A Place for Music: John Nash, Regent Street and the Philharmonic Society of London Leanne Langley
A Place for Music: John Nash, Regent Street and the Philharmonic Society of London Leanne Langley On 6 February 1813 a bold and imaginative group of music professionals, thirty in number, established the Philharmonic Society of London. Many had competed directly against each other in the heady commercial environment of late eighteenth-century London – setting up orchestras, promoting concerts, performing and publishing music, selling instruments, teaching. Their avowed aim in the new century, radical enough, was to collaborate rather than compete, creating one select organization with an instrumental focus, self-governing and self- financed, that would put love of music above individual gain. Among their remarkable early rules were these: that low and high sectional positions be of equal rank in their orchestra and shared by rotation, that no Society member be paid for playing at the group’s concerts, that large musical works featuring a single soloist be forbidden at the concerts, and that the Soci- ety’s managers be democratically elected every year. Even the group’s chosen name stressed devotion to a harmonious body, coining an English usage – phil-harmonic – that would later mean simply ‘orchestra’ the world over. At the start it was agreed that the Society’s chief vehicle should be a single series of eight public instrumental concerts of the highest quality, mounted during the London season, February or March to June, each year. By cooperation among their fee-paying members, they hoped to achieve not only exciting performances but, crucially, artistic continuity and a steady momentum for fine music that had been impossible before, notably in the era of the high-profile Professional Concert of 1785-93 and rival Salomon-Haydn Concert of 1791-2, 1794 and Opera Concert of 1795.
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