West gallery music
Encyclopedia
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
, as well as nonconformist
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
chapels, from 1700 to around 1850. In the late 1980s, West Gallery music experienced a revival and is now sung by several West Gallery "quires" (choirs).
The term derives from the wooden galleries which were constructed at the west end of churches during the 18th century upon which the choir would perform. Victorians disapproved of these Georgian galleries, and most were removed during restorations in the 19th century.
The music sung by gallery choirs often consisted of psalm settings by composers with little formal training, often themselves local teachers or choir members. The tunes are usually two to four voice parts. "Tunes in reports" or fuguing tunes featured imitative entries of the parts, while anthems (settings of prose texts from the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
) often had changes of texture and musical meter.
Most early West Gallery groups sang unaccompanied, but later they were augmented by instruments such as the viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
and serpent
Serpent (instrument)
A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...
. Each instrument tended to lead a group of singers who gathered around it, as in the image above.
The West Gallery tradition was exported to America around the mid 18th century, where it inspired the creation of many new compositions by members of the "First New England School".
Use of West Gallery music in the Church dwindled when the organ became popular, since it was cheaper to keep up one instrument than a West Gallery group. Furthermore, the old church bands were often difficult for a vicar
Vicar
In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...
to control, while influence over an organist was a much easier task. Such an ousting of the band by an organist is given a fictional treatment in Thomas Hardy’s early novel Under the Greenwood Tree
Under the Greenwood Tree
Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, the last to be printed without his name, and the first of his great series of Wessex novels...
, which reflected actual events at Hardy’s church at Stinsford
Stinsford
Stinsford is a village in south west Dorset, England, one mile east of Dorchester. The village has a population of 346 , 13.5% of dwellings are second homes ....
. Another factor was that the music was disapproved of because it was considered not solemn enough for worship by members of the Oxford movement
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
.
American Sacred Harp music shares West Gallery music's roots in English country parish music and singing schools.
See also
- Fuguing tune
- Anglican church musicAnglican church musicAnglican church music is music that is written for liturgical performance in Anglican church services.Almost all of it is written for choir with or without organ accompaniment...
- Metrical psalterMetrical psalterA metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a book containing a metrical translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or even harmonizations...
- Larks of DeanLarks of DeanThe Larks of Dean were a society of musicians formed in Rossendale, Lancashire in northern England during the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century...
, chapel musicians in 18th century Lancashire
West Gallery composers
- Thomas ClarkThomas Clark (of Canterbury)Thomas Clark was a Canterbury shoemaker and a prolific composer of West Gallery music, especially for the non-conformist churches of the South East of England...
- John FawcettJohn Fawcett (of Bolton)John Fawcett began in life as a shoemaker but taught himself to be a musician. In 1825, Fawcett moved to Bolton, in Lancashire, and became an organist, choir leader, and composer.- External links :...
- Edward HarwoodEdward Harwood (of Darwen)Edward Harwood was an English composer of hymns, anthems and songs. His setting of Alexander Pope's The Dying Christian was enormously popular at one time and was widely performed at funerals....
- William Tans'urWilliam Tans'urWilliam Tans'ur was an English hymn-writer, psalmodist and teacher of music. His output includes approximately a hundred hymn tunes and psalm settings and a Te Deum...
- Joseph WilliamsJoseph Williams (composer)Joseph Williams was a coal-miner and composer of sacred music, known today as West gallery music. Very little is known about his life, other than he lived in Watery Lane, Tipton, Staffordshire. During his short lifetime he published a collection of his compositions, Sacred Music Joseph Williams...
- Joseph NicholdsJoseph NicholdsJoseph Nicholds was a player of the keyed bugle and a composer of sacred music, today known as West gallery music.-Early life:Nicholds was born in Coseley around 1785, and worked as a limestone-breaker in the Deepfields iron furnaces nearby...
Composers in related traditions
- Robert BremnerRobert BremnerRobert Bremner or Brymer was a Scottish music publisher. Evidence suggests that he may have born on 9 September 1713 in Edinburgh to John Brymer and Margaret Urie, and had a younger brother named James, but little else is known about his early life...
, who was influential in mid-18th century Scottish psalmody
External links
- West Gallery Music Association -- the official website of the WGMA, an organisation closely associated with the revival of West Gallery music
- Gallery Music -- articles, music scores, MIDI and mp3 files relating to West Gallery music