On my way to work I walk near Providence Music, which has been open in St. George’s Rd for the last few years. It currently has a 25% sale on all stock, sadly because it is closing down. I used it a number of times and found it well stocked (better on sheet music than CDs) and with knowledgeable staff. I suppose we must hope that the Music Room across the road does something to fill the gap; at least last time I went there it was in the process of expanding its choral music stock. It is a shame that there was not enough custom for Providence Music, especially as there are several musical instrument repairers and dealers in the streets nearby.<\/p>\n
This is a rather common and depressing pattern. Bath lost its music shop<\/a>, although it has since gained a rather smaller replacement<\/a>. Oxford used to have three<\/a> when I first started visiting, but is now down to one, which has again moved to smaller premises than it used to have. It is easy to blame the internet for this trend, but I think an age of steep business rates has something to answer for too. Some of the shops I remember (I don’t include Providence Music here) were not very well run and got away with it for a long time, until running costs got too high.<\/p>\n So I bought Lionel Pike’s Novello Tudor anthem collection, which nicely complements the Oxford Tudor Anthem Book, though O clap your hands<\/em> by Gibbons and Weelkes’ Hosanna to the Son of David<\/em> appear in both. And a recording of I Vespri Siciliani<\/em>.<\/p>\n [August 2013: further sad news – around the time the Providence Music finally shut its doors, I learned of the demise of Brian Jordan’s shop in Cambridge. And Blackwell’s Music in Oxford has moved into the main Blackwell’s shop, though I have it on good authority that the shelf space for sheet music remains the same; once again, high business rates are the main reason.]<\/p>\n [September 2013: All the best to Bristol’s new music shop, Op. 13. Just to show how these things go round and round, it has taken over a lot of Brian Jordan’s old stock. I’ll be visiting soon.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On my way to work I walk near Providence Music, which has been open in St. George’s Rd for the last few years. It currently has a 25% sale on all stock, sadly because it is closing down. I used … Continue reading