ACCOMPANYING HARMONIES

TO THE

Brief Directory

OF

THE PLAIN

PLAIN SONG,

USED IN THE

MORNING AND EVENING PRAYER, LITANY,

AND HOLY COMMUNION.

EDITED BY THE

REV. THOMAS HELMORE, M.A.

C LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY J. ALFRED NOVELLO, 69, DEAN STREET, SOHO, & 24, POULTRY;

ALSO IN NEW YORK, AT 389, BROADWAY.

SOLD ALSO BY

MASTERS AND CO., ALDERSGATE STREET, AND NEW BOND STREET.

MDCCCLIII.

J. ALFRED NOVELLO, PRINTER, DEAN STREET, SOHO, LONDON.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

EDA KUHN LOEB MUSIC LIBRARY

"Pfalmodiam non nimium protrahamus, fed rotundè et vivâ voce cantemus. Metrum et finem verfüs fimul intonemus, et fimul dimittamus. Punctum nullus teneat, fed ftatim dimittat. Poft metrum, bonam paufam faciamus. Nullus ante alios incipere, et nimis currere præfumat, aut poft alios pneuma trahere, vel punctum tenere. Simul cantemus, fimul paufemus, femper aufcultando. Quicunque incipit Antiphonam, aut Pfalmum, Hymnum, Refponforium, Alleluia, unam aut duas partes folus dicat, aliis tacentibus: et ab eo loco quo ille dimittit, alii incipiant non repetentes quod ille jam dixit. Monemus vos, dilectiffimi, ut ficut reverenter, ita et alacriter Domino affiftatis, non pigri, non fomnolenti, non ofcitantes, non parcentes vocibus, non præcidentes verba dimidia, non integra tranfilientes, non fractis et remiffis vocibus muliebre quiddam de more fonantes, fed virili fonitu et affectu voces Spiritus Sancti depromentes. Viros enim decet virili voce cantare, et non more fœmineo tinnulis vel falfis vocibus veluti hiftrionicam imitari lafciviam; et ideo conftituimus mediocritatem in cantu fervari, et ut gravitatem redoleat, et devotio confervetur."

S. BERNARD.

PREFACE.

No alteration has been made in the Brief Directory of any authentic tradition of the English Choral Service.

The Reformers of the fixteenth century wifely provided for the noting of the English Prayer Book according to the ancient Plain Song of the Western Church.

In this Plain Song, then, we have the authoritative fource of our ritual mufic, and the only rule by which to correct whatever errors have arisen, or may arise, from time to time, through the natural tendency of mere oral tradition to change and deterioration.

Marbeck's Book of Common Prayer noted, and the XLIXth of Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, leave the general law of the cafe beyond a doubt; while the contemporary harmonies ascribed to Tallis, and the recent Order of Daily Service, &c. &c., by W. Dyce, Efq., (especially in its Preface and Appendix), elucidate the actual practice, and the true principles of the English ritual mufic.

At the fame time, the conftant ufe of the Choirs of Cathedrals and College Chapels, no less than the production, at each remarkable period of her eventful history, of other manuals and records of her ritual mufic, (such as thofe by Low, Clifford, and in our own times by Jebb, Rimbault, Oliphant, the Editors of the Parish Choir, and many others,) atteft the uniform adhesion of our own Church to this univerfal use of the Holy Catholic Church, fo far at least as she has not been thwarted and hindered by crippled or mifapplied refources, and the alienation of her rulers and her people from her doctrine, her difcipline, and her ritual.

The increased attention, which, in our own days, the revival of true Chriftian principles, and Evangelical obedience to the Church of our Fathers has drawn to everything connected with the inner life, and the external beauty of Holinefs, rendered fome eafily acceffible text-book of what the Church has ruled in this matter abfolutely neceffary. Many fuch books have accordingly appeared, to the different compilers of which, as well as to all who have in any way affifted him either by their works or their advice, the Editor defires here once for all to acknowledge his obligations. Had any other text-book of moderate price, however, fulfilled in every refpect what he deemed the neceffary requirements, the Brief Directory had been superfluous, except as providing a fupplement, in the same fize and type, to the Pfalter and Canticles noted. What other books had generally failed to do, and the Directory attempted, was to restore in the Refponfes, and other parts of the Service, the accuracy of the original Plain Song, and its proper notation.

