Looking back to a concert season 100 years ago
by Philip Harrison
Earlier this week I caught the first Hallé concert of the season in a delayed broadcast on BBC Radio 3. It is several years now since I moved away from the city of Manchester, and I do miss the concerts sometimes. This particular one was the first for new principal cellist Rachel Helleur-Simcock, since moving from the Berliner Philharmoniker. She gave what I thought was a splendid rendition of the Elgar concerto in the first half. After the interval, chief conductor Kahchun Wong followed it up with a highly romantic account of Rachmaninov 2 which was a little bit over-ripe and perhaps a tad too indulgent for me, but still enjoyable on the radio.
The concert made me look at the Hallé website to discover what else lies in store this season for them. I was reminded while browsing that the orchestra have an excellent archive section to the site too and I wondered to myself how the season of 2025/26 compared with that a century ago: 1925/26. I discovered a few mistakes in the archive, and by no means are all the concerts the orchestra gave in those days fully documented, but it is a fascinating resource all the same. In researching this concert season, I also drew on some excellent material on Hallé violinist Arthur Catterall that can be found in the resources folder here at MWI.
By the start of the 1925/26 season Hamilton Harty had been with the Hallé for five years. He was knighted that Summer and the concerts for that season make mouthwatering reading for me. As well as the regular prestigious subscription season of over twenty concerts in the Free Trade Hall, the orchestra had started a so-called municipal series. These were later called “industrial concerts” and in my day “Opus One”. The impresario Brand Lane also presented many concerts in Manchester and the Hallé often played for these. Strauss and Sibelius came to conduct for these concerts over the years, as well as men like Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Serge Koussevitzky. The orchestra also toured to venues they still regularly play today: Bradford, Sheffield etc.
What was life really like in October 1925, I pondered. A teacher of my age (55) might earn perhaps £300 per year. About half of UK housing was connected to the National Grid by then I think. Stanley Baldwin was PM and Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer had just put the country back on the gold standard. Lancastrians attending the Hallé concerts had got used to the dominance of Yorkshire’s sporting prowess. Huddersfield Town won three football league titles in a row; Sheffield United had just won the FA cup and Yorkshire CCC were victorious in the county championship! At Wimbledon, René Lacoste “the Crocodile” had taken the Men’s singles title. In London’s west end you could see No, No, Nanette or Rose-Marie. The biggest film of that time was Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush. Exactly a month after the season finished, on 25th April in another Northern metropolis over in Italy, there was an important premiere. Turandot, that last wonderful work from the pen of Giacomo Puccini, was heard for the first time at La Scala, Milan with Rosa Raisa and Miguel Fleta under the expert baton of Arturo Toscanini.
The summer before the season started, Arthur Catterall, the legendary leader of the Hallé had left the orchestra. His relationship with Harty had always been a bit fraught. He was replaced by John Bridge. The Hallé started in York I believe and even played for a week of Grand Opera in Manchester before the concerts began proper (Samson et Dalilia and The Fair Maid of Perth). One further feature of the season is that some concerts (or parts thereof) were broadcast on the 2ZY transmitter. I don’t know how many people would have been able to tune in and I don’t suppose any of them were recorded. After the season’s end, Columbia recorded Harty and the orchestra in at least three titles. These are electrical recordings: Mozart Symphony No. 35, Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto with Archie Camden and the conductor’s own With the Wild Geese.
I hope you enjoy looking at the list of concerts, all of which formed part of the regular “Thursday Season” a century ago. Harty led every single one, except the last.
Thursday 22 October 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty, Wilhelm Backhaus (piano)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (radio broadcast)
Stenhammar: Piano Concerto in No. 2 in D minor
Malipiero: Armenia
Lyadov: The Enchanted Lake
Chopin: Piano Solos
Wagner: Prelude to Act 1 – Meistersinger
Thursday 29 October 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty, Alfred Cortot (piano)
Mozart: Ov. Le nozze di Figaro
Haydn: Symphony No. 101, ‘Clock’
Schumann: Piano Concerto
Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe – Suite 2
Fauré: Ballade for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 19
Turina: La Procession de Rocio
Thursday 5 November 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty, Guilhermina Suggia (cello)
Handel: Concerto Grosso Op.6/12
Mozart: Symphony No. 35, ‘Haffner’
Haydn: Cello Concerto in D major
Berlioz: Ov. King Lear
Boellmann: Symphonic Variations for Cello and Orchestra
Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody No. 2
Glinka: Kamarinskaya
Thursday 12 November 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty
Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts
(Hallé Choir, Besses-O’-Th’-Barn Band, Tudor Davies, tenor)
Glazunov: The Kremlin
Thursday 19 November 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty
Brahms: Tragic Overture
