Church music in Scotland

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The pipe organ in St John the Evangelist Scottish Episcopal Church, Princes Street, Edinburgh

Church music in Scotland includes all musical composition and performance of music in the context of

Ars Nova consisting of complex polyphony. Survivals of works from the first half of the sixteenth century indicate the quality and scope of music that was undertaken at the end of the Medieval period. The outstanding Scottish composer of the first half of the sixteenth century was Robert Carver
, who produced complex polyphonic music.

The Reformation had a severe impact on church music. The song schools of the abbeys, cathedrals and collegiate churches were closed down, choirs disbanded, music books and manuscripts destroyed and organs removed from churches. The

Evangelicals tended to believe only the Psalms of the 1650 Psalter should be used in the services in the church, while the Moderates attempted to expand psalmody in the Church of Scotland to include hymns the singing of other scriptural paraphrases. Lining out
began to be abandoned in favour of singing stanza by stanza. In the second half of the eighteenth century these innovations became linked to a choir movement that included the setting up of schools to teach new tunes and singing in four parts. More tune books appeared and the repertory further expanded.

The nineteenth century saw the reintroduction of accompanied music into the Church of Scotland, influenced by the Oxford Movement. Organs began to be added to churches from the mid-nineteenth century, but they remained controversial and were never placed in some churches. Hymns were also adopted by the main denominations. The American Evangelists Ira D. Sankey and Dwight L. Moody helped popularise accompanied church music in Scotland. In the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Oxford Movement and links with the Anglican Church led to the introduction of more traditional services and by 1900 surpliced choirs and musical services were the norm. In Episcopalian cathedrals and churches that maintain a choral tradition, the repertoire of Anglican church music continues to play an important part of worship.

In the twentieth century ecumenical movements including the Iona Community and the Dunblane Consultations on church music, were highly influential on church music throughout Britain and the United States and there was a return to the composition of choral music.

Middle Ages

See also: Music in Medieval Scotland
Detail from the "Trinity Altarpiece" by Hugo van der Goes.

Sources

The sources for Scottish Medieval music are extremely limited. These limitations are the result of factors including a turbulent political history, the destructive practices of the

St. Kentigern, may preserve some of this earlier tradition of plain chant.[1] Other early manuscripts include the Dunkeld Music Book and the Scone Antiphoner.[3] The most important collection is the mid-thirteenth century Wolfenbüttel 677 or W1 manuscript, which survives only because it was appropriated from St Andrews Cathedral Priory and taken to the continent in the 1550s. Other sources include occasional written references in accounts and in literature and visual representations of musicians and instruments.[1] The limitations on the survival of Medieval musical manuscripts is partly because of the relatively late development of printing in Scotland, which would mean that only from the mid-sixteenth century do large numbers of printed works survive.[2]

Early Middle Ages

See also:
Scotland in the Early Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages, ecclesiastical music was dominated by

Sarum Use, first recorded from the thirteenth century, became dominant in England[7] and was the basis for most surviving chant in Scotland.[1] It was closely related to Gregorian chant, but it was more elaborate and with some unique local features. The Sarum rite continued to be the basis of Scottish liturgical music in Scotland until the Reformation and where choirs were available, which was probably limited to the great cathedrals, collegiate churches and the wealthier parish churches it would have been used in the main ingredient of divine offices of vespers, compline, matins, lauds, mass and the canonical hours.[1]

High Middle Ages

See also: Scotland in the High Middle Ages
Chapel Royal, Stirling Castle
, a major focus for liturgical music

In the High Middle Ages, the need for large numbers of singing priests to fulfill the obligations of church services led to the foundation of a system of

Notre Dame de Paris, beside inventive pieces by unknown Scottish composers.[1]

Late Middle Ages

See also:
Scotland in the Late Middle Ages

Monophony was replaced from the fourteenth century by the

Guillaume Dufay developed.[11] In the late fifteenth century a series of Scottish musicians trained in the Netherlands before returning home, including John Broune, Thomas Inglis and John Fety, the last of whom became master of the song school in Aberdeen and then Edinburgh, introducing the new five-fingered organ playing technique.[12] Survivals of works from the first half of the sixteenth century from St. Andrews and St. Giles, Edinburgh, and post-Reformation works from composers that were trained in this era from the abbeys of Dunfermline and Holyrood, and from the priory at St. Andrews, indicate the quality and scope of music that was undertaken at the end of the Medieval period.[1]

