o
masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to
control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah'
of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in
Egypt,' in which the voice of the composer is 'as the voice
of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of many thunderings, saying, "Alleluia, for the
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"' that these colossal
compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus
larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the
last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was
advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite
charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759--he died
before the time, however), the singers, including
principals, numbered twenty-three, while the
instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great
Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the
choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two
hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever
gathered together for a single performance in England up to
that time.

[Sidenote: _Choirs a century ago._]

[Sidenote: _Bach's choir._]

"In 1791 the Commemoration was celebrated by a choir of five
hundred and a band of three hundred and seventy-five. In
May, 1786, Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach's successors as
cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipsic, directed what
was termed a _Massenauffuehrung_ of 'The Messiah,' in the
Domkirche, in Berlin. His 'masses' consisted of one hundred
and eighteen singers and one hundred and eighty-six
instrumentalists. In Handel's operas, and sometimes even in
his oratorios, the _tutti_ meant, in his time, little more
than a union of all the solo singers; and even Bach's
Passion music and church cantatas, which seem as much
designed for numbers as the double choruses of 'Israel,'
were rendered in the St. Thomas Church by a ludicrously
small choir. Of this fact a record is preserved in the
archives of Leipsic. In August, 1730, Bach submitted to the
authorities a plan for a church choir of the pupils in his
care. In this plan his singers numbered twelve, there being
one principal and two ripienists in each voice; with
characteristic modesty he barely suggests a preference for