City in England. It is one of the most active centres of music in Britain, and has become widely known for the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, held there every three years since 1963, the Leeds Musical Festival with its strong choral tradition, and (since 1978) the productions of Opera North. In the 19th century the parish church became a focal point for reform and enterprise in sacred music. Citizens of Leeds have been involved in cultural activities at every level, and the city’s wealth of musical opportunity testifies to a long tradition of community responsibility.
The first publicly supported musician in Leeds, John Carr, was appointed organist of the parish church of St Peter on the installation of an organ (built by Robert Price of Bristol) in 1714. During Carr’s term, which ended in 1756, occasional concerts were given by visiting virtuosos, mainly in the Assembly Room (seating 400). From 1757 regular subscription concerts were arranged by Carr’s successor, John Crompton. At the peak of these were performances of Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus in the parish church in 1770, of which the proceeds went to Crompton’s benefit. For three years from 1762 William Herschel, the Hanoverian bandmaster, oboist and violinist previously active in Halifax and later famous as an astronomer, conducted annual subscription concerts. The improved standard of choral music by 1768 was marked in the chapel at Holbeck by the patriotic offering of ‘Purcell’s grand Te deum and [Handel’s] grand Coronation Chorus’ for the anniversary of the accession of George III. The popularity of Handel’s music in Yorkshire at that time was enhanced by the publication of the oratorio texts by T. Lesson of Doncaster. After 1771, when the infirmary was opened, the fact that oratorio was thought to have a beneficial influence on the sick very much contributed to its popularity as a form. In 1769 a two-day Handel festival took place in Trinity Church. As elsewhere in England there was a Handel festival in 1784; benefits went to the hospital. Handel festivals in 1793 and 1795 were less successful. As the Assembly Room was too small and the interior of the parish church too awkward for the large-scale performances considered necessary, oratorio musicians of Leeds took part in the festivals in York which were organized primarily for the benefit of the hospitals of the county.
The organist of the parish church from 1791 to 1807 was David Lawton, who in 1795 performed the first (unspecified) piano concerto heard at a subscription concert. The Music Hall (built 1794) in Albion Street was replaced in 1825 by a more ambitious New Music Room, designed in Grecian style by John Clark of Edinburgh. In 1827 an Amateur Society was formed for the purpose of ‘cultivating a more extensive taste for music and ensuring the frequency and success of public concerts’ (The Harmonicon, v, 1827, p.161).
Rapid increase in population, greater prosperity and growing religious tolerance led to the building of many churches and chapels. New organs were installed: in St Paul’s (1820) and Zion Chapel (1826) by Greenwood of Leeds; in St John the Evangelist (1828) by Robinson of Leeds; and in Brunswick Chapel by J. Booth of Wakefield. The specification for the latter was ambitious in tonal design; the congregation approved its installation only after a ballot. Samuel Wesley played three inaugural recitals. After the removal of legislation restricting Catholic worship an organ was installed in the new St Patrick’s Chapel.
In 1837 W.F. Hook (1798–1875) became vicar of Leeds and immediately began a campaign of reform and reconstruction. Between 1839 and 1841 the parish church was rebuilt in Perpendicular style by a local architect, R.D. Chantrell, in accordance with the liturgical requirements of the high church party to which Hook belonged. Though unmusical, Hook was concerned for the proper performance of church music; he invited John Jebb to give a series of lectures in the Church Institute, and on Jebb’s advice appointed James Hill, a lay clerk from St George’s Chapel, Windsor, to train the choir. In the following year Hook instituted a system of payment for choristers and appointed Wesley organist. The standards sustained at Leeds parish church influenced the musical life of the whole community. After publishing his brilliant and revolutionary pamphlet, A Few Words on Cathedral Music and the Musical System of the Church, with a Plan of Reform in 1849, Wesley left for Winchester. His work in Leeds was carried on by his former articled pupil William Spark, who had followed him from Exeter and had become organist of St George’s Church, and by Robert Burton, Wesley’s successor at the parish church. In the middle of the century business and professional citizens began to exert a beneficial influence on the arts. In 1848 ‘Soirées musicales’ encouraged a small and distinguished membership to read through unfamiliar music: at the first meeting, for example, a ‘selection from Purcell’s King Arthur and Tempest pieces but little known in the country’. The next year, on Spark’s proposal, a Madrigal and Motet Society (from 1867 the Choral Society) was founded.
