WHOLE NO. 268. A Paper of Art and of Art and Literature. BOSTON, SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1857. THE ORATORIOS FOR THE FESTIVAL.-We have room to reprint but the purely descriptive part of what we whilome wrote of III. Handel's "Messiah." ** *The overture, (a critic suggests), is purposely dull. First, a slow movement in a minor key, significant of nothing but emptiness and weariness; then a quick, nervous fugue, a struggling as of many forces to disengage themselves and find relief; each, however, set against the other; a strife which ends in nothing; a helpless, hopeless, passionate impatience. This is the night of sinful and suffering humanity, and it is the background on which the radiant form of Prophecy alights. * * * And now steal in those fresh, Spring-like notes, from the instruments, in the major of the key, (which happens to be that warmest and sunniest of all the keys, E major-the same in which the sunny Haydn so delighted, the same in which he wrote the sunrise symphony in his "Creation "). and a clear, consoling, manly voice is heard: "Comfort ye, my people, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, for her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned;" and rising to a tone of more eloquent and authoritative assurance, adds: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord." But observe, the music here is not dramatic. It does not impersonate the prophet and the voice in the wilderness; it hears them; or remembers them and muses on them. It is Israel with a heavy heart, when her need is the sorest, bethinking herself of her prophets and her precious holy sentences. And in this musing mood how naturally comes up the memory of other sentences, more minutely figurative, the "dear images (as Rochlitz says), which are dwelt upon and imitated in the song: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain; " a species of imitation so literal and out of the province of true art, that it would require excuse in any other case, where feeling did not justify the fondling over trifles. And now comes the fugued chorus of joy, leaping forth as if it could not contain itself. The first phrase, "And the glory of the Lord," is begun by the alto, and then immediately resounded by all the parts; then a second phrase, "shall be revealed," with a more flowing rhythm, starts with the tenor, is pursued by the bass, then the alto, then the soprano, till all are whirled away in a swift and graceful play of hideand seek; and again a third phrase, begun and repeated in the same way, on the words: "And all flesh shall see it together," comes in to increase the harmonious confusion. And so, buoyantly, wave upon wave rolls in and falls back upon others coming after, while the bass, in long loud notes-holding upon the words: "For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it"-seems like the boundless reservoir of Ocean behind all. This completes the first sketch, or introduction of the Oratorio. It is all fresh and Spring-like, and full of what is now given in more detail. A bass voice recites the words: "Thus saith the Lord: Yet once a little, and I will shake the earth, &c. .and the desire of all nations shall come," &c. But the confidence inspired by these words yields to a momentary misgiving in that most beautiful bass song, in the minor: "But who may abide the day of his coming;" which rises to a wild terror at the thought: "For he is like a refiner's fire." Then begins a single high voice in a musing, half involuntary tone, as if struck with the thought that there is hope in the words, " And he shall purify," and then again, more confidently and with a prolonged and florid melody, "And he shall purify the sons of Levi." The bass takes up the suggestion, and one part after another, till all grow enthusiastic with the thought, and the kindling fugue becomes one blended, heavenward soaring flame; when all the voices unite: "That they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteous ness." The chorus dies away; and again we are introduced into the solitude of the believing heart, feeding upon its delicious secret, the hopes of prophecy. The deep, tender, full-hearted, innocent contralto sings over to itself the promise: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive," and then gives way, (like a child talking to herself, so in earnest with her own sweet thoughts, that she forgets she is alone), to a rapturous, ever varied, fondly repeated melody: "0 thou that tellest glad tidings to Zion," &c., so steeped in feeling so heavily drooping with excess of love, and faith, and piety! so confident of the sympathy of all and everything! so much so, that all the sweetness and majesty of the skies seem to blend in it with the accompaniments! Trustful, happy child, to whose devout thought it is all smiles and sunshine, even in the midst of darkness! When she reaches the words: "And the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee," the accompaniments cease, and the voice sinks slowly down, as in a swoon of delight, through almost an octave, and there our souls hang poised in the magical sphere of the flat seventh, when all manner of sweet dreamy imaginations, "children of the air," swim up round us in figures of the violins, and seem to balance themselves upon our shoulders, and cling round our necks. And now from this blissful inner world of faith, from the holy recesses of the pious heart, we are led by a descriptive bass recitative to the world without: "For behold, darkness shall cover the earth." But to us, prepared as we have been, it is a darkness big with expectation, and wondrously the music swells and brightens with the words: "But the Lord shall arise, and the Gentiles shall come to thy light," &c. And in the song that follows, we see the people groping their way in darkness-darkness without and within. Here is no fine shading; no harmony of colors; for there is no light to see by; the harmony is all absorbed into dark unison; we feel our way along; the rhythm, the movement alone intimates what is passing in the dark; in stately, gloomy octaves, voice and instruments move on together. Enough of these visions! the mind is over-full and must find vent. We are come to another of those grand halting-places, where the gathering crowd of thoughts, as they hurry on towards the consummation, must pause, as it were, and turn round and shout; another of those mighty choruses, each mightier than the last, which seem to sum up all that goes before, and measure the progress of the piece; or shall we call them periodical inundations, in which the silent depths of emotion and enthusiasm, which have been all this time secretly feeding the springs of the heart, rise and testify their fulness? It is the chorus: "Unto us a child is born!" Zelter says that in the original it was not intended to come in until after the "Annunciation." "After the shepherds," he says, "have heard the words of the angel in the field by night, and recovered from the fright, one party begins: Unto us a child is born,' and toys innocently with the thought; then follows another in the same way; then the third, then the fourth, till at the words, Wonderful, Counsellor,' &c., all unite the flocks of the field, the hosts of stars of the whole heavens, all awake and stir with life and gladness." But in Mozart's arrangement, which is always used, this chorus, (for what reason I cannot tell), comes first. I could not describe it better than in the words of Rochlitz: "Six-not more than six measures of Ritornel (instrumental symphony) contain at the cutset all the musical ideas, of which this very long chorus is woven, with the exception of a single one, which Handel, for a good reason (as we shall soon hear), could not betray till its time