The Express.
London, England, 1855-07-02 00:00:00

(Stamped ld. Additional.) [T WOPENC E.

MUSIC.

THE CHOIR BINEYOXENT FUND. The lIRDIVEI,
eery dinner of this society iook plus on Satusday,'at tits
Thatched House Uwe; the Hight Hoe. Lord Emelt
Brute, Yips-Cbsatbsrlain of ha' Majesty's Household, in

the chair. Thi Choir Benevolent Feud was established in
1851. Its design is to secure to the widows and orphans of
its member*, consistiog of organism and lay members of
cathedral and collegiate choirs, a certain sum at desth, and
also to provide far the members and their families such
other assistance in time of need or affliction as the circum-
stances

of the society may permit. The fund is made up of
the annual contributions of the members ; donations from
benevolent individuals who feel an interest in choral worship
sad the perpetuation of the works of the great English aerie-
siestical composers ; and the proceeds of choral perform-
ances on a grand code given from tiros to time by the society.
The Choral Festivals, in particular, held at the Uni-
versities of Oxford and Cambridge, were attended by
vast sablubligis and meditative of has Widest-Ith Oh
fund. From the last annual report of the committee, and

from the statements made on Saturday by the noble chair-
man and by George Gray, Esq., the honorary secretary, it
appears that the society is in a most prosperous, condition,
the income of the lut year having nearly doubkd that of
the year preceding, with a constantly increasing accession
of members. At the head of the list of donors we Rod the
Queen and Prince Albert ; and it includes many liberal
contributions from the nobility, clergy, distinguished ama-
teurs of music, and members of the profession. The pub-
lishedaccounts p a gratifying feature—the very eco-
nomical management of the funds, shown by the trifling
amount of the expenditure competed with the receipts. The
meeting on Saturday was in every respect a most agreeable
one, and the pleasure of the evening was enhanced by a fine
selection of glees and madrigals, beautifully sung, under
the direction of hit. Goss, by • choir of 24 voices, from her
Majesty's Chapel Royal, St. Paul's Cathedral, and West-
zainstar.Abbey.

BIRMINGHAM MUSICAL FESTIVAL.-WO are now
enabled to give an outline of the arrangements for this
great Music-Meeting, to be held on the 28th, 29tb, 30th,
and 31st of August. The principal vocalists are : Madame
GUM', Mdlle. Bosio, Madame Rudersdorff, Madame Castel-
lay, Miss D.lby, and Madame Viardot Garcia; Mario,
Gardoni, . Reichardt, Sims Reeves, Lzblache, Weiss, and
Formes. Mr. Costa is the conductor, and Mr. Stimpeon
the
.organist. Tne band, 145 strong, includes the most
et:niacin metropolitan performers on every instrument.
The chorus, amounting to 320 voices, is chiefly drawn trom
the metropolis, together with the elite of the Birmingham
Choral Society. The morning performances are to be : on
Tuesday, Mendelssohn's Elijah; on Wednesday, Eli, an
oratorio crmposed expressly for this festival by Costa ; on
Thursday, the Messiah; and on Friday, the Mount of Olives
of Beethoven, the Requiem of Mozart, and a Selection from
the Israel in Egijit of Bendel. The miscellaneous

concerts on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings
will comprise many secular pieces of great interest,
particaluly Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony; Mendels-
sohn's Symphony in A minor; Macfarren's Cantata,
Lenora; the finale to his Royal Highness Prince Albert's
Cantata, L' Invocaelone all' rotorsia ; Mendelssohn's finale
to his unflaished opera, Lorky; and selections from

Guillaume Tell, the Hurl entire, theProp/tete, the Etoile du
Nord, aid other opera,. These arrangements are on a
scale of magnitude equal to that of any previous festival.
One of the greatest and most useful charitable iostitutions
in England, the Birmingham General Hospital, derives its
chief support from these triennial meetings. From the
festival of 1862 the hospital received the great mum of
4,7001. ; and we trust that the festival of 1856 well have an
equally beneficial result.

DRAMA.

SADLER'S WELLS.

AMATEUR PERPORMARCE.—On Eaturclay evening
the Printers' Dramatic 8 ciety gave a performance at
this theatre—the pieces being the School for Sandal and
the Bent Day. The performances of this society have been
noticed previously in our columns in terms of commenda-
tion, and those of Saturday evening added still further to its
histrionic lame. The SchoulAr Scandal was reprtsented
with a completeness in all its parts rarely witnessed in
amateur performances, and the efforts of the ladies and gen-
tlemen engaged were warmly and deservedly applauded by
the audience—not, as is usually the cue with these per-

formances, consisting of the Mends of the persons on'tbe
stage, but by a mixed audience—a large proportion of the
company assembled having paid for admission as on the
usual nights of the theatre being open. Playing to an
audience of this description is a bold attempt on the part
of amateurs, but in this instance was crowned with stems.
The characters of Sir Oliver Surface, Joseph Surface, and
Mese', were especially deserving of notice. The performance
of Miss Murre.l, as Lady leimle, was greatly applauded.
This lady's figure, voice, and general personal appearance
well fit her for genteel comedy. Her representation of the
character was marked by intelligence and discrimination.
The celebrated screen scene was capitally given. Miss
Halmos's Mrs. Candour was also a good performance. The
evening's entertainment went off without any of the hitches
considered inevitable to an amateur performance, and
reflects much credit on the members of the Printers'
Dramatic Society.

