Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (RMP) is a 120-voice choir and orchestra in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1853, and is reportedly Australia's oldest surviving cultural organisation. The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic is Australia's oldest musical organisation that has been continuously existing for over 150 years. Among its programmes, there have been large-scale concerts celebrating classical composers including Bach, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic is managed under the direction of Andrew Wailes, the artistic director of the orchestra.
History
Early years
The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic was founded in 1853 and the orchestra was then called the Melbourne Philharmonic Society. One of its founders was Charles La Trobe, who was the appointed superintendent of NSW in 1839. The original purpose of creating the organization was to hold regular performances with a non-profitable basis.
Britain's influence
During the 19th century, British musical taste was dominating the RMP's opinion in making musical decisions, including selecting performance repertoires, outlining the list of the programmes as well as employing the concert pitch. George Peake, the appointed conductor of the Philharmonic in 1889 to 1911, decided the high Philharmonic pitch to be employed for the orchestra instead of using the normal pitch or the French pitch, as the high pitch was still being used by the orchestras in the UK (ibid.).
World Wars and Great Depression era
During the first and second world war, two oratorios, Elijah and Messiah had always dominated the Philharmonic's concerts program. The main reason for the Philharmonic to depend on the two oratorios was the high demand from the listeners during that time, which helped the Philharmonic in receiving financial income. There was a decline of appreciation toward large-choral societies during the outbreak of the second world war. During those times less singers joined the Philharmonic, particularly the men, and there were less regular concerts being performed by the Philharmonic. Eight conductors were appointed one after another during the second world war with the aim of gaining more attention from the audience yet the attempts were unsuccessful.
During the Great Depression era in 1927, Bernard Heinze, the conductor of the Philharmonic appointed Zelman as the new conductor. In 1936, the Commission of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic agreed to do a reformation and reconstitution of the management system as well as the orchestra. The ex-conductor of the Philharmonic, Bernard Heinze, was appointed to be the commission's musical advisor. He became a part of the Commission together with Charles Moses as the general manager, William James as the federal controller of music and W. J. Cleary as the chairman of the commission. The role of the commission was to give inputs and plans related to the Philharmonics' practices, repertoires, customs and hiring. The chorus master of the choir, Dan Hardy, was replaced by George English. New repertoires were added to the Philharmonic's concerts program, including Bach's mass in B minor, Walton's Belshazzars Feast and Verdi's Requiem.
Financial
The Philharmonic received financial support from the government, where they were granted about $20.000 annually. In 2014, the annual funding from the City of Melbourne had discontinued as they removed the Philharmonic from the council's grants lists. Since then, RMP has been relying on their income from donations, fundraising, membership fees and box office. Andrew Wailes, the director of the Philharmonic reported that these were not enough to cover all of their operation expenses.
The ABC
The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic began to have a contractual agreement with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) on 17 August 1936, wherein the ABC took over the choir. As the Philharmonic entered a contract with the ABC, the burden of orchestral members fees and promotional costs were reduced. Based on the agreement with ABC, the RMP had given permission for ABC to do an audition and replacement of choir members. The ABC also gained the authorization to nominate the conductors, soloists, choirmaster and the repertoires to be performed. The ABC retained any profits made by the choir as well as the Philharmonic concerts, and they were also responsible for any financial risk related to the concert expenses and covered most of its disbursements. The ABC continued to work with the Philharmonic throughout the 1960s, delivering mostly choral works in the concerts.