University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Anglican chant in the twentieth-century: Genesis, harmonic development, and style

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Anglican chant in the twentieth-century: Genesis, harmonic development, and style

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ANGLICAN CHANT IN THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY:

GENESIS, HARMONIC DEVELOPMENT, AND STYLE

by

CHRISTOPHER GARDNER GRAVIS

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC DEPARTMENT OF
CHORAL AND SACRED MUSIC
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS
(CHORAL MUSIC)

May 2017

Copyright 2017 Christopher Gardner Gravis

ii

DEDICATION

With deepest thanks, I dedicate this dissertation:

To my parents and sisters, who have always supported my pursuing passions
different than their own;

To my fiancée Andrea Zomorodian, for her love and support all these years.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I offer thanks:

To my teachers, Tram Sparks, Nick Strimple, Jo-Michael Scheibe, and Larry
Livingston, who have shared their knowledge, wisdom, and passion;

To my colleagues in graduate school, for their sustaining humor and inspiring
talent;

and

To The Rev. Michael D. Archer, Rector, the Vestry, and the Choir of St. Wilfrid of
York Episcopal Church, for allowing me to pursue our great Anglican choral
tradition in Huntington Beach, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and at
Ripon Cathedral.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... ii

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... iii

List of Examples ........................................................................................................................... v

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... ix

Introduction: The Origin of Harmonized Chant in England:
Sarum Plainsong, False-Bass Technique, and Homophonic Chant ...1

Chapter One: The Development of Early Twentieth-Century Anglican Chant:
Biographies, Chants, and Analyses ......................................................20

Chapter Two: The Development of Mid-Twentieth-Century Anglican Chant:
Biographies, Chants, and Analyses ......................................................65

Chapter Three: The Development of Late Twentieth-Century Anglican Chant:
Biographies, Chants, and Analyses ......................................................93

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................122

Bibliography ..............................................................................................................................129

v
LIST OF EXAMPLES

Example 1.1a Sarum Tonary, Tone 1 ...............................................................................3

Example 1.1b Sarum Tonary, Tone 2 ...............................................................................3

Example 1.1c Sarum Tonary, Tone 3 ...............................................................................3

Example 1.1d Sarum Tonary, Tone 4 ...............................................................................3

Example 1.1e Sarum Tonary, Tone 5 ...............................................................................4

Example 1.1f Sarum Tonary, Tone 6 ...............................................................................4

Example 1.1g Sarum Tonary, Tone 7 ...............................................................................4

Example 1.1h Sarum Tonary, Tone 8 ...............................................................................4

Example 1.1i Sarum Tonary, Peregrine Tone ..................................................................4

Example 1.2 William the Monk, 4-part Fauxbourdon ...................................................8

Example 1.3 Tallis, Preces & Suffrages ...........................................................................9

Example 1.4 Anonymous, Cambridge Chant ...............................................................10

Example 1.5 Farrant, Chant in G-minor .......................................................................10

Example 1.6 Turner, A Double Tune ............................................................................12

Example 1.7 Bennet and Marshall, Flintoff Chant ......................................................14

Example 1.8 Rimbault, Flintoff Chant ..........................................................................14

Example 1.9 Walmisley, Flintoff Chant ........................................................................15

Example 1.10 Wesley, Chant in G-major ........................................................................15

vi

Example 1.11 John Goss, Chant in D-minor ..................................................................17

Example 1.12 Edward John Hopkins, Chant in F-minor .............................................17

Example 2.1 Stanford, Nunc dimittis in G-major, mm.26-42 .....................................22

Example 2.2 Elgar, Te Deum laudamus, mm. 1-18 ......................................................24

Example 2.3 Parry, Blest Pair of Sirens, mm. 1-35 ......................................................25

Example 2.4 Atkins, Double Chant in D-major ............................................................31

Example 2.5 Atkins, Double Chant in A-flat major ......................................................31

Example 2.6 Atkins, Double Chant in D-minor ...........................................................33

Example 2.7 Atkins, Double Chant in B-flat major ......................................................34

Example 2.8 Atkins, Double Chant in E-flat major ......................................................35

Example 2.9 Bairstow, Double Chant in E-flat major ..................................................38

Example 2.10 Bairstow, Double Chant in D-major for Psalm 107 .................................41

Example 2.11 Bairstow, Single Chant in D-minor .........................................................42

Example 2.12 Bairstow, Single Chant in D-major .........................................................42

Example 2.13 Bairstow, Double Chant in G-major ........................................................43

Example 2.14 Davies, Double Chant in E-flat major ......................................................48

Example 2.15 Davies, Double Chant in B-minor ............................................................49

Example 2.16 Davies, Double Chant in E- major ...........................................................50

Example 2.17 Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in D-major .............................................53

Example 2.18 Hylton Stewart, Single Chant in G-minor ..............................................54

vii

Example 2.19 Hylton Stewart, Single Chant in B-minor ..............................................55

Example 2.20 Hylton Stewart, Single Chant in C-minor ..............................................55

Example 2.21 Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in C-minor .............................................56

Example 2.22 Hylton Stewart, Psalm 23 .......................................................................59

Example 2.23 Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in G-minor ............................................62

Example 2.24 Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in F-minor .............................................63

Example 3.1 Thalben-Ball, Single Chant in A-minor ..................................................70

Example 3.2 Thalben-Ball, Chants in B-flat major .......................................................71

Example 3.3 Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in A-flat major ...........................................73

Example 3.4 Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in B-flat major ............................................74

Example 3.5 Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in A-flat major ...........................................75

Example 3.6 Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in E-flat major ............................................76

Example 3.7 Willcocks, Tonus Peregrinus Single Chant .............................................79

Example 3.8 Willcocks, Double Chant in G-sharp minor ............................................80

Example 3.9 Willcocks, Double Chant in C-minor .......................................................81

Example 3.10 Willcocks, Double Chant in E-flat major .................................................82

Example 3.11 Willcocks, Double Chant in E-flat major descant ....................................82

Example 3. 12 Rawsthorne, Double Chant in E-flat major .............................................85

Example 3.13 Rawsthorne, Double Chant in G-major ...................................................86

Example 3.14 Rawsthorne, Psalm 150 ...........................................................................89

viii

Example 4.1 Hancock, Single Chant in A-major ........................................................100

Example 4.2 Hancock, Double Chant in C-major .......................................................100

Example 4.3 Hurd, Double Chant in B-minor ............................................................104

Example 4.4 Hurd, Double Chant in F-major .............................................................104

Example 4.5 Hurd, Double Chant in F-major after Gibbons ......................................106

Example 4.6 Hurd, Double Chant in F-major .............................................................106

Example 4.7 Hurd, Organ Accompaniment to Double Chant in F-major ..................108

Example 4.8 Hurd, Double Chant in C-major ............................................................109

Example 4.9 Hurd, Double Chant in C-major ............................................................110

Example 4.10 Hurd, Double Chant in D-major ............................................................111

Example 4.11 Hurd, Double Chant in G-flat major ......................................................113

Example 4.12 Scott, Double Chant in B-minor .............................................................116

Example 4.13 Scott, Easter Anthems .............................................................................118

Example 4.14 Simplified Anglican Chant ......................................................................127

ix
ABSTRACT

Anglican chant in four parts developed out of Sarum plainsong melodies
harmonized in the fauxbourdon and falsobordone styles following the English
Reformation in 1534. The derived chant tones took on the harmonic musical language
of their time period, establishing a lasting Tudor musical aesthetic to which many
future composers aspired. The modal borrowing common in the sixteenth-century
became a common musical expression for the genre in later years, reaching its zenith in
the late Victorian Era (1837-1901).
The harmonic developments of the twentieth-century, including the use of
extended tertian chords, quartal harmonies, unresolved non-chord tones, and jazz
elements would prove to further influence composers of Anglican chant. Three distinct
periods existed for the development of Anglican chant in the twentieth-century, each
with a cohort of church musicians who contributed to the canon of repertoire published.
The early period was defined by its development upon inherited Victorian
musical traditions, and the renewal of sixteenth-century Tudor aestheticism across
English artistic disciplines. Composers such as Ivor Atkins (1869-1953), Edward
Bairstow (1874-1946), Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941), and John Hylton Stewart
(1884-1932) contributed to the Anglican chant output. The mid-twentieth-century
marked a period of enormous social and political change for the Church of England.
Composers such as George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987), David Willcocks (1919-2015), and

x
Noel Rawsthorne (b. 1929), emulated the quickly advancing harmonic language present
in non-liturgical art music, while embracing the increasing virtuosity of their
professional collegiate and cathedral choirs. The late period, exemplified by the chant
contributions of Gerre Hancock (1934-2012), David Hurd (b. 1950), and John Scott (1956-
2015), was a time paradoxically witnessing the most advanced harmonic and virtuosic
writing for Anglican chant, as well as the steady decline of influence for the Anglican
Communion, and of traditional Anglican choirs.
The non-metrical chanting of harmonized tones is a unique tradition lasting
nearly five hundred years, and survives to this day as a defining characteristic of
Anglican choral worship. The genre remains a staple of the musical repertoire sung
daily in cathedrals, collegiate chapels, and royal peculiars.

1

INTRODUCTION:

The Origin of Harmonized Chant in England:

Sarum Plainsong, False-Bass Technique, and Homophonic Chant

For nearly five-hundred years, harmonized homophonic chants explicating
psalms, hymns, and canticles, have been the primary and sustaining choral expression
for the Church of England. Within the Anglican choral office of Mattins
1
and Evensong,
the singing of the appointed portions of the Psalter on a daily basis to Anglican chant
provide for many people the spiritual backbone of this continuum of worship that
reaches beyond the English Reformation.
2
Anglican chant is an important form of
musical expression within the Church of England as well as within the Protestant
Episcopal Church in North America; however, there has been relatively little
musicological analysis directed at the topic. This has presented an opportunity to
undertake a more serious analysis of such an ubiquitously employed choral expression
within the Anglican communion.
Practically executed, Anglican chanting is the method of choral execution of
those portions of the Book of Common Prayer which are intended to be sung. In parish

1. Anglicized spelling; also spelt as Matins in the United States.
2. John Scott, The Anglican Psalter (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2009), ix.

2
churches, collegiate chapels, royal peculiars, and great cathedrals, various texts of the
liturgy are chanted in four parts, either with or without organ accompaniment.
According to a manual for clergy and musicians:
The Choral Service is designated that manner of rendering the services of the
Church in which the major portion allotted to the officiating clergy is sung by
them, and not read; such responses as may occur likewise being sung by the
people…It is indisputable that the definition of an authentic setting our chief
services, of a character worthy of its high office in point of fidelity to ancient
tradition and practice, is greatly to be desired.
3

Fidelity to ancient tradition and practice has not only been a musical hallmark toward
which the English church has strived, but also the defining characteristic of its harmonic
language and choral aesthetic. As will be displayed in this analysis, composers of
Anglican chants tended to adhere to the continuum of harmonic development primarily
by examining the work of their predecessors to inform the present. This will be
evidenced in what appear to be common-practice era harmonic progressions employed
by composers of early twentieth century chants, to the continuity of what are essentially
tonic and dominant driven progressions in even the most harmonically developed
chants of late twentieth century composers.
Prior to and even after the standardization of Roman (Gregorian) chant in the
late ninth century (and later for post-Reformation recusant Catholics in England using
the Tridentine rite), chant indigenous to the Sarum rite (originating in Salisbury) was

3. The Choral Service, (New York: The H.W. Gray Company, 1927), vi.

3
celebrated in Britain.
4
This was a variant of the Roman Rite available for use in
England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, and contained music unique to this variant.
Examples 1.1 – 1.9 display the original Sarum tones (c.1400-1674) found in the Arundel
manuscripts.

Example 1.1a: Sarum Tonary, Tone 1, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1b: Sarum Tonary, Tone 2, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1c: Sarum Tonary, Tone 3, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1d: Sarum Tonary, Tone 4, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

4. Gregory Murray. Gregorian Chant According to the Manuscripts (L.J. Cary & Co. 1963), 3-4.

4
Example 1.1e: Sarum Tonary, Tone 5, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1f: Sarum Tonary, Tone 6, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1g: Sarum Tonary, Tone 7, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1h: Sarum Tonary, Tone 8, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Example 1.1i: Sarum Tonary, Peregrine Tone, Arundel Manuscript, Lbl. 130.

Despite Charlemagne’s attempts at liturgical uniformity across Europe, Sarum
remained the predominant style of chant (and the liturgical rite) in England, Wales, and

5
Scotland throughout the English reformation. After the original Act of Supremacy
passed in 1534, Henry VIII assumed the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England
and initially ordered the suppression of all other uses in favor of Sarum. Protestant
pressure grew after Henry’s death, and his son Edward VI reversed Henry’s decree.
Successive editions of the English Book of Common Prayer replaced the Sarum rite, and
were published in 1549 and 1552. Mary I restored the Sarum rite. She ordered the
reprint of Sarum books in 1555, and was even married in Winchester Cathedral
according to the Sarum Manual. By 1559 Elizabeth I had ascended the throne and
reinstated the Book of Common Prayer, essentially abandoning the Sarum rite within the
Church of England until interest resurfaced much later during the nineteenth-century
Oxford movement. However, the Sarum tones remained as a repository of liturgical
musical material for composers, even if they were now obsolete according to Prayer
Book usage.
An understanding of how Sarum tones developed into harmonized chants is
speculative, at best. According to the research of scholar Ruth Mack Wilson:
In the Sarum liturgy, each of the eight tonal systems was identified by mode, and
the differentiae for each psalm tone were related to the antiphon which preceded
and followed it. From the mid sixteenth-century, when antiphons were dropped
from the English liturgy, the psalm tone melodies began to change their shape,
though not their function. The psalmodic verse form of two phrases, each with
its own close, continued to dictate the musical form of the melodies to which the
psalms were chanted, but without the requirement of matching a tone ending
with an antiphon, the melodies began to evolve into self-contained units. Points
of arrival and departure were still emphasized in the process of memorization

6
and oral transmission and the alterations that crept into melodies did not
obliterate their essential tonal design.
5

Since the mid fifteenth-century, Sarum tones had been sung with basic harmonizations
in two and three parts
6
These harmonizations were accomplished according to the rules
several semi-improvisatory techniques, while the original tone or a melodic variation
thereof was sung in the tenor voice. These unique parts were known as tenors, and the
improvisatory techniques used to harmonize them were either called fauxbourdon
(French), faburden (English), or falsobordone (Italy), depending on the country of origin.
7

These geographically named ‘false-bass’ techniques were not limited by political
boundaries, and though each was executed in a different manner, they were collectively
drawn upon in the early development of Anglican chant.
8
Lengthy liturgical texts in
prose form, such as psalms and canticles were naturally well-suited to these techniques.
In the fauxbourdon, or ‘false-bass’ technique, the lowest voice visualized their part
at a parallel perfect interval above the tenor, yet sang it the interval of a fifth beneath
the tenor. This resulted in a plainsong countermelody sung below the plainsong tenor.
The skilled ability to accomplish this extemporaneously was referred to as ‘sight.’
9

5. Ruth Mack Wilson, “Anglican chant and chanting in England and America, 1660-1811”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988), 27.
6. Ibid., 35.
7. The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., s.v. “Fauxbourdon,” “Faburden,” “Falsobordone,”
by Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003), 310.
8. Although the exacting techniques of fauxbourdon, faburden, and falsobordone vary slightly
according to region, the origins of Anglican chant borrow generously from each, particularly
falsobordone. For the sake of clarity in this document, and in the interest of cohesion with the pre-
existing body of research on this topic, the term fauxbordon will be used exclusively henceforth.

7
Meanwhile, the middle voice was doubled at the upper fourth by the treble, creating
parallel motion of a sixth between the treble and lowest voice. Alterations might occur
at cadences, where octaves or fifths could be achieved. Eventually, ornamental figures
and suspensions were added, but did not significantly alter the aesthetic result of
parallel voice movement. This technique collectively results in a predominance of root-
position and first-inversion chords, and the sound becomes a distinctive characteristic
of English psalm tone harmonizations. The English madrigalist Thomas Morley (1557-
1602) describes the effect thusly: “singing upon a plainsong hath been in times past in
England (as every man knoweth) and is at this day in other places the greatest part of
the usual music which in any churches is sung.”
10
This was quite a resounding vote of
approval for the burgeoning form of choral expression occurring in England.
By the time of the Restoration Period (1660-1688), unique fauxbourdon-derived
melodies themselves replaced the original Sarum chant tones as the melodic impetus.
Example 1.2 depicts the inclusion of an alto voice in alternate thirds and fourth scale
degrees above the tenor, as well as a bass in the typical alternate third and fifth degrees
below.
11

9. Brian Trowell, “Faburden-New Sources, New Evidence: A Preliminary Survey,” Modern
Musical Scholarship, ed. Edward Ollseon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 44-9.
10. Thomas Morley, A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music, ed. R. Alec Harman
(London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1952), 206.
11. Ernest Trumble, Fauxbourdon, An Historical Survey, (Brooklyn: Institute of Medieval
Music, 1959), 56.

