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Music and Modernity in the Colonial City: A Biography of Melbourne's Marshall-Hall Orchestra (1892–1912)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2022
Abstract
The Centennial International Exhibition held in Melbourne in 1888 showcased the city's exceptional wealth and cultural aspirations. As part of the exhibition, the visiting English conductor Frederic Hymen Cowen presented 263 orchestral concerts, cultivating a taste for classical music that would sustain a further orchestra, conducted by the English composer G.W.L. Marshall-Hall, that presented several concerts per year from 1892 to 1912. Immigration both before and during that period was a key factor in the urbanization and modernization of Melbourne as well as the success and achievements of Marshall-Hall's orchestra. Yet little is known about individual members and the trajectories of their careers. By examining the lists of members appearing in 19 years’ worth of programmes of the orchestra, this study contributes to the practice of ‘urban musicology’ by providing compelling evidence of the role of immigration in laying the foundation of music performance and performance training in a settler colonial city, and highlights three major steps in the evolution of the profession: the increasing presence in the orchestra of talented and in some cases exceptionally talented Australian-born musicians who were to succeed the older European-born and -trained musicians; the growing participation of women in the orchestra as well as the profession more broadly; and the strengthening of the Musicians’ Union's stranglehold on professional accreditation at the expense of women, amateurs and foreigners.
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References
1 James Smith, quoted in ‘Meeting of the Commission’, Age, 22 Jan. 1889: 5. All Australian newspapers are sourced from Trove, www.trove.nla.gov.au.
2 Section 739, Census of Victoria, 1891, https://dataverse.ada.edu.au/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.26193/MP6WRS (accessed 11 Jan. 2022).
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10 ‘The Orchestra’, Argus, 2 Aug. 1888: 5.
11 Graeme Skinner on the website Australharmony lists the names of the members of the Centennial International Exhibition orchestra and provides information about some of them in the site's biographical pages: www.sydney.edu.au/paradisec/australharmony/centennial-exhibition-1888.php (accessed 11 Jan. 2022).
12 A.J. Lee to James Barrett, 9 October 1910, M-H 9/2, Grainger Museum, Melbourne. Lee was the son of Catherine (Kate) Lee, one of the founders of the Folk-Song Society, and Arthur Morier Lee, who made a fortune in West Indies sugar. At his death in 1909 A.M. Lee left an estate of £43,817: see www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146630294 (accessed 11 Jan. 2022). It seems likely that Archibald Lee travelled to Australia for his health. See Bearman, C.J., ‘Kate Lee and the Foundation of the Folk-Song Society’, Folk Music Journal 7/5 (1999): 628Google Scholar.
13 For further biographical information see Thérèse Radic, G.W.L. Marshall-Hall: A Biography and Catalogue (Melbourne: Marshall-Hall Trust, 2002).
14 There were originally 16 London players: ‘Exhibition Notes’, Argus, 16 Jun. 1888: 13. Table Talk afterwards counted 15: ‘Yahooism in the Exhibition Orchestra’, Table Talk, 25 Jan. 1889: 16.
15 ‘Exhibition Notes’.
16 Criticus, ‘Music of 1890’, Table Talk, 2 Jan. 1891: 6.
17 Radic, Thérèse, ‘The Victorian Orchestra 1889–1891: In the Wake of the Centennial Exhibition Orchestra, Melbourne, 1888’, Australasian Music Research 1 (1996): 42Google Scholar.
18 Marshall-Hall's surname was spelled both with and without a hyphen, as was the name of the conservatorium.
19 Members of the Victorian Orchestra for the concert on 7 November 1890 are listed in Radic, ‘The Victorian Orchestra’, 48.
20 The Queen's Hall Orchestra, founded in 1895, was London's first permanent orchestra. See Leanne Langley, ‘Joining Up the Dots: Cross-Channel Orchestral Models in the Shaping of London Orchestral Culture, 1895–1914’, in Music and Performance Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Temperley, ed. Bennett Zon (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012): 39.
