8 DECEMBER 1855, Page 11

The Amateur Musical Society gave a concert ois Monday evening.

Its concerts are among the fashionable entertainments of the 'season," and this is the first time they have been tried at this period of the year. The Society flourishes, and deservedly. Its orchestra is filled with noblemen and persons of rank, literary men, and members of various professions. Disciplined by an able conductor, Mr. Henry Leslie, they play wonder- fully well; and as they perform the very finest music the concerts are in- teresting even to a critical audience. The orchestra, however, is too numerous, and would be so though all its members were regular troops. It is a hundred strong ; while the Philharmonic band numbers only eighty, and even that smaller number is rather too much for the Hanover Square Rooms. In this amateur band the violins alone amount to forty ; among whom there are necessarily inferior hands who are unable to play with either precision or softness. The band, moreover, has hitherto been much strengthened by eminent professors, to whom, in particular, the principal wind-instruments have been exclusively intrusted ; but now most of the professors are dismissed, and even the wind-instrument solos are attempted by amateurs, who have neither the skill nor the self-pos- session requisite for their execution. These things greatly injured the effect of Monday's concert ; and matters would go much better if the band were reduced by at least twenty performers, and if those parts which are not .suited to amateurs were given to professional players. The rests, there was much in the concert that was very pleasing. An old and simple but lovely symphony of Haydn was on the whole very nicely played. The well-known amateur Mr. Waley performed a piano- forte concerto, composed by himself; which delighted everybody. Tho vocal music was especially interesting : it consisted of German part-songs, by Spohr, Mendelssohn, &c., most admirably sung by the German Ama- teur Choral Society who practise in the City under the direction of Herr Patter. The room was crowded with fashionable company and musical celebrities, among whom Jenny Lind was "the observed of all ob- servers."