8
Example 1.2: William the Monk, 4-part Fauxbourdon

There was now a practical necessity for four-part harmonizations such as William the
Monk’s to be codified in written form. The ability to improvise parallel motion for three
voices at sight was possible; however, the addition of the fourth alto voice introduced a
performance complexity that required notation over improvisation. The advent of
written chant notation was accomplished through the works of several significant
sixteenth-century composers such as Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) and his pupil William
Byrd (1543-1623). They, along with many of their contemporaries wrote liturgically
functioning settings of the Preces and Suffrages (Responses), and a substantial number
of festal psalm tones for Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and Whitsunday, in which
chanted psalms in a four-part chordal texture are found (Example 1.3). As depicted in
the example, specific rhythmic patterns were devised for the complete text underlay of
the prose.
12
The modal borrowing in the final cadence (from C-major to B-flat) is a
development of the earlier fauxbourdon style of harmonization.

12. It was not until the Anglo-Catholic Oxford movement (also known as the “Tractarian”
movement) in the nineteenth-century that ‘pointing’ texts to fit a prescribed harmonic rhythm took

9
Example 1.3: Tallis, Preces and Suffrages, from The Choral Service, p. 95

hold. This was achieved by placing symbols representing measures and multi-syllabic reciting tones
within the prose of written text, thereby alleviating the need to underlay numerous verses of text
under printed music.

10
This harmonic motion retains a distinctly sixteenth-century sonority – especially at
cadences, and becomes a unique defining harmonic characteristic of the Tudor period
(1485-1603).
13
Tudor era examples of this harmonic language are seen in the anonymous
Cambridge Chant (Example 1.4), and the Chant in G-minor by Richard Farrant (Example
1.5).

Example 1.4: Anonymous, Cambridge Chant, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 96.

Example 1.5: Farrant, Chant in G-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 10.

13. Billie Melman, The Culture of History: English Uses of the Past 1800-1953, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 304.

11
The style and characteristics of Tudor music developed considerably from 1485
to 1603. Some of those manifestations included an expansion to five-voice choral
textures, the waning use of a cantus firmus in motet and mass settings, and the troping
of text set in rich polyphony. “The presence of a cantus firmus was felt to be less and
less obligatory as the century wore on, so that compositions similar in all other respects
to the earlier types no longer anchored themselves to plainchant.”
14
This effectively
allowed composers to venture beyond the melodic strictures of previously established
chant tones.
At the time of the Restoration, the standardization of chant tunes continued to be
developed, mostly through the Chapel Royal repertory. These include William
Turner’s (c. 1651-1740) chant tunes, and John Blow’s (1649-1708) chant tunes for his
short services. Chant tunes began to be defined as music intended for strophic
repetition with a binary prose liturgical text. The psalms, in particular, fit this
qualification with their mediant and terminating phrases that dictate the musical unit.
The Chapel Royal repertory was also instrumental in establishing the parameters of the
typical English cathedral ensemble – consisting of four voices: treble, countertenor,
tenor, and bass.
Another important development that occurred just before and during the
Restoration Period was the lengthening of the chant tone from a single to what is known

14. Denis Stevens, Tudor Church Music, (New York: Merlin Press, 1922), 65.

12
as a double chant. Doubling the number of chords to be chanted accommodated the
natural psalm prose over two verses, as opposed to a repeating single verse setting of
music. This is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the
opportunity for greater musical expression, thereby possibly better serving the effect of
the text to be chanted. William Turner was the first known composer of double chant
tunes, enabling him to harmonically explore a richer tonal palate (see Example 1.6).
15

Example 1.6: Turner, A Double Tune, Christ Church Music Manuscript.

The Chapel Royal repertory maintained a conservative approach to counterpoint
with a modest new development in terms of voicing. Melodies were now in the treble
voice and moved by step, with occasional leaps no greater than a fourth or fifth. The

15. Christ Church Music Manuscript, 49.

13
melodic transition from tenor to treble voice is an important shift in harmonized
Anglican chant that has been retained from the seventeenth-century through to the
twenty-first-century. The tenor often terminated on the tonic pitch and moved in
counterpoint to the treble. Mediant cadences closed on the half-cadence or relative
major, again borrowing from the modal tradition. Final cadences were often authentic
and with incomplete final chords – noting that complete triads were still considered
relatively dissonant for terminating cadences.
16

Throughout the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth centuries chant
tones were written down as a means of preserving the complexity of four-part notation.
Paradoxically though, the codification of written chants would lead to greater confusion
for later analysis. While the outer voices were notated, the interior voices were merely
realized through the result of figured bass notation, and could change by performance.
Although there are many examples and versions of harmonic evolution in these psalm
tones, there is no definitive urtext edition – per se. Examples 1.7 – 9 display these
differences.
17

16. Characteristic of the period, six of Thomas Morley’s Eight Tunes published in 1597 have
incomplete final chords.
17. The Anglican Psalter, p. x.

14
Example 1.7: Bennet and Marshall (1760), Flintoff Chant, in The Anglican Psalter, p. x.

Example 1.8 Rimbault (1844), Flintoff Chant, in Cathedral Chants, p. 78.

15
Example 1.9: Walmisley (1845), Flintoff Chant, in The Anglican Psalter, p. x.

The strict adherence to common practice voice leading and the use of secondary
dominant relationships at cadences were typical of eighteenth-century Anglican chant.
The style is historically conventional, quasi-formulaic, and conservative in approach.
Composers of Anglican chant in the eighteenth-century aimed to terminate the chant on
the tonic chord, and reserved moments of greatest harmonic dissonance for the third or
fourth phrase prior to tonal resolution (see Example 1.10). The harmonic progressions
were relatively simplistic – centered around tonic/dominant relationships. Composers
such a Jonathan Battishill (1738-1801), William Boyce (1711-1779), William Crotch (1775-
1847), and Samuel Wesley (1766-1837) defined the style of the era.

Example 1.10: Samuel Wesley, Chant in G-major, in The Parish Psalter with Chants, p. 78.

16
By the nineteenth-century (aside from modal shifts at cadences) it was nearly
unrecognizable that Anglican chant had developed out of the plainsong harmonizations
in the fauxbourdon style. However, the emblematic characterization of Anglican chant
had always been the unreserved use of modalism, which allowed nineteenth-century
Anglican chant tunes to retain a sound character that hearkened back to its foundation.
According to Andrew Parker, “The most fruitful period in the development and
collecting of Anglican Chants was from the start of the 19
th
century until the end of the
1930s.”
18
Composers such as Thomas Attwood (1765-1838), Joseph Barnby (1838-1896),
John Goss (1800-1880), Edward John Hopkins (1818-1901), Edwin George Monk (1819-
1900), Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley (1825-1889), Henry Smart (1813-1879), John
Stainer (1840-1901), James Turle (1802-1882), Thomas Attwood Walmisley (1814-1856),
and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) flourished in the composition of what has
become, in retrospect, the golden age of Anglican chant.
The extensive use of modal borrowing is apparent in John Goss’ Double Chant in
D-minor (Example 1.11). Although the chant is set in the key of D-minor, nearly every
dominant chord borrows from the major mode. There is a highly dramatic moment of
harmonic tension in the first phrase at the cadence on a C-sharp diminished chord,
borrowing from the major mode once again. This dissolves into a major dominant
chord leading to a half cadence at the end of the second phrase. A suspension in the

18. . Ibid., xv.

17
alto voice in the penultimate measure leads back to a reiteration of the modally
borrowed major dominant chord before resolving to the tonic D-minor chord
(incomplete while missing the fifth scale degree).

Example 1.11: John Goss, Chant in D-minor, in The Psalms of David, p. 137.

Example 1.12: Edward John Hopkins, Chant in F-minor, in The Anglican Chant Psalter, p.
196.

Examples 1.11 and 1.12 are indicative of nineteenth-century Anglican chant
having developed into a formidable harmonic expression. Both examples use the
borrowed modes at cadences, particularly the major dominant chord in minor keys.
Chant tones of this era were intended to paint the dynamic interpretations of the

18
myriad human emotions displayed within the chanted texts. This had to also be
achieved when different texts were pointed to the same tone. Anglican chant comprises
an extraordinary amount of musical expression articulated within a minimal amount of
musical material. It might seem impossible for the ten repeating chords of a single
chant, or the twenty chords of a typical double chant, to fully express the multitudinous
human emotions poetically contained in the book of psalms – joy, devotion,
melancholy, hatred, violence, praise, exultation, etc. Indeed, to some, Anglican chant
represents an ill-conceived musical anomaly, born out of strange theological and
liturgical circumstances. In his preface to The New Anglican Psalter John Scott wrote:
It is said that [Antonin] Dvorak, on first visiting England and hearing a psalm
sung in St. Paul’s Cathedral, asked, ‘Why do they sing such a bad tune over and
over again?’ Not every chant can be said to be remarkable, many being drab or
banal in the extreme. Despite some excellent twentieth-century additions to the
chant repertoire, the Anglican chant is probably seen at its best in a surprisingly
large number of eighteenth and nineteenth-century examples in which basic,
coherent harmonies support concise melodic lines.

The Anglican chant is in essence a miniature, and a challenge for any composer
to imprint a characteristic stamp on the form. As well as being musically
satisfying, a chant must be more than capable of enduring constant repetition
during the course of a single psalm. These qualities are the more necessary when
the chant is reflected against the background of its particular function, that of
being a vehicle for the psalm text. The feebleness of a poor chant becomes
increasingly irksome the more it is heard repeated.
19

19. Ibid., ix.

19
Perhaps the answer lies in the careful economy of musical thought, highly scrutinized
voice leading, the judicious use of non-chord tonal devices, and later in the twentieth-
century – extended tertian harmony, quartal and quintal harmonies, borrowed chords,
and nearly all manner of advanced tonal compositional practice. Much as the
accomplished speech writer must edit and re-edit until great ideas are distilled to their
most impactful, so too must the composer of Anglican chants – toiling to create
carefully crafted music within an inherited form that is intended to function, express,
and exalt the human spirit through song, and to last as long as the ancient stone
buildings in which they are sung.
With the historical foundation of Anglican chant outlined within this
introduction, the following three chapters will seek to trace the development of
Anglican chant, and to offer an in-depth harmonic analysis of the most prolific
examples in the twentieth-century.

20
CHAPTER ONE:

THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ANGLICAN CHANT:
BIOGRAPHIES, CHANTS, AND ANALYSES

The legacy of the nineteenth-century English choral tradition is largely built on
the sacred festival anthems and royal music of the great Victorian and Edwardian era
composers – household names of the likes of Edward Elgar (1957-1934), Charles Villiers
Stanford (1852-1924), and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918). However, some
lesser-known composers who served as organists and choirmasters in more rural
cathedrals, maintained and contributed to the canon of functional Anglican liturgical
music. These contributions included choral settings of the morning and evening
services and a large body of Anglican chant tunes.
Composers including Sir Joseph Barnby (1838-1896), George John Bennett (1863-
1930), Richard Clark (1780-1856), William Crotch (1775-1847), Sir John Job Elvey (1816-
1893), Sir John Goss (1800-1880), Alan Gray (1855-1935), Charles Harford Lloyd (1849-
1919), Sir George Alexander MacFarren (1813-1887), Arthur Henry Mann (1850-1929),
Sir George Clement Martin (1844-1916), Edwin George Monk (1819-1900), John Naylor
(1838-1897), The Rev. Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Bart Ouseley (1825-1889), Sir Walter
Parratt (1841-1924), George Robertson Sinclair (1863-1917), Henry Smart (1813-1879), Sir
John Stainer (1840-1901), James Turle (1802-1882), Thomas Attwood Walmisley (1814-
1856), Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), wrote vast numbers of Anglican chants.

21
Broadly speaking, the harmonic language is conservative relative to the rest of
European music in the nineteenth-century, with English composers largely drawing
from the established tradition of modally borrowed chords at cadences, and
harmonized voices in parallel motion. The voice leading tends to favor ergonomic
functionality over more expressively challenging lines. Many of these aforementioned
composers wrote in a practical manner for rural choirs that may have lacked trained
choristers capable of singing the challenging voice leading or unconventional harmonic
language.
By the late nineteenth-century, a new generation of English church musicians
began to explore more Romantic musical gestures in their liturgical compositions. This
included increased chromaticism, harmonic movement to chromatically related
mediant chords, occasional use of unresolved non-chord tones, and varying departures
from the framework of traditional common practice voice leading. Such instances can
be seen in Charles Villiers Stanford’s Evening Canticles in G-major (Example 2.1), in
Edward Elgar’s anthem Te Deum laudamus (Example 2.2), and in Charles Hubert
Hastings Parry’s festival anthem Blest Pair of Sirens (Example 2.3).

22
Example 2.1: Stanford, Nunc dimittis in G-major, mm. 26-42.

23

24
Example 2.2: Elgar, Te Deum laudamus, mm. 1-18.

25
Example 2.3: Parry, Blest Pair of Sirens, mm. 1-35.

26

27
By the turn of the twentieth-century a spirit of nationalistic re-birth was
sweeping England, and manifesting in even poetic and musical genres. Melman writes:
The growing contingent of adherents to the national school advocated not only
emancipation from foreign tyranny, but also the recovery and development of
genuinely English forms of music. Of these forms two, the pre-modern and
specifically Tudor folk song (and folk dancing) and polyphonic Tudor music,
enjoyed widespread revival and were practiced in both local and nationwide
networks of choral societies, church festivals, and folk music and dancing
organizations, spreading at the beginning of the twentieth century and
mushrooming during the inter-war period. The vast use that numerous
composed made of Tudor modal polyphony and of folk music rescued the
national repertoire from degeneration and atrophy. Composers and librettists
extensively borrowed popular musical themes and tended toward the modality
characteristic of the English folk song, consistently using the Dorian mode.
1

Combined with a resurgence in popularity of the Tudor tradition, these new Romantic
harmonic advancements were juxtaposed against the modally borrowed chords,
parallel motion, and open/incomplete chords at cadences that had long ago been the
defining aural aesthetic of Sarum-derived chant harmonizations.
This chapter will explore that harmonic progression through the Anglican chants
of four prolific composers whose compositions span the early part of the twentieth-
century – Sir Ivor Algernon Atkins (1869-1953), Sir Edward Cuthbert Bairstow (1874-
1946), Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941), and Charles Hylton Stewart (1884-1932).
A brief biography will be given for each composer, followed by an in-depth harmonic
analysis of their selected chant tunes.

1. Melman, 304.

28
A Brief Biography of Ivor Atkins

Ivor Algernon Atkins was born into a musical family in Llandaff, Wales in 1869.
He was initially trained by his father and subsequently by George Robertson Sinclair
(1863-1917) as teacher’s assistant organist at Truro and Hereford cathedrals.
2
The most
substantial post of his career came in 1897, when he was named organist at Worcester
Cathedral – a position that also allowed him to lead the Worcester Three Choirs Festival
for fifty years from 1898 to 1948. In 1902 Atkins conducted his close friend Edward
Elgar’s (1857-1934) seminal choral-orchestral masterwork The Dream of Gerontius.
3
Elgar
dedicated his third Pomp and Circumstance March to Atkins in 1904.
4
During his fifty-
year career Atkins also earned a Doctorate of Music degree at the University of Oxford
in 1920, was knighted in 1921 (becoming Sir Ivor Algernon Atkins), and later earned a
Fellowship Diploma from the Royal College of Organists for exceptional playing.
5

Possibly influenced by the success of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, Atkins’ own
large scale choral orchestral work is Hymn of Faith, and was premiered in 1905 at the
Worcester Three Choirs Festival. In addition to his daily musical responsibilities at the

2. Jerrol Northrop Moore, “Atkins, Sir Ivor Algernon (1869-1953),” Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography. Oxford University Press.
3. Wulstan Atkins, The Atkins-Elgar friendship, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 23.
4. Ibid.
5. Watkins Shaw, "Atkins, Sir Ivor," Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford
University Press, accessed August 16, 2016.

