Hanover Square Rooms
Encyclopedia
The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen's Concert Rooms were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London
, by Sir John Gallini
in partnership with Johann Christian Bach
and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the principal concert venue in London. The premises were demolished in 1900.
, leased out to Lord Dillon, in June 1774 it was sold for £5,000 to Viscount Wenman
, who on the same day conveyed it to Gallini, Bach and Abel. Gallini owned half the freehold and each of the other two a quarter. On the site formerly occupied by a garden and office, they constructed, as extensions to the house, assembly rooms for concerts and public meetings. The main room on the first floor measured 79 feet (24.1 m) by 32 feet (9.8 m), with a height of between 22 and 28 feet (8.5 m): its vaulted ceilings had paintings by the decorative painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani
; and Thomas Gainsborough
, a friend of Bach and Abel, was commissioned to produce the transparent paintings on glass for the Rooms. In addition there was a small room off the North side of the main room and a larger room on the ground floor beneath it.
The concert hall there, where concerts started under Bach in February 1775, became one of the principal musical venues in London. For these concerts the convention was that "The Ladies' tickets are Black, and the Gentlemen's Red." An entry from April 1776 in the diary of Edward Piggot gives the following description of a concert:
In November 1776 Gallini bought out the shares of his partners to become the sole owner of the freehold. Bach and Abel, continuing the tradition of subscription concerts they had started together in 1763, carried on organising festinos in the Rooms until 1783, when Gallini's father-in-law Lord Abingdon
withdrew his financial support. Until his imprisonment in 1795 for libellous statements concerning the French revolution
, Lord Abingdon switched his allegiance to the rival orchestra in the Pantheon
. From 1783 to 1793 progamming was arranged by the violinist Wilhelm Cramer
who led the group "The Professional Concerts", advertised as founded by "eminent professors of music, many years resident in London." The Rooms enjoyed royal patronage from 1785 to 1793, with George III and Queen Charlotte frequent concert-goers. The King even had a room set aside as the "Queen's Tea Room," to which he donated a large gilt mirror for the mantelpiece. In 1776 parallel series of concerts was started in the Rooms by the violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon
. The Rooms were used by the Concert of Ancient Music from 1804 onwards; for the annual benefit performance of Handel
's Messiah
for the Royal Society of Musicians
from 1785 to 1848; from 1833 onwards by the Philharmonic Society, established in 1813 under patronage of the Prince Regent
; and, from 1848 until is dissolution in 1861, by the Amateur Musical Society, a choral society founded by Henry David Leslie
in 1847. The estrangement in 1813 between the Prince Regent and Beau Brummell
is reported to have taken place at a fancy dress ball in these Rooms, where Brummell, on not being recognized by the Prince, asked one of his companions in a stage whisper, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?"
Over the years the Hanover Square Rooms were visited by many leading musicians and performers including Josef Haydn (1791–1794), Johann Nepomuk Hummel
(performances of Haydn piano sonata, 1791, and Mozart piano concerto, 1792) Felix Mendelssohn
(1842, first performance of Scottish Symphony), Hector Berlioz
(1848 and 1853), Niccolò Paganini
(performing to empty benches, to his chagrin, 1834), Franz Liszt
(1840), Anton Rubenstein (1842), Joseph Joachim
(performing the Beethoven violin concerto at the age of twelve under Mendelssohn's baton, 1844), Clara Schumann
(1856) and Jenny Lind
(the "Swedish nightingale", performing with her husband the pianist Otto Goldschmidt
, 1856). The concerts of Haydn, organised through lengthy negotiations with Salomon, featured the first nine of his so-called London symphonies
, Nos. 93–101. In a diary entry from 1791, Charles Burney
records:
In 1856, after the fourth concert in which she had participated—programmed for five hours with organ arrangements of her husband Robert Schumann
's music during the interval—Clara Schumann wrote, "This was really the ne plus ultra of a bad concert. I felt ashamed of myself among all this dreadful stuff." On the arrangement for organ of Schumann's piano duet Geburtstagmarsch from his 12 Klavierstücke, Op. 85, she wrote that it "was one of those incomprehensible things that could happen nowhere but in England."
The Hanover Square Rooms were also used for some of the first performances in England of Bach's instrumental and choral music during the English Bach revival. In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Samuel Wesley
performed his violin sonatas with Salamon and arrangements of his organ music for two players with Vincent Novello
, sometimes with orchestral accompaniment; Mendelssohn performed a prelude and fugue on the organ in 1840 in a concert arranged by Prince Albert
; and in 1854 William Sterndale Bennett
, one of the founding members of the Bach Society
five years previously, conducted the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion.
