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"The music taught," said Christian Ignatuis La Trobe, "is both vocal and instrumental; the former is, however, confined to sacred compositions, congregational, choral, and orchestral, the great object being to turn this divine art to the best account for the service and edification of the Church." It is hardly possible to over-estimate the influence of these schools.
Waiting at the head of that staircase for the beadle, faint strains of music come from very far. In St. Peter's a great choral service like this one going on in the left-hand chapel, becomes a detail lost as in the life of a whole city. March 17. San Stefano Rotondo on that rainy afternoon, the extraordinary grandeur of this circular church filled with diffuse white light.
Partly from natural disposition, partly from weight of responsibility, he had always been a grave, steady youth, one of those whom their contemporaries rank as sticks and muffs, because not exalted by youthful spirits or love of daring. His mother and brother had always been his primary thought; and his recreations were of the sober-sided sort the chess club, the institute, the choral society.
In Denmark, Emma Dahl flourished as a singer and composer during the middle of the last century, and published many melodious songs in her own and the Scandinavian countries. Valborg Aulin is a more recent writer of songs, of which she has issued a respectable number. Her choral work is of excellent quality, and has enabled her to carry off more than one prize in musical competitions.
Cannot the whole world produce one man, who, with all the expanded musical knowledge of the present day, can unite for us Italian gift of melody and German power of orchestral and choral effect, whose endowments shall be both lyric and dramatic, and whose taste shall be pure, refined, and ennobling?
His treatment of recitative is perhaps his strongest point, for in spite of the beauty of one or two isolated songs, such as the famous 'Bois épais' in 'Amadis' and Charon's wonderful air in 'Alceste, his melodic gift was not great, and his choral writing is generally of the most unpretentious description. But his recitative is always solid and dignified, and often impassioned and pathetic.
It was a saint's-day evening, and consequently chapel was at a quarter past six instead of six, and the undergraduates wore surplices in chapel instead of their ordinary gowns. On saints'-days there is always a choral service at Saint Werner's College, and the excellence of the choir generally attracted a large congregation.
We went and sat, for the choral service, under the bust of Macaulay, and, looking down, we found with a shock that we had our feet upon his grave.
"Never, dearest Stella, have I enjoyed myself as I do in this delightful country house twenty-seven at dinner every day, without including the neighbors a little carpet dance every evening we play billiards, and go into the smoking room the hounds meet three times a week all sorts of celebrities among the company, famous beauties included such dresses! such conversation! and serious duties, my dear, not neglected high church and choral service in the town on Sundays recitations in the evening from Paradise Lost, by an amateur elocutionist oh, you foolish, headstrong child! why did you make excuses and stay in London, when you might have accompanied me to this earthly Paradise? are you really ill? my love to Lady Loring and of course, if you are ill, you must have medical advice they ask after you so kindly here the first dinner bell is ringing, before I have half done my letter what am I to wear? why is my daughter not here to advise me," etc., etc., etc.
Take up a daily newspaper, published any time between April and August, and range your eye down the third or fourth column of the first page what an endless array of announcements of music, vocal and instrumental! Music for the classicists; music for the crowd; symphonies and sonatas; ballads and polkas; harmonic societies; choral societies; melodists' clubs; glee clubs; madrigal clubs.