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Anglican church music is music that is written forChristian worship inAnglican religious services, forming part of theliturgy. It mostly consists of pieces written to be sung by achurch choir, which may singa cappella or accompanied by anorgan.
Anglican music forms an important part of traditional worship not only in theChurch of England, but also in theScottish Episcopal Church, theChurch in Wales, theChurch of Ireland, theEpiscopal Church in the United States of America, theAnglican Church of Canada, theAnglican Church of Australia and otherChristian denominations which identify as Anglican. It can also be used at thePersonal Ordinariates of theRoman Catholic Church.
The chief musical forms in Anglican church music are centred around the forms of worship defined in the liturgy.[1][2]
Service settings are choral settings of the words of the liturgy. These include:
ThePreces (orversicles) and responses are a set of prayers from theBook of Common Prayer for both Morning and Evening Prayer. They may be sungantiphonally by the priest (or a laycantor) and choir. There are a number of popular choral settings by composers such asWilliam Smith orBernard Rose; alternatively, they may be sung asplainsong with a congregation.
Morning and Evening Prayer (and sometimes Holy Communion) include aPsalm or Psalms, chosen according to thelectionary of the day. This may be sung by the choir orcongregation, either to plainsong, or to a distinctive type ofchant known asAnglican chant by the choir or congregation.
Part-way through a service of worship, a choir may sing ananthem ormotet, a standalone piece of sacred choral music, which is not part of the liturgy but is usually chosen to reflect to the liturgical theme of the day.
The singing ofhymns is a common feature of Anglican worship and usually includes congregational singing as well as a choir. AnIntroit hymn is sung at the start of a service, aGradual hymn precedes theGospel, an Offertory hymn is sung during theOffertory and arecessional hymn at the close of a service.
A piece for organ, known as avoluntary, is often played at the end of a service after the recessional hymn anddismissal.
Almost all Anglican church music is written forchoir with or withoutorgan accompaniment. Adult singers in a cathedral choir are often referred to aslay clerks, while children may be referred to aschoristers or trebles.[8] In certain places of worship, such asWinchester College in England, the more archaic spellingquirister is used.[9]
An Anglican choir typically uses "SATB" voices (soprano ortreble,alto orcounter-tenor,tenor, andbass), though in many works some or all of these voices are divided into two for part or all of the piece; in this case the two halves of the choir (one on each side of the aisle) are traditionally nameddecani andcantoris which sing, respectively, Choir 1 and Choir 2 in two-choir music. There may also be soloists, usually only for part of the piece. There are also works for fewer voices, such as those written for solely men's voices or boys'/women's voices.
At traditional Anglican choral services, a choir isvested, i.e. clothed in special ceremonialvestments. These are normally acassock, a long, full-length robe which may be purple, red or black in colour, over which is worn asurplice, a knee-length white cotton robe. Normally a surplice is only worn during a service of worship, so a choir often rehearses wearing cassocks only. Younger choristers who have newly joined a choir begin to wear a surplice after an initial probationary period. Cassocks originated in themedieval period as day dress for clergy, but later came into liturgical use. Additionally, junior choristers may wear aruff, an archaic form of dress collar, although this tradition is becoming less common. In some establishments, including theChoir of King's College, Cambridge, Eton collars are worn.Whist singing theoffices, adult choir members may also wear anacademic hood over their robes. In England, young choristers who have attained a certain level of proficiency with theRoyal School of Church Music, an international educational organisation that promotes liturgical music, may wear an RSCM medallion.[10][11]
Prior to theReformation, music in British churches and cathedrals consisted mainly ofGregorian chant andpolyphonic settings of theLatin Mass. The Anglican church did not exist as such, but the foundations of Anglican music were laid with music from the Catholic liturgy. The earliest surviving examples of European polyphony are found in theWinchester Tropers, a manuscript collection of liturgical choral music used atWinchester Cathedral, dating from the early-eleventh to mid-twelfth centuries.[12] By the time of KingHenry V in the fifteenth century, the music in English cathedrals, monasteries andcollegiate churches had developed a distinctive and influential style known in Western Europe as thecontenance angloise, whose chief proponent was the composerJohn Dunstable.[13]
The intenseMarian tradition led to theTudor votive style of polyphony developing at the end of the 15th century, characterised by hightreble lines and long solo verses withmelisma. Antiphons were usually performed at the end of the liturgical day after compline.[14] The largest collection of the style is the late-15th-centuryEton Choirbook.[15] By 1500,canticles,antiphons andLady Masses were composed with up to nine parts in the texture, andvocal ranges and melodic complexity increased,
Characteristics of the votive style, such as elaborate voice lines and melisma, began to be supplanted by more succinct continental traditions by the 1530s.[16] Apart from a brief but strong revival in the 1550s with the reign ofQueen Mary, the votive style died out due to its complexity, scale anddevotional subject coming to odds with the ideals of theEdwardian andElizabethan reformations. Nevertheless, the Tudor votive style had enduring influence in theAnglican church: choristers andlay clerks often face each other antiphonally, placed in thequire'sDecani andCantoris, just as they did in the latePlantagenet and earlyTudor periods.[17]
In the early 1530s, thebreak with Rome underKing Henry VIII set in motion the separation of the Church of England from theRoman Catholic Church and theReformation in England. The Church of England'sLatin liturgy was replaced with scripture and prayers inEnglish; theGreat Bible in English was authorised in 1539 andThomas Cranmer introduced theBook of Common Prayer in 1549.[18][19] These changes were reflected in church music, and votive works that had previously been sung in Latin began to be replaced with new Christocentricanthems in English. This gave rise to an era of great creativity during theTudor period, in which composition of music for Anglican worship flourished. Former late proponents of the votive style such asJohn Sheppard,Robert White andThomas Tallis began composing in a more modern, imitative style of polyphony closer to that of the late period, such as in theRoman School.[20][21] The defining characteristic of music in the reformed Church of England was one-syllable-one-note, according to the 1559 injunctions. However, a more elaborate piece was permitted at certain times of the day, allowingChapel Royal composers to continue writing and performing polyphonic Latin motets, such as Tallis'O nata lux, alongside the simple English anthems.[22]
