The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-17 00:00:00

rusir.

THE third season of the New Philharmonic Society
commenced on Wednesday evening, under the direc-
tion of Dr. Wylde. The two great attractions of the
evening were the Mass No. 4 of Cherubini, and
Beethoven's grand symphony in A. The mass was •
rendered, on the whole, with great care and accuracy
by the orchestra and chorus; the solo parts being
intrusted to Miss Birch, Mr. Smythson, and Messrs. '
Augustus and Hamilton &sham, and though occa- '
sional uncertainties of intonation were most distinctly
audible, especially at the commencement of the •
" Kyrie," yet, in general, the performance of the
concerted portions was very creditable to the singers.
We regard this second presentment of a work of
Cherubini as a proof of the estimation in which his
sacred compositions are beginning to be held in
England, and we have no doubt that his popularity
will increase in proportion to the extent of public
acquaintance with them. He seems to us to bit the
exact medium between the theatrical lightness with
which the awful subjects of the creation and re-
demption of man are often treated by Haydn and
Mozart, and the sometimes rather tiresome
elaborateness of Bach and Beethoven. In the
present work the perfect correspondence between
" sound" and " sense " is felt at once in the beautiful
" Qui tollis," in which the agonised prayer for
mercy of a multitude sinking under the intolerable
burden of sin is expressed with most affecting in-
tensity ; in the contrast between the solemn pathos
of the " Crucifixus," and the joyous burst of triumph
in the " Resurrexit ;" in the firm and unyielding con-
fidence of the "Et expecto," the suggestion of the
awfulness of the inevitable doom of mortality in the
word " mortuorum ;" and in the sweet peacefulness
of the " Dona nobis," so characteristic of its subject
that we cannot fail to contrast it with the conclusion
of Mozart's Mass No. 12, which, beautiful as it is
in itself as a musical composition, appears little fitted
to be the exponent of a prayer for peace. The
great critics who last year found Beethoven's Mass
in D intolerable because it was not " amusing," may,
perhaps, object to the solemnity of Cherubini's treat-
ment of solemn subjects; but unless the well-known
performance of Gray's " Elegy " to the tune of the
" Sailor's Hornpipe" by a party of sailors, who
could find no words but those of the first composi-
tion to fit to the only air which they knew, be taken
as a fair model of appropriate musical expression, we
do not think that many persons of average taste will
agree with them ; at all events, the audience at
Exeter-hall on Wednesday night were of a different
opinion. The offertorium, " Landate dominum," a
beautiful song of praise, introduced between the
" Credo " and the " Sanctus," was especially ap-
plauded, and the "Jesu Salvator" encored. Bee-
thoven's great symphony, with its rustic rondo, its
almost painfully pathetic andante, its eccentric
scherzo, its wondrous trio, now pastoral, now
majestic, and its astounding finale, was successfully
rendered, and the audience showed their enthusiasm
by an encore of the second movement. A fantasia,
on airs from II Pirata, composed and played by
Ernst, the " Parto," from Titus, beautifully sung by
Miss Birch, a part-song of lendelssohn, "The
Departure," and the overtures to Egmont, Ruy Bias,
and Euryanthe, completed the programme. The
proceeds of the concert are to be devoted to the aid
of the Asylum for Idiots.