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COUNCI L
*Sir Kenneth Clark, C.H ., K .C .B ., D.Litt ., LL .D . (Chairman)
*Wyn Griffith, O .B .E ., D .Litt. (Vice-Chairman)
*Benn W. Levy, M .B .E .
T . E . Bean, C.B.E .
!Professor Anthony Lewis
Ernest Boden
*Sir William Coldstream, C .B .E .
*Sir John McEwen, Bart ., LL .D .
The Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax, D .L . ,
*Joseph Compton, C .B .E .
LL .D .
Mrs . Hugh Dalton
Miss C . V . Wedgwood, C .B .E .
Sir Emrys Evans, LL.D .
Hugh Willat t
*Professor Gwyn Jones
Robert Kemp
*Member of Executive Committe e
SCOTTISH COMMITTE E
Sir John McEwen of Marchmont, Bart ., LL .D . (Chairman)
D . K . Baxandall, C .B .E .
Mrs . Eric Linklater
The Hon . Mrs . Michael Lyl e
Ernest Boden
James McNaught
Charles Carter, F .M .A ., F.S .A .
Colin Chandler
William MacTaggart, P .R .S .A ., Hon. R .A .
Hugh Marshal l
Charles Graves
John M . Playfair
J . A . Henderson
Robert Kemp
Miss Violet C. Youn g
WELSH COMMITTE E
Professor Gwyn Jones (Chairman )
Thomas Parry, D .Litt .
The Marquess of Anglesey
Lady Amy Parry-Williams
S . Kenneth Davies, C .B .E .
Robert E . Presswoo d
T. Glyn Davies
Miss Frances Rees, O .B .E .
Sir Emrys Evans, LL .D .
Ceri Richard s
Alex J . Gordon, Dip .Arch ., A .R .I .B .A .
David Dilwyn John, T .D ., D.Sc., F .M .A . Alun Llylwelyn Williams
D . E . Parry Williams, D .Mus .
Dr . Daniel Jones
STAF F
HEADQUARTER S
4 St . James's Square, London, S . WA (Whitehall 9737 )
Secretary-General : Sir William Emrys Williams, C .B .E .
Deputy Secretary and Finance Officer : M . J. McRober t
Drama Director :
Art Director :
Music Director :
John Denison, M .B .E .
J . L. Hodgkinson, O .B .E .
Gabriel White
Assistant Secretary : Eric W . White
Accountant :
D . P . Lund, F .C .A .
SCOTLAN D
Director : Dr . George Firth, O .B .E ., I I Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh, 3 (Caledonia n
2769)
Deputy Director : Donald Mather
WALE S
Director : Miss Myra Owen, O .B .E ., 29 Park Place, Cardiff, South Wales (Cardiff 23488)
Deputy Director : David Peters
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Co Pal
T H E A R T S C O U N C I L OF G R E A T B R I T A I N
ARTS COUNCI L
OF GREAT BRITAI N
REFERENCE ONL Y
r
!FR O NOT RERAOV E
OM THE LIBRAR Y
FOURTEEN
ANNUAL REPOR T
X958-195 9
q . ST . JAMES'S SQUARE, LONDON, S .W .,
DESIGNED BY MISS G. DRUMMOND McKERRO W
AND PRINTED IN ENGLAND A T
THE BAYNARD PRESS
CONTENT S
Page
1. THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL .
2. NOTES OF THE YEA R
5
. 11
3. ART
23
4. DRAMA .
26
5. MUSI C
6. OPERA AND BALLE T
T POETRY
8. SCOTLAND
9. WALE S
53
.
10. NOTES ON THE ACCOUNTS .
65
74
APPENDICES :
Appendix A The Arts Council of Great Britain : Audited Accounts
76
Appendix B The Council's Committee in Scotland : Audited Accounts
90
Appendix C The Council's Committee in Wales : Audited Accounts
96
Appendix D Arts Council Exhibitions held in Great Britain .
102
Appendix E Subsidies from Local Authorities and Local Educatio n
Authorities
10 4
Appendix F Some selected instances of private and industrial patronage
of the arts .
114
THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVA L
During the past decade the case for spending public funds upon th e
fine arts has been abundantly discussed and increasingly accepted, an d
it is fair to say that the question nowadays is usually not 'Why T but `Ho w
much T This new keynote of opinion has been increasingly sounded i n
Parliamentary debates and in Press comments ; it has been no less significantly expressed by Local Authorities, so many of whom were formerl y
slow to use the opportunities afforded them by the Local Government Ac t
of 1948 . One example may be offered of their increasing disposition t o
accept public patronage of the arts as inevitable and justified . A little
over eighteen months ago the Arts Council sought to persuade Loca l
Authorities in the South-West to join forces in supporting the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra . For reasons of social history and,local geography
the South-West is lesswell disposed than, say, industrial areas to proposal s
of this kind, and to begin with only a handful of local councils too k
kindly to the idea . Yet by the summer of 1959 no fewer than 53 of the m
had combined (in the Western Authorities Orchestral Association) t o
provide over £6,000 towards the maintenance of the orchestra, a figur e
which, added to the Arts Council's £20,000 and £12,500 from th e
Bournemouth Corporation, should just keep it out of the red . There
can be no doubt that some of the 100 Local Authorities which hav e
not yet come in will do so in the near future . Lancashire and Cheshire
Local Authorities have for some years accepted a local responsibilit y
for the Halle and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and some 80 Scottis h
towns and villages have similarly provided about £40,000 a year fo r
the Scottish National Orchestra. But that a region of England hithert o
unfamiliar with the doctrine of collective patronage should now follo w
this example is a notable portent .
The case for public patronage is well on the way to general acceptance .
What remains to be determined, at all levels, is the scale on which it i s
to be provided, and this exercise will continue to require patience an d
good faith from all involved in it . For the year 1958-59 the Chancellor o f
the Exchequer fixed the Arts Council's grant at £1,100,000 . Of this sum
the Council spent £64,252 on direct provision, mainly of art exhibitions,
but including some expenditure on music, drama and poetry, and £120,17 1
on administration and advisory services . Of the remaining £915,577,
£906,348 was distributed among some 166 beneficiaries-orchestras,
theatres, opera and ballet companies, and groups of music clubs and art s
clubs . The Arts Council's grant for 1959/60 is £118,000 larger than it wa s
for 1958/59, and virtually the whole of this increase will be required t o
make ends meet at the Royal Opera House . Both Covent Garden
and Sadler's Wells are out of danger, certainly for the time being .
Their subsidies from the Arts Council are more realistic than they hav e
ever been, their takings are highly satisfactory, and the L .C.C. has accepted
a share of financial responsibility at Sadler's Wells . But no sooner can the
Arts Council breathe again about the condition of opera and ballet than
it is faced with the prospect of crises elsewhere . The immediate area of
liability is that of the provincial repertory theatres, 27 of which in Englan d
and Scotland are receiving from the Arts Council a total subsidy of
£87,005.
In the West End of London, one of the playgrounds of the world, th e
theatre continues to attract substantial audiences . But since the Spring of
this year takings have fallen in most of the provincial theatres, and on the
average they are now not more than half-full . If this decline in attendance s
were affecting only, or mainly, the weaker playhouses it might be attributed to falling artistic standards ; but the hardest hit include half a doze n
theatres of exemplary quality . The people who are staying away from them
in increasing numbers are the 'steadies' : the ones who could formerly b e
counted upon to visit every new production . The hard core of support i s
diminishing. Why? There is no single reason . The causes of the grave and
undoubted decline in the provincial theatre as a whole include the lon g
spell of fine weather in Spring and early Summer, and the increasin g
dinginess of so many valiant Reps too poor to afford a lick of paint or the
renewal of seats ruptured by several generations of use . The immense
expansion of Hire Purchase is also said to be a factor ; since restrictions on
`consumer borrowing' were lifted it has been rising at the rate o f
£400,000,000 a year . Now that the minimum equipment of an averag e
family includes so many expensive gadgets and amenities, the size of th e
monthly payments on them all calls for peripheral economies in th e
family budget-and these, it is said, include (for some people) the customary weekly visit to the Rep .
The impact of television was not so immediately felt in the theatres a s
in the cinema, for the theatre-going public outside London is a very small
segment of the population anyhow, but television is certainly reducin g
that fraction still further now, not least because TV itself is providing s o
much excellence in drama . This instantaneous medium can present the
stars to millions at a time, in their own homes, several nights a week, at a
very moderate cost to the family budget ; and from now on most people
are going to derive their enjoyment and knowledge of drama from television . The mass communication of drama ceases to be a responsibility o r
ambition of a living theatre . Must all this mean that, outside London ,
we are bound to accept the dissolution of the professional theatre withi n
the next few years ?
The living theatre has a decisive function ; it can continue to be a
dynamo of drama even if the diffusion of drama now belongs increasingl y
to television . But what kind of living theatre could provide this vita l
dynamic? Certainly not a harassed and impoverished assortment of loca l
theatres mouldering away for lack of audience and lack of amenity . If
the Arts Council should manage to secure in the next financial year a n
enlargement of its Exchequer grant of a similar size to that of recen t
increases, it might have, perhaps, another £100,000 to share between
repertory theatres and orchestras (which are also in need) . Is another
£40,000 or £50,000 a year (in addition to the present £70,000) of Art s
Council subsidy going to ensure the survival of all the repertory theatre s
now on its books? The answer is, probably, no . It is possible that furthe r
aid will be forthcoming from Local Authorities, who have hitherto don e
far less for drama in the provinces than they have for music . If the
Gulbenkian Foundation accepts the recommendations of the Bridge s
Committee it might well decide to provide funds of a really substantia l
order . And, finally, Independent Television, which has already mad e
timely donations to several Repertory Theatres, may extend and enlarg e
its benefactions on the principle of reafforesting a domain of art upo n
which it depends in some measure for its supply of plays and actors an d
technicians . If all this new potential of subsidy is to save the provincia l
theatres it must be forthcoming very quickly, for several Repertor y
Theatres are liable to collapse this autumn and winter .
Even if the financial dry-rot in the provincial theatres can be arreste d
what are we to make of the disquieting decline in public attendance? Th e
fight for survival in the provincial theatre to-day is manifested as much i n
empty seats as in bank overdrafts . Even if the money is found, can the
audience be built up again, even to the modest proportions of a year ago ?
There are varying opinions about this as there are also, indeed, about the
7
methods which should be adopted to seek more public support for th e
theatre in Britain . Should we settle for a limited number of theatres of
high quality rather than persist in the losing battle to hold a long line o f
repertory outposts? Would it be wiser to have fewer theatres and bette r
ones? There is no more fruitless policy of patronage than to try making
too little money go too far, and the Arts Council, constantly short of the
funds it needs to fulfil its functions, is always under pressure to spread it s
aid too widely . If the theatre is to survive outside the metropolis it canno t
be at the present sop-and-pittance level of subsidy . Schemes to fortify the
provincial theatre and to attract new audiences, whatever form they take ,
will cost more money than we habitually devote to such enterprises i n
Britain . If new theatres are considered the best answer, on the model of
Coventry's Belgrade Theatre or the new playhouse now being designed
for the Nottingham Corporation, we must be willing to pay £300,000 fo r
such a building . And if ten such theatres were built to comprise a regiona l
grid, the bill would be three million or so . If the existing Reps, so devoted ,
but so poor, are to fight back to recover their audiences, they would stan d
a better chance if they could be renovated, re-seated, re-equipped an d
given a face-lift . A sum of £100,000 here and now could help to cover th e
cost of such a necessary refurbishing . Unless we develop a new outlook on
the theatre such radical steps as these will not be taken . The state of mind
in which we recognise the need, say, to electrify our railways and build
new road-networks is also the state of mind we should apply to the
obsolescence and general impoverishment of our repertory theatres .
At a time when the National Theatre project is gaining favour it would b e
ironic if the decision to build that institution were to coincide with the
mass burial of provincial theatres . Unless we nerve ourselves to such a n
approach in the near future the theatre outside London will be beyond
recovery and, where it manages to survive, as poignant as a museum piece .
In recent years there has been a welcome, if belated public acceptance o f
the national obligation to maintain our historic houses, beauty spots an d
ancient churches . The fine arts belong in part to that same inheritance, an d
one of them may soon no longer exist outside London unless it is pre served by public adoption.
Another area of responsibility where the Arts Council has increasin g
anxiety is that of orchestral music . Its total subsidy to symphony
orchestras amounts at present to £110,050 and further grants are provide d
by many municipalities . The following table shows the current patter n
of annual income :
NOTTINGHAM CIVIC THEATRE model of the new civic theatre
Architect : Peter Moro, F .R .i .B,A ., F .B .t .A .
Pholographv
MANN BROS .
rEr~rr r
I
.
a. --
THE MERMAID THEATRE (opened May 1959 )
Architect : Elidir Davies, F .R .I .B .A.
The site is that of an old bombed warehouse at Puddle Dock, $lackfriars ,
the walls of which were standing high enough to be usable .
The theatre is covered by a single-span (shell type) barrel roof, the larges t
yet built in this country, and the auditorium is formed in one grand, slightl y
circular tier, with the 499 seats on raked steps . The seats are fixed, and ther e
is generous space between rows . The stage is open, with no proscenium arc h
and no curtain to separate it from the audience . The walls are left in rough ,
old uncovered bricks .
The stage, raised only 9 in ., is an open platform, occupying the width o f
the auditorium, 48 ft . long and 28 ft . deep, with a smaller revolving stage i n
the centre, 24 ft . in diameter . The back structure is based on the Elizabetha n
theatre with its upper and inner acting areas . At the back of the auditoriu m
are the projection and lighting control rooms . The dressing rooms are a t
first floor level : above them is a penthouse consisting of offices for the
administrative staff . At stage level, overlooking the river, there is a restauran t
to seat 80 people .
THEATRL RO)I .\I . AND OPERA HOUSE, NOR1H,\%IP1O N
(built 1884, bought by the Northampton Corporation, 1959, and ]cased to th e
Northampton Repertory Players)-view of the auditorium and stage
prax,rng
by OSBORNE ROBINSON
Orchestras
London
Philharmonic
London Symphony
Halle
Royal Liverpool
Birmingham
Bournemouth
Scottish National
From the Arts
Council
From Local
Authorities
£12,000
£4,300
£12,000
£20,250
£17,000
£20,000
£24,500
£8,875
£1,100
£17,181
£29,931
00,000
£16,177
£37,415
From the
Public
£89,51 5
£131,745
£127,230
£71,39 2
£54,12 8
£55,76 1
£37,632
The figures in the first two columns are modest in comparison with rate s
of subsidy abroad, and there are variations in them not wholly governe d
by rational considerations . These grants are proving insufficient to
maintain the present strength and quality of these excellent orchestras .
If an orchestra's income from box-office and subsidy combined is no t
enough to make ends meet, it may be tempted to adopt one of several
provisional solutions which can bring mischief in their train . Thes e
include over-working (and under-rehearsing) the orchestra so as to ge t
every possible date into the fixture list ; skimping on soloists or gues t
conductors ; selecting `safe' and orthodox programmes to the exclusion
of unfamiliar works ; `going foreign' too often ; and so on . In the concert hall, too, there has been a recent decline in attendances, although so far
on a lesser scale than in the theatre. Some of the same causes may be hel d
accountable in both cases, but a particular one which is said to be affectin g
concert attendances is the immense popularity of long-playing records ,
and the likelihood that many purchasers are offsetting the high price o f
these records by cutting their visits to concerts . The costs of provision ,
meanwhile, continue to rise and musicians can well justify their claim t o
higher wages than they now get . Independent Television, the latest
benefactor of the arts, has generously included some orchestras (as well a s
theatres) in its list of benefactions, but the `natural' patron of music should
evidently be sound-radio rather than television, and the B .B.C., the
monopolist of sound, is not only unable to compete in munificence wit h
the commercial television companies but through no fault of its own i s
not even a starter in that wide field of patronage .
In music, as in drama, the principle of reafforestation deserve s
consideration . All the mechanical means of mass-communication ar e
nowadays voracious consumers of some of the `living' arts . They broad cast and record on an immense scale and, in the process, some of thes e
mass-media make millions of profit . They do, indeed, pay fees, liberal fee s
even, for the arts and artists they hire, but they make no contribution to
what may be called the prime costs of the arts they diffuse . The `living'
arts are nourished and perpetuated by such institutions as colleges o f
music and drama and art, opera schools and ballet schools, theatres ,
orchestras, opera houses . When colour television comes it will no doubt
be a consumer of the product of our art galleries and art schools . The
mass-media, meanwhile, make no significant capital investment in the art s
they put to use and profit . In the field of science and technology things are
very different . The big industries have contributed millions of pounds to
basic research, to the endowment of laboratories and research centres i n
our universities, to the provision of professorships and scholarships and
the foreign exchange of knowledge . The mass-media have made no such
equivalent contribution in their field ; they have hired the arts but made n o
capital investment in them . It is to the credit of Independent Televisio n
that it has observed some degree of responsibility to the arts it needs an d
consumes . Whether there is any prospect of a substantial extension of thi s
recognition among the other mass-media, such as the recording companies,
remains to be seen . Whether the television scale of reafforestation i s
ample enough is another matter for discussion . And, finally, the question
presents itself, if voluntary action in this field of reafforestation continues
to lag, is there a case for legislative action or for the inclusion of appropriate clauses in television's next charters? The Government has alread y
given some indication, in a House of Lords debate, that it is interested i n
the large profits which Independent Television is now making. If there is t o
be a tax or levy on this thriving and prosperous mode of commerce, i s
there not a case for applying some fraction of it to the necessitous art s
which have helped to yield that prosperity : and, indeed, a similar case
for allocating some of the wireless licence revenue to the same purpose ?
To any such suggestion we shall no doubt receive the traditional answe r
that British fiscal policy frowns on ear-marked taxes . But policies of thi s
nature are subject, finally, to the will of Parliament and it is Parliament
that must determine these claims . The case itself is not complicated . The
living arts are in increasing peril of decline and extinction largely because
they are being packaged and delivered in the home by certain lucrativ e
industries . The natural doctrine of replenishment seems a just and timely
one to invoke, either on a voluntary basis or, failing that, a legislative one .
W . E . WILLIAMS
September, 1959
10
Secretary-General.
2
NOTES OF THE YEA R
1'.
AID FOR NEW DRAMATISTS *
Ever since the War English critics have been asking plaintively, a t
irregular intervals, that the professional theatre should give a better dea l
to the writer . `Where are the new dramatists?' has been a familiar pose r
in the press . Now, in a bevy, they are here . In the last two years an
impressive crop of young playmakers has emerged ; some West End
managers are displaying an unwonted readiness in Shaftesbury Avenue t o
stage work by unknown authors who take the theatre seriously ; and, to
a notable degree, the theatrical climate is changing in the writer's favour .
The prospect before him in the 1960's, should he be brave enough t o
contemplate the hazards of immersion in the entertainment industry, i s
distinctly rosier than in the last decade of `revivalism' . Is this the fortuitous
result of some unpredictable redistribution of our national genes? Is it du e
to the abolition of entertainments tax on the theatre, to the advent of ne w
managements or to the stimulus of television? In my view the prime,
neglected cause lies elsewhere-in the policies of the Arts Council of Grea t
Britain . This new efflorescence of the drama springs from seeds carefull y
disseminated from St . James's Square, as a deliberate act of policy an d
perhaps of faith . When the Council toyed at first with the intention o f
giving practical encouragement to young dramatists, it met knowin g
warnings from the worldly that the real reason for the dearth of new play s
was the dearth of new talent, which no amount of pump-priming coul d
create . Subsidies will never make a Shakespeare, said the standardbearers of laisser-faire ; we must trust to luck-and the fortunes of th e
trade-for a twentieth-century drama fit for adults . But such perennial
opposition to state aid for the arts has already been exploded by th e
direct and indirect results of the Arts Council's measures in recent years .
Although its doles may or may not have delivered a genius, they have kep t
many talents and many theatres alive, and have helped to change th e
social context of the contemporary stage .
* This note is contributed by Richard Findlater, the well-known theatre critic and a membe r
of the Arts Council's Drama Panel, and reviews its New Drama scheme up to June 30th, 1959 .
11
There are three principal ways in which the Arts Council helps th e
dramatist. First of all, it directly subsidises theatres on the grounds tha t
they follow a deliberate policy of promoting new work-such as th e
Meadow Players at the Oxford Playhouse (£3,000), the Theatre Worksho p
company at the Stratford Theatre Royal (£1,000) and the English Stage
Company at the Royal Court Theatre (£5,000) . Although these annual
grants are small and variable they make the difference between life an d
death for such theatrical outposts . These three theatres alone are responsible for introducing to the stage such writers as Brendan Behan, N . F.
Simpson, Robert Bolt, Nigel Dennis, Bernard Kops, Shelagh Delaney ,
John Arden, John Osborne and many more .
Secondly, the Council encourages provincial repertory theatres-whos e
economic situation and social function does not permit a consisten t
programme of new plays-to be more venturesome in presenting th e
work of untried dramatists . What the apprentice playmaker needs most of
all is the opportunity to see his script in action on the stage, and there is n o
room for apprenticeship in the long-run commercial theatre which canno t
afford, in its search for smash-hits, to train the writers of the future .
Under the Arts Council scheme, inaugurated seven years ago, any nonprofit-distributing management may submit a new play for a limited
guarantee against loss at the box office if it takes the risk of staging it .
Some 78 of these guarantees (usually between £100 and £150 in the
customary run of a week or fortnight) have been offered from St. James' s
Square to 27 managements (nine of the plays have yet to be staged) .
Authors helped in this way include Marghanita Laski (The Offshore Island,
West of England Theatre Company) ; C. E. Webber (Be Good, Sweet Maid,
Birmingham Repertory) ; Robert Bolt (The Critic and the Heart, Oxford
Playhouse) ; Willis Hall (The Long and the Short and the Tall, Nottingham
Playhouse, as Boys, It's All Hell) ; R. H. Ward (The Landing Party, Bristol
Rapier Players) ; Owen Holder (O'Flannagan's Circus, Marlowe Theatre,
Canterbury) ; Joseph O'Connor (The Iron Harp, Guildford Theatre Club) ;
and Anne Ridler (Cranmer, University Church, Oxford) . Although these
sums set beside a West End budget seem tiny, there is little doubt that suc h
guarantees against loss have been largely responsible for the notabl e
increase in the amount of new work staged by Britain's leading reps i n
the past two years . All but 22 of these 78 guarantees have been mad e
since January 1957 . These are made, of course, in addition to any annual
grants which the company may receive from the Arts Council .
The third method of Arts Council aid is the award of annual bursarie s
12
to young dramatists of promise, in order that they may concentrate for a
time on writing for the theatre . Since this scheme was introduced in 1952,
77 candidates for bursaries have been considered-under the sponsorshi p
of a wide variety of actors, authors and directors-and eleven awards
have been made. Among the successful candidates have been Leo Lehman
(who was granted £500 in 1952/53, and whose later plays include The
Innocent Volcano, Who Cares?, Epitaph and many TV dramas) ; John Hall
(£500 in 1955/56, author of The Lizard on the Rock and The Holiday,
originally entitled The Strangers) ; David Campton (£500 in 1957/58, write s
for Stephen Joseph's Theatre in the Round, author of The Lunatic View) ;
Bernard Kops (£500 in 1957/58, author of The Hamlet of Stepney Green) ;
Arnold Wesker (£300 in 1958/59, author of Chicken Soup with Barley and
Roots) ; Shelagh Delaney (£100 in 1958/59, author of A Taste of Honey) ;
and Kenneth Jupp (£500 in 1958/59, author of The Buskers) . For some time
an experiment was made on a small scale of directly commissioning new
plays through repertory theatre managements, but this method wa s
discontinued in 1956 in favour of expanding the bursary system .
Such grants are always controversial in the world of the theatre, but n o
undue fears need be entertained of arbitrary fiats by permanent officials ,
imposing themselves as tastemakers upon the English stage . Although this
scheme-like all the Arts Council's aid to the theatre-is administered b y
the Drama Department, a very small team of officials, the scores of play s
sent to them throughout the year are passed to a panel of readers, and th e
final decisions about guarantees and bursaries are made by members of the
nineteen-strong Drama Panel, who also serve new dramatists in other ,
indirect ways by their practical advice and encouragement .
The impact of the Arts Council's scheme is, of course, sharply limite d
by the size of the Drama Department's total budget . In the last financia l
year only £78,000 was available for all the multifarious demands made o n
the Department, and £20,000 of this was earmarked for the Old Vic :
£3,491 was spent on new drama in bursaries and guarantees against loss .
Yet, tiny though it is, this subsidy is already working with noticeable
effect. Drama Panellists have commented upon the rich improvement i n
the quality, as well as the quantity, of plays submitted in the past tw o
years, and they are now faced with an embarras de choix. The very success
of the scheme presents the Arts Council with the need for a much larger
budget . Some of the money may come from private donations, which th e
Council is able and delighted to receive . Already an anonymous donor has
subsidised the travel grants made every year to young directors and
13
designers, and Mr. E. C . Packham, of Finchley, has made a generous gift of
£100 to mark his appreciation of the Council's work for the theatre . The
Council might well in the future be a suitable administrator of trust fund s
dedicated to the promotion of theatre arts . But the bulk of the money s o
urgently needed must come, of course, from the state . A few thousan d
pounds invested in the future have already had a startling effect upon th e
range and force of the theatre, and have quickly justified in the bes t
empirical way our English method of indirect aid for artists . Now that th e
method has been tested, all that remains is to implement it with money b y
R. F.
allowing the Arts Council a reasonable budget for the drama .
2.
INDEPENDENT TELEVISION AND THE ART S
Radio and television have always made use of the arts in building u p
their programmes ; but although they have paid appropriate fees for thei r
artists and material, they have done little to replenish the live sources from
which their material is drawn . It was accordingly gratifying to hear of
Independent Television's decision, in the summer of 1958, to make grant s
to the arts and sciences . The four major companies-A .B.C. Television
Ltd ., Associated-Rediffusion Ltd . (A.R.), Associated TeleVision Ltd.
(A.T.V .) and Granada TV Network Ltd .-between them made £100,000
available during the year ended April 30th, 1959 ; a similar sum will be
forthcoming in the present financial year . A Committee of Review has been
set up under the chairmanship of Sir Robert Fraser, Director-General o f
the I .T.A ., with representatives of the parent companies as members, an d
two advisers from the Arts Council in attendance . This procedure ensure s
that while grants continue to be made individually by the companies o n
their own responsibility, decisions are not reached until each applicatio n
or proposal has been discussed in committee . Some of the other companies, such as Southern Television Ltd ., T.W .W. Ltd., and Tyne-Tees
Television Ltd ., have already made grants to the arts-the special arrangement in Scotland with Scottish Television Ltd . is mentioned in Chapter B and it now seems likely that representatives of Southern Television an d
T.W.W . will join the Committee of Review . Where the recipients of
television grants also receive Arts Council subsidies, every attempt ha s
been made to ensure that the television money is used to supplement an d
not to relieve the Arts Council's contribution . Particulars of some of these
ITV grants will be found in Appendix F . It is interesting to find that
important contributions are being made to repertory theatres, and also to
training schools which do not qualify for Arts Council help .
14
3.
SADLER ' S WELLS EXPAND S
In reporting and commenting on the 1958 opera crisis, last year' s
Report included a statement that `the Arts Council remains convince d
that some degree of integration between the opera companies is desirable' .
The Sadler's Wells plan, announced in September, 1958, for enlarging it s
activities by taking operetta to the Coliseum and opera to the provinces ,
provided not only that measure of integration, but several other additiona l
advantages . As is now well known, the Council decided to adopt and
support the plan for 1959/60 and it came into effect during the early month s
of the present year, when a provincial tour of 14 weeks began at Stratfordon-Avon.
Encouraged by the success of a short experimental run of The Merry
Widow at the Coliseum during the holiday period, the Sadler's Well s
Trust were able to complete arrangements with that theatre for an extende d
season of operetta lasting from April to November this year on attractive
financial terms . This, together with the usual opera commitments a t
Sadler's Wells itself and then on tour, enabled the Trust to offer year-roun d
employment to two complete companies and orchestras, thus providing
much improved conditions for many artists who had hitherto only been
able to secure seasonal work on a tour-to-tour basis .
The results so far achieved have more than justified the decision . The
repertory of the company on its first tour was, of necessity, similar to tha t
which has been seen on recent tours by other companies, but the additio n
of Fidelio and The Merry Widow gave some timely variety, and gave scope
to the larger chorus and orchestra which are now at approximately the
same strength as those working at Sadler's Wells Theatre. In Fidelio the
chorus was further augmented in most towns by the resources of a loca l
operatic or choral society, and served to stimulate local interest in th e
event as well as to provide a strong body of singers for the choral climaxes
in the opera .
