Women, architecture and choral music
These two elements of Anglican liturgical history, architectural setting and a trajectory of musical change, came together in the 19th century in England, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and in other outposts of Anglicanism with the re-introduction of the neo-gothic building. Reconstructing an architectural quire between the nave and the sanctuary, even in parish churches, did not make sense unless someone used the space, hence the establishment of the choir in cassock and surplice, processing in at the beginning of the liturgy and sitting antiphonally in the quire leading the musical parts of the liturgy. This was the end of the ‘West Gallery Choirs’ movement in many places, and a return to choirs of men and boys for a while, at least until women were allowed into the quire as singers. The transition from singers as ordained (into minor orders), to the un-ordained but official position of the “clerkes”, to the visual reality of men and boy choirs in the front of church all contributed to the exclusion of women and girls. The ‘West Gallery Choirs’ had allowed for their inclusion in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but by the early 20th centuries women were allowed in the robed choir visually present in the quire. The English Cathedral tradition continues the choirs of men and boys (as do many parishes) to the present day, but often in addition to mixed adult choirs. Salisbury Cathedral was the first to add girl choristers (1991) and maintain separate choirs for boys and girls.[1]
Specificity and Universality in Anglican Liturgy
The particular liturgical and musical charisms of any Christian ecclesial community are truly gifts but never completely isolated from other Christian communities. Anglicanism from the beginning had both its own peculiar practices, owing to the Sarum liturgy, Benedictine monasticism, the particular cultural milieu of England, and those shaped against argument partners; but the universalisms and external influences came quickly. In music the work of John Mason Neale, opening up the world of early church texts and the Eastern church, the influence of the Tridentine liturgy on the Oxford and Cambridge movements, the practices borrowed from the Reformed Protestants in England and elsewhere, and the allure of Eastern Christian romanticism that influenced the language of prayers and additions to the liturgy, all contributed elements to Anglican church music, along with the musical requirements of evensong (generally 1662 BCP sung evening prayer), congregational morning prayer, and Holy Communion (Eucharist).
The ecumenical liturgical movement of the 19th and 20th centuries that bore so much fruit in the Second Vatican Council and in the liturgies emerging after the council also directly impacted Anglicanism, primarily because so much of the liturgical history described above was consistent with the goals of the primarily Roman Catholic movement. The prefaces of all the historical prayer books recall the primary motivation of the prayer book as a return to apostolic sources (albeit with a somewhat misguided understanding of what the patristic writers were calling for):
There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted: as (emong other thinges) it may plainly appere by the common prayers in the Churche, commonlye called divine service: the firste originall and grounde whereof, if a manne woulde searche out by the auncient fathers, he shall finde that the same was not ordeyned, but of a good purpose, and for a great advauncement of godliness…[2]
Beyond the prayer books with their vernacular liturgy, focus on scripture, and common prayer done by all, there were parallel developments in Anglicanism to the continental calls for reforms, such as the Parish Communion movement of the early 20th century,[3] the restoration of the anointing of the sick to counter anti-incarnational theology in the rise of spiritualism,[4] the renewed interest in early church liturgical sources, and the direct borrowing of a more universal template for liturgy in the renewed prayer books of the 1970s through the 21st century. These recent prayer books show the direct impact of both the liturgical movement and the postconciliar liturgical books, in many places using the same prayers and liturgical structures as Roman Catholic rites, as well as a shared repertoire of ecumenical liturgical music. All of this is to say that many of the challenges of a pluralistic and secularized context that affect one ecclesial communion also affect others.
Anglican Music in the 21st Century
Music in the liturgy is part of a story which includes the power of ritual, of liturgy, and of music as tools of evangelism, of being drawn into Christianity through the liturgy. What is it that ‘seekers’ are looking for when they wander into church? Part of it seems to be a mystical experience of the transcendent, a way to enter into something that is more, or other, than our daily life. These are often visitors for whom the church can assume no knowledge of Christianity, scripture, or the basics of catechesis. One example in North America, a number of Anglican/Episcopal cathedrals have started compline on Sunday nights – complete with a Latin-singing choir, English language responses, and candlelight. The average age is about 20, and they are very well attended. Part of what these ritual events are showing us is the power of fixed liturgy, especially non-eucharistic liturgies, liturgies that do not to spend the time explaining about God but rather offer experiences of God; to worship God in the beauty of holiness and to welcome others into that.