21 Cyril Ehrlich, The Music Profession in Britain since the Eighteenth Century: A Social History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985): 42.
22 Dierich did not marry in Australia, did not appear on electoral rolls or in a city directory and did not formalize his naturalization. His year of birth is calculated from his death record in Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, Ancestry. Except where otherwise detailed, dates of birth and death are derived from birth records (Victoria, Australia, Birth Index, 1837–1917), death records (Australia, Death Index, 1787–1985) and/or the family tree of the individual, and occupations from English census returns, Australian electoral rolls, Melbourne rate books and directories, all on Ancestry, www.ancestry.com.au.
23 See the Melbourne University Conservatorium Prospectus, 1900, transcribed in Thérèse Radic, ‘Some Historical Aspects of Musical Associations in Melbourne, 1888–1915’ (PhD diss., University of Melbourne, 1977): vol. 3, 152.
24 ‘Town Hall Music’, Age, 10 Feb. 1925: 7; Orfeo, ‘Music’, Punch, 24 Nov. 1910: 37.
25 Charles Albert Wallenstein (father of Albert Wallenstein), Index to Naturalisation Certificates, Ancestry. Samantha Owens discusses the exodus after 1850 of the Wandermusikanten native to Bavaria in ‘“Unmistakeable Sauerkrauts”: Local Perceptions of Itinerant German Musicians in New Zealand, 1850–1920’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review 15 (2018): 40–41.
26 ‘On and off the Stage’, Table Talk, 9 Oct. 1902: 16.
27 ‘Musician Dies in Street’, News (Adelaide), 12 Jul. 1934: 6.
28 See Victorian Collections, https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/52455c952162ef0e708e9de6.
29 George Sutch Sr (born 1830/31) was living in Marylebone at the time of the 1851 census and arrived in Sydney in 1857.
30 ‘Divorce Court’, Geelong Advertiser, 10 Feb. 1909: 3; record for George Barry Stevens in Vol. 13, Yarra Bend Asylum, Case Books of Male Patients, 1872–1912, Ancestry.
31 ‘Obituary’, Horsham Times, 21 Jul. 1933: 4.
32 See www.gang-gang.net/briesegenealogy/histories/briese-diaspora.php?sitever=standard (accessed 11 Jan. 2022).
33 Ceschina v Ceschina, 1901, in Victoria Divorce Records, 1860–1940, Ancestry.
34 ‘Obituary’ (for Margaret Thomson, née Cook), North Melbourne Courier, 26 May 1905: 2.
35 ‘Mr. Philip Langdale’, Table Talk, 21 Jun. 1889: 15.
36 ‘Mr. Philip Langdale’.
37 ‘Local and General’, Tasmanian, 23 Jun. 1888: 23.
38 ‘Allen's Popular Concerts’, Bendigo Advertiser, 9 Aug. 1890: 4. See also ‘Death of Mr. Walter T. Barker, Noted Harpist’, Advertiser, 29 Sept. 1933: 7.
39 ‘Mendelssohn Manuscript’, Australasian, 21 Aug. 1926: 45.
40 ‘A Master of Music: William Stoneham’, Sun (Sydney), 2 Dec. 1911: 4.
41 ‘A Musical Treat’, Hamilton Spectator, 23 Jan. 1906: 4.
42 ‘A Musical Treat’.
43 ‘Veteran Bandmaster's Death’, Sun (Sydney), 5 Jul. 1915: 6; ‘Local and General’.
44 ‘Obituary’, Weekly Times, 26 Apr. 1919: 24.
45 John Munyard (Jr) (1831–1919), Jesse's family tree, Ancestry; editorial, Fitzroy City Press, 15 Sept. 1893: 2.
46 See Kenneth Morgan, ‘Sir James Barrett, Musical Patron in Melbourne’, in Marshall-Hall's Melbourne: Music, Art and Controversy, 1891–1915, ed. Thérèse Radic and Suzanne Robinson (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012): 87–105.
