Studies in English Church Music, 1550-1900

Nicholas Temperley has pioneered the history of popular church music in England, as expounded in his classic 1979 study, The Music of the English Parish Church; his Hymn Tune Index of 1998; and his magisterial articles in The New Grove. This volume brings together fourteen shorter essays from various journals and symposia, both British and American, that are often hard to find and may be less familiar to many scholars and students in the field. Here we have studies of how singing in church strayed from artistic control during its neglect in the 16th and 17th centuries, how the vernacular 'fuging tune' of West Gallery choirs grew up, and how individuals like Playford, Croft, Madan, and Stainer set about raising artistic standards. There are also assessments of the part played by charity in the improvement of church music, the effect of the English organ and the reasons why it never inspired anything resembling the German organ chorale, and the origins of congregational psalm chanting in late Georgian York. Whatever the topic, Temperley takes a fresh approach based on careful research, while refusing to adopt artistic or religious preconceptions.

Nicholas Temperley is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Contents: Introduction; Part 1 Vernacular Church Music: 'If any of you be mery let him sing psalms': the culture of psalms in church and home; Middleburg psalms; John Playford and the metrical psalms; The old way of singing: its origins and development; The Anglican communion hymn; The origins of the fuging tune. Part 2 Artistic Church Music: Organs in English parish churches, 1660-1830; Organ music in parish churches, 1660-1730; Croft and the charity hymn; The hymn books of the Foundling and Magdalen Hospital chapels; The Lock Hospital chapel and its music; Jonathan Gray and church music in York, 1770-1840; Organ settings of English psalm tunes; Ancient and modern in the work of Sir John Stainer; Addenda and corrigenda; Index.