Scottish city. Located on the river Clyde, it has been a university city since 1451 and the largest city in Scotland since about 1800. It is the home of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Scottish SO, Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet. It is also the base of BBC radio and television in Scotland as well as the independent Scottish Television.
A set of services for the feast day of Glasgow’s patron saint, St Kentigern (or Mungo; bur. early 7th century), in the 13th-century Sprouston Breviary (GB-En) has many antiphons of great beauty, in monodic chant on 11th- and 12th-century texts. St Mungo’s own church bell was worn out by the 17th century, but a similar 9th-century quadrangular Celtic bell survives in nearby Dumbarton. The 12th-century Parisian material in the St Andrews Music Book was probably known in Glasgow, as Robert Bernham (c1200–1253), later bishop of St Andrews, was a precentor at Glasgow Cathedral in the 1230s; in that post he would have been in charge of the vicars choral and the music library. The dedicatory stone of a 15th-century building declares it to have been built ‘for the priests who serve the flourishing choir of Glasgow’.
The earliest reference to organs in Glasgow dates from 1520, when the Maister of the Sang Schule, John Paniter, was required to deputize for his organist. The third prebendary at St Mary and St Anne in 1539 taught the organ to the boys of the song school as well as Gregorian chant, discant and part-singing. The Reformation silenced all Glasgow’s organs until the 18th century and had a devastating effect on music in general; but in 1638 the city council allowed the composer Duncan Burnett to begin teaching again ‘seeing that the musik school is altogether dekayit within this burgh to the great discredit of this citie’. Burnett’s pupils would have known the keyboard music of William Kinloch and other late 16th-century composers, collected in the Duncan Burnett Book (En). The late 17th century and the early 18th were largely barren of musical activity. In 1756, hoping to improve psalm singing in the churches the city magistrates funded free music lessons for parishioners of good character. No organs were used until 1785, when the Episcopal chapel acquired a Snetzler organ from Edinburgh and employed a music teacher. Presbyterians described the church as ‘the Whistlin’ Kirk’, and it is unlikely that many of them attended the concerts given there; but in 1798 the newly formed Sacred Music Institution gave a vocal concert in the cathedral with organ accompaniment – possibly the first use of an organ in a Scottish Presbyterian church since the 1630s. Apart from occasional appearances by the violinist William McGibbon, the 18th century saw little instrumental music or concert promotion. The burning of the New Concert Hall in 1764 ‘by a riotous company of enthusiasts’ need not, however, be taken as an attack on music, the term ‘concert hall’ being applied to what were really theatres to circumvent a nationwide ban on theatrical entertainment. Concerts were given in weekly alternation with dancing and card parties in 1777, some of the musicians coming from Edinburgh.
With the industrialization of the late 18th century and the 19th, Glasgow expanded rapidly and musical provision consequently improved. James Aird (c1750–1795) began publishing music in 1782, and the Gentlemen’s Subscription Concerts started in 1799; by 1821 they were making their programmes more accessible to the general public. Vocal music burgeoned with choirs and concerts organized by the precentors of the numerous churches, and glee clubs such as the Glasgow Larks (1805) run by William Euing (1788–1874). The Amateur Musical Society was founded in 1831, the Philharmonic Society in 1832 and the Choral Society in 1833. The Caledonian Theatre, opened in 1823, mounted occasional opera performances; in 1848 Jenny Lind sang there in La sonnambula and La fille du régiment. The short-lived City Theatre, opened and then destroyed by fire in 1845, gave The Bohemian Girl and Der Freischütz.
A new City Hall was opened in 1841, and in 1843 the Glasgow Musical Association was formed; on 2 April 1844 it gave the first Glasgow performance of Handel’s Messiah. It became the Glasgow Choral Union in 1855 and held oratorio festivals in 1860 and 1873. In 1874 it formed the Glasgow Choral Union Orchestra, which gave an annual eight-week season. In 1877 the opening of St Andrew’s Hall, its acoustics among the finest in the world, doubled the audience capacity. In 1877 and 1878 the orchestra gave a series of weekly concerts under Hans von Bülow. August Manns conducted it from 1879 and introduced works by British composers, including the Scots MacCunn and MacKenzie: he conducted Berlioz’s Grande messe des morts in 1885. A rival group, Scottish Orchestra, was formed in 1891, giving 26-week seasons; the two merged in 1898 as the Scottish Orchestra. Among musicians to perform in the City Hall were Joachim, Paderewski, Sarasate, Busoni and two Glasgow-born pianists, Eugen d’Albert and Frederic Lamond. In 1902 the Glasgow Corporation promoted popular concerts there at nominal charges and children’s concerts were initiated. The Glasgow Orpheus Choir (1901–1951), conducted by Hugh Robertson, achieved international renown. It was succeeded by the Phoenix Choir, but the number of choral societies in Glasgow had dropped dramatically by the late 20th century. The Scottish Orchestra became the Scottish National Orchestra in 1950, with a full-time rather than seasonal schedule. In 1992 it became the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Its 20th-century conductors included Barbirolli, Susskind, Rankl, Swarowsky and, from 1959, Alexander Gibson (the first Scot to hold the post). Gibson inaugurated the Musica Viva concert series, which ran from 1959 to 1961 and gave premières of works by Scottish composers, notably Thea Musgrave, Iain Hamilton and Thomas Wilson (ii), as well as the British premières of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto and Stockhausen’s Gruppen. St Andrew’s Hall was destroyed by fire in 1962. In 1990 the Royal Concert Hall was opened, its auditorium seating nearly 2500.
