Charles Hallé

Sir Charles Hallé (11 April 1819 – 25 October 1895) was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.

Hallé was born Karl Halle on 11 April 1819 in Hagen, Westphalia. After settling in England, he changed his name to Charles Hallé.

His first lessons were from his father, an organist. As a child he showed remarkable gifts for pianoforte playing. He performed a sonatina in public at the age of four, and played percussion in the orchestra in his early years. In August 1828 he took part in a concert at Cassel, where he attracted the notice of Spohr.

He then studied under Christian Heinrich Rinck at Darmstadt, Germany in 1835, and as early as 1836 went to Paris, where for twelve years he often associated with Luigi Cherubini, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and other musicians, and enjoyed the friendship of such great literary figures as Alfred de Musset and George Sand. He had started a set of chamber concerts with Jean-Delphin Alard and Auguste Franchomme with great success.

He had completed one series of them when the revolution of 1848 drove him from Paris, and he settled, with his first wife and two children, in London.

He conducted elsewhere in the country also, as well as performing as a pianist. He was the first pianist to play the complete series of Beethoven's piano sonatas in England. Hallé's piano recitals, given at first from 1850 in his own house, and from 1861 in St James's Hall, Piccadilly, were an important feature of London musical life, and it was due in great measure to them that a knowledge of Beethoven's pianoforte sonatas became general in English society.

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