Choir

“ Out of the dim daylight, and the deep silence broken by the chanting of the choir in response to the thunder of the organ, a veil is woven for God, and the brightness of His attributes shines through it. ”

“ Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!
When the smoking scud is blown—
When the greasy wind-rack lowers—
Apart and at peace and alone,
He counts the changeless hours. ”

“ Then, human voices joined the music, swelling it to a wonderful and harmonious choir—to an inspired song of aspiration, Of fervent expectation, and imploring the coming of him who would bring glory and peace, filling the hearts of believers with godliness. ”

“ Till added to that heavenly choir,
We raise our songs of triumph higher,
And praise thee in a nobler strain;
Out soar the first-born Seraph's flight,
And sing with all our friends in light,
Thy everlasting love to man. ”

“ Far off across the valley, the strains are caught up, and sent back from the tops of the high mountains. Then it sounds as if a great choir of angels had come down from Heaven to sing glory to God, and to bring greetings to all good souls. Nowhere in all the world is there such sweet music made by echoes. ”

“ Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
The hills tell each other, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn'd
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime. ”

“ For a long time the soul dwells in this blessed contemplation, that is made sensible by the soft, invisible choir [a hidden chorus of women] . The human heart, attaining a full exaltation, is kindled with a holy fervor and breaks forth with all its strength into a loud jubilation that embraces all worlds of men and spirits. ”

“ Here I had the pleasure of listening to the choral service, performed by the full choir of men and boys attached to the cathedral; and I stood out among the monuments of old archbishops and warriors of five hundred years agone, and heard that sweet chant float upon the swelling peals of the organ, away up amid the lofty groined arches of the grand old minster, till its dying echoes were lost amid the mysterious tracery above, or the grand, full chorus of powerful voices made the lofty [93] roof to ring again, as it were, with heavenly melody. ”

“ When the powerful choral anthems of the church peal out over the kneeling multitude, it requires little fancy to imagine them the golden trumpets of concealed archangels, who would be quite at home in that incomparable choir. ”

“ It is suitable both for simple and elaborate settings, for hymns of praise or of the more intimate ideal emotions, and in a resonant building a choir of six voices can produce complete effects with it. The broad, sonorous swell of its harmonious intervals floods the air with peaceful power, very unlike the broken sea of Bach's chromatics, which, to produce anything like an equal effect of sound, needs to be powerfully excited. ”

“ These savants listened to the music with religious enthusiasm; one assumed an inspired attitude; others made unconscious gestures, in imitation of the chapel-master; others, in low tones, joined in chant with the choir. The choir, of men and women, occupied the rostrum, the painted wood of which still showed traces of gilding. In front the young girls formed a group, with their partitions kept on a level with their faces. ”

“ Knowing the touchiness of singers in general, and the peculiar touchiness of some of his own choir, the priest fully expected to see some manifestation of resentment among them; but they seemed merely surprised and a little awe-struck, and, after a momentary hesitation, withdrew in silence, leaving the organist alone in the loft, with the soft gloaming painting the air about him, as he closed the instrument with tender care, and drew the curtain about it. ”

“ The enormous choir of late and very delicate mediæval design, having been begun in the last quarter of the thirteenth and finished in the middle of the fourteenth century, is one of the few Gothic things one regrets, for while it is very beautiful in itself, it has eliminated what was probably a strikingly effective Romanesque choir, while its towering mass crushes all the rest of the church and makes it a rather shapeless composition. ”

“ I like the open fields and sky better than the grandest churches of man's building; and when the wind sounds in the great grove of pines on the hill near our house, I doubt if there be a choir in all England so melodious and solemn. ”

“ We stand for a moment and watch the singers. Along one street goes the Cathedral Choir in vestments ; down a narrow side street goes a little group of singers to the doorway of a friend ; and here comes another choir, the leader carrying one of those old-fashioned peak-roofed lanterns. ”

“ The choir, ascended by a ladder, holds three tiny cot-beds, while beneath the choir and concealed by beautiful draperies are stored the domestic and culinary paraphernalia,—pots, pans, brushes, dishes, and, above all, the multiplicity of petroleum- and spirit-stoves in which the Bohemian artistic soul delights. ”

“ Beside that, if you let them sing one tune at a service, they will be putting their oar into the other tunes and bothering the choir. There is nothing more annoying to the choir than, at some moment when they have drawn out a note to exquisite fineness, thin as a split hair, to have some blundering elder to come in with a "Praise ye the Lord!" ”

“ Men thus endowed, enjoy the rare privilege of being unable to proffer a single word, without our perceiving however confusedly, the splendid harmony of an almost universal accompaniment of ideas. The choir, their eyes fixed upon the eyes of the master-musician, follows his inspired gestures with jealous care, and seeks to interpret his every nod and movement. ”

“ What a joyful sound we should hear from the church doors if we could enter once more an English church of the sixteenth century and hear the surpliced men and boys a singing in the choir, accompanied by organs and citterns and fiddles and crowdes and dulcimers and all instruments of music in the rood loft, with perhaps an anthem or a solo on high festival days from distinguished vocalists of the neighbouring villages ”

“ The sound of that imploring and beseeching, that wailing and sighing, which drifts out to him through the screen of the choir will come heavy with the pathos of the human abasing itself before the divine in whatever form men may have imagined God, and seeking the pity and the mercy of which Christianity was not the first to feel the need. ”

