sjf1967 Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 The ISM is asking around to see if anyone can identify the location of this photo from its archives, or provide details of any of the performers. Any ideas? - https://www.rsmgb.org/2023/01/03/archive-item-of-the-month-january-2023/?fbclid=IwAR1vQC2WsV9P9gOdeSocPmNlLDpRwoR2tUDrMTQ01j4kV_A4s6yUbVQeMEQ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Looks like Alexander Mackenzie conducting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelwilson Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Are you sure, did he even wear glasses? Looks a bit like Stanford to me but if the RSM staff didn't recognise him before uploading then it probably isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Cooke Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 It's the Queen's Hall, Langham Place. I wonder if it could be Sir Frederick Bridge and the Royal Choral Society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Are you sure? It doesn't look the same as this picture of the Queen's Hall organ. There are similarities, but... https://www.ribapix.com/Queens-Hall-Langham-Place-London-the-auditorium-looking-towards-the-stage-and-organ_RIBA56547# /edit: It looks too similar I think. Perhaps the photo in question is much later than the 1890s RIBA picture and the balcony was remodelled somehow? /edit 2: NPOR says the central console was installed in the 1923 rebuild, so that's a good datum point for the photo in question. That just keeps Stanford and Bridge in play! /edit 3: Frederic Cowen a possibility for conductor?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolsey Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 It's the LNER Male Choir at the Queen's Hall. As to the conductor, organist(s), two female soloists and orchestra, who knows? PS What substantial choral work (judging from their vocal scores) requires two female soloists, male-voice choir and organ? The organist may be Sir Stanley Marchant... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Good spot. So 1930 according to the picture archive? According to https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap233/london-north-eastern-musical-society Mackenzie conducted this choir, so I'm sticking with my orginial guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowland Wateridge Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Having copied both photographs, one above the other for comparison, there is no doubt that they are both of the Queen’s Hall taken at different dates. The layout of the organ front is essentially the same. Since then, Wolsey has confirmed the known details of the occasion. My trusty ‘Dictionary of Organs and Organists’ (which has just had its 100th birthday) in 1922 listed the organist of the Queen’s Hall as F W Kiddle, but there is no corresponding entry in the organists’ biographies section. However Wikipedia (source duly acknowledged) says this: Frederick B. Kiddle (1874 – 6 December 1951) was a prominent English pianist, organist and accompanist. Kiddle was born at Frome, Somerset and studied at the Royal College of Music under Sir Walter Parratt, Rockstro and Higgs. In 1902 he became principal accompanist for the Promenade Concerts at Queen’s Hall, in succession to Percy Pitt, and he remained there as permanent organist and accompanist for the next 25 years, retiring at about the time when the BBC took over the proms. There is a slight discrepancy in the second name’s initial, but this is clearly one and the same person. I can’t find a photograph of Mr Kiddle, but there are surely archives somewhere - LNER? - possibly a long shot. Of course it’s by no means certain that Mr Kiddle was playing on this particular occasion; it might have been the orchestra’s own organist. Another man is standing alongside him - possibly Mr Kiddle as the incumbent on duty, rather as Ralph Downes used to be at the RFH when others played? This assumes that this event was no later than 1927, so to that extent it can only be a provisional diagnosis. Edit: While typing this lengthy piece, MrBouffant has come up with a date of 1930 which, if correct, probably negates all of the above! Well, it will be interesting if someone can solve the conundrum. The LNER archive seems to be extensive, and there may even exist the programme for this occasion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Daily Herald, Saturday December 20th, 1930 has a small article: MUSICAL RAILWAYMEN Carols and other seasonal music will be sung and played to-day at the Queen's Hall by the London and North-Eastern Railway Musical Society. Combined choirs will number more than 300 voices, and the orchestra without one professional musician, will consist of 100 players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Peterborough Standard, Friday December 26th, 1930 has the following details: London and North Eastern Railway Musical society gave their annual carol concert at