Classical music of the United Kingdom of the Dublin Choral Society in 1837, the Irish Academy of Music in 1848 (which was to be granted a royal charter in 1872); and the Royal Choral Institute in 1851 under such figures as Sir Robert Prescot. In the earlier part of the century the British singers Michael Kelly, Nancy Storace and John Braham were prominent and by their example sustained the international opera and oratorio works of Handel, Haydn, Mozart and their successors in the British arena. Braham, whose career thoroughly spanned the opera stage and concert platform, established a tradition in public recital which was continued by
Early music of the British Isles in religious ceremonies, and secular music for use from royal and baronial courts, celebrations of some religious events, to public and private entertainments of the people. Our understanding of this music is limited by a lack of written sources for much of what was an oral culture. In the early Middle Ages, ecclesiastical music was dominated by monophonic plainchant. The separate development of British Christianity from the direct influence of Rome until the 8th century, with its flourishing monastic culture, led to the development of a distinct form of liturgical Celtic chant. Although no notations of this music survive, later