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QUIRES AND PLACES WHERE THEY SING. SUBJECT INDEX 1. Antiquity and national character of church music. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. In the realm of music there is nothing which can more justly claim to be regarded as an English national institution than the Church choir. From the earliest times there have been Church choirs in England, and since the days when St. Augustine founded the first song-school in Kent, in 597, Church music has held an honoured place in the life of this country. It has passed through many vicissitudes and found expression in many different styles, but, save for the short period of the Commonwealth, its traditions have been handed down in an unbroken chain, and its development has reflected the spirit of each phase of the national life.The choirboys of to-day are the lineal successors of the pupils in the song-schools established in connection with the religious foundations all over our land long before the Norman Conquest; and the best composers of modern times would ask no prouder recognition than to be numbered in the succession which includes such names as Byrd, Gibbons or Purcell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. This truly national charactor of our Church music has had certain very marked results.It has meant that, almost without exception, our best composers have been brought up under the fostering care of the church, and indeed the large majority of them actually began their musical career as choristers. It has also meant that England in its Church music has developed a distinct style, and one which is far more marked in this than in any other branch of art.The English Symphony, Song, Oratorio or Opera is at least cast in the same mould as that of any other nation; but English Church music is something quite distinct, both in its actual form and , to a large extent, in the method of its performance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Every chorister would be better for some historical knowledge of his art, and no choirmaster should consider himself qualified unless he knows the principal masterpieces of the past,and unless composers like Byrd, Gibbons,Blow,Purcell,Croft,Wesley and others of similar eminence are to him something more than mere names. But it is impossible for chorister, choirmaster or organist even to understand the nature of the work in which he is engaged unless he can view it in relation to its historical background.Church music is a form of art that has its roots firmly embedded in the past; failure to recognise the offshoots of the parent stem, choosing in their place the weeds with which they are so often encumbered, is the commonest cause of disaster. People do not choose the bad deliberately; it is only that they fail to recognise the good The development of Church music must not be crushed by the dead hand of the past; but the innovator should at least have respect to the fabric that he seeks to improve. Neither reinforced concrete nor cubist decorations are fit adornments for a Gothic Cathedral; nor does ultra-modern tonality or highly coloured emotionalism fit in with the spirit of true Church music. The historic sense must not be allowed to deaden vitality, but at least it should help us to recognise a standard of what is fitting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. The existence of English Church Music has always been bound up with the conditions of its performance. Symphonies, Sonatas, Chamber music and other great forms of composition have , generally speaking, been written more or less as ' absolute ' music : that is to say, the composer has set to work to put his ideas on paper for the benefit of the world in general; sometimes writing to meet special circumstances, but , on the whole , choosing his materials at will as best fitted to interpret his ideas, without regard to the actual conditions of performance. But Church music in England has almost necessarily been limited by its traditional environment, and has been written to meet the actual needs of Cathedral and , later , of Parish church choirs. This is quite a natural development, for in no branch of music is there anything to correspond with the Choral Foundation, which has been a characteristic feature in the Church of this country from the earliest of times to the present day. It is safe to say that most of our Church music would never have been written had it not been for the existence of choirs ready and waiting to interpret it; and it is equally certain that the forms in which our Church music has been evolved are largely due to the peculiar constitution of these choral bodies. The essential feature is the small choir composed of boy trebles and men altos, tenors and basses It is for this combination, and this combination alone, that all the best English Church music has been written --- not for a 'mixed'choir, not for a large choir; so that it partakes more of the nature of Chamber music for voices than of broad writing for a chorus. It relies for much of its effect upon the peculiar quality of the voices employed, on the buildings in which it is designed to be heard, and , above all, on its direct association with the sacred surroundings to which it owes its existence.It cannot be judged apart from these conditions.The marvellous degree in which it fits them is the best proof of the