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41-664: The Schiersteiner choir was founded in 1962 by Johannes Krüger, then cantor at the Christophoruskirche. Since 1972, the choir has been directed by Professor Martin Lutz , who shaped the group of some 40 singers to a large concert choir. Schiersteiner Kantorei performs regularly in the Marktkirche, Wiesbaden , and in Eberbach Abbey , and has conducted tours to England, France, Portugal, and Switzerland. The choir

82-451: A cantor , also called a chanter (Greek: ψάλτης , romanized:  psaltes , lit.   'singer'; Church Slavonic : пѣвецъ , romanized:  pievets ), is a monk or a lay person in minor orders who chants responses and hymns in the services of the church. There are several titles for the psaltes , which depend on the recognition of his capabilities as a chanter, sometimes connected with an employment, by

123-568: A curious dance with clearly pagan origins known as Cornomania , on the Saturday following Easter , on the Lateran Square in Rome . He would wear a wreath with horns on his head, swing a rattle with bells, scatter laurel leaves, and cry out in an unknown language, "Iaritan, iaritan, iariariasti; raphayn, iercoin, iariariasti" . Several institutions today have modeled themselves after

164-411: A dull and monotonous manner. The singers filled them with great richness and variety. This employment of trained singers acted as a precursor to the institution which was later reorganized by Pope Gregory I. The purpose of the schola was to teach both singing techniques and the plainsong repertory learned by the oral tradition. However, it was Pope Gregory I who standardized the liturgical repertory on

205-560: A firm basis. This Roman school lasted a period of nine years which furnished the choir at most of the papal functions and was facilitated by the cantor . When Pope Gregory I was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 590, he founded the Schola Cantorum. This was the school of singers which established the authoritative delivery of the musical liturgy for all of Europe. Of the schools that were directed by

246-860: A lecture. The services are held at both the Marktkirche and the Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt , in a collaboration with the Kantorei St. Katharinen and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt . Recordings have included Bach's St John Passion (2003) and St Matthew Passion (2006), with Christoph Prégardien as the Evangelist , Konrad Jarnot and Klaus Mertens as the Vox Christi , soprano Siri Thornhill , alto Matthias Rexroth and bass Markus Flaig . In 2009,

287-474: A new dignity. Music, in particular had its own place in these newly constructed basilicas. As the early church of Jerusalem spread westward to Western Europe, it brought along musical elements from diverse areas. It was during this time that the Schola Cantorum made its first appearance at the service of liturgical celebration. The Lombards, Franks, and Goths dominated the face of Western Europe in

328-517: A perfectly smooth, flowing kind of melody. Instructors often pushed their pupils to their limits, as they recognized that pure legato was essential in perfecting the chant. The employment of professional singers in the church played a prominent role in the development of the simple plain chant. The singers had mastered a style united with a technical finish of elegance and began to flourish their singing with ornamentation which had existed during classical times. These chants were not easy, nor sung in

369-502: A simple unison chant to a highly developed polyphonic choral style. Singing was usually performed by the clergy, however in 367, the Council of Laodicea banned congregational singing and placed the musical service in the hands of the trained choir. With trained singers for the musical part of the liturgy, the clergy could focus their attention to what was most important, and that was their office. Pope Sylvester’s Schola Cantorum of Rome

410-580: Is the chief singer, and usually instructor, employed at a church, with responsibilities for the choir and the preparation of the Mass or worship service . The term is also used for a similar task in Reform Judaism and in Ancient Egypt . Generally, a cantor must be competent to choose and conduct the vocals for the choir, to start any chant on demand, and to be able to identify and correct

451-537: The Marktkirche, Wiesbaden , and in Eberbach Abbey . The orchestra is the Bach Ensemble Wiesbaden, formed by leading musicians of orchestras in the Rhine-Main area . Works of Viennese Classicism and Romanticism are presented in historically informed performance . Since 2004, the choir has been part of a project to perform all Bach sacred cantatas as part of monthly services, introduced by

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492-618: The "Second Domestikos of the Great Church" who assisted the first, then to proceed in the office of the teacher, and later even to the Lampadarios , who often replaced the left choir as a soloist called "monophonares" (see Kontakarion ), and finally this career was sometimes continued by the promotion to the "Protopsaltes or Archon Psaltes (ἄρχοντες ψάλται) of the Great Church" of the Ecumenical Patriarchate . In

533-695: The Church. When the pope visited France with his court, the Frankish King Pepin the Short could not help but admire the customs of Roman liturgy. Pepin realized that these customs could help to ensure religious unity throughout his territories and thus strengthen their political unity. The King therefore adopted the Roman liturgy and mixed it with the Gallican chant repertory. The overall structure of

