chorus (i) in oxford music online

Oxford Music Online

article url: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/05684

Chorus (i) [choir](from Gk. choros; Fr. choeur; Ger. Chor; It., Sp.coro).

A group of singers who perform together either in unison or, much more usually, in parts; also, by

extension, a work, or movement in a work, written for performance by such an ensemble (e.g. the

‘Hallelujah’ chorus in Handel's Messiah). In the performance of part-music a distinction is generally

observed between a group of soloists (one singer to each part) and a chorus or choir (more than

one singer, usually several or many, for each part); this distinction is not, however, without its

exceptions (e.g. the solopetit choeur of the 17th-century French grand motet). The designations

‘chorus’ and ‘choir’ are often used in conjunction with qualifying terms indicative of constitution or

function (e.g. mixed choir, male voice choir, festival chorus, opera chorus). Moreover at various

times and places certain types of chorus and choir have been generically designated by terms

lacking the words ‘chorus’ and ‘choir’ (e.g. schola cantorum, glee club, singing society, chorale). In

English, but in no other language, a distinction is often made between ‘choir’ and ‘chorus’: an

ecclesiastical body of singers is invariably called a choir, as, normally, is a small, highly trained or

professional group; ‘chorus’ is generally preferred for large groups of secular provenance. This

article deals with the chorus as it developed in Western art music; group singing in the art and

traditional music of other cultures is discussed in articles on individual countries.

1. Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Organized choruses are known to have existed in several cultures of the ancient world. Two

pre-Christian cultures, those of Greece and Palestine, fostered choral singing that was destined to

have an influence on later developments in Western music.

In ancient Greece the chorus was a dancing as well as a singing ensemble. It consisted of one of

four groupings – men, women, men and women together, or men and boys – and performed only

monophonic music. It played a particularly important role in the drama of the Periclean Age – indeed,

Greek drama evolved from religious and ceremonial performances of a chorus of masked dancers.

Of the many types of choral dances performed by such choruses, the paean, first mentioned in the

Iliad (c850 BCE), was an invocation to Apollo in his capacity as god of healing; the partheneia,

introduced about 650 BCE, was for a women’s chorus composed of Spartan virgins; and the

dithyramb, raised to the level of choral art music about 600 BCE, was a choreographic description of

the adventures of the fertility god Dionysus. It was the dithyrambic chorus that led directly to the

tragedies and comedies of the 5th and 4th centuries. In these dramas, the chorus, whose leader

(coryphaeus) sometimes spoke as its representative, functioned as a corporate commentator.

Delivering its commentary from a traditional, conservative perspective that bespoke its earlier

existence as a religious and ceremonial body, the chorus acted as an articulate spokesman for

conventional society, thereby heightening the spectators’ perception of the tension existing between

the protagonists and their environment. Pre-dramatic Greek choruses are reported to have been

sometimes quite large, numbering 600 on at least one occasion; the dithyrambic chorus was

conventionally composed of 50 boys and men arranged in a circle about an aulos player. Authorities

disagree about the size of the chorus in Greek drama. It is generally said to have numbered 12 in the

dramas of Aeschylus and 15 in those of Sophocles, and the latter figure subsequently became

standard for tragedies; it has been variously asserted that the chorus in comedies consisted of 24,

50 or perhaps as many as 60 singers.

Grove Music Online

Chorus (i)

Chorus (i) in Oxford Music Online http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/05...

1 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Copyright © Oxford UniversityPress 2007 — 2011.

The Old Testament provides ample evidence of the existence of well-organized choral singing in

ancient Israel. David, when he made preparations for bringing the Ark of the Covenant into

Jerusalem, ‘spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with

instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy’

(1 Chronicles xv.16). Of the leaders appointed at that time, three were assigned the honour of

signalling with cymbals, and 14 (eight with psalteries and six with harps) were designated to play the

string instruments which constituted, then and later, the typical accompaniment for Jewish choral

music. Chenaniah, appointed to supervise the singing, ‘instructed about the song, because he was

skilful’ (1 Chronicles xv.22). He proved to be an able teacher; when the first Temple establishment

was formally organized shortly afterwards, David found it possible to appoint 288 skilful Levite

musicians – 24 groups of 12, each group with its designated leader. For ordinary occasions these

small groups may have served in rotation, but at more important ceremonies the entire body of

Levite musicians performed. At the splendid ceremonies conducted at the dedication of Solomon’s

Temple, this already large choir was further augmented by the addition of ‘an hundred and twenty

priests sounding with trumpets D the trumpeters and singers D as one, to make one sound to be

heard in praising and thanking the Lord’ (2 Chronicles v.12–13).

Several times, during periods of apostasy or adversity, the Temple choir was disbanded, only to be

restored subsequently to its original splendour. A choir school was maintained in which Chenaniah’s

successors trained generation after generation of cantors and choristers. The levitical choir was

officially composed of only adult males, but Levite boys were allowed, probably in the role of

apprentices, to add the sweetness of their voices to the singing. There is insufficient evidence to

support the view held by some authorities that women were allowed to perform with the levitical

singers, but, notwithstanding their probable exclusion from the official choir, women no doubt

participated in the congregational acclamations and responses introduced into the singing of psalms.

The choirs of many synagogues, though more modest in size and usually lacking accompanying

instruments, were modelled on that of the Temple in Jerusalem. In the Temple and synagogues,

Jewish choral music, which was monophonic, was often performed responsorially or antiphonally.

Certain psalms bear superscriptions which have been held to refer to performance by a soloist with

responding chorus, and antiphonal singing is described in several biblical passages (e.g.Nehemiah

xii.31–9). That the ancient practice of antiphonal singing was still in existence among Jews of the 1st

century is shown by Philo of Alexandria’s description of congregational antiphony as practised by a

Jewish sect known as the Therapeutae (De vita contemplativa, §29):

“They rise up together and D form themselves into two choirs, one of men and

one of women, the leader chosen from each being the most honoured and most

musical among them. They sing hymns to God composed of many measures and

set to many melodies, sometimes chanting together, sometimes antiphonally D It

is thus that the choir of the Therapeutae of either sex – note in response to note

and voice to voice, the deep-toned voices of the men blending with the shrill

voices of the women – create a truly musical symphony.”

The leaders of the early Christian Church, guided by Old Testament precedent and New Testament

admonition (e.g. Colossians iii.16 and James v.13), gave their general approval to the use of music

in the services of the church; but although Christianity was a Jewish sect at its inception and

therefore heir to the musical materials and practices of Judaism, it possessed during its earliest

period neither the financial resources nor, since it was forced by persecution to conceal its activities,

the physical facilities necessary for the development of a tradition of choir singing like that of the

Jews. As a result of these circumstances the singing that flourished among the early Christians was

largely congregational. Specific practices varied from place to place, but the activity of singing praise

was common to Christians everywhere. ‘The Greeks use Greek’, reported Origen (c185–c254), ‘the

Romans Latin D and everyone prays and sings praises to God as best he can in his mother tongue’.

The singing of Old Testament psalms was practised, initially at least, by Christians of both sexes

and of all ages, but some of the later church Fathers, heeding the interdiction of St Paul (1

Corinthiansxiv.34), opposed the participation of women in congregational singing.

Not only were the psalms themselves borrowed by the Christians from their Jewish predecessors but

Jewish methods of performance were also incorporated into Christian worship. References to

antiphonal and responsorial singing occur in the works of several patristic writers. Eusebius (c260–

c340), Bishop of Caesarea, in whose Historia ecclesiastica Philo’s account of antiphony among the


2 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Therapeutae is quoted, remarked that in his own time the manner of singing described by Philo was

still practised among the Christians. Responsorial psalmody was mentioned, probably with reference

to Rome, by Tertullian (c155–c222). Antiphonal and responsorial singing may have appeared first

among those Christians in closest geographical proximity to the Judaic roots of Christianity, but by

the end of the 4th century at the latest these methods of performance were common to Eastern and

Western churches alike. Moreover, antiphonal and responsorial singing were not used exclusively in

connection with psalm texts but were applied to other types of texts as well, and exercised an

influence on the development of the early Christian liturgy. Patristic opinion was divided concerning

the propriety of using instruments to accompany singing. Because of their association with pagan

festivities, instruments were censured by many of the church Fathers, among them Clement of

Alexandria (c150–c220), who forbade their use in church. Even as late a writer as Didymus of

Alexandria (c313–38), however, defined a psalm as ‘a hymn which is sung to the instrument called

either psaltery or cithara’.

Constantine the Great’s Edict of Milan of 313 elevated Christianity to the status of an officially

recognized religion, thereby eliminating all previously existing impediments to the development of

choirs. The work of educating experts in the art of singing seems to have begun almost immediately,

for according to tradition St Sylvester, pope from 314 to 336, was the founder of the first schola

cantorum. The Roman schola cantorum, which served simultaneously as the papal choir and as an

institution for training apprentice choir singers, was further developed during the 5th-century

pontificates of Celestine I and Hilarius; two other 5th-century popes, Sixtus II and Leo I, are reported

to have established monasteries devoted to the daily practice of psalmody; moreover, music also

held an important place in the activities of the monastic order established in the early 6th century by

St Benedict. Thus, when Gregory I, pope from 590 to 604, set about reforming the liturgy and music

of the church he found that some of the tools necessary for his task were already at hand.

Recognizing its importance to his programme of reform, he reorganized the schola cantorum, in the

process making use of the musical skills of a Roman community of Benedictine monks. The alliance

thus formed between monastery and schola cantorum was to have far-reaching effects on the

development of choral music; during the next five centuries monasteries, and the cathedral schools

that succeeded them, functioned as the principal centres of choral music education, imparting

Roman musical methods to many generations of singers, who became the cantors and choristers of

churches throughout the Christian world.

The existence of expert singers – soloists and choristers – was reflected in the development of

stylistically differentiated liturgical chants. In contrast to the simple, syllabic chants entrusted to the

priests and congregation, more elaborate ones were assigned to the choir; the most difficult and

elaborately melismatic chants were sung by the virtuosos who functioned as cantors. Methods of

performance were also affected by the existence of virtuoso soloists within the choir; responsorial

performance, in which the soloists were given an opportunity to display their skills, was eventually

employed not only for those liturgical chants that had traditionally been performed in this manner but

also for chants that had earlier been performed antiphonally. The resulting prevalence of

responsorial singing in the performance of monophonic chant is of basic importance to an

understanding of the respective roles of soloists and choir in early polyphony. In the organa of about

1200 and in clausulas throughout the 13th century, only those portions of the responsorial chants

originally assigned to soloists were provided with polyphonic settings; those portions originally

chanted by the choir remained monophonic. This distinction is almost universally accepted as

showing that polyphony in its earliest stages was assigned exclusively to soloists. Indeed, there is a

great deal of evidence suggesting that only unison choirs and solo ensembles were known in the

medieval church and that it was not until about 1430, a date coinciding with the beginning of the

musical Renaissance, that polyphony was assigned to the choir.

