OPPapers.com

Music


Records of music of the United Kingdom date back to the medieval era and indicate it was already a rich and diverse culture, including Church music, court and popular music that we now term folk music. Church music and religious music in general was profoundly affected by the Reformation from the sixteenth century, which curtailed many of the events associated with such music and forced the development of a distinctive national music of worship and belief. In contrast court music, although having many unique elements remained much more integrated into wider European culture, often drawing on composers born in continental Europe as it developed into modern classical music. It began to obtain clear national identities in the components of the United Kingdom towards the end of the nineteenth century, producing many composers and musicians of note and drawing on the folk tradition. Folk music flourished until the era of industrialisation when it began to be replaced by new forms of popular music, including Music hall and brass bands. Realisation of this led to two folk revivals, one in the later nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth, which kept folk music as an important sub-culture within society. In the early twentieth century American influences became most dominant in popular music, with young performers producing their own versions of American music, including rock n' roll from the late 1950s and developing a parallel music scene. This led to the explosion of the 'British Invasion' of America of the early 1960s, spearheaded by the Beatles, from which point rock music and popular music in general became something of an Anglo-American collaboration, with movements on one side of the ocean being exported to the other, where they tended to be adapted and turned into new movements, only to be exported back again. As a result of these factors the United Kingdom had remained a major source of musical innovation and participation in the modern era.

Early Music...