This collection contains programmes from concerts that took place in the Victoria and Albert museum. The 1950s and 1960s are particularly well represented. The majority of programmes in the collection from the 1950s to the 1970s took place on Sunday evenings. Venues within the museum used for concerts include the Raphael cartoon gallery, lecture theatre and Museum gardens. Most concerts are for chamber music but orchestral concerts do feature, in particular concerts by the Jacques orchestra, New London orchestra (particularly in the early 1950s) and to a lesser extent the Boyd Neel orchestra. Vocal music is represented not just by lieder recitals, but also by some programmes from sacred music and opera. The Tilford Bach festival choir and orchestra and the English opera group feature in a lot of these concerts.

There are programmes from concerts organised by various organisations, societies and the museum itself. The “league of arts” feature heavily in programmes from the 1920s and 1930s: programmes from later concerts have sometimes been organised by the Chamber music society or the Boyd Neel concert society. Some concerts are directly related to exhibitions in the museum, for example a concert to compliment an exhibition in 1974 of eighteenth-century musical instruments in France and Britain. The collection also features many concert programmes from historically interesting repertoire concerts or lectures, for example a concert in 1983 featuring music with a connection to or written by Prince Albert. Some concerts feature instruments from the Victoria and Albert’s instrument collection.

The programme collection also contains press notices and invitations for the opening of the new musical instruments gallery in 1968. There are a few miscellaneous press reviews and tickets at the end of the collection.

Arrangement:
The programmes are arranged chronologically

1887 -

-

Not Specific

• Boyd Neel concert society -
• Boyd Neel Orchestra -
• English Opera Group -
• Jacques Orchestra -
• League of arts -
• New London orchestra (1941-) -
• Tilford Bach Festival Choir -

• London [England]
• Victoria and Albert Museum
• Victoria and Albert museum: Lecture theatre
• Victoria and Albert museum: Museum gardens
• Victoria and Albert museum: Raphael cartoon gallery

• 19th century - late Victorian 1876-1899
• 20th century - early 1900-1930
• 20th century - late 1971-1999
• 20th century - mid 1931-1970
• 21st century

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.