http://www.nqho.com/NQHO/Queens_Hall.html

25th September 1931

In the evening, Baba went to a concert at Queen's Hall, but he did not enjoy the classical music. At intermission, Baba was taken backstage to meet the conductor Sir Henry Wood, who had expressed a wish to meet him. Kitty Davy knew Sir Henry, as she was teaching his two daughters piano.

Lord Meher ;  Bhau Kalchuri -  Vol.4  Page 1429

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Queen's Hall was a classical music concert hall in Central London, England, opened in 1893 and was beloved by Londoners until its destruction by an incendiary bomb in 1941. It is best known for being where the Promenade Concerts were founded by Robert Newman, with (Sir) Henry J. Wood, in 1895.

The building

Queen's Hall was situated in Langham Place, and had a total of 17 entrances and exits on three streets (the other two being Riding House Street and Great Portland Street). It had seating for up to 3,000 within a floor area of 21,000 square feet (2,000 m²). It was considered to have a "perfect acoustic" and was designed by Thomas Edward Knightley^[1] employing a floorplan developed by C. J. Phipps. A peculiarity of the building was that the grand tier was on street level, with the stalls and arena being "downstairs".^[2] The exterior carving was by Messrs Sidney W. Elmes and Son, and the furnishing was by Lapworth Brothers and Harrison. The lighting was a combination of gas and electricity.^[3]

The original appearance was remembered with affection long afterwards: the grey and terracotta paintwork, the Venetian red upholstery, the huge red lampshades hanging low over the orchestra, the mirrors surrounding the stalls, the medallions of famous composers at the sides of the platform, the elaborately painted cupids on the ceiling... The paintwork was to be the colour of "the belly of a London mouse", and Knightley is said to have kept a string of dead mice in the paint shop in order to ensure the correct tone.^[4] In the arena with moveable seating and central fountain (which contained pebbles, goldfish and waterlilies), there was a "brownish carpet that blended with the dull fawnish colour of the walls." Internal alterations, completed in 1919, reduced the capacity to 2,400, and the hall was given a blue-green colour-scheme.^[5] The arched ceiling had an elaborate painting of the Paris Opera House, by Carpegat, with "attenuated cupids clad in sallow pantaloons".^[6]

The Queen's Hall provided a much needed centrally located music venue for the capital. St James's Hall, just south of Oxford Circus, was already proving too small and it had serious safety problems. The Wigmore Hall which opened a decade later was a recital hall, not a concert hall. The Queen's Hall provided modern facilities, open frontage for carriages and parking room, a press room, public spaces and bars and a 500-seater hall (the Queen's Small Hall) adjoining the conservatory. The small hall was "at the top of the building", and was cigar-shaped with windows in the ceiling.^[7] The Philharmonic and Promenade Concerts, and the ideal, warm acoustic, established it as London's favourite concert-hall, and Londoners felt its loss like that "of an old and dear friend."^[8]

[edit] Opening, 1893

The Queen's Hall first opened its doors on 25 November 1893 when Newman gave a children's party in the afternoon. In the evening some 2000 ladies and gentlemen attended a concert given by the Band of the Coldstream Guards, which included vocal music, piano and organ solos. At 11.00pm the seats in the arena were removed and the dancing began. On November 27 there was a smoking concert given by the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society, of which Prince Alfred (second son of Queen Victoria) was both patron and leader. The concert was attended by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Connaught. In addition to orchestral numbers it included concert appearances by the violinist Tivadar Nachez and the baritone David Ffrangcon Davies.^[9]

The official opening of the hall took place on 2 December. The National Anthem was sung (the verse by Mme Albani) and a choir sang Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise conducted by Frederick Cowen, with Albani, Margaret Hoare and Edward Lloyd as soloists. In the second part of the programme was included a performance of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with Frederick Dawson as soloist.^[10]

[edit] Royal Philharmonic concerts

From the autumn of 1894, the venue was adopted for the annual winter season of concerts of the Royal Philharmonic Society, which had formerly been held at the St James's Hall. At the first Philharmonic concert held there, Alexander Mackenzie conducted the first performance in England of Tchaikowsky's Pathétique Symphony, which was so well received that it was repeated, by popular acclaim, at the next concert. During the 1894–1895 season both Edvard Grieg and Camille Saint-Saëns appeared there to conduct performances of their works.The Society remained at the Queen's Hall until 1941, their last concert there being a Brahms programme (Academic Festival Overture, Piano Concerto no 2, Symphony no 1) with Myra Hess (piano) under Basil Cameron, given on March 23 on behalf of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.^[11]

[edit] Promenade concerts

On 10 August 1895 the first Promenade Concert was given, under the musical direction of Henry J. Wood, and with the newly-formed Queen's Hall Orchestra. Wood's sponsor, Dr Cathcart, made it a condition that the continental Concert pitch should be adopted for these concerts. This was lower than the pitch used in England, which had been insisted upon by Sir Michael Costa. The Queen's Hall organ was retuned, and as a result the Philharmonic Society, the Bach Choir, the London Symphony Orchestra, the concerts of Felix Mottl and Artur Nikisch, the Sunday afternoon concerts (which began on October 6 1895) and those of the Queen's Hall Choir all adopted the Diapason Normal.^[12]The Sunday afternoon concerts were also given by the Queen's Hall Orchestra (renamed the New Queen's Hall Orchestra in 1915), and continued regularly until 1924, when they were continued by the London Symphony Orchestra, and then by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.^[13]

[edit] Kinetoscope

On 14 January 1896, the first public film show was presented at the Queen's Hall to members and wives of the Royal Photographic Society, by the maker of the Kineopticon^[14] and Fellow of the society, Birt Acres and his colleague, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper. This was an improved version of the early Kinetoscope^[15].

