London Music Festival Programme

Comment by Julian Hellaby on February 28, 2025 at 8:19

Do you know if there were any more after 1948?

Comment by Hugh on February 28, 2025 at 8:39

There weren't Julian. Even though it was successful, it didn't make sufficient money for the promoters. To quote myself:

Hylton and Gentle ended the 1948 festival at break-even. Be that as it may, and despite the general agreement that it had been a success there was never to be a third year. Three weeks after the second Festival ended, the Arena was reformatted and used for basketball for London’s Olympic Games.

Classical music events at the Arena were not quite dead yet, however. In 1949, the Arena hosted three further ‘high-culture’ seasons. On Easter Sunday and Monday, over 20,000 people heard black American bass-baritone Paul Robeson give the final two concerts of his UK tour at Harringay. True to the spirit of the earlier London Music Festivals, and at Robeson’s insistence, pricing was considerably cheaper than at his other concerts. In June, a week-long programme included the Royal Opera House Chorus singing ‘Madam Butterfly’, under the banner, ‘Eight Concerts for the People’ - but the house was only half full on most nights except the last night, when the audience was 10,000 with 3,000 turned away.

Harringay Arena’s short life as a classical venue ended in 1949 in a blaze of glory with five days of performances by Finsbury Park-born Alicia Markova. More than 40,000 people saw Britain’s first prima ballerina dance, but traditionalists didn’t approve. Her dance partner Anton Dolin noted, ‘Our appearances at Earl’s Court and Harringay shocked the highbrows, who claimed that we were vulgarising the ballet by dragging that great art to the level of the circus’.

For three years Harringay Arena was home to a wonderful experiment, nothing like it had been tried before, but after 1949 it returned to its metier of sports. It might have been the end of the ‘British music boom’, insufficient profits, or what one press report called ‘that hideous Harringay echo’; it may have been a mix of all three, but after 1949, no live classical music would ever be played at the Arena again. In its place the whoosh-hiss-ding-ding of boxing and knock-thud-scrape of ice hockey once more filled the vast space, to be complemented, for a period, by the more sedate clip-clop of the Horse of the Year Show.

Excerpt from, Hugh Flouch, "Harringay Arena 1947-49 – bringing ‘serious music’ to the masses", 100 Stories From The Archive, J Owen (Ed),  Hornsey Historical Society, 2022.

You can buy the book from the HHS. 

Comment by Tina Eager on March 7, 2025 at 21:52

My mum had a copy of that same programme in her things when she cleared her house out before moving in with us. It was in a pretty tatty condition, but she was actually there.

Comment by Julian Hellaby on March 7, 2025 at 23:08

Thank you Hugh!

Comment by Hugh on March 8, 2025 at 4:29

Do you know which night your mother went, Tina. The programme varied from night to night.

Comment by Tina Eager on March 8, 2025 at 16:17

Unfortunately not. I don't think we still have it.

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