Items from our Heritage Collection
Aeolian Orchestra
The orchestra's music has been largely inaccessible for the past 6 years following the sudden closure of the Leys Institute facilities in December 2019. At the beginning of 2025 it had to be moved from the cupboards in the upstairs hall down to the adjoining gymnasium to allow for urgent roof repairs. The 33 boxes of heritage material are now in the process of further temporary relocation in preparation for the building remediation project, which will run from 2026 to 2028.
The gymnasium has been stripped bare, and an industrial dehumidifying unit keeps a variety of heritage items in good order 24/7, including our music. Our conductor’s wooden music stand had been in the library, but its location is currently uncertain. During our work before Christmas a bunch of very old music folders were found sitting with some of the stored material. They’re in very poor condition and don’t have the name of the orchestra they belonged to.
However, they rang a bell with me, especially one that has a treble clef
hand-drawn in pencil on the cover.
This reminded me of a photo of the Aeolian Orchestra I found many years
ago from the Auckland Library Sir George Grey Special Collection. It was
either taken after they changed their name from the Auckland Amateur
Musical Club in 1925, or the logo was added to an earlier photo.
Nearly half of our heritage music comprises music used by the Aeolian Orchestra in the 1920s and 1930s before the group disbanded prior to World War II.
The Conductor’s folder has a name and address on the inside front cover. The address (18 Nixon St, Grey Lynn) in central Auckland is handy to performance venues and churches, and is pretty much where the Newton Rd offramp is now.
The name at first sight looked to be Max Britnall, but internet searches were unsuccessful until Bretnall was tried. Bingo! Max Bretnall appears in newspaper advertisements from the late 1920s as a performer on the cello and double bass, and teacher of the piano, cello, string bass, saxophone and later also the piano accordion and violin! From the mid-1930s he advertised his services as a tuner and repairer of pianos and organs, until his name was drawn in first ballot for service in the territorial armed forces in October 1940.
Looking at the orchestra photo again more closely, the conductor’s stand looks remarkably similar to our conductor’s stand. The players also appear to have wooden stands of similar construction, but these don't appear to have survived.
Bottom right: Leys Orchestra conductor’s stand handed down from conductor to conductor. In 1990 it had a borer infestation and became more unstable over time. In the mid-2000s it was repaired by Fred Thomas, the past Mayor of Takapuna, and husband of long serving orchestra viola player, Mary Thomas.
Discovering the orchestra's history is a wonderful and surprising journey. Artefacts like the photograph, the music folders and the music stand help piece together the musical life of early Auckland.
Of course, it's perfectly possible for the folders to have belonged to another group entirely, and the conductor music stand to have a different origin.
More investigation is definitely required . . .
— David Britten
Dec 2025