A palm court is a large atrium with palm trees, usually in a prestigious hotel, where functions are staged, notably tea dances. Examples include the

Langham Hotel The Langham, London, is one of the largest and best known traditional-style grand hotels in London, England. It is situated in the district of Marylebone on Langham Place, London, Langham Place and faces up Portland Place towards Regent's Park. ...

(1865),

Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...

(1873), the Carlton Hotel (1899), and the Ritz Hotel (1906), all in London; and the

Alexandria Hotel The Hotel Alexandria is a historic building constructed as a luxury hotel at the beginning of the 20th century in what was then the heart of downtown Los Angeles. As the business center of the city moved gradually westward, the hotel decayed and g ...

(court added in 1911) in Los Angeles, Palace Hotel, San Francisco and the

Plaza Hotel The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, a ...

in New York City. Capitalizing on their popularity, some

ocean liner An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). Ca ...

s also had palm courts, notably the RMS ''Titanic'' (1912).

Palm Court music

Light orchestras proliferated in the holiday resorts and spas of Europe from the late 1800s. By the start of the 20th century most luxury hotels, cruise ships, department store restaurants and cafes employed small orchestras or chamber groups to entertain their patrons.Shepherd, John (ed.):
Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
' (2003), Volume 2, p. 51 The Savoy Hotel in London, for instance, catered for the elite of English society and to visiting foreigners. "Sedate couples on the dance floor would enjoy waltzing to ''The Valeta'' and '' Destiny'', with perhaps an occasional two-step in between". At the Savoy in the 1920s, Carroll Gibbons directed two orchestras: Carroll Gibbons and the Boy Friends provided light music for afternoon tea in the Thames Foyer, while the

Savoy Orpheans The Savoy Orpheans is a British dance band currently led by Alex Mendham. They were resident at the Savoy Hotel, London. The band was formed by Debroy Somers, an ex-army bandmaster, in 1923. Both the Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band were unde ...

played dance music in the evenings, with a nod towards jazz. Palm_Court_seen_from_corridor_page_138

The name palm court orchestra, a small orchestra playing light classical music, comes from this root. In the UK, broadcast relays of light music from The Grand Hotel Eastbourne by the BBC began in 1925 with an orchestra under the direction of the violinist Albert Sandler (1906-1948). (The hotel didn't have a palm court, the lounge hall was used for the relays).'Grand Hotel' at ''Masters of Melody"''
/ref> Alfredo Campoli founded his similar "Salon Orchestra" in the 1930s. By 1942 Sandler was billed as directing "The Palm Court Orchestra", actually made up from a unit of the BBC London Studio Players, a pool of musicians put together in 1941 to form ensembles of different sizes on demand. The ensemble secured a regular broadcast slot on Sunday evenings on the programme ''Grand Hotel'' which ran from 1943 until 1973. Tom Jenkins (from 1946) and Jean Pougnet were later conductors of the Palm Court Orchestra. Max Jaffa was leader from 1956, and also performed as a member of the Palm Court Trio with Jack Byfield (piano) and Reginald Kilbey (cello). Reginald Leopold followed on from Jaffa with a 17 year stint at the orchestra. The fourth movement of

Samuel Barber Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Proba ...

's ballet suite ''Souvenirs'' (1950) is titled 'Two-Step (Tea in the Palm Court)'. Originally for piano four hands, it was orchestrated in 1952. Barber wrote of the suite: "One might imagine a divertissement in a setting of the Palm Court of the Hotel Plaza in New York, the year about 1914, epoch of the first tangos." Lennox Berkeley's ''Palm Court Waltz'', Op. 81 No 2 (1971) is an orchestral work written for an entertainment put on at the London Coliseum by Richard Buckle, and arranged for piano duet in 1971.
Sir Lennox Berkeley: A Centenary Tribute
', Hyperion CDH55135 (2003)

References

{{reflist Hotel terminology

Palm Court music

See also

References