A sacred piece of choral music, born in the Renaissance era.
Remember the Mass? in Latin? (and Greek)
Go back and revise it if you've forgotten.
A Mass was the Catholic liturgy. Anthem comes from the Protestant liturgy.
Anthem Definition:
A piece of choral religious music that was used in the Protestant church during the Renaissance period.
It is sung in English
It may be accompanied, but it is usually a cappella.
What's this got to do with the reformation?
Everything.
The reformation (ie when the Christian church went from being one Catholic church to the Catholic church plus several offshoots called "Protestants") in England (where this particular concept comes from) involved several changes being made to worship methods.
One rather important reformation (change) was that the Latin liturgy that had been celebrated in the Mass was not of any use to people who didn't speak Latin. So the services were to be carried out in the vernacular language of the parish (English).
It follows then, that if the musical worship had been sung in Latin, it would now be sung in English.
There are overlaps - in the mass there are specific Latin words like Credo in unum Deum, Gloria in excelsis deo... etc, because the words are set specific texts.
In anthems, there aren't words that are set in the same way, but there will be cameo appearances of things like "Hosanna" - words for which there is no English translation. Although Hosanna isn't a Latin term per se, it was a traditional word of praise used from biblical times, so it's got a shot in both the Mass (if you're interested, read the text of the Sanctus) and in several Anthems.
There will also be a fair share of holy themed words, given its purpose in life.
Common themes are "teacher" "father" "heaven" "glory" "rejoice" and all those golden nuggets of Christian worship patter.
Here you go:
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