MR. MONTI'S LECTURES UPON ANCIENT AND
MODERN SCULPTURE.

Mr. Monti delivered his fifth lecture on Wednesday
last, in the opening of which he alluded to the decay of
ancient art in the time of Constantine, and then pared to
the coneideration of Christian art. The rise and progress of
the new style, and the vicissitudes which it encountered,
afforded ample matter for observation and reflection to tke
lecturer who, remarked that Christian art was the
creation of a people endowed with new thoughts
and new aspirations; that the aim of ancient art was to
pourtray external life—the sympathy of the heart end mind
with nature; that of Christian art, as the term implied,
being to represent the life of the soul, the blending of an
earthly with a spiritual eeistence—the hope of a future life.
The lecturer observed that if the early efforts of the naw
style were to be preferred to those of the Falai& tribes in
Greece. it was to be attributed to the holy, lofty
c►aracter of the sentiment embodied he the works
aliAlssfare amber Ars is Nig 'author, of teed:i-
nk:al superiority. Mr. Monti illustrated this portion
of his lecture by means of numerous firmly drawn
outline-representations of fiat-reliefs of early Christian
art, of • highly interesting and impressive nature, com-
menting particularly upon that of the Pastor Bonus," a
favourite subject at the period alluded to, and frequently
found sculptured on tombs. In this composition the Saviour
is typified by a figure of • shepherd surrounded by sheep,
and folding in his arms • lamb that had gone astray. So
great, the lecturer remarked, was the icfiuence of the
Seonvelasts, in inculcating a dislike to statues, by engender-
ing belief in their idolatrous tendency, that sculpture, at
its revival,was long confined to fiat rebels, which, with the aid
of painting and mosaics, gave facility for treating the human.
form without encountering the prejudices of the age,
opposed to the actual realisation of the human form itself.
Mr. Monti remarked that, although the Germans cannot
be said to have originated Christian art, they did succeed in
impressing upon it a marked character. Themselves an
impressible people, but at the time of their migration
southward unconscious of art, and, consequently, unfettered
by prejudices or preconceived notions concerning the
subject, they were the better able to treat art at its revival in
a free, energetic, and vigorous manner. The Normans in
Sicily, who had been the first to benefit by the
teaching of Greek artists from Byzantium, were also among
the first to receive loathe from German practitioners,
whose lessons, however, they to a certain degree improved
upon by introducing smelt hat of a more genial character
both in the composition and execution of their works: and
this improvement also took place in Italy. The numerous
tribes that overran the Italian soil, overturning the Boman
empire, bore an exact relationship to these Nirvana who,
swarming in Greece, had constituted the intelligent, artistic,
population of that country. The names of those tribes—
words of terror in Roman ears—were recognised,on the other
band, as those of buthiere of cities and founders of kingdoms,
and Italy became to the modern, what Greece had been to
the ancient world, the cradle and nursery of the arts.
Whole families inspired with genius for art now arose in
Italy, &menet whom the family of the Pisani, staunch fol-
lowers of the German style, was greatly distinguished. The
cathedral of Orvieto was adorned thy Nicolo Primo. who
was considered the founder of the "Cinque Cure." Whilst
this was going on in Central Italy great efforts iu art were
being made in alone every other path of that favoured
region. Many Italian names steed conspicuous in the
&anal, of sculpture during the 14th century, those of Luca
della Robba and Druatello in particular, the latter an
ardent follower of the early Tuscan school. The lecturer
' concluded his remarks by alluding to Michel Angelo only
by name, intecding to expatiate upon the works of the great
Florentine on Wedneadsy evening next.

While listening to this lecture upon early Christian art,
and contemplating the various drawings of examples brought
forward in illustration of the subject, it was impossible not
to be struck with the limited and erroneous character of the
principle that admits no architecture but the Gothic or
"pointed," nor any kind of painting or sculpture but such
as adapts itself to that style, as art exponents of Christian
sentiment. Reflection upon this matter might convince any
reasonable person that such a view of art must be at variance
with the free and universal character of the Christian faith ;
but when the earliest and purest records of Christian art
prove the shallowness of the belief in the peculiarly sacred
chlracter of pointed art—those records having no affinity
whatever with Gothic or ! ointed architecture—to adhere to
the belief in question is not only to give proof of unreason-
ableness and obstinacy, but of absolute bigotry.