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Prelude. |
9 |
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rite, which has enchanted so many tourists, and encouraged the birth of so many outbursts of hazy enthusiasm, if transferred from the scene of action and from under the spell of execution—as when it was surreptitiously noted down by Mozart—proves to be plain, almost to the point of prosaic simplicity, and in small degree to justify the raptures which belong either to curiosity or to the real faith and expectation attendant on the ceremony. Often as it has been described, it was not till the other day, when the letters of one partly poet, partly artist, thoroughly musician—Mendelssohn—were published, that the untravelled world had much chance of comprehending to what extent the impression made on religious and cultivated men and women was one of art, or one of scene and sympathy.
Another musical performance nearer home was, in its time, much talked of—the vesper service in the Beguinage at Ghent. That was still more an affair of mere framework than the Sistine ' Miserere.' The music was utterly mediocre—the voices of the sisterhood were stale or sour, and ill trained to boot. The organ, when I heard it, wheezed with decrepitude, and its keys rattled audibly. Nevertheless, the evening scene, when the demure female figures |
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