Trinity College Chapel Choir: Profiling Chorister Perceptions

Trinity College Chapel Choir: Profiling Chorister Perceptions Kerry Houston (bio) and Marita Kerin (bio) The Trinity College Dublin Chapel Choir is an institution that dates from the seventeenth century. Until recently, however, very little information existed on the chapel choristers themselves. The current study, which is the first study of the chapel choristers to be published, is designed to fill this lacuna. It is composed of two parts, which will be shared across two issues of Studies. This first part covers the findings from an investigation into how current chapel choristers view the musical, spiritual, and social aspects of their experience, revealing new cultural perspectives of affiliation, achievement and agency. But first a historical overview of the Chapel Choir at Trinity College. A short history of the Chapel Choir Trinity College is the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin and was founded in 1592 under a royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I. The Chapel Choir has been a central part of the life of the College since its foundation. The present building is the third chapel on the campus. The first chapel seems to date from the early years of the College, although details are not easily discernible from surviving records. The first degree in music was awarded to Thomas Bateson (organist of Christ Church cathedral) in 1612.1 The role of music in the first chapel is difficult to establish from surviving documents, but there is a reference to Thomas Patrickson as the 'present organist' in 1675, which confirms the existence of an organ in the chapel and also suggests that Patrickson was not the first organist. There are no surviving documents to indicate what his duties were, what type of music was performed in the chapel, or who performed it. Things became a little clearer in the eighteenth century. The second chapel for the College was consecrated on 5 October 1684. A new organ was provided by the renowned builder Lancelot Pease.2 The organ case from this chapel is now preserved in the Public Theatre of the College and is Ireland's oldest extant organ case. The case has recently been restored to its former glory and houses a new instrument from Goetze and Gwynn. It seems that in the eighteenth-century musicians from the Dublin cathedrals of Christ Church and Saint [End Page 30] Patrick's were involved in the provision of music in the college chapel. This is supported by manuscripts in the college archives in the hand of Ralph Roseingrave, who was organist at both Saint Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral (1727–47). Ralph was the younger brother of Daniel Roseingrave, who had been appointed organist of the chapel in 1705.3 The college records mention the appointment of four 'chanters' in 1743. Their duties included 'attending to the organ in chanting and singing the psalms'. The first formal Chapel Choir for Trinity College was established by Provost Andrews in 1772, but this seems to have formalized practices that were already in place. Some of the singers in the Chapel Choir at Trinity were also members of Christ Church and/or Saint Patrick's Cathedral choirs. This was not always entirely satisfactory, as music historian John Skelton Bumpus recorded in the events of Trinity Monday 1801: It happened that some seven or eight of the guests assembled an hour before dinner in the ante-room, where a quarrel on some trifling matter took place between Dr Spray and Mr Hooper. From words they came to blows, the doctor planting such effective thumps on his brother vicar's nose that the injured organ gave an abundant stream of blood ... [Langrish Doyle] was in the act of shaving at the time and ... rushed out and forcing his way into the room, endeavoured to separate the combatants ...While thus engaged ... in came the senior proctor and the junior dean, accompanied by a whole posse of porters, whose astonishment may be imagined on seeing Doyle with a razor in his hand, Hooper with a shirt as red as a doctor's hood and Spray panting after the fight.4 The vicars were ordered to leave the College and the annual dinners were discontinued, although...