SIDONIE GOOSENS. The Goossens family were of Belgian Catholic stock and had settled in Liverpool on the retirement of the conductor Eugene I from the Carl Rosa Opera Company.

    Eugene's grandchildren would later dominate the musical life of the United Kingdom and the World. Eugene III (later Sir Eugene Goossens) became a composer and conductor (at one time he was principal conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra). His brother, Leon, became a well known oboist whose surviving recordings are much prized. Another brother, Adolphe, a renowned horn player, was killed in WW1.

    The two harpist sisters, Sidonie and Marie, also achieved international fame. Sidonie was born on 19 October 1899 in Liscard, Cheshire. In 1924 Sidonie Goossens married the conductor Hyam Greenbaum. She joined the BBC in 1927 and was principal harpist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1930 until her retirement. She also recorded with Jack Hylton's band in 1936 ("Sweet Sue") and played with various other dance bands including those featuring Carroll Gibbons and Geraldo. In 1923 Sidonie Goossens was the first solo harpist to broadcast on radio, and in 1936 the first to appear on television. At a Promenade Concert in the Royal Albert Hall in August 1988, she played the harp part in Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music, which she had also played at its first performance in that hall fifty years earlier. On the Last Night of the Proms in September 1991 she accompanied singer Dame Gwyneth Jones in 'The Last Rose of Summer'. She celebrated her 100th birthday in 1999 - a special concert was held in her honour at the Wigmore Hall in London. Sidonie Goossens died at the age of 105 on 15 December 2004.

The picture above shows Sidonie Goossens in conversation with the composer/conductor, Igor Stravinsky.
(Photo with acknowledgement to the BBC)

JACK MACKINTOSH was born into a musical family in Sunderland, in the North-east of England, on 22 September 1891. His father was the conductor of the Sunderland East End Prize Band.

    Mackintosh started playing the cornet at the age of six and was largely self-taught. He went to Barnes School, Sunderland and Scurry’s College, Newcastle and began his professional career at the age of 15 by playing for silent films at the Hamilton Picture House (later the Palace Theatre). He later played with the Hetton Colliery brass band at the Crystal Palace in 1912, and in 1913 as a front-row player in the St. Hilda' s band led by Arthur Laycock.

    He went to the Harton Colliery band in 1919 and was their solo cornet player until 1930 when he left to join the brass section of the BBC Symphony Orchestra as a founder member.   He is shown third from the left in a photograph taken in the Corn Exchange, Bedford during the war. The principal of the section, Ernest Hall, is in the foreground. When Jack retired in 1952 his place was taken by his son. (Photo with acknowledgement to the BBC)

JULIAN HERBAGE was a well known twentieth century musicologist. His edited versions of many classical works, including Handel's 'The Messiah', achieved world-wide recognition. He had a long association with the BBC. It was Herbage who, in the 1920s, instigated and set-up the structure for a permanent BBC orchestra. He was the BBC's musical programme planner from 1927-1946 and organised the return of the BBC orchestras to London from Bedford in 1945. For many years after the war, together with Anna Instone, Herbage presented the BBC's 'Music Magazine' Programme.