Year: 1872

1t was tavorite fiction of old romancers
that the birth of mighty heroes and the incep-
ton of great events which marked epOchs in
the history of the race were accompanied by
commotion of the forces of nature, darkness
in the heavens, and the roar of tempests. IL
stupendous signs among the elements are to
be taken as prophecies of destiny in modern
ages as well as in the ancient days, the
colossal festival which is now setting the
City of Boston agog with anticipation
must be interpreted as something more
than the vagary of an excitable populace
and an enthusiastic band-master 1t was
amid the shrieking of gale and the crash OF
falling timbers that the old Coliseum which
made the Back Bay famous three years ago
vanished off the face of the earth; and it is in
the midst of storm and fury and hideous
wrack that the new temple of mighty sounds
has risen on the same sacred ground. 1t has
now reached the development of shingles; in
few days it will get as far as paint and
bunting; and in three weeks the torrent OF
music will burst forth with a vehemence at
which the earth is expected to stand aghast.


The American passion for estimating things
by their immediate and most tangible results
has set people many time disputing what
the Gilmore Jubilees are really worth; and
the question has never been settled. The SEN
timent of the celebration is hardly worth con-


sidering; and probably not one of the hundred
thousand people who participate in the exer-
cses will give thought to the purpose for
which they are Ostensiby called together.
The artistic effects of the prOdigiOus chorus
and orchestra, taking them altogether, will be
no better than we can hear in good opera
house and though there must be something
grand in the mere spectacle OF such
multitude, that alone hardly furnishes the
Jubilee an excuse for its existence. Three


years ago we pointed out what we believed to
be the good and the evil consequences of the
Gilmore celebrations. The growth of a new
school in art, which mistakes the gigantic for
the great, and puts exaggeration in the place
of sublimity, is one of the dangers to which
the fierce enterprise of the Boston musician
has certainly exposed us. In his first festival
he sometimes passed the limits of the legiti-
mate. and in the second he promises to double
all the grotesque features of the
first We shall have abundant reason
to lament that Mr.. Gilmore ever
learned the gamut if he degrade any further
the somewhat crude and vulgar taste of a
people whose art-education is still in its early
stages, or teach us to regard that man as The
greatest artist who works with the biggest
brush. But on the other hand the restless
gentleman who has collected this army of singers
from remote parts of the United States, and
kindled flame of musical enthusiasm across
the whole breadth Of the continent, has done
n service to art for which the most merciless
of his critics are constrained to thank him.
He has infused some of his own spirit into
thousand little town and village clubs, and
suddenly from weak and languishng singing
classs they have become great choral soci-
cites, studying Handel with all their might,
and working their lungs as those useful or
gans were never worked before. Their aims,
perhaps, just now, are not of the highest. They
have not learned TO love harmony for its own
sake; they are far from understanding the
refinement which is better than strength, the
culture which finds its expression in repose
and self-restraint. To go to Boston in June,
and wear q badge, and sit with the big chorus
in the Coliseum, and see all the grand sights
which Mr.. Gilmore promises for that festival
time,-nay, to be part Of the same famous