| Frank
would have noted the demise of a Norwich group called the Hall
Concert, a society of amateurs who made music in various buildings,
including St AnDrew's Hall, between 1789 and 1834 when the society
was dissolved and its assets sold off. It had begun with half
a dozen players and grown to full orchestra. Some
of its music, bearing labels marked 'Hall Society', went into
the library of the Philharmonic Society which could thus be
considered its successor.
Frank
sent out circulars inviting twenty-five men to a meeting on
Saturday October 5th 1839. That was the day that the Norwich
Philharmonic Society came into existence, with Frank as the
treasurer and secretary and his brother Francis as librarian.
The
initial object was to enable players to practise together.
Later it was decided that two evenings each year should be
open to visitors.
At
the society's debut concert on March 5th 1841, Richard Bray,
a well-known Norwich violinist, was both leader and conductor.
The orchestra consisted of fifteen string players, a small
woodwind section and a piano.
Mozart,
Beethoven, Handel and Rossini were in the substantial programme
of fourteen items. Other composers represented were de Beriot,
Clifton, Rooke, Kalkbrenner, AnDriozzi, Paer, Stevens and
John Parry, every one of whom was composing in the early or
mid-19th century but is largely forgotten in the 20th.
 After
the death of Frank, his son Frank William Bianchi Noverre
continued the family tradition with the Philharmonic and Triennial.
The 1880s brought the formation of a ladies' Orchestral Society
which had a vogue for some years.
It
was in 'Noverre's Assembly Rooms' that the society gave a
Centenary Concert in 1901, the first to be conducted by Dr
Frank Bates. He had succeeded Dr Horace Hill who was preceded
by Dr F.E. Gladstone, Norwich CatheDral Organist, who had
followed James Harcourt, who took over from Richard Bray,
the original conductor, and held the post for thirty-five
years.
 From
the turn of the century the main place for the society's concerts
became St AnDrew's Hall with a few in the CatheDral and occasionally
at the Theatre Royal.
Dr
Bates conducted the 200th concert in 1924 when Myra Hess was
the soloist in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. He retired
in 1928 to be succeeded by Dr Heathcote Statham who had just
been appointed the CatheDral organist.
In
1930 the Philharmonic Chorus was formed as a separate entity.
Until then choral works were given in collaboration with the
Norwich Choral Society.
 The
300th concert in 1947 brought a performance of Handel's Messiah
with Dr Statham conducting and Peter Pears among the soloists.
During
Dr Statham's reign of thirty-two years, the scope of programmes
was extended and many works were performed, including some
of his own composition.
After
he retired, Sydney Gould, the orchestra's leader, was acting
conductor for three seasons, sharing the duties with a number
of visiting conductors.
|
He
was the grandson of a French dancer, Augustine Noverre. In
1775 Augustine came to England with a corps de ballet at the
invitation of David Garrick, one of England's greatest actors,
who at that time was also manager of the Drury Lane theatre
where the dancers were to appear.
A
man of wide artistic sympathies, Frank was treasurer of the
Norwich Choral Society and one of the keenest supporters of
the Norwich Triennial Musical Festival founded in the same
year, 1824, by Richard Mackenzie Bacon, proprietor and editor
of the Norwich Mercury, who had married the sister of Augustine.
Then
in 1963, Anthony Hopkins as conductor began a partnership
with the society that lasted for seven highly successful seasons.
