ABSTRACT
One of the final high spots of musical life in England before war was declared took place in Canterbury Cathedral on 19 June 1914, when Henry Coward took his Leeds Choral Union there to perform Elgar's The Apostles under the composer's direction, with all six solo singers from Ibbs and Tillett – Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates, Thorpe Bates, Herbert Heyner and Robert Radford. Six weeks later the musical world, like the rest of the country, was having to come to terms with the declaration of war. Concerts were cancelled and musical events, like other forms of entertainment, initially considered inappropriate. Plans for festivals were shelved, artists were unable to travel from or to Germany, ticket receipts were frequently donated to the war effort, and fees to artists were reduced among other attempts to defray concert expenses. Travel was restricted because train services were cut back, the government taxed entertainment and, for reasons of security and energy conservation, street lighting was reduced (which deterred people from venturing out in the evening to rehearsals or concerts); concert halls were commandeered for meetings or requisitioned by the military authorities. The choice of music performed was itself affected by prevailing conditions, German music being the obvious casualty (Coward was a leading advocate of a total boycott of music composed after 1870, which originated from the Fatherland), but the consequence seems to have been a rising popularity of French and Russian music as well as more interest and encouragement for new British compositions.