47 The size of Lee's donation is calculated using the Bank of England inflation calculator, www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator (accessed 11 Jan. 2022). Nellie Melba to the editor, Age, 16 Dec. 1909: 7.
48 The most complete run is in the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library at the University of Melbourne, https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/156. In the 1970s Thérèse Radic produced a list of the orchestra's concerts: see ‘Some Historical Aspects’, vol. 3, 195–241, and from her account and from newspapers I can identify at least 17 in addition to the 96. As the numbering on the programmes was erratic it may be that concerts with soloists such as Melba were not counted in the 112.
49 The exact number is difficult to ascertain because only surnames are given and one surname might represent several members of a family.
50 By comparison the amateur Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alberto Zelman Jr recruited 180 musicians for four concerts between 1906 and 1913. See O'Byrne, Peter, ‘Zelman's Children: Albert Zelman Jr and the First Decade of His Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, 1906–1915’, Australasian Music Research 2–3 (1997–98): 92–7Google Scholar.
51 Stephen Banfield, ‘Towards a History of Music in the British Empire: Three Export Studies’, in Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures, ed. Kate Darian-Smith, Patricia Grimshaw and Stuart Macintyre (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2007): 78–9.
52 James Barrett, ‘Sir James Barrett Looks Back – No. 14: Memories of Melbourne's Musical Growth’, Herald, 13 May 1938: 14.
53 Marshall-Hall to W.A. Laver, c. 21 Dec. 1892, in Suzanne Robinson, ed., Passions of a Mighty Heart: Selected Letters of G.W.L. Marshall-Hall (Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2015): 23.
54 Morgan, ‘Sir James Barrett’.
55 Marshall-Hall to James Barrett, c. 1901?, in Robinson, Passions, 91.
56 Marshall-Hall to Barrett, c. 13 Jul. 1907 and c. Jul. 1908, in Robinson, Passions, 120, 124.
57 Marshall-Hall to Barrett, 14 Apr. 1912, in Robinson, Passions, 136. Hurst, from Sydney, was studying in Germany when war broke out and was killed in action in 1917.
58 Lee corresponded with Barrett and may even have arranged for scores to be sent to Melbourne. See, for example, his letter to Barrett, 8 Dec. 1910, MH 9/2–4, Grainger Museum.
59 Radic, ‘Some Historical Aspects’, vol. 3, 195–241.
60 Stephen Banfield observes that British musicians seem to have largely overlooked opportunities in the Antipodes to showcase British music. See Banfield, ‘Towards a History’, 79.
61 ‘Musical’, Herald, 21 May 1906: 3; ‘Music’, Leader, 1 Jul. 1911: 35.
62 Marshall-Hall was overseas for the concert of 27 October 1894.
63 ‘Art in Australia’, Age, 18 May 1915: 14.
64 ‘Natives of foreign countries in Victoria’, 1891 census, https://dataverse.ada.edu.au/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.26193/MP6WRS.
65 James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-World, 1783–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 62–3.
66 Of the remainder, 42 per cent were born in Australia or New Zealand, 23 per cent were born in the United Kingdom, and the rest in Italy, Norway, Russia and Sweden. Most of the unidentified players have Anglo-Saxon names, which are more common and thus harder to track without a Christian name, so the proportion of English or Australian-born men is likely to be higher than this. By comparison, Dave Russell puts the percentage of foreign musicians in Britain at about 6 per cent between 1861 and 1921. See ‘Key Workers: Toward an Occupational History of the Private Music Teacher in England and Wales, c. 1861–c. 1921’, Research Chronicle 47/1 (2016): 151.
67 On foreign musicians in London, David C.H. Wright quotes Frederick Crowest claiming in 1881 that there was ‘nothing to recommend them but their long hair, their foreign accent, and an untidy appearance’. See The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music: A Social and Cultural History (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2012): 31.
