Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Infobox musical artist
Name = Royal Liverpool Philharmonic


Background = classical_ensemble
Alias = RLPO 'The Phil'
Origin = flagicon|UK Liverpool, England, UK
Genre = Classical
Occupation = Symphony orchestra
Years_active = 1840-"present"
Associated_acts = Ensemble 10/10; RLP Choir
URL = [http://www.liverpoolphil.com www.liverpoolphil.com]
Current_members = Principal Conductors
Vasily Petrenko
Conductor Laureate
Libor Pešek
Conductor Emeritus
Vernon Handley
Chorusmaster
Ian Tracey
Past_members = Founder Subscription Membership
Notable_instruments = The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra based in Liverpool, England, is one of the world's oldest established orchestras. It is owned and administered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society (RLPS), a registered charity. It is the only orchestral society in the United Kingdom to own its own hall, the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. The hall has particularly fine acoustics, and has been used for many recordings with the orchestra. The Society and Orchestra were a key partner and delivery organisation for the successful 'European Capital of Culture' bid for the year 2008.

History

The orchestra was founded as the Liverpool Philharmonic Society on January 10, 1840 by local citizens buying shares as 'Subscriptions', effectively it was a private club. [Article "Liverpool Musical Festivals" in cite book
title=A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, volume ii
first=George
last=Grove
location=London
publisher=Macmillan and Co.
year=1880
pages = p. 154
oclc= 19025639
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ef8PAAAAYAAJ ] The Society employed the musicians whereas elsewhere the players would be freelance or would form their own orchestral organisation or the local council would directly support the players as a municpal orchestra. The RLPS is one of the oldest concert-giving organisations in the world, and the second oldest in Britain after the Royal Philharmonic Society, and the Leipzig Gewandaus but founded before the Vienna Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic; the Halle claims to be founded in 1848 only as the "oldest professional orchestra in Britain". The Society and the Orchestra were granted the title ‘Royal’ in 1957 by HM The Queen when she agreed to become its senior Patron, they remained the only such organisations with Royal patronage until the 1980s. Concerts where held in a number of venues until the Philharmonic Hall was opened on its present site at Hope Street in 1849; this was lost to fire in 1933. Liverpool University's Professor of Architecture, Herbert Rowse, designed the Bau Haus and art deco influenced replacement which was completed in 1939. As such the Orchestra is the only ensemble to have its own permanent concert hall, other UK orchestras use either independent venues (eg Southbank Centre) or municipal halls (eg Barbican).

Apart from its financial support by its registered subscribers and national Department of Culture 'Arts Council England' grants it also receives funds from the local authorities of Merseyside and elsewhere where it is the principal visiting orchestra, notably Chester, Preston and Lancashire County. The Orchestra has had extensive overseas tours over the last twenty years and was the first non-Czeckoslovak orchestra to play the first cconcert of the Prague Spring Festival in 1989.

Conductors

The concerts were conducted from 1843 to 1865 by Jakob Zeugheer who was succeeded upon his death by Alfred Mellon. The orchestra was led in the 1860s by Sir Julius Benedict. For three years (1880-1883) the composer Max Bruch was principal conductor of the orchestra. He composed his Kol Nidre for cello and orchestra while in Liverpool, dedicating it to the Jewish community of the city. The Society has commissioned many works for itself, perhaps the best known being Walton's Symphony No2. Since then, some of the most distinguished principal conductors of the orchestra have included Sir Henry Wood, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Sir Adrian Boult (born locally), Sir John Pritchard, Sir Charles Groves, Libor Pešek (jointly head of the Czech National Orchestra) and Gerard Schwarz. Simon Rattle, born locally, trained with the RLPO.

In 1989, the RLPS and Orchestra received an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University, and in 1991 the RLPS was the first organisation to be granted the Honorary Freedom of the City of Liverpool. A further honour of Meritorious Service was granted by the City of Liverpool in 1997. The RLPS also administers the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, Philharmonic Youth & Training Choirs, and the Community and Gospel Choir. The RLPS has supported contemporary music throughout its history and in 1994 appointed Graham Fitkin as the first Composer-In-Association to work with all the ensembles and with communities in Liverpool.