Newman continued to be interested in new entertainments. A music hall entertainer, and actor, Albert Chevalier persuaded him to instigate variety performances in the small Queens Hall from 16 January 1899. These were "clean, wholesome entertainments", compared to the more risqué entertainments available in the halls and proved popular.^[16]

[edit] Statues and memorials

Queen's Hall contained few memorials. In 1922 a bust by Malvina Hoffman of the tenor Gervase Elwes was placed in a special alcove at the back of the grand circle. In 1935 a memorial tablet to the pianist Fanny Davies was unveiled nearby the Elwes bust. Another memorial tablet was placed in memory of Robert Newman. The only surviving memorial from the hall is Donald Gilbert's bust of Henry Wood, unveiled in 1938 by Sir Walford Davies as part of the celebration of Wood's fifty years as a conductor. Its site was at the back of the Promenade floor.^[17]

[edit] Crisis for proms

The death of Robert Newman in November 1926 plunged the future of the proms into crisis. The managing director of Chappell's, William Boosey, was completely opposed to broadcasting, and would not allow a microphone inside the building. He was in the habit of blacklisting singers and instrumentalists who accepted bookings from the BBC. Broadcasting was in competition with the concert hall, and the concerts were in fact heavily subsidized. The 1927 season was in serious doubt, until just in time an agreement was reached, and on 13 August 1927 the season went ahead under BBC auspices. That first concert, including Wood conducting Elgar's Cockaigne Overture, was the first ever broadcast from the Queen's Hall.^[18]

[edit] Recordings and broadcasts from Queen's Hall

From 1930 to 1941, the BBC Symphony Orchestra regularly gave broadcast concerts in the hall. Arturo Toscanini, who guest-conducted the orchestra during the 1930s, made a series of commercial recordings from 1937 to 1939 that were issued by His Master's Voice in the U.K. and RCA Victor in the U.S. Some, as well as transcriptions of broadcast concerts, were later reissued on LP and CD by EMI. They include recordings by Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Elgar's music from Queen's Hall.^[19]There is also a fine off-air transcription of a prom featuring Elisabeth Schumann, and a Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with Albert Sammons and Bernard Shore, Wood conducting, from 1936.

[edit] The Queen's Hall at War

Despite the air raids, Promenade Concerts continued at the Hall through 1940. Immediately following the declaration of War, W.W. Thompson of the BBC without warning withdrew the BBC Symphony Orchestra from the Queen's Hall, and announced the end of the proms. Henry Wood, furious at the perceived discourtesy to himself, and failure of understanding of its importance for national morale, had the concerts up and running with the London Symphony Orchestra by October 1939. The situation was repeated in summer 1940, and when the BBC finally suggested a few concerts the lessors dismissed the offer as the Hall was already booked for other events. The concerts continued through air raids, and as the tube stations were then closed audiences often stayed in the hall until early morning, with musical entertainments continuing after the concerts had finished.^[20] On December 8 1940 the doors and windows were blown out by blast, but it had already been decided to discontinue use of the hall for the proms after the September 7 1940 concert. With temporary repairs, other concerts were however continued; after further damage on April 6 1941 again the repairs were made in time for the following Saturday.^[21]

[edit] The destruction

On the afternoon of 10 May 1941, there was a performance of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius at Queen's Hall (Muriel Brunskill singing the angel, Webster Booth the soul, Ronald Stear the Priest and Angel of the Agony)^[21] conducted by Malcolm Sargent, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Choral Society. That night there was a massive air raid in which the chamber of the House of Commons and many other buildings were also destroyed, and damage was inflicted on the British Museum and Westminster Abbey. A single incendiary bomb hit the Queen's Hall, and the auditorium was completely gutted by fire beyond any hope of replacement. The building was a smouldering ruin in heaps of rubble, and all that remained intact was the bronze bust of Sir Henry Wood in its alcove, looking out over the chaos.^[22] In addition, the London Philharmonic Orchestra lost thousands of pounds' worth of instruments.^[23]

The Promenade concerts continued at the Royal Albert Hall, and during 1942 Wood and the BBC were reconciled. The BBC Symphony Orchestra had, meanwhile, moved its broadcast concerts and recording sessions to Bedford School.^[24] The BBC Symphony later performed in the Royal Festival Hall, which opened in 1951 during the Festival of Britain.

In 1954-55, a report was commissioned, chaired by Lord Robbins, into the feasibility of a replacement, the "New Queen's Hall", but which concluded: "On musical grounds it is desirable to replace the destroyed Queen's Hall by another large hall of good acoustic qualities, but it is doubtful if there is a potential demand which would enable it to run without subtracting from the audiences of subsidised halls already in existence."

The former site is now the St George's Hotel.

Sir Henry Wood (1869 -1944)

Sir Henry Wood had a profound influence on musical life in Great Britain and will always be associated with the promenade concerts, now known as the BBC Proms. He gave generously of his time with young musicians, and regularly conducted student concerts at the Royal Academy of Music.

http://www.westendatwar.org.uk/page_id__111_path__0p2p.aspx