" T H E R E ' S A WONDERFUL sense of community,-Iain MacLeod Jones says. "At around 4:20 p.m., as I comeout of my front door and gu through the garden gate, Ihear the sound of 11 others in the Vicars' Close doing thesame, then we're ail trooping down to the cathedral forEvensong."

MacLeod Jones is a tenor vicar choral with Wells Cathe-dral Choir—a choir of 12 men, plus 18 boy choristers and18 girl choristers from the Wells Cathedral School."Singing in the choir is an extraordinary musical experi-ence," he says. "You get such a high from quality perform-ances and working together as a group."

There's no doubt that for visitors, too, choral Evensongin the 12th-century cathedral is special: listening to thevoices of front row trebles andback row altos, tenors and bassesshimmying heavenwards. St.Augustine enthusiastically pro-claimed that, "anyone who sings,prays twice." The spiritual lift ofsuch occasions bears out thesentiment.

Wells in Somerset may be Eng-land's smallest cathedral city, butits choir is among the finest inthe world. Tbere has been achoral tradition here for morethan 800 years, with records ofvicars choral going back to 1136.Boys sang at Wells even earlier.Vicars choral—elsewhere known

lay clerks—aren't in Holy

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asOrders: "Vicar" stems from"deputy," and since the 1100sthey've stood in to sing dailydivine services on bebalf of thecanons.

Today there are nine vicarschoral, paid a stipend by the Chapter, and three choralscholars, usually pre- or post-university young singers: alllive in houses in the medieval Vicars' Close. They sing serv-ices either with the boy or girl choristers {occasionally theyall get together for larger events) and perform a widerepertoire from Renaissance masterpieces to contempo-rary works. Sung psalms, of course, form the powerfulmainstay of daily Evensong, but on Wednesdays the mensing without choristers and range into a different reper-toire, notably plainchant. Sunday services embrace sungEucharist and sung Matins as well as Evensong—nine

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services per week in all.MacLeod Jones has been at Wells for seven years,

having previously sung as a choral scholar at the RomanC^atholic Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ theKing, and as a lay clerk at Bristol Cathedral. "We all havejobs outside the choir, it's impossible to survive on ourstipend," be says. "We have to find a job that fits aroundthe hours the cathedral demands of us." He is self-employed, chiefly as the administrator of an educationalcharity and as a private music teacher.

Weekdays he is in tbe cathedral robed and ready to re-hearse by 4:30 p.m., witb Evensong at .5:15 p.m. There'sa sligbtly longer rehearsal on Saturdays, wbile Sunday, tbemain working day, sees tbe cboir in cathedral for re-

hearsals at 9 a.m. Eucharist is9:45-11 a.m. Tbe rest of tbe dayalternates between brief re-hearsals. Matins at 11 a.m. andEvensong at 3-4:15 p.m.

While Jones sometimes yearnsfor a lazy lie-in on Sunday morn-ings, he admits that long summerholidays, tying in witb tbe scbool'sbreak, are sufficient compensa-tion. "We've a very good volun-tary choir of local people thatsteps in tben, and Wells is alsopopular with touring choirs," besays.

"A real perk of the job is to livein tbe beautiful 14tb-centuryVicars' Close, built for us byBisbop Ralpb," Jones adds."Before tben, the vicars chorallived scattered across town. EachNovember, we sing an anthem athis tomb, hold a commemorativeconcert and special service." After

tbe latter, the vicars choral indulge in a time-honored com-memorative breakfast featuring cheese, bread and fruit-cake served on ancient pewter, all washed down by cere-monial toasts of Madeira wine. "We normally have abouteight bottles between the 12 of us," Jones admits wryly."We're granted Evensong off that day."

No such indulgences for the choristers! A school for boychoristers was founded in 909, when the church of Wellsbecame a catbedral. Today tbe school is independent co-educational and one of the UK's handful of specialist musicschools. Pupils, who mainly board, receive a world-class

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Lett: The voices of Wells Cathedral Choir ring through the soaring nave of tfie ancient church.

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Twelfth-century Wells Cathedral dofninates the tiny Somerset city

musical and academic education. Those who gain placesto sing in the choir—since 1994 girl choristers have beenadmitted—may receive scholarships or bursaries tu assistwith fees.