In the churches and monasteries of the Middle Ages choirs were composed of men or of men and

boys; only in convents were women afforded an opportunity to sing sacred choral music. Extant

documents from the last few decades before the Renaissance show that cathedral choirs usually

consisted of four to six boys and ten to 13 men; the eight boys and 18 men employed in 1397–8 at

Notre Dame, Paris, constituted what was, for that period, an exceptionally large choir. Instruments, if

they had ever been entirely eliminated from church services in accordance with the directives of

some of the early church Fathers, were readmitted to play in churches by the later Middle Ages.

Many churches had organs; string and wind instruments were regularly employed in religious

processions outside the church and are known to have been played on occasion inside the church

as well; it is probable that in some 14th- and 15th-century performances of sacred vocal polyphony


3 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

these instruments were combined with the voices, the former doubling, or substituting for, some of

the latter.

European secular music during the Middle Ages was almost entirely the province of soloists. In the

period of monophony, choral singing of secular music was restricted to the performance of choral

refrains in works of the litany and rondel types. Choruses also sang the refrains of some secular and

para-liturgical polyphonic compositions, for example carols. In general, however, secular polyphonic

works were performed entirely by ensembles of soloists in which there was equal participation

between singers and instrumentalists.

James G. Smith

2. The Renaissance.

With only a few exceptions, secular music continued throughout the Renaissance to be sung by

soloists. At the courts and in the homes of aristocrats and prosperous merchants, madrigals,

chansons and all other types of Renaissance secular music were performed for pleasure by

amateurs, sometimes with the assistance, or perhaps under the leadership, of court or household

professional musicians. Men and women were on an equal footing in performing these convivial

pieces, and instruments were freely combined and interchanged with the voices; the social nature of

the musical activity made it essential for all those present on any given occasion to contribute

whatever vocal or instrumental talents they possessed. Although secular music of this period was

generally sung and played by solo performers, there were some important occasions, such as

festivities associated with court weddings, at which it was publicly performed by choruses consisting

for the most part of professional musicians. In 1475, at festivities in celebration of the wedding of

Costanzo Sforza and Camilla of Aragon, two 16-voice antiphonal choruses performed along with

‘organi, pifferi, trombetti ed infiniti tamburini’; and in a masque described in Balthasar de

Beaujoyeux’s Balet comique de la Royne, a chorus of about 12 singers sang both with and without

instruments at a wedding celebration held at the court of Henri III of France in 1581, the instruments

on this occasion comprising violins, viols, flutes, oboes, cornetts, trombones, trumpets, harps, lutes

and percussion. Choruses also participated in the Italian intermedi. For example, Cristofano

Malvezzi’s 1591 compilation of Intermedii et concerti, performed at the wedding in 1589 of the

Medici Grand Duke Ferdinando I, includes a six-voice madrigal described as having been sung by a

chorus of 24 singers and a concerted finale said to have been performed by a company of 60

musicians composed of about equal numbers of singers and instrumentalists. Though such festive

choral performances of secular music were rare, the fact that they occurred at all suggests that the

prevalence of solo ensemble singing in Renaissance secular music resulted from the convivial

function generally served by the music rather than from any fixed objection to the use of larger

numbers of singers.

About 1430 sacred polyphony ceased to be sung exclusively by solo ensembles and began to be

sung by choirs as well. As composers of sacred music explored the capabilities of the choir, rapid

progress was made in its development as a vehicle for the performance of polyphonic music, and its

general constitution was established along lines that were to remain constant throughout the later

history of choral singing. Ranges of outer parts were gradually extended until, by the beginning of

the 16th century, the range of the choir as a whole spanned three to three and a half octaves. It was

recognized that this aggregate range allowed for the existence of four basic voice parts. By the end

of the 16th century the Latin forms of the names by which these parts were to be known had

emerged. The lowest part was called the bassus, a shortened form of ‘contratenor bassus’, which

had earlier designated the lower part written against the tenor; the next lowest part, the tenor,

retained the name originally used for the part assigned the function of carrying (literally ‘holding’) the

pre-existing material of cantus firmus compositions; the part above the tenor was called the altus, a

shortened form of ‘contratenor altus’, which had earlier designated the higher part written against the

tenor; and the highest part was often called the superius (later Italianized as ‘soprano’). The

emergence of this SATB distribution of parts did not deter Renaissance composers from writing for

other combinations and for larger numbers of parts. Choirs of the Renaissance, like those of later

periods, were often called on to sing in five, six or eight parts; occasionally the number of parts was

even greater, as for example in Tallis’s 40-part motet, Spem in alium. Four parts, however, became


4 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

the standard minimum and SATB their basic distribution. In works in more than four parts, one or

more of the basic parts was subdivided, or if the number of parts was unusually large they were

distributed among two or more choirs; for example, Tallis’s 40-voice work is for eight choirs, each in

five parts resulting from subdivision of the lowest part into what would today be called baritone and

bass parts.

The choirs of Renaissance churches and chapels, like their predecessors of the Middle Ages, were

composed entirely of male singers. Bass and tenor parts were sung by men. Alto parts were sung by

men with exceptionally high natural voices, by falsettists, by boys or by boys and men combined.

Soprano parts were normally assigned to boys, who occasionally were assisted or replaced by

falsettists capable of singing these high parts. In the second half of the 16th century, castratos were

introduced into the choirs of the Roman Catholic Church. They were first listed as members of the

Cappella Sistina in 1599, but this listing may constitute a belated acknowledgment of an already

well-established practice; one singer listed in the Vatican rolls for 1562 as a falsettist is elsewhere

referred to as a castrato, and castratos are known to have been employed in Portugal and

elsewhere as early as about 1570. Although the use of castratos in church choirs seems to have

been most prevalent in Italy, particularly at Rome, the practice spread to all other Roman Catholic

countries. At first only soprano parts were assigned to castratos, but after 1687 castratos in the

Cappella Sistina sang alto parts as well. Although the Church took a strong stand against castration,

it continued to employ castratos in its choirs. In 1780 more than 200 of them were employed in

churches at Rome, and they continued to sing in the Cappella Sistina throughout the 19th century,

the last of them retiring as late as 1913.

Renaissance sacred polyphony was probably not infrequently performed by instruments and voices

combined. However, all-vocal performances seem to have been the ideal; the Cappella Sistina, for

example, was particularly noted for its singing without instruments. When melody instruments were

used, they served to replace absent parts, or doubled the singers to enrich the texture on festive

occassions; they were rarely required. The players of melody instruments sometimes listed on the

membership rosters of church and chapel organizations were usually used as a separate,

contrasting ensemble rather than as an accompaniment added to the voices. Although many other

melody instruments were employed by such organizations, sackbuts, shawms, dulcians and cornetts

were those most frequently associated with performances in ecclesiastical surroundings. Organs

were sometimes used to accompany the voices in the last few decades of the Renaissance.

Organists often played from bass partbooks, sometimes from organ scores, which consist for the

most part of reductions of the vocal parts.

Roman Catholic choirs of the Renaissance, maintained in the chapels of princely patrons as well as

in churches, were in general larger than their medieval predecessors. In 1467, for example, the

Burgundian chapel of Philip the Good consisted of about 30 men and boys, and in England 16 boys

and 16 men made up the choirs of the collegiate churches of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1448

and Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1484. Choirs tended to increase in size as the period progressed.

Employing only nine singers in 1436, the papal choir, descended from the Roman schola cantorum

and called the Cappella Sistina from about 1480, grew to 18 in 1450, 24 in 1533 and 28 in 1594; in

1625 its strength was permanently established at 32. Most choirs of the period were probably no

larger than the Cappella Sistina, but there were some important exceptions; for example, about 1570

the Bavarian Hofkapelle at Munich, directed by Lassus, consisted of a total of 92 performers: 16

boys, 6 castratos, 13 alto falsettists, 15 tenors, 12 basses and 30 instrumentalists. This and other

exceptionally large establishments no doubt functioned on a day-to-day basis as umbrella

organizations from which smaller performing units were extracted as needed for ordinary events

(even the Cappella Sistina rarely, if ever, performed at full strength); for festive religious and

ceremonial occasions their full complements were available to give aural representation to the

magnificence of their ecclesiastical or secular patrons.

Although the Reformation signalled the end of Roman Catholic hegemony in the development of

church choirs, the 16th century witnessed only modest steps towards the establishment of

independent traditions of Protestant choral singing. Both Luther and Calvin, emphasizing the

priesthood of all believers, recognized the need for revitalization of the ancient, but generally

neglected, practice of Christian congregational singing. Calvin’s austere views concerning the

function of music in the service of religion led him to sanction only unison congregational singing of

psalms, thereby forestalling for at least two centuries the development of choirs in Calvinist

churches. Luther, however, encouraged the use of choirs, acknowledging that they served both

aesthetic and didactic functions in worship. Early Lutheran choirs were modelled on their Roman


5 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Catholic predecessors. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers did not result in the

participation of women singers; men and boys were trained in the cantorial tradition at schools which

were under the protection of clerical or municipal authorities. Lutheran choirs may sometimes have

been larger and less professional than Catholic choirs of the period. Johann Walter (i), Luther’s

principal musical adviser and from 1526 to 1548 Kantor at Torgau, was the leader of a Kantorei

made up of students from the Torgau Lateinschule, clergy, teachers and other interested citizens.

Walter’s choir, like many other Lutheran choirs, performed on civic and scholastic as well as

ecclesiastical occasions.

Inasmuch as the Reformation in England was motivated more by political considerations than by

religious discontent or theological differences with Rome, the early Anglican Church tended to

conserve many customs and traditions of the past. English choirs were not therefore greatly altered

in constitution or in function as a result of the Reformation. The dissolution of the monasteries

between 1536 and 1540 and the similar fate that befell the choir schools of cathedrals and collegiate

churches as a result of the Chantries Acts of 1545 and 1547 would have been fatal to English choral

singing traditions had not Henry VIII and his successors provided for the survival or establishment of

more than 30 regularly constituted and endowed cathedral and collegiate choral foundations. The

Chapel Royal, which had existed since the late 13th century, was also retained, and it continued to

attract to its service the finest of England’s singers and composers (see LONDON, §II, 1). From the

mid-16th century until the Civil War a century later it regularly employed 32 men and 12 boys. The

choirs of cathedrals and collegiate churches varied in size from place to place; the cathedral choirs

of 16 men and eight boys established in 1541 at Oxford, Ely and Peterborough were average in size,

but smaller choirs of 12 men and six to eight boys were established between 1540 and 1542 at the

cathedrals of Bristol, Carlisle, Chester, Gloucester and Rochester, while during the same years

larger choirs of 20–24 men and ten boys were established at Westminster Abbey and at the

cathedrals of Canterbury, Durham, Winchester and Worcester. Unusually large choral bodies were

sometimes created when, in connection with particularly important occasions of state, the Chapel

Royal joined with the musical forces of one of the cathedrals, thus producing choirs of more than 70

voices. Although recorders and viols were sometimes used in English churches, cornetts and

sackbuts were the instruments most frequently combined with choirs; indeed, the use of a quartet of

two cornetts and two sackbuts was more or less standard practice in some churches. As on the

Continent, the organ, although probably used with voices in earlier times as well, began to be

recognized as a constituent part of English choral establishments only during the last few decades of

the 16th century; at the Chapel Royal the first appointment of an organist specifically so designated

is not recorded until 1601. Following medieval custom, English choirs of the Renaissance were

divided into two equally balanced halves; the two groups were seated facing one another on

opposite sides of the chancel, decani on the dean’s side and cantoris on the precentor’s side. This

encouraged an antiphonal mode of performance that was often exploited in the works of English

Renaissance composers. The principle of responsorial singing was employed in the English verse

anthem. In contradistinction to the entirely choral full anthem, the verse anthem consisted of

contrasting sections for soloist or soloists (verse) and chorus. In Renaissance verse anthems,

soloists were supported by a consort of viols or an organ; the instruments doubled the voices of the

choir during the full choral sections. It has been suggested that the use of the term ‘verse’ to

designate the solo sections of these anthems was derived from its association with responsorial

chants (e.g. graduals, alleluias, introits) consisting of verse and respond sections sung respectively

by soloists and choir; according to an alternative explanation, the term was derived from secular or

paraliturgical compositions (e.g. rondels, carols) possessing a structure of verse (solo) and refrain

(chorus). In either case the fact that this term, with its antecedents in earlier responsorial singing,

was adopted by English composers of verse anthems may be seen as a specific reflection of the

general continuity that characterized the development of the chorus throughout the Middle Ages and

up to the end of the Renaissance.

