Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/53

Rh keeping by me the separate antiphons, etc., which I have noted down, so as to show them to you, and let you see them in their connection with the book. On the Wednesday evening the first psalm sung was the 68th, and then the 69th and 70th. The dividing of the verses and their partition between the two choirs is, by the way, one of the arrangements that Bunsen has made for the Protestant church here, and in the same way he has every chorale preluded by an antiphon. The latter are composed by Giorgio, a native musician; they are written in the style of the “canto fermo,” and are commenced by a few voices, the chorale with the full choir coming in later, e. g., “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.” In the Quirinal the 70th psalm is followed by a “Pater Noster sub silentio,” that is to say, all assisting at the office stand up, and a short interval of silence takes place. Then the first “Lamentation of Jeremiah” is commenced very softly and quietly in G major. It is a beautiful and solemn composition of Palestrina; following on that clamour of psalms, itself without bass parts, and including only high solo voices and tenor, with the tenderest of swells and falls almost dropping into silence and always slowly drawing out its harmony from one scale and chord to another, one can, indeed, only call it heavenly.

It is a misfortune, to be sure, that the passages which they sing with the most appealing devotion, and which it is also clear the composer himself dwelt on most affectionately, are of necessity the mere headings of the chapters or verses—Aleph, Beth,