The Hallé Choir has had remarkably few choral directors in its 165 year history. For example, the first 67 years of the choir’s existence saw just three, one of whom only served for a couple of years. Edward Hecht, the man Charles Hallé himself picked to lead his nascent chorus, served from the choir’s foundation…

Much of what I’ve written about so far in this blog has been concerned with the Hallé Choir as an overall entity, with its birth and development, and with the growth in its repertoire and the reactions of the critics and the general public to its performances of that repertoire. However, it should never be…

To celebrate this year’s performance of Handel’s Messiah on December 10th I thought I would write a blog to show how the look and sound of Messiah, as performed by the Hallé Choir, has changed over the years since the first performance of this great work on Ash Wednesday, 1859. By looking at a few…

Following the first UK performance of The Damnation of Faust in 1880 the Hallé Orchestra continued to champion new music. 1905 saw the first performance of Sibelius’ Second Symphony, the first performance of any Sibelius symphony in Britain. Three years later saw the world premiere of Elgar’s First Symphony, conducted by Hans Richter. However, whilst…

Over the years since the beginning of the Hallé Choir one might have expected that the chorus of such a prestigious orchestra as the Hallé would have sung in countless world premieres and first performances. However, at least for the first hundred years or so of the choir’s existence such occasions were relatively rare…

Wednesday 31st August, 2022 marked the thirteenth time that the Hallé Choir has appeared at the great British summer institution known these days as the BBC Proms, accompanying the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir in a performance of Edward Elgar’s sublime oratorio, Dream of Gerontius…

I want to celebrate, in the year that marks the 150th anniversary of his birth, the choir’s relationship with Ralph Vaughan Williams, arguably the most influential English composer of the 20th century, and certainly one of the greatest symphonists of that century. I will show how from rocky beginnings, the choir’s relationship with the music…