ORCHESTRAL MUSIC AT COLWYN BAY
1900 - 1968
By Stuart Scott
In late Victorian times Colwyn Bay was a natural beauty-spot
with the added attraction of a recently constructed promenade.
It was considered to be an important seaside resort and stopping
place on the Chester to Holyhead main-line railway. The construction
of a pier and pavilion designed by Magnall & Littlewoods
of Manchester put Colwyn Bay on a par with the neighbouring
resort of Llandudno which was already known as the ‘Queen of
Welsh Watering-places’.
A private company, the Victoria Pier Company, built a pier of
316ft in length. The first pile was driven into the beach on
1 June 1899, all the ironwork being provided by the Widnes Foundry
Company, and on Saturday 2 June 1900, the Victoria Pier was
officially opened.
No expense was spared in providing a pavilion with seating for
2,500 people. The floor sloped towards a stage suitable for
putting on concerts, plays and operas. The painted backdrop
for orchestral concerts depicted an elaborate palace interior
and there were movable, raised platforms and an orchestra pit
for use in theatrical or operatic productions. There were dressing
rooms and a room for the musical director and manager, all lit
throughout by electricity.
The directors of the Victoria Pier Company were quick to secure
the services of Jules Riviere (1819-1900) and his orchestra
for the opening season. From his early beginnings in France
when he became a member of M. Ribard’s Orchestra at Choisy le
Ray whilst still a teenager, Riviere went on to make a name
for himself in London where he was musical director of the Adelphi
Theatre and conductor of a series of Promenade Concerts at Covent
Garden. Before arriving at Colwyn Bay he had spent many years
conducting orchestras at Blackpool (1881-1887), Llandudno (1887-1893)
and Morecambe (1893-1899) in addition to many orchestral concerts
in different parts of the country.
However, the advanced age of Riviere at the time of his appointment
necessitated the engagement of a deputy conductor and the Belgian
virtuoso violinist, Henri Verbrugghen was chosen to share the
work of conducting twice daily. He had been a pupil of Hubay
and Ysaye before embarking upon an international soloist career
which he now continued alongside his conducting duties at Colwyn
Bay. He appeared with the Hallé Orchestra under Hans Richter
at about this time and was also appointed professor at the Royal
Irish Academy of Music in Dublin.
Nevertheless, it was Riviere who was in charge at the grand
opening concerts given in the pier pavilion. On the night of
the official opening, Saturday 2 June 1900, Madame Adelina Patti
performed to great acclaim. Having just returned from a successful
tour of America she kept her audience spellbound by all accounts.
She was then aged 57 and resident at Craig-y-nos Castle, a mansion
about 15 miles from Swansea. Since her first appearance at Covent
Garden on 14 May 1861, singing the part of ‘Amina’ in La
Somnambula, Patti had become a firm favourite of the day
and she had now set the standard of artists and performances
for all future concerts at the pavilion.
It was now clear that everything about this new venue was to
be of high artistic attainment. Even the manager, Aimé Lalande,
was an accomplished oboe player. He was from a well respected
family of musicians, his father being a bassoonist in the Hallé
Orchestra. His brother, Desiré, also an oboist, played at Llandudno
and in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood.
In 1903, after the first few successful seasons, the pier was
extended to 705ft to allow a longer walkway and accommodate
outdoor performances. There were evening concerts commencing
at 7.45, morning concerts from 11 to 12.45 and Sacred Concerts
on Sundays at 8.15pm. Visitors could go to concerts every day
by purchasing a weekly ticket costing 4 shillings for the best
seats. The price increased to 5 shillings during August, and
a larger orchestra appeared at the height of the season.
By 1903 music and entertainment in Colwyn Bay had settled into
a format which was to last until the outbreak of war in 1914.
The orchestra, now under the direction of Verbrugghen since
the death of Riviere in December 1900, continued to play twice
a day and during that season Verbrugghen directed some distinguished
soloists including Desiré Lalande, oboist and brother of the
manager, Aimé Lalande.
