The revival of plainchant in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England was a turning point in the history of Anglican and Catholic musical worship. It led in its time to not only the preservation of much-loved melodies, but also to heated controversy. By the middle of the nineteenth-century, plainchant had returned as a central part of traditional liturgy. This book provides a general introduction to the sources of the plainchant revival in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England.

This book presents, for the first time, a history of English liturgical chant as performed in the Church of England and its transmission to churches in Scotland and the United States. In the mid-sixteenth century Reformation, the complex ritual of the latin rite was replaced by a one-volume Book of Common Prayer, in English. The general nature of the new rubrics, expecially for music, left many of the details of performance to be worked out in traditional ways. Thus the music evolved from its Latin roots in oral, and later, written practice. The body of music that makes up the chanting...