Samuel Foxon

The Verse Anthem: Virtuosic Verse for Making Means? A study into the Verse Anthem and its place in Society c.1560–1690

According to Charles Butler in The Principles of Musik, the finest anthem was one ‘wherein a sweet melodious treble or countertenor singeth single and a full choir answereth [sic]’. He was referring to the Verse Anthem, a style which had entered the church in the 1560s and remained popular from composers such as Richard Farrant (c. 1525 – 1580) up to Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695).

The Anthem was a para-liturgical work, sung ‘in Quires and places where they do sing’, following on from the prayers once the service had finished. The text was of a sacred nature, usually taking words from the psalms of David. From humble beginnings in plainchant, the anthem rose to become an important part, at least in a musical sense, of the liturgy, allowing composers to show off their compositional dexterity, showcasing some of the finest and most contemporary styles and fashions in music.  As the anthem was para-liturgical, composers had more of a degree of freedom over the musical direction of their compositions, as they were not restrained by preselected texts and any customs regarding their use. One form of anthem which grew in importance in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, during the reformation and subsequent restoration, was the verse anthem. The verse anthem made use of antiphonal exchanges between the full choir, and smaller solo sections (the verse), which were accompanied. This essay shall assess why the verse anthem became so popular, whether it was due to artistic direction, allowing inventive handling of solo voices, or simply to make effective use out of the resources available at the time. 

  The origins of the verse anthem seem to have been primarily liturgical, although as well as being used in the domestic setting for private devotion, the verse anthem inherits a lot from the sacred music of the Church before it. The idea of using antiphony in sacred choral singing was not a new one, and can probably trace its roots back to plainchant, where the choir or congregation responds to the priest own incantation. When the Prayer book was first published in 1549, psalm singing became an important part of the liturgy, with psalms appointed for each service, each day of the month. Archbishop Parker published a book of metrical psalms in 1567, in which we can see the antiphonal structure being used, making use of refrains as sung by the ‘Quire’, whilst the verses where to be sung by the ‘meane’ part. As most verse anthems were settings of metrical texts, much like the translations in Archbishop Parker’s psalter, we can see how the structure of psalm singing influenced the verse anthem. Indeed, Richard Farrant’s singular extant Verse anthem, When as we sat in Babylon, is a strophic setting of a metrical psalm, psalm 137, with verses repeated to the same music, simple melodies and basic antiphonal repetition, albeit on a somewhat larger scale with more elaboration than a usual psalm setting.  

The organ used in England at this time would have most probably been a small chamber organ with a limited number of stops, and whilst it would have been used to play voluntaries at the end of the service, its use with the choir would have limited. Organ and keyboard music from the 16^th and 17^th century can be quite virtuosic in nature, contrasting with the keyboard parts to church music, which does no more than doubles the choir part. Verse anthems are somewhat unusual as the organ part, at least for the verse section, provides its own counterpoint to the soloists, rather than simply doubling the choir parts. This is another feature which may have derived from psalm singing.  Some psalters have manuscripts which include both the choir parts and the organ parts; however, the organ part has an extent of embellishment that should the parts be played together, then it would render the performance as sounding incorrect. Perhaps, then, the choir and the organ were not intended to sing or play together, rather after one another.  The same can be said for verse anthems as for this style of psalm singing; a homophonic and homorhythmic section sung by the whole choir is contrasted with organ counterpoint. The only difference is that in verse anthems, the organist is only providing accompaniment. 

The verse anthem is not purely influenced and derived from the existing music of the church, but also from music of a secular setting. Chapel Royal composers such as William Byrd (c.1539 – 1623) and Richard Farrant not only wrote music for their employers, but also wrote and published music for public and domestic performances, including what was known as the ‘Consort Song’, a song accompanied by four or more viols. 

Early manifestations of the consort song link straight back to the church, with the popular Choir Boy Plays. Choirboys of the London Churches not only sang for their church, but also played and sang for London’s wealthy merchants and their Banquets. The cloth merchant and diarist Henry Machyn wrote that at one feast, ‘the singing children of St. Pauls played upon the viols and sung very pleasant songs’, thus showing us both the musical undertakings of the Choir Boys outside of the church, as well as the good public reception of the boys’ musical endeavours. We can also see how the Choir Boys were equally as proficient in viol playing as they were in signing, and it seems likely this was for their musical education, as the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania wrote of the Chapel Royal Choristers that:

As part of their education in courtly manners they are required to put on a play once a week. …For a whole hour before the play begins there is a concert of organs, lutes, pandoras, citterns, viols and recorders. …When we were there, a boy … sang so charmingly to the accompaniment of a Bass viol…

For this practice to take place, where choir boys accompanied one another on the viol, an intended repertory existed, to which the consort song belonged. The choirboy plays and concert being of a weekly occurrence meant the majority of consort songs where simple in compositional style, and much like the psalms mentioned above, were often metrical and strophic in nature.  

