Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-12-05
Calnase

By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talmaae, d. d.

$1,000
be characterized by cheerfulness, kind
ness and b]enefcence to the poor and
the distressed. The text is Psalm
xcvi, "Oh, sing unto the Lord a new
Bong,''
The finest Of pictures is yet to be
painted: the most perfect sculpture is
yet to he chiseled; the best Of poems Is
yet TO be penned; the sweetest and the
most inspiring of songs is yet to be
composed. We speak of the master pO-
cts, artists, sculptors and musicians as
though the poetical and artistic deeds
of the past could never be excelled.
This. however, is not true. Homer and
Virgil and Scott and Wordsworth and
Burns and Tennyson and LOngfellow
and Lowell and Poe are master poets
TO us merely because their poems excel
IN beauty of expression or delicacy Of
rhythm or depth of thought the pro-
auctions of all other poets who have
yet appeared. Raphael and Michael
Angelo and Murillo and Leonardo da
Vinci and Turner are master artists to
us merely because no artists have yet
appeared who could approach them in
perfection of form and glory of color.
Beethoven and Handel and Bach and
Gluck and Haydn and Mozart and
Chopin and Mendelssohn and Wagner
are master musicians to us because
they surpass all other musicians in per
lection of harmony and grandeur of
conception. No composers before them
and none since have attained the mas
terry that they reach in their sublime
art.
But, though these old master must
clans are masters to US, they were not
masters to themselves. They struggled
continually to give expression to high
or and nObler conceptions that they
were never able to write. Even in their
minds there were harmonies far better
than those that they have given us.
Theft masterpieces fell far short of
theft ideals. In their ~rhapsOdies and
dream lives they were continually eX-
pIoring whole realms of perfect sound
harmonies which were continually cry
ins to them: Set me to music. Play
me upon the piano or the harp. Sing
me in solo and Oratorio." The result
was these old masters were continually
frying to make more perfect cOmbina-
Ations Of sound, to C to mortal ears
the strange, weird. transcendent voices
that were calling to them out OF the
"musical worlds of perfection"
To imprisOn behind musical bars the
perfect voices which they heard in
their strange worlds became to the
great muSic&l masters a lifeS passion.
One moonlight night Beethoven was
walking through one of the streets of
Bonn. Suddenly he heard from an
opened parlor window some one play
ing one of his sOnatas. 1t was so beau
tifully rendered that the great com
poser entered the house and, seating
! himself at the piano. began to play it
himself. Beethoven seemed to be lost
In Greenland. He said. Listen: l will
lmprovise a song to the moonlight"
Then he went on. hearing the voices Of
the unseen world and reproducing them
Bs part of his matchless song called the
moonlight Sonata" After he had fin
lshed he rushed out of the house. say
Ing to his companion: DO not talk tC
mel Let me hasten to my room that
may write out that dream of the moon.
light while ! yet remember itA AL
great musicians. like Beethoven. are
continually reaching out for new com
binations of song. They do this ever
though. like Count Zinzendorf, they
may have written over 1000 songs. or
IKE Schmolke, they may have writer
over 300 musical pieces.
"sinE Unto the Lord a New Song
David. the psalmiSt, was a great mu
Eical composer. He always strove t
originate new musical themes. If b,
could not compose new ones, then b,
wanted to hear what some one else ha'
composed. The first time Mozart hear
one of Rach's hymns played he criet
out in ecstasy. Thank God, l Learn
something absolutely new" SO Davi'
again and again in his psalms cries on
for something new in musical praise
We not only find the words of my text
Sing unto the Lord a new song" il
the Ninety-siXth Psalm, but we finJ
them in the Ninety-eighth and in the
One Hundredth and Forty-ninth, ant
we also find the same words in the
Oook of Isaiah. The song they longet
TO hear will yet be sung in the heaven
" land. The Seer OF Patmos caugh
the echo Of it as he listened to the new
song that no man could learn but tn,
host that had been redeemed and stooc
around the throne. What exquisite
music it will be we cannot conceive
but we know the theme that will in
spire it. 1t is the theme Of salvation
The incarnation of the Son Of God, tn,
coming to earth Of that Divine Being
whose birth among us we are about Il
relebrate. Let the same theme inspire
Iur humble strains: let US even now
as we mediate on that wondrou.
event. attune our hearts to that glori
ous harmony.
our holiday song, in the first place