The general statement that women did not sing in church and chapel choirs during the Renaissance

and Baroque eras is subject to two important exceptions. In convents, unison chanting was used in

daily religious observances from the Middle Ages onwards. During the late Renaissance period and

the Baroque, some female monastic houses emerged as centres of musical development. In these

centres, polyphony was performed and sometimes composed by nuns specially trained as musical

leaders. Late 20th-century research into this subject has tended to show that with some exceptions

the polyphony performed in the chapels of convents was more conservative than that sung

coterminously in non-monastic musical establishments. This was not the case, however, with the

second exception. At four ospedali in Venice, renowned composers such as Caldara, Cimarosa,


6 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Hasse, Jommelli, Lotti and Porpora were engaged to direct and teach and to compose works in the

most up-to-date styles for talented and rigorously trained women singers and instrumentalists who

began as students and progressed to become teachers and leaders; these institutions were the

forerunner of later conservatories of music. Among the women who emerged as leaders within these

conservatories were several composers whose works, some of which compare favourably with those

of their famous teachers, have begun to receive the attention of musical scholars. Founded to

provide charitable relief for the indigent, the chronically ill and orphans (hence the derivation of the

word ‘conservatory’), the ospedali began in the mid-16th century to offer musical training to the

female orphans in their care. By the mid-17th century, this training and the opportunities it opened

for its recipients became so desirable that the daughters of Venice’s patrician and noble families,

who were neither orphans nor indigent, sought admission. Talented young women of lower

socioeconomic status who were not orphans were recruited and accepted as what would today be

called scholarship students. Eachospedale had a large church building attached to it in which

services and concerts featured the singing and playing of the student ensembles. Although the

orchestras sometimes included male teachers playing alongside their female students, the choruses

were made up entirely of women. These choruses were not large – perhaps no more than 20

singers as a rule – but on at least one important occasion, a concert in 1782 in honour of Emperor

Joseph II, the four ospedali combined to create a force of over 100 singers and instrumentalists. The

music historian Charles Burney spent several days in 1771 investigating the ospedali. In his Present

State of Music in France and Italy (1771), he gave a decidedly favourable description of what he

saw and heard, commenting as follows on technical aspects of the choral ensembles:

“As the choruses are wholly made up of female voices; they are never in more

than three parts, often only in two D. Many of the girls sing in the counter-tenor

[range] as low as A and G, which enables them always to keep below the soprano

and mezzo soprano, to which they sing the bass.”

James G. Smith

3. The Baroque.

The general enlargement of church and chapel choirs that had taken place during the Renaissance

was not carried forward to any great extent during the period from 1600 to 1750. As in the previous

period, unusually large choirs occasionally flourished as a result of favourable patronage: the

French royal chapel in the second half of the 17th century, for example, consisted of about 60

singers, Louis XIV having doubled its former size in order to make it a sufficiently splendid

representative of his opulent court. For the celebration of particularly important occasions,

untypically large choral bodies were sometimes created either by combining two or more choirs or by

enlarging a single choir through the temporary employment of additional singers. The choirs of the

Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey were customarily combined at English coronations, and on at

least one occasion, the funeral of Handel in 1759, they performed in conjunction with the choir of St

Paul’s Cathedral as well. Extra singers were often employed at, for example, S Petronio, Bologna, in

connection with the feast on 4 October of the church’s patron saint; in 1687, a typical year, the basic

16-voice choir was augmented by 49 additional singers. On the other hand, Baroque choirs were

often smaller than their Renaissance predecessors. Periods of adversity were sometimes the result

of external circumstances: for instance, German choirs suffered a drastic shortage of adult male

singers during the Thirty Years War (1618–48), and English choirs, already adversely affected

during the Civil War (1642–9), ceased to exist altogether during the Commonwealth and

Protectorate (1649–60). Towards the end of the Baroque era, indifference on the part of patrons had

a deleterious effect on choirs. English choirs, although they had been re-established at

pre-Commonwealth strength immediately following the Restoration in 1660, were allowed to

degenerate in both size and quality by Charles II’s successors. Lack of affirmative patronage is also

reflected in the memorandum that Bach submitted in 1730 to the Leipzig town council. In his ‘Short

but most necessary draft for a well-appointed church music, with certain modest reflections on the

decline of the same’, he complained of the inferior quality of some of the singers assigned to him and

enumerated the minimum number of singers required to serve the three Leipzig churches in which


7 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

concerted music and motets were performed; this minimum number, according to him, was 36 –

three choristers, one of whom also functioned as a soloist, for each of the four parts of three

12-voice choirs. However, notwithstanding the existence from time to time and place to place of

larger and smaller choirs, the choir of 30–40 voices which had become common during the

Renaissance continued to be regarded as a satisfactory norm throughout the Baroque era. S Marco,

Venice, had a choir of 36 in the late 17th century; as has been stated above, the Cappella Sistina

numbered 32 from 1625; the restored Chapel Royal of England consisted of 44 singers from 1660 to

1689, 34 from 1689 to 1715 and 38 thereafter; Buxtehude employed a choir of about 30 in his

Abendmusik concerts at Lübeck during the last three decades of the 17th century; and even Bach,

when major undertakings warranted the use of all his singers in a single performance, possessed a

choir of 36.

Thus choirs did not generally grow in size during the Baroque period, primarily because they were

expensive. For this reason, solutions less costly and more effective than the mere multiplication of

voices were devised to satisfy the Baroque concern for increased sonority. Contrast was the

essential factor in these solutions, one of which involved polychoral performance and spatial

distribution of the voices, others the use of solo–tutti contrasts and of independent choral and

instrumental bodies in a concertato style.

Music for two or more choirs was not a new development of the Baroque period. Mention has

already been made of a performance by antiphonal choirs at a 1475 wedding celebration, of decani–

cantoris antiphony in English Renaissance music and of a motet for eight choirs by Tallis. Polychoral

works were produced by many other Renaissance composers, among them Palestrina at Rome and

Willaert at Venice. Performance by CORI SPEZZATI – literally ‘broken’ choirs, that is, choirs spatially

separated from one another – was indicated for several psalm compositions by Willaert which were

published in 1550 under the designation ‘salmi spezzati’. It was, however, during the early 17th

century that performance by two or more choirs in a concertato manner was fully exploited. Choirs of

like timbre (e.g. SATB/SATB) as well as those of unlike timbre (e.g. SSAT/SATB/TTTB) were pitted

against one another; spatial distribution of the choirs created an illusion of increased sonority. S

Marco in Venice became famous for its use of antiphonal cori spezzati, and Venetian techniques

spread to other countries as well, especially to Germany, where they were employed by Lutheran

musicians such as Michael Praetorius and Schütz. At Rome, although the Palestrinian contrapuntal

style was perpetuated in conservative stile antico writing, polychoral performance flourished and

was expanded to unprecedented dimensions. The term ‘colossal’ has been aptly applied to Roman

polychoral performances, some of which involved as many as 12 choirs. André Maugars described

one such spectacular performance which he attended in 1639 at S Maria sopra Minerva:

“Two large organs are elevated on the two sides of the main altar, where two

choirs of music were placed. Along the nave were eight more choirs, four on one

side and four on the other, raised on platforms eight or nine feet high, separated

from one another by the same distance and facing one another. With each choir

there was a small organ.”

The grand style of Roman polychoral performance was exported to other countries, notably to

Austria. Indeed, the colossal Baroque style can be said to have reached a climax in the later 17th

century with the 53-part polychoral mass formerly attributed to Orazio Benevoli but now thought to

be by Biber or Andreas Hofer. Polychoral distribution of the voices, although never again so

extensively employed as in the 17th century, remained a device occasionally used by composers of

all later periods.

Contrasts between large and small choirs or between soloist(s) and choir(s) were sometimes

employed in both Venetian and Roman polychoral performances, but such quantitative contrasts,

probably because they contributed to a lesser degree to the illusion of increased sonority, were not

an indispensable feature of the splendid performances of Italian music that occurred during the 17th

century. In the last half of the century, however, solo–tutti contrast constituted an essential feature of

choral performances in both England and France. The French grand motet depended for its identity

on a juxtaposition of grand choeur and petit choeur, the latter consisting of solo voices, and the

Restoration verse anthem, like its Renaissance forerunner, was similarly identified by contrast

between soloists (verse) and chorus.


8 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Since there was no general increase in the number of participants, solo–tutti contrast and polychoral

disposition of the singers made a contribution more illusory than real to increased sonority. Initially at

least, similar circumstances prevailed in connection with concertato deployment of instrumental

ensembles. The same instruments that had previously functioned as an integral part of the choir,

reinforcing or replacing ad libitum the individual vocal parts, were organized in the late 16th and

early 17th centuries into independent ensembles which, functioning now as one or more of the

separate choirs of polychoral works, were pitted against the voices. At first, as in a 1587 collection of

polychoral compositions by the Venetian composers Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli which appeared

under the title Concerti ' continenti musica di chiesa, composers began to express a generalized

desire for vocal–instrumental contrast, but without designating either the specific parts to be

assigned to instruments or the specific instruments to be used. As time passed, specific instrumental

designations began to appear and the contrast between voices and instruments was heightened by

concomitant developments in the differentiation of vocal and instrumental idioms. Not only was there

a shift from a colla parteto a concertato use of melody instruments in the early Baroque period but

the organ also began to function in a new role, underpinning the vocal and instrumental choirs with a

virtually indispensable continuo part. Shortly after 1600, as the instruments of concertato ensembles

began to be specifically designated, a real increase in sonority resulted from enlargement of the

instrumental groups. The aforementioned 53-part mass, for example, was written for two eight-part

vocal choirs; two six-part choirs of string instruments; a six-part choir of flutes and oboes; a

seven-part choir of trumpets, cornetts and trombones; two four-part choirs of trumpets, one with

timpani; and three organs, two of them functioning as continuo instruments with the vocal choirs and

the third playing a master basso seguente part. The instrumental ensembles participating in early

Baroque performances of choral music were not standardized, but as the period progressed, choirs

performed more frequently with homogeneous groups of instruments, most often strings, and with

regularly constituted orchestras. In Louis XIV’s royal chapel, for example, the famed ‘24 Violons du

Roi’ played a prominent role in performances of concerted motets, and a similar band of string

instruments, organized by Charles II in imitation of it, participated in Chapel Royal performances of

many English verse anthems. Similar string groups and orchestras also existed in many churches

and cathedrals. Buxtehude’s choir of 30 or so voices performed with a string ensemble of about 15

players, and Bach, in his 1730 memorandum to the Leipzig town council, specified the need for an

orchestra of about 18 players. At S Petronio, Bologna, in the previously cited typical year of 1687,

the normal 16-voice choir sang regularly with an orchestra of 13 players, and the 49 singers added

to the choir to celebrate the feast of the church’s patron saint were balanced by an additional 28

instrumentalists. By the end of the Baroque period, continuo underpinning was virtually an

ever-present element in choral music and fully developed orchestral accompaniments were a normal

part of most choral performances.

