THE PLAINSONG USE

OF

HEALEY WILLAN

THE PLAINSONG USE

OF

HEALEY \tliLLAN

A STUDY OF DR. WILLAN'S ROLE

IN THE RESTORATION OF PLAINSONG

TO THE WORSHIP OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH

by

Keith Allan Hamlin

I

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF THEOLOGY

UNIVERSITY OF TRINITY COLLEGE

TORONTO SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

1979 j. a. 9/.

PREFACE

In writings of the English Tractarian plainsong

school, the substantive form of the verb "to use 11 is em­

ployed not only to refer generally to a "manner or method

of employing [and] applying 11 the Chant, but also to describe

"distinctive" musical traditions of "particular" parishes

and/or liturgical schools ( -- From the Oxford International

Dictionary, 1958). I first noted this custom in Edgar Cook's

The Use of Plainsong, from which the title of my thesis is

derived. Both connotations of the word 11use 11 are unavoidably

mixed below, and I trust that the context will indicate the

exact meaning each time it occurs.

The aim of this dissertation is to prese~t an accu­

rate account of \villan 's plainsong \vork in Canada, to unv-eil

an important but still largely unexamined area of his life,

and to give the average Church musician and parson informa­

tion with which to adopt and nurture as much or as little

of the composer's Chant use as they may desire.

Ten years have passed since Willan's death removed

him from the organ bench at St. Mary Magdalene's Church

(Toronto). Although some change has been inevitable, the

reverence in which his memory is held has ensured that most

of the musical tradition he established there remains in­

tact. It was my privilege to spend two years thoroughly

.immersed in the active life of this community, experiencing

iii

every facet of its liturgies from ritual choir to gallery

chorus, altar to nave, and chancel to organ console.

In 1970 the Music Manuscript Division of the National

Library of Canada (hereafter cited as NLC) received a large

portion of the composer's home library and personal papers.

It thus became the main source of primary evidence for any

research into Willan's life and labours. The documents

and music collection at St. Mary Magdalene's are also an

important source of information, as this parish inherited

all the performance books and scores Willan was using at

the time of his final illness. Comparison of the plainsong

stored in each collection shows that most of the St. Mary

Magdalene manuscripts remain unchanged from the composer's

day. Having no access to the material said to exist in

numerous private collections, and finding the oral tradition

about Willan's life garbled by the passage of time and the

development of disputes between his various successors, I

have tried to rely almost exclusively on the documentary

evidence from these two major sources.

Much of the information about Willan's plainsong

activities comes from correspondence written during his

last twenty years. Many of the letters now exist only in

rough-draft form, and thus there is some problem with their

legibility. Willan often marked incoming letters with the

date on which he composed his reply to them, and I have used

this where no other date is given. It should also be noted

iv

that the composer regularly employed a day/month/year nu­

merical code for this purpose, with the month being symbo­

lized by a Roman numeral -- e.g. 6:II:57 = February 6, 1957.

I suffered much anguish deciphering these letters, and thus

offer the above information in the hope that it will ease

the path of those who follow me into the unsorted jungle

of the NLC Papers.

It remains to say a most sincere thank you to Dr.

Stephen Willis of the National Library for his generous

assistance, to Mr. Robert Bell for suggesting the topic

and throwing open St. Mary Magdalene's resources to me, to

that wonderful gentleman Professor Derek Holman for patiently

providing the professional scholarly, grammatical and musical

advice so necessary to the preparation of this w.ork, and

especially to the Rev. Canon Howard Buchner for going out

on a limb with this most uncertain of interdisciplinary

experiments, for his material and pastoral backing, and for

giving me the faith and confidence to carry this research

project to its conclusion.

Trinity College

University of Toronto

April 1979

v

K. A. H.

TABLE 0 F

PREFACE

I. ·ROOTS

II. THE MODEL

III. A COLLECTION OF CHANT

Ordinary Hymnal Psalter Canticles Holy Week Manuals Propers Antiphonal Sequences Music I·ists

IV. THE PLAINSONG MOVE!"!ENT

V. PUBLICATIONS

The Merbecke Arrangement· Hymn-book Contributions

CONTENTS

A Canadian Plainsong Psalter Psalter Accompaniments

VI. CHANT THEORY: THE. WILLAN "SCHOOL"

History Accompaniment Fauxbourdon Rhythm Notation Neume Interpretation Adaptation

VII. THE 11MUSIC OF THE CHURCH"

VIII. CONCLUSION

IX. APPENDIX

X. BIBLIOGRAPHY

vi

iii

1

11

23

23 25 27 28 29 30 35 36 37

41

57

57 60 63 70

74

?4 78 83 85 88 89 90

95

106

115

120

I

ROOTS

The plainsong restoration described in this thesis

is part of a larger series of developments whose origins lie

in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In

the wake of the Roman Catholic liturgical movement, Conti­

nental Church musicians began "a crusade for the recovery

of the music of the Church's finest hours: of plainsong fer

the people, and of the Palestrina style for the choirs".~

This work centered around Ratisbon, where Karle Proske

(1??4-1861) led a school that ultimately produced the well­

known Mechlin Gradua1. 2

At the same time the Oxford revival was effecting a

host of changes in the English Church. In Tractarian con­

gregations, the explicit plainness of the Puritan service

with its metrical psalms and west-gallery minstrels, gave

way to liturgies demanding imaginative-participation in

events of great excitement and mystery. More important,

Cranmer's redactions of the medieval Choir Offices were dis-

placed as the main acts of parochial devotion. The Eucharist

1From Erik Routley, A Short History of English Church Music (London: Mowbrays, 1977), pp. 77-78.

2This was a reissue of the "garbled Medicean (Renais­sance] edition" of the Chant. -- Gustave Reese, Music in the _M_id_d_l_e __ A~g~e_s (London: Dent, 1941), p. 116.

1

2

once more became the centre of the Church's life, ~d the

clerical scholars who effected this change quite naturally

sought to re-appropriate the music that had been an integral

part of the Mass almost from its inception. For whereas:

Evensong • • • is light enough in weight to permit plenty of musical embellishment without a sense of disproportion, ••• it is otherwise with a parish Eucharist such as the Tractarians -~ere hoping for (and got). This is a quite different act of worship; it contains in its 'script' a drama so profound and ultimate that it is quite easy for elaborate music to have a choking effect. This the Tractarians knew very well~ and it was one of their main reasons for promoting plainsong. 3

As a result of this movement, a wave of plainsong enthusiasm

swept over southern Britain. 4

Amid these initial developments, three men in parti­

cular stand out as forerunners of Healey Willan and his work

in Canada. The beginnings of modern parochial plainsong use

is traced first of all to Frederick Oakeley at the Margaret

Chapel.5 He and his organist, Richard Redhead, arranged

their choral resources so that one group in the sanctuary

sang. antiphonally against another in the west gallery. In

3Routley, A Short History of English Church Music, pp.-5?-58.

4The extent of this expansion is excellently traced in Bernarr Rainbow, The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church, (1839-1872) (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1970), passim, to which I am indebted for much of this historical preamble.

5This edifice stood on the site of the present Church of All Saints, Margaret Street.

184:? they published their Laudes Diurnae, "that first Angli­

can Gregorian psalter 11•6 Oakeley's Margaret Chapel became

a centre of influence for visiting clergy interested in

transmitting the new liturgical arts to their own parishes.

About four years later at St. Mark's College in

Chelsea, Fr. Thomas Helmore established a daily choral ser­

vice involving the use of both plainsong and Anglican chant.

The former was sung when his treble singers were unavailable,

and during Advent, Lent, and at other penitential seasons.

The Anglican chant was used for more festal occasions, but

it too was grounded as often as possible on plainsong canti

firmi. Helmore trained his choirs to sing a capella, which

was a custom rare even in the Cathedrals of the time. He

also adapted the Latin psalm-tones to the vernacular psalms

appointed for each day in the Church's year.? At the end

of a few seasons he had a complete cycle of these, and this

was published first as The Psalter Noted (1849), and then

as a Manual of Plainsong (1850) containing psalms, canticles,

instructions, and appendices. Helmore next co-operated with

John Mason Neale in the production of the plainsong Hymnal

?For this task Helmore followed the adaptation rules set out by Dyce .in the Appendix to the 1843 edition of Mer­becke's Book of Common Prayer Noted. In this work Dyce con­cludes that the English tongue should be set to the Chant in the same manner as the Latin. -- Rainbow, pp. 79-82.

4

Noted. 8

The third member of this trio is William Henry Monk.

Bernarr Rainbow has this to say of Monk's musical reign at

St. Matthias', Stoke Newington:

The consistent aim was to produce a singing congregation. To that end, the choir sang much of the service in unison. The 'highly-finished and concert-like performance 1

• • • was not emulated. Instead, the singers were encouraged to develop a broad, masculine style, thus allowing the organ to give weightier support and further encouraging singing by the congregation at large. Gregorian tones were employed for the psalms sung from the Psalter Noted. With the hymns, special point ~as made of consistently employing the same music to the same words. Ne\'1 music was rarely introduced. Everything sung was chosen to suit the season of the year and the character of the service. An anthem was never sung because it was a favourite with the choir, or because it had been requested by a member of the congregation.

The choir at St. Matthias' consisted entirely of volunteers. Monk claimed that a professional choir would never have worked with the same diligence, or accepted the same heavy duties. In addition to the Sunday services, there was a daily choral Evensong at the church which the choir attended on a rota basis. No man was accepted as a member of the choir unless he agreed to attend twice on Sundays and on three evenings during the week. 9 This brief survey should suffice to show the tradi­

tion from which Willan drew the liturgical and musical prin­

ciples be followed during his time in North America: Proske's

8Rainbow, :p·. 92. This book included "the ancient hymns of th,e English Church -- the word was carefully underlined -- set to their ancient melodies".

9Rainbow, p. 18?.

5

use of plainsong, Dyce's labours on Merbecke, the develop­

ment of excellent volunteer a capella choirs, Oakeley's

antiphonal chanting, the inf~uential effect of the Margaret

Chapel, Spencer's plainsong accompaniments, 10 Belmore's

experimental p·salter, the singing congregation and repetitive

cycle of music at St. Matthias', and rinally, the initial

burst of enthusiasm for plainsong -- all these things are

forerunners of \·lillan' s work in Canada.

Although this growth was quite extensive within the

English Tractarian parishes, it encountered increasing op­

position toward the close of the nineteenth century. Poli­

tical events, conflicts with the episcopacy, and errors of

scholarship found in Helmore's interpretation of the Chant,

are among the reasons for this trend.11 The main factor,

10charles Spencer was "the .first exponent • • • {in England) of systematic modal accompaniment 11

, contributing "organ harmonies .for use with Merbecke to the Parish Choir in 1847. He was also responsible for setting W.S. Irons!s (sicJ translation of Dies Irae (1848), and several of the hymns in Helmore's Hymnal Noted (1852)". -- Rainbow, p. 238.

11see Rainbow, pp. 143-147, 169, 180, and 183, for some examples of these anti-Tractarian political and ecclesi­astical confrontations.

Concerning the problems scholars have found in Bel­more's adaptations, the following comments are worthy of note: ·Briggs and Frere lament the monotony that resulted from Belmore's setting of "the recitation of several (conse­cutive] Psalms to one Tone without the relief of Antiphons", and also "certain difficulties in the pointing". -- H.B. Briggs and \'l.H. Frere, eds., A Manual of Plainsong (London: Novello, 1902), p. iii. Anselm Hughes describes Helmore as one of the "early but unintentional mensuralists", whose plainsong contained "fixed time-values and no really free rhythm, except for the absence of printed bar-lines, which

6

however, was the existence of another type of Church music.

With the demand for reform, many parish churchmen looked to

the great English Cathedrals for their models. There they

discovered robed professional choirs, Anglican chant, massive

organs, and silent congregations. Newly prosperous Victorian

city parishes found themselves, perhaps for the first time,

with the finances to imitate these establishments. Leeds

Parish Church was first. The Temple Church in London soon

followed, and this in turn set the style for other fashion­

able·middle-class churches of the day.

This "Broad Church 11 pattern of worship soon eclipsed

the Tractarian style, and asserted that dominance which it

holds to this day over the main stream of Anglican worship.

The use ·of plainsong declined sharply in the years between

1860 and 1890, until it \-las retained only by a few "high"

parishes and study groups such as the London Gregorian Associ­

ation.12

usually existed in imagination if not in print". -- Hughes, "A New Attack Upon Plainsong", English Church Music [hereafter cited as ECM] (1964), p. 20. Finally, Brik Houtley says: "\vi thout doubt Helmore thought of plainsong as grave and (in the secular sense).solemn.; he noted it in minims". Routley also accuses this Tractarian priest of failing to distinguish "true. plainsong from other music written down in the same kind of notation", and of notational inaccuracies when transcribing hymns from older sources. -- Routley, A Short History of Eng­lish Church Music, p. 80.

12This organization was founded in 1870 to promote the study and practice of plainsong. Helmore was its first Can­tor, and the premier edition of its famous English Gradual was published in 1871. Large-scale Gregorian Festivals were held annually in St. Paul's Cathedral.

?

A second wave of interest began, however, about the

time that Willan was entering choir school. H.B. Briggs was

fascinated by the now fully-blossoming research of the Sol­

esmes monks, and spent some time at the Abbey studying their '13 particular use. In 1888 he founded the Plainsong and Medi-

aeval Music Society, in association with men such as Sir John

Stainer and (later Bishop) W.H. Frere. Scholarly recovery of

Sarum sources produced the Gradual Sarisburiense and its _

accompanying Antiphonal. These became the major English

facsimile collections paralleling the Solesmes Pal~ographie

Musicale. By 1902 a revision of Helmore's old Manual of

Plainsong had been completed according to the new style. The

f'lawed semi-mensuralist plainsong of "hellm.ost Helmore 11,14 \'las

13The modern history of the Solesmes revival began with the re-settlement of the Abbey by Dom Prosper Gueranger and six priests in 1833. It was these monks who "undertook, in face of much opposition, the restoration .of Gregorian chant based on manuscripts of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries (facsimiles of which they published in the great series Pal~ographie Musicale)". -- Alec Robertson, 11Plainsong", The Pelican History of Husic [hereafter cited as Pelican], I (1960), 156. Toward the end of the nineteenth century tneir work took over the lead from Proske's Ratisbon school, and resulted in the publication of the first volume of the Editio Vaticana ( 1904). This replaced the I1echlin Gradual, and is still the supreme Roman Catholic primer on plainsong.

14Hughes, 11A New Attack Upon Plainsong", ECM (1964), p. 20.

Edward ~-lagner suggests that Helmore 11 based his ver­sion of English chant on the corrupt models attacked by Solesmes'1 i.e. on the Medicean/Mechlin Gradual. -- E.I. Wagner, nfiealey \villan at St. l1ary Magdalene's (1921-1968)" (M.Div. dissertation, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 1978), p. 15n.

8

thereby replaced by something which was both sound in scholar­

ship and exceedingly beautiful. All these developments gene-

rated a renewed enthusiasm for plainsong, and it was in this

positive climate that the young Healey Willan studied and

grew to musical maturity, developing tastes and styles that

would remain with him for life.

We know very little about Willan's involvement with

plainsong during the English years. The National Library

of Canada recently attempted to gather information about his

early life, but \·las hampered both by the loss of archives

during the Blitz and by the death of Willan's early contem­

poraries.15 From the few surviving sources we can sketch

the following facts about his earliest associations with the

Chant.

Beginning at the age of four or five, Willan regu-

larly attended the Anglo-Catholic Church of St. George, in

Eeckenham. This was one of the then relatively rare Trac-

tarian parishes, which "had dispensed • • • with the Anglican

chant in favour of the restoration of plain chant".16 In

his most formative years, therefore, Willan was exposed to

this particular style of musical worship, and gained an af-

15The enquiries were made by Helmut Kallmann, Chief of the Music Division, NLC, during the asse~bly of the Willan Collection in 1970. Replies to his letters can be found stored with the Collection.

16Godfrey Ridout, "Healey tiillan 11, Canadian Music

Journal, III (Spring 1959), p. 5.

9

fection for it which he was not to lose during his subse­

quent six-year involvement with the Anglican chants used at

St. Saviour's Choir School.·

As a teenager, he obtained his first organist's post

at a mission church in Hertfordshire. Fr. Darwin Barton

apparently greeted his new musician with the follovting in~.

struction: "Give us plainchant, lots of it, the devil hates

it so1"17 A contemporary document indicates that the con­

gregation of this parish were taught to sing the Creed and

Gloria to the set.ting by John Merbecke and to that of the

Missa Quinti Toni, and later to Dumont's setting and the

Missa de Angelis.18

In 1903, \villan moved to the Church of St. John the

Baptist in Kensington. Plainsong was in use there, and dur­

ing his ten years as head of that parish's music program,

he achieved "a reputation as an authority on plainchant in

the vernacular".19

While at St. John's, .·Willan also began his lifelong

involvement with the Gregorian Association, and for a time

17Healey Will an, "A \1ell-known and Dear Friend Writes a Revealing and Inspiring Letter .. , Flammerion Newsletter, VIII (january 1966), 1-2. .

18NLC, Willan Papers, H.R. Wilton-Hall, The Story of the Church and Parish of St. Saviour, St. Albans (1910).

19Giles Bryant, Healey Willan Catalogue (Ottawa: NLC, 1972), p.· 14.

10

acted as general assistant to its head, Fr. Francis Burgess.

"The two of them, Burgess and \·/illan, went about lecturing

and demonstrating with missionary zeal."20

Beyond this, the only remaining information about

this period shows a young musician sampling all the creative

opportunities of the many musical styles then in vogue.

Plainsong was only one interest among many, an interest

which, however, was to bear great fruit in the events sur-

rounding the liturgical music Dr. Willan attempted to esta­

blish in North America. The next chapter will begin the

discussion of these efforts, in a description of the model

musical regime he built during his forty-seven years at St.

Mary Magdalene's parish church.

20Ridout, "Healey Will an", Canadian Music Journal, III {Spring 1959), p. 8. The following examples show some of the work Willan did for the Association: On a copy of an article published in 1912 by C.W. Pearce, there is a note in Willan's hand indicating that he improvised keyboard il­lustrations for at least one of Burgess• lectures on plain­song accompaniment. The same article mentions a fauxbourdon chant-haroonization that Willan provided for the annual Gregorian Festival that year. -- NLC, Willan Papers, Pearce, 110n Some Nevi l·1usic by He ale~ ·willan 11

, Organist and Choir-master, XIX (April 15, 1912), 303-308. We also know that , Willan acted as a "sub-conductor" at the 1911 London Festival. -- See Healey \villan, "Church Music or Music of the Church", Ninth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: Gregorian Association Canada [hereafter cited as G.A. Canada], 1959), P• 19.

Burgess became Musical Director of the Association in 1910, and at once began to replace the Helmore style with ntbe Solesmes methods of plainsong interpretation". -- ~·/agner, p. 15n. This in turn influenced much of Willan 1 s teaching on the subject in Canada. -- e.g. See below, pp. 85-87.

II

THE MODEL

St. Mary Magdalene's is a century-old structure hid~

den away in an ageing north-west section of Toronto's inner

core. _The building is almost as broad as it is long, and

consists of a curious mixture of Romanesque architecture,

ugly Victorian decoration, hideous plaster sculpture, a

basilican apse, and·a Vatican-II sanctuary. It is a strange

combination, but one which has its O\~ native attractiveness.

The church's acoustical balarice is its most impor­

tant musical feature. The wide space, high ceiling, flat

plaster walls and hardwood floors, combine to produce a

perfectly resonant auditorium -- having enough reverberation

to smooth the rough edges of amateur singing, without at

the same time causing speech to be unduly muffled. This

resonance also serves as a natural amplifier: enabling

musically-untrained clerics and chanters to produce a clear

vocal sound with relative ease, making possible a most

ethereally-hushed and blended style of singing from the gal-

lery, and giving the middle-sized organ the power of a

cathedral instrument. The acoustical properties of St. Mary's

perhaps more than any other factor, attracted Willan to that

parish, kept him there until death, and contributed to the

successful adoption of his plainsong use.

11

12

The musical requirements of that parish's liturgy

are another important factor in the development of this use. . .

Willan had to provide music for both the traditional "High

Mass" and a service which combines Anglican Evensong with

the extra-liturgical practice of Devotions to the Blessed

Sacrament. To fully clothe these two rites in their tradi­

tional plainsong garb requires well over an hour of Chant

performance every week. 1

Following Oakeley' s pattern, \villan established a

two-choir system in which a small group of Sanctuary "ritual"

singers are answered by a polyphonic chorus in the west

gallery. Of this system he later wrote: "It divides the

work, and it calls more people into service", 2 and "it affords

a very convenient and musical way in which the general prin­

ciple of antiphonal singing can be observed 11 .3 Both groups

.1At the Mass plainsong is used for Asperges, Versi­cles, Prayers, Introit, Gloria, Collects, Epistle, Gradual, Gospel, Creed, Offertory, Sursum Corda, Preface, Canon Doxo­logy, Pater Noster, Pax, Communion, and Dismissal. Kyrie, Sanctus-Benedictus, and Agnus Dei are also chanted when the gallery choir members are in recess (i.e. at most weekday services and during the summer). At the evening service, plainsong is used for the Preces, Psalms, Office Hymn, Can­ticles, Versicles, Collects, Lady Antiphon, and (often) for the two Devotion Hymns.

2NLC, \villan Papers·, H. Will an, 11Music of the Easter Mass [lecture notes] 11

, n.d.

3NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Willard Groom, October 4, 1958. Antiphonal singing is a most ancient de­votional method, known to have been used for the performance of psalms in Old Testament times. One newspaper article sug-

share in leading the congregational singing, whether to

Chant or metrical hymns. The ritual choir. alone,

13

howev~r, is charged with performing the more complex

non-congreg~tional chants. 4 Wi~lan defended this ar­

rangement thus: "By keeping one choir for plainsong, the

singing improves in style and finish, for to sing plainsong

well, the singers must be very familiar with their work".5

All the members of the plainsong choir are adult

males. In addition, 11 as ritual choirs have a traditional

role in the rites and ceremonies of the church and take an

integral part in the liturgy, the members of the St. Mary's

ritual choir have always been required to be Anglican 11•6

gests that a desire to restore this practice was Willan•s main reason for establishing two choirs in the one building. -- See NLC, \~illan Papers, A clipping from the Globe and Mail, Toronto (August 20, 1965).

4The gallery choir's special role is to sing a short polyphonic motet at each service, and three movements of the Missa Brevis (Kyrie, Sanctus-Benedictus, and Agnus Dei) at the Mass. This music is not plainsong, and thus lies outside the scope of the present study. In any case Willan considered it an interesting, but secondary and ornamental addition to the music of the liturgy. He regarded the Chant 11as of more basic importance in Church music than polyphony. His view always was that the mixed choir could be dispensed with ••• as all the music necessary for any service of the Church is contained in the tremendous storehouse of plainchant 11

• -- NLC, Willan Papers, E.A.R. Newson, A tribute written at the time of Willan's eightieth birthday.

5NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, "Music of the Easter Mass (lecture notes ) 11

, n .d.

6.~Healey ''lillan at St. Hary Magdalene's 1921-1968 11,

Healey Willan Memorial Fund (promotional pamphlet], (Toronto: St. Mary Magdalene's Church, n.d.).

14

Their number has varied from as few as two or three to as

many as fourteen.? In contrast to the a capella gallery

group, the singing from the sanctuary is generally accompanied

by the organ. 8 Two cantors are responsible for chanting many

of the intonations, the verses of the Mass propers, and the

alternate verses of psalms.9 No single voice is permitted

?The latter number is mentioned in H.C. Hamilton, "Dr. Healey Willan", Husical Canada, IX (December 1928), 3.

8This presents an interesting problem to the accom­panist. According to George and Margaret Drynan, the organ was originally played in the chancel. About 1932 a small legacy was used to move the console to the gallery at the other end of the church. This enabled Willan to conduct the gallery ensemble, but it put both console and accompanist a great distance away from the organ pipes and the ritual choir. -- George and Hargaret Drynan, 11 \'lillan Career Inter\voven vri th St. Mary's 11

, Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9. The second English Archbishops• committee.on Church

music suggests that "satisfactory results cannot be obtained if choir and organ are separated from each other by more than a very moderate distance 11

, and concludes that the two should remain together in either the west end or the chancel of the church. -- Music in Church (London: Church Information Board, 1951), p. 59. At St. Mary•s, however, the attainment of such "satisfactory results 11 is not at all barred by the great dis­tance betv;een the choir and its accompanist. The organist does have to play slightly ahead of his chanters, but the fact that the pipes themselves speak immediately behind the choir makes it relatively easy for him to keep the two together. With his knowledge of both the organ and St. Mary's acoustics, moreover, Willan would certainly have no problem. In any case, the chant itself is not pegged to any recurring down­beat, and thus does not suffer when slightly out-of-phase with its accompaniment. Indeed, some feel it is at its best v1hen moving with complete rhythmic freedom through a background of non-metrical harmony.