574-479: The Greek tradition, a chanter will often wear the exorason , a black outer cassock with angel-wing sleeves. The Slavic tradition—which tends more commonly to use a choir rather than a cantor—assigns no specific vestment to the chanters, unless an individual has been ordained a Reader , in which case he would wear only the inner cassock ( podryasnik ) and put on the sticharion when he receives Holy Communion . In

615-604: The Greek tradition, the chanters are stationed at a psalterion, a chanting podium positioned to the south and sometimes also to the north side of the sanctuary. In the Slavic tradition, the chanters are similarly positioned, and the area is referred to as the kliros . [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Cantor ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Schola cantorum (papal choir) The Schola Cantorum

656-583: The Hellenistic world. It is uncertain whether or not Romans made any significant contributions to the theory or practice of music, but historians are certain that their music was derived from the Greeks. Singing is so basic to man that its origins are long lost in antiquity and predate the development of the spoken language. We do know however, that music of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe

697-568: The Roman chant was accepted by the Gallican musicians, but they covered it with a completely different style of ornamentation. The fusion of Roman and Gallican chant evolved into what we now know as Gregorian chant . Charlemagne , the son of Pepin, was also impressed by the superiority of the Roman chanters. He begged Pope Adrian I to assign him two cantors of the Gregorian school. Peter and Romanus were sent out to Francia in 789. Unfortunately, Romanus fell sick and remained behind, but Peter

738-528: The boys' secondary school , and provided music for civic functions. Johann Sebastian Bach ( Thomaskantor in Leipzig ) and Georg Philipp Telemann ( Hamburg ) were among the famous musicians employed under this system. In cathedral churches in the Anglican Communion , the precentor or head cantor is a member of the governing chapter , second in rank to the dean . His stall is opposite

779-554: The choir performed Handel's Solomon at the Marktkirche with Andreas Scholl in the title role, tenor Andreas Karasiak and bass Gotthold Schwarz . In its 50th year, the choir performed Bach's St Matthew Passion in the Marktkirche on 31 March 2012. Cantor (church) In Christianity , the cantor , female chantress , sometimes called the precentor or the protopsaltes ( Greek : πρωτοψάλτης , lit.   'first singer'; from Greek: ψάλτης , romanized:  psaltes , lit.   'singer'),

820-412: The church, pupils with the best voices were chosen for training in the Schola Cantorum. The most talented pupil was called paraphonist and was responsible for singing the solos of the “alleluia”. The studies of the Schola Cantorum lasted a total of nine years. It was a long period because the school made it mandatory for pupils to memorize the chants. During service, only the director or the paraphonists

861-412: The classical era. From these surviving specimens, we can see that primitive music developed in two major ways. The first was that singing was primarily monophonic – that is, melody without harmony or counterpoint. The soloist would sing based on the repetition of two neighboring tones with no accompaniment. The second was of an improvisatory style where the melody and rhythm were intimately bound up with

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902-444: The complex structure of the services. At Constantinople the charge of a protopsaltes was prestigious and connected with Byzantine offices. In the tradition of the cathedral rite at Hagia Sophia , there was a distinction between the leader of the right choir ( Domestikos ) and the leader of the left choir ( Lampadarios ). Still during the last centuries, the usual career was to start (after serving as Protopsaltes of other cathedrals) as

943-407: The conductor or choirmaster . Today, the cantor is a role that can be performed by a lay person. In parishes without a choir, the cantor serves to lead the responsorial singing with the congregation. The cantor's locality in the church is most generally to the right of the choir, and directly to his left is his assistant, formerly called the succentor . A common custom for cantors was the bearing of

984-529: The dean's and the two sides of the divided choir are accordingly known as "decani" (dean's) and "cantoris" (precentor's). In some Evangelical churches, the ministry of the worship leader or worship pastor is to direct the worship during worship service . They also direct rehearsals with the worship team. Training in worship is offered in some Bible colleges . In the Eastern Orthodox , Oriental Orthodox , and Eastern Catholic Churches ,

1025-550: The fourth century AD, Constantine became the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. This conversion led to the proclamation of the Edict of Milan , which decreed religious tolerance throughout the empire. With more and more converts, it was clear that services could no longer be conducted in the informal manner of the early days. This freedom in religion allowed the church to build for large basilicas which made it possible for public worship and for Christians to finally assume

1066-471: The local or Ecumenical Patriarchate . In some smaller communities it is also possible, that the community sings within an oral tradition and without any instruction by a protopsaltes, in other Orthodox Rites, there are various hierarchical offices, which can be passed during a long career, connected with a lifelong process of learning. Particularly in the Byzantine tradition, the cantor in charge of doing

1107-577: The melody and rhythm of poetry. To the west, the Romans left very few traces of musical development partly because it was deliberately suppressed during the persecution of Christians during the first two centuries. Leaders of the early Christian church wanted to exterminate music which had memories associated with the revels and rituals with Roman music. However, it was during this period that art, architecture, music, philosophy, new religious rites, and many other aspects of Greek culture were brought in from

