Cathedral city in England. The Minster was founded in the 7th century and there has been a building on its present site since 1079. From the mid-1200s the music was regulated by a precentor and performed by the vicars choral, who were assisted from about 1500 by lay singing-men; in 1425 the number of choristers was increased from seven to twelve. Polyphonic music was first performed at the end of the 15th century. There was an organ in 1236, and there is evidence of organ building and repairs from 1338 onwards.
At the Reformation most of the Minster services were abolished, and polyphonic music was banned, although it was reintroduced by the 1610s when services by Byrd, Morley, Mundy, the older Robert Parsons and Sheppard were sung. The number of male voices was raised to 20 in 1552, and in the 1600s ranged between 12 and 14; there were 12 choristers between the Reformation and the English Civil War. From the mid-1660s until about 1800 the choir consisted of five vicars choral, seven singing-men and six choristers. James Nares, organist from 1735 until 1756, was succeeded by three generations of the Camidge family. The standard of choral singing declined towards the end of the 1700s, but later the influence of the Oxford Movement improved the musical establishment and in the 20th century, under Noble and Bairstow, the choir reached a very high standard. An organ built in 1833 by Elliott & Hill to John Camidge's rather curious design was reconstructed in 1859 by Hill and in 1903 by Walker, with further work by Harrison & Harrison in 1916 and 1931, and by Walker again in 1960. A major rebuild by Geoffrey M. Coffin followed in 1992.
Part of the plainsong practice of the Benedictine community of St Mary is reflected in an Ordinal and Customary copied about 1400. Five of the many parish churches in York had organs before 1600, but in the period between the Restoration and around 1800 there was only one (St Michael-le-Belfrey). The number of churches with organs and then choirs grew during the 19th century and declined in the 20th.
The York Waits were civic employees from around 1400 to 1836; they sounded the watch and performed on ceremonial and festive occasions. Numbers ranged from three to six. In 1561 the city bought for the waits ‘a noyse of iiij Shalmes’, and in the 1660s they were playing sackbuts and cornetts; oboes and bassoons were in use by 1739. Some waits also possessed string instruments. Having first played in York Minster in 1600, they were frequent performers there in the 1660s and 70s. During the 1700s they regularly performed at the Assembly Rooms concerts and at the Theatre Royal.
The first known public concert in York was held in 1709. In 1730 the Assembly Rooms were built, and concerts organized by the ‘Music Assembly’ or the ‘Music Society’ (probably synonymous) were held there every year until 1825, weekly between October and April, in addition to concerts given during the annual August race-week. Performers comprised the five York waits and other musicians engaged for the season. John Hebden played between 1733 and 1742, while Nares was a frequent performer between 1746 and 1756. In the mid-1700s the race-week concerts attracted virtuoso musicians: Giardini, Noferi and Thomas Pinto among the violinists, and Curioni, Frasi and Galli among the singers. The weekly concerts were taken over by Thomas Shaw in 1778, and then until 1842 were run successively by William Hudson, John Erskine, the younger John Camidge with Philip Knapton, and then by Camidge alone.
In 1825 the Festival Concert Rooms were built adjacent to the Assembly Rooms and most of the larger concerts in York were given there until about 1900. Visiting soloists during the first half of the 1800s included Catalani, Chopin, Liszt, Moscheles, Paganini and Thalberg. Between 1844 and 1852 concerts were given by the York Philharmonic Society. York did not again have regular orchestral concerts until 1898 when Noble founded the York SO. Professional chamber music concerts were sponsored by the York Musical Union, formed by Canon Thomas Percy Hudson, between 1888 and 1902, and from 1921 by the British Music Society. The University of York promotes a wide range of concerts.
The York Choral Society, active from 1833 to 1869, frequently attracted audiences of 1500 and above during the 1850s. Programmes usually included choral and orchestral music; only after 1857 were large oratorios performed without cuts. The York Musical Society, founded in 1876, is still active; the University of York also has a large choral society. Three smaller choirs are noteworthy: the Micklegate Singers (founded 1962), the Chapter House Choir (1965) and the Yorkshire Bach Choir (1979), which has broadcast and recorded widely.
