Change in Society, The Church and Cathedral Music

Change in Society

'You cannot stay stuck in the past; you have to change. It's no use hankering for what has gone or looking back, because you can never go back. Quite simply, it's a question of change or die. Only fuddy-duddy sticks-in-the mud refuse to move with the times - blissfully unaware, of course, that there has always been change and always will be.'

These are sentiments so frequently expressed as almost to have achieved apophthegmatic status, truisms of unquestionable wisdom delivered to us in homely words. Their mere iteration is seeming proof enough of their veracity; to utter them is to preclude discussion.. After all, when change is the name of the game, what is there to discuss? We either get with it or we get left behind.

'Change', however, is a weasel word. In the advertiser's battery of verbal weapons, it most probably ranks second after 'new'. Nebulous words both, they immediately conjure up ideas of 'better'. The word 'change' can also be used to conceal intentions or to peddle a particular point of view. Thus, Gerry Adams at the time of the Northern Ireland peace discussions said: "This isn't about guns. This is about those who are against change". Peter Simple's comments on this in the Daily Telegraph were very much à propos. "This," he said, "is an old standby for those who depend on dishonest argument. It is designed to confuse and subdue foolish people - and there is no lack of those either in England or Ireland - who have fallen for the lying proposition, itself based on the exploded myth of progress, that 'change' is a good thing". Then there was Prime Minister Blair's re-branding his party New Labour.. 'Change' and 'new' lose none of their appeal however many times they are used and however many times what is promised disappoints or deceives. Only recently, during the mayoral elections in London, Boris Johnson was promising 'change and new thinking' - neatly managing to incorporate the two words into one snappy phrase.

There are changes which, of course, whether we like them or not, we can do nothing about. The Luddites certainly had a case to make, but the chance that they could ever have staunched the progress of the Industrial Revolution can be accurately calculated as zero. Whether we like it or not, life is a movement forward. For hundreds of years the movement was very slow. Now it is incredibly fast. No matter, the movement is forward.. The skill lies not so much in keeping up with it but in being sure we remain in control, deciding which changes we want, when and to what extent.

The assertion that 'there has always been change', while banally true, pays no heed and gives no weight to the degree and frequency of past changes, nor to their qualitative nature. These must surely be taken into consideration if we are to arrive at reasoned assessment of their value. As for tradition, it, too, of course, is a word which needs treating with caution. All our traditions were once new, either developments or radical departures from what went on before. Neither is tradition always the unequivocal good some imagine. A number of old traditions - slavery for instance, child labour or the exclusion of women from the democratic process - we have done well to see the back of, and nobody in his right mind would want them back. Yet other traditions we have every right to feel proud of and to treasure. Foreigners may look askance at us for all sorts of reasons, but almost without exception, they admire our traditions! Is this mere envy on their part and mere nostalgia on ours, a hankering for the past? That must certainly be in there somewhere, but what is the harm in a little nostalgia? Yet we can muster a much more powerful defence of our traditions (though not all our 'traditions' are as old as we often imagine them to be), and it is this: they have the potential to bind us together as a nation. Today our society is not merely bruised and fragmented but in danger of disintegrating completely. In such circumstances, to dismiss a role for tradition in binding up the wounds would be foolhardy in the extreme. For if "the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern", how shall we drink the healing waters, wherewith shall we be healed?

It is relatively easy to jettison something. However, should discernment be lacking, the baby will be jettisoned with the bathwater: neither to be reunited. In other words, get it wrong, and you may find it impossible to revert to the status quo ante. Even a long and careful weighing up of the pros and cons will not necessarily rescue you from your mistake. This does not mean, of course, that change should never be attempted, for at times, change is imperative and urgent. It does mean, however, that one should be wary of ditching that which has stood the test of time.

Change does not always occur by fiat. Some changes simply happen; either slowly or rapidly, and often there is nothing we can do about them, even if we wish to. When the Communists took over in Russia in 1917 they abolished all titles. Henceforward, everyone was to be addressed simply as 'comrade'. Come the fall of Communism, 'comrade' dropped out of use. But with what to replace it? The Russians were stumped, though they eventually came up with the horrible 'Man!' for 'Sir!', 'Woman!' for 'Madam!' and 'Girl!' for any woman not yet over the hill. The pre-revolutionary equivalents 'Sudar' and 'Sudarynya' are now considered obsolete. A much sadder linguistic loss has come about as a result of the colonisation of Australia. In 2003, there were just three speakers of the aboriginal language, Mati Ke, left. "It may never have had more than a thousand speakers, .... (but) Mati Ke and its forerunners were probably spoken before the foundations of Sumer and Babylon were dug". So wrote Mark Abley in Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. Sadly, as in Babylon, the writing is definitely on the wall for this language. Back not so much from the brink as from fossilisation and the preserve of scholars, Hebrew was once a language spoken by no child as a mother tongue. However, with the creation of the state of Israel, and as a result of a concerted state effort, it staged an astonishing revival. It is the uniqueness of this revival which astounds as much as its accomplishment.

As an example of a rapid and devastating change we might cite the Great Storm of 1987 which, in the space of a few hours, cut a wide swathe through the British countryside. Nobody - or, at least, not the BBC - forecast it and, in any case, it belongs to that class of events which insurers call "acts of God". Change then sometimes simply happens; whatever the outcome nobody is guilty, and there is no point in needless fretting about it. Responsibility for change that stems from human intervention, on the other hand, lies fairly and squarely with those making the change.

The government and other authorities as often as not opt for change from the purest of motives. When the seat-belt law was introduced this was a change and a good change. As a result, many lives have been saved. Other changes have been less well thought through. One might instance the vast sums spent by both central and local government on publishing all sorts of literature in a bewildering variety of languages. The intention - to help immigrants and newcomers to the country to understand how to get help, what to do if they need a doctor and so on and so forth is commendable. The result -lamentable. For rather than ensuring that everyone understands what is important, it facilitates ignorance, and the separation and isolation of the very people it is meant to help are reinforced. Such problems are best addressed by education and information - in this case, English language lessons and information on how society works. Mollycoddling is not the answer, and in any case, those who choose to come and live in this or any other country also have duties - and one of those must surely be to try and learn the language.

