22 APRIL 1854, Page 9

Mr. Hullah, by his concerts at St. Martin's Hall, is

now supplying a desideratum in choral music. Hitherto we have had the chorus-singing of the oratorio and of the opera ; the one grand but ponderous, the other theatrical and generally slight. But the secular though not theatrical chorus—the chorus expressly designed for the concert-room—has been little attended to and cultivated : so that, whe'n we have an occasional performance of such a work as Mendelssohn's " Walpurgis Night," the effect suffers from the choristers not being taught to avoid the formality and heaviness of the ecclesiastical style. This week, Mr. Hullah has had a performance of Aria and Galatea; when the choruses, in which the depth of the one style is blended with the lightness and grace of the other, received, for the first time in our hearing, their true character and effect; and this must have been the result of very discriminating instruction. They had a flexibility and freedom, an airy flow, and a variety of ex- pression, quite new in great masses of choral harmony. The care be- stowed on this piece is evidently the result of a plan which Mr. Hullah will bring into extensive application, giving us a whole body of secular choral music sung in a manner to which the public have never been ac- customed.

The performance we speak of, however, would have been more entirely satisfactory had the solo parts been sung in a manner corresponding to the excellence of the choruses. Mr. Weiss, indeed, as Polyphemus, left no- thing to be desired : his vocal execution was masterly, and the monster's uncouth and slightly ludicrous tenderness was most happily expressed. But the Galatea, especially, was exceedingly weak ; and Mr. Augustus Braham's Acis was by no means so good as his previous appearances led us to expect. Mr. Braliam inherits a considerable portion of his father's rich and flexible tenor voice, and also of his distinct and emphatic elocu- tion ; but he is not getting rid of his evident faults of style, which, on the contrary, seem to be growing upon him. He has not gained the Italian art of giving grace and roundness to his phrases and cadences ; and his languishing die-away manner of singing pianissimo and then bursting out into a shout, without anything in the sense to justify such violent transitions, seems a vice that he is catching from Mr. Sims Reeves, as if he thought it necessary to gain the popularity of the so- called "great English tenor" by copying his faults. Mr. Braham has the requisites to make an excellent singer : he has only to follow the dictates of simplicity, and feeling, to use his voice naturally, and to eschew affectation. Mr. Smith, who sang the subordinate part of Damon, is a young singer of promise, but lacks experience. The music of Lida and Galatea is essentially dramatic ; and the absence of the appliances of the 'stage only increases the demand on the dramatic powers of the singers. Mr. Hullah conducted with his usual judgment and firmness ; though in respect to one air, Galatea's "Heart, thou seat of soft delight," we found ourselves at issue with him. It is a beautiful thing; but the slowness of the time, added to the colourless singing, made it seem interminable. Since we are fault-finding, let us add that the perform- ance was needlessly prolonged by some encores, which, as encores al- ways do, only damped its spirit.

The hall was so crowded that it was difficult to obtain seats.