Chapter One - Choral Music in Bedford, c.1800–66

Summary

Catherine was fond of music but only as an expression of her own feelings. For music as music – for a melody of Mozart, for example – that is to say for pure art which is simple beauty, superior to our personality, she did not care. She liked Handel, and there was a choral society in Easthorpe which occasionally performed the ‘Messiah’.

Twenty-five years before the formation of the short-lived Bedford Harmonic Society and fifty-five years before the Bedford Amateur Musical Society was established in 1867, Handel's Messiah was performed in Bedford, probably for the first time, in October 1812. Before the performance, Samuel Whitbread was asked by one Thomas Revis and others if he felt that there was a need for more good-quality music locally. They wrote: ‘It having been the wish of several of the inhabitants of Bedford to have a Music Meeting on an extensive plan in the Town, by the assistance of some of the London and other performers, we take the liberty to apply to you to unite with his Grace the Duke of Bedford in affording us your interest and support.’

The result was a performance of Messiah, given with the assistance of some musicians from London and elsewhere. After the event, a Mr Williamson wrote to his son, Edmond, about the performance, which his mother and sisters had also attended: ‘went to the Oratorio at Bedford … There was very little Company – Mr. Trevor of Bromham was there and Mrs. Higgins of Turvey and some others. I believe not a hundred. I am afraid the performers will be the losers.’ 4 No further regular music meetings appear to have been organised in the immediate months or years following this performance.

In 1825, a music festival was arranged: ‘for the benefit of the Bedford Infirmary and for the support of some new established schools in the county.’5 The programme consisted of a selection from Messiah. The concert was performed in St Paul's church by visiting musicians, some from the Chapel Royal, Windsor, and some from Kings College, Cambridge. Admission prices ranged from 2s 6d to 10s 6d. Among the patrons was the Rev. Dr John Brereton FSA FRGS, headmaster of the Grammar School in Bedford.