9cf. the Editio Vaticana, which suggests that two cantors be used on Sundays and on all but the most solemn of Feasts. -- Liber Usualis (Tournai: Desclee, 1934), p. xv. Burgess, Willan*s mentor, gives similar instructions in the

15

to stand out above the others, however, and the cantors take

as much care as the rest to sing as a unit. Willan insisted

that "each voice in his choir had to be subordinated to the

one perfectly blended unit of sound 11 •10 To this day the

music of the choir has never been "allowed to intrude, but

always unobtrusively enhances the rich beauty and meaning of

the services 11•11

· Like Monk's singers at St. Matthias', St. Mary's

ritual choir is manned by volunteers. The desire to sing,

together with the will to attend regularly, have been the

chief requirements for membership. In Willan's hands they

Introduction to his Gradual. --Francis Burgess, ed., The English Gradual: Part II (London: The Plainchant Publications Committee, n.d.), p. viii.

10Gwethalyn Graham, "Church of St. Mary Magdalene", Saturday Night, LV (May 18, 1940), 16-1?. The Preface to the Editio Vaticana makes a similar de:nand: "The singing must be uniform, and the singers should listen to one another, making their pauses well together. In order that all the voices may be one, which is most essential, each singer should attempt in all modesty to allow his own voice to be­come merged in the volume of sound of the choir as a whole 11

•

Liber Usualis, p. xiv.

11Tom Brown, "Healey Willan", Music Scene, CCXXXVIII (November-December 196?), 8. Church musicians have often been suspected of using Sunday services as an excuse for per­sonal showmanship. Bernard of Clairvaux had this in mind when he wrote: "It is. no.slight loss of spiritual grace to be distracted from the profit of the sense by the beauty of the chant, and to have our attention drawn to a mere vocal display, when we ought to be thinking of what is sung 11

•

-- Alec Robertson, Christian Music (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1961) ,- p. 42. \·lillan never permitted the music at St. Mary's to become anything more than a complementary adjunct to the ~ords and actions of the Liturgy.·

16

showed "again and again that a :few voices of ordinary capa­

city can become an extraordinary instrument for the worship

of God".12

Like many o:f his Tractarian predecessors Willan felt

that parish congregations should also participate in a fair

amount of the chanting. Accordingly, he adhered to the

:following schema for the Eucharist:

We think of three possible divisions, that is something which the people do not have to sing, something the people should sing and something to which the people should listen and meditate. Now the ritual choir sing all the Propers, ••• and the people do not sing those; they aren't expected to; they couldn't if they tried without rehearsing with me for an hour before­hand, which you can't get. And even so there is no need for them because that is the job of a certain group I think, of the choir group. The Propers are sung by the ritual choir. The people sing the Gloria, the Credo and the two hymns -~ that gives them four definite movements to sing.13

A similar division was encouraged at Evensong, and when the

music of both services is considered we find that the con-

gregation of St. Mary Magdalene's sings a great deal of

Chant.14

12Helen Palk~ The Book of Canadian Achievement (Toronto: Dent, 1951J, p. 207.

13NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

14This includes: Asperges, Versicles~ Gloria, Creed, Sursum Corda, Pater Noster, Pax, Dismissal, Preces, Psalms, Office and (some) Devotion Hymns, Canticles, and Lady Anti­phon.

1?

This choral system is quite different from that which

Willan inherited in 1921. Although St. Mary Magdalene's was

considered quite ceremonious for its day, its liturgical mu­

sic then conformed to the "Broad Church" pattern. A robed

men and boys choir was.positioned on either side of a typical

furniture-packed Anglican chancel. There was a solo at the

Offertory, and neither plainsong nor Propers were in use.15

abrupt:

The initial change is reported to have been rather

On the last Sunday of the pre-\villan regime, the choir of St. Mary Magdalene's ambled through the usual series of Anglican composi­tions which were no better and no worse than those heard in a few thousand other Canadian churches on the same day. The following Sun­day there was plainsong dating from the 2nd century \'lhich 1:1ight have been sung in the catacombs of Rome; there were motets, faux­bourdons, chorales, Kyries, a Sanctus, Bene­dictus, Gloria, Credo and Agnus Dei with music from four hundred to a thousand years old.16

Within a year, a newspaper in far-off r1ontreal stated that

St. Mary's "is becoming noted for the excellence of its

plainsong, or plainchant".17 The change was swift indeed,

15From George and r-Iargaret Drynan, "Willan Career Interwoven with St. Mary's'', Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9; and R.\'1. Hambleton, 11 An ~xperience of Life: Dr. Healey Willan (interview]", CBC Times, VII (April 3-9, 1955), 3 •

. 16Gwethalyn Graham, 11 Church of St. ~lary Magdalene", Saturday Night, LV (May 18, 1940), 16-17.

17NLC, \villan Papers, A clipping from the Standard, Montreal (December 30, 1922).

,.

18

although adjustments to the new system continued to be made

for another ten or £ifteen years. 18

The driving force behind the liturgical al-terations

was St. Mary's Rector, Father Hiscocks. He is reputed to

have been such a "great authority on the Anglo-Cath.olic or~~

any kind of Catholic service", that 11 even the Roman Catholic

Archbishops used to consult him"· 19 The extent of this ..

cleric's influence at St. Mary's can best be measured by the

reaction of the Toronto press early in 1922. The parish's

11ritual, ceremonial, vestments and services were condemned

in vigorous language, and its vicar was harshly criticized

because of his extreme views and practices". 20 In any case, . 21

he was "an ardent lover of plainsong", who followed the

work of the English Gregorian Association and knew \villan

from a chance encounter at its annual £estival in 1911. 22

18e.g. After the console \vas moved to the gallery, the choir's music lists record both a sudden increase in the use of polyphonic Ordinaries and a corresponding decrease in plainsong. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, monthly music lists, 1930-1935.

19NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of a conversation between Norah Hichener and George I'1aybee, n .d.

20According to NLC, Willan Papers, A clipping from the Standard, Hontreal (December 30, 1922).

21NLC, Willan Papers, A clipping from the Standard, Montreal (December 30, 1922).

22From Healey Willan, 11 Church Husic or ?-tusic of the Church 11 , Ninth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1959)~ p. 19.

19

There is no doubt that the composer was attracted to St.

Mary's by Hiscocks' work in that parish. The Rector gave

his new Organist free reign over the musical establishment,

and is reported to have told him: "You know what I want; we

both want the same thing. Let's go full steam ahead 11 •23

In spite of their forceful and fervent determination,

it is perhaps a miracle that these two men succeeded to the

extent that they did. Anglican congregations are notorious

for their resistance to changes of any kind, and especially

to those involving the Church's music. Plainsong in parti­

cular has traditionally been opposed as some kind of suspect

Roman "heresy". In 1921 St. Mary's congregation 11 was slightly

stunned" by the sweeping nature of the new alterations.

There \'/ere "many crises 11 then, and again at the re-arrangement

of the chancel in 1932. 24

The contemporary reports are not clear, but it seems

23NLC·, \villa~ Papers, H. Will an· to R. T.F. Brain [then Rector of St. Mary Magdalene's], April 1951.

\villan was styled "Precentor 11, a title more common

to English cathedral and monastic foundations. Some justi­fication was sought for this in the fact that a small commu­nity of Anglican Sisters was attached to the parish through most of the composer's career there. -- See W.E. Marwick, "The Sacred Choral Music of Healey Willan" (Ph.D. disserta­tion, Michigan State University, 1970), p. 23. Precentors traditionally have control over all the music used in the worship of their respective establishments, combining powers and-:.duties that·in most·parishes-.are:.more:.usuaily shared by organists, choirmasters, clergy, and/or music committees.

24George and Margaret Drynan, 11 ~-lillan Career Inter­woven with St. Mary's 11

, Diapason, Lr· (October 1, 1960), 8-9.

that acceptance of these sudden changes only came as a re­

sult of determination, patience, and careful planning over

a long period of time. Willan prepared thoroughly for the

initial services. 25 Every alteration was fully explained

and justified. The change in choir personnel was not as

summary as later writers have implied. 26 Hiscocks supported

his Precentor with complete loyalty. 27 The music was chosen

25According to one account, the composer began mold­ing a group of his friends into a plainsong choir six weeks before his inaugural service at St. Mary's. -- George and Margaret Drynan, rn,villan Career Interwoven with St. Nary's", Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9.

26e.g. The Drynans suggest that the choir boys were immediately "excused (until they grew up) 11

• -- George and Margaret Drynan, 11 Willan Career Interwoven with St. Hary's", Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9. An earlier source written one year after the beginning of the changes, however, states that "Dr. ~villan 's chancel choir C:)nsists of boys and men". -- NLC, Willan Papers, A clipping from the Stan­dard, Montreal (December 30, 1922). If this -account is accurate, we can assume that the boys were not dismissed until much later (if at all).

Willan displayed a lifelong enthusiasm for boys' voices. He scored his published plainsong canticles for them, taught the women in the gallery to sing like them, and spent a great deal of time participating in choral camps with them. I cannot believe he would waste the superb potential of these voices or risk the ire of parents at a crucial stage in the alterations, by sacking the boys so abruptly. Perhaps the younger ones were placed temporarily with the women in the gallery, while those whose voices had changed were quietly encouraged in the back row of the ritual choir. Whatever the case, if any of the boys did in fact leave the choir at this time, I suspect that they did so of their own volition and not from any suggestion made by either Willan or Hiscocks.

27Father Hiscocks is reported to have announced: "I will not interfere, and nobody else shall 11

• -- H.C. Hamilton, "Dr. Healey \'iillan 11 , Musical Canada, IX (December 1928), 3.

, Willan managed to preserve his independence through the Rec-

21

and presented in such a way that it would become familiar

and accepted as soon as possible. 28 Finally, Willan's own

'reputation ~nd personality were able to silence most objec­

tions before they could become open opposition. 29

In tiine "protests if any, soon whispered themselves

away and the people adopted the new forms of worship enthu-

torships of nine Priests. According to the Drynans, "there has never been any question as to what should be done and rarely any question as to how-it should be done. Where there are differences.which diplomacy could not resolve, Willan has always been loyally supported by his rector 11 •

-- George and Margaret Drynan, "~·Jillan Career Interwoven with St. Mary•sn, Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9.

28Much of the music was selected from that with which the congregation was already familiar, either through previous use or through airings at recitals and on radio broadcasts. Willan believed that "if we v1ant to 'raise the standard' it will be more effectively brought about by train­ing the congregation to demand the raised standard, rather than by pouring unfamiliar sounds into unwilling ears". -- H. \'iillan, "A I1essage from Healey Willan to the C.C.O. (r.lessages from Past Presidents] 11

, Musical Canada, XI (Octo­ber 1930), 23. Accordingly, he directed several "liturgical recitals" featuring and explaining the music used at Sunday services. -- See, for example, NLC, Willan Papers, "Recital of Liturgical ~1usic [a program] 11

, October 14, 1929. In 1940 Gwethalyn Graham wrote: 11\Vhether they rea­

lize it or not, the parishioners of St. Mary Magdalene's have received a fairly intensive training over the past twenty years. They can sing music which would baffle the average congregation 11

• -- Graham, 11Church of St. Hary Hagdalene", Saturday Night, LV (May 18, 1940), 16-17. Even now, a casual visit to the eleven o'clock High Mass on almost any Sunday would prove the validity of this point.

29\fuen he came to St. Mary's he was already a famous performer and composer, and had just been awarded an honorary Mus. Doc. from the University of Toronto. More important, he was gifted with sincere faith, earthy wit and charm, infec­tious enthusiasm, and an ability to inspire loyalty and af­fection.

22

siastically for their own, and have to this day".30 Willan

once wrote: "The beautifying of the Liturgy is the main part

of my work at S.M.M., and that, in my opinion is only pos­

sible through the use of the Church's own music, so that

plainsong has been the essential backbone of my work11 .31

After the first few years of his Precentorship, most of his

fellow parishioners were prepared to accept this pattern of

worship and make it their own.

Once the new use was firmly established, St. Mary's

gradually began to acquire an extensive and unique body of

plainsong. An analysis of this collection's sources, nature,

and seasonal use, will be found in the next chapter.

3°George and Margaret Drynan, "vlillan Career Inter­woven with St. Hary's", Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9.

31NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to R.T.F. Brain, April 1951.

III

A COLLECTION OF CHANT

A great amount of St. Mary Magdalene's plainsong

resources was assembled during Willan•s first seven years

at that parish. By 1928 the choir library had grown to

noticeable proportions, and a visitor to the church observed:

"An immense quantity of HSS in blue prints occupies. one en­

tire cupboard. At least fifty per cent of this plain chant

can be heard nowhere else in Canada outside of St. Mary

Magdalene's. Dr. Willan has spent many years of the most

painstaking research in acquiring this priceless collection".1

Discussion of this material can be conveniently

divided into nine sections. The first four include the

plainsong that St. Mary Magdalene's Choirs_draw from pub­

lished works: the Ordinary, Hymnal, Psalter, and Office

Canticles. The next four describe Willan's chant manu­

scripts: the Holy ~leek 1-Jlusic, Hass Propers, Evening Anti­

phons, and Eucharistic Sequences. Finally, I look at

the lists that Willan made of the music used at the ser-

vices· during his Precentorship.

Ordinary

In one of his letters, Willan reveals that the

1H.C. Hamilton,- "Dr. Healey \'iill_an", Husical Canada, IX (December 1928), 3·

23

24

source of most of the chants used at St. Mary's for Asper­

ges me, 2 Vidi Aquam, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Bene­

dictus, Agnus Dei, and Dismissal, is "The English Gradual

ed. by Francis Burgess 11 .3 This was a new edition of the

work which had first appeared under Helmore and s.s. Greatheed in 1871. Several copies were bought for St.

Mary's, and bound in leather with the words "S.M.M. Ritual

Choir" imprinted on the cover. Of special interest is

Willan's original "Organ 11 copy, now among his papers in

the National Library. In addition to some pencilled direc­

tions and minor alterations, a few hand-made tabs are at-

tached to the leaves of this book. One of these marks the

Cardinalis setting of the Creed as "Credo IV", while another

labels the Monastic version: "Credo VIII".4 AccC?rding to

2we do not usually consider this to be part of the Ordinary, but Apel notes that both the Asperges antiphon, and the Ite r1issa Est dismissal, are "Ordinary chants that stand outside the r1ass as its prelude and postlude". -- vlilli Apel, Gregorian Chant (London: Burns and Oates, 1958), p. 25.

3NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to unknown [name ille­gible], n.d. The full citation is : Francis Burgess, ed., The English Gradual: Part One (2nd ed.; London: Novello, 1920).

Willan's music lists (See below, p. 37) refer to two Missa-Brevis settings which are not from the Burgess book. The Deus Semni terne Hass still used at St. Ivlary' s; \vas adap­ted by Herbert J. Carter from the Vatican Editions, and pro­duced as a separate pamphlet by the Church Jarehouse publi­shers in Brighton. The Hiss a ivlarialis, better known as the Cum Jubilo r1ass, also.came from this source. This latter work d~sapnears from the music lists after 1935. Copies of both these. settings are in the St. Mary Magdalene music library.

4This last nuober causes some confusion. To the

25

the parish music lists, \villan used at least four of this

book's !1issa Brevis and Gloria settings,5 and four of its

Creed arrangements. 6

Burgess increased the selection of chants in later

revisions of this work. The fifth (1949) and sixth (1955)

editions were acquired for use at St. Mary's, and one of

the former became Willan's final "Organ" copy.? Two more

settings of the Missa Brevis and Gloria were added to the

music lists from this source.8

Hymnal

St. Mary Magdalene's "was one of the first churches

in Canada to adopt the English Hymnal" as its parochial

hymn-book.9 This work was produced in 1906 under the joint

Cardinalis and Authentic settings, \'/illan assigns the num­bers used for them in the Burgess book (1955). In the case of the Honastic chant, however, he appears to use its mode-number as a label.

5i.e. I1agnus Deus Potentiae, de Angelis, Orbis Factor, and Dominator Deus.

6i.e. Authentic, de Angelis, Cardinalis, and Monastic.

?rt is still used by Willan's successors, and can be found at the organ console in St. Mary's.

Bi.e. Alme Pater and 0 Pater Excelse. The music lists make initial reference to tnese in 1954.

9From NLC, Willan Papers, H. ~villan to K. Scott [a letter describing the St. Hary Hagdalene Mass Propers], n.d.

26

direction of Ralph Vaughan Williams and the great Tractar­

ian liturgist Percy Dearmer. Its general aim was "to com­

bine in one volume the worthiest expressions of all that

lies within the Christian Creed, from those 'ancient Fathers'

who were the earliest hymn-writers down to contemporary

exponents of modern aspirations and ideals 11 •10 The result

was a book containing an extensive amount of plainsong.

The first written evidence we have of the use of

the English Hymnal at St. Mary's, is found in a service

leaflet from the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1929.11 Most

likely the "standard hymnal of the Church of England" re­

putedly used at Willan•s first practice eight years earlier,

was in fact this same work. 12 He certainly preferred it to

all other hymn-books. 13

· 10R. Vaughan V/illiams, ed., The English Hrnal (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), Prefacereprinted verbatim from the original 1906 edition). .

11see NLC, Willan Papers. Hymns "330, part one 11 and "326, part !! 11 are listed for Devotions at Evensong on that date. The two hymns traditionally used for this purpose bear these same numbers in the English Hymnal. Thus we know that St. Mary's began to use the ~nglish Hymnal sometime prior to that occasion.

12Gwethalyn Graham, "Church of St. Hary Magdalene", Saturday Night, LV (.Nay 18, 1940), 16-17. Graham's phrase is misleading. The "standard" ~nglican hymnal in Cana~a at the time was Sir George Mart1n's Book of Coomon Pra1se (~909), while Hymns AI?c~e!lt_,and ~'Iode~n \vas. perhaps the most w1dely-used in the Br1t1sn ~hurcn. ~here 1s no trace of either of these works at St. f1ary's.

13He once wrote: "The English Hymnal, in my opinion,

'i:

Several copies of both the 1906 and 1933 versions of

this book are in St. Mary 1 s choir library. ·\villan 1 s origi­

nal 1906 working copy is still in his old desk at the church.

Amid its tattered leaves there are the remains of a few pen­

cilled notes and paste-in additions made by the cornposer.14

Psalter

Throughout \villan 's career at St. I1ary' s, the psalms

were sung from the Briggs and Frere revision (1902) of Bel-·

more's Manual of Plainsong. Thus we have a direct connection

between the use at St. Mary Magdalene's and the events in

London a century before. Willan stated in 1960 that he had

used no other psalter since he "became organist and choir-

master of the Church of St. Mary I1agdalene in 1921", and

that he had "still' to find a better psalter, or one in

which as a general rule, more appropriate Tones and endings

have been selected 11•15

One of the last projects the composer undertook,

contains fe\ver bad, poor or weak tunes than any other". -- Healey \villan, "[On Hymn Tunes)", Hamil ton Spectator (September 8, 1956), p. 15.

14e.g. The Easter Sequence 11 Victimae Paschali" has a ten~note 11 Amen, Alleluia 11 appended to its last. verse.

15NLC Willan Papers, H. \'/illan to John Littleton, January 17 196o. In the "early days at SNl:1", ~·Jillan apparently'had to borrow psalters 11 from St. ~homas 1 s_

11 [Huron Street l \vhich ha~ to. be returned a~. snort not1ce • -- NLC, Willan P3pers, Lesll.e Rose to H. dJ.llan, September 4, 1963.

28

was his own revised edition of this work to suit the wording

of the new Canadian Book of Common Prayer (1962). This was

published as the Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition in 1963,

and took its place alongside the parental work in St. Mary's

choir library. More will be said of this publication in a

later chapter.

Canticles

The modal chants used for the evening canticles at

St. Mary's are found in the psalters described above. Most

are more elaborate "solemn" forms of the basic psalm-tones.

In the performance of these chants, \villan adopted the faux­

bourdon practice he had known i~ Britain.16 At a choral

Evensong in St. Hary's, therefore, "the majority of verses

is sung by the cantors or by men's • • • voices in unison

accompanied by the organ. Every third verse is sung a ca­

pella in parts and is a fauxbourdon on the plainsong

melody 11 •17

16i.e. During his time with the London Gregorian Association. -- See above, pp. 9-10, and n. 20 on p. 10.

\villan also was fan1iliar ·.vi th the fauxbourdon prac­tice established in V/estminster Cathedral by Sir Richard Terry (1865-1938). He mentions this in connection with a Tone III Nunc Dimittis used at St. Nary's: "I couldn't get a copy of it anywhere, and I heard a record of it as sung by the Westminster Cathedral Choir so I borrowed the record and put it on the machine, copied it down and reset it for the English words 11 • -- NLC, \'/illan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey \villan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

17Marwick, p. 83.

29

Willan once said that he composed several of these

fauxbourdons in order to "slightly embellish the Canticles

as opposed to the rather plain treatment of the Psalms

just to give them a special significance 11 • In the same

interview h~ also stated that the first six of these arrange­

ments "were written shortly after I was at St. Hary's •••

for the use of St. Mary's.18 Others followed in a continu­

ous stream of composition. About twenty of the combined

Magnificat and Nunc -Dimittis sets are in St. Mary Ivlagdalene·•s

choir library, in addition to five or six individual canti­

cles. Many of these arrangements were published, and serve

as examples of Willan's masterful ability to combine plain­

song tones with harmonic ornamentation and organ accompan­

iment. Willan also arranged and used canticle-fauxboardons

originally written by other composers, including Andreas,

Gibbons, Viadana, Byrd, Ruffo, Tallis, Norley, and Stanford.

These also can be found in the choir library, some of them

in editions by irancis Burgess and Royle Shore.

Holy Week Manuals

St. Mary 1 s music collection contains several type­

script manuals for use at the Holy Week rites. Choir edi­

tions complete with chants and texts are kept fo~ the Pro­

cession of Palms on Palm Sunday, the Reproaches and Venera-

· 1 ~LC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversatio~s between Healey \·lillan and Max Parker, 1963-1965. The s~x were published as a series entitled: T~e Bv~~in~ Canticles with Fauxbourdons (New York: Oxford Un~vers~~y ~ress, 1928).

30

tion of the Cross on Good Friday, the three Tenebrae services,

and the Easter Vigil. A tremendo~s amount of plainsong is

used for this most important week in the Church's year.19

With the exception of a few additions and changes by Willan, 20

this music is largely drawn from English publications. 21

Propers

Willan's setting of the Eucharistic Propers com­

prises the largest set of manuscripts in st. Hary 1 s collec­

tion. The composer described it thus: 11It consists of 3

volumes -- Advent to Holy Week, Easter to Trinity and an

Appendix of Saints Days and additional verses not found in

the Calendar". 22 Most of this music can be found in the

19 Apel describes the traditional Holy ~·leek music thus: "The chants sung during the ceremonies are mainly elaborate Antiphons (similar to the Antiphons to the B.V.M. in that they are not connected with a Psalm), Responsories, and Hymns". -- Apel, pp. 31-32.

20Examples include his adaptation of the 11Ingredien­te" chant for the Palm Sunday Procession, the published Res­onsaries for the Offices of Tenebrae (Toronto: BI•II Canada, 1956 , and the 11.b'aithful Cross 11 fauxbourdon to the Good

Friday hymn "Pange Lingua 11•

21e.g. The Palm Sunday Rite and The Good Friday Rite, The Anglo-Catholic Choir Books, ed. Francis Burgess, Nos. 16 and 20 (London: The Plainchant Publications Committee, n.d.); the Restored Paschal Vigil (~A/ant age: St. Nary 1 s Press, n_.d.); and service books for 'l'enebrae of Haundy Thursday, Good Fri­day, and Holy Saturday (London: Lowe and Brydone Printers Ltd., n.d.). Several copies of t~es~ works are st?red.with the typescript Holy ~~eek manuals ~n St. I1ary 1 s cho~r l~brary.

22NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Graham George, September 10, 1962. The Organist of St. Ivlary rvlagdalene 's still plays from ~/ill an's three-volume 110rgan 11 copy. The

... ~------------------church, but the material that was in Willan's apartment when

he died is now in the care of the National Library.23

Several copies of Willan 1 s propers are in existence,

some produced manually and others by duplicating machines.

Attempts to have the manuscripts issued in print were never

completed, and thus in all cases both chant and text appear in

handwritten form. 24 The contents of these propers underwent at

least two revisions before achieving their present lay-out.2

5

ritual choir's music, however,.contains the same chants bound ·into two volumes, with the division occurring .between Pente-cost and Trinity Sunday.

23The Willan Papers include several boxes containing individual copies of the Mass chants, a single coil-bound "Organ" copY of-the Advent to Easter Propers, and a collection of Introits (see below, n. 24).

24\-lillan once described the St. rlary's Propers as "our speci!i.l edition \-lhicn is in MS and which I \vould like to see in print -- but Uor the fact that] the everlasting question of the almighty dollar takes precedence". -- NLC, '.Villan P3:pers, H. VJillan to \Iillard Groom, October 4-, 1958.

The dational Library has a manuscript containing Introits froc the St. Hary's Propers which \~illan at one time was preparing for publication. Leslie Rose o£:the s.s.J.E. Fathers assisted him with this project, and the work has an Introduction under their dual signature. Each of the Introits is hesded by its Latin title. The passing notes of a fe\'1

11tri-ounctum" neumes are >oJritten in red ink, and an

instruction to the -orinter suggests that these coloured sym-bols should be printed as "small" notes. ·:rhere are one or two extra neumes which are not found in St. Mary's manuscripts. The pointing of the words is also slightly different and al­ternate chants have been selected for one or two of the feasts.