29
cathedral he also produced several significant English-language versions of foreign
language masterworks: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Brahms’ Ein
deutsches Requiem, and Debussy’s La Damoiselle élue. Of these editions Watkins Shaw
said, “Though no longer acceptable, the treatment of Bach’s recitative in relation to the
English Bible marked an important stage in the appreciation of Bach’s Passion settings
in England.”
6

Atkins spent his life as a regularly performing church organist and as a
musicologist. In 1918 he wrote a history of organists and masters of choristers at
Worcester cathedral, and upon completion of his terminal degree he was elected a
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (1921).
7
It was in this capacity that he created an
edition of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, and of Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas. In the final twenty
years of his life he took on the additional responsibility of the position of historical
librarian at Worcester Cathedral, serving until his death in 1953.
As is the practice of many work-a-day church musicians, Atkins composed a
significant amount of practical liturgical service music including chorale preludes and
anthems. He offered an enormous contribution to the overall body of chants, many of
which are retained in the canon of Anglican chant repertoire.

6. Watkins Shaw: The Three Choirs Festival c. 1713-1953 (Worcester and London, 1954) 259.
7. Ivor Atkins, The Early Occupants of the Office of Organist and Master of the Choristers of the
Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Worcester (Worchester, 1918).

30
Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by Ivor Atkins

In Atkins’ Double Chant in D-major (Example 2.4), the composer explores the modal
mixture in twice terminating on the minor ii chord, which allows him to manipulate a
secondary dominant relationship at the beginning of the second phrase: B-major
resolving to E-minor. This creates a temporary tonic in the minor ii chord, and provides
a vehicle for Atkins to move to the chromatically mediant F-sharp major cadence at the
end of the second phrase. The penultimate chord to this cadence (a suspension leading
into a dominant C-sharp major seventh chord in root position) temporarily tonicizes the
chromatically mediant F-sharp major chord. This in turn functions as a dominant chord
to B-minor (the relative minor key of D-major). The original cadence of the first phrase
is mimicked, although with the inclusion of the alto note D, creating an unresolved
major second against the soprano voice. This unresolved dissonance between voices is
a hallmark of the developing harmonic style. In the final two phrases Atkins re-
transitions from the relative minor key of B-minor to the tonic D-major in the final
cadence.

31
Example 2.5: Atkins, Double Chant in D-major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 73

In his Double Chant in A-flat major (Example 2.5) Atkins chromatically alters the
dominant chord at the beginning of the third phrase in a modal shift. Through a series
of secondary dominant relationships the composer cadences this third phrase by
temporarily tonicizing the B-flat minor ii chord. This acts as a deceptive cadence, and
also as the leading tone to a modally borrowed C-major chord that begins the fourth
phrase. Atkins resolves back to the tonic A-flat major with an authentic cadence in the
final phrase.

Example 2.5: Atkins, Double Chant in A-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 157

32
The harmonic effect of the entire chant is one where there is no sustained sense of
resolution except for the final cadence. The tonic chord in the first phrase merely serves
to establish a sense of key. The fleeting tonic chord that appears in the second phrase
leads to a half-cadence. Atkins moves to distantly related tonal areas in the third
phrase, and no other tonic A-flat major chords appear again until the final resolution.
The economy with which Atkins is able to explore distantly related tonal areas through
such minimal musical material also becomes of a hallmark of the developing harmonic
language of Anglican chant into the twentieth centuries.
Atkins’ Double chant in D-minor (Example 2.6) presents a remarkable example of
the chromatic alterations functioning as modal shifts. After establishing the tonic key,
the first phrase exploits the diminished ii chord in third inversion. The introduction of
the lower neighbor C-sharp in the bass voice of the cadence proves to be a critical aspect
of this particular chant, for it functions as the harmonic minor leading tone, back to the
tonic D-minor. This is explicated again in the second phrase before the modally derived
D-major dominant half cadence. The C-sharp, which earlier functioned as a non-chord
tone and as the harmonic minor leading tone to D-minor now functions firmly as the
raised third scale degree in the modally shifting dominant chord. The third phrase
continues this main idea, including an authentic cadence back to D-minor. However,
the fourth and final phrase begin with an F-major seventh chord – the relative major key
of D-minor, and also the as the secondary dominant to B-flat major. Atkins temporarily

33
tonicizes the succeeding B-flat major chord (V-I) before once again exploiting the C-
sharp as the raised third scale degree in the true A-major seventh dominant chord
resolving to the tonic D-minor.
Atkins careful employment of the C-sharp scale degree in each phrase reveals a
remarkable propensity for compositional craft, both looking backward to modal
tradition and expressing the paradigm shift of chromatic harmonic evolution.
Additionally, his method of composing leaps greater than a sixth in the soprano
melodic voice reveal a willingness to push the boundaries of common practice
counterpoint toward an expanded intervallic expression. This is apparent in the second
phrase as the soprano leaps from an A to an F, and again in the final phrase when the
soprano descends from a D by a minor seventh interval to the E – also leaping to
dissonance against the alto voice.

Example 2.6: Atkins, Double Chant in D-minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 149

34
In his Double Chant in B-flat major (Example 2.7), Atkins once again displays a
propensity to cadence on the ii chord, which he accomplishes twice – once in the first
phrase, and again in the third phrase. It could be argued that the first cadence functions
more as a dominant chord with a C foil in the tenor line, particularly in considering the
dissonant minor second voice leading against the bass B-flat. However, a more
substantial consideration of Atkins’ chant output reveals the ii chord to be a critical
facet of the composer’s harmonic vocabulary.
8
The second phrase has essentially
modulated to the dominant key of F-major, with a functional seven diminished of F-
major (E-diminished) resolving to F-major chord. The third phrase leads once again to
the ii chord, but with a remarkably modern sense of voice leading that includes a 9-8
suspension in the alto line. The fourth phrase begins with a modally borrowed G-major
chord prior to an authentic cadential resolution to the tonic key of B-flat major.

Example 2.7: Atkins, Double Chant in B-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 119

8. Atkins uses the minor ii chord as a cadential point numerous times in examples 2.4-7.

35
Atkins’ chromatic alteration of the seventh scale degree D to D-flat occurs twice
in the Double chant in E-flat major setting (Example 2.8), and in both situations functions
as a descending passing tone within the bass voice. In both cases the altered D-flat
creates the lowered seventh of the tonic chord, and temporarily tonicizes the A-flat
major four chord (V7-I). The end of the second phrase cadences on a modally borrowed
G-major chord. This is continued as a G-major seventh chord in third inversion for the
third phrase, before repeating the passing tone D-flat in the bass line with consequent
temporary tonic of A-flat major. The fourth phrase returns to the tonic E-flat major via
a B-flat major dominant seventh chord.

Example 2.8: Atkins, Double Chant in E-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 114

A Brief Biography of Edward Bairstow

Edward Cuthbert Bairstow was born in the west Yorkshire town of Huddersfield
on August 22, 1874. His father was a tenor in the local choral society, and young

36
Edward showed promise as a private student, later apprenticing with Sir Frederick
Bridge at Westminster Abbey.
9
It was during this time that he was appointed organist
at All Saints’ Church Norfolk Square in Paddington. His formal education was at
Durham University, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1894, followed by a
doctoral degree in music in 1900.
10

During his early career Edward Bairstow was appointed conductor of several
notable English choral societies: the Wigan Philharmonic Society from 1901-1906, the
Blackburn St. Cecelia Society from 1903-1913, and the Preston Choral Society from 1907-
1913. In the same year Bairstow achieved most prominent professional appointment –
as organist and master of the choir at York Minister. It was there that he succeeded the
famed English organist and choirmaster T. Tertius Noble, who had left York for New
York to direct the choir of men and boys at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. When
asked if he would one day follow his predecessor to the United States he was known to
have bluntly replied, “I would rather go to the devil.”
11

The obligations of his new cathedral appointment required Bairstow’s
resignation from the former choral society directorships; however, unable to fully
disengage from his history with amateur choral societies, this move was not made

9. Ernest Bullock, “Bairstow, Sir Edward Cuthbert (1874–1946),” rev. K. D. Reynolds, in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP,
2004) 214.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.

37
without first accepting a new parallel directorship of the York Musical Society – a post
that he maintained for the twenty-six years between 1913 and 1939. In 1929 Bairstow
was appointed chair of the department of music at his alma mater, Durham University.
This was a position that he also held concurrently with his cathedral work at York. He
was knighted in 1932, and subsequently composed an introit for the coronation of King
George VI in 1937. Well admired by his friends and colleagues, he spent the latter years
of his work receiving various honorary degrees: a Doctor of Literature degree from the
University of Leeds in 1936, and a Doctor of Music degree from the University of
Oxford in 1945. Bairstow also held numerous positions within the Incorporated Society
of Musicians, as well as the Royal College of Organists.
As a professor he is best remembered as the teacher of Gerald Finzi (1901-1956).
12

He published several books on music: Counterpoint and Harmony in 1937, and The
Evolution of Musical Form in 1943. He died in York on May 1, 1946.

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by Edward Bairstow

Double Chant in E-flat major (Example 2.9): After establishing the tonic key of E-
flat major, Bairstow immediately employs the modally borrowed D-flat major chord,
with the D-flat doubled between the bass and soprano voices, and a chord change later

12. Stephen Banfield, Gerald Finzi: An English Composer (Faber: London, 1998) 54.

38
in the tenor line. Bairstow has drawn the listener into a sonic sense of A-flat major,
cadencing on the IV of E-flat at the end of the first phrase. The G-minor chord of the
first phrase suddenly tethers back to E-flat major, once again displaying the modal
borrowing prevalent in this period. Bairstow welcomes increasing dissonance as he
composes a soprano A-flat against the alto G-natural in the second phrase, concluding
with a half cadence. The third phrase again begins with the chromatically borrowed D-
flat major chord, succeeded by an incomplete, though recognizable A-flat major IV
chord. This is perplexing in that Bairstow easily could have retained the fifth scale
degree E-flat in either the alto of soprano voices, thereby adhering to common practice
voice leading. Instead, he elects to double the C-natural third scale degree between the
tenor and alto voices. Bairstow concludes the fourth phrase with the first authentic
cadence of the chant setting, reaffirming the tonic key of E-flat major.

Example 2.9: Bairstow, Double Chant in E-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 95.

39
In his Double Chant in D-major for Psalm 107 (Example 2.10), Bairstow composes in
a manner that allows seventh chords to achieve maximum dissonance. He achieves this
by rarely voicing the chords in root position, and thereby allowing the seventh scale
degree ample opportunity to foil the tonic pitch. The first two phrases build to a half-
cadence suspension within the alto voice. In the third phrase Bairstow lowers the
seventh scale degree of the tonic chord and places the C-natural in the bass voice,
resulting in a third inversion seventh chord. It sounds, momentarily, as if the composer
has modulated to the sub-dominant G-major, and via an A-minor seventh chord
functioning as the vii chord to a shocking B-major seventh chord. This is the most
dramatic harmonic moment of the chant, as the B-major seventh chord then tonicizes
the E-minor chord that begins the fourth phrase. The C-sharp is re-established in the
succeeding chord, hearkening a return to the tonic D-major in a traditional authentic
cadence.
The joyful key of D-major indicates a desire on Bairstow’s part to paint the
meaning of the first three verses of the psalm text. However, there is a critical poetic
shift in the fourth and fifth verses, which speak about the Israelites wandering, thirsty
in the desert. Bairstow composes a single chant (Example 2.11) that plays heavily on
modal mixture between D-minor and D-major. With a key signature firmly indicating
D-minor, he begins the first phrase with a major tonic chord. The second phrase begins
on a modally borrowed A-major dominant chord, while again establishing the

40
dichotomy between major and minor mode. The musical effect is one in which the
harmony exemplifies the wild and un-stable poetic meaning of the text. This is
particularly true on the words “They went astray in the wilderness out of the way: and
found no city to dwell in.” Bairstow’s purposeful withholding of a trustworthy tonic
home key musically depicts the nomadic experience of the story. More musical intensity
is derived by way of a descending tri-tone, B-flat to E-natural, in the tenor voice of the
penultimate measure.
In the second of the two single chants (Example 2.12) Bairstow finally re-
establishes the home key of D-major. He composes a foundational pedal tone for the
organ in an effort to musically allude to the meaning of verse six – “So they cried unto
the Lord in their trouble: and he delivered them from their distress.” With a lowered
seventh scale degree, first introduced in the original chant, Bairstow softens the tonality
– juxtaposing the D pedal with a gently lilting C-natural. It is clear that Bairstow does
not intend for a sense of G-major to pervade, as with the pedal D he brings back the
melodic C-sharp as the leading tone to D major in the second phrase of the soprano
voice. Also, the composer avoids employing a final authentic cadence, as with the
original double chant. Rather, there is a means of access returning to the tonic key via
the E-minor ii chord.
Theories regarding the theological implication of these various harmonic choices
could be overwhelming diverse, and for lack of primary source material from the

41
composer aside from this score, it would be impossible to adequately discern the true
musical meaning of Bairstow’s compositional intentions. However, the composer offers
a carefully planned moment of tonal affirmation in the authentic cadence concluding
the double chant. Bairstow creates moments of harmonic ambiguity, as with the
modally precarious single chant in D-minor. His choice of undergirding the home key
for the soothing final chant indicates a composer who was remarkably adept in setting
emotionally complex texts.

Example 9.2: Bairstow, Double Chant in D-major for Psalm 107, from The Anglican Psalter,
p. 215.

Confitemini Domino
1 O give thanks unto the | Lord for • he is | gracious:
and his | mercy • en|dureth • for | ever.

2 Let them give thanks whom the | Lord • hath re|deemed:
and de|livered • from the | hand • of the | enemy.

3 (2
nd
part) And gathered them out of the lands *
from the | east and • from the | west:
from the | north and | from the | south.

42
change chant (Decani)
Example 2.11: Bairstow, Single Chant in D-minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 215.

4 They went astray in the wilderness | out of • the | way:
And | found no | city • to | dwell in;

5 Hungry | - and | thirsty:
-|- their | soul • fainted | in them.
change chant (Decani)
Example 2.12: Bairstow, Single Chant in D-major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 215.

6 So they cried unto the | Lord • in their | trouble:
and he de|livered • them | from their • di|stress.

7 He led them | forth • by the right | way:
that they might | go • to the | city • where they | dwelt.

43
While modally conservative, Bairstow’s Double Chant in G-major (Example 2.13)
displays an advancement in English dissonance. After establishing the tonic key of G-
major, the composer offers a descending F-sharp passing tone in the bass voice,
resolving to an E-minor seventh deceptive cadence. The second phrase contains a
minor second relationship between the alto and tenor parts, and an alto passing tone
that leads to a tenor 4-3 suspension at the half cadence. The third phrase ends with a
highly unstable F-sharp diminished seventh chord, while the fourth phrase begins with
the lowered seventh scale degree (F-natural) in the alto voice. The sudden G-major
chord created by this chromatic alteration functions as a temporary dominant to tonic
relationship of the subsequent C-major four chord. The fourth contains more
intentional voice-leading dissonance – a major second soprano E against the alto D,
followed by a traditional V7 – I authentic cadence. Bairstow’s push toward close-voice
dissonance foreshadows a choral harmonic aesthetic which becomes prevalent feature
of choral music in the latter twentieth century, as in Examples 16.9 and 17.2.

Example 2.13: Bairstow, Double Chant in G-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 34.

44
A Brief Biography of Henry Walford Davies

Henry Walford Davies was born in 1869, the seventh of nine children, near the
Welsh border.
13
His father, John Whitridge Davies, was a musician by avocation,
conducting the choral society in their county of Oswestry and serving as choirmaster in
their Congregational church.
14
Early musical training was received at home, and in
1882 Henry began as a boy chorister at St. George’s Chapel - Windsor before serving as
organist at the royal chapel of All Saints, also in Windsor. He pursued a non-collegiate
music degree from Cambridge University, graduating in 1891 under the tutelage of
Charles Villiers Stanford.
15
From 1890-1894 Davies attended the Royal College of Music
in London, studying with Charles Hubert Hastings Parry and Stanford. It was during
his studies at the college that he took up several organist positions at smaller churches
around London: St. George’s Church, Campden Hill (for three months), at St. Anne’s
Church, Soho (until 1891). He was appointed at Christ Church, Hampstead until 1897
while simultaneously teaching counterpoint at the Royal College of Music.

