Talk:Classical music of the United Kingdom

Structuring the material
Percy Scholes categorises English (but not UK) classical music as follows:

1000 to 1500
Simon Tunsted, John Dunstable, John Hothby....

16th and early 17th centuries
Choral music and keyboard music. Byrd. Viol music.

Civil war and republican period
Including the beginning of opera in England

The restoration
Pelham Humfrey. Henry Purcell...

18th century
Does Handel qualify?? Arne

19th century
Sterndale Bennett. Sullivan. Parry. Stanford (Irish). Mackenzie (Scottish). Elgar

20th century
Vaughan Williams. Ethel Smyth. William Wallace. German. Delius. McEwen.Bantock. Holst. Coleridge-Taylor. Ireland. Bridge. Bax Walton. Britten....

20th century: the birth of the classical music performer getting more publicity than the composer... e.g. Nigel Kennedy, Richard Clayderman, Russell Watson, John Williams (the guitarist), Freddie Mercury, Renee and Renata?!?

21st century
Composers: John Williams (the composer although technically he started composing in the 20th century), Karl Jenkins

Performers: G4, El Divo, Amici Forever, Bryn Terfel

Is that a reasonable start for a structure?? Bluewave 17:57, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Works for me. And Handel most definitely qualifies, seeing as he wrote the piece of music that is played at the Coronation of every monarch since George III... -- Francs2000 [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] 18:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Classical Music
Hello. I've vowed to try and get more involved with Collaborations of late and I have here an Encyclopedia of Classical Music (covers all classical, not just UK and is rather a thin tome). I know nothing about the subject, but I bought the book in one of my regular, failing, self-improvement drives. I intend to help out with the article if I can but if it looks like I've forgotten please feel free to kick me up the arse via my talk page. --bodnotbod 10:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Bod, good to see you about. Another reference is The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music by Stephen Fry, which I have, but also I would recommend listening to Classic FM, which I do in the car.  The Classic FM website may also glean a few gems. -- Francs2000 [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] 12:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Cheers for the welcome. As it turns out my Classical Encyclopedia is not very good for this business: since it's already in encyclopedic format it's the devil's own job not to simply copy the sentences. But as they're already condensed, refactoring them is a touchy decision between very boringly swapping a few words about or just sort of changing words like some thesaurus junkie. Neither course of action (or combination of the two) feels either morally acceptable nor a great deal of fun.


 * They remind me of how I used to do my history homework at school and I feel I ought to have grown a little since then ;o) . So, what I may do is be a bit more studious about it and use Google Print, do some proper reading, and then do some proper writing (if I'm able, I know sod all about Classical music really).


 * Thing is, though, I keep having problems with Google Print. I know about the page view limit - but sometimes I can;t even access the service for one page, I get an error. Anyway, I'll see what I can do as I'm not very happy with the article as it is. It's a bit raggedy. --bodnotbod 21:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Today's work: In trying to assist the article I ended up coming across a timeline of classical music. It has its own mark-up so, as is usual with such things, there's a learning curve. But I've made a start. You can see the current state of it here. The mess at the bottom is where I'd intended to insert the related monarch in a different colour. I need to learn about formatting. I've so far entered most of the musical people mentioned in the article. However, I hadn;t previously noted the names mentioned on this talk page, so I ought to add those (Britten was a name that popped into my head though he's notably missing from the article thus far).


 * I think it will be some time before I finish with this damn thing, and I'll probably rue the day. But eventually it will go in.


 * I also invited two people who had contributed to other classical music articles to come over and try and help out one, I think British and one American. --bodnotbod 01:02, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Handel's position in the music of the United Kingdom
User:R9tgokunks recently deleted the mention of Handel in the introduction and did the same when I reverted the edit. Before entering into a revert war on this, I suggest it is discussed here. Handel's place in the opening section must be based on 2 criteria: does he fall within the scope of the article and is he notable enough to be mentioned in the introduction? It appears to be on the first of these points that R9tgokunks has deleted him. So the case in favour of Handel falling within the scope:
 * The article is called "Music of the United Kingdom" not "Composers born in the UK". The title allows a great deal more latitude for inclusion of composers whose work was a significant influence in the UK.
 * Handel became a naturalised Briton in 1727.
 * He settled in England in 1712 and it was his home until his death in 1759.
 * He wrote anthems for the British coronation, one of which has been used in every coronation since.
 * Some of his other most notable music was written for British events (firework music, water music...).
 * Most of his works were composed in Britain.

