Page:Red (1925).pdf/224

and blue and pink frocks, performed three numbers, the Kyrie, the Gloria, and the Credo, from Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli. This mass is a lofty and noble work. It is also difficult, in the sense that all crystal things are difficult, in the sense that it is more difficult to sing Vedrai carino than it is to sing Vissi d'arte, although Puccini's aria requires a higher and heavier voice than Mozart's. The chorus wandered through Palestrina's measures accurately enough, no doubt, but the effect was unendurable. This mass—any mass—was not composed to be sung correctly by ladies and gentlemen in evening dress to the polite approbation and discreet applause of two thousand Godless souls, the majority of whom, it is safe to say, had never set foot in a Catholic church. This mass—any mass—will only sound right when wafted out of the invisible galleries of some dimly lit cathedral, odiferous with incense, the emblems and symbols of demonology as close to mind in the fantastic carvings on the pillars and baptismal fonts as the emblems and symbols of angelology in the altar, the candles, and the vestments of the celebrating priests. The audience, the congregation, what you will, must be familiar with the intention of the mass, nay more, they must enter into the spirit of its celebration and believe in its carminative powers, Under such conditions, with how-