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A ‘GIGANTIC AND POPULAR PLACE OF ENTERTAINMENT’: GRANVILLE BANTOCK AND MUSIC-MAKING AT THE NEW BRIGHTON TOWER IN THE LATE 1890s

ABSTRACT In 1897, the New Brighton Tower and its Gardens opened for business. This vast leisure precinct attracted millions of visitors each year and provided a host of leisure activities including ballroom dancing, acrobatics, exhibitions of foreign and exotic cultures and orchestral concerts. This article focuses on the first four years of the orchestra's life when it was conducted by Granville Bantock, the only period of the orchestra's history for which many programmes have survived and from which a detailed reconstruction of the orchestra's repertory and programming can be made. The article discusses how class division, press propaganda, moral panics and commercial imperatives affected the programming of so-called ‘serious’ or classical music.