In 1676 London musician Thomas Mace proposed a bold idea. Instead of enduring the “inconveniences of talking, crowding, sweating and blustering”, audiences should be able to enjoy music in a dedicated space: a “musick room … convenient and fit to perform in”. For the first time concert-going was open to anyone for the price of a ticket, though this hungry new audience had to wait until 1748 and the construction of Oxford’s Holywell Music Room – Europe’s oldest custom-built public concert hall – for the fulfilment of Mace’s vision and a room of their own.
Since then, concert halls have become a mirror to changing fashions, priorities and politics. Compare the gorgeous fantasy of the 19th-century’s Royal Albert Hall to the sleek postwar functionality of the Royal Festival Hall. In Oxford the Holywell has since been joined by several others, though none without their issues – until now.
