A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cathedral Music
CATHEDRAL MUSIC. Music composed for use in English Cathedral Service since the Reformation.
Just as the Reformed Liturgy was composed of prayers, versicles, responses, and other elements which, though in a different language, had formed the basis of the church services for centuries, so the music to which the new services were sung was not so much an innovation as an inheritance from earlier times: precedents can be found for the greater part of it in the pre-Reformation church music. The truth of this will appear if we compare the style of church music used in England at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries with what was introduced about 1550 as an accompaniment to the reformed liturgy. Our inferences as to the music of the former date must be drawn chiefly from breviaries and antiphonaries with musical notes, from compositions for the church, such as masses and motets, and from treatises on music. We learn from these sources that the psalms, canticles, versicles, responses, and creeds were sung invariably in plainsong, which signifies a certain specific mode of chanting in unison, guided by definite rules that can still be ascertained, and implying to a great extent the use of certain well-known melodies appropriated to particular parts of the service. Of this mode of chanting the Gregorian chants used at the present day are a regular form. [Chant.] So far then as regards simple melody we are fairly well informed as to pre-Reformation church music. But there is less certainty as to the use of harmony. It is true that a rude style of part-singing, called 'organising,' had been known for centuries before the Reformation, and later on the development of counterpoint had resulted in the composition of masses and motets, of which we have specimens by English composers, e. g. Byrd, Taverner, Fayrfax, and Tye, dating from before the Reformation. But though these compositions show that harmony was recognised in English church music before 1550, it is difficult to show to what extent they were used, and whether they were regularly introduced in the way that anthems by various composers are now employed in cathedral service. Possibly at ferial times plainsong may have predominated, and at festal times harmonised compositions, chants, and canticles, as well as anthems, may have been used; though these would interfere with the plainsong, which invariably formed the 'subject' to which the parts were adapted.
Such was the general character of English church music as it was found by the reformers of the 16th century. We must now enquire in what way it was dealt with by them in the transition from the Romish to the reformed service, and in what form it appeared after the change had taken place. The two works which directly illustrate the mind of the English church as to the musical rendering of her reformed services are, (1) the Litany published by Cranmer with its musical notation; (2) the more important work containing the musical notation of the remainder of the then Common Prayer Book, edited by John Marbeck. Now both these works seem to show that the aim of the reformers was not to discard but to utilise the ancient plainsong, by adapting it to the translated services. In the first place the music of Cranmer's litany is a very ancient chant, almost identical with that appointed for the Rogation days in the Roman processional, and with that which occurs in the Salisbury ritual for the procession of peace: hence we see that it was from the oldest sources that Cranmer obtained the musical setting of the new litany in English. Secondly, the music of Marbeck's work consists of the old plainsong simplified and adapted to the new services. Mr. Dyce, in his 'Preface and Appendix to the Book of Common Prayer,' shows conclusively that Marbeck intended to follow the ancient Salisbury use (the great standard of English choral music) note for note, as far as the rules of plainsong would permit; and that where his notation varies from that of Salisbury, the variation is due to the difference between the English and Latin syllables, and as such is merely what the technical rules of plainsong would dictate.
It would appear then that as regards plainsong, the Reformation brought little or no change to our services; the ancient melodies were preserved intact, except where change was required to adapt them to the new liturgy.
As to compositions in harmony, these, as we saw above, had been undoubtedly introduced into the service to some extent before the Reformation, but were sung to Latin words. During the changing times of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, when the form of church service was not yet settled, the great church composers wrote and arranged for whatever services were established at the time—for the Latin words of mattins, vespers, the little hours, and the mass, or for the English canticles of Morning and Evening Prayer, and for the English Communion Service, according as the Romish or Protestant liturgy was recognised. Sometimes, as in the case of Byrd's 'Ne irascaris, Domine,' and 'Bow thine ear, O Lord,' the same music was set to the two languages, or what had been written for the one was adapted to the other. And thus the change of ritual may be said to have affected compositions in harmony even less than it affected the mere melodic forms or plainsong.
Though a complete scheme for the musical service was set forth in Marbeck's book (except for the litany, which Cranmer had already supplied, and the Psalms, which no doubt Marbeck intended to be sung in the manner he indicated for the Canticles, viz. in the old plainsong); the canticles and other parts of the service were set very frequently in harmony, about the time when Marbeck's book appeared. All the church musicians whose harmonised compositions remain to us, from the time of Edward VI onwards, have set the canticles anthemwise as 'services'; and thus, even while Marbeck's was the only authorised musical-service book, a more perfect system was displayed alongside of it. Hearers could not fail to be struck by the superiority of harmonised canticles and services over the simple melodies sung in unison, of which Marbeck's book consists. Dr. Jebb considers that the latter work was only meant as an elementary and tentative one, and that it never became authoritative. However this may be, it was superseded by a work containing harmonized compositions, contributed by Tallis, Shepherd, Taverner, and some others. This was John Day's book, published in 1560, and entitled, 'Certaine Notes, set forth in foure and three partes, to be sung at the Morning, Communion, and Evening Praier, … and unto them be added divers Godly praiers and psalmes in the like forme.'
