The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-12-23 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL CHORAL SOCIETY.

This flourishing society held its third public meeting for the
performance of sacred music on Tuesday evening last at the
Amphitheatre. The meetings of this society have always an
animating appearance, the audiences invariably being large ;
and, on the present occasion, the house presented as crowded
an appearance, and as respectable an auditory as we have wit-
nessed at any of its previous meetings. The character of the
music attempted speaks well for the musical talent of the so-
ciety, and for the proficiency of its members. On the present
occasion no less musical flight was taken than a soar to the sub-
limities of Handers " Messiah." This, after so recent a per-
formance of this oratorio at the late Liverpool Festival, was a
bold wing, indeed, for a young society.' The overture with
which this oratorio commences was very brilliantly executed;
and we cannot here forbear testifying o'er approval of Mr. M.
Maybrick's talents as a conductor; he kept the orchestra to-
gether with that unity and precision of effort which alone can
secure, and are of themselves almost sufficient to produce effect.
Mr. E. Stott sang the recitative, with accompaniment, "Com-
fort me," very tolerably, and in his usual style. This gentle-
man's style is steady and fixed; he invariably sings about the
same mark, and may be depended upon. The chorus which
followed was given with that marked precision which distin-
guishes the Liverpool choristers, and was exceedingly well ex-
ecuted. The recitative by Mr. Pemberton, " Thus saith the
Lord of Hosts," was given with this gentleman's usual well-
trained style. Mr. Pemberton possesses a voice of considerable
compass, and has it in good command. His intonation is ge-
nerally correct, and his execution' good. There is, however, a
peculiar quality of tone about his voice of rather a harsh nature,
and in an audience like the one on Tuesday night, a deficiency.
of volume. Mr. Dutton's recitative, " Behold! a virgin shall
conceive," was rather below mediocre. The air and chorus
which followed, however, " 0 thou that tellest good tidings,"
were very well given. The recitative, with accompaniment, by
Mr. Davies, "For behold darkness shall cover the earth," was
decidedly the gem of the evening. This gentleman possesses a
fine melodious organ, capable of great volume of tone, and the
evenness of his crescendo and its round fullness was very beau-
tiful. The air and succeeding chorus were splendidly given.
The succeeding recitative, "'!'here were shepherds abiding,"
was sung by Miss Leach. This lady appears to us to have con-
siderably improved in her singing. Her execution of some of
the cadenzas was very pretty. Her voice, though powerful and
sweet, is rather thin in quality of tone. One great beauty of
her singing is her great steadiness and perfect7self-possession.
The air by her, " Rejoice greatly," was sung with much sweet-
ness and very brilliant execution. The following recitative,
"Then shall the eyes of the blind be open," was sung by Mrs.
Heaton, a cantatrice who has, we understand, but lately come
to reside in Liverpool. We can pronounce her a most decided
acquisition to the vocal corps. She has a contre-alto voice of
fine quality, and some of her tones reminded us of Mrs. A.
Shaw. The following air by the same lady, "He shall feed his
flock," is a sweet legato movement, and was sang with a rich-
ness and volume of tone which was perfectly delightful. In the
second part the air by. Mr. J. Stott, " He was despised and re-
jected of men," was very sweetly sung ; and the chorus was very
efficient. Mrs. Brand sang the recitative, "He was cut off nut
of the land,' very prettily. Her voice, however, has a thin-
ness and poverty of tone about it. She executed the air, "But
thou didst not leave his soul in hell," exceedingly well, and met
with a partial encore which she acknowledged. The air by
Mrs. Dutton, " How beautiful are the feet of them," passed
off without anything remarkable. The succeeding quartet by
Mrs. Dutton, and Messrs. Stott, France, and Hadley, " Their
sound is gone out into all lands," was well executed. The air by
Mr. Pemberton, "\Vhy do the nations," was again a feiture in
the evening's performance. Allowing for the want of sufficient
volume and a slight coarsness of tone, it was a very brilliant
performance. The shake and cadenza at the conclusion of each
sentence, "A vain thing," and "Is he anointed," were beauti-
tifullv executed and met with deserved and very loud applause.
The -following chorus was given with almost electrifying pre-
cision. The succeeding fine recitative, "He that dwelleth in
heaven shall laugh them to scorn," was assigned to Mr. Dodd.
We have before expressed an opinion, or rather re/'rained from
expressing an opinion on this gentleman's singing. When,
however, parties place themselves before the public as professors
of any art, and as candidates for public estimation, they must
stand or fall in that estimation by their proficiency or otherwise
in that art and science which they profess; and they, of course,
subject themselves to public criticism. We should not have
entered on this long nreamble had we not understood that our
previous refraining trout criticism of his singing at Miss Hyams'
concert, has given to this gentleman "grave offence." We
will, hu.iever, strive to win his favour, if such be his with, by
entering on a fair and impartial though passing criticism of his
performance. in the first firtissimo with which he made this
recitative commence he pitched his voice far beyond its power,
and as a natural consequence by applying too heavy a clapper
to the bell of his organ he gave it a most decided crack, with
which it clanged most unharmoniously throughout all the rest
of the part assigned him. Like Milton's beautiful description
of the opening of hell's gates, it "Grated harsh thunder."—
The quality of his tone is also disagreeable having a peculiar
thick flatness about it. In turning from the natural requisites
to the formation of a good singer, we do not find any thing
more to admire in his singing in what depended upon acquire-
ment. The emphasis was ludicrously misapplied, and his pro-
nunciation in the cadenza of the air, :I like a pot-ter's ves-sel,"
was, to use a very mild term, erroneous and unmusical, and par-
took of the same unfinished character as did the singing of the
whole piece. We would strongly advise this gentleman, if he
wishes to escape critical castigation, to practice yet, for some
time, his sol fa la, and his chromatic ascending and descending
scales, and the numerous family of " the graces" which we re-
member to have seen, when " scrapers of cat-gut" in by-gone
years, classed under the head of " Rudiments of music," before
he again attempts to sing in public. The " Hallelujah" chorus
which follows was splendidly given, and strongly reminded us
of its magnificent performance under the able conducting of
Sir George Smart, with an orchestra and chorus embodying the
principal musical talent of the country. Perhaps the must
striking part which failed in the comparison was the trumpet
accompaniment. Here the splendid and thrilling tone produced
by Harper was greatly missed. The tone produced was clear,
but was not certain, and it was thin in quality; it wanted that
splendid precision and fulness of lip which render Harper the
trump of trumpeters. But the greatest fault of all was in the
instrument, which was horribly out of tune, and in some of the
high notes was a full semi-tone flat. The performance of the
choristers was all that we could wish. The succeeding air by
Miss Leach, " I know.. that my redeemer liveth," was very.
prettily sung with that peculiar steadiness which characterises
her, and met with loud applause. The following recitative by
Mr. Davies, " Behold I tell you a mystery," was snug with a
tine even full tone. The grand chorus at the conclusion was
bet by VIP fiaettv state of the
audience who began to retire. the per,ormance in say-
ing so, we do not wish to speak in disparagement,) on the whole
was characterised by that feeling of flatness which generally
appertains to a lengthened performance of sacred music where
there is not a continual succession of first rate and extraordi-
nary talent to arouse and fix attention. We cannot conclude,
however, without congratulating this society on the success of
their efforts in propogating and encouraging a taste for music
among the middle ranks of society; the result of which was
very visible in the ',proficiency end evident improvement of
the choristers