Press reviews have been consistently favourable, and box office result s
averaged 88 per cent . of financial capacity. Indeed, in three towns ,
Nottingham, Dundee and Leeds, the figure was as high as 98 per cent .
These returns are higher than those achieved in the past by any oper a
company working outside London in association with the Council, excep t
for occasional visits to provincial centres by the Covent Garden Opera
Company.
During the autumn .tour, a new production of Andrea Chenier will
receive its first performance at Coventry .
15
Handel's death . Both composers were closely associated with London ,
and it was appropriate that the national tributes should be centre d
in the capital . Even in a full programme of daily performances ove r
a three-week period, it was not possible to do more than select a smal l
proportion of the works of these two composers (whose collecte d
editions run into over 120 volumes) and the Festival Committee's task wa s
inevitably one of selection from the vast range of material .
It was fortunate that these commemorations coincided with a marke d
revival of interest in the music of both composers, and the measure o f
public attendance at nearly all performances exceeded the most sanguin e
expectations. A total of some 43,000 people attended the various theatrical
performances, concerts, services or lectures .
While Handel's work in London is recorded on a number of building s
with which he was associated, Purcell's is not, and the Council, in partner ship with the London County Council, commissioned Mr . Lynton Lamb
to execute an engraved glass panel to commemorate the tercentenary o f
Purcell's birth . This panel is now in the Royal Festival Hall where it will
be constantly seen by the many music-lovers who attend concerts there .
In addition to the festival arrangements in London, musical societie s
all over the country marked the anniversaries by including performances
of works by either or both composers in their season's programmes . A
summarised list of these was included in the Festival handbook coverin g
some twenty major works as well as many miscellaneous and shorter
compositions .
The Arts Council is grateful to the many organisations and societie s
which co-operated so readily in working out the Festival plans and wishe s
to thank in particular those members of the Festival planning committe e
who, under the chairmanship of Professor Anthony Lewis, gave so muc h
of their time, knowledge and experience at frequent meetings whic h
extended over the two preceding years .
8.
POETRY BOOK SOCIET Y
Despite occasional exceptions, of which the most recent example i s
John Betjeman's Collected Poems, verse by living authors is a commodit y
difficult to sell. It is accordingly with some satisfaction that the Poetr y
Book Society looks back on its achievement during the first five years of
its existence (1954/58), in which time it has bought from publishers and
distributed to its members nearly 15,000 copies of the books that hav e
been chosen by its various teams of selectors . These books have ranged
18
from works by established poets such as Edwin Muir's One Foot in Eden
to first volumes by new authors, of which three have been choices and
three recommendations . The net result has been an increase in the royalties
payable to a number of poets, and increased sales for their publishers . It
is not claimed that this represents a revolution in the publishing an d
marketing of new poetry ; but at least the Society is helping to keep it s
members, who are enrolled from all over the world, in touch with the bes t
of what is being written to-day .
In 1958 the Society's membership stood at 765, this being slightl y
above the average for the previous four years . The selectors were J. R.
Ackerley, Patric Dickinson and Roy Fuller ; and the following book s
were chosen :Another September
Thomas Kinsell a
Excursus in Autumn
John Smith
Selection
A. S. J. Tessimon d
New Poems 1958
P.E.N. Anthology
Recommendations were given to :The Dual Site
Michael Hamburger
One Landscape Still
Patrick MacDonogh
Poetry for Supper
R. S. Thomas
In Fires of No Return
James K. Baxte r
In addition to the Bulletin which accompanies each book choice, th e
members receive free of charge a check list of new verse and a specia l
poetry supplement . Just before Christmas 1958, the Society publishe d
Inscriptions by Stephen Spender, the first of a new series of holograph
poems on sale to members and to the general public .
The selectors for 1959 are John Holloway, Naomi Lewis and Jame s
Reeves.
9.
AUDIENCES ON WHEEL S
In order to attract the more distant and mobile audiences to provincia l
theatres the Arts Council, a few years ago, began a scheme for making i t
cheaper, easier and more comfortable for outlying visitors to attend thei r
nearest theatre . From a central assembly point they would be taken b y
special transport to a reserved seat in the theatre and back home after wards at an inclusive cost considerably less than that which they woul d
otherwise have had to pay . The difference was met by an Arts Counci l
grant to the organising theatre management . The Arts Council was disappointed at first by the slowness with which this offer was taken up b y
19
repertory managements, but this year the special fund provided for thi s
purpose was overcalled and had to be supplemented . The following tabl e
shows how this transport subsidy was used by six different theatres, an d
with what result at the box office .
Theatre
CAMBRIDGE
CANTERBURY
COLCHESTER
MARGATE
NORTHAMPTON . .
NOTTINGHAM
Amount of Subsidy
Number of people
in the parties
Extra money a t
Box-office
£410 0 0
£113 9 0
£276 18 6
£306 16 0
£751 4 0
£307 0 0
8,342
2,340
6,677
6,156
15,024
4,913
£1,960 10
£340 0
£1,150 19
£781 6
£3,077 0
£860 0
0
0
6
2
6
0
£2,165 7 6
43,452
£8,169 16
2
10. ARTS ASSOCIATIONS, CENTRES AND CLUB S
There are many parts of the country where people club together becaus e
they are interested in the arts. Their interest is generally twofold : as
amateurs they like to participate in the arts themselves, and as connoisseurs they recognise quality when and where they find it and so ar e
ready to form the nucleus of an audience for professional events in thei r
localities . Some clubs have been lucky enough to secure permanen t
premises of their own, and these are regarded as Arts Centres . So far a s
these clubs and centres make an important contribution to further education by promoting cultural training and recreative activities, they ma y
receive help from their Local Education Authorities . If they provide
entertainment for a section of the community, they can look for help t o
their Local Authorities . The Arts Council is interested in the professional
side of their programmes .
Until recent years these Clubs and Centres existed on their own : but
recently there has been an attempt to bring them together into some for m
of federation . A first move in that direction was made when the SouthWestern Arts Association was set up in 1956 . The Midlands Arts Association followed two years later. The Clubs and Centres in the rest of the
country are as yet unattached ; but that does not lessen their activity o r
their usefulness .
During its first year, the Midlands Arts Association was joined by 1 7
Arts Centres and Arts Clubs in the area. It supplied its members with a
20
useful information service consisting of a periodical bulletin and printe d
list of local lecturers . A planning conference was held at Birmingham in
February 1959 ; and an Assembly arranged at Coventry in the autumn o f
1958 was attended by several hundred people who formed the larges t
single party ever to visit the new Cathedral, now rapidly nearing completion .
A similar gathering was held at Ragley Hall in the summer of 1959 . The
Association has also organised an Exhibition of Paintings by Midland s
artists at the Northampton Art Gallery and hopes to make this Exhibitio n
an annual event .
The South-Western Arts Association now has 27 member societies, 2 1
associate societies and 221 individual members, a considerable increase o n
the previous year's figures . It has managed to consolidate its financial
position by successfully launching a Foundation Fund which stood a t
£450 at the end of March 1959 . This will help the Association to underwrite new projects and meet possible emergencies in the future . Three
conferences were held during the year-at Dartington, Falmouth an d
Exeter-and an exhibition of paintings contributed by member societie s
has now become a regular feature of the Dartington Conference .
During the year two new arts centres were launched . The Staffor d
and District Arts Council acquired part of the Oddfellows Hall in th e
centre of Stafford and adapted it for use as an arts centre, which wa s
opened in October 1958 with a special production of Britten's Let' s
Make an Opera! And in Hastings, the Stables Trust, which had been forme d
to restore the Georgian Stables of Old Hastings House and turn them int o
a little theatre and arts centre, was opened by Sir Ralph Richardson o n
June 16th, 1959 .
11 . MEMBERSHIP OF THE COUNCIL AND COMMITTEE S
The following retired from the Council during the year : Mr. Benn W .
Levy, M .B .E., Professor Anthony Lewis, Lt.-Col. Vere E . Cotton, C.B.E. ,
T.D., J.P., and Dr . Wyn Griffith, O.B .E. Mr . Levy, Professor Lewis an d
Dr . Wyn Griffith, as members of the Executive Committee, were eligibl e
for reappointment and were, in fact, reappointed by the Chancellor a s
Members of the Council for a further term . In addition, the Chancellor
appointed the Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax, D .L., LL.D., as a new
member of the Council .
Dr . Wyn Griffith was reappointed Vice-Chairman of the Council an d
a member of the Executive Committee . The following were reappointed as
21
members of the Executive Committee and, where indicated, as Chairmen
of the Panels given against their names, for a further period of one year :
Sir William Coldstream, C .B.E . (Art)
Mr. J. Compton, C .B.E. (Poetry)
Professor Gwyn Jones
Mr. Bern W . Levy, M .B.E. (Drama)
Professor Anthony Lewis (Music)
Sir John McEwen, Bart ., LL.D.
Obituaries
We record, with deep regret, the deaths of Dr . Ralph Vaughan Williams ,
O.M., one of the `founding fathers' of the Arts Council, and Dr . Eric
Blom, C .B.E., who made a distinguished contribution to the work of th e
Music Panel, of which he was a member when he died, and played an
important part in arranging the 1959 Purcell/Handel Festival .
Honours
In the New Year Honours List for 1959 the Chairman, Sir Kennet h
Clark, K .C.B., D .Litt., LL.D ., was made a Companion of Honour, and
Mr. Alec Guinness, C .B.E. (a member of the Drama Panel) was knighted .
In the Queen's Birthday List for the same year Mr . David K. Baxandall
(a member of the Scottish Committee) was appointed a Commander of th e
Order of the British Empire (C .B .E.) and Mr . Leslie Woodgate (a membe r
of the Music Panel) was appointed an Officer of the Order (O .B.E.).
22
3
ART
The outstanding task of the year has been the preparation of the Counci l The
of Europe's fifth great exhibition The Romantic Movement which opened Romantic
in July 1959 at the Tate Gallery and at the Arts Council Gallery in St . Movemen t
James's Square . The planning and handling of this exhibition, whic h
contained nearly 1,000 works, was the largest single operation so far
carried out by the Art Department, and the preparation of the English
and French versions of the catalogue in the face of a printing strike wa s
an equally formidable affair. The design of the exhibition was carried out
by Mr. Ralph Holland, and in spite of a far more restricted budget tha n
that available to its predecessor, the Munich Rococo exhibition of 1958, it
was well received by the press and public . Among the contributions o f
fifteen countries were outstanding works by Delacroix, David, Gros ,
Prud'hon, Gericault, Canova, Chasseriau, Caspar David Friedrich, Turner ,
Constable, Goya and Daumier.
The other major exhibitions of the year, coming from Japan, the
U.S.S.R. and the United States of America, contrasted sharply with the
pan-European character of The Romantic Movement . Art Treasures fro m Japanese Ar t
Japan, which opened in July 1958 at the Victoria and Albert Museum wa s Treasures
the first exhibition sent to Europe by the Japanese nation since the world
war of 1939-45 . Its wide chronological scope-the exhibits ranged fro m
the second millennium before Christ to the present century-and the grea t
diversity of media and styles represented offered a unique chance for
western visitors to widen their view of Japanese art . The exhibition was
particularly rich in Buddhist painting of the 11th-14th centuries and in th e
ink painting of the 14th and 15th centuries . Sculpture, though restricted
in scope by the great difficulties of ocean transport, included a 7th-centur y
Buddha image as well as works of the 8th and subsequent centuries .
The Royal Academy's Winter Exhibition of Russian Painting gave us a Russian
welcome opportunity for collaboration with old friends at Burlingto n Painting
House. The exhibition, though not so comprehensive as that originall y
requested from the Soviet authorities by Mr . Philip James and Sir William
Coldstream attracted very wide public interest and was seen by 75,889
23
New American
Painting
Other
Exhibitions
from
Overseas
Commemorative
Exhibitions
visitors . It was also the occasion of very friendly exchanges between thos e
concerned with the exhibition and their opposite numbers in the Sovie t
Union .
A third important extra-European exhibition, The New American
Painting, was organised jointly by the Arts Council and the Museum o f
Modern Art in New York City . The paintings, which were shown at the
Tate Gallery early in 1959, were drawn from collections all over the
United States, and were thus representative of the widespread publi c
regard for large-scale abstract works on the other side of the Atlantic . The
exhibition, though not without its opponents, clearly showed that th e
new painting of America is being looked at just as eagerly by the younger
generation as that of Paris, Munich and Milan .
Further exhibitions from overseas included the comprehensive exhibitio n
of the work of Lovis Corinth opened in January 1959 at the Tate Gallery ,
and that of the painting of Francis Gruber held at the same gallery in April .
Both these exhibitions were also shown at centres outside London . In
September 1958 a representative exhibition of modern Dutch painting an d
sculpture was held at St . James's Square, most of the works having bee n
executed within the previous two years . In November 1958 a group o f
89 paintings from the collection of Monsieur J . B. Urvater, including many
Surrealist works of the present century, was opened at the Tate Gallery
after showings at Leicester and York .
Though it is rarely possible for exhibitions of stained glass to be held
in public galleries, we were enabled by the generosity of the Irish Commit tee responsible for the commemorative exhibition of the work of Evi e
Hone held in Dublin in the summer of 1958, to show the greater part o f
this exhibition in London at the beginning of 1959 . Special lighting wa s
installed in a darkened gallery at St. James's Square in order to displa y
the stained glass, which included windows lent from Ireland and from th e
United States, while the full-scale cartoon for the east window of Eto n
College chapel was shown at the Tate, where it occupied the full height o f
the North Duveen Gallery.
Three British artists whose deaths have recently occurred-David
Bomberg, Barnett Freedman and John Minton-were commemorated b y
exhibitions held at the Arts Council Gallery in the late autumn of 1958 .
Meanwhile the four sections of the Arts Council's own collection, with a
fifth section composed of recent purchases, have continued to be shown
outside London as distinct and representative exhibitions of phases of
modern painting . For the benefit of smaller museums and public libraries
24
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT E XHIRI i ION (Tale Gallery )
A section of the Exhibition de%oted io l celinb'
r, !, ~graph .
CORR N" Fit
k
I
%,,
II
~ N
THE ROMANTIC Nh A I NN %! 1 % I n W HON (Tate Wko )
A room containing
, : :,l .IT)WMl StlbjCL:tS
-1,`h . CURRY BEYINGTO N
IIIE
klI
\'!,!`• .IIC MO1LNIE\] I'. kHi]ION (Tate (,j ! L!~ i
Part of the South Uule,Il U,Illery
"11
T
Phorugraph : CURRY REVINOTO H
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT EXHIBITION (Tate Gallery )
A section of the Exhibition devoted to 'Light'
an experiment was made in showing a small travelling exhibition of work s
of the highest quality, and we were fortunate in having the generous help of
Mr. R . Peto who lent six French masterpieces for this purpose for th e
winter months of 1958-59 .
Other travelling exhibitions have included selections from the 1959
exhibitions of the London Group and of the Young Contemporaries . The
former offers an excellent review of work by established artists of many
progressive schools, while the latter enables students and young painter s
to make their presence felt outside the capital . Another measure in support
of rising artists was the assembly of a further travelling exhibition of Six
Young Painters .
Apart from making a direct contribution to the works of art availabl e
outside London, the Arts Council has been made responsible for organisin g
and handling a very large movement of pictures and (for the first time )
sculpture from the Tate Gallery to provincial centres under the same Loan
Scheme which has in the past enabled reserve National Gallery picture s
to be more widely exhibited . Under the Tate Gallery scheme 270 picture s
and sculptures have been lent to 22 galleries and museums .
The art films circulated by the Arts Council in collaboration with the
British Film Institute continue to enjoy great popularity, being in deman d
at schools and art society meetings as well as at museums and galleries .
Clouzot's film The Mystery of Picasso was seen by approximately 3,50 0
people at three showings in 1958, and 175 showings of other films wer e
given at 126 places . These included Coventry Cathedral, Artist's Proof and
two films from A.T.Ws series Is Art Necessary? which are introduce d
by Sir Kenneth Clark .
25
Exhibitions
outside
London
Art Films
DRAMA
Closure of
Theatres
Steadily and ominously throughout the year more theatres have bee n
closing their doors-Croydon, Leicester, Liverpool, Plymouth, Southampton, Sunderland, the list grows-and in one or two cases the reason ha s
not been the lack of an audience but the fact that the owners have foun d
it more profitable to sell the site for redevelopment . At present there i s
no legal power expressly designed to save a theatre from closure an d
demolition . It is possible for a Local Authority to restrict `change o f
user' under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1948, so ensuring tha t
the building be retained as a place of `public entertainment', although tha t
phrase does not necessarily mean a theatre : it could, for instance, be a
Turkish Bath! For various reasons, however, Local Authorities are ofte n
reluctant to use their power under this Act or to impose a compulsor y
purchase order, though the case is now different in London, where no
theatre building within the control of the L .C.C . may be disposed of
without the consent of the Minister . In the present state of `free for all', th e
only hope of saving a threatened theatre is for vigorous public agitation i n
the first place, and then determined action by the Local Authority . The
public agitation in Bromley when the New Theatre was threatened wit h
demolition sufficiently impressed the Local Authority for it to refuse a
change-of-user application, and the theatre was saved . But a simila r
agitation in Croydon was not successful, and when the New Shakespeare ,
Liverpool, closed heavily in debt early in 1959 after eighteen months o f
lively experiment, and considerable achievement which had been justifiably acclaimed, the City Corporation, the Arts Council, the Independen t
Television Companies and leading Liverpool citizens all expresse d
their hope that the theatre and its distinctive policy would not be los t
to the City ; but so far no workable plan has been evolved for it s
re-opening . Fortunately so far no repertory theatres supported by the Art s
Council have been forced to close, but the loss of any theatre adversel y
affects companies everywhere . In the face of increasing costs, the
difficulty of getting good actors to leave London, the poor quality o f
most of the plays available from the West End, inadequate buildings, the
26
competition of television-in spite of all this the repertory theatres ar e
doing all they can to hold, and if possible, increase their audience .
This company, which 47 years ago was one of the first to adopt Mis s
Horniman's repertory principles, has broken fresh ground by evolving a
new flexible repertory policy which may be a pointer for certain other
companies in the future . Under the familiar pattern each play was presented for a predetermined number of weeks whereas now the length of th e
run is determined by public demand, no play being presented for les s
than three weeks but the run being extended as necessary up to six weeks .
The company presented four premieres during the year, and amongst it s
revivals a programme of three Elizabethan Rarities, Johan Johan, Tyb, an d
Syr Johan ; A Yorkshire Tragedy and Fratricide Punished.
The work of the Bristol Old Vic Company has been seen during the yea r
by more people than ever before, through a contract with Television Wes t
and Wales, under which the company has presented The Castiglion e
Brothers, Two by Two and The Taming of the Shrew over the commercial
television network . Mr. John Moody has resigned as Director of the company after five years, a longer appointment than any previous Director ,
and one which he took up after being Drama Director of the Arts Council .
Mr. John Hale has now been engaged as Director at Bristol for 1959/60 .
This attractive theatre, in danger of being lost, may be saved by the
Corporation's offer to take a lease of the building for an experimenta l
period of a few years, and the Corporation has formed a Trust of nine
Councillors and three non-Councillors, which has been invited to examin e
the proposal . The Arts Council attaches some importance to this project ,
for Her Majesty's, Carlisle, is the only existing theatre to serve a very
large area of the North West .
In October 1958 the Colchester Repertory Company celebrated it s
21st anniversary in the theatre created out of the converted Art Gallery .
This is a fine achievement for a company which has never been able t o
enjoy the advantages of playing in a properly designed theatre, with al l
the technical facilities and amenities which that implies, and in a tow n
with a population of no more than 65,000 .
The immediate success of this new and handsome theatre emphasise s
the need for a `New Look' in Theatre buildings, which must be made
more attractive and comfortable than most of them are at present . Certainly
the Belgrade Theatre is attracting a new audience, both in Coventry and
from a considerable distance outside, for its popular programmes, in
27
Birmingham
Repertory
Company
Bristo l
Old Vic
Carlisle,
Her Majesty's
Theatre
Colchester
Repertory
Company
Coventry,
Belgrade
Theatre
Ipswich
Arts Theatre
Trust
Leatherhead
Repertory
Company
Lincoln
Theatre
Association
London :
The English
Stage
Company
which new plays are carefully introduced among those of establishe d
reputation . There has always been a nucleus of people willing to see
good plays in Coventry, as the Arts Council's Midland Theatre Compan y
proved over eleven difficult years after the war ended ; but the new Belgrade
Theatre has demonstrated most effectively that a very much greate r
audience can be tempted to the theatre if the building is pleasant an d
comfortable, and properly equipped to provide for every need . One of the
encouraging features at the Belgrade Theatre is the increasing number o f
young people at the performances, who go not only to see the play bu t
also for the social occasion which the theatre provides . In addition to the
normal programme there have been special performances and lectures fo r
children on the Art of the Theatre which have proved popular, and are to
be extended .
The management has carried out a further amount of redecoration an d
structural alterations, designed to improve and brighten the auditorium ,
and has also installed a new switchboard, the cost of which has bee n
shared equally by the Trustees and the Arts Council.
This Company has had a successful year, and if the final result is not s o
good as the previous year, when Leatherhead was one of the very fe w
companies that did not need to call upon the Arts Council's guarantee i n
full, this is due to steadily rising costs which remorselessly absorb an y
small gains . The Company had demonstrated again that higher standard s
of play selection produce higher attendances, and this year included a
series of the world's great plays, presenting one classic each month . An
important feature of this theatre is the attractive room where member s
may meet their friends and enjoy a meal and a drink before or after th e
play ; here again it is the social atmosphere which has helped so muc h
to maintain the theatre's success .
Lincoln is the base from which two other towns (Loughborough an d
Scunthorpe) are also supplied regularly with good theatre . This complica ted and very arduous routine is sustained by two hard working companie s
and by a regional scheme of financial support in which the Arts Council ,
eight local authorities and certain independent societies all combine t o
create a unique pattern of theatre patronage in this area . It is very satisfactory that in the year under review the Lincon Authority itself joined in
the scheme for the first time by a contribution from the Dawber Committee .
The company at the Royal Court Theatre has continued its policy o f
presenting new plays of a particularly contemporary flavour, which has
not always found favour among audiences or critics ; but none will disagre e
28
with the opinion that this company has done more to help young dramatists to obtain a showing than any other single management in the country .
Not only are new plays put on for a run with full-scale production, bu t
many plays are given a single try-out production without d6cor on Sunda y
evenings with a critical audience and press . In addition the company has a
system of issuing passes to young writers to allow them to attend rehearsals in the theatre so that they may observe for themselves in the mos t
practical way how to write for the theatre . In addition to its influence o n
the trend of writing in the contemporary English theatre, this compan y
has done much to demonstrate new styles of writing from abroad t o
London audiences, as well as to present its own successes outside, especiall y
in New York. In the summer of 1958 the English Stage Company invite d
repertory companies from Glasgow, Coventry, Salisbury and Leatherhead
to play at the Royal Court Theatre for one week each with a new play ,
three of which were selected by the Royal Court management . Unfortunately this eminently worthwhile short season was not a success with the publi c
or the press, who judged the selected plays to be either not good enough
in themselves or attractive enough in performance . Consequently th e
experiment failed to satisfy the intentions of its promoters and to give a
fair picture of the work of the better provincial repertory theatres .
With appropriate ceremony the Mermaid Theatre opened on May 28th ,
1959 . The whole enterprise was conceived (and has only been mad e
possible) by the enthusiasm and resource of Bernard Miles and his wife ,
Josephine Wilson . They not only raised the £70,000 and more that wa s
needed to pay for the building, but kept the whole scheme well in th e
public's notice, bubbling for two years and at the boil for the last si x
months . The building, on a romantic site at Puddle Dock in the City, i s
unusual and welcoming, and the delightful restaurant overlooks th e
Thames. The company's policy is unorthodox, offering at cheap prices a n
early performance at 6 .10 p .m. for City workers on their way home fro m
the office, a late house at 8 .40 p .m. for those who wish to dine an d
wine in the theatre beforehand, and a programme of theatrical entertainment which by its freshness . and robustiousness has already delighte d
packed audiences. The Arts Council, together with a long and distinguishe d
list of public and private bodies, has readily contributed financially to th e
needs of London's first completely new theatre for over 25 years. Photographs appear between pages 8 and 9 .
The completion in July 1958 of the five-year plan to present the entir e
Shakespearean Folio showed box-office attendances higher than the
29
London :
The Mermaid
Theatr e
London :
The Old Vic
Trus t
London :
Pioneer
Theatres
Loughborough
and District
Theatre
Association
theatre had ever achieved in its long history over a full season, but wit h
the reversion to a less defined policy of distinguished plays drawn fro m
both foreign and English sources (Mary Stuart, Julius Caesar, Ghosts ,
Macbeth, The Magistrate, Tartuffe, Sganarelle, The Cenci) public interes t
slackened, attendances dropped alarmingly, and the year has been difficul t
and disappointing . It is distressing to think that after five years a larg e
section of the Old Vic's audience is so fickle as not to bother to see whethe r
or not it might like the plays . During the year the theatre received a mos t
welcome and generous covenanted gift from Messrs . Whitbreads, the firm
of brewers which has had, in the course of its long history, distinguishe d
associations with the welfare of other famous theatres . The Old Vic Trust
also negotiated a contract with the Southern Television Company t o
present six plays a year for that network for the next two years . Once
again an Old Vic company has made a successful tour of America and a
short, equally successful visit to Yugoslavia ; indeed, the Trust continues
to receive more invitations from abroad than it can possibly fulfil with it s
present limited resources .
Theatre Workshop has sprung from the direst straits to considerable
success in rather less than a year . The last Annual Report described the
company's problem as being more acute than ever, and its ability t o
continue was in considerable doubt . The Arts Council was concerne d
by the company's failure to attract sufficient local support and decide d
to discontinue its own grant unless the neighbouring local authoritie s
would offer much more effective help than they were then giving . Eventually ten local authorities agreed to take part in discussions with th e
Arts Council on the future of this company, of which nine were persuade d
to increase, and in some cases double, their support in 1958/59 . The company's fortunes were also happily turned by the success of its productions
of A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney, The Hostage, by Brendan Behan ,
and Fings Ain't Wot They Used T' Be, by Frank Norman, all of which receive d
a great deal of publicity and drew the town to such an extent that two have
been successfully transferred to the West End, and the third is on its way .
The Lincoln Repertory Theatre has continued to provide a productio n
one week in every three weeks during the season at Stanford Hall nea r
Loughborough . These performances are sponsored by the Loughborough
and District Theatre Association, which has recently successfully pleade d
the case for theatre-goers in this region with the neighbouring Local
Authorities of Barrow-on-Soar, Basford, Castle Donington, Coalville,
Loughborough and Melton Mowbray, who have agreed to make welcom e
30
financial assistance available to the Association .
This well-built but at present unprepossessing theatre is 75 years old .
Negotiations have now been successfully completed for the Corporation
to buy and refurbish the building and then to re-let it to the present
management, and a new happy relationship between the repertory theatr e
and the local authority is under way . An illustration of the auditoriu m
faces page nine . A very substantial proportion of the audience her e
comes in from the surrounding district, and Northampton has again shown
the value that can be earned by a company carefully employing the Art s
Council's transport subsidy. A contribution of £751 has brought £3,07 7
additional money to the box office in the last twelve months .
The Nottingham City Council has appointed Mr . Peter Moro as
architect of the new Playhouse which it is to build and lease to the Nottingham Theatre Trust within the next three years. The building will embody
a number of notable innovations, and it is expected that the Corporatio n
will soon publish the plans and details of the scheme . Photographs o f
the model prepared by the architect appear facing page eight of thi s
report . The Playhouse company continues to give some 36 performances a
year for the City and County Education Authorities as well as sending
out a touring company for the Education Authorities which plays i n
outlying centres for a month . This carefully planned work for children has
always been one of the special features of the Nottingham Playhouse an d
it has proved its value in attracting a younger audience to the theatr e
itself. The Education Authorities are generous and far-sighted enough
to realise that children must over the years be offered theatrical experienc e
as well as education in drama, and there is an encouraging breadth o f
vision in the choice of plays for this purpose . In the eighteen months
since the beginning of 1958 these have been : Henry V; Our Town ; Sh e
Northampton
Repertory
Players
Nottingham
Theatre
Trust
Stoops to Conquer ; Hamlet ; The Diary of Anne Frank; Fanny's First Play ;
Mr . Pickwick ; The Solid Gold Cadillac ; and Peer Gynt .
