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A ‘Gigantic and Popular Place of Entertainment’: Granville Bantock and Music-Making at the New Brighton Tower in the Late 1890s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Paul Watt
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Abstract

In 1897, the New Brighton Tower and its Gardens opened for business. This vast leisure precinct attracted millions of visitors each year and provided a host of leisure activities including ballroom dancing, acrobatics, exhibitions of foreign and exotic cultures and orchestral concerts. This article focuses on the first four years of the orchestra's life when it was conducted by Granville Bantock, the only period of the orchestra's history for which many programmes have survived and from which a detailed reconstruction of the orchestra's repertory and programming can be made. The article discusses how class division, press propaganda, moral panics and commercial imperatives affected the programming of so-called ‘serious’ or classical music.

Type
Research Article
Information
Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle , Volume 42 , 2009 , pp. 109 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 2009

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Footnotes

1

I am indebted to Suzanne Cole, Rachel Cowgill, Margaret Kartomi, Bronia Kornhauser, Leanne Langley and Alison Rabinovici who provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this article. I am especially grateful to Alison for sharing the fruits of her own research on the nineteenth-century leisure and tower industry and for sending me copies of articles and illustrations from engineering journals. Thanks are also due to the Mersey and Western Cheshire Network of the Institute of Civil Engineers (particularly Bob Horsley) who kindly announced the detail of my project in the Network's May 2007 bulletin that facilitated a number of e-mails from various practising engineers and historians who offered their knowledge and memories of New Brighton Tower's history. I thank Jenny Done of the Wallasey Central Library for her assistance and hospitality on my visit there in June 2007. I am extremely gratefully to the School of Music—Conservatorium, Monash University, which granted me study leave in mid-2007 to complete the research.

References

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3 The standard work is John K. Walton, The English Seaside Resort: A Social History, 1750–1914 (Leicester, 1983). See also John K. Walton and James Walvin (eds), Leisure in Britain, 1780–1939 (Manchester, 1983). The power and influence of municipalities in the formation and governance of leisure resorts is discussed in John K. Walton's chapter, ‘The holiday industry in Blackpool’, especially pages 164–5. Other sources that pay particular attention to Victorian leisure are F.M.L. Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830–1900 (London, 1988) and J.F.C. Harrison, Late Victorian Britain, 1875–1901 (London, 1990). The architectural history of seaside resorts, with emphasis on those in Britain, is Fred Gray, Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature (London, 1997). Gray notes in particular that the building of music venues such as concert halls, winter pavilions and bandstands was part and parcel of ‘designing the seaside’ (p. 55).Google Scholar

4 See Miller, Geoffrey, The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (Sherborne, 1970). Other sources include an unsigned article entitled ‘Dan Godfrey and Bournemouth’, Musical Times, 57 (February 1916), 74–6 and ‘Sir Dan Godfrey and Music in Bournemouth’, signed ‘W. McN’, Musical Times, 75 (September 1934), 785–94.Google Scholar

5 Concerts at New Brighton are given a brief overview in ‘Appendix A: Granville Bantock's New Brighton Concerts’, in Stainton de B. Taylor, Two Centuries of Music in Liverpool: A Scrap-Book of Information Concerning Musical Activities both Professional and Amateur (Liverpool, c.1974), 119–22. A more detailed picture of New Brighton is given in a historicalsociological study: Michael Winstanley, ‘Conflicting Responses to New Brighton's Role as a Popular Seaside Resort, 1896–1914‘, M.A. thesis, University of Lancaster, 1973.Google Scholar