As one historian has noted, life in the Middle Ages stayed essentially the same for people for hundreds of years. Today, one might truly say that the modern world is characterised by nothing so much as rapid change and change on a scale hitherto unimaginable. The problem with changes is that it takes time to assimilate them. Unassimilated change threatens and deprives us of the ability to control our own lives and make our own decisions.. Any change, but especially unassimilated change, carries danger with it: the danger of unwished for and unforeseen consequences. Ideas which seem good at the time can quickly unravel. Prince Charles has expressed his unease in a multi-confessional Britain of being 'Defender of the Faith', suggesting instead 'Defender of Faiths'. This is no mere linguistic quibble. Currently, there are plans to change the law so that it will be possible for a Roman Catholic to become monarch. On the face of it, this would appear an eminently reasonable and civilized thing to do. However, such a move would not be without its problems.. And how would we feel if the crown were to devolve on a non-Christian? Would we be comfortable with that? Whatever perceived injustice a change in the law might put to rights, this might be a case of "better left alone".

Due diligence should be automatically employed when important decisions are to be made, for it can highlight and caution against possible dangers. This automatically implies that it is necessary to consult not only those who are likely to agree but also those who it may reasonably be assumed have very different views. There will be occasions when decisions need to be hedged around with caveats and to have clear restrictions placed upon them.. Despite this and despite the best of intentions, the caveats may be disregarded and the restrictions lifted. There are several reasons for this: first, those who promise to introduce changes in a limited and cautious manner may later come to view things differently; secondly, they may simply be swept along on a tide of change or else cave into the vociferous opinion of those who stand to gain; thirdly, there will come a time when those charged with making decisions disappear from the scene and are replaced by others who think quite differently. When, by the exercise of caution, foresight and due diligence we can predict untoward results of change, surely it is incumbent on those who are empowered to make decisions to stay their hand.

Change and the Church

The history of Christianity is one of constant change. Nothing could contrast more strikingly than the life of an itinerant preacher who knew not where to lay His head and the splendour of the ecclesiastics who later came to preach His message. 'Change' seems too insignificant and imprecise a word to describe the veritable revolution which took place. As we know, in the early days of the Church, Jesus' disciples continued to worship in the synagogue: they were, after all, Jews. Inevitably, with the taking of the gospel to the gentiles, the nature of the relationship between the ancient religion of the Jews and the new Christianity changed forever.. Since then, over the centuries, there has been incessant change. Undoubtedly, the two greatest of these changes were the schism between East and West and the Reformation. Libraries have been written on these subjects and the other manifold changes, and, doubtless, there are still yet more libraries to be written. In any case, this is not the place to attempt even a quick overview of the changing Church.. Suffice it to acknowledge the fact of change and to instance a few cases of how change continues to characterise the Church in the modern world, much as it characterises the rest of life.

In 1891, Leo XIII, worried that left-wing ideologies were making all the running, issued the encyclical, Rerum Novarum, in which he sought to reconcile modern progress with the Catholic faith. In it, he defended the rights of workers to a better life and to a just share in economic prosperity. In similar fashion in this country, Anglican clergymen attempted to deflect the Church's attention from purely ecclesiastical matters and to involve it in matters of social justice. This involvement in the secular sphere has continued right up until our own day, but whereas in the past change was often occasioned by recondite, inter-factional ecclesiastical squabbles, now the impulse comes from the Church's concern to ally itself with issues circulating in the wider public arena. Aware of the declining number of church-goers and perhaps believing its very longevity might make it appear irrelevant, old hat, the Church seems keener than ever to plug into the spirit of the age. Change is now deeply embedded in its vocabulary, and at times, it can seem obsessed by the very idea of change - although this is usually given a distinct theological colouring. One or two quotations will give the flavour. Dean Guille, preaching his first sermon at Southwell, said: "There must be a willingness to change". The Christian life, he went on, was a journey, and those making the journey needed to "change, to change in order that their journey may continue". Indeed, "Enabling Change" is included in the Missionary Values of the Southwell and Nottingham Diocese. And Dean Stancliffe of Winchester once wrote: "The truth of the resurrection and change are inseparable". Nor are such views confined within these shores. In a sermon preached in 2004, Dean Jensen of Sydney, Australia, asked: "How open are we to the idea of faith on the move? Are we so tied to old ways that we are in danger of clinging to them at all costs?"

However, while change has frequently been undertaken with good intent and after due thought, the Church has sometimes seemed to espouse change for change's sake, nostrum for nostrum's sake. The moral and spiritual life have not infrequently come to be equated with whatever happen to be the clamant campaigns of the particular age: the green movement, anti-racism, Aids awareness and so on. Important as many of these lobbies are, they do not lie at the core of spiritual life, which is about the personal transformation of "the devices and desires of our own heart". Out of that transformation will come a commitment to grapple with a plethora of good works and concerns. On a broader canvas, in a desire "not to offend", the Churches have hesitated to claim or accept their central position in national life. They often seem unsure of their own role and status. Paradoxically, despite a readiness to accede to the wishes of other Churches and religions (pace, for instance, the recent remarks of Archbishop Williams on Sharia law) the Church of England zealously and schizophrenically hangs on to its seats in the House of Lords.

When the Church introduces changes, it seems to be almost de rigeur to describe them as "exciting". For all the world, it sounds like advertising hype. It says: "Look! It's so thrilling, so dramatic, so innovative, and your Church did it. Aren't we clever?.". In other words, it is sales talk. And there is nothing like sales talk to put people off and to make them suspicious of motives. Restaurants often like to pat themselves on the back, inveigling us with such phrases as "Try our delicious food!" One seethes inwardly.. Whether the food is delicious or not is surely for customers to decide and not the restaurants. So, perhaps, we can declare a moratorium on the word "exciting", and let congregations make up their own minds.

Change and the Choral Tradition

In the Spring 2002 edition of Three Spires, the newsletter of the Friends of Lichfield Cathedral, Dean Mendes said: "There are people who feel that the Cathedral music tradition is an extravagance these days. You would not expect me to agree with that, but we do recognise that changes are inevitable". At Lincoln in that same year, following on plans to make the then Organist and Master of the Choristers redundant and amid anonymous and unfounded allegations of bullying, the Precentor, Andrew Stokes, declared: "We needed to change the old-fashioned approach of telling children what to do and using them for the cathedral's purposes, but you can't change the way people think overnight". Yet, however long it takes, cathedrals have seemed increasingly determined to change the status quo, Either that, or they describe the changes they plan as inevitable: that is to say, there is nothing anyone can do about it and no one is to blame if things go wrong. However, at about the same time, the distinguished Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester, Alan Thurlow, was warning: "We certainly live in a time when change happens rapidly and perhaps this fact is one of the greatest threats to the tradition, for all that is new is not necessarily good. The ability to debate, to consult, to reflect and to experiment before throwing away well tried and tested features of our inheritance is something that we seem in our impatience to have lost. I cannot help reflecting on that fact every time I hear those wonderful words - 'Hold fast to that which is good .."

