A collection of 93 programmes from the Birmingham Musical Festival, 1817-1912. The collection contains volumes from the following years: 1817, 1849, 1852, 1891, 1894, 1900 (4 copies), 1903, 1909, 1912. The festival was alternatively entitled the “Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival”, a name which appears in the 1894 programmes. The festival usually took place in October – occasionally September – from Wednesday to Saturday (from Wednesday to Friday in the 1817 festival). The collection chiefly contains programmes from two separate concerts per day, thus the total number of programmes per festival is often eight. In addition, later volumes in the collection contain a leaflet summarising the concerts in the festival, and one volume (1817) contains a printed copy of the accounts from the festival at the end of the volume.

Some programmes are annotated, and some have signatures of performers: the volume from 1912 has signatures from, for instance, Edward Elgar. Programmes from 1891 onwards contain analytical programme notes and musical examples.

The festivals were held in aid of the General Hospital, Birmingham. The concerts took place at Town Hall, Birmingham or an unnamed venue. One programme is from St. Philip’s Church, Birmingham.

The festival contained two types of concert, approximately equal in number: large-scale performances of oratorios and miscellaneous concerts that usually alternated orchestral works with solo works and small-scale choral numbers. There are programmes from significant British and world premiers; there is a programme from the British premiere of Sibelius’ Fourth symphony, for instance.

Arrangement:
The programmes are arranged chronologically.

1817 - 1912

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Not Specific

• Hallé, Charles -
• Birmingham Musical Festival -
• Birmingham Triennial Festival -
• Manns, August -
• Richter, Hans -

• Welshpool
• Town Hall, Leeds
• Town Hall, Birmingham
• St. Philip's Church, Birmingham
• Birmingham Coliseum (afterwards Gaiety)

• 19th century - early Victorian 1837-1850
• 19th century - mid Victorian 1851-1875
• 19th century - late Victorian 1876-1899
• 20th century - early 1900-1930
• 19th century - early 1800-1836

• Musical Examples
• Analytical Notes
• Word books
• First performances
• Annotations
• Signatures

Centre for Performance History Prince Consort Road London London SW7 2BS Bangladesh

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cph@rcm.ac.uk

020 7 589 4340

020 7 589 7740 

Mon-Fri by appointment

The Centre for Performance History was created in 2004 through the amalgamation of the Department of Portraits and the Museum of Instruments (see the separate entry for the Museum. The College has acquired portraits throughout its history since 1883 and the Centre posseses the most comprehensive collection of portraits of musicians in the UK, amounting to some 346 original portraits and 10,000 prints and photographs. In addition to the iconographical collections and their documentation, the department houses other categories of source material - most notably the largest collection of concert programmes in this country, comprising some 600,000 items dating from 1780 to the present day.