thumb|upright=1.3|West gallery in St. Mary's church, [[Ardley, Oxfordshire]]

West gallery music, also known as Georgian psalmody, is the sacred music (metrical psalms, with a few hymns and anthems) sung and played in Church of England parish churches, as well as nonconformist chapels, from 1700 to around 1850. In the late 1980s, west gallery music experienced a revival and is now sung by several west gallery "quires" (choirs).

The term "west gallery" derives from the wooden galleries which in the 18th century were constructed at the west end of typical churches, and from which the choir would perform. Churches were built in a standard layout, with the nave running from east-west away from the altar, so that the west gallery or choir, would face the altar, the same way as, but above, the church-goers. Victorians disapproved of the Georgian galleries, and most were removed during restorations in the 19th century.

History

thumb|upright=1.3|left|[[A Village Choir, an 1847 painting by Thomas Webster]]

By the 1700s, many church goers were unsatisfied by the state of congregational singing, which resulted in the formation of amateur choirs, which were initially male. In rural English churches, congregations often lacked an organ, but still needed support in order to maintain pitch in complex music. Some of these works have remained in use in shape note traditions, for example in the Sacred Harp repertoire. The 4-part, tenor-led harmony, fuguing tunes and anthems and other aspects strongly helped influence the shape note musical tradition, and in many ways the American music style is directly evolved from the older one.

Use of west gallery music in the Church dwindled in part due to the rise of urbanization and also due to the desire for a more polite, more formal style of worship. Another possible reason for this is that when the Methodists split from the Anglican church, many of these bands would have been split apart, or even leaving en masse.

In 1893, the Reverend Francis William Galpin described the church band at Winterbourne Abbas, which he believed was the last surviving example in England; however, two years later, a survey of parishes in Cornwall found that 18 out of 219 churches still had a band.

  • John Arnold (1720–1792), who published The Compleat Psalmodist (1741)
  • Thomas Clark (1775–1859)
  • John Fawcett (1789–1867)
  • John Foster (1752–1822)
  • Edward Harwood (1707–1787)
  • Thomas Jarman (1776-1861)
  • Joseph Nicholds (–1860)
  • William Tans'ur (1706–1783)
  • Aaron Williams (1731–1776)
  • Joseph Williams (–1834)
  • Robert Bremner (–1789), who was influential in mid-18th century Scottish psalmody
  • Charles Woodmason (–1789), an Anglican clergyman and tune-book compiler

See also

  • Anglican church music
  • Larks of Dean, chapel musicians in 18th & 19th-century Lancashire
  • Sing Lustily and with Good Courage, a recording including west gallery hymns
  • Tate and Brady

References

Sources

  • A massive study of both the west gallery tradition and its antecedents, starting from the time of the Reformation.
  • West Gallery Music Association – the official website of the WGMA, an organisation closely associated with the revival of West Gallery music
  • Gallery Music – articles, music scores, MIDI and mp3 files relating to west gallery music