13. Jeremy Dibble. “Davies, Sir Henry Walford (1869-1941), Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford University Press, online edition, January 2011, retrieved September 16, 2016.
14. Ibid.
15. During the late 19
th
century British Universities often conferred non-collegiate degrees
upon musicians who were successful in passing performance examinations. Composer and
professor of music at Cambridge Charles Villiers Stanford disapproved of this process and
eventually persuaded the University to require entrance and a regular course of study prior to
taking examinations.

45
In 1898 Davies achieved his most prominent organist and choirmaster position,
at the Temple Church in the City of London – a post he would hold for twenty-five
years. During the First World War he became engaged with his former teacher Parry’s
Committee for Music in War Time.
16
He was appointed director of music for the Royal
Air Force at the rank of Major, founding the RAF School of Music and composing for
their two wind bands.
17
Davies’ work in succeeding Stanford as conductor of the
London Bach Choir, along with his conducting and organ concertizing led to an
increasing national prominence. He was knighted in 1922.
18

As an academic, Davies took up professorships at University College,
Aberstwyth, University of Wales, and as a guest lecturer at the Universities of Glasgow
and London. In 1926 he resigned his academic posts, having been appointed as the
musical advisor to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It was in this capacity
that he offered many radio programs designed toward music appreciation, and
becoming a household name. His final organist and choirmaster post lasted from 1927
to 1932, and was coincidently where he began his musical training, at St. George’s
Chapel, Windsor.
19

16. Davies, Walford. “Mobilized Music,” The Times, June 17, 1915, p. 2.
17. “A Brief History of RAF Music Services,” Royal Air Force, retrieved September 16, 2016.
18. “Resignation Honours – Four New Peers – Music Knighthoods,” The Times, November
11, 1922, p. 14
19. Jeremy Dibble.

46
In 1934 Davies succeeded Sir Edward Elgar as Master of the King’s Music. In
accordance with his BBC responsibilities he was required to move from London to
Bristol, where the corporation had relocated following the start of World War II in
1939.
20
Davies died in Bristol in 1941 and was buried in the local cathedral.

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by Henry Walford Davies

Davies’ Double Chant in E-flat minor (Example 2.14) establishes a highly unusual
key for liturgical music, even more so than in concert music. French Baroque composer
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) referred to the key as, “Horrible, frightful.”
21
The
German Romantic composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) said this of the key of E-flat
minor:
Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of
blackest depression, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every
hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible E-flat minor. If ghosts
could speak, their speech would approximate this key.
22

Although possible that Walford Davies was aware of these historically inherited ideas
regarding key characteristics, it may be more probable that he merely selected the key

20. H.G. Ley. “Davies, Sir (Henry) Walford (1869-1941) Dictionary of National Biography
Archive, Oxford University Press, online edition, January 2011, retrieved September 16, 2016.
21. Rita Steblin. A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. (New
York: University of Rochester Press, 1983) 325-6.
22. Ibid., p. 356.

47
for tonal color. Indeed, the insistence upon E-flat minor is corroborated between
several sources.
23

Henry Walford Davies was a contemporary of Charles Hylton Stewart, though
he was more prone to explore a developing harmonic language than Stewart, as
evidenced in Example 2.14. Despite these advancements it is apparent from his body of
work that the composer intended to maintain the strong English modal tradition.
Example 2.14 begins starkly in E-flat minor where the first phrase terminates on the
major VI chord. On the beginning of the second phrase a B-flat major dominant chord
becomes a modally borrowed chord from the parallel major, and maintains a musical
connection to the Tudor past. This affirms Melman’s assertion regarding the resurgence
in popularity of the old Tudor style.
24
The composer concludes the phrase with a 4-3
suspension in the tenor voice, a harmonic device that he repeats in the last three phrases
(among the alto voice in the third and the soprano in the final cadence). The third
phrase employs a borrowed D-flat minor chord, with the qualifying F-flat doubled at
the octave in the bottom two voices. The doubling of the third scale degree in the chord
marks a striking shift away from traditional common practice voice leading,
particularly in such moments where the borrowed chord is intended to significantly

23. The chant is found in the key of E-flat minor in the Parish Psalter with Chants (ed. Sydney
H. Nicholson, 1958), The New Anglican Chant Psalter (ed. Alec Wyton, 1987), the Anglican Psalter (ed.
John Scott, 2012), and The Psalms of David (ed. George Guest, 2012).
24. Melman, 304.

48
alter the established harmonic progression. The third phrase cadences once again on
the modally mixed B-flat major dominant chord, and is re-voiced to begin the fourth
phrase. Here is where Walford Davies reserves the most strikingly arresting moment of
the chant – with a C-flat augmented chord (the E-flat third doubled in the interior
voices), resolving to a perplexing quartal chord. This quartal harmony offers little in
the way of traditional functional harmony, yet it is completely within the broodingly
mystical characteristic of this chant. The composer once again promulgates the major
dominant chord prior to resolution into the E-flat minor tonic, by way of a 9-8 soprano
suspension. In comparison to his contemporaries, this comprises a major advancement
in the harmonic development of Anglican chant.

Example 2.14: Davies, Double Chant in E-flat major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 6.

Davies’ Double Chant in B-minor (Example 2.15) begins with a solo treble melody
that outlines a B-minor seventh chord in second inversion. In the second phrase the
choir joins in harmony, followed by a 4-3 suspension in the tenor voice and resolution

49
in D-major (the relative major key to B-minor). In the second half of the chant the third
phrase imitates the opening outlined chord, although in the bass voice. The solo first
and third phrases answered by the choir hearken to the historical antiphonal recitation
of psalms from the earliest Jewish temple liturgical practice. These solo phrases are also
indicative of a chant of modal origins - particularly tone IV (Example 1.1d).
Walford Davies directly juxtaposes the feel of ancient modal chant in the
antecedent phrases against the consequent phrase in four-part choral texture. Imbued
in both is the overall modal shift from B-minor to D-major.

Example 2.15: Davies, Double Chant in B-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 261.

Walford Davies’ Double Chant in E-major (Example 2.16) is a study in traditional
cadential structure for Anglican chant, however with a twentieth-century harmonic
language. The cadences of the four phrases in chronological order are: half, deceptive,
half, authentic. The first phrase contains a parallel suspension in the alto and soprano
voices leading to the dominant chord. In the second phrase there is an appoggiatura
leap in the soprano voice, leading to a modally borrowed G-sharp major deceptive

50
cadence. The third phrase continues with the modally borrowed chord. This is
followed by a secondary dominant: a diminished seventh chord in third inversion of
five resolving to five chord half-cadence. The fourth phrase repeats the use of a
secondary dominant with a V/IV - IV progression that functions much like a modally
borrowed D-major chord. The parallel suspension found in the first phrase is replicated
here between the soprano and tenor voices in the penultimate chord – a dominant
seventh resolving to the tonic E-major.
The chant is innovative in its use of chromatically derived mode mixture – at
simultaneously appearing modally borrowed, yet also functioning as secondary
dominant chords. In this manner it seems that Walford Davies is able to adhere to the
harmonic aesthetic of English Tudor modalism, yet with an expanding harmonic
language.

Example 2.16: Davies, Double Chant in E-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 181.

51
A Brief Biography of Charles Hylton Stewart

Charles Henry Hylton Stewart was born to a musical family in Chester on March
21, 1884.
25
His musician father, the Reverend Charles Henry Hylton Stewart was minor
canon precentor at Chester Cathedral.
26
It was there that the son took up his first formal
musical education, eventually serving as the assisting organist in the cathedral. Charles
Hylton Stewart, Jr. earned both a Bachelor of Music and Master of Arts degrees from
the University of Cambridge, first as organ scholar at Peterhouse College from 1903-
1907, and eventually as assistant organist at King’s College from 1906-1907.
27
For the
next decade he served several increasingly prominent collegiate positions, first at
organist and master of music at the Sedbergh School (1907), then as organist at the
Victorian church of St. Martin-on-the-Hill school in Scarborough from 1908-14, and
finally at the Blackburn Parish Church from 1914-1916. In 1916, he assumed what
would become his longest-term appointment, as organist of Rochester Cathedral – a
position he would hold for the next fourteen years. It was during this fruitful time at
Rochester Cathedral that Hylton Stewart composed the bulk of his service music and
Anglican chants, much of which served a utilitarian purpose for the services at hand. In

25. The Parish Psalter with Chants, p. 231.
26. Adding to his musical pedigree, the Reverend C.H. Hylton Stewart had also previously
served as Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral.
27. John Ebenezer West, Cathedral Organists Past and Present, (London: Novello), p. 18.

52
1930 he returned to the place of his earliest musical impetus, as organist and
choirmaster at Chester Cathedral. However, Hylton Stewart only lasted in the post for
two years before he was lured away to the significantly more musically prominent royal
peculiar of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor following the timely resignation of Henry
Walford Davies. He was appointed to the chapel in September of 1932 only to suddenly
die at the age of forty-eight in November of that same year.
Though his compositional output was relatively short in years, Charles Hylton
Stewart left behind a large repository of service music, canticle settings, hymn
harmonizations, and Anglican chant tones that have entered the canon of parish and
cathedral repertoire. The sheer output of his work is staggering in comparison with
composers of greater notoriety, having composed hundreds of chant tones, canticle
settings, and anthems. It is possible that the demanding service schedule of cathedral
music making, combined with his rather rural stations, allowed for a unique flourishing
of his own compositional output over the settings of recognizably named composers
located at more prominent institutions. Much as Johann Sebastian Bach’s enormous
output was tied to the musical-liturgical requirements at the Thomaskirche, Hylton
Stewart’s voluminous Anglican chants are possibly attributed to the rigors of the daily
sung liturgies.

53
Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by Charles Hylton Stewart

The Double Chant in D-major (Example 2.17) is a conservative example of Hylton
Stewart’s style early in his compositional output. The chant consists of entirely diatonic
chord structures. A single non-chord tone suspension exists for the soprano D
descending to C in the penultimate measure. Curiously, Hylton Stewart elects to leave
a single chord incomplete – that is, the aforementioned A-major soprano suspension
chord. This reveals a common propensity for the composer, to purposefully write
incomplete spellings of chords. This is perplexing, as in most cases there is no harmonic
reason not to, and it appears that pains are taken to subvert the voice leading in a
manner that allows certain voices to double pitches (as is the case for the tenors and
basses in Example 2.17).

Example 2.17: Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in D-major, from The Psalms of David, p. 185.

54
Examples 2.18, 2.19, and 2.20 represent three single chants indicative of the
renewed interest in English Tudor modalism.
28
The first, in G-minor, cadences to the D-
major dominant chord, followed by a reiteration of G-minor at the beginning of the
second phrase, finishing in the relative major key of B-flat major. This chromatic use of
the modally borrowed dominant chord in the first phrase is an example of the composer
looking to the past as a means to write in the present.

Example 2.18: Hylton Stewart, Single Chant in G-minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 65.

The second example in B-minor begins in unison on the dominant tone of F-
sharp, although with an incomplete harmony. The temporary tonic motion to B-minor
on the next two chords establishes the key, but is then followed by the major dominant
chord of F-sharp major – once again employing chromatically derived mode mixture.
The second phrase begins on B-minor before resolving to the major dominant chord in
the terminating cadence.

28. Melman, 304.

55
Example 2.19: Hylton Stewart, Single Chant in G-minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 260.

The third single chant in C-minor is a relatively traditional manifestation of the
old style, but with the inclusion of several seventh chords. Hylton Stewart uses mode
mixture at the half cadence finishing the first phrase with a major dominant chord.

Example 2.20: Hylton Stewart, Single Chant in C-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter,
p. 191.

One of Hylton Stewart’s most published chants,
29
the Double chant in C-minor
(Example 11.5) begins to express an harmonic language that is simultaneously looking
backward and forward. The first phrase begins with a unison chant at the octave

29. Hylton Stewart’s Double Chant in C-minor appears in almost every modern Anglican
Chant Psalter published after 1950.

56
outlining what sounds like a Dorian mode at G. In the second phrase the voices fill out
the dominant G-minor chord in first inversion before expanding in contrary motion,
featuring important melodic passing tones in the soprano voice. The major B-flat
seventh chord functions to temporarily tonicize the relative major key of C-minor (E-flat
major), which appears at the beginning of the next phrase. In the third phrase the
composer hearkens to the modal Tudor aesthetic with a borrowed D-flat major chord,
the root of which he doubles in the outer voices at the double octave. In the fourth
phrase he employs an appoggiatura in the melodic voice over the major III chord prior
to re-imitating the melodic passing tones to the cadence. The true tonality of C-minor is
finally and firmly understood.
The richness of harmonic expression is remarkable considering the miniscule
amount of actual musical material – only twenty chords. However, in the course of
those twenty chords it is as if the listener has traveled across five centuries of English
harmony.

Example 2.21: Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in C-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter,
p. 290.

57

Hylton Stewart’s through-composed setting of Psalm 23 in E-major (Example 2.22)
is assigned specifically for Psalm 23.
30
Hylton Stewart’s setting is actually only a single
chant (two phrases), employing a traditional harmonic language. However, tradition
notwithstanding, there are several facets of this chant that suggest a twentieth century
execution of performance. First, the antecedent phrase cadences from the dominant
chord to the minor iii chord unresolved, presenting a conspicuously figurative question
mark that demands an answer. The consequent response eases the harmonic tension
from C-sharp minor back toward a plagal IV-I cadence.
In this particular example, the psalmist has presented a statement followed by an
answer in each verse. Hylton Stewart’s harmonic progression casts Psalm 23 in a
typically Anglican mood of contemplation followed by gentle assurance, made so by
the plagal cadence (as opposed to a stronger authentic cadence). Second, the repetition
of the single chant over six verses becomes highly meditative in character. Common
performance practice executes a pregnant pause between the phrases, heightening the
question and answer effect of the setting.
31
Third, Hylton Stewart finds a middle

30. Charles Villiers Stanford’s through-composed setting of Psalm 150, as well as Noel
Rawsthorne’s setting of the same text are two other examples of dedicated settings. The decision to
through-compose a psalm text to Anglican chant (and to underlay the text for each verse) is
probably born out of the desire to allow for greater harmonic expression, as well as to notate
changes in organ registration.
31. The pause at the half verse serves a practical function in larger stone buildings, allowing
sound to clear before continuing.

58
ground between allowing the freedom for speech rhythm and notating metrical
rhythms for certain phrases, as exemplified by the triplet figures in verses two through
six.

59
Example 2.22: Hylton Stewart, Psalm 23, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, pp. 40-41.

60

61
In the composer’s Double Chant in G minor (Example 2.23) it is immediately
apparent that Hylton Stewart is going to exploit the tradition of English mode mixture.
This is clear due to the G-minor key signature, yet the chant opens with a dominant
chord of D-major with the accidental F-sharp. From there he manipulates the modal
relationship between the diminished ii chord and the diminished vii or VII chord
(depending on mode). This occurs immediately in the first phrase with the progression
V – ii dim 7/V – V- i6.
The second phrase shifts between a diminished seven chord in first inversion
before cadencing on the major VII chord. The most dramatic moment of the chant is
reserved for the final phrase, where Hylton Stewart writes a B-flat augmented chord
(via the tenor line) that resolves to another modally borrowed D-major dominant chord,
ultimately resolving to the tonic, G-minor. Incidentally, it is merely the third instance of
the tonic chord, and the first place in the entire chant that chord is heard in root
position.
Hylton Stewart has veiled the true tonality of the chant until the final resolution.
He achieves this while still expressing a Tudor harmonic aesthetic. On the other hand,
the composer’s overt chromaticism from the very first phrase, his use of extended
tertian harmony in numerous seventh chords, and the intervallic leaps to dissonances,
reveal a more modernist compositional approach.

62
Example 2.23: Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in G-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter,
p. 112.

In the case of Hylton Stewart’s Double Chant in F-minor (Example 2.24), there are
no non-diatonic chords, although a few compelling voice leading choices. In the second
phrase the composer utilizes a remarkably modern harmonic progression VII – III – iv
in contrary motion. At the conclusion of the third phrase, Hylton Stewart cadences on a
major III chord. This is not particularly unusual for the cadential sequences of Anglican
chants, wherein the most amount of harmonic tension is usually reserved for precisely
this moment. However, attention is drawn to the fact that Hylton Stewart elects for a
hollow A-major triad missing the fifth scale degree (E-flat). This must have been
intentional, as it would have been easy to observe common practice voice leading
principals by merely retaining the altos on their E-flat and raising the melodic interval
of the soprano voice to C. These two compelling facets once again point to a modernist
approach to voice leading.

