Music and Worship: Nothing New under the Sun? Big Changes No Novelty!

Since the 1960s there have been big changes in our services, not least in the music we sing, and some of these have not been easy for everyone. I found myself reflecting on this recently when researching the composer Christopher Tye (c. 1505–1572/3). He and his contemporaries faced the most massive religious and musical changes which may help to put recent developments into perspective.

In the 1530s Tye was in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge. The services were complicated and entirely in Latin. Most music was plainsong – think of ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire’ but with Latin words and without organ accompaniment. Occasionally lengthy and complex pieces of choral music were sung, beside which most modern anthems are positively short and straightforward. The liturgy was Catholic with much elaborate ceremonial.

By the early 1550s there had been far-reaching changes. The first English prayer book was introduced in 1549, a more Protestant one in 1552. Everything was simpler and clearer – for example, the priest said the eucharistic prayer aloud in English instead of silently in Latin. Composers accustomed to elaborate Latin anthems were now instructed to set English words very simply so that everyone could hear and understand them – part of a new emphasis on ‘the word’. Tye was among the first to write simple English anthems, and one or two of these are still sometimes sung in our churches today.

Did Tye welcome the new clarity and simplicity – or consider that his skill was now under-used? Did he just do what was expedient in an age when doing anything else could be extremely dangerous?

Under Mary I (1553–1558), almost everything was reversed, and the Catholic Latin services were restored. How did Tye react? He sang at the queen’s coronation, and apparently composed some more Latin church music, so he seems to have conformed at least outwardly.

A third revolution took place under Elizabeth I. The English Prayer Book of 1552 was restored with some changes – this new 1559 book was very similar to the Prayer Book of 1662 from which some of our services are still taken. Tye, at this time choirmaster and organist at Ely Cathedral, remained in post for a year or two, but then, following ordination, he resigned to become rector of several parishes in Cambridgeshire.

He lived through difficult and often intolerant times. The sculptures in the Lady Chapel at Ely were systematically vandalised in the 1540s in the name of religion by convinced Protestants. Far worse, some people who opposed Mary’s restoration of Catholicism were barbarously put to death. English Christians today are not driven to such excesses – but there is still intolerance both here and abroad. On the other hand, are we ever tempted to tolerate the intolerable?