nor; also his Benedictuses. From this it follows
that the composer who (as ought always to be the case) sets to work,
inspired with true devoutness, to write a Mass, will let the individual
religious attunement of his own mind predominate (all the words being
ready to adapt themselves to that); not suffering himself to be led
away in the Miserere, the Gloria, Qui Tollis, and so forth, into a
many-tinted medley of the most heart-rending sorrow of the contrite
heart, with jubilant clangour and jingle. All works of the latter sort,
which, in recent times, there have been numbers of, carpentered
together in the most frivolous fashion, are abortions, engendered by
impure minds; and I reject them just as unhesitatingly as Cyprian does.
But I render deep admiration to the glorious church compositions of
Michael and Joseph Haydn, Hasse, Neumann, and others, not forgetting
the old works of the pious Italian masters, Leo, Durante, Benevoli,
Perli, and others, whose lofty, beautiful, noble simplicity, whose
wonderful power of impressing the very depths of the soul by their
simple modulations, wholly devoid of strikingness of display, seem to
constitute an art which is altogether lost in recent (and _most_
recent,) times. Without desiring to adhere to the early, primitive,
pure church style, merely because what is holy disdains the varied
dress of mundane niceties of subtlety, one cannot--to begin with--doubt
that _simple_ music has a better effect, musically speaking, in
churches, than that which is elaborate; for the more rapidly notes
succeed one another the more they are lost in the lofty spaces of
buildings, so that the whole effect becomes confused and
unintelligible. Hence, in a measure, the grand effect of Chorales in
church. I unconditionally agree with you, Cyprian, as to the
superiority of the noble church music of ancient times over that
of recent date, just on account of its constantly maintaining its
truly holy style. At the same time, I think that the richness and
fulness which music has gained in more recent times--chiefly by the
introduction of instruments--should be made use of in churches, not to
produce mere idle display, but in a noble and worthy manner. Perhaps
the bold simile--that the old church music of the Italians holds
somewhat the same relation to that of the more modern Germans as Saint
Peter's at Rome holds to Strasburg Cathedral--may not be inapt. The
grandiose proportions of Saint Peter's elevate the