" SAMSON " AT EXETER HALL.

Acrs of musical indiscretion are not rare, but among the chiefest may be reckoned the performance of Samson at Exeter Hall on Friday sennight. With the glorious oratorio which we heard at Norwich still ringing in our ears—with a vivid recollection of the might and majesty which it revealed—to be so soon compelled to witness a display of poverty and meanness, and to be awakened to the conviction that HANDEL could stoop to vulgarity as well as soar to sublimity, was an infliction that might well have been spared. The alleged motive for this performance, (as we understand,) is that degree of reverence for HANDEL which forbids any alteration in his works, and enjoins their performance precisely as he left them, without addition or subtraction of any kind. Reverence for HANDEL is of seve- ral kinds. First, that which regards all that he wrote as of equal value—Israel in Egypt and Susanna—his Organ Fugues and his Water Musie—" Laurie, genie colomba" and " 0 lovely Peace "—which believes every phrase to be incapable of improvement, and scrupulously retains every error. Of this sect of devotees, GEORGE the Third was high priest ; for he not only adopted their creed, but never suffered any other music than that of HANDEL to be performed in his presence. Even to his Birth-day Odes Sir Wnmvem PARSONS was compelled to fit some compositions of the Monarch's favourite writer ; and the standing dish at St. James's every 4th of June was PEE with HANDEL sauce. These are real honest bigots—ignorant enough, as all bigots are, but withal sturdy and sincere. Of another class the sincerity may well be doubted : these are for the most part members of the pro- fession, who are content to leave the art as they found it—to whom every thing new is a trouble and every advance reluctant. They welcome any change with uplifted eyes and looks of dismay, and denounce any addition to the resources of the art or the amount of ICS pleasures as a needless innovation or a fearful heresy. The influ- ence of this class was once powerful : it combined all the old ladies in and out of the orchestra of the Ancient Concerts. It is now on the wane : public taste and public opinion have outrun it ; and it is only felt in certain corners and among a few circles. There is another class of persons from whose pens distils a profound reverence for HANDEL ; the so-called critics, who, in the consciousness of ignorance, take refuge in the only ground they can occupy without making it too palpable, and denounce all innovations as unpardonable heresies. A real reverence for HANDEL is founded on a diligent study of all that he has written, combined with the power of discriminating the proper station and cha- racter of what be wrote : the suffrage of the uninformed crowd, the superstitious veneration of the bigot, or the worthless and pretended admiration of the pert and shallow scribbler, is not fit incense for the shrine of HANDEL.

The worthy managers of the Exeter Hall affair belong to none of these various classes. Their pretensions and their acts are at variance. Sincere and conscientious bigotry we may respect, though we cannot admire it ; but when merely assumed as a cloak, it must be exposed and dealt with accordingly. The oratorio of Samson as composed by HANDEL, though announced for performance at Exeter Hall, was not performed, nor any thing like it. An oratorio is a dramatic and mu- sical structure, of which the sequence is regular and connected, both as a drama and a musical composition. Every scene, every speech, has reference to what precedes and follows it : the key—the style—the cha- racter of every piece—is similar4 arranged. The composer and the poet both regard their work as a whole, and class and combine their ma- terials to this end and for this purpose. It follows, therefore, that to cut out here a speech, there a scene—to wrench from their connexion songs, recitatives, or choruses—is to damage the unity and to injure the symmetry of such a work ; and that if this process be carried to any extent, nothing but a shapeless ruin will remain. And such was the Samson exhibited at Exeter Hall. Here is the proof: all the follow- ing songs were cut out--

Loud as the thunder's awful voice"

" Then free from sorrow, free from thrall "

" Torments, alas ! are not confin'd "

" 0 mirror of our fickle state !"

" God of our fathers!"

" Then long eternity" " With plaintive notes" " Your charms to ruin " " How charming is domestic ease ! "

" To fleeting pleasures make your court " " It is not virtue"

" My strength is from the living God " " Thus when the sun."

In addition to these thirteen songs, (nearly twice as many as the entire oratorio of The Creation contains,) no fewer than thirty-eight recitatives were expunged, without reckoning those which HANDEL appended to his original copy of the oratorio. Both songs and recita- tives are cut out in every scene, and the dialogue becomes " confusion worse confounded." It may be alleged, that if the entire oratorio were performed no audience would sit it out ; and this we most potently believe. If played and sung through, it would have driven its hearers away long before the end arrived. But we know that the mangling process is not the alternative : Samson has been presented to us in the form of a complete and perfect oratorio—possessing neither spot nor blemish—full of beauty and of grandeur from first to last; a work, in short, worthy of the combined powers of HANDEL and MILTON, Why then are we to be so pertinaciously reminded of HANDEL'S puerilities and meannesses ? why is the unwilling and reluctant convic- tion to be forced upon our minds, that if the greatest, he could also be the meannest of composers ? We have no thanks for those who thrust in our faces these needless and unwelcome reminiscences of HANDEL. His voluminous works contain abundant evidences of his genius—more ten times told than it ever fell to our lot to hear in public. With these we ahould be content, and quite willing that the rest sleep in peace. But the Exeter Hall version of Samson was made out by addition as well as subtraction ; "additional accompaniments" being "added by Mr. Perry." Additional accompaniments to HANDEL are occasionally not only proper, but necessary, in order to perfect his own score, and ac- complish that by a band which he completed by his organ. This, in fact, is all that remains to be done. Mr. PERRY'S accompaniments are both defective and redundant ; the songs being generally left in their original nakedness, while to the choruses is often added a needless in- fusion of mere noise. In the former, the accompaniment of HANDEL'S score is often violins in unison and violoncello. This outline requires some filling up, and HANDEL'S figures indicate the harmonies he was accustomed to supply. The first obvious addition is here the viola ; which Mr. PERRY does not furnish, his viola part being the mere du- plicate of the violoncello in unison or all' ottava. We have only ad- verted to this point in order to show that the Samson of Exeter Hall was any thing but the Samson of HANDEL; that the principle of change was recognized in every form, but that it was also carried out in the most clumsy manner. Thus far as to the mutilations of the musician's work ; those of the poem demand distinct examination.

