Service.
A
term used in the Anglican liturgy to refer to musical settings of the canticles
for Matins and Evensong, and to settings of certain parts of the Ordinary of
Holy Communion. It is also applied to settings of sentences from the Burial
Service. The term apparently derives from earlier Latin usage (‘plenum
servitium BMV’ meant ‘the full [as opposed to abbreviated] Office of the BVM’),
but is not found in post-Reformation musical sources before the early 17th
century.
A
service may comprise any or all of the following elements (the texts being in
English): for Matins: Venite, Te Deum, Benedicite, Benedictus,
Jubilate; for Evensong: Magnificat, Cantate Domino, Nunc
dimittis, Deus misereatur; for Communion: Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus,
Benedictus, Agnus Dei; and for the Burial Service: I am the resurrection,
I know that my redeemer liveth, We brought nothing, Man that
is born of woman, In the midst of life and I heard a voice.
The Benedicite and Jubilate are alternatives to the Te Deum
and Benedictus respectively, and the Cantate Domino and Deus
misereatur may be sung in place of the Magnificat and Nunc
dimittis. Some of the earliest services include a litany to be sung at the
end of Matins. The other musical elements of the Anglican choral service –
Preces, responses, psalms and anthems – are not normally included in the
service, although one or two 16th- and early 17th-century services do provide
simple anthems. The various elements of a service are bound together by a
common musical style and mode (or key), and these are usually mentioned in the
service title, for example Child's Short Service ‘in A re’; Stanford's setting
‘in B
’; Wood's ‘in the
Phrygian Mode’; Howells's ‘in G’. Some consist only of music for one service,
and are known as ‘Morning Service’, ‘Communion Service’ or ‘Evening Service’;
others provide for all three services, and 17th-century sources refer to ‘the
Whole Service’. Whole services may be linked not only by scoring, key and style
but also by formal procedures and thematic links, in a manner akin to the
cyclic Latin Mass. In the 20th century there has been an increasing tendency
for composers to dedicate their service settings to particular choirs: hence,
for instance, Howells's Magnificat and Nunc dimittis Collegium regale
(for King's College, Cambridge) and Leighton's Magnificat and Nunc
dimittis Collegium Magdalenae oxoniense.
1. Liturgical history.
2. Musical history.
JOHN HARPER (1), PETER LE HURAY/JOHN
HARPER (2)
Service
1. Liturgical history.
The
pattern of Anglican choral worship derives almost entirely from the Book of
Common Prayer (1549) and especially the revised version of 1552 on which all
later issues are based. Only since 1965 have alternative services been
authorized in the Church of England; these have not had a significant impact on
the choral repertory. The services of the Book of Common Prayer drew on
medieval Latin forms as well as on the work of foreign reformers (e.g. Luther
and Quińones), but the final results are unique to the Anglican Church. At the
end of the Middle Ages, Latin Matins was often followed directly by Lauds, and
Vespers by Compline; that is reflected in the conflation of elements of both
pairs of services in English Matins and Evensong. English Matins takes the Te
Deum from festal Latin Matins and the Benedictus from Lauds; Evensong
takes the Magnificat from Vespers and the Nunc dimittis from
Compline. In the 1552 revision of the Communion Service, the Kyrie was replaced
by the recitation of the Ten Commandments (with ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ as
response), the Benedictus and Agnus Dei were omitted, and the Gloria was
relocated after the communion.
Following
the dissolution of all monastic and many collegiate foundations, choral
polyphony was sung in fewer than 60 cathedral, collegiate and parish churches
after 1550. Composers during the reign of Edward VI provided complete sets of
music for all three services, often with additional materials. From the reign
of Elizabeth onwards Holy Communion was sung only as far as the Creed
(so-called ante-Communion); the rest of the service was said. Whole services
written between about 1560 and 1640 most often consist of the Venite, Te
Deum, Benedictus or Jubilate, Responses to the Commandments,
the Creed, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. Apart from a period of
High Church activity in the reign of Charles I during the ascendancy of William
Laud, eventually Archbishop of Canterbury, the celebration of choral Holy
Communion was increasingly rare (often only once in each month). After the
Restoration the Sanctus was most often sung as an introit to the
ante-Communion. Between 1660 and 1880 most services consist only of canticles
for Matins and Evensong; settings of the Sanctus and Gloria are particularly
rare.
