Royal Philharmonic Society History
by Arthur Searle (RPS Honorary Librarian)
Joseph Haydn paid two lengthy visits to England in the years 1791/5. (Between them, in Vienna, he received the young Beethoven as a pupil.) Haydn found London's varied musical life stimulating; in return, the appreciation of orchestral music in the capital benefited immeasurably from the symphonies which he wrote for Johann Peter Salomon's concerts.
Despite the war in Europe, a number of short-lived bodies gave orchestral concerts in the following years, often with Salomon taking part. But there was no regular pattern. In 1813 a group of professional musicians banded together to put matters right. This was the genesis of the Philharmonic Society of London, which became the Royal Philharmonic Society during its one-hundredth season of concerts in 1912.
Salomon led the orchestra at the first concert, and Muzio Clementi 'presided' at the piano, just as Haydn had done.
Other founder-members included Sir George Smart, who was to play an active part in the Society's affairs until the 1860s, the violinist and composer Felix Janiewicz, Mozart's English pupil Thomas Attwood, and Charles Neate, who went to Vienna to study with Beethoven after the war had ended two years later.
Programme from the inaugural
RPS concert
From the beginning, and with remarkably few interruptions, the Society gave a regular season of eight concerts. New music was the principal interest. That first concert, on 8 March 1813, included symphonies by Haydn and Beethoven, and chamber and vocal works by Mozart.
It began with the overture to Cherubini's opera-ballet Anacreon. The concerts for the second season included a new overture by Cherubini specially written for the Society, and a new symphony by Ferdinand Ries, another Beethoven pupil living in London.