Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-03-07
MUSICKE OF We OLDEN TYNE.
BY WILHELM A. DREwE.

am an ode mann and born lover Of musicke,
sacred and worldlie. l remember the dayes Of
yore, when olde folkes and young mem and maides
sange, Gin the spirite and with the understandings
Also" the songes of Zion. without any Interrupt
ton from the new tangled instrument called
piano-forte. | owne ! love that musicke still. 1t
had tunne in it. 1t was performed with the organs
made by Deity, the pipes OF which were III the
human throat and were inflated by goodlie lungs.
1t had a chord of sweet harmonic running all
through it. The melodie was significant 1t vi.
brated the heart Things, and inspired the souls OF
the listeners. Since that "concOIde OF sweet
soundcs" has been invaded by German gutturas
and Italian screeches, it has seemed to my olde
ears, to have suffered the violation of correct
taste and of good sense. One hundred years
agone, and in the first parte of this century, when
choirs practced the TUNES composed by such Au-
thors as DIR. MADAM, Pleyel, Parmeter, Sumner,
French Swan, Holden, Billings, Read and our
owne Maine mem, Maxim Bonney, Robbins,
Belcher and Washbnrne, there was something IN
the musickale intonatiOns that had language
in it, us expressive as the p0rdss in which It was
performed. Mothers could catch and learn the
straine and carry il home and sing 1t to their
BARNES for its happy influence upon their juvenile
tempers; and in its harmony there lurked sancu-
flying sentyment to which the heart could but re-
spond But it is not so now. The church muscke
of 1876 is not to be learned by rote, sunye with
out q booke in hand. | encore my protest, that
all this is improvement on the taste or musckale
talents of the Revolutionary period 1t ignores
the original design of sacred numbers. And even
when attempts are made in these dayes to sing
from the bookes Of those Authors, the plan OF
their gamuts is perverted, and the life OF their
muscke, as they inspired it, is taken out of 1t.
How so' l will tell you: When the olde Au-
thors composed their workes, they designed the
deepest and heaviest male voices to sing tie bass,
written on the lowest staff. This WAS the founds-
ton of the whole, calculated to infuse the key note
through all the parties. Next above was the COM
manding Air, or leading strain to be heard in the
utterance of wordes more clearly than the rest.
voices, viz, by the "menn folkes" whose voices
could be pitched an octave above their fellowes.
The third staff was occupied by such female voices
as were stronger and more masculine than those
of women folkes generally; also by boys whose
voices had not yet changed into manhood. And
the upper staff was sung by the shame-faced girls
and women in the clear but modest sounds be-
coming the delicacy Of the sex. Thus the four
parties apportoned the voices and harmonic "a the
strains, that made the whole performance sgnh,
cant and Transporting. l fear, 1--WE ne'er shall
look upon its like again" o, temp0rd,' U, mores
The lowest, first named voices above, was called
BASS (now Bdsso) the next above that, the TENOR,
(now Soprano, believe the third, COUNTER now
Alto; (and the highest, upper staff, the TREBLE,
(now 1enor). BY what law in musicke the mod
ern practice derives authority to weaken the Bass,
and to transfer tle commanding and spirited Air
from the masculine to the feminine vocal organs,
is as inexplicable as some as the modern semi-ds-
cords in what passes for muscke. Were Billings to
be present when moderns attempt to sing his "Ma-
jesty" IThe Lord descended from above, or were
Maxim to witness the performance Of his sport