_ 25At first "the propers for each Sunday and each feast were contained in separate envelop~s, ~rLtten_out by hand, in many cases without the aid of dupl1cat1ng.equ1pment, pn Pieces of papers of various sizeS~ -- NLC, Willan Papers, Al-

\i lr p

32

At first Willan used the words found in the English 26 Hymnal. These he described as 11 the text of the Anglican

· Missal 1127 which "is based on the Sarum Rite". 28 About 1954

Father Crummer persuaded him to replace a number of these

verses with the Western-Rite texts of the English Missal.29

~ne composer opposed this change for a time, but later

pasted the new adaptations into the Proper books.30

bert and Anne Mahon, A tribute written at the time of Willan's eightieth birthday. These materials were collated and bound into books 11in the early fifties". -- From "Healey Willan at _ St. Mary I1agdalene 's 1921-1968", Healey \villan Hemorial Fund (promotional pamphlet], (Toronto: St. Mary Magdalene's Church, n.d.). Willan prepared a list of changes which were subse­quently pasted into these books. -~ See NLC, Willan Papers, "Variants", n.d., A list in vlillan 1 s handwriting. Further alterations have been made since his death.

26see NLC; Willan Papers, H. Willan to Ken Scott [a letter describing the St. Mary Magdalene Mass Propers], n.d.

27NLC, \villan Papers, H. \villan to unknown [name illegible], n.d.

28NLC, \villan Papers, H. \villan, Untitled notes dis­cussing Willan's St. Mary Magdalene Mass Propers, n.d.

29willan mentions this in NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Graham George, September 10, 1962.

3°He gave the following reason a; groun~ for his op­position: "The variations in these two Rites are fairly ex­tensive ••• the main differences arise in the Alleluyas of Pentecost". -- NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, Untitled notes discussing Willan•s St. Mary Magdalene Mass Propers, n.d. Else­where he concludes that the difference occurs "not only in the variants 11 betv1een the t\.,o texts, but also "in the use of \vords or different syllabic accentuation". Thus "the task of re-adap­ting" the propers to the English Hissal texts \'lould be "not only difficult but in many cases unsatisfactory ... -- NLC, Wil­lan Papers, H. Willan to unknown [name illegible], n.d.

I I -I .

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33

The music is drawn from the vast body of plainsong

published in the Editio Vaticana.31 Proper melodies from

this source are used for the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia,

Offertory, and Communion texts of each major feast, and for

the rest of the Introits and Communions sung during the

year.32 Only a small number of the other Vatican Gradual

and Alleluia melodies are used, hov1ever. Each of these

is assigned to a season of the Church's year or to a com­

mon category of feasts, and adapted to the texts used dur­

ing that season or for that category. 33 \villan followed

31There is some confusion about which of the vari­ous Vatican books v/illan actually used. The Liber Usualis is most commonly mentioned in this regard, although the composer's letters consistently refer to the Graduale Roma­!!!!B!• -- e.g. See NLC, Willan Papers, H. \villan to Leslie Rose, February 6, 1957, and H. \villan to Graham George, September 10, 1962. \'lillan may in fact have consul ted both, as the St. Nary Nagdalene Propers include two sets of chants for the Feast of the Assumption: the first being unique to the Graduale and the second to the Liber.

32The traditional Vatican chants are provided for Christmas Hidnight Mass, Easter Day, St. Nary's Patronal Festival, and the celebration of the parish's Dedication. The Proper chants for Pentecost (with the exception of the Alleluia) and fo.r "Christmas Eve falling on a Sunday 11 (ex­cluding the Offertory), likewise are used in full. \•lillan claimed a similar complete adaptation for Saint Michael and All Angels, the patronal feast of the Sisters of the Church. -- See NLC, Will an Papers, H. 'ilillan, Untitled notes discus­sing \1illan Is St. Hary Ivlagdalene r·1ass Propers' n. d. This feast's full Gradual and Alleluia melodies are no longer in St. Mary's music library, however, and presumably vrere with­drawn from use with the departure of the Sisters from the parish.

33For a list of these see below, pp. 115-117. For a discussion of Willan's adaptation procedures, see below, .pp. 90-93.

34

the practice of Francis Burgess, moreover, in setting most

of his Offertories and Tracts to recurring com~on tones.34

Willan's goal was to produce propers which, while

based on more elaborate music than the simple plainsong

tones, would still be "suitable for the average choir who

might well be appalled at the complete Gradual". He felt

that "with 2 new things to learn every week (i.e. Int. and

Com.) (sic] and a seasonal melody for the Gradual and Alle­

luya, ••• the propers would be given a certain dignity, if

·not complete dignity", while the volunteer singers would

still be able to cope.35 Those of us who have had the pri­

vilege of singing regularly from Willan's propers, know that

this aim was met in every respect.

34rn The English Gradual: Part II, Burgess replaced the ornate Vatican Proper chants with simple adaptations of the ancient Introit-tones. Willan felt that this· total reliance on recitative plainsong "was very inadequate, ••• put all Sundays and Feast days upon the same level", ••• and "seemed to fall short of the dignity due to the Propers of the Mass••. -- NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Ken Scott [a letter describing the St. I1ary I1agdalene Hass Propers], n.d. In simplifying the Vatican chants for use at St. Mary's, however, the composer used precisely this system for his Offertories and Tracts. With the exception of Proper Vati­can melodies used for Christ the King, the Annunciation, and one of his Cornus Christi settings, Willan•s Offertories are set to the.same tone as the Introit of the day. The Lenten Tracts are likewise set to short recitative chants, in this case using the Psalm-tones "as found in the Briggs and Frere Psalter 11 • -- NLC, Willan Papers, H. \'/illan to Ken Scott (a letter describing the St. Mary Hagdalene I1ass Propers], n.d.

35From NLC, Will an Papers, .H. \villan to Ken Scott [a letter describing the St. Mary ~agdalene Mass Propers], n.d.

f f ' ~

... ~·-· :~;q;- ':1

:;~~·'~ ~,,~ '••• . .._,,.··I '"14!'1;':.:.::

§r;;~: ··~ ~ .........

;~:·;: ·~ ~h''''"l

l .... ~ ... -.: '~~ T. ·••• ...... ':llli•lll

:H~:::.:; ~f ~.:"\!<!!~

. :ty·~:i ! ; • "~·.:

/'

35

Antiphonal

The unpublished manuscripts that Willan prepared

for Evensong are much fewer than those !or the f·1ass. There

are a small number of Psalm antiphons, the four Harian

chants,36 some Commemorations of lesser feasts, and a com­

plete cycle of Magnificat antiphons. St. f-lary' s Organist

pl~~ from a bound collation of the latter. The rest of

this music, however, .including all the manuscripts used by

the Ritual Choir, is still sung from single sheets of

paper.37

The Editio Vaticana is once again the source, and

in this case it is clear that \villan preferred the Antinho­

nale Romanum to the Liber Usualis.38 There are two cases

36These are traditionally associated with Lauds and Compline, although the Tractarian liturgists attached them to Ang~ican Evensong. They "were originally used as real Antiphons", but now are no longer "Antiphons in the proper sense of the word, since they are not in any way connected with a Psalm or a Canticle. Rather they are independent chants of considerably greater extension and elaboration 11

•

Apel, pp. 404, 23.

37This often results in a rather unusual liturgical action: "In the middle of an antiphon, the cantor may sud­denly reach down to the rack in front of him, bring up ano­ther piece of uaver and continue imperturbably from that. A moment later. the other members of the choir do the same thing, either together or separately 11

• -- G\·Jethalyn Graham, 11Church of St. 11ary Nagdalene", Saturday Night, LV (Hay 18, 1940)' 16-17.

38st. Mary's Magnificat antiphons f~r Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday, Mon1ay of Easter III, Jednesday of ~aster IV, Sunday after Corous Christi, and for the ferial weekdays (except Saturday), are found only in the former work.

I !

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36

of seasonal adaptation similar to those of the Propers.39

Otherwise, most of the St. Mary Magdalene chants are taken

directly from the Vatican books.

Sequences

St. Mary's makes use of thirteen Eucharistic Se­

quences during the Church year. Nine of these are taken

from the English Hymnal, and \tlillan at one time had at least

some of them. sung in organum. 40 ("

Efforts were made to expand this Sequence repertoire

during his later years at the parish. Dam Anselm Hughes was

consul ted in this regard, and Ray Martin did some res.earch

on vlillan 1 s behalf. 41 Three or four nevi Sequence-manuscripts

39The first is Willan's adaptation of the antiphon chant for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, to the text

.used at the celebration of her Conception •. :._The second is his re-'.'Torking of the Advent 11 Great 0 11 melody~ to suit the \vords of the extra antiphon ( 11 0 Virgo Virginum 11

) provided in the Sarum Rite. -

40 •iThe organum was, as we know; a succession of 4ths + · 5ths • • • and we knoTt/ that this system of v1ri ting under certain given circumstances can be inexpressibly and most mystically effective. The effect of the sequence for the Feast of Pentecost 11 Veni Sancte Spiritus 11 sung alte~­nately by cantor and choir in organum, as it used to be sung in '.'lestminster Cathedral under the la·te Sir Richard Terry was one of the most moving things I have ever heard. I have since adopted this principle of singing many of the sequences in S. I1ary Magdalene 11

• -- NLC, \villan Papers, H. \·/ill an, 11 The Influence of the Organ upon Church Music [lecture notes}u, n.d.

41 see NLC Willan Papers, Anselm Hughes to H. \v'illan, May 16, 1956, and'Ray Martin to H. Willan, June 28, 1961. Hughes was the English plainsong expert who headed the

,I

I I

I .I

3?

were added to St. Mary's ~usic library as a result.

Music Lists

During most of his time at St. Mary's, Willan pre­

pared monthly lists of the music the choirs were to sing

at the liturgy and offices. These lists were later gathered

and bound into volumes, each of which covers approximately

a five year period. The volumes have been scattered since

Willan's death, but ·enough material remains to examine an

early, middle, and late segment of his forty-seven year . 42 re1.gn.

Exact analysis of these lists is impossible. The

handwriting is occasionally illegible, and Willan's code of

abbreviations is difficult to decipher. There are gaps

where parts of some service programs are left blank. \Vhen

the English Hymnal provides both plainsong and metrical

settings to the same hymn, St. ~Iary' s lists often do not

indicate which of the two Willan preferred. In some years

no record was kept of the music used at weekday feasts sung

by the Ritual Choir. For these reasons, only the main

trends of Willan's selection of music can be noted.

Like Monk and the other Tractarian musicians of the

Plainsong and Medieval Music Society be~ween the wars. He and Willan first met in 1932. Ray Mart1n was the G.A. Canada's chief chant-calligrapher.

42The National Library has the 1930 to 1935 lists. St. Mary Magdalene's Organist has those for the years 1948 to 1956, and for Willan's last twelve months.

I I

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38

last century, Willan generally chose his music "to suit the

season of the year and the character of the service".43

Plainsong thus selected was often re-used on that same occa­

sion in later years. Elements of an annual music cycle

gradually became established as a result.

This cycle never became absolutely rigid, however.

Shifts in the format of the liturgy, additions of extra

feasts to St. Mary's calendar, the great selection of chant

available in the English Hynnal, and Willan's own prolific

composition of service music for use at the church, resulted

in a constant tum-over of new music. His choice of chants

for use on particular days within the longer ecclesiastical

seasons, moreover, seems to have been made on a random

basis. 44 Indeed, repetition of music from earlier years

appears to have occurred more as a matter of convenience

than from any preconceived idea of a fixed returning cycle.

Whatever the case, in later years Willan leaned more and

more on his previous choices, and certain recurrences do

become obvious.

These can be summarized as follows: The Sarum

Propers and (two) penitential proses were in regular use

43see above, p. 4.

44e.g. The Ordinaries chosen year by.year for Trini­ty season are not assigned or re7used a?cord1ng to any set pattern. Sometimes a single Ord1nary w~ll b~ used for an entire month. At other times four or f1ve w1ll be used in the same order as a preceding year, or shuffled at whim.

39

from the start.45 The Evening Office HJ~ns and the Eucharis­

tic Sequences are arranged in a definite yearly cycle.46

The choice of music for the (two) Devotions hymns at Even­

song, and the selection of Solemn-tones for the Evening

Canticles, show a certain regular pattern.47 The settings

for use with Gloria and Credo do likewise. 48

45i.e. English Hymnal #657 to #736. The two proses were sung at Sunday Evensongs, one in Advent and the other in Lent.

46For tables of these see below, pp. 117-119.

47\·lillan used several melodies for the two Devotion hymns (i.e. English Hymnal #330 and #326), most of which were metrical rather than plainsong. ':rhe plain chants "as set 11 in the Eng;lish Hymnal for these two texts, \vere gener­ally assigned for use during the Easter season, Lent, and on major feasts. The "Verbum Supernum" melody of English Hymnal #2, hovTever, gradually replaced the 11mode VIII ti tune of #330.

The pattern visible in the case of the Canticles, is as follows: Mode II is used consistently for both the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis on Advent IV, and mode III (with \villan' s "School of English Church I'1usic" fauxbourdons) on Easter Day. Hodes I and II are used respectively for the ~1agnificat and Nunc Dimittis of Epiphany V; modes VIII and III for Lent II, Lent III, Palm Sunday, Easter I, and.Easter II; modes I and III for Lent IV; and modes IV and III for Trinity Sunday. For the Iv!agnificat alone, mode VII is used on Christ the King, mode I for Quinquagesima and Pentecost, mode IV for Ash ~'lednesday, and mode II for Passion Sunday and Easter IV. Mode III is by far Willan's favourite choice for the Nunc Dimittis.

48The music lists for 1930 to 1935, and for the sum­mer recesses in later years, record the use of several Gloria settings from the Burgess En~lish Gradual. Orbis Factor emerges as the most common chant of the later ferial seasons, whereas de Angelis finds regular use at Christmas, throughout Easter, and on cajor feasts.

Credo #VIII (Monastic) is used in Advent and Lent,

''

I I I

l

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40

This fixed yet fluid repetition of music from St.

Mary's tremendous collection of Chant, serves as a powerful

stimulus to strong congregational participation. An equi­

librium is struck between the old and the new, so that the

parishioners are neither put off by the unfamiliar, nor

bored with too frequent repetition. The community and

choral singing that results from this balance is thrilling

indeed.

and also alternates with #IV (Cardinalis) in Pre-Lent. The latter is used (with exceptions) throughout most of the Trinity season. The de Angelis Credo is used most often for Christmas, Epiphany, and throughout Easter. Credo #I (Authentic) appears intermittently in the 1930 to 1935 lJ.sts, but then is not noted again until the year of ~~Jill an's death.

. ... ,, .... g ~~ .• ., 'lf":~~~

IV

THE PLAINSONG r10VEMENT

As soon as St. Mary Magdalene's musical tradition

became firmly established, it began to "set a pattern for

countless other churches of the Anglo-Catholic persuasion

and ••• many other faiths". 1 Individual church organists

came repeatedly to see and hear the Willan use at first

hand, and returned home with a new knowledge of what can be

done with the Church's oldest music. 2 Four national con­

ventions of the (later Royal) Canadian College of Organists

visited the parish on a similar mission.3 St. Mary's gradu-

1E.fnest Macmillan, "Healey Willan ••• 1880-1968 ~ditorialj", Diapason, LIX (April 1968), 20.

2These pilgrimages continue. In 19?8, for example, two enthusiastic young Church musicians from !lew York City repeated a previous visit to St. Mary's, in order to study Willan's musical system, experience the building's acoustics, and sing from the Willan Proper books. Another musical visitor from the States recently told me that she came up to this church once every year to get "a shot in the arm". Such visits are by no means rare.

3i.e. In the years 1923, 1943, 1954, and 1959. See NLC, \'/illan Papers, H.G. Langlois, "Canadian Organists Flock to Convention: Fine Meeting at Toronto", a newspaper clipping [journal unknovm], October 1, 1923: according to which "such fine plainsong tunes as 'Jesu Dulcis Memoria', 'O Salutaris •, and 'Pange Lingua' were sung". For the re­mainder of these four events, see: Healey Will an, "~'lilliam Byrd ( 1543-1623): Choral \vork", Canadian Review of Husic and Art, II (August-September 1943?, 8-9; _NLC, Willan . Papers, 11 Canadian College of Organ~sts Nat~onal Convent~on