The foundations of opera were laid by the musicians, poets and scholars of the Florentine

Camerata, who had as their goal the renewal of musical practices associated with ancient Greek

drama. Although concerned chiefly with the creation of a monodic style of declamation suitable for

the individual expression of passionate utterances, they recognized that the restoration of Greek

practices required the use of the chorus not merely as a decorative element, as had been the case

in intermedi (which were among the immediate theatrical predecessors of the opera), but in the roles

of interlocutor and commentator as well. Moreover, early composers of operas, especially

Monteverdi, discovered that the chorus served a useful purpose from a purely musical point of view

by providing contrast and structural delineation amid the unvarying style that prevailed in solo song

before the development of stylistic contrast between recitative and aria. The chorus therefore played

a structurally important role, dramatically and musically, in early opera, especially in the works of

Monteverdi and in those of Roman composers. At about the time that Venice emerged as a leading

centre of operatic activity, a variety of circumstances – theoretical, musical, and practical – combined

to reduce the importance of the chorus in Italian opera: a waning of speculative interest in the

restoration of Greek drama undercut the theoretical basis on which the dramatic importance of the

chorus had initially been predicated; developing stylistic differentiation between recitative and aria

eliminated the previous need for choral delineation of musical structure; and most important,

increasing reliance on public support, rather than, as previously, on the support of munificent

patrons, demanded the elimination of the extravagance of choristers’ salaries. After about 1640 the

chorus virtually disappeared from Italian opera; only in festival operas produced at the italianate

courts of such Austrian and German centres as Vienna and Munich, where opera continued to be

supported by wealthy patrons rather than by the public, did the chorus retain something of its former

importance. In the late 17th century and in the 18th, the chorus flourished briefly in French operas by

Lully, Rameau and their contemporaries, as it did also in English theatrical music of the Restoration,


9 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

especially in the works of Purcell (e.g. Dido and Aeneas in which the chorus, with Belinda as its

leader, functions very much in the manner of its Greek ancestor).

At about the time of its disappearance from Italian opera, the chorus began to be used in the

oratorios which were just then becoming popular in Rome. Supported by church societies, the

Roman oratorio was not subject to the budgetary difficulties that adversely affected the chorus in

publicly supported opera. The oratorio initially possessed a dramatic libretto in which a sacred story

was recounted; non-sacred subjects of a moralizing nature were also used at a later time. These

dramatic texts were usually presented, however, without benefit of scenery, costumes or stage

action. Under these circumstances the chorus was found to be useful not only in its ancient role of

commentator and in its operatic role of collective persona but also for the purposes of narrating the

action and compensating for the lack of visual representation. The chorus flourished particularly in

the oratorios of Carissimi and, outside Italy, in those of Charpentier and Schütz. During the last

decades of the 17th century a few Italian composers of oratorios (e.g. Stradella and Legrenzi) made

extensive use of the chorus, but by the end of the century Italian oratorio, like the opera for which it

served by that time as a Lenten substitute, featured the singing of virtuoso soloists to the virtual

exclusion of the chorus. In the first half of the 18th century, Italian oratorios in which the chorus

played a prominent part were produced in Vienna. It was, however, in the English oratorios of

Handel that the chorus, enjoying a reversal of its earlier exclusion from opera due to economic

considerations, became an element of central importance. Handel, whose entrepreneurial ventures

in opera had ended in failure, discovered as a result of several fortuitous circumstances the

profitability of a kind of public entertainment that, although presented in the same theatres that had

formerly housed his operatic works, dispensed with expensive scenic trappings and highly paid

Italian virtuosos and substituted for them an expanded use of the relatively inexpensive chorus.

Handel gave the chorus an importance, invariably structural and sometimes quantitative, that

outweighed that of the solo singers. He often, as in Israel in Egypt, assigned the chorus the role of

idealized protagonist, writing brilliant and varied movements on a grand scale and sometimes

combining two or more consecutively to form multi-movement choral structures on an exceptionally

large scale. Through his emphasis on the chorus he developed the oratorio far beyond its original

scope and produced works that were destined to serve as models for many later generations of

oratorio composers, especially in England.

Little documentary evidence is available concerning the size and other physical characteristics of

Baroque opera and oratorio choruses. A rare insight into the size of the chorus in the earliest operas

is provided by Marco da Gagliano’s specification, in the preface to his Dafne (1608), that the chorus

should be composed of ‘no more than 16 or 18 singers’; it is also known that at Vicenza in 1585 a

group of 15 singers, a number determined by the supposed size of the ancient Sophoclean chorus,

performed the music composed by Andrea Gabrieli for the choruses of the drama Edippo Tiranno.

Probably the choruses employed in early Italian operas were generally no larger than these. Indeed,

evidence shows that the designation ‘coro’ was sometimes used in these early operas to refer to an

ensemble which, although it functioned dramatically as a chorus, was composed of only one singer

for each part. Except at the German and Austrian courts, where operas were produced on a grander

scale, this latter practice became the norm for all Italian operas after about 1640. In Handel’s operas,

for example, the final ensembles, although designated ‘coro’, were performed by the principals. The

chorus in French opera was at first no larger than its Italian predecessor. Cambert’sPomone,

produced in 1671, employed a chorus of 15 singers and an orchestra of 13. Larger groups were

organized by Lully and his successors. From at least 1713 the orchestra of the Académie Royale de

Musique consisted of 46 players, and it was presumably balanced by a chorus not too dissimilar in

size: in 1754, when the orchestra still numbered just under 50, there was a chorus of 38. It is

impossible to determine the extent to which women participated in Baroque opera choruses. They

appeared from the outset in solo roles. Moreover, in 1681 female dancers were admitted to the

French operaticcorps de ballet, and it may be reasonable to suppose that at this time female singers

– if they had ever been excluded – were also licensed to appear in operatic choruses. They had

definitely been admitted by 1754; of the 38 choristers employed in that year, 17 were women. It has

been generally assumed that the structurally and dramatically important choruses of early Italian

oratorios were sung by choral groups no smaller, perhaps even considerably larger, than the

average church choirs of the period, but there is at present no direct evidence for this assumption.

Maugars, whose account of music performed at a Roman church service (see above) included

ample description of the use of choirs, provided an analogous account of a 1639 Roman oratorio

performance in which he mentioned the singing of an introductory motet but omitted any reference to

a chorus. He was apparently unimpressed by the singing of the oratorio chorus – or perhaps there


10 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

was no chorus, the introductory motet having been sung by an ensemble composed of the soloists

who later portrayed the various characters in the oratorio. The instrumentation of two violins and

continuo typically used by Carissimi and his contemporaries suggests that the chorus was only of

modest size, but later Italian oratorios, particularly those produced at Vienna during the 18th century,

used larger orchestras and may therefore have required appropriately larger choruses. The English

oratorios of Handel, however, were often more fully orchestrated still and virtually always more

emphatically choral than any previous oratorios; yet their choruses were generally performed by

groups of about 25 singers, sometimes even fewer, this number including the soloists who are

known to have participated at times in the singing of the choral movements. For the 1758 Foundling

Hospital performance of Messiah, for example, Handel’s forces consisted of 13 adult male

choristers, six boy choristers, three male and three female soloists and an orchestra of 33. Regularly

employed as members of the choirs of the Chapel Royal, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s

Cathedral, Handel’s choristers found in the oratorio a welcome opportunity for part-time employment.

They were probably typical in this respect of most of the choral singers in Baroque performances of

non-ecclesiastical music, for although opera and oratorio provided additional vocational

opportunities for professional choristers, the church remained, throughout the Baroque period, the

principal educator and employer of choral singers.

James G. Smith

4. From the mid-18th century to the later 19th.

During the last years of his life Handel’s oratorios were increasingly performed in the English

provinces, generally in conformity with practices familiar in London. His death turned what had

already become a cult almost into a religion. In 1759 there were many commemorative Handel

performances, not only in London but also in Oxford, Cambridge and other large towns and in the

small village of Church Langton, near Leicester, where there was a two-day festival. In the same

year, at the Three Choirs Festival at Hereford, Messiah, which like the other oratorios had been

previously performed only in secular buildings, was for the first time sung in a cathedral. Almost from

the beginning of Handel’s career as an oratorio composer, the profits on performances of his works

had helped sustain charities, and as the need for investment in hospitals became more urgent, so

the cult of Handel, assisted by the editions of Randall and Arnold, grew even stronger during the

remainder of the 18th century.

The centenary of Handel’s birth was celebrated in 1784 (a year prematurely) with a festival of his

works in Westminster Abbey; 300 singers and 250 instrumentalists participated. The singers came

from various parts of England, and, as a result of the impressions they carried home with them to

their local choral organizations, large-scale performances became the rule rather than the exception.

As far as interpretation was concerned, the 1784 commemoration was a watershed, for from then

until modern times the main emphasis was on large numbers and broad effects, with the orchestra

reduced to a supporting role. The success of the 1784 commemoration was followed by other

Handel festivals in Westminster Abbey: in 1785 there were 616 participants, in 1786 749, in 1787

806, and in 1791 (when Haydn was present) the number had increased to more than 1000. In the

same year the festival in York Minster comprised a force of 100 singers and players, but at the more

important festival of 1823 there were 465 (‘vocal band’ 285, ‘instrumental band’ 180), including 49

female and 13 boy trebles and 55 altos, all men. It was not always the case at this time, however,

that women were included in festival choruses. In the Norwich Festival chorus of 1830 there were 70

trebles, 38 countertenors, 61 tenors and 65 basses; in a memorandum giving these numbers

Edward Bunnett noted ‘no ladies at this period’.

The stimulus given by Handel’s works to choral singing in Britain (already noted in F.W. Marpurg:

Historisch-kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik, 1758) was to some extent paralleled on the

Continent. At Hamburg, Michael Arne directed performances of German versions of Alexander’s

Feast and Messiah in the early summer of 1772, and these works and aTe Deum by Handel were

included in the concert series given in the 1775–6 season in the Handlungsakademie. German

performances of Messiah were stimulated by translations of the text by Herder, J.A. Hiller and

Klopstock. One of the most important of these performances was directed by Hiller on 19 March

1786 in Berlin Cathedral; there were 305 singers and players. Hiller also arranged two performances


11 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

of Messiah later in the year in the university church at Leipzig, where he used 90 singers and rather

more orchestral players. During the years 1788–90, Mozart, on commission from the Prefect of the

Imperial Court Library, Gottfried van Swieten, reorchestrated four of Handel’s works: Acis and

Galatea, Messiah, Alexander’s Feastand the Ode for St Cecilia’s Day. Mozart’s expanded use of

woodwinds in Messiah became closely associated with 19th-century performances of that work and

his version remained in use well into the 20th century.

