Singing Stories & Telling Songs
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Dedicated with love to Else, Freya and Ingeborg
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PAUL HILLIER
Singing Stories & Telling Songs A History of English Vocal Groups
MULTIVERS
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Singing Stories & Telling Songs A History of English Vocal Groups by Paul Hillier Copyright © 2026 Multivers 1st edition, 1st printing, 2026 Cover layout by Denise Burt Editor Jakob Levinsen Typeset by Demuth Graphic Printed in Poland by Totem ISBN 978-87-7917-714-7 www.multivers.dk Denne bog er beskyttet af ophavsretsloven. Kopiering må kun finde sted i overensstemmelse med gældende lovgivning. This book is protected by copyright law. No part of this publication may be reproduced except in accordance with applicable law. Produktionen af denne bog har udledt 1144 gram CO2æ. Udledningen er beregnet med ClimateCalcTM. The production of this book has resulted in emissions of 1144 grams of CO2e. These emissions have been calculated using ClimateCalcTM. This publication is supported by AUGUSTINUS FONDEN VELUX FONDEN AAGE OG JOHANNE LOUIS-HANSENS FOND
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Contents Foreword............................................................................ 7 Going Back......................................................................... 15 Clubs, Pubs & Antiquarians................................................ 42 The Vocal Concerts............................................................. 85 The Glee and Madrigal Unions........................................... 100 Fin de Siècle ....................................................................... 137 Descant on a Madrigal........................................................ 157 The English Singers............................................................. 177 Music in a Welfare State: the ’40s and ’50s......................... 205 The Music of Changes: the ’60s.......................................... 259 My Generation: 1968.......................................................... 309 Oxbridge Voices.................................................................. 336 My Generation: 1973 and after........................................... 356 A New Generation: circa 1980............................................ 389 The Hilliard Ensemble......................................................... 412 Afterword........................................................................... 457 Appendix............................................................................ 458 Acknowledgements ............................................................ 499 Bibliography ....................................................................... 500 Index: Names & Groups..................................................... 510
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Foreword This book is a study of singing groups, primarily in the English tradition. I define such groups as independent, self-proclaiming, freelance professionals, who do not belong to any institution except themselves. The individual singers may well have regular church positions or other paid obligations, but that is another matter: it is as a group that they are independent. I tell the story here of some of the most prominent English vocal groups that flourished during the second half of the 20th century. That period was the heyday of the early music movement everywhere, and England’s early music singers were at the cutting edge of it all. Moreover, the energy of that movement spilled over into other kinds of music. There were new music groups and new ways of singing, and groups who sang close harmony, jazz and swing. In the 1960s the whole London scene was home to a musical revolution—pop, rock and jazz especially, as is well known, but also among the extended vocal technicians of the avant-garde, and amongst the growing number of early music devotees. And in that last category, a particular sound and style of vocal ensemble singing developed, first in Oxford and Cambridge, then moving down to London for the final mix. But the idea of the book arose earlier still. At the approach of the Millenium, I picked up the travel diaries of Peter Pears— the English lyric tenor and lifelong partner of Benjamin Britten—and was surprised to learn that in the 1930s Pears had joined a professional madrigal group called The English Singers and went on tour with them to North America (see Chapters 6 and 7.) I had not heard of this or any other vocal group existing so early in time, and it set me wondering if there were perhaps others earlier still. There were of course, and as I started to trace their activities in newspapers and magazines, I worked my way back through 7
