Talk:Anthem

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With the relaxation of the rule, in England at least, that anthems should be only in English, the repertoire has been greatly enhanced by the addition of many works from the Latin repertory.

Perhaps things are different in England than in the USA, but church musicians I know never refer to Latin-language compositions as anthems, but as motets. So the relaxation you're speaking of allows Latin-language compositions in church services, but not Latin "anthems." --Wahoofive 00:26, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've never considered Britten's "Rejoice in the Lamb" to be an anthem. I always thought of it as a cantata. --User:ranthlee 05:37 9 Feb 06

"Many anthems have been produced on this model (i.e., Stanford's "symphonic techniques") since his time, generally by organists rather than professional composers and often in a conservative style." This seems to me to be unnecessarily and unfairly patronizing. Organists are often also choirmasters and therefore know a great deal about choral writing, and often have every bit as good technique and imagination in composition as "professionals," which, if narrowly defined as those who derive their primary or sole income from commissions, grants, and the like, would include nowadays very few besides John Tavener. And let's be honest, the Anglican Church is rather conservative musically, in the best sense of trying to conserve its traditional roots. The alternative to a "conservative style" is either inaccessibly out-in-left-field music which nobody but academicians wants to hear, or trivial happy-clappy hum-and-strum drivel.

"The Red Flag" isn't a song used by socialists today, as most of the parties using it and it's association are rather socialdemocratic... Socialists will sing "Internationale" or some such. (PogoVanKreuz 14:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Uniquely Anglican?

From what I can see, an Anthem as a form of religious music is not uniquely Anglican. Shouldn't the article say something like "such as Anglican"? Maybe someone with more knowledge can comment. So far as I can tell it sounds like anthem is an Anglican name for a motet. Kjaer (talk) 03:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It devloped vfrom the pre-Reformation motet, but is treated separately within music theory (there's a separate article in Grove for example). David Underdown (talk) 09:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)