These consort songs’ principal purpose was to entertain (or for private devotion, where an audience would not be present), unlike sacred music which was to fulfil a fully liturgical and pragmatic function. Richard Farrant was not only a Gentleman and a composer of the Chapel Royal, but also the founder of the Blackfriars Theatre in London for ‘The Queens Children of the Revels’, that is to say, the Children of the Chapel Royal Farrant composed incidental music for the plays and as an accomplished dramatist and musician, Farrant was allowing the music to be theatrical by emphasising the meaning of the text through the music. By texting the viol parts at the end of each verse, it signified that the viol players were in fact meant to sing up to the point where there a no more words, effectively taking the part of a Chorus. This would not have been a problem, as the viol players were first and foremost choral singers. The repeated words would not be sung with the same polyphonic accompaniment as the solo section, but with homophonic clarity, to make sure the audience would understand the crux of the text. This was a major development in the solo consort song, transmuting the form into the Consort Anthem. The Consort Anthem established itself as a form in its own right, with the chorus sections no longer becoming simply the short termination of a verse, but of equal in length and in structural importance. The choice of text no longer seemed to be a strophic setting, but instead, a piece of prose,  William Byrd was one of the first composers to bring the Consort Anthem into the liturgical setting of the church. Perhaps Byrd was aiming to make the music of the church more in line with the popular secular music, or possibly just for convenience sake; Byrd had may have already had a composition, which, with a few simple adaptations, would also be suitable for church. The biggest alteration that would have to be made would be to the accompaniment, whereas the boy choristers could play the viol, there exists very little evidence that the viol was used in church. Instead, the organ was used, which, as mentioned above, was being used increasingly for accompaniment than as a melodic instrument.  The verse anthem ‘Teach me, O Lord’ is one of the Byrd’s earliest surviving verse anthems, and is a good example for drawing the parallels between verse and consort anthems.

The solo sections are sung by a treble, who would be used to singing consort songs and the organ is accompanying in the same way as it would for a metrical psalm, displaying no counterpoint. The solo part is considerably more difficult than the chorus part, as whilst the soloist’s part is notated mensurally and features syncopation, the chorus part is in common time and sings strictly with the beat. The choir part changes very little in every instance, with the harmonic language remaining the same, with variation only in the voice leading of the inner parts, and delaying the final cadence for the Amen. Like a metrical psalm, the work is very simple; with the text being set syllabically to the melody, however, more like the later consort anthems, there is no repetition of text.

The verse anthem started to evolve further from the consort song, when the form was used with the texts for the canticles of evensong, the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. Unsurprisingly, this became known as the Verse Service, and was structured in the same way as the later verse anthems; one verse was solo led with organ accompaniment, and the next was for the full choir, and remained simpler in texture. Incidentally, the canticles would not have been sung as a consort song, and with there being no viol parts, we can safely assume that in church, viols were not used. Byrd composed what we identify as the first written verse service, with his ‘Second Service’ (that is, second to his ‘Great Service’). What is remarkable is that we can see the development of the verse service (and thus to the verse anthem) as Byrd revised the organ part, and two original copies survive, the earlier version in the Tenbury manuscripts and the later in an Ely Cathedral manuscript.

The organ prelude in the Tenbury manuscript is only a mere two bars long and shares much in common with the organ part for ‘Teach me O Lord’; indeed this is in the metrical psalm idiom, carrying the counterpoint, but with no discernible melodic progression of itself. The Ely Cathedral Manuscript’s organ part is thicker in texture has at least three distinguishable and elaborate ‘parts’, beginning immediately with a point of imitation not only used internally in the organ part but also by the alto soloist in the first entry.  The organ part makes musical sense on its own, signifying a change from the organ being secondary to, and as a duplication of the choir, as in the Tenbury manuscript, to the organ almost being equal in the Ely manuscript.