Benefit balls for the Royal Academy of Music
were held regularly in the Rooms and attended by the Royal Family. After the 1835 ball, Benjamin Disraeli wrote to his sister:
The Rooms were used for many different purposes apart from music and balls, including public meetings ranging from lectures on the Church of England
to displays of crewel embroidery
. There were also medical talks, including, on March 1, 1842, a lecture by the Scottish surgeon James Braid who he gave one of the first public demonstrations of what he called neuro-hypnotism or "nervous sleep" by sending 18 members of the audience simultaneously into a trance.
In 1848, with both of Gallini's nieces no longer alive, the Rooms were acquired by the music publisher Robert Cocks. From 1862 onwards, having been completely refurbished, the concert-hall was used by the Royal Academy of Music
.
The Rooms were also used from 1868 to 1874 for meetings of the women's suffrage movement
: in 1868, Emily Faithfull
lectured on "The Claim of Woman"; in 1870 the second meeting of the recently formed London National Society for Women's Suffrage was held in the Rooms, presided over by Clementia Taylor (wife of the MP Peter Alfred Taylor
) and addressed by Helen Taylor
, Harriet Grote (wife of George Grote
) and Millicent Fawcett
; in 1873 a similar public meeting was addressed by Lady Anna Eliza Mary Gore-Langton (wife of the MP William Gore-Langton
), and Eliza Sturge (niece of Joseph Sturge
).
The last concert of the Royal Academy took place in 1874. The following year the property was sold and became the premises of the Hanover Square Club, which had already been holding committee meetings there since ownership passed to Cocks. The buildings were demolished in 1900.
Hanover Square, London
Hanover Square, London, is a square in Mayfair, London W1, England, situated to the south west of Oxford Circus, the major junction where Oxford Street meets Regent Street....
, by Sir John Gallini
Giovanni Gallini
Giovanni Andrea Battista Gallini , later known as Sir John Andrew Gallini, was an Italian dancer, choreographer and impresario who was made a " Knight of the Golden Spur by the Pope " following a successful performance.He was the grandson of Domenico Gallini, his father was Luca Gallini and his...
in partnership with Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the principal concert venue in London. The premises were demolished in 1900.
History of the Rooms
The site had previously been occupied by a mill, hence its previous name Mill Field and that of the currently adjoining Mill Street. Originally the property of Earl of PlymouthEarl of Plymouth
Earl of Plymouth is a title that has been created three times, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation was in 1675 for Charles FitzCharles, illegitimate son of King Charles II by his mistress Catherine Pegge...
, leased out to Lord Dillon, in June 1774 it was sold for £5,000 to Viscount Wenman
Viscount Wenman
Viscount Wenman, of Tuam in the County of Galway, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created on 30 July 1628 for Sir Richard Wenman, Member of Parliament for Oxfordshire in 1620 and 1625. He was made Baron Wenman, of Kilmaynham in the County of Meath, at the same time, also in the...
, who on the same day conveyed it to Gallini, Bach and Abel. Gallini owned half the freehold and each of the other two a quarter. On the site formerly occupied by a garden and office, they constructed, as extensions to the house, assembly rooms for concerts and public meetings. The main room on the first floor measured 79 feet (24.1 m) by 32 feet (9.8 m), with a height of between 22 and 28 feet (8.5 m): its vaulted ceilings had paintings by the decorative painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani
Giovanni Battista Cipriani
Giovanni Battista Cipriani , Italian painter and engraver, Pistoiese by descent, was born in Florence.-History:His first lessons were given him by a Florentine of English descent, Ignatius Hugford, and then under Anton Domenico Gabbiani...
; and Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, a friend of Bach and Abel, was commissioned to produce the transparent paintings on glass for the Rooms. In addition there was a small room off the North side of the main room and a larger room on the ground floor beneath it.
The concert hall there, where concerts started under Bach in February 1775, became one of the principal musical venues in London. For these concerts the convention was that "The Ladies' tickets are Black, and the Gentlemen's Red." An entry from April 1776 in the diary of Edward Piggot gives the following description of a concert:
In November 1776 Gallini bought out the shares of his partners to become the sole owner of the freehold. Bach and Abel, continuing the tradition of subscription concerts they had started together in 1763, carried on organising festinos in the Rooms until 1783, when Gallini's father-in-law Lord Abingdon
Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon
Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon was an English peer and music patron.Bertie was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the son of Willoughby Bertie, 3rd Earl of Abingdon and Anna Maria Collins....
withdrew his financial support. Until his imprisonment in 1795 for libellous statements concerning the French revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, Lord Abingdon switched his allegiance to the rival orchestra in the Pantheon
Pantheon, London
The Pantheon, was a place of public entertainment on the south side of Oxford Street, London, England. It was designed by James Wyatt and opened in 1772. The main rotunda was one of the largest rooms built in England up to that time and had a central dome somewhat reminiscent of the celebrated...