Dr Thurlow did well to counsel reflection before overturning the tradition of cathedral music, for it is a tradition of some lineage. In the words of the journalist and author, Christopher Booker, "the sound of a cathedral choir is still part of that unbroken line which stretches back to those painters in the caves of Lascaux, lifting us up to remember why we really are and what we are doing on this earth". While we ourselves perhaps set too little store by our inheritance, there are others abroad who look on this bright diadem with pious envy. James Murray, religious affairs editor of The Australian is uncomprehending of such nonchalance: "It seems strange that Evensong, a cultural gem, should be so lightly regarded.. It is a Reformation innovation, intended to be a service accessible to everyone.. It has Bible readings, the harmonised wonder of the psalms sung to Anglican chant and the anthem. Its unique appeal was its way of closing the day, meditatively, with prayers moulded by Thomas Cranmer, whose English has never been exceeded by any later versions of the prayers: 'Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee O Lord, and by They great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of Thy only Son.' " Of course, there are still very many in this country for whom the cathedral choral tradition means a great deal. Thus, Jane Shilling, writing in The Times in 2001: "There is something about (The Daily Service) that strokes all my fur the wrong way. ..... With Choral Evensong it is different. I turned it on by accident one winter's afternoon a year or so ago and have been listening ever since. The music is beautiful, but the special quality of evensong lies elsewhere, in the paradoxical contrast between the sinewy intricacy of the 16th -century language, and the simplicity of the thoughts it expresses: prayers for courage, for grace, for protection from the dark, for a good death".

Andy Martin, in a column in The Times Magazine three years earlier, paid tribute to the unassuming role of the boy treble in the making of this music: "What makes the voice of the choirboy such a rare and precious commodity is precisely its butterfly-like transience, its precariousness balanced on the cusp of innocence and experience, its intimations of mortality. It seems like an echo, in its short-lived purity and catastrophic decline, of our genesis and fall. The male treble voice achieves its maximum power and resonance just as it is disappearing". David Flood, the Organist and Master of the Choristers at Canterbury had made the same point just two years previously: "A boy's voice in the year or so before it breaks has a particularly magical quality to it". In reality, these are but iterations of what countless composers and choirmasters have said over the generations. In the accompanying notes to a CD brought out by Southwell, Paul Hale, the Rector Chori, has written: "One element of cathedral music is the use of the solo boy's voice. It is a sound which has enchanted composers throughout the ages - from Bach to Britten, Handel (remember his marking 'for the boy' in Messaiah) to Hurford. Solo roles for a boy's voice are found not only in Anglican anthems and in the major choral works of Bach and Handel, but also in the many settings of the Magnificat, particularly those of post-romantic composers such as Stanford, George Dyson and H. K. Andrews". It may be appropriate to end with a few words on this point from Sir Sydney Nicholson, addressing the Musical Association in 1944: "Shortly before the war musical critics from all parts of Europe were invited to this country to see and hear what we had to show them. They heard the work of our chief composers, our soloists vocal and instrumental, our choruses, our orchestras, our opera. But when it was over and they were asked what most impressed them as the outstanding contribution of England to the music of the world, the answer was the singing of English choirboys."

These glories, alas, cut no ice with some. In the government's Music Manifesto, it is stated that "Music should reflect the diversity of Britain today and should be accessible to everyone". It is not difficult to interpret such verbiage.. Sadly, the word 'singing' does not appear once in the manifesto, but if it had, one feels instinctively, there would be little sympathy for cathedral music as it currently exists. Accessibility, however, is not always what it seems.. Four years ago, the Daily Telegraph reported that "the tradition of morning hymns is now widely seen as a politically incorrect affront to multicultural school communities". So, access to them would now be circumscribed. Likewise, some authorities have been determined to find an 'affront' in the celebration of Christmas and England's national saint. Oddly enough, when asked, the 'multicultural communities' have said they find no affront whatsoever and actually want the native English to celebrate them!

How does all of this play out in cathedrals? Much as one might expect is the answer! In the report of the Archbishops' Commission on Church Music, In Tune With Heaven, published in 1992, mention is made of an "immense variety of styles of music available for use in worship". It is easy to foresee what might transpire if that hint is acted upon. Referring to the report, David Stancliffe, Provost at Portsmouth and later to become Bishop of Salisbury, said: "Of course, we should not turn our backs on the whole history of English church music which, at its best, is the envy and admiration of other churches throughout the world.. But at the same time there is a depressingly familiar feel about the analysis of what counts as music, and the appropriate way it might be performed".. One is minded to ask why the familiar should be depressing. Are we depressed when we watch Hamlet because we have seen it several times before, or downcast to hear, say, a Beethoven symphony more than once or twice? And the former Sub-Dean at Lincoln, Rex Davis, once asked: "Is there not space for more diversity in the repertoire? Ought we not, for instance, to ask whether a number of Cathedrals could join in a consortium to support, say, a Jazz Group? ...No matter what premium we put on the importance of excellence in the liturgical tradition, the singing of the offices and the Eucharist, there is also a proper need to invest energy not only in interpreting and teaching that tradition but also in expanding it to take account of the innovative styles of our own times".

The 'innovative styles' on offer have been varied. Dr Carey, for instance, thought a recessional based on Waltzing Matilda and the Lambeth Walk suitable pieces with which to end a Lambeth Conference. The Revd Philip Chew, Assistant Curate of St Leonard's, Chorley, once a chorister at Blackburn Cathedral and former bass player in a 'post-funk rock band', was much more adventurous. The Church Times reported that when he was asked to open a night club in Stockport, "he danced in his dog-collar and gave a brief and 'well received' sermon on living more abundantly, to which the night-clubbers shouted 'Hallelujah' at every mention of Jesus". The Revd Chew then "did a club version of 'Ding Dong merrily on high', and finished off with pyrotechnics going off'". More recently, and on a rather novel tack, the Rev. Geraint ap Iorwerth, vicar of Pennal, near Machynlleth, South Wales, applied for a liquor licence as a way to boost his congregation - which was part, he said, of "a continuing drive to modernise his church and to make it more appealing to the local community". Indeed. What can one say?

