The BBC Proms, regarded by some as the world’s greatest classical music festival, began last week and will culminate when the Last Night of the Proms takes place at the Royal Albert Hall on 10th September, writes Neil Crossfield…
These concerts have been running for over a hundred years, yet few will know that the foundations of the Proms were firmly established in Walworth, by a flamboyant, charismatic French conductor named Jullien. The promenade concert became a hugely fashionable feature of the pleasure gardens which flourished in London in the 18th and 19th centuries. Rather than just sitting and listening to classical music, visitors were encouraged to walk around, to ‘promenade’, looking at the other attractions while the orchestra played. The type of music played also differed. While overtures from the latest operas and symphonies would form part of the programme, these were interspersed with lighter pieces of music; polkas, quadrilles and other popular songs of the day. While more formal concerts aimed to develop a cultured understanding of classical music, the promenade concerts primary intention was to entertain the masses.
Adam Carse’s 1951 biography The Life of Julien, tells that his father was also a musician, who had for a time been the Popes organist. Whilst his father and heavily pregnant mother were travelling home to Paris from Rome, they narrowly avoided being buried in an avalanche, forcing them to stop in a small village called Sisteron, in the French Alps. Jullien was born there on 23 April 1823. In a show of gratitude to the village which had sheltered them, his father agreed to put on a concert for the local Philharmonic Society. Jullien was baptised in the village and his father offered to make one of the members of the society his godfather. However, all 36 members of the group volunteered for this honour. Not wishing to cause offence, the baby took the names of all of them, being baptised Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roche Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noë Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué Vincent Luc Michel Jules-de-la-plane Jules-Bazin Julio César Jullien. Little wonder that in later life many people just knew him by his surname!
Ever the showman, Jullien appears to have constructed a fantastic back story about his early life. One of the stories was that as a child he was snatched by a giant eagle who was flying away with him in his talons before the eagle was shot by a passing hunter. At the age of 5 he supposedly almost starved to death trapped in the bell of a large instrument called an ophicleide. Later both he and his father served in the French Navy at the Battle of Navarino. Young Jullien then left to join the army and was nearly placed in front of a firing squad for deserting. As a grown man Jullien was involved in at least three duels, including one in which he was nearly killed by a professional fencing teacher. Though it is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction, these tales all added to the mystique of the man.
Whatever the truth, it was obvious that he had some musical talent and was something of a child prodigy. His father had displayed him around Europe before he had attended the prestigious Conservatoire in Paris. Jullien had made a name for himself in the late 1830s, playing to large audiences at the Jardin turc and Casino. Yet as we shall see, Jullien’s business affairs were often chaotic and in around 1839, he left Paris with the threat of bankruptcy hanging over him. Jullien first appeared in London in 1840 where he put on highly successful concerts at Drury Lane, The English Opera House and Covent Garden. Over the next few years his reputation grew, and his indoor promenade concerts would become hugely popular. However, it was Jullien’s association with the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens (RSZG) which would cement his place in the history of the proms.
The RSZG opened in Walworth in 1831. It’s collection of animals rivalled those at the Regents Park Zoo which had opened just three years earlier, but the RSZG could also offer other entertainments for the whole family. Since 1839, it had featured musical concerts under the guidance of Charles Godfrey, a former bandmaster of the Coldstream Guards, but it was under Jullien that the venue would become famous for its promenade concerts. It is perhaps not coincidental that Jullien was enticed to come to the RSZG in 1845, the same year that a competitor, Cremorne Gardens in Chelsea had reopened with new owners. A star like Jullien would draw crowds to the RZSG, all paying a shilling to see him conduct.
His first performance at the RSZG was on Friday 20 June 1845. This was billed as a Concert Monstre (monster concert) and around 12,000 people had attended to see Jullien conduct an orchestra of some 300 of Europe’s finest musicians. In an age before amplification, the sheer volume of sound produced by such a large orchestra must have assaulted the senses of the large crowd, especially when it was augmented by fireworks and the addition of canon fire during the playing of the National Anthem. In a review the London Evening Standard wrote ‘His ambrosial curls waved in the wind as he flourished his baton; and with arms extended he pantomimed spasmodic persuasion to the host of players. He managed his huge force with the control of a tyrant and made the instruments of brass speak as they never spoke before. After each piece, the hero of the scene diffused many bows to the audience, and then dived into some secret abyss beneath his feet, where he remained perda until he was again wanted’.
He was reported to be a bit of a dandy and would wear fine clothes including white kid gloves while performing. Crowds would flock to see his dynamic, emotional and energetic conducting in which he was just as much part of the entertainment as the music. In later years he even took to using a gold and diamond encrusted baton which was delivered to him on a silver salver.
