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9 BOOKS Biographies | Fiction | General Choral | Pop Music & Fanzines | Magazines & Periodicals

 Books - General Choral


Art of Training Choir Boys, The (Best Books 2001 ISBN: 0722261233 )

by George Clement Martin (1844-1916), organist of St Paul's Cathedral, London between 1888 & 1916.
Originally published by Novello, London in 1892 (92 pages, 8vo) & reissued in 1899 (44 pages, 4to).

Available at  Amazon UK


Barchester: English Cathedral Life in the Nineteenth Century (SPCK 1993 ISBN: 0 281 04667 0 )

by Philip Barrett. One chapter deals with cathedral choirs in the nineteenth century and gives a vivid view of life for the choristers as well as the lay clerks and organists.

Available at  Amazon UK


Boy's Changing Voice, The (OUP (London) 1935 )

By W. Norman Mellalieu (Music Master of the Royal High School, Edinburgh). Booklet 34 pages, 18.5 cm. A training manual for boys aged 12 to 17 years. From the introduction: "In regard to the adolescent boy's voice, up to now theory has been predominant and practice sadly lacking. It has been assumed that singing at this stage is injurious without its ever having been fairly tried. Singing in itself is not harmful, but it is the misuse of the voice, in speech as well as song, that leads to trouble. It is entirely a matter of the way in which the voice is used during the changing period. To hear adolescent boys singing with good tone and artistic finish is something of a revelation."


Boy's Voice, The ( 1891 )

by John Spencer Curwen. London: seven editions between 1891 & 1922. 144 pp. (Sometimes available second-hand, best is enlarged third edition of 1899 or later ones which were reprints with minor revisions) A training manual with contributions from many 19th century choirmasters throughout the country, there is practical advice still of value today and information of historical interest on performing practice a hundred and more years ago. There are also passages on the attitude of some choirmasters. — Review by Brian Pearson


Cathedral Music, The Pitkin Guide (Jarrold Publishing 2003 ISBN: 1-84165-113-3 )

Featuring Guildford Cathedral Choir  
Contains photographs of several British cathedral choirs, a potted history, and a CD with recordings from Wells, Edinburgh, Norwich, Guildford, Hereford, Durham, York, Southwark, Lichfield, Truro, and Chester.

Available at  Amazon UK
no cover
 Children of the Garter (Rich and Cowan, London 1937 )

by Russell Thorndyke.



Choir Parents' Handbook, The ( 1963 )

Featuring Texas Boys Choir  
by George Bragg.

 Viewable at Boychoirs Past, Present, Future


Choirboy in the Making, The: A Practical and Concise Treatise on the Training of Choristers (Best Books 2001 ISBN: 072226125X )

by Charles Harry Moody (1874-1965), organist of Ripon Cathedral from 1902 until 1954. (Original editions: London, 1923 Humphrey Milford & London, 1939 OUP; both 44 pages 8vo.)

Available at  Amazon US


Choral Technique (Birchard (Boston) 1939 )

Featuring Paulist Choristers of Chicago  
by Father William Finn. This is volume one of "The Art of the Choral Conductor". 292pages, 23 cm. William Joseph Finn (1881-1961) founded the Paulist Choristers in 1904 and was their director until 1940. "Some of the best solo-boys of the Paulist Choristers were the outstanding rascals of the organization, contriving all sorts of mischief to disrupt the the order of the choir-hall, sanctuary and concert stage. Notwithstanding this, the boy with temperament nets better musical results than the better ordered but less imaginative boy," says Father William Finn in his book which covers all voices in male voice and mixed choirs. This book is especially relevant to training boy singers and considers the whole gamut of pitch, blend, balance, colour, dynamics, tempo and the difference between technique and art.
He also wrote "The Conductor and his Baton" (1944) and an autobiography "Sharps and Flats in Four Decades" (1947), all of which usually can be obtained used from Abebooks UK.

Available at  Abe Books UK


Cori Spezzati: An Anthology of Sacred Polychoral Music (Cambridge University Press 1988 ISBN: 0521303990 )

by A. F. Carver. Deals with polychoral church music from its beginnings in the first few decades of the sixteenth century to its climax in the work of Gabrieli and Schutz. xv, 228 pages, 26 cm. Volume 1 of a two-part work.

Available at  Amazon UK


Cori Spezzati: The Development of Sacred Polychoral Music to the Time of Schutz (Cambridge University Press 1988 ISBN: 0521303982 )

by A. F. Carver. vi, 162 pages, 26 cm. Volume 2 of a two-part work.


