1852

A four day music festival, as part of a run of triennial events.

The Festival was held a year later than scheduled due to the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, which was expected to draw away potential audiences as well as change the availability of the musicians.

Several new programming initiatives were tried at the 1852 festival including a complete one-woman reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Fanny Kemble, and a concert of drawing room songs by Pauline Viardot, a French mezzo soprano of Spanish descent. Viardot was hugely influential and as something of a socialite, her musical gatherings in Paris were frequented by the leading composers and artists of the time.

Attendances at the concerts this year were so high that audience members were reported to be literally climbing the walls and hanging from the windows just to be part of the action!