Music, finance, and politics: Henri verbrugghen and the New South Wales State Orchestra, 1919-1923

Abstract

This paper examines the musical, financial, and political difficulties that beset Henri Verbrugghen’s attempts to establish a permanent professional orchestra in New South Wales between 1919 and 1923. Appointed as the founding Director of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music in 1915, Verbrugghen established a Conservatorium Orchestra in 1916 and then, with government financial support, a State Orchestra in 1919. This was the first permanent professional symphony orchestra in Australia. It played hundreds of concerts in NewSouth Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia andNew Zealand. In 1923, however, the orchestra collapsed when Verbrugghen took leave of absence from Sydney to work in the United States. Verbrugghen’s personal difficulties, it is argued, placed the State Orchestra in a vulnerable position, although consideration of the circumstances under which he gave concerts suggests he was placed under considerable duress. The organizational shortcomings of the orchestra and the difficulty in attracting continuing funding and political support from the New South Wales government eventually combined with Verbrugghen’s personal predicament to make the orchestra unviable.