‘Old Wine in New Bottles’: Renaissance Polyphony in the English Catholic Church during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

In the early nineteenth century there were three main styles of music performed in the English Catholic Church. First, there was plainchant, mainly that copied by John Francis Wade in the previous century and then refracted through arrangements by Samuel Webbe the elder, Samuel Wesley and Vincent Novello. Second, there was a native and, for its day, a fairly up-to-date style associated again with the two Webbes, Wesley and Novello. Third, there were Continental imports, especially grand masses, composed by Viennese Classical masters such as Mozart and Haydn, or Hummel and Weber. All three styles were developed and remained popular throughout the nineteenth century; but increasingly they were challenged by a revived interest in Renaissance-style polyphony, especially music composed between 1551 and 1650. This paper examines that development looking at, first, the general factors that encouraged it; second, the main stages in its revival; and third, the extent and effects of its influence and achievement.