If we exclude Handel, simply because he was not born in Britain, we would presumably exclude Irving Berlin from articles dealing with American popular music as well is omitting George II from articles about the British monarchy. Bluewave 11:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Music of the United Kingdom
Could anyone who is interested in helping sign up at WikiProject_Music_of_the_United_Kingdom. Thanks! Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 12:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

19th century Expansion, 2 June
I have done this because what was there before was inadequate. But at this length the overall article if similarly expanded would be immense. Even what I have written is hopelessly inadequate. The article should be shorter than that would be, but it should cover the ground. I suggest this article be treated similarly in all periods until it is hopelessly long and then split into many and concisely summarised (which is not what it was before, simply 'thin'.) I think this article could be quite a long one - one would expect that with this title - a real encyclopedic effort, provided it eventually sends readers to wherever their interests lie, in daughter articles. Dr Steven Plunkett 23:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for change of article name
In light of the new wikiproject (User:Gustav von Humpelschmumpel, above) and of certain edits made to the introductory paragraphs to this article within the past three days, it is apparent that no article concerned with Music of the United Kingdom can commence any earlier than the 1800 Act of Union by which the United Kingdom came into existence: and also that, with regard to Eire, it cannot progress forward in time beyond the partition of Ulster and Eire during the 1920s. That, however, was clearly not the intended scope of this article, which appears to refer to 'composed' music within the classical formats and genres, in the British Isles. The term British Isles is indeed used in the opening paragraph. It is not apparently intended to exclude, for instance, the court music of James IV of Scotland. I hereby formally propose, therefore, that this article should be re-titled Classical music of the British Isles, or else that all matter before 1800 should be transferred from it into an article of that name. Dr Steven Plunkett 22:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly, in view of the political sensitivity of the term 'British Isles' (see that article) it might be preferable to adopt the title Classical music of Britain and Ireland, in order to encompass the intended scope, and the sharing of musical traditions which is reflected within the music, even during periods in which the kingdoms were not technically united. Redirects from 'UK' and 'British Isles' forms would lead to this title? Dr Steven Plunkett 22:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * From recollection, the title was originally proposed as a UK collaboration project in 2005. In the event, I don't think it was a particularly successful collaboration, with only 2 or 3 main contributors. I was one of those and I certainly interpreted the title pretty broadly! (I'm not sure it was ever thought out clearly, but I certainly didn't see any point in an article which arbitrarily began with the Act of Union then excluded Irish music after the 1920s). Overall, I don't think the article has been very successful, partly because it is quite difficult to find: I, for one, keep forgetting the title (a problem that seems to be common in the various articles on music relating to Britain). I suspect that it is hardly ever seen by anyone. Almost anything you could do would be an improvement! The whole of British music is in need of some radical restructuring so perhaps a clearer overall structure would find a better home for this article's content. Bluewave 07:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed division of article
Following on from the name debate above: it appears no action was taken over these issues, although the problem remains. I tend to dislike the use of 'United Kingdom' as a title for cultural projects, as it limits them to a particular historical period, and prefer 'British Isles', which includes Ireland and most of the islands and is geographical and not political in origin, but using these terms generally is a bit of nightmare and there are few easy solutions: see British Isles (terminology). There is a secondary problem that this article deals with classical music, but that term is not generally used to describe music before about 1800 and sometimes 1660 (Baroque music is a debated area). My suggestion is that the pre 1800 or 1660 music be moved to a new 'Early Music in the British Isles' article and links and a summary are placed here. This would, hopefully, kill two birds with one stone.--Sabrebd (talk) 08:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Changing to British Isles, rather than UK sounds a good idea. The definition of classical music is always a tricky one. The problem that I can see with cutting off it 1800 is that it leaves out Handel. His influence arguably continues to the present day, so I think he would be more comfortably placed in the "classical" article than the early music one. Bluewave (talk) 13:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a good point about Handel. Perhaps it will make more sense to take medieval and Renaissance and leave the Baroque (so only say pre-1660, or it will be a bit odd.--Sabrebd (talk) 16:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * 1660 would bring in Purcell an Arne, which sounds right. Presumably it would exclude Lock and Jenkins: again this sounds right. Personally, I love that dark and war-torn viol music, but it probably belongs with the early rather than the classical.Bluewave (talk) 19:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This now done. Had to split it at 1707 as otherwise it made no sense at all, not sure I am happy with that and would like to bring post 1660 stuff back here, but the title of this article is really a problem and makes logical divisions difficult because it is political and not geographic or cultural. The logic of United Kingdom demands a split at about 1800. This debate (above) was not resolved and perhaps we should reopen it. See Early music of the British Isles--Sabrebd (talk) 16:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I am currently trying to clean-up this article (adding references and generally cleaning up the text). The opening section is proving problematic because of the fact that there is no UK before 1800. I am now arguing strongly that we should either:

a, move the sections before 1800 to the Early music of the British Isles article to resolve this problem. It doesn't mean that Handal etc. are any less important. but that they will come in a different article. Obviously the summary at the beginning would be expanded.

b, rename this article to something like "Classical music of/in the British Isles".

The first of these would be my preference. Views very welcome.

