Choir School Research Articles

Sacred Music from the Era of Louis XIII

SACRED MUSIC FROM THE ERA OF LOUIS XIII Gantez. Missa Lae tamini. Serie proposee par Michel Cuvelier. (Cahiers de musique. Patrimoine musical bourguignon.) (Patrimoine musical francais. Collection choeur.) Versailles: Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 2009. [Notes biographiques, etc., p. [3-5]; score, p. 7-26. ISMN M560161709, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161709, pub. no. CAH 170. euro12] Artus Aux-Cousteaux. Magnificat primi toni (1641); Magnificat secundi toni (1641); Magnificat tertii toni (1641); Magnificat quarti toni (1641); Magnificat quinti toni (1641); Magnificat sexti toni (1641); Magnificat septimi toni (1641); Magnificat octavi toni (1641). Edition proposee par Gerard Geay. Restitution du plain-chant: Jean-Yves Hameline. 8 volumes. (Patrimoine musical francais. Collection choeur.) Versailles: Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, 2009. [Notes biographiques, etc., p. [3-6]; scores, p. 7-12 or 13. ISMN M560161815, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161815, pub. no. CAH 181 (primi toni); ISMN M560161822, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161822, pub. no. CAH 182 (secundi toni); ISMN M560161839, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161839, pub. no. CAH 183 (tertii toni); ISMN M560161846, ISBN-13/EAN 9790560161846, pub. no. CAH 184 (quarti toni); ISMN M560161853, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161853, pub. no. CAH 185 (quinti toni); ISMN M560161860, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161860, pub. no. CAH 186 (sexti toni); ISMN M560161877, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161877, pub. no. CAH 187 (septimi toni); ISMN M560161884, ISBN-13/EAN 0790560161884, pub. no. CAH 188 (octavi toni). Each volume euro9.50] This group of publications by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) contributes both to the study and to the performance of sacred music from the time of Louis XIII, a period for which sacred music has not received much scholarly attention until recently. The year 2009 brought two important additions to the collection that is published under the CMBV's Cahiers de musique series, including Gantez's (1607-ca. 1668) Missa Lae tamini, and a cycle of Magnificats on the eight Psalm tones by Artus Aux- Cousteaux (ca. 1590-ca. 1654) issued in eight separate volumes. These scores complement earlier publications of works of Antoine Boesset (1586-1643), and Guillaume Bouzignac (ca. 1587-after 1642) in the CMBV Cahiers de musique series, as well as a newly issued large collection of Boesset's sacred works edited by Peter Bennett and published by A-R Editions (Sacred Music, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 164-65 [Middle - ton, WI: A-R Editions, 2010]) all adding substantially to the modest list of modern editions available to the scholar and musician for French sacred music from the early seventeenth century. The nine scores under consideration here contain music for four unaccompanied voices, offering a rich new body of unexplored choral music for collegiate choirs. Gantez is known to us primarily through his 1643 book L'entretien des mu - siciens (The care of musicians), a delightfully entertaining and informative collection of letters that sheds light on the customs and practices of musicians associated with the maItrises (choir schools) of seventeenth-century France. Recent research has established for the first time Gantez's birth in Marseille in 1607 (Florence Chappee, Annibal Gantez, auteur de L'entretien des musiciens (1643), in MaItrises & chapelles aux XVIIe & XVIIIe siecles: Des institutions musicales au service de dieu, ed. Bernard Dompnier, 271-89, Collection Histoires croisees [Clermont- Ferrand: Presses Uni versitaires Blaise- Pascal, 2003]), and also has given evidence that he served at least seventeen maItrises during his peripatetic career, several of them for more than one period of employment. Gantez worked as far south as Toulon and as far north as Le Havre, and served St. Paul and St. Innocents in Paris in the three years before his move to Auxerre in 1643 where he published his book. No manuscripts of this composer have survived, but in 1642 Ballard published two of Gantez's masses, one of which was the Missa Lae tamini (Mass of Rejoicing). …

An Interview with Mark Behr

Mark Behr was born in October 1963 in Arusha, in Tanzania, and grew up in (KwaZulu-)Natal, South Africa. He attended the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School for two years in the early 1970s and finished...

The inter‐reflexive possibilities of dual observations: an account from and through experience

In this article, we explore the methodological possibilities of dual observation and ‘inter‐reflexive’ interpretation as we have experienced this in a longitudinal ethnographic case study of music teaching and learning in an English Cathedral Choir School. Our intent here is to understand the ways in which our particular historical, social and cultural perspectives lead us to partial yet complementary sensings, seeings, hearings and feelings in this setting, and the ramifications of this for the interpretations we bring to observational data, and the subsequent development of interpretive narrative accounts. Through an analysis of our respective narrative accounts of our first observational encounter in the research setting, and subsequent ‘inter‐reflexive’ interpretation, we seek to interrogate the ways in which a plausible, credible and believable narrative can be developed through the separate and joint analyses of storied reflexive observation.

