The Church Music Society
Registered Charity No. 1200306
President: The Most Reverend Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham
Welcome
The CMS exists to promote the use of church music of the highest quality for the diverse needs of the Christian Church.
We seek to enable performers and worship leaders, composers and scholars, by publishing church music, new and old, not otherwise commercially available, and by providing a platform for research and educational material.
Dr Simon Lindley, 1948-2025
The Church Music Society remembers, with gratitude and great affection, our Vice-President, Dr Simon Lindley, who died on 25 February. Organist and Master of the Music at Leeds Minster 1975-2016, President of the Royal College of Organists 2000-2003 and of the Incorporated Association of Organists 2003-2005, he was the long-serving Secretary of the Church Music Society from 1991 to 2023.
For more than three decades Simon was the most prominent public face of the Society and its most tireless ambassador, the most generous of friends to its members and the most enthusiastic advocate for its work.
He was a consummate musician, deeply appreciative of and knowledgeable about church music across the denominational spectrum, and a great, though humble servant of all that is best in worship in the house of God. May he rest in peace.
News and Updates
New Publications include a reconstruction of the Magnificat & Nunc dimittis by Daniel Roseingrave, composed for Winchester Cathedral in the 1680s, the Ascension Hymn (1913) by Charles Wood, and two new contrafacta of madrigals by Robert Pearsall adapted by Patrick Russill: Two Eucharistic Motets - O salutaris Hostia and Tantum ergo.
Forthcoming Publications
Plans include a collection of Restoration-period music for upper voices, edited by Myles Hartley, and two motets for Compline or evening use, settings of the Salva nos Domine by Italian composers active in England, Alfonso Ferrabosco and Thomas Lupo.
Free Music Downloads
Three settings of the Evening Canticles have now been added to Music Downloads: a new reconstruction of the The Sixth Service by Thomas Weelkes, a setting in E Major from 1812 by Exeter-based composer Lucy Moseley (currently the earliest-known Magnificat & Nunc dimittis by a female composer), and a recent Magnificat & Nunc dimittis for upper voices and organ by CMS member Norman Harper. Harper's Mass for Lower Voices (ATB & organ) has also been added.
Lectures and Papers
The Lectures and Papers section of the website now contains scans of nearly all the past lectures and papers issued by the society. The most recent addition to the collection is the second instalment of the General Editor's survey of the Alternative Canticles at Evensong: "David's Mystery and Mary's History", covering the period 1660-1750.
Please read our ‘Membership’ page and consider taking up the benefits of becoming a member of the Society.
Please visit our ‘Catalogue’ through which you can order our titles from our publishers, Oxford University Press, or from Banks Music Publications (with 25% discount from Banks if a Society member).
