The Introduction provides the background that led to the founding of the RCM. It argues that its vision came out of the musical achievements of August Manns and George Grove at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, which hosted London’s first permanent concert orchestra. It suggests that the long-established trope of the ‘English Musical Renaissance’ gives a misleadingly composer-centric view of the late Victorian British musical condition, which ignores the vitality of the different participative musical cultures of the time, such as brass and wind bands or choral singing. It demonstrates how different Grove’s conception of the RCM was from the then-failing RAM in providing a complete and systematic musical training. It relates the attraction of the RCM’s education to the fact that examined accreditation for music teachers (the ARCM) was now a worthwhile professional investment. The Introduction presents one of the book’s central arguments, that from a national perspective, the College is as important for its students who worked to raise musical standards locally as for its star performers and composers.