On 14 April three members of the orchestra appeared as soloists
at the morning concert. Fred Hatton, who was soon to be piccolo
player in the Hallé Orchestra (1904-1914) joined cornet player
Charles Davies in a performance of Wekerlin’s Serenade, ‘Ruy
Blas’, and Demerseman’s Grand Spanish Fantasia was
given by violinist Mr. Freeman, who only a few years later became
leader of the Llandudno Pier Orchestra. For the evening concert,
there had to be a guest singer and Annie Nelson performed two
of Sullivan’s songs - My Dearest Heart and Rebecca’s
Prayer(Ivanhoe). Curiously there were also two humorous
sketches performed by entertainer Robert Ganthony during the
course of the concert whilst the orchestra contributed Nicolai’s
Merry Wives of Windsor overture, the Mazurka from Coppelia
by Delibes and a selection from Bizet’s Carmen amongst
other short pieces.
However, singers were always the most popular of soloists and
two of the most notable Welsh singers of the day who took Colwyn
Bay by storm were soprano, Louie James (b.1884) and baritone,
David Evans. Louie James, a pupil of Frangcon-Davies and Edward
Iles at the Royal Academy, distinguished herself in opera, oratorio
and orchestral concerts throughout England and Wales. Having
made her debut in London a couple of months before her first
appearance at Colwyn Bay on New Year’s Day 1909, critics had
already noted her “beautiful, pure, flexible soprano voice”
(Pioneer, 1 April 1909). After her New Year performance the
North West Coast Pioneer’s critic wrote “….her superior has
never been heard at Colwyn Bay; her rendering of her song in
the evening was in every sense a great performance”. Quite an
accolade considering audiences in Colwyn Bay had already heard
the likes of Adelina Patti.
The baritone, David Evans, also a pupil of Frangcon-Davies at
the Royal Academy, had performed in numerous towns and cities
in addition to London and Salt Lake City before making his first
appearance in Colwyn Bay in 1910. The event was recorded in
the Colwyn Bay Weekly News as “the sensation of the week”. The
writer went on further to note that, “few of the great artists
heard at the pavilion have succeeded in producing such a favourable
impression as Mr. Evans has done….He made his first bow to a
Colwyn Bay audience on Saturday evening when he took the ‘house’
by storm. On Sunday evening again, despite the rule forbidding
encores at the Sacred Concerts, he was twice recalled, and the
manner in which he rendered two Welsh airs as encore songs fairly
lifted the audience off their feet”. The same writer went on
to say that Evans possessed “a remarkably rich voice which he
uses in a most artistic manner”.
The orchestra continued in those uncertain years leading up
to the war and it appears that Henry Lyell-Taylor (1872-1967)
replaced Verbrugghen as conductor for a short time prior to
1914. Taylor was a Queen’s Hall violinist who also conducted
at Buxton. He became Director of Music at Brighton in 1914 and
conductor of the Durban Municipal Orchestra, South Africa in
1924. The Durban orchestra had 30 players, all recruited from
England. Three years later Taylor was appointed Music Director
for African Consolidated Theatres Ltd. in Johannesburg, remaining
there for most of his professional life.
From April to September entertainment in Colwyn Bay seems to
have been a thriving business as apart from the orchestral concerts
there were numerous other events one could attend. Squire Day
& Company offered a novelty repertoire programme every afternoon
in the pavilion from 3.00 to 4.45 and again in the Public Hall
four nights a week including Saturdays. The company comprised
male and female singers, comedians, pianists, banjoist, dancer
and whistler. Throughout the day one could find small concert
parties and entertainers on the promenade too. In the years
leading up to the First World War, Catlin’s Pierrots and Harry
Reynolds’ Minstrels were regular attractions.
Between 1914 and 1918 music on the pier gave way to pantomimes,
music hall and events of a light-hearted nature in order to
entertain the wounded troops billeted in the town. In 1917 the
Bijou Theatre was built at the opposite end of the pier to the
pavilion and it was there that entertainment of a lighter type
continued when peace was resumed and the pavilion returned to
performances of a high artistic standard which had been enjoyed
prior to the outbreak of war.
However, one disastrous night in 1922 the pavilion was destroyed
by fire and after having purchased the pier, Colwyn Bay Urban
District Council undertook all structural restoration and built
a new pavilion which opened in July 1923, the total cost of
restoration being £45,000.
W. Yates Gregory was appointed entertainments manager and music
continued from a municipal orchestra with Thomas H. Morrison
as its conductor. He was one of the best known orchestral leaders
in the country at that time. He had been leader of the Queen’s
Hall Orchestra in London at the age of 20 and subsequently leader
of the Covent Garden Opera Orchestra at the invitation of Hans
Richter. Prior to his appointment at Colwyn Bay he had been
leader of the Buxton Spa Orchestra playing alongside accomplished
musicians Leon Goossens (oboe) and Frank Gomez (clarinet) who
eventually became conductor of the Whitby Spa Orchestra in the
1930s.
