Throughout its history, the United Kingdom has been a major producer and source of

---

Music of the United

Kingdom

Throughout its history, the United Kingdom

has been a major producer and source of

musical creation, drawing its early artistic

basis from church music and the ancient

and traditional folk music and

instrumentation of England, Scotland,

Northern Ireland, and Wales. Each of the

four countries of the United Kingdom has

its own diverse and distinctive folk music

---

forms, which flourished until the era of

industrialisation when it began to be

replaced by new forms of popular music,

including music hall and brass bands.

Many British musicians have influenced

modern music on a global scale, and the

United Kingdom has one of the world's

largest music industries. In the 20th

century, influences from the music of the

A 

Promenade concert

 at the 

Royal Albert Hall

 in 2004

---

United States, including blues and rock

and roll, became entrenched in the United

Kingdom. The "British Invasion"—

spearheaded by Liverpool band the

Beatles, often regarded as the most

influential band of all time

[1]

— saw British

rock bands become highly influential

around the world in the 1960s and 1970s.

British musicians led rock and roll's

transition into rock music; genres

developed or invented by British acts

include progressive rock,

[2]

 raga rock,

psychedelic rock,

[3]

 art rock,

[4]

 hard rock,

[5]

space rock, heavy metal,

[6]

 glam rock,

[7]

and gothic rock.

---

Pop music, a term which originated in

Britain in the mid-1950s as a description

for "rock and roll and the new youth music

styles that it influenced",

[8]

 was developed

by British artists like the Beatles and the

Rolling Stones.

[9]

 Other genres originating

in Britain include new wave music, acid

jazz, and the electronic music subgenres

trip hop; dubstep; and industrial.

[10][11][12]

Background and classical

music

---

Music in the British Isles, from the earliest

recorded times until the Baroque and the

rise of recognisably modern classical

music, was a diverse and rich culture,

including sacred and secular music and

ranging from the popular to the elite.

[13]

Each of the major nations of England,

Ireland, Scotland and Wales retained

English Miniature from a manuscript of the 

Roman de

la Rose

---

unique forms of music and of

instrumentation, but British music was

highly influenced by continental

developments, while British composers

made an important contribution to many

of the major movements in early music in

Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars

Nova and laid some of the foundations of

later national and international classical

music.

[14]

 Musicians from the British Isles

also developed some distinctive forms of

music, including Celtic chant, the

Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic

votive antiphons and the carol in the

medieval era.

---

Church music and religious music were

profoundly affected by the Protestant

Reformation which affected Britain from

the 16th century, which curtailed events

associated with British music and forced

the development of distinctive national

music, worship and belief. English

madrigals, lute ayres and masques in the

Renaissance era led particularly to English

language opera developed in the early

Baroque period of the later seventeenth

century.

[15]

 In contrast, court music of the

kingdoms of England, Scotland and

Ireland, although having unique elements

remained much more integrated into wider

European culture.

---

The Baroque era in music, between the

early music of the Medieval and

Renaissance periods and the development

of fully fledged and formalised orchestral

classical music in the second half of the

eighteenth century, was characterised by

more elaborate musical ornamentation,

changes in musical notation, new

instrumental playing techniques and the

rise of new genres such as opera.

Although the term Baroque is

conventionally used for European music

from about 1600, its full effects were not

felt in Britain until after 1660, delayed by

native trends and developments in music,

religious and cultural differences from

---

many European countries and the

disruption to court music caused by the

Wars of the Three Kingdoms and

Interregnum.

[16]

 Under the restored Stuart

monarchy the court became once again a

centre of musical patronage, but royal

interest in music tended to be less

significant as the seventeenth century

progressed, to be revived again under the

House of Hanover.

[17]

Sir 

Edward Elgar

---

British chamber and orchestral music

drew inspiration from continental Europe

as it developed into modern classical

music. The Baroque era in British music

can be seen as one of an interaction of

national and international trends,

sometimes absorbing continental fashions

and practices and sometimes attempting,

as in the creation of ballad opera, to

produce an indigenous tradition.

[18]

However, arguably the most significant

British composer of the era, George

Frideric Handel, was a naturalised German,

who helped integrate British and

continental music and define the future of

---

the classical music of the United Kingdom

that would be officially formed in

1801.

[19]

2006

Musical composition, performance and

training in the United Kingdom inherited

European classical traditions of the

eighteenth century (above all, in Britain,

from the example of Handel) and saw a

great expansion during the nineteenth

century.

[20]

 Romantic nationalism

encouraged clear national identities and

sensibilities within the countries of the

United Kingdom towards the end of the

nineteenth century, producing many

composers and musicians of note and

---

drawing on the folk tradition.

[21]

 These

traditions, including the cultural strands

drawn from the United Kingdom's

constituent nations and provinces,

continued to evolve in distinctive ways

through the work of such composers as

Arthur Sullivan, Gustav Holst, Edward

Elgar, Hubert Parry, Ralph Vaughan

Williams, Benjamin Britten

[22]

 , Michael

Tippett and Peter Maxwell Davies. Notable

living English classical composers include

Harrison Birtwistle, Michael Nyman,

James MacMillan, Jeremy Peyton Jones,

Gavin Bryars, Andrew Poppy, Judith Weir,

Sally Beamish and Anna Meredith.

---

Timeline of British classical

music, and its preceding

forms

Folk music

---

Each of the four countries of the United

Kingdom has its own diverse and

distinctive folk music forms. 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 three folk revivals, one in the late-

19th century, one in the mid-20th century

and one at the start of the 21st century

which keeps folk music as an important

sub-culture within society.

[23]