith Kirkwood and Gertrude Lonsdale singing. On 30 November 1907 the British Symphony Orchestra appeared at The Crystal Palace in a concert including Harty's own "Ode to a Nightingale" sung by Agnes Nicholls (his wife), and ’s Concerto (actually March and Polonaise) for six timpani: the soloist was Gabriel Cleather, "who became a very busy man during the performance". Amalgamated Musicians' Union concerts. According to John Lucas, the British  Symphony Orchestra was "formed in 1908 by the Amalgamated Musicians' Union to provide work for its members on Sundays." Albert Sammons, the leader, also played in the restaurant band at the Waldorf Hotel, where Thomas Beecham recruited the 23 year-old for his new Beecham Symphony Orchestra. The second concert on 4 October was reviewed in "The Standard": On 18 October the vocalists were Kitty Gordon, William Green and Maria Yelland, 'The Cornish Contralto'. The conductors were Joseph Skuse and Leonard Chalk. Two more Musicians' Union Sunday evening concerts took place on 4 and 18 April 1909 at the Coliseum . The British Symphony Orchestra, led by Albert Sammons, was conducted by Alick Maclean and Joseph Skuse. "The great success of the Sunday evening concerts initiated by the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union at the Coliseum two years ago has induced the union to undertake a similar series of concerts at Queen’s Hall. Beginning on 4 September 1910, Mr. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor will conduct his "Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast" with the British Symphony Orchestra and Choir. During the season, which extends to June, 1911, many interesting and novel works are to be produced by the orchestra and choir, [...] and some of the  best conductors will share the responsibility of directing the different works." According to Lucas, Beecham conducted two Musicians' Union concerts with the British Symphony Orchestra in 1910. One took place on Sunday 3 April 1910, with the contralto Carmen Hill. On 18 September 1910 at Queens Hall, Franco Leoni's dramatic cantata, "The Gate of Life" conducted by the composer, was performed by Mme. Ada Davies, Giuseppe Lenghi-Cellini, and Wilfrid Douthitt with the British Symphony Orchestra and Choir. Second formation: 1919 - 1923. Background. After the end of WW1 a second British Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1919 by the  theatre composer and conductor Raymond Roze. The personnel were all de-mobbed soldiers, many of whom had served abroad in the Army, and who had all been professional musicians before the war, some of them established soloists. This was not his first experience with military affairs: just a few weeks before the war broke out in 1914, Roze had organised the London Arts Corps (or sometimes United Arts Force) (later the 1st Battalion, County of London Volunteer Regiment (United Arts Rifles). This was a civilian volunteer Home Defence battalion consisting entirely of musicians, writers and artists who for various reasons  did not wish to join the regular or Territorial Army. The roll-call of those involved reads like a Who's Who of the artistic, musical and literary world, headed up by Sir Arthur Pinero as chairman, Lord Desborough, Gerald du Maurier, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and many others. There was a distinguished list of naval and military patrons, such as Major-General Sir Alfred Turner, and possibly including some of the later patrons of the British Symphony Orchestra. Roze also supplied the battalion with several hundred modern .303 Martini–Enfield carbines and 10,000 rounds of ammunition purchased on his  own responsibility, to replace the practice weapons (described as "neolithic flintlocks") normally issued by the War Department. The corps gradually became an official Army volunteer battalion, and Roze resigned as Hon. Secretary in January 1915. During the war, the promising young baritone Charles Mott (who had sung in Roze's opera "Joan of Arc") was called up c1917, joined the Artists' Rifles (a different battalion) and was killed in 1918 at the Third Battle of the Aisne. 