The Living Tradition - A brief history of the Melbourne Town Hall organs and organists from 1869 to 1995 by Thomas Heywood -- continued -- page 6.

Five years after the opening concert, David Lee was appointed as the first Melbourne City Organist in April 1877 and he held this position for 20 years until his death in 1897 at the age of 60. Throughout his tenure, Lee performed two concerts every week at the Town Hall which were highly acclaimed and well attended, and he was in great demand to perform opening concerts on new organs throughout Victoria. He also performed the opening concert on the Hill organ in the Adelaide Town Hall in October 1877 and travelled widely, including visits to Europe in 1874 and 1887. The repertoire performed at Lee's concerts in the Melbourne Town Hall had wide public appeal and his programmes were carefully selected from the finest classical and romantic music. Throughout his career he had also held a number of musical appointments in various city and suburban churches, and he became one of Australia's most sought-after concert performers.

The first visit to the Melbourne Town Hall by a famous visiting concert organist occurred in 1890 when William Thomas Best (1826-1897), renowned as the finest and most famous concert organist of the nineteenth century, visited Australia. W.T. Best arrived in Melbourne in late March 1890 and travelled immediately to Sydney where he eventually opened, after several delays, the new Hill organ in the Sydney Town Hall. He performed an immensely successful concert at the Melbourne Town Hall on Monday 8 September 1890 and there is a wealth of information in the Melbourne newspapers concerning Best's visit which was one of the most newsworthy items in the city at that time.

Following David Lee's death at the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra on 12 May 1897, the next major organ concerts occurred in 1903 when Edwin Henry Lemare (1865-1934) visited Australia. Edwin H. Lemare, acclaimed as the greatest concert organist of the twentieth century, visited Melbourne in late 1903 and after playing the Town Hall organ, declared that the mechanical key and stop action was out of date and unplayable. The Hill organ was now 31 years old and was in urgent need of rebuilding. Lemare was appalled to find the sharps on the pedal board virtually worn down to the naturals and the action of the organ made the instrument unacceptably heavy to play. Accordingly, Lemare recommended that the action be changed to the modern electro-pneumatic system.

Following Lemare's advise, the Melbourne City Council set aside the funds for a complete rebuild of the organ and Lemare himself was appointed as Organ Consultant. However, reports had also been obtained from experts in Victoria and England as to the improvements and changes necessary. The City Council reported that "owing to the great advancement and progress of organ building, the action in the organ, built by William Hill of London, and opened in 1872, had become out of date tonally and mechanically."

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