Die Regensburger Domspatzen (MZ Buchverlag 2009 ISBN: 978-3-934863-70-5 )

Featuring Regensburger Domspatzen  
Darstellung der über tausendjährigen Geschichte der Regensburger Domspatzen; Erinnerungen von ehemaligen Domspatzen, Interview mit Domkapellmeister Roland Büchner sowie Einblicke in den Choralltag im Jahr 2009.


English Choral Practice 1400-1650 (Cambridge University Press 1995 ISBN: 0521441439 )

Edited by John Morehen. (xiii, 246 pages, illustrated, 26 cm.) Survey and essays of the performing practices in English choral music in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the period of the English Reformation.

Available at  Amazon UK


English Chorister, The: A History (Hambledon Continuum 2006 ISBN: 1852855134 )

By Alan Mould. Boy Choristers have sung the daily liturgy in English churches for fourteen hundred years. They are treasured as a unique part of our religious and cultural heritage, unmatched anywhere else in the world. Yet their history, in cathedrals and monasteries, in royal and collegiate chapels, from the middle ages, through the upheavals of the Reformation, in Georgian neglect and Victorian revivial, to their CD-celebrated triumphs of today and the introduction of girls, has never before been told. The author is a former headmaster of the Choir School at St John's College, Cambridge, and an Editorial Adviser to "Cathedral Music" magazine.
352 pp. 40 illustrations.

Available at  Amazon UK


English Church Music, 1650-1750 in royal chapel, cathedral and parish church (Oxford University Press (New York) 1970 )

by Christopher Dearnley. xii, 308 pages, illus. 23 cm. Also published by Barrie & Jenkins, London, 1970.

Available at  Amazon UK


Festival Memories (Osbourne Books Limited 1996 )

by Donald Hunt. 74pp. Recounts Donald Hunt's fifty year association with the Three Choirs Festival.

Available at  Amazon UK


Folk Impressions (Balkan Multimedia Centre 2012 ISBN: BMC 20 )

Featuring Sofia Boys' Choir  
This disk takes a special place among the diverse discography of the choir. It is the first album to include only folk songs created as arrangements on the basis of original folk melodies or choral arrangement of folk songs. The album includes some masterpieces from the genre, as well as some completely new works. Performed by all three concert formations of the choir - boys, youth and mixed one, the songs will bring great pleasure to the listener with their diversity and beauty.


Gesandt bis an die Grenzen der Erde (Bischöfl. Domkapitel Regensburg 2008 ISBN: 978-3-00-026607-2 )

Featuring Regensburger Domspatzen  
Im Jahr 2008 unternahmen die Regensburger Domspatzen eine ausgedehnte Konzertreise nach Südafrika. Zusammen mit Bischof Gerhard Ludwig Müller besuchte der Chor die Wirkungsstätten der Mallersdorfer Schwestern in Südafrika, die auch seit Jahrzehnten im Internat der Regensburger Domspatzen tätig sind, sowie weiterer Personen, die mit Regensburg eng verbunden sind. Anlässlich dieser Reise erschien neben diesem Buch auch die CD "Sonnengesang".

Available at  Regensburger Domspatzen Online Shop


Grammar Schools of Medieval England, The (Methuen (London) 1915 )

by Arthur Francis Leach (1851-1915). xv, 349 pages, illustrated 8vo.


Histoire des Maîtrises en Occident (éditions universitaires ISBN: 2-7113-0356-X )

Structured in three chapters, the history of boychoirs in general, famous musicians who were choristers or directors of boychoirs (Quelques anciens des maîtrises) and famous boychoirs today (Les grandes maîtrises aujourd'hui). The latter giving an abstract of the specific history of each choir.



History of American Church Music, The (Morehouse-Gorham 1953 )

Featuring Church of the Advent Choir, Boston  
(New York, 1953: Morehouse-Gorham Company. 23.5 cm 274 pages 20 plates & illustrated end-papers.)
By Leonard (Webster) Ellinwood (1905-1994), a former teacher, then cataloger at the Library of Congress and latterly head of its humanities division. He has written an authoritative and readable history covering the period from the Colonial Era (1494-) to the 1950s, with many anecdotes and mini-biographies of church musicians. Of particular interest to BCSD users will be the chapter on "The Oxford Movement and Boy Choirs", for it was that movement, set in motion in the 1830s, which led to the reintroduction of boy choirs to parish churches.
The illustration shows choirboys at the Church of the Advent, Boston. c.1856, one of the first vested boy choirs in America, then under the direction of Henry Stephen Cutler. BJP


History of English Cathedral Music 1549-1889 (T Werner Laurie )

by John S[kelton]. Bumpus. Published in 2 vols. London, 1908. viii, 580 pages 8vo. (Facsimile reprints in 1972 & 1982 by Gregg International Publishers.)


