Arthur Catterall

Arthur Catterall (25 May 1883 – 28 November 1943) was an English concert violinist, orchestral leader and conductor, one of the best-known English classical violinists of the first half of the twentieth century.

Arthur Catterall was born in Preston, Lancashire, the son of John Catterall, a painter and his wife Elizabeth, a cotton weaver. He was an extremely gifted musician in childhood. He first played the violin in public at a concert in Preston when he was 6 years old. He played the Mendelssohn violin concerto in Manchester at the age of 9. Catterall received his elementary education under the Jesuits at St Ignatius Roman Catholic School, Preston until 1893 when he was accepted as a Boarder at St Bede's College, Manchester, during this time he also studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music under Willy Hess in 1894 and under Adolph Brodsky in 1895. Catterall graduated from St Bede's at the age of 16 in 1898.

In 1902, at the age of 18, he was invited to Bayreuth by Hans Richter and played at all of Cosima Wagner's musical evenings in that season. He appeared at a Hallé Orchestra concert in 1903 playing Tchaikovsky's concerto.

In 1909 Catterall became leader of the promenade concerts at the Queen's Hall. In 1911 he acquired the violin made by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, c. 1843, which had belonged to Ferdinand David. In 1907 he was appointed Professor of violin at the Royal Manchester College of Music (a post he held for many years) and became leader of the Hallé Orchestra, where he remained until 1925. In 1913 he obtained the 'Baillot-Pommereau' 1694 instrument by Antonio Stradivarius, and in September of that year performed the Violin Concerto BV 243 of Ferruccio Busoni with the Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood. He later gave the English premiere, also at a prom, of the (1911–1912) Violin concerto of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, which had been dedicated to Maud Powell.

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