the Queen's Hall, Langham Place, London. on Saturday. The society's full orchestra of 100 took part, as well as the massed male voice choir of 325 vocalists from Cambridge, Doncaster, Ipswich, Lincoln, London, Norwich. Peterborough, York, etc. Dr. Percy G. Saunders, Mus. Doc., F.R.C.O., gave a recital on the grand organ. Miss Megan Thomas was the soloist. and the choirboys of the Alexandra Orphanage and of Christ Church. Wanstead. also took part in the carol singing. The programme included several of the better known carols and interesting collection of some of the lesser known but none the less beautiful compositions which the never dying interest in the Nativity brought to life. The orchestral part of the programme , also proved enjoyable. It included: "Christmas Overture" (Victor Hely-Hutchinson), "Aria on the G String" (Bach), Overture, "The Magic Flute" (Mozart), "Fantasie Dialogue for Organ and Orchestra" (Boellmann), "Sursum Corda" (Elgar), "Dream Pantomime." from "Hansel and Gretel" (Humperdinck) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowland Wateridge Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Congratulations! You should claim the prize! Not Mr Kiddle after all, but an interesting diversion learning about him. The organ case looked rather handsome by the standards of many concert halls. Sad that it was destroyed by enemy bombing in WW II. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 A good forum team effort I would say. Strange that the conductor isn't mentioned in those two newspaper articles isn't it. If it was Mackenzie then I would have thought he would have warranted a mention. Was the Hely-Hutchinson actually the Carol Symphony I wonder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbouffant Posted January 4, 2023 Share Posted January 4, 2023 Sheffield Independent, Thursday 18th December 1930 adds a little more colour, but no conductor: PLANS FOR CONCERT IN QUEEN’S HALL. From Our Own Correspondent. London, Wednesday, Porters, firemen, engine-drivers and all other ranks of railway employees will join the L.N.E.R. Musical Society’s Christmas carol concert at the Queen’s Hall on Saturday night. The performers consist of the full orchestra of 100 and the massed male voice choirs of 320 slhgers. They come from London, Cambridge, Doncaster, Ipswich, Lincoln, Norwich, Peterborough, Yarmouth, and York, and the districts surrounding these places. Miss Megan Thomas will be this year’s soloist. A selection of rarely-heard carols, and special one, “I Sing a Maiden,” written Miss Elsie Payne, of London, will be sung, as well as old favourites. Among the orchestral selections will be Hely Hutchinson’s Christmas Overture, air on the G string by Bach, and Elgar’s “Sursum Corda”. Mr, William Whitelaw is again president of the society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolsey Posted January 4, 2023 Share Posted January 4, 2023 It's probably earlier - December 1924 - and another sleuth on social media has posted a scan (too large to upload here) of a review of the LNER Musical Society's Christmas concert which states that the conductor is William Johnson Galloway. A highlight was the cantata Christmas Eve, specially written for the occasion and dedicated to the society by Stanley Marchant, then Sub-Organist of St Paul's Cathedral - whom I believe to be at the organ console. The soloists were Lillian Stiles-Allen and Dorothy Clark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Buchanan Posted January 5, 2023 Share Posted January 5, 2023 Whilst on the subject of mystery organs, this picture was sent to Henry Willis 4 by Herbert Norman in 1976 under the misapprehension that it was Johannesburg Town Hall in the course of site erection - which it plainly wasn't if only because the sign reads Hill Norman & Beard. It's not, I think, Kingsway Hall either, but I forget the reason why I think that. I still don't know where this one is, but given the ease with which the Queen's Hall job above was identified along with the conductor's collar size, I have high hopes of an answer here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowland Wateridge Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Intriguing on several levels: Herbert Norman sending a photograph of a HN&B organ (?) to HW 4. Any possibility of its being a Willis organ being worked on by HN&B? The pipe being hoisted (up or down?) appears to be decorated as do the large 32’ open metal foot and sections standing on the floor beside the man, also others lying on the floor, suggesting that all are display pipes - clearly a substantial organ with a 32’ in the front. There’s not much to work on with the building. Kingsway Hall was very much wider, with galleries to right and left I believe, and the proscenium arch was higher and much more curved. So, at present, all questions without any answers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Is it being installed or removed? The state of the building suggests to me the latter, as do the miscellaneous-looking piles of pipes. