ABSTRACT
In the 1830s there arrived not only a greater desire for concerts but a much enhanced supply of concert artists, including the new breed of touring European virtuosi. The filling of both gaps by the Anacreontic Society and its Music Hall came just in time. The Anacreontic society did not for long remain the only promoter, and there arrived, at last and for Belfast reasons, the choral societies. Dr Thomson, Campbell and Garner were appointed as a subcommittee to bring in a report on the losses sustained by the Society in the previous season. The concert climate in which the Anacreontic Society found itself at the midpoint of the nineteenth century was demonstrated in their concert of Friday 18 January 1850. It was described as 'probably the most brilliant concert ever given within the walls of the Music Hall'.