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the 19th and 18th centuries, to the beginnings of ‘music meetings’ in the 17th century (see Chapter 2). At that point the idea of public concerts had not yet been established, but it was on the stir. Professional singers were beginning to build freelance careers that would soon bear a marked resemblance to what is still going on in London today. I also studied the activities of various singing clubs that fostered the catch and glee repertoire, while also helping, some of them, to keep the madrigal and motet tradition alive as well. And I was gratified to see that early or ‘antient’ music was never entirely dismissed from the musical scene. It was nurtured at various times by individual enthusiasts, singers among them, and I came to appreciate the debt we owe to those who quietly kept the music of Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, and Wilbye alive, by sharing it, copying it, singing it with friends. However, while this book is partly about early music and its contemporary fascinations, it is primarily a history of the vocal groups themselves: who they were, what they sang, and what sort of career they had. I chose to focus almost exclusively on the English tradition because it is also my tradition. After World War Two, English vocal groups became increasingly recognised for their growing competence, both musically and vocally, and began to be in demand across Europe. There were singers that specialised in early music, and singers who thronged towards new music, but many of them did both. I was fortunate to be part of that scene, and in this book I also examine the influence of the early music revival on the development of new music during the 20th century: not so much in terms of compositional techniques, though there certainly were borrowings of many kinds, but more specifically to find the source of the English choral sound that intrigued so many of us during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Various writers have written about the early music movement, usually based on interviews with some of the protagonists, in which the interviewer is in effect a journalist eliciting 8
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material from his subjects. I have used interviews as well, but my perspective is a little different, because I was part of the scene I describe. I sang in and directed the Hilliard Ensemble, but I also performed in other groups alongside different singers and with different directors. I was one of the singers, so I know what singers do when singing in a group; but I was also one of those who directed, so I know what it’s like to face a group of singers and make music with my back to the audience. Several of those I spoke with were directors, others were singers in a group, one of whom speaks on behalf of the others. I wanted to find out why and how each particular group had been formed: where did the impetus come from; how did they put it together and make it work; how did they become known? The conversations then took different directions. While English early music singing became recognised internationally for its skill and dedication, it was England’s professional choral scene as a whole that made it all so vibrant. It is important to bear in mind that, while individual groups mostly tended to align themselves with one or other of these different kinds of music, the individual singers were often involved in as many of them as possible: to make a living, certainly, but also because they enjoyed the different kinds of music, and the scenery that came with it. These remarks must be treated with caution however, for there were and still are plenty of excellent singers in all countries where a similar range of music is performed. The advantage that English singers enjoyed, for at least a generation, was the centralising focus of Oxbridge, and the awaiting job market in London, which was particularly robust in the post-WWII era. Throughout my career I have also worked with singers and instrumentalists from other countries, and I am well aware not only of the musical abilities that have made working with them so fruitful, but also the endless pleasure of hearing music done differently in different places. Nonetheless, England did have a considerable vocal moment, and therefore I feel justified in treating it as a special case. 9
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Vocal chamber music is best performed by elite ensembles of professionals, on a par with leading string quartets, and in a sense, there is nothing new about such groups. Although we know rather little about their earliest counterparts, the music they sang fills Medieval and Renaissance music history almost to the exclusion of anything else. Today’s singing groups often sing that kind of music too, but the difference is that singers in modern ensembles are essentially self-employed freelancers, who choose to create a niche for themselves as members of a group. The groups usually have from three to six singers, even a few more, but typically all singing one to a part. I include, too, some of the more significant small choirs with a similar musical profile, whose singers often overlap with the membership of the vocal ensembles. These small choirs may have 10, 12, even 16 singers, often singing two or more on a part, but in whom the skill and experience of singing one on a part still prevails. The repertoire includes both sacred and secular music, and the concerts are often given in churches, but the event is a concert, the public pay and applaud, and so the singers make their living. Singing in groups is something that goes back to the earliest moments of music history, whether in a collective chorus with a lead singer, or in a more intimate handful of vocalists. The reader may therefore wonder why I trace the history of vocal groups back only to the 17th century. The reason is simple enough, for that is when we first encounter a few vocal groups following the same path as orchestras. It was a small beginning, but it soon led to the biggest single element in this process: the invention of public concerts during the 17th and early 18th centuries, which fundamentally changed the whole nature and process of European music. It is important to distinguish between ‘public concerts’ (as described just above) and the numerous ways in which music has always been available, whether in private, or in church, or in courtly circumstances—though not always to just anyone. Musical occasions with both performers and listeners have always 10
