Church Music Association Extra Rehearsal

“This evening to Trinity Chapel Schoolhouse with Ellie for an ‘extra’ volunteer C. M. A. rehearsal. About 50 present, but they were the elect of the chorus, & in earnest, & the rehearsal was most interesting. Of the soli, Leggat & Ackermann attended. Beethoven from Kyrie to end of Credo—then two movements of Lorelei—soprano Mrs. Imogene Brown—very good.

Beethoven opens upon me at last. What a Kyrie—Gloria—Et in terra pax—Gratias—Quoniam—Credo!—& what a wonderful fugue in the In gloria Dei Patris! Ellie quite wild about it as we walked home. She says it’s the Mont Blanc of compositions—that the composer has got beyond & above the sphere of music, as we commonly understand the word, into a region never attained before—and I think she is right. Whether our subscribers, who have not attended all these rehearsals, will think so too, is a question. Some of them will. The ‘anti omnia scholar’ is a most awful phrase. The ‘Et in terra pax’ is sweet & solemn but it is a great deal more that can’t be expressed in words, & is approached by no extant music.”