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Bowles Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 1 hour ago, pwhodges said: Is it being installed or removed? The state of the building suggests to me the latter, as do the miscellaneous-looking piles of pipes. Paul I am sure it is being removed. Those 32ft sections would have to be soldered together before being incorporated into the façade, and nobody in their right mind would have decorated the sections before doing the soldering.... So they must have been on their way out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P DeVile Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 14 hours ago, Rowland Wateridge said: Intriguing on several levels: Herbert Norman sending a photograph of a HN&B organ (?) to HW 4. Any possibility of its being a Willis organ being worked on by HN&B? The pipe being hoisted (up or down?) appears to be decorated as do the large 32’ open metal foot and sections standing on the floor beside the man, also others lying on the floor, suggesting that all are display pipes - clearly a substantial organ with a 32’ in the front. There’s not much to work on with the building. Kingsway Hall was very much wider, with galleries to right and left I believe, and the proscenium arch was higher and much more curved. So, at present, all questions without any answers! This was taken by me in 1978 in Kingsway Hall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowland Wateridge Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 This is a complete mystery unless Bruce Buchanan can remember anything in the nature of further clues. I can’t read (from my iPad) what the sign apparently referring to HN&B says. In view of the comments above, it seems inconceivable that Herbert Norman would have thought that this was an installation, or that it was possibly Johannesburg Town Hall. We can rule out the Kingsway Hall, both as building and instrument (NPOR N16549) - it didn’t have a 32’ open flue. Robert and P DeVile are better qualified to comment than I, but from the original photograph I note that the 32’ metal open flue has a French mouth: possibly also the pipe being hoisted - less certain about the others. Am I correct in thinking the 32’ to be of exceptionally large scale - compare with the man standing alongside it. There are also what I take to be swell shutters or baffles lying on the floor (or they might simply be steps). It does, indeed, all look like a dismantlement. The possible Johannesburg connection caused me to look at my trusty 1922 ‘Dictionary’ of organs, and HN&B (or Norman & Beard) were prolific builders of organs both large (Johannesburg 97 speaking stops) and small in South Africa. In total more British organs are listed under South Africa (90 no less, in 1922) than in any other overseas region. Many other British builders were also represented there. Sadly, nearly all of them no longer exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Buchanan Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 In fact, Herbert Norman did think it was the installation of JTH, which was why he sent the picture, congratulating HW&S on getting the job (I know, I know). Characteristically, HW4 said that it could not be JTH because of the white labourers. If someone will tell me how, I will put up the picture (maybe elsewhere) in its 27.23 MB form. I show a blow-up of the notice below the Hill, Norman & Beard Ltd sign in case someone can make it out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowland Wateridge Posted January 8, 2023 Share Posted January 8, 2023 This is all I can find, so far, explaining an involvement of HW4 (and HW5) at Johannesburg City Hall (i.e., Town Hall) in 1974. It’s not very complimentary about HW5. But the original photograph, wherever its location, is surely very much older than 1974 and doesn’t seem to marry with the architecture of the Hall; see the photographs at the foot of this page - the one immediately preceding Alfred Hollins at the original 1916 console. Nor did the organ have a 32‘ open metal! It’s still an enigma! https://www.coopergilltomkins.co.za/johannesburg-city-hall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choir Man Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 A painting in the National Railway Museum's collection whows a similar event to the one in the photograph. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/lner-musical-society-at-queens-hall-london-9480 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 The window in the left wall certainly cuts out Queen's Hall. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolsey Posted February 1, 2023 Share Posted February 1, 2023 Case closed. The RSM acknowledges the detective-work of the many who supplied suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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