WORCESTER FESTIVAL.

IT was rather with the wish than in the expectation that the hints we threw out, three years since, re.,arding the conduct of the Worcester Festival, would be attended to, that they were given. At the last triennial meeting in this city, our praise was chiefly confined to the execution of the music selected for perfOrmance, while in the selection itself we pointed out many defects and omis- sions. These have been corrected and supplied in the way we ventured to suggest. The Worcester scheme offers an unusual combination oi' novelty and excellence, even when compared with other selections; and we hope that the meetings of the Three Choirs may date fiom the present year a renewed existence, as well as a new tyre. When a machine has gone cot for a century in cue unvaryingg• course of action, it requires a strong ('flint to change its movements or remodel its construction. But it became clear, that unless this effort was made, the revolutions of the Three Choirs would soon come to a stop.

An official atmounceincut was attached to the circulars of the present meeting, statine• " the difficulty which had been experi- enced for many years in rendering the Musical Fest it als of Wor- cester, Cleucester, and Herelbrd, attract ive ;" and that " t be gen- tlemen who on the present occasion accepted the office of Stewards, being unanimously. of opinion that the Festival could not be car- ried in with satisfaction to the public, it' any important reduction were made in the arrangements, resolved to make them as perfect and attractive as possible in every department, in order to ascer- tain, by the result, whether it was the general desire that these Festivals should be continued."

Let us examine the causes which have led to this state of things, and endeavour to ascertain why these venerable establishments have thus fidlen into decay, anti now tremble on the verge of ex- tinction. If we were asked what are the four greatest local ad- vantages connected with the success of a festival, we should say— a central situation, a populous district, a building spacious and well-adapted fur musical effect, and an active set of patrons. Now, all these advantages 'Worcester possesses in an eminent degree. The Cathedral, notwithstanding- its large dimensions, is eminently favourable to the transmission of sound ; a circumstance of great importance, as the effect of two hundred performers here is quite equal to that of three hundred in some buildings. The patrons are the resident nobility of the county ; and self-interest as well as Christian charity combine to enlist the services and stimulate the exertions of every clergyman in the diocese in behalf of an in- stitution to which thousands of the widows and orphans of his brethren have been indebted for support. In addition to all these local advantages, the 'Worcester Festival has for some years been conducted by a gentleman of sound judgment and excellent musi- cal taste. Yet it has somehow or other happened, that its profits have vanished and its success declined; while, on the contrary, the neighbouring Festival of Birmingham, although destitute of one most important advantage possessed by that of Worcester, has been an increasingly profitable speculation. The mystery is easily unravelled. The principle on which the Worcester Festival has hitherto been conducted, was that of ad- herence to the same plan, and the performance of the same pieces, with scarcely any change or addition. Successive generatiogs of singers appeared in the orchestra, but the music was unchanged. To Miss LINLEY succeeded MARA, BILLINGTON, DICRONS, SALMON, STEPHENS; to NORRIS, HARRISON, BRAHAM, and VAUGHAN ; to CRAMER, his son ; to Cnosni LL, LINDLEY ; and so on : but it was always to perform the Dettingen 'Pe Deam, the Messiah, and BOYCE'S Anthem "Blessed is he." When we en- tered Worcester Cathedral, we lived as if it were a century ago. There was nothing to remind us that HAYDN, MOZART, BEET- HOVEN, or SPOHR had existed; or if, perchance, a single piece from any one of these authors crept into the selection, it only formed an exception, serving to establish the rule of " no innova- tion." At the very last Festival, for instance, out of eighty-four quavers, as the East India Company did tea. ment : but now, being left at 'liberty to offer a rich musical It was long ago seen that some change was necessary, and that