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Inghelbrecht: Rhapsodie de Printemps
Strauss: Don Juan
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture
Thursday 26 November 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty, Florence Austral (soprano), Frank Mullings (tenor)
Beethoven: Three Equali
Wagner: A Faust Overture
Wagner: Forest Murmurs – Siegfried
Wagner: Love Duet – Siegfried Act 3
Wagner: The Ride of the Valkyries – Die Walküre
Wagner: Duet from Act 1 – Götterdämmerung
Wagner: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March – Götterdämmerung
Wagner: Immolation scene – Götterdämmerung
Thursday 3 December 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty, Pablo Casals (cello)
Mendelssohn: Ov. The Hebrides
Mendelssohn: Scherzo – Symphony No. 3, ‘Scottish’
Bantock: Hebridean Symphony
(all 3 pieces above were broadcast)
Boccherini: Cello Concerto in B flat major
Berlioz: Royal Hunt and Storm – Les Troyens
Cello solos (Bach, Senaille, Granados and Saint-Saëns)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Introduction and Wedding March – The Golden Cockerel
Thursday 10 December 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty
Bach, arr. Vaughan Williams: Fugue in D minor, ‘The Giant’
Schubert: Symphony No. 9, ‘Great’
Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
d’Indy: Fantasie for oboe and orchestra
Ravel: Suite – Mother Goose
Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Thursday and Friday 17/18 December 1925 Sir Hamilton Harty
Handel: Messiah
Isobel Baillie (soprano), Muriel Brunskill (contralto), Walter Widdop (tenor), Norman Allin (bass) Hallé Choir
Thursday 7 January 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Arthur Catterall (violin)
Smetana: Ov. The Bartered Bride
Dvořák: Violin Concerto
Holst: Fugal Concerto for Flute, Oboe and Strings
Tchaikovsky: Melodie for violin and orchestra
Novacek: Perpetuum Mobile for violin and Orchestra
Elgar: Symphony No. 2
Thursday 14 January 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Clara Haskil (piano)
Mozart: Ov. Il Seraglio
WF Bach: Concerto da camera (likely E minor Fk. 43)
Franck: Symphony in D minor
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2
Bartok: Dance Suite
Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre
Thursday 21 January 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Clyde Twelvetrees (cello)
Bach, arr. G Williams: Prelude from English Suite No. 5
Elgar: Symphony No. 2
Michele Esposito: Ov. Othello
Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1
Bax: The Happy Forest
Dvořák: Slavonic Dance in A flat major, Op. 46/6
Thursday 28 January 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, John Bridge (violin), Alfred Barker (violin)
Mozart: Allegro – Divertimento No. 17
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
(both items above broadcast)
Bach: Concerto for two violins in D minor
Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini
Thursday 4 February 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty
Bach: Mass in B minor
Elsie Suddaby (soprano) Isobel MacLaren (contralto) Archibald Winter (tenor) Arthur Cranmer (bass) Hallé Choir
Thursday 11 February 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Jelly d’Aranyi (violin)
Haydn: Symphony No. 100, ‘Military’
Brahms: Violin Concerto
Dvořák: Symphonic Variations
D’Erlanger: Prelude to Act 3 – Tess
Paganini: violin solos
Wolf-Ferrari: Ov. The Secret of Susanna
Thursday 18 February 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Raoul Girard (tenor)
Sibelius: En Saga
Mozart: aria (?) – Il Seraglio
Gluck: ‘J’ai perdu mon Eurydice’ – Orphée et Eurydice
Harty: With the Wild Geese
Verdi: ‘Celeste Aida’ – Aida
Wagner: Prize Song – Meistersinger
Respighi: The Pines of Rome
Vocal solos (Fauré, Duparc and Falla)
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel
(Respighi and Strauss both broadcast)
Thursday 25 February 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Claud Biggs, John Wills, Harold Dawber (pianos)
Mozart: Ov. La Finta Semplice
Mozart: Symphony No. 38, ‘Prague’
Mozart: Concerto for Three Pianos and Orchestra
Mozart: Six German Waltzes
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Thursday 4 March 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Cesare Formichi (baritone)
Handel, arr. Harty: Ov. The Royal Fireworks Music
Brahms: Symphony No. 3
Berlioz: Ov. Beatrice and Benedict
Bizet: Agnus Dei
Giordano: ‘Nemico della patria’ – Andrea Chenier
Puccini: Te Deum – Tosca
Stanford: Irish Rhapsody No. 1
Leoncavallo: Prologue – Pagliacci
Borodin: Ov. Prince Igor
(concert was part broadcast)
Thursday 11 March 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty
Elgar: The Apostles
Dorothy Silk (soprano) Muriel Brunskill (contralto) Walter Glynne (tenor) Dennis Noble (baritone) Herbert Heyner (bass), Norman Allin (bass) Hallé Choir
Thursday 18 March 1926 Sir Hamilton Harty, Artur Rubinstein (piano)
Berlioz: Ov. Benvenuto Cellini
Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Braithwaite: Tone Poem – Snow Picture
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23
Dora Bright: Vienna
Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Thursday 25 March 1926 (Pension Fund Concert) Sir Thomas Beecham, Arthur Catterall (violin)
Smetana: Ov. The Bartered Bride
Mozart: Adagio – Divertimento No. 15
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (violin solos by Catterall, who presumably was leader for this item)
Wagner: Prelude to Act 3 – Tannhauser
Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Debussy: Fetes – Nocturnes
Elgar: Elegie and Waltz – Serenade for Strings
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
(concert broadcast)