Morrison’s other appointments in 1923 included the leadership
of the 2ZY Orchestra at Manchester’s first radio station. There
were twelve players in all - mainly Hallé members, but staying
in Manchester, Morrison later became conductor of the newly
formed BBC Northern Orchestra (35 players) in 1934.
Morrison established himself and his ten piece municipal orchestra
at Colwyn Bay’s new pavilion providing music for a wide audience
and special Sunday concerts were arranged which usually included
a singer. It seems that every effort was being made to provide
music and artists of a high standard. A celebrity concert on
Sunday, 17 August 1924 for example, included performances from
Joseph Hislop (1884-1977), the Scottish born tenor, who was
one of the finest of his era. He was the first British tenor
to sing a leading role at La Scala, Milan and a critic in Musical
Opinion proposed him as the natural successor to Caruso. Hislop
sang nearly thirty different operatic roles and counted Jussi
Björling and Birgit Nilsson among his pupils, but in 1937, after
singing in a run of 380 performances of Edward German’s Merrie
England, he retired from the stage with a badly damaged
voice.
Although singers appeared most often as soloists at the pavilion,
there was still the odd instrumental performance. Algernon Lacey
gave a piccolo solo, L’Oiseau Blue at W. Yates Gregory’s
Annual Benefit Concert on 18 September 1930 with the Colwyn
Bay Municipal Orchestra under the direction of its new conductor,
Fred Stock.
A new departure the following year brought a performance of
Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, for which the municipal
orchestra was enlarged. It is interesting to note that local
players, W. M. Tipping (flute) from Llandudno and W. E. Beaverstock
(flute) from Penmaenmawr, were drafted in for this purpose.
However, the orchestra at this time had no more than about ten
players and programmes were usually light.
In 1932, after only a relatively short life, the second pavilion
burnt down and later that year, the Bijou Theatre suffered the
same fate. The causes of the fires were never established and
once again, the council found itself financing the building
of a third pavilion which opened on 18 May 1933.
Music in Colwyn Bay had reached a point of no return. There
would be no more symphony concerts or international soloists.
From 1933 a variety of summer shows, including the popular No,
No, Nanette (1937) would be the staple fare, although a
small ensemble continued throughout the 1940s with James Kershaw
as musical director. By 1954 however, Kershaw was at Worthing
doing the same thing with an octet which was occasionally augmented
with amateur players to provide symphony concerts.
Reginald Stead, who had previously played violin under Frank
Gomez at Whitby also led the municipal ensemble of ten players
at about this time. He had become a Hallé member in the 1930s
and from 1945-1971 he was a very able leader of the BBC Northern
Orchestra. BBC conductor, Edward Downes much later stated that
Stead was “one of the finest leaders in the country and could
play all the solos beautifully”.
Nevertheless, it was now the shows that people came to see rather
than the municipal ensemble, even though the latter still provided
the musical accompaniment. The shows ran until 1958, when due
to falling numbers in the audiences, the pavilion was closed.
Frank Needham, a string player engaged for some of those shows
in the 1950s much later remembered that “accommodation for musicians
playing a summer season was always a problem. As no subsistence
allowance was paid and all the usual expenses back home had
to be covered, it was necessary for a musician to keep costs
down to a minimum”. He went on to relate that on one occasion
a fellow musician spent nothing at all on accommodation for
the first few weeks of a summer season at Colwyn Bay. “He slept
in the bandroom at the end of the pier until the rest of the
orchestra objected to his washing hanging up to dry coupled
with the lack of a bathroom, so he spent the next few nights
in promenade shelters. When the police moved him on he finally
found lodgings but before the end of the season he had married
the landlady’s daughter and so had free accommodation once again
as a member of the family”.
A five piece band struggled on into the early 1960s but in 1968
the Council disbanded the orchestra as it was costing over £300
a week to maintain. The pier was sold and that effectively ended
orchestral music in Colwyn Bay. The Town Band remained the only
music-makers in Colwyn Bay but it too disbanded in 1988 after
125 years of music making. The pier is still standing but now
sadly neglected through lack of funds for restoration.
Stuart Scott
2009
