The earliest orchestral concerts known to have taken place in Birmingham were those organized by Barnabas Gunn at the Moor Street Theatre in 1740,[5] and more than 20 separate orchestras are recorded as having existed in the city between that date and the foundation of what is now the CBSO in 1920.

[7] Under Michael Costa and Hans Richter between 1849 and 1909 it included some of the leading instrumentalists of its day from across Britain and Europe,[5] but remained an ad hoc grouping that assembled to play only at the three-yearly festivals.

[5] Stockley and Halford established regular orchestral concerts as an expected feature of life in Birmingham[10] which by the late 19th century supported a substantial pool of high quality locally based professional musicians.

[18] The group's first plan was to support Beecham's New Birmingham Orchestra, but this enterprise was wound up after the government requisitioned the Town Hall for the issue of First World War ration books, depriving it of its primary concert venue.

[25] Thomas Beecham was considered to be the most suitable candidate for the Principal Conductor role, but he was pre-occupied with his own acute financial problems and had not forgiven the city for its failure to support his earlier New Birmingham Orchestra.

[29] The CBO's first concert was given under Matthews' baton as part of the Sunday series at the Theatre Royal on 5 September 1920, with the first piece of music performed being Granville Bantock's Saul.

[33] In 1922 Matthews was relieved of any involvement in the financial administration of the orchestra,[35] popular concerts were increasingly moved to suburban and out-of-town venues, and development and marketing plans were drawn up to stem a deficit which by May 1923 grown to £3,000.

[48] Some of the leading conductors in Europe were brought in to guest conduct, including Bruno Walter, Pierre Monteux, Ernest Ansermet and Ernő Dohnányi.

[51] The immediate impact of Boult's arrival was conveyed by the Birmingham Post reviewing his first season: "The strongest impression is of a very great gain in note accuracy, a much improved ensemble, and a high standard of playing from the string group.

[60] By 1926, the orchestra's finances had improved,[61] helped by the City Council's decision in 1924 to allow Birmingham Town Hall to be used rent-free for the Symphony concerts[54] and in 1925 to double the CBO's grant to £2,500 annually.

[77] The orchestra under Heward also began to attract front-rank soloists: Arthur de Greef and Nikolai Orlov performed in 1931;[76] Artur Schnabel played Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in 1933;[78] Ernst Wolff, Arthur Catterall, Egon Petri, Frederic Lamond performed in 1934;[79] Adolf Busch and Solomon in 1936;[80] and in 1938 Béla Bartók played one of his own Piano Concertos.

[76] In 1934 Percy Edgar and Victor Hely-Hutchinson agreed to establish the BBC Midland Orchestra playing 2–3 concerts a week, with Heward as conductor and 35 of its musicians shared with the CBO on 12-month contracts.

[86] The stability this brought meant that Heward could build on the achievements of the previous 15 years[75] and by the late 1930s the CBO was playing to a standard comparable to the orchestras of major cities of continental Europe.

[91] On Boxing Day 1942 Heward was offered the post of Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, tendering his resignation with effect from the end of the season, but he did not live to see out his contract, dying at his Edgbaston home in May 1943.

In 1951, the incoming executive chairman of the CBSO committee approached Rudolf Schwarz to take over as the orchestra's new chief conductor, letting Weldon know that his contract would not be renewed.

[118] Schwarz had a well-established career as an operatic conductor in pre-war Germany, but his role as music director of the Jewish Cultural Organisation in Berlin led to him being interned by the Nazis in Belsen, from where he was rescued in 1945.

When this proposal collapsed, the committee planned instead to reduce the orchestra to a six-month operation, until the incoming Labour council agreed to write off the accumulated deficit in May 1952 with an interest-free loan.

[135] His first season in Birmingham was highly adventurous, featuring the British premieres of works by Ernest Bloch, Gian Francesco Malipiero and Ferenc Farkas.

Many early English works for small chamber ensembles were included alongside later classical and romantic repertoire, and some concerts would start with only 13 players on the platform.

[142] Panufnik's unexpectedly early departure created problems for the CBSO's management, who had intended for him ultimately to be succeeded by Meredith Davies, who had been appointed in 1957 from over 150 applicants as the orchestra's second Associate Conductor alongside Harold Gray.

[158] The growing prestige of the CBSO made it easier to attract international artists: soloists at CBSO concerts included Wilhelm Kempff, Clifford Curzon, Ida Haendel, Paul Tortelier, Isaac Stern and Mstislav Rostropovich;[159] and notable guest conductors included Antal Doráti, Jascha Horenstein, Rudolf Kempe, Ferdinand Leitner and Nadia Boulanger, who conducted a programme of works by her sister Lili Boulanger.

[154] The era saw Birmingham's first complete performances of works including Debussy's Images, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Walton's Violin Concerto,[161] and a series themed around "Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century" was held in 1966 and 1967.

[163] The most significant premiere of the period, indeed of the CBSO's entire history,[164] saw the orchestra play the first performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at the dedication of Coventry Cathedral in 1962, accompanied by Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heather Harper and the Melos Ensemble, conducted by Meredith Davies and the composer himself.

[166] The workload of the orchestra remained extremely high though: throughout the 1960s it gave annual concert series in Coventry, Nottingham, Cheltenham, Dudley, Kidderminster and London as well as regular performances in Leeds and Bristol.

[168] Despite playing more concerts than the Liverpool, Hallé or Bournemouth orchestras it received a smaller grant from the Arts Council,[166] until increases in 1966 finally brought the it into line.

[185] This was turned down by the city council for being impractical,[186] and instead in 1972 the Town Hall was extensively refurbished with double glazing and more room on the platform, but little improvement in acoustics – the orchestra's manager Arthur Baker commented that "we still have the same woolly sound".

[183] In their place, manager Arthur Baker developed a partnership with promoter Victor Hochhauser for the orchestra to perform lucrative series of mass-market concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London, but constant travelling away from Birmingham and repetitive popular repertoire began to have a negative effect on player morale.

[198] The Birmingham Post wrote of Frémaux that "whatever the circumstances of his going, he was the man who raised the CBSO to the highest point of prestige in its history to date",[177] while Rattle stated that he had inherited "possibly the best French orchestra in the world.

Under him, the orchestra increased its recording profile and became one of the leading ensembles in Europe, and gained a name for its interpretations of late romantic and 20th century works, especially those of Sibelius and Gustav Mahler.

[222] In February 2022, the CBSO announced the appointment of a cohort of six new Assistant Conductors – Bertie Baigent, Olivia Clarke, Otis Enokido-Lineham, Jack Lovell-Huckle, Charlotte Politi and Konstantinos Terzakis.