‘The war seems so violently to have affected the liking for music’: Rethinking Models of Concert-Giving in Manchester’s First World War Chamber Concerts

While Manchester enjoyed a thriving chamber music culture at the outset of the twentieth century, signs of decline were already evident in the years leading up to the First World War. The outbreak of war in August 1914 proved agential in the need to rethink the existing models of concert-giving, not least the pre-war reliance on a predominantly Austro-German canonic repertoire and the substantial support it received from Manchester’s large and often prosperous German community. It also faced more practical challenges in the unavailability of male performing artists. The important role of organist and composer Sydney Nicholson in the establishment of Manchester’s Tuesday Mid-day Concerts in 1915 is discussed, arguing that their innovative format, together with the opportunities they offered both for the introduction of newer repertoire and as a platform for local performers, positioned them as one of the most significant but still undocumented legacies of Manchester’s wartime music making.