The Express.
London, England, 1855-04-04 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 4, 1855.

MUSIC.

LONDON SACRED HARMONIC SOCIETY.
'rho afeheoseiroseett of Maidelasohn's AV-dowers,
EfriaA, drew • large assemblage to Banter Hell last eon.
log. Parte of the performance were good, but as a whole it
was eseatisfastory. Whoa so peat and arduous a work is
got up ea a wale of such magnitude—with a band and
chorus of nearly eight hundred performers, as the pro.
gramme haw it—the principal singe/sought to be the best that
this metropolis east afford. Tee effect of the whole &meads
epos the muster is whisk the part of Elijah is sustedeed.
It ismet merely a glue of slaglag—it is a dramatis »pre.
seeilellies demonise graasieur sad power ea the part of
di • proispoor ; aad so performer will ever ensued in it
erbet is met gasUfled to hold a high position on the musical
stage. Mr. Lawl ris a very respectable singer, and is heard
with pleasure is mule suited to his mesas; but the
detractor of the Prophet is altogether beyond hire, sad be
silly does himself isjestkie by attempting it. Ia tbe
eseltatives his declamation leeks force and eurgy : he slop
whsa he should speak ; sad his weakness enfeebles the
*mu perfermaace. Miss Birch, too, has • beauillal
eels% mei Is • very elsartaisig singer ; • but lie
is set a dramatic singer ; and her deleilielg
la this respect disabled her from doing *lke
to the gas nese between the Prophet and the ISSN
crime eon la restored to life, sod to the grand decismatellg
eft. " Hear ye, Israel," which, of all our present per
Messrs, Clara Novello alone is able to sing. As to the other
piaci* singers employed ea this oceasioe, they were litde
better thaw swine—emu of thus of coasiderable promise,
but acme of them eompetent to take promisees parts in sub
a perforations. this. Miss Headersos, in particular, hos
a lovely contralto voice, and will undoubtedly tura ask a
flee singer ; but here she was tasked beyond beg streoph,
especially Is the Bane where Jezebel denounces the Prophet
t . the people, a scene which demands the powers of • tra-
gedian as well as a vocalist. The concerted pleas were
carefully and well sang, but were generally taken too skew.
The eborues, where the parts moved together in broad sad
simple harmony, were often very grand ; but when the
movement was rapid, and the parts were complicaud,there
was • peat want of clearness sad precision—so mush ws-
wring sometimes, that the voices seemed on the point of
kitbag into utter confusion. This we have repeatedly no-
ticed before; sad it will always be the case when difficult
music

is attempted to be pasforsted by a multitudinous host
composed is assist measure of ball-trained amateurs.

THE YARYLEBONE INSTITUTION.

Mr. ;Mph Crone, whose correspondence from the
seat of war was for a long time an attraction in the columns
of our contemporary, the Illustrated Lind-a Naos.
delivered a lecture, on the subject of his experiences, last
night, at this institution. Mr. Crowe has a great deal to
recount. Personally acquainted with Sonia and the pro-
vinces—having seen Turkish lite in camp and city, having
seen campaigns in fighting periods and quiet ones, having
I had a narrow escape from death by shot on the morning of
Inkermann, and death by storm during the great gale in
Banklava harbour—his penoual auth.rity on subjects
which the public have generally heard of only through
print makes his lecture in the highest degree interest-
ing. His sureties, is bald, flawing, and agreeable—
with that Weer about it which nothing but personal
experience eau give—and we initially recommend our
readers to take the neat opportunity of hearing him on this
the great subject of our time. Meanwhile, a few salient
points may be noticed, without our intruding upon vrha,
—both for Mr. Crowe 's sake and that of the public—were
best heard from the lecturer's own lips.

Is desposntlisg from Berrie to Bulgaria you had an oppor-
tunity (said Mr. Crowe) of comparing the Bulgarian with
the &simian, the rajah with the free man. The Bervias's
martial attitude is exchanged for Bulgarian ssilenneu and
stupidity. Widdin is a truly Turkish city—filthy, fetid,
•ad narrow. The Turks principally live isside the fortrer
with the Jews, sad the Bs!guises inhabit the suburbs.
TDe Bulgarian of the towns are industrious but cunning.
It is hard to say which will cheat the traveller most—
Christi= or Jew; sad in that matter the Turk is as dia.
helmet as either of thus.

Mr. Crowe was int/oda:tad to Ismail Paaha (now Mar-
shal of Turkey, sad isommaader of the army on the
D.nabe), and with him visited the lines of Ksislet, which
be bad been the first to throw up. The mention of this

circumstance led him to criticise some o► the Russian move-
ments in that quarter. a his again brought him to the
system of military appointments in the Turkish army, many
of which are infamous Stamboul Jobe. lie recollected a
pasha in one of the principal towns on the Danube who
spent his evenings in firing at a Cossack on the opposite
side of the river, with • gun that could by no possibility
curry so far. Tbie potentate's only claim to war command
was having married one of the Sultan's wires. Another Turk-
ish grandee Unkind a medal for the action of Citate on the
around that if he had been there be would have performed
prodigies of velour 1 Them men, the Turkish soldiers call
emphatically "meat without hearts." By the way, the lec
turer observed that it had bees rei.eatedly proved that, pro.
poorly led, the Turkish ooldien were capable of scything.
And he gave a capital sketch of Omer Probe (among many
other notabilities whose names now fly per or. varies). Re
is, among other things, " affable in manner," and " kind-
ness beams is his great dark eyes." Hs ha. the broad note
and forehead of the t3clavoniaas,aad their olive complexion.
U s last wife (for,of coarse, he is now a polygamist) is a Oer-