Church Music Association Rehearsal: extra

“Pech dined here and I went with him to a little extra Rehearsl at T. Chap. Sch. House…Pech worked them hard for a couple of hours on the Oberon choruses and Mozart’s fugue. He wants Mr. A. to take Fatima’s music in Oberon, but the lady is coy. I continue to like Mrs. Harrison much. She is most genial and kind in manner—and so correct about real music.

I have heard but one dubious or uncomplimentary criticism on yesterday’s Rehearsal. It came thro’ C. E. S. from Mrs. Wm. P. Lee and amounts merely to this, that a great many more Rehearsals were desirable. I don’t believe this excellent lady know anything about it, but her remark was a safe one, quite true and always applicable—like Goldsmith’s (?) advice to a person about to visit foreign galleries—viz: always to say the picture would have been better if the artist had taken more pains, and to praise Pietro Perugino. For Perugino substitute Palestrina or Sebastian Bach, and you have the infallible formula or recipe for a judicious observation that will suit every concer room present or future.”