Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SERVICE SERVICE 425
The origin of the acceptance of the term in
this limited musical sense is somewhat obscure.
The gradual disuse of distinctive names of
offices—such, for instance, as Matins, Vespers,
Mass, etc.—after the Reformation, helped to
bring the generic word 'service' into very
general use ; and it has therefore been supposed
that musicians called their- compositions
'
services ' because they were set to certain
unvarying jjortions of the church ' services.'
But this explanation is far from satisfactory,
for obvious reasons ; it gives too much latitude
to the term, and offers no reason why it should
ever have become limited to its present meaning.
The fullest form of a set or service would
include free musical compositions for (1) The
Venite, (2) Te Deum, (3) Benedioite, (4) Benedictus,
(5) Jubilate, (6) Kyrie eleison, (7) Nicene
Creed, (8) Sanotus, (9) Gloria in excelsis ; (10)
Magnificat, (11) Cantate Domino, (12) Nunc
Dimittis, (13) Deus Misereatur.
It win be necessary to say a few words about
some of these movements separately before
making any remarks on our services generally.
The Venite has long since disappeared from the
list of free compositions, and is now universally
treated as one of the psalms, and sung to
a chant instead of being rendered as a motet.
In the form in which the Venite was printed
in the Breviary may perhaps be traced the
reason why many of our earliest church-composers
after the Reformation, such as Tallis,
Bevin, Byrd, Gibbons, and others, left settings
of the Venite in motet-form. But this treatment
of the psalm was probably found to lengthen
unduly the time occupied by Matins ; and it
may also have been felt that an elaborate choral
setting of these particularwords seriousljrinjured
their force as an invitation to join in public
worship. On the whole it is not a matter for
regret that the Venite now takes its place merely
as an introductory psalm.
The free setting of the Benedioite omnia opera
did not long maintain its ground, owing probably
to its excessive length. Purcell set this canticle,
and it is even now occasionally sung to his music
Blow also wrote an elaborate Benedioite in his
Service in E minor. But the canticle itself fell
for a long time into neglect, and when revived,
it was sung either to a chant in triple measure,
or to a ' single ' chant, or to a Gregorian tone
having a short ending. ' ' Hayes contributed one
of the earliest triple-measure chants [and there
are numerous modern specimens in which waltzthemes,
more or less ingeniously disguised, are
in use.]
The Gloria in excelsis, though set to music
by Tallis, fell almost entirely out of the ' service
owing to the loss of choral celebrations of the
Holy Communion. On their resumption the
Gloria was once more included in the set, after
a long period of virtual disuse. The Kt/rie eleison
and Sandus maintained their place in the set
the former because it was always sung at the
so-called ' table prayers ' (that is, a CommunionofSce
brought to a conclusion at the end of
the Creed, Sermon, or Prayer for the Cliuroh
Militant) ; the latter lived on as an introit,
a duty it fulfilled at one time universally in
our cathedrals.
The Jitbilate completely ousted the Benedictus
for a long period. The earliest writers of our
Reformed Church—Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Bevin,
Farrant, and others settheBenediclus to music,
but it was afterwards practically lost, until,
within recent times, a better feeling has restored
it to the place which it should hold according
to the spirit of the rubric, if not according to
its letter.
The Cantate Domino and Deus misereatur
may be said to have been in fashion from time
to time. Both Blow and Purcell set these alternative
canticles, and later Aldrich also ; but they
reached their highest popularity at the end of
the 18th and the early part of the 19th century.
At the present time they have again fallen
somewhat into the background.
To the contents of a service as above enumerated,
the most modern composers add musical
settings of the Offertory sentences, also of the
Doxologies before and after the Gospel, and
sometimes also of the Sursum Corda, Agnus
Dei, and Benedictus. The Offertory sentences
may perhaps be looked upon as a legitimate
addition to the set, but the Gospel-doxologies
and Sursum Oorda have both their own ancient
plain-song, and the Agnus Dei and Benedictus
are not ordered by our rubric to be sung in the
office of Holy Communion.
Having made these few remarks about the
contents of a service, we must now discuss the
musical character of our English services, assuming
that a Te Deum, Benedictus (or Jubilate),
Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis may be taken as
the main framework of an ordinary service. It
can hardly be doubted that Tallis, the chief of
the early post-Reformation composers, was influenced,
when setting his celebrated Te Deum in
Dminor, by the character of the then well-known
Ambrosian Te Deum which Marbeok published
in the 1550 Prayer-book. There can be traced
an evident wish to form a melody, if not actually
in aChra'ch mode, in a tonality closelyresembling
one of them. Tallis also avoided contrapuntal
devices (in which he was a distinguished expert),
and limited within strict bounds the ambitus of
his melody and the number of his harmonic
combinations. Anybody who will take the
trouble to compare his graceful and melodious
anthems Hear the voice and prayer ' ' and ' If
ye love Me ' with his Service, must perceive
that he wrote his setting of the canticles under
an evident self-imposed restraint. The whole
of the Service was made to follow absolutely
the style of the Te Deum, and the result is, that
music of a dignified and ecclesiastical type has
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