The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-12 00:00:00

ASSOCIATION FOR THE REVIVAL

OF SACRED MUSIC.
EDINBURGH, MAncti 9.
Public meetings were held this morning and this evening,
in the Music •hall, of the classes of this association, which is
patronised by the Queen, the Queen Dowager, Prince Al.
bert, and a number of the Scottish nobility. The society
was instituted in November, 1844, principally with th• view
of improving Church psalmody, of instructing teachers,
precentors, and the children of schools of all denominations,
in the principles of vocal music, and to prepare and fit young
persons to impart these principles; and although unsup-
ported by the community in au adequate manner as a na-
tional institution, capable of exercising a benign influence
over those sections of society for whose benefit it was de-
signed, it has nevertheless demonstrated its efficiency and its
value. Hundreds of children have acquired the principles of
an art, calculated to afford rational amusement and enjoy-
ment, as a substitute for the gross and demoralising gratifies-

tions which the want of purer and more_elevated—ones too
frequently induce. Dr. Mainzer, the musical director of the
association, who has gratuitously taught its classes since
their formation, not only teaches his pupils to cultivate
the eye and voice in reading and singing, but also the ear, in
listening to melodies, so that on hearing a tune, they are en-
abled to translate and to write it down in musical notation.
Every one acquainted with the science will admit that teach •
ing capable of effecting this must be of the most thorough and
masterly description ; the appearance made by the classes to-
day, however, fully established the fact, for on some notes and
airs from Mozart being handed, from the auditory, to Dr.
Mainzer, and he having played them on the pianoforte, the
advanced pupils very readily and successfully announced the
notes, although they had never heard the airs before. The
principle of mutual instruction has been beautifully carried
on in these classes. Dr. Mainzer teaches the children to read
all the exercises to a certain page in the elementary manual,
which many of them then communicate to other children,
numbers of the boys and girls having ten, twenty, sixty, or
eighty pupils; one girl, of Mr. Dunn's school, has taught
more than two hundred children, and on examination

it has been found that children taught by these children
are as well instructed as the elementary classes taught by
Dr. Mainzer himself. Having adverted to the principal
steps by which a great national movement for harmonizing
the humbler classes has been began, we shall now allude
more particularly to the proceedings which carne under our
notice in the Music-hall. With the exception of Dr.
Mainzer, who presided at the pianoforte, the spacious
orchestra was occupied by 700 children, whose happy count e-
minces and neat appearance formed a most interesting sight.
The children were first examined in their elementary exer-
cises, the advanced classes singing counterpoint and fugue;
the notes of different intervals, and musical phrases being
mentioned, they then struck the musical sounds; or on melo-
dies from Hayden, Handel and other masters being played by
Dr. Mainzer, the superior classes, even when they had not
heard them before, announced the notes of vf hich they were
composed. These pupil*, on sounding a tuning fork, can strike
any note and chord of any key of the scale of six or seven
sharps or flats, and sing, with little trouble in tuition,
the compositions of Marcella Handel. Arnold, Kent,
Mozart, and other great composers. Where all was pleasing
and well performed, it is almost invidious to particularise.
The modulations and cadences were observed by the children
in a manner that would have done credit to senior artists,
but it was when the full chorus of 700 voices was heard that

the effect became truly grand and imposing. " There is nee
luck about the house" had a most powerful influence upon
the auditory. whose plaudits where spontaneous and universal ;
the " Rowan Tree ' was also a favourite ; as were also Che-
rubini's " March of the Night Patrol," and Luther's Chorale.
To educate not only adults but children in the pleasing art
of music is an advance in civilisation, the practicability of
which has been amply demonstrated in the experience of
this society, which it will be the honour of Scotland to per-
petuate among her most efficient and invaluable institutions.