Lasting memories of live performances

I read Simon Hurford’s letter (11th March 2021) about the Beatles concert at the Pavilion in 1963, and, as he is asking if anyone remembers it, I have an even older event that is worth recalling.

My 91-year-old mother, born in 1930, showed me her souvenir programme (see inset) of the inaugural Festival of the Arts from 21st April to 1st May 1948, called The Bath Assembly, which held many concerts at the Pavilion, including the first ever concert by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, conducted by Dr Reginald Jacques, with 14-year-old Elizabeth Vernon Powell the soloist in Mozart’s “Piano Concerto in A Major”.

Other orchestras that took part in The Bath Assembly Festival of the Arts included The Boyd Neel Orchestra with oboe soloist Leon Goossens, two concerts by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Sir Adrian Boult conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a programme that included music by Walton (Portsmouth Point), Haydn (Symphony No 99), Richard Strauss’s tone poem Till Eulenspiegel, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

Glyndebourne Opera performed Mozart’s Il Seraglio at the Theatre Royal, Cuthbert Bates conducted the Boyd Neel Orchestra and the City of Bath Bach Choir in Bach’s St Matthew Passion at Bath Abbey, the British Theatre Group gave seven performances of Sheridan’s The School for Scandal at the Theatre Royal, and The Children’s Theatre gave six performances of The Immortal Lady by Clifford Bax.

Simon Hurford mentions that it cost “five bob” (five shillings) to see the Beatles in 1963 - about £5 in today’s money, not 25 pence!!.

The ticket prices in 1948 for The Bath Assembly events ranged from 15 shillings (about £25 today) to two shillings and sixpence - or half a crown - about £4 today.

When we are allowed to go to concerts again after this pandemic is behind us, let’s hope that the people of Bath, and people throughout the country, will support all those currently unemployed freelance musicians, actors and dancers by returning to the concert halls and theatres to see whatever is going on - and pay their “five bob”!

Robert Parker

West Bridgford, Notts