ENGLISH CHURCH SINGING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1054, 18 February 1911, Page 6

ENGLISH CHURCH SINGING.

" THE BEAUTY OF IT. . If ono cannot'hear carols in a college hall on Christmas Eve, with the boys' voices going up-to great open rafters as voices went when first "In dulci jubilo" was sung, then Westminster Abbey, is- a gocd place to bo content with (says a writer in an English paper). In the carved choir no light, but the warm glimmer of candles in tall glass shades. 'The 1 high, dim pillars have grown vague in the early darkness of a December afternoon, and beyond. • the faintly glowing gold of tho altar-piece the kings ho listening. The voices sing, "Christ was born to conquer, born r a King, * bay-wreaths bring," and; as' they ceaso on a full organ-sound the plain bellchinie cadence of tho carol comes-again-softly like tho ghost of ancient Christmas peals from the eclio-orjan hidden far away -in the high arches. / "Remember God's goodness, O thou man, O thou man" they sing again, and onco more tho -notes have tho clear intervals and chiming rise and fall of a bell.' The "old carols seem so often to sound as if they bore in them the influence of tho bells ringing at midnight when they wero sung. And to hear bells done deliberately in tho tune of a modern carol only makes more clear the subtle chiming of' tho old ones. - ' •

4 It was, not a bad occasion for reflecting .on tho beauty of English church singing. Is there anything Quito like it 111 any other country? Wo havo had'it so drummed into us that we'are a poor musical nation, we havo had so many lamentations over native music and native performers, that wo are likely to overlook ono beautiful possession, the voices and the training of our church choirs. You could find sixty churches in London where the singing is of'a quality that you could hardly find in three at the most of the churches of Paris. True, the Madeleine has a magnificent organ, and tlio singing is very fine; but it lias not tho beauty or the appeal-of tho 'boys' voices 'of a Loudon church. And' what of the kind is there in Italy?- Save, perhaps, for'the Pope's choir, you hear only tho singing,, artificial to 4he last degree, of an imported company 011 a great festival. Olio, would not hositato for a moment in a choice between Pontifical Vespers at Santa Maria Maggioro and evening service at St. Paul's on a fesival. 111. the ono case you get a florid perform--ance in hard, efficient voices without any meaning 111 them; in tho other admirable -unity and mellowness and voices of perfect exquisite quality. . Gounod onco said that .his Jlass had never been sung ns he heard it sung at St. Paul's. 1 Oj lr , church singing is a genuino art that has -grown in its place. It is nearly well proportioned to tho building., You will hear in Magdalen College chapel a small choir just filline tho place with delicious sound, and in King's College chapel a large choir just as perfectly matched to that great place. Besides, choirs liko these, one cannot doubt, really are tuned, so to speak,-on the acoustio properties of tho chapel., The music they make is not only in the chords of human throats. It is also in some answering tones of the walls ami roof, and -its ringing sound has deeper vibrations than - those of our passing lives. Arid it is real Church music, for a church choir never sounds so well as

when it sings to an organ and sinr»s.tho rather formal melodies of the .'Church. It would be interesting to inquire into possiblo reasons for our supremacy in such singing. It 'may bo that tho prevalenco in Romau Catholic countries of services in which there is no music. Low: Masses and Benediction, does not tend to the production of trained church sinsins. But then even Protestant Germany dees not produco it. Russian singing one ought to except. It would not be truo to say that English singing is finer than that. But it would be true, I think, to say-it as against any other country. We have not so many glories that we need neglect one. tind our' church singinc is a great one. !