Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

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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

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]

References

  1. ^ Handford 2006, pp. 215, 217.
  2. ^ a b Handford 2006, p. 215.
  3. ^ Harlow 1999, p. 49.
  4. ^ Harlow 1999, p. 53.
  5. ^ a b c d 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

  • Handford, Margaret (2006). Sounds Unlikely: Music in Birmingham. Studley: Brewin Books. .
  • Harlow, Martin (1999). "Mr Halford's Orchestral Concerts 1897-1907. Conductor at Large". The Musical Times. 140 (1867). Musical Times Publications Ltd.: 49–53. .
  • King-Smith, Beresford (1995). Crescendo! 75 years of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. London: Methuen. .