Choirbook

Last updated
One opening (fol. 19v-20r) of the Chigi codex, showing the Kyrie of Ockeghem's Missa Ecce ancilla Domini. Cantus and tenor are on the left page, contratenor and bassus on right. Chigi codex.jpg
One opening (fol. 19v-20r) of the Chigi codex, showing the Kyrie of Ockeghem's Missa Ecce ancilla Domini . Cantus and tenor are on the left page, contratenor and bassus on right.

A choirbook is a large format manuscript used by choirs in churches or cathedrals during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The book is large enough for the entire choir to read from one book. Choirbooks were generally put on a stand with the smaller boy sopranos in front and the men in back. As the printing of music became easier and paper replaced vellum, choirbooks fell out of favour, replaced by smaller, cheaper, and easier to handle partbooks and octavos.

Contents

A choirbook was a major investment. Many of them were stark and utilitarian and show signs of heavy and constant use. At larger cathedrals, choirbooks were sometimes lavishly decorated and illuminated. Since they represent an important expense, they were rarely owned by single people, but rather by families or institutions.

Major choirbooks

Further reading

Avila, Cathedral of the Saviour 075.jpg
The gregorian introit for Easter, "Resurrexi" illuminated by Juan de Carrión (15th century); Museum of the Cathedral of Ávila, Spain
Koorboek.jpg
Circa 1500 woodcut

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lincoln Cathedral</span> Church in Lincolnshire, England

Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Construction commenced in 1072 and continued in several phases throughout the High Middle Ages. Like many of the medieval cathedrals of England, it was built in the Early Gothic style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canterbury Cathedral</span> Church in Kent, England

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Its formal title is the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ at Canterbury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Worcester Cathedral</span> Cathedral in Worcester, Worcestershire, England

Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, in Worcestershire, England, situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin, of Worcester. The present cathedral church was built between 1084 and 1504, and represents every style of English architecture from Norman to Perpendicular Gothic. It is famous for its Norman crypt and unique chapter house, its unusual Transitional Gothic bays, its fine woodwork, and its "exquisite" central tower, which is of particularly fine proportions. The cathedral contains the tombs of King John, Prince Arthur and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exeter Cathedral</span> Church in Devon, United Kingdom

Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 1400, and has several notable features, including an early set of misericords, an astronomical clock and the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Llandaff Cathedral</span> Church in Cardiff, Wales

Llandaff Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral and parish church in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales. It is the seat of the Bishop of Llandaff, head of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff. It is dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and three Welsh saints: Dubricius, Teilo and Oudoceus. It is one of two cathedrals in Cardiff, the other being the Roman Catholic Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral in the city centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winchester Cathedral</span> Church in Hampshire, United Kingdom

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity,Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winchester Cathedral, is the cathedral of the city of Winchester, England, and is among the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and is the mother church for the ancient Diocese of Winchester. It is run by a dean and chapter, under the Dean of Winchester.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Stainer</span> British composer

Sir John Stainer was an English composer and organist whose music, though seldom performed today, was very popular during his lifetime. His work as choir trainer and organist set standards for Anglican church music that are still influential. He was also active as an academic, becoming Heather Professor of Music at Oxford.

William Cornysh the Younger was an English composer, dramatist, actor, and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laon Cathedral</span> Church in Hauts-de-France, France

Laon Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church located in Laon, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France. Built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is one of the most important and stylistically unified examples of early Gothic architecture. The church served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Laon until 1802, and has been recognized as a monument historique since 1840.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wells Cathedral</span> Anglican cathedral in Wells, Somerset

Wells Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Wells, Somerset, England, dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle. It is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, whose cathedra it holds as mother church of the Diocese of Bath and Wells. Built as a Roman Catholic cathedral from around 1175 to replace an earlier church on the site since 705, it became an Anglican cathedral when King Henry VIII split from Rome. It is moderately sized for an English cathedral. Its broad west front and large central tower are dominant features. It has been called "unquestionably one of the most beautiful" and "most poetic" of English cathedrals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manchester Cathedral</span> Church in Manchester, England

Manchester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, in Manchester, England, is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Manchester, seat of the Bishop of Manchester and the city's parish church. It is on Victoria Street in Manchester city centre and is a grade I listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Cathedral</span> Cathedral in Chester and the seat of the Bishop of Chester