As in England, where the cult of Handel provided an impetus for the use of grandiose performing

forces, the numbers in continental choruses grew, particularly in response to special needs and

occasions. At Naples in 1774, 300 performed the music at Jommelli’s funeral. In Vienna, oratorios

were given in 1773 by 400 performers, in 1811 by more than 700 while in 1812 1000 took part in

Handel’s ode Alexander’s Feast. Annual oratorio performances involving such forces took place in

Vienna until 1847.

As choruses grew larger, participation of amateur singers supplanted the reliance on professionals

which had been characteristic of oratorio and church music performances in earlier times, and the

distinction between church and civic venues began to blur. To some extent, this emancipation of

‘sacred’ music from its former confinement in the ecclesiastical arena was brought about by a new

concept of social obligation, symbolized by the sorts of charity set up during the Enlightenment. As

regards the development of the chorus, one of the most important of these charitable enterprises

was the Tonkünstler-Societät of Vienna, for which a constitution was drawn up in 1771; it was

modelled on the Society of Musicians in London and catered for the needs of indigent members of

the musical profession and their dependants. On 29 March 1772 Gassmann’sBetulia liberata was

performed under its auspices and was so well received that further performances were given on 1

and 5 April. Haydn was greatly interested in the society and composed for it his Il ritorno di Tobia

(1774–5). Later, one of the most popular works in its repertory was his Creation, which was greatly

influenced by Handel and almost immediately after its composition joined Handel’s works in the

international repertory.

In Britain, new societies for the purpose of singing madrigals and madrigal-type music came into

being during the 18th century, either to conserve old music, as with the Madrigal Society (founded in

1741) and the aristocratic Anacreontic Society (1766), or to encourage the production of new music,

preferably of a convivial nature, as with the Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Catch Club (1761) and the

Glee Club (1783). Although they were male preserves (except for ‘ladies’ nights’), such bodies

served a useful function in developing musical literacy, especially among the middle classes, and

increasing the regard for choral music per se. The term ‘glee club’ was in due course adopted in

North America, but its meaning was extended beyond English usage to denote a choral group in

general – usually one in a high school or college and, in the late 20th century at least, all-male or

all-female – rather than a club devoted to singing catches and glees.

In the 19th century, Romanticism led to the advancement of music associated with words, and choral

music enjoyed the benefits of this. The age of the lied and the Wagnerian music drama, was also the

age of the Chorgesang and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. That choral music could prove influential

in developing political as well as religious philosophies had been shown long before, but it was to

become more evident during the epoch to which the storming of the Bastille in 1789 was the prelude.

In 1790 a popular festival to celebrate the French Revolution took place in Paris. The music for it, a

Te Deum, was composed by Gossec, who subsequently wrote a number of other choral works

reflecting his political thinking. In 1794 the National Festival – a popular yearly event – was

remarkable for the use of a chorus of 2400 voices. From this initial enthusiasm there developed in

France a male-voice choir movement, its participants largely working-class men, which from 1833

was generically known under the name ORPHÉON.

In Germany by the end of the 18th century much patriotic music for male voices was being published

in such periodicals as the Berlinische musikalische Zeitung. In 1793, with an initial membership of

30, C.F.C. Fasch established the Berlin Sing-Akademie (which was also a teaching institution) for

the purpose of protecting standards in German choral music. Encouraging developments soon

occurred throughout the German states. In 1801 an Akademischer Chor was founded in Würzburg,

in 1802 a Singakademie at Leipzig and in 1804 a Singverein at Münster; in 1806 choral societies

came into being at, among other places, Dresden, Erlangen and Kassel. Meanwhile Zelter, Fasch’s

successor at the Berliner Sing-akademie, founded the firstLIEDERTAFEL, a male-voice choir organized

as much for convivial as for musical purposes, and many similar bodies so designated (or sometimes

called Liederkranz to denote a group rather more popular in character) were later established


12 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

throughout Germany and ultimately in North American cities with large German communities. By

1839 the male-voice choirs of the German-speaking countries (often, like Orphéon choirs, composed

of working-class men) were brought together into an association known as Vereinigte Liedertafeln.

Regional festivals, usually including a competitive event, were organized for which festival

compositions were sometimes commissioned. For example, for one such festival, an 1843 gathering

of Saxon male choruses, Wagner supplied a large-scale work entitled Das Liebesmahl der Apostel.

Nowhere was the urge to nationalism stronger than in the German male-voice choral movement,

which received a great impetus in the first place from the liberation of Germany through the so-called

Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in October 1813. Typically nationalist works include Spohr’s Das

befreite Deutschland (1814) and Weber’s Kampf und Sieg(1815), while anthologies such as

Auswahl deutscher Lieder: Vaterlands- und Bundeslieder, Kriegs- und Heldenlieder nebst

Festgesänge für Siegestage (Leipzig, 1830) appeared in profusion. The importance of the

Liedertafel movement is illustrated by the fact that in 1847 Schumann undertook to conduct the one

in Dresden in succession to Ferdinand Hiller, whom he also succeeded, in 1850, as director of the

Düsseldorf Gesangverein, a mixed-voice choral society. Schumann produced several lovely but

relatively easy Liedertafel partsongs, as did a multitude of other composers. A composition that

provides some insight into the convivial nature of the Liedertafel is Brahms’s ‘Tafellied’ (1884), a

scintillating portrait of ‘ladies’ night’ at a Liedertafel gathering.

Side by side with the French and German development of choral music an important movement grew

up in Switzerland. The initial inspiration came from H.G. Nägeli, who postulated that music involving

the participation of many people in joint performance was of its very nature democratic. He founded

a Singinstitut and a Sängerverein at Zürich, and from time to time he provided them with

compositions of his own. The political character of the male-voice choir – for which much music to

politically inspired texts was provided by German composers – met with disapproval in Austria,

where the formation of such choirs was for a time forbidden. German partsongs were also written for

female ensembles by many 19th-century composers. Some, like those composed by Schubert to be

performed by the voice students of Anna Fröhlich, were intended for informal soirées and concerts

by ad hoc ensembles. Others, like those supplied by Brahms for the women’s chorus he conducted

in Hamburg from 1859 to 1861, were written for formally constituted ensembles which enjoyed an

existence similar to that of their male-voice counterparts. These women’s ensembles, however, were

far less numerous than men’s ensembles, and they were not organized, as the male groups were,

into a strong national organization that existed for the purpose of promoting their development.

In the first half of the 19th century, new choral societies (SATB) sprang up in virtually every British

town. Just as the 1784 Westminster Abbey commemoration had proved an inspiration to the country

at large so too did the festival held in the Abbey in 1834 by command of King William IV. Once again

performers came from all parts of the country; they were directed by Sir George Smart. The

conservative nature of the festival was reflected by a programme note which read: ‘To avoid giving

offence to any living Authors, it was determined, that the selection should be made, solely, from

compositions of those who had been gathered to their fathers’. Smart, who in the course of a long

life conducted some 1500 concerts, popularized the grand manner of Handel performances through

the festivals (many of them dating from the previous century) in Bath, Birmingham, Bury St

Edmunds, Cambridge, Colchester, Derby, Dublin, Edinburgh, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester and

Norwich. A remarkable growth in secular choral societies was in no small measure due to the vocal

scores that were being made increasingly available: just as in Germany Breitkopf & Härtel had seen

the commercial possibilities of the situation, so in England Alfred Novello, himself much in demand

as a bass soloist in oratorios, put himself in the van of progress by issuing material for amateur

singers at low cost. In London the Sacred Harmonic Society (1832–82) did much to widen

opportunities and also to broaden the repertory. The chorus had women to sing the treble and alto

parts (though they were invited to assist at the performances rather than being admitted to full

membership of the society). The Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace in 1859 was prompted by a

suggestion from R.K. Bowley, sometime secretary and librarian of the society. When the society’s

regular meetings came to an end through lack of proper rehearsal facilities the final report presented

to the members on 24 November 1879 stated:

“It cannot be forgotten D that to the efforts of the Sacred Harmonic Society of

forty years ago, and to the consistent course pursued by its Managers throughout

its entire history, is due the great advance which has taken place in public musical

taste, and that cultivation of oratorio music which in times gone by was only the


13 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

luxury of a few wealthy amateurs. The style of the Society’s Concerts has

furnished the type and standard of oratorio performances throughout the country.

”

It was also noted that towards the end of its existence the society had found it difficult to meet

ever-increasing costs which all but exhausted its funds. Performances patterned after the

large-scale English festivals were presented in other countries as well, most importantly in Germany,

Austria and the USA. The manner in which these festivals developed, and the principles that

inspired them, affected both architecture and composition. The centuries before the 19th had

brought to maturity a style that had evolved within great ecclesiastical buildings and for the purposes

of the ceremonies held within those buildings. The major works of the 19th century were mostly

designed for secular buildings, which were themselves not infrequently planned with the

requirements of oratorio-type music in mind. At the same time, choral festivals encouraged the

creation of new large-scale choral works; many festivals regularly commissioned composers to write

what were called ‘novelties’, and the oratorio-type works thus created were for a new category of

singers, largely amateurs and members of the emerging middle class, and a new kind of public. The

oratorio enjoyed enormous popularity, but the religious element was of relatively little significance,

except that it denoted ‘serious’ music for middle-class audiences who liked to take their pleasures

gravely. For example, works by Ferdinand Hiller, Loewe and Spohr detailing the destruction of

Jerusalem or Babylon, dramatic themes formerly treated by Handel, had their day. On the other

hand, Mendelssohn – ‘Bach’s spiritual son’, in Hanslick’s phrase – ensured himself a place beside

Handel and Haydn in the pantheon of oratorio composers with St Paul, composed for the

Cäcilienverein of Frankfurt in 1836, and Elijah, the ‘novelty’ that received its première at the

Birmingham Festival of 1846. Many of the oratorios of the Romantic era were blatantly nationalistic

in their aspirations and therefore appealed only within national frontiers. Apart from the religious and

nationalistic subjects that inspired composers, mention should also be made of the Faust theme,

which aroused so much speculation and introspection: Goethe’s masterpiece inspired works by

Berlioz and Schumann among others.

The availability of choral-orchestral forces of symphonic proportions and the acoustical possibilities

of new concert halls brought a wave of choral symphonies (or works so described) in the wake of

Beethoven, of which perhaps the most remarkable are Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (the ‘Symphony of

a Thousand’) and the ‘Gothic’ Symphony by Havergal Brian. In Romantic opera the chorus played

an increasingly important role, and certain operatic choral numbers have taken their place in popular

esteem by the side of favourite vocal and instrumental excerpts. By the end of the 19th century there

was no adequately appointed opera house without a resident chorus, just as today there are few

major orchestras which do not possess an affiliated symphonic chorus. In more recent times, at least

one opera company has developed from a choral tradition of special significance – the Welsh

National Opera (founded 1946), which grew out of the eisteddfod tradition.

