The 1888 Crystal Palace recordings

Israel in Egypt, Friday 29th June 1888 - the performers

The palace opened its doors at 11am and the concert began at 2pm. Seats ranged in price from 25s. to 7s. 6d.

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The conductor

Sir August Manns - aged 63

Manns was born in Germany in 1825. In May 1854 he held a brief position as an assistant conductor at the Crystal Palace but left shortly afterward. In 1855 he was invited by George Grove, secretary to the Palace, to become the permanent conductor, a post which he took up on 14 October that year.

Grove and Manns worked together to make the Crystal Palace Saturday Concerts a mainstay of London concert life for almost fifty years. In 1883 he took over the conductorship of the Handel Festivals from Sir Michael Costa and in 1903 received his knighthood.

During his time at the Crystal Palace, Manns conducted many premieres of both British and foreign music.

The soloists

Alwina Valleria - aged 40

An American soprano, born in Baltimore in 1848. She studied in London and shortly after her debut there moved to St Petersburg. She sang in Germany and Milan, and in London at the Drury Lane Theatre (1873-5), Her Majesty's Theatre (1877-8) and Covent Garden (1879-82).

In 1879 she made her New York debut under Mapleson in Faust, while back in Britain she appeared in the opera premieres of the period including Goring Thomas's Nadeshda, Mackenzie's Columba and The Troubadour. She first sang in oratorio in 1882 and was successful in the Handel and Leeds Festivals of 1883.

She died in Nice in 1925.

Annie Augusta Marriott - aged 30

Annie Marriott, a soprano, was born in Nottingham on 26 May 1858, the daughter of a silk lace manufacturer. She was an early student at the National Training School for Music (now the Royal College of Music). She made her Crystal Palace debut in 1879 while still a student and was described in the Musical Times as having "a pure soprano voice of great power, she phrases well, and sings with great taste and considerable dramatic feeling... She will, we believe, undoubtedly take a very high place in her profession."

In 1881, and probably well before that, she was living with her family in Kensington, her father having become a music publisher and seller. Her elder sister Edith was also a student of music.

In 1889 Annie was married to James Percy Palmer in Kensington. They announced their move to 5, Victoria Grove, Fulham in the pages of the Musical Times. They had two sons, both named Percy after their father: Percy Reginald Palmer in 1890 and Percy James W Palmer in 1893. This did not stop Annie's career and she continued to appear widely in concerts.

In September 1893, the Musical Times carried the stark notice that Percy Palmer of 23 Victoria Grove, Fulham Road, had died on 18th August, aged 32. "When he first appeared before the public, some years ago, was considered a concert-singer of great promise; latterly he devoted himself to teaching singing". It is probable that it was the responsibility of her two small sons that led to Annie reducing her concert work and take up teaching. She announced her change of address to 38 Chesilton Road, Fulham Road, SW, in the Musical Times.

Annie remarried in Fulham in 1898, this time to a Paris-born photogravure engraver named Paul Lacroix. This was not the end of her concert work - a performance Mendelssohn's Athalie is recorded with the West Ham Choral Society in November 1900

Janet Monach Patey - aged 42

A contralto, born Janet Whytock in London in May 1842. She married the baritone John Patey in 1866. After the retirement of Charlotte Sainton-Dolby in 1870, Janet Patey took on her mantle as the leading British contralto of her era. She died in Sheffield on 28th February 1894. The mantle was taken up by Clara Butt.

Edward Lloyd - aged 43

One of the foremost tenor of his period, Lloyd was born in London on 7th March 1845. He was exclusively a concert singer and first sang the Handel Festivals in 1874. After a career of singing in the first performances of many important works, he aimed to retire in 1898. His performance in the premiere of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius has been the subject of much cricitism. He died in Worthing on 30th March 1927.

John Bridson - aged 51

John Bridson, a baritone, was born in Liverpool in 1837, the son of an accountant in a merchant's office. By 1861 he was working as a broker's clerk and by 1871 as a cotton and general broker, still in Liverpool. In 1875, his friend William D. Hall had his song Vanity published by Boosey which was dedicated to his "friend John Bridson, Jnr, of Liverpool".

By 1878 he had moved to London where he married and was singing at the Exeter Hall with singers of the calibre of Edward Lloyd and Janet Patey. In 1881 was working as a "professor of music". John Bridson died in London in 1895 and was survived by his wife Emma and children, one of who, Dorothy, became a violinist.

William Henry Brereton - aged 30

W.H. Brereton, a bass, was born in Bedford in 1858, the son of the curate (later Rector) of St Mary's church and his Russian-born wife. He was a student Garcia of the Royal Academy of Music where he won a Certificate of Merit in 1879. He began his career in 1882 and until 1894 sang at all the Birmingham, Leeds, Three Choirs and Handel festivals. A well-known church singer, he was appointed principal bass at the Foundling Hospital in 1882, when to St Pauls in 1886, and in 1887 became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, St James, where he remained for 34 years.

In 1894 he joined the Westminster Singers, a male voice quartet with membership taken from London's leading church choirs.

He retired from his post as professor of singing at Trinity College of Music in 1935 and retired from from the Westminster Singers at the same time.

The Choir

We do not know the exact size of the choir for the performance. The cylinders are labelled "choir of 4,000 voices" but this implies that a substantial number of performers did not attend the rehearsal on 22nd June.

At that rehearsal the chorus comprised 782 sopranos, 779 altos, 677 tenors and 778 basses - a total of 3,016, far short of the 4,000 voices the cylinder labels record. The correspondent of the Musical Times felt that the basses "carried off the palm. Their ensemble was simply majestic in its solidity." The sopranos "gave less satisfaction, so that one wished for a stronger infusion of the big and brilliant voices".

The Orchestra

Again, we need to rely on the data from the rehearsal. This records that the orchestra number 500. As the Musical Times put it, "the orchestra rose easily to the height of excellence everyone expected it would attain."

The Organist

The old Crystal Palace organ is audible at some points. It was almost certainly played by Alfred James Eyre, FRCO, who was then the official organist of Crystal Palace.

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