Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SYMPHONY CONCERTS SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN U.S. 799
that tlie Municipality decided to make the
undertaking a permanent one, and the annual
series of concerts have attained great importance,
being given on Monday and Thursday afternoons
during the season. Many centenaries and other
anniversaries in musical history have been
observed more carefiilly than has usually been
the case in London, and very frequently composers
have conducted their own works at the
concerts, Mr. Godfrey filling the post of regular
conductor with great distinction. M.
Beadfokd.
The Bradford Permanent Orchestra was
founded in 1892, and is partly professional,
partly amateur. The band is about eighty
strong, and the post of conductor has been
held successively by Mr. W. B. Sewell, Mr.
A. E. Bartle, Dr. Cowen, and Mr. Allen Gill,
the last of whom has been in office five years.
The season 1907-8 included five concerts, at
which works by most of the classical composers,
and of modern musicians like Sibelius,
Humperdinck, German, and York Bowen, were
performed. The orchestra is a private and
self-supporting institution. It is now usually
engaged for the concerts of the Bradford Festival
Choral Society. Among the conductors who
have directed their own works have been
Sir Arthur SuUivan, Sir Hubert Parry, Sir
C. V. Stanford, Sir Edward Elgar, and Mr.
E. German. h. t.
Hakkooatb.
Here also a permanent Municipal Orchestra
has lately been formed and is now under the
direction of Mr. Julian Clifford. On Wednesday
afternoons, during a great part of the year,^
symphony concerts are given, and composers'
'
afternoons
' take place frequently. M.
Hull.
The Hull Symphony Orchestra consists of
local players who are engaged at theatres and
music-halls, so that the concerts are given
always in the afternoon. They were established
in 1906, and under the conductorship of
Arthur Wallerstein have done good work.
Leeds.
The Leeds Municipal Orchestra was organised
in the autumn of 1903 by Mr. A. H. Pricker,
organist of the Town Hall ; the first concert
was given on Oct. 17 of that year. The
orchestra at first consisted of fifty of the best professional
musicians in the immediate neighbourhood
and the number has since been increased
to over sixty. It has no direct subsidy from
public money, but as the conductor receives no
further remuneration than his stipend as
organist, and as the concerts take the place ot
the customary Saturday evening organ recitals
there is no expense for hall, lighting, etc., and
the small charges made for admission (2d. , 6d.
and Is.) have hitherto just sufficed to maintain
the institution. The scheme for the season of
1907-8 consisted of ten concerts, at which
symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert,
Tchaikovsky, and Dvofak, together with orchestral
pieces by Mozart, Weber, Mendelssohn,
Liszt, Saint-Saens, Brahms, Svendsen, Smetana,
Sibelius, Debussy, Elgar, German, were given.
Among the composers who have conducted
their own works are Sir C. V. Stanford, Mr.
E. German, Dr. Vaughan Williams, Mr. York
Bowen, Mr. J. W. NichoU, Mr. F. Cliffe, Mr.
Havergal Brian, Dr. Bairstow, Mr. William
Wallace, Mr. Joseph Holbrooke, Mr. Percy
Godfrey, and Mr. F. K. Hattersley. H. T.
Liverpool.
For the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, see
vol. ii. p. 754.
Manchester.
For the Gentleman's Concerts and HaUe
Concerts, see vol. iii. pp. 36-37.
New Brighton.
For the excellent series of concerts organised
at the Tower, New Brighton, by Mr. Granville
Bantock, in 1897-1901, see vol. i. p. 181.
Scotland.
See Scottish Orchestra, amte, p. 402.
SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN THE
UNITED STATES. Throughout the 18th
century the concert life of America, so far as it
existed in the principal cities of the Atlantic
coast (such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston,
Baltimore, and Charleston), was in every particular
a reffex of the concert life of London.
Practically all the influences were English, and
English they remained for a full century ;
the
colonists, as soon as they were in a position to
enjoy the embellishments of civilisation, sought
them in their English manifestations. As an
illustration it may be pointed out that 'Eanelagh
Gardens ' were opened in 1765, at which
'
a complete band of music ' was engaged, and
'
Vaux Hall Gardens ' in Charleston in 1767, and
New York in 1769. As to the vigour with
which instrumental music, still subordinate to
vocal the world over, was cultivated in America
under the auspices of organisations of amateurs
and professionals corresponding to the Collegia
musica of Germany, it may suffice here to say
that concerts in which solos on the harpsichord,
violin, oboe, bassoon, ffute, and horn were
played date back to the fourth decade of the
18th century ; and that the symphonies of
Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Gyrowetz, and their
fellows, the overtures of Handel, Gretry, Gossec,
and others, as well as the amcerti grossi ot Corelli,
figured largely on the programmes of the concerts
given in New York and Philadelphia in