Having Dignities … ': Academic Attire as a Component of the Livery of the Chapel Royal

Although the first Choir School of the Chapel Royal was founded nearly fourteen hudred years ago in AD 635 by King Sigbert of the East Angles on the coast at Dunwich, now submerged beneath the sea, it is not until the Conquest by the Normans under William the Bastard in AD 1066 that any idea of outward recognition of academic rigour within the Chapel Royal emerges. [Excerpt].

Traditions and current trends of china's vocal and choir school development

The article reveals ancient traditions and significance of singing activities in China. The modem tendencies оf development of Chinese vocal-choral schools are characterized as well.

“It's a Metamorphosis”: Guiding the Voice Change at the American Boychoir School

The purpose of the study was to describe and interpret a particular culture of boys with changing voices at the American Boy choir School by means of an ethnography. Themes that emerged were (1) the boys' own perceptions of the voice change process, (2) healthy strategies for singing through the change, and (3) psychological issues. Informants were 27 students, 2 music directors, and 10 staff members. Data-collection techniques included interviews, observation, participant observation, and the examination of material culture. Analysis involved preparation of field notes and interview transcripts, document analysis, and study of the field notes and interviews. Evidence from the data, while supporting documented patterns of the male voice-change process, pointed to the uniqueness of each boy s experience. Boys were musically skilled, vocally knowledgeable, and benefitted from group vocal instruction in addition to choral rehearsals. Boys were taught how to use all available notes in their ranges safely. Instilling confidence and the “light approach” were two strategies used to assist boys negotiating the voice change.

Performance, culture and the sociology of education

The article takes as its starting point my recent ethnography of the Welsh National Opera Company, and the forthcoming monograph Everyday Arias: making opera work. In the course of that work I revisited the theme of performance: the ethnography of performance and the performance of ethnography. I discuss briefly the everyday work of the opera producer and director in the rehearsal studio and in the theatre. I suggest that despite the pervasive nature of 'performance' in contemporary sociology and anthropology, we have remarkably few studies of performances themselves. Performances by directors and performers are complex interactions, in which cultural forms, vocabularies of motive, emotional and cognitive frames of interpretation are explored by the participants. The director displays many parallels with the pedagogue. Both are preoccupied with eliciting and evaluating the performances of others. More generally, we ought to expand the sociology of education to take greater account of a wide range of cultural settings. Sociologists of education could learn much about instruction and learning by paying more attention to masterclasses in music and the visual arts, the work of cultural entrepreneurs such as impresarios, artistic education such as choir schools and conservatoires, and similar environments. Furthermore, the sociology of education could and should benefit from a more thorough engagement with contemporary sociologies of art and culture. While the sociology of culture has become central to many aspects of current sociological research and theorising, the sociology of education seems oddly peripheral to mainstream cultural analysis. It is surely not necessary to identify the sociology of education in narrowly institutional terms and to restrict the research gaze primarily to institutions and settings that are narrowly and commonsensically 'educational' in nature.

School, Stage, Salon: Musical Cultures in Haydn’s Vienna

Vienna’s reputation as a musical capital dates back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when it became synonymous with the names of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. True, with the exception of Schubert, none of these composers—canonized since the nineteenth century as the creators of “Vienna classicism”—could claim the Habsburg capital as their birthplace. Haydn was born in a Lower Austrian village near the Hungarian border. Mozart was a native of Salzburg, which, despite its reputation today as quintessentially Austrian, was the capital of a semiautonomous archbishopric that did not become a Habsburg territory until 1814. And Beethoven was a native of Bonn. Still, there is no denying the importance Vienna would acquire as a musical capital in the course of the eighteenth century. Haydn may not have been a Wiener by birth, but he did spend most of his career either in the city or within a day’s drive, at the palace of his Esterhazy patrons. Vienna was more or less Mozart’s permanent home from 1781, when he was released from his service at the Salzburg court, to his death ten years later, and Beethoven resided in Vienna and its environs from 1792 until his death in 1827. In focusing on Haydn, the earliest representative of Viennese classicism, this essay addresses several broader issues related to the role of music in the culture of the Habsburg monarchy and to Haydn’s place in that culture. In particular, my article explores three key moments in Haydn’s career and development as a composer. These include, first, his boyhood years in the Lower Austrian town of Hainburg, where he acquired his earliest musical training in a modest parish school; second, the decade that followed his leaving the Choir School of St. Stephen’s in Vienna (1748 or 1749—Haydn scholars are still uncertain about the precise date), when he began his career as a composer; and finally, his participation in Viennese salon life during the 1770s and 1780s. These moments—cultural snapshots, as it were—highlight important stages

The University of Barchester, Coketown University, Ipswich Cathedral Choir School, Gas Street Comprehensive School and the European Convention on Human Rights: A link?

