Reid Orchestral Concert
Venue:
Professor Donald Francis Tovey - solo pianist and conductor
Arthur Somervell - conductor
1. Tragic overture, op. 81 ... Brahms
2. Motet, "Jesu, priceless treasure," for five-part chorus ... Bach
The Kirkhope choir
3. "Normandy," Symphonic variations for pianoforte and orchestra ... Arthur Somervell
Conducted by the composer; pianoforte - Professor Tovey
4. Four sixteenth-century motets
"O God the rock of my whole strength" ... Wilbye
"Paucitus dierum meorum" ... Palestrina
"Exaltabo te" ... Palestrina
"Dum complerentur dies pentecostes" ... Palestrina
The Kirkhope choir
5. Fantasia for pianoforte, chorus and Orchestra, op. 80 ... Beethoven
pianoforte - Professor Tovey; The Kirkhope choir
Composer(s):
Performance Type:
Programme notes by Professor Tovey.
The music for the Palestrina motets was not available to Professor Tovey so he copied out the scores, edited them, had had them prepared and issued as "The Kirkhope Choir Magazine, an Anthology of Pure Polyphony."
The Reid Orchestral Concerts 1917-1918- Second season
The subscriptions for the series of six concerts will be:
Reserved area and front row of gallery, 25/- plus £3/- (Government tax) = £28/-
Reserved gallery and side seats, 18/- plus 2/6 (Government tax) = 20/6
Unreserved gallery and side seats, 10/6 plus 1/6 (Government tax) = 12/-
Unreserved under gallery, 6/6 plus 1/- (Government tax) = 7/6
Last year's subscribers will have the option of retaking their seats up to Monday, November 12th. New subscribers should make immediate application. Orders for seats by post will be immediately attended to, and seats selected in the best available positions. Subscriptions are payable in advance. Tickets for single concerts will be on sale on Saturday, 24th November.
Tickets available from Messrs Paterson & Sons, 27 George Street, Edinburgh. Telegrams "Music, Edinburgh", Telephone Central 97
Further notice was circulated on 5th February 1918:
Messrs Paterson & Sons beg to intimate that the Music Hall is to be taken over after this date by the Military Authorities under the Defence of the Realm Act. It has been arranged that the remaining two concerts on February 16th and March 2nd will be given in the McEwan Hall.
The Management desire to make the change as easy and comfortable as possible for the Patrons of these concerts, but regret they will not be able to re-allot individual seats, owing to the complications in present-day ticket-selling regulations. Divisions of the McEwan Hall have been set aside to correspond with the sittings in the Music Hall, and as the accommodation is most ample, it will not be necessary for Patrons to present themselves beyond perhaps a few minutes earlier than usual, so as to make their selection of seats. Ticket holders will use the tickets already issued for the Music Hall. The doors of the McEwan Hall will be opened at 2.30 p.m. Concert at 3 p.m.
Review of the concert by William Saunders in the "Musical Standard", March 9, 1918
In a handwritten note on an annotated copy of the printed programme, Professor Tovey's mentor, Miss Sophie Weisse has written, with reference to the Beethoven Fantasia:
"D. played this - in public - in a concert of the Windsor Choral and Orchestral Society - by heart of course - when he was 15 and a half. Sir Walter Parratt conducting. Also earlier in the same series of concerts, Schumann, op. 92, Introduction and Allegro appassionato at the request of Princess Beatrice - D. played after only a fortnight's notice and we neither of us knew the thing in the least"