Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/351

CHAPELLE. of a prince or other great personage, and the Kapell-meister is the conductor or director. Cappella pontificale is the term for the whole body of singers in the Pope's service, the cantatori cappellani, the cantatori apostolici, and the cantatori pontificali.

The word 'capella' is said to be derived from the cape of S. Martin, on which solemn oaths used to be taken. Thence it came to mean the building containing the cape, and thence the musicians, also the vestments, and the vessels of the building. [ G. ]

CHAPELS ROYAL. Bodies of clergy and lay-clerks who minister at the courts of Christian monarchs; and also the places in which they worship. There are several in England—viz., at St. James's Palace, Whitehall, and St. George's, Windsor, etc. From the 'Liber Niger Domus Regis' (1461), the earliest known record on the subject, we learn that in Edward IV's reign there was a well-established Chapel Royal, consisting of a dean; a confessor to the household; 24 chaplains and clerks variously qualified—by skill in descant, eloquence in reading, and ability in organ-playing; 2 epistlers, ex-chorister-boys; 8 children; a master of the grammar school; and a master of the children, or master of song.

The term Chapel Royal is now usually applied to that at St. James's Palace. The chapel is between the Colour Court and the Ambassadors' Court. The establishment consists of the Dean, the Lord High Almoner; the Clerk of the Closet, and 2 deputies; the sub-dean; 48 chaplains; 8 priests in ordinary, a master of the children; one lay composer; one lay organist and chapel-master or choir-master; 8 lay gentlemen and 10 boys; 1 sergeant of the vestry; 1 groom of ditto; and other attendants.

The service is a full choral one, at 10 a.m., 12 noon, and 5.30 p.m. on Sundays, and at 11 a. m. on feast-days. The boys are educated at the cost of the chapel, and as a rule sing there only. The chief musical posts of the establishment are at present held as follows:—Master of the Children, Rev. Thos. Helmore, one of the priests in ordinary; Composer, Sir John Goss; Organist and Choir-master, Mr. C. S. Jekyll.

The Chapel Royal at (Banqueting House) is under the same chief officers as St. James's—but is now attended only once a year by the choir of that establishment in the special service of Maundy Thursday, on the afternoon of Thursday in Holy Week, when gifts called 'Benevolences' are distributed by the Lord High Almoner to certain poor people, as many in number as the sovereign is years old. The ceremony is a relic of a service which included washing the feet of the poor, of the same nature with that performed by the Pope on the same day. That pan of it, however, as well as the distribution of fish and bread before the second lesson, has long been discontinued.

The following special anthems were formerly eung in the course of the service:—'Hide not thou thy face from us, O Lord' (Farrant), 'Prevent us, O Lord' (Byrd), 'Call to remembrance, O Lord' (Farrant), 'O praise the Lord all ye heathen' (Croft). They are now varied each year.

The Chapel Royal of the (Strand) is a Chapel Royal in name only. The appointment of minister is in the gift of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the service is dependent on the taste or ability of the minister, as in any other ordinary chapel. [ T. H. ]

CHAPERONS BLANCS, LES. A comic opera in three acts; the libretto by Scribe, the music by Auber. Produced in Paris April 9, 1836. [ G. ]

CHAPPELL & CO. This musical firm commenced business in January 1812, at 124 New Bond Street, previously tenanted by Goulding, D'Almaine, & Co. The firm consisted of Samuel Chappell, John Baptist Cramer, and Francis Tatton Latour. At the expiration of seven years, J. B. Cramer retired, and Chappell & Co., requiring more space, removed to a nearly opposite house, 50 New Bond Street. Recent enlargements have increased the premises to three houses in Bond St., and the site of a former stableyard as well as of large back gardens of three houses in George Street. The first partnership is noticeable for the establishment of the Philharmonic Society, all the business arrangements for which were made at No. 124. Mr. Chappell further lent his house for the meetings of the Directors, and refreshed the weary ones. J. B. Cramer was then at the zenith of his fame, and the spirit would sometimes move him to play until one, two, or three in the morning, to the great delight of his auditors. When the society had become firmly established, a silver teapot was presented to the lady of the house. At the end of the second term of partnership (1826), Latour withdrew, and carried on a separate business until 1830, when he sold it to his former partner. Samuel Chappell died Dec. 1834, and the business was then carried on for the widow by her sons,—William, the eldest, being 25 years old. Desiring to propagate a knowledge of the music of the Madrigalian era, William (in 1840) projected the Musical Antiquarian Society, which held its meetings and rehearsals at No. 50. He edited Dowland's songs for the Society, and also edited and published (1838–40) a 'Collection of National English Airs,' giving their pedigrees and the anecdotes connected with them, with an essay on minstrelsy in England. This was afterwards expanded into his 'Popular Music of the Olden Time' (2 vols. 1855–59). The business was greatly extended by Thomas Chappell, under a family arrangement by which his elder brother left, and bought the half of the business carried on under the name of Cramer & Co., with the late T. F. Beale as his partner. It was under Thos. Chappel's management that the great extension of the buildings took place, and he was the projector of the Monday Popular Concerts, and the Saturday Popular Concerts which sprang out of them, both of which have owed their success in