Boys enter the choir aged 8 or 9 (staying until 14 orvoice break), girls enter between 8 and 11 (until about 16).Voice trials are held in January and June. "We are look-Ing for someone who has that spark in the eyes, not forfully formed singers: that is what we are here for, to help

and train them," says organist and Master of the Choris-ters Matthew Owens. Clear voices and keenness areequally important to meet demanding commitments. Thechildren fit m rehearsals and smging, including an hour'spractice each weekday morning, with their academicwork. Boys and girls take it in turns to join the men forEvensong, requiring a 45-minute rehearsal in the after-noon. On Sundays the boys usually sing two services, thegirls one.

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"It is challenging but the rewards arc huge," Owenssays. "Nut only arc the children singing some of the great*est works from medieval times to the present, they arelearning all kinds of life skills, about teamwork and self-discipline. They have experiences—tours and recordingCDs—that others just do not get. And they have fun."

Some choristers go on to become choral scholars at uni-versity, lay clerks or vicars choral, or even to solo careers.A few decide their singing days are done.

In his excellent book. The English Chorister, Alan Mouldrefers to the heritage of choral music in liturgy as "a cul-tural glory unique in the world." The tradition thrives incathedrals and collegiate choirs from Canterbury to Truro,Durham to Gloucester. Some lay clerks are professional,some voluntary, and well over 1,000choristers and probationers attendeither dedicated cathedral/choir schoolssuch as Wells or schools that havearrangements with the local cathedral.

The first use of song in worship islost in the mists of time. But for theroots of England's cathedral traditionit's useful to pinpoint the arrival inCanterbury of St. Augustine in 597. Hebrought with him the Roman idea of asong school where plainsong might betaught alongside Christian learning.The concept spread rapidly. At ancientmonastic foundations, the aim was toproduce monks (girls also sang in nun-neries). At nonmonastic cathedralfoundations, schooling was a stepping-stone to higher studies and a career. Bythe 12th century, nine of England's 17cathedrals were secular, includingWells, and they all had boy choristerswho weren't child oblates. Charitable almonry schools alsocarried forward the song school tradition.

The earliest choir singing was, broadly speaking, Gre-gorian chant in Latin. It was purely melodic and, as accu-rate notation was yet to be invented, everything had to belearned orally and memorized. There was no instrumen-tal accompaniment and only later was the repertoire elab-orated through harmony, polyphony and ornament.

Rl-XORDS, THOUGH SCANT, PROVIDE COI.ORMll.glimpses of medieval song school and boarding life. Reg-ular whippings kept discipline and there was strict reli-gious observance of prayer and song through day andnight. Boys also carried out ceremonial duties in

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besides singing: as cross-bearers, for example. They some-times earned what approached a wage, though it might bedifficult to extract from their master or precentor. At Wells,named purses were kept in a locked chest. The West Coun-try school seems to have paid particular attention to dress,dormitory behavior and table manners, too: tailing in the15th century against boyish fashions of pointed slippers,long hose, strait doublets and short cassocks.

And the music? As the Middle Ages progressed, the in-vention of notation, experiments in harmony, additions ofnewly composed text, polyphonic Mass settings, motetsand embellishments of the liturgy demanded ever morevocal skill. While priests and congregation kept to simplechants and responses, choirs, incorporating virtuoso

singers or soloists, tended increasinglyto more complex ¿ittainments. Thecomposition of singers that we knowtoday—treble, alto, tenor, bass—became established. Instruments, in-cluding organs, string and wind, wereintroduced.

Not everyone liked such progress.John Wycliffe, arguing in the I4thcentury against the wider spiritual de-cline of a materialistic RomanChurch, criticized overcomplicatedchoral music with its "vain tricks"and "flourishes so that no-one canhear the words." His concern fore-shadowed the ideological schism ofthe Church to come.

Renaissance, Reformation, theCommonwealth, Restoration: morethan 100 years of theological fermentand alternating puritanical and Ro-manizing backlashes meant choral

music in Anglican worship developed its own unique flavor.Henry VIII's break with Rome and establishment of the

Church of England was inspired more by political expe-diency—his desire for divorce—than ideology. So Eng-land's Reformation had fewer repercussions for choralsinging than elsewhere. The liturgy was translated into thevernacular, and Anglican chant continued its evolution.Music, eliminated from some European churches, con-tinued. The Dissolution swept away monasteries, butcathedrals were spared and seats of bishops such as Can-terbury were re-founded as secular cathedrals. Henry hadstatutes drawn up for his "New Foundations" in 1539-42, which included stipulations for the size of choirs—usually a reflection of a church's prestige—and ratio

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of men to boys. It's worth noting that with the dispersalof nuns at the Dissolution, daily liturgical singing by girls(not yet part of the cathedral story) vanished until the20th century.

