BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, July 21, 1824
Today is the first day of the sixteenth meeting of the musical amateurs of the county of York, England, in the city of Sheffield. This event also served to christen the magnificent new music-hall, erected at an expense of about five thousand pounds. “This noble room is ninety-eight feet long, by thirty-eight wide, and will hold about 1300 persons, which number was admitted, by way of trial, at one of the rehearsals. About 700 ladies and gentlemen attended on each of the mornings. The orchestra is of very large dimensions, and is fitted up in the most tasteful manner. The music desks are all of iron, and the upper part being in the form of a lyre, those objects, which are generally formal, or even offensive, are rendered highly pleasing to the eye. The band consisted of forty-five instrumental performers, who a vocal chorus of about the same number.”
“The advanced and diffused state of the musical art in the North of England is almost unknown to the people in the South, who are very little aware that even the working manufacturers in Yorkshire and Lancashire possess a knowledge of choral music—of all Handel’s grand works, for instance—that the regular chorus-singers of London can hardly rival. Such being the fact in the case of the lower orders, it may be taken for granted that the upper classes, who cultivate the art as a part of their education, are skilful in proportion to the leisure and means they enjoy….The selections contain some of the finest and most difficult modern compositions, and when we say that they were executed with great precision, and with very fine effect, by a powerful band, we only speak the general opinion of the audience.”
Today’s concert includes Beethoven’s Overture to Fidelio in the first act, and the second act opens with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C minor, op.67. “It should be observed, that the principal object of these meetings is to bring forward the very best compositions, principally of modern date; therefore, one of their most striking features is novelty more particularly in instrumental music: of this class will be found, in the above selections, the finest pieces of the greatest living composers, all of which were performed in a manner highly creditable to the meeting, particularly the symphony by Beethoven.” The Harmonicon, August, 1824 (Nr.XX) at 157-158. [The Harmonicon article states that the festival was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 21 and 22; however those dates fell in 1824 on a Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. We have presumed that the editors more likely mistook the days of the week rather than the dates. The grand Music Hall was demolished in the 1930s and it was replaced with a library.]