Following the events of theEnglish Civil War and the execution ofKing Charles I,Puritan influences took hold in the Church of England. Anglican church music became simpler in style, and services typically focused on morning and evening prayer. During theRestoration period,musical practices of the Baroque era found their way into Anglican worship, and stringed or brass instruments sometimes accompanied choirs. In the late 17th century, the composerHenry Purcell, who served as organist of both the Chapel Royal andWestminster Abbey, wrote many choral anthems and service settings. During theGeorgian era, the music ofGeorge Frideric Handel was highly significant, with his repertoire of anthems, canticles and hymns, although he never held a church post.[19]
Up until the early 19th century, most Anglican church music in England was centred around the cathedrals, where trained choirs would sing choral pieces in worship. Composers wrote music to make full use of the traditional cathedral layout of a segregatedchancel area and the arrangement of choir stalls into rows ofDecani andCantoris, writingantiphonal anthems.[19]
Inparish churches, musical worship was limited to congregational singing ofmetrical psalms, often led by a largely untrained choir. A great quantity of simple tunes were published in the 18th and early 19th century for their use.[23] From the mid-18th century, accompaniment began to be provided by a "parish band" of instruments such as theviolin,cello,clarinet,flute andbassoon.[24] These musicians would often sit in a gallery at the west end of the church, giving rise to the later term, "west gallery music".[25]
The tradition of arobed choir of men and boys was virtually unknown in Anglican parish churches until the early 19th century. Around 1839, a choral revival took hold in England, partially fuelled by theOxford Movement, which sought to revive Catholic liturgical practice in Anglican churches. Despite opposition from more Puritan-minded Anglicans, ancient practices such asintoning the versicles and responses and chanted Psalms were introduced.[26][27] The 16th century setting byJohn Merbecke for the Communion Service was revived in the 1840s and was almost universally adopted in parish churches.[28] Composers active around this time includedSamuel Sebastian Wesley andCharles Villiers Stanford. A number of grandiose settings of the Anglican morning and eveningcanticles for choir and organ were composed in the late 19th and early 20th century, including settings byThomas Attwood Walmisley,Charles Wood,Thomas Tertius Noble,Basil Harwood andGeorge Dyson, works which remain part of the Anglican choral repertoire today.
The singing ofhymns was popularised within Anglicanism by the evangelicalMethodist movement of the mid-18th century, but hymns, as opposed to metrical psalms, were not officially sanctioned as an integral part of Anglican Orders of Service until the early nineteenth century.[29][30] From about 1800 parish churches started to use different hymn collections in informal service like theLock Hospital Collection[31] (1769) byMartin Madan, theOlney hymns[32] (1779) byJohn Newton andWilliam Cowper andA Collection of Hymns for the Use of The People Called Methodists(Wesley 1779) (1779) byJohn Wesley andCharles Wesley.[29][33] In 1820, the parishioners of a church inSheffield took their parish priest to court when he tried to introduce hymns into Sunday worship; the judgement was ambiguous, but the matter was settled in the same year byVernon Harcourt, theArchbishop of York, who sanctioned their use at services.[34] Anglican hymnody was revitalised by the Oxford Movement and led to the publicationhymnals such asHymns Ancient and Modern (1861). TheEnglish Hymnal, edited byPercy Dearmer andRalph Vaughan Williams, was published in 1906, and became one of the most influential hymn books ever published. It was supplanted in 1986 by theNew English Hymnal.[35]
The acceptance of hymns in Anglican liturgy led to the adoption of the folk tradition ofChristmas carol singing during the 19th century, the popularity of which was enhanced byAlbert, Prince Consort teaching German carols to the royal family.[36] The Festival ofNine Lessons and Carols originated atTruro Cathedral in 1888 as a means of attracting people away from pubs on Christmas Eve; a revised version was adopted atKing's College, Cambridge, first broadcast onBBC radio in 1928 and has now become an annual tradition, transmitted around the world.[37] This has done much to popularise church music, as well as published collections such asOxford Book of Carols (1928) andCarols for Choirs. Following theearly music revival of the mid-20th century, the publication of collections such as theOxford Book of Tudor Anthems encouraged renewed interest in 17th-century composers such as Byrd and Tallis.
In all but the smallest churches the congregation was until recently confined to the singing of hymns. Over the past half century or so efforts have been made to increase the role of the congregation and also to introduce more "popular" musical styles in the evangelical and charismatic leaning congregations. Not all churches can boast a full SATB choir, and a repertoire of one-, two- and three-part music is more suitable for many parish church choirs, a fact which is recognised in the current work of theRoyal School of Church Music.
Anglican churches also frequently draw upon the musical traditions of other Christian denominations. Works byCatholic composers such asMozart,Lutherans such asBach,Calvinists likeMendelssohn, and composers from other branches of Christianity are often featured. This is particularly the case in music for the Mass inAnglo-Catholic churches, much of which is taken from the work ofRoman Catholic composers.
Traditionally, Anglican choirs were exclusively male, due to a belief that girls' voices produced a different sound. However, recent research[citation needed] has shown that given the same training, the voices of girls and boys cannot be told apart, save for an interval from the C above middle C to the F above that.Salisbury Cathedral started a girls' choir in 1991 and others have since followed suit. There has been some concern that having mixed choirs in parish churches leads to fewer boys being willing to participate.[38]
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