Editing Henry Wood (section)

===Early years of the Proms===
[[File:Robert-Newman-1906.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=head and shoulders photograph of a middle-aged man with large, curled moustache|[[Robert Newman (impresario)|Robert Newman]], co-founder with Wood of the [[Queen's Hall]] promenade concerts]]
In 1894, Wood went to the Wagner festival at [[Bayreuth Festival|Bayreuth]] where he met the conductor [[Felix Mottl]],<ref name=dnbarchive/> who subsequently appointed him as his assistant and chorus master for a series of Wagner concerts at the newly built [[Queen's Hall]] in London.<ref name=j30>Jacobs, pp. 30–32</ref> The manager of the hall, [[Robert Newman (impresario)|Robert Newman]], was proposing to run a ten-week season of [[promenade concerts]] and, impressed by Wood, invited him to conduct.<ref name=j30/> There had been such concerts in London since 1838, under conductors from [[Louis Antoine Jullien]] to Arthur Sullivan.<ref>Elkin, pp. 25–26</ref> Sullivan's concerts in the 1870s had been particularly successful, because he offered his audiences something more than the usual light music. He introduced major classical works, such as [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] symphonies, normally restricted to the more expensive concerts presented by the [[Royal Philharmonic Society|Philharmonic Society]] and others.<ref>Elkin, p. 26</ref> Newman aimed to do the same: "I am going to run nightly concerts and train the public by easy stages. Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music."<ref>Orga, p. 44</ref>

Newman's determination to make the promenade concerts attractive to everyone led him to permit smoking during concerts, which was not formally prohibited at the Proms until 1971.<ref>Orga, p. 57</ref> Refreshments were available in all parts of the hall throughout the concerts, not only during intervals.<ref>Jacobs, p. 46</ref> Prices were considerably lower than those customarily charged for classical concerts: the promenade (the standing area) was one shilling, the balcony two shillings, and the grand circle (reserved seats) three and five shillings.<ref>Orga, p. 55</ref>{{refn|In decimal coinage, respectively 5, 10, 15 and 25 pence: the equivalent of approximately £4 to £20 in terms of 2009 retail prices. Tickets for formal symphony concerts at the time cost up to five times as much.<ref name=worth/>|group= n}}

Newman needed to find financial backing for his first season. Dr George Cathcart, a wealthy [[Otolaryngology|ear, nose and throat]] specialist, offered to sponsor it on two conditions: that Wood should conduct every concert, and that the pitch of the orchestral instruments should be lowered to the European standard [[Concert pitch#19th and 20th century standards|''diapason normal'']]. Concert pitch in England was nearly a [[semitone]] higher than that used on the continent, and Cathcart regarded it as damaging for singers' voices.<ref name=elkin25>Elkin, p. 25</ref> Wood, from his experience as a singing teacher, agreed.<ref>Jacobs, p. 34</ref> As members of Wood's brass and woodwind sections were unwilling to buy new low-pitched instruments, Cathcart imported a set from Belgium and lent them to the players. After a season, the players recognised that the low pitch would be permanently adopted, and they bought the instruments from him.<ref name=elkin25/>

On 10 August 1895, the first of the Queen's Hall Promenade Concerts took place. Among those present who later recalled the opening was the singer [[Agnes Nicholls]]:<ref>Jacobs, p. 38</ref>
<blockquote>
Just before 8 o'clock I saw Henry Wood take up his position behind the curtain at the end of the platform – watch in hand. Punctually, on the stroke of eight, he walked quickly to the rostrum, buttonhole and all, and began the National Anthem&nbsp;... A few moments for the audience to settle down, then the ''[[Rienzi]]'' Overture, and the first concert of the new Promenades had begun.</blockquote>

The rest of the programme comprised, in the words of an historian of the Proms, David Cox, "for the most part&nbsp;... blatant trivialities."<ref>Cox, p. 33</ref> Within days, however, Wood was shifting the balance from light music to mainstream classical works, with [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]]'s [[Symphony No. 8 (Schubert)|Unfinished Symphony]] and further excerpts from [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] operas.<ref>Cox, p. 34</ref> Among the other symphonies Wood conducted during the first season were Schubert's ''[[Symphony No. 9 (Schubert)|Great C Major]]'', [[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]]'s ''[[Symphony No. 4 (Mendelssohn)|Italian]]'' and [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]]'s [[Symphony No. 4 (Schumann)|Fourth]].  The concertos included Mendelssohn's [[Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn)|Violin Concerto]] and Schumann's [[Piano Concerto (Schumann)|Piano Concerto]].<ref>Jacobs, p. 45</ref> During the season Wood presented 23&nbsp;novelties, including the London premieres of pieces by [[Richard Strauss]], Tchaikovsky, [[Alexander Glazunov|Glazunov]], [[Jules Massenet|Massenet]] and [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]].<ref>Cox, p. 35; and Orga, p. 61</ref> Newman and Wood soon felt able to devote every Monday night of the season principally to Wagner and every Friday night to Beethoven, a pattern that endured for decades.<ref>Cox, p. 35</ref>