68 Selleck, R.J.W., ‘“The trouble with my looking glass”: A Study of the Attitude of Australians to Germans during the Great War’, Journal of Australian Studies 4/6 (1980): 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
69 Advertisement, Geelong Advertiser, 21 Feb. 1872: 4.
70 August Jochimsen's wife, clearly suffering from postnatal depression, murdered their infant son in 1899. It was during his testimony at the trial that he referred to his position at Cole's. ‘A Pathetic Tragedy’, Herald, 14 Jul. 1899: 2.
71 Advertisement, Age, 18 Sept. 1880: 8.
72 ‘Austrian Strauss Band’, Argus, 12 Oct. 1880: 7.
73 ‘Herr Othmar Kuhr’, Gympie Times, 2 Nov. 1881: 1.
74 ‘Music’, Punch, 13 Mar. 1913: 8.
75 ‘Music’, Australasian, 26 May 1906: 26.
76 ‘All about People: Tittle Tattle’, Catholic Press (Sydney), 30 Jan. 1941: 14.
77 ‘Music and Drama’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 Mar. 1915: 8.
78 ‘Prominent Australian Musicians’, Australian Musical News 2 (Aug. 1911): 36.
79 ‘The Gwen-Davies Company at the Town-Hall’, Mercury (Hobart), 22 May 1895: 2
80 Advertisement, Argus, 21 Feb. 1873: 8; ‘Northcote's “Loyalty”’, Graphic of Australia, 18 Aug. 1916: 3.
81 ‘Obituary’, North Eastern Ensign (Benalla), 19 Jul. 1929: 2.
82 See the biography of Wilhelmine Huhn at www.findagrave.com/memorial/137295241/wilhelmine-amalie_alma_-b_ll (accessed 11 Jan. 2022) and her obituary, ‘Melbourne Notes’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Sept. 1910: 5.
83 ‘The Huhn Combination Troupe’, Geelong Advertiser, 25 Jun. 1878: 3.
84 ‘Herr William Gollmick’, Table Talk, 25 Sept. 1896: 13.
85 Of 147 musicians for whom I can locate birthplaces, 20 per cent were born in England. I have found only two musicians born in Wales and one in Scotland; Edward Lyons may have been the only one born in Ireland.
86 Editorial, Argus, 29 Oct. 1894: 4.
87 ‘The Exhibition’, Leader, 9 Oct. 1880: 4; advertisement, Jewish Herald, 22 Apr. 1881: 12.
88 Harold Love assumes the violinist with the surname of Zeplin is a German while praising the orchestras of Lyster's opera company in The Golden Age of Australian Opera (Sydney: Currency Press, 1981): 95.
89 Advertisement, Argus, 13 Sept. 1859: 8; editorial, Lorgnette, 2 Jul. 1894: 2.
90 Alfred Montague, ‘Early Days in Australia’, Music and Dramatic News 2, no. 6 (Dec. 1912): 141.
91 All three lived at the same address in 1925. See Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903–1980, Ancestry.
92 Two other sons of Walter Rice were professional violinists: ‘Music and Musicians’, Table Talk, 1 Dec. 1893: 6. John Edward (or Emmanuel) Oppenheimer (1808–82), father of George, settled in Christchurch; see ‘Town and Country’, Lyttleton Times, 2 Jan. 1874: 2.
93 ‘In the Public Eye’, Herald, 18 May 1914: 10.
94 New Zealand, Electoral Rolls, 1853–1981, Ancestry.
95 ‘Deserter from the New South Wales Artillery’, New South Wales Police Gazette, 27 Apr. 1887: 131.