An even more alarming scenario presents itself when neither due diligence nor decency are allowed to get in the way of the latest fashionable idea. Instead of a sense of awe and reverence in the House of God, unconscionable excess is planned for and encouraged, and the worldliness that the Church once preached against is expressly invited indoors. At Durham Cathedral in 2001, a Go Large event (shades of McDonalds) involved a dance floor being created in the nave with a "combination of contemporary sound and lighting". There were no prayers or hymns, however. The formula was repeated elsewhere.. At St Paul's in Dundee, there was an extravaganza weekend with two Big Band Substance performances of Glenn Miller and Count Basie. It was "a wonderful sound in the cathedral," said the dean, the Very Revd Miriam Byrne. "It was the burger stall on the cathedral steps that really brought people in". And at the Greenbelt Festival Eucharist in 2002, "the crowd" (sic), reported the Church Times, "cheered when a Greenbelter climbed on the small central dais and started to dance with Dr Rowan Williams and the Revd. Joy Carroll". Perhaps, the most horrifying and distressing of these events took place at Southwark Cathedral in 1999. In response to the words "The Lord be with you!", some of "the crowd" chose to respond with the blasphemy, "And *p yours!".. After that, there is nothing more to be said, except perhaps to recall the words of Dean Inge: "Those who marry the spirit of the age will rapidly be widowed".

The Roman Catholic Church is not being left behind in all of this. Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2002, Damian Thompson said: "In the aesthetic catastrophe that followed the Second Vatican Council, professional liturgists set about reconstructing worship with Stalinist zeal. Out went music focused on the mystery and transcendence of God. In came Sixties folk hymns that came perilously close to encouraging the congregation to worship itself". More recently, in an article in the Catholic Herald on the pope's visit to the USA, Stuart Reid wrote: "There was hot, finger-snapping gospel singing during the distribution of Communion .....However well executed - and experts differ on the quality of the performance last week - slop, pap and pop are no more suitable for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass than Palestrina is as background music in a brothel." The previous year, he added, he had been at mass in St John Lateran in Rome. "There were drums and dancing girls. There was bottled water. I left."

Dr Brian White, writing in the Independent in 2002, expressed himself bluntly. He was, he said, "puzzled by the fact that so many churches have allowed themselves to be taken over by people who are determined to reduce the quality of worship to the level of a Mickey Mouse cartoon.". He continued: "I believe there is also a frenetic desire to whip up a false sense of hope, security and happiness in an increasingly uncertain world".

Two years later, Dr David Hope, Archbishop of York, was reported in the Daily Telegraph to have "launched a fierce assault on his own Church ...., accusing it of abandoning the mysterious for the banal and indulging in ineffective debate". Dr Hope said that "the temptation, indeed the reality, I experience in quite a number of churches is simply to ape passing styles of the times", and he condemned "worship as entertainment; worship as distraction quite other than what it truly is or should be, namely the giving of worth to God"..

It is not to be wondered at that cathedral musicians are worried at the drift of things. Almost ten years ago Malcolm Archer was expressing concern in CMQ, the journal of the Royal School of Church Music, over the "overly trendy approach to modern liturgy of recent years". In his view, "pampering people has done no favours to the traditional choirs of our land". How well, then, has the RSCM itself withstood this particular onslaught? In that same issue of CMQ, Professor John Harper, Director General of the RSCM, opined: "What is handed down from the past and what we make new has always been a part of the essence of Christianity. It's part of Christian cultural tradition; a living tradition used by people with common sense and practicality, not something preserved in aspic or served up as historical reconstruction." This is sound as far as it goes; nobody wants to preserve a tradition "in aspic" - but neither should anyone want to concoct a new 'tradition' boiled in treacle or served with vinegar. Professor Harper warmed to his theme: "The Lord's song is not in the notes, but in the underlying music of the heart, the spirit, and in the collective expression of worship. As Charles Ives's father advised: Don't mistake the sound for the music". Since Ives's father was said to "bellow off-key", are we to presume that the production of noise pure and simple is what is now to be propagated by the RSCM? In fact, the logic behind such thinking had been anticipated two years earlier by Archdeacon Broadbent of Northolt (later to become Area Bishop of Willsden) who wanted to get rid of choirs and organs altogether.

It may be objected that times have changed and musical tastes have changed, and so it is a matter of speaking to people - especially, to young people - in their own idiom. "The Book of Common Prayer does not speak to young people!" one vicar impatiently replied when asked why it was not in use. The reply of the questioner was simple and to the point: "It won't speak to them if they never hear it". Also to the point were the words of one correspondent: "After the model of a character in Catch 22, the religion I don't believe in is a proper one. Also, I remember Philip Larkin saying or writing that we need churches, or some equivalent; otherwise there are not places for us to be serious in. So, even us atheists have no time for pop religion. Neither do the pop kids, they know it's not the real thing, the music or the religion, and they won't pitch up anyway. I don't see how the music of rampant hedonism has anything to do with Christianity". For those in the Church today for whom the traditional service and traditional music are passé the words of Michael Stancliffe, the late Dean of Winchester, may come as a surprise: "Great music ...lifts us out of our depression, frustration and our insane preoccupation with the things of earth, and raises up our hearts and minds in goodness and ecstasy to the sublime heights of Heaven itself. Speaking of his experience of writing the Hallelujah chorus, Handel said: 'I did think I did see all Heaven before me- and the great God himself'. And following that vision, the music it inspired not only brought a Hanoverian King to his feet but also lifted tens of thousands out of their dark satanic mills. It 'brought vision', it has been said, 'into the new squalor of Industrial England, and dignity to her singers. His choruses became the priceless property of the factory workers of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the potteries of Staffordshire and the miners of Wales. The cynic stands dumb as he contemplates our grandparents escaping from the muck of Manchester to the vision of the glory of the Lord as revealed to them by Handel' ". A more up-to-date but equally compelling story was told some years ago by Philip Moore. It is surely worth quoting at length:

"In the summer of 1980 the Choir of Guildford Cathedral, where I was then Organist, toured North Germany. The coach driver whom we had engaged for the tour made it quite clear, even before we left England, that he liked only pop music. Classical music was not for him. Nor was he remotely interested in anything to do with churches or religion.. He was clearly apprehensive at the prospect of spending a whole week with a cathedral choir. He would have to mind his language, not drink too much and keep his stories above board. He thought he had committed himself to a week of unrelieved boredom, in the company of people with an entirely different outlook to his own"..

