The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Archive

The archive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic dates back to the organisation’s earliest days in 1840.

The concert programmes (almost 6,000 in number) comprise the largest section, but the archive is also rich in photographs, correspondence, press cuttings, minute books and architects’ plans.

Of particular interest are the autograph books, which were signed by visiting musicians (and sometimes writers) such as Rachmaninov, Elgar, Walton, Britten, Saint-Saëns, Bruch, Dickens, Thackeray, Melba, Lind, Tetrazzini and Furtwängler. Thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, an archivist has been employed to catalogue the archive, which will be available in the Liverpool Record Office from February 2008. There will also be an exhibition to launch the archive in the Picton Library at that time.

For more details on the archive, please see the Liverpool Record Office website.

Archive at the Phil
In the Grand Foyer at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall there is an exhibition of photographs which have been reproduced from the archive. To view a sample of this exhibition online, see our Archive Photographs.

You can also view a fascimile of our autograph book, which includes some of the famous signatures from the archive, at the Information Stand during the interval of Orchestra concerts.

Liverpool Phil timeline
Download the timeline of important dates within the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's history since 1840 to the present day.

Performance Archive
We also have an archive of the Orchestra's performances during past seasons. At the moment we have details of the 2006/2007 season, but further seasons will be added soon.