artistry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. The evolution of Church music from its earliest known forms has of course been gradual. Nevertheless in the long course of its history there have been successive periods when the line of development has led mainly in one direction towards the establishment of a definitive style of composition. When the possibilities of one style seem to have been fully explored development begins again on fresh lines. These stylistic climaxes may be compared to the waves of an advancing tide, some bigger and more important than others, but all making their contribution to the flood of music with which the Church is enriched. In order to get a general view of the development of the art it is helpful to note the various stages of accomplishment, at least at the chief periods of climax. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Choirs were founded, as has been explained, in very early times in this country. As the teachers were brought direct from Rome, it was natural that the music they introduced should be that which was alone authorised for use in the Catholic Church ---- namely, the body of ecclesiastical music known as the ' Gregorian Chant ', which had been standardised and, if one may use the expression , edited by the famous pope whose name it bears. This was the music that was sung in our original abbeys and cathedrals, and was the subject of study in the early song-schools. It was purely melodic music ---harmony had not yet been thought of. Accurate musical notation had not been invented, so everything had to be learnt by oral tradition; and as the music was quite large in amount and by no means simple, its memorisation must have given plenty of occupation to its students. At first the plain , unaltered Gregorian chant was all that was permitted , but gradually the perscribed music of the church came to be ornamented and extended, and then, very tentatively, original composition began to arise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. During the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries experiments in harmony began to be made, very crude at first, at any rate to our modern ears, but slowly evolving towards the combination of sound which to us seem normal and agreeable. The development of harmony led in two main directions -- the homophonic, in which the harmony was regarded as a system of definate chords dependent on the interrelation of notes sounded together; and the polyphonic, where the harmony arose from the simultaneous performance of independent melodies. The former system may be regarded as being vertical in structure , the latter as horizontal. Both systems were explored side by side, but the polyphonic was the first to reach maturity.The climax may be said to have been attained in the work of the great Tudor School of composers, of whom the most celebrated are Tallis, Byrd, and ( at the end of the period ) Gibbons.By this time definite musical notation had ( through a long series of experiments ) become firmly established ,so that composers could indicate their meaning as precisely as they can now; harmony had come to be understood as we understand it to-day; our present key-system was established ; and what we should call ' counterpoint ' , or polyphonic writing, had reached a degree of perfection which has never since been surpassed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. By the time of the Reformation, Church music had reached a stage of great perfection. It was built up in the main on a system of parallel streams of melody , often interweaving one with another, but at the same time independent in rhythm and also in the 'underlaying ' of the words. The result of the simultaneous singing of the different parts of course produced harmony, and the concurrent melodies naturally were devised so as to fit one with another; but the music was essentially horizontal in its design, at least in the most typical examples of the period, and the harmony that arose was the result rather than the basis of the composition. Such music required the greatest technical skill in interpretation: some of it highly complex, and many independent voices are needed for its performance. Its difficulty will be realised when it is remembered that all performances had to be given from seperate 'part-books ', and that nothing like our modern ' vocal score ' (which enables each voice to follow what the others are singing ) was in existence.This argues a high degree of efficiency in the choirs for whom it was written, for none but very competent musicians could possibly have performed it. These, at any rate in the smaller ecclesiastical establishments, would not always have been forthcoming from among the Clergy, and Laymen were gradually introduced into choirs to act as deputies or ' Vicars'. So that by the time of the Reformation the Cathedral choir had assumed very much the same form as it has at present, and Henry V111, in providing Statutes for his Cathedrals of the ' New Foundation ' , made a similar provision for their music, arranging for the establishment to include not only boy choristers but Lay Clerks or Lay Vicars, as well as the Clergy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Musically speaking, the great change wrought by the Reformation was the substitution of English for Latin in the services of the Church, and it is with the advent of the English