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Trinity College Choir > History of the Choir
History of the Choir
Trinity College's choral associations date back to the establishment of King's Hall by Edward II in 1317 (Chaucer's 'Solar Hall' in the Canterbury Tales). This College, incorporated by Edward III in 1337, was amalgamated with an adjacent early 14th century foundation, Michaelhouse, when Henry VIII created Trinity in 1546. From the time of Edward II, Chapel Royal choristers, on leaving the Court, customarily entered King's Hall to continue their academic studies, alongside other undergraduates training for service in the royal administration.
The constitution of the medieval chapel choir remains obscure, but the choral foundation which Mary Tudor established in 1553 (ten choristers, six lay-clerks, four priests, an organist, and a schoolmaster) survived essentially unchanged for over 300 years. Among the musicians associated with the choir during this time were the Tudor composers Thomas Preston, Robert Whyte and John Hilton; Robert Ramsay was organist just before the Commonwealth, and Thomas Walmisley during the earlier 19th century.
At the turn of the 20th century, shortly after Ralph Vaughan Williams had graduated from Trinity and Alan Gray had succeeded Stanford as Organist, the College choir-school closed down. Thereafter, a choir of boy trebles (holding scholarships at a local grammar school), lay-clerks (some of whom shared their duties with the choirs of King's and St John's Colleges) and students continued the regular pattern of choral services until the 1950s. This traditionally-constituted body then gave way to a choir of undergraduate tenors and basses during Raymond Leppard's tenure as Director of Music, to be replaced in turn when the mixed choir was formed by Richard Marlow in 1982.
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