Part 5 of the Garden Palace scrapbook — same vanished giant, this time through the music. Barnet’s exhibition hall in the Inner Domain opened for the Sydney International Exhibition (17 September 1879 – 20 April 1880). Milanese composer Paolo Giorza, picked as musical director by Sir Patrick Jennings, wrote the opening cantata to words by Henry Kendall and kept the nave busy with daily concerts, oratorios, bands and chamber music while more than a million visitors walked the courts.
This instalment’s plates lean toward programmes and performance memory — including sheets that name Beethoven and Grieg — rather than another full run of exterior dome views. Read the print before you claim a premiere night. One Exhibition-era Bechstein grand that took first prize in the musical-instruments class survived the building; the Palace itself did not. Fire in the early hours of 22 September 1882 took the timber palace in about forty minutes.
For the longer chronology and the big pictorial set see Sydney Garden Palace in Pictures; Part 7 carries another tray of views. Keep these five images; caption by programme, nave or instrument, not by inventing a conductor’s diary.
Sydney’s Garden Palace was built in the Domain for the 1879 Sydney International Exhibition, which showcased industry, arts and science. The grand exhibition hall hosted displays and public performances before a fire destroyed the building in 1882. This post explores the musical life associated with the former site.
No comments:
Post a Comment