The
style of church-music throughout the country has undergone material
changes within the last five-and-twenty years. In the cities and larger
towns, such societies as can afford the expense have established
quartette choirs of trained vocalists, who deliver the hymns and anthems
of the service to selections from the music of the great masters, which
they are expected to render in a manner that shall be satisfactory to a
taste educated and refined by the instruction of good teachers and the
public performances of skilful musicians. In the country churches, the
congregations still unite in the singing; or, where it has been the
custom for those who could sing to "sit in the seats" and form a chorus
choir, such custom still obtains. Some notion of city taste, however,
has gone abroad in the country, and the choirs, although old-fashioned
in their organization, are not quite content with the psalm-books of old
time, and are constantly asking for something newer and better. A great
many volumes have been published in order to supply this want, some of
which have done good, while, if we say of others that they have done no
harm, it is as much as they deserve.
A music-book for general use in churches which do not have quartette
choirs and "classical" music must be prepared with care and good
judgment.
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