This verse service pushed the development of the verse anthem, firstly beyond that as a metrical psalm but eventually too beyond that of the consort song as Byrd doesn’t give the verse parts too just a single soloist, but to a group of soloists, and the chorus sections are not subservient to the soloists, but rather carries the text similarly. This is perhaps as the Magnificat text is somewhat lengthier than most anthem texts, and if the chorus where to simply repeat what the soloist had sung in the manner of the early verse anthems, the canticle would be rather drawn out, and the soloist would be rather tired. These innovations alone possibly is why Byrd’s second service persevered well into the next century, and the catalyst for Byrd to revise the organ part to bring the service up to the same style which it had helped to create. The pioneering status of Byrd’s second service didn’t go unnoticed, as the opening of Magnificat has been used in no fewer than eight works, by six composers of the Tudor and Jacobean periods. The using of others works in this way was not deemed as plagiarism, but rather paying homage to the great composers; Byrd himself used the works of John Taverner (c. 1490 – 1545) as inspiration for his own. Thomas Morley (1558 – 1602) was a pupil of Byrd, so it would seem endearing of him to use his Byrd’s melody in the start of his Fourth Service. In the Magnificat, Morley mimics the leap of a fourth and the diminished seventh which Byrd poignantly utilised, and in the Nunc Dimittis, Morley points out the diminished seventh once again, following the same phrase shape as Byrd.

Unlike Morley, Orlando Gibbons (d. 1625) was not a pupil of Byrd, but even so, paid homage to Byrd in the opening phrase of the Nun Dimittis of his own ‘Second Service’. Gibbons conceals this tribute in a duet with altered harmony and with more melodic superfluity, whilst retaining the iconic diminished seventh, and continuing the verse to ‘according to thy word’. Whilst not a pupil of Byrd, but as a younger contemporary in the Chapel Royal, Gibbons became the next great writer of verse anthems and verse services. And whilst Gibbons was predominately a composer of secular music, Gibbons output of church music comprises of only eleven full anthems, and 21 verse anthems, as well as eleven services, the majority of which, for some part, have a verse structure. Gibbons expanded the structure of a verse anthem, from strophic songs with a chorus repeating the text of the soloist, to larger scale anthems with greater textural diversity between soloists and chorus.  

His most well-known verse anthem is likely to be This is the Record of John. In this verse anthem we can see how verse anthems and consort anthem remained closely related, and how easy it was for one to be adapted for the other. There exist six sources dated around the 1640s, all written for an organ accompaniment, and a later seventh source at Christ Church, Oxford which is scored for viols. The organ and viol parts do have discrepancies between them, suggesting that they were not to be played together, but rather that the score was rewritten to make it a consort anthem rather than a verse anthem, and therefore suitable for secular and domestic performances. Gibbon’s biggest strength in this verse anthem is the way he writes a beautifully simple yet effective melody, unhindered by either the counterpoint below, or any motivic repetition. Gibbons simple melody isn’t to be looked down upon here, as it fits the text incredibly well, both rhythmically and  expressively, such as in the third verse, where the melody reaches the highest note of the solo on the word ‘Crieth’. Peter Philips writes that whilst this seems obvious as an expressive device, it was rare in church music at this time, and probably only to be found in the lute song of Thomas Campion (1567 – 1620).

The most sophisticated of Gibbons verse anthems, See, see the word is incarnate, is also one of Gibbons finest, and musically speaking, the most contemporary of the Tudor and Jacobean Verse Anthems. The form is not strophic, but is instead a through composed verse anthem, tackling the story of the life of Jesus, in almost epic proportions. The chorus does no repeating of the soloists, instead singing the part of a crowd making acclamations: ‘let us welcome such as guest’ and ‘sing alleluia’ being two examples. Gibbons does away with a set group of soloists, and instead adds a soloist every verse, starting with an Alto soloist, then a duet, a trio and finally a quartet by the final verse.  The duet was described by Peter Philips as being the most protracted example of pseudo-canon in Gibbons music, or possibly anyone’s, and it only goes to show the complexity and intricacy of Gibbons composition. The music describes the words in a rhetorically in a way that could occasionally be mistaken for being Baroque, although in the sound world of the late renaissance. During the Trio, the Alto reaches an unusually high c’ on the word ‘hell’, on a diminished triad, an obvious attempt at word painting. At the final chorus and amen is where Gibbons sounds his most modern, with an acrobatic bass line in the last six bars, which commands a quasi-baroque harmonic movement above it. The last alto and tenor entries begins on a free discord, a dissonant G almost as if a passing note, doubtless forbidden by Gibbons older contemporaries, but an obvious favourite with Monteverdi, and rightly so in the harmony rules of his Seconda Praticca.

