Mr. Mullah's performance of "unaccompanied" choral music, at St. Martin's
Hall on Wednesday, was the severest public trial to which his pupil-choristers have yet been exposed. They sang a selection of sacred and secular music by the greatest Italian and English masters, from Pales- tuna and Wilbye down to Horsley, Mendelssohn, and Mullah himself,- his own part-songs being worthy of the company in which they were placed. Many of those compositions were Of considerable length, and full of the most complex harmonies; yet they were executed, by above three hundred voices, with wonderful clearness, smoothness, and variety of ex- pression. The only defect was the sinking of the voices in the course of the piece ; an inconvenience which, in unaccompanied music', it is im- possible to avoid, as it is a necessary result of the imperfection of the musical scale ; for it has been demonstrated that a voice, starting from any given note and returning to it after sounding a series of interv every one perfectly just, will be found to have got below the original pitch. Hence, vocal pieces, even when unaccompanied as regards the audience, ought to have an accompaniment audible to the singers, so as to keep their voices from sinking ; and this is the practice of the best choral establishments in Germany. A pianoforte, lightly played, would make Mr. Mullah's unaccompanied choral singing perfect.
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