Chorus of approval; A commemoration of Huddersfield's massed voices history.

METHODISM'S rise in the early 1800s is often quoted as the reason why Huddersfield has more choral singers per square yard than almost anywhere else in the world.

Wesleyanism inspired congregations to sing informally and for the love of it. Anglicans, it is supposed, sang formally in the plainsong tradition.

Their trained choirs assumed that the congregation would just tag along.

Under Methodism, choirs formed spontaneously and a number of hymn writers - the Wesley brothers Charles and John among them - encouraged the singers by writing a wealth of music that was simple, harmonic and essentially choral.

Out of this the town's choral tradition grew and grew.

The earliest choir to make an impression outside Huddersfield's own borders was, of course, Huddersfield Choral Society (founded 1836), with the quaintly-named Huddersfield Glee and Madrigal Society (1875) another early contender.

HGMS has now metamorphosed into the Huddersfield Singers, by the way.

Colne Valley Male Voice Choir began falteringly in 1922 and nearly fell several times before spectacularly beating its main rivals, the now defunct Holme Valley Choir, in the 1930s. For a time, the Slaithwaite-based choir was considered to be the best male voice choir in the world.

Pessimists thought the 'wireless' and 'talkies' would kill choral singing but instead choral singing bloomed hugely in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In these decades we first heard Huddersfield Methodist Choir (1940s), Gledholt Male Voice Choir (1948), Holmfirth Choral Society (1930s), Honley Ladies' Choir (1950s) and many others strike out and start winning prizes.

CAPTION(S):

54-1660, TmcHUD211009-KE23591)