Music and Friends: Or, Pleasant Recollections of a Dilettante

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

741-742

text excerpt

In the afternoon I visited the Gaelic Church, and heard a sermon preached to a thousand peasants from the country, in that language. The clerk, who gave out the hymn, did not read the words, but chanted them, in somewhat like a Gregorian strain, which no one could suspect to have been intended for reading. The two lines having been thus recited, the congregation joined in an old Lutheran tune... 

As the precentor is the only musician in the place, he throws in many irreverent and ridiculous flourishes, by way of distinguishing himself ; and one of his fraternity, in Inverness, has had the folly to publish the tunes so ornamented. The simple melody, as sung by a thousand voices, had a powerful effect upon my feelings, and was no doubt a traditional copy of the manner of singing among the ancient convenanters.

excerpt from 'Music and Friends: Or, Pleasant Recollections of a Dilettante' pp. 741-742 (142 words)

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