By 1887 the College of Organists had already begun to make its mark – its membership increasing in relation to the great burst of church building that took place between 1850 and 1900.  Peter Horton compares the careers of four organists of this time – S S Wesley, Hopkins, Smart and Monk.  As he says […]

Given the sluggish rate of publication of original compositions for organ in the years around the foundation of the College of Organists, it was an enlightened move for the College to promote, as one of their first acts, a competition for an original organ piece.  Graham Barber looks at the state of organ composition in […]

In this paper, originally given at the conference to mark the RCO’s 150th Anniversary, and subsequently printed in the RCO Journal for 2014, David Wright discusses how the RCO played an important part in the move to ‘professionalize’ music in Victorian Britain, and give musicians and their activities a new status that was both respectable […]

In this article Rosemary Golding examines the professional status and remuneration of the organist in the run-up to the foundation of the College of Organists in 1864, by examining contemporary advertisements and correspondence in The Musical Times and similar publications.  It originally appeared in The RCO Journal in 2014. RCO Journal 2014_Golding  

In this article from the RCO Journal from 2014, Andrew McCrea describes the foundation of the College of Organists in 1864 (the Royal Charter came later) and looks at the characters and preoccupations of the founding fathers.  His sources include the earliest minute books of the College, which have survived in the archives, and have […]

The Journal of the Royal College of Organists is the College’s annual research publication.  Volume 5, 2011, can be downloaded below. Contents of Volume 5, 2011: Virginalist embellishment: revisiting the grace signs Desmond Hunter Playing about with French classical organ music Edward Higginbottom Vierne’s 24 Pieces en Style Libre: Charles Holt’s performance listings Hugh Benham […]

The Journal of the Royal College of Organists is the College’s annual research publication. Volume 6, 2012, can be downloaded below. Contents of Volume 6, 2012: A life making music: a conversation with Piet Kee on his 85th birthday Further remarks on Jehan Alain’s organ music – the new Barenreiter edition Stephen Farr Hans Leo […]

The 2014 edition of the College’s annual research publication, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists, can be downloaded here as a complete edition. Individual articles are also available and searchable within iRCO.

The nineteenth century in Britain was a time of public lectures and learned societies. The College of Organists was well ahead of its time, and offered improving lectures to an increasingly organised constituency of musicians from its foundation. Andrew McCrea provides an introduction and checklist of the lectures given from the early years of the […]