Classical music of Birmingham

Although few records have survived to illustrate the culture of medieval Birmingham, there is evidence to suggest that the town supported a significant culture of religious music throughout the late Middle Ages. Chantries were established in 1330 and 1347 for priests to sing divine mass at the church of St Martin in the Bull Ring, and the Guild of the Holy Cross, established in 1392, funded a further chantry of three priests and an organist, who are also likely to have provided secular music for festivities in the Guild's hall on New Street. Most remarkably the town had an organ builder by 1503 – a highly specialist and unusual trade for what was then a medium-sized market town. None of these medieval musical institutions survived the Reformation of the 1530s.

Although evidence of music in 16th and 17th century Birmingham is even more scant than for the earlier period, records survive to show the existence of a band of minstrels in the town in 1609, and at least one ballad was written in the town to commemorate the Battle of Birmingham of 1643 during the English Civil War.

Birmingham's economy boomed in the years following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, and over the course of the following century the town's huge growth in size and wealth came to be reflected in the self-conscious awakening of scientific and cultural activity now known as the Midlands Enlightenment. The first outward sign of this coming cultural transformation was the opening of the baroque St Philip's Church in 1715, a building of exceptional sophistication for what was still a modestly-sized town. Designed by the local architect Thomas Archer – the only English architect of his generation to have seen the work of Borromini in Rome at first hand – St Philips' architectural pretentions were matched by its musical ambitions: it had a fine organ built by the organ builder Swarbruch, and the church and its organ began to attract gifted musicians to the town.

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