Liturgy that the growth of English Church music begins to seperate off from the parent stock -- the music of the whole Catholic Church . So long as the words set were those of the Latin service the music remained the heritage of the whole Church, but directly English was adopted it became distinctively national. It would be no more true to say that we had no national Church music before the Reformation than to say that the Church of England did not exist before that date. At the same time, whatever may be said of the effect of the Prayer Book of 1549 on the continuity of the tradition and practice of the Catholic Church in England, it is unquestionable that it introduced an entirely new set of musical problems, and that the mere change of language had a profound effect on the future of English Church music. It was fortunate that the change happened to coincide with a time when many first-class musicians were available to deal with the new problems; indeed many of the chief composers of the day wrote for the old rite with Latin words and also for the new with English. To some extent the solution was sought in the adaptation of music associated with the Latin text to the corresponding English; this was, for instance, the plan at first adopted for the psalms.But in the main the solution was found in supplying new music, and characteristic and individual forms were evolved for the treatment in particlar of the Canticles, the Nicene Creed and , in some cases , other parts of the Communion service. These were quite unlike anything that had preceded them , and were the direct outcome of the new conditions. The Anthem naturally followed more closely the style of the old Motet, to which it in a large measure corresponded, though it soon developed in a style of its own. In this the composers were following Cranmer's view of what was desirable, namely , that ' the song should not be full of notes, but as near as may be for every syllable a note,so that it may be sung distinctly and devoutly ' (Cranmer's letter to King Henry V111, October 7, 1545 ). The reformation marked another great change in the style of Church music. While Latin was the language of the Church all music for such parts of the service as the responses and psalms was purely melodic; but as soon as the English language was introduced there came a desire for harmony. No doubt the old plainsong melodies continued to be used to some extent with English words, but with the change of language their long reign approached its end. So much did the national love of vocal harmony triumph that is true to say that , with the exception of Merbecke's setting for the First Prayer Book , practically no unison music was written for the English Church from the time of the Reformation until the middle of the nineteenth century. So if we look at the period before the Reformation as one mainly of experiment and development, while the Church was still united under the Holy See, the period of its emancipation as a self-governing national institution will show us a full-grown musical style, definitely based on the needs of the new Liturgy; and without in any way minimising the importance of what had gone before, it may be said that English Church music as a distinctive art form really came into being when the language of the Liturgy ceased to be Latin. This period, then, marks the first great climax or 'tidal wave' in the history of our subject, and it may be said to have lasted , roughly speaking, to the time of the Commonwealth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. The troublous events of the Great Rebellion caused a serious interruption in the progress of Church music: during the Commonwealth there was a complete cessation of activity, all music in church being prohibited except the singing of a few metrical psalms. Organs were broken down , choirs disbanded and music-books destroyed. Had the period lasted much longer than it did , it would probably have meant the death-blow to English Church music. But one of the first acts of Charles 11 on his restoration was to revive the Cathedral services and re-establish the choirs.The old tradition had not been forgotten, though incalculable damage had been done in the destruction of music-books, and there is no doubt that many fine compositions were thus lost to posterity. It is curious to note how often at a time of crisis there have arisen people competent to deal with it; and , as at the upheaval of the Reformation, so now once more a gifted band of composers came forward to supply the new music that was wanted. The old polyphonic music had had its day, and tastes had changed, inclining to a lighter style with more opportunity for the display of fine voices. The chief characteristic of the music of the Reformation period is the developement of the ' Verse ' or movement to be sung by solo voices either alone or in combination. The accompaniment also began to assume increased importance and to form an integral and independent part of Church compositions, so that other instruments besides the organ were often introduced. The greatest names of the period are Purcell and Blow, both of them organists of Westminster Abbey . These two men , besides others who are less famous , wrote music of first-rate importance for the Church service in the new style of the day . The best of it is deeply expressive of the words to which it is set , and if the style, in comparison of that of an earlier age, seems at times to be somewhat flamboyant or trivial, yet it is extremely characteristic and unlike anything else, and is certainly reflective of the spirit of the times. