Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society ( RPS ) is a British concert society for classical orchestral music . It was founded in London in 1813 under the name Philharmonic Society of London (also known as the Philharmonic Society or London Philharmonic Society ) and is the second oldest music society of its kind alongside the Leipzig-based Gewandhaus Concert Society. In the Victorian era , it was formative for music history.
The aim was to promote the best possible performance of instrumental music , primarily through regular public concerts in London during the concert seasons. She commissioned compositions and performed the compositions dedicated to her, a large number of which have now become part of the world repertoire after their first performance.
In 2013 it celebrated its bicentenary. The chairman has been John Gilhooly since July 2010.
history
The society was founded on January 24, 1813 by 30 professional musicians under the leadership of Charles Neate , Johann Baptist Cramer , Philip Antony Corri and Henry Dance .
The founding members were: the composers Thomas Attwood , Henry Rowley Bishop , William Horsley , Vincent Novello , William Shield and Samuel Webbe ; the pianists Ludwig Berger , Johann Baptist Cramer , George Eugène Griffin, Charles Neate and the pianist and composer Muzio Clementi ; the violinists Benjamin Blake, Franz Cramer , William Dance , Johann Peter Salomon , Giovanni Battista Viotti , Felix Janiewicz ; the strings RH Potter (viola), William Sherrington (viola), Charles Jane Ashley (cello) and the double bassists Henry Hill and Joseph Moralt; the flautist Andrew Ashe; the singers James Bartleman (bass), Thomas Simpson Cooke (bass), William Knyvett and Philip Antony Corri, Graeff and the conductors William Ayrton and George Smart . There were also 25 associated members.
The musicians jointly decided who would receive membership status, which music would be performed and who would be the musical director, which also led to several members calling themselves directors at the same time. This concept was exemplary z. B. for the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York founded in 1842, which had inquired about the statutes for their own society.
The first concert took place on March 8, 1813 under the direction of Johann Peter Salomon with Muzio Clementi as pianist and Nicolas Mori as first violin; Symphonies by Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven were offered , as well as smaller pieces and chamber music by Luigi Cherubini , Antonio Sacchini , Luigi Boccherini and Mozart . Since then, many outstanding composers and artists have taken part in the concerts.
1813-1912
The Society's orchestra performed in the Argyll Rooms from 1813 to 1830 (some of which were destroyed by fire in 1830), then until 1869 the Hanover Square Rooms ( Hanover Square Concert Room ) with 800 seats. In 1869 they moved to the larger St. James's Hall and stayed there until February 28, 1894. The Queen’s Hall followed from 1894 to 1941 . It was built in 1893 and was considered a performance venue with "perfect acoustics", the hall had several balconies and had 2,400 seats. It was bombed in 1941.
Since 1912
It has been under the direct patronage of the royal family since the 100th concert season in 1912 and is henceforth called the Royal Philharmonic Society .
Today the company no longer maintains its own orchestra, also because the concert landscape in London had changed as a result of the large new orchestras founded by Thomas Beecham , the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947 . It is a non-profit organization (UK charity No. 213693) and is open to members, supporting members and institutions. Today your focus is on music promotion.
A predecessor company in the 18th century
Christopher Hogwood wrote in his biography of Handel in 1992 that members of the Philharmonic Society played in the orchestra in February 1732, when the boys of the Chapelle Royal sang several performances of the History of Hester (Oratorio Esther) by George Frideric Handel together with other choirs . To illustrate this, a related note in a performance score reads that there were only people of class in this company. After that, it should have been a lover society.
Conductors and music directors
According to the statutes, a concert season initially comprised eight concerts, the programs of which have been preserved. The peculiarity was that a number of music directors were named for each concert season; for the first season in 1813 these were: William Ayrton (1777–1858), Henry Bishop (1786–1855), Muzio Clementi, Philip Antony Corri (1784–1832), Johann Baptist Cramer (1771–1858), Franz Cramer (1772– 1848) and William Dance (1755-1840).
Since the beginning there have been numerous music directors, conductors and guest conductors for the period from 1813 to 1845: Luigi Cherubini , Charles Gounod , Ferdinand Hiller , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Hector Berlioz , Louis Spohr , Carl Maria von Weber .
Ordinary conductors were not appointed until 1845: first from 1846 to 1854 Michele Costa , 1855 Richard Wagner , 1867 to 1883 William George Cusins , 1884 Frederic Hymen Cowen , 1885 to 1887 Arthur Sullivan , 1888 to 1892 and 1900 to 1908 again Cowen, 1893 to 1900 Alexander Mackenzie . From 1908 u. a. Arthur Nikisch .
repertoire
At the time of the founding, mixed concerts of orchestral music, chamber music, opera fragments and instrumental and vocal solos were common with a resulting virtuoso cult ; older repertoire, for example Handel's music , preferred the Ancient Concerts , which are also famous in London . In contrast, the Philharmonic Society devoted itself preferentially to contemporary compositions of the Classical and Romantic periods under the direction of a conductor. From the very beginning, the names Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Luigi Cherubini dominated the programs; the importance of the concerts lay in the high quality of the performance. The sound quality earned the credit that the great orchestral works of the classics became widely known. From 1830 new types of concerts emerged, which ultimately led to the Popular Concerts (Pops) and the Promenade Series , the Proms , which took place in the same concert hall as the Philharmonic Society's Queen's Hall.
