As seen in Chapter Three, the general condition of cathedral music at the end of the eighteenth century was at one of its lowest points, while at parish level the developments of country psalmody had certainly enlivened music in rural churches, even if it was strongly disapproved of by many clergy and professional musicians. Meanwhile, most town churches still relied on local charity children to support their music, although voluntary mixed choirs were appearing in some more adventurous parishes. By the end of the nineteenth century a major transformation had taken place, particularly in parish churches where what we have come to consider as the typical church choir emerged. The cathedrals had begun to awake from their somnolent state, and both Nonconformist and Roman Catholic churches also developed choral cultures. In the course of that change, various issues would periodically arise. One of the most significant was the relationship between choir and congregation, which confronted not only parishes, but on occasions the cathedrals too, as their Sunday congregations grew. The question of female participation, whether as sopranos or contraltos, produced an assortment of practices, both within the Church of England, as the divisions of churchmanship became more pronounced, and in the Roman Catholic Church.

Standards of church music in the early decades of the century were probably no worse than in the preceding period, but its plight was heightened by the increased amount of criticism that began to make its way into print. In 1831 John Antes La Trobe began his idiosyncratic survey The Music of the Church by stating, ‘It is impossible for a man of observation to flatter himself, that our church-music is in a healthful and vigorous condition.

The story of British choral music up to around the time of the Black Death (1348) is essentially that of activity in its monasteries and cathedrals, after which, up to the Reformation in the middle of the sixteenth century, other institutions also begin to play a significant part. The liturgies of the early church started to take systematic shape in the fourth to sixth centuries, although it was not until the era of Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth centuries that standard forms emerged from many diverse local practices. With references to psalms and hymns being sung in Christian worship from the earliest days, music in one form or another has always played an important role, and the 150 psalms of the Hebrew Bible were eventually to form a backbone of worship throughout the Western church. Chanting – at its simplest, essentially the use of heightened speech – is a natural feature of many religions, serving principally as a means of elevating words from the realm of the everyday. Sung liturgy also came to have the practical benefits of aiding clarity in large buildings, and of preventing the words being rushed – you cannot easily gabble when chanting! For the whole of the Middle Ages, communal services (as opposed to private Masses) appear to have been more or less sung throughout, except for any sermon – certainly in monasteries and cathedrals. In the twenty-first century we are accustomed to much of the liturgy (and especially the lessons) being spoken, even in the most musical of establishments. The continuous singing still found in the Orthodox churches perhaps offers the closest impression of the atmosphere of Western medieval practice, as does the fact that their liturgy is celebrated in an area closed off from the laity, as was the case both in the quire of a cathedral or monastic church, and (to a lesser extent) the chancel of a parish church.

Two fundamental questions arise when considering the topic of British choral life: what exactly constitutes a choir and where do the boundaries of choral music lie? How many people do you need before you call a group of singers a choir rather than a vocal ensemble? Asked to define a ‘choir’ and a ‘choral sound’, many would say that its essence lay in the doubling of voices on the individual parts, so that eight voices might be considered a minimum for a group singing in four parts. That said, church choirs may be found with fewer numbers, either from the lack of recruits, or as a deliberate choice by those churches who perhaps employ a professional quartet of singers – such a group may fulfil the functions of a choir, even though the resulting sound is not one which would necessarily be described as ‘choral’. The doubling of parts, however, is not always a pre-requisite for a ‘choral sound’; it is also partly a question of texture. Although a four-part work sung by single voices may not sound ‘choral’, an eight-part one sung this way comes much closer. And all would agree that Tallis's forty-part motet, ‘Spem in alium’, originally conceived for, and still usually sung by single voices, is certainly a choral work. Nevertheless, however undefined the borderline, there is a generally recognized distinction between what are called vocal ensembles and choirs. While no-one would call the six voices of The King's Singers a choir, by the time you get to the eponymously named The Sixteen, that is undoubtedly one, even if of ‘chamber’ size. The one thing that perhaps defines any sort of choir, as opposed to the singing of a church congregation or a football crowd, is that is pre-supposes a degree of rehearsal, or at least the exercising of already acquired skills.

