PROVINCIAL MUSIC.
There has been this week a musical festival at Bradford. That thriv-• ing and spirited town, now a great seat of the Yorkshire woollen-manu- facture, has established on a permanent footing a triennial music-meet- ing, in emulation of Birmingham and Norwich ; and for that purpose has built a concert-hall, not surpassed for spaciousness and elegance any- where in the kingdom. This was the second festival, the first having taken place in 1853. It was got up on a great scale, under the direction of Costa. The list of principal singers included Clara Novelle, Viardot, Alboni, Piceolomini, Sims Reeves, Formes, Reichardt, Belletti, Mr. and Madame Weiss, and .other eminent names. The instrumental band was a hundred strong, and the chorus numbered two hundred and fifty,-all Yorkshire people of course, for to import choristers into Yorkshire would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. In the performances there was not —and in the present state of musical composition there could not be— much novelty,. In the mornings, there were ElVah, The Messiah, Costa's Eli, and on the last day a collection of scraps, among which were some portions of Henry. Leslie's Immanuel a psalm by Mendelasohn, and another by Mr. Jackson, a Yorkshire organist, whose published composi- tions we have several times noticed with approbation. The evening con- certs, as usual at country music-meetings, were reminiscences of the London season ; and Piecolomini was naturally the great object of curio- sity. The performances have not been so fully attended as might have been anticipated. Even The Messiah, which at provincial festivals hardly ever fails to draw an overflowing audience, did not fill the hall on Thursday. This seems to have been partly owing to the weather, which has been rather unfavourable in Yorkshire during the week : but it is likewise attributed to the rates of admission, which are described as having been injudiciously high, and calculated to exclude in a great mea- sure the middle-class inhabitants of the town, from whom the festival would have derived essential support. It is expected, nevertheless, that the pecuniary returns will be considerable. The proceeds must go, for the present, towards clearing off the obligations incurred in the erection of the hall; but when this is done, as we understand, the receipts of future festivals will be applied to benevolent purposes.
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