Jullien also composed music and performed this at the RSZG. These lighter pieces like his Elephant Polka and Hungarian Quadrille were hugely popular with the visitors. Punch magazine had credited Jullien with introducing the polka to England in 1844. The resulting dance craze spread widely, but it was said that Queen Victoria disapproved of this. A Punch cartoon of 1845 depicts Jullien tearing his hair out when the Queen ‘banned the polka’, but he could not have been too concerned as he continued to include polkas in his programme throughout his professional career.
Jullien was not averse to introducing ‘novelties’ into his shows. In the summer of 1847, he engaged the services of the Harmonic Rock band. This featured Joseph Richardson’s rock harmonium, properly named a lithophone. Richardson was a self-taught musician, but his real profession was stone mason. This large instrument consisted of two banks of carefully tuned stones mounted on a frame and which was played by striking them with hammers. One of Richardson’s lithophones called the Musical Stones of Skiddaw survived and is kept in the Keswick Museum in the Lake District.
Jullien was engaged to play several summer seasons at the RSZG between 1845 and 1857. In addition to this, he would often take a large orchestra to tour the provinces and sometimes abroad. He even travelled to New York in August 1853. During the winter he would take up residence in London theatres to continue his promenade concerts indoors. Yet his flair for conducting was not matched by his business acumen. Putting on large concerts and using the finest musicians was expensive and he frequently lost money on his ventures. He had been declared bankrupt in 1848, after a season of opera he had promoted with Hector Berlioz failed miserably. Undeterred by these financial setbacks, in 1856, he managed to persuade many investors to support the Surrey Garden Company (Limited). After raising capital of £40,00, a spectacular concert hall capable of holding 10,000 people was built in the gardens. While at first this was successful, poor financial management meant that by August 1857, the business was in trouble and ended up in the bankruptcy court. It was partly due to the failure of this project that hastened the demise of the RSZG. It finally closed down in 1878, with the land sold to property developers.
Jullien continued to stage his promenade concerts in London and around the provinces, giving his last London performance at the Lyceum Theatre on 18 December 1858. Exhausted, ill and with a second bankruptcy to his name he returned to France. Unfortunatley his creditors caught up with him in Paris in May1859 and he was thrown into debtor’s prison. Following his release, he experienced a mental breakdown and had been seen driving around the Boulevards of Paris exclaiming, ‘I am Jullien, the great Jullien and I’m going to give a series of grand concerts in Paris’, before producing a piccolo and playing to the bemused pedestrians. Jullien was taken to a Maison de Sante (Asylum) at Neuilly where he died on 14th March 1860, only a few days after his admission. He was just 48 years old but had lived colourful and remarkable life.
Undoubtedly Jullien’s failed projects contributed to the final demise of the RSZG, yet the owners were kind enough to hold a benefit concert for his widow on 31 July 1860. This reportedly raised the substantial sum of £1000, equating to approximately £59,000 in today’s money. Jullien’s widow must have inherited some of her late husband’s entrepreneurial spirit for on 18 August 1860, the York Herald reported that she was about to embark on a tour of the provinces with a troupe of musicians and singers conducted by Prince Galitzin. Its appears that Jullien’s widow was drawn to interesting men, as Galitzin was a Russian aristocrat and war hero who was also being dragged through the bankruptcy courts.
Jullien was not the originator of the promenade concert in Britain but his dynamic personality and his showmanship, combined with an astute choice of crowd-pleasing music, ensured that this genre became hugely popular. He had once stated that his policy was ‘to provide entertainment, relaxation and education for the masses’.
On 10 August1895, a musical promoter name Robert Newman teamed up with conductor Henry J. Wood to put on a promenade concert at the Queens Hall in London. Like Jullien before them, Newman and Wood wanted to bring a broad range of classical music to a much wider audience. The concerts would be less formal, with affordable ticket prices and a varied programme, played by accomplished musicians. This concert was the first of what was to become the national institution of the Proms. The BBC took over in 1927 and continue to run the highly successful concert series to this day. Though Jullien’s name is largely unknown today, with his Walworth association lost in the mists of time, musical historians rightly celebrate his memory and legacy as one of the founding fathers of the Proms.
Hear Jullien’s music being performed for FREE at the Urban Elephant free festival
If you would like to hear some of Jullien’s music being performed in Walworth for the first time since the 1850s, come at 7:30pm on Friday 29 July to St Peter’s, Walworth, where four fantastic local musicians will be performing at the ‘Walworth’s History Through Song’ concert.
This free event will feature songs and music either written about or performed in Walworth over the centuries.
Tickets available on Eventbrite bit.ly/3ItLag4.
This event forms part of the wider Urban Elephant free festival which is running from 29-31 July in various locations around Walworth, showcasing the best in contemporary urban street art, theatre, and culture. The festival includes circus, magic, dancing, street art, theatre, puppetry and more.
For more information, please go to wwww.urbanelephant.org,uk