Now, will the diamond, as we choose to typify the church chant, be as readily known by the like test? There is nothing corresponding or similar to figures of speech in the chant, neither is it based upon metaphorical themes. It has properly no theme, but only modes, with their special intonations, mediations, and cadences. Considered in its melodic form, it is a rhythmic combination of unities, the purest artistic expression of communion with the Infinite Unity—with God. Sung in or out of the celebration of the divine offices, if it be not simple rehearsal, it is prayer, and nothing else but prayer. It rejoices in the “perennial freshness” of the Holy Mass and Divine Office, because, like these, it is not metaphorical, but real; and hence we deduce at once the explanation of its lasting character. Its melodies do not wear out or become tiresome. It would never occur to a child of the church, although he were the most accomplished musician the world ever knew, if his age surpassed that of Mathusala, and he had heard High Mass every day of his life, that the Preface or the Pater Noster (and wherefore any other chant?) was a worn-out or tiresome melody. There is a truth [pg 324] for the lovers of church music to digest.
The essential reason—to go to the very bottom of the matter—of the lasting character of the chant, lies in the form of its phraseology, which is purely didactic, consisting of simple and therefore sublime affirmations; this simplicity of its phraseology being often reduced to the utterance of pure substantives, as if the soul were in rapture, meditating upon God and his attributes, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Being of beings, the Eternal, the Omnipotent, the Everlasting, the All in all, the All wise, the All fair, and the All good.
There is an instance of this sublime simplicity of language in Holy Scripture which is an apt example to illustrate our meaning. It is the twelfth verse of the viith chapter of the Apocalypse: “Amen. Benedictio, et claritas, et sapientia, et gratiarum actio, honor, et virtus, et fortitudo Deo nostro in sæcula sæculorum, amen”—Amen. Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honor and power, and strength to our God, for ever and ever, amen.
The test being applied, we think we may affirm and certify the diamond.
Fifthly. From what we have already said, and to judge from the extraordinary pretensions of its capacity for expression put forth in these later days, modern music is essentially dramatic, mimetic, or imitative. That it is especially suitable as the melody to accompany and aid the expression of dramatic representation there is no question. There appears also to be hardly any limit of its capacity, as musicians affirm, for word-painting and scene-painting. If the musical critics are not deceived, we think that, with the full score of some genius who may be even now about to graduate in the school of “the music of the future,” a Thomas or a Gilmore might dispense with the actors on the stage altogether, and with the services of the scene-painter as well. What is thought of this power of word-painting, when employed to illustrate the sacred text of the church's offices, we quote from the Dublin Review, Oct., 1868:
“What is called word-painting in music is, of course, very effective, but, as a rule, it cannot be carried so far in sacred as in secular music without detriment to the dignity of the subject. Indeed, even where it is not otherwise objectionable, it sometimes becomes tiresome from its conventionality. The run down the notes of the scale at the descendit de cœlis, and such like effects, do not bear much repetition. Indeed, the attempt at minute expression has often led to odd blunders, such as in the passages resurrectionem mortuorum, where the music for the first word is usually made to have a joyful effect, the latter a lugubrious one (and that, too, sometimes drawn out into musical passages cut off from the previous word, as if it were a fresh sentence), the composer forgetting that the phrase only comprehends one idea—that of the resurrection. So with the passage remissionem peccatorum, exaltavit humiles, and others that might be named.”
We have already mentioned a notable instance of this word-painting—the confutatis maledictis from the Dies Iræ of Cherubini. The vividly descriptive and intensely dramatic power of that passage is well known; and if it were further heightened by a mechanically-darkened [pg 325] church, with a flash or two of stage-lightning and the rumbling of sheet-iron thunder, we are sure the effect would be quite as much as we could bear, whether as celebrant or as near relatives of the departed. Overpowered with the emotions of horror and fear which we are sure we would experience in thus having hell opened to us, we would be thinking a great deal more of the devil than of the God of mercy and compassion when the cry of fright broke from our lips, “Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna!” Certainly, deprived even of any stage effects, we have never listened to it without a shudder. And now comes the pertinent question, Is dramatic, theatrical effect what the church desires to obtain from her melody, or, at least, is she willing that there should be anything of this kind at all employed to illustrate her liturgy? We refer to the Instructions of his eminence the cardinal vicar. He is “polarized,” as we say in America, on that subject. We also quote from the late articles on church music in this magazine:
“ ‘Humana nefas miscere divinis’ finds its application here. To carry the minds of worshippers in the church back to the theatre by the music is a crime, for it is a desecration.”
Musicians themselves are not wholly devoid of the sense of propriety. Mme. de Sévigné relates that Baptiste—the celebrated Lulli—hearing at Mass one day an air which he had composed for the theatre, cried out: “Lord, Lord, I crave your pardon. I did not write it for you!”
We wonder if the correspondent of the Herald was aware of the satire contained in the following late announcement: “Signor Verdi protests indignantly against his Requiem being played in a circus at Ferrara.”