Bare Ruin'd Choirs Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

Dr Abacus called my attention to the article from the Times a few days ago in which Mr Benedict King, whoever he might be, looked forward to the reduction, at the very least, of the 'dessicated' English cathedral choral tradition at the hands of the epidemic, as, he argues, it provides 'no longer a service, but a concert. And often a bad one'. His case is only slightly vitiated by the fact that both the churches he cites, Westminster Abbey and St John's Cambridge, aren't cathedrals. Interestingly he suggests that money saved by not pouring it into the musical establishments of cathedrals should instead be diverted to maintaining and restoring the thousands of parish churches which are 'one of the great glories of this country', a line which will hardly fill the Church utilitarians with any more enthusiasm than a parade of boys in ruffs and red cassocks does.

I have a lot of sympathy with this. I loathe Anglican Chant, which is the fare most cathedral choirs serve up to accompany the offices of Mattins (rarely now) and Evensong. Having sat in the chancel of a cathedral during Evensong I can assure you that the closer you get to the source of Anglican Chant the worse it sounds, too. I wish I could remember which composer it was - Fauré? Messiaen? - who was taken by a friend to an English cathedral Evensong and innocently asked halfway through the Psalm 'Tell me, why are they singing that same bad tune over and over again?' It is highly laudable, perhaps, that the Church continues to support the education of a great proportion of the country's musicians, whether they go on to write or perform in an ecclesiastical context or, more probably, not. But it's not necessary. It's certainly not necessary for this to be part of the mission of every cathedral.

Gavin Ashenden pokes beneath the surface of this quite helpfully, pointing out that there has long been a spiritual conflict in the Church of England between 'the eucharistic community and the musical performers'. There was definitely a touch of this in Swanvale Halt in the 1950s where the attempts by a succession of parish priests to displace Mattins and Evensong with a Mass as the main offering of corporate worship on Sundays foundered on the fact that it would mean the choir either doing a lot more than it already did, or a lot less, and whether this issue was at its heart practical or ideological none of the incumbents tackled it until the decline in Mattins congregations became so catastrophic that there was no avoiding change. In 1950 there was a Parish Mission led by the Vicar of Poplar (impeccable Anglo-Catholic parish, of course) and which used the Mirfield Mission Hymn Book - again something that had undoubted Anglo-Catholic credentials but which the organist and choirmaster at the time took deep exception to, especially when many people asked to keep singing the hymns from it once the Mission was over. But then the Choir would have to learn new stuff! 

In the early phase of the Catholic Movement in the Church of England, incumbents generally strove to replace their church's chaotic and unbiddable parish bands playing serpents and ophicleides with orderly robed choirs which would render worship seemly and provide a better ground of spiritual discipline. At first this was considered terribly 'Popish' but by the later part of the 19th century even fairly Evangelical churches had robed choirs. This was partly to do with what happened at St Paul's Cathedral. English cathedral worship was generally quite dire until Gladstone put in Richard Church as Dean of St Paul's in 1871 as the first Tractarian to get his hands on a cathedral. Within a few years the rest of the College of Canons had conveniently died and Church was able to install priests who followed his line - including Robert Gregory, who succeeded him as Dean in 1890 - and John Stainer as Organist. They did two things: ratchet up the standard of worship in the Cathedral itself, and use the Dean & Chapter's powers of patronage to install Catholic clergy in churches across the Diocese of London. What was happening at St Paul's became a standard for other cathedrals and major churches to aspire to.

However, the Catholic Movement was never completely on board with this. There was a divergent opinion which, just like some Evangelicals, was most suspicious of congregations delegating such an important element of worship as music to a group of professionals. At best a worshipper could allow their spirit to be borne into the heavens by beautiful music: at worst, it could - as Benedict King suggests - decay into a performance with nothing very spiritual behind it at all. In the Parson's Handbook, no less, Blessed Percy Dearmer remarks:

The duty of the parson is to keep ever before men's eyes the simple but often forgotten truth that church music is for the glory of God and not for the glorification of choristers. And true art is at one with true religion; but ... there are many choir-masters who are not even artists enough to prefer a simple service well sung to a pretentious one sung badly.

Thus mainly Anglo-Catholics, including Dearmer, moved towards promoting the use of plainchant in services, which could be very elaborate but equally could be very simple. The ideal was that the congregation sang, only led by a choir when necessary. Choirs could, and still can, be a force for spiritual good - I have seen it happen - but it requires conscious effort to make it so. And in this as in all things, you have to make the awkward and unstatistical judgement as to whether the results justify the effort.