SOCIETY OF BRITISH MUSICIANS.

Tits formation of this Society can scarcely be matter of surprise to those who are acquainted with the workings of the Metropolitan musical machine. The British composer feels himself a neglected, almost a proscribed person, in the land of his birth. He looks around him for an incentive to labour, and searches for a place wherein the fruits of his genius may be made public, in vain. The orchestra of the Ancient Concert is shut against him, be- cause he is alive : a period of extinction long enough to consign most composers' works to oblivion, must intervene before his name can be registered in the bills of these concerts—nothing can avail there to atone for the unpardonable sin of being alive. The selec-

tions for the late Royal Festival were governed by the same law : STEVENSON was admitted, because he was dead—WESLEY, Arr- woon, and BISHOP, rejected, because they were alive. The same

principle governs the Philharmonic Concerts : for although no law exists to compel its exclusion, English music of all sorts and ages is, in practice, prohibited. The rare exceptions only prove the rule. If foreign productions were admitted solely on the ground of their superiority, no reasonable cause of complaint could be al-

leged. But merit is not the sure passport to favour here. What Englishman would have been allowed to produce such a noisy, Bartlemy Far overture, as RIES was permitted to exhibit ; or have

been indulged in such an exhibition of trumpery as HERE was

engaged to display? The best English vocal music is excluded, the worst Italian tolerated. The Vocal Society alone opens its

orchestra to classical cbmpositions of all ages and all countries. The best composers of our native land there stand side by side with their eminent Continental brethren ; and the result shows that it is a collision which they need not dread. But instrumental music, though admitted into the Vocal Concerts, is not their pro- minent feature; and the Society of British Musicians is formed to bring the instrumental music of native living composers before the public.

Perhaps the system which has been pursued by two out of three of our existing musical establishments, has produced a similar

course of conduct in the new one, and exclusion on the one side has generated exclusion on the other. We regret the adoption of' such a principle. As a measure even of seltdefence, its policy is questionable; as a matter of taste, indefensible. Musicians should learn a more enlarged and liberal view of their art. They should welcome every gift that genius can bestow, come whencesoever it may; and, regarding foreign artists not as rivals but brethren, ad- mit those works which are not the sole property of any age or country, but of civilized man.

Every thing in this association breathes the spirit of exclusion. It meets us at the very outset, it is sedulously inculcated in every paragraph of its prospectus.

It is a "Society of British Musicians, for the performance of Music composed and to be performed solely by them. The institution is to be devoted "exclusively to the perform- ance of the works of British composers."

There are to be six concerts, in which "all the music is to be composed and performed solely by the members of the Society."

The principle thus studiously reiterated in every paragraph of this short address, we wholly deprecate, and regret that it should have been adopted by any extensive body of English musicians. A society can scarcely be said to uphold the character of the English school of music, which exelndes that of all the illustrious dead of that country, as well as all the living who will not sub- scribe to its articles. "We will play and sing our own music, and that of nobody else," is the avowed intention of its members. Nor is this the way to inlist public sympathy in its support : for the Society adopts the very practice which it deprecates. It com- plains, and with justice, of the exclusive system; whne it affects

to correct the evil by an adoption of that system carried to an un- precedented extent. We advocate " free trade" in music as well as in corn, because we think it a sound and politic principle. The result, probably, of the exclusive s■ stem in the one case as well as the other, u ill be to force a good deal of unproductive soil into cultivation, and thus entail the loss and disappointment of a scanty crop. We advocate fair play for the native professor, but not monopoly. " Palmam qui meruit ferat," be he Briton, German, or Italian : for the total exclusion of all foreign aid is as foolish es its indiscriminate patronage.

The regards of this Society are chiefly directed towards instru mental composition and performance. Here, as a nation, we are not strong. We have much to learn. But improvement is scarcely to be expected from the exclusive performance of our own confessedly inferior works. Let these be heard, but let those of the great German writers be heard also : the comparison will be dis- advantageous at first, but who would feel dishonoured by being vanquished by MOZART or BEETHOVEN? Let US borrow the words of Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS in reference to his own art—they are equally applicable to music. "When we have had continually before us the great works of art, to impregnate our minds with kindred ideas, we are then, and not till then, fit to produce some- thing of the same species. We behold with the eyes of those penetrating observers whose works we contemplate; and our minds, accustomed to think the thoughts of the brightest and no- blest intellects, are prepared for the discovery and selection of all that is great and noble in nature. We shall thus be able to fashion and consolidate those ideas of excellence which lay in embryo, feeble, ill-shaped, and confused, but which are finished and put in order by the authority and practice of those whose works may be said to have been consecrated by having stood the test of ages."

Why do our artists journey to Rome, but that their eye may be familiarized to every form of beauty, grace, and grandeur? And thus ought the mind of the musician to be trained. Works of kindred genius should be presented to it; and he should seek col- lision not with writers of his own rank, but with those of the highest. But from such means of improvement the rules of the British Musicians rigorously exclude him. In the list of members, we find the names of many who have enjoyed this advantage; but to the great majority it has been denied, and these have assisted to pass upon themselves a sentence of entire deprivation.

We have always advocated the fair and just claims of the British musician ; hut we cannot approve the narrow spirit which seems to govern this Society ; and which, among other follies, excludes such men as MOSCHELES and Deeeoererrt from it—men whose matured lives have been spent with us—for the sole reason that they were not born in England.

The first concert of the season was on Monday; but, not having the faculty of ubiquity, we could not witness Mr. Tiromsoe's opera at the Lyceum, and be present at the Hanover Square Rooms at the same hour. We hear that there was a numerous audience; and that several instrumental compositions, of consider- able, and nearly equal merit, were performed. This we have no doubt was the fact.