1148-480: The missteps of singers placed under them. A cantor may be held accountable for the immediate rendering of the music, showing the course of the melody by movements of the hand(s) ( cheironomia ), similar to a conductor . Before and after the Second Vatican Council , a cantor in the Roman Catholic Church was the leading singer of the choir, a bona fide clerical role. The medieval cantor of

1189-466: The most skilled in singing were selected to participate in the Schola Cantorum. Due to the lack of a system of notation and theoretical writings, there is very little known about the musical systems prior to the Greeks. Musicians of the middle age did not have a single example of Greek or Roman music. It was not until the Renaissance that historians discovered only a few ancient songs and hymns of

1230-545: The music for a service is referred to as the protopsaltes (Gr. Πρωτοψάλτης), a term which may also refer to an office within a diocese or whole jurisdiction (see Domestikos ), but this title was not used before the 12th century. The cantor or chanters sing the many hymns called for during the Divine Services and the Divine Liturgy . A chanter must be knowledgeable about the ecclesiastical modes as well as

1271-416: The papal Schola Cantorum was called Prior scholae or Primicerius . In medieval cathedrals, the cantor or precentor directed the music and chant, and was also one of the ranking dignitaries of the chapter . During the 14th century in many churches, the cantor began to delegate his instruction of the singers to a master of music . After the introduction of harmonized music, some duties naturally fell to

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1312-428: The rise of polyphony in the eleventh century. The idea of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody accompanied by high and low pitched voices seemed more suitable for ecclesiastic music in the eleventh century. The polyphonic composition was constantly developing up until the seventeenth century when opera began to dominate the musical world of the church. From Rome, the institution spread to other parts of

1353-426: The same language of Latin, they had different texts and music. We know for certain that there existed Beneventan chant, Roman Chant, Ambrosian chant, Hispanic chant, and several types of Gallican chant. Each of these political divisions developed their own repertory of melodies for singing sacred texts. The first Schola Cantorum of Rome was said to be founded by Pope Sylvester in the year of 314. Music evolved from

1394-514: The seventh and early eighth centuries. The idea of unity and centralization was simply unknown during this time so local churches were relatively independent. Each region of the West probably received the Eastern heritage of musical elements in a slightly different form. This caused each region to produce several distinct liturgies and bodies of liturgical music of its own. Although each region shared

1435-549: The staff, which was the mark of his dignity and a visual representative of his sacred role inside the church. This custom still survives in some places. In Protestant churches, the role of the cantor can be lay or pastoral. In Northern European cities, especially in Germany , the title of Cantor or Kantor survived the Reformation , and referred to a musician who supervised the music in several principal churches, taught in

1476-570: Was able to make it to Metz and established a school of Gregorian chant. Nonetheless, the Schola Cantorum played a significant role in the transmission of Roman chant to the Carolingian court of Charlemagne . Several schools were also established in England shortly after the fusion of Roman and Gallican chant. Between the years 876 and 1073, the prior of the Schola is recorded to have performed

1517-546: Was awarded the Culture Prize of the City of Wiesbaden in 1990. As of 2012, the choir's 50th year, it has about 130 singers. Smaller subgroups perform chamber works . The core work of the choir is based on Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel . In addition, most major oratorios and choral works as well as a variety of a cappella pieces are part of the choir's repertoire. Major works are regularly performed in

1558-553: Was derived from the ancient Greeks in terms of form and concept. The singer would sing improvised or monophonic melodies with the rhythm, accent, and movement according to the text. This ancient heritage would greatly influence development of music in Western Europe through the Christian Church. Peace between the Church and the Roman Empire greatly effected the liturgical life and musical practice of Christians. In

1599-461: Was instituted for the study of chants, not for the vocal technique. Chanting in unity was an obvious and a must, but it did not take long for Sylvester to realize that they needed to impart some sort of style onto it. In this, the subject of uniformity was taken up and this inevitably led to the management of breath, which led to the discovery of the fundamental elements of vocal technique. The school of Sylvester demanded that chants were to be sung in

1640-461: Was permitted to have a book. The ensemble consisted of anywhere between twenty and thirty boys or men. Women were not allowed to be a part of the Schola Cantorum. This group of boys and men had to have their head shaved and wore chasubles . The choir, clergy, and congregation, sang the ensembles of the service, leaving the most important parts of the service for the trained vocalists. The chant maintained its dominance in ecclesiastic music up until

1681-463: Was the trained papal choir during the Middle Ages, specializing in the performance of plainchant for the purpose of rendering the music in church. In the fourth century, Pope Sylvester I was said to have inaugurated the first Schola Cantorum, but it was Pope Gregory I who established the school on a firm basis and endowed it. The choir ranged anywhere from twenty to thirty boys or men. Only

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