6 The programme notes, though incomplete, form part of the Granville Bantock Collection in the Special Collections Department at the University of Birmingham (Catalogue number MS533/2/1/13). These papers also contain correspondence between Granville Bantock and Newman (and others) that give an insight into the administration of the concerts (Catalogue number Acc 2000/70.) This collection comprises thirty-eight letters from Bantock to Newman, though according to Myrrha Bantock, her father had in his possession ‘at least seventy’ letters from Newman but they were sold on 9 April 1968. See Bantock, Myrrha, Granville Bantock: A Personal Portrait (London, 1972), 179. Programmes of the first concerts and the Sacred Ballad series are housed at the Worcestershire Record Office (Ref. 705:462 BA 4664/14). The programmes (or, more accurately, list of repertoire) are partially reconstructed in Trevor Bray, ‘Granville Bantock: His Life and Music’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1972, vol. 1, Appendix 2, 245–85. Further programmes are held at the Wallasey Central Library Reference Division. Details of the accounts of the New Brighton Tower are brief and are scattered in some twenty-five volumes containing thousands of press cuttings, and other information about the Tower, at the Wallasey Central Library. The ‘New Brighton History Site’ is at <www.merseyside.net/newbrighton>..>Google Scholar

7 Secondary sources dealing with New Brighton are H. Orsmond Anderton, Granville Bantock (London, 1915), 43–67; Bantock, Granville Bantock, 46–53; and Lewis Foreman, ‘Bantock Meets the Press: Celebrating New Music Before the First World War’, British Music, 25 (2003), 29–41. There is no mention of New Brighton in the New Grove 2 article for ‘Liverpool’.Google Scholar

8 This study is certainly one of re-construction. The secondary literature sometimes contradicts press reports; and the press reports themselves are often tainted by spin and hyperbole, no doubt generated by the PR arm of the Tower's management. There are many gaps in the narrative and, consequently, there are many events, or sequences of events, over which the uncertainty of speculation inevitably hangs.Google Scholar

9 Information in this paragraph is derived from Anthony M. Miller, The Inviting Shore: A Social History of New Brighton, Part 1, 1830–1939 (Birkenhead, 1996). A second historical source is Winstanley, ‘Conflicting Responses to New Brighton's Role as a Popular Seaside Resort, 1896–1914‘.Google Scholar

10 Miller, The Inviting Shore, 5.Google Scholar

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19 Ralph Rimmer, Around Wallasey and New Brighton (Stroud, 1996), 101.Google Scholar

20 Joseph Sharpies, Liverpool (New Haven, 2004), 26, 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Miller, The Inviting Shore, 215–16. Miller cites views from two men, Bertram Furniss and Normal Ellis complaining, respectively, about New Brighton's ‘decay’ and disfigurement'. Miller is citing from Philip Sulley, The Hundred of Wirral (Birkenhead, 1889), 292.Google Scholar

22 The first quotation is an unnamed source in Miller, The Inviting Shore vi, although Miller quotes it again on page 229 which he explains is a quotation from a local physician sourced from ‘Hunt op. cit., p. 20‘ but there is no first reference to this publication. The second quotation is Miller, The Inviting Shore, vi.Google Scholar

23 Miller, The Inviting Shore, 229.Google Scholar

24 Cited in The New Brighton Tower and Recreation Company, Limited, advertisement for shares, The Times, 6 January 1898, 5, when referring to the initial (and now lost) prospectus of 1896.Google Scholar

25 The New Brighton Tower and Recreation Company, Limited, advertisement for shares, The Times, 6 January 1898, 5.Google Scholar

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28 Gray, Designing the Seaside, 52.Google Scholar

29 This figure of 1200 was reported in an article in Birkenhead News, 25 July 1896, written after a press conference on the Tower site on 23 July.Google Scholar

30 This figure is disputed for the Liverpool Post of 25 September reported a seventh death.Google Scholar

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34 ‘The New Brighton Tower’ website.Google Scholar

35 This free seating was noted by in the Birkenhead News on 11 August 1900.Google Scholar

36 Birkenhead News, 25 July 1896.Google Scholar

37 A concert of strings, military and full band is mentioned as taking place in the ballroom in Birkenhead News, 11 August 1900.Google Scholar