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. The Restoration period was a short one,and most of its best work was done by the end of the seventeenth century. When Handel settled in England in 1710 (fifteen years after the death of Purcell ), there was no English composer of outstanding genius at work. The reigning House of Hanover was favourable to things foreign,and so it came about that English music was for a time completely dominated by this master mind. The work of many feebler composers is little more than a reflection of his mannerisms, but a few really gifted men, such as Croft , Greene, Boyce and Battishill, though considerably influenced by Handel, did manage to keep the national style alive, and wrote a certain amount of music well worthy to hold its place with the best works of the past. The eighteenth century has , however , an importance of its own in another direction; it is associated with the rise of Parish Church music. Regularly constituted choirs continued to function in the Cathedrals, where regular choral services were maintained. But the music of the Parish Church began to take on new vigour and to develop on its own lines. These were the days of the ' West Gallery ' choir and the village orchestra, which , however modest their attainments, at least showed a growing desire of ordinary folk no longer to rely on the professional musician, but to make their Church music for themselves. It marked the growth in popularity of the hymn-tune and the Anglican chant,both of which forms multiplied to an enormous extent. But in spite of this, if judged by the value of most of the music produced , the century must be regarded as having ended in a period of feebleness ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. The earlier decades of the nineteenth century marked another stage of development. There was a revulsion against the state of stagnation into which Church music had fallen, and men like Attwood , Samuel Wesley and Walmisley did much to inaugurate a new style. Their work was at once musianly and expressive,and if its moments of real inspiration were somewhat rare , it was at least sincere, and was a definite and to some extent successful attempt to provide music that was not in a past idiom and yet was suitable for the purposes of worship. Their work was nobly carried on by such men as Goss and Samuel Sebastion Wesley, both of whom , and especially the latter, at times wrote music that is worthy to rank with the best. Something like a religious upheaval, and not least in its effect on Church music, was produced by the Oxford Movement. One result of its influence was the rapid increase of Parish church choirs, constituted more or less on the Cathedral model ; - that is to say , composed of boys and men , seated in the chancel , and arrayed in the traditional Cathedral garb, the surplice. A Cathedral type of service was the model aimed at , including the chanting of the psalms and responses where possible, and the occasional rendering of Anthems and Service settings in the larger places ; but from the old parochial psalmody of the west gallery was retained the extensive use of hymns,which had never been an important part of the Cathedral tradition. It was obvious , even from the first , that choirs of village boys and men , or even the amateur singers of the average town church , could not tackle the music of Byrd or Purcell as their ordinary fare. The choirs had been formed. What were they to sing ? An early example of these gatherings is one held at York Minster in 1863, in which no less than 2700 choristers are said to have taken part.The music was exclusively of the Cathedral type , and included Wesley's Te Deum and Jubilate ( presumably from the Cathedral Service in F ), Gibbons ' Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in F , Croft's anthem " God is gone up " and Purcell's " O God , thou art my God " ; Evensong concluded with the Hallelujah Chorus. Whether this multitude of singers actually took much share in singing such an ambitious programme history does not relate ; but the interesting point is that such a programme should have been put before them as the type of music at which they should aim. Nowadays it is generally felt that this policy was a mistaken one, and there are some who would go as far as to deplore the institution of the surpliced choir and to say that the old ways were better. The halo of romance that clings around that which belongs to past days often tends to make people take a prejudiced view of that which succeeds it . But it must be remembered that the surpliced choir took the place of something that was dull , dowdy , often irreverent , and generally antagonistic to the singing of the congregation. Even if it failed to achieve all that was desired, at least it did much towards the promotion of an ideal of ordered beauty in worship, and to bring the music and the musicians into closer touch with the service itself ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. A good deal of the music that was written to supply the needs of these newly constituted choirs was of no great value , though it certainly supplied them with what they wanted for the movement. Unfortunately much of it outlived its usefulness and came to be regarded as an important, if not the most important , part of the repertory not only in Parish Churches but even in Cathedrals. So that the last quarter of the nineteenth century produced ' Service Lists ' containing an amount of Victorian Church music wholly out of proportion to its artistic merit. Added to this , an extensive use was made of excerpts from Oratorios in place of Anthems,with the result that the old classical music of the Church was in grave danger of being ousted from its rightful position. Whatever may be said of the compositions of the typical Victorian musicians, a tribute is due to the great work that many of them did for Church music in other directions. The Rev. Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley, a most scholarly musician and an enthusiast for the best, founded his College of St. Michael, Tenbury, in order to set a permanent standard in the music of Cathedral services and to preserve the best traditions in the rendering of the Opus Dei . Sir John Stainer at St Paul's Cathedral revolutionised the choir both in its composition and its efficiency, and gave to the whole church an object-lesson of what Church-singing should be. So that Cathedral services took on an entirely new aspect and became a potent force in Church life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. Under similar influences came an increased interest in the singing of the congregation, associated with the names of men like Henry Smart; in fact, congregational singing , within the established Church , may be said to have first come into prominence at this time. Hymns Ancient and Modern was issued in 1861, and was the first really successful attempt to make Hymn-singing a vital part of the Parish church service. Composers of the day , such as Dykes , Monk , and Stainer , contributed tunes , some of which have taken a place in the national effections which is likely to be permanent. At the same time many of the best of the old metrical psalm-tunes were revived, which had been ousted by the trivialities of the preceeding century. It is the fashion nowadays to disparage and even to condemn in no measure terms the typical ' Victorian ' hymn-tune ; but this at least can be said for it --it gave the needed impetus to congregational singing, and it popularised Church music in a way that nothing else has succeeded in doing. It may be regrettable , but it is certainly true , to say that to the average church-goer the hymn-tunes of Dykes and Stainer still mean more than the anthems of Gibbons and Purcell : and if this is so , it is necessary to admit the historical importance that belongs to a school which produced so great a result as to bring Church Music into the very mouths of the worshippers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. During this period the custom of employing music for the service of Holy Communion became more general, especially as the century progressed. Here again new music had to be found , for the small amount of ' classical ' music that was available was not suitable for the choirs that were called on to sing it. To some extent the difficulty was met by the adaptation of ancient plainsong Masses to the English words, or the revival of Merbecke's Booke of Common Praier Noted , in which he had provided music for the First English Prayer Book of 1549. But many new compositions , of varying merit , were also written ; and adaptations of Latin Masses by such composers as Mozart , Haydn , Schubert , and Gounod were made , which were in most cases quite alien to the spirit of the best English Church music. These , with the works of native composers who feebly imitated their style , mark a retrograde step from which Church music has not yet entirely recovered [ as at 1932 ]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. The revival of plainsong for psalms and hymns as well as for Communion service was another development at this period. Though its use was confined to a comparatively small number of churches, yet it certainly affected the general musical outlook, and its sober austerity no doubt provided a healthy counter-influence to the somewhat luscious style of composition that found such general favour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17. The last half of the nineteenth century , then , was a period of great activity ; its best contribution , by far , was in the improvement of the standard of singing , and the general ordering of musical services. With the exception of S.S. Wesley the century had as yet produced no really first-rate composers ; but towards its end a renaissance in Church composition had begun , and by the eighties Charles Villiers Stanford and a few others were giving to the Church work which was thoroughly new and original , eminently suitable for its purpose , and of the highest musical value. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18. [ AS AT 1932 ] And so we pass on to the music of the present day. It is notoriously difficult to estimate the permanent value of contemporary work, but certain signs of the times are fairly obvious.The present is not the time when great enrichment is being given to Church music by new compositions , and outside the ranks of those who are actively engaged in Church work,few of the leading composers of the day have contributed works of the first importance. Rather is it a time when the treasures of the past are being rediscovered. Splendid compositions which had been well-nigh forgotten are being made available by new editions, and scholarly research has thrown new light on their correct interpretation ; so that old music which was , through lack of understanding , often supposed to be dull and uninspired , has now proved itself to be full of vitality and aesthetic beauty. