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Freezing moments in musical time – the Archive of Recorded Church Music Posted on 7th July 2017

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York Minster 1930. Edward Bairstow taking a rehearsal in the Song School in his signature spats (photo: Recorded Church Music Archive)

“500 uploads on YouTube!” tweeted the Archive of Recorded Church Music, triumphantly, last week. Colin Brownlee who runs the archive has been gathering recordings – LPs, 78s, cassettes, reel-to-reel, CDs, commercial and private – for 15 years, and has created a collection of cathedral and church choral music which is now seen as de nitive.

“I started with my own collection of LPs,” he said, “but soon realised there was nowhere to go to nd out which choir had recorded what, so I began to write individually to all the choirs. It took over 5 years before people realised that the archive was serious, but then I started receiving recordings in all sorts of formats. Commercial recordings are only the tip of the iceberg – the archive now contains thousands of private recordings, television programmes and photographs.”

“Although the archive holds copies of almost all commercial recordings, some of the greatest treasures are from small independent labels or private ‘one-off’ recordings which often represent the only sound legacy of that choir. The archive also holds a signi cant collection of private and special pressings, test pressings, transcription discs and unissued recordings.”

The earliest recording is from 1902, when the choristers of fashionable St Andrew’s, Wells Street, London, were the rst English choir to make a gramophone record. The majority of the archive is still in physical form and held at Malvern – visitors and researchers are most welcome, and you can download a catalogue, which is updated every few months.

A good selection of archive material has been digitised, and uploaded to their website, and more is available on a dedicated YouTube channel.

The archive includes a survey of 75 years of BBC Choral Evensong from 1926: originally only broadcast from Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and York Minster (though Bairstow took offence in 1940 at comments from the BBC regarding the quality of the choir, and stopped the York Minster choir broadcasting from 1940 to 1949). During the war New College and King’s College were the backbone of Choral evensong broadcasts – though locations were initially not identi ed and Radio Times would state ‘from a College chapel’ or ‘from a Northern Cathedral’ until 1942.

Hereford Cathedral 1986. Choristers lming Hells Bells with Derek Nimmo (photo: Recorded Church Music Archive) There are some ne photographs too in the archive – over 6,000, together with Pathe Newsreels, recently restored to High De nition, which give a fascinating insight into church music during the rst half of the 20th century.

“The greatest treasure of the archive,” says Colin, “is how it illustrates the changes in a choir sound under successive choirmasters – whether deliberate, or simply due to force of personality. You can hear how ‘the Ely Sound’ developed under Michael Howard, how King’s College Choir changed successively under Ord, Willcocks, Ledger and Cleobury, how the choir of St John’s sounded before George Guest, and Magdalen before Bernard Rose.”

This is now a collection of unparalleled historical importance, freezing moments in time, and giving a unique snapshot of choirs, many of which, by the end of the twentieth century, had ceased to exist. Colin is in discussion with a major English University to nd a permanent home for the archive. In the meantime you can contact him via the website: Archive of Recorded Church Music, email: colin@recordedchurchmusic.org, and follow the progress of the next 500 YouTube uploads via Twitter.

Chapel Royal, St Peter ad Vincula. Choristers “Beating the Bounds” 1952 (photo: Recorded Church Music Archive)