41

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;,>,;':: :~: l~~<' ~ ,, ........

~~~.,. -·2 t"'q"t.~::

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42

ally became known for· '"the music which in plainsong form is

a standard.for all America". 4 Filled once again with the

"missionary zeal" he had shared with Burgess, 'dill an conti­

nued and expanded efforts aimed at extending the use of

plainsong outward from this secure base.

These efforts initially took three forms: First,

he frequently and persuasively lectured about plainsong,

both formally and in conversation. Nineteen of the survi­

ving lecture-drafts are either directly about the Chant, or

at least include an extensive discussion on it.5 Reflecting

1954: Solemn Evensong of S. Aidan, B.C. [a program]", [August 31], 1954; and "\Villan Premier (Passacaglia and Fugue for Organ, No. 2] 11 , Diapason, L (October 1, 1959), 2.

4Augustus Bridle, "Toronto Music Democracy is Losing Culture-Hasters ••• Background 11

, Toronto Daily Star (Octo-ber 2, 1937), p. 18.

5NLC, viillan Papers, \·/ill an's lecture notes (hand­,written, unless otherwise noted). The following are perme-ated by discussions of plainsong:

"Early Compositions 11;

"The Influence of Plainsong on Hoder'n Composition 11

;

"Organ Accompaniment"; 11Principles of Plainsong"; "Music of the Catholic Revival"; 11 Fauxbourdons 11 (typescript); 11 ~Iusic of the Easter Nass 11

;

11 The Influence of the Organ upon Church Music11

;

"The Organ and Its Relation to Choral Husic 11, delivered

at Cincinnati on June 15, 1937; "Choral t-1usic of the Renaissance", written on University

of }lichigan (Ann Arbor) stationery; --. "Plainsong 11 , written on University of Toronto/Toronto Con-servatory stationery; . . . . -- An untitled lecture-outl1ne d1scuss1ng the Peregr1ne Tone, \~itten on University of Toronto/Toronto Conservatory sta-tionery; ~~ ... An untitled lecture given before the Provost and Alumni

,,.., ,, . ··U J.lC..I1 ·1 ~::~

;:.:•'' :2 ::~: .. :: j I···· ....• ,. ~- • ·• , ' • ~"'!of

,, . ~

j; ~. ::~

tt'.'1 ::: l ~i~,'~: I I I

about the composer's manner on such occasions, Augustus Bri­

dle once wrote: "If anyone ever lures me into the language ,.

of rhythmic Plainsong, it will be Willann.o

Second, he did much to educate young clergymen in

the art, knowing well that the clergy must be in the fore­

front of any change in Anglican liturgy, if it is to be suc­

cessful. A week-day "priests' choir" met under his tutelage

for a number of years. At least two of its number later be-

of Trinity College, Toronto, on September 21, 1932 (type­script); -- An untitled note discussing plainsong's history and func­tion (a single leaf); -- An untitled note discussing the advantages of using plainsong for worship (a single leaf); -- Untitled notes discussing the history of plainsong, and its contribution to the development of modern song writing; -- Untitled pencilled notes discussing plainsong's use among the Tractarians, and its adaptation to English for use with present-day Anglican liturgies; -- Untitled pencilled notes discussing ldillan 1 s own adapta­tion of the Mass Propers for use at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene; -- An untitled note (dated "Aug. 28") discussing plainsong's influence on the Tudor composers.

Willan also arranged informative public lecture­recitals based on plainsong. An organ-choral concert 1 for example, was given by St. Hary's Choir at the Univers~ty of Toronto in 1935. The selection of music was made entirely from works based on the Peregrine Tone. Extensive program notes outlined the legends associated with the early use of this plainsong mode, and listed more modern compositions written around Peregrine canti firmi. The "In Exitu Israel" chant from the Briggs and ffrere Psalter was also on the pro~ gram. This recital \·las revised and given again in 1947. -- See HLC ~flillan Papers, "University of Toronto: Organ Recitals [-t\vo separate program leaflets]", November 19, 1935, and February 24, 1947.

6Bridle, The Sto;~ of the Club (Toronto: Arts and . Letters Club, '1945), p. ;; • .

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. . .· .. ' .,. . . .. . . . .

I . • . . . . ~- ·. ~

• ;o- } (

' ~ . - I __ -------- ---¥----~ ,1_'\' .. ,."'...,~.oJ .. ,..~~·._,_,.

"fl<h•"fT.,..- - - ~ • • :,_,.

44

came bishops. 7 In addition, sixteen members of his parish

choir eventually entered Holy Orders.a

Third, he taught plainsong to the choirs of other

churches. We have a description of one such effort, for

example, in ·an article written by Christopher \1ood:

7rn a late description of this venture, vlillan is quoted as saying:

In my early days at St. Mary's, I had what we call a priest's (sic] choir there· it was composed of young priests, and deaco~s and theologues -- Trinity College chiefly, and we used to meet every Wednesday. • • • It carried on for about four or five years; the priests went away, you know, and they got ap­pointments and so on and it gradually dwindled out like that •••• [Three of these men are] the present Bishop Snell, the present Primate of all Canada, Howard Clark, and the late Father Pashler.

-- From NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey r~Jillan and Hax Parker, 1963-1965.

Ho\vard Clark has described hov1 these same Divinity students would often form a temporary ritual choir, and sing Ordinary settings from the English Gradual at Saints' Day Eucharists. The Archbishop further recorded:

Thus he [Willan] taught us to sing Plain Chant, or at least to know something of what it is all about. • • • As he worked with us, I got a vision of Church music that is truly vulgar -- that is of the people, and which has none of that dehumanized respectability and painful correctness that some choirs seem to aim at.

-- NLC, Willan Papers, Howard Clark, A tribute written at the time of Willan's eightieth birthday.

Many years after the demise of the priests' choir, Willan thanked Archbishop Clark for consenting to be the Honourary President of the G.A. Canada, with these words: "Your kind support links us up in the happiest way with the old days of the priest's [sic] choir in St. Hary Magda­lene". -- NLC, Will an Papers, H. \·/ill an to Howard Clark, July 5, 1960.

8 AccordinC'" to George and Margaret Drynan, "\·/ill an Career Interwoven°with St. Mary's", Diapason, LI (October 1,

'' I I

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1

· ........ -. .... .. '"' , .... .r

::; :. :~ ~ .~ .. - .·· ..... ~. "'4 ~. 1, ",.,4JW

1

.... i ... 3 ·~ ::) .. ,, l ~ ' I·"•·'· -···· 't .. ',, : t :... ·:~:~ '~~~- : .. ~~·f if' ,, L·' ·~.' .. :

.. ----------------------------------~==~~==---- i

I recall how he came once to Port Hope in Ontario to ~tart ~ff a small church choir on plain chant. Gen1ally ne approached the subject· easily and simply he explained what had to be'~~dertaken· and· before the evening was out the choir, with some amazement, found itself singing in plain chant and doing it quite we11. 9

45

Willan's commitment to these e!forts increased substan­

tially in the years following his retirement from university

teaching.1° For instance, during this period he received and

answered many requests for advice sent by plainsong enthusiasts

all over North America. Examples include the following: The

.Organist at the Church of the Messiah in Montreal wrote: "Thank ~ I

you a thousand times for deciphering and criticizing my trans­

cription of Palmer's Sarum Vespers. I am making haste to imple­

ment your changes. I knew about the guilisma and had caught

all of those, but your other suggestions are invaluable 11•11

A

letter from a clergyman in Ontario 1 s Huskoka District azks \'lil­

lan about the feasibility of adding a descant to plainsong, in­

stead of the usual fauxbourdon. 12 Correspondence about the

Chant passed between Willan and the staff of Trinity College

1960), 8-9.

9fdood, "Healey vlillan: Eminent Composer", Canadian Review of Music and Art, IV (October-November 1945), 11-12.

10This occurred in 1950.

11NLC, Will an Papers, Donald f-1ackey to H. Willan, November 27, 1958.

12NLC, Willan Papers, Ken Scott to H. Willan; July 16, 1963.

! .

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; •.•. •''""-'t

';: ~ ; . ::3

,., .... , '''"!

46

School in Port Hope,13 the Organist at the Church of st.

John the Eyangelist in Kitchener,14 and the Rector of st.

Mary the Virgin's parish in Lethbridge, Alberta.15 Finally,

13The Willan Papers include several letters from this school's headmaster (Philip Ketchum) and its choir­master (Tony Prower), dated between 1955 and 1965. Some­time during this decade Willan went to the school to intro­duce plainsong, and at that time asked Mr. Ketchum to act as an officer of the G.A. Canada. Two of the letters from Prower have special interest: In the first he asks Willan for plainsong tones and related literature totide him over until the publication of the new plainsong psalter. In the second he requests an old psalter for the same purpose,

·adding that he had "finally convinced both choir and congre­gation (after much, what you might say bickering) that plain chant is the only v1ay to sing psalms 11

• -- NLC, Will an Papers, Tony Prower to H. \'/ill an, September 4, 1961 and March 27, 1962.

14In one such letter this gentleman tells Willan that the limited SSA resources at St. John's:

Allow me to make some use of my knowledge· of plain chant, and of the work I did when I was studying with you in learning how to accompany it! And, while a plain chant service would certainly not be acceptable to the morning congregation, it seems to be fully acceptable to those who attend Even-song.

In other letters he requests information about Canticle fauxbourdons for Evensong, and Preface tones for the Eucha­rist. He also mentions a forthcoming service in his parish, at which Willan and the Gregorian Association were scheduled to demonstrate plainsong performance. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, Jim Hopkirk f(?) His signature is not entirely legi­ble] to H. Willan, October 30 and November 4, 1959, and April 29 and May ~3, 1961.

15This priest asks Willan for ~lists ?f oth~r pro­per Introits beside the 1549 psalms, w1th the1r mus1c, [and] ••• lists of Graduals, Offertories and Communions (apart from the Hymn Book) with their music~ ~o th~t we can order the music as we can afford it 11

, and dJ.rectJ.on as to the :proper place for all of these, including the .Office Hymns,

I ,_,., .. , ..... ~

! (' '·~-·~~

! .. ·~~~-: I "'' , .• ""·"'·

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; ; ~ ... ::::) :: ~ . ::·' I ·~.. . . , ..... ·• I -tl, • 'AlW

47

one of several missives from Willard Groom of Chicago's

Church of the Ascension, reveals a significant attempt to

duplicate the St. Mary's use: 11After years of wishful

thinking we are at last hopeful of having our Gregorian

Choir of men in the Sanctuary for Mass and Vespers and the

mixed choir in the west end where it is now. The Gregorian

group has about eight men and is rehearsing every Friday

night 11 • Groom's letter then asks advice on the proper

ordering of St. Hary's musical tradition "so that we will

know we are doing things right 11•16 Willan sent him an in­

formative and encouraging reply.17

During his last years the composer also was con­

sulted about, and contributed to, plainsong's growth in

Churches outside the Anglican Communion. He wrote a con-

troversial article for the United Church's Jubilate Deo,

encouraging the resurgence of plainsong within that Chris-

at the services". -- NLC, ~lillan Papers, R. Cowan to H. \'iillan, November 10, 1955. Nine years later there is fur­ther correspondence between Cowan and Willan, discussing matters concerning the Willan plainsong psalter and its book of accompaniments. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, R. Cowan to H. Willan, March 19 and April 22, 1964; also H. Willan to R. Co\'lan, Harch 21 , 1964.

16NLC, Willan Papers, W. Groom to H. Willan, September 24, 1958.

17NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to W. Groom, October 4, 1958. Further letters passed between the men on November 18th and December 13th of that year.

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48

18 tian body. He agreed with ~1ax Parker that "the Lutherans

use more plainchant than we do", and involved himself in

the preparation of official Introit, Gradual, and Respon­

sory collections for their worship-services. 19 He also

valued contacts with the Roman Catholics, contributing

compositions to their service books, and receiving at least

two requests for chants adapted to the Vatican-II vernacular

texts. 20

18i.e. Healey \villan, "The Use of Plainsong in Church \vorship 11

, Jubilate Deo, I (September-October 1957) 94-95. Apparently \·lillan received considerable unfavourabie comment from United Church readers of this article. Stan­ley Osborne apologized for this not "at all complimentary ••• sweeping denunciation 11 on the part of his fellow churchmen. At the same time he reaffirmed his own love of the Chant, and wrote: "vie have a long way to go in the United Church and I am out to do all I can to set up worthy standards of church music 11

• '!""~ NLC, Willan Papers; S. Os­borne to H. Willan, August 13, 1958.

19see NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversa­tions betv1een Healey Willan and Hax Parker, 1963-1965; and also corresnondence that commenced and continued throughout Willan's last decade, with Ed Klammer of Concor­dia Publishing House. Klammer later described the Respon­sory collections in this fashion: 11 He [\'lillanJ has set those for us using the combination of plainsong and four-· part harmonized setting. • • • There will be unison chant, and then four-part singing by the choir 11

• -- NLC, \'/ill an papers, Supplementary transcript to conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1955: Parker interview­ing Ed Klammer about his work with \villan.

20willan claimed to have had a continuous musical involvement \'lith the Basil ian Order "since 1918 u, and did considerable work on one of their hymn-books. -- See NLC, Will an Papers, A file of materials marked 11 Nev1 St. Basil Hymnal 11 •

The two requests for vernacular Propers, however, came at the very end of his life. The first was sent by

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49

Willan's main post-retirement effort, however, was

John Dunant in T?ronto, who ask~d that St. Mary's Mass Pro-'pers be made ava1lable for use 1n Holy Rosary Church in time for the new vernacular I1ass "starting on Jan. 1~t next year". This appeal was couched in the most urgent of terms r.earing lest tl_le ll~usic ?f the Church II be replaced by the ' "forces of med1ocr1ty wh1ch are following in the wake of the vernacular movement". Dunant goes on to say that Dr. Bennett (head of the Gregorian Institute of America) wanted to publish the St. Mary Magdalene Propers, desired to re­ceive a sample manuscript as soon as possible, and was pre­pared to come to Toronto "and perhaps come to some agreement with you which would benefit the two communions 11

• -- NLC, Willan Papers, J. Dunant to H. Willan, n.d. (Willan marked it: "rec'd Nov. 3"].

The second request came from Fr. David Nicholson O.S.B., at Haunt Angel Abbey in Oregon. In the wake of the Vatican Council's decrees on the use of the mother tongue, Desclee and Co. had asked him to edit the English version of the Liber Usualis. Nicholson wrote:

I am taking the liberty of asking the best composers in the world to write the music for the contemporary volume •••• I am humbly asking you to help us in this enter­prise by consenting to compose several of the masses for the larger and more impor­tant Feasts •••• The definitive English text will not be published by the Interna­tional English Commission for several years yet. However, when all is prepared~ then I can send you the official text. • • • (Would you also send a list of all] those ;. composers, Catholic or non-Catholic, who you know would be capable of composing the best type of music ~or this English.Gradual. ~

-- IffiC, Willan Papers, D. N1cholson to H. W1llan, Septemoer 30, 1964.

Had Willan done this work, it would have been num-bered among his greatest achievements in the field of Church music. Unfortunately he turned down. both requests, citing· advanced age and busy involv~ment w~th secular composition as.excuses for his ~ord1al refusal.

These were not, in fact, the main reasons. To Du-nant he writes:

I have not yet seen the English translat~on of the propers as put out by R.C. author1ty, but I have been given to understand ~h~t t~ere is every likelihood ?f a.further rev~s1?rn 1n the near future. Th1s m~ght well make confu-sion worse confounded" •••• I can fully

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the co-founding and direction of a Canadian branch of the

tinderstand the difficulty in which you are placed and I would be very willing to help you, but I feel that direction and ulti­mate solution must of necessity come from R.C. authority.

NLC, Willan Papers, H~ \villan _to ~. Dunant, n.d. ['l'aken from a rough-draft of th1s letter wh1ch Willan first wrote on the back of Dun ant • s "rec 1 d Nov. 3" missive]. \~/illan' s position is further clarified in the letter he writes to Nicholson:

I have seen the English translations of the Ordinary of the Mass and I find them jar­ringly irreve.rent. The use of 11you" and "your" in the place of "thee 11 and "thine" sounds strangely out of place in Liturgical Text, and it would seem to be a very short step from "Hail" to "Hello 11 or even "Hi-ya" -- words with which I would not presume to address Our Lady •••• I feel very strongly that the beauty of the text should not be sacrificed in any way, and I have still to be convinced that respect for and devotion to religion will be gained by reducing the text to the commonplace and colloquial.

-- NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to D. Nicholson, October 7' 1964.

To the researcher's eye, it is clear what Willan

50

wanted. About his own St. Mary's Proper books he had written: 11 In the face of the strong move within the Roman Church for the use of the vernacular, it seems not improba­ble that this might become a valuable publication in the years to come 11 • -- NLC, \·Jill an Papers, H. \villan, Untitled notes discussing Willan's St. Mary Magdalene Mass Propers, n.d. In the letter to Dunant he mentions that St. Nary's Proper texts are from the English Missal, ~hi?h he considers to b~ "accu­rate, scholarly, and --·this 1s ~mportant -- most s~1table for adaptation to the original plainchant", and he cont1nues: "If Dr. Bennett contemplates a visit to Toronto in the near future I shall be happy to meet him and discuss the situation with him from every possible angle". The counter­proposal is obvious. If the Romans were prepared to accept the Anglo-Catholic texts, then Willan would permit them to publish the St. Mary Magdalene Propers. .

· Nothing more appears to have been done after th1s exchange, and the composer's death soon brought any further negotiations to a permanent halt.

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~~-----------------------

. A . t. 21 Gregor~an ssoc1a 1on. His fellow participants in the

initial venture are variously described as:

A sma~l 9roup of ex members of the Gregori~~ Assoc1at1on of London, ••• four people: • • • three of them • • • newcomers to Canada ~nd one • • • a Canadian of many years stand­J.ng, ••• drawn to ••• St. Mary Hagdalene ••• by the long tradition of plainchant usage which existed under the musical director-ship of Dr~ Healey vlillan. 22

51~

About the actual decision to form this group, Willan later

said:

Malcolm (Finch1 and I were in my room at home talking about things and we decided that we'd form a society; and we did so. Oh we had our meetings, regular meetings and so on, and sailed into thin~~ like that. I mean it just _happened. • • • ~ost of the original members were drawn] v~ry largely out of the [ritual] choir. 23 .

Willan was named the Association's Director of Music, and

Archbishop Clark agre~d to be its honorary:-· President.

The composer maintained contact with members and

friends of the London Gregorian Association after his de­

parture from Britain in 1913, and over the years was repea-

21This took place in 1950.

. 22From NLC, Willan Papers, "The Gregorian Associa­tion Fourth Annual Festival Servic~ (a pr~gram)", Novembe~ 19, 1954; and "About the Associat~on", F1.fth Annual Fe~ val: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1955), P• 21.

23NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

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tedly asked to prepare music for their use.24 In 1951 the

Director of the London group wrote to express his delight

at the founding of a daughter organization in North America.

Willan was at once made an honorary Vice-President of the

older Association, and several Orders of Service from past

annual plainsong festivals were sent over to him. 25 From

these and the Evensong format already in use at St. I1ary

Magdalene's, the pattern for an annual Canadian festival

service was established. 26

24Examples include the following: \•iillan 's faux­bourdon to "Iste Confessor 11 was used in the Gregorian Association's 1926 Festival Service book, and repeated in that of 1951. -- From NLC, Willan Papers, Arthur Clarke to H. Willan, September 28, 1950. The composer was requested to write Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis fauxbourdons for the Association's sixtieth annual Festival Service (1930). --According to \vho's \vho in Canada, X (1966), .1162. In 1936, moreover, he 11 v;as asked by Dr. Sydney Nicholson of the English School of Choir (sic] Music to write settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for the festival at the Crystal Palace II. -- NLC' Willan Papers' "Dr. Healey \•lillan n' A newspaper clipping [journal unknown] (October 3, 1936).

25see NLC, Will an Papers, Arthur Clarke to H. ~dillan, August 15, 1951. The Canadian branch extended reciprocal vice-presidential honours towards Dr. Clarke, and claimed "a close contact 11 bet\'reen the two groups. -- From "About the Association:~, Fifth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1955), P• 21.

26This service was the most durable activity of the G.A. Canada during its brief history. The first festival was held in 1951, and the last occurred at least as late as 1973. A service book froo the latter year, as well as those from the years 1955 to 1959, 1970, and 1972, can be found ~t St. Mary Magdalene's Church •. The fest~val bo~k for 1963 1s kept with the Willan Papers ~n the N~t1ona~ L1~rary~ At least some of those from other years st1ll ex1st ~n pr~vately-

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Over the next few years several other projects were

attempted.in addition to the annual plainsong festival. A

constitution and set of by-laws were drawn up based on that

of the parent group. 27 Demonstration services were sung,

including a national radio broadcast. 28 Plans were made for

the pressing of a plains.ong record. 29 In 1960 \iillan pro­

posed that the Association play a role in the Anglican World

owned collections. These books contain the words and music of the service laid out in full, together \vi th short arti­cles about plainsong and the work of the Gregorian Associa­tion.

27According to 11About the Association", Fifth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1955), p. 21. A copy of the G.A. Canada constitution exists in St. Mary Magdalene's choir library.

28The latter took place on CBC radio, Christmas Day, 1957. A list of several other early performances is given in "The Gregorian Association 11

, Eighth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1958), p. 19.

29rn 1963 \villan wrote: "Your suggestion re record has been in the minds of the G.A. Committee for some time". -- NLC, \villan Papers, H. VJillan to \1. Bulford, November 15, 1963. Shortly thereafter he told Max Parker:

At present we're engaged in preparing for records and I'm also insisting on it that those records will be based upon the pre­sent Prayer Book, and th~y will sh~w ho~ plain chant can be sung ~n connect~on w~th the Prayer Book, to cover every possible requirement. .

-- NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversat~ons between Healey '~/illan and I1ax Parker, 1963-1965. The composer also made a list of the chants he wanted to record. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, "G.A. Recording Session (a single leaf]", n.d. Unfortunately, this project was never completed.

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congress, scheduled to be held at Toronto three years later.30

After a decade of successful work, attempts were

made to broaden the base of this organization. Consideration

was given to admitting lad~es to full membership, and part~­

cipants were encouraged to be more outgoing in their promotion . 31 of plainsong. The Toronto group spawned an eastern branch

based at the Church of the Epiphany in Scarborough, and a

western branch centering on the Church of the Good Shepherd

in Woodstock. 32 At least one edition of an Association

3°see NLC, Will an Papers, H. ~villan to H. Clark·, July 5, 1960; H. Willan to \'/. Barfoot, July 30, 1960· and W. Barfoot to H. 'vlillan, August 24, 1960. '

31see NLC, \'/ill an Papers, R.A. Walker, A 11 Report of the Constitution Revision Committee" submitted to a G.A. Canada meeting on April 18, 1961. Reasons for opening mem­bership to women are given, as well as recommendations that members participate regularly in parish choirs, assist any choir atte~pting plainsong for the first time, lead the sing­ing at congregational rehearsals, and p~epare instructional tapes and pamphlets.

32The· former was headed by the Organist of that pa~ -­rish, Mrs. Joan Waters (who briefly succeeded Willan as Musical Director of the G.A. Canada in 1964), and the latter by Hr. Malcolm Finch (formerly Willan 's cantor at St. lv1ary Magdalene's).

Correspondence also passed between Willan and the Cathedral Or(5anist in Calgary, Hr. Robert Bel~, about ~stab­lishing a regional branch of the G.A. Canada 1n that c~ty. ~lr. Bell still has a letter which v/illan \vrote on February 25, 1964, saying: 11 ! deferred. writiJ?g re a branch of tl;e G.A. in Calgary until the meet1ng wh1?h w~s held last n~ght and at which I brought up the sug9est1on 1n your ~etter •. Every one \'las very pleased about ~ t and Halcolm F1nch (V~ce-chairman & Secretary) will reply to you in due course".

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"News Bulletin" appeared.33

Unf~rtunately, none of these efforts lasted for very

long. Beginning about 1962, a note of pessimism appears in

Willan's correspondence about the Association.3~ Numbers

had declined and enthusiasm seemed to be waning. Negotia­

tions over participation in the World Congress quietly col­

lapsed.35 Willan himself wrote:

The G.A. is in really a very parlous state. We ne~d a complet~ re-organization, & unless that ~s forth-com1ng I can see nothing but a fold-up. After 13 or 14 years of slogging this will be disappointing. Plainsong seems to be quite popular in the country districts, but in Toronto it is treated with unconcern and indifference by the clergy and organists. • • • I am very dubious about the future •

. The G.A. has gone down steadily for the last 5 or 6 years and I fear that it is nearing

33see NLC, Will an Papers, Malcolm Finch, . '~G.A. Canada: News Bulletin", June 28, 1964. This publication contained a great deal of information about the activities of the two new regions. The pattern adopted in the Wood­stock area is of special interest to anyone attempting to start a plainsong use in the average Anglican parish.

34see for example: NLC, Willan Papers, M. Finch to the G.A. Committee, written sometime in 1962. This letter suggests that the Association may not have enough members left to perform that year's annual festival service. Note also: NLC, Willan Papers, Frank Haworth, "Gregorian Group Produces Hodel for Plainsong 11

, A newspaper clipping r journal unkno\m] (n .d.). This article tal~s about 11 the Gregorian Association's 13th (and perhaps f1nal) annual fes­tival".

35on June 20 1962, Willan reported to the music committee of the Congress "that it would not be possible to enlist the services of this association 11