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19. In connection with this revival it is necessary to mention the researches into the Church music of the Tudor period which have resulted in the magnificent series of volumes entitled Tudor Church Music,published under the auspices of the Carnegie Trust. The scholarly editing of the best of these compositions by such discerning and sensitive musicians as Dr. E.H. Fellowes and others has enriched the repertory of Cathedrals and the larger Parish churches to a remarkable degree. A new stimulus to the revival of plainsong has been given, largely through the work of the late Dr. G.H. Palmer, by the researches of the Benedictine monks of Solesmes becoming known in England: and much ancient plainchant has also been made available for English services through the publications of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society and the researches of the present [1932] Bishop of Truro, Dr W.H. Frere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23. In reviewing its long history it is interesting to compare the development of Church music with that of the sister art which is so specially associated with the church , namely , Architecture , and to note the curious similarity in the sequence of styles , -- though the successive styles in each are not of course necessarily contemporaneous , for Architecture is one of the oldest arts , whilst Music is the newest. It would be foolish to attempt to press the analogy too far, but it is perhaps not too fanciful to see in the rugged Saxon or Norman architecture , with its simple majestic structure and its severe ornament , a parallel to the noble and austere melodic music which we classify under the general name of plainsong. The serenity and beauty of line of the Tudor School ,with its interweaving strands of pure melody , forms a fit comparison to Early English architecture , developing into the richness of the Decorated and Perpendicular , which is matched by the splendid polyphony of the most advanced music of the period. For Classical Renaissance we can perhaps find a musical analogy in the most contemporary music of the Restoration period , and it is hardly too much to say that the music of Byrd is as different from that of Purcell as the old St. Paul's was from the new. The dignified opulence of the typical Georgian church seems to match very well with the measured strains of Boyce or Greene;- perhaps not very inspired or original for the most part , but still thoroughly sound and workmanlike, and with real dignity and on an occasional touch of genius of its own. Then came the Gothic revival so closely associated, as was the contemporary music , with the Tractarian Movement ; some of it of the ' churchwarden ' type , comparable to much dull and unoriginal music which was hardly more than a feeble reproduction of a past idiom ; in other cases the type which glorified in alabaster reredoses , brass flower-vases , and insanities in stained glass -- the counterpart of the feeble anthems and hymn-tunes which were turned out so plentifully in the latter part of the 1800's. And finally , the desire for a higher artistic standard brings with it the reversion to a more restrained simplicity , as shown in the best architecture and Church music of today [ 1930's ]. Again the charm and interest of great buildings is largely bound up in their past history , in the generations of men who have joined in their construction and beautifying and hallowing ; and so it is with the music. We all admire the ordered beauty of style in a perfect example like Salisbury ; just as we all love what we , fancifully , have described as its musical equivalent , the Tudor Church music. But most of us are more thrilled to read in their stones the long story of such places as Canterbury , York , Ely , or Winchester, with all their mixtures of styles , and the lesson they teach us of the continuity of the Church. In the same way we delight in placing our plainsong responses or psalms or hymns alongside of our Purcell , or our Byrd and Gibbons beside our Wesley or Stanford. So that if we are to get the maximum interest from our Church music we must learn to apply to it the same sort of historic sense as helps us to understand our great buildings. But in one respect music is quite different from architecture . When we have an ugly church or one containing bad features we generally have to put up with it , because it is its nature to be permanent. But this is not so with music ; bad music need never be perpetuated.There is some excuse for bad architecture which we have inherited, but there is non for bad music. That is why the outlook for reform is so hopeful -- because there is nothing material to prevent it. And that , too , is why it is so important that congregations and , particularly , those people who have control of the services should be so instructed that they can intelligently use the power that is committed to them.
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