14 MAY 1859, Page 20

The principal concerts, this season, are those given by the

various musical associations which now flourish in London. They are supes- seding the benefit concerts of individual musicians which within these few years used to be so numerous ; and will probably put an end to them altogether. If so, no harm will be done ; for those benefit con- certs had got to be a positive nuisance—a downright tax levied by musi- cal teachers and performers on their friends and acquaintance—what is technically called their " connexion." The concerts of the Musical Societies are of a higher order than the benefit concerts. In the one, the love of art has influence—in the other there is nothing but the love of money.

The principal concerts of the present week have been—the third New Philharmonic concert at St. James's Hall, on Monday evening, a good performance, which included Mendelssohn's Scottish symphony, Beethoven's violin concerto played by Joachim, and the same composer's pianoforte concerto in C, played by Signor Andreoli, with some vocal music, in which the chief part was taken by Madame Catherine Hayes ; the last concert of the Musical Society of London on Wednesday even- ing at the same place, when a magnificent band, directed by Mr. Mellon, performed Beethoven's seventh symphony, Joachim played one of Spohr's beat concertos, and some fine vocal pieces were sung by Madame Lem- tuns and Mr. Sims Reeves ; the last concert this season of the Amateur Musical Society, at the Hanover Square Rooms, on Monday evening, where the large orchestra, composed of fashionable amateurs, showed a steady progress in the study of classical music ; the third concert of the London Glee and Madrigal Union, at the same place, on Monday after- noon, where a selection from the works of the great old Italian and Eng- lish masters was sung with admirable purity and beauty ; and lastly, the concert of Henry Leslie's Choir, (the last of the season,) where a similar object (the cultivation of vocal harmony) is cultivated with simi- lar success. These concerts—all excellent in their various kinds—have afforded the lovers of music as ample recreation as they could possibly desire.