The BBC Scottish Orchestra, founded in 1935, was the first full-time professional orchestra in Scotland. Its long association with the conductor and composer Ian Whyte established its credentials in the performance of contemporary music, and it expanded, notably under Norman Del Mar (from 1960), becoming the BBC Scottish SO 1967. It tours at home and abroad and has a wider repertory than the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. It has commissioned many works and given many premières, not least from composers active in Glasgow: Wilson (b 1927), Edward McGuire (b 1948), John Geddes (b 1941), William Sweeney (b 1950), Martin Dalby (b 1942) and James Macmillan (b 1959).
From the 1870s Glasgow was an important stop for professional touring opera companies. Italian troupes appeared in 1872 and 1875 and the Carl Rosa company made the first of many visits in 1877, later performing operas by MacKenzie and MacCunn. The Moody-Manners company was active in the city from 1900, and its collection of scores is held in the Mitchell Library. A flourishing music hall brought forward such figures as Will Fyffe (1885–1947) and Harry Lauder (1870–1950). The Royal Colosseum was built in 1867 with 4000 seats, and in 1869 became the Theatre Royal. It burnt down in 1879 and was rebuilt with 3000 seats. Other theatres used for opera included the Lyceum Theatre (opened in about 1897; burnt down 1937), the King’s Theatre (from 1904) and the Coliseum (from 1905), which gave the Ring in the 1920s but then became a cinema. The Glasgow Grand Opera Society was founded in 1905; in 1934 it gave the British première of Mozart’s Idomeneo, and the following year that of Berlioz’s Les troyens. In 1951 it revived MacCunn’s 1894 opera Jeanie Deans. Scottish Opera was established in 1962 by Alexander Gibson, Richard Telfer and Ainslie Millar, later joined by Sidney Newman and Robin Orr. The ballet company that took part in Scottish Opera’s 1969 production of Les troyens had moved from Bristol to Glasgow in 1968, taking the name of Scottish Theatre Ballet; in 1974 it became Scottish Ballet. In the same year, Scottish Opera bought the Theatre Royal which became its permanent base. Its wide and adventurous repertory has included a number of works by Scottish composers, among them Hamilton, Orr, Wilson and Musgrave. The company tours regularly in Scotland, the north of England and abroad.
The music publishing companies of Bayley & Ferguson (founded 1884) and Mozart Allen (founded 1868), both now defunct, led the field in the first half of the 20th century. Music criticism was published on a large scale from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, with generous and thoughtful coverage by such writers as James Webster, including extensive notices of music festivals in other British cities. The Glasgow branch (opened 1857) of Paterson & Sons was dominant among a number of musical instrument manufacturers.
The university instituted a chair of music in 1929. Outstanding among musicologists there was Henry George Farmer. A bequest from John McEwen (d 1948) sustained a series of commissions and concerts devoted to Scottish chamber music. The Athenaeum, founded in 1847 as a literary and scientific club, established the Athenaeum School of Music in 1890, and provided a building for it that included a concert hall. The school became the Scottish National Academy of Music in the 1920s and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in 1944; a drama school was added six years later. The need for a true national conservatory in Scotland was not fully met until after World War II, when Henry Havergal (1902–89; principal 1953–69) was the first principal of the academy not to occupy the university’s chair of music simultaneously. The RSAMD offers degree courses in a full range of subjects including Scottish traditional music. Its opera department, one of its strongest elements, was established in 1968. In 1987 the academy moved to new premises including the Athenaeum Theatre (cap. 344). There are fine music collections in the Mitchell Library (opened 1877), Glasgow University Library and the RSAMD. The Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum has a small but significant collection of musical instruments, as does Dean Castle in nearby Kilmarnock. Glasgow is also the home of the Scottish Music Information Centre (which succeeded the Scottish Music archive in 1985), with unique holding of Scottish music of all types, including a sound archive; and the Piping Centre (1996), which has a small library and museum.
The triennial Musica Nova festival (established 1971) has brought leading composers and their works to Scotland. The biennial Glasgow International Early Music Festival was established in 1990. Among pop groups that have emerged from Glasgow are Simple Minds (established 1976–7), Blue Nile (1979–80), Wet Wet Wet (1984–5) and Deacon Blue (1985).
J. Strang: Glasgow and its Clubs, or Glimpses of the Condition, Manners, Characters & Oddities of the City During the Past & Present Century (London, 1856, 3/1864)
G.W. Baynham: The Glasgow Stage (Glasgow, 1892)
J. Coutts: A History of the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1909)
R. Turnbull: ‘Old Musical Glasgow’, Old Glasgow Club Transactions, iii: 1913–18 (Glasgow, 1919), 206–15
R. Craig: A Short History of the Glasgow Choral Union from its Foundation in 1491 to 1909 (Glasgow, 1944)
The History of the Glasgow Society of Musicians, 1884–1944 (London, 1945)
R.W. Grieg: The Story of the Scottish Orchestra (Glasgow, 1945)
C. Wilson: Scottish Opera: the First Ten Years (London, 1972)
M.H. Hay: Glasgow Theatres and Music Halls (Glasgow, 1980)
C. Oliver: It is a Curious Story: the Tale of Scottish Opera, 1962 to 1987 (Edinburgh, 1987)
K.P. Colville, ed.: The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall: the First Five Years, 1990–1995 (Glasgow, 1995)
JOHN PURSER