Nowadays conductors come and conductors go. In the last ten years the Musical festival has seen three, and this year we have two more - quite a change from the old days, when three conductors spanned almost sixty years. After five exploratory years the founders, Edith and Rosalind Craig-Sellar, decided the the festival should be put on a more professional footing, and Dr. Hugh Allen, organist of new College, Oxford, was appointed Festival Conductor in 1906. Allen exerted a far-reaching musical influence on English musical life of his time, and if his subsequent fame was less on account of his musicality than his organizing abilities, his sheer driving force was just what Petersfield needed. What is more, he had his own orchestra in Oxford, led by Mrs Mary venables, which he brought to Petersfield every year, augmented by top professional players from London, booked by Adolf Borsdorf, one of the co-founders of the London Symphony Orchestra. Allen quickly galvanised the festival into a great burst of activity, and within a few years he had performed Mozart’s Requiem in Latin, quite a feat in those days, the Finale of Beethoven’s Fidelio, and, spread over two years, the whole of Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

By the end of World war I, during which the festival fell silent, Allen had been appointed Director of the Royal College of Music and Professor of Music at Oxford University, and felt compelled to resign from his Petersfield post. He was knighted in 1920, and his influence continued to be felt for many years.

For several years before the War, Allen had brought to Petersfield a young Oxford graduate as a baritone soloist. His name was Adrian Boult, and when the Festival was revived in 1920, he, now an up and coming young conductor, was invited to become the Festival’s new conductor.

Despite his increasing international reputation, Without Dr. Allen’s orchestra, he made do with local players, trained by Percy Whitehead and kethleen Merritt, but augmented by players from the Royal College, among them a young violinist, Marie Wilson. She later became sub-leader of Boult’s newly-formed BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930, and after the Second World War was a prominent member of the Philharmonia, who famously said after a concert with Otto Klemperer, “I feel like a tart taking money from you after making music with that man.” She last appeared in Petersfield as a soloist in 1955. Boult greatly enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of the Petersfield Festival. He loved to tell the story, recounted in his autobiography, of how a guest singer, seated in the front row of the chorus, turned round to the lady behind her and asked if she could see the conductor. “Oh yes miss, thank you,” came the reply, “you see, I saw him last year!” In 1924 the whole Festival was devoted to the music of Bach, whilst in 1930 the BBC broadcast part of a concert from the old Drill Hall, with Boult asking the soloists to forego their broadcast fee to shore up the finances of the festival.

By 1936 the Town Hall had been built specially to house the Festival, and there was a complete performance of the St. Matthew passion, beginning at 4.30. Among the audience were Ralph Vaughan Williams and Sir Hugh Allen.

Boult struggled to keep the Festival alive during the war years, but resigned in 1945. Yet he remained interested enough at the age of ninety-two to send a warm letter of congratulation on the Festival’s 75th anniversary in 1981, seventy years after his first appearance.

He was succeeded by another Oxford man, Dr. Sidney Watson, Master of Music at Winchester College and later Precentor at Eton. There will be some still singing who remember this tall, military looking man, who, like his predecessor, found it a privilege and a pleasure to take part in such an integral part of England’s cultural heritage.

Gradually the Festival began to change during his tenure, with major works, taking a whole evening, slowly becoming the rule rather than the exception: the Dream of Gerontius in 1957, the St. John Passion in 1961, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony in 1962 and the B minor Mass twice, in 1953 and 1964. These performances were good enough to receive notices in the national press, and Dr. Watson was particularly proud of a performance of Vaughan William’ Five Tudor Portraits, a work notoriously difficult to bring off. He retired in 1964, after nineteen years as conductor. In the last forty years the Festival has seen a dozen different conductors, including the revered Gordon Mackie and the charismatic Mark Deller. A sign of the times, no doubt, they come and they go.

Tom Muckley, February 2005

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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