Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/48

34 they were singing, but only felt the melody of it; then the Pope has his throne brought to him, that is, the chair on which he is carried in state in all processions, and on which I saw Pius VIII. enthroned the day of my arrival in Rome; the cardinals, two and two, bearing palms, commence the procession; the sweeping doors of the chapel are thrown back, and the train proceeds slowly out.

The chant, which till now has seemed to fill the atmosphere about one, now grows fainter and fainter, for the choristers retire in the procession, and at last one is just aware of a faint murmur reaching the chapel from without. Then a choir stationed within commences a chant very loud, the other sends back the response from a great distance, and this continues for a time, till, as the procession draws nearer again, the two choirs unite. Here, too, it does not matter so much how and what they sing; the effect is splendid, and though, it is true, that the chants are very uniform, indeed formless, in simple unison without real construction and sung fortissimo throughout, still nobody could deny their power. The procession is followed by the recitation of the Gospel with the most peculiar intonation, then comes the mass. What charmed me in this was the creed. Now for the first time the priest stands immediately before the altar and intones Seb. Bach’s Creed in his hoarse, aged voice; as he concludes, all the ecclesiastics rise, the cardinals leave their seats, and advancing to the centre of the chapel, form a circle, and altogether repeat aloud the continuation “patrem omnipotentem,” and so on. At