Church Music Association Private Rehearsal

“Attended a private C. M. A. séance at Steinway. I passed in Ellie, Mrs. Talboys, Carroll, Bergmann & Schaad, & our sitting lasted from a little before two till nearly five. Orchestra read the two overtures, viz., Handel’s horribly contrapuntal but grandiose & effective ‘Acis & Galatea,’ and Benedict’s extremely pretty ‘Undine.’ Then it took up the Beethoven Mass, new to most of the performers. Herr John Strong [Johny] was there with his ‘cello. Soli assisted, but no chorus (Mme. Ackermann, soprano, sang fearfully flat, by the by). As I expected, the orchestral work is, almost throughout, in choral movements at least, a symphony rather than an accompaniment. (The Kyrie (1^st & 3^rd movements), the Credo, Et vitam, etc., might be played at a Philharmonic concert.) It is gorgeous from beginning to end, all compact of thought, embodied in the most splendid instrumentation, various & intense beyond description, so concentrated, so earnest, & abiding so uniformly on the highest possible plane of art, that before the finale is reached, one’s receptive faculty becomes exhausted & paralyzed, & one can hardly follow any more of it. Beethoven therefore closes the work with a series of effects that would wake up the Seven Sleepers. There are bits of passionate recitative, with equally passionate choral interjections—sharp-cut melodic phrases for the brass—& orchestral figures hitherto undreamed of—‘mystic, wonderful.’ It is far too great to be called ‘sensational.’ It is not operatic or dramatic, but rather tragic in the Aeschylean manner.

During a pause I said to old Schaad, ‘Don’t you think this is rather great?’ Schaad turned up his eyes, clasped his hands, and whispered, ‘L[or]d G[o]d!!!!!!!’ I don’t believe the recording angel made any permanent entry of this piece of unquestionable profanity.”