k the same singers and the same music, year after year, palled on the public appetite. It became necessary to see out variety somewhere: and this led to the engagement of Italian singers on the morning. She took her part in the Creation and the sistance was still necessary to carry on the work of a Festival. exorbitant terms, in addition to all the English singers whose as- Here was a new and heavy item in the expenditure, which once or twice might produce a correspondent increase in the receipts, but half filled. On Wednesday morning, the admittance wns except with such a singer as A/ALTMAN—MID is mistress of every style and every language, and therefore able to sustain the elm- racter of prima donna both in the church and the concert-room- it has been a ruinous expedient. No change, meanwhile, took place in the system. It was attempted to be propped up by what BURKE calls "the constant resource of weak, undeciding minds" not which shall lavish the largest sum on a prima donna; and —amoditication. So it struggled on for a few years—every steward being ashamed to propose to his friend to succeed him in a thank- less and expensive office,—until, at length, it became apparent In the Evening Concerts, we traced the influence of the Vocal that a reform was necessary in Festivals as well as Parliaments : Society, in the introduction of three Madrigals from their bills, and and, in despite of the augurs of croakers and idlers—in defiance of the veteran legion of household troops--this has been effected

pieces, seventy-five were by HANDEL., and one by MOZART. Hence, the meetings of the Three Choirs have been, for the last thirty years, behind the taste of the age. The neighbouring Festival of Birmingham, on the contrary, has endeavoured to keep pace with 'it. Not that its selections have uniformly been made with judg- ment: for its novelties have never found their way into general use—they have, successively, died in the place of their birth : but still the effort lia.s every time succeeded; and the Parish Church of St. Philip, at Birmingham, has always been crowded with eager hearers (unsuited as it is for the accommodation of a large band), while the same performers have been unable to attract a similar audience in the noble Cathedral of Worcester. Let us state the truth, and confess that the singers engaged in these triennial meetings have contributed in no inconsiderable degree to their decline. The Provincial Festivals were for some time a sort of perquisite of the Ancient Concert Orchestra—a pretty, snug, quiet, and profitable monopoly. It is in the nature of all mono- polies to engender idleness, but connexion with this establishment is like a touch from the torpedo. The seven sleepers awoke at the end of a century, and found the same joints turning on the spit, and the same fowls in the larder : could the Directors of this con- cern of half a century ago awake from their sleep, it would be to listen to the same notes—their ears would still be greeted with the same Concertos of GEMINIANI, the same Airs and Choruses of HANDEL. Thus this Provincial Festivals, which were grafts

through the firmness and zeal of the conductor.

to former ones; and, accordingly, the extra morning-,'s perform- wish they were more anxious to raise than to lower the tone of ance comprised selections from the Creation, the Deluge, Mount their audiences. Sinai, and the Last Judgment. After the enjoyinent we derived We congratulate all parties concerned in the successful termina- from the porfbrmance of the first and last of these oratorios last lion of this Festival. The Stewards have amply redeemed their week, we were not in a state of mind to return to a mutilated ex- pledge to the public ; the Conductor has most ably discharged an hibition of them. Of the Deluge, only eight pieces were per- important and anxious duty; and we trust the meetings of the formed ; consequently, flue story was not made out, and the ThreeChoirs are now destined to a new career of exertion and a dramatic effect was gone. Those who had heard it at Norwich protracted period of existence.

could supply the connecting links; but these (out of the band) were few, and to the rest it was like half a dozen detached scenes CHEAP IMMORTALITY.

in a play. MALinitAN repeated her song with exquisite effect, THE following paragraph has been going the round of the Daily DRAGONETTI playing the third Violoncello part on the Double Papers. We presume it alludes to Mr. GEORGE HAYTER, who Bass,—an improvement, according to our opinion, on the mode of painted the Peers assembled at the trial of Queen Caroline. its performance at Norwich. The story of Mount Sinai is told in " 3Ir. Hayter set on by the patronage given to Haydon by Lord Grey in the the first scene, and this oratorio might have been curtailed with- city Reform Dinner, now in a very forward state, has, we hear, started a new out injury. Only three pieces from the Last Judgment were project, similar in subject, but different in its workings. It is to be a picture of omitted, but these we were loth to spare. The oratorio never was any dimensions—subject, the Moving of the Address in the first Reformed House, and to contain as many Members as choose to return themselves to this more accurately performed: every singer and player in the Parliament of universal suffrage. Each is to pay ten guineas; to sit twice; i orchestra now begins to feel, and is therefore able to express the and to have the original sketch, and all the immortality of a place in the author's meaning, —a task of no small difficulty in SPOHR'S large picture for his money and his pains." Writing, where Rot a note can be omitted or changed without in- This is a capital scheme; and we have no doubt the speculation- jury to the general effect. The time will come, if it be not already arrived, when this oratorio will be sung and played with as much confidence as the Messiah. Within a fortnight, we have heard three hundred chorus-singers in different parts of the kingdom giving out "Destroyed is Babylon," as boldly and correctly as " For unto us a child is born."