• No reasons we~e recorded. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, 11Memora~dum of_H~et~ng held June 20th, 1962 • • • of members of mus~c comm1ttee and

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the time when we can add R.I.P.36

The composer had been the main force behind this organiza­

tion from its beginning, acting as the professional spur

and watchdog over what was otherwise a group of musical

amateurs. Age and ill health forced his resignation in 1964.

Without his leadership, the Canadian branch of the Gregorian

Association soon fell apart.37

The failure of the Gregorian Association did not

negate Willan's total effect on the growth of plainsong in

the Anglican Church of Canada. In the midst of all these

apparently ephemeral efforts to expand the use of the Chant,

the composer found time to arrange and edit plainsong publi­

cations for distribution throughout the country. This labour,

perhaps more than any of the events described above, provided

the foundation for a much further-ranging and longer-lasting

impact on our liturgical life. I shall discuss these pub-

lications in the next chapter.

the advisory council in connection with the Anglican Con­gress 1963 11

•

36NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Ray Martin, October 25, 1963, and August 13, 1964.

37Efforts to revive the group under Willan's succes­sor at St. Mary's, proved to be short-lived.

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PUBLICATIONS

Willan's plainsong arrangements are found in just·

about every Anglican parish in Canada. The composer's adap­

tation of Merbecke's Communion Service became'the most wide­

ly used English Eucharistic setting in the country. His

efforts to reform and extend the Chant contents of the Book

of Common Praise, bore fruit in the 1938 edition of that

work. Twenty-five years later, his Canadian Psalter: Plain­

song Edition, with its attendant Plainsong Accompaniments,

appeared in print. With these four publications, Willan

provided the tools with which every choirmaster could, if

he wished, make his congregation familiar with the Chant.

I will discuss each in turn.

The Merbecke Arrangement

The music in Merbecke's Book of Common Prayer Noted

is generally accepted as a late, and perhaps imperfect, type

of plainsong.1 The work is in fact a composite edition,

1Kenneth Long, for example, calls it "a kind of quasi-plainsong, not far removed in spiri~ fr~m the cha~t of the old Roman services 11 • -- Long, The Nus1c OJ.. the Engl1sh Church (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), p. 29. Anselm Hughes is less charitable, naming it: 11 the bastard plainsong of Marbeck 11 and saying that some "sing it as if it were plain­song, which it is not". -- Hughes, Sentuagesima Reminiscences ••• Musical (London: The Plainsong and Hediaeval Nusic So­ciety, 1959) pp. 65-66· and Plainsong for English Choirs (London: The'Faith Pres~, 1966), p._61. The ~.s.c.M.'s pr~­sent Director describes modern. sett1ngs of th1s work as be~ng

57

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joining parts of older chants to Merbecke's own musical cre­

ations, and setting the whole out in sixteenth-century metri­

cal notation. 2 Abandoned for nearly three centuries, it was

revived to meet the needs of Victorian parishes.3

"frequently ironed out into an ersatz type of plainsong far remove~ from the_measured notat1on Merbecke was at pains to emphas~se". -- L~onel Dakers, A Handbook of Parish r1usic (London: Howbrays, 1976), p. 76. Erik Routley, on the other hand, insists that "Merbecke vras the last com-ooser of Gre­gorian plainsong". -- Routley, A Short HistorY of English Church Music, pp. 26-27.

The Book of Common Prayer Noted certainly does not copy its main chants directly from the medieval plainsong· corpus. Its melodies are, however, derived from and simi­lar in style to this traditional music, and to that extent­perhaps, they can be considered a type of plainsong.

2Merbecke apparently adapted his Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, in part from chants of the Serum rite. Charles Pearce writes: "He evidently worked from a late Salisbury MS, such as the Erlyngham Note Breviary in the Chapter Library there, or British Museum, 32427 11

• -- Pearce, The Priest's Part of the An lican Litur Y (London: The aith :Press, 1 22 , p. 33. enneth Long states that 11 the

ninefold Kyrie was a simplified version of the Kyrie from the ancient Mass for the Dead, • • • the Sanctus and Benedictus were derived from the Mode II setting of In Domi­nicis, whilst the Agnus Dei was adapted from an old Sarum melody". -- Long, p. 29. The Gloria and Credo? <?D the other hand, are believed to be Merbecke's own compos1t1ons, al­though they do indeed "retain their ancient and familiar intonationsn, and "here and there are derived from, <?r are faintly reminiscent of, the Fourth Mode Mass In Fest1s Dun-licibus11. --:-Long, p. 29; and Pearce, P• 33. . .

Merbecke used four different note-lengths ~n h~s setting of the 1549 Prayer Book. These ~ay be ~tudied in the facsimiles of his Preface and Commun1on Ord1nary

. printed, for example, in Sydney Nicholson, Quires and Places Where Thez Sing (London: S.P.C.K., 1950), PP• 148-149, 260-273.

3For a discussion of its late recurrence, see Hughes, Plainsong for English Choirs, p. 61; Septuagesima Reminis-

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Since that time, the Mass Ordinary from this book

has been subjected to three kinds of interpretation. One

school has suggested that it be performed exactly as it was

written, with mensural observation of the original note-

4 values. Another interpretation confined the melodies of

this Mass to neatly-barred four/four time,. and added strict

four-part harmony.5 At the turn of the century a third

opinion surfaced, as "some reformers, and especially those

interested in plainsong, finding Merbecke to be known only

in this (latter] debased form, set themselves to provide

something better".6 In this case, the different note­

lengths were eliminated, black notes replaced white, and

the music was left free to follow the rhythm of the words.

One member of this third group was a "Mr. vlyatt",

whose 11 accurate and widely used version" of Merbecke's

Mass appeared in the 1920 edition of the English Gradual.?

cences ••• I1usical, pp. 65-67; Rainbow, p. 79; ~.and Routley, A Short History of English Church Music, PP• 26-27.

4see, for example: Nicholson, p. 151. Nicholson suggests that Merbecke's notation preserves "a remarkably just sense of word values 11

•

5sir John Stainer's arrangement is perhaps the best­known example of this second style. -- See Hughes, Plainsong for English Choirs, p. 61.

6Nicholson, P• 150.

?Burgess The English Gradual: Part One, P• x~~. The seco~d £nglish Archbishops' committee on Church

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Willan borrowed Wyatt's melodic adaptation, and added a

free-rhythmed accompaniment treated on plainsong lines.

First published as a pamphlet in 1934, this arrangement was

included in the revised Book of Common Praise four years

later. In 1961 Willan re-adapted it to the words of the

new Canadian Prayer Book. 8

Hymn-book Contributions

The majority of modern English-language hymnals have

been laid out according to a pattern established by the pub­

lication of Honk's Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. Heavily

influenced first by Helmore's "grave and solemn 11 Hymnal

Noted and then by the Stainer school's harmonic style, this

book's "plainsong melodies were harmonized, note .for note,

pressed into regular rhythm, and directed to be sung in uni-

music gave its official approval to this third type of Merbecke-arrangement, stating:

It (i.e. Merbecke's Mass] was written to follow closely the natural cadences of the English text. It should therefore be sung freely, lightly and rather quick­ly, and in unison throughout. Harmon~zed versions misrepresent the composer's ~n­tention, and ought never to be used. .

Music in Church, p. 23. Lionel Dakers ~as s~nce con­cluded, ·however that uniformity of style ~n the performance of Merbecke wouid be impossible to achieve: "A diversity of musical interpretations is now firml~ embedde~ into each and e~ery parish, according to the part~cular wh~m of the organ~st or parson concerned 11

• -- Dakers, P• 76.

8see H. Nillan, ed., The Office of Hol Communion: Set to Music by John Merbecke oronto: John Cozens, n.d ••

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61

son". 9 Many of the chants in the first English Hymnal (1906)

followed suit, as did those of Sir George Martin's Canadian

Book of C~mmon Praise (1909).10

Between the world wars, agitation developed for a

reform of these plainsong hymns similar to that which was

being wrought in the Merbecke Hass. Revisers of the Chant

in Hymns Ancient and Modern "corrected its former error by

restoring the modal character of the melody and its free

rhythm 11•11 J.H. Arnold undertook a major revision of the

English Hymnal (1933) along these same lines.12 In Canada

Willan accomplished like improvements in a new edition of

9osborne, The Strain of Praise (Toronto: Ryerson, 1957), pp. 149-150.

10Note, for example, the use of Helmore's 11Veni Em­manuel11 arrangement in both these books.

Eugene Fairweather once described the plainsong of the latter work thus:

The 1908 (sic] hymnal of the Canadian Church did contain clumsy settings of a few plainsong tunes, tactfully iden­tified as 11Sarum Plainsong" even ... thougg most of them really came from the Vati­can by way of Malines, but they were almost never heard.

-- NLC, Willan Papers, Eugene Fairweather, A tribute written at the time of Willan's eightieth birthday.

11osborne, pp. 149-150.

12cr. for example, Arnold's setting of "Veni Emmanu­el", with the older arrangement he transferred to the Ap­pendix. -- The English Hymnal (1933), PP• 12, 928.

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62

the Book of Common Praise (1938).13

Fifteen of the seventeen chants in the 1909 book

were transferred to the revised edition.14 Willan added

thirty-three more plainsong hymns to this number, some in

the main body of the hymnal and others in a separate Ap­

pendix entitled "Ancient Office Hymns".15 Thus a total of

forty-eight plainsong arrangements were provided for the

thus:

13The Preface to this edition explains the change~

In accordance with the principle of inclusion, the revised book contains a number of Ancient Office Hymns, which are desired by a considerable number of Church people. In this connexion the Committee and the Church at large have been fortunate in secur-ing the co-operation of Dr. Healey Willan, of Toronto, who is not only an outstanding composer of church music, but also an authority on accompaniments for plainsong melodies. \'lith his help a form of accompaniment for plainsong has been provided which we hope will prove attractive.

-- The Book of Common Praise Revised 19 8 (Toronto: The Anglican Church of Canada, 1938 , p. iv.

14The melodies provided for #61 and #146 in the ol­der book, do not appear in the revision.

15rn the main body of the book six of the arrange­ments are by J.H. Arnold, five are by Wil~an, two are by A.L. Jacob and Martin Shaw and Alfred Wh~tehead each contribute'one. All of these were composed in the new style between 1925 and 1938. The thirty-three arrangements in the Appendix,_on the other hand, are all by '1'/illan~ At first, acc<?mpan~ments and texts for these were printed ~n separate sect~ons. They were joined together when th~s hymnal was re~ssued with revised appendices in 1964.

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official hymn-book of the Canadian Church.

The fifteen hymns from the old book were substanti­

ally altered before final insertion into the revision.

White notes were changed to black, and rigid four-part

chords were replaced by simple sustained-note harmonies.

Regular metrical bars were omitted, moreover, in favour of

rhythms and phrase-lengths determined by the texts. 1~ The

additional hymns were also arranged in this manner.

A Canadian Plainsong Psalter

The Anglican Church of Canada adopted a revised

Book of Common Prayer between 1959 and 1962. The psalms.

and canticles of this book were later set to Anglican chants

and issued in a separate blue-covered psalter. 1 7 The chair­

man of the Committee responsible for this effort, also insti­

gated the preparation of a companion work containing the

psalms set to plain chants. Healey Willan was asked to take

charge of the project, and eventually produced a red-covered

book entitled: The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition

(1963) •18

16Again, cf. the setting of "Veni Emmanuel" in the 1938 book, with that of 1909.

17The Canadian Psalter (Toronto: The Anglican Church of Canada, 1963).

18The committee chairman was Bishop F.H. Wilkinson of Toronto, whom Willan claimed as one o~ his former the?ry students. __ NLC, Willan Papers, Transcr1pt of conversat1ons

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Willan considered this work to be more than just

another psalter. It was "designed to be used • • • as a

musical handbook of, in conjunction with, and as ~corollary

to, the new Prayer Book". Thus it contained "several de­

tails not commonly found in psalters 11, such as "Invitatories,

suggestions for Introits and Graduals, Responsories, the

calendar",. instructions for singing and accompanying the

Chant, extra canticles, the Litany, Compline, provisions

for marriage, burials, and the penitential service, and in­

deed 11 everything else which can be sung in the new Prayer

Book 11 • 19

As noted previously, Willan's psalter is largely

based on the Briggs and Frere revision (1902) of Helmore's

between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965. Willan later wrote: "I think it is the first episcopal-requested pialter in plainsong, and I was delighted to receive the Bishop's request for one 11 • -- NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan toR. Cowan, March 21, 1964. Elsewhere he gives December 18, 1959 as the date of this request, and notes that the Bishop made it "in view of the liturgical developments in the Diocese". -- See NLC, Willan Papers, An untitled sum­mary of negotiations with Novello concerning the I'1an1:1a1 of Plainsong copyright [a single leaf], n.d.; and H. W1llan to Leslie Rose, September 20, 1963.

19From The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition, ed. Healey Willan (Toronto: The Anglican ?hurch of Ca~ada! 1963), pp. 5, 7; Healey Willan, 11Pla1,nsong, the ~arl1.est Song of the Church" Canadian Churchman, XC (July-August . 1963), 15; NLC, Wiilan .t'apers, H. ~iillan to J •. Littleton, March 4 1961· and NLC Willan Papers, '.rranscr1pt of convers~tions'between H~aley Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

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65

~ual of Plainsong. 20 Extended negotiations were necessary

to clear the copyright on this book, and to avoid infringe­

ment of the rights held by J.H. Arnold's more recent edi­

tion.21 The composer also sought permission to make "a few

alterations in the (psalm-]Tones and endings which after

my nearly 40 years experience at S.M.M. I feel would per­

haps be more appropriate for congregational use".22

20see above, pp. 2?-28.

21i.e. A Manual of Plainsong, eds. H.B. Briggs and W.H. Frere, rev. and enl. J.H. Arnold (London: Novello, 1951).

22From NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to J. Little­ton, January 17, 1960. To follow the rest of these negotiations with Novel-lo, see the following: J. Littleton to H. \Villan, January 27, 1960; H. ~'lillan to J. Littleton, February 1, 1960 [Only a portion of this letter is available: See the untitled_ summary of these negotiations. (presumably kept by \-/illan for his own legal protection)]; J. Littleton to H. Willan, Feb­ruary 5, 1960; J. Littleton to :F .H._ \YilkinsOn, May 13, 1960; H.,.Willan to .. J. Littleton, October 10:;...1960;, ·.J.~Littleton to H. \~illari, October 19, 1960; and H. Willan to J. Little-ton, March 4, 1961. In the letter of October 10, 1960, Willan stated:

There are more alterations than I had anticipated, partly due to the new translation of the psalms, and partly to a desire on my part to use a more simple ending in the place of an elabor­ate one. I find that out of a possible 160, I have made approximately between 35 and 40 changes • • • in the interests of simplicity and congregational partici-pation. . The NLC Willan Papers include two sets of documents which

show what these changes were. The first is a table compar­ing the number of the plainsong_ tone and ending_used for each psalm in the Manual of Pl!1ns9ng (1902), ~1th that of the corresponding tone and end1ng 1n the ?anad1an Psa~te:: Plainsong Edition. There are indeed cons1derable var1at1ons

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Willan knew it would not be easy to gain acceptance

!or such a work in a "country where plainsong is .either

unpopular, or so badly mangled as to be almost unrecogni­

sable11.2; He therefore proceeded in a spirit of cautious

compromise, later noting to Fr. Rose: "There are several

things which I would like to have done, but in view of the

general ignorance of plainsong in these parts I refrained".24

The Chant's traditional notation, for example, was abandoned

because "it simply v1as -- and is -- a~ case of the few suf­

fering for the ignorance of the many".2

5 For the same rea­

son, the Preface sought to explain even nobvious things in

between the two works: e.g. Psalm 52 was set to tone VII.? in the 1902 book, and \·lillan changed it to tone I.8. : __ See NLC, \Villan Papers, Two handwritten pages tuntitled), n.d.

The second set of documents consists of small slips of paper, one for each psalm. These show a careful consi­deration of the pointing, and in some cases, give Willan's reasons for changing it. One of these, for example, ex­plains the difference between his pointing of verse 3 in psalm 42 and the way it is done in Briggs and Frere, by saying that his version "would obviate the shortened media­tion11. -- NLC, Willan Papers, A bundle of small papers [untitled], n.d.

2~NLC, Will.an· Papers, Ho .Willan to John Littleton (Novello), October 10, 1960.

. 24NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Leslie Rose,

September 20, 1963.

. 25NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to William Bulford,

November 15, 1963.

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. 1 II 26 B . s1mple anguage • e~ng aware, moreover, of the prejudice

many Protestant Anglicans have against plainsong, Willan was

careful to begin his Preface by citing episcopal.authority

for the book's creation. 27 He also consistently avoided .

use of the adjective "Gregorian" when referring to the Chant,

choosing instead the less partisan term "plainsong".

Underneath this superficial caution, however, Willan

took some delight in having 11 slipped in various details in

veritable Jesuitical fashion 11•28 One example of this is th~

subtle provision that was made for enabling parishes to draw

Eucharistic Propers from this psalter. 29 The new Prayer

Book's ovm rubrics (as far as they went) were quoted in sup­

port of the practice.3° Gaps were left between some psalm­

verses in order to mark the beginning and end of each In-

2~LC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Carmine de Catan­zaro, n.d.

27The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong ·Edition, P• 7.

2~LC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Leslie Rose, September 20, 1963.

29The ancient Hass Propers were severely pared at the time of the Reformation. Their gradual reacc~ptance over the last century has been a point of content1on with-in the Anglican Communion.

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troit and Gradua1.31

The traditional pre-Gospel Alleluias

were hidde~ away in an Appendix "so that the ·charge of

'doctoring of the Psalter' could not be brought against

us".32 After reviewing the completed work, Fr. Leslie Rose

agreed with Willan: "Your Psalter is splendid -- its very

jesuitry makes it useful for the timidn.33

Willan himself undertook much of the initial sales

promotion for the ne~ psalter. He made lists of potential

buyers, and later sent a series of form letters to these

people.34 The mailing of one such letter 11 to a number of

priests and organists (about 50)", produced 11 over 40 replies

which total a potential sale of 1600 copies". As a result,

a first printing of five thousand books was considered a

31Fr. Roland Palmer S.S.J.E. advised Willan to lay out the psalms in this fashion, believing that the psalter would initially be used more for the Eucharist than the Offices. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, R. Palmer to H. \·lillan, n.d. Palmer worked closely with Willan during the prepa­ration of this book, and many of the letters that passed between them at this time still exist in the National Lib­rary. Willan often spoke of the plainsong psalter'~ debt to this priest: e.g. "I am in close touch with Father .t-almer 11

,

and "Father Palmer has been a tower of strength 11• -- NLC,

Willan Papers, H. Willan to William Bulford, April 1, 1960; and H. Willan to Leslie Rose, September 20, 1963.

. 32NLC, Willan Papers,· H. Willan to William Bulford, November 15, 1963.

33NLC, Willan Papers, Leslie Rose to H. Willan, October 9, 1963.

34copies of three such letters m~y be seen, along with the lists of addressees, at the Nat1onal Library.

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. "safe estimate". 35

Although never as widespread as either the Merbecke

arrangement or the Book of Common Praise, the initial dis­

tribution of the Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition was in

fact fairly extensive. St. Mary the Virgin's Parish in

Lethbridge reported use of, and delight with, the book.36

Fr. Palmer launched it at the S.S.J.E. Mission House in

Bracebridge.37 Henry Lloyd of St. Barnabas• in Ottawa wrote

to Willan: It is "the most complete book of its type which

I have seen. • • • It must give you a great deal of personal

satisfaction, after having spent so many years promoting

plain chant in the Canadian Church". ;a St. John's Cathedral

in Winnipeg purchased it, and the Anglican Seminary at King's

College (Halifax) bought a full set.39 Even the acting Dean

35NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to John Littleton, March 4, 1961.

36NLC, Willan Papers, R. Cowan to H. Willan, March 19, 1964.

3?see NLC, Willan Papers, Roland Palmer to H. Willan, "August 14" (no year is gi venJ.

38NLC, Willan Papers, H. Lloyd to H. Willan, August

1, 1963.

39The information about St. John's comes from: NLC, Willan Papers, Dean Harr~son to ~· Wi~lan, September !7, 1963.

About thirty cop~es of W1llan s psalter were ~n · King's College' possession when I became Chapel Organ~st there in 1969.

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of Nassau wrote: "I will not rest until every church in the Bahamas adopts itn~ 40 These are only a few representa­tive examples of its early success, and other sue~ reports can be found amid the correspondence Willan received at this time. It is clear that there was a demand for the work, and that Bishop Wilkinson was quite correct when he predicted that "this Plainsong Psalter • • • would undoubtedly fulfil

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41 the growing liturgical needs of many paris_hes". -As with many new publications, the first edition

contained its share of mistakes. Willan began making lists of these as they were discovered in practice, and at his request Frs. Rose, Frith, and de Catanzaro did likewise.

42

The composer died before he could make use of these lists to prepare a corrected edition. They remain amid his papers in the National Library.

Psalter Accompaniments The definitive book on modern English plainsong ac-

40NLC, Willan Papers, Alfred Clarke to H. Willan, n.d.

41From NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversa­tions betvieen Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

42see NLC, Willan Papers, H. Wil~an to Leslie Rose, September 20 1963· Leslie Rose to H. W~llan, October 9, 1963; H. Wiilan t~ Leslie Rose, November 23, 1963; L~w­rence Frith to H. Willan, November 10, 1963; and Carm1.no de Catanzaro to H. Willan, October 20, 1963.

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companiment was written by J.H. Arnold in 1927.43 In addi­

tion to a· thorough treatment of the art, this work was pro­

vided with an appendix containing several accompaniments to

each of the psalm-tones. Willan knew of Arnold's book, and

recommended its use in connection with the 1938 Canadian

hymn-book. 44

Improvising to plainsong is a difficult skill, and

one in which few organists are trained. As a result, the

successful sale of the Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition

produced an instant demand for good written accompaniments. 45

Willan first tried to interest the. Oxford University Press

in reissuing Arnold's primer. When that failed, he sought

and received copyright permission to put together a book

that "would cover practically the same ground as pages 151-

43i.e. Arnold, Plainsong Accompaniment (London: Ox­ford University Press, 1927).

44see The Book of Common Praise Revised 1 however, the 1 rev~s1on o tn~s wor ], p. v~.

[not,

45Even before its publication Fr. Palmer had asked Willan if there was a book of accompaniments that could be recommended in the new psalter's.introduction •. -- NLC~ Willan Papers, R. Palmer to H. W1llan, n.d. W1llan h1mself noted that he had "been asked to compile a book of accom­paniments" that it was a task he was 11DOt eager to under­take" and'that he felt 11 compelled --although somewhat unv;iliingly -- to go ahead" with i ~. --. NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Alan Frank (Oxford Un~vers~ty Press), July 27, 1961.

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170 in Arnold • s book". 46

Willan's Plainsong Accompaniments was published by the Gregorian Association (Canada) in 1963. This book con­tains settings of the Invitatories, 11three possible harmoni­zations of the various endings of each fl?salm- )Tone n, an arrangement of the Ambrosian Te Deum chant, two accompani­ments each for the Benedictus and ~1agnificat, an~ provi­sions for accompanying the Psalter's Appendix.

47 Copies of Plainsong Accompaniments were sold to people from all over the world at the Anglican Conference in Toronto (1963),

48

and a publisher from St. Louis, Missouri, later wrote: "Al­though the accompaniments will be most useful for those who use the Canadian Psalter, many of the items contained in it will be useful to anyone \'lho makes use of Gregori-an Music, particularly the Psalm tones 11

•49

~h~s far my (lissertation has examined:.· the events P.receding Willan's plainsong_ use, the model system of Ghurch

- 46NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Alan Frank, July 27, 1961. See also Alan Frank to H. Willan, November 9, 1960; and P.A. Mulgan to H. Willan, August 15, 1961.

4?From the Preface to this work: Healey Willan, Plainsong Accompaniments (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1963), P• 2.

48According to NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Leslie Rose, September 20, 1963.

49NLC, Willan Papers, E. Klammer to H. Willan, October 22, 1963.

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music he built at St. Mary's, his Chant manuscripts and

publications, and his efforts to promote the art throughout

the Church. In the next two chapters I shall look at the

composer's theories about plainsong: his understanding of

its origins and interpretation, and his beliefs about its

liturgical use.

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VI

CHANT THEORY: THE WILLAN "SCHOOL"

As a·result of his long promotion of the art, Wil­

lan gradually became known as "an authority on plainchant 1 in the vernacular". Indeed, late in his own lifetime he

was called ttthe authority • • • in the diocese [of Toronto] ,

and far beyond it". 2 . Other writers, moreover, have referred

to his use as 11 a unique style of plainsong performance \'Thich

could legitimately be called the 'Willan' School".3