The Oxford Playhouse has continued its bold policy of presenting new
and unusual plays . Of 16 productions during the year six were English or
World premieres . Its production of The Hamlet of Stepney Green, by
Bernard Kops, was transferred to the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, for a
short run, and the company was invited to take a special production o f
A Midsummer Night's Dream to Holland, Venice and Geneva for open air performances in the summer of 1958 .
The Sheffield Playhouse is another example of a theatre which had
experienced some difficult times until its premises were completely rebuilt,
31
Oxford,
Meado w
Players
Sheffield
Repertory
Company
Studio
Theatre
Windsor
Theatre
Royal
Touring :
Advance
Players
Association
Touring :
Bankside
Players
Touring :
Century
Theatre
making it one of the most attractive and comfortable of repertor y
theatres . Since its reopening in 1954 the Company has been particularl y
successful and has consistently played to a very high percentage of capacity .
The Company has given seasons of plays in its unique `Theatre-in-the Round' at Scarborough, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Birmingham an d
Leicester, as well as experimental visits to the new towns of Harlow an d
Hemel Hempstead, but is still unable to find a suitable permanent base .
The Arts Council made an additional grant to the Company so that th e
risk of visits to new territory in its search for a permanent home might b e
to some extent reduced . It is good to learn that the Local Authoritie s
concerned were also friendly and helpful to this pioneering company .
The Theatre Royal at Windsor is an attractive and comfortable theatre ,
offering the public all the essential atmosphere of a `night out', and it s
success is probably as much due to these essential conditions as to the
high standard of presentation . The Company has never sought a grant
for running expenses, but the Council agreed to a request for a loa n
of £3,000 repayable over two years, towards the cost of building new an d
long overdue workshops at the back of, and adjoining the stage .
Sir Donald Wolfit's company undertook a provincial tour with a doubl e
bill consisting of The Broken Jug by Von Kleist and The Court Singer by
Wedekind, towards which the Arts Council offered a guarantee of £2,000 ,
but the public was shy of this unusual programme, and the compan y
sustained a substantial loss .
With the help of a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, and a smalle r
guarantee from the Arts Council, Mr . Robert Atkins took out a tour of
Henry IV, Parts I and II and Much Ado About Nothing, but again publi c
response was most disappointing, and the company had to close afte r
only six weeks of a tour that had been planned for rather longer .
Since the last Annual Report the future for this Company has brightene d
and it is now negotiating with the Corporation of Crewe, with the ultimat e
aim of being based at the Crewe Theatre, which was saved for the tow n
by the Corporation buying it a few years ago . The suggestion is that th e
Century Theatre would be able to provide regular seasons of repertor y
in Crewe, combined with tours to the surrounding district with the mos t
attractive of its productions . Meanwhile three new productions are
being mounted this summer and will be taken on tour in Lancashire ,
Cheshire and North Staffordshire under guarantees from all the loca l
authorities concerned, and a grant from the Arts Council .
These companies continue to tour the smaller towns and villages wit h
Touring :
Mobile
Theatre 32
plays for the general public, and special plays for children performed i n
schools . The Children's Theatre work, which falls outside the scope o f
Arts Council help but is supported by Local Education Authorities ,
is probably the company's most important contribution to the provincia l
theatre .
In the Autumn of 1958 the Arts Council sent out a company wit h
Romeo and Juliet and Peter Ustinov's Romanoff and Juliet . Both plays were
produced by Jordan Lawrence in settings designed by Gillian Armitage .
The Company played for one week in the Middlesbrough Little Theatre, an d
then toured one and two night stands for a further fortnight before goin g
to Wales for seven weeks . During the three weeks in the North East th e
Company played to 7,363 people, representing 74 per cent capacity of th e
theatres and halls . The cost was £1,063, which represents a per capita
subsidy of about 2/10d . The tour in Wales is referred to on page 66 .
There is a shortage of experienced, imaginative administrators who ar e
willing to make their career in provincial repertory theatres, where succes s
very largely depends on the initiative and drive of one or two key personalities . Unless the General Manager has enterprise, taste and an
unusual flair for publicity, his achievement remains no more than tha t
of a caretaker . As the entertainment industry and television companie s
are increasing every week their high pressure sales technique in the fierce
competition for audiences, so repertory theatres must make a much more
strenuous effort to sell their productions as more satisfying and more
enjoyable . This can only be done by men with exceptional talent for th e
job . The Arts Council and the Council of Repertory Theatres are no w
both experimenting with schemes for training selected talent in this field .
Over the years the Arts Council has encouraged companies to break
away from the crippling conditions of weekly repertory by giving some
plays more than a week's rehearsal, while maintaining a weekly change o f
bill . Last year the Guildford Theatre Club, Leatherhead Repertor y
Company, Northampton Repertory Players and the Salisbury Playhous e
were given guarantees in addition to their grants for general purposes to
enable them to give two weeks' rehearsal to as many productions a s
possible .
The Arts Council has continued to pay the extra costs involved in
approved interchanges between repertory companies, and during the yea r
Salisbury has exchanged visits with Northampton, Guildford and Colchester, and Chesterfield has interchanged with Derby . The Arts Council
also helped in two special cases when the repertory companies fro m
c
33
Touring:
Arts Council
Company
Business
Managers
Fortnightly
Rehearsals
Repertory
Interchanges
Travel
Grants
Lincoln and Nottingham visited the Oxford Playhouse .
The Council has continued its policy of awarding small grants t o
producers or designers to enable them to study for a short time the work
of theatre companies abroad. In 1957/58 grants were given to Joh n
Harrison and Wilfred Harrison, and in 1958/59 awards were made to
Bryan Bailey and John Hale . The generous gift towards travel grants b y
an anonymous donor, to whichwve referred in 1956/57, has been accumulating and will be spent this year.
IM,
MUSIC
Symphony
Orchestras
No major crisis occurred during the year, but it would be folly t o
suggest that the financial position of any symphony orchestra presents a n
unclouded picture . Although the Council was able, in most cases, t o
offer increased help to the permanent orchestras outside London, th e
problem of balancing the budget continues to worry the managemen t
committees and those responsible for the artistic direction of eac h
orchestra .
An encouraging feature, however, has been the increased level of
assistance which most Local Authorities have offered, and the welcom e
progress which has been made in the newly established scheme in th e
South-West of England, aimed at helping the Bournemouth Symphon y
Orchestra, is referred to in the Introduction to this Report .
Larger subsidies will help them to solve the problems, but if our
conductors and managements are to be given the opportunity of raisin g
standards, they will need the support of the public in recognising thei r
efforts to provide quality of performance and enterprise in programm e
building. To subsidise empty seats is a frustrating matter for performer s
and public patrons alike ; can it only be avoided by playing `safe' pro grammes with `star' or `popular' soloists? There is reason to hope tha t
the lesson of one or two recent enterprising experiments in London an d
in Liverpool will show that it need not, but this trend will have to b e
reflected throughout the general repertory of programmes if real progress
is to be made in advancing the knowledge, discrimination and appreciatio n
of the `average' concertgoer .
The comparative number of concerts given in the last two years b y
34
the five permanent symphony orchestras associated with the Arts Counci l
are these :1957/58'
1958/59 '
City of Birmingham Symphony
213
20 1
Bournemouth Symphony
209*
210 *
Halle
261*
238 *
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
178
190
Scottish National
194
151
t excluding television and sound broadcastin g
* including performances abroad and engagements with Opera Companie s
Orchestras associated with the Council for specific concert promotions :London Philharmonic
57* *
London Symphony . .
10
** includes 50 concerts presented in centres outside Londo n
Mr . Andrzej Panufnik resigned at the end of his second season as
Musical Director and Conductor in order to devote more time to
composition and to facilitate the acceptance of guest engagements abroad .
Sir Adrian Boult, assisted by Mr . Meredith Davies and Mr. Harold Gray,
returns to Birmingham to assume the Directorship of the orchestra- a
post he previously held between 1924 and 1930 prior to his appointmen t
to the B .B.C . Symphony Orchestra . The policy of commissioning new
British works was continued with the aid of the Feeney Trust ; Lennox
Berkeley's Symphony No .2 was successfully performed for the first tim e
in Birmingham Town Hall by the orchestra under Mr . Panufnik, som e
of whose compositions were also enthusiastically received during a wel l
attended season of concerts .
First performances included works by Dr . Gordon Jacob and Graham
Whettam as well as The Ballad of the White Horse by John Gardner .
This last work was commissioned jointly by the Western Orchestral
Society, the West of England Music Fund, the Arts Council and th e
Dorset Guild of Singers whose affiliated rural choirs came together i n
Bournemouth to give the first performance .
The Corporation of Bristol initiated a new pattern of fortnightl y
symphony concerts in the Colston Hall, and succeeded in drawing larg e
audiences to a series of co-ordinated programmes in which the complet e
cycle of Beethoven symphonies was given . Most of the concerts wer e
undertaken by the orchestra who also extended their itinerary to cove r
regular visits to all the larger centres in the region .
The 1958/9 season marked the beginning of the Orchestra's second
century . As in the centenary season, a number of distinguished soloists,
35
City of
Birmingham
Symphony
Orchestra
Bournemouth
Symphony
Orchestra
H611,4
Orchestra
Royal
Liverpool
Philharmonic
Orchestra
London
Philharmonic
Orchestra
guest conductors and visiting orchestras were engaged . London paid its
respects to the Orchestra in recognition of a hundred years' continuou s
music-making during the B .B.C .'s Promenade Concert season when, o n
August 25th, Sir John Barbirolli conducted a programme entitled `Mr.
Charles Halle's Grand Orchestral Concert' . The programme included
many items from Charles Halle's first concert in Manchester on Januar y
30th, 1858 .
Engagements were secured at music festivals in Montgomery ,
Harrogate, Buxton, Birmingham, Cheltenham Festival of British Con temporary Music, and Dublin, and the Orchestra took part in the Roya l
Concert which was attended by H .M. the Queen and H .R.H. the Duke
of Edinburgh . Works played for the first time in Manchester included
Michael Tippett's Piano Concerto, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No .2 and
Symphony No .ll by Shostakovitch . The premiere of John Joubert' s
Piano Concerto was given on January llth, 1959 . Sir John Barbirolli
continues as chief conductor and musical adviser conducting about
80 of the orchestral concerts .
The success of the Conductors Competition in May 1958, details o f
which were included in the last Report, stimulated the Society to moun t
an International Piano Concerto Competition in May this year . It
attracted a large entry from competitors throughout the world and a
young Spanish pianist, Joaquin Achuca .rro, was adjudged the winner .
The British pianist, John Ogdon, was awarded second prize .
In Liverpool, where seat prices remained unaltered, subscriptio n
concerts, choral performances and the Musica Viva series attracted
larger audiences, but there was a slight falling-off in attendance a t
Saturday `Pops' and Industrial concerts . In other towns, the genera l
level of attendance, with only two exceptions, was markedly higher tha n
in previous years .
For the first time, many of the principal conductors and artists engage d
for the Orchestra's London concerts appeared in provincial centres . For
this privilege larger audiences seemed willing to pay a somewhat highe r
price range for tickets . Increased public support for the Orchestra' s
fifth season of contemporary music concerts was an encouraging indication that programmes devoted entirely to Music of the Twentieth Century
can be presented without disastrous effect . The seven concerts in thi s
series at the Royal Festival Hall attracted an average attendance o f
72 per cent .
William Steinberg's achievements with the Orchestra during the pas t
36
two seasons have been rewarded by growing public appreciation an d
increasing audiences . He is to be re-engaged for a further year as Musica l
Director.
The Council continued its support for the Orchestra's 45th annua l London
series of concerts in London . Monteux, Krips, Horenstein and Martino n Symphony
Orchestra
were among the eminent conductors engaged during the year, in which a
total of 273 performances was given ; this includes both sound an d
television broadcasts, educational concerts, recording sessions, an d
certain appearances outside London . The visit to the Brussels Exhibitio n
and the subsequent tour of Belgium was referred to in the last Report .
To mark Sir Thomas Beecham's close association with the Society fo r Roya l
many years a portrait bronze, executed by the sculptor, David Wynne, Philharmonic
Society
was unveiled in the Royal Festival Hall shortly before the opening concer t
of the Society's 147th season .
Lennox Berkeley's Concerto for Piano and Strings was given its firs t
performance and the symphony Vorosmarty, by the Hungarian composer
Pal Jandanyi, was heard for the first time in London during a seaso n
which was also memorable for a performance of the Grande Messe des
Morts, by Berlioz, under Sir Thomas Beecham .
The season comprised fourteen concerts of which eight were by visitin g Brighton
orchestras and six by the newly named Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonic
Society
formerly known as the Southern Philharmonic Orchestra . Piano recitals
in the Royal Pavilion and in the Dome were also presented .
The original proposals of the Lemare Concert Society for the 1958/5 9 Lemare
season envisaged a series of concerts in Newcastle, Middlesbrough an d Orchestra
two other cities in the north-eastern region where good support wa s
expected from the public and from Local Authorities .
The estimates of income and expenditure, after taking into accoun t
all possible subsidies and box office receipts, proved to be too great a
financial risk for the society and in these circumstances it was foun d
necessary to modify the plan to only five orchestral concerts-one i n
Middlesbrough and a series of four in Newcastle . The Middlesbroug h
Corporation gave the same amount of aid as it had given to the orchestr a
for previous concerts, while the Newcastle Corporation responded to th e
appeal for a higher guarantee and increased its assistance by half a s
much again .
For several years the society has been struggling against great difficulties ,
including the necessity of recruiting players for individual concerts from
great distances as well as a good deal of inertia from the public, except ,
37
perhaps, in Newcastle .
In March, therefore, the society decided to wind up its affairs at the en d
of the 1958/59 season . Tentative proposals have already been submitted
to the Council for arrangements to replace the Society's activities . It
seems possible that certain concerts will continue to be given under a
newly formed Committee of Management by the Lemare Orchestra ,
under the direction of its founder Iris Lemare, and that another loca l
organisation in the region may arrange to provide a body of orchestra l
players for choral societies' concerts . Plans to present more concerts i n
the Tyneside area are also being put forward by the Sinfonia Orchestra ,
which made its first appearances in Newcastle last season . Some clarification and co-ordination of these various schemes will clearly be needed ,
and may indeed have been achieved by the time this note appears .
Chamber
Philomusica of London appeared in many parts of the country and conOrchestras tinued their regular appearances at the Royal Festival Hall in the 5 .55 p.m.
concert series . The programmes for these portrayed musical life in
London during the 17th and 18th centuries and embraced the twelv e
`London' symphonies of Josef Haydn . Granville Jones is now the Directo r
of the orchestra while Thurston Dart is designated Artistic Adviser, a s
well as appearing regularly with the orchestra as harpsichord soloist o r
continuo. An engagement at the King's Lynn Festival, in which Lione l
Tertis made a welcome reappearance on the concert platform, wa s
conducted by Herbert Menges before a large audience which include d
H.M . the Queen Mother. The orchestra has continued to make gramophone records for L'Oiseau Lyre and E .M.I., under the direction of both
Granville Jones and Thurston Dart .
Provincial and Festival engagements, a Scottish tour and a number o f
London appearances account for the 37 public performances made by th e
Jacques Orchestra-a total which does not include schools concerts . To
commemorate the orchestra's 21 st anniversary, Malcolm Arnold wrot e
his Sinfonietta No . 2 and dedicated the work to Dr . Reginald Jacques who
conducted its first performance at the opening concert of the Victoria an d
Albert Museum Summer Series.
National
The Arts Council again increased its grant to the National FederaFederation tion of Music Societies for the year 1958/59 ; the main purpose of the
of Music extra allocation was to help societies to meet part of the additiona l
Societies
expenditure which they would have to bear in respect of increased fee s
payable to professional orchestral players . The following is a summary o f
the Federation's activities in relation to the grant :38
Type of Society
Number
Guarantees
Offered
Englan d
134
£11,51 0
`A' Societies
164
£6,20 5
`B' Societies
121
£3,87 5
Music Clubs
As was forecast in last year's report, the scheme of grants fo r
encouraging the engagement of string quartets was discontinued ,
as it had achieved its main object by increasing materially th e
number of quartets engaged by Music Clubs during the thre e
years of its operation . The grant scheme was merged into th e
normal scheme of guarantees, and support was promised, an d
given, on a level similar to that which had been given under th e
scheme, but within the total guarantees offered . The fulfilment
of this promise is reflected in the considerably increased amoun t
offered to Music Clubs in the form of guarantees (£3,875 as compared with £3,135 during the previous season) .
Professional stiffening grants totalling nearly £600 were als o
offered to small societies which are not eligible for guarantee s
under the main scheme of financial assistance .
Type of Society
II
Number
Guarantee s
Offere d
Scotland
9
£89 0
`A' Societies
£53 0
13
`B' Societies
£66 0
14
Music Clubs
In addition, eleven Music Clubs were offered a total of £210 i n
the form of special grants for string quartet engagements ; this
scheme has been continued in Scotland, where the different conditions which prevail are considered to justify it .
Type of Society
III
Number
Guarantee s
Offere d
Wales
£90
3
`A' Societies
..
£400
13
V Societies
The final results of the season 1957/58 are summarised in the followin g
statement :I
Englan d
`A' Societies claimed £9,333 out of £10,785 offered - 92 per cen t
39
`B' Societies claimed £5,383 out of £6,010 offered - 89 per cen t
Music Clubs claimed £2,678 out of £3,135 offered - 85 per cen t
7 `A' Societies, 13 `B' and 15 Music Clubs made no claim .
II Scotland
`A' Societies claimed £767 out of £880 offered - 88 per cen t
`B' Societies claimed £491 out of £530 offered - 93 per cen t
Music Clubs claimed £706 out of £720 offered - 98 per cen t
2 `B' Societies made no claim .
III Wales
`A' Societies claimed £30 out of £85 offered - 35 per cen t
`B' Societies claimed £377 out of £475 offered - 80 per cen t
2 `A' and 2 `B' Societies made no claim .
Although the additional expenditure added to the cost of concer t
presentation, by the increase in rates payable to orchestral players and by
the new scale of performing right fees, has not been easy for societies t o
bear, they have managed to maintain their standards of concert performance, partly with the aid of the increased guarantees which th e
Federation has been able to offer, and partly by means of increasing thei r
independent income by raising admission prices and by organising socia l
functions and other money-raising events of various descriptions . The
Federation has been emphasising the necessity of reviewing admissio n
prices, though many societies quote the law of diminishing returns as a
reason for their inability to increase prices as much as they would like to do .
Four more Clubs received assistance towards the purchase of pianos ,
under the Piano Loan scheme inaugurated in 1955 .
The full repertoire of choral works performed by affiliated societies has
again been enlarged, to more than 240 different titles . The music of 55
different British composers appears in the repertoire ; 37 foreign composer s
are represented . Vaughan Williams's lasting popularity is shown by th e
performances of 20 of his major compositions ; Dyson is represented b y
seven, including nine performances of his Canterbury Pilgrims ; and
Elgar's Dream of Gerontius is still a favourite selection among societies
which can afford the expense of its presentation-thirteen societies gav e
performances during the season . The popularity of Bach's St. Matthew
Passion increases every year, and 37 societies sang it during 1958/59 .
Orchestral Societies' programmes are no less varied and interestin g
than those of the Choral Societies . Seventy-four different symphonie s
and 106 concertos were performed, including all the symphonies an d
concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, all Schubert's symphonies, and te n
40
OPERA FOR AL L
Derick Davies as Don Alfonso and Brenda Stanley as Despina i n
the 1956j59 production Of Cosi Fan Tulte
OPERA FOR AL L
A scene from Act If o f
the 1958 1'59 production of Cosy Van Turre
ARTS COUNCIL PLAY TOUR, 195 8
A scene from Romarroft"arrd Juliet (see p . 33)
ARTS COUNCIL PLAY TOUR, 145 8
Scenes from Romeo and Juliet and Romanoff and Juliet (see p. 33)
of Mozart's symphonies along with sixteen of his concertos . About 50
British composers were represented in societies' programmes .
Many societies will be celebrating the Handel bicentenary and Purcel l
tercentenary during the year . Twenty of Handel's major choral works,
and thirteen of Purcell's appeared on programmes of concerts to b e
given during the early months of 1959 ; many more will receive performances during the latter part of the year . Messiah was performed 10 1
times during the 1958/59 season ; Samson was the next most popular o f
Handel's compositions with sixteen performances, and Acis and Galatea,
Israel in Egypt and Judas Maccabaeus followed with eight each. The
Te Deum and Dido and Aeneas were the Purcell works most frequentl y
performed .
A second Award was offered for competition, under the scheme fo r
encouraging enterprise in the choice of works for performance by chora l
societies. While the object of this second competition was the same a s
that of the first (won by the Nottingham Harmonic Society for its choic e
of John Gardner's Cantiones Sacrae), the conditions were liberalised ,
inasmuch as the selected work was not required to have full orchestra l
accompaniment, and `B' Societies (i .e. those whose resources are rather
smaller and whose total annual budget is less than £400) were thu s
encouraged to compete. Preference was also expressed for a secular rather
than a sacred work ; the Award offered took the form of a grant of £250 .
The number of entries submitted was a little disappointing-fourtee n
in all, of which only half came from `B' societies . The best entry was
adjudged to be that of the Great Yarmouth Musical Society, who chos e
Kenneth Leighton's suite The Birds, for soprano solo, mixed chorus ,
strings and piano, which the Society will perform on April 28th, 1960, i n
the Great Yarmouth Town Hall, with the composer conducting . The Birds
received its first performance in a B .B .C. broadcast in February 1958 .
Once more a tribute is due to the Federation's Regional Committees
whose devoted voluntary work is a vital part of its organisation . O f
particular value is their scrutiny of, and recommendations on, the larg e
number of applications for guarantees submitted by societies each year .
These recommendations are based on members' personal knowledge o f
the circumstances of individual societies in their Regions and thus hel p
to make possible a fair distribution of the Council's grant among thos e
societies which ask for financial support towards the costs of their publi c
concerts .
Attendances at Regional Annual General Meetings continue to rise ,
41
Other Music
Clubs and
Societies
with increased variety and interest in the attractions arranged ; the
popularity of recitals by young artists is now rivalled by that of chora l
and orchestral rehearsals directed by distinguished conductors-an ide a
put forward by the Council's Liaison Officer with the Federation . The
Liaison Officer has continued his widespread travels and has now visite d
256 affiliated societies since he began his work, giving advice and encourage ment and maintaining contact between individual societies, Regiona l
Committees and headquarters .
During the year the Federation published a Catalogue of Orchestra l
Works, comprising more than a thousand of the great works of 18 0
different composers . This Catalogue completes the Federation's `trilogy '
of Catalogues-Choral Works in 1953, Chamber Music in 1955, an d
Orchestral Works in 1958 . The Federation is now engaged on a new
edition of the Choral Catalogue ; it is anticipated that more than 150 new
titles now need to be added to the 510 works which appeared in the 195 3
edition .
The National Federation of Music Societies was set up in 1935 . In
accordance with the Council's policy of `self-government for the arts' ,
most music clubs and societies which are eligible for membership ar e
encouraged to join this, their own national body . The Council's financial
support of professional recitals presented by chamber-music clubs, and o f
`professionally stiffened' performances given by amateur choral an d
orchestral societies, is therefore disbursed by the Federation, from the
funds provided by the Council annually for that purpose . A new society ,
or one applying for help for the first time, cannot always be referred to th e
National Federation immediately and the Council continues to offe r
assistance in such exceptional cases by direct negotiation .
Certain other societies receive direct help if the nature of their activities
falls outside the scope of the N .F.M.S. Many of these are opera companies (amateurs employing some professional assistance) : reference to
these is made in the section on Opera and Ballet . Others include smalle r
`festivals of music' such as those celebrated annually at Dawlish, Tilford ,
Warwick and elsewhere ; a number of specialist London groups, among
them the Macnaghten Concerts, the Renaissance Society, the Win d
Music Society and Musica Antica a Nuova ; and certain provincia l
societies which sponsor a series of orchestral concerts, for example ,
Ipswich Civic Concerts, Sutton Coldfield Philharmonic Society, the
Southern Orchestral Concert Society, and Orchestra de Camera i n
Birmingham . Eighty-three different societies in England, many of who m
42
also received financial aid from their Local Authorities, were offere d
grants and guarantees for a total of 306 performances during the year.
The Society for the Promotion of New Music launched a scheme of Contemporary
international exchange concerts given in collaboration with the cultural Music
departments of some of the foreign Embassies . The first concert consisted Societies
of works suggested by the Union of Polish Composers . It was given in
the Wigmore Hall, and the Union, in return, presented a programme o f
contemporary British chamber-music to an enthusiastic audience i n
Warsaw . Ten chamber-music recitals of works recommended by th e
Society's reading panels were given in the Wigmore Hall and an experimental rehearsal at the Royal Festival Hall embraced large-scale work s
for choir and orchestra in its programme . Several British composition s
recommended by the Society were broadcast in the B.B .C .'s `New Music '
programmes.
The Music Section of the Institute of Contemporary Arts devoted much
energy during the year to the reorganisation of its affairs and to long ter m
planning. This resulted in only four public concerts being arranged a s
well as two lecture recitals . The pause has proved beneficial and a ful l
season of events will be announced for 1959/60 . The work of youn g
British composers was a prominent feature of the season's programme s
which also included a number of rarely heard chamber compositions b y
Webern and Schoenberg.
Six Macnaghten Concerts were given at 4 St. James's Square and th e
programme details included no fewer than fourteen first performances
of which only one was by a non-British composer . Other works ranged
from Tudor Madrigals to posthumous premieres of works by Vaugha n
Williams and Gerald Finzi, together with several chamber-works b y
important composers of the 20th century.
Other organisations that featured new music include the London Bach
Group, who presented the first performance in Great Britain of Stravinsky' s
Agon, and the Wind Music Society, which included premieres of works b y
Wilfrid Mellers and Joseph Horovitz .
A welcome increase in London's contemporary music programmes ha s
led to some unresolved clashes of date during the season . A number of
interested parties therefore established a Co-ordinating Committee o f
organisations primarily concerned with promoting new music. This should
at least obviate the irritation of a faithful, if limited, audience which i s
occasionally confronted with a quite unnecessary embarras de choix.
Last year's Annual Report described three Funds provided from private Trusts
43
sources for the encouragement of music which are administered by th e
Council . From the most recent bequest, the Suggia Gift, two outstandin g
young artists have received a measure of assistance, one of whom, Roha n
de Saram, from Ceylon, has already proved himself a cellist of inter national potential . From the other two Trusts a total of 66 awards ha s
now been made to advanced students of British nationality . A number of
these have made their names in various branches of the profession .
The Council are fortunate in having as advisers to these three Trusts
panels of eminent musicians who give their valuable time to hearin g
applicants in audition and recommend to the Council those who the y
consider merit awards .
(i
OPERA AND BALLE T
The following new productions were presented during the year :Covent Garden
and Sadler s COVENT GARDEN OPERA
Wells Don Carlos . May 9th, 1958
Tristan and Isolde . June 4th, 1958
Music : Wagner
Music : Verdi
Producer : Christopher West
Producer : Luchino Visconti
Scenery and costumes :
Scenery and costumes :
Leslie Hurr y
Luchino Visconti
Conductor
: Rafael Kubelik
Conductor : Carlo Maria Giulini
Samson . November 15th, 195 8
Boris Godunov. October 31st, 1958
Music : Handel
Music : Moussorgsky
(Original Version ; sung in Russian) Producer : Herbert Gra f
Scenery and costumes :
Producer : Herbert Graf
Oliver Messel
Scenery and costumes :
Conductor : Raymond Leppar d
Georges Wakhevitch
Conductor : Rafael Kubelik
Lucia di Lammermoor. February 17th, 1959
Music : Donizetti
Producer : Franco Zeffirell i
Scenery and costumes :
Franco Zeffirelli
Conductor : Tullio Serafin
44
THE ROYAL BALLE T
Agon. August 20th, 195 8
Music : Igor Stravinsky
Choreography : Kenneth MacMillan
Scenery and costumes :
Nicholas Georgiadis
*La Fete Etrange . December 11th,
195 8
Music : Gabriel Faur e
Choreography : Andree Howard
Scenery and costumes :
Sophie Fedorovitch
La Valse. March 10th, 1959
Music: Maurice Ravel
Choreography : Frederick Ashto n
Scenery and costumes :
Andre Levasseur
• First Production at The Royal
Opera House, Covent Garden .
