The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-26 00:00:00

HEREFORD MUSICAL FESTIVAL.

AUG. 25
Crowds of gaping yokels, stiff and shiny police
men got up with excessive care, and looking as i
some tremendous secret which they would reveal to
no human mortal were buttoned up in their official
coat—coaches and carriages, four-horsed and
two-horsed—musical artists in such excessive
hats, and impossible caps as every freeborn
Londoner thinks himself privileged to wear on
his travels, but which seldom fail to elicit plea-
santry of a certain kind from those who are less
imaginative or independent about their head-gear
—a great bustle, noise, and confusion—everybody
getting into everybody's way—shiny policemen more
bothered than any one, but vigorously shaking an
observant yokel whenever they got a sharp word
from the inspector for not taking sufficient care of
the public peace—rattle, and dash, and finery, and
a great tuning of instruments large and small, string
and wind—pray, what does all this mean? Why, no-
thing but that the first grand miscellaneous concert of
the festival is about to commence in the Shire Hall ;
that the great and never-to-be-sufficiently-admired
lions and lionesses of musical London are going to
display their wondrous powers for the especha delec-
tation and delight of the goad people of Hereford.
The exterior of the Shire llall has a certain nobility
about it, the roof is too low, but we can
say nothing in favour of the concert hail, excepting
that it is good for musical sound.
This orning Alendelssohn's " Elijah" was per-
formed in the cathedral, the principal vocalists
being Madame Clara Novella, Madame Viardot, Miss
Lascelles, and Madame Weiss; Mr. Montem Smith,
Mr. Weiss, and Mr. Sims Reeves. We can only describe
in terms of praise the satisfactory execution of a
sublime and difficult work like this with a provincial
amateur chorus, and a provincial conductor, unused
to command so large a body of performers, and
having to deal with metropolitan instrumentalists
unaccustomed to his peculiar style of beat.

We have so often recorded the merits of Mr.
Sims Reeves' versions of " If with all your hearts"
and " Then shall the righteous," both perfect efforts
in their way, which no other tenor of the present
day could rival, that we have really nothing left to
say about them, unless it be that they delighted us
again on this occasion as much as ever, and that we
shall never tire of hearing such grand and beautiful
music so finely sung.

The lovely voice of Madame Clara Novello gave
all the usual effect to her renderings of the widow's
scene, " Help me, man of God," and the noble air,
"Hear ye, Israel."
The best opportunity Madame Weiss had for dis-
tinguishing herself was in the recitative of the youth
who is sent to " look towards the sea," and the
highest praise we can give is that she took the fullest
advantage of it.
An encouraging word must likewise be spoken for
Miss Lascelles, who displayed much promise as an
oratorio singer in the air, " Woe unto them," and
the various concerted pieces in which she took part.
Although we did not mention Miss Louisa Vinning,
Mr. Thomas, or Mrs. Clare Hepworth amongst the
principal performers, simply because they had very
little to do, and sang for the most part in concerted
pieces, we must not omit to state that their
valuable assistance contributed materially to the
general excellence of the performance, or that
Mrs. Clare Hepworth sang one short solo, "Behold,
God hath sent" (erroneously set down in the pro-
gramme for Madame Viardot) in a highly com-
mendable manner.

The following pieces were repeated by desire of
the bishop :—" Cast thy burden on the Lord" (ex-
quisitely sung by Madame Weiss, Miss Lascelles,
Mr. M. Smith, and Mr. Thomas); " 0 rest in
the Lord" (sung by Madame Viardot); " Then
shall the righteous " (by Mr. Sims Reeves);
" Lift thing eyes" (Madame Clara Novello, Mrs.
Clare Hepworth, and Madame Viardot) ; and "0,
come every one" (Miss Louisa Vinning, Madame
Viardot, Mr. M. Smith, and Mr. Thomas). The
attendance at the concert of last night was 220, at
this morning's, 583. The collection this morning,
£lBl ; that of the first morning concert of the last
Hereford festival, £207.
Amongst the notabilities present to-day were
Lady Foley, Lady Powis, Lady Curtis, Mrs.
Hampden, Mrs. King, Mrs. Clifford, Mrs. Griffiths,
Miss Leighton, Mrs. Acton, Mrs. Lowther, Miss
Conewall, and Miss Bullock.

FOUR GENTLEMEN DROWNED.—The retired and
beautifully situated little town of Emsworth, Hants, has bad
a sad gloom cast over it, occasioned by four of its inhabitants
being drowned by tbe capsising of the pleasure smack Caro-
line, James Cribb, master, of the above place. It appears
that on Saturday afternooni she left that place with six
gentlemen on board the wind being strong at the time.
When about four miles down the harbour a heavy squall
took the boat, and before the master could get hold of the
tiller (oue of the gentlemen steering) the ill-fated boat cap-
sised, und, melancholy to relate, the Rev. H. Morse, Joshua
Smith, Esq., solicitor, Mr. Brown Moorhead, and Mr.
George Shean were drowned. The persons saved were Mr.
Philip Tyne, the Rev. Henry Sheen, and James Cribb,
matter. The Rev. H. Morse swam ashore, but in his anxiety
to save life he put back again to the wreck, by which the
heroic clergyman lost his own life; it is supposed he was
seized with cramp. The other three lost are, we believe,
single men; but the Rev. H. Morse is married and has four
children, and his wife is hourly expecting to be delivered of
another. The four dead bodies have all been picked up and
lauded at Emsworth.—Brighton Guardian.