In this chapter I shall look at Willan's authorita-

tive teachings about, and handling of, the more theoretical

aspects of plainsong. These can be most conveniently dis-

cussed under the following headings.

History

In one of his essays Willan attributes plainsong's

origins.to!.

Pope Sylvester \'Tho founded the first cho~r school in 330, (to] Bp. Ambrose who carr1ed

1Ian Bradley, Twentieth-Century Canadian Comnosers (Agincourt, Ontario: GLC Publishers Ltd., 1977), P• 2.

2unr. Healey \-lillan and the ~1usic of the Church (an editorial]", Anglican, VIII (Apr~l 1965), 2.

:;"Healey ~lillan at· St. l1ary. Hagdalene 1 s 1921-1968", .

Healey \Jill an Hemorial Fund [Promohonal pamphlet], (Toronto. St. Mary Magdalene 1s Church, n.d.).

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on a similar work in Milan in 397 and [t C1 Pope_G:egory who during the years of his

0

pon~1f1cate 590-604 continued th~ work of Bp. Ambrose and classified and regulated the modes, very much as we know them today. 4

In another article he traces the foundation of England's

plainsong tradition:

To the comii?g of Augustine in 597 Utnd to] James, a sk1lled plain chantist and learned musician, who became Precentor of Canter­bury ~nd was raised to the episcopate of York ~n 633, ... (and] who laid the foun­dation of England's later fame in ecclesias-tical music. 5

?5

Elsewhere he declares that the Chant 11reached its zenith in

or about the VIIIth and IXth centuries", perhaps under the

influence of Charlemagne, and that the term "Cantus planus11

was devised in that period "to describe the whole mass of

unisonous, or one-dimensional music which was already in

existence". 6 He then suggests that the development of

harmony and organ-accompaniments reduced plainsong's "grace

4NLC, Will an Papers, H. \Villan, "The Influence of the Organ upon Church Music Clecture notes]", n .d. See also "The Song of Holy Church", S1xth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1956), P• 16.

5Healey Willan, "Plainsong, the Earliest_Song of the Church", Canadian Churchman, -XC (July-August 196.?), 15.

GF:vom NLC, Willan Papers, H. ilillan: "The Organ and Its Relation to Ciloral ~1usic [lecture notes]

11, June 15, 1937;

and "Choral Music of the Renaissance [lecture notes]", n.d.; Also fron H. \•lillan, "Plainsong, the :t:arliest Sonrs of the Church", Canadian Churchman, XC (July-August 1963), 15. In this last article, m6reover, Willan suggests.that the term· "Gregorian" actually refers to only one par:t1cular group of melodies within the total body of "Cantus planus ...

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and flexibility", and that the art gradually declined until

finallY falling "into disuse • • • after the Reformation"·?

In several of his notes Willan also mentions the

Solesmes revival, the Oxford movement, the clumsy but effec­

tive work of Thomas Helmore, and the chain of events which

led from this man, through Briggs, Stainer, Redhead, Terry,

Fellowes, Burgess and Hiscocks, to the composer's ovm work

at St. Mary Magdalene's. 8 _He describes the effective influ-

ence of the London Gregorian Association, and the example

set by its annual festival se~ices.9 He also speaks of "a

7 See NLC, Will an Papers, H. \·/ill an: "The Organ and Its Relation to Choral !1usic [lecture notes]", June 15, 193?; 11 Choral Music of' the Renaissance flecture notes] II' n .d.; "The Influence of the Organ upon Church Husic (lecture notes]

11

,

n.d.; and Untitled notes discussing plainsong's use among the Tractarians and its adaptation to English, n.d·.

8NLC, Will an Papers, H. \Villan: "Music of the Catho­lice Revival [lecture notes] 11

, n.d.; "The Influence of Plainsong on Hodern Composition (.lecture notes)

11

; n.d.; and Untitled notes discussing plainsong's use a~ong the Trac­tarians and its adaptation to English, n.d. In another lecture the composer contrasts the errors of the Belmore "school 11 with th~ subsequent work of Briggs and Frere, say-ing of the former: Those men who set about itB (i.e. plainsong's]

revival did so \1ith immense energy and enthu­siasm but they made one great mistake -- they revived the music without going far enough to find out how the music was rendered -- they produced a skeleton and n?t.a living being--the letter without the splr1t.

-- NLC, \Villan ?apers, H. 'dillan, Unti~led_notes discussing the history of plainsong and its contr~but~on to the deve­lopment of modern song writing, n.d. Cf. above, PP• 5,.?.

. :'\ 9NLC, Will an Papers, H. ~lillan, "?auxbourdons .[type­

sCrlpt.J 11 , n. d.

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certain number of keen musicians of the present day (who

labour] to unravel the tangled history of the past and to

discover ~ these old melodies were sung 11, and of the

"steadily increasing enthusiasm" which has come as a result

of all these services, concer~s, and studies.1

0

In the light of recent research several of vlillan • s

comments about plainsong history appear to be rather dated

and nal.ve. 11 \·le must remember, ho\-rever, that the composer

10NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan: Untitled notes discussing the history of plainsong and its contribution to the development of modern song writing, n.d.; and "Faux-bourdons [typescript] 11

, n.d. .

11His association of Ambrose and Gregory with the founding of the Chant, for example, is part of a novr-exploded historical concept that was popular back at the beginning of this century. -- See, for instance, E.G.P. Wyatt, St. Gre~ory and the Gre~orian Music (London: The Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society, 1904). Scholars are now much more careful in their statements about early plainsong history, insisting that:

If we rely on evidence rather than on wishful thinking or fantasy we cannot but admit that we know nothing about the liturgical melodies until we approach the period from which we have the earliest musical manuscripts, that is, the end of the ninth century. • • • For the present time it will s~f!ice to sa~ that it. is probably safe to th1nK of certa1n very . rudimentary types, such as the psalm tones or the archaic Gloria XV as being a heritage from early Christian, and ult~mately pre- . Christian days; of ~imple Ant1phons as dat1ng possibly from the t~me of Gregory; and of an Introit A Gradual, A Tract as being, in its present:day form, a product of the eighth or ninth century.

A pel, pp. 76, 82-83. . . Musicolo~ists likew1se seek a more prec1se under-standing of the Original meaning of "cantus planus"~ Some feel that this term distinguished plagal-mode illelod~es from authentic "cantus acutus" tunes. -- e.g. Apel, P• 5. Others

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was not a musicologist pursuing the study of medieval

Chant manuscripts, but an extremely active and productive

kapellmeister whose interests were oriented towards prac­

tical music-making. He spoke about plainsong history only

in a most general and introductory way, and usually when

considering other matters entirely.

Accompaniment

Willan believed that "plainsong reached its highest

point as unaccompanied music", and that ideally the "best

plainchanting (is always] without organ".12

He felt con-

suggest that it marked the difference between free-rhythmed Chant and measured music. -- e.g. Gregory Murray, Gregorian Chant According to the Manuscri ts (London: Hethuen, 1963), p. ; and Reese, p. 2 •

12NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan: Untitled notes discussing the history of plainsong and its contribution to the development of modern song writing, n.d.; and "Prin­ciples of Plainsong llecture ·notes)", n.d. In his letter to Harold Thompson, the composer confirms this feeling thus: "I like liturgical music to be ••• as much as possible un­accompanied". -- H.W. Thompson, "Creative Work of Dr. Healey Willan Subject of Survey", Diapason, XXVII (December 1, 1935), 20. Elsewhere Willan points to the debilitative effect primitive instrument design, and/or inadequate playing, has had on plainson"": slowing "up the speed of the music", hin­dering "that co~plete spontaneity which is its greatest delight" robbin"" it of "its flexibility and the charm of the verb~l accen't" and tempting "players • • • to indulge in many incongruities entirely out o~ keeping with_ [itl?) character and mode "• -- HLC, \-/~llan Papers, H. W~llan: • • • f J II "The Influence of the Oro-an Upon Church Husic Llecture notes , n.d.; "Choral !'1usic of 'the Renaissance [lecture not~s)", n.d.; and "The Organ and Its Relation to Choral_Mus~c {lecture notes]", June 15, 1937· These observat~ons are

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strained, however, to improvise, compose··, . and publish a

great many Chant accompaniments during his career. Like

many other promoters of plainsong, he found that organ parts

were necessary to "afford such help as is needful to the·

voices" of average parishioners.13

echoed by other writers: cf. Apel, p. xii; Osborne pp. 149-150; and Erik Routley, Twentieth Centur~ Church Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 108.

13NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, Untitled notes dis­cussing the history of plainsong and its contribution to the development of modern song writing, n.d. Edward Wagner suggests that Willan:

Could easily have chosen to sing the Chant unaccompanied [i.e. at St. Mary Nagdalene's]; but he did not, because he was convinced that parishioners used to harmony would find monophonic music too strange, as in­deed they would have in the first half of the C20 (sic] in Canada.

Wagner, p. 74. Other writer~ have felt a constraint similar to that experienced by Willan. Kenneth Long notes, for example: "With the introduction of ••• (plainsong 1 into parish worship some form of organ accompaniment became expedient". -- Long, p. 395. Sydney Nicholson calls plain­song accompaniment: "Almost a contradiction in terms", but concludes that "the taste of modern congregations demand(s] that some harmony should be provided". -- Nicholson, p. 122. Finally, Hichael Fleming, Stanley Osborne, and the second English Archbishops' committee on Church music, all agree that plainsong accompaniment is essential to keep untrained singers on pitch and in tune. -- See Dakers, p. 30; Osborne, P• 135; and Music in Church, P• 32. J,., • . •

Frederick ~elschow agrees thav pla1nsong accompan~-ment was probably essential during \Villan' s fir~t years at St. Mary's, but questions its nece~sity_once th1ngs became more established. He notes that, ~n sp1te of the a?ove statements about the superiority of a canella chant1ng, the composer continued to promote the use of plainsong accompani­ment right up to the end of his days. He concludes, there­fore, that Willan ultimately acquired a personal prefer-ence for this form as a result of his long association with

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Of ~is own playing it was said that the Chant was

"truly accompanied, not led, by the organu.14 Repeatedly he

stressed that such accompaniment must be as light and flexi­

ble as possible, sounding always "like a background, always

appropriate, through which the melody is able to weave its

way, undampened by anything likely to disturb its rhythmical

15 An n· t 1 flow". ~n ense egato" style, moreover, was to be the

norm instead of the accented rhythmic playing common to

hymnology. 16

Willan taught that chords were to "be conceived in

the mode in which the melody is written 11, and restricted to

root and first inversion triads.17 He wanted "as few chords

it. -- F.H. :Telschow, "The Sacr~d·Music of··Healey_ \'lillan 11

(Ph.D dissertation, University of Rochester, 1969~, pp. 28-30.

14George and Hargaret Drynan, "Willan Career Inter~ woven with St. Hary's", Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9.

15NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, Untitled notes dis­cussing the history of plainsong and its contribution to the develoument of modern song writing, n.d. See also: The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition, p. 18; H. Willan, Plainsong Accomnaniments, p. 2; and_H. Vlillan, Hagnificat and Nunc Dimi ttis Set to Tone I . us1.c pamohl& (He\'/ tork: H.W.Gray 1948 p. 1 •. Both J.H. Arnold and Francis Burgess give similar in~tructions: --See The English Hymnal (1933), p. xix; and. Burgess, The Rudiments of Gre:;;:orian Husic (Lon-don: W. Reeves, 1909), p. 19.

16NLC, Will an Papers, H. \-/ill an, "Organ Accompani~ ment [lecture notes]", n.d.

1?NLC, Will~ Papers, H. Willan, ~titled notes dis­cqssing the history of plainsong ~d its contribution to the

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as possible, [and] as few notes as possible", saying that

"three-part harmony • • • is often preferable • • • to

~our-part harmony 11 •18 Change f h ~ rom one c ord to another,

moreover, was to occur "either on the verbal accent or on

the musical stress 11•19

The composer also wanted the lightest possible

organ registration. Soft eight-foot ranks were to be the

foundation, with an occasional four-foot stop added for vari­

ety. A sixteen-foot pedal stop was percissible for use with

the men, or the whole congregation, but "never when the can-

development of modern song writing, n.d. Willan particu­larly avoided the use of the seventh chord, equating it with "the ugliness of sentimentality and sugariness 11

• -- NLC, Wil­lan Papers, H. \~ill an, "Fauxbourdons (typescript]", n .d. A former member of the gallery choir confirms that, at St. Ma­ry's, "the atmosphere of antiquity was sustained by a pro­foundly simple device, namely -- the absence of the ••• seventh chord".-- C. McCormick, "Vision at St. ~1ary's", Diapason, LIX (October 1968), 9.

J.H. Arnold's opinion on this subject is similar to Willan's. -- See Arnold, pp. 31-33· I have heard other organists, however, argue that such strict modal and com­mon chord interpretations are perhaps a little too "authen­tic". They conclude that, because plainsong accompaniment is a relatively new occurrence which has no foundation in the medieval Chant tradition, players should be free to do as they like.

18The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition, P• 16.

19willan believed that there is a nat~r~l mus~cal stress "on the first of each group of quave~s ~n melJ.sma­tic Chant. -- From NLC, Willan Papers, Les~1e Rose and H. Willan "Preface" to a collection of Intro1ts (MS], n.d. See n.'24 above, p. 31, and cf. Edgar Coo~, The ~se_of~ . Plainson"' (Burnham: The Plainsong and Med.1aeval I'!us1c ooc1-ety, 192~), p. 35.

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tor or trebles (were] singing". 20

Finally, Willan recommended two particular accom­

paniment devices for occasional use. First, he suggested

that "it is possible and sometimes most effective .to accom-

pany some of the less florid melodies in organum so long as

we do not lose sight of the fact that organum was in the

first instance vocal and not instrumental".21 The second

recommendation concerned the caesural pause in the middle of

each psalm-verse. This he felt 11 can often be treated with

a passing-note_, • • • (:"lhich] adds to the smoothness of the

2°From The Canadian Psalter: Plainson~ Edition, p. 16; Also from The Book of Common Praise (Revised 1938) [not, how­ever, the 1964 revision of this \vorkJ, p. 837; . and H. \'lil­lan, i1a0;nificat and Nunc Dimittis Set to Tone I, p. 1. Des­cribing a service led by the ritual choir, Willan once wrote: "I used three stops on the swell to accompany them -- I think I added 2 more for the Gloria in Excelsis and the Credo, be-cause the people sing them 11 • -- NLC, iilillan Papers, H.

1.1illan

to "I1y Dear Ei 11 (no other name is given], n.d. In a church the size of St. Mary's, this was restraint indeed.

Written evidence is sparse concerning the organ timbres Willan preferred for plainsong accompaniment. The softer stops on the instrument at St. J.".La.ry• s are domin3.ted by two separate string sections, each with its own charming and distinctive celeste. The composer ·is said to have preferred .a

11 C1~ar,­cool, flute-like quality ·for. plainsong \-/ork 1 ho\'lever, J.n-stead of. the . 11 stringy, reedy and emotional" sound fa- . voured by others. -- NLC, Willan Papers, R~ Palmer to_H. W~l-lan, "Dec. 13" (no year is given]~ Those 1nterest~d 1n_th1s subject can stuay Willan's selectJ.on of stops by l1sten1ng to. the tapes made at st. l'lary's during his last years. ~everal of these are stored with the National Library Collect1on.

21NLC \'/ill an Papers, H. \villan 11The Organ and Its Relation to choral Husic (lecture notesj", June 15, 19?7· Again he suggests that organum is particularly ~ppropr1at~ for use with sequences. -- Cf. n. 40 above, P• ~6. In th1s case, ho~rever, he refers to an instrumental, rat;her than a vocal, addition to the Chant.

83

chanting 11 • 22

Willan's plainsong accompaniment style developed

more or less at the same time, and in the same mold, as

that of J.H. Arnold. It is impossible to know exactly how

much the Canadian was influenced by the Englishman, or vice

versa, but the similarity in their work is obvious.23

Fauxbourdon

We have already noted Willan's early familiarity

with this device. 2~ He once wrote that he regarded it as

11 one of the most interesting and beautiful developments of

the art of Plainsong 11 •25 He felt, moreover, that the use of

22The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition, P· 16. I have heard several plainsong accompanists use this device. Others have remarked that they find it cumbersome and confu~ sing to the singers.

23cr., for example, the Willan arrangements of 11Pan-e Lingua" with that of Arnold. -- The Book of Common Praise Revised 19 8 (not, however, the 1964 revision of this v1ork ],

pp. 8 8, 240. Note also the fact that these two men were contemporaries (Arnold's dates are 1887-1956), and that Wil­len's hymn-book contributions, his revision of the Briggs and Frere Psalter, and his accompaniment book, in each case were issued soon after or bear considerable resemblance to Arnold's work. -- See above, pp. 61-62, 65, 71-72. They shared a common contact, moreover, in the Plains?ng and Medi­aeval Music Society's Anselm Hughes, who once sa1d: J.H. Arnold is "the name to which the Society owes most". -- Hughes, S1tua5esima Heminiscences ••• 1-lusical, P• 40; See also n. 4 above, p. 36.

24see n. 20 above, p. 10; and also PP• 28-29.

25NLC, Willan Papers, H. \Villan, "Fauxbourdons ltype­script]", n.d. Willan discusses the meaning of the term "fauxbourdon u in this essay., and also in NLC, \villan Papers,

84.

rauxbourdons was na good \-lay to introduce" the Chant to a

a var1a J.on which does new conorrregation' and to "provJ.· de . t.

'not mar ecclesiastical propriety" where plainsong is already

established. 26 He also considered it an appropriate method

of marking the dignity of the "more important" Gospel can­

ticles, especially the Magnificat.27

With l!l cantus firmus fauxbourdon, the composer recom­

mended an accompaniment that would provide "enough support

to ensure steady congregational singing" of the plainsong

tenor .• 28· The free-composed fauxbourdons written for use

Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

26NLC, vlillan Papers, H. \afillan to nMr. Northrup" . [no other name is givenJ, October 20, 1949. Willan saw the fauxbourdon as a means of adding interest and variety to the otherwise bare melodies of the Chant. He counselled, however, that "like all ornamentation, it should be used with discre­tion -- not too much of it at any time 11

• -- H. vlillan, Faux­bourdons and New H mn Tunes usic am hlet (Toronto: \~estern Music Co., 1950 , Foreward.

27The composer notes this in at least three of his wri tin~s: See NLC, \1illan Papers, H. Willan: Untitled notes ttypescript] for a lecture given before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity College, Toronto, on September 21,_1932; and "F~uxbourdons [typescript] 11 , n. d. See also Hea~ey WJ.llan, "Plainsong, the Earliest Song of the Church 11

, Canad1an Church-~' XC (July-August 1963), 15.

28From H. Willan, Faux-bourdons and New H mn Tunes, Foreward. In two of his lectures ~1 lan cont~rms tn1s _e­lief that the congregation- should· remain on the tenor l1ne, citing the Tallis 11Festal Respo~ses" as an examp~e:

Here the Plainsong, or ferial response, 1s placed in the tenor part a~d th~ uppe: p~rts sing an accompaniment of w1der nar~on1c.1n7 terest. The effect of· a congregat1on s1ng~ng

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with the canticles at St. Mary's, on the other hand, were

to be "sung without accompaniment" by the choir alone.29

Rhythm

85

There are only three instructions from Willan on this

subject. The first suggests that "great care ••• be taken

the legitimate "people's part" and the trained singers the ."Choir's part" is one not easily forgotten •. T~e Plainsong lies naturally com­fortably w~th1n the compass of all the voices and the appalling effect of people, with the ' best intentions in the world, vainly stretch­ing for a high F at the words "When \'le call upon Thee" is completely avoided -- which re­mark applies to the tenors and basses of the congregation, v1ho sing the "tune 11 an octave, or sometimes nearly an octave, below.

-- NLC, Will an Papers, H. ;.villan, "Fauxbourdons [typescript]", n.d.; See also Untitled notes [typescript] for a lecture given before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity College, Toronto, on September 21, 1932.

Not everyone agrees with Willan on this subject. Sydney Nicholson, for example, insists that there is no evi­dence that congregations \vere ever expected to sing faux­bourdons thus. -- Nicholson, p. 216. Edgar Cook is more specific, declaring:

It is sometimes argued that as the plainsong is the tenor part in Tallis, the people should sing this, rather than the soprano melody, but the naturally strict time which is necessary for a good performance of these settings makes the plainso~g part much too r~gi~ and~drawn out to allow of any natural s1ng1ng o~ the part •••• A simple harmo~isation with the plainsong as the top part 1s better bec~use this does allow of a fairly free renderlng, and should be the alternative if the unadorned plainsong is not feasible.

Cook, p. 29.

29H. ~illan, Ma~nificat and Nunc Dimittis Set to Tone I, p. 1.

i1

86

to regard the notes as of approximately equal length".30

The secon~ advises that each line of ChB.J."'lt should nbegin

with a definite impulse", a new burst of energy.31 In the

third Willan insists that "the accent of the words is the

accent of the music, • • • [and thus that] the intelligent

accentuation of the words

rhythm of the melody".32

• • • {is] the best guide to the

These tenets are among those accepted by the "Acce~­

tualist School of [plainsong] interpretation".33 There is

3°The Book of Common Praise Revised however, the 1 4 revision of this work , p.

(not,

31NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

32NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, Untitled notes dis­cussing the history of plainsong and its contribution to the development of modern song writing, n.d.; and The Book of Common Praise Revised 19 8 [not, however, the 1964 re­v~s~on of th~s work , p. 3 • Note his suggestion that be­ginners can best achieve correct rhythmic performance: 11 I.f' the words of Canticles and Psalms are [first] read slowly and intelligently and then sung quietly on a monotone".

The Canadian Psalter: Plainsong Edition, p. 7.

33st. I'1ary I~agdalene 's Church, "Plainsong Perfor­mance Practices [a guide for new members of the ritual choir, prepared sometime after Vlillan's death]", n.d. Accentualist scholars consider plainsong notes to be roughly equal in length, their individual durations determined not by any mathematical value intrinsic to the particular form of nota­tion used, but by loose correspondence to the natural ~ccen­tuation of slow deliberate speech. Solesmes' Dam Poth~er (1835-1923) was a prime mover behind ~his concept of Chant, and it was his.:interpretation that Br~ggs brought to Eng­land. -- See above, pp. 7-8. The Accentualist _view is op­~osed by the Mensuralists and by follower~ ?f Dam Mocquereau

_(successor to Pothier at Solesmes, and or~g~nator of·the so­called "neo-Solesmesu notation system), both of whom attempt

---- --- -------- ------·- -~------- -·----~ .... ~

87

no evidence, however, that Willan actively identified him­

self with this, or any other, particular rhythmic _theory,

or that he ever involved himself in the rhythmic disputes

·of modern plainsong scholars. He simply felt that his in­

structions would best produce that "clarity of diction and

proper inflection ••• (which are] the 'sine qua non' of

liturgical singing". 34 This was a practical, rather than

a scholarly, approach to the problem. The composer con­

cluded that interpretation of plainsong rhythm is "a thing

a more precise regulation of the musical rhythm. Bitter wrangling has divided these groups during the last hundred years. -- From Hughes, Plainsong for English Choirs, pp. 66-74; Apel, pp. 123-124, 127-128; and John Rayburn, Gregorian Chant: A Histor of the Controvers Concernin Its Hh. thm

ew York: [no publisher given], "19 4 , pp. 2-4. .b"'or exam­ples of the various objections and controversies, see: A.G. Mcdonald, Plainsong for the People (London: The Universe, [1931]), pp. 2-8; Hughes, Se tua~esima Reminiscences •••

·Musical, p. 46, and 11A New Attack Upon .Plainsong 11, ECH 1964),

pp. 19-29. In the various publications of the Editio Vaticana,

Roman Catholic authorities more or less managed to tread a wise path between the "over-hammering of accents • • • [which is the ] constant danger of accentualism", and the Mensura­list/Neo-Solesmes "peril of excessive rhythmic analysis". -- Alec Robertson, The Internretation of Plainchant: A Pre­liminary Study (London: Oxford Univers~ty Press,_1937), P• 16. Cf. Reese, pp. 146-148, ~d.t~e L1ber Usual1s? p. x, both of which suggest the poss~b1l1ty of a comprom1se be­tween the different views. Note also·that "the Solesmes Rhythmic signs" are only placed in.the Edi~~o Va,tic~na "as an [optional] aid". -- Liber Usual1s, p •. ~11. .c.,ngl1~h Ac-: centualists have tended to follow the Va~1can books ~n th1s matter feeling that: 11 the best result is obtained when there is a c~rtain amount of give a~d take ••• betw~en the ~atu­ral way of rendering the Engl~sh • • • and the ~?rrec~ ~ay of rendering the chant". -- N~cholson, p. 126. ~1l~an .. s.~n­structions on plainsong rhythm clearly stem from th1s v~a media 11 approach.

34George and Margaret Drynan, "Willan Career Inter-

you can't define •••• Having sung it, you can only sort

of realize it". 35

Notation r

88

The.majority of Willan's plainsong adaptations and

arrangements are printed in modern score, because:

[The] 5-line staff treble clef and 8th note system ~ •• are the general experience [(?) exp~ess~on] of the day ••• (which] can be eas~ly understood, • • • [and because the · tra~itional] f~ur-line stave and square no­tat~on, so adm~rably suited to the essence of pla~nsong, ••• [are] at the same time unfa­miliar to many. 36

This was a practical concession to the needs of untrained

parishioners, and also facilitated the huge weekly turn-over

woven with St. Mary' s 11 , Diapason, LI (October 1, 1960), 8-9.

35NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and M~~ Parker, 1963-1965. Alec Ro­bertson has written:

It must also never be forgotten that plainsong is music, and, however free the rhythm is, it still follows basic musical laws. Thus a choir should "sing on the phrase", towards the cadence points, with due attention to proper enunciation and accentuation of words, and flexibly, and with­out previous intensive dissection of the melodies.

Robertson, "Plainsong 11 , Pelican, I (1960), 157. \·Jillan was first and foremost a mus~c~an, and this fact is re­flected in his approach to the Chant. His "interpretation of how plainsong should be sung", was always "logical and simple 11 and full of 11 common sense 11

• -- NLC, Willan Papers, Albert and Anne Mahon, A tribute written at the time of Willan's eightieth birthday.

36From NLC, Willan Papers: H. Willan, Unt~tled ~otes discussing plainsong's use among th~ Tractar~ans and 1ts adaptation to English, n.d.; and Lesl~e rtose and H. Will an, "Preface" to a collection o~ Intra~ t~ L~iS], n.d. Also from The Canadian Psalter: Pla1nsong ~d~t1on, P• 7•