This article focuses on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and especially Article 6 entitled Right to a Fair and Public Hearing , all now fully incorporated into the UK via the Human Rights Act (HRA, 1997). This article discusses the implications for UK education institutions and the potential conflict with the exclusive jurisdiction of the Visitor in English chartered universities and colleges. Also discussed are UK schools, colleges and universities as 'public authorities' and 'emanations of the state', the creation of a Higher Education Ombudsman as a 'Super-Visitor' or 'HERO' (Higher Education Regulatory Office), the impact of HRA and ECHR less dramatic for schools than for universities (or at least for the Visitor function within them), and finally the coming three decades of legal uncertainty and fees for lawyers.

The Lyon's chathedral Saint-Jean Choir school

Des recherches archeologiques recentes (1981-1984) permettet de completer des textes connus, mais souvent imprecis, et de brosser une histoire de la Manecanterie de Lyon, l'edifice le plus ancien du centre historique de la ville. Bâti au VIIIe siecle sur les ruines d'une construction du IIe siecle apres J.C., il a longtemps servi de maison commune aux chanoines de la cathedrale. Diverses modifications l'ont peu a peu affecte : adjonction d'une facdade romane au XIIe siecle, elevation d'un etage et transformation du rez-de-chausssee en boutiques au XVIIe siecle, conversion en manecanterie au XVIIIe siecle, destruction des ailes sud et est en 1768 pour une reconstruction qui n'aura jamais lieu. La configurationa actuelle date du XIXe siecle.

Children, the Liturgy, and the Reformation: the Evidence of the Lichfield Cathedral Choristers

The great interest generated by the theme of this year’s conference reflects the central importance of children in the history of the Christian Church, yet at the same time their omission from much of historical writing. For all but the recent past this is largely the result of the difficulties with the source material itself, and this is certainly true for historians of the Church during the medieval and Reformation periods. The main concern of the administrative records of the Catholic Church was with adults and, in particular, ordained men. It is to the schools that we must look for the most useful references to children and, more specifically, to the choir schools for evidence of the role of boys in the liturgy.

Music at the Church of the SS Innocents, Paris, in the Late Eighteenth Century

That there was a lively tradition of French sacred choral music in the second half of the eighteenth century is a fact that has to some extent been obscured by the vivid personalities, the querelles, the wide public appeal and the overall vitality of the contemporary opera world. The French church, however, did support a nationwide system of choir schools (or maîtrises), and many establishments maintained music programmes of a size and excellence that reflected the church's wealth and taste.

An Assessment of the Organ Miniatures of Healey Willan

An Assessment of the Organ Miniatures of Healey Willan. Un article de la revue Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes (Numéro 1, 1980, p. 1-159) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

The golden age regained

In 1908 John Bumpus, Librarian at St Michael's College Tenbury, published an entertaining anecdotal survey of English cathedral music and of the men who made it. There have been many changes since then: present-day choirs have won eminence on a hitherto unknown scale. Considering that the time was ripe for a fresh evaluation, Peter Phillips journeyed around the cathedrals and choir schools of Britain, concentrating not on personalities but on the views of those who maintain and enhance the tradition. Part two of his report appears in the next issue.

Hayne Constant, 1904-1968

The significant contribution to engineering science made by Hayne Constant, especially in the field of aircraft propulsion, was foreshadowed by his boyhood interest in invention and technology. Born at Gravesend, Kent, on 26 September 1904, he was the second son of a family of six children and his early childhood was spent at Folkestone where his father was a dental surgeon. From the age of eleven he was educated at various schools, first at King’s College Choir School, Cambridge, then King’s School, Canterbury, the Technical Institute, Folkestone, and Sir Roger Manwood’s School, Sandwich. In his Higher School Examinations he obtained distinctions in mathematics and physics and was awarded a State Scholarship. He went up to Cambridge when 20 years old in October 1924, having obtained an Open Exhibition at Queens’ College, and pursued a course commonly taken by the more gifted students, in that he first of all took Part I of the Mathematical Tripos and then proceeded to take the Mechanical Sciences Tripos in the following two years. His thoroughness and enthusiasm, reflected especially in his meticulous notes, resulted in First Class Honours and he was made a Scholar of his College. He took little if any part in College sporting activities but was a keen walker and took his exercise in this way around the byways of the Cambridgeshire fens, no doubt deep in thought about his current academic problems—a characteristic which revealed itself in his later life as he was well known for much pacing up and down of his office as he considered the problems of gas turbine development which occupied the major part of his active career. After taking his degree, Constant stayed at Cambridge for a post-graduate year 1927-28 which he used to do research on the torsional vibration of crankshafts for a Panel of the Engine Sub-Committee of the Aeronautical Research Committee. The results of this work were published in R. & M. 1201 (October 1928) under the title ‘On the stiffness of crankshafts’.

