birthday.' He also directed that at this annual 'Reid Concert' some pieces of his own composition should be performed 'by a select band.'
When by the death of General Reid's daughter in 1838 some £70,000 became available, it seems to have been handed over to the University authorities without sufficient attention to the italicised portion of the following instruction in the will: 'that … my said Trustees … shall and do, by such instrument or instruments as may be required by the law of Scotland make over the residue of my … personal estate to the Principal and Professors of the said University.' And as no particular sum was specified for foundation and maintenance of the Chair of Music, considerable latitude being allowed to the discretion of the University authorities, the secondary object of the bequest received far greater care and attention than the primary one, and for years the Chair was starved. The Professorship was instituted in 1839, when the first Professor, Mr. John Thomson, was appointed. He lived only a short time after his election, and in 1842 [App. p.770 "1841"] was succeeded by Sir Henry Bishop, who resigned after two years. Mr. H. H. Pierson was elected in 1844, but he also resigned shortly after. In 1845 Mr. John Donaldson, an advocate, and a good theoretical musician, received the appointment, and from the first seems to have resolved to obtain a more just and satisfactory bestowal of the bequest. It would be out of place to allude further to the state of matters existing up to 1855. Suffice it to say that in 1851, anticipating Mr. Donaldson's intention of petitioning Parliament, the Edinburgh Town Council, as 'Patrons' of the University, raised an action against the Principal and Professors for alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of the Reid Fund. A long litigation followed, and by decree of the Court of Session in 1855 the University authorities were ordered to devote certain sums to the purchase of a site, and the erection of a building for the Class of music. The class-room and its organ were built in 1861, and the Professor's salary—which had been fixed at the very lowest sum suggested by the Founder, viz. £300 as well as the grant for the concert, were slightly raised, and a sum set apart, by order of the Court, for expenses of class-room, assistants, instruments, etc.
These hardly-earned concessions are mainly due to the determined energy of Prof. Donaldson, who seems to have considered them sufficient when compared with what formerly existed. He at all events obtained for the Chair a far better position than that which it occupied before the lawsuit. But the disappointments and mortifications to which he was subjected by such long and painful conflicts not improbably shortened his life, and he died in 1865. In that year Mr. Herbert Oakeley was elected, who has held the appointment up to the present time.
REID CONCERTS. These concerts have not reached their present high position without vicissitudes almost as unfortunate as those to which the Reid Professorship was subjected. The earliest under Professors Thomson and Bishop, considering the then musical taste of Scotland, were not unworthy of General Reid's munificent bequest. The £200 allowed out of the Reid Fund was wholly inadequate to the cost of a grand concert 400 miles from London. The Senate therefore decided that, besides this grant, all the tickets should be sold, and that the proceeds should assist Professor Thomson in giving a fine concert; and the following note was printed in the first Reid Concert Book[1] in 1841:—'The Professors desire it to be understood that the whole of these sums'—i.e. the grant and the proceeds—'is to be expended on the concert; and that in order to apply as large a fund as possible for the purpose, they have not reserved any right of entry for their families or friends.'
This system was continued by Sir H. R. Bishop, and in 1842 and 43 the sale of tickets enabled him to give concerts which were at least creditable for the time and place.
Upon Professor Donaldson's accession, a plan was initiated by him which proved most unfortunate. He altered the system of admission by payment to that of invitation to the whole audience; and in consequence the Reid Concerts began to decline, and became an annual source of vexation to the University, public, and Professor. The grant, which under legal pressure afterwards seems to have been raised to £300, was then only £200, and therefore not only was it impossible to give an adequate concert without loss, but the distribution of free tickets naturally caused jealousies and heartburnings to 'town and gown,' and the Reid Concert became a byword and the hall in which it was held a bear-garden. Matters seem to have culminated in 1865, when a large number of students, who thought that they had a right of entry, broke into the concert-hall.
Such was the state of matters on Professor Oakeley's appointment in 1865. Finding it impossible after twenty years to return to the original system of Thomson and Bishop, he made a compromise, by giving free admissions to the Professors, the University Court, the students in their fourth year at college, and a few leading musicians in the city, and admitting the rest of the audience by payment. From this date a new era dawned on the Reid Concerts; the university and the city were satisfied, and the standard of performance at once rose.
In 1867 a practical beginning was made, by the engagement of Mr. Manns and a few of the Crystal Palace orchestra, with very good results.
Since 1869 Mr. C. Halle and his band have been secured, and each year the motto seems 'Excelsior.' The demand for tickets soon became so great that the present Professor organised two supplementary performances on the same scale as the 'Reid,' and thus, from concerts which on some occasions seem to have been a mere performance of ballads and operatic music by a starring party, the Reid Concert has grown into the 'Edinburgh Orchestral,' or ' Reid Festival,'
- ↑ Remarkable as the first programme issued in Great Britain with analytical notes.