This evangelistic use of Anglican liturgical and musical tradition is one side of the 21st century shifts. Here a general liturgical shift puts two opposing realities in conflict. First, our contemporary world is so full of words, especially via video and audio, that it is overwhelming. We are frequently not capable of hearing conversations and arguments, we can no longer focus on particular themes or stories, because we are being re-wired by social media, by the internet, by the immediacy of global issues to multitask to the point of addiction to the instant and the new. Studies have shown that attention spans of young people are dropping dramatically, one New York Times article titled their study “growing up digital, wired for distraction.”[5] David Brooks says “being online is like being a part of the greatest cocktail party ever, and it is going on all the time.”[6]
The multi-sensuality of liturgy helps because it is not just words, but also an embodied way of being together, of receiving and participating in the social encounter with God. But the Anglican propensity for lots of words and for explaining things in liturgy (for long readings, longer psalms, long sermons, multiple prayers) has also needed to find other ways to be to allow for a more incarnate and holistic immersion in music, art, silence, scent, visuals, and movement. Musically this has been made manifest in the rise of different structures of liturgical music such as the ostinatos of Taize, Iona, and Bose, rather than strophic hymn compositions.
Added to this are the insights of “community music,” more accessible and repetitive singing that gathers a more inclusive circle of singers. The hymnals with their ‘service’ music (i.e., ritual music) remain, but are increasingly augmented with fewer strophic compositions of European origin and more repetitive world music that allows easy memorization. It is not a move toward entertainment by a few, but participation in music and liturgy by an increasing number of diverse people gathered to praise God in a multiple array of languages and rhythms.
The other movement is toward local and indigenous collections of music or the inclusion of specific cultural music in newer collections. In other words, if community music and Taize-style ostinatos are about a universalizing tendency in music, a liturgical centripetal force, evidenced by the gathering of ostinatos and community “world” music into many hymnal collections, localized cultural collections of music (whether of musical style, language, accompaniment or all of the above) recognize the need for more music in the language and styles associated with local churches. This latter movement, a liturgical centrifugal force, is not “common” but local and particular through both translation of text and style of music. One example was the 1990 hymnal “Sound the Bamboo”, published by GIA (Roman Catholic, republished in 2000) but heavily used by Anglicans throughout Asia. In indigenous circles in North America the shifting has been from collections of European hymns translated into local indigenous languages to the inclusion of indigenous music and original texts. The re-use of indigenous melodies is exemplified by the new supplemental hymnal in the Anglican Church of Canada, “Sing a New Creation” (2022) which contains indigenous musical settings of ritual music. At the same time, the restoration and re-publication of translated European hymns is also growing, exemplified by the 2025 republication of “The Dakota Hymnal” (Wakan Cekiye Odowan). Dakota is the third most used language in the Episcopal church in the US, and the re-publication reflects the desire to continue teaching hymns in the Dakota language which can be sung across generations.
Conclusions
As in the development of liturgical music in many Christian communities, liturgical music in Anglicanism is affected by language (first the shift from Latin to English, all the way to the contemporary concerns of inclusive and expansive language), by culture (what expresses and confirms the identities of the people singing the music to how is culture maintained by the music used), by the demands of the liturgy itself (singing texts which fit the official texts as well as the theological meanings of the liturgy), and, particularly in Anglicanism, by the rise of English-language hymnody (especially through its accessibility as well as its impact on liturgical practice).
The shared ecumenical concerns of recognizing the power of aesthetics, of the affective, of the senses working together were also factors in the development of Anglican music, including the power and gift of beautiful liturgy and beautiful music as the means for the desire for God – evangelism and formation as points of encounter with God on the pilgrimage of individuals and communities. It is that theological motivation which undergirds many of the ongoing changes in Anglican music.
[1] This change at Salisbury Cathedral was followed in the early 21st century by the same changes at a number of other cathedrals and appears to be partially aligned with the first women priests ordained in the Church of England (199).
[2] Preface to the 1549 prayer book (repeated in prayer book prefaces for 200 years).
[3] The Parish Communion Movement was a call to restore Sundays as Eucharistic days, and parishioners to more frequent reception of communion, “The Lord’s people around the Lord’s table on the Lord’s Day” was the rallying cry as early as 1890 under the direction of Fr. Walter Frere. Donald Gray, in his Earth and Altar: Evolution of the Parish Communion in the Church of England to 1945 (Alcuin Club #68). Norwich: Alcuin Club, 1986, traces the link between the rise of Christian socialists and the eucharist in a movement that linked celebration of the eucharist and reception of communion with social action.
[4] This was a concern in the first decade of the 20th century, See Charles Gusmer, The Ministry of Healing in the Church of England. Norwich: Alcuin Club, 1974.
[5] New York Times, 21 November 2010, Matt Richtel.
[6] David Brooks, New York Times, 10 July, 2015.
This post is Part III of a three-part series. See Part I and Part II.
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