Charles Hallé: A Musical Life

Robert Beale

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351572316
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Charles Hall as one of the leading musicians of the nineteenth century and intimate with almost all of the great composers and performers of his time, as well as a friend of the Royal Family and known as much as a pianist and chamber musician as a conductor, in London, throughout the country and abroad, in addition to Manchester. Robert Beale presents a new perspective on Hall life and achievement, constructed mainly from primary sources, which serves to dispel many of the inaccuracies and omissions that have stemmed, to a great extent, from Hall own autobiographical account of 1896. His edited memoirs omit much of the competition and controversy, struggles and disappointments of his career in Manchester, and, indeed, hardly convey the scope of his activities elsewhere. Hall as a key figure in the shift from contemporary toclassical repertory in orchestral concerts and piano performance. Not only did he found the Manchester orchestra, in 1862-3 he also gave the first known cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas. His early annualrecital series in London marked a new era in the musical history of his time. The formation of the modern 'symphony orchestra' took place during the period of Hall professional life, and he was a pioneer in the process, in both artistic and business terms. Having adopted the role of orchestral conductor when it was itself relatively novel, he became one of the acknowledged masters of the craft over four and half decades - as well as continuing to appear as solo pianist and chamber musician, and in addition he was enormously influential as musical pedagogue and educationist.

Chapter 1

The Making of a Musician

‘I was born on April 11th, 1819, at the moment when the church bells began to ring on Easter Morn, as my dear mother often told me in after years.’

Thus Hallé, inimitably, begins his life story.¹ As with many small details of his account, it is, although close to accuracy, not strictly true. The register of the parish church of Hagen, Westphalia, records 11 April 1819 as his baptismal day, and that the young ‘Karl Friederich’ entered the world on 10 April, at 5 o’clock in the morning.² However, Hallé seems always to have celebrated his birthday on 11 April³ and may have been ignorant of the distinction.

His father, Christian Friedrich Andreas Halle (1790–1848), was a musician by profession (the son of a button maker, Friedrich Wilhelm, who became mayor of Arolsen).⁴ He played organ, keyboard, violin and flute and sang tenor; after working in the theatre in Frankfurt he became Kapellmeister of the grand-ducal theatre in Wiesbaden (1811) and in 1815 parish church organist in Hagen and music teacher for the town and district.⁵ Along with the latter job went responsibility for the local chorus (Gesang-Verein) and orchestra, the Concordia-Gesellschaft, which gave a subscription concert series every winter.⁶

Hallé’s mother, Caroline, was the daughter of Johann Christoph Bernhard Brenscheidt,⁷ the court clerk in Altena. She was an amateur singer, with, Hallé says, ‘a sweet soprano voice’.⁸ Carl⁹ was their first and, for over eight years, only child; his brother Bernhard and sister Bertha Anna were born in 1828 and 1830 respectively.

However, he was considered a sickly infant, and, though his memory was that ‘it has been given to few men or women to recollect so happy a childhood as mine was’, he learned, later in life, that nobody, not even the doctor, at first thought he would live long:

Although not actually ailing, I had to be brought up like a hothouse plant, was seldom taken into the open air, which at the period I speak of was mostly considered dangerous, and hardly ever admitted into a sickroom; and if I have outgrown that weakness, and falsified the prognostics of the doctor, I owe it probably to the tender care of a most loving mother. Through being kept constantly indoors, my life became different from that of other children; there was no romping for me in the playground or the garden, and my mother had to find occupation for me in the house. She first taught me to read when I was but three years old, and at the age of four I read as fluently as ever since. Together with the alphabet she taught me my notes, to amuse me, and as a natural consequence of the musical atmosphere in which we lived. Well do I remember a square book, bound in red morocco and containing music paper, in which she had written the notes with their names, and which altogether bore testimony to my progress, for all the little exercises and small pieces which I had to learn were written in this book, first by her, then by my father, when she handed me over to him.¹⁰

He adds:

I have been told many a time by my parent teachers that I took to music with extraordinary eagerness, that it became my only joy, and that my progress was remarkably rapid. It must have been so, for the above-mentioned red book testified that at four years of age I played a little sonata, composed for me by my father, at one of the subscription concerts of the ‘Concordia’ Society.¹¹

Hallé points out that by this time he was considered strong enough to be taken out, at least to concerts, and his life consisted of a succession of these in Hagen and the surrounding small towns, where there were good amateur players on a number of instruments. In the summer the chorus gave a small festival of oratorios, attracting a region-wide audience:¹²

To these societies I owe my earliest acquaintance with most of the works of the greatest composers; for my progress upon the piano had been so rapid that when I was still a child my father made me accompany at the meetings of the Gesang-Verein instead of doing it himself. Thus I became thoroughly familiar with ‘The Creation’, ‘The Seasons’, ‘The Mount of Olives’, some of Handel’s and of Spohr’s oratorios, with numerous other works, at an age when they generally are but names to other children.¹³

At the age of seven he was considered a good enough time-keeper to be promoted to the ‘important and dangerous post’ of kettle-drummer in the town orchestra – though, he adds:

for eight years did I hold it, though not altogether to my credit; for although I found no difficulty in coming in at the right time, perhaps on the third beat after fifty-seven bars’ rest, I could never accomplish a satisfactory roll, hard as I laboured at it. The kettle-drum is not exactly an instrument suited to a drawing-room, so I could get no practice, and I remember even now how I envied and admired the drummers of any military band that passed through our town, recognising them by far my superiors.¹⁴