The libretto of Samson is a disgrace to our country ; since, under the great and honoured name of MILTON, IS printed, published, and sung, a poem full of twaddle and trash—a poem in which its author's bright and noble thoughts are mixed up with matter of the basest kind—his text perverted, cut to pieces, and patched together—his "glorious strength," like that of his hero, " debased lower than a bond-slave," and the author of Paradise Lost exhibited to the world as a person incompetent to the construction of a grammatical sentence. Few persons, probably, have troubled themselves to ascertain the fact we have stated : the readers of MILTON know nothing, care nothing about HANDEL'S ora- torio ; and the members of " the profession " usually care as little about MILTON. They sing what they find, be it sense or nonsense. Theonly way to abate this nuisance, and to get rid of this disgrace, is to expose it. This we have only space to do partially, and by printing a few passages from the original poem in immediate contrast with those which are found in the mangled Samson, distinguishing the latter by Italics.

In the second recitative, spoken by Samson, the five lines of which it consists are culled from as many pages of the Samson Agonistes, not more than three consecutive words standing in the order in which they are there found : here, therefore, as in many such instances, to place the passages together is impossible. The mangled Samson proceeds thus- " .Manoah. Brethren and men of Dan, say where's my son 'Y Samson, fond Israel's boast, inform mine age. " Micah. As signal now in law dejected state

As in the height of power, see where he lies."

The original text-

" Manoah. Brethren and men of Dan, for such ye seem, Though in this uncouth place : if old respect,

As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend, My son, now captive, hither bath informed Your younger feet, while mine, cast back with age, Come lagging after, say if he be here ?

" Micah. As signal now in low dejected state

As erst in highest, behold him where he lies."

The following stanza is a choice specimen of the " corruptio op. timi"— " Then shall they know that he whose name Jehovah is alone O'er all the earth but one, Was ever the most high and still the same."

The original text-

" Then shall they know that Thou, whose name

Jehovah is alone, Art the most high ; and thou the same O'er all the earth art one."

The process of dilution is sometimes accomplished by a single word-

" The stars in deep amaze

Remain in steadfast gaze"- " The stars with deep amaze Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze."

The meaning of the following sentence can only he conjectured-

" Manoah. Could my inheritance but ransom him, Without my patrimony having him, The richest of my tribe." " Manoah. His ransom, if my whole inheritance

May compass it, shall willingly be paid And number'd down.

For his redemption all my patrimony,

If need be, 1 am ready to forego And quit: not wanting him, I shall want nothing."

In the following sentence, (torn from its connexion,) the word "loss" is substituted for " lot " in every existing copy of the mangled Samson, and scrupulously retained in the Exeter Hall version- " The virgins, too, shall on their feastful days

Visit his tomb with flowers, and there bewail His loss unfortunate in nuptial choice."

" The virgins, also, shall on feastful days Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice, From whence captivity and loss of eyes."

These are but examples taken at random ; for after this fashion and in this spirit is the entire work treated, and rendered a shapeless and puny abortion. To the same process is the whole subjected from first to last. And this outrage on decency and taste is deliberately pre- ferred to a version which restores the text of MILTON—and by an association of Englishmen affecting to guide the public taste !

Why, it is naturally asked, has this abuse been so long tolerated itt silence? The obvious reply is, that the oratorio has been suffered to sleep ; that for nearly a century no person has had bad taste enough to attempt a revival of such trash, or to encounter the rebuke which it would have deserved and met. But it is altogether a mistake to suppose that the outrage originally passed unnoticed and uncensored. Several contemporary critics denounced it with proper severity. For example-

" Handel, in the construction of the words for his oratorios, was accustomed to employ versifiers—not poets. Most of the words he wrote to would have sunk any other composer ; and such a weight of dullness could not fail to have an effect even on his art. In his oratorio of Samson, the poem is so much changed that the hand of Milton can scarcely be recognized." (The Lyric Muse, 1768.) The general character of HANDEL'S journeymen is thus drawn by another contemporary writer- .' How much is it to be regretted that Handel is either blind to the imper- fections of the words to which he writes, or regardless of them. He is the father of the Oratorio in this country ; and there is no doubt that our best poets would have gladly assisted in planting it here, and in prompting his great genius: but the words of his oratorios are equally mean in poetry and in sentiment—destitute alike of sublimity and pathos—filled with uncouth and ridiculous rhymes, as little fitted to inspire musical thoughts as a Birth-day Ode, and below the standard of Sternboid and Hopkins." (An EXaMillaii011 of the Oratorios, 1762.) Remarks of a similar kind occur in BROWN'S Letters on Poetry and Music, and various other contemporary publications. But during HANDEL'S life there was no remedy : he possessed the property of his oratorios, which never were performed but under his direction. Am sow, one of his most ardent admirers, laments that, " with genius capable of soaring to the boldest flights, he sometimes stooped to gra- tify the lowest taste." (Reply to Remarks on his Essay, 1753.) And it was necessary, then, to take the good with the bad. No such condition is imposed upon us ; and of the former the abundance is so rich, that every true admirer of HANDEL will find ample means cf gratification, without ever resorting to the latter.

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