South West England

Birthplace of one of Britain’s leading composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). He lived here until 1874.

The father of Ralph Vaughan Williams was vicar here. There is a small exhibition about the composer.

Bell foundry since 1784. The only one of its kind in Britain which is accessible to visitors (museum).

Birthplace of the composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) and informative museum about Holst and also about 19^th century family life in England. The grand-piano on the photo was used by the composer while working on his masterpiece The Planets.

House of Gustav Holst from 1891.

Gustav Holst was organist here in 1892; it was the start of his career. He composed a comical operetta, Landsdown Castle or the Sorcerer of Tewkesbury, and conducted village choirs in the vicinity of Cheltenham.

Grave of the composer John Barnett (1802-1890). He was a second cousin of the composer Meyerbeer (his father came from Berlin and was originally named Bernhard Beer). With his successful first opera The Mountain Sylph, he is considered the creator of modern English opera.

From 1907 to 1909, the composer Percy Granger stayed with Lady Elcho in this beautiful Jacobean mansion, collecting Gloucestershire folk songs.

Grave of the poet and song composer Ivor Gurney (1890-1937). He regarded music as his true vocation: ‘The brighter visions brought music, the fainter verse’.

House of the composer Rutland Boughton (1878-1960) from 1927. He organised the first Glastonbury Festival (1914-1926) and was very successful with his opera The Immortal Hour. The rest of his oeuvre, including a series of ‘Arthurian operas’, has been forgotten.

Elgar visited William Meath Baker, the person behind nr. 4 of the Enigma Variations.

This 17^th century mansion belonged to the Gambier-Parry family of which the composer Hubert Parry (1848-1918) was the illustrious scion. He lived here during his juvenile years. The lavish music room has been decorated with musical instruments in plaster relief.

The church was built by the father of Hubert Parry in 1848/51; the latter frequently played the Nicholson organ.

Memorial tablets of Hubert Parry and of John Stafford Smith (1750-1836), composer of the tune To Anacreon in Heaven, which, with a new text, became the National Anthem of the USA (The Star-Spangled Banner). Memorial window of Herbert Howells.

Gloucester Cathedral is one of the venues of the ‘Three Choirs Festival’, established here in 1715 and continued in collaboration with Hereford and Worcester. It is the oldest music festival still active. Saint-Saëns conducted the FP of his oratorio The Promised Land in 1913 in Gloucester Cathedral.

The case and decorated front pipes of the organ by Thomas Harris (1666) have survived all internal alterations.

The organist and composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) lived from 1859 within the Cathedral Close.

The Shire Hall, the home of the County Council, was erected in 1816 and extended in 1911. On the 10^th of September 1913 a remarkable concert took place. On the program were the world première of Sibelius’ splendid Luonnotar for soprano and orchestra and a Mozart piano concerto played by Camille Saint-Saëns, aged 78. The concert was part of the Three Choirs Festival.

Plaque of the poet and songwriter Ivor Gurney (1890-1937); his birthplace at 3 Queen Street doesn’t exist anymore.

Birthplace of the choral composer Herbert Howells (1892-1983).

Howells was a chorister in this church and is honoured with a memorial, erected in 2008.

House of the song composer Charles Wilfred Orr (1893-1976) from 1934 until his death.

House of the composer Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) from 1922 to 1926, after his study and starting composing.

House of Gerald Finzi from 1933 to 1939.

Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1938 rented an apartment in this house, then named Rose Cottage, and began composing the 5^th Symphony.

The important baroque composer William Lawes (1602-1645) was born in The Close of Salisbury Cathedral, where his father was a lay vicar. Lawes died in Chester during a battle against anti-royalist rebels. 
At nr 15 of The Close, Holmsbury House, Handel visited the philosopher James Harris in 1739.
At nr 19 is the Royal School of Church Music since 2006.

House of the author Edith Olivier. Walton stayed here in March 1932 and started composing his First Symphony.

Hubert Parry stayed here with his in-laws in 1887 and composed Blest Pair of Sirens for Stanford and his Bach Choir.

Last house of the avant-garde composer Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022).

The composer Michael Tippett (1905-1998) lived here from 1960 to 1970. His opera King Priam was written here.