With regard to the former, the text of the Directory is taken from that of John Marbeck's Book of Common Prayer noted, 1550, as far as the differences in the Prayer Books of 1549 and 1662 (i.e., the one last revised and in prefent ufe) would allow. No effential differences will be found between this little book and the parts of Mr. Dyce's coftly Edition of the Order of Daily Service, &c. &c., with Plain Tune, which it contains. Where any occur, the alteration has not been made without due confideration; and, in all, the Editor has followed the requirements either of the genius or of the laws of the Plain Song when fet to English words, as well as the dictates of mufical taste and feeling.

In retaining both in this, and in his other works of ritual mufic, the notation of Marbeck, the Editor has been actuated by no spirit of mere musical pedantry, but by a deep-felt conviction, that to trammel the ritual music of Ministers and People with the shackles of measured mufic, is to destroy the

character, and to injure the religious effect of Church Plain Song. To him all fuch attempts appear fubverfive of their own intention, from Boyce's barred verfion of Tallis's Refponfes and Litany, down to the laft futile efforts of mifdirected and undifcriminating zeal, which have even dared the absurdity of fetting, with bars, and minims and crotchets to be kept in strict musical time, the monotonic recitation of the daily Confeffion, Abfolution, and Lord's Prayer, as well as the reciting notes of the Gregorian Pfalm-tunes. This is like requiring that verfe fhould always be fcanned according to Greek and Latin profodaic time, instead of being read with the accent and emphafis dictated by the fentiment of the words. This is indeed the quintessence of formalism-the love of the form, for its own fake, rather than for that inner life and energy to which it ought ever to be fubfervient. True recitation is not, as to its time, to be truly represented by any notes in the repertory of the Cantus Menfurabilis, or measured fong, of what is ufually ftyled Mufic. The attempt to confound these two things, fo different in their effence, although agreeing in many of their accidents, is, the Editor conceives, the most grievous of errors in respect of the Choral Service of the Church, destructive of its permanence and extenfion, fatal alike to hearty responding, and the removal of the prejudices which still lurk in the minds of many devout perfons against its general usefulness and propriety. In recitation no other time is required than fyllabic, which differs from musical time, because the relations of long and short are not duple or triple, nor are all longs equally long, nor all shorts equally short; nor are quadruple and fextuple relations of very long to very short at all required in this as in that. That fuch time, derivable only from the sentiment, the emphasis, and the accent of the words, may be kept by large numbers of fingers as correctly, and with as united effect as the other, which is more ifochronous and mechanical, the free Choral recitatives of several great compofers will be fufficient to prove; nor is the fact of these being noted by the fame kind of notes as ftricter music, a valid objection, for it is always understood that the notes are not to be read in the fame way; in other words, they resign their own proper functions, and do not represent what they pretend to represent. In modern chants the found alone of the recitation is expreffed by a note (understood to be, in their case,) of indefinite length, and strict musical time is not regarded in any Choir in the divifion of the syllables fung upon it; although when the melodial portions of the chant recur, strict musical time is properly observed.

One example, for ever to be remembered by the thousands affembled to pray for "perfect confummation and bliss both in body and foul" for themselves with all those that are departed in "the true faith," at the Funeral of the late Duke of Wellington, may be added in confirmation of this statement. Under the admirable Precentorship of Mr. Turle, the large Choir then assembled around the tomb, recited the Pfalms, under all the disadvantages of modern and un-ecclesiastical chants, and the absence of any text-book, or other written guide, for the just divifion of the fyllables, in a free and unfhackled ftyle, in which the words were not measured out in ftrict mufical time (i.e., in the relations of two or three to one exactly), but according to the fyllabic time (no lefs musical in reality) of clear and deliberate recitation.

The affertion, fometimes heard, that ritual music without bars, or phrases of equal and definite length, is not entitled to the name of music at all, seems very much like faying that because prose is not verse, it is not entitled to the name of compofition. The objection would narrow too much the limits of the mufical art, by thus denying the quality of mufic to that portion of our Church Service which embracing fome, does not exhauft the whole of her refources. The gradation from the sustained tone of the Cantus Collectarum, or monotone, of the Prieft, to the highest efforts of religious art in the full score of concerted vocal and inftrumental mufic in the worship of Almighty God, would seem to be the perfection of human ingenuity in prescribing the mode in which Mufic is to perform her office as the handmaid of religion. Nor is it, to a devout mind, a matter of indifference how the leaft and lowest, the conftant, the neceffary, and the most frequent, any more than the highest and the occafional acts of her fervice, fhould be rendered. Much of the misunderstanding which unfortunately has existed in this country respecting the Plain Song, would probably be removed, could a truly Church