12 FEBRUARY 1853, Page 10

The famous Requiem of Mozart was performed in the Moorfields

Ro- -man Catholic Chapel at the funeral of Weber ; but, except on that and perhaps one or two similar occasions, it was never publicly heard in this country (for we do not speak of some attempts to adapt the music to other subjects) till last Wednesday, at the Sacred Harmonic Society's concert in Exeter Hall. The objection to everything in music that may savour of Popery has given way, even at Exeter Hall, to more liberal views : masses of Haydn and Mozart, with their original text, have repeatedly been performed there without any question as to the propriety of doing so ; and now the most essentially Romish of them, the mass for the dead, has been heard by one of the greatest assemblages ever gathered in that place. It is a question not of religion, but of art: if we may read a Romish poem, or gaze on a Ronsish picture, why may we not listen to Romish music ? In every case we seek the gratification of taste by the

eption of the grand or the beautiful ; and when we go to a concert- to hear the Requiem, we seek nothing but the pleasure of a fine mu- sical entertainment. This, indeed, derogates greatly from the power of the music thus heard. A concert-audience, listening by way of pastime to a beautiful requiem, cannot be moved by it like a devout assembly of worshipers, to whom it is the echo of their own earnest prayers for the souls of those who have been nearest and dearest to them. Even in an artistic view, music belonging to the service of the church is deeply in- jured by being made a concert entertainment. In the Requiem of Mo- zart, in particular, every movement shows by its construction that it is meant to fall into its proper place in the funeral service. To run through it continuously, without those intervals filled up by the ritual, is to mar the design of the composer. To all this there is but one answer : in a Protestant country it must be publicly performed in this manner, or not at all ; and we cannot lose the most divine strains that ever came from the very heart and soul of a musician because their effect must be dimin- ished by unavoidable circumstances. The Requiem, though so rarely performed in public, is well known in this country. Many editions of it have been published, adapted to pri- vate use ; and for many years its principal movements for solo voices— the " Benedictus," " Recordare," and others—have been sung in social and domestic musical circles. In this way the pathos and beauty of the music have long been felt; but the awful grandeur of the choral and orchestral effects in the " Dies irm," the " Rex tremendle majestatis," and the " Tuba mirum spargens sonum," must be learned by a visit to Exeter Hall.

The performance on Wednesday evening was magnificent in every re- spect. The solo parts were beautifully sung by Miss Louisa Pyne, Miss Williams, Mr. Lockey, and Mr. Lawler; and the admirable training of the orchestra and the chorus showed the pains taken by Mr. Costa to honour the memory of Mozart.