MUSIC.
THE GLOUCESTER MUSICAL FESTIVAL.
IF not financially considered completely successful, the late festival has so nearly achieved that point, and has done such credit to the judicious
and spirited measures of its patrons in the town and country, as to re- vive hopes of the permanent reestablishment of the triennial meeting of the Three Choirs, by indicating the path which they must pursue in their future performances. To lose the influence on the musical pro- gress of England which these meetings have quietly exercised for a long period, would be discouraging ; but to lose it for want of a little discretion, mortifying in the extreme. The policy of supporting old institutions, that unite all classes of society on one common ground of feeling and sentiment, becomes daily more evident; so that, even placing temporarily out of view the particular interests of music, this considera- tion alone should stimulate exertion in their behalf.
In the management of festivals there are peculiar and local difficulties to contend with ; and the man who can meet them in all their aspects and varieties--pay expenses, content stewards, satisfy the public, and do something for the art—performs a very uncommon and arduous feat. He must be (supposing him practically concerned as conductor) an artist in the taste and character of his selections, a general in tact and foresight, a dramatic manager in the prudence of his engagements and in his estimate of the public, a man of address and of impenetrable nerve. Amidst the storm and confusion of the time, in which every music meeting has from its conflicting interests a full share, he must be as a rock : preached at, assailed by party, deaf alike to the influence of friends and the abuse of foes, he must command success by steady adherence to a judicious, well-disposed plan. It is in truth no very pleasing picture that the post of authority at a festival presents to those who have been admitted behind the curtain ; yet when these perform. ances have proved successful, it has rather been by the courage, pru- dence, and inflexibility of one man, than the various counsel of any set of stewards, carried out as far as it could be by some feeble and com- plaisant instrument of a conductor. Too niggardly an outlay may con- tribute as much as profusion to failure : it is for one experienced person to see the just bearings of expense and economy, and to decide what it may be fitting to adventure in new singers, new music, and such attrac- tions as shall not interfere with the staple pleasures of a recurring per- formance. The post of manager or conductor of a festival, responsible as it is, yet committed to a person of due sagacity and experience, may be discharged with as much success in the Midland Counties as it has been at Norwich—in some respects, the marine boundary of the county especially considered, one of the most disadvantageous of conceivable localities. So much for what we esteem the powers and qualifications of a good conductor in influencing the affairs of a festival.
The mistake of engaging the whole expensive set of Italian opera- singers for the service of the Three Choirs is now well understood. We can easily fancy how agreeable it may have been to some of the country- gentlemen stewards to revive certain of their town associations in the midst of their ancestral oaks—to meet GRIST, and others of her genial cast, in anterooms—to flutter about with those undefinable anxieties that give a physiognomical character to stewards, now offering an arm, now winning a smile, or swallowing hock,. at supper with a graceful acknowledgment of serene satisfaction. Italian syrens and others have exhibited very good appetites at the Festival-suppers in Worcester ; and the stewards, indulging their gentlemanlike and hospitable feelings, have postponed all considerations for the present pleasure. It is the guests, however, rather than the suppers, that have made the fabric of the Midland Festivals to totter. An Italian opera-singer is a doubt- ful attraction to the humbler class of the audience—none at all to those who come from their seats, and in carriages which have rolled almost nightly to the opera throughout the London season. The opera-singer, besides being generally uninstructed in the classical music of his own country, or that of Germany, is always out of his element in a festival, especially in those cathedral performances, the genius of which is yet so well understood by habit and education here. Awed by solemnities with which climate and constitution indispose him to sympathize—em- barrassed by music with the true style of which he is unacquainted— he fails in every thing but the carrying off his large engagement. And whose fault? We might as well expect that a choirman, because he has a good voice, shall doff his surplice, and, without previous pre- paration, exhibit considerable talent in the opera buffa. Universal as musical expression is, it has some peculiar and national paths which must not be interfered with or encroached upon.
The programme of the Gloucester Festival has been charged with some want of novelty in the plan. It appears to us, however, to have ventured in that track as far as it could with safety. One novelty was the improved version of Samson, introduced by Professor TAYLOR at the Norwich Festival; in which the libretto is not only considerably elevated in interest by the original text of the Samson Agonistes, but the dramatic opposition and contrasts of the successive pieces are more studiously developed. Opposed as we are in theory to the alteration of original works, this appears to us not only expedient as conducive to popularity, but in point of taste a positive improvement ; for here we have the fine poetry of MILTON awakening another sense, combined with as rare a selection from the works of HANDEL; and the interest derived from their union fully vindicates the policy of the arranger. We have observed that the audience of a festival delight to follow in their books the dramatic features of an oratorio well and closely developed. Fragmentary collections of song, devoid of all continuous interest, are generally a doubtful speculation in the manufacture of a concert. The Lob-gesang of MENDELSSOHN, the great novelty of the Gloucester Festival, proved very gratifying to the assembled musicians ; though it is not to be expected that music of this class will at once create that general effect in the country that HANDEL and HAYDN and the full- voiced choir of CROFT and PrincEsa. are wont to do. The Messiah ends every performance by prescriptive right : and we really think that in seeing due proportion between the new and old nothing has been want- ing,—the Lob- gesang having been the commendable effort of this festival. The evening concerts exhibit a large but not more than an average share of commonplace. What is to be done? ADAMS'S quadrille-band are waiting to tune, and the ladies are waiting to dance—" their souls in arms and eager for the fray." In concert-bills, and in criticism occasionally, there must be "place aux dames "—here it is the undis- puted right of the great ornaments of the festival. Long may the dazzling beauty of fair " Young England," fairest in the country, be- stow at the fancy-ball or masquerade the last amenities of a joyous and recreative season,—beaming satisfaction in the waltz, mazurka, and polka, amidst a rabble of costumed heroes, from the togaed senator to the dustman ! Happy groups, pleasing dissipations, that appeal alike to the girl of fifteen and the old gentleman of sixty !
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