The Choir Of Westminster Abbey

The Westminster Abbey Choir traces its origins more than five centuries into the past. Edward the Confessor established Westminster Abbey, which received its consecration on December 28, 1065; William the Conqueror became the first British monarch crowned within its walls the next year. Every subsequent British sovereign has likewise been invested there, yet the building has also maintained daily worship for nearly a thousand years. Throughout most of that span the Westminster Abbey Choir has supplied the music for these services. Documentary evidence of the ensemble begins with the 1479 naming of William Cornysh to the post of Master of the Song Scole. Henry VIII set the choir’s permanent roster in 1540 at twelve Lay Vicars and ten boy choristers, a balance still observed today.

Additional singers are drawn from the Westminster Abbey Choir School, Britain’s sole educational establishment centered on a choir. Its thirty-six pupils either already belong to the ensemble or are being prepared for eventual membership. The boys perform Evensong six evenings each week plus three Sunday services. Prospective choristers audition at age eight and depart the group at fourteen; several have later returned as Lay Vicars. The rigorous instruction they receive has launched distinguished careers, among them those of Orlando Gibbons, Henry Purcell, and David Willcocks.

The choir regularly appears at ceremonies connected with the British monarchy. In recent decades it has also presented concerts abroad and produced roughly two dozen recordings while maintaining its liturgical schedule. Four American tours have taken place. Certain discs, including The Royal Golden Wedding, respond to widespread interest in royal ceremonial, whereas others deliver an authoritative approach to Renaissance polyphony, notably a benchmark account of Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass, or supply long-established seasonal repertory. What the ensemble will contribute after the close of the second millennium is still unknown.