"
_To the Editor of the Bath Chronicle._
Sir,--Personally it occurs to me that in a public sense it may not
appear to be out of due place nor uninstructive to the readers of the
pages of the "Bath Chronicle," if they were allowed to pursue quietly
the "meditation" which I have thought fit, with, some amount of
feasible excuse, to set in fair order, concerning the apotheosis of
an evening service in musical form, from the versatile pen of Mr.
Berthold Tours, in the key of D, which, with no inconsiderable _eclat_
was in the sequence of events, produced at St. Raphael's Church,
Bristol, on Sunday, the 12th inst. A companion to the graceful evening
service or setting of the appointed Canticles in F major, which be
it observed, is the most popular, and from a purely suitable point of
view, most successful of modern evening services, it marks a phase
of expression, at once ethereal and predilectious. Produced at a
more mature period, and under certainly different circumstances, it
confirms, honours indeed, the fecundity of the age of its inception,
namely, the era of British AEstheticism.
Commenting upon its attributes discursively, it was at the period of
its original initiation in London my privilege to be present; nor
must I omit to graphically allude to my belief, not choosing to be
otherwise than candid with my first impressions, that I had never
listened to anything which so rapturously illustrated the spirit of
those soul-elevating times; even to experiencing a passing pang, since
the perplexing principles or established secrets of decorative or
AEsthetic art, as understood by me, had so curiously been cajoled or
interwoven into the very sanctuary of Classic Music.
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