Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra - Orchestra During and After The Wars

Orchestra During and After The Wars

The inter-war years were a difficult time for orchestras, professional as well as amateur, and the Huddersfield Phil was no exception. One factor peculiar to Huddersfield exacerbated matters. Arthur Willie Kaye was a local musician of humble origin who by dint of self-sacrifice and sheer hard work had turned himself into one of the country’s greatest violin teachers (it is estimated that he launched over 100 violinists on professional careers); and in Huddersfield at any rate, he had become a ‘legend in his own lifetime’. He formed his own symphony orchestra with enormous string sections drawn mainly from his own pupils: for concerts, brass and woodwind were imported from the Hallé. Though this orchestra’s ascendancy in the 1920s was short-lived, at that time it completely eclipsed the Phil. The Phil also faced competition from another body about which little is known – the Huddersfield ‘Permanent’ Orchestra. In the 1930s,says Crowther (op cit) the orchestra’s fortunes fell further ‘…. on one occasion it looked as if there were more players on the platform than there were men and women in the audience.’

But despite that depressing outlook, the members of the Phil persevered and their persistence was to be rewarded. Some signs of better days ahead had already appeared when T H Crowther became the orchestra’s conductor in 1935 (a concert in 1936, for instance, included Franck’s Symphonic Variations and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony) . During the Second World War, the orchestra continued to rehearse, but gave only one concert (in April, 1843, when the Town Hall was filled to capacity). In the absence of Crowther through illness, this concert was conducted by William Rees.

At the end of the war the Society was determined to raise both its standards and its profile. A major decision was that the Society should engage a professional conductor and in 1946, following the resignation of T H Crowther, William Rees took up the post. A one-time student under Felix Weingartner and former violinist with the Hallé, Rees was an experienced musician who quickly became a firm favourite with orchestra and audience alike. His appointment marked a definite turning-point: from then on, the orchestra’s rise to its present eminence as one of the country’s leading non-professional orchestras was steady and assured. A notable early concert occurred in 1947 when Margaret Binns made her first appearance as Leader, a post she was to hold with great distinction until her retirement in 1982. Also in that year, Geoffrey Phillips was appointed Treasurer: he was to remain a member of the committee for over 40 years until his death. The concert of 1 May 1995 was dedicated to a celebration of his life.

In 1952 the orchestra gave the first performance in Huddersfield of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony (the choir was the now defunct Huddersfield Vocal Union). In 1954 the Brunswick Symphony Orchestra came to Huddersfield as guests of the Phil, and the Phil visited Brunswick in the following year. The programme, which included Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony and soloist Margaret Binns in Mozart’s Violin Concert in A (K219), was very well received.

A characteristic feature of the Rees years was the development of a repertoire which was both solid and enterprising. In 1956, for instance, works ranged from Brahms’ Fourth Symphony to Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto (at the time both the work and the soloist – Julian Bream – were relatively unknown). In 1958 a bold programme featured Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody and Wagner’s rarely-heard Love Feast of the Apostles (in which the orchestra was joined by the Colne Valley Male Voice Choir). The orchestra was responsible for the first Huddersfield performance of the Beethoven triple Concerto (with ‘local’ soloists Margaret Binns, Pauline Dunn and Keith Swallow). William Rees’ retirement in 1964 was a matter of great regret; for almost twenty years he had enjoyed an exceptionally warm rapport with members of the orchestra, but it was understood that the time had come when he wished to be released from the strain of the road journey from his home in Lytham St Anne’s for rehearsals and concerts.

His successor, Arthur Butterworth, had already acted as the orchestra’s associate conductor. Originally a trumpeter with the Scottish and Hallé orchestras, he had given up his playing career in order to concentrate on conducting and composing, in which his reputation was steadily growing. (His skill as an orchestrator was recognised by Barbirolli who more than once called upon him, in the Hallé’s cash-strapped 1950s, to cue the parts of unaffordable ‘extras’ into those of standard instruments.) Butterworth was to conduct the Phil for the next 30 years. He inherited a well-established, confident orchestra – already large, it was to grow under him still further (in the 1971-72 Centenary Season no fewer than 113 players are listed in the programme including an amazing 81 strings).

The 1960s was amateur orchestras beginning to leave the safe havens of the classical core repertoire, and Butterworth relished the opportunity to steer the orchestra’s great potential into previously uncharted waters. Not that he had a free hand in the matter: nowadays conductors are usually titled ‘artistic directors’ and wield the powers implicit in that title, but in 1964, as was the way with organisations like the Phil ‘the committee’ reigned supreme – even in the choice of repertoire and soloists. The conductor was consulted on these matters but he had no executive powers. Soon after Butterworth’s appointment he suggested that the orchestra should play Elgar’s Enigma Variations for the first time. His proposal was accepted, though not without some misgivings on the part of the committee that such a ‘difficult’ work should be tackled. Nowadays the programming of such a work would be seen merely as routine.

In fact Butterworth was able to persuade the committee to expand the repertoire in all directions. Standard classics were not neglected (there were memorable performances of Beethoven’s Eroica and, in the Centenary Season, with the Huddersfield Choral Society, that composer’s Ninth Symphony) but works as diverse as Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphoses, Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, Prokofiev’s Firth Symphony, Respighi’s The Pines of Rome, Janacek’s Sinfonietta, Holst’s The Planets and the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition figured in Butterworth’s early years. His predilection for the music of Sibelius was also gratified: over the years four of the seven symphonies were played. His own music was occasionally performed and he was commissioned to write a work for the Centenary Season. From the Tower of Winds was the result.