Ondine. October 27th, 195 8
Music : Hans Werner Henz e
Choreography : Frederick Ashto n
Scenery and costumes :
Lila de Nobil i
*Harlequin in April. March 5th,
195 9
Music : Richard Arnell
Choreography : John Cranko
Scenery and costumes :
John Piper
*Danes Concertantes . March
13th, 195 9
Music : Igor Stravinsky
Choreography : Kenneth
MacMillan
Scenery and costumes :
Nicholas Georgiadis
SADLER 'S WELLS OPERA
The Flying Dutchman . October 29th,
195 8
Music: Wagner
Producer : Dennis Arundell
Scenery : Timothy O'Brien
Costumes : Anthony Boye s
Conductor : William Reid
Rusalka . February 18th, 195 9
Music : Dvorak
Producer : Wendy Toye
Designer : James Baile y
Conductor : Vilem Tausk y
English Version :
Christopher Hassall
On September 12th, 1958, the Arts Council announced its decision t o
back the new Sadler's Wells plan for opera outside London, operetta a t
the Coliseum, as well as a full season of opera at Sadler's Wells Theatre .
This plan, which came into operation as from the New Year, is referre d
to under `Notes of the Year' . At the same time, the Council announced
that it had withdrawn from association with the Carl Rosa Opera Trust .
In order that provincial centres should not be deprived of opera durin g
the autumn and in order to keep artists in employment, the Council
45
Opera outside
London
English Opera
Group
made arrangements for an `emergency' twelve-week autumn tour by a
company to be known for one tour only as `Touring Opera 1958' . The
results of this tour were both encouraging and successful . Not only did i t
cost less than the sum set aside for it by the Arts Council-playing to a n
average of 70 per cent of financial capacity, but it reversed the trend of
falling box office receipts which had been apparent for some two or thre e
years in opera tours outside London . This welcome indication has been
more than confirmed by the results of the spring-summer tour under th e
new Sadler's Wells plan . The committee of management for Tourin g
Opera 1958, whose members were representative of our leading operatic
organisations under the chairmanship of Mr . Leslie Boosey, commented
in their report to the Arts Council on the enthusiastic reception accorded
to the tour generally by the public and by the press, who noticed i n
particular the splendid teamwork of the company as a whole under th e
direction of Professor Procter-Gregg . Thanks to the management committee the company was also able to draw on artistic resources fro m
Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells and Glyndebourne . The committee's
report also drew attention to the need for high standards of performance
throughout the country, especially in `music and histrionics' ; in scenic
effects, however, a touring company could not compete with a metropolitan or static opera house . Given the co-operation of the metropolita n
and other operatic institutions in the use of resources, there was n o
reason, in the committee's view, why high standards in musical performance and acting should not be capable of practical achievement .
The Group participated in the eleventh Aldeburgh Festival of Musi c
and the Arts at which it introduced Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde, in
Orford Church, on June 18th . The production was by Colin Graham and
the designer was Ceri Richards . A chorus and orchestra of children fro m
Suffolk schools combined with the English Opera Group Ensemble an d
the opera was conducted by Charles Mackerras . The Festival performances were followed by a television broadcast (A.T.V.) and, later i n
the year, by four performances in Southwark Cathedral . The success o f
the venture quickly stimulated activity in several other opera groups both
in the British Isles and overseas . Poulenc's opera-bouffe, Tiresias, was
also given its first performance in England, at the Festival .
The valued advice and friendship of Erwin Stein, who died on July 19th ,
1958, were commemorated at a Memorial Concert in London on Januar y
30th, 1959, when Britten's Nocturne for Tenor and Small Orchestr a
received its first London performance with the composer conducting.
46
The repertory was enlarged to include a new version of Bach's Love in
a Coffee Cup and The Lottery, by Jacques Offenbach . The latter opera was
presented for the first time in this country. 105 appearances were made
during the year at music clubs and schools throughout the British Isles .
An extensive tour of Scotland, lasting nearly one month and includin g
visits to both Orkney and Shetland, was undertaken by the Compan y
which also opened the theatre in London's City Temple .
At the 1959 Cheltenham Festival, the operas given by the Intimat e
Opera Society included the premiere of Hands Across the Sky, by Antony
Hopkins, and the first public performance of Joseph Horovitz's opera bouffe Gentleman's Island . The books of both these works were written b y
Gordon Snell, the first having won the £50 prize in the Society's Silver
Jubilee Competition in 1955 .
The enterprising repertoire of this company's 1957/58 season at Sadler's
Wells met with a disappointing response from the public, and a serious
financial situation of depressing proportions was only surmounted by the
generosity of various benefactors shortly before the opening of their 195 9
season . This consisted of first performances in England of 11 Prigioniero ,
by Inigi Dallapiccola and Carl Orff's Die Kluge, and a revival of The
Rake's Progress, by Igor Stravinsky .
In its tenth season, the Opera for All Group played 101 performances,
the longest tour it has undertaken so far . The 800th performance was
given at Northallerton on February 14th, 1959 . The repertoire comprised ,
Cosi fan Tutte, La Traviata, The Barber of Seville and The Beggar's Opera
in E. J. Dent's edition . The last two named were new productions ; both
proved to be popular and they are again heavily booked for the forth coming season . La Traviata, in its second year, received the smalles t
number of performances, and it would seem that, on the whole, the
Group's audiences prefer comedy to tragedy . Nevertheless, out of the si x
operas offered for 1959/60, from which bookers were asked to select four ,
La Boheme (new production) was at the top of the list ; the other three to be
chosen were La Cenerentola (revival), The Barber of Seville and The
Beggar's Opera .
Now that the Group has completed ten years' work, it may be permissible to recall its even more modest beginnings-excerpts and scene s
performed with some gesture, in evening dress . During the first two
seasons, Douglas Craig, who in addition to appearing and managing th e
Group, was a veritable -off-stage `Pooh-Bah', and compered the pro gramme in order to set the scene before each item . During the third
47
Intimate
Opera
New Opera
Company
Opera for All
season, a continuous excerpt from Cosi fan Tutte lasting 40 minutes was
inserted as a centre-piece into the programme and complete opera s
(abridged to meet casting limitations) were presented for the first time i n
1952/53 when costumes and properties were also introduced . With a
repertory of four operas, its own transport, costumes, props, and som e
multi-purpose scenery and lighting equipment, the Group now number s
ten and has developed to a point where further expansion would defea t
the purpose for which it was created and price it out of the market fo r
which it exists .
The emphasis placed on musical ensemble and stage movement ha s
been appreciated by the Group's own public who, although new o r
inexperienced operagoers for the most part, have shown unmistakably
that they want to hear more opera . Booking requests from clubs and
societies increase each year and it has been impossible to accept at least
36 requests in the forthcoming season . Given additional funds the Counci l
would like to consider some increased provision of this kind in smal l
urban and rural centres. If a second group of similar calibre were recruited ,
it would not only meet an apparently unsatisfied demand but provide als o
much needed opportunities for young artists to gain useful professional
experience .
It is interesting to note that Patricia Kern, who appeared with the Grou p
in the title role of La Cenerentola in 1953/54, has been engaged by Sadler' s
Wells for the same role in its forthcoming new production of this opera ,
with Douglas Craig as producer and Bryan Balkwill conductor . The two
last-named continue to give their valuable direction to the Group, and the
standard they demand has been maintained by the constant supervisio n
of Richard Doubleday, the Group's Manager and Stage Director who ,
regrettably, is resigning after three seasons' excellent work .
Nineteen amateur opera societies received grants or guarantees toward s
Amateur
Opera the cost of the professionals employed in their productions ; most of the
89 performances so assisted took place outside London . More than half
of the operas chosen for performance showed unusual enterprise and i n
some cases furnished opera `collectors' with rare or unique opportunities .
The most popular choice was The Bartered Bride, presented by companies at Exeter, Southall and Wolverhampton, and by the newly forme d
Chester Opera Group-which later performed Luisa Miller . Let's Mak e
an Opera was given at Bristol, The Marriage of Figaro at Bath, Carmen at
Hebburn-on-Tyne, La Traviata at Leicester, Die Fledermaus and Il
Trovatore at Ryde, and Faust at Basingstoke and Havant.
48
The Liverpool Opera Company gave The Queen of Spades and The
Beggar's Opera (Britten). The Kentish Opera Group presented The
Thieving Magpie and Riders to the Sea in a double-bill at Orpington .
The notable choice at Oxford was Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges together
with the Oedipus Rex of Stravinsky : at Durham it was Gluck's Tphigenia
in Tauris . The Cornish Opera Group revived (at St . Ives) its 1956 production of The Logan Rock by Inglis Gundry . Productions by Londo n
societies included The Barber of Baghdad (Cornelius), Romeo et Juliett e
and The Secret Marriage . The Rutland Boughton Trust's presentation of
Bethlehem at the St. Pancras Town Hall was also staged at Glastonbury
and Aylesbury in honour of the composer's 80th birthday . The Handel
Opera Society limited their activities for the year under review to a
concert performance of Alcina in March in order to prepare for their
season in June at Sadler's Wells Theatre as part of the Purcell-Hande l
Festival.
The Council learned with deep regret of the death of Mr . Ashley Dukes
on May 4th, 1959 . For many years, indeed since the birth of the Ballet
Rambert, he had played an active part behind the scenes in the manage ment of the company and its financial affairs . He was Chairman of the
Board of Directors of the Mercury Theatre Trust (the company's promoting organisation) until his resignation in 1958 . He was succeeded by
Sir David Waley.
The company worked for 42 weeks of the year and appeared in th e
Provinces, in Scotland, and at the King's Lynn Festival. The annual
season at Sadler's Wells included the premieres of two new ballet s
Epithalame and Two Brothers. The former was danced to specially com posed music by Jean Guillaume with choreography by Norman Morric e
who is now established as resident choreographer to the Company. The
dancers were engaged to appear during the year at the Glyndebourn e
Festival Opera and subsequently went, with the opera company, to the
International Festival of Opera in Paris . All the dances for these oper a
engagements were arranged by David Ellis, the Associate Director of th e
Company .
This new company has attracted considerable interest among the ballet
public in London and many other parts of the country through its enterprising and unusual repertory of ballets . A two-week season at the Lyric
Theatre, Hammersmith, and a week at Sadler's Wells with the Ne w
Opera Company brought favourable recognition from the press, while a
number of weeks' touring, with special attention to the West Country,
n
49
Balle t
Rambert
Western
Theatr e
Ballet
introduced its work to a larger audience . The Company's contributio n
at Sadler's Wells included the first British performance of Gian-Carl o
Menotti's The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore . Production an d
choreography were by Peter Darrell, who, with Elizabeth West, share s
responsibility for the Company's artistic direction .
Other new productions included Girl in a Mask, based on Berthold
Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan, with specially commissioned music
by Thomas Rajna ; Impasse, the first British ballet to Musique Concret e
and Impromptu, an experiment in group choreography.
The first overseas tour took place during the summer and included visit s
to Rome and towns in Belgium .
POETR Y
Readings
In the foreword to the Syllabus of the 1959 English Festival of Spoke n
Poetry, Roy Fuller wrote :`In Wordsworth's phrase, the poet is "a man speaking to men", an d
one of the Festival's aims is to get competitors to do just that-wit h
the change of gender where necessary! The speaking aloud of vers e
is an art, but the art should never become an artifice and hide th e
tones of the poet's voice, which is usually closer to the "real languag e
of men" than speakers are inclined to think .'
The English Festival encourages high standards for the speaking o f
verse in its classes for both solo and choral speaking . A similar aim has
prompted readings arranged by the Arts Council at 4 St . James's Square ,
for readers with a limited experience of reading poetry in public . Three of
these were held in 1958/59-one in each school term-and their succes s
was such that the nominating bodies (the Drama, Features and Talk s
Departments of the B .B.C., the Apollo Society, the Central School o f
Speech and Drama, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, th e
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, the Poetry Society, th e
Rose Bruford Training College, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Ar t
and the Society of Barrow Poets) agreed to suggest that the series shoul d
be continued in a slightly altered form with emphasis on the need fo r
including a substantial proportion of new poetry in the programmes .
50
In the autumn of 1958, Marius Goring carried out a tour for th e
Council, in the course of which he visited Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds ,
Hull, West Hartlepool, Scarborough, York, Sheffield, Northampton,
Dudley, Stafford, Tamworth, Kettering and Leek. The first part of his
programme was devoted to Tennyson's Maud; and the second part,
entitled `Other Ways of Love', included a new long poem by Henry Reed .
He repeated this programme in a recital at the Arts Council headquarter s
on January 21st . The attendances throughout the tour were highl y
satisfactory-particularly at Dudley, where 387 persons were present a t
the Netherton Arts Centre, including the Mayor and some of th e
Aldermen .
In connection with the Romantic Movement Exhibition, the Counci l
arranged four poetry readings at 4 St . James's Square . The producer an d
general editor of the series was Patric Dickinson ; and each programme
was planned by a different compiler . Geoffrey Grigson was responsible
for The Seeds of Romanticism (July 9th, 1959) ; Rayner Heppenstall for
The Libertarian Dream (July 14th) ; John Press for The Maturing Sun
(July 15th) ; and Christopher Hassall for The Gothic Twilight (July 20th) .
A single programme was issued to cover the whole series, with introductor y
notes by the four compilers.
The Apollo Society promoted nineteen recitals during the year, o f
which the majority were held outside London, including visits to the
Edinburgh and King's Lynn Festivals . A special programme devoted to
verse and music of Shakespeare and his time was given at the Wigmor e
Hall (April 9th, 1959) .
The programme of the Seventh Little Festival of Poetry at Cley-next- Festivals
the-Sea (May 28th to 31st, 1958) included a talk with readings by France s
Cornford and a special pilgrimage to Norwich and Felbrigg Hall .
The 1958 English Festival of Spoken Poetry, held at Bedford College ,
University of London (July 22nd to 25th), included a lecture by Patri c
Dickinson, a recital of poetry by distinguished professional speakers, an d
opportunities for open discussion as well as the usual classes .
The Fifth Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival consisted of eigh t
readings at Halls Croft on consecutive Sundays (July 13th to August
31 st) with a final recital in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (Septembe r
7th). The poet of the year was William Plomer ; and many of the readers
were drawn from the company at the Theatre . The final recital, the
programme of which was devoted to Shakespeare and his contemporaries ,
was given by Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Marius Goring, with Osian Elli s
51
Poetry Prizes
Magazines
(harp) . The Festival was directed by John Carroll, who was also responsible for a small Exhibition at Hall's Croft entitled The Elizabethans. Thi s
contained a number of unique and valuable items, among which shoul d
be mentioned the Diary of Philip Henslowe, the final volume of th e
Alleyn Papers, the Royal Warrant for the Execution of the Earl of Esse x
and various first editions including Spenser's The Faerie Queene and
Shakespeare's Lucrece . From her collection at Buckingham Palace,
H.M . The Queen loaned a little book of Psalms (undated), the final pag e
of which bore the signature of Elizabeth I and the following inscription :
No croked legge, no blered eye ,
no part deformed out of kind e
Nor yet so ouglye halfe can b e
as is the inward suspicious minde .
At Cheltenham, the Festival of Art and Literature (September 28th t o
October 10th) introduced an important innovation in its programme . As
well as the usual succession of lectures in the evenings, two worksho p
series were held in the afternoons-The Novelist's Workshop (Chairman :
Robert Neill) and the Artist's Workshop To-day (Direction : Victo r
Pasmore and Harry Thubron) . Four guest writers were invited to tak e
part in the Novelist's Workshop ; and the fact that the meetings were held
in the Drawing Room of the Cheltenham Town Hall ensured welcom e
intimacy in the discussions . For the Poetry Competition (with prizes of
£75, £50, and £25 provided by Messrs . Arthur Guinness Son & Co .) ther e
were 729 entries, which were judged by Thomas Blackburn, Patri c
Dickinson and G . S. Fraser. The prize-winners were John Press, Patrici a
Beer and Norman MacCaig .
The Council has awarded a prize of £125 to Roy Fuller for Brutus' s
Orchard (Deutsch) as being the best book of original English verse by a
living poet published during the period July 1st, 1956, to June 30th, 1959 .
It has also awarded a prize of £125 to Thom Gunn for The Sense of
Movement (Faber) as being the best first or second book of English vers e
by a living poet published during the same period . (Thom Gunn's earlier
volume of poems Fighting Terms was published by the Fantasy Press i n
1954 .) The awards were made on the advice of the following judges :
John C . Hall, Richard Hoggart and Graham Hough .
Three years ago the Arts Council agreed to extend its help to printe d
poetry by offering small subsidies to a limited number of magazine s
concerned solely with the printing and reviewing of poetry, and in s o
doing it made it clear that these subsidies would be made for a limite d
52
period, and in no case for longer than three years . The magazines that
have been helped to date are `Outposts', `Listen' and `Delta' . The Counci l
was gratified to hear from the Editor of `Outposts' that at the end of th e
three-year period of subsidy the size of that magazine had been increase d
and the subscription list doubled as the result of a special publicit y
campaign .
8
SCOTLAND
The Scottish Committee's grant for the financial year 1958/59 wa s
£84,850-an increase of £2,674 on the previous year . It will be seen from
the accounts in Appendix B that just over two-thirds of this amount wen t
in grants and guarantees to such independent bodies as the Scottis h
National Orchestra, the Edinburgh Festival Society, the Repertor y
Theatres, the National Federation of Music Societies, and a number o f
smaller societies and clubs . About one-fifth of the total was spent on th e
direct provision of concerts, plays, opera and ballet performances, poetry ,
exhibitions of pictures and sculpture, art lectures and films . In addition
purchases were made of paintings, watercolours and lithographs b y
contemporary Scottish artists ; travel grants were awarded to theatrica l
producers ; a play was commissioned ; and costs were guaranteed of a n
interchange of plays between the four repertory theatres .
AR T
Attention was drawn in last year's Annual Report to the growing support
given to the Arts by the Third Force, in other words, industry . This year a
scheme was developed for the visual arts in Scotland for the first time ,
which demonstrates on a small scale how effective and successful the
collaboration between art and industry can be . Ethicon Limited, a firm
which has two factories in the United Kingdom, both in Edinburgh ,
decided to buy paintings by young Scottish artists for the decoration of a
new office block . The Directors of Ethicon sought the advice of the
Scottish Committee and the suggestion was made that they should extend
their initial idea to supporting an exhibition from which their purchase s
could be made . The result was an exhibition of 52 paintings by 26 youn g
53
Ethicon
Exhibition
artists which was held in the Committee's Gallery in Edinburgh . The
Directors of Ethicon bought 15 paintings from the exhibition and four
more were sold to private buyers .
Festival
This year, during the Edinburgh Festival, the Committee presented i n
Exhibitions its Gallery an exhibition of the 47 lithographs by contemporary Britis h
artists produced in Edinburgh within the last three years and referred t o
in last year's report . This exhibition was immensely popular as it wa s
enlivened each day by demonstrations given by a number of the artist s
who were represented in the exhibition . These demonstrations were held
in the Gallery, the artist being immersed in and surrounded by all the
paraphernalia connected with lithography . The ancient heavy press was
moved from the lithographers and installed in the Arts Council's premises ;
there visitors were able to see the artist at work on the stone, the litho graphic craftsmen at work on the press, and the finished product on th e
wall. The whole venture attracted wide publicity and many lithograph s
were sold .
The tapestry commissioned in 1957 and mentioned in the Council' s
Twelfth Annual Report, was shown on the wall of the gallery for which i t
was designed . This tapestry, entitled Phases of the Moon, measures 7 by
8 feet ; it was designed by John Maxwell, R .S.A., and woven by the
Edinburgh Tapestry Company.
Also during the Edinburgh Festival the Committee presented, in th e
National Gallery of Scotland, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by
Sir David Wilkie . This exhibition was selected and catalogued by Mr .
John Woodward and arranged jointly with the National Gallery of
Scotland, the Royal Academy and the Scottish Committee of the Art s
Council. The exhibition was subsequently shown by the Royal Academ y
in the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House .
The exhibition of Modern Turkish Painting held during the 1957 Festival
was succeeded this year by a colourful exhibition of Turkish Decorative
Arts, sponsored by the Committee and shown in the Huntly House
Museum in the Canongate ; it was opened by the Turkish Ambassador .
Other
Following the Festival an exhibition of Norwegian Art Treasures was
Exhibitions presented by the Norwegian Government and the Scottish Committee .
This splendid exhibition, which represented 900 years of textiles, sculptur e
and silver from museums and galleries throughout Norway, crossed the
North Sea from Bergen to the Firth of Forth and was shown in the Royal
Scottish Museum in October and subsequently in the Victoria and Alber t
Museum .
54
The Committee has always sought opportunities to sponsor enterprising
activities and this year financial support was given to the Society o f
Scottish Artists for the presentation of the Society's Annual Exhibitio n
of a group of `tachist' paintings, which was the first time that a group o f
these paintings had been seen in Scotland.
Support was also given to the Helensburgh and District Art Club for a n
exhibition arranged by them of The Artist and the River Clyde . This
exhibition, which was selected with great skill, was not so much a collectio n
of paintings by distinguished artists as a fascinating record of the development of the Clyde as seen through the eyes of the artists . The exhibitio n
was subsequently toured in the West of Scotland where it was naturally
of particular interest to the public .
The difficulty continues of securing good new films on art topics ; Art Films an d
nevertheless 21 showings of programmes of films on art were presente d Lectures
during the year . Thirty-five lectures, nearly double the number for th e
preceding year, were sponsored by the Committee and served in many
centres to keep the interest in art alive-between showings of exhibitions .
The Committee is very much indebted both to Scottish Television an d
to the B .B.C. sound and television services for the tremendous amount o f
publicity which they have given to its exhibitions . Every new exhibitio n
presented by the Committee was covered by at least one of these service s
and many of them were covered by all three . Such publicity is invaluable
in drawing the attention of the public to the Committee's activities .
Five paintings were purchased during the year and the Committee no w Purchases
owns 115 paintings and drawings by contemporary Scottish artists .
MUSI C
The Scottish National Orchestra gave over 200 concerts during th e
year, including engagements by amateur choral societies and opera groups .
Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the year was the successful
series of seven broadcast concerts which the orchestra gave in June 1958 ,
replacing the B.B.C . Symphony Orchestra while that body was on holiday .
Three concerts were given during the Edinburgh Festival, and the orchestr a
also appeared in the Stirling Festival . Among special choral concerts in
which the orchestra took part were the centenary celebrations of th e
Dundee Choral Society and the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union .
Guarantees against loss were given to 36 music societies through th e
Scottish Committee of the N .F.M.S. ; seventeen amateur choral societie s
gave 32 concerts which included three performances of Brahms's Requiem,
55
Scottish
Nationa l
Orchestra
National
Federation of
Music
Societies
Other Concert
Societies
Directly
Provided
music
five performances of Messiah, two of Acis and Galatea, two of Verdi' s
Requiem and two of Belshazzar's Feast . Other performances deservin g
special mention were Handel's Samson, Purcell's Te Deum, Verdi's Te
Deum, Schutz"s St. Matthew Passion and Vaughan Williams' s
Sea Symphony.
During the season no less than 69 chamber-music recitals were give n
by the fourteen music clubs receiving help from the Committee . The special
grant of £10 for each string quartet engaged resulted in 21 such engage ments. In addition five amateur orchestral societies gave nine concerts
between them . (See page 39 .)
Help was also given to the following concert societies : The Saltire
Music Group for a performance of Schiitz's Resurrection, the Edinburgh
Lunch-Hour Concerts in the National Gallery of Scotland, and tw o
series of organ recitals in Edinburgh and Glasgow .
In response to persistent demand the Scottish Committee decided tha t
the time had come for another orchestral tour and the Jacques Orchestr a
was engaged to give ten concerts, eight on the mainland and one each i n
Orkney and Shetland.
The tour, which was planned to include Troon, East Kilbride, Hadd o
House, Dingwall, Lerwick, Kirkwall, Elgin, St . Andrews and Selkirk was
an exceptionally happy one and was marred only be persistent fog a t
Sumburgh Airport which resulted in the unavoidable last-minut e
cancellation of the Lerwick concert . It was possible, however, with the
co-operation of the Education Authority in Orkney, to make emergenc y
arrangements for an extra concert there and some 400 Orca .dian schoo l
children had the unexpected pleasure of listening to this orchestra ; for
many of them it was their first experience of hearing a `live' orchestra l
concert . A special concert for school children was also given in Elgin an d
was attended by an audience of about 1,500 .
Chamber-music accounted for another 60 out of the total of 136 musi c
performances . Visiting ensembles included Musica da Camera, Th e
Zephyr Trio and, as a completely new venture, a fortnight's tour by Carl
Dolmetsch and Joseph Saxby. These fine artists playing old music on th e
instruments for which it was written, were remarkably successful, with a n
average attendance throughout the tour of 145 . Chamber-music concert s
provided by artists resident in Scotland included the following ensembles :
piano trio and tenor ; flute, soprano, violin and piano ; the New Edinburgh
String Quartet ; and the Edinburgh Wind Ensemble . There were als o
several solo recitals .
56
That the straightforward `mixed' concert still has its place in the schem e
of things is evident, although the number given was only about 20 per cent
of the total number of musical performances . This type of concert is
particularly useful for places having their first Arts Council performance s
and reference to these cannot pass without mention being made of a `first'
concert at Lochinver this season ; the population is 200 and the attendance
was 126-over 60 per cent of all the inhabitants .
OPERA AND BALLE T
In the Spring of 1958 the Sadler's Wells Opera paid a visit to Edinburgh , Professional
Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow with a repertoire which included La Companies
Traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, La Boheme and The Merry Widow .
Among the companies appearing under the direct management of the
Scottish Committee were `Opera For All' which, in a tour of the South o f
Scotland, played to the highest average attendance yet achieved in Scot land by this company ; the Intimate Opera Company whose tour included
the Isle of Mull, Orkney and Shetland ; the Ballet Rambert, which toured
for four weeks ; and `Dances and Music of Spain' .
Four amateur opera societies were given financial assistance towards Amateur
the cost of engaging professional musicians . The Glasgow Grand Oper a Opera
Society, accompanied by the Scottish National Orchestra, presented
Samson and Delilah and Masaniello on alternate evenings for one week in
the Alhambra Theatre, Glasgow ; three performances ofLes Huguenots were
given by the Edinburgh Grand Opera Group at the Usher Hall ; the Scottish
National Opera Company was seen at the Gateway Theatre for one wee k
in Carmen and The Barber of Seville ; and also appearing at the Gateway
Theatre for three performances was the Edinburgh Opera Company i n
Orpheus and Euridice . In addition help was given to the Bellahouston
Music Society for four performances of The Marriage of Figaro .
DRAM A
Beginning on October 27th, 1958, and lasting for five weeks an interchange of productions took place between the repertory theatre companie s
in Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth. Each of the four companies
chose a `Festival' play which was performed for one week in the hom e
theatre and was then taken for a week to each of the other three theatre s
in turn . The extra costs involved in moving the companies and production s
around were guaranteed by the Scottish Committee, who also published
57
Scottish
Repertory
Theatre
Festival
Repertory
Theatres :
Dundee
a special brochure . Takings were not guaranteed, the host theatres accepting the risk of loss on each visiting production .
The plays chosen were as follows :
Dundee Repertory Company
Crime Passionnel
by Jean-Paul Sartr e
Edinburgh Gateway Company . .
The Penny Wedding
by Robert Kemp
Glasgow Citizens' Theatre
The Cherry Orchard
by Anton Chekho v
Perth Theatre Company . .
Caesar and Cleopatra
by Bernard Shaw
The Scottish Committee set aside a sum of £2,000 to cover the extr a
costs of travel, subsistence, transport of scenery, etc . Twelve moves were
involved (three by each company) and claims totalled £1,984-an averag e
of £165 for each move . A great deal of interest was created among th e
regular theatregoers in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in the firs t
two cities attendances were better than the average for the time of year .
Edinburgh started well but there was a falling off in the last two weeks ,
due largely to rival attractions at the commercial theatres . In Perth the
popular Scots comedy The Penny Wedding played to bumper audiences
but attendances at the other three plays proved disappointing .
Many lessons have been learned from this experiment which will prov e
valuable for future interchanges ; chief among these are the necessity fo r
earlier planning and a more practical approach . The choice of plays i n
particular must show more variety if audiences are to be attracted i n
larger numbers . There is no doubt that the Festival was well worth the
trouble and expense ; all four theatre managements are agreed about thi s
and have expressed their willingness to repeat the operation when circum stances permit .