A new chapter in the musical history of Leeds began with the opening in 1858 of the town hall, designed in classical style by Cuthbert Broderick, with an organ – built to Spark’s specification and at which he presided for more than 40 years – by Gray & Davison. In the same year the first of what was intended to be a series of triennial festivals took place. Complex rivalries between choirs meant that the second festival, conducted by Michael Costa, was not held until 1874. Arthur Sullivan was appointed conductor of the next festival in 1880, after which it was held every third year (from 1970 every second year). Sullivan conducted on seven occasions, and resigned the appointment only when his health demanded it. During his era the Leeds Festival assumed international status with new works commissioned from such composers as Raff, Dvořák, Massenet, Humperdinck, Parry, Stanford, Elgar and Sullivan himself. Sullivan included unfamiliar works by the madrigalists and by Palestrina, Bach, Handel and Mozart, and ensured they were interpreted according to the latest ideas of performing practice. At the 1880 festival the progress of science was marked by the electric lighting of the town hall and – even more – by the transmission of some of the performance to neighbouring towns over land-line by the National Telephone Company.
From the turn of the century choral performance suffered as a result of complacency; an irascible Stanford, after conducting the festival of 1901, wrote a powerful criticism of chorus and chorus master to the Lord Mayor. Stanford conducted two more festivals. Thereafter came a succession of virtuoso conductors, none, however, with full organizational responsibility. Elgar’s Caractacus (1898) and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (1931) both had their premières in Leeds, the latter conducted by Malcolm Sargent. The centenary festival in 1958 was directed by the Earl of Harewood. The festival chorus, which draws members from all over West Yorkshire and on which much of the success of the festival has traditionally depended, has had many fine chorus masters, among them Herbert Bardgett, who achieved a wide reputation.
In the late 19th century musical institutions became more numerous. The Leeds Philharmonic Society, founded by T. Dobbs in 1870, was first conducted by James Broughton and then by his brother Alfred (both were chorus masters for the festival at different times). In 1896 Adolph Beyschlag, previously engaged in Mainz, Frankfurt, Belfast and Manchester, was appointed conductor of what the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung at the time described as ‘the famous Yorkshire choir’. He was succeeded by Stanford, who conducted the society from 1897 to 1909, during which time performances were given in London and Paris; later conductors included Fricker, Bairstow and Sargent. In 1895 there was a choral contest, adjudicated by C.H. Lloyd, under the aegis of the Leeds Prize Musical Union. Alfred Benton, organist of the parish church, assisted by H.C. Embleton, a wealthy amateur and friend of Elgar, formed in 1886 the Leeds Choral Union, which travelled widely in England and visited France and Germany before being disbanded in 1939; Henry Coward, the most notable choral director of his day, was among its conductors. In 1950 Melville Cooke, organist of the parish church, established the Leeds Guild of Singers, comprising 26 members, so that the Bach bicentenary performances could bear some relation to authentic standards.
In the 19th century chamber music soirées and musical evenings were organized by George Haddock, owner of a famous collection of historic violins, and his brother Thomas. Recitals and concerts are regularly given in the art gallery and in the town hall under the aegis of the city council, and also in the summer in the Long Gallery of Temple Newsam House. In 1963 the International Pianoforte Competition was established through the enterprise of a local teacher, Fanny Waterman, and Marion Thorpe (then Countess of Harewood). Winners have included Michael Roll, Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia.
From its inception the Leeds Festival depended on London for its orchestra, a fact reflecting the somewhat chequered history of orchestral music in what was for so long a choral stronghold. An amateur West Riding Orchestral Union was active in the 1840s but after the town hall had been opened it was considered that the magnificent organ, built at a cost of £5000, should do all that an orchestra could for normal occasions, and less expensively. The organists of Leeds, however, had their own ideas: Spark instituted Saturday evening orchestral concerts in the town hall, and Robert Burton ‘Saturday Pops’ at the Coliseum. The social necessity of musical recreation had been pointed out in 1853 by the ‘Rational Recreation Society’. This body had sought to arrange cheap concerts for the workers of the area, but found that support came from the more prosperous middle class, and later provided Herbert Fricker, the city organist, with audiences for his Saturday Orchestral Concerts, begun in 1903. By that time competition for the talents of more modest music-makers came from the brass bands of the neighbourhood, prominent among which was the Leeds Forge Band, founded by Samson Fox of Harrogate, benefactor of the Royal College of Music. Fricker’s organization merged into the Leeds SO, and in 1928 this became the Northern PO (conducted 1933–7 by John Barbirolli). In 1945 the city council and certain neighbouring authorities began to consider maintaining a full-time professional orchestra at an estimated cost of £50,000 a year. Two years later the Yorkshire SO (conductor Maurice Miles) was founded; despite high aims and promising beginnings, the enterprise came to an end in 1955, largely through local rivalries and loyalties to other organizations such as the Hallé Orchestra, which had a long involvement in Yorkshire musical life. Throughout that period the Leeds Symphony Society (founded in 1890), successor to the Amateur Orchestral Society, maintained a high standard of amateur competence; since 1970 its conductor has been Martin Blake. In 1977 David Lloyd-Jones, artistic director of the newly-formed Opera North (see §3 below), established the English Northern Philharmonia as its resident orchestra.