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40 This project was announced, costed and illustrated in Birkenhead News on 28 November 1896. This Gigantic Wheel was to comprise 42 carriages with the capacity to fit 40 passengers in each carriage. (By comparison, the London Eye has 32 capsules accommodating 25 people per capsule.) It was estimated that 1.5 million passengers would be required to make the venture profitable. It was estimated that for the Gigantic Wheel at Earls Court in London that £36, 314 net profit was achieved in 6 months and 29 days. The Blackpool Wheel was reported to take 15 3s. 10d, each hour during its first few days of operation. Both costings were reported as promising—and achievable—for New Brighton. The name of the company planning the Gigantic Wheel was the New Brighton Graydon Castle Great Wheel and Tower Co.; see Evening Express, 26 November 1896. Details of the abandonment of the Wheel (over legal action) is given in Winstanley, ‘Conflicting Responses to New Brighton's Role as a Popular Seaside Resort, 1896–1915‘, 17.Google Scholar

41 Reported in Music Hall, 6 August 1897.Google Scholar

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48 Winstanley, ‘Conflicting Responses to New Brighton's Role as a Popular Seaside Resort, 1896–1914‘, 22.Google Scholar

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50 ‘Serious and classical’ is how one particularly enthusiastic (and unnamed) journalist described the orchestral concerts in New Brighton. See ‘Music: Seaside and Holiday Music’, in Truth, 3 August 1899.Google Scholar

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56 Unsigned article, ‘Granville Bantock’, 13.Google Scholar

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59 Anderton, Bantock, 45; Taylor, Two Centuries of Music in Liverpool, 119. In the second prospectus, Ybarrando is listed as a committee member, not the chair.Google Scholar

60 Apart from the prospectus of the first week, the repertory from just five concerts is known.Google Scholar

61 Cycling competitions were a big draw-card at New Brighton. The Tower and Recreation Company proposed the track ‘the finest in the world‘—as well as the fastest—and was designed after the Calford cycling track in London: Birkenhead News, 25 July 1896.Google Scholar

62 Dunedin is a major New Zealand city and the troupe is more likely to have come from there rather than Australia.Google Scholar

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64 New Brighton Tower Gardens Grand Holiday Programme For Week ending 7 August, 1897. The programme mentions on page 3 that ‘Main Building’ has not yet been completed so it is likely this included the ballroom.Google Scholar

65 There are two sources that give the number of instrumentalists as 100, but this is not consistent with the size of the orchestra given on any of the programmes notes. These are Reginald Nettl, The Orchestra in England (London, 1948), 237 and Cyril Ehrlich, The Music Profession in Britain since the Eighteenth Century: A Social History (Oxford, 1985), 64.Google Scholar

66 A chamber music series ended the season on 23 October. Most of the programmes for 1898 are held at the Wallasey Central Library, but they are incomplete so it may be possible that the chamber music series, or, perhaps a winter miscellaneous concert series continued until December when Messiah was performed on 15 December. It is also possible that ballroom dancing continued in the winter months, for which no programmes have survived.Google Scholar

67 The Ninth was not performed because Bantock probably did not have a choir. This situation may, in fact, have been the trigger to form one, because the inaugural concert of the New Brighton Choral Society was given the following December with Messiah. In the spot where the Ninth would have been performed (26 August), Bantock scheduled Rubinstein's ‘Ocean Symphony’.Google Scholar

68 Programmes or works lists do not exist for the period 9 July–13 August. It is possible, though unlikely, that the series was suspended because in their place, announced in the programme of 8 July was ‘dancing every Saturday afternoon from 3 to 5’). But this arrangement was shortlived since the Saturday afternoon concerts returned on 13 August.Google Scholar

