Capital city of Northern Ireland. Belfast was only a settled river-crossing in earlier times. St Comgall (d c602) founded an important monastic centre at Bangor (20 km away) in 555, whose monks brought its rule and learning to Britain and continental Europe: the 7th-century Bangor Antiphonary originated here.
Belfast's prosperity followed its incorporation as a town in 1613. By the 1780s Belfast was a lively music cultural outpost of Dublin. A number of shops sold sheet music and musical instruments. Church organists, theatre musicians, tavern players and military instrumentalists were in demand as music teachers. A Belfast Musical Society, including singers and instrumentalists, flourished between 1768 and 1794. Comic operas performed by visiting groups were popular, and performers from Dublin gave concerts in the Assembly Rooms (erected 1777, cap. 400) from 1784. Subscription concert series in 1787 and 1789 enabled ‘Gentlemen Amateurs’ to supplement visiting soloists and local professionals in performances of music by Haydn, Pleyel, Vanhal and others.
Concern for the preservation of the ‘ancient music’ of Ireland culminated in the Belfast Harp Festival of July 1792. Edward Bunting (1773–1843) transcribed the pieces performed and was inspired to publish pioneering collections of Irish folksongs. A short-lived Harp Society was established to teach the harpers' skills to poor and blind children. Interest in traditional music waned thereafter despite the formation of Gaelic choirs towards the end of the 19th century, the presence of the folksong collector Carl Hardebeck (1869–1945) in the city between 1893 and 1932 (apart from four years spent in Cork from 1919), and a Gaelic Choir which flourished for many years after its formation in 1943. Traditional music has re-emerged in recent years as entertainment, in community arts programmes and in grant-aided initiatives of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, supplemented by a researcher and a folksong archive at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra.
As Belfast developed into a major industrial centre (it was incorporated as a city in 1888), musical institutions similar to those flourishing elsewhere were established. Touring companies occasionally presented operas in the Theatre Royal during the mid-19th century, but annual opera seasons only became possible when the Grand Opera House opened in 1895. Except for a period during World War II, opera seasons continued there and, after the Grand Opera House became a cinema in 1953, in the Grove Theatre. English ballet companies performed here during the 1950s and 60s. The Grand Opera House had become badly dilapidated by 1972 but resumed its original cultural role after restoration in 1980. The existing operatic society was renamed the Northern Ireland Opera Trust in 1969 and presented an annual season with local chorus and orchestra and visiting soloists; it was re-established as Opera Northern Ireland in 1985 under the directorship of Kenneth Montgomery and presented two seasons annually until its demise in September 1998. The Studio Opera Group, founded by Havelock Nelson (b 1917) in 1950, provided operatic opportunities for local professionals; a Glyndebourne-style opera season has become an annual summer attraction at Castleward House, 41 km away, with a further season at the Grand Opera House.
The Anacreontic Society was founded in 1814 to foster orchestral music. In 1840 public subscription enabled the society to build a New Music Hall (cap. 600) where it gave two or three concerts a year, sometimes with eminent soloists, including Liszt, Piatti and Clara Novello; Jullien brought his orchestra on a number of occasions and also performed in the Botanic Gardens. The New Music Hall was superseded in 1862 by the Ulster Hall (cap. 2000). Weekly organ concerts were a feature and led to the creation of the post of City Organist in 1902. Weekly organ recitals continued until 1936; the tradition was partially revived in 1982.
The demise of the Anacreontic Society in 1866 resulted in sporadic orchestral activity until the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra was established in 1924. It gave public concerts during the 1930s. Orchestral concerts were also presented by visiting English orchestras under famous conductors, including Hallé, Harty, Beecham, Boult and Barbirolli. The City of Belfast Orchestra was established in 1950 and was replaced in 1966 by the chamber-sized Ulster Orchestra, which performed regular concerts in Belfast and provincial towns and accompanied oratorio and opera. In 1981 the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra were amalgamated into an enlarged Ulster Orchestra to perform a wider standard repertory, including contemporary works and regular commissions from Irish-based composers. Under conductors including Bryden Thomson, Vernon Handley, Yan Pascal Tortelier and En Shao, concert and opera performances and an enhanced broadcasting schedule have been supplemented with tours, commercial recordings, school-based music education projects and recitals by orchestra-based chamber ensembles. A new development on Belfast's Laganside in 1997 added a concert hall, the Waterfront Hall (cap. 2500), and a smaller hall, the BT Studio (cap. 600), to the existing provision.
The Classical Harmonists, the first successful choral society, flourished between 1851 and 1874 and had a profound effect on Belfast's musical life. It collapsed due to the severe financial burdens in importing orchestral musicians after the demise of the Anacreontic Society, which had formerly supplied the orchestra. The Belfast Philharmonic Society, formed in 1874, attained a high position under such conductors as Francis Koeller (1887–1912) and Edward Godfrey Brown (1912–50); it performed four or five choral concerts annually and attracted excellent musicians to Belfast. Smaller amateur vocal and choral groups, together with operatic and musical societies, have continued to appear, exploring a wide range of musical genres.
A municipal school of music for schoolchildren was established in 1965; this has been replicated throughout Northern Ireland. Instrumental playing has blossomed and a number of youth choirs, bands and orchestras present regular concerts. The Arts Council supports youth musical initiatives including the Ulster Community Youth Jazz Orchestra, the Ulster Youth Theatre and, since 1994, the Ulster Youth Orchestra. Adult amateur instrumentalists perform in the Studio SO (founded by Havelock Nelson in 1950) and Queen's University Orchestra. Brass bands, flute bands and symphonic wind bands thrive; most of these originated in church organizations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Hamilton Harty Chair of Music was founded at Queen's University in 1947; professors have included Ivor Keys, Philip Cranmer, Raymond Warren, David Greer, Adrian Thomas and Jan Smaczny. Recitals and concerts are given by students, professionals and resident ensembles in the Whitla Hall, Harty Room and Elmwood Hall. The appointment of composers-in-residence since the mid-1970s has encouraged the development of Belfast as a centre of contemporary composition. The School of Music of the University of Ulster at Jordanstown (founded as the Northern Ireland Polytechnic in 1968) has also contributed to this development; directors there have included Donald Cullington, Layton Ring and Hilary Bracefield. Professional and amateur concerts and recitals are regularly given at Jordanstown and at its sister campus in Coleraine.
Queen's University Festival, a three-week event held annually in November since 1964, includes orchestral concerts, chamber recitals, ballet and opera, and jazz, popular, traditional and world music events. Other events include annual festivals of early music and of contemporary music at Queen's University, summer promenade concerts promoted by Belfast City Council (which replaced Belfast Corporation in 1973), chamber music recitals promoted by the Belfast Music Society (formed in 1920) and weekly lunchtime recitals promoted by BBC Northern Ireland. The Belfast Musical Festival, an annual competitive event, was established in 1908.
G. Benn: History of Belfast (Belfast, 1823, 2/1877)
J. Bernard: Retrospection of the Stage (London, 1830)
J.C. Beckett and R.E. Glasscock, eds.: Belfast: the Origin and Growth of an Industrial City (London, 1967)
B.F. Curtis: Music in Belfast in the 19th Century (diss., Queen's U., Belfast, 1969)
J. Harbison: ‘The Belfast Harpers' Meeting, 1792: the Legacy’, Ulster Folklife, xxxv (1989), 113–28
M. Leydon, ed.: Belfast, City of Song (Dingle, 1989)
D. Greer: ‘Elgar in Belfast’, Elgar Society Journal, x (1998), 167–76
PETER DOWNEY