Litchfield enquirer., 1873-04-10
BEECHER ON MUSIC.

In O last weeks Yale lecture Henry Ward Beecher discussed the subject of church music. He did full justice to that branch of the church service and attrib- uted much of the attraction of the' Epis- copal and Romish rituals to the superior ity of their music. Of course he strongly advocated Congregational singing and said of the singing in his own church:
 1tis the singing at Plymouth church which draws people there, and not the preaching. People come there as they go to Barnus because the papers rep resent it as kind Of theatre, you know They come in and sit down, looking around queery. rise, and next. give out hymn and thev keen iooRine S for something which never comes. And when tho great volume of sound strikes them they look around to all the books open and everybody singing. At the ond verse the tears begin to come. You see the hymn knocked them over fairly, better than sermon and why not?
 Let us suggest here that there is an in- consistency between Mir. Beecher's theory of the superior attractiveness of Episco- pal and Romish music and his view fa- voring Congregational music. The Romish and Episcopal styles are attractive be- cause they are really higher in grade than the very simple, heavy style suited to congregational singing. The Mass ap- breaches the Opera in variety, beauty, and difficulty of execution. The quartette music which is the distinguishing feature of the Episcopal service in city churches, though not equalling the Mass in strength and variety, abounds in difficult modula- tions entirely beyond the reach of congre- gations. Mr., Beecher does more than jus tice to the organ: .sAu.r .1s4
 It is the most eonplex the grandest of all instr,l ments Beginning far back and growing little by little, nations of Instruments. An orchestra may do some things which organ cannot but, taken ali in al is inferior. An orchestra has fifty moods An organ has moods but there it stands in it's simplicity and integrity yesterday to-day hope forevor. The m Rs t put
 the ocean thank God that while samuch has been left out of religion in these days the is left to it. It row. the sweetest singer of all the birds the thunder \ the waves of the sea and almost the last trump.
 The preference of organ to orches- tra shows plainly enough that MT. Beech CT is not himself musician The organ is indeed the grandest of instruments within certain narrow limits. There is a solid power in it, excelling even that oi the orchestra {; but for variety. fexibility, and that massing and blending of tone wherein the beauty and strength of in. strumental music consists, there can be no doubt of the superior excellence of the latter. The organ flutes, oboes, and trum. pets, may initiate the orchestral instru. ments moro or less perfectly, but they are only limitations after all. Nothing more. over in the organ can equal the purity and power of the French horns and the strings, the foundation of all orchestral harmony, are without representatives il the organ. Something of their tone is indeed, obtained in the gan,bas, but none of their wonderful variety, strength, and power of execution. The idea that the organ has no moods and the orchestra 1 fifty. is simply fancy. The mood of the organist is vastly more likely to affect his performance than the mood of any mem Der of an orchestra of fifty players.
 Still there is no doubt that the organ improved as it has been, and generally introduced into all our best churches, i: Q grand musical instrument and grea
 educator in the musical taste, though il
 most cases only too poorly handled. Mir
 Beecher's taste as to organ music is cer
 tainly catholic enough. ''Little writer
 by Von Weber or Mendelssohn, says he s'and nothing, I think, by Beethoven O
 Mozart, IS unfit for the Church" !" No or
 ganist could ask more liberty than that Of the miserable trash that floods tn, church and the sabbathschooli in the shap, of new and cheap music, MT. Beeche speaks in appropriate terms:
 There are songs which you can sing to all eternity | and then if you stop a noment you will forget all These are so jejune that you can pile up huhdret I before the window and they would not obstruct tn light, they are SO very thin Very many of our snnda nant when think of tho way Montgomery and other of his time forgotten, to the miserable hash rotten fruit on which our children arc fed.
 II On the whole, this lecture, though oper ] to criticism in many of it's details, con
 tains great deal moro sense than ofter characterizes the minister's notion of mu
 sic.