--Sabrebd (talk) 07:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Since there was no dissent I went ahead with this clean up. The article now has some clearer structure and citations throughout. I am still open to discussion about the eighteenth century problem. Perhaps a long term solution will be for articles on the eighteenth century, nineteenth century (or English classical renaissance), etc which can then be summarised here.--Sabrebd (talk) 16:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I really cannot understand all the emphasis on political divisions within the article. It has little relevance to the music and composers being discussed and merely detracts from the article's focus.  The term "British Isles" is a sensitive issue in Ireland and the Irish Embassy discourages its use.  I would adopt the very sensible suggestion of a previous contributor, "Music in Britain and Ireland".


 * The list of composers seems lopsided. Note the gap between Britten and Maxwell-Davies!  It lists a number of little known early 20th century composers (how often do we hear Ebenezer Prout?  He's primarily known as a theorist who wrote books on counterpoint), while better known composers later in the century e.g. Kenneth Leighton, Robert Simpson, Mark Anthony Turnage, don't get a mention.  However the early section should certainly include Ivor Gurney who has a sizeable wiki entry and whose songs have long been part of the regular repertoire.  However I can't see how to edit the timeline. Galltywenallt (talk) 22:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Calling all George Frederick Anderson experts
It's not directly relevant to this article, but someone here may have a clue. I created an article for George Frederick Anderson purely because he was a Master of the Queen's Music to Queen Victoria for 22 years (1848-1870). However, I can find next to no biographical material on him. No date or even year of birth; no date of death (just a year); no explanation of why he left the post before he died; and, most importantly, no information about why he was chosen in the first place - I have no idea whether he was an instrumentalist, conductor, composer, or what. There seems to be no record of any music he ever composed. He has no article of his own in Grove V, but he may appear in the New Grove. MQM is not given to just anyone, they're always highly respected musicians/composers. Yet Mr Anderson is a real mystery man. Can anyone help out? -- JackofOz (talk) 22:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I tried the DNB (nothing) and Oxford Music Online (basically Grove + OCM + Ox Dic of Mus). Very little to report. Grove has a brief biog of Lucy Anderson, nee Philpot. She was a pianist who, in 1820, married "George Frederick Anderson (d 14 Dec 1876), a violinist who was from 1848 to 1870 Master of the Queen’s Musick". Oxford Dictionary of Music also has a brief Lucy Philpot article which mentions that Anderson "(b London, 1793 ; d London, 1876 ) was a violinist and Master of the Queen's Musick, 1848 – 70". I went back to the DNB and tried Lucy Philpot. There is quite a good article on her which mentions "In 1820 she married George Frederick Anderson (1793–1876), a violinist, later Master of the Queen's Musick (1848–70) and treasurer of the Philharmonic Society (1840–76)." Bluewave (talk) 09:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That's excellent, thanks Bluewave. In one fell swoop you've increased the information we have on Anderson by 300%, quite an achievement.  I'll add it to his article, with the cites you mention.  --  JackofOz (talk) 10:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I was very curious about this lack of information so tried stalking him through the genealogical sources. What I found...
 * In 1841, George and Lucy were living in Manchester Street, Marylebone. He was a "professor of music"
 * In 1851 they were still in Manchester Street (No21). He was a "Household servant to Her Majesty". He was born in "London" (Lucy in Bath)
 * In 1861 they were at 34 Nottingham Place, Marylebone. He was "On Her Majesty's Establishment"
 * In 1871, Lucy was at the same address "Wife of retired officer". I can't find George
 * His death was recorded in the Marylebone registration district, December Quarter 1876 Ref Vol.1a p.346) Bluewave (talk) 10:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems Grove has gone backwards since 1954 about GFA. Grove V's article on Lucy Philpot Anderson says: "In July 1820 she was married to GFA (d. 14 Dec 1876), a violinist engaged in all the best orchestras and subsequently, from 1848 to 1870, Master of the Queen's Music".  New Grove says slightly less about him than this.  Very odd.  One would have thought that a MQM would merit an article in his own right in Grove by now, just as he merits a WP article purely by virtue of this appointment.  --  JackofOz (talk) 11:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Curiouser and curiouser! By the way, I suppose Lucy Anderson also deserves a Wikipedia article at some point... Bluewave (talk) 12:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Now done. --  JackofOz (talk) 05:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * And see my note @ Talk:Lucy Anderson re her possible influence in securing George the post of MQM when he seems hardly deserving of it. --  JackofOz (talk) 06:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Where is Henry Purcell?!!!
An article on British Classical music that doesn't even mention Henry Purcell? What? 90.205.92.146 (talk) 06:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see: Classical music of the United Kingdom. 90.205.92.146 (talk) 06:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * He is in the Early music of the British Isles article. This one starts in 1800.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 07:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Timeline discussion
The timeline on this page is the subject of discussion here which may lead to its removal and possible replacement.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 11:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

both Bowen and Bliss are missing
This should be addressed. 98.67.0.105 (talk) 13:26, 17 November 2015 (UTC)