The 1888 Crystal Palace recordings

The Handel Festivals and the Crystal Palace

The 1857 Festival

There were no further festivals on the scale of the 1845 Commemoration until 1857, when The Times recorded on 15 January a new festival planned for the Crystal Palace:

The great event of the year, however, will be the Grand Handel Festival, which takes place in May. The arrangements for this ceremony will, it is said, be on a scale greatly beyond anything of the kind ever before undertaken. It will be held in the central transept of the Palace, which will be completely fitted up for the purpose and be of three days, duration. ...A large organ for the occasion is in course of erection, and the orchestra and chorus will consist of 2,300 practised and thoroughly efficient performers.

The Crystal Palace was originally built in Hyde Park, London, for the Great Exhibition of 1851.

When the Exhibition had ended, the building was dismantled and moved to the top of a prominent hill at Sydenham in South London. The reconstruction began in August 1852 and the Palace, rebuilt and redesigned, was formally re-opened by Queen Victoria on 10th June 1854.

The 1857 Festival was in the nature of a rehearsal for the centenary of Handel's death in 1859. As the article in The Times quoted above continued:

As is generally known, the festival is intended to be a preliminary to a grand musical commemoration in 1859 of the centenary of the death of Handel.

By 11th April work was well underway, as The Times could report:

The great orchestra, which is being erected for the Handel "Commemoration" in the centre transept, though nothing but a vast amphitheatre of wood, appeared to excite much attention yesterday. The seats in the centre have been built round the heads of the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux and their respective steeds, each of which seems struggling to emerge from the vast expanse of timber which is overwhelming them. The scaffolding by which the great orchestra is supported is an astonishing labyrinth of woodwork: poles and cross-poles, beams and supports, cross and re-cross each other in so many ways as to quite perplex the spectator as to how it got up or how it is ever to be got down again.

The Festival took place on 15th, 17th and 19th June 1857 and was conducted by Michael Costa. It was judged a success, both artistically and financially. The net profit was £9,000; £2,000 of this was invested to help meet the expenses of the 1859 Festival.

The programme continued a tradition which ran on until the end. Monday was Messiah, Friday was Israel in Egypt and Wednesday was the Grand Selection.

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