Luther, who was an excellent musician, received into his church a collection of anthems and hymns which so pleased him that he exultingly exclaimed, “We all know that such music is hateful and unbearable to the devil.” Dr. Wetenhall said the music of his church was such that no devil could stand against it.
ORIGINATOR OF ORATORIOS.
What is called the cantata spirituale or oratorio is generally believed to have been indebted for its origin to San Filippo Neri, a Florentine priest, who, about the middle of the sixteenth century, was accustomed after the sermons to assemble such of his congregation as had musical voices in the oratory of his chapel for the purpose of singing various pieces of devotional and other sacred music. Regularly composed oratorios were not, however, in use till nearly a century afterwards. These, at their commencement, consisted of a mixture of dramatic and narrative parts, in which neither change of place nor unity of time was observed. They consisted of monologues, dialogues, duets, trios, and recitatives of four voices. The subject of one of them was the conversation of Christ with the Samaritan woman; of another, the prodigal son received into his father’s house; of a third, Tobias with the angel, his father and wife; and of a fourth, the angel Gabriel with the Virgin Mary.
THE HEAVEN-BORN COMPOSER OF ANTHEMS.
Purcell, a famous English composer of anthems, was a born musician, and as a boy produced some of his best. At eighteen he was appointed organist at Westminster Abbey, in 1676. He excelled in every species of composition. Nothing can transcend the grand effect of his Te Deum, which soars to the highest elevation of holy fervour. He died prematurely at the age of thirty-seven of consumption. On a tablet fixed to a pillar in Westminster Abbey, where he is buried, the following inscription is to be seen: “Here lies Henry Purcell, Esq., who left this life, and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded. He died in 1695.” There is also a Latin epitaph, of which four lines are thus translated:—
“Applaud so great a guest, celestial powers,
Who now resides with you, but once was ours.
Not dead, he lives while yonder organ’s sound
And sacred echoes to the choir rebound.”
Purcell’s Te Deum was constantly performed at the annual festivals of the sons of the clergy, till Handel’s noble production of the Te Deum was produced in 1743, and then the two versions were used alternately. Dryden, not less than Pope, celebrates Purcell’s merit thus:—
“Sometimes a hero in an age appears,
But scarce a Purcell in a thousand years.”
Again he said:—
“The heavenly choir who heard his notes from high
Let down the scale of music from the sky:
They handed him along,
And all the way he taught, and all the way they sung.”