WE TRUST that Mr Martin Shaw’s earnest plea on behalf of English Church music, which we print elsewhere, will be read with sympathetic attention. To disparage German music would be to put ourselves out of court and we have no intention of doing so, but it is quite another thing to praise it at the expense of our own. In present circumstances, when it is our sad duty to commemorate so many who have fallen in the war, there is a painful incongruity in using German compositions when it would be more fitting to sing or play those of native origin. Handel, perhaps, may be almost accounted English, but Beethoven and Brahms should certainly not oust Tallis and Purcell. Even the music of our Allies should, for the time being, be left to them. We have, on more than one occasion, expressed our appreciation of the exquisite music of the Russian masters, examples of which have been provided by the choir of St Margaret’s, Westminster. Nevertheless, we endorse Sir Charles Stanford’s deprecation of the use of Prussian music at the service in memory of Lord Roberts, which was sung the other day at St Margaret’s. Let us, as is right and proper, bury or commemorate our dead with music composed by men of their own race. A great opportunity is offered for making known to Churchpeople the goodly heritage which they possess and are hardly conscious of possessing.

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