When Henry VIII removed the English Church from the authority of the pope in 1534 as a result of the latter's refusal to grant annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, it was to prove the catalyst for events which were to bring about profound changes for the church's music and musicians. Although the theological repercussions of the Reformation set in motion by Martin Luther in 1517 soon found discussion and support in England, it was firmly repressed and its sympathisers persecuted, until Henry's break from Rome enabled English reformers to embolden themselves. For choirs, the first realization that their traditional life was under threat came with the dissolution of the monasteries between 1536 and 1540. For the most part they were no longer in the vanguard of choral life, but the greater monastic houses were still significant centres of choral activity, with perhaps as many as fifty having choirs involving the employment of boys and lay adults. Although the monks were pensioned off and many monastic buildings were destroyed, not all their musical bodies were disbanded. The eight old monastic cathedrals remained, transformed into secular establishments headed by a dean and chapter – many of the posts being occupied by former monks – with a choir of boys, minor canons and lay clerks, doubtless formed in part from the previous Lady Chapel choirs, but now regularly occupying the stalls of the quire. Such was the transformation effected at Canterbury, Carlisle, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, Winchester and Worcester. But Henry's reorganisation did not stop there, for, in addition, five former monastic churches which had never been cathedrals, were given that status as mother churches of the newly created dioceses of Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Oxford and Peterborough. Westminster Abbey was also briefly made London's second cathedral at this time, but, after reverting to an abbey under Mary Tudor, in 1560 it was turned into a ‘royal peculiar’, which it remains to the present day.

The Lull before the Storm

The opening years of the twenty-first century brought no sudden change to music in the cathedrals and choral foundations, but rather a continuation of trends set in motion in the previous few decades. The participation of girls, in varying ways, was to spread to virtually every cathedral by 2020; opposition to them virtually disappeared, at least in any formal way. The fear that chapters would see a single mixed-sex treble line as a means of saving money has, so far, not been realized. A few places have gone down that route since 2000, but difficulty in finding sufficient boys has often been the chief cause. For virtually all cathedrals and similar institutions have found their recruitment a continuing challenge in modern times, requiring ever more effort to fill the choirstalls. One institution, Leeds Parish Church (since 2012 Leeds Minster), for long musically a cathedral in all but name, has exemplified the problem in a particularly stark manner. Whereas the church had for over 150 years maintained a large all-male choir with around 30 boys, singing several weekday services in addition to Sundays, by 2000 the organist, Simon Lindley, was struggling to find 14 boys; in 1997 a separate girls’ choir, about a dozen strong in the 11–16 age range, had also been started. But recruitment problems continued, resulting in the abandonment of both boys and girls in 2015 and their replacement by an adult mixed choir of 24, singing just a Thursday Evensong and two Sunday services.

The present work is intended as a history of choral singing in Britain, in both sacred and secular spheres, rather than a study of its choral music. There have been several general surveys of the latter over the past century, from Edmund Fellowes's English Cathedral Music (1941) to John Caldwell's The Oxford History of English Music (1991–9), and most recently, Andrew Gant's O Sing unto the Lord (2015). Although the music will naturally come into discussion of choir repertoire, there will be no detailed analysis of compositions or musical style.

Its origins date back to the last exhibition I organized at the Bodleian Library, Oxford in the winter of 2008/9, Hallelujah! The British Choral Tradition, which partly commemorated the 2009 anniversaries of Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn, all of whom had close connexions with British choral life. Its exhibits ranged from a 10th-century Winchester troper to the manuscript of Howard Goodall's theme music for The Vicar of Dibley, taking in the Eton Choirbook, Tallis's 40-part motet, Handel's conducting score of Messiah, Elgar's The Kingdom, and Britten's War Requiem, among the highlights. I had hoped to produce something for publication to coincide with the exhibition, but time constraints prevented it, and the ability to proceed with it at a more leisurely pace in my retirement has hopefully resulted in a better volume than would otherwise have been the case.

There has been much published material to draw on, including studies of the music at individual cathedrals, histories of choral societies and festivals, and musicians’ biographies, as well as such fundamental works as Frank Harrison's Music in Medieval Britain, or, more recently, Timothy Day's investigation of changes in English singing style over the past century or so, I Saw Eternity the Other Night.

Choral Music Resumes

With the Restoration of the monarchy following Charles II's return to England in May 1660, it is surprising how quickly choral establishments began to be revived. The former structure of the church was reinstated with its bishops, deans and cathedral chapters, together with the reintroduction of the Book of Common Prayer. A definitive, revised edition appeared in 1662, in which for the first time the rubric appears after the collects at Matins and Evensong, ‘in quires and places where they sing, here followeth the anthem’. This of course was merely giving official sanction to what had actually been happening ever since the early days of the Reformation. ‘Quires’ here refers to the area of the cathedral, and other ‘places where they sing’ would have mainly applied to collegiate chapels. In practice, the anthem could be placed elsewhere; according to Samuel Pepys's diary entries, it came after the sermon at the Chapel Royal, while at St Paul’s, on sermon days there were anthems both after the collects and after the sermon, when a metrical psalm would have been the norm.