The Dundee Repertory Theatre's season followed, largely, the pattern
of the two previous years-a slow decrease in attendances till the end o f
June, a big rise in the months of July to September and a slow fall til l
Christmas, when for the past three years the pantomime has filled the
theatre for three weeks . Dundee takes its holiday in July and production s
chosen for this period in each year recently have included such popular
West End successes as Sailor Beware! and The Reluctant Debutante . There
is, however, a solid core of discriminating playgoers in the City which ca n
be relied upon during the rest of the year to support plays of quality ;
among the more notable productions of this type of play were Look Back
58
in Anger, Distant Point, Hobson's Choice, The Waltz of the Toreadors and
The Chalk Garden .
It was not found possible to attain the standard previously achieved in
the presentation of new Scottish plays . There was only one premiere, A
Tale of Two Spacemen by the Englishman Richard Hamilton, against th e
works of three Scottish authors presented during the same period of the
1957/58 season . The policy of the theatre is quite unchanged in this field
and the dearth of new Scottish plays of a presentable standard is to b e
deplored .
After opening its season as a part of the official Edinburgh International Edinburgh
Festival with R . J. B. Sellar's play based on R . L. Stevenson's unfinishe d
fragment Weir of Hermiston, the Edinburgh Gateway 'Company pursue d
its settled policy, which places chief emphasis on plays by Scottish author s
but embraces also English and Irish plays felt to be within its scope as wel l
as the occasional classic . Some years ago, at the depth of the Ibsen depression, this company announced that it would perform one play by thi s
dramatist every year and, in view of the revival of Ibsen in the south ,
appears to have anticipated a fashion . This year's play was A Doll's House .
From Ireland came St . John Ervine's Boyd's Shop and from Englan d
Look Back in Anger by John Osborne . At Christmas Tom Fleming' s
Miracle at Midnight, a Nativity Play specially written for this theatre
some years ago, was revived to capacity audiences and was followed by
James Bridie's Forrigan Reel with Duncan Macrae as guest ; this play ran
for seven weeks-the longest run in the history of the company .
The Glasgow Citizens' Theatre started their autumn season with Cat Glasgow
on a Hot Tin Roof produced for members of the Society only, and followe d
this with The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and She Stoops to Conquer
before joining in the Repertory Interchange. The Christmas revue Clishmaclaver was the Citizens' most successful show in recent years and was haile d
by critics and public alike. The Roving Boy, a play by Joe Corrie in honour
of the Burns' Bicentenary celebrations, opened the Spring season ; other
notable productions were the Arthur Miller version of Ibsen's An Enemy
of the People, The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan, a new Scottish pla y
Under the Light by Iain Crawford and a revival of The Lass wi' the Muckle
Mou by Alexander Reid . There was the usual falling off of audiences in
the Spring although standards of acting and production remained on a
high level .
Perth Theatre Company carried out its usual routine of playing in Perth
Perth Theatre from August to May, the two companies touring th e
59
Highlands and Islands and the Borders in the summer months . During the
Perth season one or other of the companies paid regular visits to Brechin ,
Forfar, Arbroath and Kirkcaldy . A visit was made to Orkney and Shetlan d
in March, taking in Sanday and Stronsay as well as the main islands .
While business was better than usual on the summer tours the managemen t
reports a drop in takings both in Perth and on the local tours . They
attribute this to the competition of television and also to the easing o f
restriction on hire purchase, as money appears to be shorter in the district .
Outstanding productions were The Crucible, The Chalk Garden, Pick-up
Girl and The Diary of Anne Frank .
Pitlochry
The eighth annual Pitlochry Drama Festival was held from April 26t h
until October 4th, 1958, presenting six plays in true repertory, togethe r
with a number of concerts and art exhibitions . Revivals included a n
attractively staged production of Shaw's You Never Can Tell, Neilson
Gattey's and Jordan Lawrence's historical drama The White Falcon and
two popular perennials, Autumn Crocus and The Ghost Train-all of which
averaged 60 per cent of capacity . Belle Vista, a Canadian comedy by
Thomas Muschamp, averaged only 46 per cent, but The Heir to Ardmally
a Scots play with Canadian undertones by Ena Lamont Stewart topped
the box office with 69 per cent of capacity.
Although admissions increased from 52,653 to 55,318, costs rose b y
ten per cent resulting in an exceptional seasonal deficit of £3,433 (compare d
with £372 in 1957), £1,000 of which was met by the Scottish Committee .
Directly
An outstanding feature of the Scottish Committee's direct promotio n
Provided was The New Scottish Touring Theatre's production of Arms and the Man
Drama
for which an exceptionally good cast was assembled . This tour played fo r
a month entirely in the Northern area, opening as usual in Stornoway and
visiting Shetland for the first time where it played for three nights i n
Lerwick. Special credit is due to the local amateur dramatic societie s
there who, in order to overcome the difficulties of air transport, built th e
sets on the spot under the written directions of the producer in Glasgow .
The Edinburgh Gateway Company in Priestley's Laburnum Grove, toured
the Borders and the South of Scotland with its usual success and another
Gateway revival, Robert Kemp's The Heart is Highland, in which Miss
Lennox Milne plays all thirteen parts, received a very warm welcome i n
its fortnight of one-night stands .
These three tours were seen by a total audience of nearly 10,000 people .
A further 10,328 saw The Children's Theatre in an extensive five-week
tour which began in the Isle of Cumbrae, ranged round the North o f
60
Scotland ahd ended in the Borders .
Only one puppet tour was undertaken this year . This was The Lancheste r Directly
Marionette Theatre which paid a welcome return visit and played to a Provided
Puppets
total audience of just under 3,000 .
This year a new patron of the arts appeared on the Scottish scene . Scottish
Scottish Television Limited, following the example of the independen t Repertory
television companies in England made a handsome gift of £5,000 to th e Theatre Trust
Scottish Repertory Theatres . On the advice of the Arts Council's Scottis h
Committee an independent Trust was formed with Mr . Robert Kemp a s
Chairman. On handing over the cheque on behalf of Scottish Television ,
Mr. Roy Thomson expressed the desire that the money would be used `fo r
the fostering and encouragement of talent' . At the time of going to pres s
grants totalling £4,800 have been made to the following theatre managements :- Dundee Repertory Theatre, Edinburgh Gateway Company ,
The Citizens' Theatre, Perth Repertory Theatre, Pitlochry Festival Societ y
and St . Andrews Play Club . Projects include the training of students, play
commissions and special productions of Scottish plays .
The Scottish Committee continued its scheme for awarding travel grants Travel Grants
to producers and scenic designers working in the Scottish Theatre . Grants
of varying amounts were awarded to Mr . Peter Duguid, Director of
Productions at the Citizens' Theatre, Mr . Wilfred Bentley of Perth Theatre
Company, Mr. Norman Fraser of the Gateway Company and Mr .
Gerard Slevin .
This year a scheme for the commissioning of new plays was introduce d Play
for the first time . The commissions are to be placed through theatre Commissions
managements, whose choice of author must be approved by the Scottis h
Committee . One commission of £150 has already been placed throug h
the Edinburgh Gateway Company.
POETR Y
Up to this year the live presentation of poetry has been restricted to a n
occasional recital, the inclusion of a verse-speaker in a mixed concert ,
and the joint programme of poetry and drama offered by The Tw o
Strolling Players. This year, however, Mr . Christopher Hassall undertook
a tour of five poetry readings which were greeted with great enthusiasm an d
have, we hope, paved the way for further developments in this sphere .
The total audience was almost 700 ; individual audiences varied greatly ,
as was only to be expected in an experimental project of this type, bu t
outstanding figures were Edinburgh 316, Elgin 164 and Greenock 110 .
61
Readings
Competition
Robert Burns'
Bicentenary
The result of the 1957/58 competition for a Gaelic poem had not bee n
decided in time for inclusion in last year's report . The winner was Professo r
C. I. N . MacLeod of Saint Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, wh o
received a prize of £25 for his poem Duan Na h-iondrainn . The secon d
and third prizes were awarded respectively to Mr . Donald R . Morriso n
and the Reverend Colin N. MacKenzie . The judges were appointed by An
Comunn Gaidhealach .
The year 1959 being the bicentenary of the birth of Robert Burns, th e
Committee decided to mark the occasion by inviting a number of livin g
Scottish poets to contribute to an anthology of modern verse ; it was felt
that this was an idea which would have appealed to Burns himself . Mr .
Norman MacCaig was appointed editor and the book is being publishe d
by Chambers under the title Honour'd Shade .
The Committee also offered the Burns Federation a guarantee agains t
loss on a pageant play depicting incidents in the Poet's life . This was
presented in Ayr during the month of June .
ARTS CLUBS AND ARTS CENTRE S
Most of the clubs and societies served by the Scottish Committee' s
scheme of direct provision are catholic in their tastes . Dependent as they
are on the Committee for practically all their professional performances ,
the majority of them (although they may begin by being interested solel y
in music or in drama) prefer a balanced programme of all the arts . Very
few of them, however, are in a position to present exhibitions of paintin g
or sculpture .
A few 1958/59 programmes, selected at random, mostly from the
remoter areas, will show the kind of `season' a well run society is able to
provide, both for its own members and for the community it serves .
Campbeltown : The New Edinburgh String Quartet
`City and Countryside' (Songs and Verse )
Carl Dolmetsch and Joseph Saxby
The Zephyr Tri o
:
New
Scottish Touring Theatre (Arms and the Man
Fort William
`Dances and Music of Spain '
Vocal and instrumental concert
The Ballet Rambert
The Intimate Opera Company
Music, Drama and Poetry Recita l
Kirkwall :
The Jacques Orchestra
62
The Intimate Opera Company
New Scottish Touring Theatre (Arms and the Man)
The Jacques Orchestr a
Christopher Hassall
Carl Dolmetsch and Joseph Saxb y
Lennox Milne (The Heart is Highland)
Lanark :
`Dances and Music of Spain'
`Musica da Camera'
Carl Dolmetsch and Joseph Saxb y
The Intimate Opera Company
For the most part these programmes of public performances are supplemented by locally arranged recitals and lectures for members only . Most
of these societies issue a syllabus in August or September ; many have
season tickets and several have reported a gratifying increase in membershi p
this season .
In addition to these smaller organisations, which depend on the directl y
provided service for . their performances, there are four larger bodie s
which operate independently under limited guarantees from the Scottis h
Committee ; they are Galashiels Arts Club, Greenock Arts Club, Invernes s
Arts Centre and Troon Arts Guild . All except Troon have their own
premises and are therefore true Arts Centres . These clubs, while they may
(and, indeed, do) take advantage of the opportunity of securing en route
dates in tours arranged by the Committee, are in a position to make their
own independent bookings .
Elgin :
EDINBURGH FESTIVA L
The declared artistic policy of the Edinburgh Festival Society has alway s
been to devote itself, primarily, to the performance of the world's grea t
masterpieces in a manner befitting their stature . The Society feels however
that it is the proper duty of an International Festival to make experiment s
from time to time, and these naturally involve an element of risk . Thus,
at the Twelfth Festival, a season of twelve new ballets, given by international soloists and an ad hoc company of excellent standard, did poo r
business despite remarkably good press notices . Similarly, a concert o f
Stravinsky's ballet music, superbly performed under Ernest Ansermet ,
attracted only a very small audience .
The Society is therefore in something of a cleft stick, and its dilemma
is not alleviated by its present rather precarious financial position. Steps
have of course been taken to ameliorate this . In June 1958 Edinburgh
63
Corporation increased its annual grant from £15,000 to £25,000 ; at the
same time the grant from the Scottish Committee of the Arts Council
was also raised from £7,500 to £10,000, and for the year 1959 the Committee has agreed to increase this sum to £12,000. In March 1958, the
Lord Provost issued an appeal to local business houses and privat e
individuals and he has since reinforced it ; a committee, independent o f
the Society has been set up to raise funds on a wider basis than hitherto .
These measures have had some considerable success . Only however when
the Society is in a position, without financial embarrassment, not only to
present the very finest in the world of the arts but also to experiment whe n
necessary, will it be possible to say that it has been wholly successful .
Meanwhile the 1958 Festival showed no falling-off in quality. Opera
was presented by the Stuttgart State Opera and a Spanish company
headed by Victoria de los Angeles, whose programme included a balle t
performance with Antonio as its star . Symphony concerts were given b y
the Philharmonia Orchestra (under Klemperer, Ansermet and Sawallisch) ,
the Royal Danish Orchestra (under Solti, W61dike and Frandsen) th e
Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden (under Ansermet and
Jorda), the Scottish National Orchestra (under Swarowsky) and th e
Vienna Symphony Orchestra (under Krips). Chamber-music included
recitals by the Menuhin-Cassado-Kentner Trio, the Juilliard Quartet an d
the Zagreb Soloists' Ensemble ; by Arrau, Pears and Britten, Gedda an d
Borg. The drama programme was particularly strong and included
premieres of plays by Eliot and O'Neill, The Old Vic Company in Twelfth
Night and Schiller's Mary Stuart, and recitals by Peggy Ashcroft an d
Edith Evans .
The Festival's most remarkable success, however, was the Exhibitio n
Masterpieces of Byzantine Art, a large collection of superlative quality
(and hence very costly) organised by the Society and sponsored by it i n
Edinburgh and London . The Society had had misgivings as to the appeal
of this Exhibition, but, contrary to expectation, it attracted a very larg e
public.
MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMITTE E
Mr. E. S. Harrison resigned from the Scottish Committee on Novembe r
21st, 1958, after serving since January 1st, 1956 .
Mr. James McNaught was invited by the Council to rejoin the Scottis h
Committee for a period of three years from January 1st, 1959 .
Mr. D. K . Baxandall, Mr . Colin Chandler and Mr . Hugh Marshall
64
were due to retire on December 31st, 1957, but were asked to continue i n
office as members of the Committee for a further period of three years .
9
WALE S
The Welsh Committee received a grant of £43,950 from the Arts Counci l
in 1958/59, the distribution of which is shown in the Committee's account s
in Appendix C . From these it will be seen that the Committee's reserve s
have been increased, and this is largely accounted for by expenditure o n
major activities being less in 1958/59 than in 1957/58 . Activities which
proved less costly were the English Drama Tour and the Welsh Nationa l
Opera Company . The Opera Company presented four weeks' season a s
against six in the previous year and no new opera production was under taken. The English Drama Tour was a great success and kept within it s
budget, in welcome contrast to 1957/58 .
As Wales would be host to the Empire Games in July 1958 there wa s
naturally a wish that the Principality should be en fete from May t o
October . A great many events were promoted up and down the countr y
during that period and many towns and villages contributed to th e
festivities according to their means and_ talents . It is worth recording her e
that the major artistic projects undertaken during this time were b y
organisations which had received the support of the Welsh Committe e
for a number of years . Also, a new Festival of the Arts was sponsored b y
Llandaff Cathedral, details of which will be found in a later paragraph o f
this report.
The Committee of Enquiry appointed in May 1957 to survey the nee d
for cultural buildings in Wales completed its task after holding fifteen
meetings and presented its report to the Welsh Committee in Januar y
1959 . This report is now incorporated with that on London and Scotlan d
in a volume published by the Arts Council and can be obtained fro m
H.M. Stationery Office at a cost of 5s . An off-print of the Welsh Repor t
is available from the Welsh Office of the Arts Council, 29 Park Place ,
Cardiff. The Welsh Committee records its appreciation of the grea t
amount of work undertaken by the Committee of Enquiry and its war m
thanks for the report which was received .
65
Finance
Festival of
Wales-May
to October
195 8
Housing th e
Arts
Creative
Artists
The painters, poets, playwrights and musicians of Wales have always
been the concern of the Welsh Committee, and a rewarding feature o f
the period under review was that the works of a number of those who ha d
received commissions from the Welsh Committee reached a wider public ,
i .e . the Welsh plays of Saunders Lewis and John Gwilym Jones wer e
produced on television by Emyr Humphries in an English translation an d
the music of Daniel Jones and Alun Hoddinott was heard in Englan d
and abroad .
Plays and
During the year the Committee commissioned John Gwilym Jones t o
Poetry, write a full-length Welsh play . This play, entitled Yr Tad a'r Mab (The
Commissions
and Father and Son), was the second of his plays to be performed in an English
Competitions translation in 1958/59 on Television . The first was Y Gwyr Llonydd (The
Quiet Man).
A competition was arranged for the best unpublished collections o f
Welsh and English verse . Eleven entries were received in the Wels h
category and 81 in the English . Anthony Conran won the award of £10 0
for his collection of English verse, and Bobi Jones won a similar award for
his collection of Welsh verse .
Musical
A Music Competition, arranged expressly to discover new or lesser Competition known talent for musical composition, included four categories to any o r
all of which candidates could submit their entries . Awards were withheld
in the piano and song categories, where it was judged that the entrie s
were not of a high enough standard . The orchestral award of £75 went to
Denis N. Harbinson of Cardiff for his overture, Empusa, which will be
given a first performance by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra .
Robert Smith of Llanfairfechan won the award of £50 in the chamber music category for his String Quartet in E minor, the first performanc e
of which will be given at the Llandaff Cathedral Festival .
DRAMA
Despite the set-back experienced with the tour of The Queen and the
English Rebels last year (it played to only 29 per cent of capacity) the Wels h
Touring Committee decided not to discontinue these tours . Statistics showed tha t
Company
since 1953, with this one exception, none of the tours had played to les s
than 51 per cent of capacity . The eight tours from 1953 to 1957 played
to the following capacities : 87, 51, 80, 69, 66, 72, 73, and 57 per cent .
In the Autumn of 1958 the Arts Council's Company was sent on a
seven-week tour of Wales with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and
Ustinov's Romanoff and Juliet in a double bill . The Company remained
for a week in Swansea at the Palace Theatre and formed part of th e
Festival of Music and the Arts there in October, after which they toured
66
all over Wales, playing to a total audience of 19,537, i .e. 66 per cent o f
total capacity. One charming feature of this tour was that so many schoo l
children, for whom special matinee performances of Romeo and Juliet
had been arranged, insisted on attending the public performances o f
Romanoff and Juliet, too, and brought their parents . The plays were
produced by Jordan Lawrence and the ingenious sets were designed b y
Gillian Armitage .
The centres visited were :
Swansea
Cardiga n
Rhyl
Dolgellau
Denbigh
Haverfordwes t
Wrexham
Fishguard
Holyhead
Carmarthen
Pwllheli
Ystradgynlai s
Portmadoc
Abergavenny
Bangor
Port Talbo t
Aberdovey
Ebbw Vale
Aberystwyth
Aberdare
The Company remained two nights in some centres and presente d
both plays, giving a total of 52 performances in all during the perio d
of the tour.
The Royal National Eisteddfod, Ebbw Vale, had conunissioned a 1958 Welsh
Welsh play from Saunders Lewis, and the Welsh Committee accepted a n Theatr e
invitation to be responsible for its production . A fine Company was Company
assembled which gave excellent performances of this play, Brad (Treason )
at Ebbw Vale in August 1958 . The Company was directed by Herber t
Davies and the designer was David Tinker . Subsequently this play was
televised in English and broadcast in both languages .
The three Welsh Drama Festivals of uncompetitive character and aiming Welsh Dram a
at the best standards in the presentation of plays of quality did not alto- Festivals
gether achieve their aims but a good attempt was made to do so . Th e
first was arranged in the charming little Barn Theatre at Garthewin ,
Llanfair Talhaiarn, in June, when a new play, Cyfyng-Gyngor, by Huw
Lloyd Edwards, Glo Pr Marwor by Gwynne D . Evans, Y Cwymp by
Meurig Walters . and Munudau Olaf by Aeres Evans were included in th e
programme. The National Welsh Drama Festival at Llangefni in October
also included Cyfyng-Gyngor in their three-day Festival along with Bra d
by Saunders Lewis, performed by the Welsh Committee's Company and
Pobun (Everyman) by Hoffinannstal. In October the Swansea Welsh
67
Drama Association held their Festival at the Grand Theatre and presente d
a new Welsh play by John Griffiths Trai a Llanw ; the other plays in the
programme were Cyfyng-Gyngor and Pobl yr Ymylon by Idwal Jones .
These three Welsh Drama Festivals were given substantial financia l
assistance by the Welsh Committee. The Drama Council for Wales held
their Festival of Welsh and English plays in Aberaeron in May with th e
support of the Welsh Committee, and a grant was given to the Llangefn i
Drama Society for their excellent programme of Welsh and English play s
presented throughout the year at their Theatr Fach, including thos e
presented by their guest company, `The Unnamed Society', from Manchester .
ART
The Welsh Committee's major exhibition in 1958 was the Dutch 17th
Exhibitions Century Genre Painting . It was opened in the Gregynog Gallery at the
arranged by National Library, Aberystwyth, by Professor Gwyn Jones and remained
the Welsh
Committee there for the month of August . It was shown at the National Museum o f
Wales, Cardiff, in September, and at the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea ,
in October . This appeared to be one of the most popular exhibitions arranged by the Committee and was seen by a total of 10,982 people . The
Committee was greatly indebted to Her Majesty the Queen and othe r
owners who so generously lent their paintings for this exhibition, and t o
Philip Barlow who assisted in compiling the catalogue and writing th e
introduction to it .
The Young Welsh Artists Exhibition was a new experiment undertake n
by the Committee and a departure from the annual open exhibition o f
Contemporary Welsh Painting and Sculpture . The Selection Panel-Nevil e
Wallis, Robert Erskine and Julian Trevelyan-chose 74 works from a
total of 385 submitted . The Exhibition was opened by the Rt. Hon . Aneuri n
Bevan at the National Museum, Cardiff, in March 1959 after which i t
was shown in Aberystwyth, Wrexham and Swansea . A prize of £25 give n
by the Western Mail for the best work in this Exhibition was awarded t o
Roderick Hanlan .
Arts Council
A list of 25 Arts Council Exhibitions shown in Wales appears in th e
Exhibitions Appendix . Among these the Arts Council's Collection, Part I, II, III an d
IV were shown as follows : Cardiff, all four parts ; Aberystwyth, Part I ;
Newport, Part III ; Welshpool, Part II . Cardiff showed these Exhibition s
chronologically from April 1958 to January 1959 and so enabled galler y
visitors to see a collection of over 200 paintings and drawings by the mos t
important British artists and gave them the rare opportunity of seein g
a comprehensive survey of British painting from 1900 to the present day .
68
The Exhibitions arranged in 1958/59 with the support of the Welsh
Committee were : (1) Pictures for Welsh Schools, organised by the Society
for Education through Art which was shown in Cardiff and Wrexham . A
total of 31 works were purchased from this Exhibition, of which 25 were
acquired by the Education Authorities of Merthyr, Cardiff, Glamorgan shire, Monmouthshire and Montgomeryshire . The Contemporary Ar t
Society for Wales bought one work, and the remainder went to privat e
ownership . (2) The `56' Group's Exhibition at Turner House . (3) The
South Wales Group Exhibition . (4) The Contemporary Art Society' s
Exhibition of its recent acquisitions which was shown in eleven centre s
in Wales .
During the year the Welsh Committee purchased eleven works for their
collection. Three works were acquired from the Young Welsh Artists
Exhibition, four from the National Eisteddfod, Ebbw Vale, and the
remainder from various sources, including Ceri Richards' Light Interio r
and David Jones's Vase of Flowers against a Mirror .
Fifteen works were sold in the Committee's Young Welsh Artists
Exhibition before it left Cardiff . Patronage by industry and public bodies
continues, and amongst the purchasers besides the Welsh Committee wer e
the Contemporary Art Society for Wales, The Steel Company of Wales ,
George Elliott and Co . and Glamorgan Education Authority .
The Welsh Committee's Collection now totals 132 works, including
those acquired in the period under review . Some of these works are now
on loan to the following institutions : South Wales Electricity Board ,
Collegiate Education Centre, Cardiff, Chepstow Army Apprentices '
School, University College, Aberystwyth, Y .M.C.A., Rhoose, Universit y
College, Bangor, and the Powys Fine Art Gallery, Welshpool . This
loan scheme has proved very popular and has been devised to allow
for a change of works half-yearly or annually .
There were two tours of Art Films arranged during the year 1958/59
one in South Wales from November 3rd to 15th, and the other in
Mid and North Wales from February 9th to 21st . The total attendance
was 4,846, an average of 179 at each show .
Four Festivals of Music and the Arts and four purely Musical Festivals
were held within the period May to October 1958 . Of those in the first
category three ran for a week and the fourth, namely Swansea, for two
weeks (to include a week's performances by the Arts Council's Compan y
of the plays Romeo and Juliet and. Romanoff and Juliet of which mentio n
has been made in a previous paragraph) . The four Festivals of Music an d
69
Exhibitions
arranged with
the support of
the Welsh
Committe e
Welsh
Committee
Purchases
General
Purchases
Picture Loan
Scheme
Art Films
MUSIC
Festivals of
Music and th e
Arts
the Arts were : the new Festival at Llandaff Cathedral in June, the Inter national Eisteddfod in Llangollen in July, the Royal National Eisteddfod ,
Ebbw Vale, in August, and the Swansea Festival in October . Those in the
second category were the Festivals of Brecknock County, The Dee an d
Clwyd and Montgomery County held in May, and the National Federatio n
of Music Societies' Welsh Regional Festival in June . All four in the secon d
category were Festivals of Combined Choirs designed to give the smal l
choral societies in their particular areas an opportunity to sing togethe r
with the support of major orchestras, and to provide them with an occasio n
of importance for which to work, the results of which gave them an d
their audiences much enjoyment .
A stimulus is much needed if choral singing is to survive . There is muc h
to distract the interest of young people to-day from the practice of musi c
and this is having a grievous effect on the recruitment of young member s
to the choirs . Young people are not interested in attending choir practice
in dull and uninspiring surroundings, as did their parents, once a wee k
for the doubtful pleasure of giving a concert once a year with a threepiece band . Television and broadcasts have improved the taste of th e
public, whatever adverse effect they may have had on the practice o f
music by the amateur . The opportunities provided by these media t o
young people make them more critical, and it is unlikely that they can b e
persuaded to give up their leisure to practice music unless some worthwhil e
incentive is given them to do so, such as a sense of occasion which a
festival can give .
All the Festivals mentioned above, with the exception of the International
at Llangollen, were arranged with the support of the Welsh Committee .
Reference has already been made to the cultural value of these organisations during a period when Wales was host to so many visitors durin g
Festival of Wales year.
Special mention must be made here of the new Festival held at Llandaf
f
Cathedral which provided Cardiff with an occasion of artistic importanc e
such as the Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts has provided for
Swansea for the past eleven years . The orchestras, conductors, and choir s
taking part in the week's Festival at Llandaff were the Halle Orchestr a
with Sir John Barbirolli, the Philomusica of London with Thurston Dart ,
Llandaff Cathedral Special Choir directed by Thurston Dart, and th e
Treorchy Male Choir with their conductor John H . Davies . Jeann e
Demessieux gave an organ recital on the Tuesday evening, and a firs t
performance was given by the Philomusica with Cecil Aronowitz of Alu n
70
Hoddinott's concertino for viola and orchestra on the Wednesday evening.
This work was commissioned by the Welsh Committee in 1956 . On the
Friday evening the Student Theatre Company of Cardiff College o f
Music and Drama gave a performance of Christopher Fry's play The First
Born, produced by June Griffiths, with sets and costumes designed by
David Tinker .
Despite the difficulties experienced by the Societies affiliated to the
National Federation of Music Societies regarding recruitment of young
members to the choirs, the choral societies arranged 25 concerts in
1958/59, and the orchestral societies, which are fewer in number, arrange d
three concerts . The National Federation of Music Societies received a
grant for administrative purposes from the Welsh Committee . In additio n
the Committee guaranteed the total sum offered by the Federation to it s
affiliated societies as recommended by its Welsh Joint Committee . This
Committee is composed of representatives of the Federation's Welsh
Regional Committee and the Arts Council's Director for Wales .
One hundred and twenty-six concerts including twenty performances by
the Arts Council's `Opera For All' Group and 29 by string quartets were
arranged by the Music and Arts Clubs with the support of the Wels h
Committee in the period under review . During the tour of Wales by the
`Opera For All' Group two special performances were sponsored by the
Wrexham Rural District Council at Cefn Mawr and Coedpoeth and on e
at Dowlais by Merthyr Tydfil Corporation, making 23 performances i n
all given by this Group . The Group's popularity has increased to such a n
extent that for the tenth annual tour of Wales the number of performance s
possible could not meet the demand during the time allocated to Wale s
for the Group .
