Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - DSpace
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C. H. LLOYD 251<br />
charming chords, high up, in the accompaniment to the<br />
verse in " Brief Life/' " The morning shall awaken," he<br />
declined ; and I am sure Parratt would have fought still<br />
more shy of the proposal. Lloyd contrived to be most<br />
expressive without the least semblance of trickishness.<br />
The post of music-master at Eton involves a formidable<br />
combination of three functions. There is the professional<br />
choir to train, the organ to play, and the choral singing<br />
in the school to stimulate and guide. This last meant<br />
pushing tactfully yet forcibly the claims of music against<br />
a swarm of competing interests and widespread apathy<br />
of boys, parents, and masters, the last wishing ·to safeguard<br />
the time allotted to their own subjects ; and it<br />
may be said that no man has ever succeeded equally in<br />
all these departments, to which indeed must be added<br />
the teaching of gifted individual boys as private pupils.<br />
Besides the organ-playing, Lloyd was very successful<br />
with the choir and with the single pupils. The democratic<br />
idea of music which Arnie! attributed to Wagner was not<br />
congenial to him. If it had been, he would have been<br />
severely handicapped by the inexcusable structure of the<br />
School Hall, which was designed without consultation with<br />
him and proved to be most unfavourable to chorus-singing.<br />
Yet the school concerts have necessarily been given there.<br />
It is not any baffling question of general acoustics that<br />
came up, but the planning of the end of the hall for a<br />
platform for the chorus of 250 and orchestra which would<br />
allow the voices to come out freely and give the impression<br />
of volume. In any case, the building is too large for<br />
undeveloped voices, but the matter was made much<br />
worse by the unskilful design of the apse, which imprisons<br />
most of the voices behind the side pillars. On this most<br />
important question affecting the whole future of music<br />
at Eton, Lloyd was not consulted or at least his advice<br />
was not taken. But I am afraid this was by no means<br />
the only blunder connected with the building of the<br />
School Hall.<br />
Lloyd's idiosyncrasy was to be a little too expansive in
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