Is Europe's oldest concert hall really in Oxford?

The Holywell Music Room, which opened in Holywell Street, Oxford in 1748, is usually described as Europe's first custom-built concert hall. That's some accolade in a continent that produced Bach, Handel, Mozart etc. There's an unproven tradition that Handel himself played here — it certainly hosted his music — and the venue is also said to have led to Haydn becoming popular. 

So is the claim true? A lot rests on the phrase "custom-built" or "purpose-built". Of course there were many venues throughout Europe hosting musical performances, how could there not be. But these venues had other uses as well. Oxford's own Sheldonian Theatre, much larger than the Holywell Music Room and situated only a few hundred yards away, had opened in 1669 and hosted many concerts. Handel definitely did play there in 1733. But as the Sheldonian was built to host the public ceremonies of the University of Oxford, not just music events, it cannot be described as a custom-built concert hall. The same argument would appear applicable to any earlier built venue across the continent.

An early description of Holywell Music dates to 1773 in The Antient and Present State of the City of Oxford,  revised by the Rev Sir John Pershall from material collected by Anthony Wood the previous century. The information about Holywell Music Room is directly from Dr William Hayes, professor of music at the university and a friend of Handel. This account is later republished entirely by John H Mee in a history of the music room published around 1905. It includes this telling detail from Hayes, alluding to why a purpose-built venue for musical performances was needed in the university city:

"Here are weekly Performances of Vocal and Instrumental Music, every Monday evening, except in Passion-Week, all the Month of September, and the Quarterly Choral Performances; which are usually Oratorios; and these with very little foreign Assistance. Benefit Concerts are also here for such Performers to whom they are allowed. These formerly were in some College-Hall, which greatly incommoded the Society where it happened to be."

Mee's 1905 account is confidently entitled The Oldest Music Room in Europe and indeed he appears to be the primary source of the claim that the Music Room was the first purpose-built such venue. He writes:

"There may be concert rooms still existing in Europe of as early or even earlier date, but a careful search has failed to discover them. "Hickford's Great Room" (41 Brewer St., London, W.), built about 1737-8 by a dancing-master named Hickford, was often used for concert purposes in the eighteenth century, e.g. Mozart and his sister played there on May 13, 1765 (Times, London, Jan 13, 1909; Monthly Musical Record, March, 1909). But there is no trace of any permanent staff of regular performers being attached to it. Nor can it a priori be thought strange by a musician that the first building of this kind should be erected in England. On the Continent the musical interest of the early part of the eighteenth century was centred in opera, and concerts of instrumental and vocal music were usually given in the theatres that had been built primarily for dramatic purposes."

We will have to take Mee's word that his search was careful! But, perhaps ironically, while Holywell Music Room was purpose-built for music, it subsequently became used for other purposes too, including for a time as an auction house.

Holywell Music Room is now Grade II* listed. The accounts from Pershall and Mee relate some of the changes that have happened since it was first built and many original features are gone. Its current chandeliers aren't original - they had hung in Westminster Hall during the coronation of George IV in 1821 and were gifted to Wadham College by the king himself. The present organ is also a modern addition. The floorboards are original though.

Inside Holywell Music Room

In the 21st century the acoustics remain impressive within what is quite a small venue. But during a recent daytime concert attended by yours truly, the sound of a helicopter passing overhead was a reminder that the hall now contends with modern interruptions that could never have been imagined by those keen to host music in mid-18th century Oxford.