The Welsh National Opera Company Limited presented four weeks'
performances in 1958/59 . In addition, a performance of I Lombardi in a
Welsh translation by Sir Thomas Parry-Williams was given at the Nationa l
Eisteddfod at Ebbw Vale with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra i n
August . A week's season in the same month, supported by the City o f
Birmingham Orchestra, was given at Llandudno, conducted by Warwic k
Braithwaite and Ivor John . In the two weeks in Cardiff and one in Swanse a
the conductors were Warwick Braithwaite, Charles Groves and Ivo r
John, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. No new opera wa s
added to the Company's repertoire, but new sets were designed by Davi d
Tinker for Madame Butterfly, the title role of which was sung by Joan
Hammond . The Welsh Committee, the Counties of Glamorgan and
71
Choral and
Orchestra l
Societies
Music an d
Art Clubs
Opera
Independently
arranged
concerts
Arts Council
associated
orchestras
Directly
Managed
Orchestral
Concert
Foreign
Orchestras
Recitals
Verse and
Music
Ballet
Monmouth, and the Corporations of Cardiff and Swansea, continued t o
provide grants to this Company .
The Ha116 Orchestra played in Newport in September and the Bourne mouth Symphony Orchestra gave a concert there in October and one i n
February. Without a subsidy from local government authorities the numbe r
of independently planned visits by major orchestras to Wales is likely t o
diminish rather than increase . Newport Borough Council, as ever awar e
of this, provided a grant of £400 to enable these two orchestras to arrang e
concerts in the town . The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra gave a
concert in Swansea and one in Cardiff in February without any financia l
assistance from Swansea and Cardiff Corporations .
The Welsh Committee arranged a concert by the Haydn Orchestra a t
Llandaff Cathedral in November. The work performed was the origina l
orchestral version of The Seven Last Words from the Cross by Franz
Joseph Haydn, conducted by Harry Newstone .
The Juilliard Symphony Orchestra of New York conducted by Jea n
Morel gave a concert in Cardiff in July .
Two recitals of verse and music were directly sponsored by the Wels h
Committee . These took place in Welshpool and Rhyl in October . The
verse of John Dyer, Henry Vaughan and Dylan Thomas was read by
Christopher Hassall. The music, which was played by the Wang Strin g
Quartet, included a string quartet by Daniel Jones and In MemoriamDylan Thomas by Stravinsky . The latter work included Gerald Englis h
(tenor) and a quartet of trombones .
The Ballet Rambert visited the Prince of Wales Theatre, Cardiff, i n
November . During their week's season there the Company presente d
Laiderette, Giselle, Les Sylphides, Death of the Maiden, Judgement of Paris ,
Fireflies and Two Brothers .
Welsh
Committee
Tribute
Members of the Welsh Committee due to retire on December 31st, 1958 ,
were Dr . J. Henry Jones, Dr . William Thomas, and Dr . D. E. Parry
Williams . Dr. D . E. Parry Williams was reappointed for a further perio d
of service and new members appointed were Mr . T. Glyn Davies, Mr.
Alex J . Gordon and Lady Amy Parry-Williams .
The Welsh Committee pays tribute to the memory of the late Davi d
Bell who was the first Art Assistant appointed to the Welsh Office in 1946 .
When he left the Arts Council in 1951 to take up his appointment as
Curator of the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea, he continued to associat e
himself closely with the work of the Welsh Committee and became a
member of its Art Committee . The great interest shown and patronage
72
provided for the visual arts in Wales to-day can to a large degree be
attributed to the devoted work of David Bell .
Mr. Dillwyn Owen resigned his post as Drama Assistant in May 1958
to return to his work for television and broadcasting . Since May 1958
the Committee's Welsh and English Theatre Companies have bee n
managed by Mr. John Sneath .
73
Welsh Office
10
NOTES ON THE ACCOUNTS
These notes are given in amplification of the Annual Accounts which ar e
contained in Appendix A following .
The Revenue and Expenditure Account includes a specific reserve of a
further E3,500 for the Purcell Tercentenary and Handel Bicentenary
commemorative performances to be given during 1959 . This reserve
includes £500 held on behalf of A .T.V. Limited and brings the total amount
available for these Festival Celebrations to £6,500 as at March 31st, 1959 .
The grant of £4,300 for the London Symphony Orchestra Limite d
shown in Schedule 3 includes £300 towards the cost of purchasing a
second-hand van .
The grant of £12,250 for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Societ y
shown in Schedule 3 includes £250 towards the cost of the special Inter national Course for Conductors held in May 1958 . An additional grant
of £500 was also made available for this Course from the H . A. Thew
Fund which is included under Special Funds in Schedule 5 .
An interest free loan of £750, which was made to the Boyd Neel Concer t
Society Limited on October 19th, 1954, was converted into a supplementary grant . This is included in Schedule 3 under the Company's ne w
name, Philomusica of London Limited, and increases the total gran t
shown for the year from £2,000 to £2,750 .
Included under `Loans to Associated and Other Organisations' ar e
interest free loans of £1,000 to Nottingham Theatre Trust Limited an d
£3,000 to Capoco Limited (Windsor Repertory Company) . The loan t o
Nottingham Theatre Trust Limited has since been repaid and the loa n
to Capoco Limited is to be repaid by instalments .
The Reserve for Capital Purchase of £750 has been included in th e
Revenue and Expenditure Account to cover the cost of a Henry Moore
Sculpture (Woman Seated Against a Curved Wall) which was commissioned
in October 1958 .
In most years, variations between estimates and actual expenditure ,
occasioned by such items as undercalls on guarantees, produce a small
surplus . The net unexpended surplus for the year ended March 31st, 1959,
represents less than 1 percent of the Council's grant-in-aid from the Treasury .
74
APPENDICES
75
THE ARTS COUNCI L
APPENDIX A
REVENUE AND
EXPENDITURE
ACCOUN T
1957/5 8
£761,963
92,694
742
GENERAL EXPENDITURE ON THE ARTS IN ENGLAND (See
Schedule 1)
GENERAL OPERATING COSTS IN ENGLAND (See Schedule 2)
TRANSFER TO CAPITAL ACCOUNT REPRESENTING CAPITA L
EXPENDITURE FOR THE YEAR
-
RESERVE FOR CAPITAL PURCHASE
-
RESERVE FOR LOANS TO ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS
3,000
SPECIFIC RESERVE-PURCELL TERCENTENARY AND HANDE L
BICENTENARY
£867,244
3 11
93,939 11 1 0
3,638
011
750
0
0
4,000
0
0
3,500
0
0
82,176
GRANT TO SCOTTISH COMMITTEE
84,850
0
0
42,910
GRANT TO WELSH COMMITTEE
43,950
4,817
NET LOSS ON SALE OF ASSETS
1,058
BALANCE carried down
£989,360
12,288 BALANCE carried forward
£12,288
76
0
0
724 12
0
7,037 11
5
0,109,634 0
1
19,325 4
9
£19,325 4
9
OF GREAT BRITAI N
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 195 9
1957/5 8
£985,000 GRANT IN AID : H .M . Treasury
403 REPAYMENT OF LOANS
REPAYMENT OF GUARANTEE
1,006
£54 1
7
CANCELLATION OF GRANTS and provision for expenses i n
previous year not required
5,271 7
3
0
1,120 0
0
5,325 8 1 0
SUNDRY RECEIPT S
Interest : Bank and Investment
Miscellaneous
2,951
£989,360
11,230 BALANCE as at 1st April, 1958
1,058 BALANCE brought down
£12,288
£1,100,000 0
2,231 15
956 15
7
8
3,188 11
3
£1,109,634 0
1
12,287 13
4
7,037 11
5
£19,325 4
9
77
THE ARTS COUNCI L
BALANCE SHEET A S
LIABILITIE S
1957/58
CAPITAL ACCOUN T
Balance as at 31st March, 1958
Add Capital Expenditure during year transferred fro m
Revenue and Expenditure Account
£84,337 6
3
3,638 0 1 1
£84,337
£87,975 7
2
34,321 GRANTS AND GUARANTEES OUTSTANDIN G
26,075
7
9
18,411 SUNDRY CREDITORS AND ACCRUED LIABILITIE S
15,476 8
4
21,942 SPECIAL FUNDS (See Schedule 5)
21,406 15 1 0
-
RESERVE FOR CAPITAL PURCHAS E
3,000 SPECIFIC RESERVES-PURCELL TERCENTENARY AN D
HANDEL BICENTENARY
12,288
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUN T
Balance as at 31st March, 195 9
750 0
0
6,500 0
0
19,325 4
9
Note : No provision has been made for depreciation .
Payments from the grant in aid do not include an y
such provision, but only the cost of renewals .
£174,299
78
Carried forward
£177,509 3 1 0
OF GREAT BRITAI N
AT 31st MARCH, 1959
ASSETS
1957/58
OFFICE EQUIPMENT
At valuation as at 31st March, 1956, and additions at
cost less items sold to 31st March, 1958
Additions less items sold during year
£15,047 16
177 10
£15,048
MOTOR VANS AND CARS
At valuation as at 1st April, 1949, and additions a t
cost less items sold to 31st March, 1958
Additions less items sold during year
2
9
-
780
350
0
0
THEATRE AND CONCERT HALL EQUIPMEN T
At valuation as at 31st March, 1956, and additions a t
cost less items sold to 31st March, 1958
Less items sold less additions during year
12,323 6 1 0
- - -
ART EXHIBITION EQUIPMENT
At valuation as at 31st March, 1956, and additions a t
cost less items sold to 31st March, 1958
Additions less items sold during year
11,159
205
LITHOGRAPH S
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Less items sold during year
573
PICTURES AND SCULPTURE S
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Additions during year
2
6
29,129 16
3,151 19
5,227
WIGMORE HALL CANTEEN STOC K
As at 31st March, 1959
Carried forward
5,277
140
0
12,323
6 10
11,364
1
4
572 16
6
32,281 16
3
5,367 10
6
6
0
8
7
29,130
REPRODUCTIONS
At valuation as at 31st March, 1957, and additions at
cost to 31st March, 1958
Additions during year
0
0 10
0 6
573
£84,701
810
430
12,323
364
10,410
0
0
780
11,159
611
10,096 18 1 0
313 10 0
10,097
PIANO ACCOUN T
At valuation as at 31st March, 1956, less items sold t o
31st March, 1958
Less items sold during year
£15,225
4 5
6 1
----
221
0
7
£88,196
7
9
79
THE ARTS COUNCI L
BALANCE SHEET A S
LIABILITIE S
£174,299
£174,299
Brought forward
£177,509
3 10
£177,509
3 10
I have examined the foregoing Account and Balance Sheet . I have obtained all the information
this Account and Balance Sheet are properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of th e
W
OF GREAT BRITAI N
AT 31st MARCH, 1959
ASSET S
£84,701
Broughtforward
LOANS TO ASSOCIATED AND OTHER ORGANISATION S
(See Schedule 4 )
Secured by Mortgage
3,375 0
Secured by Investment
3,330 0
Unsecured and only conditionally recoverable
14,780 0
Less Reserve
14,780
0
6,830
16,343
5,000
630
50
0
0
0
0
SUNDRY DEBTORS, PAYMENTS IN ADVANCE
CAS H
On Deposit
On Current Account
Imprests
In Hand
40,888
£174,299
9
6,705
0
0
16,343
3
7
5,680
0
0
23,064 15
9
37,519 16
9
0
0
0
5,680
19,857
7
0
0
0
SPECIAL FUND INVESTMENTS (See Schedule 6)
At cost or as at date of transfer
(Market value £13,172 18 3)
INVESTMENT S
3 per cent Savings Bonds 1960/70
(Market value £4,128 14 0 )
4 per cent Defence Bonds (Market value at Par)
4j per cent Defence Bonds (Market value at Par)
£88,196
29,860 0 0
7,275 16 8
261 19 2
122 0 1 1
£177,509
3 10
Chairman : KENNETH CLAR K
Secretary-General : W . E. WILLIAM S
and explanations that I have required and I certify, as the result of my audit, that in my opinio n
transactions of the Arts Council of Great Britain and of the state of their affairs .
(Signed) E . G . COMPTO N
Comptroller and Auditor-General
Exchequer and Audit Department ,
24th July, 1959 .
81
F
THE ARTS COUNCI L
SCHEDULE 1-GENERAL EXPENDITURE ON THE ART S
MUSIC
Opera and Ballet
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Directly Managed Performances (Opera For All )
Other Activities
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Directly Provided Concert s
Wigmore Concert Hall (including costs of Repairs and Alterations to Buildings )
Net Expenditure of Wigmore Hall Catering
Net Total Expenditure
DRAMA
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Companies specially engaged for Arts Council Tou r
Net Total Expenditure
ART
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Exhibitions
Art Films Tour s
Lithograph Sale s
Net Total Expenditure
POETR Y
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Poetry Readings
Poetry Library and Miscellaneous Expense s
Net Total Expenditure
FESTIVAL S
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
ARTS CENTRES AND ARTS CLUB S
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
GENERAL ART ACTIVITIE S
Miscellaneous (See Schedule 3 )
Net Expenditure transferred to Revenue and Expenditure Accoun t
82
OF GREAT BRITAI N
IN ENGLAND FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1959
Gross
Revenue
Gross
Expenditure
Net
Revenue
£7,047
8
3
£612,453 3
9,334 10
6
4
379
9,656
9
3
0
6
122,746 13
939 11
13,963 5
4
6
4
Net
Expenditure
£612,453
2,287
3
2
6
1
122,746 13 4
560 2 6
4,307 1 1 0
10 2 1 1
.
742,364
6
2
£742,364
1,432
4 10
38,699 15
1,384 3
1 5
9
6
0
76,853
2,737
4,789
62,866
1,757
0
3
0 0
5 10
5 7
16 7
1,640 11
241 10
190 14
7,418
2
3
0
0
0
0
5
5,903 0 0
2,000 0 0
8
5
8
5
76,853 0
1,304 18
2
5
78,157 18
7
4,789 0
24,166 10
373 2
0
1
1
29,328 12
8
2
5
1,640 11
241 10
190 14
0
0
0
2,072 15
0
7,418
0
5,903 0
2,000 0
6
2
78,157 18
7
29,328
3
9
2,072 15
0
7,418 0
5
5,903 0
0
2,000 0
0
5
0
0
£867,244 3 11
83
THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAI N
SCHEDULE 2
GENERAL OPERATING COSTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1959
HEADQUARTER S
Salaries :
Music
Drama
Art
Finance
Secretarial and General
Superannuation
£9,345 19 9
6,320 4 0
14,104 8 1 1
7,707 0 6
19,102 6 2
£56,579 19
4
4,002 2
9
Rent, Rates and Maintenance Expense s
Office, Travelling, Entertainment and Sundry Expense s
Printing and Publicity
Transferred to Revenue and Expenditure Account
NOTE : Endowment benefits due to members of the Pension Fund are assured by
Policies held by the Council .
84
£60,582
2
17,588
13,762
2,007
2
3
4
£93,939 11 1 0
THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAI N
SCHEDULE 3
GRANTS AND GUARANTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 195 9
MUSI C
Opera and Balle t
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Limited
Sadler's Wells Trust Limited
tRoyal Ballet School Limited
Intimate Opera Society Limited
English Opera Group Limited
Carl Rosa Trust Limited
Mercury Theatre Trust Limited (Ballet Rambert)
Western Theatre Ballet Limited
New Opera Company Limited
Touring Opera, 1958
£362,000
155,000
15,000
1,250
3,000
35,100
5,750
500
750
34,103
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
£612,453 3
6
85,550 0
0
37,196 13
4
t Grant for Capital Expenditure
Symphony Orchestra s
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Halle Concerts Society
London Philharmonic Orchestra Limited
London Symphony Orchestra Limited
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society
Western Orchestral SocietyLimited(Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra)
Other Activities
Brighton Philharmonic Society Limited
Institute of Contemporary Arts (Music Section)
Jacques Orchestra Limited
Philomusica of London Limited (Boyd Neel Concert Society Limited)
The Royal Philharmonic Society
Rural Music Schools Association
Society for the Promotion of New Music
Payments to Music Societies and Clubs affiliated to the Nationa l
Federation of Music Societies in respect of guarantees (includin g
Federation Administration)
Direct Grants and Guarantees to Musical Organisations for special
Concert Activities
DRAMA
Birmingham Repertory Theatre Limited
Bristol : Old Vic Trust Limited
*Cambridge Arts Theatre Trust
*Canterbury Theatre Trust Limited
Chesterfield Civic Theatre Limited
*Colchester Repertory Company Limited
Coventry : Belgrade Theatre Trust (Coventry) Limited
*Derby Little Theatre Club Limited
Farnham Repertory Company Limited
•Includes Transport Subsidy
Carried forward
17,000
12,000
12,000
4,300
20,250
20,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1,100
510
750
2,750
1,250
1,500
1,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
22,493
4
0
5,843
9
4
5,000 0 0
3,000 0 0
450 0 . 0
900 0 0
750 0 0
776 18 6
6,000 0 0
705 14 0
250 0 0
£17,832 12 6 £735,199 16 1 0
85
SCHEDULE 3-continued
Broughtforward
DRAMA (continued )
Guildford Theatre Club Limited
Hornchurch Theatre Trust Limited
Ipswich Arts Theatre Trust
Leatherhead Repertory Company Limited
Lincoln Theatre Association Limited
London :
English Stage Company Limited
Mermaid Theatre Trust Limited
Old Vic Trust Limited
Royal Victoria Hall Foundation
Pioneer Theatres Limited (Theatre Workshop Company)
Loughborough and District Theatre Association Limited (Stanfor d
Hall)
*Margate Theatre Trust Limited
*Northampton Repertory Players Limited
*Nottingham Theatre Trust Limited
Oxford : Meadow Players Limited
Salisbury Arts Theatre Limited
Touring :
Advance Players Association Limited
Mobile Theatre Limited
Studio Theatre Limited (Theatre in the Round)
The British Centre of the International Theatre Institute
Council of Repertory Theatres
Promotion of New Drama-Bursaries and Guarantees against loss
Repertory Company Interchanges
Theatre Planning
Travel Grants for Producers
£17,832 12 6 £735,199 16 1 0
1,000
500
500
1,000
500
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
5,500
5,000
20,000
1,000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
750 0
816 16
1,551 4
4,776 8
3,000 0
1,600 0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2,000
3,000
1,000
250
400
3,491
1,121
13
250
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
6
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
7
8
0
76,853
0
*Includes Transport Subsidy
AR T
Bournemouth Arts Club
Bromley Art Society
Bruton Art Society
Cirencester Arts Club
Christchurch : Red House Museum and Art Gallery
Colchester Art Society
London :
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Trustees of the Whitechapel Art Gallery
Finsbury Art Group
Young Contemporaries 1959-4Prizes)
Manchester : Red Rose Guild of Craftsmen
Newlyn Society of Artists
Nottingham : Midland Group of Artists
Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall
Petersfield Arts and Crafts Society
Salisbury Group of Artists
Women's International Art Club
Society for Education Through Art
Carried forward
86
70
25
25
100
60
70
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2,000
275
40
75
25
200
449
250
25
100
200
100
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
£4,089 0 0 £812,052 1 7
SCHEDULE 3-continue d
Brought forward
ART (continued)
United Kingdom National Committee of the International Associatio n
of Plastic Art s
Le Corbusier (Liverpool) Exhibition Committe e
Martin Froy : Belgrade Theatre (Coventry) Mosaic s
POETR Y
The Apollo Societ y
The British Institute of Recorded Sound (Recorded Literature . Grant )
Cley Women's Institute (Little Festival of Poetry, Cley-next-the-Sea )
The Contemporary Poetry and Music Circl e
The English Festival of Spoken Poetr y
The Poetry Book Society Limite d
The Society of Barrow Poet s
The Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace (Stratford upon-Avon Festival of Poetry )
Poetry Magazines :
`Delta '
`Outposts'
`Listen '
FESTIVAL S
Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Art s
Cheltenham Arts Festivals Limited :
Cheltenham Festival of British Contemporary Music
Cheltenham Festival of Art and Literatur e
The Dolmetsch Foundation (Haslemere Festival )
Leeds Triennial Musical Festiva l
Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Musical Festiva l
Orchestral Concerts Society Limited (Bath Festival )
The St . George's Guildhall Limited (King's Lynn Festival )
Shropshire Phoenix Theatre Society (Shrewsbury Summer Festival )
The Taw and Torridge Festival Society Limited (Devon's Festival o f
the Arts)
Three Choirs Festival Association Limited (Three Choirs Festival ,
Hereford )
ARTS CENTRES AND ARTS CLUB S
Arts Centres :
The Basingstoke Theatre Association Limite d
Middlesbrough Little Theatre Limite d
St . George's Guildhall Limited, King's Lyn n
Stafford and District Arts Council
Arts Club s
Midlands Arts Associatio n
South Western Arts Association :
Arts Centres and Clubs
Administration
£2,210 0
1,750 0
£4,089
0
0 £812,052 17
50
500
150
0
0
0
0
0
0
4,789
300
100
5
20
300
377
6
0
0
6
0
0
7
5
0
0
8
0
0
6
6
258
0
0
50 0
63 11
160 0
0
4
0
750
0
0
1,350 0
215 11
250 0
2,000 0
103 0
750 0
499 9
500 0
0
4
0
0
0
0
1
0
250
0
0
750
0
0
100
250
300
350
880
63
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3,960
0
0
0
0
0
1,640 11
0
7,418
0
5
5,903
0
0
2,000
0
0
£833,803
8
5
0
0
GENERAL ART ACTIVITIE S
The British Institute of Recorded Soun d
NOTE : Maximum commitments are given, not necessarily the amounts paid .
87
THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAI N
SCHEDULE 4
LOANS TO ASSOCIATED AND OTHER ORGANISATION S
Loans secured by mortgage
Less repaid during year
£3,500 0 0
125 0 0
£3,375
0
0
Loan secured by investment
£3,330 0
0
Loans unsecured and only conditionally recoverable
Less repayment during year of loans previously reserved
15,900 0
1,120 0
0
0
£14,780
0 0
SCHEDULE 5-SPECIAL FUND S
PILGRIM TRUST SPECIAL FUN D
As at 31st March, 1958
Add Income during year
£2,464 4 0
66 10 0
H . A . THEW FUN D
Capital Account
Income Account
Balance at 31st March, 1958
Add Income during year
Less
9,094 10 9
£1,176 14 2
304 12 1 0
1,481
933
Payments during year
MRS . THORNTON FUND
Capital Accoun t
As at 31st March, 1958
Add Cash bonus payment on conversion of stock
Income Account
Balance at 31st March, 1958
Add Income during year
Repayments of Loans
Less
£176 18 4
315 0 0
Payments during year
7 0
4 0
-
5,421 14
5 0
1
0
321 16
5
491 18
4
813 14 9
75 0 0
ARTS COUNCIL : THEATRE ROYAL BRISTO L
RESERVE FUND
As at 31st March, 1958
Add Income during year
Less
Payments and commitments during year
Total Special Funds as per Balance Sheet
88
£2,530 14 0
3
0
5,426 14
1
738 14
9
-
3,463 10
1,772 11
5
3
548
2,168 2 5
9,642 13
6,165
8 10
3,067 19
£21,406
9
3
15 1 0
THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAI N
SCHEDULE 6-SPECIAL FUND INVESTMENTS AS AT 31st MARCH, 195 9
Nominal
Value
PILGRIM TRUST SPECIAL FUN D
3j per cent Defence Bonds (Conversion Issue)
Book
Value
Market
Valu e
£1,900 0 0
£1,895 13 0
H . A. THEW FUND
3 per cent British Transport Stock 1978/8 8
3j per cent Conversion Stoc k
6,876 16 11
2,809 19 10
6,326 13 11
2,767 16 10
4,676 5 1
1,868 12 1 1
MRS . THORNTON FUND
21 per cent Consolidated Stock
3 per cent Funding Stock 1959/6 9
3 per cent Funding Stock 1959/69 (P .O . Issue)
51 per cent Conversion Stock 1974 (P .O . Issue)
3 per cent Defence Bonds (Conversion Issue )
31 per cent City of Birmingham Stock
3 per cent British Transport Stock 1978/8 8
3k per cent Defence Bonds (Conversion Issue )
3j per cent Defence Bond s
41 per cent Conversion Stock 1962
665 1 9
2,097 2 1
250 0 0
200 0 0
30 0 0
100 0 0
355 5 10
740 0 0
1,000 0 0
100 0 0
488
2,099
249
203
30
102
337
739
1,000
102
345
1,761
210
201
30
96
241
740
1,000
101
Total Special Fund Investments as per Balance Sheet
16 10
15 0
7 6
7 6
0 9
0 0
10 6
5 6
0 0
16 3
£1,900 0
0
16 1 1
11 4
0 0
0 0
0 0
10 0
12 0
0 0
0 0
10 0
£17,124 6 5 £16,343 3 7 £13,172 18
3
89
THE COUNCIL' S
APPENDIX B
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUN T
1957/58
£70,230 GENERAL EXPENDITURE ON THE ARTS (See Schedule 1 )
12,750 GENERAL OPERATING COSTS (See Schedule 2 )
TRANSFER TO CAPITAL ACCOUNT REPRESENTING CAPITA L
4,001 EXPENDITURE FOR THE YEA R
£74,527 18
8
13,539 15
4
1,376 4
8
1,000 0
0
6,000 RESERVE FOR LOANS
- SPECIFIC RESERVE-ROBERT BURNS BICENTENARY
27 LOSS ON SALE OF ASSET S
£90,929 18
8
6,251 BALANCE brought down
1,759 15
8
5,931 BALANCE carried forward
4,171 7
0
£5,931 2
8
£93,008
£12,182
90
486 0 0
COMMITTEE IN SCOTLAN D
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 195 9
1957/5 8
£82,176 GRANT FROM THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAI N
400 REPAYMENT OF LOAN
£84,850 0
0
400 0
0
3,626 9
4
293 13
8
1,759 15
8
£90,929 18
8
5,931 2
8
£5,931 2
8
2,063 REPAYMENT OF GRANT S
1,467
651
CANCELLATION OF GRANTS AND GUARANTEE S
in previous year not require d
SUNDRY RECEIPTS
Interest on Deposit Account s
6,251 BALANCE carried down
£93,008
12,182 BALANCE as at 1st April, 1958
£12,182
£3,626 9 4
91
BALANCE SHEET A S
LIABILITIE S
1957/58
£23,385
13,248
5,856
5,931
£48,420
CAPITAL ACCOUN T
Balance as at 31st March, 1958
Add Capital Expenditure during year transferred fro m
Revenue and Expenditure Account
£23,384 19
1
1,376
8
GRANTS AND GUARANTEES OUTSTANDING
SUNDRY CREDITORS
SPECIFIC RESERVE-ROBERT BURNS BICENTENARY
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT :
Balance as at 31st March, 1959
4
£24,761 3 9
10,441 11 1 0
2,194 5 4
1,000 0 0
4,171
7
0
£42,568 7 1 1
I have examined the foregoing Account and Balance Sheet . I have obtained all the informatio n
this Account and Balance Sheet are properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of th e
92
AT 31st MARCH, 1 959
ASSETS
1957/58
£8,307
2,910
1,912
200
2,792
6,092
1,171
-
PROPERT Y
11 Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh
OFFICE EQUIPMENT
At valuation as at 31st March, 1955, and additions at cost t o
31st March, 1958
Additions less items sold during year
MOTOR CAR S
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Additions less items sold during year
PIANO ACCOUNT
At valuation as at 31st March, 1955
THEATRE AND CONCERT HALL EQUIPMENT
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Additions during year at cost
PICTURES, SCULPTURES AND TAPESTR Y
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Additions during year at cost
REPRODUCTIONS
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
LOAN S
Unsecured and only conditionally recoverable
Less Repayments during year
Less Reserve
2,486 SUNDRY DEBTORS
CASH
On Deposit Account
On Current Account
In Hand
22,550
£8,307 4
£2,910 6 1 1
219 0 5
1,912 8 3
22 0 0
2,791 17
934 2
6
3
6,091 12
201 2
3
0
17,800 0
400 0
2
3,129
7
4
1,934
8
3
200 0
0
3,725 19
9
6,292 14
3
1,171 10
0
0
0
17,400 0 0
2,045 0 4
10,000 0 0
5,697 3 1 0
65 0 0
£48,420
15,762 3 1 0
£42,568 7 1 1
Chatrman of the Scottish Committee : JOHN McEWEN .
Secretary-General : W . E . WILLIAMS .
and explanations that I have required, and I certify, as the result of my audit, that in my opinio n
transactions of the Arts Council's Committee in Scotland and of the state of their affairs .
