The Verse Anthem: Byrd To Tomkins-bookcover

By: Lionel Pike

The Verse Anthem: Byrd To Tomkins

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The ‘Verse Anthem’, a type of choral composition peculiar to the Church of England and mostly intended for Matins and Evensong, involved solo voice(s) with instrumental accompaniment alternating with passages for full choir.

In Elizabethan and Jacobean times much of the most forward-looking music was cast in this form: indeed, it was the preferred type of religious composition for some of the leading composers, and it had the advantage that the solo lines could deliver the texts in a manner that was more easily grasped by an illiterate congregation than was music for full choir singing in counterpoint.

It is strange, then, that no full-scale study of the form has been published until now. This book traces the development of the form from its beginnings during the final years of Elizabeth I to the point where the Commonwealth put an end to English Cathedral Music. The output of that half century is of a fascinating kind, and includes music of the very highest quality, some of it still unknown today.

Lionel Pike Professor of Music Emeritus at Royal Holloway (University of London) and was the organist of the college chapel there from 1969 to 2005. For four years, he served as the dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of London. He was a chorister and assistant organist of Bristol Cathedral, and at Oxford, was organ scholar of Pembroke College, his tutors being Sir David Lumsden and Dr H.K. Andrews. The research for his D. Phil was in Renaissance music, though he has since published books on symphonic form and edited church music for the Purcell Society. He is married and has two daughters.



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