A Mass for Four Voices, with an Accompaniment for the
Organ. By William Jackson, Masham. Being unacquainted with the name of Mr. Jackson, (we presume he is the organist of a Roman Catholic chapel,) we have perused this mass with surprise as well as pleasure; for it is a work which would do no dis- credit to any of our most distinguished composers. The author is evi- dently a learned and an accomplished musician, master of all the resources of counterpoint, and able to use them with facility and freedom; and the study of the great ecclesiastical writers has given him a pure and correct style. His melodies do not exhibit much novelty of idea; but they are appropriate, expressive, and treated with the skill of a master. He has constructed his mass according to the forms generally adopted by Haydn and Mozart; but he has preserved a more uniform gravity—derived, pro- bably, from an English education and habits. The only thing which savours a little of the lightness of the Continental style is the opening of the " Et incarnatus eat." The " Credo " concludes with an excellent fugue upon two subjects; the " Benedictus," according to the usual form, is a quartet for soli voices, very graceful and flowing; and the " Miserere " is exceedingly solemn. But (also in conformity with Continental usage) the last movement, the " Dona noble pacem," opens with a burst from the trumpet-stop of the organ and a shout of the voices fortissimo; a practice which has always appeared to us to involve a complete contresens. We are aware that a great deal of talent is to be found among the Eng- lish provincial organists; a fact of which Mr. Jackson is a remarkable in- stance.
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