210 



CHOREA 



CHORUS 



Cliore'a (Gr. choreia, 'a dancing' or 'jumping'), 

 a disease popularly called St Vitus's Dance, and con- 

 sisting of a tendency to involuntary and irregular 

 muscular contractions of the limbs and face, the 

 mind and the functions of the brain generally being 

 quite unaffected. The spasms of chorea differ from 

 those of most other convulsive affections in being 

 unaccompanied either by pain or by rigidity ; 

 being, in fact, momentary jerking movements, 

 indicating rather a want of control of the . will 

 over the muscles than any real excess of their con- 

 tractions. In some cases the disease resembles 

 merely an exaggeration of the restlessness and 

 ' fidgetiness ' common among children ; in others 

 it goes so far as to be a very serious malady, and 

 may even threaten life. Fatal cases, however, are 

 fortunately very rare, and in the large majority of 

 instances the disease yields readily to treatment 

 carefully pursued, or disappears spontaneously in a 

 few weeks or months. Chorea is a disease much 

 more common among children of six years old and 

 upwards than at any other period of life ; it is 

 also more common among female children than 

 among males. Not infrequently it follows a fright 

 or other mental shock, or the strain of overwork. 

 In a large proportion of cases it is associated with 

 acute rheumatism (rheumatic fever), or with heart- 

 disease ( endocarditis ). The treatment generally 

 pursued is the use of metallic tonics, such as zinc, 

 copper, iron, and arsenic (the last, perhaps, the 

 best), sometimes preceded or accompanied by pur- 

 gatives. Anti-rheumatic remedies are in some 

 cases very valuable. Exercise in the open air is 

 also to be recommended ; and gymnastics afford 

 material aid in the cure. It is to be observed that 

 the name St Vitus's Dance was applied originally 

 in Germany to a different form of disease from that 

 above referred to one closely approaching in its 

 characters the epidemic ' dancing mania,' which, in 

 Italy, was called Tarantism. See ViTUS (ST), and 

 (under Tarantula) TARANTISM. 



Cliorion. See PLACENTA. 



Chorley, a busy town in North Lancashire, 9 

 miles SE. of Preston by rail. It has thriving 

 manufactures of cotton-yarn, jaconets, muslins, 

 fancy goods, calicoes, and ginghams. Railway 

 wagons are also built, and in the vicinity are 

 bleach-fields, print-works, coal-mines, and stone 

 quarries. Pop. (1881) 19,472 ; (1891)23,082. 



Chorley, HENRY FOTHERGILL, musical critic, 

 was born at Blackley Hurst, in Lancashire, 15th 

 December 1808, and was educated in Liverpool. 

 He became a member of the staff' of the Athcnieum 

 in 1833, and soon had entire charge of the musical 

 department, from which he retired in 1868 ; he 

 contributed also very many literary reviews. He 

 published some half-dozen artificial and unsuccess- 

 ful romances, three acted dramas, and some grace- 

 ful verse ; but it is by his Music and Manners in 

 France and Germany ( 1841 ) and his charming 

 Thirty Years' Musical Recollections (1862) that his 

 name is best known to the reading public. He 

 held very decided opinions in music (hostile to 

 Berlioz and Wagner), and expressed them uncom- 

 promisingly ; and his insight was perhaps discrim- 

 inating rather than profound. He died 16th Feb- 

 ruary 1872. See the Autobiography, Memoir, and 

 Letters, edited by H. G. Hewlett (1873). 



Choroid. See EYE. 



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. The choral 

 dances in honour of Bacchus, which superseded the 

 earlier ones to Apollo, were by their combination 

 "with the rhythmic recitations of the Rhapsodes, 

 the origin of the Greek tragedy. In the plays as 



known to us the chorus consisted of a group of 

 persons boys, girls, or men who remained in front 

 of the stage during the whole performance as 

 spectators, or rather as witnesses. When a pause 

 took place in the acting, the chorus either sang or 

 spoke verses having reference to the subject repre- 

 sented, which served to increase the impression or 

 sensation produced by the performers. At times 

 the chorus seemed to take part with or against the 

 persons in the drama, by advice, comfort, exhorta- 

 tion, or dissuasion. In the comedy the chorus also 

 addressed the audience. In the time of ^Kschylus 

 the chorus was very large, sometimes consisting 

 of upwards of fifty persons, but the chorus of 

 Sophocles numbered only fifteen. Its leader was 

 termed the Coryphaeus. The charge of organising 

 it was considered a great honour among the citizens 

 of Athens. The person appointed for this purpose 

 was called the choragus. The honour was very 

 expensive, as the choragus had to pay all the 

 expenses incurred in training the members of the 

 chorus to perform their parts efficiently. They 

 were, besides, fed and lodged by him during train 

 ing-time, and he had also to provide for them 

 masks and dresses. At times the chorus 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, Anti- 

 strophe, and Epode. How the musical element of 

 the ancient chorus was constituted or composed is 

 not known with any certainty. It was pre- 

 eminently founded on rhythm, the employment of 

 which was very varied ; and it was doubtless very 

 simple. It was accompanied by flutes. With the 

 decline of the ancient tragedy, the chorus 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 Messina. 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, which to our ears would probably 

 sound very bare and rude. Three fragments of a 

 Greek hymn of a late Roman period (from a 

 Neapolitan manuscript, and the Florentine work of 

 Galilei), which are the only extant remains of Greek 

 music, have been transcribed in modern notation in 

 Rowbotham's History of Music, vol. ii., and also in 

 Chappell*s History of Music, vol. i. They are of 

 interest as being connected with the origin of the 

 modern opera. In his later operas Wagner pro- 

 fesses to assign to the orchestra the functions of 

 the Greek chorus. 



In modern music the word is applied to vocal 

 pieces in which each part is intended to be sung by 

 a considerable number of voices ; and also to . the 

 body of singers who perform choral music. The 

 number of parts may vary from unison to as many 

 as forty or fifty ; the normal number is four, but 

 five and eight parts are also frequent. When the 

 voices are divided into two choirs, it is called a 

 double chorus. A chorus for both male and female 

 voices is termed a mixed chorus. The forms of 

 chorus are more varied than those of solo music, 

 and the most characteristic are imitative, or 

 contrapuntal, of which the fugue is the most 

 regular type. They may also be in simple harmony, 

 or a combination of the two. Choral recitative is 

 sometimes introduced ; a solo voice, or even a solo 

 instrument, may be accompanied by chorus, or solo 

 and chorus may answer antiphonally. A chorus- 

 sung without accompaniment is called a capella. 

 The earliest extant form is the unisonal Plainsong 

 (q.v.) of the Roman Church. In oratorio music,, 

 Bach's great Passion Music may be cited as con- 

 taining nearly every form of chorus, from those- 

 constructed with figured parts upon a canto fermo v 



