Anglican church music

Anglican church music is music that is written for liturgical worship in Anglican church services.

Almost all of it is written for choir with or without organ accompaniment. The choir typically uses "SATB" voices (soprano or treble, alto or counter-tenor, tenor, and bass), though in many works some or all of these voices are divided into two for part or all of the piece; in this case the two halves of the choir (one on each side of the aisle) are traditionally named decani (or 1, for the higher voice) and cantoris (or 2, for the lower voice). There may also be soloists, usually only for part of the piece. There are also works for fewer voices, such as those written for solely men's voices or boys'/women's voices.

Many more recent works were written for, or dedicated to, one of the many famous cathedral or collegiate choirs of England.

The chief musical forms are:

Church music

Church music is music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn.

History

Early Christian music

Christianity began as a small, persecuted Jewish sect. At first there was no break with the Jewish faith; Christians still attended synagogues and the Temple in Jerusalem just as Christ had done, and presumably still carried on the same musical traditions in their separate Christian meetings. The only record of communal song in the Gospels is the last meeting of the disciples before the Crucifixion. Outside the Gospels, there is a reference to St. Paul encouraging the Ephesians and Colossians to use psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

Later, there is a reference in Pliny who writes to the emperor Trajan (61–113) asking for advice about how to prosecute the Christians in Bithynia, and describing their practice of gathering before sunrise and repeating antiphonally "a hymn to Christ, as to God". Antiphonal psalmody is the singing or musical playing of psalms by alternating groups of performers. The peculiar mirror structure of the Hebrew psalms makes it likely that the antiphonal method originated in the services of the ancient Israelites. According to the historian Socrates of Constantinople, its introduction into Christian worship was due to Ignatius of Antioch (died 107), who in a vision had seen the angels singing in alternate choirs.

Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is an international association of independent churches consisting of the Church of England and of national and regional Anglican churches in full communion with it. The status of full communion means, ideally, that there is mutual agreement on essential doctrines and that full participation in the sacramental life of each church is available to all communicant Anglicans.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, has a place of honour among the bishops of the Anglican churches. He is recognized as primus inter pares, or first among equals. The archbishop does not exercise authority in the provinces outside England, but instead acts as a focus of unity.

The churches of the Anglican Communion considers themselves to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and to be both Catholic and Reformed. For some adherents Anglicanism represents a non-papal Catholicism, for others a form of Protestantism though without a dominant guiding figure such as Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli or Wesley. For others, their self-identity represents some combination of the two. The communion encompasses a wide spectrum of belief and practice including evangelical, liberal and Catholic.

King's College

King's College or The King's College can refer to:

Australia

Canada

United Kingdom

New England

New England is a region which comprises six states of the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by New York to the west, Long Island Sound to the south, the Atlantic Ocean and the Canadian province of New Brunswick to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north.

In one of the earliest English settlements in North America, Pilgrims from England first settled in New England in 1620, forming the Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, the Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony. Over the next 126 years, New England fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the British and their Iroquois Confederacy allies defeated the French and their Algonquin allies in North America.

In the late 18th century, the New England Colonies initiated the resistance to the British Parliament's efforts to impose new taxes without the consent of the colonists. The Boston Tea Party was a protest to which Great Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government, which were termed the "Intolerable Acts" by the colonists. The confrontation led to open warfare in 1775, the expulsion of the British authorities from New England in spring 1776, and the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.