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During the service the thirty-ninth Psalm, Luther's Hymn, and two chorales were sung. The Prince of Wales bore up with a brave effort, now and then seeking to soothe his young brother, who, with swollen eyes and tear-stained face, when the long wail of the dirge smote upon his ear, sobbed as if his heart were breaking. At the words "To fall asleep in slumber deep, Slumber that knows no waking,"
He played the flute and the lute, and in church he introduced congregational singing, in which the people took an active part in worship by means of the chorales.
The account of the rejoicings of the simple Coburg people, and especially of the children, over their beloved Prince, and over the visit of his august wife, is really very touching. Their offerings and tributes were mostly flowers, poems and music wonderfully sweet chorales and gay reveils and inspiriting marches.
We had the pleasure of hearing the town organist play Bach for an hour. He began with a few Bach chorales, then came A Mighty Fortress is Our God; followed by the A minor prelude and fugue, and the Wedge fugue. The general diapasonic quality is noble, the wood stops soft, the mixtures without brassy squealing, and the full organ sends a thrill down your spine, so mellow is its thunder.
During the later years of César Franck's earthly existence, he produced several masterpieces. Among them the Violin Sonata, composed for Eugene and Théophile Ysaye, the D minor Symphony, the String Quartet, the two remarkable piano pieces, Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, Prelude, Aria and Finale, and finally the Three Chorales for organ, his swan song.
Thomas, he said, Zinzendorf had heard the negroes sing Luther's fine "Gelobet seiest"; at Gnadenthal, in South Africa, Ignatius La Trobe had heard the Hottentots sing Grummer's "Jesu, der du meine Seele"; in Antigua the negroes could sing Hassler's "O Head so full of bruises"; and therefore, he said, he naturally concluded that chorales which were not above the level of Negroes and Hottentots could easily be sung, if they only tried, by Englishmen, Scotchmen and Irishmen of the nineteenth century.
Then, not only is the physical suffering of Christ insisted on in this way, but the chorales, recitatives, and songs lay still greater stress upon it, either directly, by actual description, or indirectly, by uttering with unheard-of poignancy the remorse supposed to be felt by mankind whose guilt occasioned that suffering.
Choirs of boys gathered and performed their dance to the sound of flute and lyre, and the best of them were chosen to act characters; the songs written for these occasions were known as chorales; and the ancient lyric poetry abounded in such compositions. But I need not confine myself to the Greeks.
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