"Our first commitment was to sing an evening Mass in a spacious and splendid 19th Century Roman Catholic Church in Nettertal. We were due to rehearse in the morning; whilst the coach driver was delivering us to the south door of the church, I asked him if he would like to come inside and listen to the rehearsal, rather than sit alone in the coach, with only forty-four empty seats for company."

"To my slight surprise he decided to join us. I knew that Lassus's Missa Bel' Amfriti Altera would sound ravishing in eight seconds of resonance; but I did not know, neither could I have anticipated, the effect that it would have on him. He was completely overwhelmed by what he heard. It was an experience totally outside his natural environment, but it commanded his attention and he was made, in those compellingly dramatic moments, aware of something outside himself; he caught the stirrings of a spirit whose existence he had, until that moment, been unaware. In its own way, it was a revelation, through music, to a soul who did not know about crotchets and quavers nor the difference between them; who had never heard of Byrd, Palestrina, Stravinsky or Howells, let alone Lassus; who had never hardly ever darkened the doors of a church or even considered for a moment that the church might have something to offer."

It is all too easy to lump people together as though they were all the same - old people, church people, holiday-makers and, above all, 'modern youth'. The latter are presumed to 'be into' pop music and nothing else. But this is a travesty of fact. As Mark McArthur-Christie said in a letter to the Daily Telegraph in 2004, "Traditionalists seem to be the one minority in which the Church of England is no longer interested. I grew up singing in a parish church. At its peak, the choir had 30 trebles, four male counter-tenors, four tenors and six basses - and it was good. We sang pieces that terrify modern parish choirs: those few still left. Most of those I sang with have drifted away, disillusioned, from choirs and the church, pushed out by the relentless imposition of 'accessible' music and liturgy. I left two years ago. I'd stayed in the hope that those of us who value reverence, mystery and majesty in worship would be listened to one day, amid all the froth and superficiality that goes under the name of worship in the Church of England. At 36, I'm far from a reactionary old dinosaur, but as a lover of the Book of Common Prayer I'm already outdated for the Church of England". That is indeed a sad cri de coeur. But there are other, seemingly unknown to the Church, even younger people. Just one statistic will point this up: Classic FM has around 400,000 pre-teens listening in to classical music. Should not the Church be making a special pitch at them? The late George Guest, the distinguished Organist and Master of the Choristers at St John's College, Cambridge, once wrote: "We live in an age where 'change' has become a way of life, and nowhere is this more apparent than in our cathedrals and churches. ... The attack on Anglican music comes largely from within. There is a terrible desire on the part of some cathedral clergy to be regarded as being 'with it'. They feel that the holding of jazz and pop concerts is a way of attracting the young, as is the introduction of banal, derivative and old-fashioned music into the daily Offices in the hope of attracting older people. I feel very strongly that they are wrong. Young people do not want to be patronised in this way".

While many clergy do indeed seem to be caught up in the fashions and trends of the day, others advocate change in church music for more thoughtful reasons. Archbishop John Habgood recalled just such a case. He was attending a Conference at St George's House, Windsor, some years ago "when, after the usual evensong in St George's Chapel, one of the Conference members described it as a totally unreal experience.. We had been discussing some of the radical issues involved in communicating the Gospel in the 20th century, and this particular critic felt that a glorious sung Evensong somehow represented an escape. It represented a form of devotion too far from the lives most of us actually lead. We duly felt guilty".

"As the years have passed, the guilt has worn off. In fact, I am convinced now that he was wrong. It is the very unearthliness of much of our great cathedral music which is badly needed to counterbalance the shoddiness and triviality and cheap emotion of some many aspects of our contemporary culture. The pursuit of excellence in worship can set the standard for the pursuit of excellence in life."

Undoubtedly, the greatest of all the innovations in cathedral music in our lifetime was the decision taken to set up a parallel girls' choir at Salisbury in 1981. Very quickly, one after another, cathedrals decided to set up their own girls' choirs, but as David Hill, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Winchester at the time, admitted when called to advise at Lincoln, there was often an element of political correctness involved. Quite soon, what had once been seen as a privilege became viewed as a right. In 1997, the mother of a girl at Winchester started campaigning to have her daughter admitted to the cathedral choir, and in 2002, a girl in the girls' choir at Lincoln sued the Dean and Chapter for 'mental anguish' at not getting an award she thought she deserved. Southwark seems to have got round this problem by appointing six (sic)girls as Head Chorister!

Part of the reasoning behind the move to set up girls' cathedral choirs was to extend to girls the same opportunities as those enjoyed by the boys. It was seen very much as a simple matter of fairness. In other words, there were pressures for girls to 'have their go' as well. Some have even gone so far as to assert that having girls would be a reversion to a status quo ante. According to them, boys originally took the place of females in religious worship. However, Fr William J.. Finn in The Art of the Choral Conductor disputes this, saying that not only do boys pre-date the women in this function, but "their selection is approved by sound reason of aesthetic propriety". For this reason, he goes on, generations of choir masters have suffered the "small, wriggling, noisy and generally undisciplined male sopranos ...". In his view, the female sound belongs more properly in non-liturgical choruses by virtue of the emotionalism it brings to the dramatic soprano. Of course, to some extent - but only to some extent - as a number of choirmasters have stated, girls can be trained to sound like boys. But why on earth would one want to do that? Why should a choirmaster try to take the girl out of the girl's voice? It passes comprehension that the attempt should be made.