Guido D'Arezzo: Medieval Musician and Educator

The Church preserved ancient culture and language, recorded items worthy of mention in its daily records, and prescribed the framework wherein future growth would take place. For the Christian world, the Church instructed and passed judgment. It was the light in a dark world until, at the onset of the Renaissance, men began seeking learning and beauty through humanism and secularism. From the time of Pope Gregory I (590 to 604 A.D.) -the time of the codification of chant and liturgies and the revitalization of the traditional choir school or cantorum-music was the province of the Church. Music was held in high esteem for the aesthetic beauties and services it rendered to the rites of public worship. Essentially two styles of music were hinged together by the eleventh century, the monodic and polyphonic. The former was well established and had reached its expressive and technical fruition; the latter was new, somewhat unsettled, awkward, and striving for recognition. Polyphonic music posed many problems yet unanswered by theorists. From this golden age of the Christian Church and music emerged Guido d'Arezzo (also Latinized as Guido Aretinus), Benedictine monk, musician, and above all, music educator. Although music historians have traditionally described and paid tribute to certain theoretical aspects of his work, they and music educators to a large extent have neglected or misunderstood his contributions and rightful claim as a true pioneer and innovator of methodology. Insofar as can be established by historical accounts, his contributions to music and education include (1) the writing of a primary

Cynthia's Revels and Music for a Choir School: Christ Church Manuscript Mus 439

In two articles, dated 1958 and 1960, A.J. Sabol discussed a setting of Hedon's song ‘The Kisse’ in Cynthia's Revels (IV.iii.242) which occurs in Christ Church MS. Mus 439 and suggested convincingly that this setting was that intended for the first performance of the play at court in 1600. So far as is known the version of Hedon's song in the Christ Church manuscript does not occur elsewhere. The Christ Church manuscript was further brought to the attention of musicologists by J. P. Cutts in his discussion of the songs in Everie Woman in her Humor, for the manuscript contains the only known setting of a song which is referred to twice in that play: ‘Here's none but only I’.The Christ Church manuscript was further brought to the attention of musicologists by J. P. Cutts in his discussion of the songs in Everie Woman in her Humor, for the manuscript contains the only known setting of a song which is referred to twice in that play: 'Here's none but only I'. It now seems profitable to look more closely at this Christ Church manuscript as a possible source for even more music in children's drama in particular, and more generally, as representing children's music at court. If we are to suggest that the collection may even represent the repertoire of the Children of the Chapel Royal then the ambiguities surrounding the performance of Everie Woman in her Humor are also highlighted.

Ernest Basil Verney, 1894-1967.

Ernest Basil Verney, who died in Addenbrooke’s Hospital on 19 August 1967, was the fourth son and fifth child of Frederick Palmer and Mary Ann (nee Burch). He was born in Cardiff, but his father’s home was in Branston, N. Devon, where his ancestors had lived for several generations; his mother came from Bradford, Somerset. Basil married Ruth Eden Conway on 10 April 1923, in Manchester. She was the daughter of Robert Seymour Conway, Litt.D. (Cantab.), Hon.D.Litt.(Oxon.), Hon.Litt.D.(Dub.), Hon.Dott.Univ.(Padua), F.B.A., who was then Hulme Professor of Latin in Manchester University, and of Margaret ( Hall), sister of Arthur L. Hall, Sc.D., F.R.S. Ruth was the eldest child in a family of five, consisting of four sisters and one brother, Geoffrey Seymour Conway, who took a First Class in Part 1 of the Classical Tripos and was a Cambridge Rugby Blue and a Rugby International. Basil and Ruth Verney had three children, David Basil Conway, Geoffrey Ivan, and Margaret Elizabeth. David was educated at King’s College Choir School and Highgate School, entered King’s College, Cambridge, in 1942 and joined the Royal Air Force in 1943. He received his training in Arizona, U.S.A., returning to this country to serve as a pilot in Fighter Command. On demobilization in 1947 he re-entered King’s College and took his degree in 1949. He is now with the Montreal Shipping Co., Montreal and Quebec, and is married with two daughters. Geoffrey (Bob) was also educated at King’s College Choir School and Highgate School (Foundation Scholar), entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1946.

All Saints' Choir School

All Saints' Choir School

All Saints' Choir School

All Saints' Choir School