Musical Forms

Anthem

A choral setting of a religious or moral text in English, usually for liturgical performance. The term is derived from Antiphon. In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer the anthem was formally acknowledged as an extra at the end of Matins and Evensong in the Church of England. Early anthems, from circa 1550 (by Tye, Tallis and others), are in four parts, predominantly imitative in note-against-note counterpoint. A significant development circa 1600 was the 'verse' style, in which verses for solo voices with instrumental accompaniment (normally organ) altemated with choral passages. This paralleled the Concertato development abroad. Byrd's Easter anthem, Christ rising again, illustrates it at its best. Distinguished among his younger contemporaries were Morley (who considered it his task 'to draw the hearers . . . to the consideration of holy things') and later Tomkins, Weelkes and Gibbons, who gave the anthem even greater dramatic impact.

After the Restoration (1661) a new style developed, with Cooke and Locke, in anthems for the Chapel Royal, showing homophonic textures and a succession of contrasting verses with occasional often perfunctory choruses; French and Italian influence is evident. Strings were sometimes added for ritornellos. Locke, Humfrey and Blow used this new style; Purcell synthesized and developed these features, contributing to the verse anthem, the full anthem, and the newer orchestral type.

In the 18th century, anthems were written by Handel (including 11 for the Duke of Chandos, 1716-18, and some ten others), Greene, Boyce and others. In the period 1770-1817 adaptations and arrangements were used although Battishill and Samuel Wesley wrote effective anthems. The foundations of the Victorian revival were laid mainly by S.S. Wesley, many of whose best anthems were published in 1853. In the late 19th century, Stanford was particularly influential in church music: his anthems, reflecting an interest in new music abroad, are unmistakably English in style and structure. Vaughan Williams, Bax, Walton and Britten wrote isolated anthem-like compositions but few are practicable for daily cathedral use.

The American anthem of the late 18th century was modelled on English anthems from such collections as Tans'ur's Royal Melody Complete (1735) and Williams's Universal Psalmodist (1763). The centre of anthem composition during the 18th century was New England, where works by native composers, including the pioneer Billings, quickly outnumbered the available English models. Outside the mainstream were the Germanic immigrants, notably the Moravians who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Dudley Buck in the late 19th century and William Sowerby in the 20th have been among the most influential American anthem composers.

This project was created by Ahmed Azab.
Since �2001

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