96 See, for example, ‘The Rockley Brothers’, Evening News (Sydney), 15 Oct. 1900: 2.
97 Thérèse Radic, ‘Zelman, Alberto (1832–1907), in Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/zelman-alberto-4910. Francesco Ricatti calculates that only 1 per cent of the 500,000 Italians who emigrated before 1871 chose Australia. See Italians in Australia: History, Memory, Identity (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018): 20.
98 ‘Martin Simonsen’, Lorgnette, 2 Nov. 1889: 5.
99 ‘Poor Martin Simonsen’, Herald, 29 Nov. 1899: 1.
100 Love, The Golden Age, 232.
101 Advertisement, Camberwell and Hawthorn Advertiser, 30 Aug. 1918: 3.
102 Family tree for Arcangelo Cesare Cesari (1857–1949), Ancestry; ‘A Spoilt Christmas Dinner, Age, 8 Jan. 1904: 7; death notice for Paans, Argus, 20 Jan. 1910: 1.
103 Section 234, Census of Victoria 1891.
104 Alison Rabinovici, ‘Musical Migrants: Pictures and Stories from the Lucanian Community in Melbourne’, Italian Historical Society Journal, Special Issue – Musical Migrants (2013): 7. See also Ricatti, Italians in Australia, 25.
105 ‘Street Musicians’, Argus, 22 Mar. 1899: 7, quoted in Frances Thiele, ‘Italian Immigrant Harpists from Viggiano in the Early Twentieth Century’, in Italy in Australia's Musical Landscape, ed. Linda Barwick and Marcello Sorce Keller (Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2012): 170.
106 Michelangelo's brother Roccantonio arrived in 1893: ‘Personal’, Argus, 12 Jul. 1920: 6.
107 Biographical information can be found in Thiele, ‘Italian Immigrant Harpists’, 177, 173–4.
108 Thiele, ‘Italian Immigrant Harpists’, 176.
109 Francesco Curcio (1855–1922), Matthews Hulme family tree, Ancestry; ‘They've Had 50 Years of Harmony in Home’, Argus, 11 Jan. 1955: 9.
110 ‘Claude Solomon’, Melbourne Punch, 7 Jul. 1898: 16.
111 ‘Leslie Bobsien’, Table Talk, 5 May 1904: 20. See also the obituary for Heinrich Bobsien, Bendigo Advertiser, 13 May 1897: 4.
112 ‘West's Palace’, Labor Call, 2 May 1912: 9.
113 ‘For This Evening’, Herald, 26 Dec. 1895: 2.
114 ‘Violinist Killed’, Argus, 1 Aug. 1938: 3.
115 Renn Wortley, ‘Jones, Percival (Percy) (1914–1992)’, in ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jones-percival-percy-27039.
116 ‘Mr. Percy Jones’, Ballarat Star, 10 Feb. 1910: 4; ‘A Bandsman's Rise’, Ballarat Star, 2 Feb. 1914: 7.
117 H.J. Gibbney, ‘Code, Edward Percival (1888–1953)’, in ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/code-edward-percival-5707.
118 Joseph Benjamin North (1881–1972), Downing family tree, Ancestry.
119 ‘Professor Ernest Toy, L.R.A.M.’, Punch, 22 Nov. 1906: 16.
120 Ernest William Rogers Toy, World War I Draft Registration Card, 1917–1918, Ancestry.
121 Frederick Clutsam (1869–1934), Hancock-Dubois family tree, Ancestry; Mimi Colligan, ‘Amadio, John (1883–1964), in ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/amadio-john-5009.
122 ‘Music’, Punch, 29 May 1913: 8.
123 ‘Sir Charles and Lady Halle's First Concert’, Argus, 23 May 1890: 6. On the profusion of women violinists see Simon McVeigh, ‘“As the Sand on the Sea Shore”: Women Violinists in London's Concert Life around 1900’, in Essays on the History of English Music in Honour of John Caldwell: Sources, Style, Performance, Historiography, ed. Emma Hornby and David Maw (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010): 232–58.
124 ‘Social Notes’, Australasian, 26 Apr. 1890: 38.
