Sacred choral music

(Singers from the National Youth Choir of Scotland).

The earliest music to be written down was the chants of the Roman Catholic monks, which were sung in unison and based on the various modes which were used at this time. These chants were sung during the service within the church as processionals, for the offering, for specific dates in the church calendar, or just as part of the service. This plainsong, often called ‘Gregorian chants’ after the name of Pope Gregory, who died in 604, was the first music to be written down and was to be fundamental in the development of western music over the coming centuries.  Listen to this excerpt, a chant for Good Friday, and notice the modal sound and unison singing by male voices. 

The Mass is the service of the Roman Catholic Church and there are two types:

• Low Mass, which is spoken and is the most commonly used

• High Mass, which is sung.

As could be expected, this became a focus for many composers through the ages as a major style of composition. 

There are five parts to the Mass:
1 Kyrie eleison – ‘God have mercy’
2 Gloria – ‘Glory to God in the highest’
3 Credo – ‘I believe in one God’
4 Sanctus and Benedictus – ‘Holy, holy’ and ‘Blessed is he’
5 Agnus Dei – ‘Lamb of God’.

Some of the earliest and finest examples are from the Renaissance period and are by the Italian composer Palestrina. Almost all the movements in Masses of this time were fugues  so listen to this typical example, the beginning of a Kyrie, and notice the polyphonic, imitative, fugal writing in the parts. 

Anthem

This was religious music for performance in the reformed or protestant church. After the Reformation of the church, started by Martin Luther in Germany in 1517, music for the reformed church started to appear about 50 years later. Listen to this English anthem, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’ by Orlando Gibbons. Notice the polyphonic, a cappella style of the composition and the imitative entries through all the voices. Here is another example from the same period, 1550–1600, by the composer Thomas Weelkes. It combines homophonic writing at the beginning with polyphonic imitative writing, which was all the rage in that period.