At court, the Chapel Royal was certainly functioning again by the summer of 1660, and was to attain a post-Restoration establishment of 12 boys and around 20–26 Gentlemen (posts were sometimes left vacant). Although not many of the pre-war Gentlemen returned, competent new voices were not hard to find, given the financial rewards and conditions of service; they included three who had been organists before the war at Winchester, Windsor and Christ Church, Oxford.

Change Beckons in the Cathedrals

The immediate effect of the outbreak of the First World War on the daily round of cathedral life appears to have been minimal. Some lay clerks would have enrolled in the forces, but given that most were beyond call-up years, serious disruption to choral services was unlikely. The university choral foundations would have lost most of such choral scholars as they were accustomed to have, but all still relied mainly on lay clerks. It would be the aftermath of the war, with its economic and social upheavals, which ushered significant changes in the world of cathedral music, minor as these were in comparison with what would occur in the latter part of the century. Among the most important developments of the inter-war years was the gradual abandonment in most cathedrals of weekday choral Matins. Its continuation was becoming a major impediment to both the engagement of lay clerks and the education of the choristers. What had still been manageable in late Victorian Britain became increasingly anachronistic after the First World War. With the employment uncertainties of the period, the opportunities for lay clerks to find suitable work outside singing duties were far fewer than earlier – not many employers would now be prepared to allow an hour's absence in the middle of the morning – for Matins was still usually at 10 a.m. – as well as early release for a 3 p.m. Evensong. Work round the cathedral might be provided for a few, but some form of self-employment, which could be precarious, is likely to have been the most common way to supplement an average singing man's salary of ￡100–150 per year.

The Festival World up to 1850

As George IV and William IV brought the Hanoverian succession to an end, and Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, so significant developments were under way in the choral life of the country. On the festival scene, while the Three Choirs continued in its by now traditional way, others were being more experimental, although few festivals managed to survive on a longterm basis. Three centres in particular, Birmingham, Norwich and York, attracted national attention, and of these Birmingham would turn out to be the most significant. York had held occasional festivals from 1769, including a four-day celebration in 1791, but it was the 1820s that saw it attempt grandiose affairs on a scale to match the magnificence of the Minster. For the first ‘Yorkshire Musical Festival’ in 1823 a choir of 273 was accompanied by an orchestra of 180 – easily the largest forces seen since the London Handel Commemorations, and mostly coming from the North. Of the choir's 64 sopranos, only 13 were boys, reflecting the long northern tradition of women's participation in choral activity; the 55-strong alto line, however, was still an all-male preserve. Handel continued to dominate the choral offerings, although parts of The Creation, The Seasons, and Mozart's Requiem also featured. Three further festivals followed in 1825, 1828 and 1835, with even larger numbers of performers – shades of London again – but there was severe criticism of the standard of the choir in 1835. The Times reported that ‘the trebles were often inclined to take a time of their own, and run riot’. A letter to the editor claimed that the poor performance was ‘entirely owing to the inattention of the conductors in the selection of the chorus singers and the total neglect of rehearsals’. Taken together with problems of positioning so many performers, this may have been one factor in bringing the series to an end, and it would be 1910 before York again experienced another large-scale festival.

The Cathedral Scene

The pessimism about the future of cathedral music expressed by senior musicians in the early years of the war turned out to be unjustified, at least in part. As men were gradually demobilized, organists and lay clerks returned to their posts, including John Dykes Bower to St Paul’s, Gerald Knight to Canterbury, William McKie to Westminster Abbey, and Boris Ord to King’s. Of course, not all lay clerks wanted to return to the choirstalls, and recruitment would prove an increasing problem for choirs outside the capital, since remuneration generally remained pitifully small, and both accommodation and suitable day-time work were in short supply. The cathedrals themselves faced severe financial problems, not least on the fabric front; even if they had not suffered war damage, inability to carry out much routine maintenance during that time, inevitably created a post-war backlog of work. Music could hardly be a priority in the circumstances. Chorister recruitment remained a lesser issue, although the declining viability of small dedicated choir schools increasingly confronted the authorities, a problem to which they would find varying solutions as the century advanced.

The post-war years were dedicated to the restoration of traditional routines, even if it was now generally admitted that, outside London, the final knell for weekday choral Matins was being sounded – Chester, Durham, Worcester and York were among a handful still singing Matins on some weekdays (usually no more than two) in the 1950s.