The West Gallery Choir
During the Commonwealth of Cromwell all music in church was prohibited except
for the singing of a few metrical psalms. All music books were destroyed and
organs were either broken or sold off. At the Restoration in 1660 replacement
music had to be found and local musicians and singers often replaced the organ
especially in country parishes. Usually the players and singers stood in the
west end or the West gallery and the tradition lasted well into the nineteenth
century. But the musicians and choir were often a law unto themselves as the
following extract shows.
"The 'musickers' were autocrats of the gallery and largely of the church, too, and the parson had to walk warily in dealing with them. If he tried to be too masterful, even in the conducting of the services, he would find sturdy resistance that could hardly be overcome."
"Many years ago the two parishes of Aldingbourne and Oving, in Sussex,
were held jointly by one incumbent, who took the morning service in one church
and the afternoon service at the other alternately. It was customary to have no
preaching in the morning. On a certain occasion a newly appointed vicar
expressed his intention of introducing a sermon at the morning service, and he
informed the choir of the proposed intention. But the sturdy Aldingbourne
singers would have 'none of his newfangled goings on; they'd never
'eeard on such a thing afore and didn't see no sense to it, like.'
They, therefore, resolved to defeat the vicar's well-meant intention."
"Knowing that there was never very much time to spare for the parson to have his lunch and make the journey to Oving between the two services, on the first Sunday that he went into the pulpit to preach they started singing the 119th Psalm, and refused to stop when the would-be preacher wished. In vain the vicar looked up at the gallery and held up his written discourse, in vain he coughed and hum'd and ha'd; the singers would look at nothing but their "Old Version". Verse after verse they bawled out lustily and slowly, till at last the vicar's patience and time were completely exhausted. He had to climb down, literally and metaphorically, and leave the church without delivering a discourse at all!"
"Sermons were no doubt fit and proper on 'festical' occasions, but if they were preached when custom forbade and the singing ran the risk of being curtailed thereby, then it was only just that the singers should literally stand up for their rights."
It was just such an unruly group that performed at the West Gallery Concert in St. Cyriac's on Sunday 14th Sept. (The extract is taken from K.H.Macdermott's The Old Church Gallery Minstrels.)