The Grand Theatre, at the time one of the largest in the country, with seating for 2600, opened in 1878 to accommodate such touring companies as the Carl Rosa and D’Oyly Carte. The first Ring cycle given in the English provinces was staged in Leeds by the Denhof Opera Company in 1911. The British National (1923) and Covent Garden (1955) opera companies included the city on their tours. West Riding Opera, an ambitious amateur company, was founded in 1954, giving an annual production in the Civic Theatre conducted from 1978 by Martin Blake, conductor of the Leeds SO. In 1977, with the support of the city (which had taken over the Grand Theatre in 1971) and the Arts Council, Opera North (initially English National Opera North) was founded and given the Grand Theatre as its base. The first artistic director and conductor was David Lloyd-Jones; he was succeeded as music director by Paul Daniel. The company’s success has helped to encourage other cultural institutions to move from London. By 1995 Opera North had staged more than 100 operas. Many modern works have been introduced by, among others, Berg, Britten, Delius, Krenek, Stravinsky, Tippett and Walton. In 1994 the company had a spectacular success with Benedict Mason’s Playing Away, an opera set in the world of contemporary soccer.
From the early 18th century music publishers abounded in Leeds, at first publishing mostly sacred music. John Penrose published The Psalm-tunes in 4 Parts (4th edn., rev. A. Barker) in 1700, John Swale A Collection of Psalm Tunes in 1718 and Thomas Wright A Book of Psalmody by John Chetham (11/1787). The works of the Leeds composer Henry Hamilton were engraved by Christopher Livesley, who was active from about 1790 to 1810. Other publishers include Joseph Ogle (c1736), Griffith Wright, father of Thomas, and in the 19th century Joshua Mutt, W. Clifford, John Swallow and William Jackson; in the 20th century much educational music and music literature has been published by E.J. Arnold & Son. There were several string instrument makers active in Leeds during the 19th century, and the firm of J. & J. Hopkinson, piano makers, had its main branch there from about 1835. The organ in the town hall was renovated by Abbott & Smith in the 19th century, and rebuilt to the design of Donald Hunt, then organist of the parish church, by Wood & Wordsworth in 1971.
Vocal music in schools grew out of religious instruction and from about 1850 led to marathon performances of ‘sacred choruses’. After 1886 there were Leeds School Board Concerts in which the choir of 1000 voices was conducted by W. Goodson. The demands of more specialized musical education were met for a time by the Leeds College of Music, active from 1874 to 1904. A new dimension was brought into the musical life of the city by the establishment of a music department in the university before World War I; this prospered under Professor James Denny and during the vice-chancellorship of Lord Boyle. Through the initiative of Alexander Goehr, professor of music from 1971 to 1976, works outside the conventional limits have been included in university programmes. Ian Kemp was professor of music from 1976 to 1981, succeeded by Julian Rushton. In 1961 the education committee set up the Leeds Music Centre, which in 1965 came under the control of a full-time director and resumed the title of Leeds College of Music. A division of the college specializes in experimental compositional procedures and music technology. The Brotherton Library of the university has the Cowden Clarke Collection; the music and local history sections of the city library hold manuscripts and early editions formerly owned by the Irwin family of Temple Newsam, and the city museum has a collection of instruments.
GroveO (M. Dreyer)
Order of Service for the Day of Public Thanksgiving by the Wesleyan Reformers (Leeds, 1850)
Leeds Musical Festival Programmes (Leeds, 1880–)
F.R. Spark and J. Bennett: A Full History of the Leeds Musical Festivals, 1858–89 (Leeds and London, 1892)
Leeds College of Music Quarterly News (Leeds, 1897–1902)
E. Hargrave: Musical Leeds in the Eighteenth Century, Thoresby Society Publications, xxviii (Leeds, 1928), 320–21
D. Webster: Parish Past and Present: 275 Years of Leeds Parish Church Music (Leeds, 1988)
S. Lindley: ‘Leeds Town Hall: Retrospect and Prospect’, MT, cxxx (1989), 639–40
W. Thompson and others: Piano Competition: the Story of the Leeds (London, 1990)
PERCY M. YOUNG