In any case, if girls, what about women? The Report of the Archbishops' Committee in 1948 (published in 1951) stated: "No valid objection can be raised to the employment of women in church choirs, and it may well be that in small country parishes there is no practicable alternative to a choir consisting of boys, women and men, or even women and men only, if a satisfactory balance is to be obtained. There is, however, a growing tendency to employ women in choirs and to banish boys altogether, not because boys are not available, but for the less worthy reason that women do not demand so much practice, and give less trouble. If this tendency is allowed to grow, the results will become serious. The unique contribution of the boy's voice will be lost. Moreover, the source from which choir men are most likely to be drawn will disappear; boys will be deprived of a valuable spiritual and educative influence, and many who might have been attracted to the life of the church by membership of a choir, will remain permanently outside it. The Committee, therefore, makes a strong and urgent plea for the retention of boys in church choirs wherever possible".

Today's demand for equal opportunities for the girls can have only one logical outcome: women, too, will claim the right to sing in cathedral choirs. Indeed, in some cases, they are already there. In an article in the Spectator in 2006, Peter Phillips wrote: "The incumbent musicians of St Paul's Cathedral (and Westminster Abbey) are not showing much sign of opening their exclusive ranks to women. Like so many reactionary scenes in the past, this one is going to have to change". So, let us imagine it does change and women have the chance to sing in cathedral choirs. Before long the women sopranos will be vying with the girls or boys and the contraltos with the altos. Or perhaps the men will sing with the boys and the women with the girls. Having had to fund girls' choirs, cathedral authorities will be faced with having to find additional funds to pay the women. All this has the feel of a juggler's nightmare. Pity the poor choirmaster who has to deal with it! The urge to amalgamate girls and boys, men and women, into a single choir will be enormous. Whilst solving one problem, it will create another, since the greater part of the existing repertoire was written for the all-male choir.

The future for the all-male cathedral choir looks increasingly uncertain. Richard Groves, writing in Choir and Organ in 2000, said that its demise would come about because a "manic determination to establish sexual and every other kind of equality at all times and in all places is all that counts - and to hell with the consequences!" When Southwark decided to set up a girls' choir, the concept of equality overrode any other considerations to the extent that the choir was ready to welcome into its ranks "choristers of any religious background or none". But is too much made of female inequality? Dr Arthur Saunders of the University of Bournemouth has pointed out in his pioneering analysis of parish-church choirs that "women in the UK have had access to much the same educational opportunities as men for many years. As early as the 1870s there was a resolve 'to establish girls' education on the same footing as that of boys', and by 1948 even Cambridge University, the last bastion of male exclusivity, gave full membership to women who, incidentally, had acquired the vote twenty years earlier in 1928. Not only does the State education system now clearly favour female pupils - no doubt in part a consequence of the dearth of male teachers, presently at an all-time low - but the universities now admit more women than men". A rather more nuanced approach would be to seek for girls different rather than equal opportunities, for while a policy of equal opportunities might be laudable in principle, in practice, it is liable to have a disastrous effect on our choral tradition. We stand before the Almighty in one equal light, but it is close to blasphemy to infer that there is no difference between the sexes. Disregarding innate differences can have severe consequences.. The army's 'gender-free' policy, for instance, was criticised in a report of the independent Adult Learning Inspectorate in 2005. Equal treatment of female and male recruits in training had led to record levels of injuries among the women. The implications of an unthinking policy of equal opportunities apply widely. No doubt, with this in mind, C. S. Lewis wrote: "Democracy" is all very well as a political device. It must not intrude into the spiritual, or even the aesthetic, world".

It would be possible to expatiate at much greater length on questions of equality, but as the music scholar, Dr Peter Giles, pointed out almost ten years ago in an article in the Independent on Sunday: "A boy's voice breaks at 13 or so and he'll never sing treble again, but a girl will sing soprano for the rest of her life.. There's not much equal opportunity about it. Nature ain't very equal". And in a talk, Forty Years of Choirboys, in 2001, Dr Roy Massey, former Organist and Master of the Choristers at Hereford, said: "I have often heard the case for girls' choirs argued on the basis of fairness and equal opportunities. This, I think, is misleading. A girl can sing from 8 to 80 if she has a mind to. A boy, on the other hand, can only sing treble between the ages of 9 and 13, on average. It is a short-lived phenomenon, fragile and precious, and we should not be ashamed of appreciating it as a very special feature of the Church of England and our national culture". Two years earlier, in a letter to the Church Times, Christopher Barton, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Newport Cathedral - and not someone opposed to girls' cathedral choirs - wrote: "In our small diocese of about a hundred parishes, only the cathedral and, to the best of my knowledge, one parish have boys' choirs. This is not equality for girls; it is a more or less complete wipeout of boys."

Sadly, since that was written, even that one all-male parish-church choir has gone. A similar picture obtains throughout the country. Whereas, in the sixties, there were still thousands of all-male parish-church choirs, there are now no more than 73 in the whole of the United Kingdom and Eire, and with every year that number declines. Dr Saunders, in his meticulous analysis of the statistics, calculates that the year 2030 will be the end of the choirboy era. The all-male parish-church choir will be, for all practical purposes, dead - part of history. However, Dr Saunders also predicts that the number of choirgirls will also have declined - to a total of approximately seven hundred. "Far from achieving the 'inclusiveness' favoured by the politically correct of the Church of England," he says, "if the assumptions made in carrying out these calculations remain valid, by 2030 there will be virtually no children singing in Anglican parish-church choirs, their places having been taken by a dwindling number of ageing adults, most of whom will be women".

Cathedrals, of course, are rather different. Boys are still found to fill chorister places. Yet it would be unwise to presume this will continue forever. The stability in cathedral choirs, as Dr Saunders has pointed out, is that the voluntary element present in parish-church choirs is absent. Parents are now more 'switched on' to the educational benefits of a chorister education and so are happy for their sons to become cathedral choristers. However, in an increasingly secularised world, where fewer and fewer people go to church, in a world where children increasingly expect to be 'consulted' and in a world where proper singing is seen as a cissy thing for boys, we ought to be far from complacent for the future of the traditional boy chorister. As he has largely disappeared from parish-church choirs, so may he do from cathedral choirs.