Hallé tells how he was expected to perform each year on the piano at the orchestral concerts, and that, at the age of eight, he stopped in mid-performance, being unable to see his music any more. Measles was diagnosed, and he was left with an inflammation of the eyes, for which confinement for weeks in a darkened room was considered appropriate. The room, however, had a piano, and he practised his pieces from memory in the darkness – which did his technique good, as he learned to judge distances at the keyboard, including when crossing hands, with accuracy.¹⁵

He was also discovered to have perfect pitch – a faculty which he found had a drawback in later years, when standard pitch was about a half-tone higher than in his youth:

when I now hear a piece of music for the first time, it seems to me in a higher key than it really is written in; I hear it in C when it is in B, and have to translate it, so to say. My friend Joachim shares this peculiarity with me, and it is now and then very perplexing.¹⁶

He started school at the age of eight, and continued until he was 16 (or 17 – see below). But every free moment was still occupied with music: page turning at stringquartet parties at home, playing piano duets (including symphonies arranged for four hands) and violin–piano sonatas with his father, and trios in which they were joined by a cellist friend, Herr Elbers. Hallé also spent an evening a week at the Elbers residence (the cellist was a wealthy iron merchant), accompanying him in music for cello and piano, of which he says he believes they played every duet composed up to that time – and ‘not the least part of the enjoyment consisting in the excellent supper which followed our musical exertions’.¹⁷

In August 1828, the nine-year-old was taken to meet Ludwig Spohr – then one of the most revered luminaries in musical Europe – in Cassel, where he was the elector’s Kapellmeister. Hallé recounts the tale:

Spohr was at that time at the height of his reputation, not only as a violinist but as a composer. From our weekly practices at Hagen I knew his oratorios by heart, knew his concertos by having heard my father play them, and had been fascinated by his luscious melodies and wonderfully sweet harmonies and modulations. He was therefore one of my demi-gods, only a few degrees lower in my estimation than Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, with which revered names I always associated his. My excitement during the few minutes we had to wait for his appearance in his drawing-room was intense, and when his huge figure, looking twice its size through wearing a loose dressing-gown reaching to his feet, entered, I was awe-struck. He received us most kindly, and when I had quite recovered my breath he made me play to him, the result of which was that he insisted upon my giving a concert in Cassel, he himself undertaking all the arrangements,¹⁸ enrolling vocalists from the operatic troupe, actually two of the most celebrated singers of the time, the soprano, Mlle Heinefetter, and the tenor, Wild … As an executive display by a child it was much commended in the papers, some of which are still in my possession, and Spohr himself was pleased, so much so that, when I met him again after a lapse of more than twenty years, he began at once to speak of this concert, which I thought long forgotten.¹⁹

Hallé’s father, though, was determined that the youngster should not be exploited as a prodigy, a decision for which his son remained grateful – not only because he considered his physical strength might not have been equal to it, but also because it could have ended both his musical education and his very enthusiasm for the art.²⁰

He now became his father’s assistant as organist at the parish church, and gained ‘many new joys’ from the opportunity to improvise quietly during the administration of Holy Communion. He learned his theory from Gottfried Weber’s book on harmony and composition, with his father’s guidance.²¹

Hallé ends the account of his childhood career with a story of his debut as a conductor. He tells it thus:

Hagen was visited every season by a travelling troupe of singers and actors, who during two months gave performances of operas, dramas, and comedies in the large ballroom of the principal hotel, where a stage was erected, there being no regular theatre in the town. About a month previous to their visit the director, Herr Conradi, came to form the orchestra by inviting all the best amateurs to take part in it along with a few professional players, and asking my father to conduct the performances, without any remuneration of course. The love of music was so great that he never met with a refusal, and my own progress upon the violin having been declared sufficient, I was enrolled as a second violin. Those were fete days for me, and I became intimately acquainted with many of the best operas by taking an active part in them. On one of these visits, when I was eleven years old, it chanced that after the first few weeks my father fell ill, thus threatening to bring the performances to a premature end. Herr Conradi was in despair, seeing which I, with a boy’s confidence, offered to replace my father, was entrusted with the baton, and remained at the conductor’s desk to the end of the season. Among the operas which I conducted were ‘Die Zauberflote’, ‘Der Freyschutz’, ‘Die Schweitzer Familie’ (by Weigl, forgotten now), ‘Preciosa’, ‘Zampa’, ‘Fra Diavolo’, ‘Die Stumme von Portici’ (‘Masaniello’), ‘Maurer und Schlosser’ (by Auber), and others, and it will easily be believed that I felt my importance, and was not a little proud of it. Nervousness I never felt, but sometimes I cried whilst conducting, when the scenes were very affecting, or when I was deeply moved by the beauty of the music. My acquaintance with an orchestra at so early an age and under such circumstances has not been without advantages to me in later years.²²

Michael Kennedy suggests that, on the basis of the operas mentioned, this episode must have occurred when Hallé was a little older than 11, as some of them received their premieres only in 1830 and 1831.²³ Nonetheless, it is too good a story to dism...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• General Editor’s Series Preface
• Preface
• A Note on Referencing Method
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Making of a Musician
• 2 The New Man in Manchester
• 3 An Orchestra Created
• 4 The Uphill Struggle
• 5 The Tradition Begins
• 6 Famine and Feast
• 7 The Golden Years
• 8 The Last Decade
• 9 Hallé’s Business Model and Methods
• Epilogue An Appreciation of Hallé as a Person
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index