At times, of course, the scratch-choir made
mistakes, and then the organ crashed out and drowned us. The
congregation imagined that the organist was merely showing off the
power and variety of tone of his instrument; we knew better, and
understood that this blare was to veil our blunder. It was really
absorbingly interesting work. During Lent we sang, unaccompanied,
Palestrina and Vittoria, and this sixteenth-century polyphonic music
requires singing with such exactitude that it needs the utmost
concentration and sustained attention, if the results are to be
satisfactory. The organist was quite pleased with his make-shift
choir; though, as a thorough musician, he was rather exacting. At
choir-practice he would say, "Very nicely sung, gentlemen, so nicely
that I want it all over again. Try and do it a little better this
time, and with greater accuracy, please." It is the custom in this
church to sing carols from a chamber up in the tower on the three
Sundays following Christmas. They are sung unaccompanied, and almost
in a whisper, and the effect in the church below is really
entrancing. To reach this tower-chamber we had to mount endless
flights of stairs to the choir-boys' dormitory, and then to clamber
over their beds, and squeeze ourselves through an opening about a foot
square (built as a fire-escape for the boys) in our surplices.
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