usir.
There is not much to say about music this week ; and it is as well, considering the "weightier matters" with which our today's columns are crowded. The two " Royal Italian Operas " have furnished nothing to record or comment upon, for their performances have been merely re- petitions of the pieces which appear to have the greatest success. The only thing which promises to stimulate the sated appetite of the Opera- goers is Meyerbeer's Pardon de Ploirmel, which is said to be in full pre- paration at Covent Garden.
Great efforts are making to give eclat to the Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace. The dates of the performances are announced as follows : on Saturday next, June 18, a full Rehearsal ; on Mon- day, the 20th, The Messiah ; on Wednesday the 22d, the Dettingen Te Deum and other pieces ; and on Friday the 24th, Israel in Egypt. The solo vocalists already engaged are Madame Clara Novelle: Miss Dolby, Mr. Sims Reeves, and Signor Belletti. The choral and instru- mental band will be above three thousand strong—a tuneful host of un- precedented numbers. It remains to be seen if its strength shall corre- spond to its magnitude. The last of the New Philharmonic concerts took place at St. James's Hall, on Monday evening. They have been managed by Dr. Wylde, (there being now no New Philharmonic Society,) with considerable spirit, and sufficient success to induce him to announce their continuance next season. On Monday, he was deserted by about fifty of his band, who, he says, broke their written engagement with him, in order to attend an extra performance at the Covent Garden Opera. He was obliged, in this emergency, to obtain fifty new hands the best way he could, and got on, upon the whole, better than might have been expected; but he certainly was much aggrieved and had great reason to complain.
Almost all the serial concerts of the various musical bodies—the Sacred Harmonic Society, the Musical Society of London, the Glee and Madri- gal Unions, &c., are over for this season. There only remain, we think, the concerts of the Philharmonic Society and of the Musical Union.
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