Anglican Chant and Chanting in England and America, 1660-1811
Wilson, Ruth Mack
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/70865
Description
Title
Anglican Chant and Chanting in England and America, 1660-1811
Author(s)
Wilson, Ruth Mack
Issue Date
1988
Department of Study
Music
Discipline
Musicology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Religion, History of
Music
Abstract
The history of Anglican chanting practices is continuous from musical and liturgical antecedents in the pre-Reformation Latin rite to the persent, except for the brief mid-seventeenth century Interregnum. When the Latin Offices and Mass were consolidated and translated into English, the imprecision of the rubrics governing ritual left their implementation to practitioners and thus, distinct customs of particular institutions--cathedrals, collegiate chapels and churches, parish churches--became the decisive determinants of liturgical performance style. The various forms of chant trace their historical lineage to Sarum plainsong tones harmonized in four parts in faburden style. Composed treble melodies replaced psalm tone tenors in the English chant tune, a psalmodic formula for chanting psalms and canticles. Some of the new canon of liturgical melodies came from the "Chapel Royal repertory," sent out from London in the 1670s as a model for choral service. The chanting service, with solo verses and chant tune choruses, was another practical innovation of the Restoration period. In the eighteenth century, the chant tune developed its own notation and performance conventions, taking its seven-bar length from the unbalanced phrases--nine syllables to sixteen--of the first verse of the invitatory psalm, Venite exultemus.
In an increasingly prosperous and secular society, the formal elements of cathedral and parish traditions were often intermingled. Many cathedrals gave up chanted prayers while volunteer parish choirs, taught by a new cadre of singing masters, learned to chant canticles and psalms. The alternatim practice of cathedrals was adapted into alternating vocal duets singing first tonic, then dominant verses. The mixed customs of town churches provided the pattern for liturgical performance in the newly independent American church. Service music was adapted from a growing number of publications for cathedral, parish, and non-conformist churches. Before the advent of cheap printed music, however, choirmasters relied on oral and manuscript transmission as well as printed music. The musical practice that has traditionally been part of the English liturgy, in all its diverse forms, has never lost its appeal, or its authority, for Episcopal musicians in America.
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