Anglican chant
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Anglican chant is a method of singing prose translations of the Psalms, canticles, and other, similar texts. As the name implies, it is used primarily in Anglican churches.
Each verse, pair, group of three, or group of four verses is set to a simple harmonized melody of 7, 14, 21 or 28 bars (known respectively as a single, double, triple or quadruple chant), with the majority of the syllables freely chanted on the extendable reciting notes, which occupy the first, fourth, eighth, eleventh (etc.) bars.
The origins of the method are obscure, but it was well established by the eighteenth century. The earliest known examples are single chants, dating from the latter part of the 16th century, written by Thomas Tallis and his contemporaries, so it seems likely that Anglican chant was devised by them to provide a suitable musical setting for Coverdale's psalter, as published in the Book of Common Prayer. The earliest double chants are from about 1700.
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[edit] Method
Anglican chanting is best explained through an example. A single chant is shown above. Below are the first four verses of the Magnificat, with the text coloured to show which words correspond to which notes in the music ("the chant").
- 1. My soul doth ' magnify the ' Lord : And my spirit hath re'joiced in ' God my ' Saviour.
- 2. For He ' hath re'garded : the ' lowliness ' of His ' handmaiden.
- 3. For be'hold from ' henceforth : all gene'rations shall ' call me ' blessed.
- 4. For He that is mighty hath ' magnified ' me : and ' holy ' is His ' Name.
Precise rules for chanting vary according to the particular psalter in use. The rules used in the Parish Psalter (one of the more popular, edited by Sydney Nicholson) are as follows:
- The chant is sung to the words of one verse.
- The barlines in the music correspond to the inverted commas (called "pointing marks") in the text.
- The double barline in the music corresponds to the colon in the text.
- Where there is one note (a semibreve) to a bar, all the words for the corresponding part of the text are sung to that one note.
- Where there are two notes (two minims) to a bar, all the words except the last syllable are sung to the first minim. The final syllable is sung to the second minim. Where more than the last syllable is to be sung to the second minim, a dot or hyphen is used (.) in the text to indicate where the note change should occur.
Other psalters use different notation; modern psalters such as the New St Paul's Cathedral Psalter (John Scott, 1997) have adopted the following convention:
- A vertical bar (|) is used to indicate a barline.
- Whenever there are 3 or more syllables in a bar, a dot (•) or hyphen is used, even if the change of note is on the final syllable.
There are various additional rules which apply occasionally:
- Some chants have more complicated rhythms than the example above, generally in the form of a dotted minim and a crotchet (in any bar except the last of a quarter) or of two crotchets taking the place of a minim.
- When a minim in an 'internal' bar (i.e. not the first or last bar of a quarter) is replaced by two crotchets, one of two things happens. If there is only one syllable, both notes are sung to it in quick succession. If there are two (or occasionally more) syllables, they are split as evenly as possible across the two notes.
- When an internal bar has a dotted rhythm, it is best rendered as if it were written minim-crotchet-crotchet (the minim and the first crotchet being the same note) and then proceeding as above.
- When the first bar of a quarter has a dotted minim and a crotchet, all syllables except the last are sung to the note of the dotted minim, with the crotchet being tucked in on the last syllable before the barline. If there is only one syllable, both notes are sung to it in quick succession.
- Sometimes the last bar of a quarter has two minims instead of the usual semibreve, in which case a dot/hyphen may be required after the last barline in the text: (eg. even as | though they | were mine | ene-mies.)
- Particularly in long psalms, changes of chant may be used to signal thematic shifts in the words. Psalm 119, which is the longest in the book, is generally sung with a change of chant after every 8 of its 176 verses, (corresponding to the 22 stanzas of the original Hebrew text). It should be noted, however, that it is very rarely sung all in one go!
[edit] Double, triple and quadruple chants
The example above is a single chant. It is normally only for very short psalms (half a dozen verses or so) that single chants are used.
The most commonly-used chants used are double chants. These are twice the length of a single chant. The music of the chant is repeated for every pair of verses. This reflects the structure of the Hebrew poetry of many of the psalms: Each verse is in two halves - the second half answers the first; the verses are in pairs - the second verse answers the first.
Triple and quadruple chants appeared from the latter part of the 19th century, to cover some of the exceptions to this format. They set the verses of the psalm in groups of 3 or 4 verses respectively. Psalm 2 (for example) is well-suited to a triple chant; a quadruple chant might be used for Psalm 78.
- A double chant is divided into "quarters", each of which has the music for half a verse. Triple and quadruple chants may also be described as containing six or eight quarters.
- Where a psalm (or section of a psalm) has an odd number of verses, a numbered verse will be marked "2nd part". This means if the chant is sung to a double chant, that verse is to be sung to the 2nd half of the chant, rather than the first. After that, verses continue with the 1st half and alternate between the halves of the chant as before. Similarly, "3rd part" markings may be used for triple chants.
- The Gloria is two verses long, so is sung to the double chant or two verses of single chant as appropriate.
[edit] Accompaniment
Psalms may be sung unaccompanied, or accompanied by organ. Organists use a variety of registrations to mirror the changing mood of the words from verse to verse.
[edit] Antiphonal singing
A further stylistic technique is used in cathedrals and churches which use an antiphonal style of singing. In this case, the choir is divided into two equal half-choirs, each having representation for the four musical parts, and usually facing one another. They are typically named Decani (usually the half-choir to the south side) and Cantoris (usually the half-choir to the north side). Then the choir may employ either of the techniques known as quarter-chanting and half-chanting. In quarter-chanting, the side that starts (usually decani) sing the first quarter of the chant (and thus the first half of the verse). The side that did not start (usually cantoris) then sing the second quarter of the chant (and thus the second half of the verse). This sequence then repeats. In half-chanting (which is more true to antiphonal singing in the Gregorian style), decani sing the first two quarters of the chant, and cantoris the next two quarters (so that each half-choir sings a whole verse at a time).
With antiphonal singing, the first two verses, Gloria and perhaps last two verses are often sung by the whole choir.
A few choirs (such as King's College, Cambridge) elaborate further, e.g. by having some verses sung by soloists.
[edit] American terminology
- inverted comma - breath mark (point)
- semibreve - whole note
- minim - half note
- crotchet - quarter note
[edit] See also
| Eastern: | Armenian | Byzantine | Coptic | Russian | Syrian |
|---|---|
| Western: | Ambrosian | Anglican | Beneventan | Celtic | Gallican | Gregorian | Mozarabic | Old Roman |
