The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society and Sir George Smart Arthur Searle Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D minor, op. 125, the ‘Choral’ Symphony, received its first performance in the United Kingdom at the concert given by the Philharmonic Society of London on 21 March 1825 in the New Argyll Rooms in Regent Street, near what is now Oxford Circus. The conductor was Sir George Smart (fig. 1), and the orchestra was led by François Cramer; both had been founder members of the Society in 1813. This occasion heads the list of the nineteen performances given in London between 1825 and 1855 which are the subject of a groundbreaking article by Adam Carse published in 1951.1 Ten of the performances he lists were given by the Philharmonic Society, and at least two others, given at the benefit concerts of prominent members of the Society, are likely to have involved regular Philharmonic artists. In 1951 the archives of the Philharmonic Society were not easily accessible; now that they have become part of the permanent collections of the British Library a closer examination of the Philharmonic performances in particular is possible.2 Smart lived until 1867, conducted regularly at the Philharmonic from 1816 until 1844, and played an extensive and energetic part in national musical life, arranging and conducting the music for two coronations and leading local music festivals across the country. Yet the performance of 1825 was the only occasion on which he conducted the ‘Choral’ Symphony at one of the public concerts of the body that had commissioned it. After visiting Beethoven in Vienna later in 1825 he conducted two further performances using Philharmonic artists, one semi-private, the other at a benefit concert of Charles Neate, another Philharmonic member; but the work did not feature again at the Society’s concerts until the performance As so often before I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Nicolas Bell and Dr Rupert Ridgewell at the British Library for advice and, in particular, for drawing my attention to additional sources, both primary and secondary. O. W. Neighbour, too, has shown his customary kindness in reading my text. I have also received much help, kindly and patiently given, from Dr Leanne Langley and Jonathan Del Mar. I thank them both, and their invaluable contributions are acknowledged at specific points in the notes below. As ever, any work I do in the British Library would not be possible without the assistance of Richard Morton and Susan Brown. 1 Adam Carse, ‘The Choral Symphony in London’, Music and Letters, xxxii (1951), pp. 47-58. An additional performance, of the last movement only, has been identified as given at one of Louis Jullien’s 1841 ‘concerts d’hiver’, David Benjamin Levy, ‘Early Performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: A documentary study of five cities’ (Ph.D. thesis, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, NY, 1979), p. 157. 2 The main section of the Philharmonic archive was placed on loan in the British Museum and incorporated as Loan 48 in 1962, with minor additions made in subsequent years. A select portion of the manuscript scores from the Society’s library had been placed on loan in the Museum as early as 1914, under the call mark Loan 4. The remaining MS scores were added to Loan 4, by this time in the British Library, in 1982. In 2002 the entire collection was acquired by the Library, and incorporated as RPS MSS 1-417. This article is a product of work in progress on an annotated catalogue of the scores, and draws on the collection for its main sources. 1 eBLJ 2010, Article 4 The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society and Sir George Smart conducted by Ignaz Moscheles in 1837. Only then did the work begin to gain an established place in the Philharmonic repertory.3 A largely hostile reception from the English musical press reportedly accounted in large measure for this twelve-year gap. But there is also some indication of factional division within the Society concerning the work. These two contributory causes almost certainly coincided in the scornful view of the work repeatedly expressed in the influential journal The Harmonicon, edited by William Ayrton, also one of the Society’s founder members. Fig. 1. Sir George Smart. Oil painting by William Bradley 1829; National Portrait Gallery. With permission. 3 Performances by the Philharmonic Society from 1837 until 1855 will be the subject of a later article. 