ABSTRACT
Pressure for liturgical change bubbled constantly under the surface of Anglican life in the first half of the twentieth century, and erupted disastrously at the time of the rejection by parliament of the proposals for revised Prayer Books in 1927 and 1928. Despite this, the most significant changes in the worship patterns of parish churches and of cathedrals in this period came through changes in practice rather than through the introduction of new liturgies. 1 The first change was the gradual rise of the Parish Communion movement, which had made significant progress in promoting the service of Holy Communion as the principal Sunday morning service by the outbreak of the Second World War. The gradual adoption of Holy Communion as the main Sunday morning service was particularly striking, as the Church of England, uniquely amongst the churches of the Reformation, had made the liturgy of the Offices (in a revised version of their pre-Reformation forms) the principal vehicle of its worship. The second change was the gradual demise of Matins as a sung weekday service. The demise of the latter was not caused by the success of the former, but both changes affected significantly the repertoire of music performed by English cathedral choirs. Those repertoires were much less significantly affected by the very wide-ranging stylistic developments in the secular music of the period. The conservatism of English church music stands in marked contrast to the innovations of secular composers. In this period a stylistic norm was gradually developed for cathedral music which led to its becoming not simply archaic in style but a recognisable and separate stylistic genre. This genre was sustained in some music written for cathedrals through to the end of the study period and beyond.
