MUSIC.
7U."11 Cathedral Service, as used in the Festivals and Saints' Days of the Church of England; composed by Thomas Talus. Newly edited by Edward Rimbault, LL.D., F.S.A.
TEE word "spoliation" is generally heard as one of the Tory and High Church cant terms of the day, most loudly uttered by those who are most disposed to do the very thing which it expresses. In particular, any at- tempt to divert the smallest portion of the revenues which now support the wealth and grandeur of the hierarchy to any other object, even those for which the Church has been expressly established—the extension of Chris- tian instruction, and the education of the people—is sure to raise the cry of "spoliation," among those whose temporal, interests may be ever so little affected; and the cry is echoed by thousands who honestly believe that the interests of religion are at stake. But, in the bosom of the Church, a sys- tem of" spoliation" of the most flagrant kind has been going on for gene- rations, almost without public notice—the spoliation of the Cathedral Choirs. The revenues of these establishments, derived from real property, with which they were endowed by munificent sovereigns and pious indivi- duals, were as truly and legally their own as those of the Bishops, Deans, and other dignitaries of the Church; and yet these very dignitaries, by a long series of encroachments, have gradually applied thc Choir revenues to swell the amount of rich benefices, while the real owners have been reduced to a miserable remnant of ill-paid hirelings: and, to crown the whole, a re- cent mock inquiry has ended in an Act of Parliament sanctioning and le- galizing the plunder. The noble choral establishments, which stimulated the genius of our musical worthies of the olden time and raised our ecclesi- astical music to a height unparalleled in Europe, are fast falling to ruin; and the musical service of our Metropolitan cathedrals is put to shame by the voluntary efforts of Romanist chapels and Dissenting meeting-houses.
But we are not yet without hope. The general progress of music in this country has taken very much the direction of vocal harmony; and we rejoice to see that the sublime choral music of the Church, though neglected by the Church herself, is not neglected by the public. Of this fact, the many recent publications of English ecclesiastical music, several of which are of a large and costly kind, afford sufficient evidence. Novello's mag- nificent edition of Purcell's Sacred Music is daily becoming better known and appretiated. The great collections of Cathedral Music by Boyce and Arnold are now in the course of republication. Many of the best Anthems aid Services of the great old masters, Tye, Croft, Clarke, Rogers, Cooke, anct others, have been reprinted under the editorship of Dr. Rimbault; and the same learned and able musician has now produced the fine edition be- fore us of the sublime Service of Thomas Tanis. The increasing demand for such music must lead to an increasing desire to hear it worthily per- formed. All who know it must feel that this can be done nowhere save within the walls of the venerable piles for which it was destined. On what is called "the Tallis day" in Westminster Abbey, when his entire ser- vice is performed with a great reinforcement of vocal strength, and on the days when the service of that cathedral consists of the musk of Purcell,— the Choir being aided by the members of the Purcell Club,—the Abbey never fails to be crowded to overflowing. It may be hoped, therefore, that the inflbence of public opinion may yet be sufficient to obtain for the Ca- thedral Choirs "a new trial," and a vindication of their just and legal rights. " The law as it now stands," says Professor Taylor,*" has doomed the Choirs; but so much of the music as now remains is safe. The time will come when the public voice will demand—not the repeal of a single clause in this piece of heedless and sacrilegious legislation—not the rescue of a single cathedral from the grasp of an Ecclesiastical Commission—but the restoration of cathedral plunder, and an apportionment of cathedral revenues, according to the requirements of their statutes and foundations. And as at the former abolition of the Choirs, their music had been pre- served by individual zeal and care, so that, at the restoration, they found again upon their desks the works of Tye, Farrant, Tallis, and Byrd,—in like manner, when the time of their second restoration shall come, future Choirs will find these, with the copious additions of subsequent composers, ready for their use."
This new edition of Tallis's Service is prefaced by an interesting no- two of the life and works of the composer, and, in particular, of' this immortal composition. It appears that the date of its production is w matter of uncertainty, and that no authentic copy of it has been pre- served. There are consequently discrepancies among the old editions, some caused by mistake, and others by presumptuous attempts to im- prove the original harmony. Dr. Rimbault enters into a full discussion of these diversities, and shows that he has laboured with skill and success in discovering the deviations from the purity of the text. It appears, in particular, that., in Tallis's own arrangement, the harmony was in four parts, with the plain-song, or melody, in the tenor; but that, subsequently, the melodies, according to more modern usage, have been transferred to the treble or upper part; and that the Litany has been harmonized for five voices, instead of the original four. Dr. Rimbault has reprinted the Ser- vice (with certain necessary corrections) from Dr. Boyce's edition, with- out restoring the original arrangement. "The beauty, simplicity, and uniformity of this arrangement," he says, "must. be apparent to every one; bat it would have been hazardous to attempt such an arrangement, when wakonsider the long-established usage of the present form." He has there- *" History Of Cathedral Music." fore contented himself with pointing out in his preface the alterations from the original text; and has given Tallis's own arrangement of the Litany ise, four parts, as an appendix.
The music is beautifully printed, ou a very large page, in a full and clis. dna character, and, as far as we have been able to discover, with sorts. pulous accuracy.
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