1919. At the time of its founding in summer 1919, it was the only permanent London orchestra apart from the LSO, which was  founded in 1904 by disgruntled players from the Queen's Hall orchestra. The orchestra under Roze gave a Royal Command Performance at Buckingham Palace for George V and Queen Mary. The concert included "Reels and Strathspeys" for strings and wind by Josef Holbrooke and Roze's overture to his incidental music for "Julius Caesar". Roze conducted the orchestra's first public concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 21 September. The London critic of "The Musical Times" remarked on the familiar faces on the platform: The orchestra, again conducted by Roze, gave a programme in the Albert Hall, Nottingham on  4 December 1919, "embracing Rossini's ever-green "William Tell" overture, Grieg's "Peer Gynt" Suite, and the third movement of Tchaikovsky's 'Pathétique' symphony." Katharine Goodson (piano), Watkin Mills (baritone), and Bronislaw Huberman (violin), were "cordially appreciated. M. Paul Frenkel acted as accompanist." Another concert took place on 12 December 1919, with Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, two "Passacaglia"s by Cyril Scott who also conducted, plus Scott's "Idyllic Phantasy" for voice, oboe and 'cello, (performed by Astra Desmond, Arthur Foreman and Cedric Sharpe respectively). "[The orchestra] has been heard by the King and Queen; it has a very strong  list of naval and military patrons; and is a first-class orchestra, the tone of the strings being particularly full and rich, and the wood-wind conspicuously mellow." On 27 December 1919, the BSO appeared at the Royal Albert Hall with Albert Coates conducting a piano concerto with Leopold Godowsky, and the tenor Clarence Whitehill accompanied by Harold Craxton. 1920. Raymond Roze was too ill to conduct a BSO concert on 10 February 1920, and Frank Bridge stepped in. Albert Sammons played Roze's "Poem of Victory" for violin, and Josef Holbrooke conducted his own early work, "The Viking". However , the series of concerts of the British Symphony Orchestra had to be abandoned owing to lack of support. Roze's final concert with the orchestra took place at the Queen's Hall on 23 February 1920. The players "gave an excellent performance of Hubert Bath's symphonic poem "The Vision of Hannele" , perhaps the best of his more ambitious works." The concert also included "Two Dances" by Dorothy Howell. Roze, the orchestra's founder, died suddenly on 30 March 1920 aged around 45, and Adrian Boult, as his "fortunate successor", became chief conductor. Quinlan Symphony Concerts. The impresario Thomas  Quinlan organised a series of twelve "super-concerts" at Kingsway Hall from October 1920 to January 1921, featuring various orchestras, including the Quinlan Orchestra, and the British Symphony Orchestra conducted by Boult, Saturday afternoons at 2.45. According to Boult, this was possibly the first time orchestral music had been heard in the hall, originally built in 1912 as a Methodist place of worship. The first concert included Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3; Vladimir Rosing ("...'the blind Russian tenor', as somebody in the hall called him - a description which all who have seen him sing will understand") sang Tchaikovsky's 'Lensky 's Farewell' and other things "in his usual intense manner", and Madame Renée Clement played Édouard Lalo's Violin Concerto no. 1 in F. The concert closed with Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. The second of the Quinlan Concerts in October/November included the tenor Joseph Hislop and the violinist Jacques Thibaud. The programme contained notes by Edwin Evans. Arnold Bax's tone-poem "The Garden of Fand" received its British première on 11 December. Guilhermina Suggia also played Saint-Saëns's Cello Concerto No. 1. The London music critic of "The Musical Times", Alfred Kalisch, was disapproving of Suggia's  somewhat demonstrative style of playing. 1921. Moriz Rosenthal played the Chopin Piano Concerto in E minor with the BSO at the Kingsway Hall on Saturday, 15 January 1921. The concert included Vaughan Williams’s 'London' symphony, and Miriam Licette sang. As part of the Oxford Subscription Concerts, the BSO conducted by Boult gave an orchestral concert on 20 January 1921. At a concert of the British Symphony Orchestra on 5 February, Boult revived John Ireland's "Forgotten Rite". The Quinlan Concerts at the Kingsway Hall came to an end in March 1921 when their promoter was declared bankrupt. Bach's  St. Matthew Passion was performed in Westminster Abbey by the Westminster Abbey Special Choir, with the British Symphony