is so closely associated with the Christian tradition, and themselves actively participated in it (see further in chapter 16).
A further essential part in the local enactment of classical music was played by the local groups formed to promote or perform music. The extent and scope of these active musical groupings, and the systematic conventions by which they organised their music, may well surprise those who bemoan the disappearance of active music-making today, or the ‘cultural desert’ in our cities. Let me illustrate this by some description of the local orchestras, instrumental ensembles, and choirs.
First, the orchestras. The best known was the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, founded ‘to provide a regular series of high quality professional concerts in the new city’ as part of MKDC’s strategy for making the city a centre for artistic excellence. As described in chapter 2, this soon became recognised as a professional orchestra, with national as well as regional connections, and many of its players lived outside Milton Keynes. As such it does not really come within the scope of this study, but did have some relevance in that its regular local rehearsals and performances provided one model for younger instrumentalists as well as a focus for local audiences keen on hearing professional playing.
Among the other orchestras the highest in the classical hierarchy was the Sherwood Sinfonia (figure 9). This was founded in 1973 as a high-standard amateur orchestra for the area and by the 1980s was playing regularly under a professional conductor. Local music teachers made up a substantial proportion of its members and recruited their advanced pupils from local schools, supplemented by other experienced players from the area, playing the typical classical orchestral instruments: strings (violins, violas, cellos, double bass), wind (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, trumpets, horns, trombone and tuba) and percussion – about 55 players in all. Membership was restricted to those with the appropriately high-level qualifications, the accepted criteria being high grades reached in the nationally recognised examinations, personal recommendation by an existing member (especially the music teachers) or in some cases audition. In keeping with the classical music tradition, the orchestra had enlisted a nationally known and highly qualified musician as their President, his name printed in its full glory on the orchestra’s letterhead: Sir Thomas Armstrong, MA, D. Mus. (Oxon.), Hon. FRAM, Hon. FRCO, Hon. FTCL.
Figure 9 Christmas concert by the Sherwood Sinfonia. The leading amateur orchestra rehearse for their concert with the St Thomas Aquinas school choir at Stantonbury Theatre
The Sherwood Sinfonia were a serious and committed orchestra which took justifiable pride in their high standards, and at the same time remained very local in their playing, membership, audiences, rehearsals and performances. They gave about four concerts a year in local halls, mostly playing works from the accepted classical repertoire by composers like Mozart, Dvořák and Brahms, though for their light-hearted Christmas family concert, they chose lighter pieces together with joke items, quizzes, or audience-sung carols. As with most groups of this kind, they moved through a repeated annual cycle: the weekly rehearsals were climaxed by the intensive activity leading up to the regular concerts, each preceded by its three-hour afternoon rehearsal and culminating in the evening performance in front of an audience largely made up of friends and relations. In the early 1970s the Sherwood Sinfonia was described as ‘the classical musical activity in the town’, and even ten years later, despite the founding of the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, it had not wholly lost this position.
When orchestras and ensembles were graded in typical classical fashion by their playing and performing standards, other orchestral groups were reckoned lower in both expertise and aspirations. There were the Newport Pagnell Concert Orchestra (founded in 1980) and the older Wolverton Light Orchestra, both expecting to recruit players who were of reasonably high standard (the national Grade VII examination was mentioned as desirable for the former, for example) but were perhaps not experienced enough for the Sherwood Sinfonia or just preferred a different kind of musical expression and atmosphere. Some individuals played in more than one orchestra, often choosing to go to the Wolverton Light Orchestra with their second instrument ‘for fun’. These orchestras had the same general range of instruments but were smaller and more locally orientated than the Sherwood Sinfonia. They relied on local soloists and conductors rather than professionals from outside, and appeared at smaller local venues like churches and community centres, often with a special emphasis on raising money for local charities. But they too were definitely part of the classical music world, playing with no small degree of lengthily acquired proficiency on classical instruments. It was through them, and those like them, that this classical tradition was in practice maintained at the grass roots, part of the long-flourishing continuity of British amateur music-making.
There were also other more fluid instrumental groups. Some were initially scratch groups who had joined up for some festive occasion or to accompany a local choral performance, like the North Bucks Music Centre Orchestra (accompanying the Sherwood Choir), the Simon Halsey Orchestra (with the Milton Keynes Chorale), or smaller ensembles like the Wavendon Festival Strings, Walton Festival Strings or Cavatina Strings. There were also 25–30 school orchestras, together with three or four ‘Saturday music school’ orchestras in each of the two music centres, with their gradually changing membership as children worked through the various grades.
Each of these musical groups – which may sound uninteresting in a bare list – was made up of active and cooperating individuals. Each involved an immense amount of commitment and skill, and the co-ordination of quite large numbers of people (even the Saturday junior orchestras could contain 30 or 40 children/teenagers). All depended on voluntary participation by the players, time that could equally well have been spent on other activities.
There were also smaller classical instrumental groups, though their numbers and importance seemed to be nowhere near those of the more ‘popular’ bands discussed in later chapters. Classical groups did not have the same recognised public outlets as rock, jazz or folk groups, they tended to play in private – thus unknown to others – and perhaps instrumentalists in the classical tradition found individual or orchestral playing more satisfying than chamber groups. However, there were some small groups, not all long-lasting. These included the Bernwood Trio, the Milton Keynes Baroque Ensemble, the Syrinx Wind Quartet, the Syrinx Wind Octet, the Baroque Brass Ensemble, the Seckloe Brass Ensemble and – in slightly different vein – the Milton Keynes Society of Recorder Players, who played monthly in Walton Church. Most of these were amateur (though some were mixed or ‘semi-professional’, i.e. with local music teachers) and, being small, had no need for the formal conductor expected in the larger groups. In addition there were fluid private arrangements by which people met in each other’s houses – preferably one with a piano – to sing or play together.
To many English readers, the existence of these orchestral and instrumental groups may in a way seem scarcely worth remark – a natural part of local classical music and of English urban life. But this active instrumental activity at the grass roots is not found everywhere. It has sometimes been claimed that the success of English players in European youth orchestras is due to the distinctive English development of local- (not just national-) level playing, with school, youth and adult amateur orchestras in just about every English town. The orchestral and other instrumental groups in Milton Keynes both followed out this taken-for-granted pattern and played an active part in its continuance.
The local choirs made up the other main strand in the classical music world, a natural outgrowth of the strong choral tradition in the area. Besides the many church and school choirs there were also independent choirs, each with their own conductor or musical director (usually male and with formal classical training), which often contained at least a scattering of music teachers and of experienced choral singers. The leading choirs in
