Anthem

   A polyphonic setting of a Christian text, usually Biblical, in English, excluding ordinaries of the mass and traditional canticles such as Magnificat. The term dates from the 11th century, an English cognate of antiphon. English-language sacred music suddenly rose in status when the first Booke of Common Praier (1549) replaced liturgical Latin with English. By the 17th century, "anthem" commonly referred to sacred vocal music of the Anglican Church.

   Early post-Reformation sources, the Wanley and Lumley Partbooks (c. 1546–1548 and c. 1549), contain mostly anonymous anthems setting texts from the Bible, from the Booke of Common Praire, and metrical psalms in four-voiced textures typical of Flemish counterpoint. Clarity of diction was important. Anthems continued to parallel continental developments in the late 16th century, including explicit use of solo singers in verse anthems, which began to outnumber full anthems by the turn of the 17th century. After the Restoration, Matthew Locke (c. 1621–1677) and Humphrey Pelham (1647/8–1674) brought from their European travels operatic textures and the use of organ and various solo instruments to articulate with voices ever more ambitious musical structures, culminating in the Coronation Anthems of George Frideric Handel. Interest in anthem composition declined along with interest in Anglican liturgy generally from the latter half of the 18th century onward, although interest revived somewhat in the 20th century. Such as were composed, up to the present, reflect the musical idioms of their times. In Morning and Evening Prayer, the anthem should occur after the third collect, according to the 1662 rubric.