. From 1783 to 1793 progamming was arranged by the violinist Wilhelm Cramer
Wilhelm Cramer
Wilhelm Cramer was a famous London violinist and musical conductor of German origin. He was one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries...
who led the group "The Professional Concerts", advertised as founded by "eminent professors of music, many years resident in London." The Rooms enjoyed royal patronage from 1785 to 1793, with George III and Queen Charlotte frequent concert-goers. The King even had a room set aside as the "Queen's Tea Room," to which he donated a large gilt mirror for the mantelpiece. In 1776 parallel series of concerts was started in the Rooms by the violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon
Johann Peter Salomon
Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario.-Life:...
. The Rooms were used by the Concert of Ancient Music from 1804 onwards; for the annual benefit performance of Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
for the Royal Society of Musicians
Royal Society of Musicians
The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain is a charity in the United Kingdom that supports musicians. It is the oldest music-related charity in Great Britain, founded in 1738 as the "Fund for Decay'd Musicians" by a declaration of trust signed by 228 musicians, including Edward Purcell ,...
from 1785 to 1848; from 1833 onwards by the Philharmonic Society, established in 1813 under patronage of the Prince Regent
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
; and, from 1848 until is dissolution in 1861, by the Amateur Musical Society, a choral society founded by Henry David Leslie
Henry David Leslie
Henry David Leslie was an English composer and conductor. Leslie was a leader in supporting amateur choral musicians in Britain, founding prize-winning amateur choral societies. He was also a supporter of musical higher education, helping to found national music schools.-Biography:Leslie was...
in 1847. The estrangement in 1813 between the Prince Regent and Beau Brummell
Beau Brummell
Beau Brummell, born as George Bryan Brummell , was the arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV...
is reported to have taken place at a fancy dress ball in these Rooms, where Brummell, on not being recognized by the Prince, asked one of his companions in a stage whisper, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?"
Over the years the Hanover Square Rooms were visited by many leading musicians and performers including Josef Haydn (1791–1794), Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...
(performances of Haydn piano sonata, 1791, and Mozart piano concerto, 1792) Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
(1842, first performance of Scottish Symphony), Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
(1848 and 1853), Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...
(performing to empty benches, to his chagrin, 1834), Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
(1840), Anton Rubenstein (1842), Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
(performing the Beethoven violin concerto at the age of twelve under Mendelssohn's baton, 1844), Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
(1856) and Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
(the "Swedish nightingale", performing with her husband the pianist Otto Goldschmidt
Otto Goldschmidt
Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt was a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces...
, 1856). The concerts of Haydn, organised through lengthy negotiations with Salomon, featured the first nine of his so-called London symphonies
London symphonies
The London symphonies, sometimes called the Salomon symphonies after the man who introduced London to Joseph Haydn, were composed by Joseph Haydn between 1791 and 1795...
, Nos. 93–101. In a diary entry from 1791, Charles Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
records:
In 1856, after the fourth concert in which she had participated—programmed for five hours with organ arrangements of her husband Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
's music during the interval—Clara Schumann wrote, "This was really the ne plus ultra of a bad concert. I felt ashamed of myself among all this dreadful stuff." On the arrangement for organ of Schumann's piano duet Geburtstagmarsch from his 12 Klavierstücke, Op. 85, she wrote that it "was one of those incomprehensible things that could happen nowhere but in England."
The Hanover Square Rooms were also used for some of the first performances in England of Bach's instrumental and choral music during the English Bach revival. In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Samuel Wesley
Samuel Wesley
Samuel Wesley was an English organist and composer in the late Georgian period. Wesley was a contemporary of Mozart and was called by some "the English Mozart."-Personal life:...
performed his violin sonatas with Salamon and arrangements of his organ music for two players with Vincent Novello
Vincent Novello
Vincent Novello , English musician, son of an Italian who married an English wife, was born in London....
, sometimes with orchestral accompaniment; Mendelssohn performed a prelude and fugue on the organ in 1840 in a concert arranged by Prince Albert
Prince Albert
Prince Albert was the husband and consort of Queen Victoria.Prince Albert may also refer to:-Royalty:*Prince Albert Edward or Edward VII of the United Kingdom , son of Albert and Victoria...
; and in 1854 William Sterndale Bennett
William Sterndale Bennett
Sir William Sterndale Bennett was an English composer. He ranks as the most distinguished English composer of the Romantic school-Biography:...
