311u s t r.
Mr. Charles Edward Henley's Oratorio, David, performed at Fxrtkr Hall on Monday last, is a work highly honourable to the talents of this young and rising mmician. It is as the work of a young composer that it must be judged ; and certainly we do not know of any first essay which gives fairer promise for the future. The subject is not well chosen. The libretto is a series of Scripture passages containing some occurrences in the history of the royal Psalmist. But his life has few dramatic incidents ; and of those few Mr. Horsley has taken only one—the combat of the shepherd youth with the giant Goliah. This, of course, is introduced almost at the beginning of the piece, and all that follows is very uninteresting ; an anticlimax detrimen- tal to the effect of the music.
As a musical composition, the merits of the work consist in the free and unembarrassed use of the resources of counterpoint, clear design and symmetrical construction, powerful combinations, and easy flow of me- lody. Its faults are, the over-elaborateness and oppressive loudness of the instrumentation, and the want of a distinctive and individual style. The first fault belongs to almost every orchestral production of the day ; the second is incident to every young composer. Style is slowly formed, and the early works of the greatest musicians have betrayed the influence of some favourite model. In Mr. Hershey's case this modal is plainly Mendelssohn ; but what is perceptible is a general imitation, not plagia- rism of particular passages; and, as the resemblance pervades the whole, it gives a uniform and consistent colouring to the work, much more satis- factory than the patchwork of some imitators, who have copied various styles without digesting them or producing a new style out of them by assimilation ; as in the once immensely overrated Palestine of the Into Dr. Crotch, where we find in one movement a close imitation of Handel, in another of Haydn, and in a third of Mozart, without any style of the composer's own. Without, therefore, thinking that Mr. Horaley has produced a great work, we regard Das-id as the harbinger of great works to come.
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