Last year I catalogued MA/120, a series of files from the V&A Archive documenting concerts held at the museum from 1950 until the early 1980s. As I worked on the project I got completely immersed in the world of the concerts, which was full of interesting stories and characters. In this blog post I’ll be sharing some of my favourite finds from cataloguing the concert files.
Record player recitals
In June 1945, V&A Director Leigh Ashton wrote to Alfred Clark at the HMV Gramophone Company with an unusual request. He wanted to put on concerts at the V&A, but didn’t think it would be possible to “produce a programme of “live” music of sufficient merit to attract the public” (archive ref. ED 84/319). Instead, he proposed daily public ‘concerts’ of classical music played from gramophone records over a sound system. With no funds available, he hoped that HMV would provide the V&A with a “first-rate radio-gramophone” and a selection of records.
HMV agreed to loan sound equipment. A plan to convert the Raphael Cartoon Gallery into a space for concerts, lectures and film screenings was eventually approved by the Ministry of Works. (Ashton had ruled out the Victorian Lecture Theatre due to its “almost abysmal ugliness”, poor acoustics, inadequate heating and uncomfortable seating!) But in 1947, Ashton’s plan fell apart when the building work proved too expensive. Live music soon became the norm at the V&A, with regular classical concerts starting in 1950.
In 2024 the V&A hosted a special event for Record Store Day, inviting visitors to bring in their favourite records to listen to in the Tapestry Gallery. Would Leigh Ashton have approved?
The concert managers and their stories
There are lots of letters in the files from professional concert managers, who worked with musicians to schedule concerts at the V&A. Out of curiosity I looked up some of their names online and discovered fascinating backstories.
I was particularly struck by the story of Lies Askonas. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, she escaped Austria immediately after the Anschluss in 1938 by skiing across the Central Alps. She later joined her family in England.
In 1955 she started her own concert agency in London and became highly successful in the male-dominated classical music industry. At the V&A she helped to organise concerts of Beethoven’s complete string quartets by the Koeckert Quartet in the 1950s and 1960s. Her letters in the file hint at a highly driven, determined spirit.
Indian classical music at the V&A
In the late 1960s, the V&A hosted several performances of Indian classical music and dance.
There were two concerts in April 1969. The first featured Mahmud Mirza (sitar) and Latif Ahmad Khan (tabla) in a programme of North Indian classical music. The second was a programme of Kathak dancing featuring Sitara Devi.
John Irwin, Keeper of the V&A’s Indian Section, agreed to lend three 17th-century Mughal carpets from the museum’s collections for the audience to sit on. Although the carpets had appeared in concerts in 1968, this took some convincing – as seen in a March 1969 memo from Irwin to the Director:
“I would have no qualms if the users could be persuaded to leave their shoes at the entrance, as they would do in India; but it is perhaps impracticable to insist on this in the Occident…
In my personal view the wear and tear would be minimal. Yet a line clearly has to be drawn somewhere, and I have no doubt that criticism of the Museum will be heard sooner or later if we make a regular practice of allowing rather valuable museum objects to be used in this way.”
The V&A certainly wouldn’t use museum objects in this way today! In the end they settled on a compromise – the carpets were used for the first concert, but not for the Kathak dancing performance.
The experimental gig that never happened
Whilst cataloguing a file from 1977, I came across plans for an unusual gig in the V&A quadrangle (now the John Madejski Garden). The proposed artist was Chamberpot, an experimental improvisation ensemble inspired by “Webern, Cage, avant garde music, jazz and the theatrical in music.”
The file is full of programmes from past Chamberpot gigs and press reviews of their music. The group also sent a tape of their work, but sadly this hasn’t survived.
In a letter to the group, the V&A’s Michael Darby writes: “The tape is magnificent and we all love it.” Darby got the go-ahead for a Chamberpot concert from the Director, Roy Strong – but in the end it was permanently postponed due to building work in the quadrangle. The file ends with a letter to the group from Darby:
“The courtyard progresses very slowly, the scaffolding is still where you saw it, and we still don’t know the fate of the grass and trees, but I live in hope and will be in touch with you as soon as something concrete – I hope not – is decided. Best wishes.”
