History - Post-War

The following article was written by Douglas Jupp for the programme of the Gala Concert given on 23rd June 1998 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Society's first re-formation after the war.

 Founded by Arthur Fagge in 1903, with the intention of giving the first London concert performance of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (there had been a private performance in Westminster Cathedral earlier for which a choir from the Midlands had been imported), the London Choral Society pursued an active performing life until the outbreak of the second world war (click here for more information).  This initially curtailed its activities and during the London Blitz in 1940 it ceased altogether.  Arthur Fagge died in 1943 so that at the end of the war any revival had to be in the hands of others. An attempt made by the conductor Leighton Lucas, who had been an associate of Mr Fagge, came to nothing but shortly afterwards a chance meeting between the distinguished tenor Parry Jones and the conductor John Tobin led to its revival. The singer suggested to John Tobin that he ought to take on the LCS and that he remembered that the secretary was "a chap named Garnham".  This was quite sufficient information for someone of John Tobin's energy and drive and he quickly tracked down Ben Garnham and arranged to meet such members of the former committee as could be found.

The decision to start again was taken and rehearsals began in 1946.  The resources were modest and no attempt was made to promote a concert in the first season. The first concert took place in February 1948 when Bach's Jesu Meine Freude and Faure's Requiem were the main choral items. Having decided to promote a performance of Handel's Messiah, John Tobin said that he would spend "two or three weeks" at the British Museum looking at the various manuscripts. (This eventually led to several years of research by John Tobin into all the various manuscript sources of Messiah, the publication of two books and the eventual acceptance of his edition by the Hallische Handel-Ausgabe for its new edition of all Handel's works.) The first performance of this edition was given by the Society on 18 March 1950 in St Paul's Cathedral to outstanding critical acclaim, the Guardian describing the edition as being "as near to the original as modern scholarship and resource can get". Following a further performance in the Royal Festival Hall, the Hall's management requested a repeat performance which they promoted. Shortly afterwards the Royal Festival Hall offered the Society the Good Friday date and on Good Friday 1953 the Society gave the firsts of its annual performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion, a tradition which continued for more than forty years.

Thus within a few years of its post-war revival the Society can be said to have truly arrived on the London concert scene.

As well as performances of standard works, the Society established a reputation for the performance of contemporary music and has a number of first performances to its credit.  In 1968 the Society took part in the City of London Festival giving the first performance of The Song of the Highest Tower by Roger Smalley while other new works performed over the years include Pax Dei by Wilfred Mellers (dedicated to the Society), Tentatio Jesu by Anton Heiller, The City of Desolation by Anthony Milner, Changes by Gordon Crosse and Voices of Sleep by Paul Patterson, as well as the well-known War Requiem by Benjamin Britten and A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett.

In 1975 Leon Lovett, already the Society's Associate Conductor, succeeded John Tobin as Musical Director and during his time was successful in getting the Society its first appearance at a BBC Promenade Concert, performing a modern British work by Elisabeth Lutyens to words by Chaucer entitled De Amore. Leon was also instrumental in obtaining two visits to Holland for the Society as well as maintaining full London concert seasons.

From September 1978 the Society was fortunate to appoint the young Simon Rattle as Principal Conductor and Nicholas Cleobury as Chorus Master, and during the next five seasons presented a series of exciting concerts at the South Bank. As may be expected from such musicians, these concerts were very important for the choir's musical development, although it has to be said that the Treasurer's nerve, as well as our Bank Manager's, was equally put to the test!

Following Simon Rattle's appointment to Birmingham, the Society appointed Jane Glover as Musical Director, firstly with Martin Merry as chorus master and then, from 1985, Ronald Corp.   Ronald Corp remains with us, now as Musical Director in charge of the artistic direction of the Society. These years have seen the continued success of the Society and as well as standard repertoire we have continued to present new works in our concerts, including the first concert performance of Mirror of Perfection by Richard Blackford and the first performance of Ronald Corp's Laudamus.

The Society is an independent concert-promoting organisation and, in common with similar bodies, has found the cost of promoting concerts, against a background of declining official funding, increasingly burdensome. Much help has come from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts and from grant-making trusts.  None the less the number of our own promotions has declined and it is a particular sadness that, solely on grounds of cost, the annual performance of St Matthew Passion has had to be given up.  We have been fortunate in being invited to sing for other concert promoters and were particularly rewarded by being asked to provide the chorus for three concert performances by the Kirov Opera under Valery Gergiev and a performance of Rimsky Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or under Rostropovich. We are also grateful to Raymond Gubbay for inviting us to sing in a number of his promotions.

Societies such as ours are run by volunteers.  Over the past fifty years we have been particularly fortunate in those who have come forward to offer their services to help keep the show on the road, and it is good to be able to take this opportunity to thanks them all, far too numerous to mention by name, but remembered within the Society with much gratitude.

In five years time we shall celebrate the centenary of the original founding of the London Choral Society by Arthur Fagge. We look forward to that and to setting out on the next 100 years of music making as one of London's foremost, and independent, choirs.

I am indebted to Maureen Garnham and Joan Bernard for their help in recalling the events surrounding the Society's revival in 1946.

Douglas Jupp
1998