craftman’s arts and music’s measure

for thy pleasure all combine

Music, which plays such an important role in worship has a fascinating history. In this, the first of a number of articles on both Anglican and Methodist church music we start with the history of Anglican music.

At the time of the reformation few churches possessed anything like a choir, although a surprising number ,even village churches, had organs. These were either removed or left to decay and little survived in the way of church music. In 1644 parliament decreed that all organs should be silenced. Some organs were left in cathedrals, but these were rarely used except for the occasional voluntary.. The 1536 view that organ playing was among the 84 faults and abuses in religion was acted upon.

During the late 18th century small orchestras and sometimes choirs started to appear, perhaps occupying the west gallery. In villages they tended to be a haphazard collection of instruments and musicians. Contemporary accounts throw an interesting light on the dubious state of church service music. In Sheffield Parish church ˜high over the gallery was a kind a kind of immense box hung in chains into which with a ladder, musicians male and female with the aid of bum basses, hautboys, fiddles and other instruments accompanying shrill and stentorian voices, they contrived to make as loud a noise as they could.

In Suffolk (1764) a clergyman describes the church arrangements as follows: They face each other in a ring and with their Backs to ye Congregation, where they murder anthems, abuse improper Psalms, leave off in ye middle of a sentence, sing ye Psalms to new jiggish tunes. If ye Minister offers to direct them he may mind his Text - they sing as they list, or not at all. They frequently leave their own parish church in a body to display their Talents in other Churches. I have known them to stroll six or seven miles for this purpose, sometimes with a young female singer or two in their train.

Porteus, the Bishop of London complains about the monopolising of psalmody in the country parishes to sing in the worst manner a wretched set of psalm tunes so complex that it cannot be followed by the congregation. They therefore sit absorbed in silent admiration or total inattention.

In towns the presence of an organ was more common than in villages, and the singing was led by Charity Children or in the late 18th century the Sunday School children. The many thousands of Charity Children gathered once a year in St. Paul’s Cathedral, greatly impressing Haydn in 1792 and Berlioz in 1851. The Bishop of London did not share this enthusiasm for children’s choirs, describing them as a ‘contest between them and the organ which shall be the loudest and give the most pain to the ear.

 Gradually, church orchestras disappeared with the introduction first of the barrel organ and then the harmonium. The barrel organ appeared in churches in the late C18th and quickly spread round the country. The harmonium started to make its appearance in the 1840s. Hardy’s Under the greenwood tree paints a lifelike picture of this era of musical transition. With church services gradually becoming more dignified, music became less varied and village music making was much affected. The desire for more dignity and decorum in churches was further promoted by the Oxford Movement and the rise of surpliced choirs, which is the subject of the next article.