Chester Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral and the mother church of the Diocese of Chester. It is located in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. The cathedral, formerly the abbey church of a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Werburgh, is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since 1541, it has been the seat of the Bishop of Chester.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eton Choirbook</span> Manuscript of English sacred music (15th Century)

The Eton Choirbook is a richly illuminated manuscript collection of English sacred music composed during the late 15th century. It was one of very few collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the Reformation, and hence is an important source. It originally contained music by 24 different composers; however, many of the pieces are damaged or incomplete. It is one of three large choirbooks surviving from early-Tudor England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partbook</span> Format for printing or copying music

A partbook is a format for printing or copying music in which each book contains the part for a single voice or instrument, especially popular during the Renaissance and Baroque. This format contrasts with the large choirbook, which included all of the voice parts and could be shared by an entire choir. The choirbook still followed the convention to notate the parts separately, but within a double page, likewise part books were arranged that they show the one extract of the composition on the same page.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rouen Cathedral</span> Cathedral in Rouen, France

Rouen Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Rouen, Normandy, France. It is the see of the Archbishop of Rouen, Primate of Normandy. It is famous for its three towers, each in a different style. The cathedral, built and rebuilt over a period of more than eight hundred years, has features from Early Gothic to late Flamboyant and Renaissance architecture. It also has a place in art history as the subject of a series of impressionist paintings by Claude Monet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepys Manuscript</span>

The Pepys Manuscript is a late fifteenth-century English choirbook, in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, MS Pepys 1236. Along with the Ritson Manuscript it is much less elaborate than the Eton, Lambeth and Caius Choirbooks; it contains shorter and simpler pieces which appear to have been written for smaller and less able choirs. The book received its name because it was part of the collection owned by Samuel Pepys. He described it as containing "monkish music of Edward IV's time, " but it appears on internal evidence to have been begun a year or two earlier. It was likely completed after 1465, as it contains music ascribed to Sir William Hawte – also referred to as a "Knight" – who was knighted in that year.

The Lambeth Choirbook – also known as the Arundel Choirbook – is an illuminated choirbook dating to the sixteenth century. It contains music for 7 Masses, 4 Magnificats, and 8 motets. Much of the music is by Tudor-period composers. The major contributors are Robert Fayrfax and Nicholas Ludford; between them they contributed at least ten of its nineteen pieces. Only three of Fayrfax's works have his name attached to them, but five other pieces are known as his; these, along with two by Ludford, are known from concordances in the Caius Choirbook and other manuscripts. Seven anonymous pieces exist in the book:

Nicholas Ludford was an English composer of the Tudor period. He is known for his festal masses, which are preserved in two early-16th-century choirbooks, the Caius Choirbook at Caius College, Cambridge, and the Lambeth Choirbook at Lambeth Palace, London. His surviving antiphons, all incomplete, are copied in the Peterhouse Partbooks. Ludford is well-known as being the composer of the only surviving cycle of Lady Masses, small-scale settings of the Ordinary and Propers in three parts to be sung in the smaller chapels of religious institutions on each day of the week. Ludford's composing career, which appears to have ended in 1535, is seen as bridging the gap between the music of Robert Fayrfax and that of John Taverner (1495–1545). Music scholar David Skinner has called Ludford "one of the last unsung geniuses of Tudor polyphony". In his Oxford History of English Music, John Caldwell observes of Ludford's six-part Mass and Magnificat Benedicta that it "is more a matter of astonishment that such mastery should be displayed by a composer of whom virtually nothing was known until modern times".

The 'Gyffard' Partbooks are an important set of English Renaissance choral partbooks, containing pieces by composers such as Thomas Tallis and John Sheppard, as well as additional unnamed composers, which are not found in other sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evensong</span> Church service

Evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. It is loosely based on the canonical hours of vespers and compline. Old English speakers translated the Latin word vesperas as æfensang, which became 'evensong' in modern English. Typically used in reference to the Anglican daily office's evening liturgy, it can also refer to the pre-Reformation form of vespers or services of evening prayer from other denominations, particularly within the Anglican Use of the Catholic Church.