The Archive contains recordings by more than 1,000 choirs from the United Kingdom and overseas singing in the English Cathedral tradition, together with a representative collection of Continental boys’ choirs.
The majority of these choirs either no longer exist or no longer maintain a traditional treble line of boys only. Their recordings therefore form an irreplaceable record of a disappearing choral heritage.
The first choir LP was recorded by St Paul’s Cathedral in 1954, but it was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that choirs embraced recording in earnest. Yet between 1902 and 1957, more than eighty cathedral, collegiate and church choirs had already produced nearly 600 gramophone records.
These early recordings allow us to hear some of the great choirs and choirmasters of their day, Names such as Richard R. Terry, George Alcock, Frederick Bridge, William H. Harris, H. K. Andrews, George Dyson, Edmund H. Fellowes, Walford Davies, Ernest Bullock and Stanley Roper, among many others.
Across more than a century of recordings, we can hear the tradition itself changing. Shifts in tempo, phrasing, tone and interpretation provide a unique audible record of the evolution of English Cathedral music from 1902 to the present-day.