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l.S clear, however, of music in St. Mary's ritual choJ.·r. It ·

that Willan actually preferred the older notational system,

and made use of it when time and resources permitted.37

Neume Interpretation

The composer recorded only three observations about

the interpretation of plainsong neumes. First, the "bivirga

• • • pres sus • • • (and] oriscus" are each rendered as

"two quavers • • J..• d • "~e ' • • • of the approximate length

of a crotchet 11 • Second, the "quilisma ••• is a light

passing note [which] gives the preceding note ••• [or]

two preceding notes a slightly firmer stress 11• Final-

• • •

ly, "the tripunctum is an ornament ••• (whose purpose),pre­

sent day scholarship cannot exactly determine. It is •••

treated as a mordent ••• and Iits1 small note should be

sung very lightly".3S These comments appear to have been de-

37e.g. In the service books for the annual Gregorian Association festivals. -- See n. 26 above, p. 52. Other plainsong authorities share this co'?bination of a pref~renc;:e for traditional notation and a comm~tment to the pract~cal~ty of modern score. -- See, for example, Arnold, PP• 2, 9. Note also that the Solesmes monks use both notational systems, and that the Burgess Ordinary (1920~ was ~imult~neously pub­lished in a "Choir Edition • • • pr~nted ~n Pla~nchant nota­tion ••• and a Peonle 1s Edition ••• printed in.Modern notation". -- Reese, p. 141; and Burgess, The Engl1sh Gradual: Part One, pp. vii-viii.

38NLC, Willan Papers, Lesl~e Rose and H. Willan, "Preface" to a collection of Intro1 ts [M.S], n.d.

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rived froc Chant primers written in this century.39 There

is no trace of the composer ever displaying more than a

cursory knowledge of, or doing_ any serious work in, the

ancient manuscripts.

Adaptatfon

Scholars have long debated whether or not the old

Chant melodies can be successfully adapted to the new ver­

nacular texts. 40 Willan believed that such transcriptions·

are perfectly acceptable, first, because "the principle of

Adaptation is widely used in the G.A. [ Graduale Romanum]"

itself,41 and second, because "it would appear to be no more

39e.g. Similar comments about the modern practice of tying repercussive neumes appear in Apel, pp. 106-108; the Liber Usualis, pp. xii, xxv; and Robertson, The Inter­pretation of Plainchant, p. 15. Willan's statement about the quilisma reiterates the discussion given in Apel, pp. 113-115; The Elements of Plainsong, (New [2nd) ed.; London: The Plainsong and Nediaeval 1v1usic Society, 1909), p. 22; Arnold, p. 7; and the Liber Usualis, p. xxv. Finally, note that his "tripunctum" bears the same description as the "tri­stropha" considered in Arnold, p. 7; and Apel, p. 108.

40e.g. See Nicholson, p. 148; and Music in Church, p. 32. The reader's attention is also drawn to portions of the following essays by Roman Catholic writers: Hichael Dawney, "New Music fo~ the Roman Cat~olic..,Chu:'ch::' ~CM (1968), pp. 62-64· Basil Mor~son, 11The Souna of ~ngl~sh , ~cH (1970),

· J?P• 20-21; and Mary Berry, 11 Change and the Chant11

, ~ ( 1976), p. 45. Dawney and ~1orison both. eXJ?ress doubts about vernacular adaptation, while Dr. Berry ~nd~cates her support of the practice.

41NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, Untitled notes dis­cussing Willan's st. Hary Hagdalene Mass Propers, n.d. Scho­lars agree that the traditional.Chant corpus developed through a process of adapting old melod1es.to new texts. See, for

"'

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91

incongruous to adapt plainsong to English words than, as

is so often done, to adapt the Latin 'Ite miss~ est• to

the music of the Greek 'Kyrie eleison •. n42

As previously noted, the composer carried out just

such an adaptation in the preparation of Gradual and Anti­

phonal books for use at St. Mary's.43 The melodies in

these works are only slightly different from those of the

Editio Vaticana, and Willan was careful to retain the

characteristic beginning, ending, peak, and general shape

of each phrase. Change is mainly accomplished by the omis­

sion of neumes at points where the motion of the Chant is

suspended on a reciting note, repercussive neume, or some

other sort of repeating figure. 44 There are a few small

example, Apel, pp. 69, 202, 246; Reese, pp. 165-166; and Robertson, The Interuretation of Plainchant, pp. 55-62.

42"About Plainchant 11 , Fifth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1955), p. 22. Michael Fleming uses a similar argument in Dakers, P• 30.

43see above, pp. 30-36.

44e.g. In adapting this phrase from the Vatican In-troit for Advent II, Vlillan omits two e :;"k -of the neumes (i.e. those in brackets] ~-i"*·? !'~------.-.-----==t= hovering around the reciting note. His chant otherwise starts and ends gl6-ri- am v6- cis su- ae,. on the same notes, has the same.cli- . max, and indeed is almost ident~cal to 1ts Roman source. The vast majority of the s~. Har~ f:1agdalene.Mass Propers and Antiphons are handled 1n a s~m~lar fash1on. .

About fourteen of the longer high-feast me~od~es, however are considerably shortened through the om1ss1on of whole phrases. The following excerpt from the Easter Gradual

. . 45 d t• "f add~ t~ons' an ne lexus n is used "whenever reason-

able "• 46 · The complex Solesmes rhythmic directions, how-·.-

, ever, are omitted because Willan felt that:

Too.many are pr?ne to accept Solesmes ·as the ult1mate_author1ty. Sol. [sic] reduced all to ~ splend1d ~ystem, skilful and learned but we 1n the Angl1can Church are using the English tongue and the problem is not how shall we force the language to fit the music but how· shall we adapt the music so that lo~ing none o~ its musical line, ~t can be used to support w1th proper accentuat~on, the English tongue. 47

92

Finally, some errors· and discrepancies appear, due no doubt

is a good example. Most of its final melisma [bracketed] is dropped in the Willan books.

I -f . . r-~ •• ·r- . r.. ··, ~ :.~~ ,,., "·r..ll . .. · exsult~~ · mus, . .

45e.g. Willan extends the melody of the Pentecost Communion chant by.repeating one of its phrases. The same technique can be seen in his adaptation of·the Introit for Nuptual Hass.

The composer also adds a note or two to some of the original neumes. -- e.g. Compare his setting of this Candle-

tnt. L.a._ --=---•.-----8. .-----.-- • ·-·----- i. i ••••

L Umen • ad reve-la-ti-6nem · A l,·g;.t fr to I; g~+- tr- iJ..f! G~.

mas antiphon, to that of its Latin sourc~. By using the extra. "e 11 , \villan avoids setting the art~cle of "A light" to the hio-h note on "Lumen 11

• 0

46NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan to Ken Scott (a letter describing the st. fwlary Hagdalene Mass Propers] , n.d •

. 47NLC, Willan Papers, H. Willan, Untitled notes dis-

to the fact that publishable editions of these books were

never completed.48

93

In-summary, the Willan 11School 11 is basically an ex­

tension of that which developed around the Plainsong and

Mediaeval Music Society between 1888 and 1956.49 Its rhythm

cussing plainsong's use among the Tractarians and its adap­tation to English, n.d. The basic barring-system asterisks and ficta-use, appear to have been copied straight from the Vatican books. On the other hand, the Solesmes breathing­comma, "punctum-moran and episemas, are totally omitted. --See Apel, pp. 124~125.

48First, the mode numbers are often incorrect. -- e.g. Willan lists the Mode II Alleluia of Epiphany II as a Mode I chant. Second, because Willan sometimes puts the ficta in the signature and at other times spreads it out in the melo­dy, the key signatures are a source of constant confusion. One example of this is his partially-corrected adaptation of the second Pentecost Alleluia (which starts in A-flat and ends in E-flat). Third, there are wrong notes in a few of Willan's chants, almost as if his eye skipped during the copying process. -- e.g. Compare the bracketed portions of these otherwise identical excerpts from the Easter Gradual:

§_._· 1 •• _r-f·, =~ !"f! tttl't~._ .. 1 ·~· •. ~-~~~ _ ~r t n r £F£ J.Confi-temi-ni D~ · _mi.;. __ no, · ·qucS:- - 0 q•'~ ~Lu.,t..~ ~-to -

14 -- Lc-YcL., ---- ····---·-- ~&)-I Finally, due to the difference bet~een the calendars (~d thus the lectionaries) of the An~l~can_and Roman Cathol1c Churches Willan's chants for Tr1n~tyt1de are out-of-phase with their Roman parents. -- e.g. In \villan'? Gradua~, the Mass Propers for Trinity IV are those give~ 1n the Llber Usualis for "Dominica IV. post Pentecosten •

49see above, PP· ?-8; and n. 41 on P· 36. Hughes' letter is the last known contact between Willan and person-nel of that Society.

94

and adaptation principles are those of pre-Mocquereau Sol­

esmes Acc~ntualists, and its understanding and use of plain­

song history and notational procedu~es is accessory to a

practical focus on performance. The employment of faux­

bourdons and accompaniments, moreover, stems from a parti­

cular love Anglicans have acquired for these devices, and

from the anticipated needs of average parish churches at­

tempting to adopt t~e Chant.

This section has attempted to unveil some of the

mysteries inherent in Willan's Chant theory. In the next

chapter I shall look at the concept of liturgical music

which lay behind the composer's commitment to the Chant.

VII

THE "MUSIC OF THE CHURCH"

Willan was indisputably a Church musician's musi­

cian, an expert who knew all facets of the discipline

thoroughly. In his younger years he had considerable ex­

perience of both the "Broad Church 11 and the Tractarian

styles of worship. 1 Only in later years do we note an in­

creasingly exclusive devotion to the latter, marking a re­

turn to the first use he had known as a child.

Out of all his early experience, the composer gra-

dually acquired a loathing for two particular manifestations

of the "Broad Church 11 liturgical system. To the first he

gave the generic term "Church Music", and under this title

included everything that he felt to be inappropriate, in-

congruous, disruptive, ostentatious, or simply, unneces-

1According to Godfrey Ridout, the composer spent twelve. years making music in "Broad Church" parishes. -- Ridout, "Healey Willan", Canadian Music Journal, III (Spring 1959), p. 6. This length of time includes four. years at Christ Church, Wanstead (1899-1903), and the e~ght­year stretch at St. Paul's, Bloor Street (1913-1921). The six years spent at St. Saviour's Choir School must also be considered. In after-dinner conversation at Toronto's Trinity College Dr. Ridout recently noted the curious oscil­lation Willan u~derwent bet;..1een Tractarian and "Broad Church" establishments: i.e. four years at Beckenham (Trac~arian), followed by six years at Eastbourne ("Broad Church ), three years at St. Alban's (Tractarian), four years at \-/anstead ("Broad Church") ten years at Kensington (Tractarian), eight year's on :Bloor street ("Broad Church"), and finally, the forty-seven years at St. Mary's.

95

...,-~.._, .. ~-!~-'t'..-~;.,-~"',.'i•· .. ~ . . . .. ~. ""

:t

I I l I

96

Sarily difficult. 2 He blamed t.he f use o such music on

"insincerity, to begin with, and a desire to produce some­

thing attractive and entertaining rather than what is ap-

propriate 11• 3

The second target for Willan's spleen was the cul-

tivation of cathedral-like musical establishments in parish

churches. He felt that:

It is in the attempted imitation of this (cathedral] system that the smaller church,

2vlillan often distinguished bet\'Teen "Church Music and • • • the r·lusic of the Church 11 [i.e. plainsong], a phrase he later attributed to Fr. Hiscocks. -- See, for ex­ample, Healey \villan, "Church Music or Husic of the Church

11,

Ninth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Cana­da, 1959), p. 19. ior an example illustrating what he thought to be "inappropriate" or "incongruous" Church music, see NLC, Will an Papers, Ray Martin quoting ~.villan to Helmut Kallmann, September 17, 1971. Note also his opposition to the once common practice of singing "a hymn, very often of oratorical character", prior to "0 Lord open Thou our lips". -- NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965. In addition, the composer detested music that disrupts "the normal flow of the ritual ••• (or ostentatiously] draws the attention of the people to itself, ••• (citing] solo singing, noisy accompaniments and anything suggestive of fuss" ~s examples. -- H.\1. Thompson, "Creative Work of Dr. Healey W~llan Sub­j~ct of Survey", Dianason, XXVII (December 1, 19?5), ?O·. F~nally, he was against music chosen solely for ~ts d~ff~-culty, insisting that: · . .

It is a mistake to suppose that d~ff~cult music must be good music or that good music must of necessity be difficult music, and many choir~ not r~a~ising this fact, through misappl~ed amb~t~on, meet with disaster.

-- NLC, Will an Papers, H. \Villan, "Music of the Easter Mass

(lecture notes)", n.d.

,Hugh · 11 · T t 84 11

, Globe fwlau:a-Thomson, "St~ ~n une a :2

Toronto (October 17, 1964), P• 19.

. ~ I

wit~out in any way a~proaching the cathedral efu1~me~t, btabs ~et.w1th disaster, for in-· sea o. es a 17sh1ng a routine of music a~pro~r1ate to 1ts possibilities, of neces­s1ty 1~ h~s fallen back upon cheap imitation often 1nd1fferently performed.4 · '

97

He especially opposed the parochial use of Anglican chants·, 5

and repeatedly criticized the cathedral-oriented musicians

of the R.S.C.H. for doing "too much to try and ak m e • • •

the (style of the] collegiate church where the congregatiron

are {sic] expected to be present in silence, •

the common use [of the parishes]". 6

• • [become 1

4NLC, vlillan Papers, H. \·lillan, Untitled notes [type­script) for a lecture given before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity College, Toronto, on September 21, 1932. Respon­ding in this lecture to assertions that many people have grown to like this "cheap imitation 11

, vlillan went on to say: "Habit is a curious thing, and we can, by constant repeti­tion, become accustomed to many things which, if we began to examine them critically, we would immediately condemn".

,5Willan had no objection to the use of these "in Cathedrals which have choir schools 11

, but felt that the pro­per performance of such prose-rbytbmed harmony was beyond the capabilities of an unrehearsed congregation. At Trinity College he once said: 11Here again is where the attempt to follow the Cathedral system has met with failure, for not only bas the pointing, frequently difficult, to be mastered, but • • • [also] the learning of the vocal parts". He there­fore concluded that "the Anglican Chant as a piece of con-gregational participation • • • (is not] reason~ble". . -- From NLC, Will an Papers: Albert an~ An:t;~e Man?n, A tr1-bute written at the time of \villan • s e1ght1eth b1rthday; Untitled notes (typescript) for a lecture given before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity College, Toron~o, on Septem­ber 21, 1932; and A transcript of conversat1ons between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965. ·

GnLc, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker,_1963-1965. .

There is some evidence that W1llan felt a r1ft de-

Thus Willan rejected the two musical styles which

most Anglicans believe to be appropriate, in a variety of

combinations, for parish use. In their place he wanted t~e

Church to adopt a type of liturgical music that would con­

form to the fo~lowing principles.

First, it "should in no way obscure the intention

or impede the movement" of the Liturgy. Willan saw litur­

gical music as "the incidental music of a great drama11

, a

useful but entirely unessential complement to actions that

are complete entities in themselves.? As such he felt it

must always remain in the background, never drawing atten-

veloping between himself and other Toronto-based organists as a result of these views. In 1935 he had written: "I do not expect everybody to agree with me. Those who do not agree with me I regard neither as personal enemies nor as fools". -- H.W. Thompson, "Creative Work of Dr. Healey Will an Subject of Survey", Diaoason, XXVII (December 1, 1935), 20. Seventeen years later, however, he was reluctant to chair a local R.S.C.M. meeting because he "felt that his connection with the Gregorian Association in Canada and the type of work under his direction in the church of St. Mary Magdalene might prejudice the opinions of people who other­wise might be interested in the work of the RSCM (sic]". -- NLC, Willan Papers, Hinutes of a meeting held at the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto, on March 8, 1952. Finally, late in life he said this of the other professional Church musicians in Toronto: "As you know, I have very little use for the latter too many of whom are painfully ignorant & therefore in their o\m eyes, painfully important". -- NLC, Willan PaPers, H. Willan to Ray Martin, October 25, 1963.

?From Healey Will an, "What~ s Vlrong with Church Mu­sic in Canada", Cao and Gown [1·/yclJ.ffe College ~nuB;l] (1959), pp. 112-1'14; and H.W. Thomr,son! "CreatJ.ve \~ork of Dr. Healey Willan Subject of Survey , DJ.apason, XXVII (De-

cember 1, 1935), 20.

tion to itself in any·way.a

S_econd' the Church's music must support and enhance

the texts of the sacred rites, without overpowering them or

drawing attention away from them. Th e words should always

be 11 at least understandably sung", 9 and are never to be

muffled by the music, or adjusted to suit it.10

Third, the music of the Liturgy must be the most

refined, perfect, and beautiful music available. Asked

about aestheticism in worship, the composer unabashedly

replied: We all like beautiful things, and reli­gion is a beautiful thing. Music pro­perly used helps to make it more beau­tiful. People are looking for beauty everywhere, and in the Church particu­larly if you don't give them not only the sight of beauty but also the sound

8Willan was always careful, for example, to time every piece of music so that there would be no awkward de­lay in the liturgical action or unwarranted pause in the musical accompaniment. -- See NLC, Willan Papers: Albert and Anne Mahon, A tribute written at the time of Willan's eightieth birthday; also H. \iillan to D •. Nicholson, October ? , 1964-, in which the composer claimed: "I have written 14- settings of the Ordinary, practicallY on the stop-watch, so that the propers of the Mass shall in no way be impaired

by the music".

9NLC, Willan Papers, ~hom~s Hyl~d, A tribute writ­ten at the time of Willan's ekghtketh bkrthday.

10willan, for example, "as ~ gen~ral rul~ • • • (avoided) repetition of words" in lktur~kcal muskC· Such could only "be indulged in when the musJ.c [was] contra-. 1 n H ~.r

puntal in character but even then sparkng Y • -- •"• Thompson "Creative 'work of Dr. Healey •,nllan Subject of

·Survey",' Diapason, XXVII (December 1, 1935), 20.

of beauty then you and they are ~issing a good dea1.

11

100

Fourth, Willan felt that th;s • music should be u-nique to its task. He wrote: nrt is, or ought to be

. ' ob-vious that Church Music should be • · · SUJ. generJ.s', essenti-

ally different from secular mus1·c, tt no ma er how beautiful

or magnificent this may be".12

Fifth, the prime goal of liturgical music is to

encourage and effect strong congregational participation at

appropriate points in the service. Willan put it thus:

If it is intended that the people shall take a real part in the services of the Church, unison singing must be the basis and having secured, by means of a well- ' tr~in~d choir and congregational support, thJ.s J.deal, normal development will sug­gest further progress by the addition of fauxbourdon, chorale and motet. 13

11R.W. Hambleton, "An Experience of Life: Dr. Hea­ley Willan [Interview]", CBC Times, VII (April 3-9, 1955), 3.

12NLC, Willan.Papers, H. Willan to the editor [no name is given] of the Canadian Churchman, n.d. This letter­draft is appended to the untitled notes [typescript] for a lecture given before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity Col­lege, Toronto, on September 21, 1932, and seeks publication of the lecture.

1 ;NLC, vlillan Papers, ·H. \villan, Untitled notes [typescript] for a lecture given before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity College, Toronto, on September 21, 1932.

Willan insisted that congregations had 11 a right to sing", that they "should be required to take ~art in many portions of the church serviceu, that the Ord.J.nary of the Mass 11may well be regarded as peculiarly belonging to the people 11 and that Church leaders should "take care that the music f~r the congregation is suitable.for the purpose". -- H. Willan, "A Message from Healey WJ.llan to the c.c.o.

-

' ' \ l t

101

In short, congregational unison singing must be firmly

established, and only then may "music within the capabili-·

ties of the choir" be considered.14

In his later years, Willan increasingly contended

that plainsong is the best type of music·for use as the

musical foundation of the Liturgy, and indeed the one

which comes nearest to meeting all these standards. First,

he felt that it had ?een molded into the most perfect of

liturgical complements by its long historical association

with the rites of the Church.15 Second, he insisted that

plainsong ideally suits the accompaniment of non-metrical

texts, because its flexibility allows the "proper accentua­

tion of the words ••• to be adhered to without either

difficulty or distortion ••• by any bar-line or metrical

(Messages from Past Presidents]", Musical Canada, n (Octo­ber 1930), 23; NLC, Willan Papers 1 H. \~illan: Untitled notes [typescript) for a lecture g~ven before the Provost and Alumni of Trinity College, Toronto, on September 21, 1932, and "Music of the Easter Mass [lecture notes]", n.d.

14Healey '1/illan, "What 1 s 1'/rong with Church Music in Canada

11, Can and Gown (.Wycliffe College Annual) C 1959), PP •

112-114. .

15ae repeatedly cites the Chant's antiquity as evi­dence for its liturgical suitability. See, ~or example, "Th s f H 1 ... Church" Sixth Annual Fest~ val: Or~er of e ong o o "J ' 6) 16. 1~10 l~v1.11an Service (Tor?nto: G.A. 9anada, ~9) tt P;scrintl f~r a lee­Papers, H. Wkllan: Unt~tled no ~sAl~i of Trinity College ture given before the Prov

1o9st32an d "Music of the Easter '

Toronto, on September 21, ' an Mass (lecture notes)", n.d.

~-~.-."" .~ .. -. .;~"'~ .. ,~,.~ . ~ ~---~

1: (, . ! :;

~ )

102

accent 11 •16 Third, he believed T.he Ch

v ant has proved its

intrinsic worth as the finest body f o melodies ever writ-·17

ten. Fourth, he implied that it indeed has the advantage,

for worship, of being 11essentially different from secular

music".18 Fifth h ·d , e sa1 that the use of plainsong abets

congregational participation because it "lies well within

the scale range of the average voice ••• [with] movement

by conjunct degrees 11•19

The composer gave several other reasons for his

. . 1~rom Healey \villan, 11 \fuat 1 s Wrong with Church Hu-s~c ~n Canada 11

, Can and Gown [vlycliffe College Annual] (1959), pp. 112-114; and 11About Plainchant 11

, Fifth Annual ~~~ti val: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1955), p.

17Willan once wrote: "The test of a good tune is how does it sound when sung in unison without accompaniment, and therefore not dependent upon any harmonic device. Too many of the popular hymn tunes fall to pieces under such conditions but I have yet to hear a plainsong melody which cannot pass this acid test". -- Healey \-/ill an, "The Use of Plainsong in Church \vorship 11 , Jubilate Dec, I (September-October 1957), 94-95.

18see NLC Willan Papers, H. Willan to the editor [

' · h d mh" no name is given] of the Canad~an ~hurc man, n •.• ~ 2~ letter-draft is appended to the unt~tled notes [~ypescr~p~] for a 'lecture o-iven before the Provost and Alumn~ of Tr~n2-ty College To~onto on September 21, 1932. fhe lecture

' ' f 1 . strongly promotes the use o p a~nsong.

19Healey Willan, "Plainsong, the Earliest Song of the Church", Canadian Churchman, XC ~July-Augus~ 1963), 15. He also felt that the Chant. is :•so s1mple th~t ;~ can be learned in a few moments.. and ~ndeed, that ~t 2S ~he na­tural, normal way (even] for kids to sing and. especJ.ally in the Gloria and Credo and hymns n • -- NLC '' \~J.llan Papers: Transcript of conversations between Healey WJ.llan and Max

1 I

103

· advocacy of plainsong. One· of these is the potential vari­

ety made possible by the Chant's flexibility. He noted

that "Plainsong can be effectively rendered by any single

or combined set of voices; _either the preponderance or the

total absence of any set, whether Treble, Alto, Tenor or

Bass, not spoiling the beauty of a plainsong service 11 • In

addition, he argued that "harmonized portions (i.e. faux­

bourdons 1 can be used or omitted at pleasure 11, that an

identical melody can assume "an almost completely new form"

with each new verse of a text (because 11 the verbal accentu­

ation controls the musical stress"), and that the _psalm­

tones especially, "with their numerous endings • • • [and]

'solemn" forms, possess an endless variety 11• 20

Wilian also contended that plainsong's ".lack of a

definite metrical rhythm" forces participants to concentrate

on the meaning of the words. He put it thus:

vlhen we have a definite metrical rhythm to sing to they go on singing almost without me~ning. That is a v~ry_com~on thing to find that they are.s~ng1ng ~n a rhythm because it's a rhy~hm, but what the words mean -- they have no~ the least idea and they care less. But ~f you have

Parker, 1963-1965; and H. Willan to A. Lewis, n.d.

20 . p H \villan: Untitled From.NLC, W1lla~ec~R~~sgiv;n before the Provost

notes (typescr~p~ J. for C a 11 G' •roronto, on September 21, and Alumni of Tr1n1ty 0 eo~'cussing the advantages of 1932; and An untitled not~ d~s d Also from Healey Willan, using plainsong. for wo~shClhP 'r~h ~/orshipn, Jubilate Deo, I ~The Use of Pla1nsong 1n u (September-October 1957), 94-95·

critics.

plainchant the m~sic of Plainchant is the rhythm of the words and unless you kn the words thoroughly you cannot s· ow, . ch t h · h 1ng p_aln-an ' w 1c. means you've got to know the wo~ds ~,d.s1~g them and that is why I th1nk 1t 1S 1deal congregational music.21

104

Finally, the compo.ser had answers for plainsong • s

To the n stran0'J"e t . t . t supers 1 1on hat it savours of

Rome u t~villan replied: _, Much of it is of English origin •••• [and] if the Roman branch of the Catho­lic Church has been more faithful to her musical heritage than the Anglican Church, we must take the blame to our­selves and repair our neglect, unless we regard the Anglican Church as a new organisation (sic1 founded in the reign of Henry VIII. 22

As for the "charge of [musical] monotony", \villan suggested

that, as a result of the close association between the text

and the chant 1 s rhythm, monotony only occurs when "the sin­

ger is chanting without any appreciation of the meaning of

the words themselves". 23

Willan concluded that plainsong is ~ music of the

Church, and indeed the only fit musical complement to the

21NLC, Willan Papers, Transcript of conversations between Healey Willan and Max Parker, 1963-1965.

22From NLC, Wiilan Papers: Untitled notes [type:­script] ~or a lecture given before the Provost and Alumn~ ot Trinity College, Toronto, on September.21, 19??; an~ E.A.R. Newson, A tribute written at the t~me of W~llan s eightieth birthday.

23H 1

i1illan "The Use of Plainsong in Church .worship", J~~igte Deo, 'r (September-October 1957), 94-95·

105

Liturgy. He sa·;~ it as "the praise and prayer of the faith­

ful, eith~r individually or of thousands, ••• joyous • • •

pleading • • • tragic • • • triumphant • • • the song of

Saints and Martyrs and the Holy Ones who have gone to their

rest, • • • the consecrated song of Holy Church". 24 Out of

this concept came the musical system in use at St. Mary Mag~

dalene' s, and all \villan' s other efforts to promote the

Chant.

24 11The Song of Holy Church 11 , Sixth Annual Festival: Order of Service (Toronto: G.A. Canada, 1956), p. 16.

VIII

~ONCLUSION

In this thesis I have tried to present a clear pic-

ture of tt~illan' s efforts to promote plainsong in canada,

basing my account first on the primary materials available

in the National Library collection, and second on my O\in

