Another effort for the spread of a knowledge of chamber music was started in London in the year 1852 by Messrs. Sainton, Cooper, Hill, and Piatti. It was called the Quartett Association. Six concerts each season were given, at which the most eminent artists performed. These were held at Willis’s Rooms, but after the third season they were abandoned for want of sufficient public support.
Dannreuther’s Musical Evenings
Among a number of other attempts of a like kind may be mentioned Mr. Edward Dannreuther’s Musical Evenings, which upheld a high ideal, for it is well known that Mr. Dannreuther, while an earnest apostle of the new school of music, is no less zealous for the old, as the range of the programmes which he set forth at these concerts, and his masterly interpretations of Bach and Beethoven, abundantly prove.
Sir Charles Hallé’s Recitals
The late Sir Charles Hallé (then Mr. Hallé) began in 1861 his celebrated Chamber Music Recitals, the first eight concerts being taken up with a presentation of the whole of the Piano Sonatas of Beethoven. There can be no doubt that these recitals, along with Hallé’s musical work in other directions, have had a most beneficial effect on our national taste.
Monday Popular Concerts
No account of British chamber music would be complete without a notice of the Monday Popular Concerts which were commenced in London in 1859. The first concerts were of a miscellaneous character, consisting of old ballads and well-known instrumental pieces. They had, however, but moderate success. The director, Mr. Arthur Chappell, in conference with Mr. J.W. Davison, the musical critic of The Times newspaper, then decided to try a series of good chamber music concerts. The first of these was announced as a Mendelssohn Night, and was, of course, made up entirely of chamber music by that composer; and afterwards a Mozart, Haydn, Weber, and a Beethoven night were severally tried. Still success did not follow, and the concerts were very nearly abandoned. Chiefly, however, owing to the determination of Mr. Chappell, a further series were tried, and as these produced a financial profit, the venture was continued, with the result that the concerts eventually became firmly established as the leading chamber music institution in England.
“The One-hundredth Popular Concert,” says Mr. Hueffer,[11] “was given on July 7th, 1862, when, according to The Times, more than one thousand persons were refused admission for the want of space—a statement in itself sufficient to show the broad popular basis on which the concerts were by that time founded. In 1865 the Saturday Afternoon Concerts were added to those given on Monday evenings, and on May 15th of the same year one of the most important events in the history of this institution—the first appearance of Madame Schumann—took place. The programme on that occasion was devoted entirely to the works of her husband, which, in those days, were thought by the public and the press to be the abstruse effusions of the modern spirit, but which are now as generally, and almost as highly appreciated as those of Beethoven himself. Five years later, in 1870, Madame Norman-Neruda was added to the list of executants, and has remained one of the prime favourites of these and English audiences generally, ever since. In the season of 1873-74 more than common attention was paid to contemporary talent, the names of Saint-Saëns, Rubinstein, Rheinberger, Raff, and other then living composers playing a prominent part. The cause of this inroad upon established tradition is partly to be found in the appearance at the piano of Dr. Hans von Bülow, who, here as everywhere else, exercised a beneficial, but, so far as the popular concerts were concerned, a passing influence. There are few names of eminence absent from the list of executants who have appeared on and off. The one-thousandth performance was given on April 4th, 1888.”
Joachim