From medieval to modern-day: the Mother Land’s secret music evolution uncovered.

The Land Without Music. The German critic Oskar Schmitz voiced a commonly-held view of Britain when he published a treatise with this title in 1904. After all, the British Isles had not produced a major composer since Purcell, who died in 1695, and the only music of any worth to be heard there was written, and usually performed, by foreign musicians. Schmitz had an agenda: he was out to demonstrate the superiority of German music. As if to prove him wrong, a revival of British music soon bore fruit, propelling the country to international eminence in the 20th century. But the history of music in the British Isles is much richer than Schmitz was prepared to admit: many of the earliest developments in European music began there.

Tracing the early history of written music in Britain takes some detective work. An 11th-century manuscript from Winchester Cathedral demonstrates that polyphonic music (in which the individual voices sing separate lines) was already cultivated there before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Later manuscripts, such as the Worcester Fragments from the 13th and 14th centuries and the Old Hall Manuscript (c1400) show...