In the second half of the 18th century, the choirs of Roman Catholic court chapels continued to be

made up of professional musicians. Many of these organizations were quite modest in size. In 1754

the chapels at Gotha and Breslau possessed only one-on-a-part vocal ensembles. Even the famous

chapel and chamber music establishment at Mannheim had modest vocal resources: in 1756 its

orchestra of 30 string players and ten wind players was balanced by only ‘three female and three

male sopranos [the former presumably for chamber music only], two male altos, three tenors, two

basses’ (Marpurg: Historisch-kritische Beyträge). On the other hand, the archbishop’s Kapelle at

Salzburg in 1757 – the year after the birth of Mozart – had a smaller orchestra, less than 20 string

players about ten wind players, and a much more grand vocal complement of 10 solo singers (5

male sopranos, 3 tenors and 2 basses), 15 boy choristers and 29 adult male choristers (4 altos, 12

tenors and 13 basses). From 1772 to 1867, the Hofmusikkapelle of the imperial court at Vienna, with

an orchestra of about 30, had a choral contingent which hovered at around 20 members, of whom

half were boys evenly divided between soprano and alto (no women and no adult male sopranos or

altos). Since the Esterházy establishment in which Joseph Haydn was employed had an orchestra

slightly smaller than that of the imperial Hofkapelle, we may suppose that its vocal resources were

no larger. It was for forces such as these that the masses and other liturgical music of Haydn, Mozart

and their contemporaries were written. Towards the end of the 18th century, a series of reforms

promulgated by Joseph II attempted to curb what the emperor viewed as excessively ostentatious

displays of ecclesiastical opulence. As a result of these reforms, certain limitations were placed on

composers. A well-known instance of this involves the restrictions imposed by Archbishop Colloredo


14 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Group of singers performingRenaissance music at theHeidelberg homeD

on Mozart as to the maximum amount of time which could be taken up by the musical setting of the

mass ordinary. But counterbalancing these attempts to discipline and limit composers was a

prevailing tendency, in the wake of the French Revolution, to recognize the need to allow composers

freedom of expression. The ultimate in this respect was Beethoven’s Mass in D, composed for an

archbishop’s enthronement but destined to take its place among the small group of works that

forever test anew the resourcefulness of secular choruses. Ecclesiastical theories concerning the

nature of sacred music were put under great strain by this work and also by later self-assertive

masterpieces on liturgical texts by Berlioz, Verdi and, in most of his masses, Bruckner. These works

were a far cry from the ideal of Palestrina and the a cappellastyle. The Requiem by Berlioz, with its

huge instrumental component which was balanced by a chorus of 200 at its first performance in

1837, is one of the foremost examples of gigantism in the 19th century. Verdi’s Requiem took the

theatre into the church, the first performance in 1874 being given in S Marco, Milan, by a selected

choir of 120 trained singers and an orchestra of 110.

The 19th-century Roman Catholic Church, along with some

non-Catholic musical conservationists, espoused the view that a

special virtue was attached to 16th-century polyphony. Among those

who set out to revive interest in it was A.F.J. Thibaut, Schumann’s law

professor at Heidelberg, who brought together in his home a group of

singers to perform Renaissance music (fig.1). In London the Motet

Society, with Edward Rimbault as secretary and editor, came into

being in 1841 as a consequence of the emphasis on liturgical

propriety by the ritualistic Oxford Movement. Giuseppe Baini’s

pioneering study of the style of Palestrina’s music (Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere

di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina) appeared in 1828 and was published in German (Über das

Leben und die Werke des G. Pierluigi da Palestrina) in 1834; it provided the Catholic reform

movement with an icon whose name was associated with all that was good and proper about

Renaissance polyphony. It was at this time, too, that the terma cappella began to be accepted as

synonymous with ‘unaccompanied’. About 1600 a distinction began to be made between the old

style of the Renaissance, for which Palestrina’s music served as a model (PRIMA PRATICA), and the

new style of the Baroque (seconda pratica). By the middle of the 17th century the terma cappella

had become associated with the old style, notably in Christoph Bernhard’s widely circulated

manuscript treatise Tractatus compositionis augmentatus. But 19th-century musicians, noting that

no instrumental parts were included in the sources in which 16th-century polyphonic works were

found, believed the term to have been used to designate the type of ensemble required – i.e. voices

only, no instruments – rather than style. The question of forces had not been an issue in the

preceding centuries. Although unaccompanied voices were always heard in the papal chapel in the

16th century, elsewhere instruments were sometimes used to replace absent voices or to enrich the

sound on special occasions. In the 18th century, stile anticocompositions had almost invariably

included a basso continuo to be played on the organ. In the 19th century, however, many people

(following Baini, who stressed the unaccompanied style of the papal chapel) wished, as the cult of

Palestrina progressed, to return to the ideal of unaccompanied singing, designated by the term a

cappella. In 1868, in order to promote the ideals associated with the Palestrina style, the Catholic

church choirs of the German-speaking countries were brought together into the Allgemeiner

Cäcilienverein, a powerful reform organization named in honour of the patron saint of music. The

principles of Cecilianism, as this reform movement has been called, were formally endorsed in the

1903 Motu proprio of Pius X. One direction found in this encyclical is particularly pertinent to the

subject of choral development: ‘wherever it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and

contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the church’.

Protestant church music in Germany was also influenced by a reverence for its musical past.

Moreover for historical reasons German Protestantism had been closely allied with nationalism, and

in the 19th century the urge of the latter stimulated concern for the musical heritage of the former.

State schools of church music were established at Breslau (in 1810), Königsberg (1812) and Berlin

(1822), the last being the creation of Zelter, who was its first director. A great deal of music and

literature was published to provide new material for general use. Key works were Über den Gesang

in den Kirchen der Protestanten (1817), Thibaut’s Über Reinheit der Tonkunst(1825), the Berliner

Gesangbuch (1829), C.F. Becker’s Kirchengesänge von J.S. Bach (1843), the Eisenacher

Gesangbuch (1854) and the various works of C.J.V. von Winterfeld published between 1832 and

1850. The so-called Bach revival – incorrectly supposed to have begun with Mendelssohn’s

performance of the St Matthew Passion with the Berlin Sing-Akademie in 1829 – is to be seen in the


15 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

context of a general revival of Lutheran church music.

A revival of interest in Britain in the classics of the Anglican tradition coincided with a feeling on the

part of many church musicians that the authorities of the Church of England were negligent in their

maintenance of the choral foundations. In 1841 a large number of organists sent a petition to the

deans and chapters of the cathedrals requesting them not to implement their proposals to economize

in this area. None worked harder than S.S. Wesley to restore the standard of church music. In 1849,

when he was organist of the new parish church at Leeds, where daily sung services were

maintained, he published the first of two pamphlets relating to the improvement of music ‘in Divine

Worship’. In 1856 Sir F.A.G. Ouseley devoted much of his private fortune to the foundation of St

Michael’s College, Tenbury Wells, the main purposes of which were to provide a standard for church

music and to train choristers. A popular tradition of choralism derived from the Methodist and

collateral evangelical movements and gathered new strength through the wish of many among the

working classes to perform not only hymns and gospel songs but also oratorios and cantatas. There

was a consequent broadening of musical literacy. Many volumes of favourite hymns contained

guides to theory, and instruction became available in mechanics’ institutes and Sunday schools. The

influence of Joseph Mainzer, author of Singing for the Millions and other works, and of John

Curwen, promoter of the tonic sol-fa system, was of inestimable benefit. Earlier, in the last half of the

18th century, musical literacy in Anglican parish churches (both urban and rural) and in

nonconformist chapels had been the object of the educational efforts and publications of a large

number of composers, often self-taught, whose principal advantage was their intimate knowledge of

the singers for whom they wrote. These men were frequently itinerant teachers whose singing

schools involved the formation of choruses, which often became, after the singing masters had

departed, the embryos from which the choirs of small churches developed.

English parish and village choirs created in this manner provided what may have been the earliest

opportunities for women to participate along with men in church choirs. Nicholas Temperley (The

Music of the English Parish Church) has called attention to the following passage from a satirical

work of 1727 by Alexander Pope in which a fictional parish clerk recounts having tutored both ‘the

young men and maidens to tune their voices as it were a psaltery; and the church on the Sunday

was filled with these new hallelujahs’. On the Continent, women were still a rarity in church choirs in

1772 when Charles Burney noted in his Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and

the United Provinces (1773) that at the Stephansdom in Vienna ‘there was a girl who sung a solo

verse in the Credo extremely well’. At the cathedral of St Bartholomäus in Frankfurt, Burney found

that the choir ‘was not furnished with singers of great talent, but yet there were a number of girls,

who, though the service was that of the Roman catholics, were many of them Lutherans or

Calvinists, that chanted with the priests and canons’; and in connection with a service he heard at

the church of Ste Gudule in Brussels, Burney opined that he:

“was glad to find among the [band of voices] two or three women, who, though

they did not sing well, yet their being employed, proved that female voices might

have admission to the church, without giving offence or scandal to piety, or even

bigotry. If the practice were to become general of admitting women to sing the

soprano part in the cathedrals, it would, in Italy, be a service to mankind, and in

the rest of Europe render church-music infinitely more pleasing and perfect.”

Veneration of the ideal past, a characteristic of the Romantic ethos in all the arts, manifested itself

not only in church music, as described above, but also in concert music and in the establishment of

choral societies named after and devoted to performing the works of individual great composers of

earlier times. The Beethoven Festival of 1845, when the statue of the composer was unveiled at

Bonn, brought musicians from all over Europe to hear choral works not only by Beethoven but also

by Liszt and other, lesser composers; it also necessitated the building of a new concert hall. The

centenary of Bach’s death caught the force of a tide already favourable to his genius. Bach

Societies were formed, and Bach Choirs followed. The Bach Choir was founded in London in 1875

and stimulated similarly named bodies in many parts of the country. The Handel centenary in 1859

brought into being the Great Handel Festival Chorus in England, with various supporting ‘Amateur

Divisions’ in different parts of the country, and the consequent long tradition of the Crystal Palace

Handel Festival. Held triennially until 1926, this festival exemplified good intentions married to

doubtful taste, but it gave great satisfaction to performers and audiences alike.