Returning, however, to the question of who does the singing in cathedrals - girls or boys - one might ask if it matters. Does not research show that girls' and boys' voices sound the same? Here is not the place to go into an analysis of the research, except perhaps to say that, while not without its interest, it is far from proving the simplistic notion that there is no difference between the voices of boys and girls. More to the point is to consider the professional opinion of those who have devoted their lives to cathedral music - amongst them, those who approve of girls' cathedral choirs. Edward Higginbottom, the Director of Music at New College, Oxford, has said that girls' voices lack "the more focused, more robust sound" of boys. Peter Giles, has spoken of the "astonishing musicality of the boy singer". David Willcocks, the former Organist and Master of the Choristers at King's College, Cambridge, said on Radio 3 that "boys sing with an instinctive understanding of the music".. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph in 2003, the late John Sanders, former Organist and Master of the Choristers at Gloucester, said, "No girl at the age of 13 can match the urgency or intensity of a boy of similar age whose voice is about to change". There is also the opinion of the columnist, John Steane. In an article in Gramophone in 2003, he said: "The treble (or boy soprano) is an essential component for the sound in English churches. Girls do very well ..but in most of the repertoire from (let's say) Fayrfax to Britten, the special quality and timbre of the boy's voice, and of the adult male alto - the two together - is at least as important as the provision of authentic instruments for the performance of instrumental music". And finally, even Richard Seal, the former Organist and Master of the Choristers at Salisbury, who can be credited with starting the girls'-choir movement, said, in a debate on the future of the tradition at Lichfield in 1997: "I am tired of people saying, 'Ooh, you cannot tell the difference!' You can!"

As is appreciated by almost everyone, a decision to set up a girls' cathedral choir has all sorts of implications. Let us just take one of these - the probable reduction in rehearsal and service time for the boys in cathedrals with two choirs. Malcolm Archer, in a lecture at the British Library some years ago, said: "Boys need the regularity of singing". The same point had already been made by David Hill, who maintained that boys needed to sing more regularly than girls to achieve an acceptable standard. And Roy Massey has said: "We sang eight fully choral services a week. We did not have any men-only or boys-only days. With the material we had, we achieved a reasonably good standard - because we did it every day.. You would not do the sound of your music any favour at all if you took away any one of those services. Your boys would not become better, they would become worse.. To maintain otherwise is complete rubbish - make no mistake about it. If the standard means anything, the daily service, with a full choir of men and boys, is the way to do it".

However good the singing boy might be, it is now widely acknowledged that his future is in doubt. In 2002, the Western Daily Mail reported Malcolm Archer "lamenting" the fact that "choirboys are becoming an endangered species".. It said that he feared boys' choirs could die out eventually unless more youngsters are encouraged to sing: "England's great choral tradition is the envy of the world and losing it would be a tragedy tantamount to losing the monarchy". And something Rupert Christiansen wrote in The Arts Column in the Daily Telegraph in 2002 is once again worth quoting at length. "Of one thing you can be sure: as the Queen Mother's funeral is celebrated in Westminster Abbey next Tuesday, it will be the silvery radiance of boys' voices that will send everyone's thoughts heavenwards - a quintessentially English sound, inspirational to some of our greatest composers, from Byrd to Britten, and a poignant reminder of the innocence of youth. Don't take it for granted. A crisis in our musical life is coming to the boil: boys just don't want to sing 'classically' any more. The signals are already flashing red. A year ago, I witnessed a remarkable project at the Round House entitled Because I Sing. It united 18 London choirs from a wide variety of musical traditions, but, of the 500-odd participants, I guess only 10 of them were males under 25. Likewise at our most prestigious contest for would-be professionals, the Kathleen Ferrier Competition, where last year only eight of the 34 entrants were male - and not one of them so much as reached the final round. The great majority of youth and church choirs are now exclusively female.. Most school singing classes can persuade boys only to bawl out show tunes, which give them no training in vocal technique or expressiveness. Adrian Lucas, Master of the Choristers at Worcester cathedral, tells me that, whereas 15 years ago he annually auditioned 40 boys, he now feels himself lucky to be offered 10. At a deeper level of society, one can also see how the decline of the Church of England, as well as the decimation of the traditional industries and the rich working-class culture that surrounded them, has affected both religious and secular choirs". Andy Martin in his article in The Times Magazine expressed the same ideas even more dramatically: "(The male treble voice) now appears doubly and triply endangered, if not on the verge of extinction at least edging closer to it. Apocalypse may not be now, but you don't have to be a prophet to hear trumpets and the hooves of the pale horseman". And if that were not enough for pause for thought, then the words of Richard Seal ought to be. At the Lichfield debate mentioned earlier, he conceded that there was "a threat to the tradition". All round then, it is generally admitted that the tradition of boy choristers is on something of a knife edge. The difference between those who regret the break with tradition and those who see the advance of girls in cathedral choirs as a positive boon is that the latter believe the situation can be managed, while the former believe the opposite. Time alone will tell, and while Malcolm Archer, among others, has testily declared that "girls' choirs are here to stay", it is far from certain that the boys will be here to stay for much longer.

To those most closely involved with cathedral choirs none of the above remarks will come as a surprise, so why do so many of them insist on departing from a tradition which goes back over a thousand years? It would be facile and offensive to attribute malice towards or disdain for that tradition on their part; it would also be completely wrong, since the overwhelming majority greatly value the tradition. Of course, as David Hill pointed out, an element of political correctness has sometimes crept in to decisions to set up girls' cathedral choirs. However, Campaign for the Traditional Choir has always avoided injecting ill-will into the debate, preferring instead to rely on the strength of its arguments. Doubtless, some who share our views have occasionally expressed themselves in a less than temperate manner. That is not something of which the Campaign approves, since it, too, has suffered its share of unreason. One organist, for instance, likened the Campaign's misgivings to extremism of the type "now regarded as unbalanced". The response to that of the Campaign's first president, the distinguished musicologist, Bernarr Rainbow, was: "We find ourselves reminded of Cassandra, whose loud warnings were never believed (though invariably fulfilled) while the Greeks merely declared her mad for her pains". On one occasion, a well-known organist said that it was "quite irrelevant" to ask who was singing on a CD and that the question was motivated by "prejudice" - no matter that, these days, even a humble tin of soup has, by law, to state on the label what exactly it contains. And in response to a request to know whether it was boys or girls singing Evensong, he replied: "There is much nonsense spoken about the difference or not between boys' or girls' voices, and we should not encourage these narrow-minded people". The BBC department which produces Broadcast Evensong has a similar take on this matter, even going so far as to send out what is clearly a standard reply to anyone writing in to ask who is singing. It says: "We respect the decision by many Cathedrals to include girls in their musical life, and after discussion with Directors of Music, the Series Producer has decided not to disclose to the audience when a girls' choir is featured. We feel that this would be divisive, and could be detrimental to future broadcasts". Divisive? Why on earth would it be divisive? And why should licence-paying listeners not know who is singing? There is clearly no similar policy in place for non-religious music. It clearly smacks of the high-handed, and it is an odious rebuff meant to say "So, there! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!" Then there was Nicholas Pike, writing in the Independent on Sunday in 2002, who said that the assertion that boys' and girls' voices do not sound the same is "rank prejudice". If so, it is a prejudice shared by many distinguished choirmasters. For instance, Trevor Beeston, the former Dean of Winchester recorded in his published diary that a "Winchester woman is pressing us, with the aid of the media, to admit her daughter to our choir and she will not accept the Master of the Music, David Hill's judgement, that boys' and girls' voices are different and should not normally be mixed". The sentiments of Professor Elaine Showalter of Princeton University in the very different context of a comment on Ted Hugh's poems on the death of Sylvia Plath are suitably à propos: "You can never be too surprised by people's ability to read things to fit in with their prejudices". It is unfortunate that, rather than engage with the dispassionate arguments the Campaign has put forth, some have preferred instead to accuse us of being "unbalanced" and "prejudiced".