came. These ideas are here plainly, but powerfully stated. They are so characteristic and expressive, that I have never yet been to a performance, without remarking, how every face, however VOL. XI. No. 8. serious and clouded over during the last passage, brightened up at the first sound of the instruments, before a single voice began. The soprano voice begins alone, in the principal theme of the music, announcing the glad tidings, Unto us a child is born, a son is given,' while the instruments alternating with a second thought play on softly by themselves. Then the tenor takes up the same words with the same melody; but before it has half announced the message, the first, as if it could not contain itself, falls in again with the same tones, and carries it out with more spirit (while the tenor finishes) and with a richer figure (the third musical idea), in which joyous movement the instruments are almost hushed. Now the alto takes up the words to the first melody; that is interrupted by the bass, as the tenor was by the soprano; till the tenor, without instruments (except the continued bass), and in majestic solemn style, adds: And the government shall be upon his shoulders:' the others, as if timid, merely say it over after; especially the vocal bass, slowly and statelily coming up from the deep, as if thinking and doubting still. Then all, as if by inspiration, suddenly exclaim: ‘And his name shall be called WONDERFUL, COUNSELLOR, THE MIGHTY GOD, THE EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE;' and with that word WONDERFUL!' all the fullness of the choir and of the orchestra, hitherto kept back, rushes together like many mountain torrents into one flood, and all souls bow entranced before the power of this single accord, which Handel could not betray before, that it might surprise. The voices and instruments all together (except the trumpets and drums, reserved for still greater use), simply exclaim one of those lofty names-pause awhile, that it may have time to echo far and wide-and then exclaim another, still in the same chord, and pause again, and another, and so on -while the violins take up that first joyous figure of the soprano, soar up into the sky with it, and there in warbling thirds bind those single exclamations together. Handel in this chorus works over these same ideas, in essentially the same manner, and yet with the greatest variety, twice more; till all the voices, and all the instruments, and all the ideas unite at length, and at the climax of their inspiration proclaim the whole glad tidings yet again. A ritornel plays over once more the principal themes, and lets the soul down gently and gradually from the ever-gaining and by this time too intense excitement." And now comes the Christmas spectacle of the Nativity, an exquisite piece of picture music. It has been well likened to one of those altar pieces by the old painters on the same subject, exceedingly simple in its means, yet beautiful and full of feeling. First is the "Pastoral Symphony," a Siciliano movement, soft and flowing, confined to a very few of the simplest chords, the melody flowing in thirds (that first harmony which natural, untaught singers discover for themselves,) and all by the few unaided stringed instruments, which form the heart of the orchestra. To these Mozart has added flutes, and the effect is an all-pervading streaming up of sweetest sounds, as if they exhaled from the leaves and flowers, from all the pores of the earth. The air teems with melody, smoothing the raven down of darkness till it smiles." As Zelter says, "you feel the starlight." This forms the overture. Then comes the recitative, "There were Shepherds abiding in the fields," &c. Then there is a waving of wings in the air, nearer and nearer, as the approach of the angel of the Lord is recited; and then a clear, crystal, bell-toned voice, calm and without passion, announces the birth of the Saviour to the shepherds; and the violins fill the air full of wings at the words: Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host." In the song of the angels, which is composed of high and silvery chords, there is exquisite music, such as only floats down our thoughts some clear night from the skies, when the boundless firmament above mirrors the spiritual firmament within, and nature and we are one thought. At the words, "Peace on earth!" proclaimed in long full tones, there is a pause while the echo rolls away amid short, full, measured pulses of the instruments, which seems like the throbbing of all nature's sympathetic joy. And playfully are the words passed about among the multitudinous voices in the air, in broken fugue: "Good will towards men!" This scenic interlude, or play within play, over, the grand business of the oratario proceeds; namely, contemplation and celebration of the great event with all its consequences. A soprano voice soars up like a lark into the blue of heaven, and pours down floods of rapturous, flowery melody in the song: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!"-Joy uncontainable-that cannot fly high enough, in the very excess of its joyfulness, feeling more than ever the chains of earth, so that in despair of utterance it yields at last to a sweet melancholy, and sinks so full of feeling in the serious, almost condoling passage: "He is the righteous Saviour." Then follows: "The eyes of the blind shall be opened," &c., and that most heavenly air (again in the pastoral Siciliano rhythm) "He shall feed his flocks," &c., so full of consolation, inspiring one with that holy sweet content, which sermons only make us feel the want of. Some one said of it: “God grant that this song may float before my mind, when I rest upon my death-bed. Gladly must the eyes close upon all that is left behind and that was dear to the heart, in the fulness of such hope." Then comes the chorus: "His yoke is easy," &c., closing the first part. * * * The second portion, consisting of some dozen choruses and airs, describes the Passion, and constitutes, as we said, the body of the piece. For it is "the divine depths of sorrow," out of which the whole mysterious work of redemption is perfected. The music grows very deep here. You are reminded of the earnest business of life, of the serious price, the toil and study and long-suffering, by which all good must be earned. ✶ ✶ Most perfect type of this universal fact in human life was the suffering of Jesus. The first chorus, "Behold the Lamb of God," with its dark minor chords, brings threatening clouds over us, which hang so low, as almost to suffocate; we are weighed down with intensity of gloom. Its rhythm, too, is that of the great restless heaving ocean, each swell thundering on the shore with more ominous sound. This chorus is not so much the voice of the multitude; it is not as if you heard persons singing; but rather as if you saw them looking each other in the face in the stony silence of stifled woe. It is rather a descriptive symphony, performed by a great choir of voices, instead of instruments, for the sake of the greater mass of sound; a sort of vocal overture. And now comes the sweet relief of tears; now grief finds a voice in that most pathetic song ever written: "He was despised and rejected." It is said that a friend, calling upon Handel while in the act of setting these pathetic words, found him actually sobbing. We must pass over the choruses and songs, which describe his persecution and the taunts of the multitude, only casting behind one lingering look of awe and admiration upon the sacred form who rises before us, mild, majestic, eloquently silent, as we hear the recitative: "Thy rebuke hath broken his heart:" and "Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow." It is the apotheosis of grief. The whole part Zelter