Anglican chant is a method of singing prose translations of the Psalms used in the Anglican church. Psalms (Tehilim תהילים, in Hebrew) is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. ... The term Anglican (from medieval Latin ecclesia Anglicana meaning the English church) is used to describe the people, institutions, and churches that adhere to the religious traditions developed by the established Church of England, the Anglican Communion and the Continuing Anglican Churches, a loosely affiliated group of independent churches which...

Each verse, pair, group of three, or group of four verses is set to a simple harmonized melody of 7, 14, 21 or 28 bars (known respectively as a single, double, triple or quadruple chant), with the majority of the syllables freely chanted on the extendable reciting notes, which occupy the first, fourth, eighth, eleventh (etc.) bars. In musical notation, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration. ...

The origins of the method are obscure, but it was well established by the eighteenth century. The earliest known examples are single chants, dating from the latter part of the 16th century, written by Thomas Tallis and his contemporaries, so it seems likely that Anglican chant was devised by them to provide a suitable musical setting for Coverdale's psalter, as published in the Book of Common Prayer. The earliest double chants are from about 1700. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Thomas Tallis Thomas Tallis (c 1505–23 November 1585) was an English composer. ... Myles Coverdale (also Miles Coverdale) (c1488 - January 20, 1568) was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English. ... 1979 ECUSABCP The Book of Common Prayer[1] is foundational prayer book of the Church of England and also the name for similar books used in other churches in the Anglican Communion. ... Events January 1 - Russia accepts Julian calendar. ...

Canticles such as the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis may also be sung in this manner. A canticle is a hymn (strictly excluding the Psalms) taken from the Bible. ... Sandro Boticelli. ... Nunc Dimittis is the Latin name of the passage in the second chapter of Luke that is commonly called the Canticle of Simeon. ...

How chanting works

Image File history File links Typical anglican chant, coloured by note. ...

To explain how chanting works, it is best to use an example. Above is a single chant. Below are the first four verses of the Magnificat, with the text coloured to show which words correspond to which notes in the music ("the chant"). Sandro Boticelli. ...

1. My soul doth ' magnify the ' Lord : And my spirit hath re'joiced in ' God my ' Saviour.

2. For He ' hath re'garded : the ' lowliness ' of His ' handmaiden.

3. For be'hold from ' henceforth : all gene'rations shall ' call me ' blessed.

4. For He that is mighty hath ' magnified ' me : and ' holy ' is His ' Name.

Precise rules for chanting very according to the particular psalter in use. The rules used in the Parish Psalter (one of the more popular, edited by Sydney Nicholson) are as follows: Sir Sydney Hugo Nicholson (February 9, 1875 – May 30, 1947) was an English choir director, organist and composer, now chiefly remembered as the founder of the Royal School of Church Music. ...

• The chant is sung to the words of one verse.
• The barlines in the music correspond to the inverted commas (called "pointing marks") in the text.
• The double barline in the music corresponds to the colon in the text.
• Where there is one note (a semibreve) to a bar, all the words for the corresponding part of the text are sung to that one note.
• Where there are two notes (two minims) to a bar, all the words except the last syllable are sung to the first minim. The final syllable is sung to the second minim. Where more than the last syllable is to be sung to the second minim, a dot is used (.) in the text to indicate where the note change should occur.

Other psalters use different notation; modern psalters such as the New St Paul's Cathedral Psalter (John Scott, 1997) have adopted the following convention: Figure 1. ... A minim is: Minim (music) - a note length, another name for a half note. ...

• A vertical bar (|) is used to indicate a barline.
• Whenever there are 3 or more syllables in a bar, a dot (•) is used, even if the change of note is on the final syllable.

There are various additional rules which apply occasionally:

• Sometimes the second minim of a pair is replaced by two crotchets. In this case, the relevant syllable is slurred across the two notes.
• When the two minims are replaced with a dotted-minim and a crotchet in one or more (but not all) of the musical parts, the last syllable is sung by those parts on the note having the value of the crotchet, but in time with the other parts (and it is likely that a dot will be required in the text to move the other parts back from the last syllable so that the crotchet is musically functional). It is a common mistake to sing the crotchet as an isolated rhythmic feature.
• Particularly in long psalms, a change of chant may be used to signal a thematic shift in the words. Occasionally three or more chants may be used within a single psalm.

In music, a quarter note (American) or crotchet is a note played for one-quarter the duration of a whole note, hence the name. ...

Double, triple and quadruple chants

The example above is a single chant. It is normally only for very short psalms (half a dozen verses or so) that single chants are used.

The most commonly-used chants used are double chants. These are twice the length of a single chant. The music of the chant is repeated for every pair of verses. This reflects the structure of the Hebrew poetry of many of the psalms: Each verse is in two halves - the second half answers the first; the verses are in pairs - the second verse answers the first. This article is concerned with Biblical poetry, specifically poetry in the Hebrew Bible. ...

Triple and quadruple chants appeared from the latter part of the 19th century, to cover some of the exceptions to this format. They set the verses of the psalm in groups of 3 or 4 verses respectively. Psalm 2 (for example) is well-suited to a triple chant; a quadruple chant might be used for Psalm 78. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

• A double chant is divided into "quarters", each of which has the music for half a verse. Triple and quadruple chants may also be described as containing six or eight quarters.
• Where a psalm (or section of a psalm) has an odd number of verses, a numbered verse will be marked "2nd part". This means if the chant is sung to a double chant, that verse is to be sung to the 2nd half of the chant, rather than the first. After that, verses continue with the 1st half and alternate between the halves of the chant as before. Similarly, "3rd part" markings may be used for triple chants.
• The Gloria is two verses long, so is sung to the double chant or two verses of single chant as appropriate.

Gloria may be: Gloria (song), any one of several songs from the history of popular music Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the main doxology of the Roman Catholic Mass Vivaldis Gloria, a musical setting of the doxology Gloria Patri, a relatively short, common doxology Gloria, Oriental Mindoro, a municipality in...

Accompaniment

Psalms may be sung unaccompanied, or accompanied by organ. Organists use a variety of registrations to mirror the changing mood of the words from verse to verse.

Antiphonal singing

A further stylistic technique is used in cathedrals and churches which use an antiphonal style of singing. In this case, the choir is divided into two equal half-choirs, each having representation for the four musical parts, and usually facing one another. They are typically named Decani (usually the half-choir to the south side) and Cantoris (usually the half-choir to the north side). Then the choir may employ either of the techniques known as quarter-chanting and half-chanting. In quarter-chanting, the side that starts (usually decani) sing the first quarter of the chant (and thus the first half of the verse). The side that did not start (usually cantoris) then sing the second quarter of the chant (and thus the second half of the verse). This sequence then repeats. In half-chanting (which is more true to antiphonal singing in the Gregorian style), decani sing the first two quarters of the chant, and cantoris the next two quarters (so that each half-choir sings a whole verse at a time). This article is about the musical term. ... Christ Carrying the Cross. ... The side of a church choir occupied by the Cantor. ... Gregorian chant is also known as plainchant or plainsong and is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied singing, which was developed in the Catholic Church, mainly during the period 800-1000. ...

With antiphonal singing, the first two verses, Gloria and perhaps last two verses are often sung by the whole choir.

A few choirs (such as King's College, Cambridge) elaborate further, e.g. by having some verses sung by soloists.

See also

• Anglican church music
• List of Anglican church composers