The latter clause leads us to the consideration of the anthem, with reference to which Blunt (Introduction to the Book of Common Prayer) says as follows:—'It is difficult to ascertain the exact time when the practice of popular hymn and metrical psalm singing established itself in connection with our revised ritual, though independently of its direct authority. Such singing was in use early in Elizabeth's reign, having doubtless been borrowed from the Protestants abroad. For the purpose of giving a quasi-official sanction to a custom which it would have been very unwise to repress, it was ordained by a royal injunction in the year 1559, that while there was to be a 'modest and distinct song so used in all parts of the common prayer, that the same might be understanded as if it were read without singing' (in other words, while the old traditional plainsong in its simplified form is to be employed throughout the whole service, yet) for the comforting of such as delight in music it may be permitted that in the beginning or at the end of the common prayer there may be sung an hymn or such like song, to the praise of Almighty God, in the best melody and music that may be devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understanded & perceived.'
This injunction gave legal authority to the setting of English words to be sung anthemwise. The first anthems written for the Reformed Church are full, i.e. sung in regular alternation by the whole choir; they resemble the motets of the Italian Church, which furnished models to the first English anthem-writers. 'Verse anthems', i.e. those in which certain passages, called verses, were sung in slower time, not by all the voices on one side but by a selected number, were introduced about 1670; though Dr. Jebb informs the writer that precedents for verse anthems existed in the pre-Reformation service.
As principal composers of cathedral music from the Reformation to the Rebellion we may select Tye, Tallis, Farrant, Shepherd, Taverner, Redford, Morley, Byrde, Bull, and Gibbons. The compositions of this period are more conspicuous for technical skill than for musical expression, and no difference can be traced between the secular and the sacred style. Dr. Jebb however maintains that the latter was at least national and peculiar to this country, and that the Church of England was not indebted to Palestrina; which statement he supports by urging the similarity of the style of Byrde and Tallis to that of Robert White, who was anterior to the great Italian composer.
Under the Commonwealth, music, except in the form of metrical psalmody, was expelled from English churches; it was restored in 1660 by Charles II, the effect of whose French tastes upon Cathedral music is thus described by Tudway (Burney's History, vol iii. 443): 'His majesty was soon tired with the grave and solemn way which had been established by Bird and others, and ordered the composers of his chapel to add symphonies with instruments to their anthems; and established a select number of his private music to play the symphony and ritornellos which he bad appointed. The old masters of music, Dr. Child, Dr. Gibbons, Mr. Low, etc., hardly knew how to comport themselves with these new fangled ways, but proceeded in their compositions according to the old style.' There was great difficulty during the first years of the Restoration in finding boys capable of singing in the choirs, since the art had been so much neglected during the Protectorate. Hawkins (History of Music, iv. 349) says on this point, 'Nay, to such streights were they driven, that for a twelvemonth after the Restoration the clergy were forced to supply the want of boys by cornets, and men who had feigned voices.'
It appears from a passage in the life of Archbishop Whitgift (Biographia Britannica, p. 4255), that cornets had been before introduced; for an allusion is made to the 'solemn music with the voices and organs, cornets and sackbuts'; and in Stow's Annals (864), we read that at the churching of the Queen after the birth of Mary daughter of James I, in the Royal Chapel, sundry anthems were sung with organ, cornets, sackbuts, and other instruments of music.' [See Anthem, 2nd period.]
'In about four or five years time' says Tudway, 'some of the forwardest and brightest children of the chapel, as Pelham Humphrey, John Blow, etc., began to be masters of a faculty in composing; this his majesty greatly encouraged, by indulging their youthful fancies. In a few years more, several others educated in the chapel, composed in this style; otherwise it was vain to please his majesty.' The peculiar influence here ascribed to Charles II may be traced in the works of Humphrey, Blow, Wise, and their contemporaries, in the too evident aim at effect, and the mannerisms and exaggerated ornaments which characterise them; even the great genius of Purcell did not escape the effect of Charles's fantastic tastes. Many of his finest anthems are disfigured by symphonies of such a kind as were evidently invented merely to gratify the king's desire for French mannerisms. But it was in the 18th century that the lowest musical standard prevailed in the service of the church. A florid sing-song melody, with a trivial accompaniment, was the type to which everything was sacrificed, and a rage set in for objectionable adaptations and arrangements. The works of Nares and Kent may be taken as specimens of this class, though one worthy exception should be noticed in Dr. Boyce.
Within the last 25 years choral communions have been introduced: they had been discarded at the Restoration, from which time up to 1840 the Communion Service was never set to music except in so far as parts of it, e. g. the Sanctus, and the Gloria, were arranged as anthems and introits.