16 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Many of the groups of settlers who established themselves in North America during the 17th and

18th centuries were religious communities. Music was important to some of these groups, most

notably the Moravian Brethren (or Unitas Fratrum) who established communities in Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania, and Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina. The Moravians produced some

outstanding composers and maintained choirs and orchestras on a par with those of Europe, but

they remained, as a matter of religious principle, isolated within their insular settlements, and

therefore had virtually no influence on contemporaneous American music. Of much more importance

during the 18th century were the so-called Yankee tunesmiths, self-taught composers and teachers

who travelled from place to place – sometimes in urban centres such as Boston but more often in

small rural communities – offering singing schools at which they taught the rudiments of music, sold

tunebooks of their own creation and formed choruses. It was formerly believed that these itinerant

singing masters emerged without precedent, arising more or less spontaneously on the American

scene, but Temperley has shown that there were English antecedents for these men and their

methods. William Billings has long been deservedly recognized as the leading figure among Yankee

tunesmiths and, notwithstanding the debt he owed to his English predecessors, he was a man of

great imagination and originality. He issued six collections of sacred music for popular use. In his

Continental Harmony (1794) formal instruction in music theory was presented in the form of an

entertaining dialogue (in the manner of Thomas Morley’s Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall

Musicke of 1597) between master and pupil. Billings and his co-workers made a great contribution

to musical literacy in 18th-century America, and their enthusiasm for music, especially choral music,

was infectious. In many small communities the singing school choruses they organized were

transformed after their departure into church choirs. In keeping with the egalitarian principles of the

new country in which they came into being, the singing school choruses and the church choirs which

were their successors were open to male and female participants of all ages.

During the 19th century, later generations of singing masters – whose music became associated

with a newly invented notational system in which variously shaped notes were associated with

solmization syllables (seeSHAPE-NOTE HYMNODY) – carried the traditions of the Yankee tunesmiths to

rural and frontier communities of the American South and West, but in the cultural centres of the

eastern USA, choral development was patterned after European practices. Men who prized orthodox

musical learning – Lowell Mason, Thomas Hastings, W.B. Bradbury and others – railed against what

they considered to be the immature crudity of the music of Billings and his colleagues and advocated

imitation of the more refined and sophisticated music of Europe. It is by no means certain that this

imitation of Europe made an immediately positive contribution to the development of musical

composition by American composers, but there can be no doubt that it contributed greatly to the

proliferation and development of choral groups. Among the earliest were the Handel and Haydn

Society of Boston (founded 1815) and the Sacred Music Society of New York (1823). Towards

mid-century, German emigrés formed singing societies modelled after those already in existence in

Germany. In New York, the Deutsche Liederkranz was organized in 1847, and a rival organization,

the Männergesangverein Arion, was set up in 1854. Similar Germanic convivial music societies were

established in the Mid-western cities of Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati and in other centres with

large German communities. Glee clubs were organized on English models. Among the most notable

were the Mendelssohn Glee Club (New York, 1866), the Apollo Club (Boston, 1871), the Apollo Club

(Chicago, 1872) and the Mendelssohn Club (Philadelphia, 1874). Glee clubs and Germanic singing

societies began almost invariably as all-male convivial organizations, but often evolved into large

choral societies of mixed voices. Many societies were formed specifically to perform large-scale

choral works with orchestra. The Oratorio Society of New York (1873) was the best-known civic

chorus, but oratorio societies were also established in most major cities. Other large choruses

followed the example of the Handel and Haydn Society in naming themselves after famous

European composers: a Mendelssohn Society (1858) and a Beethoven Society (1873) were

founded in Chicago, and the Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) Bach Choir, tracing its ancestry back to

18th-century Moravian roots, was founded in 1898 and sponsored the first of its annual Bach

Festivals in 1900. Choral festivals were organized along British and German lines. The Cincinnati

May Festival, which began as an all-male Sängerfest in 1849, converted to a festival for a chorus of

mixed voices in 1873, in which year there was a chorus of 800 and an orchestra of over 100, and in

1880 a permanent May Festival Chorus of 600 singers was established. In 1856 the Handel and

Haydn Society of Boston sponsored the first American event initiated as a festival for a chorus of

mixed voices: in that year 600 singers and an orchestra of 78 participated. The largest festivals held

in the USA during the 19th century were the Peace Jubilees which took place in Boston in 1869 and

1872. These were gargantuan affairs: in 1869 there were more than 10,000 choristers and 1000

instrumentalists, and in 1872 these numbers doubled.


17 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

Black Americans developed a choral idiom of great vitality in which African and European elements

were combined (see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, §II, 2 and SPIRITUAL, §II). In 1878 George Grove was

present at a service in a black Methodist church in Philadelphia and was greatly impressed by the

vigour of the singing and the wide contrasts in mood and dynamics. Grove’s experience was shared

by many as the spirituals of the recently emancipated black slaves became known. One group in

particular, the JUBILEE SINGERS, a small touring ensemble of ex-slaves from Fisk University in

Nashville, Tennessee, eloquently presented the tradition of the black spiritual to audiences

throughout America and in Britain and Germany.

In the 19th century the principle that music was universally educative was an ideal that coincided

with the provision of general education. In countries with a strong choral tradition, class-singing was

cultivated, but not always under the direction of adequately trained teachers. In America, Lowell

Mason introduced systematic music teaching in the public schools of Boston and New York, and

organized and conducted teacher-training institutes. In Britain the lead was given by John Hullah,

inspector for music in elementary schools, and John Stainer, his successor. During the 19th century,

patriotic songs (giving way in the early 20th century to folksongs) were the basis of elementary

school music. Children’s choirs were provided by obliging teachers in most Western countries for

church, civic and even national occasions; the greater the occasion the larger the choir. Thus the

number of choristers assembled for such events as the 1863 festival of the Metropolitan Schools

Choral Society in the Crystal Palace was hardly smaller than that of adults who took part in the

Handel festivals.

Percy M. Young/James G. Smith

5. The 20th century.

Two major trends – sometimes mutually contradictory, but nonetheless co-existent as the century

drew to a close – marked the progess of choral development in the 20th century. On the one hand,

there was the pursuit of a monolithic ideal in terms of choral organization and sonority. This

tendency, which predominated during the first 60 or so years of the century, was challenged, mildly

at first and more strongly from the 1960s, by a growing tendency towards differentiation:

organizational, structural, functional, timbral and stylistic.

From very early in the century, the SATB chorus of mixed voices became the favoured medium.

Female sopranos and altos were firmly entrenched in choruses large and small, sacred and secular.

Choirs of men and boys continued to exist only in a few tradition-laden ecclesiastical and academic

insitutions, primarily those of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. These all-male church

choirs, as the century progressed, became exceptional even within the Anglican and Roman

churches, and they were no longer in the forefront of choral development. Secular choruses, like

those founded during the 19th century for oratorio singing, became increasingly important. Under the

leadership of choral specialists such as the Englishman Henry Coward, these organizations pursued

the ideal of ‘artistic choralism’, as it was called in Coward’sC. T. I. [i.e. Choral Technique and

Interpretation]: the Secret (1938). In the USA, choruses associated with colleges and universities

assumed a leading role. These ensembles were often involved in what has been called the ‘a

cappella choir movement’. F. Melius Christiansen, founder of the St Olaf Choir of St Olaf College in

Northfield, Minnesota, and J.F. Williamson, founder of the Westminster Choir of Westminster Choir

College (from 1930 in Princeton, NJ) were leaders in pursuit of the a cappella ideal. Their methods

and goals were communicated to large contingents of choral conducting disciples, who made the

unaccompanied chorus pervasive in colleges, high schools and churches throughout the USA. Fred

Waring, Robert Shaw and Roger Wagner, although not involved exclusively in the a cappella choir

movement, were also influential in shaping the ideals of American choral music. Although these and

other leading American choral conductors differed from one another with regard to certain technical

questions (Waring, for example, made the control of diction and blend through what he called ‘tone

syllables’ the centre of his methodology, while Christiansen became known for his emphasis on

straight tone production), they are seen in retrospect to have been united in their pursuit of an ideal

of discipline, blend, balance and tonal unity.

In addition SATB mixed-voice choruses, male-voice ensembles of tenors and basses and all-female


18 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

ensembles of sopranos and altos proliferated in American educational institutions and elsewhere.

The all-male choruses traced their ancestry in a direct line to ensembles of the 19th century and

earlier, but the all-female groups, although they had isolated antecedents in the past, gained a firm

footing as coequal with their male counterparts for the first time in the early 20th century. This was at

least partially a result of the existence enjoyed by female-voice ensembles in women’s educational

institutions, but as colleges and universities became coeducational, men’s and women’s glee clubs

continued alongside mixed choruses as standard components of a well-rounded choral music

programme. These single-gender groups tended to perform a somewhat lighter repertory than the

mixed-voice ensembles, but as they grew and developed during the 20th century, they were no less

focussed than their SATB counterparts on the achievement of ‘artistic choralism’.

As the century progressed, however, the concept of a monolithic, universally applicable choral ideal

was called into question. Nationalism, for example, and, later, multiculturalism promoted an

awareness that concepts of choral beauty differ from culture to culture, and improved

communication, especially through recordings and international touring, made this awareness

pervasive in the choral community. In the early and middle years of the century, the tendency was to

make an eclectic use of these differences by borrowing attractive features from nationally and

ethnically diverse sources, while incorporating these features within the universally admired

performance style of western Europe and the USA. Towards the end of the century, under growing

influence of multiculturalism, attempts were made to capture performance techniques associated

with diverse repertories, even if this sometimes meant sacrificing traditional views concerning choral

unity and beauty of tone.

In part, the quest to master multicultural styles is one aspect of the broader topic of authenticity in

choral performance. Similar, and of more consequence, is the concern for historical accuracy which

has arisen among choral conductors as a result of musicological elucidation of performing-practice

issues. At the end of the century it was generally recognized that the style of performance

appropriate to the music of one historical period might not be equally appropriate to the music of

another. This attention to performing-practice issues affected not only performing styles, but also the

choice of forces. Although pre-Baroque, Baroque and Classical works continued sometimes to be

performed by large choruses like those preferred during the 19th century, there was a tendency to

restore pre-1800 works to the dimensions originally envisioned by their composers. Thus, Handel’s

oratorios, for example, were often performed by choruses and orchestras only a fraction of the size

of those employed in pre-1950 performances. The initial fervour to achieve historical accuracy in

early music restored to favour the choirboy (in secular terminology described as a boy chorister or

boy soprano, the latter replacing the time-honoured ‘treble’), but by the end of the century

early-music ensembles tended to employ women sopranos, often seeking from them a boy-like

quality. Many large choruses that specialized in singing oratorio-type literature began to mix adult

male falsettists with female altos in order to achieve a more penetrating alto part (but it is not clear

whether this was being done as a restoration of practices of the 18th century and the early 19th, or

simply as a useful technique for enhancing modern performances). Perhaps the most provocative

controversy surrounding appropriate performance forces concerned whether or not Bach intended

some of his vocal works – the controversy centres on the Mass in B minor – to be performed not by

a chorus, but by an ensemble of one-on-a-part soloists: Joshua Rifkin asserts the affirmative, Robert

L. Marshall the negative.

The quest for cultural and historical accuracy demanded a new versatility, perhaps even a new

virtuosity, from choral singers. No longer were they permitted to sing all works in a single style, but

they had to master the different techniques appropriate to various styles. Recognizing that this

burden weighs heavily upon singers, especially the amateurs who continued to populate most

choruses, conductors sought an alternative solution by forming specialist choruses of various sizes

and make-ups. Madrigal groups of 12 to 16 singers were popular from mid-century. Towards the end

of the century, many groups of moderate size (generally 24–36 singers) were formed to perform

early music and the vocal chamber music of later periods. These groups, although they are often

given imaginative names (e.g. Camerata Chorus, Amor Artis Chorale, Gloriana Singers), are

generally called chamber choirs. Another type of specialist chorus that came into existence at least

partly as a result of the widening repertory horizon was the show or swing choir. These choirs

specialized in popular music and often combined singing and visual elements (dance, costumes,

etc.). Yet another type of ensemble that became a standard component of multifaceted university

choral programmes in the USA was the black chorus (usually with membership not racially

restricted). Some black choruses sang only black spirituals, gospels and so forth; others performed


19 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

a wider variety of works that included selections from the standard repertory of classical choral

music.