How high should boys sing? (Ashgate Publishing, Martin Ashley 2009 )

'A boy sings...a beautiful thing', but is it? What kinds of boy, singing what kinds of music and to whom? Martin Ashley presents a unique consideration of boys' singing that shows the high voice to be historically, culturally and physiologically more problematic even than is commonly assumed. Through Ashley's extensive conversations with young performers and analysis of their reception by 'peer audiences', the research reveals that the common supposition that 'boys don't want to sound like girls' is far from adequate in explaining the 'missing males' syndrome that can perplex choir directors. The book intertwines the study of singing with the study of identity to create a rich resource for musicians, scholars, teachers and all those concerned with young male involvement in music through singing. The conclusions of the book will challenge many attitudes and unconsidered positions through its argument that many boys actually want to sing but are discouraged by a failure of the adult world to understand the boy mind. Ashley intends the book to stand as an indictment of much complacency and myopia with regard to the young male voice.

Available at  ashgate


Irish Cathedral Music (Institute of Irish Studies 1989 ISBN: 0 85389 331 4 )

by W.H. Grindle. Published by The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast. Though the music of Charles Stanford and Charles Wood is well known outside Ireland, the country's cathedral music and musicians dwell in obscurity. This book attempts to correct that, discussing the history, from medieval times to the present, of music and choirs in the Church of Ireland (ie. the protestant episcopal chuch).

Available at  Amazon UK
no cover
 Joyous Adventure in the Dominion of Canada, A (Dent 1928 )

Featuring The Westminster Abbey Choir  
Published in London & Toronto. viii, 191 pages, illus. 8vo. This is an account, by several authors including Edmund H Fellowes and Sydney H Nicholson, of the 1927 tour of Canada by the Choristers of Westminster Abbey with the Gentlemen of St. Georges Chapel, Windsor.

no cover
 Katalog zur Ausstellung ( )

Featuring Altenburger Sängerknaben  
CD- Rom to an exhibition at the Altenburg Church, it also features some music by the Choir.

Le Tour Du Monde Des Petits Chanteurs A La Croix De Bois
 		Le Tour du Monde des Petits Chanteurs à la Croix De Bois (Mame 1955 )

Featuring Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois  
36 Pages: Illustration de AMLIX / 16 Chansons

Available at  PriceMinister


Lead Kindly Light ( )

Featuring Winchester College Quiristers  
"This England's book of well-loved hymns and their writers". 159 pp. Fully-illustrated book traces the origins of approximately 90 popular hymns. Not specifically about choirs except for one composer's entry describing his work with the Winchester College Quirsters.

Available at  Alpha Records, Ltd. UK


Les Petits Chanteurs de Touraine, 20° anniversaire (Henri Derquenne )

Featuring Les Petits Chanteurs de Touraine  
Par Henri Derquenne. Editions SN.

Available at  Disponible chez: PriceMinister.com


O Holy Night : Christmas with the boys choir of Harlem ( 2003 ISBN: 0060009799 )

Featuring Boys Choir of Harlem  
O Holy Night, which has the lyrics of five carols, including "Silent Night" and "O, Come All Ye Faithful," comes with a CD featuring the Boys' Choir of Harlem singing traditional and soulful versions of the songs. Illustrator Ringgold's paintings, set against backgrounds of sky blue and ruby red and decorated with touches of gold, feature an African American Holy Family who are visited by dark-skinned wise men and shepherds, and angels of all races and colors. The folk-art style imbues the characters with a humanity that brings them close to readers. This is especially true of the playful baby Jesus, whose godliness is also addressed as he cavorts with cherubs and angels.
no cover
 Parish, Past and Present: 275 Years of Leeds Parish Church Music ( 1988 )

Featuring Leeds Parish Church Choir  
by Donald Webster. Leeds Parish Church Old Choirboys' Association, 5 St. Peter's House, Leeds LS2 7DJ Sketches the musical history of the Parish Church from 1714-1841.


Practical Hints on Boy Choir Training (E. & J.B. Young & Co. 1888 )

by George Edward Stubbs (1857-1937), Organist & Choirmaster of St Agnes' Chapel, New York 1892-1937. 77 pages. Introduction by the Rev. J.S.B. Hodges.
6th edn 1892. Title altered to "Practical Hints on the Training of Choir Boys" for revised edn 1897. 10th edn 1898 (Novello, New York: 105 pages, 19cm) incl. suppl. "Current Methods of Training Boys' Voices" (a paper written for the Massachusetts Choir Guild, originally publ. separately in 1894 & revised in 1898).


