Figure 1.-- This is a portrait of a boys' choir in San Franciso during the 1890s. Notice the lady. We are not sure who she is. We doubt if she is the choir master. I doubt if she sang, but she could be the organist or perhaps one of the mothers. We do not know the name of the church. We believe it is an Anglican church. The Catholic Church in America did not have a tradition of boy choirs. Catholics only begun emigratging to America in the mid-19th century with the Irish first. The tradition of boy choirs had by this time largely died out in Catholic Europe.

Most of the boy choirs we see in the 1890s are English, we believe all Anglican choirs from the great cathedrals. One of the best known images of English cathedral choirs was painted by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910). He was a an English Pre-Raphaelite artist. He entiteled it 'May Morning on Magdalen Tower' (1890). Magdalen Tower is a bell tower that forms part of Magdalen College, Oxford. It is one of thev oldest parts of the College and situated directly in the High Street. Construction took nearly 20 years and was completd (1509). It is the central focus for the religiou celebrations in Oxford on May Morning which is the subject of the painting. Hunt first attended the traditional May Morning ceremony and made initial observations (1888). The Walker Art Gallery has a watercolor study of the details of the tower, which Hunt apparently studied for several weeks before commencing with his work. The figures are studies of actual individuals. These include individuals from Saint Magdalen College, but the boys are choristers from Westminster Abbey (figure 1). We still do not see any French boy choirs. We suspect that some cathedrals and churches had chours, but to what extent boys were involved we do not know. We know of no residential French boy choirs. We know that there were German boy choirs, but we do not yet know much about them. We do not yet have information on residential choirs in Germany. What was to become the Vienna Choir Boys still in the Emperor's Chapel and were outfitted in military uniforms. And there were some American boy choirs. We think they were again all Anglican non-residentil choirs., the product of Anglican missionaries who brought the choral tradition to American beginning in the mid-19th century. All of these choirs were church choirs singing music to enrich religious services. We still do not see any examples of the modern concet choir.

Created: 8:27 PM 12/17/2012
Last updated: 8:27 PM 12/17/2012