Orchestra, on Monday, March 14, 1921. The British Musical Society, founded in 1917, gave two concerts in June at the Queen's Hall with the British Symphony Orchestra. At the first, Sir Eugene Goossens and Boult conducted an all-British concert on 14 June 1921: Josef Holbrooke - Overture to "The Children"; Vaughan Williams - "The Lark Ascending"; Sir Eugene Goossens - symphonic poem, "The Eternal Rhythm"; Cyril Scott - Piano Concerto (the composer at the pianoforte); and Holst's "The Planets". This concert included the  first performance of the orchestral version of "The Lark Ascending", played by Marie Hall who owned a Viotti Stradivarius. At the second "Orchestral Plebiscite Concert" on 16 June, Hamilton Harty conducted Elgar's "Enigma Variations" and Bantock's "The Sea Reivers": and Walter Damrosch took the podium for performances of the 'Dirge' from Edward McDowell's "Indian Pieces", "Adventures in a Perambulator" by John Alden Carpenter and three numbers from Damrosch's own "Iphigenia in Aulis". The Russian tenor recitalist Vladimir Rosing presented a week of small-scale opera at the Aeolian Hall from 25 June to 2 July 1921 , with stage director Theodore Komisarjevsky. This brief season of "Opéra Intime" included "The Queen of Spades", "The Barber of Seville", "Bastien et Bastienne", and "Pagliacci". The stage of the Aeolian Hall was very small, and looked "overcrowded with more than six people on it." Apart from Rosing, other singers in the Tchaikovsky were Augustus Milner, Moses Mirsky, and Raymond Ellis. Winifred Lea, Tudor Davies and Mostyn Thomas appeared in Mozart's comedy, and Raymond Ellis sang Silvio in "Pagliacci". The orchestra consisted of principals of the British Symphony Orchestra, with an organ and piano and "did its work very effectively  under Mr. Adrian C. Boult." The scores were reduced for the purpose by Leslie Heward. The "Opéra Intime" company then toured Glasgow and Edinburgh. People's Palace concerts. The People's Palace (now part of Queen Mary College) on Mile End Road, London, was opened by Queen Victoria on 14 May 1887. It included the Queen's Hall for concerts, a vaulted reading room and a Polytechnic college. It was destroyed by fire in 1931. The British Symphony Orchestra under Boult gave two seasons of orchestral concerts in 1921 and 1922. Use of the hall was given rent-free by  William Ellison-Macartney, Governor of the People's Palace. Boult remembers meeting him at the pavilion at Lord's Cricket Ground, where he was also a governor. The swimming-pool at the People's Palace was much appreciated by Boult and members of the orchestra after concerts. The first concert took place on 16 October 1921. Boult conducted Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G for strings (Bach), "A Shropshire Lad" by George Butterworth, Brahms's Symphony No. 2, and "Francesca da Rimini" by Tchaikovsky. Boult preceded each piece with a short, non-technical spoken introduction from the podium. Although these  were well-received, Boult realised that "many of the audience were from the West End, so knew as much as I did about the music. This cured me of the desire to talk to my audiences." A second People's Palace concert followed on 30 October. Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture; Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Domenico Scarlatti arr. Tommasini - "The Good-humoured Ladies", and Armstrong Gibbs's incidental music for Maeterlinck's "The Betrothal". It was reviewed by "The Times" the following day: On 13 November the overture was Beethoven's "Egmont Overture", Frederick Holding gave Elgar's Violin Concerto, and  the symphony was Mozart's No. 39 in E♭. Other works included in the programmes of the six concerts before Christmas: Schubert: C major symphony, and one by Haydn; Elgar: 2nd symphony ("with which Mr. Boult made such a stir at Queen’s Hall last year"), and the Violin Concerto; Holst: "Beni Mora" Suite; Strauss: "Don Quixote"; Bliss's "Mêlée Fantastique"; Frederick Laurence: "Dance of the Witch Girl"; overtures to Weber's "Der Freischutz" and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” overtures, and others. Eugene Cruft, the principal double-bass, was the orchestra's secretary in 1921. 