The city's first music festival, promoted by Matthew Camidge and John Ashley, took place in August 1791; the four Yorkshire Grand Musical Festivals, held in York in 1823, 1825, 1828 and 1835, were much larger. Morning concerts were given in York Minster, mostly made up of ‘grand selections’; Messiah was the only work to be given complete. They were conducted by Thomas Greatorex in the first three festivals and William Knyvett in 1835. The chorus was the largest of any provincial festival: 273 in 1823 and 350 thereafter. The orchestras were correspondingly large with 180 performers in 1823 and later about 250. A notable addition to the band in 1835 was the Hibernicon. Among the vocal soloists were Catalani, Malibran and Grisi. The evening concerts, all led by Nicolas Mori, were given in the Assembly Rooms in 1823 and afterwards in the specially built and adjoining Festival Concert Rooms. They included orchestral music and solos, duets, terzettos and glees performed by the vocal soloists. The next festival of any importance, the York Musical Festival, took place on two days in July 1910 when Bantock, Elgar and Noble (who also organized the festival) conducted their own works. The York Festival was first held in 1951 and was most important musically during the 1950s and 1960s when premières were given of works by Blake, Alexander Goehr, Richard Hall, Joubert and Sherlaw Johnson.
The York Early Music Festival, Britain's most important festival in the field of historically informed performance, was founded in 1977 by a group of York musicians, notably John Bryan, Alan Hacker and Peter Seymour, working with Anthony Rooley, the London-based director of the Consort of Musicke. In association with the BBC and overseas radio networks, particularly WDR, the festival, held in the city's medieval churches, guildhalls and historic houses, has presented first modern performances of many outstanding works. The festival has led to the establishment of the Early Music Network International Young Artists Competition.
York had many organ builders before the Restoration but their activities are obscure. The Preston family was active immediately thereafter. Thomas Haxby built and repaired organs in the 18th century, John Donaldson, John Ward and Robert Postill in the 19th, and Summers & Barnes and Principal Pipe Organs in the 20th. In the 1860s William Waddington's piano factory employed some 160 people. Samuel Knapton (and Knapton, White & Knapton) published keyboard music and songs during the early 19th century; music publishing by Banks & Son was begun in the 1880s and pursued on a large scale until 1972, when that side of the business was sold to Ramsay Silver who retained the name ‘Banks Music Publications’ in his imprint.
York was the first of the 1960s ‘new universities’ to support research and teaching in music. In 1964 the composer and writer Wilfrid Mellers was appointed Professor; he chose the composers David Blake, Peter Aston and Robert Sherlaw Johnson as his first members of staff. In the mid-1960s the Amadeus Quartet initiated a resident ensemble scheme. Subsequent residencies have been held by the Fitzwilliam, Medici, Mistry, Sorrel and Medea quartets, and by the Capricorn ensemble. In addition to its encouragement of young composers and new music, the department has gained wide recognition for innovative work in music technology, music education, ethnomusicology and early music performance practice. Opened in 1969, the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall (with its notable organ by Grant, Degens & Bradbeer) is at the heart of a music building that includes seminar and rehearsal rooms, offices and electronic music studios. An extension (1992) contains a recital hall and a specially designed location for the Javanese gamelan. Others who have worked at the university include the composers Nicola LeFanu, John Paynter and Bernard Rands, the conductor Graham Treacher, the conductor and clarinettist Alan Hacker, and the ethnomusicologist Neil Sorrell.
J. Crosse: An Account of the Grand Music Festival held in September 1823, in the Cathedral Church of York (York, 1825)
W.H. Frere: York Service Books (London, 1927)
F. Harrison: Life in a Medieval College: the Story of the Vicars-Choral of York Minster (London, 1952)
P. Aston: The Music of York Minster (London, 1972)
W. Mellers: ‘The Study of Music at University, 2: a Question of Priorities’, MT, cxiv (1973), 245–9
P. Aston: ‘Music since the Reformation’, A History of York Minster, ed. G.E. Aylmer and R. Cant (Oxford, 1977), 395–429
N. Temperley: Jonathan Gray and Church Music in York, 1770–1840 (York, 1977)
D. Haxby and J. Malden: ‘Thomas Haxby of York (1729–1796): an Extraordinary Musician and Musical Instrument Maker’, York Historian, ii (1978), 43–55
D. Haxby and J. Malden: ‘Thomas Haxby: a Note’, York Historian, iii (1980), 31
A. Fox and A. Hibbins: Mr. Noble's Band: a History of the York Symphony Orchestra (York, 1988)
N. Thistlethwaite: The Making of the Victorian Organ (Cambridge, 1990)
D. Griffiths: ‘A Musical Place of the First Quality’: a History of Institutional Music-Making in York, c.1550–1990 (York, 1994)
I. Jones: Brass Bands in York, 1833–1914 (York, 1995)
P. Moore, J.S. Whitely and G. Coffin: The Organs of York Minster (York, 1997)
D. Griffiths: ‘Music in the Eighteenth-Century York Theatre’, York Historian (forthcoming)
DAVID GRIFFITHS, JOHN PAYNTER