The BBC Music Magazine in 1998, however, took a more reasoned line, saying that it was "too easy to brand the refuseniks as reactionaries, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives with feet rooted in the past". Perhaps, the most pertinent remark in this connection was made by Mr John Busbridge in Cathedral Music in 2000. He said: "I feel one must avoid thinking of change as an intrinsically good or bad thing, but assess any change on individual merit. In this context, I suggest that those seeking to brand people who do not share their attitudes as unchristian are hardly exhibiting their own Christianity to great advantage!" And perhaps, that is a good place at which to bring this particular topic to a close. After all, it is almost undoubtedly the case that all those involved in any way with cathedral music wish for it to continue and flourish. The important thing in considering changes to the cathedral choral tradition is that every effort be made to consider the thing in the round and to avoid losing or diminishing this pearl of great price.. For, as the late George Guest said: "It is easy to dispense with a tradition; it is enormously difficult to resurrect it again". In Italy and Germany, quite provincial towns have their own opera houses. Imagine us trying to emulate that tradition here! There would never be the political will, let alone the money, for a start. Now imagine trying to establish or re-establish choirs such as we are blessed with in this country in all the cathedrals of Italy and Germany. The very idea seems preposterous. In all these calls for change, the words of Viscount Falkland in the 17th century ring presciently down the years: "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change".

Of course, of course, none of this means that girls have no role to play in the Church. The very notion is repugnant. Who could not but rejoice wholeheartedly in girls or indeed anyone singing? The objection is not to girls singing in cathedrals - and it is wearisome for the Campaign constantly to have to rebuff this quite unfounded imputation - but to the nature of their participation in cathedral music, for we are concerned at anything which would tend to lead to the dilution, diminution or demise of the traditional cathedral choir of men and boys. Naturally, with many girls' cathedral choirs already up and running, one might think the die has been cast.. But has it? Might a way be found that keeps the girls singing and yet assures the future of the traditional choir of men and boys? The answer is yes! How this might be achieved was sketched out many years ago by Doctors Rainbow and Giles. They advocated other and different opportunities for the girls - in fact, a truly radical and innovative approach. Dr Giles talked about "a positive but different role awaiting girl and women singers in cathedrals able to afford a second choir. It would involve genuinely exciting possibilities for experimental choral work with a new (serious) repertoire, and, of course, earlier sacred music, custom-composed for female voices, like that written by Hildegard of Bingen; by Vivaldi and Porpora for the Ospedale; by Pergolesi, for example, and others since - not to mention the vast corpus of fine secular (but potentially cathedral-friendly) repertoire by female and male composers specifically for female choirs".. These new choirs with their new roles would not sing the Daily Office but, used imaginatively, they would offer fresh and exhilarating possibilities.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of having girls or women singing in cathedral choirs, there is another question which poses itself - and it concerns the Church's mission. The Church is constantly calling for more and more money. For lack of it, evangelism falters, the fabric of cathedrals is neglected, and a thousand and one good works are put off. By deciding a girls' choir is a 'must', a cathedral is also deciding that other things are a 'cannot-be-done'. That is a decision about morality as well as music.

Finally, the Campaign is concerned that cathedrals do not tread the path of 'dumbing down'. So far, on the whole - thank God! - they have not, but there are always those who call for more informality in worship. The trouble is that by dint of constantly asking 'Why not?', music as entertainment threatens to replace what we know as 'cathedral music'. We trust that these siren calls will be resisted and that the great glory of our choral tradition will remain, to be handed over intact to generations to come.

Deans and chapters, like many in authority these days, sometimes seem to hesitate in carrying out their duties. No doubt, in humility, they seek to consult where once they might have simply enacted change. Thus, the Church Times reported the Dean of Chester, Dr Gordon McPhate, as saying: "I recognise the need for leadership, but I'm slightly uncomfortable with its link to hierarchy. Leadership should not carry any special status. We are all equals". In reality, though deans and chapters may consult widely, in the end, it is they who make the decisions as to what happens on the cathedral front. Too often, unfortunately, they seem to think their freedom to decide what goes on in a cathedral is unfettered. It is not. Cathedrals are not governments with a wide remit. Cathedrals are, or ought to be, restrained as to what changes they make. They cannot be outside or clash with the Christian tradition which has been handed down. On the contrary, they must be aware that they are but the stewards of a rich spiritual and cultural treasure. Injudicious tampering is simply not in their brief. Furthermore, what happens in cathedrals, and this particularly applies to cathedral choirs, can never be a matter of purely ecclesiastical or local concern. Our cathedral choirs with their rich inheritance are the possession of the whole nation. They rest in but the temporary custody of deans and chapters.. Campaign for the Traditional Cathedral Choir prays that they will never lose sight of this and that they will never permit any change save that which serves to enhance this great inheritance. For when the trinkets tarnish, delight in this world's baubles dies and the fabric of our society lies in tainted tatters, our people will look elsewhere for inspiration and salvation. And it will be in our traditional cathedral choirs they will find them, as did that coach driver many years ago. We invoke the blessing of the Almighty on their work.