125 ‘Orchestral Music’, Argus, 18 Aug. 1899: 7.
126 Out of 63 concerts including women, only eight featured a woman harpist.
127 Six women violinists or violists played in the Queen's Hall Orchestra concert on 18 October 1913. See ‘Women in Orchestras’, Common Cause, 24 Oct. 1913: 497.
128 See the photographic portraits of the women in the orchestra at the Women's Work Exhibition in 1907, published in Leader, 3 Aug. 1907: 26.
129 ‘Music’, Australasian, 23 May 1903: 35.
130 Orfeo, ‘Music’, Punch, 5 May 1904: 31.
131 ‘Music’, Australasian, 12 Oct. 1907: 28.
132 ‘Music’, Australasian, 14 Mar. 1908: 28.
133 Her debut is noted in ‘Mr. Marshall-Hall's Conservatorium Concert’, Argus, 28 Nov. 1901: 9. See also ‘Our Public Women’, Australasian, 12 May 1928: 19.
134 ‘Miss Edith Bear at Home’, Table Talk, 19 Jun. 1902: 20. The eldest of the Bear sisters, Annette Bear Crawford, was the leading suffrage campaigner in Victoria until her death in London in 1899.
135 Hilda's account of her education is quoted in Don Garden, Theodore Fink: A Talent for Ubiquity (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1998): 104.
136 Further information about her family can be found in the biography of her sister, Australia's first female vet: ‘Reid, Isabelle (Belle) Bruce (1883–1945)’, in ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/reid-isabelle-bruce-belle-11503.
137 ‘Death of Mr. Robert Reid’, Argus, 14 May 1904: 15.
138 Ivy Deakin's sister Vera was also a student of Hattenbach but did not play in the orchestra. See Carole Woods, ‘“Du holde Kunst”: The Musical Life of Vera Deakin’, in Marshall-Hall's Melbourne, ed. Radic and Robinson, 35–42.
139 Thérèse Radic, ‘Ewart, Florence Maud (1864–1949)’, in ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ewart-florence-maud-6125.
140 ‘Woman's Corner: Lady Conductor of Orchestra’, Brisbane Courier, 8 Aug. 1903: 13.
141 Caroline Gaye, ‘Snapshot of an Artist’, Advocate, 3 Aug. 1933: 6.
142 Orfeo, ‘Music’, Punch, 21 Jan. 1909: 30.
143 ‘Music and Musicians’, Table Talk, 2 Jul. 1897: 18.
144 ‘Ladies’ Letter’, Punch, 24 Feb. 1898: 13.
145 Gertrude Cumberland, divorce deposition, 1928, in Victoria, Divorce Records, 1860–1940, Ancestry; ‘Madame Summerhaye's [sic] Farewell’, Argus, 25 Oct. 1922: 15.
146 Fees at the university conservatorium when it opened in 1895 were 24 guineas per year. R.J.W. Selleck, The Shop: The University of Melbourne 1850–1939 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2003): 371.
147 ‘Amusements’, Argus, 23 Apr. 1913: 14. On her overseas study see ‘Little Known Masterpieces’, Northern Star (Lismore), 15 Sept 1934: 4.
148 Josephi, born in Germany in 1852, was a member of the MHO from 1895 to 1909, a linguist, connoisseur of rare books, collector of ancient weapons and a trouble-maker who fell foul of what he called ‘the Mephistophelean director of the Conservatorium over the (then) vexed question of payment for rehearsals’. ‘In the Musician's Garret’, Smith's Weekly, 10 Dec. 1921: 13.
149 Kenneth Morgan contrasts the male members of the Musicians’ Union with the ‘non-union (i.e. amateur, mainly women) players’. See ‘Sir James Barrett’, 95.
