About London:
As both a magnet for the great performers and a creative melting pot, London has been one of the great cities of music for several centuries. That they came to London rather than any other English city with a claim to cultural significance is because, rightly or wrongly, the capital has always dominated the economic and artistic life of the country. In the 20th century London overtook Vienna, Paris, Berlin, New York as the great music city of the world, at least in terms of performance. It was partly down to the policies of an enlightened Arts Council, which supplied the means for orchestras, opera companies and concert life to function on unprecedented scales; partly down to the BBC, whose presence in Portland Place has been perhaps the single most decisive factor in the city’s musicality through the past 100 years; but equally attributable to London being the geographical gateway between America and Europe, which made it a natural stopping-off point for all the world’s great musicians as they travelled back and forth.