63
Example 2.24: Hylton Stewart, Double Chant in F-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter,
p. 157.

According to Andrew Parker, “The most fruitful period in the development and
collecting of Anglican chants was from the start of the nineteenth-century until the end
of the 1930s.”
32
Several historical considerations coincide with this statement. It is
possible that this “fruitful period” was partially a result of the Anglo-Catholic liturgical
renewal attributed to the Oxford Tractarians in the mid-nineteenth-century. The
Tractarians desired a rejection of the vestiges of overt Protestantism within the Church
of England, and campaigned for a return to the ritualistic catholicity of the Roman rite –
and particularly to the Sarum rites inherent in pre-Reformation English liturgy. This
included Anglican chanting.
33

Another historical consideration is what Melman describes as a resurgence of
nationalistic interest in the uniquely British Tudor aesthetics that came about around

32. The Anglican Psalter, xv.
33. George Herring, The Oxford Movement in Practice, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016), 37.

64
1900.
34
This explains many of the modally borrowed chords contained in the chant
examples of Atkins, Bairstow, Davies, and Hylton-Stewart.
A third historical consideration is the timely influence of the Imperialistic British
Empire, the Church or England, and of the monarchy, which by the early part of the
twentieth century had reached the zenith of its power. These three historical
considerations may answer why and how such a body of Anglican chant came to exist
during the early twentieth century, and also why it did not continue along this same
trajectory in the middle twentieth century.

34. Melman, 304.

65
CHAPTER TWO:

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY ANGLICAN CHANT:
BIOGRAPHIES, CHANTS, AND ANALYSES

British composers of the early part of the twentieth-century had brought English
church music out of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, through two world wars, and
into the new modern age. Much within the Church of England, and indeed the world,
had changed since the pre-war halcyon days: King Edward VIII had abdicated his
throne in 1936 to marry an American divorcée, a world-wide great depression
threatened the old ways of the aristocratic agrarian land-holding elite, a second
technological industrial revolution empowered a growing middle-class, almost two-
hundred years of British rule was ending in India and would eventually lead to the
dissolution of Britain’s imperialistic power, and a young princess named Elizabeth was
about to be crowned the first Queen of England since Victoria. It was a brave new
world in which the Church of England often sought to maintain the traditions of its
liturgy and its nationalized constitutional importance in the face of enormous social and
political change.
Within this dynamic period of upheaval existed some of the most significant
British composers of classical concert music since Henry Purcell. Moreover, like Purcell
and quite unlike their continental colleagues, these composers still largely worked in
the employ of the Church of England. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) had edited

66
and codified the New English Hymnal, created a new useful genre in the congregational
hymn-anthem, and wrote numerous hymn tunes and other service music for ordinary
choral services and significant religious services of state occasion.
1
He also studied
orchestration with Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), adopted many Impressionistic
orchestration techniques, and composed nine symphonies. Benjamin Britten’s (1913-
1976) genius is undisputed, as he is widely considered one of the finest composers of
the entire twentieth-century and Purcell’s two-hundred-year heir to the English musical
tradition. He was also the composer of numerous settings of morning and evening
canticles, church anthems, larger sacred choral works, and several church parables.
Britten was largely influenced by other continental composers such as Gustav Mahler
(1860-1911), Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971).
2
The
significance of these two English composers and their compositions for the church
reveal two important themes that are indicative of the period: the significant role the
Church of England still played in the lives of even the most dedicated British concert
musicians, and the increasingly continental influence on the musical aesthetic within
the English Church.
3

1. Remarkably, and despite his extraordinary influence on British church music in the early
to middle part of the twentieth-century, Vaughan Williams wrote almost no Anglican chant tones
that are known to remain.
2. Benjamin Britten. “On behalf of Gustav Mahler,” Tempo, New Series, No. 120, March 1977,
pp. 14-15.
3. The influence of the Church of England on British composers of the twentieth-century
may be due to the ancient and foundational relationship the Church maintains with the Universities
at which many of these composers were and are still educated. Both Cambridge and Oxford

67
This chapter will identify three of the lesser-known but most prolific composers
of Anglican chant tones during the middle part of the twentieth-century. Whereas
prominent British composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten
avoided the work-a-day conditions of a cathedral or parish church musician, lesser-
known composers such as George Thalben Ball, David Willcocks, and Noel Rawsthorne
made their living as working organists and choirmasters, training choristers, playing
regular services, and composing music befitting the liturgies where they served. Like
their more prominent countrymen, they too were influenced by the rapidly evolving
harmonic aesthetic emerging from continental Europe.

A Brief Biography of George Thalben-Ball

George Thomas Thalben-Ball was born to English parents in Sydney, Australia
on June 18, 1896. He was a prodigious young pianist, and was admitted to the Royal
College of Music in London at only fourteen years of age.
4
At the age of nineteen he
became the first English-trained pianist to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Universities were founded in the interest of educating clergy and promoting monasticism.
Many of the individual colleges boast ancient chapels, replete with collegiate choirs singing the daily
offices to this day. This is undoubtedly an enormously influencing education for young composers –
even those of little religious conviction (as was the case with the famously agnostic Ralph Vaughan
Williams). Furthermore, the opportunities for a young composer would naturally first and foremost
befit the liturgical strictures of the chapel liturgies: canticle settings, chant tunes, anthems and
motets.
4. Jonathan Rennert. George Thalben-Ball (London, 1979), p. 5.

68
After graduating from the Royal College of Music he became the assisting organist to
Henry Walford Davies at the Temple Church in London – a post he impressively
assumed in 1923 and maintained for his entire sixty-year career. It was with the Temple
Church Choir that Thalben-Ball gained notoriety as a radio broadcaster and virtuosic
improviser.
5
“He could sight-read, transpose, and improvise in any style and at any
length to the highest standard without perceptible effort.”
6
He curated the organ at
Royal Albert Hall and at the BBC concert hall. As the Birmingham City Organist, a
position he maintained for over three decades, he presented over one thousand weekly
recitals.
He received an honorary Doctor of Music Lambeth degree in 1935, conferred by
the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1948 he assumed the Presidency of the Royal College
of Organists, an institution within which he had served as a fellow since the age of
eighteen. He was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1967 and
later received full knighthood in 1982 following his retirement from the Temple Church.
He spent most of his career teaching at his alma mater, the Royal College of Music, and
composed a complete set of Anglican chants published as The Choral Psalter.
7
Thalben-

5. Ibid., 17.
6. John Lade (January 1957). “Pen Portrait: George Thalben-Ball.” The Musical Times. 98
(1367): 15-16.
7. Debbie Lewer: A Spiritual Song: the Story of the Temple Choir (London, 1961).

69
Ball died in London on January 18
th
, 1987 having contributed the most significant
number of Anglican chants to the mainstream repertory since Charles Hylton Stewart.

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by George Thalben-Ball

George Thalben-Ball’s Single Chant in A-minor (Example 3.1) is a compact study
in borrowed modes in the Tudor style. The first phrase ends on a D-minor four chord,
while the second phrase begins on an unrelated borrowed B-flat major chord. Though
seemingly unrelated, the B-flat major chord functions as the relative major IV chord to
the previous D-minor cadence. Thalben-Ball’s exploration of the connection between
the related keys of A-minor/C-major, and D-minor/F-major form the germinating
harmonic material for this single chant. In the final cadence the composer again
modally borrows to create a dominant E-major chord resolving to A-major. In the
course of repeating this short chant, the mode mixture is even more pronounced, as the
tenors must lower their C-sharp and thereby changing the quality of the tonic key every
verse. It is apparent in both analysis and aesthetic that Thalben-Ball is maintaining an
inherited liturgical musical tradition.

70
Example 3.1: Thalben-Ball, Single Chant in A-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p.
43.

Thalben-Ball’s Double and Single Chants in B-flat major (Example 3.2) comprises a
conservative setting of the Psalm 50 chant, by harmonic standards; however, the
musical interest pertains to the phrase structure which matches the text. The composer
finishes the first phrase on an F-major dominant chord via 4-3 suspension in the tenor
voice. In the second phrase Thalben-Ball draws the antecedent question to a head by
terminating on the C-minor ii chord. The answer comes in the third phrase, with a
secondary dominant relationship created by the V/IV chord cadencing on the E-flat
major IV chord. The fourth phrase is employed to re-establish the B-flat tonality in the
final cadence.
Thalben-Ball’s consequent answer in the third phrase seems to musically suggest
that spiritual answers to the questions posed in verse thirteen of Psalm 50:13 will not be
found in the previously mundane harmonic material of this world, but rather, in the
other-worldly leap to a higher spirituality, exemplified by the temporary tonic of an
entirely new key area - E-flat major. The connection of heaven and earth come in the
fourth phrase, where E-flat major re-transitions to B-flat major.

71
Continuing in his careful word painting, Thalben-Ball changes the musical
direction at verse 16 with a single chant. He retains the same key signature of B-flat
major, yet sets the first chord in the relative key of G-minor. A remarkably dissonant
major second interval between the soprano and alto voices resolves in a 4-3 suspension
before the cadence to E-flat major. In the second phrase, Thalben-Ball shifts gears
entirely with a modally borrowed G-major chord that eventually resolves back to the
tonic B-flat chord via authentic cadence. It is possible that the severe use of modalism
may be attributed to the text, which now depicts the voice of God speaking.
Nonetheless, this displays a highly nuanced compositional approach to textual changes.

Example 3.2: Thalben-Ball, Chants in B-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, pp. 92-93.

Deus deorum
13 Thinkest thou that I will | eat bulls’ | flesh:
-|- and | drink the • blood of | goats?

14 Offer unto | Göd | thanksgiving:
and pay thy | vows • unto the | most | Highest.

15 (2
nd
part) And call upon me in the | time of | trouble:
so will I | hear thee • and | thou shalt | praise me.

72
Change chant (Decani)

16 But unto the un|godly • said | God:
Why dost thou preach my laws*
and takest away my | cove•nant | in thy | mouth;

17 Whereas thou | hatest to • be re|formed:
and hast | cast my | words be|hind thee?

18 When thou sawest a thief thou con|sentedst | unto him:
and hast been par|taker | with the • a|dulterers.

19 Thou hast let thy | mouth speak | wickedness:
and with thy | tongue • thou hast |set forth • de|ceit.

Double chant in A-flat major (Example 3.3): This entirely diatonic double chant
setting in A-flat major exemplifies Thalben-Ball’s propensity for plainsong imitation in
his melodic composition. Although A-flat major is very much the key of this chant, the
tonic A-flat could conceivably function more as a reciting tone a perfect fourth above
the Mixolydian E-flat modal foundation. This provides Thalben-Ball the opportunity to
harmonize the melody with numerous minor chords, as seen in the end of the first
phrase with the minor vi chord. At the beginning of the fourth phrase a C-minor chord
functions similarly. In performance practice, it would not be unusual for an organist
accompanying this chant to play an E-flat pedal tone, over which trebles could sing the

73
melody, thereby fulfilling the plainchant-like Mixolydian pull of this soprano melody.
In this manner the chant could be performed multiple ways, with performance practice
further instituting the paradigm shift from medieval to twentieth century.

Example 3.3: Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in A-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 43.

Thalben- Ball’s Double chant in B-flat major is Example 3.4. In a series of
compelling modal shifts, Thalben-Ball explores distantly related keys within the concise
form of only twenty chords. This harmonic sense is established through a combination
of harmonic sequencing and the use of chromatically mediant relationships. Beginning
in the second phrase Thalben-Ball employs a secondary dominant G-major chord,
which functions as the V/ii resolving to the C-minor ii chord. Again, prior to the
cadence he composes a C-major V/V in second inversion, resolving to an F-major V
chord. With a chromatically mediant D-major chord resolving to G-major at the third
phrase cadence, the music is indicative of a Romantic harmonic gesture. This now

74
functions as the dominant to C-minor in the fourth phrase, where the chant returns to
the tonic key of B-flat.

Example 3.4: Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in B-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 176.

Thalben-Ball’s Double Chant in A-flat major (Example 3.5) confirms the composer’s
affinity for the chromatically mediant harmonic relationship. As in his double chant in
B-flat major, he reserves this dramatic musical movement for the half-verse, the
beginning of the third phrase. It is there that he moves from a dominant E-flat major
half cadence concluding the second phrase to the chromatically mediant G-flat major
chord beginning the third verse. The third phrase is also where Thalben-Ball reserves a
dissonant suspension in the tenor voice to create an unresolved secondary dominant
half cadence. The fourth phrase ends with an authentic cadence re-establishing A-flat
major. The overall chronological phrase structure of the chant is plagal in the first
phrase, followed by two half cadences in the interior phrases. The third phrase comes

75
to a half cadence by way of an unresolved secondary dominant. The fourth phrase
concludes with an authentic cadence.

Example 3.5: Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in A-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 211.

Much like his other double chant settings, Thalban-Ball’s Double Chant in E-flat
major (Example 3.6) is exemplary of the composer’s insistence on reserving the half-
verse as the most harmonically dramatic moment of the chant. Again, he moves to a
chromatically mediant chord, solidifying the Romantic nature of his harmonic
language. The third phrase is also the place of most harmonic intensity, as the
composer draws through the A-diminished seven and D-major seven chords toward the
B-flat major seven half-cadence. This half-cadence is achieved by way of a suspension
in the alto and bass voices. The quick succession of unrelated keys is a departure from
the rather harmonically conservative initial phrases of the chant. It is in this dramatic
element that Thalben-Ball flourishes as an evocative composer of Anglican chant.

76
Example 3.6: Thalben-Ball, Double Chant in E-flat major, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 43.

A Brief Biography of David Willcocks

David Valentine Willcocks was born in Newquay in Cornwall on December 30,
1919. He began his musical training at Westminster Abbey, where he served as a boy
chorister from 1929-1933.
8
He continued his education at the Clifton College in Bristol
before being admitted as an organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge in 1939.
9

However, studies at King’s were interrupted by his service in World War II. Because of
his education he was able to serve as an officer in the British Army, seeing action in
Operation Overlord during the July 1944 invasion of Normandy. For his bravery in
action he was decorated with the Military Cross.
10

8. Arthur Jacobs and Ian Carson. "Willcocks, Sir David." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music
Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 16, 2016.
9. Kenneth Shelton. “Sir David Willcocks: Charismatic conductor and organist who raised
choral standards round the world to new levels of excellence.” The Independent. Retrieved
September 16, 2016.
10. Ibid.

77
After the end of World War II in 1945, Willcocks completed his studies at King’s
College, where in 1947 he was appointed a Fellow and took leadership of the
Cambridge Philharmonic Society. While simultaneously teaching at Cambridge he
served as organist at several cathedrals, first at Salisbury in 1947, then Worcester in
1950. His immense work with the many oratory and choral societies of England was
prodigious, conducting the Salisbury Philharmonic Society, the Salisbury Music Society,
the internationally renowned Three Choirs Festival, the City of Birmingham Choir, the
Bradford Choral Society, and the London Bach Choir.
Willcocks’ most famous post came from 1957-1974 when he served as the
Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge. The famous choir of men and boys
toured the world under Willcock’s leadership, recorded extensively, and were
broadcast regularly. His position at King’s College also presented him with the
opportunity to arrange and compose music specially for the Service of Nine Lessons and
Carols, broadcast every Christmas Eve around the globe. The Oxford University Press,
for which Willcocks served as general editor for church music, published five Carols for
Choirs anthologies from 1961-1987. He was assisted in this process by a young John
Rutter - one of his organ scholars at the time who would later achieve significant
professional acclaim in his own right.
11
Willcocks’ Christmas carol arrangements, and

11. Ivan Hewitt. “Sir David Willcocks: his musicality was impregnable.” The Telegraph.
Retrieved September 18, 2016.

78
in particular his brass fanfares and descants for the tunes Adeste Fidelis and Mendelssohn,
have arguably become inextricably linked with those hymns. He was knighted in 1971
with the styling CBE – Commander of the British Empire, and later was made a Knight
Bachelor in the 1977 Queen’s Silver Jubilee Honours.
Willcocks departed King’s College in 1974, to accept the position of Director of
the Royal College of Music – a position he held until 1984. Following his retirement
from academic life Willcocks traveled extensively, energetically guest conducting well
into his eighties. During his lifetime he was bestowed with honorary degrees from over
fifty of the world’s most esteemed academic institutions. David Willcocks returned in
retirement to Cambridge, living just a few miles from the famous college and chapel
where he had spent the bulk of his life. He died on September 17, 2015 regarded as one
of the most significant figures in English church music since the advent of broadcast
recording.
12

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by David Willcocks

Willcocks’ Tonus Peregrinus Single Chant (Example 3.7) Employs a modern
harmony to match the Aeolian mode of Tonus Peregrinus – the ninth tone in the Sarum

12. Margalit Fox. “Sir David Willcocks, Conductor Who Influenced British Choral Music
Dies at 95.” The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2016.

