A PAINTER INCAUTIOUSLY WATCHING EFFECTS (1734).
When Sir James Thornhill was painting the cupola of St. Paul’s and adorning it, as he supposed, with masterpieces of sacred art, he was, like all great painters, absorbed in thought, and was frequently changing and improving his details. One day, when mounted on his lofty scaffold, he moved backwards step by step to view the effect of some of his touches, and had reached the very edge apparently without knowing his danger, for a fall there would have been instant destruction. The artist’s servant, having observed the danger, with great presence of mind instantly threw the contents of a pot of paint over his master. This happy thought had the effect of recalling the absent-minded artist to real life, for he immediately rushed forward to resent the outrage. On the attendant’s object, however, being explained, his wrath was with equal suddenness changed into lively gratitude.
ORIGIN OF CHURCH BELLS.
The Romans used bells in their baths. The Hebrew high priests also wore small bells. When Porsena, King of Etruria, was buried, and a magnificent monument with pyramids at each end was erected, small bells were suspended so delicately that the least breath of wind would sound them. Pope Sabinianus, about 604, in imitation of the bells of Porsena’s tomb, introduced the same in the charnel-houses, for the sound of bells was then supposed to frighten away evil spirits. Hence the bells came to be sounded at funerals, and passing bells have since been common. The goddess of Syria was anciently worshipped with the sound of bells, from which custom it is supposed the Christian Churches took the hint of hanging them in their steeples. The use of bells, however, was not coeval with the Church, for it was a considerable time before the Christians dare openly avow their profession or could venture on the publicity of such a mode of summoning their worshippers. Turkey and Greece are the only countries where the use of large bells has almost been abolished. Greece in this particular has degenerated, and Turkey has at length opposed their reception. The Dutch long excelled in the construction and management of their bells. The large bells of the Netherlands are so well tuned and hung, that any slow melody may be performed upon them with the greatest facility and as perfectly as on a church organ. The church bells were formerly regularly baptised, anointed, exorcised, and blessed by the bishop.The priest sprinkled the bell with holy water, while all the gossips laid hold of the rope, bestowing a name on it.
SANCTITY OF BELLS.
In Spain all the church bells are marked with a crucifix; the devil, it is believed, cannot come within hearing of the consecrated peal. On the hearing of the Ave Maria bell, the Spaniards who happen to be in the theatre, and even the actors on the stage, fall down on their knees, and then rise again and carry on their diversion as before. A French gentleman who happened to be present on one of those occasions was so surprised and diverted that he somewhat irreverently called out, “Encore! encore!” The religious of Rome had great contests about ringing the Ave Maria bell. At length it was adjudged that “they who were first up should first knoll.”
CHIMES ON CHURCH BELLS.
Chimes or carillons were invented in the Low Countries, and were brought to the greatest perfection there. They are of two kinds: one is attached to a cylinder like the back of an organ, which always repeats the same tunes, and is moved by machinery; the other is of a superior kind, played by a musician with a set of keys. In all the great towns there are amateurs or a salaried professor, usually the organist of a church, who performs with great skill upon this gigantic instrument placed high in the church steeple. So fond are the Dutch and Belgians of this kind of music, that in some places the chimes appear scarcely to be at rest for ten minutes either by day or night. The tunes are usually changed once a year. Chimes were in existence at Bruges in 1300. The most eminent performer was Matthias van der Gheyn, who died in 1785. The finest chimes are at Antwerp, composed of sixty-five bells; Mechlin, forty-four bells; Bruges, forty bells; Tournay, forty bells; Ghent, thirty-nine bells; Louvain, forty bells.
THE SWISS HORNS PRAISING THE LORD.
It was a custom at one time among the Swiss shepherds to watch the setting sun. When he had already left the valleys, and was visible only on the tops of the snow-capped mountains, the inhabitants of the cottages which were in the most elevated situations would seize their horns, and, turning towards their next neighbours beneath them, sing out through the instruments the words, “Praise the Lord!” The sounds were then takenup in the same manner by those to whom they were addressed, and again by those lower down, and thus were repeated from Alp to Alp. And the name of the Lord was re-echoed and proclaimed in song, till the music reached the valleys below. A deep and solemn silence then ensued, until the last trace of the sun, when the herdsmen on the mountain tops sang out “Good-night,” which was repeated and re-echoed as the other words had been, till every one retired to rest.
EARLY CHURCH MUSIC.
