THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY AND ITS CENTENARY IN 2006

By 1897 there was widespread concern over the selection of music used in cathedrals. A number of meetings took place at the Royal College of Music, with Stainer in the chair and attended by, among others, Buck, Fellowes, Gray, Hadow, Harwood, Parry, Stanford, and Strutt. Criticism was voiced, extending to the music used in parish churches. A survey was carried out into the cathedral repertory, which was published in 1898.

The report, which was the only tangible outcome of the 1897 meetings, became the property of the Ouseley Trust, and is now deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The movement collapsed in 1900 despite the efforts of Hadow. Further details are to be found in the Society’s 75th Annual Report. In fact, it was not until March 1906, at a meeting in the Deanery of St. Paul’s Cathedral that it was resolved to form a Church Music Society. The chairman was (later Archbishop) Cosmo Gordon Lang, Bishop of Stepney and a canon of St Paul’s. Two sub committees set up, one to make a list of music suitable for use and the other to suggest short works for reprinting in octavo edition.

To celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Society, a special Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral was held in May 2006, featuring a new anthem – Touch’d by heavenly fire – especially commissioned from Judith Bingham. Malcolm Archer directed the Cathedral Choir in a service whose music also included the setting of Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in B minor by Herbert Howells composed for the Society’s Golden Jubilee in 1956.