The original Colsten Hall from 1867 was damaged by fire in 1898 and 1945 and refurbished in 1951; in 2020 the name was changed into ‘Bristol Beacon’. There are 2180 seats.

Built in 1939 by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism whose ideas on music were of great importance for the church music in England. The chapel is the first Methodist church. With a museum about the Wesley family and Methodism.

House of Charles Wesley, the brother of John. Birthplace of the composers Charles junior and Samuel Wesley, born in 1757 resp. 1766. Samuel became the father of the composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876).

The Pump Room, near the Roman Baths, was built in the 1790s and had its own orchestra for the entertainment of the people who used the healing water.

The composer Thomas Chilcot (c1700-1766) spent his entire life in Bath. He was organist here from 1728 until his death and the teacher of Thomas Linley sr.
Grave of the castrato singer Venanzio Rauzzini (1747-1810), who settled in Bath after having retired from the stage in 1780. He was a very wealthy man and occupied several houses in Bath (> 6517, 6521). The young Mozart heard him in Vienna and dedicated Exsultate, Jubilate to him.

There were two concert halls on the Terrace Walks: the Simpson Rooms (1708-1720) and the New Assembly Rooms (from 1728). Also the Bath Literacy and Scientific Institution had their accommodation here.

The ‘Upper Rooms’ or (newer) Assembly Rooms were opened in 1771. Paganini (1812), J. Strauß senior (1838) and Busoni (1909) appeared here. One of the venues of the annual Bath Festival (June) from 1948; Menuhin and Tippett were among its artistic directors.

The theatre was opened in 1805, has 900 seats and offers drama, opera, ballet and concerts. Paganini (1812), Liszt (1840) and Sousa (1911) appeared here. Festival venue.

House of the German born musician and astronomer William/Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel (1738-1822). He came to England in 1757 and moved to this house in 1777. In the music room, a nice 18^th century Cousineau harp is displayed. Herschel got befriended to Joseph Haydn. In later years he concentrated on astronomy, discovering Uranus and Saturn’s satellites.

William Herschel was organist in this church from 1766 until 1782.

Plaque of the composer John Christopher Smith (1712-1795), the son of Handel’s old friend J.Chr. Schmidt and the secretary and musical assistant of the elder Handel. He lived in Bath from 1774 until 1787.

House of the castrato singer Venancio Rauzzini.

Summer house of Rauzzini. Joseph Haydn stayed with him for four days in August 1794. He composed a canon on the dog Turk of his host. During his stay in Bath, Haydn also visited the physician and amateur composer Henry Harington in Queen Square and made a trip to the town of ‘Pristol’ (Bristol).

Monument of Mozart, erected in 1991 during the Festival, which was devoted to him in that year (2^nd centenary of his death). Around the monument open air concerts are given on summery Sundays.

House of the composer, concert director and teacher Thomas Linley senior (1733-1795), who played an important role in the musical life of Bath. Birthplace of five musical children of which the singer Elisabeth Ann and the very gifted violinist and composer Thomas junior are best known. The latter (1756-1778) was an intimate friend of the young Mozart during a stay in Florence in 1770; he died in a boating accident (> 7511). The Linley family lived in Bath from the late 1740s until 1774.

Thomas Linley senior was buried in Wells cathedral. The splendid church also serves as the town’s concert hall.

Grave of the organist, painter and possible composer of the Big Ben chimes, William Crotch (1775-1847), having lived in Taunton from 1832. As a child prodigy he appeared before the King in Buckingham palace, aged 3 .

Greatest pop festival of Britain, yearly, end of June.

Summer house of the composer Arthur Bliss (1891-1975), built in modernist style by the architect P.Harland. There is a small studio in the woods after the example of Gustav Mahler’s Komponierhäuschen.

House of the composer Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) from 1966 to 1969. In the same period he formed a group named The Pierrot Players with Harrison Birtwistle. Before he had lived in Kimbers Cottage, Tollard Royal (Wiltshire) and afterwards he lived in Hoy, Orkney Islands.

The Summer Music School at Bryanston had famous guest teachers: Paul Hindemith in August 1948 and the Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu in August 1949, 1950 and 1952.

The Italian composer and pianist Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) lived in the house of his patron Peter Beckford from 1766 to 1773.