Over and above the preaching of sermons, which were deemed an important part of the public Christian service, and which shorthand writers employed themselves in taking down for circulation, there was much care given to sacred music and singing of hymns. A choir was often formed. The Psalms, as well as hymns and doxologies, were chanted. Some spiritual songs were composed by Ambrose of Milan and Hilary of Poitiers. But there were always objectors to anything being used in Church music which was not taken from the Sacred Scriptures. In the fourth century the Egyptian abbot Pambo inveighed against the introduction of heathen melodies as too apparent, while the abbot Isidore of Pelusium complained of a style of singing too theatrical, especially among the women. Jerome, in his comments on St. Paul’s Epistles, said that Christians should not be like the comedians, who smoothed their throats with sweet drinks in order to render their theatrical melodies more impressive, but that it was the heart alone which could properly make melody to the Lord.
SINGING IN CHURCH.
It was said that St. Ambrose introduced the method of alternate singing in churches. The whole service in the primitive Church seems to have been of a very irregular kind till the time of Pope Gregory the Great, for the people sang each as his inclination led him, with hardly any other restriction than that what they sang should be to the praise of God. Indeed, some special offices, such as the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed, had been used in the Church service almost from the first establishment of Christianity; but these were too few to prevent the introduction of hymns and spiritual songs. The evil increased, and the Emperor Theodosius requested the then Pope, Damasus, to frame such a service as should be consistent with the solemnity and decency of Divine worship. The Pope readily assented, and employed for thispurpose a presbyter named Hieronymus, a man of learning, gravity, and discretion, who formed a new ritual, into which he introduced the Epistles, Gospels, and the Psalms, with theGloria Patriand Hallelujah. And these, together with certain hymns which he thought proper to retain, made up the whole of the service.
ORIGIN OF SINGING IN CHURCH SERVICES.
The first change in the manner of singing was the substitution of singers (who became a separate order in the Church) for the mingled voices of all ranks, ages, and sexes, which was compared by Ambrose, the great reformer of Church music, to the glad sound of many waters. The antiphonal singing, in which the different sides of the choir answered to each other in responsive verses, was first introduced at Antioch by Flavianus Diodorus. Milman observes that it is not improbable that this system of alternate chanting may have prevailed in the Temple service at Jerusalem. The antiphonal chanting was introduced into the West by Ambrose; and if it inspired or even accompanied theTe Deumusually ascribed to that prelate, we cannot calculate too highly its effect on the Christian mind. So beautiful was the music in the Ambrosian service that the sensitive conscience of the young Augustine took alarm, lest when he wept at the solemn music he should be yielding to the luxury of sweet sounds rather than imbibing the devotional spirit of the hymn. Though alive to the perilous pleasure, he inclined to the wisdom of awakening weaker minds to piety by this enchantment of their hearing. The Ambrosian chant, with its more simple and masculine tones, is still preserved in the church of Milan; in the rest of Italy it was superseded by the richer Roman chant which was introduced by Gregory the Great. The cathedral chanting of England has almost alone preserved the ancient antiphonal system, now discarded by the Roman Catholic Church for its greater variety of instruments.
THE ORGAN IN CHURCH MUSIC.
No instrument, as an accompaniment to human voices in Church music, has been discovered equal to the organ for the power and grandeur of its effects; but being of a great mechanical complexity, it has taken many centuries to bring it to perfection. Rudimentary instruments of the same kind, worked by wind and some by water, are mentioned by the ancients. The hydraulic organ was used for some centuries in preference to the pneumatic organ,but it ceased altogether in the fourteenth century. It is not precisely known at what period the organ was first used for religious purposes, but it seems to have been in common use in Spain about 450. Pope Vitalianus, in 666, saw its advantages in assisting the human voice. In the eighth century both the Anglo-Saxon and French artists began to exert their ingenuity in improving the instrument. Charlemagne first introduced it in Germany, and he sent one as a present to the Caliph. In the ninth century organs came into general use in England, and St. Dunstan showed his ingenuity in improvements. One was made in 951 for Winchester Cathedral. A monk named Theophilus in the eleventh century published a treatise on the art of making the organ. Organs, whether hydraulic or pneumatic, were nearly the only instruments used in churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, all others being rejected, in consequence of abuse and their theatrical effect. There were usually, however, opponents and defenders of the extent to which this accompaniment was resorted to. Peter the Venerable, of Cluny, defended them. St. Augustine had lamented the blindness of the Manicheans in rejecting sacred music. The first organ which appeared in Europe was sent as a present by Constantine Copronymus to Pepin, King of France, in 757, and he placed it in the church of St. Corneille at Compiégne. The secret of these steam organs is now entirely lost. The first organ on the present principle seen in the West was that which Louis Debonnaire placed in the church of Aix-la-Chapelle. It is related of this organ that a woman expired through rapture and surprise at the sweetness of its sound. One of the same kind was mentioned in the annals of Fulda in 828. At the close of the ninth century many skilful organ-builders were drawn to Rome by Pope John VIII. In the tenth century an organ of this kind was placed in Westminster Abbey. So delicious and astonishing was the music of organs and flutes at the consecration of the monastic church of Cava, near Salerno, and such was the harmony of sound and pleasant odours, that the Serene Duke Roger and all the people present thought themselves on the very borders of heaven. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was the custom to place the organ in the choir, but in the fifteenth century a custom arose to remove it to the western extremity of the nave. It was thought before the Council of Trent, in 1545, that the Church music had been carried to an excess, and the council once thought of prohibiting all music except the Gregorian.