Renaissance

See also: Renaissance in Scotland

The outstanding Scottish composer of the first half of the sixteenth century was

Chapel Royal. James V was also a patron to figures including David Peebles (c. 1510–79?), whose best known work "Si quis diligit me" (text from John 14:23), is a motet for four voices. These were probably only two of many accomplished composers from this era, whose work has largely only survived in fragments.[13] Much of what survives of church music from the first half of the sixteenth century is due to the diligent work of Thomas Wode (d. 1590), vicar of St Andrews, who compiled a part book from now lost sources, which was continued by unknown hands after his death.[14]

Impact of the Reformation

See also: Music in early modern Scotland
A reprint of the 1600 cover of The Gude and Godlie Ballatis

The Reformation had a severe impact on church music. The song schools of the abbeys, cathedrals and collegiate churches were closed down, choirs disbanded, music books and manuscripts destroyed and organs removed from churches.[15] The Lutheranism that influenced the early Scottish Reformation attempted to accommodate Catholic musical traditions into worship, drawing on Latin hymns and vernacular songs. The most important product of this tradition in Scotland was The Gude and Godlie Ballatis (1567), which were spiritual satires on popular ballads composed by the brothers James, John and Robert Wedderburn. Never adopted by the kirk, they nevertheless remained popular and were reprinted from the 1540s to the 1620s.[16]

Later the

Scottish Psalter of 1564 was commissioned by the Assembly of the Church. It drew on the work of French musician Clément Marot, Calvin's contributions to the Strasbourg Psalter of 1539 and English writers, particularly the 1561 edition of the Psalter produced by William Whittingham for the English congregation in Geneva. The intention was to produce individual tunes for each psalm, but of 150 psalms 105 had proper tunes and in the seventeenth century, common tunes, which could be used for psalms with the same metre, became more frequent. Because whole congregations would now sing these psalms, unlike the trained choirs who had sung the many parts of polyphonic hymns,[16] there was a need for simplicity and most church compositions were confined to homophonic settings.[17]

During his personal reign James VI attempted to revive the song schools, with an act of parliament passed in 1579, demanding that councils of the largest burghs set up "ane sang scuill with ane maister sufficient and able for insturctioun of the yowth in the said science of musik". Five new schools were opened within four years of the act and by 1633 there were at least twenty-five. Most of those without song schools made provision within their grammar schools.[18] Polyphony was incorporated into editions of the Psalter from 1625, but usually with the congregation singing the melody and trained singers the contra-tenor, treble and bass parts.[16] However, the triumph of the Presbyterians in the National Covenant of 1638 led to the end of polyphony and a new psalter in common metre, but without tunes, was published in 1650.[1] In 1666 The Twelve Tunes for the Church of Scotland, composed in Four Parts, which actually contained 14 tunes and was designed for use with the 1650 Psalter, was first published in Aberdeen. It would go through five editions by 1720. By the late seventeenth century these two works had become the basic corpus of the tunes sung in the kirk.[19]

Eighteenth century

See also: Scottish religion in the eighteenth century
Philip Doddridge, one of the English hymnodists that had a major impact on the development of Scottish church music in the eighteenth century

In the eighteenth century there were growing divisions in the kirk between the

Evangelicals and the Moderate Party.[20] While Evangelicals emphasised the authority of the Bible and the traditions and historical documents of the kirk, the Moderates tended to stress intellectualism in theology, the established hierarchy of the kirk and attempted to raise the social status of the clergy.[21] In music the evangelicals tended to believe that only the Psalms of the 1650 Psalter should be used in the services in the church. In contrast the Moderates believed that Psalmody was in need of reform and expansion.[19] This movement had its origins in the influence of English psalmondist and hymnodist Isaac Watts (1674–1748) and became and attempt to expand psalmondy in the Church of Scotland to include hymns the singing of other scriptural paraphrases.[22]

From the late seventeenth century the common practice was lining out, by which the precentor sang or read out each line and it was then repeated by the congregation. From the second quarter of the eighteenth century it was argued that this should be abandoned in favour of the practice of singing stanza by stanza. This necessitated the use of practice verses and the pioneering work was Thomas Bruce's The Common Tunes, or, Scotland's Church Musick Made Plane (1726), which contained seven practice verses. The 30 tunes in this book marked the beginning of a renewal movement in Scottish Psalmody. New practices were introduced and the repertory was expanded, including both neglected sixteenth-century settings and new ones.[19] In the second half of the eighteenth century these innovations became linked to a choir movement that included the setting up of schools to teach new tunes and singing in four parts.[23] More tune books appeared and the repertory further expanded, although there were still fewer than in counterpart churches in England and the US. More congregations abandoned lining out.[19]

