THE MUSICAL TIMES.- June i, 1901. 375 deprecatory about this accomplishment ofSIR hers, JOHN GOSS. in which, however, she acquitted herself charm- 1800 - 1880. ingly. Her favourite musician was Mendelssohn, (' Concluded from page 231.) who had greatly pleased her in early days as a man. She would have nothing to say, until Before resuming this biographical sketch, a quite late in life, to Wagner or Brahms, and slight error in its first instalment (p. 225), once dismissed them all in one of her abrupt kindly pointed out by Mr. John S. Bumpus, must be rectified. The habitation of Mr. turns of conversation, " Quite incomprehen- sible ! " " I am bored with the Future Stafford Smith, with whom the Chapel Royal altogether," she used to say, " andChildren don't livedwant in Goss's daj^, was located at to hear any more about it." She was not Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, and not at more partial to some of the old masters, and Adelphi Terrace. One of Sir John Goss's once closed a musical discussion by saying, daughters has furnished us with a curious side- " Handel always tires me, and I won't pretend light on her father's old master. She says : 4 In he doesn't." She carried out her aversion to my childhood Stafford Smith lived in Paradise the last, and forbade that the Dead March Row, andin I remember our servants going to see Saul should be played at her funeral.' him as he lay in his coffin, where he was attired In regard to prima donnas, she placed in fullGrisi court dress, satin breeches, buckles, &c. on a higher level than all other operatic He itper- was who made all the boys learn the 13th formers. When that actress flung herself chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, across the door in ' The Huguenots,' or which my father never mentioned without arranged the poison scene with the Duke saying, in " God bless him for it." ' 4 Lucrezia Borgia,' and when Viardot Garcia After his appointment to the organistship of rose to the height of her invective in St.the Paul's (on April 25, 1838), the life of Sir 4 Prophète,' the Queen's face blazed with John Goss was not crowded with incident. He approbation. She would turn in her box did and his work conscientiously and without fuss say, 4 There ! not one of the others could or doself-advertisement, content with doing his that ; no, not even Alboni ! ' duty in that state of life into which it had pleased The love of humour was a marked character- God to call him. In 1841 (the Preface is dated istic in our late Queen's nature, and, by those4 30, Sloane Street, October of that year') he well qualified to judge, she possessed remarkable issued his well known collection of 4 Chants, intuitiveness as a musical critic. As the writer Ancient and Modern, in score, with an accom- of the article observes : - paniment for the organ or pianoforte.' This 4 She thoroughly enjoyed a good farce, publication and of 257 chants contained some laughed heartily at the jokes. She delighted practical in 4 prefatory observations on chanting.' Italian opera, and when she liked a piece, she steeped herself in every part of it, the melody A COMPOSER OF ANTHEMS. and the romance, and heard it over and over Goss is best known to posterity as the until she knew the music by heart. " Norma composer " of anthems, just as Handel is was a great favourite ; and in late years regarded Calvé as the great oratorioist - if that word won her heart in " Carmen," to which opera may -be allowed. Both musicians, however, music, plot, and everything - the Queen became did not embark upon the great work of their absolutely devoted. And the pieces of Gilbert lives till a late period in their careers. In the and Sullivan were an endless delight to heryear ;1842, when he was forty-one years of age, she would even take a part in these, very drolly Goss contemplated composing an anthem to and prettily. No one could form a more words from each of the 150 Psalms, but he sympathetic audience, whether in music or never got beyond the first - a setting of 4 Blessed drama, than the Queen. She gave her unbroken is the man.' This composition was received attention to the performer, and followed what- with such coldness by the members of his own ever was being done with an almost childish Cathedral choir, and such unkindly criticisms eagerness. If the tenor began to be in the were passed upon it, that Goss did not write least heavy, the Queen would be observed to another anthem for ten years. 