150 As Paula Gillett argues for Britain, the definition of professional was ‘elusive’: see her ‘Ambivalent Friendships: Music-Lovers, Amateurs, and Professional Musicians in the Later Nineteenth Century’, in Music and British Culture, 1785–1914: Essays in Honor of Cyril Ehrlich, ed. Christina Bashford and Leanne Langley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000): 321. Rosemary Golding writes that the importance of the Union of Graduates in Music ‘came not in recognising a common educational standard and preparation for a career musician, but in attempting to provide a measure of exclusiveness’; see Golding, ‘Music Teaching in the Late Nineteenth Century: A Professional Occupation?’, in The Music Profession in Britain, 1780–1920: New Perspectives on Status and Identity, ed. Rosemary Golding (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018): 134.
151 Euroa Advertiser, 30 Apr. 1915: 1.
152 W.J. Hopkins, note to Ivy Deakin, c. 9 Aug. 1904?, 1924/28/163, Herbert and Ivy Brookes Papers, MS 1924, National Library of Australia.
153 The union's own records, held at the Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, begin in 1911.
154 See the list of members of the orchestra, attached to minutes of the V.P. Orchestral Concert Committee, M-H 12/1, Grainger Museum.
155 ‘The Musicians’ Union’, Age, 12 Sept. 1900: 9.
156 ‘A Musicians’ Union’, Age, 29 Aug. 1900: 5.
157 Ehrlich refers to the supply of musicians as a ‘torrent’ and finds a four-fold increase in instrumentalists in London between 1890 and 1910. Ehrlich, Music Profession, 78, 237. On the history of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union in Britain, 1893–1914, see John Williamson and Martin Cloonan, Players’ Work Time: A History of the British Musicians’ Union, 1893–2013 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016): 36–56.
158 See Belich, Replenishing the Earth, 356–72.
159 The average of all annual incomes according to the 1891 census (i.e. before the depression of the 1890s) was £107.1s. 11d. In 1903 Herbert Stoneham earned three pounds per week playing at the Princess Theatre, but Melba offered him 15 pounds a week to play for her opera season. See ‘Coming Divorce Suit: Madame Melba's Flautist’, Register (Adelaide), 24 Oct. 1903: 7.
160 ‘New Insolvents’, Australasian, 22 Mar. 1873: 22.
161 A Lucky Chap, ‘Auto-Bio’, Sporting Judge, 8 Jul. 1916: 4.
162 ‘Fraudulent Conversion’, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Nov. 1907: 10; ‘A Musician in Trouble’, Argus, 20 Apr. 1903: 7.
163 Edward Lyons's brother Martin (born 1860) was also a clarinettist, and both played in the orchestra in 1896–97. The player listed by that surname in earlier years seems to be Edward.
164 Deposition by Bertha Lyons, 1902, in Victoria, Divorce Records, 1860–1940, Ancestry. Mrs Lyons reported that her husband ‘had connection with me in spite of my opposition’.
165 See letter to Barrett, 4 Feb. 1913, in Robinson, Passions, 145.
166 On the deficits see Morgan, ‘Sir James Barrett’, 93.
167 ‘Musicians’ Union: Does Discord Exist?’, Herald, 22 Jun. 1910: 6.
168 ‘Musicians and Their Pay’, Age, 8 Mar. 1910: 8.
169 In 1905, for example, the fee of £1.10s for a violinist would cover three rehearsals in the week before the concert, in addition to a sectional. Extra full rehearsals paid an additional five shillings. See the list of rehearsals at 1924/10/228, Papers of Herbert and Ivy Brookes, MS 1924, National Library of Australia.
170 ‘Victorian Orchestral Association’, Age, 20 Apr. 1910: 8.
171 W.J. Hopkins to the editor, Age, 22 Jun. 1910: 9. In Britain those who worked at a trade during the day and played in the theatre at night were referred to as ‘double-jobbers’. See Williamson and Cloonan, Players’ Work Time, 46.
172 ‘Rift within the Lute’, Argus, 8 Mar. 1910: 9.
