Gregorius. “With pleasure. Sing, my brothers.” (They sing the whole Introit.)
Hubanus. “Ah! fine; quite solemn! A Gregorian chant, I perceive. A very plaintive movement. The finale has an exceedingly mournful effect. In D minor, is it not? Still, for a Requiem Offertory I think Rossini's Pro Peccatis, or Gounod's Ave Maria, or ‘Angels ever Bright and Fair,’ for a change, would please the congregation better.”
All the monks. “Plaintive! Our Gaudeamus mournful! Calls an Introit an Offertory piece! Like a Requiem Offertory indeed! An Ave Maria for that too! What does he mean by D minor? (Blessing themselves.) Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!”
Hubanus. “Oh! beg pardon. That is an Introit, is it? Indeed! But, as I said, I have the honor to be born at a much later date than yourselves, and we don't bother ourselves with singing those things in my day and country. We bring out the finest music, however, in our choir of the Church of S. Botolph, in the United States, that you can hear. I'm the organist and director.”
Gregorius. “Not sing the Introit! Why, good domne Hubanus, our grand and joyous festival on the morrow would be robbed of one of its chief features if we failed to sing the Gaudeamus—I mean the Gaudeamus that you have just heard.”
Hubanus. “ ‘De gustibus non est disputandum.’ Hem! excuse my indulging in the classics; those old Latin fellows say a good deal in a few words, you know. But you don't seriously mean to say that such monotonous stuff—excuse my plain speaking on your plain singing—is fit for a joyous festival? As my friend, Dr. ——, says in his late paper on ‘Church Music,’ ‘to hear Gregorian chant for a long time, and nothing else, becomes extremely monotonous, and burdens the ear with a dull weight of sound not always tolerable.’ He says, moreover, that ‘this is admitted by all who in seminaries and monasteries have been most accustomed to hear it.’ ”
Gregorius. “Your learned friend did not seek our judgment, I assure you, and I am at a loss to know who could have made so silly an admission to him.”
Hubanus. “But do you not ‘resort to every device,’ as he says again, ‘to escape its monotony on festival days, by harmonies on the chant which are out of all keeping with it,’ and so forth?”
Gregorius. “We do not, I trust. What little harmony we sing is in strict keeping with the mode of the chant; and as to escaping anything, we know the rubrics, domne Hubanus, and respect them, and, what is more, we observe them.”
Hubanus. “On that score I have the advantage of you; for it doesn't require much knowledge of what you call rubrics to bring out a Mass and grand Vespers with us. However, this question of plain chant is settled long ago. It ought to have been settled long before you were born. For, as Dr. —— continues in his paper, ‘No one will deny the appropriateness and impressiveness of plain chant on certain solemn occasions, especially those of sorrow; but it is confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings of Christian joy and triumph.’ Ah! Brother Gregorius, you should have been born later.”