Musical Networks in Early Victorian Manchester R M Johnson Phd 2020
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Musical Networks in Early Victorian Manchester R M Johnson PhD 2020 Musical Networks in Early Victorian Manchester RACHEL MARGARET JOHNSON A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Manchester Metropolitan University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Awarded for a Collaborative Programme of Research at the Royal Northern College of Music by Manchester Metropolitan University 2020 Abstract My dissertation demonstrates how a new and distinctive musical culture developed in the industrialising society of early Victorian Manchester. It challenges a number of existing narratives relating to the history of music in nineteenth-century Britain, and has implications for the way we understand the place of music in other industrial societies and cities. The project is located at the nexus between musicology, cultural history and social history, and draws upon ideas current in urban studies, ethnomusicology and anthropology. Contrary to the oft-repeated claim that it was Charles Hallé who ‘brought music to Manchester’ when he arrived in 1848, my archival research reveals a vast quantity and variety of music-making and consumption in Manchester in the 1830s and 1840s. The interconnectedness of the many strands of this musical culture is inescapable, and it results in my adoption of ‘networks’ as an organising principle. Tracing how the networks were formed, developed and intertwined reveals just how embedded music was in the region’s social and civic life. Ultimately, music emerges as an agent of particular power in the negotiation and transformation of the concerns inherent within the new industrial city. The dissertation is structured as a series of interconnected case studies, exploring areas as diverse as the music profession, glee and catch clubs, the Hargreaves Choral Society’s programme notes, Mechanics’ Institutions and the early Victorian public music lecture. These chapters are framed by a Prelude and a Postlude focusing respectively on Manchester’s Grand Musical Festival of 1836 and Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, which provide snapshots of musical life in Manchester at the start and end of the period under review, inviting consideration of musical and societal ‘progress’. A concluding chapter synthesises the findings of each case study, drawing on related historiography and cultural theory, in particular the work of Jürgen Habermas, Christopher Small and Thomas Turino, to explore how music contributed to the formation of identity, community and a new way of living in the industrial city. Table of Contents List of Tables ii List of Figures ii Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1 Prelude: Manchester’s Grand Musical Festival of 1836 23 Chapter One: Networks of Musical Entrepreneurship 53 Chapter Two: Networks of Musical Sociability 85 Chapter Three: Networks of Musical Critics and Connoisseurs 124 Chapter Four: Networks of Musical ‘Improvement’ 176 Chapter Five: Networks of Musical Lecturing 205 Postlude: Music at Manchester’s Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 233 Conclusion: Music in Industrial Society 248 Bibliography 264 Appendices 282 1: Maps 283 2: Concert Programmes 286 3: Repertoire Lists 312 4: Orchestra and Chorus Lists 321 5: Subscription and Patron Lists 329 6: Publications 338 Tables Table 1: Initial List of Members of the Amateur Glee and Catch Club, 97 plus later additions to the page. Table 2: Initial List of Honorary Members of the Amateur Glee and 97 Catch Club. Table 3: The Original Committee (1830) of the Gentlemen’s Glee Club. 107 Table 4: ‘Professional Members’ of the Gentlemen’s Glee Club. 108 Table 5: Gentlemen’s Glee Club Repertoire, First Season (1830–31). 115 Table 6: Hargreaves Choral Society Committee Members. 130 Table 7: Oratorio performed by the Hargreaves Choral Society. 148 Table 8: Miscellaneous pieces included in the Hargreaves Society sacred 150 programmes. Table 9: Miscellaneous vocal pieces in the Hargreaves Society secular 152 programmes by composer. Table 10: Saturday Evening Concerts at the Manchester Mechanics’ 195 Institution 1847–48. Figures Figure 1: Gentlemen’s Concert Hall, Peter Street, c.1865. 14 Figure 2: William Wyld, Manchester from Kersal Moor, 1852. 17 Figure 3: Richard Carlile, a coloured engraving that depicts the Peterloo 20 Massacre, 1819. Figure 4: Arthur Perigal, A Fancy Dress Ball, Manchester, 1828. 24 Figure 5: Concert Programme, Sacred Concert, Tuesday 13 September 36 1836. Figure 6: Concert Programme, Miscellaneous Concert, Tuesday 13 38 September 1836. Figure 7: Plan of the Rooms for the Ball. Historical Account of the Grand 41 Musical Festival. Figure 8: Notes bound into Smart’s programme for the morning of 15 46 September 1836. Figure 9: Encore request bound into Smart’s programme for the 47 morning of 16 September 1836. Figure 10: Annotated excerpt from A Plan of Manchester and Salford 59 with Vicinities (Manchester: Isaac Slater, 1850). ii Figure 11: Concert Advertisement, Liszt in Manchester, 20 June 1825. 