' weakens
the power of the music. In Palestrina's music each chord strikes upon
the listener with all its force; the most elaborate modulations could
never affect the mind as do those bold, weighty chords, which burst
upon us like dazzling beams of light. Palestrina is simple, true,
childlike in piety; as strong and mighty, as genuinely Christian in his
works as are, in painting, Pietro of Cortona and Albrecht Duerer. For
him composition was an act of religion. But I do not forget the great
masters Caldara, Barnabei, Scarlatti, Marcello, Lotti, Porpora,
Bernardo, Leo, Valotti, and others, who all kept themselves simple,
dignified, and forcible. Vividly, at this moment, awakes in me the
remembrance of that Mass of Alessandro Scarlatti's for seven voices,
'Alla Capella,' which you, Theodore, once had sung by your own good
pupils under your own conductorship. It is a model specimen of the
true, grand, and powerful ecclesiastical style, although it has a
commencement of the melodic 'swing' which music had acquired by the
time it was written, 1705."

"And the mighty Haendel," said Theodore, "the inimitable Hasse, the
profound and thoughtful Sebastian Bach; have you not a thought for
them?"

"Certainly," answered Cyprian; "I reckon them among the sacred bands
whose hearts were strengthened by the power of faith and love. It was
this power which brought to them that inspiration by virtue of which
they entered into communion with the Highest, and were fired to those
works which serve not worldly aims, but are, of necessity, nothing but
praise of, and honour to, the loftiest things. This is why those works
of theirs bear the impress of veracious truth, and why no anxious
striving after 'effect,' no laboured apings of other things, defile and
desecrate that of the Heavenly which has revealed itself to them, pure,
and clear, and undefiled. This is why there is, in their writings, none
of those so-called 'striking' modulations, varied 'figurations,' or
effeminate 'melodies,'--none of those powerless, confusing rushes of
instrumentation, the object of which is to benumb the intelligence of
the listeners so that they may not detect the emptiness of this music.
Hence it is that only the works of the masters just mentioned (and of
the few in more recent times, who, like them, have remained true
servants of that faithful 'Church' which exists no more here below),
truly elevate and edify pious souls. Let me here mention the glorious
m