NEW MUSICAL PUBLICATIONS.

Songs, Duets, and Trios from the Oratorios of Handel. Arranged by H. R. Bistioe.

HEARTILY do we wish that Mr. Iltsnor's talents were more fitly em. ployed than in the mere adaptation of the compositions of others for the shop. The history of the present work is this. D'ALMAINE'S copies of HANDEL'S single Songs were not in repute; and it was ne- cessary to get up an arrangement of them which might supersede the disagreeable necessity of sending to another shop for an article which he professed to vend, but which nobody would buy. The veneration which Mr. BISHOP professes in his preface for the works of HANDEL, we are quite sure he feels ; but when he talks of their having, to the immortai honour of this country, maintained their ground through each succeeding generation," he must have meant to utter the indignant and bitter reproach of a true musician at the neglect into which they are fallen. One of his oratorios, and a few choruses and songs from the rest, are all that the public know of the writings of a man who lived in England almost half a century, and never spent a year without pro- ducing two, three, or four entire works ; and who was, as Mr. BISHOP truly says, " the greatest master of that branch of the musical art he particularly cultivated the world has ever known." The time will come when the English will do justice to the memory of HANDEL, by doing honour to the compositions which he wrote; but that time is not yet arrived. The mine of Hasnost. has yet to be worked ; and the present publication is only the recasting of some of its ore, which has been long since brought to the surface. The editions of HANDEL'S Songs have been various. The first was that of \Vaunt, the original publisher of his Oratorios ; who collected into volumes, under different titles, his English and Italian Songs ; the latter were also published for each voice separately : and it is in his Italian rather than his English airs that HANDEL'S genius as a song-writer chiefly appears. His English songs are, for the most part, copies or parodies of his Italian ones, and were written for singers of inferior vocal power to NICOLINI, FAUSTINA, CUZZONI, STRADA, and BOSCH!. The latter—shall we say " to the immortal honour of this country," in which they were written ?—are just as little known as the Italian Canzonets of SCARLATTI Or the Duets of STEFFAN'. WALSH',

editions had no separate line for the accompaniment—the voice part and a figured bass sufficed for the players of that time : but when ladies ceased to acquire the art of playing from a figured bass, an edition

which should give the harmony in notes became necessary; and Mr.- Coars's work, called " The Beauties of Handel," supplied the re- quisite assistunce. After this came Dr. CLARKE'S edition of HANDEL,

which contained most of hi.: Oratorios and lighter English pieces, with a compressed pianoforte or organ accompaniment, including, of course,

the Songs. Dr. CLARKE, in order to render his edition more easy (es

as we should rather say, more difficult) to read, adopted only two clefs, and wrote his alto and tenor parts an octave higher than the real notes.

This edition was published by WHITTAKER, and the plates afternards fell into the possession of COLLARD'S house : we believe they are ROW out of the hands of the trade, and are held by a bookseller of the name of JONES. BIRCHALL also published an edition of HANDEL'S Songs, at- ranged by WEBBE, Dr. CLARKE, and others ; CRAMER'S house an. other, arranged by HORSLEY ; and Mont's another, arranged by Goss. Of these several editions we prefer the last, which seems to hit the exact point between nakedness and superfluity: the singer has all the support he requires, while he is not overpowered by the constant intro. duction of every note that can be crowded into the harmony.

As far, therefore, as the public wants are concerned, a new edition of the same songs of Has:ost. which had been previously well arranged, was not needed : but if the public (lid not want to buy, Mr. D'At.

MAINE wanted to sell them, and hence appears the present volume. These remarks would not have been needed, and would not have been

made, had it not been announced as having originated from the public- spirited wish " to give a just and comprehensive idea of the inventions of a truly great and revered master."

The arrangement is, in the main, what we should have anticipated from Mr. BISHOP'S eminent skill and judgment. Bred up among

theatres and obliged to write for unlearned ears, his taste has never been thereby vulgarized or depraved. No man living has a nicer per- ception or a fuller understanding of all that constitutes the true great-

ness of HANDEL. The associated old ladies who hold their yearly

conclave at what they call the Ancient Concerts, lisp and mumble out their cuckoo cry of admiration at what they have neither brains to tin. derstand nor acquirements to appreciate ; but to a mind like that of

BISHOP the majestic proportions of Hasross's works are fully revealed. There is no doubt that much of the nakedness of HANDEL'S score

was clothed by his own fingers, by the help of the organ at his orato-

rios or harpsichord at his operas; and it is principally in this filling-up that the arranger of HANDEL'S songs tests his fitness for his task. In this respect we regard COREF.'S arrangement as too meagre, and HORSLEY'S as too abundant. But it is,not merely in filling up chords, but sometimes in the invention of appropriate melodies, that the art of

the arranger appears. For example, in the allegro which intervenes

between the first and concluding movement in " From mighty kings," (to which HANDEL has only bequeathed us a bass,) some responsive

melody should be added whenever the voice is silent : and here

the phrase which GREATOREX was accustomed to add was respon- sive--it was an appropriate echo to the preceding vocal phrase :

but Mr. Simmer's is not. There is an occasional impropriety, too, in writing the accompaniment all'ottava : for instance, in leading off the point started by the trebles, in the chorus " 0 thou that tellest," Mr. Manor has taken it in octaves,—a reading certainly not sanctioned

by HANDEL; nor by MOZART, whose instruments (both the first and second violins) play in unison with the voice. But such defects as

these are rare; and the work, generally speaking, may be placed in the

bands of inexperienced players and singers, as a correct condensation of HANDEL'S score, and a successful attempt to fill up what he has only given in outline. It strikes us as passing strange, that in the arrangement of the songs from the Messiah, which form a large portion of the present volume, so little use should have been made of Mo. zster's score ; especially as we know MI. BISIIOP cannot participate in the absurd prejudice—now almost extinct—of thinking it impossible that HANDEL can ever be touched without injury. The added accom- paniments of MOZART are often master-works of genius as well as

skill, and ought not to have been discarded from this or any arrange- ment of the songs in the Messiah. In the duet " 0 Death where is thy sting," we find them ; but where are the masterly touches with which he has enriched " 0 thou that tellest," " The people that walked

in darkness," and "But thou didst not leave ?" In all these songs, Mr. BISIIOP has filled up I-Ism:Ira:a outline—we only wish that he had filled it up from the score of MOZART.

The time of each piece is indicated by the metronome mark ; and, according to our judgment, correctly. In one song only we think Mr.

BISHOP quite mistaken—" If God be for us "—marked by liallost larghetto, but which Mr. BISHOP'S mark changes into allegretto. The time of this song has been considerably quickened within our recollec-

tion; and the reason is, that lady singers of late, finding that they have a long unprofitable song at the conclusion of an oratorio, which usually sends many of their auditors to their carriages, are glad to get over their thankless duty as quickly as possible. The song is thus so ipped el all the character and merit it possesses, and rendered rather ludicrous than impressive.

The present volume is intended to be followed by three others. Would it not have been well, in such a comprehensive edition of HANDEL'S English Songs, to have classed them by the works whence they ate derived, rather than adopt no classification at all?