79
and Gregorian chant tonaries. Begins in A-flat major and ends in F-minor to match the
mode. This chant consists of a traditional voice-leading according to common practice,
and strong contrary motion between outer voices. Willcocks uses imitation of the
melodic escape tone displayed in the first measure between the soprano and bass voices
later at the half-verse in the alto and bass parts. Although conservative in harmonic
approach, the tenor voice sits high in the tessitura and foreshadows Willcocks’
willingness to extend vocal ranges, especially for tenors and sopranos.

Example 3.7: Willcocks, Tonus Peregrinus Single Chant, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 132.

Willcock’s G-sharp minor Double Chant (Example 3.8) is a prime example of the
modernization of Anglican chant through the mid-twentieth-century. First of all, G-
sharp minor constitutes quite a peculiar key signature for liturgical music. Although
the chant begins and ends with a G-sharp minor chord, the final chord does not contain
the fifth – a hollow sound matching the mood of the music. The use of double
accidentals, particularly in the double C-sharp in the bass voice indicates a more

80
modern musical gesture. The melodic arc ascends three times before inverting for the
fourth phrase (descending then ascending via leading tone to the tonic). Also, the final
phrase moves nearly by step from C-sharp minor to E major seven, F-sharp major, to G-
sharp minor. This creates an incredibly somber yet innovative setting, with many of the
chords comprised of extended notes beyond tertian harmony.

Example 3.8: Willcocks, Double Chant in G-sharp minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 164.

The C-minor Double Chant (Example 3.9) presents an analytical study in
construction, as Willcocks outlines the form with two descending scales – the first a C
minor triad at the octave. The harmony progresses through to a modally borrowed G
major half-cadence. The modal mixture hearkens to the early Tudor composers. Then,
at the second part of the chant Willcocks lowers the descending scale to outline a B-
diminished seventh chord. This same chord is respelled for the dramatic start of the
final phrase before re-establishing C minor with another major dominant chord
resolving to C minor. The Tudor implications are strong even within such a modern

81
harmonic language. Willcocks juxtaposes unison singing in the antecedent phrases
against a four-part texture in the consequent phrases.

Example 3.9: Willcocks, Double Chant in C-minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 161.

Like all good composers, Willcocks creates expectation by leading us through
several phrases and then foiling expectation in his E-flat major Double Chant (Example
3.10). These phrases conclude at the half cadence – from E-flat major to B-flat, from F-
minor to C-minor, but then he upsets the plan with a curious D-flat major chord
terminating the third phrase. This becomes all the more interesting when he resolves to
a totally unrelated G-major chord in the final phrase. The repetition of the Psalm tone
creates a chromatic mediant relationship from the final chord to the repetition of the
first chord, every other verse.

82
Example 3.10: Willcocks, E-flat major Double Chant, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 300.

Also unique to this particular psalm tone is the alternative final phrase for the
Gloria Patri, which divides into six voices for the final E-flat major chord, with the
trebles singing a high-G. Willcocks’ virtuosic tessitura for the psalm tone leads to a
satisfying conclusion in its resolution to the tonic key.

Example 3.11: Willcocks, E-flat major Double Chant descant, from The Anglican Psalter, p.
300.

Glory be to the Father | and to • the | Son:
and to the | Höly | Ghost.

As it was in the beginning is | now and • ever | shall be:
world without | end. A|men.

83
A Brief Biography of Noel Rawsthorne

Christopher Noel Rawsthorne was born in Wirral, Cheshire on Christmas Eve
1929. His studied organ performance at the Royal College of Church Music, becoming
the assistant organist to Henry Goss-Custard (Grandson of John Goss) at Liverpool
Cathedral in 1949.
13
Only six years later he succeeded him in that post and remained at
Liverpool Cathedral as organist and choirmaster for the next twenty-five years. During
this tenure he continued organ studies with Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) in Paris (1959),
and became known as a composer of numerous anthems and Anglican service music,
including several chant tones. He also worked as an academic, teaching at the rank of
senior lecturer in music at St. Katharine’s College of Education in Liverpool during the
same years he served the cathedral.
14
Following his retirement in 1980 he became the
Liverpool City Organist until 1984.
15

Rawsthorne has devoted the remaining years of his life to composing music for
liturgical use. He is well known as the author of numerous anthologies of hymn-tune
re-harmonizations, as well as a significant number of organ transcriptions of orchestral

13. Stanley Webb and Paul Hale. "Rawsthorne, Noel." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music
Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 19, 2016.
14. Ibid.
15. The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 344.

84
works. Liverpool University bestowed him with an honorary doctoral degree in 1993.
He continues to live and compose in Liverpool.
16

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by Noel Rawsthorne

Rawsthorne is rather dualistic in his service music writing – at times remaining
conservative in his compositional approach, and at other times exploring a more
adventurous harmonic language. His two Double Chants in E-flat and G-major (Examples
3.12, and 3.13 respectively), are emblematic of his more traditional style. The chant in E-
flat major begins innocuously enough in a Victorian manner. However, the first chord
of the second phrase foils pure traditionalism with an added D-flat in the alto voice,
creating a major second dissonance against the soprano voice. The analysis of such a
voicing could be construed in two different ways. It might be possible that Rawsthorne
treats the D-flat in the alto voice as a non-chord tone (passing tone, approached and
resolved by descending half-step in either direction), leaving the listener with a tonic
chord (albeit with a lowered seventh scale degree) in second inversion. However,
Rawsthorne may intend for this chord to serve as a secondary dominant seventh chord
in third inversion of the key of A-flat major, eventually leading to an A-flat major chord.

16. Martin Thomas, English Cathedral Music and Liturgy in the Twentieth-Century, (Surrey:
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.), p. 209.

85
In this analysis, the dissonance between the soprano and alto voices is very much
intentional, and serves a harmonic function beyond a merely dissonant effect.
The second harmonically interesting moment comes at the beginning of the third
phrase, when Rawsthorne once again lowers D-natural to D-flat in the alto voice,
thereby altering the quality of the dominant chord from major to minor. Although
expressed tonally, the aural effect hearkens to a more ancient sense of modal mixture,
and certainly nods toward earlier Anglican chant style. A series of secondary dominant
chords related to the minor vi and minor ii chords resolve into the F-minor ii chord. A
vii diminished seven chord leads the fourth phrase back to the tonic key of E-flat. With
the exception of the penultimate and final chords, the outer two voices move in perfect
contrary motion to one another the entire chant. Rawsthorne typifies conservative
harmonic practice.

Example 3.12: Rawsthorne, Double Chant in E-flat major, from Common Worship Psalter
with Chants, p. 24.

86
Rawsthorne’s double chant in G-major is not unlike the aforementioned setting –
conservative in execution, although slightly more nuanced in voicing. The G-major
chant includes several seventh chords in all manner of inversion, and the employment
of several secondary-dominant relationships. Again, Rawsthorne changes the quality of
the second half of the chant by exploiting some minor changes from the preceding
chord. What was originally a dominant D-major chord suddenly becomes a D-minor
chord with a B-natural in the bass, creating a diminished vii chord of C-major, resolving
to C-major. The composer imbues his settings in both cases with a uniquely chromatic
aesthetic, and by executing that chromaticism, often through step-wise voice leading.
In either case of the E-flat and G-major tunes, Rawsthorne traverses away from the tonic
key area toward the dominant, modally develops the quality of the dominant, and
through a series of secondary-dominant relationships delivers us back to the tonic key
area by way of a traditional dominant-tonic cadence.

Example 3.13: Rawsthorne, Double Chant in G-major, from Common Worship Psalter with
Chants, p. 121.

87
Rawsthorne’s complete setting of Psalm 150 (Example 3.14) exemplifies the more
harmonically adventurous side of the composer. Much like Charles Villiers Stanford
before him, Rawsthorne writes a through-composed setting of Psalm 150, although with
an updated harmonic approach.
Rawsthorne’s harmonic language is highly modal, shifting from F-major to E-flat,
D-major, and C-minor. At the cadence of the first verse on the text “of his power,” the
composer employs a tonic F-major chord in first inversion, moving to a vii diminished
chord in second inversion of C-major, resolving to C-major. This kind of harmonic
motion, where the chromatically raised B-natural serves a leading tone to the dominant
C-major chord, is indicative of American gospel music popular in the mid-twentieth-
century, and imbues the music with a joyful and folk-like aesthetic.
The second phrase begins with a series of descending fifths – from E-flat to A-
minor, to D-major, to a G-major cadence. This continues in the second half of verse two
with another descending fifth, to C-minor. D-major foils the patterns, although quickly
returning with a G-minor chord, to C-major, and eventually cadencing at the tonic F-
major.
A through-composed accompaniment allows for Rawsthorne to word-paint the
meaning of this specific text with organ registrations and altering harmonizations
between verses. The third and fifth verses achieve this, as Rawsthorne builds tone
clusters and dissonance at the mention of the “sound of the trumpet” and of the “well-

88
tuned cymbals.” The sixth and final verse is reserved for the choir to sing in four-part
harmony at the words “Let everything that hath breath,” and with the inclusion of a
chromatically ascending descant, indicative of Rawsthorne’s propensity toward
chromatic alterations.

89
Example 14.3: Rawsthorne, Psalm 150, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 335-337.

90

91

92
This middle period of the twentieth-century proved to be a pivotal time of
harmonic development for composers such as Thalben-Ball, Willcocks, and Rawsthorne.
These composers served as the link between the Edwardian era musical conservatism
they were born into, and the late-twentieth-century expression delivered by their
successors. This was achieved with the careful inclusion of extended tertian harmonies,
the full exploitation of seventh chords in all manner of inversion, and the judicious use
of chromaticism. Word painting, through-composed settings of specific texts, and a
heightened sense of musical emotionalism were the hallmarks of this middle period.
Additionally, these composers had begun to experiment with more virtuosic writing for
their well-trained choirs, and did not shy away from dissonances and vocal
counterpoint that were avoided in earlier generations.
Thus, the musical groundwork had been laid for the last part of the twentieth-
century. This would prove to be a time of enormous social and liturgical change for the
Church, affecting Anglican chant for the long-term future.

93
CHAPTER THREE:

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LATE TWENTIETH-CENTURY ANGLICAN CHANT:
BIOGRAPHIES, CHANTS, AND ANALYSES

The final twenty-five years of the millennium brought significant change to the
Church and society across the English-speaking world, and church music
notwithstanding. Many of these musical and liturgical changes rippled across the
Protestant Anglican communion following the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic liturgical
reforms of the 1960’s.
The Church of England proposed and introduced a newly authorized set of
alternative service books in the late 1990’s. Within the American Episcopal Church (the
American branch of the Church of England’s Anglican Communion), there was
enormous social change and a declining influence of the once venerable mainline
protestant denomination.
1
A major revision of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer was
undertaken from 1976-1979 in effort to modernize the Elizabethan language and
Coverdale translations of the psalms.

1. Kirk Hadaway, “Is the Episcopal Church Growing or Declining? (New York: Church
Publishing, Inc.), 4.
According to the archives of the American Episcopal Church, membership grew steadily from 1930
to the mid-1940s and then accelerated during the post-war years. Growth began to slow at the end
of the 1950s and dropped below 1 percent a year from 1962 to 1996. The first year of decline was
1967, when the Episcopal Church lost 62,684 members of -1.7%. More declines followed with
especially large losses in 1973 and 1974 (-5.2% and -3.9% respectively). After 1974 the decline
moderated…the overall pattern was a plateau with a slight downward slip from 1974 to 1985.

94
The 1976 [United States Episcopal Church] General Convention also approved a
new prayer book, which was a substantial revision and modernization of the
previous 1928 edition. It incorporated many principles of the Roman Catholic
Church's liturgical movement, which had been discussed at Vatican II. This
version was adopted as the official prayer book in 1979 after an initial three-year
trial use. A number of conservative parishes, however, continued to use the 1928
version.
2

The changes included significant theological reforms such as the ordination of
women, a return to pre-English Reformation Catholicity, and a return to the weekly
celebration of the Holy Eucharist over the daily offices of Matins and Evensong.
To some, the significance of many of these theological changes seemed to be at
odds with the historical language, ancient rites, and musical traditions of the church –
many of which had been dogmatically ingrained into the hearts, minds, and identity of
faithful Anglicans. At the 1968 Lambeth X conference of Anglican bishops, the
seemingly incongruous nature of many of these liturgical changes were on display for
the world to witness. The Reverend James B. Simpson wrote:
Like all its predecessors, Lambeth X was liturgically dominated by the Church of
England. That was inevitable, of course, and not without value. For one thing,
the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer furnished the basic guidelines. For
another, the English were the hosts and hence they were not only free to do as
they pleased but, as the chief administrators of the splendid places thrown open
for Lambeth worship, they were expected to give liturgical guidance.

The task that fell to them carried more than just the responsibility of arranging
an Evensong and three Eucharists. In an age of liturgical revision that in many
places was synonymous with liturgical confusion, the English had the
opportunity – if not the obligation – of encouraging the churches of the Anglican

2. Peter W. Williams, "The Gospel of Wealth and the Gospel of Art: Episcopalians and
Cultural Philanthropy from the Gilded Age to the Depression", Anglican and Episcopal History, June
2006, Vol. 75 Issue 2, p. 42.

95
Communion to hold fast to the traditional dignity and careful pacing of its
services. If the bishops were drawn to what they saw at Lambeth, their influence
would go far toward charting a steady course in liturgical changes in their own
dioceses. Unfortunately, what was served up was a curious combination of
habit, happenstance, and direct intention – a conglomerate of liturgical fare that
was both appropriate and nostalgic, new and familiar, traditional and modern. It
left a good deal to be sorted out.
3

Much as the American Episcopal Church had in the 1970s, the other significant
changes to the English Book of Common Prayer included a movement away from the five-
hundred-year-old Myles Coverdale translation of the Psalms, modernization of the
Elizabethan era prose, and the introduction of newly authorized modern translations of
scripture and psalms. In his 1997 preface to The New St. Paul’s Cathedral Psalter, John
Scott writes:
In recent years, language has loomed large in liturgical revision and the psalter
has by no means remained exempt from this. The Revised Psalter, published in
1966, was the first real attempt to update Coverdale. A distinguished team,
under the chairmanship of Bishop Coggan (later Archbishop), included such
literary figures as T.S. Eliot and C. Day Lewis. This was followed in 1977 by ‘The
Psalms’ – a new translation for worship, incorporated into the Alternative Service
Book. Although the language differs, often considerably, from Coverdale, and
the new version now still retain the familiar framework of each verse divided
into two halves, thus lending themselves to antiphonal treatment for use with
Anglican chant.
4

3. James B. Simpson, and Edward M. Story. The Long Shadows of Lambeth X: A Critical,
Eyewitness Account of the Tenth Decennial Conference of 462 Bishops of the Anglican Communion. (New
York: MCGraw-Hill Book Company, 1969), pg. 82.
4. The New St. Paul’s Cathedral Psalter, 1997, p. ix.

96
Such a contentious and cataclysmic change in the foundational tome of
Anglicanism also proffered a musical opportunity – the publication of a new
accompanying hymnal and Psalters with updated tunes and set to the new scriptural
translations. The Hymnal 1982 was disseminated by the Church Publishing Corporation
in the year of its title, followed by the Anglican Chant Psalter in 1987
5
and the Plainsong
Psalter in 1988
6
. Along with the inclusion of many chants which had become traditional
to the Anglican chant canon, this also allowed an opportunity for a new generation of
working church musicians to proliferate authorized publications with their own music.
The inclusion of these new voices continued to develop on the harmonic evolution and
the changing musical aesthetic in the Anglican church. Several composers of
significance found places of prominence in this new opportunity. Their brief
biographies, selected Anglican chant tunes, and analyses follow.