173 Marshall-Hall to the editor, Age, 24 Jun. 1910: 9.
174 Minutes of the V.P. Orchestral Concert Committee, M-H 12/1, Grainger Museum.
175 ‘Mr. Charles Darley Hume’, Table Talk, 5 Feb. 1903: 14.
176 Sophie Fuller refers to the original definition of the amateur as ‘a person who has a taste for something’. ‘Women Musicians and Professionalism in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries’, in Golding, The Music Profession in Britain, 150.
177 James Rudall's mother, Georgiana Gordon Scot (1830–1910), was the granddaughter of the MP. See Berwick family tree, Ancestry; and Sir Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, 30th ed. (1868): 108.
178 F.F., ‘Melbourne's Master Musicians’, Age, 30 Dec. 1939: 19.
179 ‘Estate of Mrs. Victorine Pett’, Brisbane Courier, 30 Mar. 1916: 11. Mme Pett was the grandmother of the British conductor Aylmer Buesst.
180 M.P. Fox to A.J. Lee, 12 Jan. 1911, M-H 9–2, Grainger Museum.
181 ‘Music Orchestral Dispute 1910’, M-H 12/2, Grainger Museum.
182 ‘Music’, Australasian, 16 Jul. 1910: 28.
183 ‘Concerts, &c’., Australasian, 13 Aug. 1910: 28.
184 Marshall-Hall to O'Brien, 5 Jun. 1911, M-H 9/4, Grainger Museum.
185 Orfeo, ‘Victorian Orchestral Association’, Punch, 8 Dec. 1910: 29.
186 By comparison, the award achieved for London musicians after the 1907 strike was 30s per week (Williamson and Cloonan, Players’ Work Time, 50). Marshall-Hall informed Barrett that £400 in Melbourne was the equivalent of £250 in London because of the difference in cost of living. See Marshall-Hall to Barrett, 4 Feb. 1913, in Robinson, Passions, 145.
187 Editorial, Age (4 Apr. 1912): 6.
188 Marshall-Hall to James Barrett, 14 Apr. 1912.
189 Marshall-Hall to James Barrett, 23 Mar. 1913, in Robinson, Passions, 147.
190 Marshall-Hall to J.B. North, 18 Jun. 1915, in Robinson, Passions, 215.
191 ‘A Treat for the Kiddies’, Mirror (Perth), 4 Jun. 1938: 2.
192 ‘Obituary: Mr. Percy Code’, Age, 19 Oct. 1953: 2.
193 This percentage is derived from occupations in electoral rolls available on Ancestry.
194 See www.stokowski.org/San_Francisco_Symphony_Musicians_List.htm (accessed 11 Jan. 2022).
195 Dierich to Ivy Brookes, 10 Oct. 1936, M-H 9/6, Grainger Museum.
196 Toy's World War I registration shows him employed at the Columbia School of Music in Chicago, and he was still living there in 1942. See Ernest William Rogers Toy, US Draft Registration Cards, 1917–18 and 1942, Ancestry.
197 Marshall-Hall to Dierich, c. 1913, in Robinson, Passions, 161.
198 See, for example, ‘Florence Austral and John Amadio’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 Apr. 1934: 3.
199 ‘A Permanent Orchestra’, Age, 13 Jul. 1927: 12.
200 Australian women over the age of 21 won the vote in 1902, 16 years before the first legislation towards women's suffrage was enacted in Britain. Woollacott suggests that Australian women were agents in the foundation of modernism in both poles of the empire: To Try Her Fortune, 212.
201 On modernism in Marshall-Hall's musical works see, for example, Suzanne Robinson, ‘Resisting the “Blighting Curse of Puritanism”: On the Sexual Politics of Stella’, in Marshall-Hall's Melbourne, ed. Radic and Robinson, 164–80.
202 Williams, ‘The Metropolis and the Emergence of Modernism’, 91.