7 SEPTEMBER 1839, Page 20

ISI.Eattrogg ' s Te Deem in G, arranged for a Single Voice,

with Organ Accompaniment. The attempt to introduce chanting and other parts of the cathedral service into parish churches, we regard as of very questionable ex- pediency. Cathedral music requires the apparatus—the very structure of a cathedral. The appropriate music of parish churches is psalmody ; and if every one of the congregation were a skilful singer, it would still be psalmody. Not the vulgar unisonous screaming of still more vulgar tunes, (and such is parochial psalmody in general,) but a correct performance of good compositions in parts. This is the distinction designed and prescribed by the canons of the Church, and it is a veiSe and judicious one. The cathedral service contemplates the ex- istence of a paid choir, arranged antiphonally—the musical position of thd.parechial service was designed to be performed by the congregation. It iCvery true that the cathedral service, in some places, is little more than psalm-singing; but this is an abuse engendered and necessitated by the rapacity and treachery at which we have hinted in a former article. All endeavours to reverse the prescribed rules of the church in the way attempted by Mr. MERRIOTT,' must end in the production of such compositions as that now before us,—that is, in lowering the character and destroying the grandeur of that class of music which ought exclusively to belong to the cathedral. What should we think of a-.Parodise Lost turned into prose, with all the hard words taken out, and made level to the meanest capacity ? Such is Mr. MgitilioTT's Te.Deum " made easy," in order to its being sung in Farnham Church. This gentleman's labours as a psalmodist we have more than once men- tioned with respect ; but, as a parish organist, lie is not here " labouring in his vOcation."