Commissioned work and dedicatory works
The society commissioned compositions, and numerous works were also dedicated to it by composers, which then premiered or premiered in Great Britain . The best known include:
- Ludwig van Beethoven ’s 9th Symphony , sent as a manuscript copy of the score, premiered on May 7, 1824 in the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna and first performed in Great Britain on May 21, 1825 under the direction of George Smart ;
- Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote his Italian Symphony in A major, Opus 90, ( MWV N 16 ) for the Society , which was premiered on May 13, 1833 under his direction;
- For the 50th anniversary of the Philharmonic Society, William Sterndale Bennett composed the overture Paradise and the Peri (Fantasy Overture), Op. 42 (1862) and his symphony, G minor , Opus 43 (1864, revised 1867) as a commissioned composition ;
- Antonín Dvořák 's 7th Symphony premiered on April 22, 1885 with the Philharmonic Society, which Dvořák had made an honorary member;
- Camille Saint-Saëns performed the 3rd Symphony (Organ Symphony) commissioned by the Philharmonic Society for the first time in London on May 19, 1886 .
Library and archive
In the course of its existence, the Society's library recorded a large number of minutes, correspondence, performance posters, concert programs, autographs, sheet music, and entire scores. She was unable to keep this archive for financial reasons and was offered for sale at the British Library in London. Haydn manuscripts had previously been sold to the British Library for £ 600,000. In 2003 the association's archives were sold to the British Library after appeals for donations for the requested £ 1 million, including 270 scores, including that of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, and outstanding autographs. You are now in the British Library's Music Collections .
Honors and prizes
gold medal
The Gold Medal (gold medal) of the Royal Philharmonic Society was created in 1870 on the occasion of Ludwig van Beethoven's 100th birthday for outstanding musical achievements and was first awarded in 1871. The medal shows the side profile of the head of the Beethoven bust designed by the Austrian sculptor Johann Nepomuk Schaller for the RPS, one of the most famous of its kind.
It is not awarded annually and is one of the most coveted awards. Gold medal holders of the Royal Philharmonic Society are:
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After the Second World War
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Honorary membership
Honorary membership has been given since 1826 to those who have made special contributions to music. Like the gold medal, it is rarely awarded, so far 125 times (as of 2011).
The honorary members are:
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After the Second World War
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Music Awards
Since 1989 the society has given the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for live concerts in Great Britain , and since 1948 the award for composition and prizes in other fields.
Today it not only awards recognition prizes, but also promotes, e.g. Partly from the proceeds she made from the sale of her archive to the British Library, various programs, including z. B. since 2009 with the Drummond Fund the collaboration between composers and choreographers. The company's task has thus shifted from performing contemporary music at the time to promoting contemporary music today.
Since 1980, the "RPS Julius Isserlis Scholarship" named after Julius Isserlis has been awarded to young musicians.
literature
- George Hogarth: The Philharmonic Society of London: from its Foundation, 1813, to its Fiftieth Year. Bradbury & Evans, London 1862. Reprint: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00103-8 .
- Myles Birket Foster: History of the Philharmonic Society of London: 1813-1912. A Record of a Hundred Years Work in the Cause of Music. John Lane, London / New York 1912. archive.org
- Robert Elkin: Royal Philharmonic: The Annals of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Rider & Co, London 1946.
- Robert Elkin: Queen's Hall 1893-1941. Ryder, London 1944.
- Cyril Ehrlich: First philharmonic: a history of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Clarendon Press, Oxford / Oxford University Press, New York 1995, ISBN 0-19-816232-4 .
Web links
- The Royal Philharmonic Society
- Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards
- Royal Philharmonic Society Archives. British Library
- Beethoven and the Royal Philharmonic Society. British Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ RPS Bicentennary 2013. ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) accessed on February 27, 2014.
- ↑ Music in the past and present (MGG). Volume 8, 1960, Col. 1158
- ^ MB Foster: The History of the Philharmonic Society. London 1912, pp. 5-6, archive.org
- ^ MB Foster: The History of the Philharmonic Society. London, 1912, p. 194, archive.org
- ^ George Hogarth: The Philharmonic Society of London. London 1862, p. 8
- ↑ Christopher Hogwood: Handel. A biography . Insel Taschenbuch Frankfurt 2000 (Stuttgart 1992), ISBN 3-458-34355-5 , p. 178.
- ^ Concert programs in the F. Gilbert Webb collection of the Bodleian Library
- ^ George Hogarth: The Philharmonic Society of London. London 1862, p. 7
- ↑ MGG , Vol. 5, 1956, Col. 18-19
- ↑ Commissioned works 1813–1899. accessed on November 18, 2011 (English)
- ↑ Beethoven and the Society British Library (English)
- ↑ 100 pounds for Beethoven . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1947 ( online ).
- ^ Alec Hyatt King: The Library of the Royal Philharmonic Society. In: British Library Journal. Vol. 11, 1985, pp. 173-186.
- ^ Alec Hyatt King: The Library of the Royal Philharmonic Society. In: AH King: Musical Pursuits. British Library, London 1987.
- ↑ List of recipients of the gold medal on the RPS website ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 15, 2016
- ↑ Thomas Quasthoff . ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk (English)
- ^ List of honorary members of the RPS , accessed on January 18, 2011
- ^ Royal Philharmonic Society (London): RPS Honorary Membership Recent Recipients . accessed on August 6, 2016.
- ↑ Communication from the RPS , accessed on January 18, 2011, English
- ^ RPS Composition Prize
- ↑ Winner of the Awards
- ^ RPS Drummond Fund
