City in England. It is musically distinguished by a strong choral tradition and was an important centre of brass band activity. Its earlier prosperity was due to the wool trade and to rapid and varied development during the Industrial Revolution. In 1786 a three-manual organ by Donaldson of Newcastle upon Tyne was installed in the 15th-century parish church of St Peter as a necessary preliminary to performing Handel’s oratorios. On 30 June 1802 Edward Miller of Doncaster conducted a festival of Handel’s works in the church. Bradford singers as well as three instrumentalists took part in the first Yorkshire Musical Festival in 1823, by which time a large choral society – described as a ‘Musical Friendly Society’ – had been in existence for two years. This organization was formed from the choirs responsible for the performance of hymns and Handel choruses at Sunday School anniversaries. When various ameliorative factory acts were passed there was more opportunity for workers to participate in choral music, and by the mid-19th century choral music was flourishing; in addition to the (Old) Choral Society, formed from the Friendly Society in 1843, there were the Classical Harmonists, the Gentlemen’s Glee Club, the Church Choral Society and a male-voice Choral Union. For Mendelssohn’s Elijah singers were brought in from Leeds.
In 1815 Peter Wharton, a woollen manufacturer, formed a brass and reed band from among his employees. Five years later a group of players known by the old title of ‘waits’ was licensed to perform in Bradford. The John Foster & Son Black Dyke Mills Band, directly descended from Wharton’s band, was formed in 1855; a century later it had become one of the best bands in the country. George Haddock, a skilled amateur violinist and collector of old instruments, was host to distinguished performers including J.D. Loder and Ole Bull at his country house, Newlay Hall. Later resident in Bradford, he participated in choral concerts, gave violin lessons and formed a string quartet that performed in the Mechanics’ Institute and the old Exchange Buildings.
In 1846 wealthy German immigrants active in the wool trade and resident in Bradford (among them Delius’s father, Julius) founded a Liedertafel similar to that already established in Manchester; its activity was short-lived, although it enjoyed a brief renascence in conjunction with the local Schiller-Verein under the direction of Emil Schlesinger. On 31 August 1853 the new St George’s Hall (containing a fine Hill organ) was opened, filling the need for a building adequate for large-scale musical performances. The first significant Bradford music festival then took place, conducted by Costa, with a chorus of 220 and an orchestra of 85. Three years later there was a second festival, resulting in the formation of the Festival Choral Society; the first conductor was the chorus master William Jackson of Masham. The qualities of this chorus were so highly regarded that in 1858 they were invited to sing before the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace, and to participate in concerts at the Crystal Palace and St James’s Hall. A year later the third and last Bradford music festival took place. The Festival Choir nevertheless continued to exist along with the Old Choral Society, and in 1860, supported by local instrumentalists, undertook a two-day Handel Festival in Durham Cathedral. Frederic Cliffe was accompanist to the Festival Choir from 1873 to 1876. With the advent of the ‘prize singing’ for glee singers, held in 1864 in the Temperance Hall, a competitive spirit was introduced into local choral activity. In 1875 a Glee Union and in 1882 a St Cecilia Society were founded. The feeling that large-scale performances were excellent in themselves gave rise to numerous oversized choirs, none more so than the body estimated to have comprised 30,000 which, to the accompaniment of 5000 instrumentalists, took part in a ceremony in Peel Park in 1880. 500 Bradford singers were part of the chorus engaged for the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1925.
Concerts of a more general kind were organized by the Harmonic Society in 1818. Until the building of St George’s Hall, concerts took place in the Court House, the Mechanics’ Institute, or the hall of the Exchange Buildings (1828), where concerts of the short-lived Philharmonic Society (1831–7) were given. In 1847 an interest in chamber music was stimulated by the String Quartet Party, keenly promoted by the German community. However, as a result of the xenophobia rampant in 1914, the Germans were compelled to reduce their activity in local affairs, and Samuel Midgley, a local musician, took on the organization of chamber music concerts from 1911 until 1924. Six years later the Bradford Music Club, responsible for recitals in the Midland Hotel ballroom, was founded by Keith Douglas. Recitals take place from time to time in the university, and in 1976 a chamber orchestra, the Yorkshire Sinfonia, was formed under the violinist Manoug Parikian.
The opening of St George’s Hall in 1853 raised hopes that there might be a significant provision of music for the poorer citizens. On 28 April 1858 the Bradford Amateur Musical Society, conducted by Schlesinger, gave a concert ‘for the relief of the unemployed poor of Bradford’. The Hallé Orchestra from Manchester first played in Bradford in 1858 and its association with the town remained firm thereafter, to the disadvantage of those who attempted to establish an independent professional orchestra in Bradford (e.g. the failure of the Permanent Orchestra, originally formed from an earlier group of professional players that disbanded in 1892). When the Hallé Orchestra gave the first performance in Bradford of Delius’s Appalachia in 1913, the Musical Times commented that ‘it seemed a rather belated introduction of the composer to his native place’. Bradford, however, was well served when the Subscription Concerts were established in 1865; the committee included Julius Delius. In 1926 St George’s Hall became a cinema and until its restoration and acquisition by the municipality in 1952–3 the Eastbrook Hall was used for concerts. Opera had a sporadic existence: companies from London visited the town in 1856 and 1861, and on 17 April 1876 the Carl Rosa Company gave the opening performance of the Prince’s Theatre. On 6 February 1923 Beecham’s British National Opera Company began its career with a performance of Aida in Bradford.
As a result of its cultivation in the early Sunday schools and in churches, music was given a prominent place in education. Religious music suitable for teaching purposes was available from publishers in other Yorkshire towns; Bradford contributed through the issue of Lyra ecclesiastica in 1844. Bradford was one of the first towns to provide elementary schools with pianos. In 1892 a national conference on the subject of school songs was held and in 1908 a syllabus for vocal music was issued by the education committee. 20 years later Charles Hooper, music adviser to the education committee, was promoting a wider view of school music by arranging for pupils in the city schools to have the opportunity for instrumental tuition. In 1919 St Peter’s church was made the cathedral of a new diocese; Hooper became its organist in 1938. In 1966 the University of Bradford was founded; it supports a music fellowship. In partnership with the firm of J. Wood & Sons Ltd, the Bradford computing organ was developed there.
A week-long festival to honour the 50th anniversary of Delius’s death was held in Bradford in May 1985, postponed from 1984 on account of the refurbishment of St George’s Hall.
Bradford Harmonic Society Rules (Bradford, 1818)
[W. Cudworth]: Musical Reminiscences of Bradford, Reprinted from the ‘Bradford Observer’ (Bradford, 1885)
G. Haddock: Supplement to Leeds College of Music Quarterly News (April 1898)
G.F. Sewell: A History of the Bradford Festival Choral Society (Bradford, 1907)
J.S. Smith: The Life of William Jackson of Masham, the Miller Musician (Leeds, 1926)
Bradford: the Growth and Development of a Great City 1847–1947 (Bradford, 1947)
G. Weerth: Streitleiter auf Old England (Leipzig, 1963)
T.L. Cooper: Brass Bands of Yorkshire (Clapham, Yorks., 1974)
PERCY M. YOUNG