The composer Arthur Sullivan stayed in this old manor with Ernest and Gertrude Ker-Seymer in 1878, composing the hymn Saint Gertrude. The building became a private school of which the soprano singer Emma Kirkby was a pupil.

This centre for the Arts was opened in 1978 with a concert hall (1500 seats), home of the Bournemouth SO, and an opera and ballet theatre (669 seats); it was renovated in 2002. Previously, concerts were given in the ‘Winter Gardens’ from 1875, where Sibelius and Elgar among others appeared as conductors.

Plaque on the site of the birthplace of the composer of Jerusalem, Hubert Parry (1848-1918). His mother died of consumption, aged 32, twelve days after Hubert’s birth.

Graves of the conductors Dan Godfrey, the founder of the Bournemouth SO, and Constantin Silvestri; besides the grave of the mother of Hubert Parry.

Birthplace of Frederick Curzon (1899-1973), organist and composer of light orchestral music, film music and songs.

House of the pianist, modernist composer and critic Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) from 1956 until 1986. He was of Parsi/Spanish descent. Among his piano works, Opus Clavicembalisticum (1929/30) attracts attention because of its unprecedented technique and duration (2½-3 hours!). Complexity and huge dimensions also characterize many of his other compositions. 
Previously he had lived from 1950 in the house Rowberrow, Townsend Mead, Corfe Castle.

The ashes of Sorabji were buried here.

Sorabji died in 1988 in a retirement home, today a bed and breakfast.

Fine epitaph of the gifted organist Matthew Godwin (c1569-1587) who served here for only eight months and was buried under the north tower. The important baroque composer Matthew Locke (c1621-1677) was born in Exeter and a chorister here under Edward Gibbons, the brother of Orlando Gibbons, and has lived in the town at least until 1641. He became a close friend of Christopher Gibbons, Orlando’s son, who lived with his uncle Edward after his father’s death in 1625. The composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) was organist from 1835 to 1842.

Grave of the composer Samuel Sebastian Wesley.

Annual festival in the first week of August. It started in 1955 as a folk dance festival and changed into an international folklore event. Today it is devoted to ‘folk’, modernized folklore. www.sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk

Plaque of the FP of Sullivan’s Savoy Opera The Pirates of Penzance in 1874 in the former Bijou Theatre.

The Dartington Hall Music Summer School was established on an old estate, innovated in 1925 by Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst. The first guest teachers in the 1950s were Stravinsky, Copland and Britten; Wolpe, Maderna, Nono, Thomson, Lutosławski, Walton, Tcherepnin and many others followed. Peter Maxwell Davies was the artistic director from 1979 until 1984. The composers stayed in annex buildings on the premises – for example: Stravinsky at 8 Warren Lane, Britten in Yarner Farm House.

The minstrel’s gallery, formerly used by the church musicians, was too confined for the bass viol player; only a hole in the board allowed him to move his bow freely. It is still there.

The poet and playwright John Gay (1685-1732) wrote The Beggar’s Opera, for which J.Chr. Pepusch composed a score. For Brecht and Weill, the libretto formed the base of their Dreigroschenoper. Gay was born in Barnstaple at 35 High Street (rebuilt) and was a pupil of the Grammar School which then was housed in this chapel.

The ruins of the ‘Arthurian’ castle of Tintagel inspired Arnold Bax to his symphonic poem Tintagel and the castle of King Marke in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is situated here.

The composer Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006) lived here for some years around 1970.

The construction of Truro Cathedral started in the 1870s and was completed in 1910. The father Willis organ from 1887, set in a vaulted chamber, is well known and used for recitals. In Truro, the Christmas tradition of singing carols with short readings preceding the midnight Mass started in 1878 and was adopted by other churches over the country.

Grave of the black violinist and composer Joseph Antonio Emidy (1770-1835). He had been enslaved in Guinea and landed at Falmouth in 1799 after having been freed in Brazil. He worked as music teacher in Truro and gave recitals. His portrait is in the Cornwall Museum and a memorial plaque in Falmouth parish church. His compositions are lost.

Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance cannot be found in their home town. There is a plaque in Paignton (> 6731) and one in... New York, at the site of the hotel where he composed the opera in 1879. Address: 45 East 20^th Street, NY City.