(Signed) E . G . COMPTON,
Exchequer and Audit Department,
24th July, 1959 .
Comptroller and Auditor-General .
93
THE COUNCIL'S COMMITTEE IN SCOTLAN D
SCHEDULE I
GENERAL EXPENDITURE ON THE ART S
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1959
MUSI C
Grants and Guarantees :
Scottish National Orchestr a
Music Societie s
Directly Provided Concert s
Less Receipts
£24,500
4,847
0
8
0
6
£29,347
8
6
9,871 12 9
3,732 7 10
6,139
4 11
£35,486 13
DRAM A
Grants and Guarantee s
Tours
Less Receipts
18,374 17
6,669 12
2,843 6
9
1
3
3,826
5 10
22,201
BALLET
Tours
3,525 19
1,777 6
Less Receipts
ART
Grants
Exhibition Expenses
Less Fees and Catalogue Sale s
5
3
7
1,748 13
2
7
5
201 10 11
5,296 12 9
1,115 4 9
4,181 8 0
FESTIVALS
Edinburgh Festival Societ y
ARTS CENTRES AND CLUB S
Grant s
4,382 18 1 1
10,000 0
0
708 9
7
£74,527 18
8
SCHEDULE 2
GENERAL OPERATING COSTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 195 9
Salaries and Wages
Travel and Subsistence
Rates, Insurance, Heating, Lighting and Maintenance Expenses
Publicity and Entertainment
Telephone, Postage, Stationery and General Expenses
£8,870 15 0
1,458 7 2
1,361 5 2
757 13 1 0
1,091 14 2
£13,539 15
94
4
THE COUNCIL'S COMMITTEE IN SCOTLAN D
SCHEDULE 3
GRANTS AND GUARANTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1959
MUSI C
Scottish National Orchestr a
National Federation of Music Societie s
Glasgow Grand Opera Society
Edinburgh Lunch Hour Concerts
Edinburgh Grand Opera Grou p
Saltire Society
College of Pipin g
Edinburgh Churches Choi r
Scottish National Opera Company
Edinburgh Opera Company
Dunedin Society
Edinburgh Organ Recitals Committe e
Direct Grants and Guarantees to Music Club s
(£50 and under)
£24,500 0
2,750 0
700 0
225 0
200 0
180 17
175 0
100 0
75 0
60 9
60 0 .
60 0
261
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
6
0
0
1 11
£29,347
DRAM A
Perth Repertory Theatre (Two Companies )
Special Supplementary Grant
Dundee Repertory Theatre
Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow
Gateway Theatre, Edinburgh
Supplementary Grant
Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Federation of Scottish Repertory Theatre s
Drama Bursar y
Direct Grants and Guarantee s
ART
Society of Scottish Artist s
Helensburgh Art Committe e
Direct Grants of £25 and unde r
£6,500
750
0
0
6
18,374 17
9
0
0
7,250
3,000
3,000
2,750 0
65 17
8
0
9
0
0
0
0
0
0
2,815 17
1,000 0
750 0
500 0
59 0
9
0
0
0
0
100 0 0
76 10 1 1
25 0 0
201 10 1 1
FESTIVALS
Edinburgh Festival Societ y
ARTS CENTRES AND CLUB S
Troon Arts Guil d
Galashiels Arts Club
Inverness Arts Centre
Saltire Society, Ayr
Greenock Arts Guild
Direct Grants of £50 and under
10,000
0
0
708
9
7
£58,632 6
9
175 9 1 1
170 0 0
150 0 0
125 0 0
80 0 0
7 19 8
NOTE : Maximum commitments are given, not necessarily the amounts paid .
95
THE COUNCIL' S
APPENDIX C
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUN T
1957/5 8
£36,235 GENERAL EXPENDITURE ON THE ARTS (See Schedule 1)
9,506 GENERAL OPERATING COSTS (See Schedule 2)
1,432
TRANSFER TO CAPITAL ACCOUNT REPRESENTING CAPITA L
EXPENDITURE FOR THE YEAR
3,64/ ] BALANCE carried down
£31,245 17
7
9,152 2
7
638 19
9
3,950 13
8
£44,987 13
7
9,288 16
3
£9,288 16
3
0 deduct
£43,532
5,338 BALANCE carried forward
£5,338
96
COMMITTEE IN WALE S
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 st MARCH, 195 9
1957/5 8
£42,910 GRANT FROM THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAIN
17
CANCELLATION OF GUARANTEES AND PROVISIONS FOR FEE S
AND EXPENSES IN PREVIOUS YEAR NOT REQUIRED
- CANCELLATION OF RESERVE FOR LOANS
SUNDRY RECEIPTS
Interest on Deposit Account
Miscellaneous
605
£43,532
8,979 BALANCE as at 1st April, 1958
[ 3,641 l BALANCE brought down
deduct ]
£5,338
£351 9
83 18
£43,950 0
0
437 6
1
165 0
0
435 7
6
£44,987 13
7
5,338 2
7
3,950 13
8
£9,288 16
3
2
4
97
THE COUNCIL' S
BALANCE SHEET A S
LIABILITIE S
1957/58
CAPITAL ACCOUNT
Balance as at 31st March, 195 8
Add Capital Expenditure during year transferred fro m
Revenue and Expenditure Account
£7,04 9
202 GRANTS AND GUARANTEES OUTSTANDIN G
6,180 SUNDRY CREDITOR S
5,338
£18,769
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUN T
Balance as at 31st March, 195 9
£7,048 11
0
638 19 9
£7,687 10
9
976 12
0
881 16
3
9,288 1 6
z1a,iSS4 1 7
I have examined the foregoing Account and Balance Sheet . I have obtained all the informatio n
this Account and Balance Sheet are properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and fair view of the
98
COMMITTEE IN WALE S
AT 31st MARCH, 1959.
ASSET S
1957/58
OFFICE EQUIPMEN T
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Additions at cost during year
£820 11
70 14
1
9
£821
2,205
MOTOR CAR S
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
PICTURES AND SCULPTURE S
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
Additions at cost during year
3,857
568
1
5
£891
5 10
2,205
8
3
4,425
0
0
3,857
6
0
166
REPRODUCTIONS
At cost as at 31st March, 1958
165 10
8
566
SUNDRY DEBTORS
281
7
0
11,154
10,865 17
6
£18,769
£18,834 15
3
CASH
On Deposit Account
On Current Account
In Hand
8,351 9
2,499 18
14 10
Chairman of the Welsh Committee :
Secretary-General:
2
4
0
GWYN JONES .
W. E. WILLIAMS.
and explanations that I have required, and I certify, as the result of my audit, that in my opinio n
transactions of the Arts Council's Committee in Wales and of the state of their affairs .
(Signed) E . G . COMPTON,
Comptroller and Auditor-General.
Exchequer and Audit Department,
24th July, 1959 .
99
THE COUNCIL'S COMMITTEE IN WALE S
SCHEDULE I
GENERAL EXPENDITURE ON THE ARTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 195 9
MUSIC
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Opera
Festival s
Music and Arts Club s
Societies
Commissions and Competitio n
Directly Provided Concert s
Less Receipt s
£14,000 0
3,524 16
2,022 12
630 0
296 7
0
2
2
0
0
20,473 15
4
£4,238 4 1 0
2,002 1 1
2,236 3 9
DRAMA
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
English Tours
Less Receipt s
Welsh Tours
Less Receipt s
£22,709 19
1
5,759 10
9
2,437 11
8
338 16
1
£31,245 17
7
1,143 7 1 1
6,368 9 6
2,988 1 1
3,380 8
1,705 9
469 14
5
1
8
1,235 14 5
ART
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Exhibition Expense s
Less Exhibition Fees and Catalogue Sales
Art Films
Less Art Film Fees and Catalogue Sale s
0
1,548 3
4
206 2 8
205 3 0
Guide Lecturers' Fees and Expense s
POETR Y
Grants and Guarantees (See Schedule 3 )
Recitals and Competition Awards
Net Expenditure transferred to Revenue and Expenditure Account
100
750 0
3,281 9 3
1,733 5 11
19 8
138 8 8
100 0
0
11Q
1
tG
THE COUNCIL'S COMMITTEE IN WALE S
SCHEDULE 2
GENERAL OPERATING COSTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1959
Salaries and Superannuation
Travelling and Subsistence
Rent, Rates, Insurance, Heating and Lighting
Publicity and Entertainment
Telephone, Postage, Stationery and Office Maintenance
£5,881 17 0 .
1,574 11 1 0
502 15 1 0
33 17 0
1,159 0 1 1
Transferred to Revenue and Expenditure Account
£9,152
2
7
SCHEDULE 3
GRANTS AND GUARANTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1959
MUSI C
Welsh National Opera Company Limited
Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts
Montgomery County Music Festival
Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, Ebbw Vale
South Wales Combined Choir Festival
Dee and Clwyd Festival of Music
Brecknock County Festival of Music
Llandaff Cathedral Festival of Music and Drama
Anglesey Music Festival
National Federation of Music Societies
Direct Grants and Guarantees to Music and Arts Clubs for Concerts
Promotion of New Music :
Commission Fees
Competition Awards
£14,000
0
0
3,524 16
2
630 0
2,022 12
0
2
£977 10 1 0
600 0 0
900 0 0
299 7 0
200 0 0
50 0 0
472 18 4
25 0 0
84
212
1
6
0
0
296
DRAMA
Swansea Welsh Drama Association
Llangefni Dramatic Society
Garthewin Welsh Drama Festival
Drama Council for Wales
Anglesey Welsh Drama Festival
Guild of Welsh Playwrights
300 0
200 0
183 0
100 0
328 17
31 10
7
0
20,473 15
4
0
0
7
0
4
0
1,143
ART
Society for Education Through Art
'56 Group
South Wales Group
Contemporary Art Society for Wales
Powys Fine Art Association
300
25
25
300
100
POETRY
Literary and Poetry Magazines :
`Anglo Welsh Review'
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
-
7 11
750
0
100
0 0
£22,467
3
0
3
NOTE : Maximum commitments are given, not necessarily the amounts paid .
10 1
APPENDIX D
ARTS COUNCIL EXHIBITIONS HELD IN GREAT BRITAIN
DURING THE PERIOD APRIL 1958-MARCH 1959
ENGLAND
Paintings, Drawings and Sculptur e
Abstract Impressionis m
w Arts Council Collection, Part I-Th e
Impressionist Tradition
w Arts Council Collection, Part II-Afte r
Impressionis m
w Arts Council Collection, Part IIIRomantic and Abstract
w Arts Council Collection, Part IV-Sinc e
the War
Arts Council Collection-Recent Acquisition s
Art Treasures from Japan
w David Bomberg, 1890-1957
Robert Colquhou n
w Contemporary British Sculpture (1958 )
w Contemporary English Theatre Desig n
s Lovis Corinth, 1858-192 5
w Designs for Opera and Ballet at Covent
Garde n
w Barnett Freedman, 1901-195 8
S. W. Hayter
Edward Lear 1812-1888
John Minton 1917-1957
s Modern Israel Paintin g
The New American Paintin g
The Niarchos Collection of Painting s
Nineteenth Century Japanese Water colours from the Tikotin Collectio n
Paintings from the Urvater Collectio n
w Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall
Russian Painting from the 13th to the
20th Century
sw Sculpture in the Home (1958)
w Six French Landscapes from the Collection of Mr . Richard Pet o
George Stubbs : Rediscovered Anatomical Drawing s
Three Masters of Modern Britis h
Painting
w Trends in Contemporary Dutch Art
Joseph Wright of Derby, 1734-179 7
Young Contemporaries 195 8
Graphic Arts, Books, Design, etc .
Book Illustrations (by the Illustrators
Evie Hone, 1894-1955 : Stained Glass ,
Group of the Society of Industrial
Paintings and Drawing s
Artists)
w Japanese Ceramics and Print s
Contemporary British Lithographs
The Royal Opera House (Coven t
Contemporary Foreign Lithographs
Garden) 1858-195 8
w Contemporary Prints from the Arts w Splendid Occasions (small version)
Council Collection
Victorian Music Covers
Etchings from the Arts Council Collection
Reproductions and Photograph s
Art of Drawing, Part I (Italian School )
Art of Drawing, Part II (French School )
Art of Drawing, Part III (English an d
Dutch Schools)
102
w Paul Klee
w Living and Learning : An exhibition of
New University Architecture
Henri Matisse
w Art of Landscape
w Art of the Sculptor
w Paul Cezanne
w A Dutch Master of Coloured Etching s
Hercules Seghers, 1589/90-c .164 0
Fifty Years of Picasso
Paul Gauguin
One Hundred Years of Architecture in
America, 1857-195 7
Photographs of the Royal Tombs a t
Westminster Abbey
w Reproductions of Portrait s
w Henri de Toulouse-Lautre c
w Vincent van Gog h
58 exhibitions were held in 168 different buildings in 136 centres (346 showings including
17 exhibitions held in the Arts Council Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Royal Academy of Art s
and the Victoria and Albert Museum) .
SCOTLAND
The Artist and the River Clyde
The Artist at Work
Contemporary Scottish Crafts
Contemporary Scottish Paintings, Part I
Contemporary Scottish Paintings ,
Part I I
James Cowie Memorial Exhibitio n
Norwegian Art Treasure s
Original Lithographs by Contemporary
British Artists and Tapestry designe d
by John Maxwell, R .S .A .
The Painter and the Canvas
Paintings and Drawings by Sir Davi d
Wilki e
A Selection from the 1958 Exhibition o f
the Women's International Art Club
Tachist Paintings (arranged in collab oration with the Society of Scottish
Artists)
Turkish Decorative Art
Watercolour Paintings by Young Scottish Artists
Watercolours from the Collection of th e
Scottish Committe e
18 exhibitions (including 3 from England) were held in 33 different buildings in 24 centres
(44 showings in all) .
WALES
Dutch 17th Century Genre Painting
Young Welsh Artist s
27 exhibitions (including 25 from England) were held in 16 different buildings in 14 centre s
(40 showings in all) .
NOTE : s Also exhibited in Scotlan d
w Also exhibited in Wales
103
APPENDIX E
SUBSIDIES FROM LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND LOCAL EDUCATION AUTH ORITIES TO ORGANISATIONS IN RECEIPT OF GRANTS OR GUARANTEE S
FROM THE ARTS COUNCI L
In Schedules 3 of Appendices A, B and C are listed the Council's grants and guarantees for 1958/5 9
under such heads as Music, Drama, Art, Festivals, and Arts Centres and Arts Clubs . As under the Local
Government Act of 1948 local authorities can contribute towards the provision of entertainment or th e
maintenance of an orchestra, or purposes incidental to the giving of entertainment, it is clear that mos t
of the organisations subsidised by the Arts Council are eligible for help from the various local authoritie s
whose areas they serve . In addition, local education authorities are empowered to help any of thes e
organisations in so far as they promote cultural training and recreative activities .
It accordingly seemed useful to compile a list of some of the subsidies from local authorities and local
education authorities during 1958159 to organisations that had been grant-aided by the Arts Counci l
in that year . It should be added that some of these organisations, particularly the orchestras, receiv e
payments (not here listed) from their local education authorities for performances for school children .
Subsidies to the numerous societies and clubs affiliated to the National Federation of Music Societie s
have not been included .
ENGLAN D
MUSIC
Opera and Balle t
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Ltd .
Ni l
Sadler's Wells Trust Ltd .
£25,000'
Royal Ballet School Ltd .
Nil
Intimate Opera Society Ltd .
Nil
Ni l
English Opera Group Ltd .
Carl Rosa Trust Ltd .
Mercury Theatre Trust Ltd . (Ballet Rambert) Nil
Nil
Western Theatre Ballet Ltd .
New Opera Company Ltd.
Nil
Nil
Touring Opera, 195 8
Symphony Orchestras
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestr a
Birmingham Corporation
Other Local Authorities
£30,000
£2,297
£32,297
Ha116 Concerts Societ y
Manchester Corporation
£4,600
Other Local Authorities
£1,944
Joint Local Authorities' Schemet £12,515
London Philharmonic Orchestra Ltd .
L .C .C.
Metropolitan Boroughs
Other Local Authorities
London Symphony Orchestra Ltd .
L .C .C. rent rebate on the use of
the Royal Festival Hall
£19,059
£3,975
£1,175
£4,000
£9,15 0
£1,100
• Special L .C.C . grant .
t The total contributions of Local Authorities participating in the Lancashire & Cheshire Loca l
Authorities' Scheme in the year ended 31 st March, 1959, was £25,031 . For details see pp . 105,106 .
104
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Societ y
(i) Liverpool Corporation :
(a) Annuity in perpetuity in
payment for Hall
£4,00 0
(b) Grant for net Deficit
£10,08 6
(c) Free use of Hall an d
offices, estimated
£10,00 0
(ii) Joint Local Authorities' Schemet £12,51 5
(iii) Other Local Authorities
£1,830
Western Orchestral Society Ltd .
(Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra)
Other Activities
Brighton Philharmonic Society Ltd .
Institute of Contemporary Arts (music section)
Jacques Orchestra Ltd .
Philomusica of London Ltd .
Royal Philharmonic Society
Society for the Promotion of New Music
£38,43 1
Bournemouth Corporation
Western Authorities Orchestra l
Association$
Other Local Authorities
£12,500
£3,28 2
£39 5
£16,17 7
Brighton Corporation
£1,000
Ni l
Nil
L .C .C . rent rebate
L.C.C . rent rebat e
Use of the Royal Festival Hall at a nominal rent
for orchestral rehearsals
Lancashire and Cheshire Local Authorities' Scheme of Financial Assistanc e
to Symphony Orchestra s
County Boroughs :
Lytham St . Annes
£2 5
Birkenhead
£2,427
Middleton
£50
Blackburn
£379
Nelson
£2 1
Blackpool
£105
Prestwich
£5 0
Bolton
£949
Rawtenstall
£11 5
Bury
£334
Stretford
£350
Chester
£195
Widnes
£250
Liverpoo l
£6,72 6
Urban
Districts
:
Manchester
£5,991
Atherton
£11 7
Preston
£407
Bowden
£20
St . Helens
£400
Clayton
£] 0
Stockport
£500
Failsworth
£100
Wallasey
£1,728
Fulwood
£44
Warrington
£367
Great Harwood
£1 0
Boroughs :
Haydock
£5 4
Accrington
£138
Huyton with Roby
£31 7
Ashton-under-Lyne
£100
Kirkham
£2 4
Bebington
£272
Leyland
E49 .
Chorley
£111
Longendale
£5 .5.0
Clitheroe
£41
Neston
£2 5
Crosby
£332
Orrell
£10 .10 . 0
Eccles
£249
Prescot
£2 5
Ellesmere Port
£100
Royton
£26 .5 . 0
Farnworth
£163
Standish
£3 1
Heywood
£143
Thornton-Cleveleys
£5 3
Lancaster
£176
Tottington
£1 0
Leigh
£277
Turton
£5 .5 .0
t The total contributions of Local Authorities participating in the Lancashire & Cheshire Loca l
Authorites' Scheme in the year ended 31st March, 1959, was £25,031 . For details see pp. 105, 106 .
$ For details see page 106 .
H
105
Urmston
Walton-le-Dale
Whitworth
Wirral
Rural Districts :
Blackburn
Burnley ,
Chester
£100
£10 .10.0
£34
£50
£10 .10.0
£10 .10. 0
£86
Clitheroe
Disley
Fylde
Macclesfield
Preston
Warrington
Total Income, 1958-59
£5 .5 . 0
£1 6
£1 0
£5 0
£136
£10 5
£25,031 .0.0
WESTERN AUTHORITIES ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATIO N
South-Western Local Authorities' Scheme of Financial Assistance to the Western Orchestral Society Ltd .
(Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra )
Wareham & Purbeck R .D .
£2 1
Contributions based on -&th of a penny rate
Yeovil Borough
£25
product
£2 4
£63
Yeovil R .D .
Barnstaple Borough
£400
Exeter City
£205 .0 .0
£900
Portsmouth City
£14 5
Salisbury City
Contributions on no set basis
Southampton County Borough £820
£10 .10 .0
Barnstaple R .D .
Swindon Borough
£237 .10 .0
Caine & Chippenham R .D .
£1 0
£172.10 .0
Weston-super-Mare Borough
Chippenham Borough
£1 0
Weymouth Borough
£150
Devizes R.D .
£5
Ilfracombe U .D .
£5 .5 .0
£2,888.0 .0
Lyme Regis Borough
£3 .3 .0
Newton Abbot R .D .
£10 .10 .0
Contributions based on £1 per 1,000 of the
Pewsey R .D .
£5
population
Sturminster R .D .
£5
Bridport R .D .
£7 .10.0
£10 0
Taunton Borough
Long Ashton R .D .
£25
Taunton R .D .
£5
Lymington Borough
£24
Wellington U .D .
£5 .5 . 0
Melksham U .D.
£10
£1 0
Wells City
Paignton U .D .
£26 .5 .0
£5
Wells R.D .
Shaftesbury Borough
£5 .5 .0
Shaftesbury R.D .
£1 0
£189 .13 . 0
Shepton Mallet R .D .
£10
Sherborne U.D.
£7
£3,282 .13 . 0
Total Income, 1958-59
Sidmouth U .D .
£10
Note: The above Local Authorities contributed to the Scheme during its inaugural year, ende d
31 .3 .1959 . The formation of the Western Authorities Orchestral Association is referred t o
on page 5 .
DRAM A
£3,000 from City of Birmingha m
Birmingham Repertory Theatre Ltd .
£250 from Bristol Corporatio n
Bristol Old Vic
£6,590 from Canterbury Corporation for operatin g
Canterbury Theatre Trust Ltd .
loss and loan charge s
£2,400 from Chesterfield Corporation ; £375 from
Chesterfield Civic Theatre Ltd.
R .D .C .
£1,500 from Colchester Corporatio n
Colchester Repertory Company Ltd.
£5,000 from Coventry Corporatio n
Coventry, Belgrade Theatre Trust Ltd .
£450 from Derby Corporatio n
Derby Little Theatre Club Ltd .
Nil
English Stage Company Ltd .
£50 from Farnham U.D .C .
Farnham Repertory Company Ltd .
£1,000 from Guildford Corporatio n
Guildford Theatre Club Ltd .
£3,114 from Homchurch Corporatio n
Hornchurch Theatre Trust Ltd .
Nil
Ipswich Arts Theatre Trust
£250 from Leatherhead U.D .C.
Leatherhead Repertory Company Ltd.
Nil
Lincoln Theatre Association Ltd.
106
Loughborough & District Theatre Assoc .
Margate Theatre Trust Ltd .
Mermaid Theatre Ltd .
Mobile Theatre Ltd .
Northampton Repertory Players Ltd .
Nottingham Theatre Trust Ltd .
Old Vi c
Oxford, Meadow Players Ltd .
Pioneer Theatres Ltd . (Theatre Workshop )
Salisbury Arts Theatre Ltd .
Studio Theatre Ltd . (Theatre in the Round )
ART
Bournemouth Arts Clu b
Bromley Art Society
Bruton Art Societ y
Cirencester Arts Clu b
Christchurch : Red House Museum and Ar t
Gallery
Colchester Art Societ y
London :
Institute of Contemporary Art s
Trustees of Whitechapel Art Gallery
£10 from Leicester County Council
£300 from Loughborough Corporatio n
£30 from Basford R .D .C .
£1,000 from Margate Corporatio n
Ni l
£75 from Thorne Parish Council
£50 from Barton on Humber U .D .C.
£75 from Scunthorpe B .C .
£25 from Spalding U .D .C .
£50 from Bourne U .D .C.
£40 from Lough Corporation
£25 from Woodhall Spa U.D .C.
£25 from Brigg U.D .C.
£50 from East Elloe R .D.C . (Holbeach)
£75 from Boston Corporation
£50 from Sleaford U.D .C.
£50 from Stamford Corporatio n
£50 from Warminster U .D .C .
£25 from Camelford R .D.C .
£20 from Dursley U .D .C . (Uley)
£75 from Crook & Willingdon U .D.C .
£50 from Weardale R .D .C . (Stanhope)
£75 from Middleton St . George Council
£25 from Stainforth Parish Council
Ni l
Nil
Ni l
Ni l
£150 from West Ham B .C.
£300 from Hackney B .C .
£200 from Shoreditch B .C.
£500 from Barking B.C .
£150 from Leyton B .C .
£100 from East Ham B .C .
£150 from Stepney B .C .
£37 from Bethnal Green B .C .
£50 from Poplar B .C .
£200 from Salisbury Corporatio n
£25 from Salisbury & Wilton R .D .C .
£680 from Scarborough Corporatio n
£361 from Newcastle under Lyme Corporatio n
£250 from Leicester Corporatio n
Local Education Authority allowed use of College
of Art rent free for an exhibitio n
Local Education Authority allowed use of College
of Art rent free for monthly meeting s
Nil
Cirencester Urban District Council allowed fre e
use of Corn Hall for exhibition s
Hampshire County Council gave a grant of £400
towards provision for educational service s
Castle Museum gave free use of museum for tw o
exhibition s
Nil
The London County Council gave a grant of £2,000
and a further £1,000 for building maintenance ;
107
Finsbury Art Grou p
Young Contemporaries 1959 (Prizes)
Manchester : Red Rose Guild of Craftsme n
Newlyn Society of Artists
Nottingham : Midland Group of Artists
Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwal l
Petersfield Arts and Crafts Societ y
Salisbury Group of Artists
Women's International Art Club
Society for Education Through Ar t
and grants were also given by the followin g
Metropolitan Borough Councils : Stepney £1,500 ;
Hackney £750 ; Shoreditch £750 and Bethnal
Green £37 5
Finsbury Metropolitan Borough Council gav e
grants amounting to £86 .15 .0 and allowed free
use of Central Library for exhibitions, lectures
and a film show
Nil
Nil
Nil
County Education Committee subscribed £50 t o
Group's Picture Hire Scheme and local authorities
bought works from their Galler y
Nil
Nil
Wiltshire County Council Education Committee
allowed free use of School of Art and Crafts
for Group's activities
Nil
Purchases of works were made by Local Educatio n
Authorities at S .E .A. annual exhibition
United Kingdom National Committee of th e
Nil
International Association of Plastic Arts
Le Corbusier (Liverpool) Exhibition Committee Liverpool Corporation Libraries, Museums an d
Arts Committee gave a grant of £25 0
Martin Froy : Belgrade Theatre (Coventry )
Coventry County Council gave a grant of £15 0
Mosaics
ARTS FESTIVAL S
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Art s £25 from Aldeburgh Borough Counci l
Cheltenham Arts Festivals Ltd . :
Cheltenham Festival of Art and Literatur e
£100 from Cheltenham Corporatio n
Cheltenham Festival of British Contemporar y
£750 from Cheltenham Corporatio n
Music
The Dolmetsch Foundation (Haslemere
£50 from Haslemere Urban District Counci l
Festival)
Leeds Triennial Musical Festiva l
Grant of £3,000 from Leeds Corporatio n
Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Musica l
Guarantee of £400 from Norfolk County Counci l
of which £82 .8 .0 was called up. Guarantee o f
Festival
£500 from Norwich City Council of which £10 3
was called up
Orchestral Concerts Society Limited (Bat h
Festival)
The St . George's Guildhall Limited (King' s
Lynn Festival )
Shropshire Phoenix Theatre Society
(Shrewsbury Summer Festival )
The Taw and Torridge Festival Societ y
Limited (Devon's Festival of the Arts )
Three Choirs Festival Association Limite d
(Three Choirs Festival, Hereford )
ARTS CENTRES
Basingstoke Theatre Association Ltd .
108
Bath City Council allowed halls to be used rent fre e
Grant of £200 from King's Lynn Borough Counci l
Guarantee of £100 from Shrewsbury Corporatio n
and cancellation of fee of £58 for the use o f
grounds for two Arts Council Exhibition s
£50 from Devon County Counci l
£210 from Hereford Corporation for publicity
Guarantee of £300 from Basingstoke Boroug h
Council, of which £122 .9 .8 was called up
*Bridgwater and District Arts Centre
King's Lynn : Guildhall of St . George
Middlesbrough Little Theatre Ltd .