Three
principal styles of service music developed: short service (mostly syllabic and
homophonic), great service (including melismatic polyphony) and verse service
(including sections for solo voices with organ accompaniment). The reformed
English liturgy largely eliminated the distinction between festal and ferial
observance by the suppression of ceremony and Proper texts. Nevertheless, there
are indications that different styles of service music were used, at least in
the early 17th century, to differentiate liturgical celebrations; for instance,
in the Durham Cathedral partbooks copied during the reign of Charles I, the
great services (two with solo verses) are placed with preces and psalms
designated for specific feast days in one set of books (GB-DRc E4–11)
and the short services are grouped in another (DRc C8 only survives).
English
reformers demanded audibility and comprehensibility, prescribed extended
scriptual reading, and gave prime consideration to the needs of parish churches
in the formation of orders of public worship; such features imposed limits on
the complexity and scale of service music. Endowment and patronage of church
music was limited. Outside the Chapel Royal instruments were not commonly used
in the main services. Large-scale works in cantata style with orchestral
accompaniment were very rare and specifically occasional: Purcell's Te Deum
and Jubilate for St Cecilia's day in 1694, and Handel's setting of the
same texts to celebrate the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This contrasts with the
Roman Catholic Church abroad, where ceremonial opportunity and patronage
enabled composers to write settings of Te Deum, the Mass and Magnificat
on a sumptuous scale in a liturgical context where musical, textual and ritual
elements were overlaid in largely asynchronous simultaneity. Large and widely
used selections of service music were published in Barnard's The First Book
of Selected Church Musick (1641) and Boyce's Cathedral Music
(1760–73).
During
the 18th century service music was inevitably affected by the decline of royal
interest in the Chapel Royal (the hub of church music since 1550) and by the
lack of spiritual and liturgical vigour in cathedrals. In the early 19th
century new liturgical impetus came from the Oxford Movement and the
Tractarians; its musical impact was strongest in parish churches with the
establishment of robed choirs and the singing of Holy Communion, most often to
the chants published by Merbecke in 1550 (five editions appeared between 1843
and 1853). It was also ‘for Parochial or General Use’ that George C. Martin
edited the series of Short Settings of the Office of Holy Communion for
choir and organ, reinstating the Sanctus and Gloria after the Kyrie and Creed.
In
the late 19th and early 20th century composers once again included the
Benedictus and Agnus Dei in some settings of the Communion Service, reflecting
the liturgical outlook of the time. The revised Book of Common Prayer (1928)
allowed these texts, but the book failed to gain parliamentary approval, and
their use was technically not sanctioned until the Alternative Services Measure
(1965). As a result of the reinvigoration of the eucharistic life of the Church
which has been central to the new liturgical movement the Sunday celebration
has become the focal, and in some parishes the only, service. Even in
cathedrals the Sung Eucharist (i.e. choral Holy Communion) is normally the
principal service. The re-establishment of the Latin order of the Ordinary and
of the Kyrie texts, the willingness to allow the performance of music with
Latin texts in the Anglican liturgy, the availability of new editions of Latin
masses from the period 1550–1820, and the reluctance of contemporary composers
to engage with the new texts have together meant that the response to the
opportunities for composing complete Communion services has been limited. Some
of the most widespread services are congregational, and there is an uneasy
tension between popular accessibility and musical merit.
