City in England. The foundation stone of the present cathedral was laid in 1220, and building was completed in 1266. Until the Reformation, the form of liturgy in the cathedral was known as Sarum Use (see Salisbury, Use of) and was widely adopted throughout England. Among post-Reformation organists may be mentioned the John Farrants, elder and younger, and Michael Wise, and there are local connections with the Lawes family and Adrian Batten.
It was to hear music that George Herbert walked twice weekly into Salisbury and afterwards took part in private music meetings. The ‘Society of Lovers of Musick’ celebrated St Cecilia's Day in the cathedral in 1700 and probably annually thereafter. In 1740 the society subscribed to Handel's ‘Twelve Grand Concertos’ op.6, and St Cecilia's Day was celebrated ‘as usual’ with a concert at the Assembly Room in New Street (replaced in 1750 by one in the High Street). A Te Deum and two anthems by Handel were performed in the morning in the cathedral. Handel oratorios were given at virtually every festival from 1748. The festivals, held over two days from 1748, and three from 1768, took place annually until 1789 when the closure of the cathedral led to their suspension until 1792. Further festivals took place in 1800, 1804, 1807, 1810, 1813, 1818, 1821 and 1824. A four-day festival in 1828 terminated this event.
The Musical Society also organized regular concerts throughout the year, when musicians from London appeared and the newest music was performed. Mainly owing to its director James Harris, it was the finest society outside London, and performers included Mr Charles, the first named performer on the clarinet in Britain (1743), Signora Avoglio (1746), Abel (1759), Elizabeth Linley (from 1769), Nancy Storace (first in 1773, aged seven), J.C. Bach (1773), Crotch (aged eight, 1783) and Bridgetower (1794). Handel's librettist Thomas Morell was probably present at a performance of Jephtha in 1760, ‘never play'd before out of London’. Salisbury musicians contributed a great deal to the concerts, providing first-class singers from the cathedral, and in 1784 the orchestra was said to be ‘filled from this city alone’. William Mahon was first violin from about 1786 until 1816. Thomas Norris (c1741–90), a chorister from 1752, became the finest English tenor of his day.
The society declined after the deaths in 1780 of both James Harris and John Stephens, cathedral organist from 1746. Disputing factions, supporting his successor, Robert Parry, and the society's elected conductor, Joseph Corfe, disrupted musical life in the city. The end of the festivals also marked the end of the Musical Society.
Salisbury remains a minor regional music centre and makes much of its own music, despite the absence of a concert hall. In 1991 Salisbury Cathedral was one of the first in England to establish a girls' choir, which participates regularly in choral services. Together with Winchester and Chichester, Salisbury has taken part since 1904 in the Southern Cathedrals Festivals.
J. Marsh: Memoirs (MS, GB-Cu,1768–94, 1803–28); excerpts in S. Sadie: ‘Concert Life in Eighteenth Century England’, PRMA, lxxxv (1958–9), 17–30 [includes accounts of events at the Salisbury festival]
W.H. Husk: An Account of the Musical Celebrations on St Cecilia's Day in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1857)
D.H. Robertson: Sarum Close (London, 1938, 2/1969)
B. Matthews: The Organs and Organists of Salisbury Cathedral (Salisbury, 1961, 4/1989)
D.J. Reid and B. Pritchard: ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Part 1: Salisbury and Winchester’, RMARC, no.5 (1965), 51–79; addenda and corrigenda by B. Matthews, no.8 (1970), 23–33
R. Findlater: ‘A Tale of Two Cities: a Personal Survey of the Arts in Birmingham and Salisbury’, Bulletin of the Arts Council of Great Britain, v (1971), 3–18
M. Foster: The Music of Salisbury Cathedral (London, 1974)
N. St J. Davison: ‘So Which Way Round did they Go? The Palm Sunday Procession at Salisbury’, ML, lxi (1980), 1–14
BETTY MATTHEWS