characterizes thus: "Suffering and death: brief, but not crowded; great, still, affecting; no torments, no crucifying, and that sort of thing; the sorrow of the just over the degradation of the good and beautiful." I cannot leave this part, however, without remarking upon the singular chorus: "All we like sheep have gone astray," whose wild, mirthful, almost comic style, breaking in in the midst of so much sadness, has puzzled many critics. The most of an apology which Rochlitz has been able to make for it, is to suppose it necessary for variety. But genius never stoops to so low a reason. The smallest part of its work stands by the like inward necessity with the greatest, with the whole. To me this chorus does not seem to break the moral and poetic unity of the work, but rather to strengthen and complete it. The tramping, truant, reckless motion with which it sets out, the voices running away in all directions, each with a phrase: "We have turned," and "every one to his own way,"-this is but sin glorying in its shame, and making the most of its hard case by getting up a little alcoholic exhilaration for the time. But the weight of the chorus lies not here. This is but the introduction and preparation by contrast for the main theme which follows. With what unerring fatality all this drunken furor subsides into reflection on the dread, retributive, other side of the matter, in the profoundly solemn adagio at the close: "And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." We must not stop to notice the many admirable things in the third part, which, beginning with the resurrection of Christ, and the great chorus, "Lift np your heads, O ye gates," (forming a finale to all this last), goes on to celebrate the fruits of his death, and describe the sending forth of preachers, and the triumphant conflict of the Word with the powers of darkness. This part, too, has its grand finale. Enthusiasm has reached the acme, and breaks forth in the celebrated "Hallelujah Chorus." Handel confessed, in his later years, that when he composed this chorus "he knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body." The simplicity and grandeur of its massive structure, and the universality of its sentiment, make it one of those works which never can be represented on too vast a scale. No multitude of voices can overdo it. There is no bloating or exag. gerating, by any representation, these great granite ranges in the world of musical art. In England, their traditional associations with the "Hallelujah Chorus," as performed at the great commemoration of Handel in Westminster Abbey, form a part of the national treasure. Dr. Burney closes his account of it thus: "Dante, in his 'Paradiso,' imagines nine circles, or choirs of cherubs, seraphs, patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, saints, angels, and archangels, who, with hand and voice, are eternally praising and glorifying the Supreme Being, whom he places in the centre, taking the idea from the TE DEUM LAUDAMUS.' Now, as the orchestra in Westminster Abbey seemed to ascend into the clouds, and unite with the saints and martyrs represented on the painted glass in the west window, which had all the appearance of a continuation of the orchestra, I could hardly refrain, during the performance of the Allelujah,' to imagine that this orchestra, so admirably constructed, filled and employed, was a point or segment of one of those celestial circles. And perhaps no band of mortal musicians ever exhibited a more respectable appearance to the eye, or afforded a more ecstatic and affecting sound to the ear than this. "So sang they, and the empyrean rang With allelujahs.'" The last part celebrates the great truth of immortality, opening with the song, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," which it is well that we must hurry over, for no words are worthy of it. Who is not a believer while he gives himself up to that song? And who soon forgets it? In the doubts and fears of weaker moments, that will surely come to thee, recall its heavenly sound, and wait in peace till thou shalt be thyself again! One thing here we would remark. What a mystery is this matter of the keys in music! Each seems a separate sphere or element. Here we are again in the clear, blue, sunny, upper air of E major, the heaven of prophecy, where those first tones of hope came upon us in "Comfort ye, my people." Then it was sweet dependence on a heavenly promise; now it is the very sense and inward realization of Immortality, "for now is Christ risen." It is too much to feel too much for a poor child of circumstances; the miracle and glory of it must be celebrated in the thrilling trumpet-song, "Behold I tell you a mystery." And what can we say of the triple accumulation of choruses at the end? First, "Worthy the Lamb," then, "Blessing and honor be unto him," which, if not more sublime, are at least more elaborate than the "Hallelujah;" and then, when the hearer thinks there can be no more, the vocal torrent bursts the shackles of words, and on the two syllables of 'Amen," revels with all the freedom of an orchestra in the most magnificent of Fugues. * 66 * Hon. R. C. Winthrop's Address ** AT THE OPENING OF THE GRAND MUSICAL FESTIVAL AT THE BOSTON MUSIC HALL. I am here, Ladies and Gentlemen, at the request of my friend, Mr. Charles Francis Chickering, the worthy successor of an honored father in the Presidency of the Handel and Haydn Society, and by the invitation of the gentlemen associated with him in the government of that Institution, of which it becomes me to remember most gratefully to-day, that, by their unmerited favor, I have myself enjoyed the privileges of an Honorary Member for nearly twenty years,-to inaugurate the Festival which is now about to commence, by some introductory words of commemoration and of welcome. I am not unmindful of the difficulty of the service to which I have thus been called. I am deeply sensible how thin and meagre any single, unaccompanied human voice must sound, in this spacious Hall and to this expecting audience, when brought, even by anticipation, into such immediate contrast with the multitudinous choral and instrumental power and grandeur which may be seen arrayed behind me and around me, and which are presently to break upon us in a glorious flood of mingled harmony and light. More than one of the great Masters, whose genius is to be illustrated during the progress of this Festival, have found their highest powers tasked to the utmost, if I mistake not, in preparing an adequate and appropriate Overture, even for a single one of the great compositions to which they have owed their fame; and some of them, I believe, have abandoned the effort altogether. How hopeless, then, is it for me to attempt to say any thing, which shall constitute a worthy prelude to all the magnificent Oratorios and Symphonies with which this Hall is now successively to resound! Well, well, may I recall the opening of that memorable musical competition, so forcibly depicted in the celebrated Ode on the Passions:"First FEAR his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewildered laid, And back recoiled, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made." But I shall hardly succeed in rendering the formidable Solo I have undertaken, either more easy to myself or more acceptable to others, by indulging too much in the fashionable tremolo of the hour; and I turn, therefore, without further preamble or apology, to a simple discharge of the service which I have promised to perform;-not, indeed, altogether without notes, for that would be quite out of keeping with the occasion; but not without a due remembrance, I trust, of the apt and excellent wisdom of the ancient Son of Sirach: "Speak, thou that art the elder, for it becometh thee, but with sound judgment; and hinder not the music. Pour not out words where there is a musician, and show not forth wisdom out of time. Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words."* It has sometimes been made a matter of reproach upon us New Englanders, my friends, that we are too ready to imitate the fashions, and even to ape the follies, of the old world; and I think we must all admit that there have been periods in our history, when the charge was not altogether without foundation. We come to-day, however, to borrow a leaf out of the book of our brethren of Old England, which we need not be ashamed to copy, which is eminently worthy of being copied,--and which I trust is destined to be reproduced,--in enlarged and improved editions,frequently if not statedly, in the future history of this community. For many years past,--I know not exactly how many, the great Musical Festivals of Birmingham and Norwich, of Liverpool, and Manchester, and York, have been among the most cherished and delightful holidays of our mother country. They have done much for the cause of musical improvement, and they have done much, too, for the innocent entertainment and wholesome recreation of the people. The most eminent living composers and performers of Europe have been proud to take a part in them, and the most distinguished lovers and patrons of Art have been eager to attend them. At this very moment, as you know, arrangements are in progress for holding one of them, on a grander scale than ever before, at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; and the presence and patronage of the Queen and Prince Albert,whose musical skill and science,-it has been said upon the best authority, would alone have won for them no ordinary distinction, had they been in a condition of life to admit of the full development and public display of such accomplishments, have been promised and accepted for the occasion. We have no Queenly presence or Princely patronage, my friends, to rely upon, for lending grace or dignity to such an occasion.-though forms and features which would add brilliancy to a diadem are never wanting to our public assemblies; but we have the fullest confidence that Republican ears are not insensible to "the concord of sweet sounds," and that Republican hearts are neither closed nor callous to the impression, This intimation was fulfilled, in the delivery of the Address, by the omission of many passages which are included in the printed copy. whether of the softer melodies or the sublimer harmonies of the divine art. And in that confidence we are assembled here to-day, to inaugurate the first Musical Festival, which will have been organized and conducted in New England, or, I believe I may say, in all America, after the precise pattern of the great Festivals of Europe, -hailing it as the commencement of a series of Festivals, which may not be less distinguished in future years, perhaps, than those from whose example it has been borrowed,—and welcoming it, especially, as another advance towards that general education of the heart, the tastes and the affections, of which Heaven knows how much we stand in need, and which is to be carried on and conducted, in no small part at least, through refined and elevated appeals to the eye and to the ear, under the guidance and inspiration of Christian faith and fear and love, by every department of human Art. The public performance of sacred or of secular Music is, indeed,-I need hardly say,-by no means a new thing, or a thing of recent introduction, in this community. I know not exactly how early musical entertainments commenced in the old town of Boston. It is not to be doubted that the Pilgrims of Massachusetts, like those of Plymouth, in the beautiful words of Mrs. Hemans, "shook the depths of the desert gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer." "Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard, and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang They sang the psalms of David as versified by Sternhold and Hopkins, or by Henry Ainsworth, the eminent Brownist, adapting them sometimes, perhaps, to the tunes arranged by that ancient Bachelor of Music," Thomas Ravenscroft;and sometimes, I doubt not, they sang the hymns and songs of simple old George Wither, to the plain and plaintive two-part melodies of Orlando Gibbons. And, by and by, they made a PsalmBook for themselves, and published it among the cherished first-fruits of a New England free press.* But the Fine Arts, of which Music is eminently one, can find no soil or sky for growth or culture in a new country and amid unsettled institutions. They are at once the fruit and the ornament of peace, civilization and refinement. We have authentic history for the fact that in 1676"there were no musicians by trade" on this peninsula. Yet more than a hundred years ago, certainly, the largest hall in the place was known by the name of Concert Hall,--and as early as the second of January, 1755, "a Concert of Music" was advertised there,-"Tickets to be had at the place of performance in Queen Street, (now Court Street,) at four shillings each." For a long series of years, doubtless, that now venerable Hall fulfilled the peculiar purpose which was designated by its name. In casually turning over the columns of the Boston News Letter of a few years' later date, I observed an advertisement of a Grand Concert on the twenty-eighth of December, 1769, (which was postponed, however, on account of the weather, to the following week,) for the benefit of a Mr. Hartley, with a Solo on the violin,-probably not quite equal to the one which Ole Bull gave us last week, or one of the brothers Mollenhauer a few weeks ago,but still "by a gentleman lately arrived." So early did we begin to manifest that indebtedness to foreign musical talent, which no young and industrious country need be ashamed or unwilling to acknowledge, and which we recognize with satisfaction and gratitude, not only in more than one of our most popular and successful professors and instructors, but in so many of the admirable Orchestra and in the skillful Conductor of this occasion. In the Boston Gazette for 1782, I have met with the advertisements of at least two other Governor Endicott's copy of 'Ravenscroft's Psalms' is in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society,-where, also, is a copy of Wither's Hymns and Songs, with the autograph of Martha Winthrop, who came over to New England in 1631, and died soon afterwards. The Bay Psalm Book was published in 1640. 66 Concerts both of them given for that best and worthiest of all objects, the benefit of the Poor;" -one of them at King's Chapel on the 23d of April, where a Mr. Selby was announced to preside at the organ; the other at Trinity Church, where the organ was played by a Mr. Bellstedno match, I venture to say, for the portly Jackson or the accomplished Hayter of later days,and where the vocal music was performed by an association of singers rejoicing in the name of the Aretinian Society. I have observed a notice, too, of at least one Instrumental Concert, given on the 28th of January, 1783, by the Band of the Massachusetts Regiment of Artillery, whose instruments were at length just about to be happily released from the harsh and horrid service of Revolutionary battle-fields, and which may have been the original pioneer of the numerous Military Bands, whose music has given brilliancy to so many of the volunteer parades of succeeding years. But a more memorable Concert than either of those to which I have alluded, has come down to us on the pages of history-a Concert of Sacred Music-called, at the time, an Oratorio, though in fact somewhat miscellaneous in its character, and given at King's Chapel on Tuesday, the 27th of October, 