Birmingham Chamber Music Society

Introduction to Birmingham Chamber Music Society by John Joubert

It is often disparagingly said that we live in a museum age, and that the arts are languishing in institutions concerned only to preserve the past. But I see nothing wrong with museums as such: indeed the world would be an impoverished place without the great art galleries, theatres, concert halls and opera houses. They remind us of our roots: where we started from and how we got here. Indeed it is astonishing how many new artistic movements have been sparked off by a return to the styles of a previous age. The very word ‘museum’ suggests a temple devoted to the muses, and it is the nature - indeed the purpose - of muses to inspire new art.

I like to think of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society, in its own small way, as a kind of musical museum: an organisation where the best of the past can be preserved under the most favourable conditions both for the edification of its members and the encouragement and maintenance of the highest standards of musical performance. But, like all the best museums, it should also offer the highest creative achievements of the past as sources of inspiration for those who come after. This is the best - perhaps the only - way in which a great artistic tradition can be kept alive and perpetually relevant. In such a process of constant development and renewal we can all be custodians and curators both of the past and of the future.

A History of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society, Founded 1952

The society was founded in 1952, growing out of the concerts previously arranged by Wilfrid Mellers and given by the Birmingham University Extra-Mural Department. The BCMS has provided England’s second city with first class chamber music for over fifty years.

From the opening recital given by The Amadeus Quartet, the Society has brought ensembles of the finest musicians to the city. The programmes have had a wide appeal and have ranged from the Deller Consort’s music of the renaissance to works commissioned by the society from living composers.

Over the years the society has promoted recitals by ensembles of international standing bringing to Birmingham the Smetana, Hungarian, Borodin, Medici, Franz Schubert and St Petersburg quartets, maintaining an unbroken tradition of excellence.

With the generous support of Drucker’s Vienna Patisserie the BCMS awards an annual composition prize to a student from the Birmingham Conservatoire and runs programmes for schools involving visiting musicians and students from Birmingham.