This is a summary of 1921 in music in the United Kingdom.

Events

• January – Sir Charles Villiers Stanford gives a public lecture entitled "Some Recent Tendencies in Composition", criticising current musical trends.^[1]
• 5 March – Charles Villiers Stanford makes his last public appearance when he conducts his latest work, the cantata At the Abbey Gate.^[2] The Observer thinks it "quite appealing even though one feels it to be more facile than powerful."^[3]
• 14 June – First performance of the orchestral version of Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending conducted by Adrian Boult with Marie Hall as violin soloist in a concert at the Queen's Hall in London.
• June – Adrian Boult conducts an experimental Opera Intime week at the Aeolian Hall (London).^[4]
• date unknown
  • A new production of The Tempest at the Aldwych Theatre, directed by Viola Tree, adds new incidental music by Arthur Bliss to that by Thomas Arne and Arthur Sullivan.^[5]
  • The Savoy Havana Band is formed as a resident dance band at the Savoy Hotel, London, by American saxophonist Bert Ralton.

Popular music

• "And Her Mother Came Too": words by Dion Titheradge, music by Ivor Novello^[6]
• "Dancing Time": words by George Grossmith, Jr., music by Jerome Kern^[7]
• "Shimmy With Me": words by P. G. Wodehouse, music by Jerome Kern, from the musical The Cabaret Girl^[7]

Classical music: new works

• Kenneth J. Alford – The Mad Major
• Arnold Bax – Mater ora Filium
• Eric Coates – Moresque
• John Foulds – A World Requiem (1919–21; premiered 1923)^[8]
• Albert Ketèlbey
  • Bells Across the Meadows
  • In a Persian Market
• John Ireland – Two Pieces for Piano
• Cyril Rootham – Suite in three movements for flute and piano

Opera

• Gustav Holst – Savitri

Musical theatre

• 17 January – The League of Notions London revue opens at the Oxford Theatre.
• 5 October – The Golden Moth (Music: Ivor Novello) opens at the Adelphi Theatre, starring Bobbie Comber and Thorpe Bates.

Publications

• Porte, J. F. Sir Edward Elgar. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Turner & Co. Ltd.

Births

• 5 February – Sir John Pritchard, conductor (died 1989)
• 2 March – Robert Simpson, musicologist and composer (died 1997)
• 21 March – Antony Hopkins, composer and music writer (died 2014)
• 8 April – Alfie Bass, actor (Tevye in West End production of Fiddler on the Roof) (died 1987)^[9]
• 23 May – Humphrey Lyttelton, English jazz musician (died 2008)
• 12 July – Hilary Corke, writer and composer (died 2001)
• 13 August – Mary Lee, Scottish singer
• 8 September – Sir Harry Secombe, singer and comedian (died 2001)^[10]
• 21 September – Jimmy Young, singer and radio broadcaster (died 2016)^[11]
• 2 October – Robert Bruce Montgomery, composer (died 1978)
• 21 October – Sir Malcolm Arnold, composer (died 2006)^[12]

Deaths

• 8 February – George Formby Sr, singer and comedian, 45 (tuberculosis)^[13]
• 25 February – John Thomas of Llanwrtyd, composer, 81^[14]
• 14 March – Gustave Barnes, violinist, painter and sculptor, 43^[15]
• 29 November – Ivan Caryll, Belgian-born composer of operettas in English, 60^[16]