1789, on occasion of the visit of George Washington to Boston, as the first President of the United States. Washington had been received and escorted into the town, by a grand civil and military procession, on Saturday, the 24th of October; and on his reaching the front of the Old State House, and entering the colonnade of that time-honored building, (which I wish could be once more restored to its old appearance and to some worthy department of the public service.) a select choir of singers, stationed upon a Triumphal Arch erected in the immediate vicinity, with DANIEL REA, the most famous vocalist of Boston in that day, at their head, had welcomed him by the performance of an original Ode, of whose quality a very few lines may, perhaps, afford a sufficient specimen. It commenced as follows:- "Great Washington, the Hero's come, Now in full chorus join the song, I doubt not that the air and execution of this performance were at least equal to the poetrythough that is not saying much. But the musical talent of our metropolis was not satisfied with a single exhibition of itself in honor of the Father of his Country. A more formal Concert of Sacred Music had, indeed, been previously arranged for an earlier day, with a view to raise funds for finishing the portico of the Chapel; but it had been postponed on account of the weather, or for some want of preparation. It was now fixed for the week of Washington's visit, and the programme is still extant in the papers of that period. After an original Anthem, composed by the organist, Mr. Selby,-for, it seems, that native compositions were not altogether discarded on that occasion,-the beautiful airs of Handel-"Comfort ye my people" and "Let the bright Seraphim"-were to be sung by Mr. Rea;-while the Second Part was to consist of a short but entire Oratorio, of which I have seen no account either before or since, founded on the story of Jonah.-The choruses were to be performed by the Independent Musical Society, and the instrumental parts by a Society of gentlemen, aided by the Band of His Most Christian Majesty's Fleet, then lying in our harbor. It seems, however, that owing to the indisposition of several of the best performers,--who were suffering from a prevailing cold which afterwards, I believe, acquired the name of the Washington Influenza, a portion of this programme was again postponed. But the occasion was still a brilliant and memorable one. The ladies of Boston attended in great numbers, many of them with sashes bearing "the bald eagle of the Union and the G. W. in conspicuous places," while the Marchioness of Traversay, (the wife of one of the officers of the French fleet,) exhibited on this occasion, we are told, the G. W. and the Eagle set in brilliants, on a black velvet ground, on the bandeau of her hat. Washington himself was of course there, and another original Ode in his honor was performed in the place of some of the omitted pieces;-an Ode of which I may confidently venture to give more than a single verse, and which, I am sure, will find a ready echo in all our hearts:— "Welcome, thrice welcome to the spot, Where once thy conquering banners way'd, By those thy matchless valor sav'd. His debt of gratitude to pay; May health and joy a wreath entwine, A wreath of everlasting life." Of all the Oratorios or Concerts which Boston has ever witnessed, I think this is the one we should all have preferred the privilege of attending. Who does not envy our grandfathers and grandmothers the satisfaction of thus uniting,even at the expense of an influenza,-in the homage which was so justly paid to the transcendent character and incomparable services of Washington, and of enjoying a personal view of his majestic form and features? It is a fact of no little interest, and not perhaps generally known, that a young German Artist of that day, then settled in Boston, by the name of Gulligher, seated himself, under the protection of the Rev. Dr. Belknap, in a pew in the chapel, where he could observe and sketch those features and that form, and that having followed up his opportunities afterwards,--not without the knowledge and sanction of Washington himself,--he completed a portrait which is still in the possession of Dr. Belknap's family, and which, though it may never be allowed to supersede the likeness which has become classical on the glowing canvas of the gifted Stuart, may still have something of peculiar interest in the musical world, as the Boston Oratorio portrait of Washington. But I must not detain you longer, my friends, with these historical reminiscences of the music of Boston in its earlier days,-interesting as I am sure they must be to us all. I pass at once, and without a word of comment, over a period of a full quarter of a century. Washington has now completed his two terms of civil administration, with a brilliancy of success by no means inferior to that which had distinguished his military career. Death has at length set its seal upon the surpassing love in which he was held by the whole American Nation, and he has gone down to a grave, which,-rescued from all danger of desecration by the loyalty of Virginia women and the eloquence of at least one Northern Statesman,-is destined to be more and more a place of devout pilgrimage and reverent resort for the friends of civil liberty and free government, from all climes and in all generations. The Country, meanwhile, which owed him so inestimable a debt, has gone through with many vicissitudes of condition since his death-all, as we believe, providentially arranged or permitted to discipline our youthful vigor, and to develop the institutions and consolidate the Union which it had cost so much blood and treasure to establish. A second war with Great Britain has been waged,-sometimes called the second War of Independence,and now at length the bow of peace and promise is once more seen spanning "the wide arch of our ranged empire." Beneath its genial radiance we are about to enter upon a period of prosperity and progress such as the world had never before witnessed. On Christmas Eve, in the year 1814, the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States was signed at Ghent,--a worthy commemoration of that blessed event when the Her ald Angels were heard singing to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem Peace on earth, good will towards men.' But that Treaty was not known on this side of the ocean for six or seven weeks after its date. The great battle of New Orleans, as you well know, was fought at least two weeks after that Treaty of Peace was signed. Our modern system of railroads and steamers and telegraphs might have saved that effusion of fraternal blood-might have deprived individual heroes-might have deprived our country and its history-of all the glory which belonged to that really great victory. If that gigantic Ocean Harp, which is at this moment in process of being strung,-whose deep diapason is destined to produce a more magical music on the sea than old mythology or modern fable ever ascribed to siren, mermaid or Arion,-if the mys terious gamut of that profound submarine chord had been in successful operation then, as we hope it soon will be, between St. John's and Valentia Bay, those cotton-bag ramparts at New Orleans might never have been celebrated in history;while, of those who so gallantly defended them, many would not have been laid so low, and some, perhaps, would hardly have risen so high. The news of Peace, however, at length reached New York on the 11th of February, 1815, and was brought on to Boston by express, with what was then called unexampled despatch,-in about thirty-two hours. The celebration of the event, under the auspices of the State Legislature, which was then in session, and under the immediate direction of