The Commonwealth period was a time of absolutely no formal sacred musical fruition, where an act of parliament in 1643 abolished vicars choral and choristers and the following year an ordinance demanded that ‘all Organ’s frames or cases wherein they stand in all Churches… shall be taken away, and none hereafter set up in their place’. Music making did happen, especially in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and in the domestic setting, although it was inconceivable for a musician and composer to find patronage. Therefore, the form of the verse anthem, as with all church music, became a thing of antiquity. However with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 led to the publication in 1662 of a new prayer book and the restoration of the Anglican liturgy. For musicians and composers, benefaction could once again be found. Charles II had a lavish lifestyle, and took great pride in his Chapel Royal.

Charles II had been living in France during the Commonwealth, so would have been hearing the music of Jean Baptiste-Lully (1632 – 1687), which would have given him a taste for the French style and the string overture. This meant that the Chapel Royal now provided something rather unusual and unheard of in church service; utilising a string ensemble, but on the stipulation that they only play when the King is present (at least, unusual in England, for the French Chapel Royal used strings also, probably a tradition which Charles II accustomed too). The composers of the Chapel Royal no longer needed to write just for the choir and organ, but also for instruments; and in a way that included the string ensemble into the liturgy. Henry Cooke (1616 – 1672) was one of the first Masters of the Children at the Chapel Royal of the Restoration.  Before the civil war, Cooke was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a career which was put on hold during the English Civil War, when he became a Captain in the Royalist Army, and when the monarchy fell and the country became a commonwealth, he became one of London’s popular musicians. Some of the challenges that faced Cooke was building up the choral force of the Chapel Royal, especially the boy choristers, and creating a repertoire for the choristers to sing from. Some music wasn’t destroyed by the Parliamentarian army such as John Barnard’s (fl. 1649) First book of selected church musick, published in 1641 on the eve of the outbreak of Civil War, but copies seem to have been preserved by John Playford and issued to cathedrals at the Restoration, provided institutions with a sample of the music of the Reformation period, but Cooke needed new music that could incorporate the string ensemble. As a musician of secular prestige during the commonwealth, Cooke would have been more than accomplished in writing Consort Anthems with Viol accompaniment, and just as it did to Byrd, it seemed to Cooke as if the form could make a transition into the church.

What came about was a style of church music which shared a lot with the verse anthem of past, with the addition of an orchestrated overture and symphonies between each section. This type of verse anthem became known as the ‘Symphony Anthem’, and was stylised by an opening symphony in common time, followed by a verse in three time. From then on, it was much like a verse anthem, with a dialogue of antiphonal exchanges between chorus and verse (and sometimes symphony too), and with Cooke’s music in particular, the Chorus part was relatively simple, in a four part homophony. Whilst Cooke’s symphony anthems aren’t particular inspiring, it does lay down a ‘blue-print’ for the other composers of the restoration, namely Pelham Humfrey (1647 –1674), a student of Cooke’s. In 1665, Humfrey was given £200 out of the secret service fund ‘to defray the charge of his journey into France and Italy’, and it is highly likely he was taught under Lully during that time. Whilst obviously indebted to Cooke’s work on the verse Anthem, Humfrey’s instrumental passages are of a style and formality that are reminiscent of the French ouvertures and ritournelles of Lully’s court ballets, whilst the vocal passages is inspired by the works of his Italian contemporaries. One such example of Humfrey’s use of ritournelles is the anthem Thou art my King, O God, which intersperses the choruses and symphonies with the ritornellos.

Similarly, Like as the Hart shows the relationship between Humfrey’s music and the Italian vocal style. False relations, augmented chords, chromatacisms, and free discords can be found on every page whilst not confusing the harmony, in the same manner you’d find in a work of Corelli. We can only assume that Humfrey’s journey to the continent not only allowed him to visit Lully in France, but also the innovative musical centre of Venice. The relationship between Humfrey’s verse and Chorus remains similar to that of the verse anthems from Cooke and before, with virtuosic verse contrasted antiphonally by a simple chorus, with the French influence of spatially separating the two groups coming from the French Grand Motet. 

