Provides the context of how and why military music was coordinated in the period immediately before the outbreak of the Great War. It will briefly trace the beginnings of Royal Marines Divisional Bands in the Royal Navy during the late eighteenth century, as well as the founding of the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall, and the Royal Naval School of Music at Eastney Barracks, explaining how bandsmen were recruited, trained and deployed, and why music was a vital element of the services’ daily, ceremonial and wartime operations. This chapter will also engage with pre-war concerns expressed about the lack of music in Britain’s armed forces, and the wider debates about the quality and direction of British music in the Edwardian period.

This chapter looks at the musical life at this phase of the RCM, and at its curriculum. It shows that Stanford’s programming of concerts and operas was as adventurous (and sometimes radical) as his approach to teaching composition was confined. The range of repertoire performed at College concerts is discussed, and shows that College students were exposed to a much wider range of musical influence than has been commonly thought. In 1903 the College received a significant capital endowment (called the Patron’s Fund) to help it mount concerts to advance young British composers and performers, and the implications of this Fund for the College and its reputation are discussed. George Grove’s RCM curriculum (and his emphasis on practical training) is discussed in relation to the evidence Grove gave to the Gresham Committee, advising on the reconstitution of London University. Grove's ideas about the sort of education a music college should offer is further indicated in the professional practice represented by the ARCM diploma, and the chapter ends with an analysis of ARCM passes which shows its significance as a qualification.

This chapter discusses George Grove’s success in his choice of staff and the quality of his leadership in knitting together the wide range of musical characters and personalities into a cohesive educational body. There are some vignettes of the early staff, illustrated by a photograph which vividly captures them at the laying of the foundation stone of the new building in 1890. Grove’s letters to his confidante, Edith Oldham, capture some of the personalities and the day-to-day strains of their working together, and these are quoted to give a more realistic sense of the College in its early days than has been given before. The second part of the chapter looks at why Parry was chosen as the College’s second Director and looks at his musical and strategic limitations. Parry’s bitter feuding with Stanford – a defining characteristic of his time as Director – is examined. The chapter shows that Stanford (not Parry) was the RCM’s musical director and explains how this greatly benefitted the College, and that the need for this dual leadership was recognized by the RCM Council.