".... one hundred years of singing"

Choral Music

What choirs sing is of course Choral Music, which exists in many forms,but the vast majority of the music which has been composed for choirs was intended to be sung in church, as an accompaniment to or enhancement of the church liturgy.

One major type of church music is Music for the Roman Catholic Mass or for other Catholic services such as the Office of Vespers or Compline.

Another major type is Oratorio, a sort of opera without staging or acting, built round a biblical story. An example of this is Handel’s Messiah.

Such works are quite lengthy, and Masses especially are sometimes too long altogether for their intended purpose of accompanying a religious service.

The main shorter works are Anthems, which are settings of psalms or religious poems and this form is especially characteristic of services in the Church of England.

Our own choir with its long history has sung just about every sort of church music, as well as a fair selection of what else exists in the field of choral music. To look at the list click HERE.

Complex services such as the Mass can be rather puzzling. To find out more about the subject, you can usefully click  HERE.

Much more information is available by following  LINKS.