choirbook

English

Etymology

Compound of choir +‎ book.

Noun

choirbook (plural choirbooks)

1. (historical) A hymnal large enough to be used by an entire choir at once in a church or cathedral, and showing all the parts to be sung, used during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
   • 2011, David J. Rothenberg, The Flower of Paradise: Marian Devotion and Secular Song in Medieval and Renaissance Music, page 154:

     Whereas the four who hover behind Mary sing a cantilena-style Ave regina caelorum from rotuli, the angelic choir in heaven is divided into two groups, each of which sings from a choirbook on a lectern.

   • 2015, Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, page 202:

     Antonio Gardano, who began printing music in 1538, did not produce a folio choirbook until 1562, when both an edition of magnificats by Morales and a volume of masses by Kerle appeared from his press.

   • 2016, Jesús A. Ramos-Kittrell, Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race, and Status in New Spain:

     As choirbook carriers, children were in charge of taking the full-sized volumes (close to ninety pounds in average weight) from the shelves to the lectern for religious services or whenever the boys received musical instruction.

   • 2017, Daniele Filippi, Michael J. Noone, Listening to Early Modern Catholicism, page 117:

     Ecclesiastical institutions on the Iberian peninsula, however, demanded choirbooks of a monumental size that went beyond the royal folio typically employed for publications by Italian and northern European composers.

   • 2017, Jean-Paul Montagnier, The Polyphonic Mass in France, 1600-1780, page 25:

     The choirbook layout is very likely the main physical characteristic of the polyphonic masses published in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: only eight of them were brought out in separate parts, two by Jean de Bournonville (1612), two by Charles d'Ambleville (1636), three by Nicolas Formé (1638) and one by Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy (1661).

2. A hymnal, especially one used by members of a choir.
   • 1855, Q. K. Philander Doesticks, Doesticks: What He Says, page 113:

     Asked her to play a waltz , and handed her a choirbook —opened at " Corinth " and " Silver street ” — found I was wrong, and turned over the leaf to "Sinners turn, why will ye die?"—discovered that all was not right yet, and then requested her to play some sacred music, and in my anxiety to get the right notes this time, placed before her the "Jenny Lind Polka," which she at once began to play—I attempting to sing the words of "Old Hundred," which didn't seem to jibe.

   • 1991, Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, page 251:

     For these reasons, the best speculation seems to be that Anne carried the choirbook with her when she left Malines for Paris and from there to England.

   • 2004, Wybren Scheepsma, Medieval Religious Women in the Low Countries, page 66:

     Due to a shortage of resources in the early years great frugality would have been the rule, and therefore mediocre singers like Trude van Beveren would not have been given their own choirbook. She would have been compelled for each service to write the (constantly changing) text on a slate.

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Spanish: santoral (es) m, libro de coro m