, one of the founding members of the Bach Society
The Bach Choir
The Bach Choir is a large chorus, based in London, England. It has around 220 active members. The choir's musical director is David Hill and previous musical directors have included Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Reginald Jacques and Sir David Willcocks.The Bach Choir is an...
five years previously, conducted the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion.
Benefit balls for the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
were held regularly in the Rooms and attended by the Royal Family. After the 1835 ball, Benjamin Disraeli wrote to his sister:
The Rooms were used for many different purposes apart from music and balls, including public meetings ranging from lectures on the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
to displays of crewel embroidery
Crewel embroidery
Crewel Embroidery, or Crewelwork, is a decorative form of surface embroidery using wool and a variety of different embroidery stitches to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old...
. There were also medical talks, including, on March 1, 1842, a lecture by the Scottish surgeon James Braid who he gave one of the first public demonstrations of what he called neuro-hypnotism or "nervous sleep" by sending 18 members of the audience simultaneously into a trance.
In 1848, with both of Gallini's nieces no longer alive, the Rooms were acquired by the music publisher Robert Cocks. From 1862 onwards, having been completely refurbished, the concert-hall was used by the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
.
The Rooms were also used from 1868 to 1874 for meetings of the women's suffrage movement
Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom
Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom as a national movement began in 1872. Women were not prohibited from voting in the United Kingdom until the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act...
: in 1868, Emily Faithfull
Emily Faithfull
Emily Faithfull was an English women's rights activist.-Biography:She was the youngest daughter of the Rev. Ferdinand Faithfull,and was born at Headley Rectory, Surrey. She took agreat interest in the conditions of working-women...
lectured on "The Claim of Woman"; in 1870 the second meeting of the recently formed London National Society for Women's Suffrage was held in the Rooms, presided over by Clementia Taylor (wife of the MP Peter Alfred Taylor
Peter Alfred Taylor
Peter Alfred Taylor was a British politician and radical.He was the son of another Peter Alfred Taylor, a silk merchant, and the nephew of Samuel Courtauld. He was educated at a school in Hove, Sussex, run by J. P. Malleson, his cousin and the Unitarian minister for Brighton. Here he met Clementia...
) and addressed by Helen Taylor
Helen Taylor (feminist)
Helen Taylor was an English feminist, writer and actress. She was the daughter of Harriet Taylor Mill and stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. Raised at home by a mother, she went to the stage in 1856-1858. After the death of her mother, she lived and worked with John Stuart Mill. Together they...
, Harriet Grote (wife of George Grote
George Grote
George Grote was an English classical historian, best known in the field for a major work, the voluminous History of Greece, still read.-Early life:He was born at Clay Hill near Beckenham in Kent...
) and Millicent Fawcett
Millicent Fawcett
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, GBE was an English suffragist and an early feminist....
; in 1873 a similar public meeting was addressed by Lady Anna Eliza Mary Gore-Langton (wife of the MP William Gore-Langton
William Gore-Langton (1824–1873)
William Henry Powell Gore-Langton DL, JP , was a British Conservative Party politician.-Background and education:...
), and Eliza Sturge (niece of Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge , son of a farmer in Gloucestershire, was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society . He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions supporting pacifism, working-class rights, and the universal emancipation of...
).
The last concert of the Royal Academy took place in 1874. The following year the property was sold and became the premises of the Hanover Square Club, which had already been holding committee meetings there since ownership passed to Cocks. The buildings were demolished in 1900.
External links
- Hanover Square and neighboorhood, British History OnlineBritish History OnlineBritish History Online is a digital library of primary and secondary sources on medieval and modern history of Great Britain. It was created and is managed, as a cooperative venture by the Institute of Historical Research, the University of London and the History of Parliament Trust..The places...
, containing a detailed history of the Hanover Square Rooms taken from - Gallini family website with details of the activities of Giovanni GalliniGiovanni GalliniGiovanni Andrea Battista Gallini , later known as Sir John Andrew Gallini, was an Italian dancer, choreographer and impresario who was made a " Knight of the Golden Spur by the Pope " following a successful performance.He was the grandson of Domenico Gallini, his father was Luca Gallini and his...
- Berlioz in London, account of concerts in Hanover Square Rooms in 1848 and 1853
- Haydn, Part 2 of J. Cuthbert Hadden's 1902 biography
- Tate papers on Thomas GainsboroughThomas GainsboroughThomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, Tate GalleryTate GalleryThe Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art... - Glass transparency showbox of Thomas GainsboroughThomas GainsboroughThomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, Victoria and Albert MuseumVictoria and Albert MuseumThe Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects... - High art in hairdressing Report in the New York Times on a hairdressers' exhibition in Hanover Square Rooms, 1874.