QUEEN'S HALL ORCHESTRA

Queen’s Hall opened in 1893 as a speculative venture at the top of Regent Street: opulent and grandiose, it was music’s answer to the West End boom in theatre building and department stores.

An imposing concert hall to rival the old-fashioned St James’s Hall, it yet lacked an essential ingredient – a permanent symphony orchestra. The dynamic hall manager Robert Newman seized the opportunity, trying out a diverse range of concert activities across the entire year, including Sunday concerts and the Promenade Concerts. The music of Tchaikovsky and Wagner, especially, captured the mood of the times.

The rising taste for vivid and emotionally arresting orchestral music quickly led to a flagship symphony concert series, conducted by the young firebrand Henry Wood.  Concerts were given on Saturday afternoons, and the combination of Wood’s charisma with intriguing new repertoire – including Russian music – soon propelled the series to the centre of London’s musical life.

Disaster struck in 1902, when a different speculation of Newman’s led to his bankruptcy and to the transfer of the hall to Chappells, piano manufacturer and music publisher. The orchestra became a separate company, headed by the banker Edgar Speyer, whose money and experimental vision raised the orchestra to new heights. He fostered a still more international perspective, leading to invitations being extended to Richard Strauss and Debussy, Sibelius and Scriabin, even Schoenberg.

For programmes of the main symphony concert series 1897–1914, download the Calendar of London Concerts 1893–1914, press the Search Series tab at the bottom of the page, and select QH Symphony Concerts.