AUGUSTINE CONVERTING THE BRITONS WITH MUSIC.
When Augustine came from Italy to England, about the year 596, for the purpose of converting the inhabitants of Britain to Christianity, he and his accompanying missionaries adopted in aid of their devotions a musical service. For some time the people were delighted with so agreeable a novelty, but after a while it gradually ceased to please, and at length met with such violent opposition that it was entirely laid aside. During the papacy of Vitalianus, in 657, one of the principal vocalists in Rome was sent to instruct the Britons in the Italian method of chanting and singing, and the cathedral of Canterbury is entitled to the honour of having been the first church in England in which a regular choral service was performed.
THE EARLIEST HYMNS OF THE CHURCH.
There was always some trace of hymns, as distinguished from the Psalms, being used by Christians. There is some dispute as to the hymn sung by our Lord and His Apostles on the occasion of the Last Supper. Some think it must have been the Hallel or paschal hymn, consisting of Psalms cxiii.-cxviii., which was chanted. In the gaol at Philippi Paul and Silas sang their hymns so loudly that the fellow-prisoners heard them. The Greeks seem to have had only eight tunes of Church music, and the Syrians had two hundred and seventy-five. The earliest known Christian hymn is given by Clemens Alexandrinus, the historian. The learned have disputed whether the Christian Greek hymns were founded on the old Pagan hymns used in the heathen worship. Ambrose, about 360, is thought to have been the first to introduce hymns into the Latin Church, though it is more likely that he merely gave greater impetus to the use of these in the Church services.
MONK MUSICIANS (A.D.945).
It is related that the use of musical notes was found first in the abbey of Corby, in Saxony, about 945. Alfanus, a monk of Mount Cassino, was also considered eminent in the art. In the abbey of St. Gall three great musicians were found at the same time. One of them, Tutilo, seemed to excel in every work of art. He had a clear voice, was an admirable painter, an architect and a preacher, and also could play on flutes and pipes, and taught the children of the nobles how to play on the flute. He was most effective in the choir, and expert at composing verses andmelodies. During the ninth and tenth centuries, the monks of St. Gall were famed for their musical compositions. Once a composition sung by a monk of St. Gall on Easter Day before King Conrad I. was rendered with such power that all the audience were roused to ecstasy. The King, the Queen, and the King’s sister called the performer before them, took off their rings, and put them on his fingers, to signify their intense admiration. It used to be said that the beginning of this excellence at St. Gall was owing to a Roman musician who had fallen sick there while on a journey to Germany, and he was so hospitably treated that, out of gratitude, he instructed the monks in his art. The St. Gall scores were copied in many other monasteries, and musical science was carried to a high pitch of excellence by the modern composer Zingarelli, who used to prepare himself for his finest work by reading some treatise of the Fathers.
NICHOLAS PEREGRINUS, WHO SANG “LORD, HAVE PITY” (A.D.1094).
About 1094 Nicholas became famous in Apulia, when he was eight years old tending his mother’s sheep, for he had an irrepressible tendency to sing aloud incessantly, “Kyrie eleïson” (“Lord, have mercy”), and he never left off this all his life long. His mother sent him to a monastery to have him imprisoned and chastised till he gave up singing his song. But he took his punishment patiently, and went on singing as zealously as before. He made himself a hut, living by himself, but praising God aloud continually. He went to Lepanto, where another monk joined him. He fasted every day till evening; his food was a little bread and water, and yet he did not grow lean. He wore a short vest, his head, legs, and feet being naked. He carried a light wooden cross, a scrip at his side to receive alms, and the alms he converted into fruit to distribute among the boys who willingly joined him in his excursions and in singing his favourite hymn. His oddities provoked some contumely, in which bishops did not scruple to join. But he performed various miracles and had a large following, exhorting the people to repentance. At his death great multitudes joined in his funeral, and many miracles were said to be wrought at his tomb in the cathedral.