1922. The  first People's Palace concert of the new year took place on 15 January 1922. Works played included Mozart's "Don Giovanni" overture; Beethoven's 4th Symphony; Butterworth's first published work, "Two English Idylls" (1910–11); and Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll". On January 22 the Bach Choir, under its chief conductor Ralph Vaughan Williams, joined the British Symphony Orchestra and gave three of Bach's Church cantatas: "Bide with Us", "Jesus took unto Him the Twelve", and "The Sages of Sheba". César Franck's Symphony in D minor and John Ireland's "The Forgotten Rite" were played by the orchestra  under Boult on February 12. The concerts were now taking place weekly. The BSO conducted by Boult gave an orchestral concert on 2 February 1922 as part of the Oxford Subscription Concerts, including Butterworth's "A Shropshire Lad" and Elgar's Symphony No. 2. Nevertheless, attendance figures at the People's Palace concerts had fallen sharply, and after a concert on 5 March 1922 which included Vaughan Williams's "London Symphony", they were disbanded. At the Queen’s Hall on 7 April 1922, Vaughan Williams again conducted the Bach Choir with The Northern Singers (Chrissie MacDiarmid, Florence Taylor, John Adams  and George Parker) with the British Symphony Orchestra, led by Frederick Holding. Included in the programme were: William Byrd: "Christ is Risen Again"; Charles Burke: "St Patrick’s Prayer", Fantasia for chorus and orchestra on two Irish Hymn Melodies; Holst's "Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda"; and the "Stabat Mater" by Dvořák. 1923. Boult seems to have made his last records with the orchestra in February 1923. ("See also British Symphony Orchestra discography"). The BSO's last concert appearance seems to have been with Elgar in Aberystwyth in 1923. A poster for the 4th Aberystwyth Festival advertised the special  visit of Sir Edward Elgar and the British Symphony Orchestra, London, 22, 23 and 25 June 1923. An advance notice in "The Musical Times" gives the details: According to Sir Jack Westrup in a letter to "The Musical Times" (October 1969), Elgar's orchestration of Parry's "Jerusalem" was originally made for the Leeds Festival in 1922 when the first half of one of the concerts was devoted entirely to Parry's music, conducted by Sir Hugh Allen. Allen used it again in Oxford in a performance by the Oxford Bach Choir. Westrup had not heard of any performance since  then. When Allen died in 1946, Westrup found the autograph of Elgar's arrangement. On the cover is written, in his own hand: 'To Hugh P. Allen in dear memory of Hubert Parry, September 1922'. When Parry's copyright expired at the end of 1968, it occurred to Westrup that Elgar's orchestration, "which is clearly designed for mass singing", should be better known, and it was published by Curwen Ian Parrott replied two months later: "Professor Sir Jack Westrup in his letter [...] says that he knows of only one performance of Elgar's orchestration of Parry's Jerusalem after  the Leeds Festival of 1922. My colleague, Charles Clements, reminded me that it was used on the occasion of Elgar's visit to the Aberystwyth Festival of 1923. On that occasion Walford Davies and Mr Clements played as a piano duet in the front of the orchestra and he felt that Elgar did not wholly approve, especially as Sir Walford insisted on having the lid open. However, since it is for 'mass singing', no doubt Elgar fell in with Sir Walford's typical "ad hoc" treatment." A pupil of Carl Flesch, Holding owned a Stradivarius ('The Penny'). Orchestra members. He  was leader of the 'old' Philharmonic Quartet, formed in 1915 initially consisting of Arthur Beckwith (first violinist), (Sir) Eugene Aynsley Goossens (second violin), Raymond Jeremy (viola) and Cedric Sharpe (cellist). World War 1 interrupted their work as some of the members were eventually called up for service. In 1918 they reformed with Frederick Holding taking over from Goossens, becoming the first violin in 1919 with Thomas Peatfield the new second violinist. For a series of concerts in February 1921 at the Essex Hall the quartet consisted on 2 February of: Holding (1st violin), Samuel Kutcher (2nd violin), E. Tomlinson (viola ) and Giovanni Barbirolli (cello). For the second concert on 13 February 1921 it consisted of Frederick Holding, Samuel Kutcher, Raymond Jeremy and Cedric Sharpe. During WW1, Eugene Cruft helped recruit musicians to entertain the troops, while serving with the Motor Transport division of the Army Service Corps. He fought with