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been part of human culture, as have musical traditions in which everyone can participate, with or without bystanders. Audiences were never a new invention, as the Greek theatre, a crucifixion, and the Roman games remind us. Giving concerts meant that musicians, lowly yet skilled, could become self-employed; working for themselves, at least partially, rather than being owned or obligated to an institution such as the church or court. This in turn meant that singers could decide what music to perform. And as the idea was to receive emoluments for their efforts, they also gave their group a name and advertised their concerts in the newspapers. During the 19th century, as modes of transport became more sophisticated, a group of singers was more readily able to go on tour: first, around the country in a stagecoach pulled by horses on improved roads, then by railway, later by steam-ships to North America, and sometimes circling the pink bits around the globe (English singing groups were well aware of the advantages of belonging to an Empire), and eventually by aeroplane. Then came the invention of the gramophone and sound radio. In human relationships it can be difficult to pinpoint the beginning of anything, and quite often the same can be said of the end. Vocal ensembles tend to appear in a blur of activity that goes unnoticed by everyone around them, coalesce into something which is now recognised as already existing, and eventually fizzle out even before they have actually stopped. But before I begin the more conventional part of this history— one that moves chronologically forward—in the first chapter I shall be going both forwards and backwards, touching on a few works of significance to me and others, and revisiting the musical epiphanies that led me on my particular path: noticing how, even in a very ordinary corner of Dorset, and with no particular musical attachments or contacts, one bumps into the right people at more or less the right time.
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James Bartleman
The Meister Glee Singers
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John Wall Callcott
Henry Phillips
The Springhead Ring, 1964
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PART ONE
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Chapter 1
Going Back Twenty men and boys scythed the corn and sang as they went. ‘What was the song, Davie?’ ‘Never you mind the song—it was the singing that counted.’ Ronald Blythe, Akenfield
Davie was right. It is the singing that counts. The song doesn’t matter so much, not at first, as long as there is a song. For several centuries the usual path to becoming a professional singer in England was to sing in a cathedral choir as a boy, and then become a choral scholar at Oxford or Cambridge. That pattern still exists, but there are now plenty of alternative routes, luckily for me. Although I became part of the English singing tradition, I did not go to a cathedral choir school, nor later did I become a choral scholar. I did however sing in a local church choir, St Peter’s Dorchester, in Dorset. But even at school before that, singing was my special preserve: some kids had football, or running, or chess, or beating up other kids. I had singing. This was a fragile pre-eminence, which was scattered to the winds when I got to London of course, but by then it was too late: I was hooked on music as a life-force, and on singing as my medium for expressing it. Singing was unlike anything else. I enjoyed the blend of physical and mental pleasure it gave me, the fluid strength of wrapping my voice around a piece of music, penetrating the air and creating something which could reach out and touch an audience, sharing with them the message of the music and the words, mediated through one’s own small being. Singing well, from a purely technical point of view, feels physically and mentally good for you, like going for a walk in 15
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bracing fresh air. Combine that well-being—which admittedly does not always follow—with the instincts of both making and being part of a musical sound, and you begin to understand why people become singers. I must have been about nine when I joined the local choir in St Peter’s. This was on my own initiative, and it was a good thing, for that was where I learned to read music. The choirboys had a special initiation ceremony which involved grabbing the inductee by hands and feet and swinging him backwards and forwards a few times to gain momentum, and then tossing him as high as possible into the bushes just behind the vestry. Those bushes have now been replaced by a brick wall, so I imagine it has been necessary to invent a different ritual. The choir was in earnest, all male, in black cassock and white surplice, chanting the psalms and singing services and anthems by late Victorian luminaries—unfortunately not even then a repertoire that I much liked. We also sang Tallis’s Responses, but