Arthur Catterall

[1] 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,[2] during this time he also studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music under Willy Hess in 1894 and under Adolph Brodsky in 1895.

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.

[5] In 1907 he was appointed Professor of violin at the Royal Manchester College of Music (a post he held for many years)[4] and became leader of the Hallé Orchestra, where he remained until 1925.

In 1913 he obtained the 'Baillot-Pommereau' 1694 instrument by Antonio Stradivarius,[6] and in September of that year performed the Violin Concerto BV 243 of Ferruccio Busoni with the Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood.

[19] He also developed as a conductor, taking the third concert of the 1929 Delius Festival at the Queen's Hall (Eventyr, Cynara, Piano concerto, Arabesk and Appalachia).

[20] In 1929, Catterall became the founding leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though the proms were at first led by his assistant violin Charles Woodhouse.

When the orchestra first appeared in full strength (115 players), on 22 October 1930, at the Queen's Hall in its inaugural concert with the Flying Dutchman overture, Brahms' Fourth Symphony, the Saint-Saëns cello concerto (with Guilhermina Suggia) and Ravel's Symphonic Fragments from Daphnis et Chloé, under Adrian Boult, Catterall led the orchestra.

[24] He was memorably associated with the cellist Antonia Butler in a prom performance at the Queen's Hall of the Brahms double concerto in August 1940.

After an air-raid warning was heard and the audience was obliged to remain indoors, the musicians improvised an all-night concert.