our venerable FellowCitizen, JOSIAH QUINCY, as Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, took place on the 22d of February following. And never was Washington's birthday more appropriately and nobly celebrated. I have myself a vivid remembrance of the brilliancy and sparkle of the illumination and fireworks in the evening, and my maturer eyes have often sought in vain for their match in all the dazzling demonstrations of later holidays. But the full heart of Boston could find no adequate utterance for itself but in music. Nothing but a "Te Deum Laudamus" could satisfy the emotions of that hour, and the great feature of the occasion was a Service of thanksgiving and praise,-without orations or sermons, in the old Stone Chapel, where, after prayer by the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, then the aged and respected pastor of the Second Church, the Duet of "Lovely Peace" was sung by Col. Webb and Miss Graupner, and a part of the Dettingen Te Deum and the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel were executed by nearly two hundred and fifty vocal and instrumental performers. The newspapers of the day,-not yet inured to anything of indiscriminate or venal puffing,-pronounce it, by all admission, the very best music ever heard in Boston. 66 And now, my friends, it can hardly be doubted that the impressive musical services of that Peace Jubilee gave the primary impulse to the establishment of the Association, which is signalizing to-day the forty-second year of its active existence by the Festival we are assembled to inaugurate. Its echoes had hardly died away,-four weeks, indeed, had scarcely elapsed since it was held, before a notice was issued by Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb and Asa Peabody, for a meeting of those interested in the subject of cultivating and improving a correct taste in the performance of sacred music." In that meeting, held on the 30th of March, 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society originated. On the 20th of April, their Constitution was adopted. The following May-Day witnessed their first private practicing from the old Lock Hospital Collection, and on the succeeding Christmas Evening, at the same consecrated Chapel, where Washington attended that memorable Public Concert a quarter of a century before, and where that solemn Jubilee of Peace had been so recently celebrated, their first Grand Oratorio was given, to a delighted audience of nine hundred and forty-five persons, with the Russian Consul, the well-remembered Mr. Eustaphieve, assisting as one of the performers in the Orchestra. From that day to this, the Handel and Haydn Society has been one of the recognized and cherished institutions of Boston. Their progress is illustrated by the signal improvement which has been witnessed in the musical services of all our churches, and in the growing taste and skill which have rendered the singing of sacred music one of the most familiar and delightful recreations of the domestic circle. Their history is written, still more conspicuously, in the records of the nearly five hundred public Oratorios, besides almost as many less formal Concerts, which the Society have performed, and of the numerous civic and religious ceremonials at which they have assisted. To them we have owed one of the most effective and attractive features of not a few of our grand-❘ est Anniversary Festivals-our first centennial celebration of Washington's Birthday, and our second centennial celebration of the Birthday of Boston. To them we have owed one of the most grateful and graceful compliments which have been paid to the distinguished guests who from time to time have visited our city,-to Presidents Munroe and Jackson and Tyler, and to Henry Clay, all of whom have accepted their invitations and attended their Oratorios. By them, too, have been performed the Funeral Dirges for our illustrious dead. It was to their swelling peal that our own Webster alluded at Faneuil Hall, in his magnificent eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, when he said: "I catch that solemn song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph—' their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth evermore.' And their funeral chant was heard again, when Faneuil Hall was once more shrouded in black, and when that matchless orator was himself the subject of heart-felt lamentation and eulogy. To them we have been indebted for the first production in our country of not a few of the sublimest compositions of the great Masters of Europe, and to them we have owed the opportunity of hearing the most exquisite and inspiring airs of those compositions, executed by an Incledon or a Phillips, a Horn, a Braham, or a Caradori Allan. I may not attempt to name the more recent vocalists, foreign or domestic, whom they have successively brought forward, and some of whom are here to add brilliancy to the present occasion. Incited by their example, too, other Associations have been organized in our own city and in the neighboring towns, as well as in various other parts of our Commonwealth and country,-the Academy of Music, the Musical Education Society, the Mendelssohn Choral Society, and many others,which have rendered efficient service in a common cause, and which deserve the grateful remembrance of every lover of harmony. When this Society was originally instituted, the music of Boston, of New England, and I may say of all America,-both sacred and secular,was in a most crude and disorganized condition. Aretinian Societies and Independent Musical Societies had done a little for it, and then died out. Occasional Concerts, like those to which I have alluded, may be found scattered at long and dreary intervals along the previous half century. A worthy son of the Old Colony, too, whence so many good things have sprung, had already commenced the publication of the Bridgewater Collection."* But there was no systematic and permanent organization for the improvement of musical taste, skill, or science, in any of our large communities; and there was but little of either taste, skill or science to be improved. I have heard the late JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,—an intense lover of music himself, and whose comprehensive acquirements embraced a knowledge of this particular subject which would have been extraordinary in any body else, tell a story, which may serve as an illustration of the state of American music at that precise period. During the negotiation, at Ghent, of that Treaty of Peace to which I have just alluded, a Festival or Banquet, or it may have been a Ball, was about to take place, at which it was proposed to pay the customary musical compliment to all the Sovereigns who were either present or represented on the occason. The Sovereign People of the United States,-represented there, as you remember, by Mr. Adams himself, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Clay, The late Hon. Nahum Mitchell. Mr. Jonathan Russell, and Mr. Gallatin,-were, of course, not to be overlooked; and the Musical Conductor or Band Master of the place called upon these Commissioners to furnish him with our National Air. Our National Air, said they, is Yankee Doodle. Yankee Doodle, said the Conductor, What is that? Where shall I find it? By whom was it composed? Can you supply me with the score? The perplexity of the Commissioners may be better conceived than described. They were fairly at their wit's ends. They had never imagined that they should have scores of this sort to settle, and each turned to the other in despair. At last they bethought them, in a happy moment, that there was a colored servant of Mr. Clay's, who, like so many of his race, was a first-rate whistler, and who was certain to