CHORUS, among the ancients, meant a band of singers and dancers employed on festive occasions of great pomp, and also in the performance of tragedy and comedy on the stage. In the time of the Attic tragedy, the C. consisted of a group of persons, male and female, who remained on the stage during the whole performance as specta tors, or rather as witnesses. When a pause took place in the acting, the C. either sang or spoke verses having reference to the subject represeuted, which served to increase the impression or sensation produced by the performers. At times, the C. seemed to take part with or against the persons in the drama, by advice, comfort, exhortation, or dissuasion. In early times, the C. was very large, sometimes consisting of upwards of fifty persons. but afterwards it was much reduced. Its leader was termed the cory phieus. The charge of organizing it was considered a great honor among the citizens of Athens:. The person appointed for this purpose was called the cleoragus. The honor was very expensive, as the choragus had to pay all the expenses incurred in training the members of the C. to perform their parts efficiently. They were, besides, fed and lodged by him during training-time, and he had also to provide for them masks and dresses. At times, the C. was divided, and spoke or sang antiphonally. These divisions moved from side to side of the stage, from which movement originated the naming of the single songs or stanzas, such as strophe, antistrophe, and epode. llow the musical element of the ancient C. was constituted or composed, is not known with any certainty. Possibly, it was only a kind of rhythmical declamation, and doubtless very simple. It was accompanied by flutes in unison. With the decline of the aneient tragedy, the C. also fell into disuse; and only lately has there been an attempt to produce the same on the stage in the manner of the ancients, as, for example, in Schiller's Bride of ifemina. The music which has been set in modern times to some of the Greek tragedies, does not give the least idea of the original music.
In modern times, by C. is understood the union of singers or musicians for the joint performance of a musical work C. is also the name given to a musical com position for numerous voices, either with or without accompaniment, and iutended to express the united feelings of a multitude. The musical C. is the only artistic means by which a simultaneous movement or sentiment of n multitude can be represented in the drama, the language or text being always of a simple rhythm, permitting only of a limited movement suited to the combination of a mul titude. It is, however, not always necessary that every part of the C. should mani fest the same feeling or sentiment. Two or more parts of the C. may act against each other, as suits the purport of the drama. Double, triple, and quadruple choruses are found in the old Italian compositions for the church. In modern times, the C. is much used, and with great effect, in operas, especially those of Meyerbcer and Wagner. In oratorio, the C. is of the greatest importance, and the numbers now employed to sing the C. far exceed anything, attempted a century ago; but this is not always an advan tage, for the tempi must necessarily be taken much more slowly, which has a sluggish effect; while increase in the number of voices does not always produce a greater power of sound. The C. of 35 well-trained voices from the popes chapel, who sang at the coronation of Napoleon I., in the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, produced a far greater and more wonderful effect when they entered singing the Tit es Tetras, than another C. of hundreds of voices, and SO harps, that had been assembled and trained for the same occasion, in expectation of surpassing all that man could imagine. The greater the number, the greater is the difficulty in obtaining unity.—C., in organ-building. is the name given to stops of the mixture species, some of which contain 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or more pipes to each note, tuned at consonant intervals in relation to the fundamental stops.