“ THE TRANSEPTS AND THE CHOIR. The austere character of the nave emphasises the splendid decorations of the eastern parts. No massive screen prevents our seeing the church from the great entrance to the apse. The fact that the choir is open possibly lessens our sense of mystery and of awe, but we are more than compensated by the splendid view of the building from end to end. ”

“ The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country. ”

“ The choir fulfills its highest purpose by leading the people through the measures of those grand old tunes, simple in construction but sublime in spirit, which give to the language of the spiritual songs of the sanctuary a more eloquent beauty than their own. ”

“ The choir of stars strikes us with admiration, declaring Him that numbers them, and showing Him that names them; the animals declare Him that puts life into them; the trees show Him that makes them grow: all which creatures, being made by Thy word, show forth the greatness of Thy power. Wherefore every man ought to send up an hymn from his very soul to Thee, through Christ, in the name of all the rest, since He has power over them all by Thy appointment. ”

“ CHOIR (O. Fr. cuer from Lat. chorus; pronounced quire, and until the end of the 17th century so spelt, the spelling being altered to agree with the Fr. chœur) , the body of singers who perform the musical portion of the service in a church, or the place set apart for them. Any organized body of singers performing full part choral works or oratorios is also called a choir.
In English cathedrals the choir is composed of men (vicars-choral or lay clerks) and boys (choristers) . ”

“ As the pope came in, a supplementary choir of men and soprano hybrids, stationed near the door, set up a high, welcoming song, or chant, which echoed rather finely through the building. All the music of the day is vocal. ”

“ "Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with Thy Choir of Saints, for evermore
I shall be made Thy music, as I come
I tune my instrument here at the door,
And, what I must do then, think here before. ”

“ I have been in churches where they have had a choir, who would rise and sing, and sing, and it seemed as if they sung five or ten minutes, and I could not understand one solitary word they sung, and all the while the people were looking around carelessly. ”

“ I have known a clergyman, who was very fond of music, and in whose church the music was very fine, who seemed incapable of enjoying its solemn beauty as a thing to be enjoyed while passing, but who persisted in regarding each beautiful strain merely as a promising indication of what his choir would come at some future time to be. ”

“ The choir consists of the verger and another man who appears and disappears like a jack-in-the-box; at no time are more than two men visible in the organ loft, but in their vigor they quite make up for lack of numbers or inspiration. On the opposite side of the choir rises what seems to be a larger and more imposing organ. ”

“ We admired the neatness and taste with which the choir is fitted up, wherein parochial service is performed. Two thousand pounds were expended in the work in 1796. A beautiful effect is produced in this member of the fabric by the hexagonal termination to the cast; at which end five fine windows of richly-painted glass throw "a dim religious light" over the choir, that fills the mind with the most solemn impressions. ”

“ I have hardly any voice at all myself, but I had been used to singing in a choir, and can read a part easily at sight, so I volunteered as a bass, and for two years marched in twice, and occasionally three times, every Sunday into the church in cassock and surplice with the choir. ”

“ To dream of a choir, foretells you may expect cheerful surroundings to replace gloom and discontent. For a young woman to sing in a choir, denotes she will be miserable over the attention paid others by her lover. ”

“ But poets are privileged beings. Accompanying the Choir in their song of praise with organ, harp, and viol are the balancing group of angels in the corresponding compartment of the sinister shutter, types that, strangely enough, are in striking contrast to the former, their features moulded in placid contentment. ”

“ Let us close this discussion by urging the choir director to remember that the most important music, at least in the Protestant church, is the congregational singing; and to consider the fact that if music is to help people worship without becoming a substitute for worship, it will be necessary for him not only to inspire his choir with high ideals of church music, but also to devise means of inducing the congregation to take part in the singing to a much greater extent than is now the case in most churches. ”

“ The choir, from its station [Pg 154] in the organ-loft, never hurls down upon the heads of the saints and sinners beneath any of those surprising sounds which rural choirs so often emit, with a conviction that they are achieving wonderful feats of vocalism, and no profane fingers compel the pipes of the microscopic organ to recall to the mind of the listener the music of the stage and the concert-room. ”

“ To begin with a well known example of decorative effect which is found in the earliest of the English Cathedrals, that of Lincoln. The nave and choir of this was finished just at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. The choir is so beautiful in its conception, so wonderful in its construction, so charming in its finish, so satisfactory in all its detail, though there is very little of what would be called striving after effect in it, that it is still called the Angel Choir. ”

“ During the hymn times they stood up in their places listening carefully to a fine choir of men and women—a choir which, despite its vocal excellence, was only allowed to perform the most stodgy and commonplace evangelical music. ”

“ It is delightsome to the ear, and it is one of our most acceptable methods of worshiping God. And those who sing in the choir and in all the choirs of the Saints, should sing with the spirit and with the understanding. ”

“ The members of the choir are of a brisk, warbling turn of mind, and can push through their work blithely. The singing is thoroughly congregational—permeates the whole place, is shot out in a quick, cheerful strain, is always strong and merry, is periodically excellent, is often jolly and funny, has sometimes a sort of chorus to it, and altogether is a strong, virtuously-jocund, free and easy piece of ecstacy which the people enjoy much. It would stagger a man fond of “linked sweetness long drawn out,” it might superinduce a mortal ague in one too enamoured of Handel and Mozart ”

“ An attractive feature of the service is the singing, the choir consisting of 400 voices, accompanied by the music of what is claimed to be one of the largest church organs in the world, and led by a gentleman highly skilled in his profession, who manages his great concourse of singers with remarkable accuracy and precision. ”