Author: Mascha Vannier
A passion for music at Buckingham Palace Prince Albert and the Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is one of the most famous concert halls in the world. Even people who know nothing about classical music will probably recognise its vast auditorium from the Last Night of the Proms. But who was Albert, the man after whom the hall was named? That is rather more difficult to answer. He was a prince and the husband of Queen Victoria, but what else? Less well-known is his role as a passionate musician and influential patron of the arts.
If you visit London, you’ll probably see Prince Albert. Not far from the Royal Albert Hall, a monumental statue of the prince dominates Kensington Gardens: golden and dignified beneath a neo-Gothic canopy. Why all the fuss?
The story behind the monument begins far from London, in Coburg, Franconia. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born at Rosenau Palace in 1819 and became Queen Victoria’s husband in 1840. He was far more than a decorative figure at the British court. He was distinguished by intellectual curiosity, a passion for reform, considerable organisational talent and a deep love of music. For him, music was not a courtly pastime, but an indispensable part of a well-rounded education.
Albert was an excellent musician himself. He played the organ and piano, composed songs and sacred works, and he enjoyed a warm friendship with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. When Mendelssohn visited Buckingham Palace, the two men would take turns at the organ, and Albert was not above pulling out the stops for the composer.
His enthusiasm was not limited to music. As Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, he campaigned for a reform of the curriculum: less Classics and mathematics, but more natural science, modern history and the so-called Moral Sciences. Albert also took a clear position on social and political issues. He publicly condemned slavery and child labour – remarkably progressive positions for the time.
Albert’s great achievement in the cultural sphere was the Great Exhibition of 1851. Together with the progressive politician Henry Cole, and in the face of widespread scepticism, Albert helped bring the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park to life. It was an overwhelming success, and Albert decided to invest the profits in his three great passions: education, science and the arts.
Albert proposed using the profits to purchase land in South Kensington, creating the district that Londoners soon nicknamed Albertopolis – half admiringly, half in jest. The institutions that now occupy the area still play a central role in London’s cultural and scientific life: the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, Imperial College, the Royal College of Music and, finally, the great hall that was initially intended to be called the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences.
Albert did not live to see the hall completed. He died in 1861, aged just 42. Queen Victoria, who remained in mourning for Albert for the rest of her life, laid the foundation stone in 1867 and stipulated that the hall should bear her late husband’s name: the Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences.
The building opened on 29 March 1871. Architecturally, it was a triumph. Acoustically, it was, to put it mildly, a challenge. The vast dome sent the sound bouncing back so effectively that people joked that at the Royal Albert Hall you could hear every piece twice. Attempts were made to solve the problem with canvas or aluminium, but the echo was not truly tamed until 1969, when fibreglass acoustic diffusers were suspended from the ceiling; Londoners affectionately dubbed them “mushrooms” because of their shape.
The Royal Albert Hall has long held a special place in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s touring history. The orchestra has performed there forty times in total, first under Wilhelm Furtwängler on 4 December 1927, with the Tannhäuser Overture and Beethoven’s First Symphony. The orchestra made its BBC Proms debut there in 1973 under Herbert von Karajan and has returned regularly ever since.
This summer, under its Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko, the orchestra returns to the vast hall, which holds an audience of over 6000. Elgar, Tchaikovsky and Scriabin are on the programme, alongside Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich – music that would surely have delighted the organ-playing composer-prince.