HERESY PROPAGATED BY MUSIC (A.D.1150).
Harmonius, son of the famous heretic Bardesanes, a Syrian who lived in the twelfth century, contributed greatly to the propagation of heresy by the fascinating sweetness of the melodieswhich he composed and applied to odes and canticles written against the religion of Christ. So struck was St. Ephraim with their mellifluousness, and so persuaded that they were qualified by their beauty to recommend and spread any doctrine in support of which they might be employed, that he set the same tunes to different words, and ordered them to be publicly sung, so as to bring back the people to orthodoxy, which at that time was identified with the doctrine of the Trinity.
THE POPE REFORMING CHURCH MUSIC (A.D.1545).
The introduction of instrumental music into the Church services once greatly perplexed the Pope and the councils of the clergy. Music had become so artificial and so wasted in frivolous and intricate airs, that the Council of Trent expressed its protest against using such profane aids. Pius IV. thereon appointed a commission to inquire whether music should be tolerated at all in churches. Fortunately at that time a great composer named Palestrina appeared at Rome. He was a priest, but had been expelled from the Church for marrying, and he still clung to his favourite art. He composed sacred airs for the services in the Sistine Chapel, and he seemed to comprehend with an original genius the kind of music appropriate to the Mass. He devoted his whole soul to this work. His first two efforts were thought to be failures, but at last in a happy moment he completed a masterly work known by the name of “The Mass of Pope Marcellus.” It had passages of blended grandeur and self-prostration, with rich and varied melodies interspersed, which delighted the Pope, who said the airs were such as the Apostle John may have heard in his ecstatic vision. The success of Palestrina set at rest the vexed question of Church music. It showed that music was capable of being made to subserve and enhance the most fervid devotion and religious enthusiasm. The soul was elevated by the exulting bursts of jubilee and the adoring strains of lowly reverence. The art then came to be firmly wedded to the service of the Church, and every grade of elevated feeling found its appropriate expression, and piety was quickened into rapture and a diviner ecstasy by the masterpieces of a succession of great composers.
SINGING OF THE MISERERE IN THE POPE’S CHAPEL.
One of the most impressive performances of sacred music is the singing of theMiserereor fifty-first Psalm in the Sistine Chapelat Rome, and the musical score is kept secret and no copy allowed to be given to strangers under pain of excommunication. There are thirty-two voices employed in the singing, without any organ or other instrument to accompany it. The performance was supposed to be at its greatest height of excellence about 1780, before the growing practice of opera withdrew the choicest voices from the service of the Church. This celebrated piece is sung twice during Passion Week, and was composed about 1627. When it begins, the Pope and cardinals prostrate themselves on their knees. The grand picture by Michael Angelo of the Last Judgment which is over the altar is then discovered to be brilliantly illuminated by tapers. These are gradually extinguished till the pale light scarcely reveals the forms of the miserable creatures as they listen to the slow and dirgelike wail of the voices. It sounds as if the sinner, confounded before the majesty of God and prostrate with fear, awaited in silence some awful doom. The sublimity of the music is heightened by the peculiar manner of repeating the same melody in every verse of the psalm, and yet by retarding the tune and swelling or diminishing the sound according to the sense, never allowing the ear to feel the least tediousness. The music score is said to be no correct record of the peculiarity of the melody, and the mode of managing the voices is said to be a secret kept by the chapel-master alone, who hands down the tradition to his successor. It is performed only in the Sistine Chapel, and those who have heard it never forget the grand and solemn impression it produces.
LUTHER’S VIEW OF CHURCH MUSIC.
Luther, who was an excellent musician, received into his church a collection of anthems and hymns which so pleased him that he exultingly exclaimed, “We all know that such music is hateful and unbearable to the devil.” Dr. Wetenhall said the music of his church was such that no devil could stand against it.
ORIGINATOR OF ORATORIOS.
