In Tuneful Accord
The Church Musicians
Trevor Beeson
© Trevor Beeson 2009
Published in 2009 by SCM Press
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SCM Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd (a registered charity)
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 0 334 04193 1
Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed and bound by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham SN14 6LH
Contents
1. The Changing Pattern of Anglican Worship
2. The Victorian Musical Inheritance
3. The Last of the Old Wine – John Goss
4. The Beginnings of Reform – Samuel Sebastian Wesley
5. Nineteenth-Century Hymn Writers and Composers
6. Frederick Ouseley and St Michael’s College, Tenbury
9. The Revival of English Music – Edward Elgar
11. The Abbey Comes Alive – Frederick Bridge
12. Much-Loved Uncle Ralph Vaughan Williams
13. Sydney Nicholson and the Royal School of Church Music
15. The Viennese and Parisian Innovators
16. Mid-Twentieth-Century Explorers
18. The Minor Canons and Precentors
23. Not Forgetting the Parishes
24. Revolution in the Cathedral and the Rediscovery of the Counter-Tenor
25. The Twentieth-Century Renewal of Hymnody
Preface
Of the many books for which I have been responsible over the last fifty years, the writing of In Tuneful Accord has given me the greatest pleasure. I entered upon the task with some hesitation but, now completed, I hand it over to my publisher with the sadness that attends parting from a valued friend.
It might be argued, and I am ready to concede the point, that a survey of the development of church music during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should have preceded a trilogy on bishops, deans and canons. After all, the musicians have a deeper, wider, and usually longer-lasting influence than all but a handful of church leaders. Music is more attractive to most churchgoers than even the most eloquent of sermons, though both have their place. The personalities of musicians can also be interesting and I have included something about the most important of them in my period.
During these early years of a new millennium music is everywhere. Never before has so much music, and in such a variety of forms of music, been created, performed and heard by so many people. The development of broadcasting and sound recording is largely responsible for this, and it is difficult to withhold sympathy from the man who sought to have a quiet drink in his local pub and offered to pay for a short period of relief from the rowdy jukebox. But of course the music explosion of the last half-century has also given joy, inspiration, illumination and consolation to millions.
Music is the most spiritual of the arts. When words fail, music often speaks. When men and women seek closer communion with the Divine, music is most likely to open the door to transcendence. For those in the depths of sadness and despair, music may, more than anything else, offer rays of light and hope.
This is true of all music wherever it is performed and heard. But the church is bound to have, and indeed has always had from its earliest days, a special concern to link music to its primary task of offering worship to God. It is no accident therefore that some of the greatest advances in the music of the West, and some of the most sublime compositions, have emerged from within the life of Christian communities.
The Church of England – I have not dared to look far beyond its boundaries – has played a significant part in this great human endeavour, not least in the nurturing and conserving of a distinctive choral tradition. Hence the responsibility of every generation to ensure that this tradition is not broken or compromised.
It is always hazardous to suggest that a turning point has been reached in any enterprise, but at the conclusion of