Thursday morning's performance comprised a selection from Dr. CROTCH'S Palestine, and an act containing some of the most popular songs of the different singers ; such as MALIBRAN'S "Deb parlate," BRAHAM'S " Deeper and deeper," Mrs. KNYVETT'S " Fare- well," and E. TAYLOR'S " Prophecy of Babylon," and some admi- rable Choruses by HAYDN, MOZART, and HUMMEL. We heard also with great pleasure, a Benedictus for four voices by SAMUEL WESLEY junior ; who, as Organist of Hereford, presided at i he Pianoforte at the Evening Concerts. It is a piece of beautiful vocal and instrumental writing. Our theory respecting the decline of the Worcester meeting inas been completely established by the attendance at the Cathedral on the Wednesday morning. It is the custom to convert the whole of the chancel into a spacious gallery, capable of containing nearly eight hundred persons: this, as well as the choirs and the temporary side-galleries, was crowded with auditors ; the gay dresses of the ladies presenting from the orchestra a most beautillil spectacle, for the whole intervening space between the organ and the east window was occupied with performers or auditors. Many from this stock, withered and declined with the parent tree. In of the nobility of the county were present ; and the liberal tone of order to retain possession of the market which they had contrived

I this neighbourhood stood in strong and honourable contrast to the to secure, the Ancients ought to have stimulated the public taste by miserable party jangling of Norwich : for we noticed in the list of an exhibition of every variety of goad music instead of which, j Stewards, a Catholic nobleman, and two gentlemen of Jewish ex-

they traction, although the profits of the Festival are, exclusively, tiro acted as if the public were to be starved into a surrender to the widows ;Ind orphans of the Established Clergy. I i • of their money, and compelled to partake of the same dish in ts yearly succession. This was a foolish and fatal error. In articles therefore, abundantly manifest, that if the requisite attraci, of necessity, a monopoly may be effected; but in those of luxury, placed before the people of Worcestershire, the same result the attempt to enforee one is absurd and vain. No corporate body be produced as at Norwich or Birmingham. The conductor of of musicians has the exclusive right to mete out crotchets and meeting has hitherto been fettered and cramped in every move-

quiet to his neighbours, they have eagerly flocked to partake of it. We shall not be suspected of undervaluing the talent of MALI-

BRAN, in stating that she was not the most powerful attraction and performed it admirably ; but it formed no prominent restore

in the scheme. On Tuesday morning she also sang, when the Price of admission was half-a-crown ; and the Cathedral was not guinea and a guinea; and it was crowded. The great attraction,

therefore, was the gat sic selectbd for pciforniance, with the ter-

tainty that every part would be efficiently sustained. This is the safe, the honourable, the profitable course for conductors and m- nagers to take : let the strife be who shall produce the best music while the musical taste of the country is improved, the permanence and success of these meetings will be secured.

performed at their fashion; and these were the principal novel- ties of the schemes. There is a perpetual endeavour, on the part

novel-

of some singers, to thrust their own compositions into concert-

band so numerous and so efficient. F. was the leader Airs by KNYVETT, and two Songs by PHILLIPS. If it was feces- of course; supported by twenty-four Violins, chiefly selected from nary to pay KNYVETT the compliment of performing one of his the Philharmonic Orchestra, and several excellent provincial Glees, a good one should have been selected—for instance, "Where players (among them, the LOWERS of Bath, and MARSHALL of my gentle love strays ;" and PHILLIPS'S talent would have been Oxford), with the wind instruments of the highest repute. The singers were Madame MALIBRAN, Mrs. KNvvErr, Miss CLARA more appropriately exerted on some composition of sterling excel- lence, than in shouting ballads, which are evidently written down excel- NOVELLO, Messrs. BRAHAM, VAI7GHAN, KNYVETT, E. TAYLOR, to the lowest and most vulgar taste, in order to insure them a PHILLIPS, and DONZELLI. In their several departments, there- larger number of purchasers.

are alone responsible for the character of the latter. We only