If Humfrey had created the post-Restoration symphony anthem sound, it was his fellow Royal composer for the violins that took the form in his stride. Purcell is perhaps England best known prodigy of the baroque era, and whilst he is well known for his work as a great opera writer, he was first and foremost a musician and composer for the Chapel Royal. Whilst Purcell, as did Cooke and Humfrey, wrote more traditional Verse anthems, they were extremely simple compared to their other compositions, an example being Purcell’s Who hath believed our report, with the chorus sections being identical in every instance, and the texture is strictly homophonic. It seems some of Purcell’s verse anthem output was for music to be performed in lent, when the string accompaniment was forbidden to play, for instance, Let mine eyes run down with tears, or during the reign of  James II when the was no longer a string accompaniment in the Chapel Royal. Symphony anthems formed the bulk of Purcell’s liturgical compositions, so it is obviously a form which he favoured. Whilst Purcell’s style was initially akin to Humfrey’s, Purcell, began to make changes to the Symphony anthem, involving fewer but longer sections, and adeptly using counterpoint to juxtapose the solo writing. Purcell was making the Symphony anthem grander, and more self-righteous to match the Kings tastes. The Verse Anthem Why do the heathen so furiously rage together? was written about the time of the Rye House plot to assassinate the King, and therefore, Purcell is making clear that Gods enemies are also the enemies of the King and affirming the Divine Right of the Monarch. Awake, awake, put on thy strength shows the more majestic forms Purcell was making out of the Symphony anthem, as instead of using the usual triple time dance after the symphony, Purcell used a fugal passage, and the Alleluia’s which end the piece are based on a ground bass. Purcell also uses a ground bass in his most famous symphony anthem, Rejoice in the Lord alway, or Bell Anthem because of the descending bass line, reminiscent of pealing bells. The work is loosely in Rondo form, having an overarching structure beyond that of the symphony anthem. Indeed, this anthem became so popular, despite the few performances it would have had, that other institutions wanted to perform it, so Organ parts were drawn up, and the symphony anthem became a verse anthem like any other for the vast other churches.

As to why the verse anthem was so successful in the church for such a long time is unknown. It could be that musical tastes and fashions at the time demanded that style of music; after all, the choirboy plays were well attended and well liked. Equally, it could be composers simply allowing a bit of musical freedom after many years of artistic oppression in the form of various rubrics handed down from the monarch.  Whilst the Catholic Monarch, Mary, demanded the Latinate florid contrapuntal style, Edward who preceded her, and Elizabeth who succeeded her demanded a vernacular liturgy and that words should be sung to ‘a plain and distinct note for every syllable one [sic]’. This resulted in homophonic, homorhythmic music with each syllable to a note. This style of music was far more conservative and simpler that the ornate Catholic music, providing works such as Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 1585) ‘If ye Love Me’. Elizabeth was somewhat more liberal with her attitudes towards the practices of the church, but maintained the vernacular liturgy. If composers could not compose contrapuntal choral music, they could compose for solo voice, which would ensure the clarity of the text is being maintained, whilst exhibiting the polyphonic genius in the accompaniment. 

Perhaps, even, as Peter Le Huray suggests, the reason the Verse Anthem was successful as a form was for economic reasons. The Church had undergone a lot of change; Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, leaving many institutions poor and without land to earn from, and the following three monarchs necessitated that new prayer books where to be purchased. This cost the individual Churches a lot of money, especially outside of London, where people earnt less. The cash strapped churches would have sought savings, whilst trying to minimise the effect this would have on the worship. If choral singing was under financial pressure in the difficult times, then the verse anthem provided a way to provide similar quality music to before. Le Huray points out that the ‘burden of performance’ can be placed on only the ablest singer, giving more rehearsal time to the rest of the choir, who only have to sing a homorhythmic passage. Much of Gibbons earlier verse anthems were first performed at St Johns College, Cambridge, and also feature his simpler melodies. Whether this because the verse anthem was still in its inception, or whether Gibbons was writing more suitably for the choral forces available is difficult to assess. Huray adds that this is more prevalent in the provinces, where good singers were harder to come by. Indeed, Byrd’s earliest Verse Anthems date back to the 1560s, when he was Master of the Choristers at Lincoln, an important Cathedral, but crucially, a lot poorer than the cathedrals in London, and the Chapel Royal who enjoyed the monarch’s patronage. After the Restoration, the verse anthem was used once again to make means with what limited resources were had, whilst accommodating the fashions of the time.

Verse anthems have always been close to the world of performance, from the Choir Boy plays of Farrant’s era, to the familiarity between Purcell’s verse and symphony anthems and his operas. Verse anthems brought expressive music that communicated the text to the listener, so whilst it came to the church as a cost cutting device, it remained so popular because of its captivating style, and pleased the protestant low church who favoured the clearly sang vernacular text unhindered by polyphony, and the higher, more Catholic in outlook church who favoured rich counterpoint.

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