Cardinal Newman as a Musician

LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, AND CO. 1892.
REPRINTED (WITH ADDITIONS AND MUSICAL EXAMPLES) FROM THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER, 1891.
ROEHAMPTON: PRINTED BY JAMES STANLEY.


In the same mood, when a quartet of Schubert was played to him in March, 1878, the sole remark he let fall was, Very harmonious and clever, but it does not touch the heart.
In March, 1883, he observed that he missed the minor key in Palestrina, and on our adding that, perhaps, Mendelssohn had too much of it, he went on, It cuts me to the heart that minor, and so he liked the mixed mode to the Psalm In exitu Israel , and was much affected by the slow movements in Beethoven's Ninth Quartet and C minor Symphony, and the Allegretto of the Symphony in A.
On receiving a march, written by a pupil in 1873, he gently indicated faults while giving encouragement, and wrote in July, It shows you are marching in your accomplishments. It is a very promising beginning.... On reading it, I thought I had found some grammatical faults, but perhaps more is discovered in the province of discords, concords, and coincidences of notes than when I was a boy. And in September of the same year, Thank you for your new edition of St. Magnus . On what occasion did he march? I know Bishops were warlike in the middle ages. However, whenever it was, his march is very popular here, and it went off with great éclat . Then he wrote to his correspondent in April, 1880, who talked about not being skilled, Why should you not qualify yourself to deserve the title of a 'skilled musician?' 'Skilled' is another word for 'grammatical' or 'scholarlike.'
And, of course, as the Catholic poet that he now was, he duly set about to write hymns and to compose chants. Since 1834, it will be found, his original muse, amid the encircling gloom, had been entirely silent, but once emerging into the light of the true faith, it struck the lyre again with those most lovely notes of Candlemas —
In 1849 appeared his most original and pathetic Pilgrim Queen, or No. 38, Regina Apostolorum , in the Hymn Book, the sweet music thereto being his own composition, (or in part adaptation?)