The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-01 00:00:00

BIRMINGHAM MUSICAL FESTIVAL.

BIRMINGHAM, Friday.--The miscellaneous concert of
iast evening was attended by an extremely crowded and
fashionable assemblage. The entertainment was abun-
dant, but not too much so for the appetite of the guests,
who kept encoring piece after piece till midnight. Of
course there was very little novelty, nor was much to be
expected. Beethoven's pastoral symphony, admirably
executed, began the concert ; and Rossini's overture to
Guillaume Tell, played with marvellous fire, began the
second part ; the rest of the concert consisted of vocal
pieces—opera songs, duets, and trios ; English and
Scotch ballads ; glees and part-songs, familiar to London
concert-goers. Mr. Howard Glover's cantata, " Tam
o'Shanter," which, it will be remembered, was lately
produced at a concert of the New Philharmonic Society,
was repeated on this occasion, the solo part being sung
by Mr. Sims Reeves. It proved effective, and was re-
ceived with considerable applause. The only other
novelty was a composition of Prince Albert's—a chorus
intermingled with solos, extracted from a cantata called
" L'lnvocasione all 'Armonia." The solos were sung by
Madame Castellan, Madame Rudersdorff, Madame
Viardot, Miss Dolby, Messrs. Mario, Reichardt, La-
blache, and Weiss. From such performers it of course
received full justice, and it was altogether highly credit-
able to the talents of the illustrious amateur.
The performance of this morning concluded the musi-
cal portion of the Festival, which terminates, as usual,
with a ball this evening. The ball was nearly as full as
it was yesterday. The programme consisted of Beeth-
oven's Mount of Olives, Mozart's Requiem,, and a selec-
tion from liandel's Israel in Egypt. All these chefs
d'ecuvre were superbly performed. " God Save the
Queen" was then sung with all the strength of the prin-
cipal vocal performers, the orchestra, and the chorus.
Mr. Costa, before leaving the orchestra, was loudly and
repeatedly cheered by the whole assemblage. Thus
finished one of the greatest music meetings every held in
this country. We cannot conclude this notice without
paying a tribute due to the merits of Mr. Stimpson, the
organist, a musician of high talent, whose skilful and
judicious treatment of his instrument contributed essen-
tially to the grandeur of the sacred music.
The following are the receipts to-day :—President and
Vice-Presidents, at 21s. each, 224, 2351. 4s. ; secured
973, 1,0211. 13s. ; unsecured seats, 10s.
donations and collections, 3891.
s6eda.tes,ac2hl,s.Be9a2c,h4,6Bl.
65.;
16s. 9d. ; six passes, 3/. 34. ; five guinea tickets, 22,
1151. 10s. Total receipts, 2,2331. 12s. 9,1. This is 6001.
in excess of those of the Friday [mining at the last fes-
tival, and already the gross receipts is several hundreds
beyond what it was on the Friday night in 1852.

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