In the period 1742–45 a committee of the General Assembly worked on a series of paraphrases, borrowing from Watts, Philip Doddridge (1702–51) and other Scottish and English writers, which were published as Translations and Paraphrases, in verse, of several passages of Sacred Scripture (1725). These were never formally adopted, as the Moderates, then dominant in the church, thought they were too evangelical. A corrected version was licensed for private use in 1751 and some individual congregations petitioned successful for their use in public worship and they were revised again and published 1781.[22] These were formally adopted by the assembly, but there was considerable resistance to their introduction in some parishes.[24]

After the

Hanoverians, to be monarchs,[25] and Qualified Chapels, where congregations, led by priests ordained by bishops of the Church of England or the Church of Ireland, were willing to pray for the Hanoverians.[26] Such chapels drew their congregations from English people living in Scotland and from Scottish Episcopalians who were not bound to the Jacobite cause and used the English Book of Common Prayer. They could worship openly and installed organs and hired musicians, following practice in English parish churches, singing in the liturgy as well as metrical psalms, while the non-jurors had to worship covertly and less elaborately. The two branches united in the 1790s after the death of the last Stuart heir in the main line and the repeal of the penal laws in 1792. The non-juring branch soon absorbed the musical and liturgical traditions of the qualified churches.[27]

Catholicism had been reduced to the fringes of the country, particularly the Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands. Numbers probably reduced in the seventeenth century and organisation had deteriorated.[20] Clergy entered the country secretly and although services were illegal they were maintained.[28] The provisions of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, which allowed freedom of worship for Catholics who took an oath of allegiance, were extended to Scotland in 1793 and provided some official toleration.[29] Worship, in chapels within the houses of members of the aristocracy or adapted buildings was deliberately low key. It typically involved an unsung Low Mass in Latin. Any form of musical accompaniment was prohibited by George Hay, who was vicar apostolic of the Lowland District in the period 1778 to 1805.[30]

Nineteenth century

See also: Scottish religion in the nineteenth century
Ira D. Sankey, whose singing and compositions helped popularise accompanied church music in Scotland in the late nineteenth century

The nineteenth century saw the reintroduction of accompanied music into the Church of Scotland. This was strongly influenced by the English

Church Service Society was founded in 1865 to promote liturgical study and reform and a year later organs were officially admitted to churches.[32] They began to be added to churches in large numbers and by the end of the century roughly a third of Church of Scotland ministers were members of the society and over 80 per cent of kirks had both organs and choirs. However, they remained controversial, with considerable opposition among conservative elements within the church[33] and organs were never placed in some churches.[31]

Similarly, when the

literary translations.[35]

Furthermore, as both a musical accompaniment for

precenting the line - Fr. MacDonald also composed a series of sung Gaelic paraphrases of Catholic doctrine about what is taking place during the Tridentine Mass. These paraphrases continued to be routinely sung during Mass upon Benbecula, Barra, South Uist and Eriskay until the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. Even though the same basic melodies were used by Catholic Gaels on every island, each parish developed its own distinctive style of singing them.[36]

The sung liturgical texts and the tunes were both transcribed based on recordings made during the 1970s at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in

bilingual Mungo Books edition of Fr. Allan MacDonald's poetry and songs.[37]

The

Great Disruption, was more conservative over music, and organs were not permitted until 1883.[38]

Hymns were first introduced in the

harmonium so popular that working-class mission congregations pleaded for the introduction of accompanied music.[40]

Twentieth century

See also: Religion in Scotland

In the early twentieth century the Catholic Church in Scotland formalised the use of hymns, with the publication of The Book of Tunes and Hymns (1913), the Scottish equivalent of the

ecumenical Iona Community in 1938, on the island of Iona off the coast of Scotland, led to a highly influential form of music, which was used across Britain and the US. Leading musical figure John Bell (b. 1949) adapted folk tunes or created tunes in a folk style to fit lyrics that often emerged from the spiritual experience of the community.[42] The Dunblane consultations, informal meetings at the ecumenical Scottish Church House in Dunblane in 1961–69, attempted to produce modern hymns that retained theological integrity. They resulted in the British "Hymn Explosion" of the 1960s, which produced multiple collections of new hymns.[43] The growth of a tradition of classical music in Scotland also led to a renewed interest in choral works. Over 30 have been created by James MacMillan (b. 1959), including his St. Anne's Mass (1985), which calls for congregational participation and his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (2000) for orchestra and choir.[44]

See also

References

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