O'Malley's 'sight singing and harmony' method: A nineteenth-century pedagogical oddity

This article documents the development and promotion of a choral music pedagogy devised and employed by a Jesuit priest, Joseph O'Malley, during the latter part of the nineteenth century in Australia. Several similar methods employing the principle of solmisation - the use of sol-fa syllables as a mnemonic aid to sight singing-were developed in Britain as part of what Percy Scholes has described as 'a most extraordinary mania' for choral singing during the nineteenth century. All of these methods were essentially Protestant in origin and most had a dual purpose in both promoting congregational hymn singing and fulfilling a philanthropic role through the social reform of the working class population in Britain. O'Malley's method, however, was not intended to achieve social reform, but rather to promote Catholic worship and education. This article argues that O'Malley's 'Sight Singing and Harmony' method represents a manifestation in Australia of the Cecilian reform movement that had swept through Western Europe and, after some liberalisation, resulted in the development of a vernacular hymnody in the Catholic Church. Moreover, whether by design or otherwise, O'Malley's method represents a major departure from the pedagogical approaches to teaching sight singing that had originated from Protestant sources. Indeed, O'Malley promoted his method in opposition to British pedagogical approaches being employed in the overtly secular school systems established by the Victorian and New South Wales education departments.