The income from the concerts did not permit generous rehearsal time. Wood had nine hours to rehearse all the music for each week's six concerts.<ref>Wood, p. 84</ref> To gain the best results on so little rehearsal, Wood developed two facets of his conducting that remained his trademark throughout his career. First, he bought sets of the orchestral parts and marked them all with minutely detailed instructions to the players; secondly he developed a clear and expressive conducting technique. An orchestral cellist wrote that "if you watched him, you couldn't come in wrong."<ref>Cole, Hugo, "Sullivan without Gilbert", ''[[The Guardian]]'', 29 July 1971, p. 8</ref> The violist Bernard Shore wrote, "You may be reading at sight in public, but you can't possibly go wrong with ''that'' stick in front of you".<ref>Shore, p. 189</ref> Thirty-five years after Wood's death, [[André Previn]] recounted a story by one of his players who recalled that Wood "had everything planned out and timed to the minute ... at 10&nbsp;a.m. precisely his baton went down. You learned things so thoroughly with him, but in the most economical time."<ref name=previn>Previn, p. 160</ref>

Another feature of Wood's conducting was his insistence on accurate tuning; before each rehearsal and concert he would check the instrument of each member of the woodwind and string sections against a tuning fork.<ref>Shore, p. 200 and Wood, p. 96</ref> He persisted in this practice until 1937, when the excellence of the [[BBC Symphony Orchestra]] persuaded him that it was no longer necessary.<ref>Wood, pp. 96–97</ref> To improve [[Musical ensemble|ensemble]], Wood experimented with the layout of the orchestra. His preferred layout was to have the first and second violins grouped together on his left, with the cellos to his right, a layout that has since become common.<ref>Wood, p. 100; and Boult, Adrian, "Stereo Strings", ''The Musical Times'', April 1973, p. 378</ref>

[[File:OlgaWood-ILN-1January1910-p6;.jpg|thumb|125px|alt=head and shoulders picture of a young woman with dark hair|Wood's first wife, Olga]]
Between the first and second season of promenade concerts, Wood did his last work in the opera house, conducting Stanford's new opera ''Shamus O'Brien'' at the Opera Comique. It ran from March until July 1896, leaving Wood enough time to prepare the second Queen's Hall season, which began at the end of August.<ref>Wood, p. 86</ref> The season was so successful that Newman followed it with a winter season of Saturday night promenade concerts, but despite being popular they were not a financial success, and were not repeated in later years.<ref>Wood, p. 93</ref> 

In January 1897, Wood took on the direction of the Queen's Hall's prestigious Saturday afternoon symphony concerts.<ref name=grove/> He continually presented new works by composers of many nationalities, and was particularly known for his skill in Russian music. Sullivan wrote to him in 1898, "I have never heard a finer performance in England than that of the Tchaikovsky symphony under your direction last Wednesday".<ref>Cox, p. 38</ref> Seventy-five years later, [[Adrian Boult|Sir Adrian Boult]] ranked Wood as one of the two greatest Tchaikovsky conductors in his long experience.<ref>Boult, p. 181</ref> Wood also successfully challenged the widespread belief that Englishmen were not capable of conducting Wagner.<ref>Elkin, p. 144; and Jacobs, p. 56</ref> When Wood and the Queen's Hall Orchestra performed at [[Windsor Castle]] in November 1898, [[Queen Victoria]] chose Tchaikovsky and Wagner for the programme.<ref name=grove/> Wood, who modelled his appearance on Nikisch, took it as a compliment that the queen said to him, "Tell me, Mr Wood, are you quite English?"<ref>Jacobs, p. 62</ref>

In 1898, Wood married one of his singing pupils, Olga Michailoff, a divorcée a few months his senior.{{refn|In his memoirs Wood refers to her as "Princess Olga Ouroussoff", but according to Jacobs (p. 59) she was entitled to neither the rank nor the surname, although her mother was Princess Sofiya Urusova|group= n}} Jacobs describes it as "a marriage of perfect professional and private harmony".<ref>Jacobs, p. 59</ref> As a singer, with Wood as her accompanist, she won praise from the critics.<ref>Jacobs, p. 67</ref>