Some specialist ensembles looked to the future rather than the past, performing avant-garde

literature that required the use of what have been called ‘extended vocal techniques’. This term

refers to sound production through non-traditional use of the vocal mechanism: grunting, hissing,

shrieking, inhaling audibly and so forth. Ensembles specializing in extended vocal techniques have

been in existence since the 1960s. By 1971 the vocabulary of non-traditional techniques was

sufficiently well developed to generate a compendium of new notational devices associated with it

(Pooler and Pierce), and during the last decades of the 20th century many techniques developed by

groups specializing in avant-garde performance made their way into music for mainstream choruses.

In the late 20th century, choruses sometimes owed their existence to some non-musical affinity

shared by participants – e.g. age, occupation, sexual orientation. These affinity choruses often

achieved a very high level of artistic performance. Especially important musically are the superb

children’s choirs that emerged as part of municipal programmes of cultural and educational

enrichment. Many adult groups found that choral music offered a highly satisfactory method of

expressing solidarity for a cause. Perhaps the fastest growing and artistically most significant

example of this tendency has been the gay choral movement, organized internationally as GALA

Choruses (the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses). There are currently more than 150 gay

choruses in the USA, 70 in Europe, 10 in Australia and about 15 others world wide.

Another factor that contributed significantly to the development of choral music in the 20th century

was the establishment of advanced programmes of study in choral conducting. In the 1950s the

DMA degree was established in American universities as a performance-oriented analogue to the

PhD. At the end of the century the DMA degree in choral music was offered by several universities,

and hundreds of choral conductors, firmly grounded in choral literature, conducting techniques and

performing practices, had graduated from these programmes.

The 20th century witnessed the formation of several organizations dedicated to the advancement of

the choral art. The largest national organization of choral leaders, the American Choral Directors

Association (ACDA), founded in 1958, had a membership of over 16,000 in 1997. In 1981 ACDA was

one of seven national and pan-national organizations that joined together to form the International

Federation for Choral Music (IFCM); the other founding organizations were A Coeur Joie

International (France and other French-speaking countries), Arbeitsgemeinschaft Europäische

Chorverbände (Germany), Asociación Interamericana de Directors de Coros (Latin America), Europa

Cantat (a European federation of youth choruses based in Passau, Germany), the Japan Choral

Federation and the Nordiska Körkommittèn SAMNAM. Both individually and collectively as IFCM

these organizations provided opportunities for collegial interchange among conductors, held

conventions and symposia, sponsored important performances and published journals and bulletins.

Leading members of these organizations spearheaded efforts to harness for the benefit of the

worldwide choral community the most recent technological advances in rapid communication. As of

1997, ChoralNet (with branches named ChoraList, ChoralTalk and ChoralAcademe) provided

internet and e-mail services for choral professionals throughout the world. Begun by Walter Collins

of the University of Colorado at Boulder and developed by James Feiszli of the South Dakota School

of Mines and Technology, ChoralNet is now operated under the auspices of IFCM. Another internet

service provided by IFCM is MUSICA, an on-line database, developed by Jean Sturm of the

University of Strasbourg, which currently includes more than 60,000 choral compositions.

In the early centuries of the choral tradition the singers were professional, employed by royal and

noble patrons, churches and abbeys. In the 18th and 19th centuries a great expansion of interest

and opportunity placed the emphasis on amateur singers. In the second half of the 20th century the

growth of the recording industry, the needs of radio and television programmes and the film industry,

and the more exact requirements of concert and festival promoters and of contemporary composers

created a rebirth of choral professionalism. At the end of the century there were professional

choruses, either entrepreneurial or state supported, in virtually all countries in which the music of

Western civilization is performed. In the USA, an umbrella organization, Chorus America (formerly

the Association of Professional Vocal Ensembles), was formed to promote the welfare of

professional choral singing. Founded in 1977 by Michael Korn of Philadelphia, this organization had

in 1997 a membership of 550 choruses, about half of them professional, which together provide

performance opportunities for more than 25,000 singers. While professionalization proceeded, the

standards of amateur choral music, no doubt to some extent due to the professional models


20 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

available were in general significantly raised. Perhaps the most encouraging guide to this and to the

cultural opportunities inherent in the medium was the development of the A Coeur Joie movement,

founded in Lyons by César Geoffray in 1945, which spread interest in choral music among young

people throughout French-speaking countries and also into Spain, and Europa Cantat, which was

founded at Passau in 1961 to bring together young choralists from many lands and which has

continued on a triennial basis.

Percy M. Young/James G. Smith

Bibliography

MGG2 (‘A cappella’, B. Janz)

J. Crosse: An Account of the Grand Musical Festival, held in September, 1823, in the Cathedral Church of

York (York, 1825)

Sacred Harmonic Society: Annual Reports (London, 1832–80)

J. Parry: An Account of the Royal Musical Festival held in Westminster Abbey, 1834 (London, 1834)

T. Oliphant: A Brief Account of the Madrigal Society from its Institution in 1741, up to the Present Period

(London, 1835)

F. Caffi: Storia della musica sacra nella già cappella ducale di San Marco in Venezia dal 1318 al 1797

(Venice, 1854–5/R, repr. 1931); ed. E. Surian (Florence, 1987)

E. Hanslick: Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien (Vienna, 1869–70/R)

C.C. Perkins and J.S. Dwight: History of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (Boston, 1883/R)

A. von Boehm: Geschichte des Singvereins der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien (Vienna, 1908)

R. Walters: The Bethlehem Bach Choir (Boston, 1918/R)

A. Pirro: ‘Remarques sur l’exécution musicale, de la fin du 14e au milieu du 15e siécle’, IMSCR I: Liège

1930, 55–66

F. Blume: Die evangelische Kirchenmusik (1931, 2/1965 asGeschichte der evangelischen Kirchenmusik;

Eng. trans., enlarged, 1974/Ras Protestant Church Music: a History)

Catholic Church Music: the Legislation of Pius X, Benedict XV and Pius XI (Rome, 1933)

H. Coward: ‘C.T.I.’: the Secret (London, 1938)

G. Reese: Music in the Middle Ages (New York, 1940)

C. Sachs: The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, East and West (New York, 1943)

L. Bergmann: Music Master of the Middle West: the Story of F. Melius Christiansen and the St. Olaf Choir

(Minneapolis, 1944/R)

M.F. Bukofzer: ‘The Beginnings of Choral Polyphony’, Studies in Medieval & Renaissance Music (New

York, 1950), 176–86

P.M. Young: Handbook of Choral Technique (London, 1953)

G. Reese: Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1954, 2/1959)

D. Arnold: ‘Instruments in Church: some Facts and Figures’,MMR, lxxxv (1955), 32–7

G. Reaney: ‘Voices and Instruments in the Music of Guillaume de Machaut’,RBM, x (1956), 3–17, 93–104

W. Apel: Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, IN, 1958, 3/1966)

W. Dean: Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London, 1959/R)

H. Engel: Musik und Gesellschaft: Bausteine zu einer Musiksoziologie (Berlin, 1959)

The Choral Journal (1959–)


21 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

A. Friedrich: Beiträge zur Geschichte des weltlichen Frauenchöres im 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland

(Regensburg, 1961)

P.M. Young: The Choral Tradition: an Historical and Analytical Survey from the Sixteenth Century to the

Present Day (London, 1962)

R.S. Hines, ed.: The Composer’s Point of View: Essays on Twentieth-Century Choral Music by those who

Wrote it (Norman, OK, 1963/R)

E. Wienandt: Choral Music of the Church (New York, 1965/R)

R. Stevenson: Protestant Church Music in America: a Short Survey of Men and Movements from 1564 to

the Present (New York, 1966/R)

P. le Huray: Music and the Reformation in England, 1549–1660 (London,1967, 2/1978)

B. Pritchard: The Music Festival and the Choral Society in England in the 18th and 19th Centuries: a

Social History (diss., U. of Birmingham, 1968)

W. Mason: ‘The Architecture of St. Mark’s Cathedral and the Venetian Polychoral Style: a Clarification’,

Studies in Musicology: Essays ' in Memory of Glen Haydon (Chapel Hill, NC, 1969), 163–78

A. Schnoebelen: ‘Performance Practices at San Petronio in the Baroque’, AcM, xli (1969), 37–55

A. Sendrey: Music in Ancient Israel (New York, 1969)

C. Dearnley: English Church Music 1650–1750, in Royal Chapel, Cathedral and Parish Church(London,

1970)

F. Pooler and B. Pierce: New Choral Notation (New York, 1971)

H. Swan: ‘The Development of a Choral Instrument’, Choral Conducting: a Symposium, ed. H. Decker and

J. Herford (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1973), 4–55

B. Kunneke: Der Deutsche Sängerbund: Entstehung, Entwicklung und Stellung in der heutigen

Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1978)

J. Fulcher: ‘The Orphéon Societies: Music for the Workers in Second-Empire France’,IRASM, x (1979),

47–56

J. Mussulman: Dear People ' Robert Shaw: a Biography (Bloomington, IN,1979)

N. Temperley: The Music of the English Parish Church (Cambridge, 1979/R)

International Choral Bulletin (1982–)

R. Marshall: ‘Bach’s “Choruses” Reconstituted’, High Fidelity/Musical America, xxxii/10 (1982), 64–6, 94

C. Neuls-Bates, ed.: Women in Music: an Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the

Present (New York, 1982)

J. Rifkin: ‘Bach’s “Choruses”: Less than they Seem?’, High Fidelity/Musical America, xxxii/9 (1982), 42–4

R. Marshall: ‘Bach’s Choruses: a Preliminary Reply to Joshua Rifkin’, MT, cxxiv (1983), 19–22

J. Rifkin: ‘Bach’s Chorus: a Response to Robert Marshall’, MT, cxxiv (1983) 161–2

V. Morosan: Choral Performance in Pre-Revolutionary Russia (Ann Arbor, 1986/R)

L. Sawkins: ‘For and against the Order of Nature: Who Sang the Soprano?’, EMc, xv (1987), 315–24

R. Sherr: ‘Performance Practice in the Papal Chapel during the 16th Century’, EMc, xv (1987), 453–62

W.R. Bucker: A History of Chorus America: Association of Professional Vocal Ensembles (diss., U. of

Missouri, 1991)

J.L. Baldauf-Berdes: Women Musicians of Venice: Musical Foundations 1525–1855 (Oxford, 1993)

R. Boursy: ‘The Mystique of the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Romantic Era’, JM, xi (1993), 277–329

D.P. DeVenney, ed.: Source Readings in American Choral Music, Monographs & Bibliographies in

American Music, xv (Missoula, 1995)


22 de 22 22/03/2011 09:19

chorus (i) in oxford music online

Documents