the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade at Passchendale and on the Somme. He helped to form the new British Symphony Orchestra. He was the orchestra's Honorary Secretary from its inception, and became a life-long friend of Boult. He was principal double-bass player in the BBC Symphony  Orchestra 1929–1947 during Boult's conductorship. James MacDonagh (1881–1931), an accomplished musician on several instruments, was principal oboist and cor anglais player with the British Symphony Orchestra. He was the third eldest brother of Thomas MacDonagh, who was shot in Kilmainham Gaol with Padraic Pearse and Tom Clarke after the 1916 Easter Rising. His son, Terence MacDonagh (1907/08–86), also played the oboe and cor anglais with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra (of which he was a founder member), and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham; he served on the board of the Royal College of Music. Third  formation: recording orchestra, 1930–1932. After the 4th Aberystwyth Festival in summer 1923, the orchestra's name seems to disappear entirely until the 1930s when it appears on around fifteen or so 78 rpm recordings made by the Columbia Graphophone Company in Central Hall, Westminster from 1930 to 1932. According to Michael Gray, at least three of these electrical recordings were very probably made by the Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and it seems possible that this pickup orchestra is responsible for the remainder, as well as recordings of Sibelius's first two symphonies with Robert Kajanus. A certain amount  of mystique surrounds these vintage recordings made around 90 years ago: partly because the identity of this ensemble is somewhat uncertain; partly because in only a handful of recordings do the details taken from Columbia's own contemporary session logs and matrix notes actually match up completely with the information on the record labels; and partly because of Columbia's habit of replacing old recordings with newer ones (often of different works and by other artists), but keeping the old catalogue number. Conductors of these recording sessions include Ethel Smyth, Oskar Fried, Bruno Walter, Felix Weingartner, and Henry Wood. Fourth  formation: public concerts, 1934-1939. In October 1934 a somewhat subdued notice appeared in the organ advertisement section of "The Musical Times": From January 1934 to January 1935 a British Symphony Orchestra appeared in three National Sunday League Concerts at the London Palladium, all conducted by Charles Hambourg. 7 January 1934: orchestral concert. 4 November 1934: the violin soloist was Marie Hall, who had given the first performance of "The Lark Ascending" with an earlier British Symphony Orchestra in June 1921. On 13 January 1935 the concert included the duo-piano team of Vronsky & Babin. The English composer and conductor  Charles Proctor (1906–96) gave two concerts on 12 November 1938 and 29 April 1939, conducting his own Alexandra Choral Society with a British Symphony Orchestra at the Northern Polytechnic Institute, Holloway Road. Recent formations. 1989. The music for the 1989 film "La Révolution française", directed by Robert Enrico and Richard T. Heffron, was composed and conducted by Georges Delerue. It was performed by the British Symphony Orchestra with chorus. This seems to have been an ensemble of freelance musicians from the Greater London area, recorded at HMV Abbey Road Studios in August 1989. 2004. At the sumptuous wedding of Sushanto  and Seemanto Roy, the sons of the Indian businessman Subrata Roy, chairman of Sahara India Pariwar, a British Symphony Orchestra was specially flown to Lucknow to perform modern and traditional Indian melodies. 2016. Philip Mackenzie, as principal conductor, formed a British Symphony Orchestra in 2016. The orchestra is made up of freelance musicians and based in London. It has performed with, "inter alia", the Revival ABBA Tribute Band, Never The Bride and Gordon Hendricks. George Morton was the guest conductor of the British Symphony Orchestra's tour in China (27 December 2017 – 9 January 2018). They played nine concerts including  works by contemporary Chinese composers, along with Western music including Sibelius: "Finlandia"; Tchaikovsky: "Marche Slave"; Bizet: "Carmen Suite No. 1"; and Elgar: "Enigma Variations". Disambiguation. For other orchestras with the same initials, see BSO § Music.