Quires and Places where they Sing (Bell and Sons Ltd, London 1932 )

by Sydney (Hugo) Nicholson. xiv, 280pp.
Reissued by SPCK (London) in 1942 & 1958. This is a scholarly book aimed at the general reader who is interested in the development of the choral tradition in England from the days when St Augustine founded the first song-school in Kent in the year 597. A survey of historical landmarks is followed by chapters on the selection and training of choristers, interpretation of church music, the organist as accompanist and the place of music in worship. A rich source of interest and information for choir members and congregations. BJP


Singing Church, The: an Outline of the Music Sung by Choir and People (Faber and Faber 1945 )

by Charles Henry Phillips. (279 pages, illustrations 8vo)
New edition, prepared by Arthur Hutchings, with revised title "The Singing Church: an outline history of the music (etc.)" (London, 1968: Faber 288 pages, illustrated 23 cm).
no cover
 The Kearsney Collection (Kearsney College Productions )

Featuring Kearsney College Choir  
A Collection of songs to celebrate Kearsney's 75 Years. With traditional African songs such as Bayeza (Zulu cremonial song), Siyahamba (Zulu Traditional song), and the popular traditional song Shosholoza.


Training the Boy's Changing Voice (Faber and Faber, London 1958 )

by Duncan McKenzie. pp. xiii, 146. A full discussion of the training of boys' voices during adolescence until they have become settled in their adult ranges. He argues that at adolescence boys' voices "change" gradually but never "break", so that they should continue to be used, with unforced tone and in the comfortable range, to avoid enthusiastic choir-boys ending their singing careers with regret and being lost to choral music. "Just before adolescence sets in, the tone of the older boy soprano takes on a peculiarly beautiful quality, one quite different from that of a younger boy soprano. It is fuller and has a richness it did not have before, the highest notes having a brilliancy heard only in the older boy soprano voice. . . . When a boy is classified as second soprano because of the signs of adolescence in his speaking voice, he is still able to sing first soprano. . . . As the voice lowers, difficulty with the highest notes . . . indicates that the boy should be transferred to alto." There is much sensible comment and quotation in this book, now sadly out of print. —Review by Brian Pearson

Available at  Abe Books
Available at  Amazon UK


Victorian Cathedral Music in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, New York 1986 )

by Gatens, W.J.


Voice Production in Choral Technique (Novello 1970 )

by Charles Cleall. 155 pp. Drawing on 24 years experience as teacher, organist, choirmaster, conductor & examiner, the author covers not only the usual aspects of tone production & diction, but also presents in accessible form surveys of the hearing range of boys, the compass of voices from two years of age upwards, increase in vocal flexibility over time, the proportion of changed voices at ages 11 to 17, etc., which are often to be found only in technical journals.


Wege der Stimmbildung für Kinder und Erwachsene (Max Hieber 1992 ISBN: 3920456114 )

Featuring Der Tölzer Knabenchor  
by Pr. Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden

Available at  jpc.de
Available at  Amazon.de


Westminster Pilgrim, A; being a record of service (Novello 1919 )

Featuring Westminster Cathedral Choir  
by Sir Frederick Bridge, 1919. xiii, 363 pages 8vo. John Frederick Bridge (1844-1924) served as organist at Westminster Abbey for the 43 years 1875-1918; he was knighted in 1897.


Where the Fat Black Canons Dined. A History of Bristol Cathedral School 1140 to 1992. (Bristol Cathedral School 1992 ISBN: 0 9520208 0 7 )

Featuring Bristol Cathedral Choir  
By Jane Collard, David Ogden & Roger Burgess. ix, 142 pages, colour & monochrome illus, 21 cm. An update to E.T. Morgan's pioneering work "History of Bristol Cathedral School" (1913). The City's only royal educational foundation - where the Cathedral choristers are educated - is one of the country's foremost independent schools.
no cover
 Works of George Bragg , The (Privately Published )

Featuring The American Boychoir  
by George Bragg. Privately published by the author. His experiences in five books as a Founder-Director of what became, at the time, the American icon of boychoir. These books are no longer for sale.
The Big Book, Brief History of Boy Choir, The 1952-53 Diary, The Second Copy, The Third Copy.


 George Bragg Collection


Young Choristers, 650-1700 (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music) (Boydell Press 2008 ISBN: 1843834138 )

by Susan Boynton (Author, Editor), Eric Rice (Editor). 280 pages.

Available at  Amazon US



Search for 'Petits Chanteurs' and 'Knabenchor' at AbeBooks.co.uk

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