Changes
in working practices and educational expectations have resulted in the decline
of daily choral Matins in choral foundations since World War II, although it is
still sung in many cathedrals on Sunday morning. Evensong is sung almost daily
during term in cathedrals and collegiate chapels and choral foundations. The
order and the texts are almost exclusively those of the Book of Common Prayer
(1662); only Magdalen College, Oxford, has responded to the modern liturgical
movement by introducing a new form of weekday Evening Prayer in 1982.
Service
2. Musical history.
Following
the introduction of the vernacular Prayer Book in 1549, Merbecke set the
principal texts of Matins, Holy Communion, Evensong and the Burial Service to
simple monophonic chant adapted or derived from the Latin Rite in The Booke
of Common Praier Noted (1550). It is an indication of wider practice which
extended to polyphony. Use of psalm tones and the technique of faburden occur
in service music found in the three principal early sources, all containing
repertory composed before 1553 – the Wanley Partbooks (GB-Ob
Mus.Sch.E.420–22), the Lumley Partbooks (Lbl Roy App 74–6) and John
Day's Certaine Notes of 1560. The Wanley manuscripts also include
adaptations of two of Taverner's ‘Mean’ and ‘Small Devotion’ Masses to English
texts; indeed this source places particular emphasis on the Communion Service
with ten complete settings. Also apparent is the pairing in the source of
morning and evening canticles. This is taken further in Day's Certaine Notes,
where three complete sets of services are provided for Matins, Holy Communion
and Evensong; there are two further Evening Services as well as offertories,
Lord's Prayer, litany and 16 anthems. Two unique characteristics of Anglican
service music may therefore be discerned in these early stages: the musical
pairing of canticles, and the cyclic treatment of service music for an entire
liturgical day.
Between
1565 and about 1644 (when choral services were discontinued) more than 60 full
services were composed, together with a further 20 collections of canticles for
Matins and Evensong, some 25 for Matins (many consisting of the Te Deum
only) and more than 60 sets of canticles for Evensong (all comprising Magnificat
and Nunc dimittis).
These
16th- and early 17th-century settings may be divided into three basic
categories: the ‘short’ service, the ‘long’ or ‘great’ service and the service
‘for verses’. The short service, as its title implies, is the simplest of the
three. Derived orginally from pre-Reformation improvised polyphony based on a
psalm tone faburden, it is essentially chordal in structure, the words are set
syllabically, and the majority of settings are simply scored for treble, alto,
tenor and bass without independent organ accompaniment. Tallis's Short Service,
often referred to in late sources as his Service ‘in the Dorian Mode’, is one
of the earliest and one of the most successful examples of the genre. It is
through-composed, although the musical design mirrors to some extent the
old-established practice of antiphonal chanting between the two sides of the
choir (AA1BB1C etc., musical phrase A
being set to the first half of verse one, and so on). The short service is the
commonest of the three service types, and was obviously appropriate for weekday
services. The great service is on the other hand a festal composition,
constructed on the largest scale and intricately scored for a large choir
dividing into as many as eight parts. Cranmer's letter to Henry VIII on the
subject of church music has so often been quoted out of context that it comes
as something of a shock to discover that some of the earliest services are of
this kind. Robert Parsons's ‘First Service of 4, 5, 6 and 7 parts’ is based on
1549 Prayer Book texts, and therefore probably dates from about 1550. It is
elaborately contrapuntal and closely akin in style to such works as Sheppard's
‘Frences’ Mass. There are comparatively few extended settings of this kind, but
they include a colourful Evening Service ‘in medio chori’ by William Mundy; a
five-part Te Deum and a canonic service, ‘two in one’ by Tallis; a Magnificat
and Nunc dimittis in seven parts by Weelkes; and Byrd's monumental Great
Service, otherwise known as the ‘New suite of service for meanes’.