*Plymouth Arts Centre
*Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society
*St . Austell Society of Arts
*Shaftesbury and District Arts Club
Stafford and District Arts Counci l
*Weymouth and South Dorset Arts Centr e
ARTS CLUB S
tAlfreton and District Arts Association
Billingham Association of the Art s
*Blandford Arts Club
*Chippenham and District Society of Art s
Cowes and District Arts Associatio n
Crewe and District Music and Arts Societ y
*Crewkerne Arts Clu b
The Cromer Societ y
Eston & Ormesby Guild of Art s
Frodsham Music and Arts Clu b
Hartlepools Arts Associatio n
Huntingdonshire Music and Arts Societ y
*Isle of Purbeck Arts Clu b
tKettering and District Three Arts Club
*Kingsbridge Music Clu b
tLeek and District Arts Clu b
tLincoln Society of Arts
Grant of £50 from Bridgwater Borough Council an d
a grant of £25 from Bridgwater Rural Distric t
Counci l
Grant of £100 from Norfolk Education Committee
for Lunchtime Concert s
Nil
Grant of £50 from Plymouth Education Authority
Grant of £100 from Falmouth Town Council and a
grant of £100 from the Cornwall County Counci l
Grant of £100 from St . Austell Urban Distric t
Counci l
Nil
Grant of £100 and guarantees totalling £120.4. 8
received from Stafford Borough Council an d
donation of £5 .5 .0 from Stafford Rural Distric t
Council . A grant of £1,000 was made by th e
Stafford Borough Council towards the reconstruction of the Arts Centre ; and a grant of £250 was
made by the Staffordshire County Counci l
towards the cost of purchasing a piano . A n
additional grant of £485 was received fro m
Stafford Borough Council towards the running
costs of the Arts Centre
Weymouth Corporation make the building available
at the nominal rent of £125 p .a.
£25 from Alfreton Urban District Council and £1 0
from the Derbyshire County Education Authority
Grant of £50 from Billingham Urban District
Counci l
Nil
Guarantee of £65 from Chippenham Boroug h
Council, of which only £16 .19 .3 was called u p
Free use of school halls for productions
Guarantees of £25 each for two concerts fro m
Crewe Corporation, of which £29 was called up
Ni l
Nil
Ni l
Ni l
Guarantees totalling £365 .12.0 were offered by th e
West Hartlepool Corporation, of which £138 .6 .0
was called up
A total of £90.17 .8 was received from the Local
Education Authority towards three children' s
concerts . They also made a contribution of £1 0
to the local art exhibitio n
Nil
Grant of £10 .10 .0 from Kettering Borough Counci l
and in addition the Local Education Authority
allows free use of the Grammar School Hal l
Nil
£65 from Staffordshire Education Counci l
Nil
*Member of the South-Western Arts Associatio n
tMember of the midlands Arts Association
109
*Liskeard Arts Council
Marple Arts Group
Maryport Music and Arts Societ y
Newmarket and District Arts League
Newport Arts Association
*Newquay Society of Arts
*Newton Abbot and District Society of Arts
Newton-le-Willows Arts Associatio n
tNorthampton Arts Association
*St . Ives S .A .M.A.
tSolihull Society of Art s
*Street Society of Art s
tTamworth Arts Club
*Taunton Deane Arts Clu b
*Truro Three Arts Societ y
*Warminster Arts Club
tWednesbury Society of Art s
*Weston-super-Mare Society of Art s
West Wight Arts Associatio n
Whitby Three Arts Club
tWolverhampton Civic Hall Arts Societ y
tWorcester S .A .M .A .
Worsley Art and Music Society
MUSIC
Scottish National Orchestra Society Ltd.
SCOTLAN D
Ayr Music Clu b
Dunbar & District Musical Society
Glasgow Grand Opera Societ y
Inverness Musical Society
The College of Piping
Stewartry Music Committee
Thurso Choral Society
DRAMA
Dundee Repertory Theatre
Glasgow Citizens' Theatre
*Member of the South-Western Arts Associatio n
tMember of the Midlands Arts Association
11 0
Nil
Ni l
Nil
Guarantees of £40 from both Newmarket Urba n
and Rural District Councils, on which no cal l
was made
Ni l
Grant of £25 from Newquay Urban District Counci l
Grant of £15 each from Newton Abbot Urban an d
Rural District Councils
Nil
Nil
Nil
Grant of £16 .14.8 from the Warwickshire Count y
Council in respect of the loss incurred by the
Music Festival
Nil
Grant of £30 from Tamworth Borough Council
Nil
Nil
Nil
£150 p .a . from the Local Authority, in addition t o
which they pay the Civic Choir's Musica l
Director's salary (£210) . The Art Gallery is
made available free of charge
Ni l
Free use of the School Hall for monthly meetings
Ni l
Free use of the Wulfrun Hall for its monthly
meetings
Ni l
Grant of £50 from Worsley Urban District Counci l
(For detailed list of grants totalling £37,582 .18 . 0
see below)
£20 from County Education Committee
East Lothian Education Committee : free use of
premises and piano
£150 from Glasgow Corporatio n
£30 grant from Education Authorit y
Glasgow Education Committee pays for services o f
five teachers during session
Free use of educational premises, pianos an d
orchestral instruments, also service of count y
music organiser and his departmen t
£20 from Caithness Education Committee fo r
performance of The Creatio n
Education Authority paid £586 .17 .0 for block
booking of Oliver Twis t
£2,500 from Glasgow Corporatio n
Perth Repertory Theatre Rent concessions to touring company from Town
Councils of Dalbeath, Jedburgh, Kirkcaldy ,
Langholm and Moffat
ART
Stornoway Art Club
FESTIVAL
Edinburgh Festival Society Ltd .
ARTS CENTRE
Inverness Arts Centre
Use of class room with light, heat, etc., one evening
a week from Ross-shire Education Authority
£25,000 from Edinburgh Corporation
£250 towards rent of premises from Educatio n
Authority
Scottish National Orchestra Society Ltd .
Aberdeen Corporation
£3,060
Fraserburgh Burgh
£5
£50
Aberdeen County Council
Galashiels Burgh
£5
£10.10.0
Airdrie Burgh
Girvan Burgh
£5
Alloa Burgh
£2 .2 .0
Glasgow Corporation
£20,13 0
£2 .2.0
£25 0
Alva Burgh
Greenock Burgh
£15 .15 .0
Angus County Council
Hamilton Burgh
£5
Arbroath Burgh
£20
Hawick Burgh
£1 5
£2 .2 .0
Ardrossan Burgh
Helensburgh Burgh
£50
£2
Armadale Burgh
Huntly Burgh
£5 .5 . 0
£50
Ayr County Council
Inverurie Burgh
£5
£150
Inverness Burgh
£27 5
Ayr Burgh
£25
Barrhead Burgh
Irvine Burgh
£3 .3 . 0
£5 .5 .0
Bathgate Burgh
Johnstone Burgh
£5 .5 . 0
£5
£l 0
Berwick County Council
Kilmarnock Burgh
£3 .3 .0
Blairgowrie Burgh
Kilsyth Burgh
£5 .5 . 0
£2.2 .0
Bo'ness Burgh
Kinross Burgh
£2 .2.0
£10
£50
Brechin Burgh
Kirkcaldy Burgh
£5 .5 .0
Buckie Burgh
Kirkcudbright County Council £10 .10 . 0
£2.2 .0
Burntisland Burgh
Kirkcudbright Burgh
£5 .5 . 0
Bute County Council
£5 .5 .0
Kirkintilloch Burgh
£10.10 . 0
Caithness County Council
£5
£2.2 . 0
Kirkwall Burgh
£3 .3 .0
Carnoustie Burgh
Lanark Burgh
£5
Castle Douglas Burgh
£5 .5 .0
Lanark County Council
£5
Clackmannan County Council £10.10.0
Leven Burgh
£5
£50
Clydebank Burgh
Linlithgow Burgh
£5 .5. 0
Coatbridge Burgh
£100
Lochgelly Burgh
£2 .2 . 0
Cowdenbeath Burgh
£2 .2 .0
£2 .2 . 0
Lossiemouth Burgh
£5 .5 .0
Crieff Burgh
Midlothian County Council
£25 0
Dalkeith Burgh
£10.10 .0
Miingavie Burgh
£10.10. 0
Denny and Dunipace Burgh
£2 .2.0
£2 .2. 0
Montrose Burgh
Dunbarton County Council
£100
Moray County Council
£5 .5 .0
Dumfries Burgh
£25
Motherwell & Wishaw Burgh £2 5
Dundee Corporation
£3,060
£5 .5 . 0
Musselburgh Burgh
£100
Dunfermline Burgh
Nairn Burgh
£2 .2 .0
Dunoon Burgh
£10.10.0
Orkney County Council
£2 .2 .0
East Lothian County Council £]0
Paisley Burgh
£100
£8,750
Edinburgh Corporation
Penicuik Burgh
£2 .2 . 0
£10 .10 .0
£100
Elgin Burgh
Perth Burgh
£25
Falkirk Burgh
Perth & Kinross County Council £2 0
£200
Fife County Council
Prestwick Burgh
£2 5
£2 .2 .0
Forres Burgh
Renfrew Burgh
£25
11 1
Renfrew County Council
Rothesay Burgh
Roxburgh County Council
Rutherglen Burgh
Saltcoats Burgh
Sanquhar Burgh
St . Andrews Burgh
Selkirk Burgh
£50
£] 0
£10.10 .0
£10.10 . 0
£2 .2 . 0
£1 .1 . 0
£3 5
£2 .2 .0
Stirling Burgh
Stirling County Council
Sutherland County Council
Tillicoultry Burgh
West Lothian County Council
Wigtown County Council
£2 5
£26.5 . 0
£5
£2 .2 . 0
£25
£10 .10.0
£37,582 .18 . 0
WALE S
MUSI C
Montgomery County Festival of Music
Dee and Clwyd Festival of Musi c
N .F .M .S . Combined Choir Festival
Llandaff Cathedral Festival of Musi c
Swansea Festival of Music and the Art s
£300 grant from Montgomery County Counci l
£50 grant from Merioneth County Council
£75 grant from Denbigh County Counci l
£5 .5 .0 guarantee from Dolgellau R .D .C.
£5 guarantee from Edeyrnion R .D .C.
£5 guarantee from Penllyn R .D .C.
£3 .3 .0 guarantee from Bala U .D .C.
£10 guarantee from Deudraeth R .D .C.
£5 guarantee from Ruthin R .D .C .
£5 guarantee from Ruthin B.C .
£25 grant from Monmouth County Counci l
£25 grant from Glamorgan County Counci l
£10 grant from Merthyr Tydfil B .C .
£10 grant from Caerphilly U .D .C .
£10 grant from Newport B.C .
£250 grant from Cardiff Corporatio n
£500 grant and £1,500 guarantee from Swanse a
Corporation
Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, Ebbw Vale grants totalling £16,255 from :
Ebbw Vale U.D .C .
£8,000
Rhymney U.D .C .
Monmouthshire County
£5,000
Blaina U .D .C .
Council
Abergavenny B .C .
Tredegar U.D .C .
£500
Blaenavon U .D.C .
Pontypool U.D .C.
£500
Merthyr Tydfil B .C.
Bedwellty U .D .C .
£300
Brecon County Council
Risca U .D .C.
£270
Monmouth B .C.
Abertillery U .D.C .
£250
Mynyddislwyn U.D .C.
Abercarn U .D.C .
£200
Bedwas & Machen U.D .C.
Brynmawr U .D .C .
£200
Caerleon U .D .C .
Cwmbran U .D .C .
£20 0
The Welsh National Opera Company
Pontypool U .D .C .
£100
Mountain Ash U.D.C.
£100
Colwyn Bay B .C.
£100
Caerphilly U.D .C .
£100
Tredegar U .D .C .
£100
Llandudno U .D .C .
£100
Cwmbran U.D .C.
£52 .10.0
Risca U .D .C.
£50
Nantyglo & Blaina U .D .C .
£50
Llwchwr U .D .C .
£25
Bedwellty U .D.C .
£15
Denbigh B.C.
£10
Rhyl U.D.C.
£10 .10.0
112
grants totalling £7,879 .9.0. from :
Llanidloes B .C.
Pontypridd U.D .C .
Conway B .C.
Aberystwyth B .C .
Llanfairfechan U .D .C .
Haverfordwest R .D .C.
Caerleon U .D .C .
Machynlleth U .D .C .
Newtown (Mont .) U .D .C .
Llandovery B .C .
Abergele U.D .C.
Betws-y-coed U .D .C.
Bethesda U .D.C .
£150
£135
£100
£100
£100
£100
£50
£5 0
£2 5
£2 5
£1 0
£10.10. 0
£5 .5 . 0
£5 .5 . 0
£5 .5 . 0
£5 .5 . 0
£5 .5 . 0
£5
£3 .3 . 0
£3 .3 . 0
£2 .2 . 0
£2 .2 . 0
£2.2 . 0
Holyhead U .D .C.
Holywell U .D .C .
Merthyr Tydfil B.C .
Cardiff Corporation
Swansea Corporation
Glamorgan County Council
Monmouth County Council
Caernarvonshire County
Council
£1 .1 . 0
£1 .1 .0
£100
£1,500
£1,000
£3,000
£1,000
Pembrokeshire County Council £100
Merionethshire County
Council
£100
Carmarthenshire County
Council
£5 0
Flintshire County Council
£5 0
£100
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
The Halle Orchestr a
DRAMA
Arts Council Theatre Company-Autumn Tour ,
1958
£150 grant from Newport B .C.
£250 grant from Newport B .C.
£10 grant from Aberdare U.D .C .
£30 guarantee from Abergavenny B.C .
£]0 grant from Bangor B .C .
£10 grant from Carmarthen B.C .
£15 grant from Cardigan B .C.
£5 grant from Denbigh B .C .
£IO grant from Dolgellau U .D.C .
£15 grant from Fishguard U .D .C .
£25 .13 .9 guarantee from Haverfordwest R .D .C .
£25 .13 .9 guarantee from Haverfordwest B .C .
£10 grant from Portmadoc U .D .C .
£25 grant from Rhyl U .D .C.
£100 grant from Swansea C .B .
Pwllheli B .C., free use of Town Hall in lieu of gran t
In addition, the following grants were received from Education Authorities :£50 grant from Pembroke County Counci l
£75 paid by Rhondda Borough for a performanc e
£89 .18.0 paid by Monmouthshire County Counci l
for various performances based on number of
pupils attending at 2/- per hea d
National Welsh Drama Festival, Llangefn i
£10 grant from Anglesey County Counci l
Theatr Fach, Llangefn i
£164 .4.11 grant from Anglesey County Counci l
Swansea Welsh Drama Association
£100 grant from Swansea Corporatio n
Contemporary Art Society for Wale s
£20 grant from Anglesey County Counci l
£25 grant from Brecon County Counci l
£100 grant from Glamorgan County Council
£19 grant from Pembroke County Counci l
Powys Fine Art Association
The Welshpool B .C . allows use of Art Gallery,
Welshpool, free of all charges, including lighting,
heating and ren t
11 3
APPENDIX F
SOME SELECTED INSTANCES OF PRIVATE AND INDUSTRIAL PATRONAG E
OF THE ARTS
In this Appendix an attempt has been made to gather together some instances of private and industria l
patronage of the arts during 1958/9 . The list has been restricted mainly to recipients of Arts Council aid ;
but it also includes particulars of commissions and other patronage schemes in the visual arts and poetry .
As has been mentioned in the opening chapter of the Report and in Notes of the Year (on page 14), thi s
is the first year in which companies operating under the Independent Television Authority have give n
financial assistance to the arts . Many of the grants made by A .B .C . Television, Associated-Rediffusion ,
Associated TeleVision, Granada TV Network and Scottish Television are included below .
ENGLAN D
ART
Private patronage is probably more extensively given to visual art than to any other of the arts . The
following list gives some examples of industrial patronage .
£1,000 from AT V
Friends of the Tate
£5,000 from A R
£3,000 from GT V
Electronic Guide Service for Art Gallerie s
£1,000 from AT V
English Art Centre
£1,000 from AT V
Whitechapel Art Gallery
£400 from the Royal Institute of British Architect s
Le Corbusier (Liverpool) Exhibitio n
£150 from Modern Architectural Research Grou p
Committe e
Trustees
£100 from Liverpool Architectural Societ y
£100 from Liverpool Federation of Building Trad e
Employer s
£50 from Preston, Blackpool and District Society o f
Architects
St Anne's College, Oxfor d
.
Stefan
Knapp for the exterior of their new building .
Commissioned a painting on metal by Mr
The Trades Union Congres s
Commissioned sculptures by the late Sir Jacob Epstein and Mr . Bernard Meadows for their head quarters in Great Russell Street, London .
St. Edmund Hall, Oxford (Junior Common Room )
Commissioned an altarpiece by Mr . Ceri Richards for the chapel of college .
Nuffield College, Oxfor d
Commissioned a mural by Mr . Derrick Greaves and Mr . Edward Middleditch for their library an d
a painting by Mr . Ivon Hitchens for their senior common-room .
Austin Reed Ltd., London
Commissioned a mural painting by Mr . Robyn Denny, a stained glass panel by Mr . John Baker an d
a large screen cast in ciment fondu by Mr. E . H . Peskett for their shop in Regent Street .
Bumpus, J. and E. Ltd., Londo n
Commissioned sculptures by Mr . F. E . McWilliam and Mr . Bernard Meadows for their bookshop .
Edger Investments Ltd.
Commissioned a sculptured group by Mr . Franta Belsky for Caltex House, Knightsbridge Green ,
London.
DRAM A
Birmingham Repertory Theatre Ltd .
Canterbury Theatre Trust Ltd .
Chesterfield Civic Theatre Ltd .
Colchester Repertory Company Ltd .
Coventry : Belgrade Theatre Trust Ltd .
114
£500 from ATV
£200 from GTV
£200 from GTV
£200 from GT V
£512 from private patronage
£500 from ATV
Derby : Little Theatre Club Ltd.
Farnham Repertory Company Ltd .
Guildford Theatre Club Ltd .
Ipswich Arts Theatre Trust Ltd .
Leatherhead Repertory Company Ltd .
Lincoln Theatre Association Ltd.
London : English Stage Co . Ltd .
Old Vic Trust Ltd .
Pioneer Theatres Ltd .
(Theatre Workshop)
Loughborough & District Theatre Asso ciation
Margate Theatre Trust Ltd .
Mobile Theatre Ltd .
Northampton Repertory Players Lt d
Nottingham Theatre Trust Ltd .
Salisbury Arts Theatre Ltd .
Studio Theatre Ltd.
(Theatre-in-the-Round)
£500 from AT V
£250 from a local firm
£200 from GT V
£184 from private patronage
£200 from GT V
£129 from private patronag e
£100 from Fisons Ltd .
£34.15 .8 from Cocksedge & Co . Ltd.
£32 .13 .0 from Ipswich Industrial Co-operative Societ y
Ltd .
£17 .7 .10 from Wm. Brown & Co . Ltd.
£10 from Wrinch & Sons Ltd .
£9 .2 .8 from Tollemache Breweries Ltd.
£8 .3 .3 from Chairman of Electricity Boar d
£5 .5 .0 from Cranfield Brothers Ltd .
£200 from GT V
£500 from AT V
£1,000 from Oxo Ltd.
£6,429 from Whitbread & Co .
£577 from private patronage
£150 from Co-operative Unio n
£252 from private patronage
£806 from private patronage
£200 from GT V
£63 from private patronage
£200 from GTV
£300 from private patronage
£500 from AT V
£200 from GTV
£361 from private patronage
£250 from GT V
£250 from AB C
£250 from AT V
£20 from private patronage
Century Theatre Ltd.
This theatre-on-wheels received the following grants totalling £1,400 towards the rehabilitation of it s
mobile theatre service :
£67 0
Private patronage
£25 0
Granada TV Networ k
A .B .C . Televisio n
£25 0
£1 0
Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Stoke-on-Tren t
Solway Chemicals Ltd ., Whitehave n
£26
Scott Bader Commonwealth ,
£25
Wellingborough
Lang Bridge Ltd., Accringto n
£2.2 . 0
£10 .10 . 0
L . G . Harris Ltd ., Stoke Prior
£5.5 . 0
Kendall & Sons Ltd ., Leicester
Walker Crosweller Ltd ., Cheltenha m
£3.3 . 0
Wingard (MA) Ltd ., Chichester
£2 0
£2 5
Slyglass Company Ltd ., West Norwoo d
£3 5
H . Clark & Co . (London) Ltd .
Tudor Accessories Ltd ., Haye s
£]£5
5 value of materials supplied
Serck Radiators Ltd ., Birmingha m
£2 0
Burgess Products Ltd ., Hinckley
Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co . Ltd .
£1 8
English Electric, Stafford
£10
115
ORCHESTRAS
Halle
City of Birmingham Symphony
London Philharmonic
London Symphony
Bournemouth Symphony
Philomusica of London
£2,141 from A R
£1,000 from AT V
£346 total from 28 different firms (including som e
amounts under Covenants )
£50 from Esso Petroleum Co . Ltd .
£50 from Shell-Mex and B .P . Ltd .
£1,100 from Allied Records (Classics Club)
£100 (under Covenant) from Loewy Engineering
Company
£26 .6.0 (under Covenants) from four other firms
£520 for a research scholarship
from th e
£800 for two £400 instrumental
from hulme Trust
scholarships
£150 from T . C . Fitton Will Trust (Hovis Ltd .) i n
addition to original capital sum of £750 (to provid e
annual income of approx . £50)
I
MISCELLANEOUS (MUSIC)
English Folk Dance and Song Society
British Institute of Recorded Sound
OPERA AND BALLE T
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Sadler's Wells Trust
Carl Rosa Trust
English Opera Group
New Opera Company
Opera Performers
Mercury Theatre Trust (Ballet Rambert)
Western Theatre Ballet
FESTIVAL S
Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts
Aldeburgh Festival Souvenir Programme
Cheltenham Arts Festivals :
British Contemporary Music
Art & Literature
Purcell-Handel Festival Committee
Leeds Centenary Music Festival
ARTS CENTR E
Stafford and District Arts Council
116
£250 from A R
£250 from ABC
£200 from A R
£1,050 from ATV for premium stalls schem e
£5,000 (under Covenant) from AB C
£1,000 from ATV
£250 from I.C.I. Ltd . (first of three annual grants)
£500 from ATV
£500 from A R
£100 from AT V
£750 from A R
£250 from AT V
£250 from Harvey's of Bristo l
£25 (under Covenant) from Wedgwood Ltd .
£1,000 from ATV
£100 from ATV
£1,000 from AT V
£250 from ATV
£500 from ATV
£1,000 from ABC
Donations from the followin g
English Electric Company Ltd .
A .B .C . Television Ltd .
British Reinforced Concrete Ltd .
Lotus Ltd .
Universal Grinding Wheel Ltd .
F . H . Burgess Ltd .
Evode Ltd.
Co-operative Society Education Committee
£500
£250
£100
£5 0
£5 0
£25
£25
£1 0
POETR Y
The firm of Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. has made awards of £300, £200 and £100 for the three bes t
poems in English by living authors, published in print for the first time in Great Britain and Irelan d
during the twelve months July 1957 to June 1958 . The prize-winners were Ted Hughes for The ThoughtFox, Thomas Kinsella for Thinking of Mr . D . and David Wright for A Thanksgiving. Similar awards ar e
being made for the period July 1958 to June 1959 .
They also provided prizes of £75, £50 and £25 for poems submitted to the 1958 Cheltenham Festiva l
of Art and Literature competition . The winners were John Press for The Betrayers, Patricia Beer for
The Loss of the Magyar and Norman MacCaig for Images. Similar prizes are being offered for the 195 9
Festival competition .
SCOTLAN D
Scottish Television donated a total sum of £10,000 for the arts in Scotland (see p . 61) .
The Edinburgh Festival Society received a total of £25,746 in contributions from business firms an d
private individuals ; of this sum, £12,946 represented the response to the Special Appeal made by th e
Lord Provost of Edinburgh .
WALE S
The following are details of the patronage given by four firms to the visual arts :
The Steel Company of Wales Ltd .
(a) Charles Cundall, R .A ., was commissioned to paint three studies of the Steel Company's works :
Orb Works, Newport ; Trostre Works, Llanelly ; Velindre Works, near Swansea .
(b) The following pictures were bought by this Company :
Woolly Thistles and the Moon, by Denys Delhanty
Composition-Night Growing Tree, by Robert Hunte r
Barry Island, by Thomas Rathmell
Study of a Young Girl, by Thomas Davie s
Cornfields, St . Fagans, by Arthur Mills
Cornish Bank Holiday, by Gyrth Russel l
Sailing Boats and the Beach, by Colin Allen
Western Mail
(a) A prize of £25 was offered for the best work exhibited in the Welsh Committee's exhibitio n
Young Welsh Artists .
(b) Ray Howard Jones was commissioned to design a decorative panel in mosaic work for th e
embellishment of the new premises of the Western Mail .
George Elliott & Company Ltd., Wire Rope Works, Cardif
f
The following pictures were bought by this Company :
The Sea Town, by John Wright
Floodwaters, by John Wright
The Net, by Colin Allen
The Bathers, by Colin Jone s
Pit Head-Gresford, by Aled Williams
Bad Weather, by Matthew Arnold Jone s
Wales Gas Board-Cardiff Undertakin g
This undertaking has generously provided facilities in its showroom at St. John's Square, Cardiff, for
exhibitions by Welsh artists .
117
ART PANE L
Sir William Coldstream, C .B .E. (Chairman )
Edward Ardizzone, A .R .W .S.
Henry Moore, C.H ., D .Lit .,
John Russell '
Reg Butler, A .R.I .B .A .
A .R .I .B .A.
Hugh Scrutton
The Lord Cottesloe, C .B ., D .L ., J .P. Benedict Nicolson, M .V.O .
Mrs . K . L. Somerville, O .B .E.
Trenchard Cox, C.B .E ., .F .M .A .
Roland Penrose
Keith Vaugha n
James Fitton, R.A .
Dr . Nikolaus Pevsner, C .B .E .
Dr: Mary-Woodall, F .M .A .
Basil Gray, C .B.E .
Bryan Robertson
H . D . Molesworth
Claude Rogers
DRAMA PANEL
Miss Elizabeth Barbe r
Michael Barry, O .B .E .
Wynyard Browne
George Devine, C .B .E .
Professor Bonamy. Dobree, O.B .E .
Richard Findlater
Benn W . Levy, M .B .E . (Chairman)
Derek Grange r
Sir Alec Guinness, C .B .E.
Miss Celia Johnson, C.B.E.
Stephen Mitchel l
General Sir William Platt ,
G .B .E ., K.C.B ., D .S .O .
Derek Salberg
Glen Byam Shaw, C.B .E., D .Litt.
Stephen Thomas
John Whiting
Hugh Willatt
Miss Irene Wort h
MUSIC PANEL
Sir Thomas Armstrong, D .Mus .
Clive Carey, C .B .E .
B . Winton Dea n
Miss Astra Desmond, C .B.E .
John Gardner
William Glock
Professor Anthony Lewis (Chairman)
Trevor Harve y
Dr . Gordon Jacob
Geraint Jones
Professor Ivor Keys, D . Mus.
Sir William McKie ,
M. V.0., D . Mus .
Robert Noble
Manoug Parikia n
The Baroness Ravensdal e
Miss Seymour Whinyates, O .B .E.
Leslie Woodgate, O .B .E .
POETRY PANE L
Joseph Compton, C .B.E . (Chairman)
Thomas Blackburn
Royy Fuller
Patric Dickinson
J . C . Hall
Professor Bonamy Dobree, O .B .E . Christopher Hassall
Christopher Fry
Louis MacNeice; C.B .E.
Printed in England at The Baynard Pres s
Miss Kathleen Nott
Miss Helen Spaldin g
Terence Tiller
Also published by the Arts Council
CATALOGUE OF TH E
ROMANTIC MOVEMENT EXHIBITIO N
(Shown at the Tate Gallery and the Arts Council Gallery fro m
10th July to 27th September, 1959 )
Including seven articles by specialists in various aspects o f
romantic art .
15s . Od. (post free )
444 pp. 98 Plates
TH E
PURCELL-HANDEL FESTIVAL BOO K
Issued to mark the Festival held in London during Jun e
1959, this book contains full details of all the events an d
authoritative articles on the composers and their work .
44 pp .
20 Illustrations
2s . 6d . (postage 7d . )
HOUSING THE ARTS I N
GREAT BRITAI N
Report by the Arts Council of Great Britai n
Part One : London, Scotland, Wales
134 pp .
3 Illustrations
5s . Od . (postage 8d . )
Copies of the above, and of other Arts Council publication s
(including previous Annual Reports, price 2s . 6d . each ,
postage 6d .), may be obtained from the Publications Officer ,
The Arts Council of Great Britain, 4 St . James's Square ,
London, S .W .I .
PRICE TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE