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Updated: June 20, 2025
"Why in these days, when for ten years past the Benedictine Sisters have made a study of Latin, when many of them translate from Hebrew and Greek and are skilled in exegesis, when others draw and paint the pages of missals, reviving the art of the illuminators of the Middle Ages, when others again as, for instance, Mother Hildegarde are organists of the highest attainment, you may easily understand that the woman who directs them all, the woman who has created in her Sisterhoods a school of practical mysticism and of religious art, is a very remarkable person; nay, in these days of frivolous devotions and ignorant piety, quite unique."
Richter and Mottl, the only considerable conductors besides Lamoureux whom we had heard in England up to 1896, may be compared with a couple of organists who come here, expecting to find their instruments ready, in fair working order, and accurately in tune.
The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age, whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of seeing this petted son.
There is one paid choir in the country that of Christchurch Cathedral and there are many salaried organists of high culture; but throughout the length and breadth of the land there are voluntary musicians and singers whose devoted efforts do much to keep alive the inspiring practice of sacred song. The buildings in which worship is offered are gradually becoming more worthy of their high purpose.
Other instruments were not neglected, as may be seen from Ann Valentine's "Ten Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin," published in 1798. Another good organist was Jane Clarke, who issued a setting of psalms, as sung at Oxford, in 1808. Coming nearer to our own times, Elizabeth Stirling, who died in 1895, was considered one of the very best of English organists.
The result has been that it has always been the fashion for everybody in the congregation, strangers as well as members, to sing, and this undoubtedly has had a share in doing away with coldness and formality in the service. All this, however, could not have been accomplished without the cordial sympathy and positive help of many great organists and leading singers.
John's churchyard, universally mourned by musical Germany, though his real title to exceptional greatness was not to be read until the next generation. Sebastian Bach was not only the descendant of a widely-known musical family, but was himself the direct ancestor of about sixty of the best-known organists and church composers of Germany.
Lee herself was an improvisatrice of the first class upon the organ; and the two brothers of Miss Wesley, Samuel and Charles, ranked for very many years as the first organists in Europe. "The golden jubilee."
Henry Expert published his fine work, Maîtres Musiciens de la Renaissance, in which he revived a whole century of French music. Alexander Guilmant and André Pirro brought to daylight the works of our seventeenth and eighteenth century organists. Pierre Aubry studied mediaeval music.
That Handel should have been given the post at so early an age points to his ability and trustworthiness of character; it also suggests that efficient organists were rare among the Calvinist musicians. Mainwaring unjustly credited Zachow with Leporin's love of a cheerful glass, and other biographers have perhaps for this reason greatly underrated Zachow's musicianship.
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