64 Figure 12: Logier’s Chiroplast. 69 Figure 13: George Cruikshank, A German mountebank blowing his own 73 trumpet at a Dutch concert of 500 piano fortes!! Figure 14: George Cruikshank, The Logierian system, or unveiling the 74 new light to ye musical world!! With the discovery of a general thoro' base discord in the old school. Figure 15: Nicholson, ‘Miss Kate Took John’s Oboe’. 89 Figure 16: Programme of the First Meeting of the Gentlemen’s Glee 112 Club. Figure 17: Hargreaves Choral Society Programme Note for 163 Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise, 26 October 1843. Figure 18: Hargreaves Choral Society programme note for Webbe’s glee 165 ‘when winds breathe soft’, 1 June 1843. Figure 19: Notation in the Elijah review, Manchester Guardian, 24 April 168 1847. Figure 20: Locations of Manchester’s Institutions. 183 Figure 21: Thomas Hosmer Shephard, The Royal Manchester Institution, 185 c.1836. Figure 22: Manchester Mechanics’ Institution, Cooper Street, 1825. 187 Figure 23: Athenaeum Lecture Programme, Manchester Guardian, 29 227 March 1845. Figure 24: Interior of the Art Treasures Palace, Manchester, 1857. 234 Figure 25: First Thursday Concert Programme and Review, ‘Opening of 241 the Art Treasures Exhibition’, The Manchester Examiner and Times, 9 May 1857. Figure 26: Concert Programme for the Art-Treasures Exhibition 242 Orchestra at the Free Trade Hall, 22 October 1847. iii Acknowledgements I began my PhD in September 2012, after the optimistic summer of the London Olympics, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and my wedding. I complete it in December 2020 as a single parent to two small children in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been quite a journey, and despite the challenges of present circumstances the past eight years have been wonderful! This research has been a thoroughly enjoyable thread of consistency. My children Oliver and Lucy, who are now aged five and two, may have extended the duration of this PhD but they have also made the experience immeasurably richer. I still love this project as much now as I did at the start. That this has been such a positive PhD experience is due to the all the wonderful people who have been so generous with their advice and support, within and outside of academia. First and foremost I would like to thank my PhD supervisors, Professor Richard Wistreich, Professor Martin Harlow, and Professor Dave Day, who have stayed with me and this project from the very start despite relocation, retirement and departmental closures. I have been so lucky with my whole team, who have been endlessly encouraging and enthusiastic, provided outstanding feedback at every stage of my project, and have always been willing to contribute advice and guidance across the full spectrum of my academic activities. I must thank them in particular for supporting my numerous side projects, some of which were only tangentially related to my PhD, but which have allowed me to compete this period of study with a very strong foundation of academic experience. Thank you also to the broader RNCM research team, in particular Professor Jane Ginsborg, Professor Barbara Kelly, Rachel Ware and Tom Wise, all of whom have provided advice, guidance and encouragement at key moments, and to my graduate teaching mentors Adam Swayne, Kris Worsley and Helen Seddon-Gray. I am grateful to the RNCM for supporting the first two years of this project with a PhD Studentship, after which I was lucky enough to secure funding from the AHRC through the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership. I have drawn on the archival holdings of numerous libraries around Manchester, and my research has benefited from the interest and enthusiasm of their iv librarians. Thank you to all at the RNCM library, in particular Dr Geoff Thomason and Anna Wright; to all at Manchester Archives and Local Studies; to the Henry Watson Music Library, in particular Ros Edwards; the University of Manchester Library; and Chetham’s Library, in particular Fergus Wilde. I have enjoyed opportunities to become involved with several research networks and to present at numerous conferences, and I would like to say thank you in general to all those who took the time to read or listen to me, to ask questions and to engage in conversations. You have all made this work stronger. Thank you in particular to Bruno Bower and Jonathan Hicks for being so generous with your knowledge and time, Chris Price for your enthusiasm about glees and catches, and Professor Roger Parker and everyone connected with the Music in London 1800–1851 project for many stimulating and challenging conversations. Thank you to everyone among my friends and family who have allowed me to ramble on about my project, in particular Dave Keogh for all the walks and coffee, Jemima Palfreyman for many rehearsals with one or other of my children sitting under the piano or adding their own accompaniment, and my Nan Mary Pritchard for always being happy to chat about anything and everything.