“In Quires and places where they sing” by Peter Cook
2 Reformation and Renaissance In compiling the prayer book of 1549 the services were formed out of the hourly Latin offices, the Church of England taking a “middle course.” Morning Prayer comes from the three ‘hours’ of Matins, Lauds and Prime and Evening Prayer from Vespers and Compline. Very quickly after the 1549 Prayer Book the task of compiling a musical version was entrusted to John Merbecke, Master of the Choristers at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. His book appeared in 1550 and was notated for priest and people; it became the authentic choral book of the church throughout the country, and is still in use in many churches today. Merbecke adapted the existing plainsong notation to the words of the new English liturgy, thus it was a melody only with no harmony. An anthem was usually sung at the end of the office and the words “In Quires and places where they sing, here followeth
the anthem” placed after the third collect were not added until the revision of 1662 (two years before the Minster organ was installed). Harmonies were added to Merbecke’s service by such composers as Thomas Tallis (of the Chapel Royal) and Robert Stone (who was from Appleton in Devon, educated at Exeter and later sang in the Chapel Royal. He lived to 97 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.) Other organ accompaniments were added by such as Robert Carter, Organist of St Paul’s Knightsbridge and Charles Spencer, Organist of St James, Lower Clapton. Certain collections began to be published after the reformation, especially for use with the new liturgy and with English texts rather than Latin. The first of these was by John Day in 1560, with contributions by Thomas Tallis. Very soon composers began to write special choral settings on the main parts of the office – the responses and the canticles – one of the first being by Thomas
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Thomas Tallis in a Victorian window from St. Alfege, Greewich
Causton, a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. One of Elizabeth’s first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the supreme governor. The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into what we now know as the Church of England. The Queen’s tolerance in such matters is seen in her attitude to the composer William Byrd, a Roman Catholic known as the “English Palestrina”, who became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in
