MUSIC.
Organists' Parochial Choral Library. By G. F. FLOWERS, 3/as. Bac., Oxon.
This is the first number of a work in which the author and compiler, though scarcely known to the musical public, has proved himself a sound and accomplished musician. That he is a pupil of Rim:, scarcely needed to be announced on the titlepage, as internal evidence suffi- ciently proves in what school of organ-playing Mr. FLOWERS had been studying. We suspect that, for the most part, good organists, of which we have many, must be sought for in comparatively humble situations. The organ duty, for example, is worse done at the Chapel Royal than n most parish-churches. It is there so bad that the choir is sometimes compelled to desist. In some of' our cathedrals, what is miscalled the Anthem is merely an exhibition of a dandy performer, to which a few voices mumble and growl a feeble accompaniment. In others, a Vos luntary is a flashy, frothy pianoforte piece, or at best an arrangement of some popular chorus. Mr. FLOWERS is a legitimate organ-player- that is, a man who knows the province and capabilities of his instrument, and has the ability to carry his knowledge into practice.
This unpretending work contains a few well-known tunes, arranged with skill and good taste for the organ, as well as some original psalm tunes, which display in a like degree their author's judgment and musi- cal knowledge. Some must be regarded merely as exercises—such as the Descant " alla Fugato," which he has constructed on the Old Hundredth Psalm ; and that in which he has exercised his ingenuity in constructing a musical fabric of another kind, taking the melody of this tune as bis bass. All exhibitions of this kind are out of place when connected with parochial psalmody. The organist is there an accompanist only ; and whenever he endeavours to make his instrument or his skill thereupon the prominent feature of attraction, he commits an act of folly and impertinence. It is become the more necessary to state this strongly and emphatically, as the contrary practice is in- creasingly prevalent ; and organists are too apt to be seduced into a wanton display of finger dexterity, when they ought to remember that theirs is a merely subsidiary duty. The choir could discharge its duty, be it ever so small, without their aid ; but an organ without a choir would be a mere useless and cumbrous piece of furniture.
Mr. FLOWERS is so well able to arrange psalm-tunes as they ought to be played, that we should advise bins to omit all such arrangements as are only calculated to display skill in the construction of fugues, and to reserve them for a separate publication.
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