The society/ orchestra has had strong support from the local business community and this enabled it to completely redevelop the Philharmonic Hall within Rowse's structure, extensions were made onto neighbouring sites, notably a studio for chamber music the Rodewald Suite. Although it has encountered some fiscal troubles over the years, as have all local orchestras, including a 2003 report of a pending large deficit. [cite news | author=David Ward | title=Troubled orchestra faces £1m fund gap | However, so strong was its reputation that applied for and it was awarded the largest rchestral Arts England 'revenue equalisation' grant ever in 2005. url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/cityofculture2008/story/0,,950368,00.html | work=The Guardian | date=14 March 2003 | accessdate=2007-07-25] Around the start of Gerard Schwarz's tenure as principal conductor, the RLPO had a subsidy of GB£135,000. In addition, there were reports in 2004 of tension between Schwarz and the orchestra, and his contract was not renewed. [cite news | author=Pauline Fairclough | title=RLPO/Schwarz | url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1203143,00.html | work=The Guardian | date=26 April 2004 | accessdate=2007-07-25] In July 2005, the young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko was named the RLPO's principal conductor. [cite news | author=David Ward | title=Orchestra's Russian choice | url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1526557,00.html | work=The Guardian | date=12 July 2005 | accessdate=2007-07-25] Since his 2006 advent to the post, the orchestra's situation has improved and their subsidy is now reported at around GB£1.3 million. [cite news | author=Tim Ashley | title=RLPO/Petrenko | url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/dance/reviews/story/0,,2007385,00.html | work=The Guardian | date=7 Feb 2007 | accessdate=2007-07-25] [cite news | author=Andrew Clark | title=The young ones | url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b70f1144-ba83-11db-bbf3-0000779e2340.html | work=Financial Times | date=12 Feb 2007 | accessdate=2007-07-25] In May 2007, the RLPO announced that Petrenko had extended his contract with the orchestra to 2012. [cite news | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/10/01/bmpetrenko10.xml | title=Vasily Petrenko: Why Liverpool is galvanised by the 'Petrenko effect' | publisher="Telegraph" | author=Geoffrey Norris | date=1 October 2007 | accessdate=2007-10-03]

In addition to Petrenko and his distinguished predecessors, the orchestra continues to work with Carl Davis and Libor Pešek, who holds the title of conductor laureate. Vernon Handley was the RLPO's principal guest conductor from 1989 to 1995, and held the title of RLPO conductor emeritus until his death in 2008. [cite news | url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/vernon-handley-conductor-and-champion-of-british-music-whose-extensive-discography-includes-100-premieres-925543.html | title=Vernon Handley: Conductor and champion of British music whose extensive discography includes 100 premieres | work=The Independent | author=Lewis Foreman | date=11 September 2008 | accessdate=2008-10-02]

Recordings and RLPO Live

As a recording orchestra the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has a varied and critically acclaimed discography throughout the era of recording, the famous Messiah and Dream of Gerontius early LPs with Sargent and notable first recordings of British works, eg Delius and Bliss with Groves and Handley. In particular, and more recently, Libor Pešek made a number of award winning recordings with the RLPO of Czech composers, including symphonies and orchestral music of Antonín Dvořák and Josef Suk. The RLPO's catalogue also includes a symphony cycle and other works by Beethoven with Sir Charles Mackerras, Britten, Mahler symphonies with Schwarz, Pešek and Mackerras, Rachmaninov, Smetana, Richard Strauss, and a Vaughan Williams symphony cycle and other works with Vernon Handley. Several recordings feature the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir. A complete cycle of all six symphonies by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, in a new edition, has been released by the RLPO and Douglas Bostock.

In 1998 the Orchestra launched its own recording label, RLPO Live. The initiative came from the musicians themselves, and each recording is made with the in-house recording company, Merseyside Sound Recordings. In January 2003, RLPO Live and Classico Records joined forces, and the RLPO's recordings are now able to reach international markets in a wide range of territories through Classico's distribution network.

Partnership with Classic FM

In November 2001, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Classic FM, a major classical music radio station in the UK, announced a new partnership which makes the RLPO Classic FM's "Orchestra in North West England". This relationship has been extended to 2009.

Principal conductors

References

External links

* [http://www.liverpoolphil.com Royal Liverpool Philharmonic official website]
* [http://www.liverpooltheatreguide.com/philharmonic.htm What's On At The Liverpool Philharmonic]
* [http://www.rlpo-live.com Royal Liverpool Philharmonic] Record label site
*allmusic|41:49774
* [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/RLPO.htm Royal Liverpool Philharmonic] at the Bach Cantatas Website