CHURCH MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 239, 9 October 1934, Page 10

CHURCH MUSIC.

AUTHORITY TO VISIT N.Z.

DR. SYDNEY NICHOLSON.

The eminent authority on English church music, Dr. Sydney H. Nicholson, is to arrive in New Zealand on Oetober 30. A Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, from 191S to 1927 Dr. Nicholson was organist of Westminster Abbey, which position he resigned iu order to found the School of English Church Music. This was the outcome of inquiries into the state of church music in England, by the Archbishops' Commission, of" which Dr. Nicholson was a (member. With this school are affiliated over 100 choirs in England and overseas, which is leading to a greater desire to raise the standard.of' English church music. Last year a great festival of church music was rendered by over 4000 voices, representing choristers from 23 cathedrals in England. On that occasion the Archbishop of Canterbury gave an address, in which he said, referring to the number of choirs gathered: "They are here to offer a great ambition. I cannot describe that ambition in better words than those of the gracious message which we have received from Their Majesties the King and Queen. They are here because they dsiro to 'maintain the great tradition and a high standard of music' iu the Anglican Church. Assuredly there is no Church in Christendom which has a tradition of music so rich and so continuous. The music of the Middle Ages was gathered up and enriched by the musicians of the Tudor times —that wonderful springtide of English culture."

Dr. Nicholson has enshrined his scholarship and idealism in a book concerning the history, practice and future of English church music, entitled (quoting the Book of Common Prayer) "Quires and Places Where They Sing."