The
verse style began to take shape during the 1550s, in connection with the
metrical psalm, the consort song and the anthem. Among the first composers to
develop the new idiom were Richard Farrant, William Mundy and Byrd. Neither
Farrant nor Mundy appears to have written a verse service, and Byrd's one essay
in the form – his Second Service – is basically a short service with brief interpolated
solo sections. The earliest substantial verse service is by Morley, and there
are others by Edmund Hooper and Nathaniel Giles (both members of the Chapel
Royal) and by John Holmes, a comparatively unknown provincial musician, all of
whose music is in the new style. Morley's Magnificat and Nunc
dimittis from his First Service are colourfully scored for a large solo
group – two meanes, two altos, tenor and bass, with a five-part choir dividing
into separate decani and cantoris sections and organ. In form it follows the
verse-anthem principle of a continuous alternation of solo verses with sections
for the full choir, some of the verses being prefaced by short organ preludes.
As in the verse anthem the organ is given an independent role in the solo
sections, but it simply doubles the voices in the choral sections. Of the three
types of service, the verse service offers the greatest scope for expressive
word-setting. For this reason perhaps, and for the purely practical reason that
it demanded much less of the full choir than the great service it became
increasingly popular with composers during the early years of the 17th century.
From
the Restoration until the early 19th century the service was regarded as of
subsidiary importance to the anthem. Many services were composed, but the main
concern seems to have been to provide singable music that demanded little of
the choir and got through the text as quickly as possible. The change is well
illustrated in the work of William Child. His 17 services cover a wide range of
keys from the then unusually ‘sharp’ key of D major to C minor and E major. They divide into
‘verse’ and ‘short’ categories, the verse services being of the simplest kind, with
little of the colour and contrapuntal vigour that characterize the best
services of the earlier period. Bryne, Henry Loosemore, Lowe and Rogers are the
most important of Child's immediate contemporaries.
Blow
was the most prolific Restoration composer. His music is conservative in style,
having a certain rough contrapuntal strength at its best, as in the G major
Evening Service. The organ has no more than a continuo role in this work and it
was not again to be considered independent of the voices until the time of
Walmisley and S.S. Wesley. The services of Pelham Humfrey and Purcell
established a pattern that was to be followed by many 18th-century composers.
The textures are basically homophonic and choral throughout, but verses are
interposed from time to time, common groupings of solo voices being two trebles
and an alto, and two altos, tenor and bass. Minor composers whose services
achieved some popularity at the time include Aldrich, Croft, Hawkins and
Charles King. Music for the Communion is less prolific and Aldrich, Croft,
Ebdon and Hawkins are among the few who set the Sanctus and Gloria. Of the 30
or more services published by Boyce and Arnold in their six volumes of Cathedral
Music, only two include settings of these movements.
While
much service music was written in the 18th century, only Maurice Greene's C
major Service is of any substance. It is an impressive essay in what was by
then spoken of as the ‘church’ style. Its textures are elaborately contrapuntal
and divide in places into as many as eight parts. The organ's role is simply
that of a continuo instrument. Sections of the service are scored for small
solo groupings, in the manner of Humfrey and Purcell.
S.S.
Wesley and T.A. Walmisley between them did much to lay the foundations of the Stanfordian
style of service. In his D minor Service (probably 1855) Walmisley was the
first to show, as Bumpus observed, ‘how effectively broad, unisonus passages
may be handled with a fine organ accompaniment’. Wesley had already shown the
way to some extent in his big E major Service (1845), in which the organ is
given some independence of the choir. In this, Wesley was consciously breaking
with tradition and striving for a new and more expressive idiom. As he wrote in
the preface to the service:
It
is a fact beyond dispute that while in its secular departments the Art has been
making the most rapid progress towards perfection, as regards the Church it has
remained almost stationary, or worse, for centuries. … However unsuited to Our
English Cathedral Service the light, flimsy Masses of Mozart and Haydn may be,
they are at least the productions of great men, if their worst. Mozart, it is
well known, thought as little well of them as any others can do.; but ‘little’
as there may be ‘in a name’, the Kings, the Scrogginses, Jones, Porters, and
Smiths of Cathedrals! – what have they been known to do well?
