The pianoforte may be called the most domesticated, and, consequently, the most generally beloved of all musical instruments; and in the hands of a good artiste, its capabilities are truly astonishing. Perhaps no other instrument is capable of producing, singly, such varied expression. The harp, it is true, when played well, is a beautiful and expressive instrument; its tone is rich, refined, and exquisitely delicate; but it is only in a certain style of music, or accompanying a voice, that it can be used effectively, while the piano may be said to embrace every style with almost equal facility. The organ, the king of instruments, in stature, power, and majesty of tone, must be allowed also to excel in the capacity of swelling and sustaining sounds. The human heart is impressed and inspired to devotion by its influence, and the earth trembles at the awful grandeur of its tones. In sacred music, in competent hands, its effect is immense; but still it is an instrument not adapted for popular use, and much less brilliant than the piano. The organ comes upon the sensitive musical mind with the majesty of a thousand armies; the piano, with the vivacity of a flowing rill. In some future paper we may, perhaps, touch on the organ again, and also advert to some of the various instruments which compose the modern orchestra, associating therewith the names of those artistes whose talent and magnanimity have shed lustre on the profession. But we must not forget that our business in this is, the piano and the twins of art. The pianoforte, as we have already observed, is one of the greatest auxiliaries in disseminating musical ideas and propagating a love of the art. Every house of ordinary respectability has now its pianoforte, and every girl looks for her music as naturally as her breakfast in a morning. The piano is the goodly bark which conveys the charms of music through the private channels and secret depths of society; she is the bird that cheers the domestic hearth-the queen, around whom bright eyes and happy faces congregate. And oh! how often has she told the tale of love which the tongue essayed in vain, how often comforted the lonely heart, when all was dumb beside! neously the keys are struck, and hork! how transcendently the pianoforte sings. The spirit of art unfolds her magic wings, and the enraptured soul with bated breath listens to her strains. Adagio as a fallen stream, Allegro as the flying dove, Andante as the prime of life, Again the spirit of art moves her celestial wings, and more and more exquisitely the pianoforte sings. As the foliage of the quivering aspen, as the shower of the distant fountain, as the meeting of many waters, as the pelting of the storm. As the murmur of the sea, as the wailing of the wind, as the rippling of rills and gathering of swallows, the music of birds and singing of bees, fades it now away. The spirit of art folds her magic wings, and smiles upon her children, as with them she retires; but the deafening acclamations that rend the air demand the strains again. AGES OF MUSICAL ARTISTS AND COMPOSERS. Dr. Alcock Dr. Child In private life, the piano affords the most delightful and refined recreation, employing the mind, as it is capable of doing, Jackson on lofty and ennobling themes. To the profession it may be considered as one of its main-stays, indispensable alike to the vocalist and singing-master, as to the teacher of the instrument itself, and is a source from whence a great portion of the income of the profession is derived. If there be any among our musical friends whose inquiring minds would like to know who the Geni is, that fills the coffers and furnishes the palaces of our patrons, the London publishers -if, we say, there be any that would like to know this little secret, we would whisper, privately, and very pianissimo in their ear, ask the pianoforte. She it is, who sings music of every description, and none, scarcely, is done without her. But we must not linger here, or we might tell you more; our paper's growing full apace--we must come to our finale. It would be superfluous on our part to enumerate the various pianos extant, let it suffice that the grand instrument (which is the best) is always used on public occasions, and here, in Exeter Hall, on one of Broadwood's the twins of art will play. * * Modest, and graceful as the fawn, dolce as Aurora, the harmonious duo take their seat at the instrument--simulta the words in italics dotted notes, we hope, that this key will stand, out as a minor phrase placed with some little artistic skill in the present composition, and that the major strain will be found to resume its sway with increased sweetness and effect. A. Scarlatti ... Geminiani 88 J. Stevenson 74 90 T. Attwood 71 81 Cervelli ....... 90 70 Neil Gow 80 81 Webbe 77 73 ITALIANS AND FRENCHMEN. a woman. MUSIC. (Continued from page 557.) the real nature of music and its purpose as regards the human heart. They either used it outwardly as a mere singsong enhancement of that luxurious pleasure which all Orientals take in storytelling or verse-reciting, or they songht for it inwardly as an abstract thing on which to try their powers of thought, and not their springs of emotion. They ascertained the existence of a deep science in music before they suspected a deeper instinct. They studied her grammar before they knew her speech. Instead of combining her tones in fulness of harmony, they split them into divisions incognisable to our modern ears. They loaded her with a complex theory, in which no indication of a right system can be traced; and then made her over to the study of philosophers and the performance of poets, without suspecting that there was a realm yet undiscovered independent of both. To define what ancient music was, seems, by the confession of all who know anything of modern, to be as hopeless as it is a thankless task. To living ears, there is more real music to be found in the first organ tune that strikes up under our windows than in all the fragments of soft Lydian measures that have been deciphered. It would be absurd, however, to measure the void occasioned among the people of ancient Greece by the absence-even if total of real music, by that which would ensue under the same circumstances to ourselves. What void could there be with such a language as theirs, which held music, as it were, in too close an embrace for her to have any independent action? Had there been less melody in their speech and verse, there would have been more room for music as a separate art. Music and poetry seem in some combination or proportion to have supplied a certain measure of enjoyment to every cultivated people; but where poetry itself had such power as with the Greeks, it may justly be supposed that what we call music would not be missed. In the most glowing days of Italian poetic imagination there was, compaItaly has never been able to disengage itself from the sweet