nothing else that I can think of from the Tudor period. When my voice started to break, I left St Peter’s, but by then I was attending Hardye’s Grammar School (all male) and had been co-opted into the school choir by the History master, Rex Tompsett. Rex also sang at St Peter’s, with a bass sound that cut through the air like a noble chainsaw, and for a while he had charge of music at Hardye’s. His principal technique of voice training was to pull the short hairs at the back of boys’ heads when they were not behaving as they should. It was remarkably effective, and Rex remained one of our favourite masters. Hardye’s Free Grammar School of Dorchester was endowed in 1569 by a Thomas Hardye (sic, not the poet) whose monument is in St Peter’s church. In 1960 Hardye’s was still the local grammar school and therefore free to me; but 25% of the boys were borders, so it saw itself partly as a Public School and, as I saw it, entertained pretensions above its station. I rebelled against this, especially the weekly Combined Cadet Force: an afternoon of military training of the sort portrayed in the film 16
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If … But I realise now that some of the teaching was probably outstanding. Mr Bax taught English and from him I first heard Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales read out loud in late-middle English. His uncle was the composer Arnold Bax, and our Bax— ‘Basil’ to us—was often observed carrying a copy of the latest Bax symphony LP conspicuously under his arm. Latin and Greek were taught by Christopher ‘Kit’ Lash, who directed a performance of The Beggar’s Opera with me as Macheath. A trio of local musicians formed the band, calling themselves the Pepusch Ensemble. When the time came for me to leave school and begin my studies in London, Kit gave me his volumes of Schubert and Schumann Lieder as a present; I still have them. He later studied Syriac, became a priest and eventually, taking the name Father Ephrem, became Archimandrite in the English Orthodox Church. I finally met up with him again in Manchester, when he came to our performance of Stimmung not so very long before his death. He looked just like Tolkien’s Gandalf. In July 1964 I went to a concert given by The Springhead Ring in St George’s Church. The five shilling-ticket was purchased for me by Rex, who had determined that I should hear the concert. The programme included madrigals and a mass for four voices by Monteverdi, whose name at that time I loosely linked with Verdi. The singers (eight of them I think) were led down the central aisle of the church by their conductor, John Eliot Gardiner, with his head swept back in an aristocratic manner. I was very struck by this, and by the singers’ general aura of superiority. I assumed they were from north Dorset, but it’s more likely they were some of London’s brightest young professionals, already into consort singing and early music. I found the music somewhat austere, though I generously noted in my diary that the singers were ‘excellent’. I was fifteen. The following year I began to study music seriously, to the virtual exclusion of all other subjects. It was as if floodgates opened inside me, and the rapidity of my progress still surprises me: by some force of luck or fate I had found the one thing I 17
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could do. In my own way I rejoiced in music theory, discovering how all things musical are interconnected and acquiring the wherewithal to talk about them. I read histories of music, although for quite a while much of the information remained disconnected and therefore relatively meaningless, and I listened to all the recordings I could get my hands on, Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. During this period of constant discovery, certain pieces of vocal music settled in my mind and provided an experience that utterly transformed my character, giving it a sense of focus and direction. There was a handful of such pieces, not more, and the first of them was Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices. At seventeen, seeking a wider range of musical activity, I joined an accomplished local choir called the West Walks Singers.1 This group of about twenty or so adults rehearsed in the home of Mr and Mrs Brown, the parents of two countertenors who were then up at King’s College. We were conducted by a redoubtable old lady called Joan Brocklebank. She may not have been so very old, but I can only picture her as a kind of Miss Marple figure as portrayed on screen by Margaret Rutherford.2 Miss Brocklebank, who enjoyed a private income from her family’s interest in Cunard-Brocklebank shipping, was very active on the music scene in north Dorset, and from the 1930s was an associate of Rolf Gardiner, father of John Eliot (of whom, both, more later). She was appointed Dorset County Music Organiser in 1942, and in 1955 she co-founded the Dorset Bach Cantata Club together with Paul Steinitz, who conducted us in Schütz’s Christmas History. She published monographs on Victorian church carvings and on the history of Affpuddle, a gentle little village not far outside Dorchester which she had made her home. That was not all: she also collected Dorset folksongs, wrote a semi-fictional 1
Dorchester’s ‘Walks’ were made during the 18th century, built on top of much older Roman fortifications. Those parts that still survive include the West Walks where the Browns had their house.