2 eBLJ 2010, Article 4 The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society and Sir George Smart The music of Beethoven had been central to the repertory of the Society from its foundation in 1813. A Beethoven symphony had been played at each of the first two concerts of the Society’s inaugural season, and another concluded the first half of the last concert of the season; on each occasion the pieces were announced on the programme card simply as ‘Symphony – Beethoven’. At least one work by Beethoven featured in each of the other 1813 concerts as well, among them the Prometheus Overture and chamber works, including the Septet op. 20, which very soon became a Philharmonic staple. A printed catalogue of the Society’s Library was under consideration as early as 1814, evidence of a determination to expand both the repertory and the resources available for performance; by the time this finally appeared in the early 1820s, the Society owned materials for all of the first eight symphonies of Beethoven, as well as overtures, vocal pieces and chamber music.4 The general circumstances of the relationship which developed over more than a decade between the Society and Beethoven himself, culminating in their sending £100 in 1827 shortly before he died, ‘to be applied to his comforts and necessities during his illness’, have been well rehearsed since at least the 1870s.5 The particular circumstances of the commissioning and first London performance of the Ninth Symphony illustrate how well embedded the Society was in London’s close musical community, and how well connected it was through its members to the wider European musical scene. The story of the Ninth Symphony began in November of 1822 when at a meeting of the Society’s Directors – a meeting of rather dubious authority, since only three of the seven were present – it was resolved to offer Ludwig van Beethoven £50 for . a M.S. Sym[phon]y. He having permission to dispose of it at the expiration of Eighteen Months after the receipt of it. It being a proviso that it shall arrive during the Month of March next . The hope was that it would be in London in time to be rehearsed and performed as part of the 1823 season.6 At that time the eight concerts of the Society’s season began in late February or March each year and ran until June. Because the symphony was by no means ready to meet this deadline, Beethoven sent instead to the Society early in 1823 an overture – ‘Die Weihe des Hauses’, op. 124 – as evidence of his good intentions.7 At the time the Philharmonic had a particularly useful contact with the composer in the shape of Ferdinand Ries, a former pupil and assistant to Beethoven, resident in London from 1813 to 1824. Ries was an active member of the Society throughout that time, and some of his own symphonies were given their first performances at the concerts.8 Beethoven seems first to have mentioned the overture to Ries as early as December of 1822, and in late January 1823 the Directors resolved to offer the composer 4 RPS MS 392, f. 3v. This elegantly engraved catalogue was some years in preparation and the date when it was eventually printed is uncertain, but has been put at no later than 1824, see A. Hyatt King, Musical Pursuits (London, 1987), p. 153. 5 For example in Doyne C. Bell, Documents, Letters, &c. Relating to the Bust of Ludwig van Beethoven, Presented to the Philharmonic Society of London (London, 1871). Two of the more recent accounts are P. J. Willetts, Beethoven and England (London, 1970), chapters ix and x, the latter devoted entirely to the Ninth Symphony, and Cyril Ehrlich, First Philharmonic (London, 1995), chapter 2. 6 RPS MS 280, f. 2, meeting of 10 Nov. 1822. 7 The score sent, a copy with autograph annotations, is now RPS MS 15. 8 Ries, a Rhinelander like Beethoven and Salomon, was elected Associate in December 1813 and a member, unanimously and immediately, when the number of members was increased from the original fifty in May 1815. In January 1815 a new symphony was commissioned from him for 50 guineas ‘as a mark of the satisfaction which this Society has received from [his] compositions’. RPS MS 275, ff. 1v, 18v and 24v, meetings of 1 Dec. 1813, 28 Jan. and 22 May 1815. The symphony was performed at the concert of 15 May. 3 eBLJ 2010, Article 4 The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society and Sir George Smart £25 for it, on the same terms as the awaited symphony. Their resolution concluded that ‘Messrs Drummonds be requested to pay for the two on the delivery of the M.S. in Vienna’. A few days later they sought Ries’s advice both about ways of making payment in Vienna, and of getting the manuscripts from there to London.9 On 5 February 1823 Beethoven wrote again to Ries informing him of his intention to entrust the score of the overture to Philipp von Neumann, Minister in the Austrian Embassy in London (where prince Paul Anton Esterhazy was the ambassador), who was about to return to England from Vienna.