4 Blessed is the fidget, as though hardly restrained from break- man' (the anthem above referred to) was not ing into song herself ; and at the slightest published till twenty years after its composition, deviation from perfection of delivery her fan when it formed one of a 4 Collection of Anthems began to move. No part of her character was for certain Seasons and Festivals of the Church,' more singularly interesting than the way in edited by Sir Frederick Ouseley. Four years which, in such matters as these, she pre- later (in 1846) Goss edited, in collaboration served a charm of juvenile freshness like an with James Turle, organist of Westminster atmosphere surrounding the complex machinery Abbey, a collection of cathedral services and of her mind.' anthems in two volumes, some of which had Would it not be interesting to know which not then been printed.* parts Queen Victoria took - so 4 very drolly and prettily ' - in the Gilbert and Sullivan * For a complete list of these services and anthems, which appeared comicalities ? periodically, see 'The Organists and Composers of St. Paul's,' an invaluable book on the subject, by Mr. John S. Bumpus, p. 162. This content downloaded from 76.190.40.3 on Mon, 10 Aug 2020 14:37:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 376 THE MUSICAL TIMES. - JUNE I, 1901. The reputation of John Goss on as January a master- i, 1857), Goss was sworn in composer of English church music Composer received to Her its Majesty's Chapels Royal, in hall mark in the two anthems he succession composed to William for Knyvett. No better the state funeral of the Duke of appointmentWellington, could in have been made. St. Paul's Cathedral, November 18, 1852 - the AN ORATORIO PERFORMANCE IN ST. PAUL'S. settings of ' If we believe that Jesus died ' and the Dirge, beginning ' And the AKing practically said tounknown, but important event all the people.' The latter, accompanied by in the quiet life of our composer has now to wind instruments (flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, be recorded. In i860 the organ screen in trumpets, cornets, trombones, ophicleide, drums, St. Paul's Cathedral was removed and Father muffled side-drums, and organ), concluded with Smith's organ placed under the North-East the words (recitative), 'And the King said unto arch of the chancel. At the same time the his servants, Know ye not that there is a Prince organ, originally in the Panopticon, Leicester and a Great Man, fall'n this day in Israel?' Square, was acquired by the Dean and Chapter which led on to the Dead March in ' Saul,' and erected over the South door. In connec- * during the performance of which the tion Body with the re-opening of the Cathedral after was lowered,' as the score indicates. From the alterations, and in aid of the funds for the The Times report of that solemn function purchasewe of the organ above referred to, a learn that there were ' two choirs in two lines,' performance of 'The Messiah' on a festival one being conducted by James Turle, the other scale was given in the Cathedral and under by Mr. Francis.* There was no full rehearsal the dome, on Friday, January 25, 1861. It was of the music, as the wind instrument the first time that an oratorio had been per- players were engaged at a Sacred Harmonic formed in St. Paul's since its erection by concert at Exeter Hall. As The Times said, Wren, nearly two hundred years before; and 'Their absence was a serious drawback.' On so important did the event loom in the jour- that occasion the Precentor presented nalistic himself horizon of Mr. J. W. Davison, the for admittance to the cathedral, but the critic-in-chief vergers of the day, that he devoted to it would not let him in, as his features were to no less than three leading articles, in three them totally unknown. No wonder that Sidney successive weeks, in the columns of the Musical Smith called this Precentor, the Absentor ! World. Here is the announcement of the performance : - PRAISE THE LORD, O MY SOUL Í St. Paul's Cathedral. - Opening of the magnificent Two years later Goss wrote one of his most New Organ, Friday morning, Jan. 25th, 1861, the popular anthems for the Bi-centenary Festival Festival of the Conversion of St. Paul, a Grand Per- of the Sons of the Clergy, held in St. Paul's formance, under the Dome, of Handel's Messiah , in Aid Cathedral, May 10, 1854. This was the well of the Cathedral Fund, especially the purchase and known 'Praise the Lord, O my soul.' On that erection of the new organ. interesting occasion the anthem was accom- Principal vocalists - Madame Lemmens Sherrington, panied by a full wind band. Goss's neatly Mrs.