London, 1899

We see a programme similar to the Crystal Palace concert forty-two years later:

Programme 10 National Sunday League, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 8 October 1899

Programme from the Centre for Performance History, Royal College of Music

Here again we find the symphony in the middle of the program, but now with only one piece of vocal music, a Benedictus by Mackenzie. By this time vocal music had become less and less common at concerts where an orchestra was the focus. The concert is designed for a middle-class rather than élite audience ('Sunday Evenings for the People' and low-priced tickets). Notice how prominent Wagner is here; some concerts had chiefly music by Beethoven and Wagner.

[The National Sunday League, which opposed the strict sabbatarian principles of the Lord's Day Observance Society, advocated modest and appropriate recreational activities on Sundays. It was established in the autumn of 1855 survived until the 1939—45 war, by which time underlying processes of social change had accomplished the League's aims.]