The soul of the Army found its voice in HERBERT BOOTH.

 HERBERT BOOTH: SALVATIONIST

The soul of the Army undoubtedly found its voice in Herbert Booth, discovering in him a real genius for devising characteristic musical containers for the new wine the living spirit had fermented. His ability to conceive appropriate musical themes was developed incidentally. Latent as a natural bent, it was called out by a sense of the inadequacy of most secular tunes as vehicles for Army hymns and songs he himself had written.  Major Slater, Herbert's able and indispensable associate in elaborating and harmonizing themes, told the story in "The Musical Salvationist".

Richard Slater

 
Soon after the Marechale went to Paris to open Army work Herbert, as has been noted, joined her as an assistant.

"It was at this time in a strange way"—says Major Slater—"that Herbert was led into his first efforts at song-making, poetry claiming his attention at the onset, although always musically inclined."
A French woman, wife of an officer in the French work, placed at Herbert's disposal her collection of secular songs, suggesting that he write for the tunes sacred words—in French !—to be used in the Army meetings. Possibly the Major used the word "onset" advisedly, for there are evidences that Herbert's collision with the French language was as the shock of battle. Certainly the sequel of his serious and ingenious labour at this task showed him to be no Conrad, more successful in the employment of a foreign tongue than most of the authors to whom it is native, for Major Slater observed "that the work after all probably was not of much value ; but indirectly the effort was of incalculable good upon his character, for it opened up to his consciousness the possession of verse-making capacity. The desire to create was stirred within him, and when the verses were taking form his musical inventiveness won for itself an expression in new melodies that live to-day after so many years of constant wear." Evidently Herbert felt the want of freer modes ofmusical expression for characteristic and original religiousconcepts and emotions. The new wine had burst the old bottles, and new bottles were needed.

In 1890 the Printing and Publishing Department of the Army issued "Songs of Peace and 'War". In this collection of eighty six pieces nine are credited to Mrs. Herbert Booth

Mrs. H. Booth

and of the remaining seventy-seventhe words were writtenby Herbert, thirteen only of these songs being set to secular or adapted tunes. In the sixty-four original melodies the Commandant exhibited unusual versatility, attaining genuine excellence in each of three, if not four widely different modes. That the work, in a selected list of these, is of equal value is too much to say and is not to be expected. It is enough that the better examples are really superior.

An appeal to the natural, untrained and uncritical instincts of the average man is the informing intention of the compositions making up the bulk of the collection, and, in order to be designated strictly as “Songs”, the familiar mode of "Song, and Chorus" is uniformly employed. The composer is particularly happy in his transitions. A change of time, an adroit turn of the theme, andthe piece broadens out into a freer and more expansive manner, while enough of the initial motif is is retained to unify the whole. Here the avoidance of the common pit falls is striking. Cheapness, mediocrity, the sensous and saccharine, looseness of construction and poor workmanship are absent. This was an achievement.