(This website is a work in progress. New pages will be added when available… see Latest News for details)
My aims are quite simple – to make the huge collection of Anglican Chants available for use and enjoyment and to enhance our worship to God.
- To make available for use over 18400+ chants (as of July 2019) in all their many styles… Single, Double, Triple, Quadruple and Octuple chants and variations such as Short, Irregular and Gregorian chants with the odd Plainsong chant. The Archive currently has over 850 Male Voice chants of various combinations of voices up to eight parts.
- A detailed list of sources, with publishers and dates of publication where known.
- Covers and frontispages, some of which are works of art in their own way.
- Some interesting portraits of the composers.
- How I log the chants by my unique 'Thumbprint' system.
- Brief profiles of the composers.
- I am sure there are errors within the Archive as this is mostly a one man band (with my wife, Tessa, checking the profiles and the more intricate chants, and my son Matthew helping to scan the sources). It is so easy to enter something incorrectly, so feel free to advise me but please not on grammar, etc… let the Webmaster (webmaster@anglican-chant-archive.org) know about factual or grammatical errors either by email or comment below (you'll first need a login account from the Webmaster to leave comments). As long as the information is right then that is the best I can do at the moment. Please, no missing comma counting except to the Webmaster. Special thanks to Andrew Revans for painfully having a detailed look at each chant!
- I have some very rare chants which may or may not be included. I have a double chant by George Frideric Handel in C major which I am sure is an 'actual' rather than an 'arranged from'. There are many of the latter.
- The horrors of copyright. All living composers are being contacted for permission to use their chants. I am adding 'Permission granted 28th February, 2017, with thanks' as our agreement. If a composer wants me to withdraw their chant(s), do please let me know. I use the 70 years after death rule and add another year for safety.
- Some of the chants are scanned from the original sources for interest, some are 20 odd years old using very basic computer layout but the majority are produced on Music Publisher 6 by Braeburn. I will endeavour to improve the format once the site is up and running.
- I hope you enjoy what you are about to see; there are 25 years of work here and it is a pleasure to share it with you all.
- There is a very lively Facebook group devoted to Anglican Chant – find it at The Anglican Chant Appreciation Society). Feel free to join.
- PART TWO is the publishing of all the actual chants. They are currently by composer and by key, c minor to B major.
Who said Anglican Chant was dead?
Peter William John Kirk, Custodian of the Anglican Chant Archive
(custodian@anglican-chant-archive.org)