know Yankee Doodle by heart. He was forthwith sent for accordingly, and the problem was solved without further delay. Band Master jotted down the air, as the colored boy whistled it, and before night, said Mr. Adams, Yankee Doodle was set to so many parts that you would hardly have known it, and it came out, the next day in all the pride, pomp and circumstance of viol and hautboy, of drum, trumpet and cymbal, to the edification of the Allied Sovereigns of Europe, and to the glorification of the United Sovereigns of America. Whether that boy was bond or free, I know not, but I think both South and North would agree, that he earned his liberty and his citizenship, too, on that occasion. The I would not disparage Yankee Doodle, my friends. It has associations which must always render its simple and homely melody dearer to the hearts of the American People than the most elaborate compositions of ancient or modern science. Should our free institutions ever again be in danger, whether from malice domestic or foreign levy,' that will still be the tune to which American patriotism will keep step. We must always preserve it, and never be ashamed of it;-though I do venture to hope that a day may come, when, like England and Austria and Russia, to name no other lands,-we may have something fit to be entitled a National Anthem, which shall combine an acknowledgment of God with the glorious memories of wise and brave men;-which shall blend the emotions of piety and patriotism, uniting in sweet accord the praises of the Divine Author of our Freedom and Independence, with those of his chosen and commissioned human instruments, in a strain worthy to commemorate the rise and progress of our Great Republic. But this little anecdote of what happened at Ghent, furnishes no bad illustration, certainly, of the condition of American music at the precise period when this Society first took it in hand, and when it might almost be said that Yankee Doodle and the lips of a whistling boy were the prevailing airs and instruments of our land. What a contrast does this occasion suggest! This noble Hall itself,-second to none in the world in its adaptation to the purposes to which it has been dedicated,-the pride of our whole community, and which reflects so much credit on the liberal enterprise and persevering energy of those who were immediately concerned in its erection,-what a monument it stands of the musical taste and zeal to which the old Handel and Haydn Society gave the original impulse! For myself, I cannot but feel that a deep debt of gratitude is due to an Association, whose performances and whose publications, through a period of more than forty years,-under the Presidency of such men as the earlier and the later Webb, of Lowell Mason, of Zeuner, and Chickering and Perkins,--have exercised so important an influence in refining and elevating the musical taste of New England ;-and more especially in improving the character of our Sacred Music, and affording us an opportunity of enjoying the glorious airs and anthems and choruses which have been composed to the praise and honor of God. And I am glad of an opportunity of testifying my own individual obligation to them. This is not the occasion, nor am I the person, for any scientific analysis or comparison of styles or of masters. Every thing of this sort may be safely left to our excellent Music Journal and its accomplished editor and contributors. Nor will I venture to detain you with any elaborate periods or swelling common-places about the importance and influence of music in general. The poets, philosophers and moralists of all ages are full of them. The music of the Church, the Cathedral and the Camp-meeting,-of the Concert-room, the Academy and the Opera,-of the fireside, the serenade, the festival, and the battle-field,— the songs of the Troubadours, the psalms of the Covenanters, the hymns of Luther, Wesley and Watts,-Old Hundred,-the Cotter's Saturday Night, Elgin and Dundee,-Auld Lang Syne, Home, sweet Home, the Ranz des Vaches, Hail Columbia, God save the King, the Marseillaise, the Red Fox of Erin, which the exquisite songster of Ireland tells us made the patriot Emmet start to his feet and exclaim, 'Oh that I were at the head of twenty thousand men, marching to that air!'-why, my friends, what a continued and crowded record does the history of the world's great heart present, of the noble sympathies which have been stirred, of the heroic impulses which have been awakened, of the devotional fires which have been kindled, of the love to God and love to man and love to country, not always, alas, unattended by excess,-to which animation and utterance have been given, by the magic power of music! To how many individual hearts, too, here and everywhere, has the story of David charming away the gloomy moods of the Jewish Monarch, or, more likely it may be, of Annot Lyle chasing the mists from the spirit of the Highland Chief, seemed only like a transcript of some cherished experience of their own! But I pass over all the science and almost all the sentiment for which the occasion might give opportunity. You are here to enjoy the thing itself, which will be far better than any flights of descriptive rhetoric or rhapsody of which I am capable. I must be permitted, however, to congratulate you, before closing, that the growing worldliness of the age we live in, has not quite yet diverted the divine and solemn harmonies of this glorious art from their original and rightful allegiance. The Fine Arts in every department,-Architecture and Sculpture, Painting and Music, alike, have owed their best inspirations and their noblest opportunities to religion. The Bible has always supplied them with their most effective themes. Its matchless diction, its magnificent imagery, its exquisite poetry, its glorious promises, its stupendous miracles, its sublime revelations and realities have constituted an exhaustless magazine of material for them all,--and more especially for Music. HANDEL, foremost, in merit as in time, among the little company of world-renowned Composers, -and whose Statue might well claim no second place in this very Hall, as one of the supporters of that gigantic Organ which we are soon to welcome,-Handel, one of the last touches of whose trembling fingers may haply have rested on the keys of an organ, erected just one hundred years ago last August, and still doing most acceptable service, in our own city, which tradition tells us that this favorite musician of George the Second, infirm and blind as he was, selected for His Majesty's Chapel in New England, only two years before his death.-"the giant Handel," as Pope called him-" the more than Homer of his age," as Cowper did not scruple to add,—could find no story but that of Redeeming Love, no career or character but that of the Messiah, for the full development and display of his unrivalled power and pathos. That mysterious demand for a Requiem which haunted the sleeping and the waking hours of the dying MOZART the immediate successor of Handel upon the musical throne-might almost seem, -to a superstitious mind, perhaps,-to have been only, after all, the compunctious visitings of a breast, which was aroused too late to the consciousness of having prostituted so many of its Unless SEBASTIAN BACH, his contemporary, of whose works so many are lost, and so few are familiarly known in this country, may be his equal. best emotions upon the "foolery of so scandalous a subject" as that of Don Giovanni, and which could find no requiem or repose for itself, till it had made that last and grandest effort in the service of God. When HAYDN,-next entitled to the sceptre, -was giving an account of his own Oratorio of the Seasons, he is related to have said, "It is not another Creation, and the reason is