2
Miss Marple was a regular character in Agatha Christie’s murder stories.
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Dorset experience of the Civil War, and a short but detailed history of Springhead, now the home of John Eliot Gardiner.3 We sang the Byrd Mass for Four Voices and we also sang Elizabethan madrigals and works by Britten, Holst, and Vaughan Williams. I was young and each piece was a fresh revelation. I loved the Mass immediately, but I took it carefully, knowing that it was something I would return to time and again. It has remained a work whose value lies beyond discussion because, like my hometown of Dorchester, my childhood and youth, it’s something I cannot grasp externally. I have elevated it to a special position, as much because of the role it played in my sentimental education as for its musical value. The music was not a sound picture that I gazed at in a museum or listened to in a concert. The physical encounter was what mattered: to sing and listen at the same time, being part of the music, following the contours of its lines while actually giving voice to them from inside my own body. This was perhaps the most important thing to be learned by singing such music at the outset of my musical education. You get to know the notes—physically as well as intellectually—and after a while you develop a sense of how the notes flow into sound, moving with certain notes and against others, all at the same time. At the age of 16 I had no knowledge to prepare me for this music, no idea who Byrd was or for whom he composed, nor any idea who might have sung the music originally. I didn’t ask myself such questions. What I did feel was that it had a special quality of its own, which I can no more express in words now than I could then. I began to notice how the music was put together: one voice began and was then answered by another with the same phrase or something like it—imitation but often with small differences—and how they gathered themselves together to move forward with collective energy, sometimes with calm chords sung all together, but more often in various single lines that curled around each other. The texture was constant3
Springhead, Fontmell Magna, Some Historical Notes, Brocklebank.
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ly changing, and the harmony of the voices produced an extra, unique quality, a bit like burnished wood, but pure as air. I know one should not talk about music in this way, but the description that comes to mind suggests to me the qualities that I sensed then: it was a taste that lingered in the ear. Did I notice the beautiful arching shapes of the phrases? How the dissonances were set up and then resolved? To some extent yes, but it was like learning a language; it would take time to become fluent. As a boy in the church choir, I had sung Tallis’s Responses and at school some madrigals, but that was very little background to go by. The only other illumination that occurs to me is that I was also discovering T.S. Eliot’s poetry at that time, The Four Quartets in particular, and I know that certain passages in Burnt Norton (the first quartet) and Little Gidding (the fourth) had an effect on me comparable to that of Byrd’s Mass. When I read Eliot again now, I find the same qualities still in place, the same resonance of tone and meaning, the rhythm and assonance of the words, the counterpoint of the imagery, the curious emotional energy of its character. Although after all this time I may bring a wider range of experience to bear on the poem, I realise now that my response to Eliot and Byrd at the age of seventeen was completely authentic. I came to it unprotected and unpre judiced, recognising something in it of significance to me. In the same way, I was encountering the music of Tallis and soon Gibbons and Taverner, and eventually I understood that one can make important discoveries at any moment, suddenly and without warning. It is essential to maintain a space within oneself that keeps watch, that returns again and again to the point of not knowing anything, for it is only from there that you can really hear a piece of music. ‘Footfalls echo in the memory/Down the passage which we did not take/Towards the door we never opened/Into the rose-garden.’ Those lines from Burnt Norton have the same elegiac quality as the Tudor-Jacobean music for viols that I love so much. The absence evoked is not a loss (or not only that), it is also a presence, a lurking, an interpenetra20
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