Chester.

English city. The former medieval monastery of Chester became a cathedral church in 1541 and among the more notable of its organists have been Robert White (1567–c1570), Robert Stevenson (c1570–c1600), Thomas Bateson (1599–1609) and J.C. Bridge (1877–1925). The madrigalist Francis Pilkington was a ‘conduct’ (lay clerk) of the cathedral from 1602 to about 1612, and then a minor canon until his death. William Lawes was killed at the siege of Chester in 1645 while fighting on the royalist side in the Civil War. Charles Burney was a schoolboy at the Free School (later the King’s School, Chester), and occasionally deputized for Edmund Baker, then the cathedral organist.

The city was on the route from London to Dublin, and here Handel stayed for several days at the Golden Falcon in November 1741 waiting for his ship to Ireland. Burney, in his ‘Sketch of the Life of Handel’ prefixed to his Commemoration of Handel (1785), tells how the parts of Messiah were tried over in Chester at this time; the reliability of his recollection has, however, been called into question (see D. Burrows, ML, lvi, 1975, p.323).

In 1772 Chester joined the number of provincial centres holding ‘music meetings’ or festivals when a four-day event was organized by Edward Orme, the cathedral organist, who had already promoted concerts in the city. The conductor was William Hayes; on three mornings in the cathedral Handel’s Messiah, Samson and Judas Maccabaeus were performed, and on one evening a ‘Concert of Select Musick’ was given in the Exchange Hall. The soloists in the oratorios included ‘the two Miss Linleys’ (Elizabeth and Mary), and at the secular concert ‘Mr [Thomas] Linley, Jnr, distinguished himself as one of the greatest masters of the Violin which this nation has produced’ (Chester Courant, 23 June 1772). Further festivals were held in 1783, 1786, 1791, 1806, 1814, 1821 and 1829. Like other such events elsewhere in the provinces at that time, these conformed largely to the pattern by then regular at the Three Choirs Festivals, with their emphasis on the cathedral performances of Handel’s music, miscellaneous evening concerts in the city, and balls and social events. Similar leading vocalists and orchestral players to those who performed at Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester were also found at Chester, but the conductor, by contrast, came from London, the festival of 1783 being conducted by Knyvett and the last four festivals by Greatorex. (For fuller details, see ‘Chester Musical Festival’, Grove5.) On the initiative of J.C. Bridge, festivals at Chester based in the cathedral were reinstated in 1879, and were held triennially up to and including 1900, all conducted by Bridge. Special organs were built for some of the festivals, notably one in 1829 by Samuel Renn; it is now lost, but most of the pipes are preserved in the Netherlands. The Chester SO, founded by Aidan Woodcock in 1966, participated in the festivals but was disbanded in the 1980s. Other performing groups include the Chester Cathedral Choir, the Chester Bach Singers and the St Cecilia Singers.

The practice of holding music festivals in conjunction with performances of the Chester Mystery Plays continued until the 1970s. Since then, mystery plays have been performed separately every five years. The Chester Summer Music Festival was established in 1977 and is held each July for two weeks; it has its own choir and orchestra and also brings guest choirs, orchestras and soloists to the city. It has commissioned works by prominent composers including Richard Rodney Bennett (1984), Odaline de la Martinez (1985), Judith Bingham (1991) and John Tavener (1992). In 1996 an International Mozart Festival was organized under the direction of H.C. Robbins Landon.

Stray references survive to the band of three or four waits which the city of Chester employed from the 15th century to the 17th. The city museum possesses a celebrated quartet of recorders by Bressan – treble, alto, tenor and bass – and a further alto one in E by the same maker. In 1684 ‘Father’ Smith built a one-manual organ of ten stops, including a trumpet, for the cathedral at a price of £310 (see W. Shaw, The Organ, li, 1971–2, p.26). In the second half of the 18th century Snetzler added a new trumpet stop and a choir organ, and in this form the instrument did duty until 1844, when it found its way to St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, Valletta, Malta. Gray & Davison’s 1844 instrument, which replaced it, was removed by George Gilbert Scott in his monumental restoration of the cathedral. A new organ was built by Charles Whiteley and Co. of Chester in 1876; a rebuilding by Wm. Hill & Son in 1910 was notable for an early form of electro-pneumatic action which, powered by a car battery, continued to work reliably until 1969, when Rushworth & Dreaper rebuilt the organ. A series of weekly recitals was inaugurated in 1973, and continues to attract large audiences, with performers from around the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J.C. Bridge: ‘Two Chester Madrigal Writers’, Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological, and Historic Society for the County and City of Chester and North Wales, new ser., vi (1899), 60

J.C. Bridge: ‘The Chester Recorders’, PMA, xxvii (1900–01), 109–20

‘The Organ of Chester Cathedral’, Musical Standard (11 Jan 1902)

J.C. Bridge: ‘The Organists of Chester Cathedral’, Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological, and Historic Society for the County and City of Chester and North Wales, new ser., xix (1913), 63–124

J.C. Bridge: ‘Town Waits and their Tunes’, PMA, liv (1927–8), 63–92

A. Freeman: ‘The Organs of Chester Cathedral’, The Organ, xiii (1933–4), 129–40

J. Belcher: The Organs of Chester Cathedral (Chester, 1970)

WATKINS SHAW/ROGER FISHER