INTRODUCTION OF BRASS INSTRUMENTS. 53 



preached in the choir ? The omission of the sermon, 

 in fact, was an obvious necessity, not a mere whim 

 upon the part of either the precentor or the cathedral 

 authorities, as some of the critics seemed to suppose. 



Two years later my father managed to introduce 

 another improvement into the festival, in the shape of 

 brass instruments. These, however, were only employed 

 during the processional hymn, and consisted of four 

 cornets, the performers upon which led the procession, 

 and, on reaching the choir-steps, stood aside, still 

 playing as before, and allowed the long stream of singers 

 to pass between them. Then they too entered the 

 choir, laid aside their instruments, and joined in the 

 choral music as ordinary singers. The chief object of 

 the innovation was to support the voices, and to help in 

 maintaining them at the proper pitch. In former years 

 they had shown a tendency to become distressingly flat, 

 as was perhaps only natural in a hymn of such length ; 

 and once, after beginning in the key of Or, the proces- 

 sional was finished in that of F. This tendency the use 

 of the cornets entirely obviated; and the hymn went 

 better than ever before. In this year the choir num- 

 bered no less than twelve hundred voices, and the 

 proportion of surplices had considerably increased. 



In 1875 my father conducted the festival for the 

 last time. He was beginning to find that he could no 

 longer manage to give up the two months necessary for 

 the preliminary practice, or afford the expense which, in 

 spite of the liberality of the two railway companies, 

 naturally attended the incessant travelling from place to 



