DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61894#0204
174
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. V
This ancient music, which has long been
known by the name of the Gregorian chaunt, so
well adapted to the gravity of divine service, has
been much disfigured in process of time by the
bad taste of the middle and the false refinements
of the latter ages. The first encumbered it with
an endless succession of dull unmeaning notes,
dragging their slow length along, and burthening
the ear with a dead weight of sound ; the other
infected it with the melting airs, the labored exe-
cution, the effeminate graces of the orchestra, use-
less, to say the least, even in the theatre, but pro-
fane and almost sacrilegious in the church. Such
care seems to have been taken to avoid these de-
fects, in the papal choir. The general style and
spirit of the ancient and primitive music have
been retained, and some modern compositions of
known and acknowledged merit, introduced on
stated days and in certain circumstances. Of
musical instruments, the organ only is admitted
into St. Peter’s or rather into the papal chapel,
and even that not always ; voices alone are em-
ployed in general, and as those voices are nume-
rous, perfect in their kind, and in thorough uni-
son with each other, and as the singers themselves
are concealed from view, the effect is enchaniing,
and brings to mind The celestial voices in full
harmonic number joined, that sometimes reached
3
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. V
This ancient music, which has long been
known by the name of the Gregorian chaunt, so
well adapted to the gravity of divine service, has
been much disfigured in process of time by the
bad taste of the middle and the false refinements
of the latter ages. The first encumbered it with
an endless succession of dull unmeaning notes,
dragging their slow length along, and burthening
the ear with a dead weight of sound ; the other
infected it with the melting airs, the labored exe-
cution, the effeminate graces of the orchestra, use-
less, to say the least, even in the theatre, but pro-
fane and almost sacrilegious in the church. Such
care seems to have been taken to avoid these de-
fects, in the papal choir. The general style and
spirit of the ancient and primitive music have
been retained, and some modern compositions of
known and acknowledged merit, introduced on
stated days and in certain circumstances. Of
musical instruments, the organ only is admitted
into St. Peter’s or rather into the papal chapel,
and even that not always ; voices alone are em-
ployed in general, and as those voices are nume-
rous, perfect in their kind, and in thorough uni-
son with each other, and as the singers themselves
are concealed from view, the effect is enchaniing,
and brings to mind The celestial voices in full
harmonic number joined, that sometimes reached
3