Music has been a part of Cranleigh School from the beginning. The school’s first prospectus in 1864 offered instrumental music as an add-on for four pounds a year, a substantial amount given the annual fees were thirty pounds back then.
Down the years, the school’s musicians have encompassed almost every form and genre, from classical to jazz, from West End-style productions to ambitious overseas tours.
As we approach the end of our 160th anniversary year, and with our celebration concert at G Live in Guildford on the horizon at the beginning of May, we’re looking back at Cranleigh’s rich musical heritage.
We hope you enjoy this stroll through our archives.
1866 The choir was formed and within a year were providing the main musical backbone to concerts and also the Speech Day entertainment. Participation was encouraged by an annual choir outing to attractions such as London Zoo and the Crystal Palace. The school orchestra was formed.
1867 The first music master, Robert Tayler, was hired.
1869 The opening of the Chapel by the Archbishop of Canterbury. “The musical portion of the services was as follows: Venite, Purcell; Psalms, Turle in D; Te Deum and Jubilate and Kyrie, Boyce in A. The anthem selected for the occasion was peculiarly appropriate, being taken from the eighth and ninth chapters of the First Book of Kings. The 135th Hymn, Holy, holy, holy, was sung by the choir and congregation before the sermon.”
1870 The first organ, a Hedgeland, was installed in the Chapel. It remained until 1930 when it was sold to the parish church of Longdon, near Tewkesbury for £160. There it was used until the 1950s when it was “finally sent to its rest, ravaged by the onslaughts of time, dry rot and woodworm.”
1872 Handel’s Samson, the first choral concert, was given by the choir to the school and village. Handel was clearly a favourite of Tayler as the annual concert in the following years featured Handel’s Acis and Galatea (1873), Haydn’s Creation (1874), Handel’s Alexander’s Feast (1875), Handel’s Judas Maccabeus (1876), Haydn’s Seasons (1877) and Handel’s Messiah (1878). Almost all the leading singers, male and female, were brought in by Thomas Taylor, the second music master, with the same names appearing year after year. Even the main roles in the orchestra were given to visitors.
1880 The first formal inspection of music at Cranleigh stated that “the style of music which is given to the boys is certainly of an artistic and high order” and “the Chapel choir sang music of quite a difficult character so exceedingly well and, in such good taste, that I have no other course open to me but to make very special mention of this fact.”
1882 Richard (Dick) Harris replaced Taylor as music master, a post he retained for the next forty-two years. An exceptional organist, violinist and with “a bass voice that frightened the life out of the choirboys”, often the Chapel remained half-full after Sunday service simply to listen to him play Bach or Rheinberger voluntaries.
1887 The Choir sang in the village in a ceremony to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
1888 A band was formed and this became popular, although again masters were to the fore with Isaac Hardy on the double bass, Edward Adamson the euphonium and the one-armed Henry Casswell on the coronet. There was also a brass band and the two bands played on Speech Day and Sports Day among other important events.
1891 George Martin, organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, wrote of Cranleigh: “The chapel choir is, as it has always been, far in advance of any school choir with which I am acquainted.”
1893 Composed by Dick Harris with Latin words written by the new headmaster George Allen, Cranleighensis Gaudeamus, the school song, was first performed at the Christmas Concert. It was sung at the end of formal music concerts and major occasions until 1945 when it all but disappeared other than at Old Cranleighan events, although in 1956 Henry March attempted to revive it with little success.
