ArtMuse editor Frances Wilson offers a personal celebration of the Wigmore Hall, from its beginnings to the present day

Early days

The first concert at the new Bechstein (now Wigmore) Hall took place on 31st May 1901. The performance featured English soprano Mrs Helen Trust, ‘king of the violin’ Eugene Ysaye, and composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni – an impressive line-up that promised well not only for the opening night but also for the future of London’s newest concert venue. The audience at that first concert comprised wealthy patrons, aristocrats and the intellectual elite of London. It would surely have been a glamorous event. The first public concert took place on 3rd June 1901, and from that date until October 1915, when Bechstein Hall was forced to close, it hosted some two hundred concerts a year. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Bechstein Hall on London’s Wigmore Street – a prime location in the fashionable Marylebone district – was promoted as the best place for intimate music-making, boasting unrivalled comfort and facilities for patrons and artists, with its elegant green room up a short flight of stairs behind the stage (so that singers did not arrive on stage breathless). At the time of its opening, concert life and leisure in London were undergoing something of a revolution. Theatres and music halls were opening across the West End, a wide public was being introduced to the experience of shopping for pleasure in the new “department stores” (Selfridges is a mere 10-minute walk, at most, from Wigmore Street). With cheap and efficient public transport, it was easy for people to enjoy these delights in the centre of the metropolis. 

At the time of the hall’s opening, C. Bechstein was Europe’s leading piano maker (it produced 5000 pianos in 1901), and its instruments were preferred by most pianists outside America, where Steinway predominated. The Bechstein piano company built similar concert halls in Paris and St Petersburg to showcase its instruments and the leading performers and singers of the day. With its distinctive barrel-roof “shoebox” design, beloved of many musicians and audience, Wigmore Hall still boasts a fine acoustic. At the same time, its small size (its capacity is c600 seats) makes it the perfect place to enjoy intimate chamber and piano recitals.

“…wherever you sit, the acoustics are wonderful for the piano”. (Lorraine Banning, pianist and piano teacher)

“…the classic shoebox-shaped hall with the most marvellous acoustics – it sounds very good when you’re rehearsing, and then you come on stage and find that with the audience it’s even better….a jewel” (Madeleine Mitchell, violinist)

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