What is called thecantata spiritualeor oratorio is generally believed to have been indebted for its origin to San Filippo Neri, a Florentine priest, who, about the middle of the sixteenth century, was accustomed after the sermons to assemble such of his congregation as had musical voices in the oratory of his chapel for the purpose of singing various pieces of devotional and other sacred music. Regularly composed oratorios were not, however, in usetill nearly a century afterwards. These, at their commencement, consisted of a mixture of dramatic and narrative parts, in which neither change of place nor unity of time was observed. They consisted of monologues, dialogues, duets, trios, and recitatives of four voices. The subject of one of them was the conversation of Christ with the Samaritan woman; of another, the prodigal son received into his father’s house; of a third, Tobias with the angel, his father and wife; and of a fourth, the angel Gabriel with the Virgin Mary.
THE HEAVEN-BORN COMPOSER OF ANTHEMS.
Purcell, a famous English composer of anthems, was a born musician, and as a boy produced some of his best. At eighteen he was appointed organist at Westminster Abbey, in 1676. He excelled in every species of composition. Nothing can transcend the grand effect of hisTe Deum, which soars to the highest elevation of holy fervour. He died prematurely at the age of thirty-seven of consumption. On a tablet fixed to a pillar in Westminster Abbey, where he is buried, the following inscription is to be seen: “Here lies Henry Purcell, Esq., who left this life, and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded. He died in 1695.” There is also a Latin epitaph, of which four lines are thus translated:—
“Applaud so great a guest, celestial powers,Who now resides with you, but once was ours.Not dead, he lives while yonder organ’s soundAnd sacred echoes to the choir rebound.”
Purcell’sTe Deumwas constantly performed at the annual festivals of the sons of the clergy, till Handel’s noble production of theTe Deumwas produced in 1743, and then the two versions were used alternately. Dryden, not less than Pope, celebrates Purcell’s merit thus:—
“Sometimes a hero in an age appears,But scarce a Purcell in a thousand years.”
Again he said:—
“The heavenly choir who heard his notes from highLet down the scale of music from the sky:They handed him along,And all the way he taught, and all the way they sung.”
It is true that, after Purcell, Handel soon appeared and claimed even superior praise.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF HANDEL.
When Handel, dissatisfied with the reception of his oratorio of theMessiahin London, went to Dublin to test his work with a more impartial audience, he procured the best choristers from St. Patrick’s and Christ’s cathedrals. The chief singers were Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Avolio. It is related that after Mrs. Cibber had sung “He was despised” with great pathos, a clergyman in one of the boxes was so excited and transported that he called out with a loud voice to her, “Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven.” It was also a remarkable incident that, in compliance with a request that the ladies who honoured the performance would be pleased to come without their hoops, they actually made the great self-sacrifice requested, and left their hoops behind, thereby allowing of a great deal of additional space for the rest of the audience. Such music had never before been heard in England. When Handel’s oratorio was first performed in Ireland, it was heard with admiration. The expressive force and pathos of the recitatives and melodies, and the superlative grandeur of the choral parts, were equally appreciated, and the whole was hailed as a wonderful effort of the art of harmony. Taught by the better criticism of the sister kingdom, England at his return discovered the excellence to which she had been so unaccountably deaf, and lavished her praises on what she had before dismissed with disgrace or without approbation. In 1742 Handel gave a performance of theMessiahin the Foundling Hospital Chapel with great success, and the proceeds were presented by him to that institution, then recently established.
FIRST PERFORMANCE OF HANDEL’S “MESSIAH.”
It is related by Dr. Beattie, the poet, that when Handel’sMessiahwas first performed the audience were greatly struck and affected by the music. But when the chorus reached the part beginning “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth,” the audience, including the King (George II.), were so transported that they all instinctively started to their feet and remained standing till the conclusion of the passage. Hence it became a fashion in England for the audience to stand during that part of that magnificent hymn.
HANDEL COMMEMORATIONS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Except the dedication of the Temple, at which, according to Josephus, 200,000 musicians were engaged, the commemorationof Handel in Westminster Abbey in 1784 was considered at that time the greatest performance that ever was heard. The band contained 482 instrumentalists. The vocal performers included 22 cantos, 51 altos, 66 tenors, 69 basses. The receipts for the five commemorations amounted to £12,736. At this performance on so unprecedented a scale, the audience was melted and enraptured by the exquisite sweetness of the solos, the powerful execution of the choruses affected some to tears, and many fainted with the excitement. When the whole chorus, from each side of the stupendous orchestra, joined in by all the instruments, burst out “He is the King of glory,” the effect was so overpowering that the performers could scarcely proceed. Though Pope had no ear for music, he was aware of the triumphs of his contemporary, the great composer, and in “The Dunciad” thus describes him:—
“Strong in new arras, lo! giant Handel stands,Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands;To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,And Jove’s own thunders follow Mars’s drums.”
INDEX.