The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-27 00:00:00

THE HANDEL FESTIVAL,

The Messiah.

The iollowing appeared in our Third Edition yesterday.

Punctually to the minute, at a quarter before
;hree o'clock this afternoon, The Great Triennial
Flandel Festival—not simply, as on Friday last, the

Grand Full Rehearsal of it, but the actual Festival
itself—was inaugurated. Remembering the ineffable

sanctity of the theme of the Oratorio selected for
to-day's performance, coupled with the grandeur of

Is execution and the colossal proportions of the

whole of the general arrangements, it may be re-

marked, as a mere matter-of-fact statement, that the
Festival was, by this Oratorio, not only inaugurated,

but formally and solemnly inaugurated. If possible
the weather to-day was even more propitious
than upon the occasion of Friday's Re-

hearsal. If less radiant in sunshine, the after-

noon was proportionately cooler. The threatening
rain-clouds blowing over from the north-west did no
more evil than simply threaten—veiling the glare
that must otherwise have appreciably raised the

thread of quicksilver in the tube of the thermometer.

Each successive three years, we presume, will afford
evidence of a perceptible increase in the number of
visitors beyond that noticeable at preceding Festi-
vals : and, therefore, we take it for granted that it

has again simply to be mentioned here as a mere
matter of course that the attendance upon this occa-
sion has been larger than upon any of its prede-
cessors. The very spectacle presented to view

by the vast congregation of ticket-holders, brought
together from all quarters of the United Kingdom,
and besides that from many remote parts of the
Continent of Europe, is always, of itself, a some-

thing magnificent. It is, in fact, yet another, and
a very signal attestation of the spread of the more
elevating and refining influences of modern civilisa-

tion. It is proof positive, in other words, of the
wider and wider diffusion of a profound and un-
affected loie for that one among the Fine Arts which
-doubly- • and peculiarly exceptional—first of

all by reason of its far subtler beauties ; and,
secondly, by reason of its being the only one
among the Fine Arts alluded to in Holy Writ as
common alike to Earth and Heaven. In

very many other ways, however, we cannot
but regard this Triennial Handel Festival as a token
of the onward march of civilisation. But for the
Steam Engine, as applied to our Railway System
and Packet Service, the rapid gathering together of
such a multitude as was assembled this very after-
noon in the Crystal Palace, would, be a thing abso-
lutely impracticable. But for the application, again,
of Steam Power to the working of our Printing
Presses, these Handel Festivals could never by pos-
sibility be reported and commented upon, as they
are, with such astonishing rapidity and minute-
ness—Three Hundred representatives of Jour-
nalism being busily occupied to-day in taking
note of the performances with a view to the
transmission of the tidings of its success to
all the principal newspapers of London and the
provinces, at home and abroad, journals pub-
lished the next morning, or others, like our own,
issued from the steam-press upon the very
evening of the performance thus analysed
currente calamo. Nay, not only in these instances
have we fresh illustrations afforded to us triennially
by the Handel Festivals, of the wondrous pace at
which this modern march of civilisation is being
conducted—but, swifter than the steam-packet or
the railway-train, swifter than the steam-press or
the flying pencil of the stenographer, there were
this afternoon clicking, at intervals, those magic
needles of the Electric Telegraph—conveying hither
and thither, in various directions, and to enormous
distances, fragmentary accounts, as to the manner
in which to-day's Oratorio proceeded, of its suc-
cessful, nay, of far more than merely its suc-
cessful—of its triumphal progress. And that
Oratorio—the grandest and holiest of all the
Oratorios as befits its, divine theme—The Messiah !

More frequently performed than any other, more
familiarly known to the general multitude, it is at the
same time more beloved and revered than any other
among these gigantic masterpieces of Handel. Lis-
tening to the glorious Overture, preluding its world
of wondrous solos and yet more *ondrous choruses,
we seem to hear through " The Messiah" of llandel
an echo from " The Messiah" of Pope—
" Hark, a glad voice the lonely desert cheers ;
Prepare the way ! a God, a God appears :
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.",
And hearkening to the lovely recitative
that follows immediately upon the close of
the majestic Overture, " Comfort ye, my People"—
delivered so exquisitely by Mr. Sims Reeves !—one
could not but reverently recall to mind the thought
that Handel (if one might dare so to speak) not
inappositely celebrated, in these sublime harmonies of
sound, the Divine History of " The Messiah," re-
membering how, among other references to the
miracles of the Redeemer, it has been sung—
"'Tis He the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm the unfolding ear."
After the opening air, which was given with im-
mense effect by our great Tenor, " Every Valley
shall be Exalted," the first of the nineteen great
choruses of the Oratorio was pealed forth exul-
tantly in the prophetic words of Isaiah, " And
the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed !"
Mr. Weiss, though warmly applauded, was
by no means so effective as might have been wished
in the recitative, " Thus saith the Lord"—followed
by the wonderfully difficult, highly elaborated and
curiously intricate " But who may abide," in the
conquest of themore arduous passages of which Ma-
dame Sainton Dolby covered herself -with honour,
being proportionably greeted, thereupon, with tokens
of the delighted approbation of her audience. After
the chorus, " And he shall purify," the same gifted
artiste gave the tenderest, loveliest utterance
to the brief recitative " Behold a Virgin shall con-
ceive," and to the delicious air " 0 thou that tellest
good tidings to Zion"—an air that surely, surely
has the most bewitchingly beautiful of all imagin-
able accompaniments ! Immediately after the choral
repetition of that marvellous air and its accompani- '
ments, Mr. Weiss obliterated all recollection of his
former recitative by the majestic effect with which
he delivered " For behold, darkness shall cover
the Earth," and still more by his delivery of the
sombre and massive air " The People that Walked in
Darkness." Then followed that grandest of all the
mighty choruses of Handel, " For Unto us a
Child is Born"—given, this afternoon, as magnifi-
cently (more than that, it would be imposzible to
say of it), quite as magnificently as on Friday
at the Rehearsal ! The encore, at its conclusion,
being demanded (inevitably) by the vast audience,
with a thundering crash of hands that attested
their profound and instant admiration ! Foul'
thousand performers, vocal and instrumental,, peal-
ing forth those abrupt, adoring apostrophes,
" Wonderful ! Counsellor ! The Mighty -God !"
it was impossible to listen to such majestic volumes
of sound unmoved, without moistened eyes
and thrilling hearts. It was, so to speak, like the
Hymn of Coleridge, in the Valley of Chamouni,
articulated not by the mountain cataracts,
and the winds of heaven among the eternal pines,
and the rolling of the avalanche, but by human lips
and human hands, through words and inarticulate
sounds of accordant sublimity. The audience were
—it would have been nothing less than wonderful
had it been otherwise--just simply enraptured.
Such a Chorus and so rendered—it was the realisa-
tion for once of Milton's dream of the heavenly strain
in his " Ode on the Nativity"—
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
Was ne'er before by mortal finger strook ;
Divinely warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise
As all their souls in blissful rapture took;
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly

close.

The du!eet notes of The Pastoral Symphony pre-
pared the way for the four recitatives then following
each other in rapid succession—" There were Shep-
herds," " And lo ! the Angel," " And the Angel,"
" And Suddenly"—all of them entrusted to Madame
Lemmens-Sherrington. " Glory to God," a chorus
that might, in spite of its comparative brevity,
take rank with many a Gloria in Excelsis
of the great Mass-Composers, then followed. This,
with Madlle. Adelina Patti's radiant delivery of
" Rejoice Greatly"--succeeded by the twill airs