A Brief Biography of Gerre Hancock

Gerre Hancock was born to Southern Baptist parents in Lubbock, Texas on
February 21, 1934. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance at the
University of Texas at Austin in 1955 – the institution to which he would later return

5. Edited by Alec Wyton.
6. Edited by Andrew Litton.

97
and lead as Professor of Organ and Sacred Music.
7
He earned a Master of Sacred Music
degree at Union Theological Seminary - New York City, simultaneously pursuing
studies internationally at the Sorbonne in Paris. It was there that he studied
composition and improvisation with Nadia Boulanger.
After returning to the United States, Hancock held several increasingly
prominent professional posts in Episcopal churches – first as Assistant Organist at St.
Bartholomew’s in New York City (1960), followed by the position of Organist and
Choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral, Cincinnati (1962). In 1971 he began a thirty-
three year tenure as Organist and Choirmaster at St. Thomas’s Church, Fifth Avenue in
New York City.
8
“It was here that he continued and developed the English cathedral
tradition of all-male choirs at a high level of excellence.”
9
The national stature of
Hancock’s position coincided with an era of unparalleled digital recording and album
production for American church choirs. Hancock recorded over ten professionally
produced albums with the Choir of St. Thomas’s Fifth Avenue on the Gothic, Decca,
Priory, and Koch International labels.
As an academic, Gerre Hancock served some of the most venerable American
institutions of higher learning. He joined the faculty of the Juillard School in 1971, and

7. Charles Krigbaum and Paul Hale. "Hancock, Gerre." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music
Online. Oxford University Press, accessed August 23, 2016.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.

98
of Yale University in 1974. He was appointed a fellow of the Royal College of Organists
in 1981. Hancock received honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Nashotah House
Seminary in 1985, The University of the South at Sewanee in 2004, and Westminster
Choir College in Princeton in 2009. Upon his retirement from St. Thomas’s Church,
Gerre and his wife Judith returned to Austin where he served for the last nine years of
his life as Professor of Organ and Sacred Music at the University of Texas’ Butler School
of Music. The Archbishop of Canterbury presented him with the Medal of the Cross of
St. Augustine in 2004.
Gerre Hancock was highly regarded as the indomitable figure of American
church music in the latter part of the twentieth-century. Of his abilities, his colleague
Bruce Neswick said:
Gerre is the ultimate cantor… there’s no other person in the United States who
does all of the things that he does with regard to church music. He’s sort of the
modern day American Bach: he improvises, he composes, he conducts – he does
it all.
10

His prowess as a trainer of boy choirs, as a composer, and as a touring concert
organist was unparalleled. However, Hancock was particularly renowned as an
improviser at the organ – a skill that he strongly felt was teachable and requisite for
successful church organists. Thomas Murray of Yale University said,
More than any other American organist for certain, he has blazed the trail in
developing his improvisational skills, improvising publicly on submitted themes

10. The Master Series: Volume IV, Gerre Hancock. 2006. DVD. New York City: American Guild
of Organists.

99
- even according to the rigors of contrapuntal improvisation, and his influence in
that regard is absolutely unique in this country.
11

Hancock travelled, taught, and wrote extensively on the topic of improvisation,
and in 1994 Oxford University Press published, Improvising: How to Master the Art.
12
His
inclination toward improvisation may explain the jazz-like and avante-garde harmonic
language employed in his Anglican chant settings. Gerre Hancock died on January 21,
2012 firmly ensconced as having been the most significant figure in American church
music since Leo Sowerby (1895-1968).

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by Gerre Hancock

Gerre Hancock’s Single Chant in A-major (Example 4.1) begins high in the tenor
tessitura. The composer seemingly plays with the plagal cadence at the half-verse
featuring a downward escape tone-like leap of a perfect fifth for the sopranos against a
minor second interval with the altos. In the second half of the chant Hancock lowers
the G-sharp to create an arresting temporary tonic out of the subdominant before
resolving back to A-major via an extended tertian E-ninth chord, missing the third.

11. Ibid.
12. Grove Music Online.

100
Example 4.1: Hancock, Single Chant in A-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 87.

Hancock’s Double Chant in C-major (Example 4.2) practically moonlights as a jazz-
like exercise in dominant seventh chord cadences. There are many sixth and seventh
intervals between the tenors and basses. This modally shifts to G minor on the next
chord, followed by another dominant C-major seventh chord to the tonic F-major
seventh cadence. The final phrase resolves with an extended tertian G-major ninth
chord into C-major. The final cadence is embellished with three-part S/A divisi. Again,
Hancock’s tessitura is virtuosic for the choir, allowing the voice leading to extend above
the staff on the third phrase.

Example 4.2: Hancock, Double Chant in C-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 192.

101
A Brief Biography of David Hurd

Composer David Hurd was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1950. He attended
both the Juilliard preparatory program as well as the High School of Music and Art –
the predecessor to the famed La Guardia School of the Arts. After graduating with a
degree in organ performance from the Oberlin Conservatory in 1971 he assumed the
position of assisting organist at Trinity Church Wall Street in lower Manhattan. He
pursued graduate work at the University of North Carolina and at the Manhattan
School of Music.
Hurd returned to New York City in 1973 to serve as organist and director of
music at the Chapel of the Intercession in Harlem. After only three years he joined the
faculty of the General Theological Seminary – the Episcopal seminary in New York
City, as professor of church music. In 1977 the International Congress of Organists
awarded him both the first prize in performance and also in improvisation (the only
time in the history of the organization this has ever occurred).
He has been prolific as a concertizing organist, an academic, and a composer.
Hurd holds honorary degrees from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Church
Divinity School of the Pacific, and from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in
Illinois. The flourishing of his career coincided with the publication of the new hymnal
to the match the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and Hurd was perfectly positioned to

102
contribute significantly to it. Because of this, his hymn tunes, chants, and service music
have become standard repertoire in many Episcopal parishes.
David Hurd spent nearly forty years educating seminarians and future priests on
the intricacies and responsibilities of administrating church music programs. He was
associated with the group of disaffected faculty who were summarily dismissed en
masse after protesting the leadership of the seminary in 2015. Despite the offer of being
re-instated in full to his faculty position after some resolution, David Hurd made the
decision to leave General Theological Seminary and pursue a free-lance career as a
composer, recitalist, and weekly music director in New York. He currently serves as
the organist and director of music at the Episcopal parish of St. Mary the Virgin in
Times Square.
Hurd’s music is indicative of a confluence of European and American styles:
English modalism, jazz, and music of the African-American experience. When asked
about the influence of jazz on his compositions, he said:
I don’t think they are jazz pieces; they are fully written out, but they have jazz
elements. I respect jazz musicians too much to consider myself one! I’m a
classical musician who is eclectic enough, I think, to reach out in different styles
and directions…I think one time when asked about influences on me as a
composer I said something like ‘every piece of music I have ever studied or
listened to has influenced me.’ But my classical training is the channel through
which it all comes out.
13

13. The Living Church, April 2016.

103
Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by David Hurd

David Hurd’s Double Chant in B-minor (Example 4.3) is perhaps his best example
of the imitation of Tudor modalism, yet through the harmonic language of the late
twentieth-century prism. Hurd begins by establishing the idiomatic modal shift with a
major dominant chord resolving back into B-minor in the first phrase. He reiterates the
notion in the second phrase, this time employing a more modern secondary dominant
V/V C-sharp major chord (retaining the modal shift in the secondary dominant) before
resolving to the dominant F-sharp major chord. The composer temporarily relaxes the
tension in the second half of the chant by starting the phrase with a D-major chord (the
III chord in B-minor). The tonal function is one more of a separate phrase beginning on
the relative major key to B-minor (D-major). A borrowed C-major chord colors the
beginning of the fourth phrase before a final dominant to tonic resolution of the chant
(F-sharp major to B-major). The picardy use of the raised third scale degree in the final
chord, while prevalent in the final cadences of continental Renaissance music, was less
prevalent in the English Tudor harmonic language, which often flourished behind
continental innovation.

104
Example 4.3: Hurd, Double Chant in B-minor, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 62.

In David Hurd’s Single Chant in F-major (Example 4.4) both cadences are built on
secondary dominant relationships – the first is a V/ii, followed by a V/V chord resolving
to V, creating an arresting half cadence. Naturally, this resolves back into the tonic
when the psalm chant is executed with multiple verses. The use of secondary dominant
relationships in this situation creates the sense of modal shift, as in the Tudor style.

Example 4.4: Hurd, Single Chant in F-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 175.

The composer’s Double Chant in F-major after Gibbons (Example 4.5) reveals a
conservative setting of the Gibbons hymn tune Song 46, in which Hurd retains the
hallmark modal shift from F-major to the unrelated E-flat chord in the second half of the

105
first phrase. Gibbons himself composed Song 46 as a hymn tune with the text Drop, drop
slow tears, and not as an Anglican chant. However, the metrical layout of the original
hymn text was ten syllables followed by another ten syllables (musically set to twenty
chords). This conveniently presented Hurd with an opportunity to transcribe the hymn
tune into an Anglican chant tune. Hurd’s use of existing musical material for the chant
serves a double purpose: first, to offer a familiar tune to choirs; and secondly, as a
modern means for maintaining the Tudor musical aesthetic in the chant genre with
Gibbon’s modal shift in the second phrase. There is, however, some disagreement over
the appropriateness of such a transcription. Critics argue that typical hymn tune
embellishments such as passing tones and syncopated suspension resolutions
unnecessarily interrupt the desired ‘speech rhythm’ of well-executed Anglican chant.
In his preface to The Anglican Psalter, John Scott writes,
Until the earlier part of this century, the predominant style of performance of
psalms to Anglican chant dictated that, within each quarter of the chant, the
portion following the recitation was rendered in strict metre. Many chants still in
current usage, and among them some of the finest examples of the genre, thus
date from an age when composers expected the major part of each chant melody
and its harmonies to be heard slowly and distinctly, and they therefore felt at
liberty to provide numerous additional decorations and passing notes in any of
the four parts. With the adoption of the ‘speech rhythm’ chanting, pioneered by
Sir Sydney Nicholson from the late 1920s, the strict adherence to all of these extra
notes can hold up the flow of a chant in the performance of a particular psalm
verse, while they may remain essential to the chant harmony as conceived.
14

This is certainly the case with Hurd’s Double chant in F-major after Gibbons.

14. The Anglican Psalter, ix-x.

106
Example 4.5: Hurd, Double Chant in F-major after Gibbons, from The Anglican Chant
Psalter, p. 231.

Hurd’s Double Chant in F-major (Example 4.5) is very much designed around the
borrowed modes so prevalent in the Tudor style, later imitated by twentieth-century
century composers such as Vaughan Williams. F-major immediately turns to E-flat, but
with the added seventh and in third

inversion. The use of a major second interval
between the tenor and bass voices on the second chord establishes the modernity of the
voice-leading. While the first phrase ends on the E-flat major seventh chord in third
inversion, this becomes a dominant chord to the B-flat major chord beginning the
second phrase. The G-major cadence acts as a secondary dominant, temporarily
tonicizing the V/V of C-major (V) beginning the third phrase.
The second phrase is imitated in the fourth phrase; however, with some striking
differences. Whereas both the second and fourth phrases begin with the IV chord
(spelled identically), the second phrase moves to the D-minor vi chord with an added
second (E-natural) in the alto voice – a marked nod toward jazz harmony. In the fourth
phrase the alto voice imitates a nearly identical line, with the exception of the E-natural,

107
opting for the D-natural (the fifth scale degree of the G-minor two chord). This
progresses to another unrelated E-flat seventh chord before resolving to the original F-
major started chord, once again spelled identically.
Examined in retrograde, Hurd has bookended the tonality of F-major, while
building a direct relationship to the borrowed E-flat chord both following the opening
and preceding the final chords.

Example 4.6: Hurd, Double Chant in F-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 186.

Hurd also makes obligatory a special organ accompaniment (Example 4.7) which
further solidifies these harmonic choices. Separate organ accompaniments are
exceedingly rare in the genre of Anglican chant, where the tradition is to allow the
organist artistic freedom to improve upon the simplicity of the chant with unique
instrumental registrations that may accentuate the meaning of the text on a given verse.
However, in the case of this particular chant where the accuracy of perplexing added
notes within chord structures may be questioned (such as the peculiar added second

108
scale degree in the second phrase of the alto line), these notes are confirmed by the
expanded harmony composed for the organ accompaniment. In fact, the added second
is anticipated in the accompaniment (in contrast to the choir), possibly as a means to
assist in the choir’s execution of the chant.

Example 4.7: Hurd, organ accompaniment to Double Chant in F-major, from The Anglican
Chant Psalter, p. 186.

David Hurd’s Double Chant in C-major (Example 4.8) is another example of
traditional English mode mixture, with the unrelated B-flat chords in the second and
fourth phrases. Hurd ends the second phrase on a half cadence, and begins the third
phrase on the minor iii chord. This leads to a cadence of the third phrase on the IV
chord before once again modally borrowing from the B-flat chord at the start of the
fourth phrase. He concludes much as how he started, in an authentic cadence outlining

109
the dominant G-major and tonic C-major relationship. Again, examined in retrograde,
the first and fourth phrases bear a striking resemblance.

Example 4.8: Hurd, Double Chant in C-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 89.

In his Double Chant in C-major (Example 4.9), Hurd begins and ends the chant on
the dominant G-major chord, again spelled identically in either case. Although devoid
of any accidentals or non-chord tones, this chant is an exercise in seventh chords, many
in root position. This leads to a definitively modern jazz sound, with the final phrase
consisting of several unstable seventh chords planing in similar motion to the half
cadence resolution. The chant is innovative in its striking and spartan employment of a
solitary tonic chord – beginning the third phrase. The unusual harmonic fixation with
the dominant driven phrases lends to an expressive sense of “home” arriving at the
half-way point before venturing off again into uncharted territory. Perhaps the most
compelling aspect of this particular chant is the juxtaposition of two seemingly
incongruous facets: white key notation with a complete lack of non-chord tones or

110
accidentals, and almost no sense of harmonic resolution, save for a single tonic chord in
C-major at the midpoint.

Example 4.9: Hurd, Double Chant in C-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 112.

His Double Chant in D-major (Example 4.10) is quite representative of Hurd’s
style. What appears to be a conservative and simple chant develops at the end of the
first phrase into a tonic chord with an added seventh in the bass – a precursor to the
rich harmony yet to come. The second and third phrases contain the most dramatic
harmonic language as Hurd composes tertian chords with added tones, such as the G-
major chord with an added fourth scale degree (C-sharp) in the bass before resolving
into the chromatic mediant F-sharp major chord.
Hurd also judiciously employs the listener’s auditory intelligence to fill in
missing chords. For example, following the chromatic mediant F-sharp major cadence
he tonicizes B-minor with no fifth (F-sharp) in the triad. Hurd doubles the F-sharp, in
adherence to common practice voice leading rules, yet purposefully abandons the third
in the next chord – allowing the listener to assume a full B-minor quality. In this manner

111
Hurd is creating a paradigm shift moment wherein he is simultaneously
acknowledging the old English pre-Dowland style of open fifth chords without a
qualifying third, while writing in an uniquely modern harmonic langauge that expands
upon traditional counterpoint.
15

One compelling feature of this chant is Hurd’s use of a temporary tonic at each
cadential point: D major seventh chord in third inversion to G major (V-I), F-sharp
Major to B-minor (V-i), C-sharp minor to F-sharp minor 9 (v-i). This does not occur
between the penultimate and final chord of each phrase, but rather between the final
chord and beginning chord of the next phrase. The starting and ending chords are exact
copies of one another in every respect, a simple D-major chord in root position.

Example 4.10: Hurd, Double Chant in D-major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 107.

15. Had Hurd not purposefully desired to remove the fifth from the B-minor triad it would
have been much simpler to retain the F-sharp in the alto voice part and still maintain traditional
voice-leading counterpoint.

112
David Hurd’s Double Chant in G-flat major (Example 4.11) once again delves into
an unusual key area for liturgical music. The last three of four cadences function
through non-chord tone suspensions – although given the expansive harmonic
language that Hurd creates, non-chord tones begin to be tolerated as unresolved
extended members of the scale. His employment of the suspension resolution is a way
of adhering to the old style of counterpoint while simultaneously employing modern
tonality. The most dramatic moment of the tune is reserved for the beginning the
fourth phrase, when Hurd composes an A-flat minor ninth chord (missing the fifth) that
functions with an enharmonic cross relation between the soprano and tenor voices.
These resolve in contrary stepwise motion, allowing for a folk music bass-line (in Blues
style), complete with a double E-flat. The resolution is not without some creatively
modern voice-leading, with a descending minor seventh interval from C-flat to D-flat in
the tenor voice. In a mere four phrases, the arc of the chant tone goes from relatively
conservative to shockingly chromatic, employing extended tertian harmony,
enharmonics, all while retaining the strictures of functional tonal harmony and
traditional cadences.