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70 The first mention of the Choral Society was made in 1898, in what appears to be an advertisement in the bound volumes of 1898 programmes. It consisted of a President, Rev. C. Hylton Stewart, and 27 vice-presidents including Alexander Mackenzie, Domingo and Mrs de Ybarrondo, A. E. Rodewald and Dr. Bantock (presumably Granville Bantock's father). The membership fee per annum was 5s., while honorary membership was 10s. 6d. and announced as forthcoming performances ‘considered for Rehearsal and performance during the present season’ included Brahms' ‘Song of Destiny’, Elgar's ‘Black Knight’, Mendelssohn's ‘Hymn of Praise’ and Schumann's ‘Manfred’.Google Scholar

71 The Liverpool Mercury, 5 June 1897 also reported that the ballroom could accommodate 4, 000 people.Google Scholar

72 The Liverpool Courier, 3 April 1899, explained the ‘comparative smallness of the audience [for the sacred concerts on Friday and Saturday] was doubtless due to the dull and threatening weather’.Google Scholar

73 An all-Grieg programme was proposed, according to the Liverpool Mercury on 30 June, but it did not take place for reasons unknown.Google Scholar

74 The presence of French and Belgian artists in New Brighton is pronounced and warrants further study, particularly as the Musical Standard, on 18 January 1896, noted that many Belgians and pianists had ‘passed through Liverpool the last few years’.Google Scholar

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78 Holbrooke's work was premiered at his initiative, not Bantock's. Holbrooke apparently wrote to Bantock seeking its premiere. After a meeting (presumably their first) Bantock agreed to perform the work and a life-long friendship between the pair was formed. See Lowe, George, Joseph Holbrooke (London, 1920), 12–13.Google Scholar

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91 Dan Godfery can vouch for such perplexities. In around 1899–1900, he had been asked to conduct a concert in Blackpool: ‘The real horror of the proposal did not dawn on the council until it discovered that the Blackpool Concert was to be on a Sunday; then Sabbatical feelings were aroused and the debate mounted towards minor melodrama. Bournemouth had always kept it doors tightly shut on any kind of Sunday entertainment’, quoted in Miller, The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, 31.Google Scholar

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93 In this paragraph I have drawn on the few sources that exist on Rodewald: Arthur Johnstone, ‘Alfred Edward Rodewald’, Musical Times, 44 (December 1903), 794–5; E. Wulston-Atkins, The Elgar—Atkins Friendship (London, 1984); Bantock, Granville Bantock; and Taylor, Two Centuries of Music in Liverpool.Google Scholar

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97 The Musical Standard of 5 October 1895 (p. 341) wrote that ‘Mr. Rodewald, the conductor, has evidently mistaken his vocation, for instead of being a cotton merchant he should have been a professional musician; for good conductors who know their work, and can make orchestras “speak” are scarce’.Google Scholar

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99 Bantock to Newman, 13 August 1901, Granville Bantock Collection (XGB), Special Collections, University of Birmingham. The Liverpool Post, 22 May 1899, was equally flattering: ‘The programmes will be supplied with analytical notes by Mr. Ernest Newman, whose writings have earned him more than a local reputation’.Google Scholar

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129 Examples of advertisements for popular entertainments reflecting the New Brighton designs may be found in Michael Twyman, Printing 1770–1970: An Illustrated History of its Development and Uses in England (London, 1970), 140–1. Examples of notices for entertainment and ‘rustic sports’ suggest the use of typography on the front page of the New Brighton programmes.Google Scholar

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137 See Bashford, ‘Educating England’, 371, relating to concerns over ownership of content in concert programmes.Google Scholar

138 Anderton, Granville Bantock, 65. According to Taylor, the Tower went into liquidation, but a date is not provided. If financial troubles beset the Tower in the late 1890s, Ybarrando's resignation from the board may be linked to these fiscal difficulties.Google Scholar

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174 This list is a reconstruction from programmes, advertisements and prospectuses. The original nomenclature is retained: spellings of composers' names and works and their English translations have not been standardised or made consistent, with modern renderings. Maximum capitals in titles have been adopted for the sake of consistency in orchestral works, but minimum capitals for songs. Performers' names are given when listed only in advertisements.Google Scholar