3-034-850 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Village Choir at Rehearsal, drawn by M. W. Ridley, 1871. 'The scene at a rehearsal...under the personal direction of the Rector's two accomplished daughters...affords a graceful example of [preparation for the special services of Christmas Day in a village church,] to be conveniently adopted in cases where no professional musician is engaged as organist. One of the sisters, we see, has long since been regularly installed as the official instrumentalist of the ordinary Sunday services, and plays the harmonium...in the pillared arch nearest her father's pulpit and lectern. The other seems to have undertaken the tuition of a set of youthful vocalists chosen out of the Sunday school. A gentle young curate, who may be their brother or else the betrothed of one of them, stands beside the instrument and beats time for his own sole satisfaction, being in such a position that the movement of his hand can scarcely be observed by any of the performers...At the opposite side, to the left hand of the player on the harmonium, is a row of little girls...Their soft treble voices are to join in the singing, and there will be less trouble with them than with the boys, when they have once got over the shyness of a first attempt'. From the Christmas supplement to "Illustrated London News", 1871.