personal experience of the use as it still exists at St.

S an J.mJ. a J.ODS .Of Mary Nagdalene • s Church. The advantage d 1· · t t ·

an effort based almost exclusively on these sources are

obvious. I only hope that this paper may serve as the foun­

dation for a more leisurely, and thus more thorough study

of this fascinating subject.

A final assessment of Willan's plainsong use cannot

yet be made. First, we are still too close to the events

to judge the total impact of his efforts on the Liturgy of

the Canadian Church. Second, the oral tradition has become

confused and contradictory with the passage of time. Third,

the written documents are still being assembled and have

yet to be organized and subjected to full examination.

Fourth, very little research is now being done in this area

or the Church's life. For these reasons only a preliminary

evaluation is possible at this time.

It is clear that in his attempt to establish and

d the f 1 . song J.·n North American churches,

expan use o p aJ.n . .

'Willan was consistently pursuing the Tractarian/Ritualist 106

107

. philosophy of Church music. Nore p,recisely, he followed

. the English plainsong tradition established by Oakeley, Hel~

more, and Monk, developed by Briggs Frere and B · ' , urgess,

and influen~ed by Pot~ier, Te~ry, and (later) the Pius x

school.1 His mature work matched that done by Arnold and

Hughes in Britain, and Winfred Douglas in the United states.2

Willan can most closely be described, I think, as a

"Pothierized-Helmore", a man of whom it can indeed be said:.

"Nowhere do we see better the spirit of Motu Proprio Pius X

carried out".3

1Pius X's famous Motu Proprio (1903) divested the Medicean chant style of its official status, and assured the initial ascendency of Pothier's work in the Editio Vaticana. -- Rayburn, pp. 15-17. Willan gave at least one lecture showing his awareness of these events. -- See NLC, Willan Papers, H. Will an, "Plainsong [lecture notes]", n.d.

2canon Winfred Douglas (1867-1944) "was chiefly known • • • for his championing of plainsong. His pl~in­song editions were perhaps the most popular ever publ~shed in English, and \o/ere ~idely used in p~rish ?hurches

11

• •

-- I~ason Hart ens, Mus1.c for the Hol .l!.uchar1st and. the Da~l Office (New York: The Church Army, 1971., p. 1 •. \'/1llan kJ?ew of this clergyman's work, and at one po1.~t sketcned a rev1.ew of his Church Husic in History and Pract1.ce. -- See NLC, Will an PaJ?ers A file of materials marked "Speeches, lectures, articles tpubiished and unpublished)

11•

:;Ridout, "Healey \o/illan", Canadian Music Journal, III (Spring 1959), P• 12. . . ·11 d There is an intrigu1ng l~keness.between W1. an an Helmore. Both were men of great m~gnet~c personal~ty, and each developed a liturgical use whl.?h: . h

Invited congregational part1Cl.pat1on ~hroug chanted response, psalm, and hymn, whl.le.p~r­mitting the choir to mak~ a sepa:ate con"r~­bution of music beyond tne capac~ty of the congregation, and drawing particularly upon

. I I

qs

108

The eventual collapse of Willan's plainsong efforts

in Canada echoed event·s in Britain a century earlier. 4 At

the end of his life the composer is said to have felt na

deep sorrow • • • that plainsong has not made a deeper in­

road into the music of Canadian Anglican servicesu. 5 This

frustrated and bitter.mood has continued among Willan's

disciples, hampering their attempts to sustain his use in

the decade following his death. I think that he and they

have been too impatient in the face of something which is

destined to progress more slowly (if at all) than the lives

and aspirations of mere men.

The alleged musicological weaknesses in Willan's

plainsong theory,6 do not count for much in any pastoral

evaluation of his work. The Church always seeks the most

effective and proven means of spreading the Gospel, and

thus the restoration of plainsong must depend "not· only

on paleographical considerations, but also • • • upon his­

tory, musical and Gregorian art, •• • the rules of the

the beautiful harmonies of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Rainbow, p. 301. Cf. above, PP• 3-4.

4cr. above, pp. 5-6 and 55-56.

5Marwick, P• 43.

Ge.g. See above, PP• 77-78 , and 89-90

•

I I

i

2Q5

109

sacred liturgy, ••• and~~ exnerience".7 From

this point of view:

The truth of the saying cantilena docet cannot be too often or too forcibly pressed home. The man who is singing the chant daily for years knows more about it than the man who has been able. to do no more than study it in libraries.8 The composer's ideas about "Church music 11

, on the

other hand, are open to considerable debate. His rejection

of the use of the "cathedral system" in parishes, for exam.:.

ple, ignores the fact that many large city churches can in­

deed match the cathedral equipment. His diatribes against

Anglican chant, moreover, take little account of the fact

that the Anglican chant has worked (however poorly) in the

practical situation.9

It is his claims for plainsong, however, that are

most subject to criticism. First, the Chant may indeed be

the most suitable music for use with the traditional Catho­

lic Liturgy, but few parishes now use that style of worship.

?Liber Usualis, P• x (the underlining is mine).

Bnughes' "A New Attack Upon Plainsong"' ~ ( 1964)'

p. 23.

9 f h prejudice against the The original ?ause 0 . mu~he advent of 11 speech-

Anglican chant h~s va~~shed w~t~estion about its value for rhythm u. There l.S stJ.ll some q uthori ties now rate it congregational use, but Church a 1 it is here to stay. equally with pl~insong, and cle~r1~_15 , 30-33, 67. See also -- e.g. See Hus~c_ ~n Churc~,~pplish Church I1usic, PP• 39-40. Routley, A Short H1storY o ~ng .

I J r

' [~

~

second, there are several aesthetically beautiful types of

music, a1:1d I do not believe that ·any objective means exists

!or deciding which of these is intrinsically best.10- Third,

many of these other styles can be considered just as "sui

generis" as the Chant.11 Fourth, it is at least arguable

that strong congregational participation is better effected

by metrical hymns than it is by plainsong. Finally, his

contention that plainsong's rhythmless nature forces con­

centration on the meaning of the words, is downright non­

sense. Indeed, the opposite claim could be made that the

difficulty of fitting words to free rhythm actually dis­

tracts singers from concentrating on verbal meaning.

Added to these problems is the fact that for ama-

teurs, plainsong is really not as simple as it looks. It

is too high for untrained men to sing comfortably.12

Most

parishioners simply do not sing together enough to become

10I th · field the nbest 11 is always a matter of. n l.S. d esul t of a constantly-chang1ng

taste, and taste l.S the en . r , " · d •est u falls into subjective process •. Even W1llan s ac1

2v this category. -- See n. 17 above, P• 10 •

11 r h of Bach's Church music originally had e.g. !UC • • t . our time it has ac-

strong secular assoc1.at~ons' ye ~n · r to earthbound ears" quired that aura "o~ th~ngs ~~fat?~~~;. __ Hughes, Plainsong demanded by the pla1nsong en us1 for English Choirs, P• 9.

2 h that of most hymn tunes, 1 The pitch is lo;e~h! ~tter are easier ~o sing be-

but the most successful o t and 1ess-restra1ned man-cause of their metrical struc ure ner of performance.

; 'i '•I

I' ~

111

at ease with the art.13 T th o e non-musician (and indeed to

many competent musicians) its rhythm and notation are unfa­

miliar, and dem~~d the painful acquisition.of an instinctive

on-sight ability to read and 11pointn. It is often too re­

mote from popular musical idioms to inspire the initial

sustaining interest necessary before this learning can even

begin. Ninety-nine per cent of all Church musicians cannot

accompany it, and inadequate accompaniment makes the intro­

duction of Chant to amateurs virtually impossible. Michael

Schaub sums up these difficulties thus:

The apparent simplicity of well-sung Chant is deceptive. Like any other musical form, it has its own rules. They are admittedly not fami­liar ones, and they require a good deal of dis­cipline •••• The novice at this type of sing­ing far from being transported on waves of re­ligious emotion, is gener~lly consc~ous .only of the immense number of mus1cal_techn1ques_he ~ust master before he can sing a s1mple ~elod1c l1n~. As he hears it sung by the best cho1rs, Chant 1s smooth and light and appare~tly ef~ortless. '~at he hears from himself 1s metr1cal, heavy, and costs him a good deal of energy.14

13The Chant has reached its greatest ~e~elopment in the daily prayer cycle of the monastic commun~t~)s.E ~~ a recent R S C I1 Convention (Toronto' August 19?8 'f ~1t.

• • • • u · is the mus1c o 1n 1ma-Routley pointed out that plalns~ng h know each other very cy, and can only be sung by peop ekw 0 s1·ng together every

11 t . h like the mon s . we • • • nose w o h. . not possible 1n most of day". Such frequent fellows 1p 1s our parishes.

14 An ·ent and Alive 11, ~

Schaub, "Plainchant --· Cl Mr. Schaub "is a Anglican, Toronto (November 1977), P• 6. Oantor at St. Mary Magdalene's.

Q

1~2

For all these reasons I reject Willan's bald asser­

tion that the Chat;tt is the only worthy 11Music ·of the Church :a.

I feel, moreover, that a use built almost totally of Chant

has no place in the vast majority of our parochial liturgies.

We shall see no sudden influx of St. Mary Magdalene dupli­

cates in this country, and indeed no effort should be made

to encourage any such occurrence.15

This is by no means to·deny the intrinsic-value and

beauty of the Chant, nor to cast aspersions on its impres­

sive historical pedigree. After centuries of denigration

plainsong is gradually returning as an honoured addition to

the several forms of music employed in the Anglican litur-

·1?Louis Bouyer suggests that the model Liturgy pro-duced by the Ritualist revival of the last century:

Could not have become the real worship of any actual con~regation of its own period. It' could be com~ only the wors~ip of. that artificial monastic congregat~on wh~ch.Dom Gueranger had brought into ex1stence s1mply in order to carry it 0 ';\t ~ "to · rovide an

He then warns us against any sJ.ml.lar ~ttempt . P . artificial congregation to take.part ln(Landa~~~§~:;~anand liturgy" • -- Bouyer' Life and Ll turgy on ot ~ t St Mary W rd. 1965) 12 15 \vhile the congrega J.on a •

a , , PP • ' • . n • f · cial n there is pro-Magdalene's has been anythlng but 1 a~t~i~f that the parish b~bly some truth to Edw~rd W~gner s e sical enthusiasts was 11 a feisty camp of l1.turg1.?a1 . and mu he robably would [whiCh] allovred \oJillan an a~t~~hc. f~ee~~m\1agn~r, P• 58. St. not have had anywhere else 1n anaua ;ish and that special Mary Magdalene's is not an averag~ ~an r~solute rectors, combination of 11 high chu~ch 11 trad~ tJ.o egation unique acoustics' "monastic n foundation, l1 tera~e cong~ inexpe~si ve musical fine organ, charismatic organJ.st ~n Its deliberate re- . labour, is not likely to o?cur ~g~~n~ artificial undertak1ng. creation, moreover, would 1ndee

i

I ; \

2Q

113

. .16 gical mosaJ.c • In the company of other carefully-controlled

forms of Church music, it is clearly n. 0 more and no less than

a very valuable liturgical tool.

That \1e in Canada have been made aware of the heri­

tage and beauty extant in _the Church's oldest_ music is due.-.

almost entirely to Healey Willan 's work among us. As a re­

sult of his efforts, most Canadian Anglicans now accept the

Chant "not as some strange, exotic, Romish fancy, but as

genuine music of the Church".1? . While the full Willan use

is not for everyone, both his annual Chant cycle and the ~1"8

adaptation he made from the traditional Mass Propers

could profitably be used in several of our parishes. More

important, the congregational plainsong found in his hymn­

book and psalter arrangements are of immediate benefit to

the whole Church, and I think will continue to find use

even with the development of new liturgical forms.

Each of our parishes is unique and has its own spe-

cial liturgical needs. The nature of the Church's music

"must vary with local conditions", provision being made for

1H- b for example, in the -~vidence of this can e seen,

· increased plainsong content of R.s.c.M. publications and courses.

1?NLC, Willan Papers E.A.R. newson, A tribute written at the time of Willa~'s eightieth b~rthday.

18see above, pp. 38-40, and PP• 30-34•

I

! '

! ,l

l .. J

! 1 I

. '

---· regional variation and creativity.19 The plainsong use of

Healey \~illan restored to us one of the most important of

·the Church's artistic creations, one \ii th which the science

and art of Chu:rch music can arm itself in its attempt to

meet the varied liturgical needs of twentieth century Chris-

tians.

19Music in Church, p. 30. Cf. Sec. 119 of 11The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy", in The Documents of Vatican II, ed., W .1'1 •. Abbott, tr. J. Gallagher (New York: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), pp. 172-1?3.

/

IX

APPENDIX

Seasonal Graduals and Alleluias

For his seasonal chants V/illan chose three Graduals

and six Alleluias from the Editio Vaticana, and three ·other

Graduals from an unidentified source. The opening lines or

these chants are given below, along with summary lists of

the feasts to which each is adapted •

. Proper Gradual s:

1. Advent I

Gr1ad. _. ---.• t • ~=fa;~.:;:~

U. --~ .~-1~• ~~~--·---4~~-------------,__ __ _ ,. - niver- · si • qu-i te exsp~ctant, non

2. Lent II

Used throughout the Advent Season.

Grad. • - • • · J - • - · I ~ U d f t of Pre ~ ·~. lent and Lent.

.·T&. L-. -----~--~· .~~L: . 1"1--.. L J ~ se or mos -

• .. Ribu-ia- _f:i: -6-nes :.. . • c6~~i~- me· .i, di·)a"

3. The Feast of Dedication ; . Grad. l ~ \: . -. . r. • . . ~ f ·::i .15. __ .--s-~ • • _. .... •-a..-• ~ • • • •-rL!..._

~-----------~~·~~~.~~-~.~.~-----~~ . . . . .

. 0-cus l-ste - • a De· _·- ~ fa· · • ·- ctus ' est,_- i~aesti:

Proper Alleluias:

1, B. V .M. Assumption

1~5

Also used for All. Saints, and St. M1 -chael and All Angels.

Also used for the Nativity of the B~e~­sed Virgin, th~ Vls1-t tion All Salnts, ~d st: Michael and All Angels.

i

I .

2. Pentecost .1 .... ~ •.

It J.. I. ....... ;--:-r:. ~· It .. -.--......; ,.. -.--:-·--.~ . .. . ~~'"~ ~ •. ·c 1I

_J ., . , •• •• • t ••

Llc- hi-i"ci. • · ~ · · -~

;. Pentecost I

lf !i; : .·r~=Ba~~- I! • • JoP, •• : D,..~ L-le-hi- ia. • i;: . _ "jj. Verba me.

116

Also used throughout the Ea~ter:season.

Used for the Trinity season, most of Epi­phany, part of Christ­m~s,.Commo~ of Martyrs, V1rg1ns, B1shops and

Confessors, Feasts of the Cross, the Sacred Heart, Holy Family, Mass for the People, and Nuptual Mass.

4. Trinity Sunda.:y (also "Christmas Eve on a Sunday 11

) . . .

. a. = . = :· :· I=·· .. II . .. I : I• , ... t•l 1,11~; t• •'i1~ ... ~. . au:

_H . Lle-IU-ia. • ij. · : ... 1

•· . . •• • i. C!"i:

5. Christmas l-1idnight Mass (also Advent I) ·

.. E -P-+ =· ;::w_., ~~ It~ II ,. ... ~ H

~-ra !r-· • I .~. i-• . .. ~ . L-lc- 1 u- ia. . • ij. Yf. D6- mi_:

6. Easter I

:, _;! ~ r ' 1 ~ · ii . {r :-.-.-: ~-·· =~. :h •. ~~·.. 6~~ U Lle-Id-· : · · ia. • ·v: · ·-

Unidentified Graduals:

1.

Also used for Christ­mas I, the Epiphany Octave, Corpus Christi, the Transfiguration, Holy Name, Christ the King, Nuptual Mass, several I1arian feasts, and Common of Saints.

Adapted to the texts of the other three Advent Sundays and St. Mary Magdalene's Day.

Used for the Alleluias that replace the Gradual ~hroughout Easter. - ··

·Used for Ash \vednesday, most of Epiphany,

' FJ "9. r 11 1' 1 ~ Common of Martyrs I d ·. ; r === == - J_ - -· = Viro-ins I Bishops an . - ~ [f \ J Confessors, the Sacred ' Be mer-ci-ful un-to me' ·o God Heart, Mass for the c· fact all green People, and for: "the Trinity Sundays ... ~~an to Ken Scott [a Sundays)". -- NLC

1 \Yillan Papers' ~· 1 ·~~e ~lass Propers J, n.d.

letter describing the St. Hary Mag a e ·

2.

i H h f}) [: He 11 ~ Blessed art thou, 0 Lord

the Transfiguration, Holy Name, Christ and Nuptual Hass.

3·

11?

Used for Trinity Sun­day, the Christmas Se?son, Common of Sa1nts, the Epiphany Octave, Corpus Christi all the Marian feasts ' the King, Holy Family:

:J: 4

i' .... · Used for Maundy Thurs-

J~+J~J~~~;=;~:=~J~~J -~--J~J~~~~~~~J~J~t:~;Yt~dc~~=~~ Feasts · Christ for us be-ca~e 0-oe-d.~-ent ·

I have been unable to find the source from which

Willan drew these last three Graduals. To Father Scott the

composer described the first of these only as "a simple·

gradual melody", even though. in the same letter he carefully

cited his Va.tican sources for seve.ral other seasonal chants.

Both this melody and the one which follows (i.e. that used

for Trinity Sunday, etc.) are in a recitative form remini­

scent of the psalm-tones. They bear no resemblance, ho\vever,

to any o.f the psalm, solemn, and/or Introit-tones listed in

Apel (p. 227), or to the contents of the Burgess English

Gradual: Part II (See n • 34. above' P• 34). The third uniden­

tified Gradual is a largely rnelismatic p~oper chant, but I

cannot find it in the available editions of the Editio Vaticana.

Office Hymns

taken from the English All but the last of these are

Advent I to IV - #1 Christmas Season - #1?

''·.:·······il ' ! :j

! ll

Epiphany and Epiphany I - #38 · Epiphany II to V, Pre-lent, and Trinity Sea _#51 Ash i'lednesday - #60 son

·Lent I to IV - #66 Passiontide and Feasts of the Cross _ #94 Easter Day - #738 Easter I to V - #125 Ascension - #141 Whitsunday - #154 Trinity Sunday - #164 Feast of Dedication - #169 St. Michael and All Angels - #241 All Saints - #249 St. Stephen - #181 Holy Innocents - #34 Holy Nat1e - #238 Corpus Christi - #326 St. John Baptist - #223 St. Mary Hagdalene - #230 Common of Saints in Paschaltide - #123 Common of Saints outside Paschaltide - #176

The Feast of Christ the King is provided with a

118

"proper" hymn, taken from Francis Burgess, ed., The Feast of

of our Lord Jesus Christ (London: ----~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-L~~~~

The Plainchant Publications Committee, n.d.).

Sequences

Again, most of these are drawn from the English Hymnal:

Advent Season Christmas St. John the Evangelist Easter Whitsunday Corpus Christi All Saints

- #10 - #22 - #200 - #130 - #155 - #31? - #253 - #1?2 Dedication

Requiem

11Sing to God"

- #351 (MS) is first used for the Feast of

. st. Barnabas St. Philip and St. James, and later appears on

Day • At some point "Of the 1-lagdalene i~e Sing" (MS) ··replaces

1'29

. English Hymnal #200 for use on St. Mary Magdalene • s patronal -festival. During ·dill an 1 s last year 1 the music lists record

two other "proper" additions to the Sequences: "Joyful Songs"

!or Trinity Sunday, and "Proper" (MS: "Laudes Crucis Attolla-

musn) for St. Michael and All Angels.

X

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Listed below are the sources cited in the text and

footnotes of this thesis.

Manuscripts

National Library of C~nada, Ottawa. Willan Collection.

Church of St. Mary I'1agdalene, Toronto. Music Library.

Books and Pamphlets

Abbott, W .M., ed., and Joseph Gallagher, tr. ed. The Docu­ments of Vatican II. New Y~rk: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966.

Anti honale Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae: Pro Diurnis Horis. Tornac~: Descl e, 1924.

Apel, Willi. Gregorian Chant. London: [Burns and Oates 1, 1958. (In the United States: Indiana University Press.)

Arnold, J .H. Plainsong Accompaniment. London: Oxford University Press, 1927.

Book of Common Praise The: (Revised 1938), Being the Hymn Book of the Angli~an Church of Canada. Toronto: The Anglican Church of Canada, 1938.

Book of Common Pra:ver ook Centre, [1

&uyer, Louis. Life and Lituryl· 1965 (first published 1956 •

Toronto: Anglican

London: Sheed and \1ard,

Bradley, Ian L. T\'lentieth Century Canadian Composers. Agincourt, Ontario: GLC Publishers Ltd.' 1977 •

Bridle, Augustus. The Story of the Club. Toronto: Arts and Letters Club, 1945.

B - · -· A Manu~l oi Plainsong for riggs, H. B. ~ and W. H. Frere, eds • ,

120

I I. •\ ~

1:

121

~he Canticles Noted, the ""~::-=-::-=-::r-ni"::""::-=-::::-::-=-:::-w---:;::-;::.:;~l:.:::o:.!.!n~e!:!s ' to get e r Wl th the

London: Novello, 1902• .

Briggs, H. B., and W .H. Frere, eds., rev. and enl. J.H. Arnold. A Manual o:f Plainsong. London: liovello

1 1951•

Bryant, Giles·. Healey Willan Catalogue. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1972.

Burgess, Francis, ed. Th~ English Gradual: Part ene·:· The Plainchant of the Ord~nar:y:. 2nd ed. London: No~ello & Company, 1920.

--------. The English Gradual: Part ~I, The Proper for the. Liturgical Year. London: The Pla1nchant Publications Committee, n.d.

Burgess, Francis. The Office Hymn, Versicle, and Magnificat Antiphon for the Feast of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ. London: Society of SS. Peter & Paul, Ltd., n.d.

--------. The Rudiments of Gregorian Music. London: W. Reeves, [1909].

Canadian Psalter, The [set to Anglican chants]. Toronto: ·rhe Anglican Church of Canada, 1963. . ·-

Carter, Herbert J., ed. ~' Hissa in Festis B. ~ariae Virgin is: (Cum Jubilo )(IX). Adapt~d fr~m. t~e J:"la1nchant of the Graduale Romanum, etc.; (Vat1can· .r.,d1t1ons). Brighton: The Church Jarehouse, n.d.

--------. Uo. 3, Hiss a in Festis Solemnibus: ~· . K rie Deus Semoi terne III • Adapted from the ~l~1nchanli of the Graduale Romanum, etc.; (Vatican Ed1t1ons). Brighton: The Church Warehouse, n.d.

Cook, Edgar T. ·.The Use of Plainsong. Burnham: The Plainsong and Mediaeval Husic Society, 1928.

Dakers 1 Lionel. A Handbook o:f Parish Music: A tlo~M6g Guide for Clergy and Organists. London: Mowbrays, •

D . · H. try and.Practice. ouglas, Winfred. Church Mus1c 1~ lS 0

1 ard Ellin\'Jood.

Revised with additional rna terl~l by ~~~shed 193?). London: Faber & Faber, 1963 (f1rst pu

S · s of Lec-El · 1 d from a er1e ::. - ements of Plainsong,. The: Com~l .. e of the Plainsong a_!!.d tures Deliv~red before the Members

Mediaeval Husic Society. Ne~ (2nd] ed., ·curtailed & rearranged. London: The Pla1nsong and I1ediaeval Mus

1. c

Society, 1909.

Graduale ~acrosanc ta~ Romanae Ecclesiae: De Temu t d - Sanct1s. Tornac~: Descl~.e, 1908. ore e e

122

Hughes, Anselm. Plainsong for English Choirs London· Th Faith Press, 1966. . . • · e

-------:-· Septuae;esima~ Reminiscences of the Plain.song & Med1aeval Mus~c Soc~et:v, and of Other Things Personal and Musical. London: The Plainsong & Mediae~al Music Society, 1959.

Hymns Ancient and r·1odern Revised. London: The Proprietors [1972) (first published 1861). '

Liber Usual is: with Introduction and Rubrics in En lish. ournai: Desclee, 1 3 •

Long, Kenneth R. The Husic of the English Church. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971.

~lartens, Mason. Music for the Holy Eucharist and the Daily Office. New York: The Church Army, 1971.

Martin, George C. , ed. Book of Common Praise. [Prepared for the Church of England in Canada]. Oxford: The University Press, 1909.

Marwick, William E. 11 The Sacred Choral Music of He~ley Willan "• Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Mus~c, Michigan State University, 1970.

Mcdonald, A.G. Plainsong for the People. London: Th~ Universe, n .d. Reprinted from the September, 193 issue of The Clergy Review.

M A rd ·ng to the Manu-urray, Gregory. Gregorian Chant, ~c~c~o~~1 ~~~~-----

scripts •. London: Methuen, 1963.

Jiusic in Church: A Renort of a Committee ~PP?int~~n~~n ; 948

by the Archbishons of Canterbury and or.it. Church Information Board, 1951. . ·

Nicholson, Sydney Hugo. uires and Places ''!here The L d first publ~shed 19?2 • on on: S.P.C.K., 1950

Osborne, Stanley L. . 1957.

The Strain of Praise. Toronto: Ryerson,

t I

123

Palk' Helen. The Book of Can adJ.. A h" an c J.evement T Dent, 19 51. • oronto:

,pearce, Charle~ William. The Priest • s Part of th . · Liturgy. J.Jondon: Faith Press, 1922• e Angl1can

Rainbow, Bernarr. The Choral Revival in the A 1. ~1829-1872). London: Barrie & Jenkins, 197§.lcan Church,

Rayburn, John. Gre orian Chant A Histor of the c t Concerning Its Rhythm. Hew York: no publisherong· rovers ~964. J.ven '

Reese, Gustave. Music in the ~liddle Ages. London: Dent, 1941.

Robertson, Alec. Christian Music. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1961.

--------. The Interoretation of Plainchant: A Preliminary Study. London: Oxford University Press, 1937.

--------. "Plainsong", in Alec Robertson and Denis Stevens, · eds., The Pelican History of Music, I Baltimore:

Penguin Books, 1960, 139-208.

Routley, Erik. A Short History of English Church Music._ London: Mowbrays, 1977.

--------. Twentieth Century Church Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Telschow, F. H. 11The Sacred Husic of Healey Will an 11

• Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1969.

Vaughan \villiams, R., ed. The English Hymna~ with Tu~es. London: Oxford University Press, 1933 (fJ.rst publJ.shed 1906).

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Who 1 s Who in Canada. Toronto: Trans-Canada Press, 1966

•

. . Plainsong Edition. W1llan, Healey, ed. The Canadian Psalter. 1963 Toronto: The Anglican Church of Canada, • tJ • ,·th Faux-bourdons. •illan, Healey. The Evening CantJ.cles Wl.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1928•

i'

124

Willan, Healey. Faux-bourdons and New Hymn Tunes. Western Husic Co., [1950J. - Toronto:

--------· Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis Set to To~e I N York: H.W. Gray Co., 1948. • • ew

Willan, . Healey, ed. ~he Office of Holy Communi . SQt Mus~c by John Meroecke. Toronto: John Co on. v to rr· t b- · h d 19 ..... 4) · zens, n.d. , ~rs pu .lJ.S e . .. . ;> • Rev1sed to conform to the changes and add~ i~J.ons found in the 1959 r1962] p Book of the Anglican Church of Canada. L rayer

Toronto: Gre-

--------. Responsaries for the Offices of Tenebrae. Toronto:- Br1I Canada, (1956].

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"About Plainchant", Fifth Annual Festival: Order of Service. Toronto: Gregorian Association (Canada), 1955, p. 22.

"About the Association 11 , Fifth Annual Festival: Order of Service. Toronto: Gregorian Association (Canada), 1955, pp. 21-22.

Berry, Mary. "Change and the Chant, A Look· at Greg?rian Chant in the. Church To-day 11 , English Ch':lrch Hus1c: 1976. Croydon: The Royal School of Church Muslc, 1976, PP• 42-46.

Bridle 1

Augustus. "Toronto Music Democracy Is Losing Culture­masters: Younger Maestros Are Actors in Show without European Background", Toronto DailY Star (October 2,

1937)' p. 18.

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English Church Music: 1968~ Croydon: The oya of Church Music, 1968, PP• 62-64.

"D f the Church u' Anglican' r. Healey Willan and the Music o

Toronto: VIII (April 1965), 2.

--·· 125

Drynan, George and f·1argaret. 11 v/illan Caree I St. Mary's", Diapason, LI (October 1, 196~)~e~9:en with

Graham, Gwethalyn. "Church of St. Hary 11agd 1 11

Night, LV (Hay 18, 1940), 16-17. a ene , Saturda;r

"Gregorian ~ssociation, The", Ei hth Annual Festiv • of Serv1.ce. Toronto: Gregorian Associatio Cal. Order 1958, p. 19. n anada , .

Hambleton, Ronald. "An Experience of Life· Dr Healey Willan (Interview]", CBC Times, VII (A~ril• 3-9, 1955), 3•

Hamilton, Henry C. "Dr. Healey Willan", Musical Canada IX (December 1928), 3. '

"Healey \villan at St. Mar~ Hagdalene 's 1921-1968" Healey Willan Memorial Fund promotional pamphlet). 'Toronto: . St. Mary nagdalene 1s hurch, n.d.

Hughes, Anselm. "A New Attack Upon Plainsong 11, English

Church Husic: 1964. Croydon: The Royal School of Church Music, 1964, pp. 19-29.

Macmillan, Ernest. "Healey vlillan • • • 1880-1968 (Editori- · al)", Diapason, LIX (~pril.1968), 20.

McCormick, C. "Vision at St. Hary's 11 ;~ Dianason, LIX (October

1968), 9. Morison, Basil. "The Sound of English 11

, English Church . Music: 1970. Croydon: The Royal School of Church Iius1c, 1970, pp. 19-28.

Ridout, Godfrey. "Healey Will an 11, Canadian Music Journal,

III (Spring 1959), 4-14. . d Al" v II

Schaub, Michael. "Plainchant -- An.c1ent an l e ' . Anglican, Toronto, (November, 1977), P• 6.

"Song of Holy Church The" Sixth Annual Festival: Order~~ · Service. Torcnt~: Gregorian Association (Canada)'

195 1

p. 16. Thompson, H. VI. 11 Crea ti ve Work of Dr. Hea1

1ey ~9i~~)n ~bject

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