Invitations were sent to present and former members of the Queen's Hall Orchestra. Andrew's Hall, not far from the Queen's Hall. Foundation Hans Richter, first conductor of the LSOīusby organised a meeting at St. The principal movers were three horn players ( Adolf Borsdorf, Thomas Busby, and Henri van der Meerschen) and a trumpeter, John Solomon. While travelling by train to play under Wood at a music festival in the north of England in May 1904, soon after Newman's announcement, some of his leading players discussed the situation and agreed to try to form their own orchestra. Orchestral musicians were not highly paid, and removing their chances of better-paid engagements permitted by the deputy system was a serious financial blow to many of them. After a rehearsal in which Wood was faced with dozens of unfamiliar faces in his own orchestra, Newman came to the platform and announced: "Gentlemen, in future there will be no deputies! Good morning!" This caused a furore. In 1904, the manager of the Queen's Hall, Robert Newman and the conductor of his promenade concerts, Henry Wood, agreed that they could no longer tolerate the deputy system. Not being able to play at the concert, C sends D, whom you would have paid five shillings to stay away." There was much competition for good orchestral players, with well-paid engagements offered by more than fifty music halls, by pit bands in West End musical comedies, and by grand hotels and restaurants which maintained orchestras. B, without your knowledge or consent, sends C to the second rehearsal. He sends B (whom you don't mind) to the first rehearsal. The treasurer of the Philharmonic Society described the system thus: "A, whom you want, signs to play at your concert. He would then engage another player to deputise for him at the original concert and the rehearsals for it. As there were competing demands for the services of the finest players it was an accepted practice that, even though under contract to play for a concert, a player was at liberty to accept a better-paid engagement if it were offered. The main orchestras were those of Covent Garden, the Philharmonic Society and the Queen's Hall their proprietors engaged players individually for each concert or for a season. History Background Clockwise from top left: Adolf Borsdorf, Thomas Busby, John Solomon and Henri van der Meerschen, founding fathers of the LSOĪt the turn of the twentieth century there were no permanent salaried orchestras in London. The LSO is consistently ranked as one of the world's leading orchestras. The LSO claims to be the world's most recorded orchestra it has made gramophone recordings since 1912 and has played on more than 200 soundtrack recordings for the cinema, of which the best known include the Star Wars series. Among its programmes there have been large-scale festivals celebrating composers as diverse as Berlioz, Mahler and Leonard Bernstein. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in the Barbican Centre in the City of London. Among conductors with whom it is most associated are, in its early days, Hans Richter, Sir Edward Elgar, and Sir Thomas Beecham, and in more recent decades Pierre Monteux, André Previn, Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, and Valery Gergiev. At some stages in its history it has dispensed with a principal conductor and worked only with guests. In 1966, to perform alongside it in choral works, the orchestra established the LSO Chorus, originally a mix of professional and amateur singers, later a wholly amateur ensemble.Īs a self-governing body, the orchestra selects the conductors with whom it works. By the 1960s the LSO had recovered its leading position, which it has retained subsequently. In the 1950s the orchestra debated whether to concentrate on film work at the expense of symphony concerts many senior players left when the majority of players rejected the idea. The profit-sharing principle was abandoned in the post-war era as a condition of receiving public subsidy for the first time. The LSO underwent periods of eclipse in the 1930s and 1950s when it was regarded as inferior in quality to new London orchestras, to which it lost players and bookings: the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s and the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic after the Second World War. This practice continued for the orchestra's first four decades. From the outset the LSO was organised on co-operative lines, with all players sharing the profits at the end of each season. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The London Symphony Orchestra ( LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London.
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