A provocative overview of the reigns of Henry's chil-dren is that Edward was on a course to abolish the Angli-can choral tradition, Catholic Mary saved it and Elizabethensured it flourished. Certainly, under Edward's short rule,hardliners against music in worship and other forms of"popery" gained sway. Royal Visitations to cathedralspressed for simplified services, and with Cranmer's Bookof Common Prayer (\ 549) multiple daily offices were com-pressed into Matins and Evensong. Mass became a sim-plified Holy Communion.

On Edward's death in 1553, QueenMary dragged worship back towardCatholicism, and the Latin liturgy washeard again. Eive years later, Elizabethushered in a tolerant middle way. Alover of ceremony, she declared thatas long as a hymn "may be under-standed and perceived," then songscould be sung "in the best sort ofmelody and music."

The Tudor period produced a cropof talented composers who met the di-verse challenges: Thomas TalUs andChristopher Tye wrote anthems andcanticles accommodating simpler Eng-lish texts. William Byrd served bothCatholic and Anglican interests withhis powerful music. Orlando Gibbonsand Thomas Tomkins carried thetorch into the 17th century. TheChapel Royal, often poaching the bestchoristers from cathedrals across thecountry, was at the forefront of progress; here, verse an-thems soared.

Then, near silence. The puritanical vandalism of theCommonwealth destroyed organs and music books, anddisbanded choirs. Except for the singing of metricalpsalms, music in church was forbidden. Let's hasten on.The "merry monarch" Charles II, on the throne from1660, restored cathedral services and choirs; standoutcomposers—Henry Purccll and John Blow—wrote for theflamboyant mood ofthe age, witness Purcell's "Te Dcum"and "Jubilate in D." But generally, it took cathedrals yearsto recover. Eor lack of trained trebles, they used cornetsand falsettos.

The story of English cathedral choirs through the Geor-

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gian and Victorian periods to the present day has been oneof decline, reform and renaissance. In the 18th century,poorly paid cboirmen arc reported as frequently absent,drunk or asleep during services. At Westminster Abbey aslate as 184.3, choirboys turned up in grubby surplices;singing was a "mechanical performance of a burtbensomcduty." At Wells—no worse than anywhere—choristerskicked balls and threw stones In the nave.

Fortunately, the age had its saviors. Among them, SirFrederick Ouseley {1825-89} and John Stainer (1840-1901) led improvements in training in church musician-ship and performance. The eccentric Miss Maria Hackctt(1783-1874), "the choristers' friend," spent much of herlife and fortune visiting every cathedral to report on boys'

welfare and to campaign for remedywhere she found neglect. It all seems afar cry from the excellence of cathedralchoirs and their schools today.

Let's return to Wells for a few lastwords. Here, as elsewhere, you'll finda repertoire as broad as at any time inhistory, witb the liturgy, embellishedby superb music, central. "I keep musicroughly of the same period in any oneservice but aim to give a broad mixwithin each fortnight," says Owens."Contemporary music is a passion ofmine and we occasionally have workswritten especially for the cboir." Theseinclude offerings by Master of theQueen's Music Sir Peter MaxwellDavies, Tarik O'Regan and RichardAllain. Sir Michael Tippctt's challeng-ing canticles and pieces by Britten alsoget regular outings.

CHORISTER HISTORY HAS BEEN essentially male, butin recent times many cathedrals have opened their choirsto girls. Not everyone has welcomed the move, but Wellsembraces the new era. Owens says: "Boys and girls usu-ally sing separately here, which gives a greater number ofchildren tbe opportunity to sing. We bring them togetherin the Great Cboir for Christmas and concerts. ! greatlyenjoyed working with tbe mixed treble line but to mix allcathedral choirs would lose tbe pluralism of approach."

He is also clear about the centrality of daily service totbe choir's raison d'être: "I make a point of saying to tbechoristers: broadcasts, concerts, CDs and television ap-pearances are the icing on the cake. But there is no icingwithout cake. The cake is what we live on and for." O

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