ABSTRACT
Arthur James Balfour’s uncle was Lord Salisbury, Britain’s prime minister whose third term ended when Balfour replaced him in 1902. Musical Times reported: ‘The Prime Minister as a musician … the first musical Premier of Great Britain’ who had a ‘loving devotion’ to Handel. The Handel Society’s rehearsals had been at Balfour’s home and he was a committee member for ten years. 1 Manns conducted it from 1892, then J. Samuel Liddle who passed the baton to Coleridge-Taylor. Manns asked: ‘If I hear your first clarinet playing a wrong note, am I to call out, “Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford, G. C. B., you are playing A sharp instead of A natural”?’ 2 The instrumentalists and singers had been raised in grand houses with relatives of importance (Chelmsford’s son was to be viceroy of India for example).