While
Wesley's E major Service certainly covers new ground in the way that the organ
is handled and blended with the voices, its overall structure is too loosely
designed to be wholly successful. In this respect the services of Stanford
represent the culmination of Wesley's work. The through-composed structures
that characterize practically all service settings before Stanford's day gave
way to integrated forms, coherently organized by means of motivic development.
The various movements of Stanford's C major Service op.115 (his last, and
reputedly his favourite) are each founded on one or two short motifs: the Te
Deum is bound together, for instance, by a rising and falling scale of
eight notes. This idea then recurs in the Gloria Patri used at the end of the Benedictus,
Jubilate, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. Many other
subsidiary ideas are worked out during the course of the service.
Charles
Wood, Stanford's pupil, colleague and eventually his successor as professor of
music at Cambridge, continued to work in a similar vein, although without quite
the same dramatic flair. His interest in plainsong and Renaissance polyphony is
reflected in his own work, notably in the fauxbourdon settings of the canticles
and his unaccompanied Communion Service in the Phrygian Mode.
The
most successful contribution to the service repertory in the 20th century has
been made by Howells, whose many settings of the evening canticles (Collegium
sancti Johannis Cantabrigiense, Collegium regale, ‘for New College,
Oxford’, ‘for St Paul's Cathedral’, ‘for the Collegiate Church of St Peter in
Westminster’, and for many other churches) bear witness to the high regard in
which his music is now held. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis of
the ‘Gloucester’ Service represent the composer at his best: slowly-moving
harmonies (involving the frequent juxtaposition of flat 7ths and sharpened
4ths), richly-scored contrapuntal textures and a symphonic organ accompaniment
create an effect of spacious grandeur that is in its way unique.
There
is a substantial repertory by minor organist-composers, but apart from Howells
no composer of distinction has written a body of service music in the 20th
century. There are, however, some distinctive examples: settings of Te Deum
by Vaughan Williams (in G, 1928; F, 1937) and Britten (in C, 1934; E, 1944),
and Britten's energetic and playful Jubilate (1961); Tippett's evening
canticles for St John's College, Cambridge (1961), in which the declamatory
juxtapositions of organ and choir in the Magnificat contrast with the
solo writing of the Nunc dimittis; and settings of Magnificat and
Nunc dimittis by Elizabeth Lutyens, using serial techniques (1965),
Jonathan Harvey, with some late modernist features including aleatoricism
(1978), and John Tavener, drawing on the textures and incantatory qualities of
Orthodox Church music (1986). The less technically demanding settings by
Kenneth Leighton and William Mathias are used more widely.
Less
imagination is apparent in the smaller number of settings of English texts of
the Communion Service. The revival of choral music for Holy Communion in the
later 19th century was directed primarily to amateur parish choirs and there is
nothing of distinction. The contributions by Stanford are comparable with his
other service music, but Howells's Communion Service Collegium Regale is
no match for the morning and evening canticles, and Vaughan Williams and
Britten set the Latin text of the Mass.
Music
for the Burial Service forms a modest appendix to the main corpus of Anglican
service music. The sung texts of the Burial Service consist of two series of
scriptural sentences sung in succession at the church and the grave, much in
the manner of pre-Reformation processional antiphons. The Wanley Partbooks
contain the earliest setting. Morley's set of burial sentences was used at the
funerals of Elizabeth I (1603) and Prince Henry (1613). They were revived in
1695 for the funeral of Queen Mary II, for which Purcell provided Thou
knowest Lord, apparently because Morley's version of that sentence was
missing at the time (Wood, 1996). Croft incorporated Purcell's Thou knowest
Lord into his setting of the sentences (Musica sacra, 1724); these
may have been written for the funeral of Queen Anne (1714) or the Duke of
Marlborough (1722) and remain in use today. All the settings are written in a
straightforward, predominantly homophonic idiom, dignified and suitable for
singing in procession.
See also Anglican and Episcopalian church music; Anthem; Litany,
§8; and Mass,
§III.
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