this: In that Oratorio the actors are angels—in the four seasons they are but peasants." BEETHOVEN,-whom the munificent liberality and consummate skill of kindred spirits in our own land have united in enthroning as the presiding genius of this Hall,-in the wonderful instrumentation of his Symphonies and Sonatas and Quatuors and Trios, seem always aspiring to a strain, and often reaching it, too,-which has less of earth in it than of heaven. I well know,' said he, that God is nearer me in my Art than others-I commune with him without fear-evermore have I acknowledged and understood him.' And when dealing with any thing more articulate than the fancied language of the skies, he too sought his best inspiration at the Mount of Olives, and found it at least in his Hallelujahs. · MENDELSSOHN'S ominous and insatiate yearning for the spirit-world displayed itself first, indeed, in his Midsummer Night's Dream;—but it was only in depicting the wonderful ways and works of the greatest of Prophets and the greatest of Apostles,-of an Elijah and a St. Paul,-that his genius found its full play and won its noblest triumphs. I shall not soon forget the emotions with which, just ten years ago, in London, I first listened to the "Elijah." I shall not soon forget the person and presence of the young and brilliant Composer, as he stood in Exeter Hall conducting a choir and band of six or seven hundred voices and instruments in the performance of that most impressive Oratorio. Less than six months were to expire-nobody dreamed it then-before he himself was to disappear from these earthly scenes almost as suddenly as the great Prophet whom he was portraying, and one might almost imagine that the first faint. glories of the celestial world were gleaming upon his soul-that he had caught a passing glimpse of those chariots of fire, whose rushing sound and sparkling track were the fit accompaniments of that miraculous translation to the skies, as he stood trembling with transport at his own magnificent harmonies. Nor can I fail to call up, in this connection, the image of another most accomplished and distinguished person, in whose company I was privileged to listen to this sublime performancethe late Lord Ellesmere,-who represented Great Britain so acceptably at the opening of our Crystal Palace in New York, who delighted Boston, too, by his genial eloquence at our School Festival soon afterwards, and whose recent death has occasioned so much of sincere and just regret among the friends of Art in all its departments and in both hemispheres. And now I rejoice that these noble Oratorios of these greatest composers are to form the main feature of this occasion. I rejoice that, at this first New England Musical Festival, the divine Art is so distinctly to recognize its rightful relation to Divinity, as the privileged handmaid of Religion. Without feeling called upon to pronounce any opinion upon other amusements and festivals for which other voices in other places are pleading, I am glad that this veteran Association of New England, faithful to its first love, true to the keynote of its earliest organization, at a moment too when so many influences are alluring us away from whatever is pure and lovely and of good report, has instituted a series of Holidays, not only combining morality and innocence with the most refined and elevating enjoyment, but blending so nobly and so worthily the praises of God with the recreation of man. I do not forget that a severe religious casuistry has sometimes raised a question, how far it is fit These are the words of Beethoven, who said of Mozart's great Opera: "The sacred art ought never to be degraded to the foolery of so scandalous a subject." | to employ sacred themes and sacred words for the mere purpose of entertainment. But it is a great mistake to suppose that mere entertainment is all that is imparted, or all that is intended, by such performances. The man must indeed be "deaf as the dead to harmony," who can listen to the story of the Creation or of the Redemption, as told in the lofty strains which are presently to be heard here, without being kindled into something of fresh admiration and adoration towards the great Author and Finisher of both. Yes, deaf as the dead to harmony must he have been born, and with a soul sealed up to at least one of the highest sources of inspiration, who feels no glow of grateful awe as the Light flashes forth in audible coruscations upon that new-created world, and no thrill of holy joy as the Heavens are heard telling the glory of God;-whose belief in the miraculous incarnation of "One mighty to save" is not quickened, as the majestic titles by which he was to be called come pealing forth so triumphantly in the very words of prophecy-" Wonderful-Counsellor-the Mighty God; "-who is not conscious of a more vivid faith in the great doctrine of the resurrection, as the sublime declaration of the patient old Patriarch is again and again so exquisitely reiterated-"I know-I know that my Redeemer liveth; "--and who does not catch a deeper sense of the mystery and the glory of that blessed consummation, when "the Kingdoms of the earth shall become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ,” while the air around him is ringing and reverberating with the ecstacy of those transcendent and exulting Hallelujahs! No, it is not entertainment alone which this occasion will have communicated to some at least of the souls which shall vibrate to these sublime and solemn strains. I know that the fervors and raptures which result from mere musical susceptibility are no safe substitute for the prayer and praise which belong to the true idea of religious worship, and I am not altogether without sympathy with those, who would be glad to see this ancient Society returning to its original practice during the first ten or fifteen years of its existence, by giving some of its public performances, as they are now doing, at times when they may be attended and enjoyed by those to whom the domestic circle or the services of the Sanctuary are the chosen and cherished occupations of a Sunday evening. But it will be an evil day for the best interest of mankind, when the noblest and most impressive varieties of music shall be utterly discarded and divorced from the service of religion, and given finally over to the meretricious uses of sensuality or superstition. The sacred Chronicler has told us how it was under the old dispensation-that it was only" when the singers and the trumpeters were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praised the Lord-saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth forever;'"that it was only then, at the outpouring of that grand vocal and instrumental unison of thanksgiving and praise, that the visible glory of the Lord came down, filling and overshadowing the house of God. And though the Gospel does undoubtedly point to a purer and more spiritual worship, yet from that most memorable and solemn hour, of which the simple record runs concerning the Savior and his disciples-" And when they had sung an hymn, they went out unto the Mount of Olives," from that most memorable and solemn hour, Music has been recognized as a consecrated handmaid of Christianity; and those which Christ himself has thus joined together, it is not for any man to put asunder. . And may God grant that the performances which are now about to begin, may be endued with a double power over the hearts of all who hear them;-that these resounding anthems may do something to purge and purify the corrupted currents of the air we breathe;-that these lofty enunciations and reiterations of the great truths of the Bible may aid in arresting and driving back the tide of delusion, infidelity and crime which is raging and swelling so fearfully around |