113
Example 4.11: Hurd, Double Chant in G-flat major, from The Anglican Chant Psalter, p. 267.

A Brief Biography of John Scott

John Gavin Scott was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire on June 18, 1956. His earliest
musical training began as a chorister and organ student at Wakefield Cathedral. He
was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1974, where he served as organ
scholar to George Guest.
16
He made his London debut at the Proms in 1977, playing at
Royal Albert Hall. Matriculating in 1978, Scott was successful in the Manchester
International Organ Competition, and soon thereafter became assistant organist at St.
Paul’s and Southwark Cathedrals in London. In 1984 he became the first English
organist ever to win the International Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany.
17
He was
appointed sub-organist at St. Paul’s in 1985, and in 1990 assumed the position of
Organist and Director of Music following the tenure of Christopher Dearnley, whose

16. Ian Carson. "Scott, John (ii)." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University
Press, accessed September 13, 2016.
17. Ibid.

114
leadership he had worked under. During this period he also served on the organ
faculty at the Royal Academy of Music.
John Scott was active as a concertizing organist, composer, conductor, and
musicologist – having compiled the New St. Paul’s Cathedral Psalter in 1997, later to be
published as The Anglican Psalter in 2004. Scott was meticulous in his research, combing
over fifty historically recognized Anglican Psalters spanning half a millennia.
18

In 2004, after having spent fourteen years at the helm for daily services of choral
evensong and royal occasions alike, Scott made what some considered a surprising
announcement: that he would be departing St. Paul’s Cathedral for none other than the
venerable American Episcopal parish of St. Thomas’ Church Fifth Avenue, succeeding
Gerre Hancock as Organist and Director of Music. The reasons for this unusual career
trajectory have never been made fully public; however, it is believed that a loosening
attitude regarding liturgical worship within the Church of England (and especially at
the nation’s capital cathedral) shared and expressed by the Dean and Chapter of St.
Paul’s had led to an unhappy professional situation for Scott, who was charged to carry
on a nine-hundred-year choir school tradition. These two visions seemed to be at odds
for John Scott, who happily retreated to the hallowed Anglo-Catholic choral institution
on Fifth Avenue, NYC – the only residential boy choir school in the United States, and
one whose sole mission was high Anglican choral worship.

18. The Anglican Chant Psalter, 2004.

115
At St. Thomas’ Church, Scott flourished, recording albums on the Hyperion,
Priory, Decca, Nimbus, Sony, and Chandos labels. He regularly conducted the most
notable early music ensembles in New York with the famed choir of men and boys,
including Juilliard’s Ensemble 415, Concert Royal, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In July
of 2015, John Scott began a startlingly ambitious recital series: to perform fourteen
organ recitals in seven European countries in six weeks. He successfully returned to
New York on August 11, only to suffer a sudden cardiac episode and die two days later.
John Scott died at the age of 59, highly regarded by his peers for his impressive
ability to maintain what many considered to be a world-class level of performance not
only as an organist, but also as a conductor. His eventual successor Daniel Hyde said:
He was one of the very few people in our line of work who was able to combine
and maintain his conducting and his organ-playing skills at an international
level. And for the fourteen years that he was [at St. Thomas’] he continued the
work that his predecessor Gerre Hancock had done - to develop the St. Thomas’
Choir, and to keep it on the map...His ability to be professional and to maintain a
consistently high-level of music making is something which I hope I’ll be able to
carry on for him.
19

As further evidence of John Scott’s far-reaching renown, in September of 2016
British conductor Sir Simon Rattle led the orchestra of St. Luke’s with the choir of St.
Thomas’ Fifth Avenue in a benefit concert of Gabriel Fauré’s Requeim, Op. 48, raising
money for a choral scholarship in John Scott’s name. Scott’s life work will live on in the

19. Emily Rhyne. “A Vituoso’s Choral Legacy” The New Yorker. Retrieved September 19,
2016.

116
uniquely modern harmonic language of his own compositions (including Anglican
chant tones), and in his research in codifying the New Anglican Psalter.

Harmonic Analysis of the Selected Anglican Chants by John Scott

John Scott’s Double Chant in B-minor (Example 4.12) represents the height of
chromatic modernity for Anglican chant in the twentieth-century. His chant employs
judicious use of tone clusters, the frequent use of minor second intervals between
voices, and includes suspensions. The chant begins on a clustered dominant chord.
Three of the half cadences terminate in an authentic cadence. The most dramatic chord,
a repeating tri-tone between the tenors and altos, as well as a cross relation E-sharp/E-
natural between the altos and sopranos, follows the reciting tone after the half verse.
In many ways this chant represents a crossover between modern jazz harmony
and Tudor modalism – particularly in the final cadence, an F-sharp dominant seventh
chord resolving by passing tones in the interior voices to B-minor.

Example 4.12: Scott, Double Chant in B-minor, from The Anglican Psalter, p. 51.

117
John Scott’s through-composed Easter Anthems (Example 4.13) represent the
ultimate in Anglican chant word painting. Once again, he relies on a heavy use of
modal mixture, while stretching the choir to an eight-part divisi. However, in this case
he ingeniously alludes to the ancient past with the familiar modal construct on the
words “Sin” and “Death.” At the phrase, “for as in Adam all die,” he relies on an
extremely dissonant series of cascading chords, from E-flat minor, to D-flat augmented,
to C-flat augmented. This is followed by the exultation, “Even so in Christ shall all be
made a-live,” wherein Scott employs the highly consonant major block chords, G – C –
B-flat, F- A-major.
Scott also employs the darker timbre of the tenor and bass voices singing the text
extolling the old order – in the case of “death,” and how “all die.” This is juxtaposed
against the bright treble voices and major chords for the theme of resurrection. “Glory
be to the Father…” is a repetition of the first fortissimo resurrection statement, “Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more:” C – (A-minor on the word “dieth”) B-flat
major, A-major. In the final “Amen” Scott places the trebles on a virtuosic high A
resolving down to G – an extreme tessitura for Anglican chant (though not for the
trained professional singers at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue).

118
Example 4.13, Scott, Easter Anthems, from Ash Wednesday to Easter for Choirs, p. 208-211.

119

120

121
The chant examples of the late twentieth-century by Hancock, Hurd, and Scott,
embody a willingness to expand the harmonic language of liturgical music, while
remaining true to the most essential harmonic functions, such as tonic to dominant
relationships, and cadences. Compared against their predecessors a century prior, these
late-twentieth-century composers of Anglican service music took it upon themselves to
not merely affirm the harmonic expectations of their musicians and congregations, but
to foil those very intuitions with chant settings intended to express the perplexing
mysteries of sacramental theology. The use of extended tertian harmony, tone clusters,
chromatic mediant relationships, poly-tonal and cross-relational dissonances – these are
harmonic devices intended to awaken, possibly to shock, and to breathe new life into
the Church.

122
CONCLUSION

The twentieth-century represented a significant evolution in the harmonic
development of Anglican chant – perhaps more than at any other time in the previous
four-hundred-year existence of the genre. This could be attributed to a number of
factors including (but not limited to), the speedy proliferation of new harmonic
developments due to the technologically-based information age, theological changes
that invited musical and liturgical revision, and the expansion to and inclusion of
diverse musical cultures and styles under the broad and inclusive tent of Anglicanism.
Regardless of these harmonic advancements, and of the continuing tradition of a
small group of living composers who continue to write Anglican chants, information
appears to point to a decline in the study, performance, and composition of Anglican
chants.
1
Harmonized Anglican chant and unison plainsong chant were the two
methods of chant intrinsic to Anglican worship in 1900. In 1927, The Very Revered
Wilson Stearly, the Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, bolstered support for the traditional
Anglican chanting methods in all services:
The Anglican school of Church music is essentially a harmonic system, evolved
largely under the influence of the Cathedral choir. The very general substitution
of the Anglican chant for its prototype, the Gregorian, has been quite as generally
accompanied by the use of harmonized choral Responses, especially at Morning
and Evening Prayer: the services daily rendered with a choir, in which the

1. A small number of unpublished chants composed after 1999 are catalogued online
through the Anglican Chant Index. http://www.anglicanchant.nl

123
settings of Tallis, made in 1564, have become an almost universally accepted
Cathedral use. The beauty of these settings, when well rendered, is undeniable,
as is their suitability for festal occasions; but they are less well adapted to
ordinary congregational use than the unisonous melodies or formulae which are
the Church’s own heritage from ancient times, which she wisely perpetuated for
the use of all her people, and upon which the settings of Tallis were not wholly
based. The Choral Service should be essentially a people’s service, in which their
general participation should be encouraged and assured. To this end its melodic
character should be emphasized; the various melodies and formulae should be
made uniform in all parts of the Church.
2

However, by the late twentieth-century the acceptable methods for choral and
congregational chanting had been expanded. In her 1980 book A Manual for Clergy and
Musicians, Marilyn Haskel writes,
Plainsong and Anglican chant form the basic musical heritage for the singing of
psalms and canticles. But even as they represent the culmination of a long
development, newer forms are beginning to evolve in our day…The important
thing to remember is that the singing of psalms and canticles is by no means
restricted to the traditional form. Congregations may want to explore new
forms, keeping in mind appropriateness in the selection and excellence in
preparation.
3

Only a handful of new Anglican chant Psalters have been published since the
start of the twenty-first-century: The Anglican Chant Appreciation Society Collection (ed.
Ton Meijer, 2014), The Common Worship Psalter with Chants (ed. John Harper, 2002), and
The Wessex Psalter (ed. J.D. Riding and N.J. Hale, 2009).
4
The Wessex and Anglican

2. The Choral Service, vi.
3. Marion J. Hatchett, A Manual for Clergy and Church Musicians, (New York: The Church
Hymnal Corporation, 1980), p. 56.
4. “Anglican Chant Index,” last modified October 1, 2016, http://www.anglicanchantindex.nl

124
Chant Appreciation Society Collection both retain the traditional Coverdale psalm
translations, while the Common Worship Psalter with Chants uses the modern
Common Worship Prayer Book translation. Of these three there is little new musical
material and mostly new pointing of psalm texts. In echoing the sentiments quoted
earlier in this analysis, it does appear that Anglican chant may have reached its zenith
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, not surprisingly matching the apex
of imperialistic influence for the Church of England worldwide.
The current liturgical expression within the broader Anglican communion has
largely followed the Roman reforms of Vatican II, valuing congregational participation
in psalm and service music singing over the perceived performance by trained choirs.
This echoes the sentiments of earlier evangelical Anglicans during the establishment of
the American Episcopal Church, such as Granville Sharp:
Any Psalm may be distinctly sung by a Congregation, without being tortured
into Metre: the true sense & spirit of the Psalms are thereby retained, as nearly as
they can be rendered in a literal translation from the original Hebrew; & a
Congregation may go through a whole Psalm with understanding, in the time
that would be required for singing a mere detached stave or two of the Metre
Psalms in the common way.
5

As the centuries-old quotation reveals, the desire for or against congregational
participation in liturgical chanting is no new point of disagreement for Anglicans.

5. Manuscript annotations in Fifty Single and Double Chants (London: C.S. Thompson, 1768),
p. 487.

125
Indeed, the via media motto for Anglicanism includes both Low-Church Evangelical,
High-Church Anglo-Catholic, and even Broad-Church leaning liturgical theologians.
The choral service has also always had its historical proponents, writing in defense of
‘choirs and places where they sing:’
If there be any in our own communion (as we hope there are not many) who,
taking Church-Music for a relic of popery, would have it altogether silenc’d, they
may assure themselves, that the letting it drop would by little and little make
room for weightier alterations. And therefore, tho’ they look upon it as a
disagreeable piece of antiquity, ‘twere safer to let this ruin stand, than by rashly
blowing it up endanger the cathedral to which it joins.
6

In the thirty-six years since Hatchett’s A Manual for Clergy and Musicians was
printed, seemingly fewer congregations are able to utilize the musical heritage of
Anglican chant with affection or enthusiasm. In fact, an American movement away
from the complexities involved with executing congregational Anglican chant had
already begun with the publication of The Hymnal 1982. It was in this new hymnal that
‘Simplified’ Anglican chant was unveiled. Simplified Anglican chant is the name given
to a derivative species of chant, created to retain the four-part harmonic structure of
traditional Anglican chant, but with fewer chord changes or intervallic complexities
(Example 18.1). Texts are ergonomically pointed to assist a congregation in several
successive and memorable chord changes, intended to be sung in unison. This usually
occurs by changing chords on the final syllable or word of a half-verse. Excessive

6. W. Dingley, Cathedral Service Decent and Useful (Oxford: Anthony Peisley, 1713), p. 18-19.

126
passing tones, difficult intervallic leaps, and quickly changing harmonic progressions
are avoided to ensure congregational success.
Example 4.14 depicts nine different examples of Simplified Anglican Chant
included in the service music supplement of The Hymnal 1982.
7
With the exception of
one, each was written by a composer born after 1942, and who have no traditional
Anglican chants included in the 1982 publication. The harmonies range from entirely
diatonic as in S 415, to include modal borrowing in S413. S 416 appears to be jazz-
influenced, with the inclusion of the added second scale degree in the final tonic chord.

7. Episcopal Church (U.S.), 1982, The Hymnal 1982, (New York: Church Publishing, Inc.), 408.

127
Example 4.14: Simplified Anglican Chant, from The Hymnal 1982 Service Music, S408-S415.

128
Although the expressive limitations of Simplified Anglican chant in comparison
to the more robust traditional manner of chant are apparent, the inclusion of this newer
genre may allow an entryway for a new generation of Anglicans, thirsting for greater
substance in their musical liturgical experience. Also, a new generation of Anglican
musicians may find the opportunity to reintroduce single and double chants to the
repertoire. Until such time, it will remain the responsibility of cathedrals, royal
peculiars, collegiate chapels, and parish choirs who uphold this great musical
inheritance to curate its future.

129
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Anglican chant in four parts developed out of Sarum plainsong melodies harmonized in the fauxbourdon and falsobordone styles following the English Reformation in 1534. The derived chant tones took on the harmonic musical language of their time period, establishing a lasting Tudor musical aesthetic to which many future composers aspired. The modal borrowing common in the sixteenth-century became a common musical expression for the genre in later years, reaching its zenith in the late Victorian Era (1837-1901). ❧ The harmonic developments of the twentieth-century, including the use of extended tertian chords, quartal harmonies, unresolved non-chord tones, and jazz elements would prove to further influence composers of Anglican chant. Three distinct periods existed for the development of Anglican chant in the twentieth-century, each with a cohort of church musicians who contributed to the canon of repertoire published. ❧ The early period was defined by its development upon inherited Victorian musical traditions, and the renewal of sixteenth-century Tudor aestheticism across English artistic disciplines. Composers such as Ivor Atkins (1869-1953), Edward Bairstow (1874-1946), Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941), and John Hylton Stewart (1884-1932) contributed to the Anglican chant output. The mid-twentieth-century marked a period of enormous social and political change for the Church of England. Composers such as George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987), David Willcocks (1919-2015), and Noel Rawsthorne (b. 1929), emulated the quickly advancing harmonic language present in non-liturgical art music, while embracing the increasing virtuosity of their professional collegiate and cathedral choirs. The late period, exemplified by the chant contributions of Gerre Hancock (1934-2012), David Hurd (b. 1950), and John Scott (1956-2015), was a time paradoxically witnessing the most advanced harmonic and virtuosic writing for Anglican chant, as well as the steady decline of influence for the Anglican Communion, and of traditional Anglican choirs. ❧ The non-metrical chanting of harmonized tones is a unique tradition lasting nearly five hundred years, and survives to this day as a defining characteristic of Anglican choral worship. The genre remains a staple of the musical repertoire sung daily in cathedrals, collegiate chapels, and royal peculiars.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Gravis, Christopher Gardner (author)

Core Title Anglican chant in the twentieth-century: Genesis, harmonic development, and style

School Thornton School of Music

Degree Doctor of Musical Arts

Degree Program Choral Music

Publication Date 01/26/2017

Defense Date 05/12/2017

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Anglican chant,Book of Common Prayer,choir,Church of England,English cathedral music,English Reformation,Episcopal Church,liturgical music,liturgy,OAI-PMH Harvest,organ,Sarum chant,service music,Simplified Anglican chant,The hymnal 1982

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Language English

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Advisor Scheibe, Jo-Michael (committee chair), Sparks, Tram (committee member), Strimple, Nick (committee member)

Creator Email christopher_gravis@mac.com,gravis@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-325273

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Legacy Identifier etd-GravisChri-4972.pdf

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Document Type Dissertation

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Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

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