melody of its language-they have flowed together in natural affinitythe word Addio is a song in itself. Only in that nation where the language is hardly musical enough even to be spoken, has music raised her voice independently; and how exquisitely! Whether this theory be true or not, however, it is certain that in the Isles of Greece, "where burning Sappho loved and sung,' that which we now call music was so unknown, that, were old Timotheus to rise from the dead, we imagine no change or development in modern civilization could astonish him so much as that in the art of music. He would be delighted with our post-office at our public buildings—but dumbfounded at our musical festivals. -interested in our railways-ashamed of our oratory-horrified Apparently the highly-gifted and cultivated amateur, on the other hand, is one of the most enviable creatures in the world. Beauty must always dazzle, and wealth buy; but no disparity in the respective powers of attraction ever strikes us as so great as that which exists between the woman who has only to lift her hand, or open her mouth to give pleasure, and her who sits by and can do neither. But we know that superiority of all kinds must have its penalties, and none are more keenly felt than in the ranks of private musical excellence; and though the first-rate amateur may command all the higher enjoyments of the art, without those concomitants of labour, anxiety, and risk which devolve on the professed artist-though she may be spared all the hardships and many of the temptations which lie so thick in the path of her professional sisters, yet the draught of excitement is pernicious to all alike, and one which we instinctly shrink from seeing at the lips of those we love. Not that we would disparage such a position. It is, and always will be, an enviable one to be able to confer pleasure at will, and generally a lovely and becoming one in the person of We know, too, that there are cool heads and pure hearts who can inocuously breathe the incense of admiring crowds, and who walk humble, and unwilling, Juggernauts over every form of adulation-little as it is usually believed of them; but even such, in the universal equalization of human happiness, have their trials, and keen ones too-and among them, that of perpetually feeling their better selves overlooked in the homage paid to an adventitious gift. Upon the whole we are inclined to think that the most really enviable partakers of musical felicity, the one in whom the pleasure is most pure for himself and least selfish for others, is he who has no stake of vanity or anxiety in the matter, but who sits at overture, sym-ratively speaking, no music; and even the best music of modern phony, or chorus, with closed eyes and swimming senses-brightens at major keys, saddens at minors-smiles at modulations, he knows not why, and then goes forth to his work next morning with steady hand and placid brow, while ever and anon the irrepressible echoes of past sounds break forth over desk or counter into jocund or plaintive hummings, as if the memory were rejoicing toc much in her sweet thefts to be able to conceal them. Happy hummings these for wife or sister, to whose voice or piano he is for ever a petitioner for pleasures it is a pleasure to give, and who lead him with "that exquisite bit of Beethoven" as with a silken string. We should hardly say that an ear for melody is the highest criterion of a taste for music. It sets heads wagging, and feet tapping-sends the ploughman whistling forth, and takes many a The most ingenious theory we have met with on the subject of stall at the Opera; but we suspect it is rather the love of har- Greek music is that propounded in Dr. Moseley's few pages. mony which is the real divining-rod of the latent treasures of Taking into consideration the total disparity between the effect of deep musical feeling. Grétry danced when a child to the sound the ancient specimens of melody, when transposed into our modes of dropping water, foreshowing perhaps in this the light character of notation and performance, and that so enthusiastically comof his taste and compositions; but Mozart, it is well known, when mented on by contemporary writers, this gentleman has sought an infant of only three years old, would strike thirds on the clavi- for an explanation of the riddle in a manner of execution depenchord and incline his little head, smiling to the harmony of the dent entirely on the rules of rhythm and quantity. The choruses vibrations. Nothing proves more strongly the angelic purity of of Eschylus and Sophocles he found, upon examination, to be music than the very tender age at which the mind declares for it. divisible into lines of seven syllables each. Coupling this with No art has had such early proficients and such eager volunteers, the fact of there being seven notes in the Greek Diatonic Scale, and no art has so surely performed in manhood what it promised and seven alternate singers of Strophe and Antistrophe, he has in infancy. All the greatest musicians, Handel, Haydn, Bach, Mo- come to the conclusion that the music of the Greek chorus, like zart, Mendelssohn (it seems not Beethoven, however), were infant that of the Russian horn-band of the present day, might probably prodigies. There seems to be nothing to dread in prematureness be performed on the principle of a note to each person: thus proof musical development; it grows with the growth and strengthens ducing an effect of which, under any other circumstances, the with the strength in natural concord; when we see a child pick-meagre skeletons of melody that have been handed down would ing out airs on a piano, or silent at a concert, we may rejoice in give no idea. The theory is curious, and might be met by an inquiry into the origin of that peculiar horn music-belonging as It is difficult to imagine how a Greek child could ever evince it does to a country where nothing truly national goes back less its natural predilection for music-those two chief elements of the than a thousand years, and where the earliest form of ritual music art which test the highest and the lowest grade of musical inclina- is preserved as strictly in the commonest church as it is in the tion, time and harmony, being alike unknown to them. The Pope's chapel itself. Many will superficially attribute it to that whole Greek world, it would seem, and many centuries of the simple relation of master and slave which may degrade a man to Christian, never advanced so far even as the knowledge of those a mere note, or any other form of the cipher it pleases; but we harmonious thirds which the little Mozart instinctively enjoyed. are not disposed to look upon it in that light. Setting aside the We seek in vain for any indications of that which we feel to be circumstance that the idea was too ingenious to have proceeded our hearts. from any Russian czar or boyar before the time of Catherine the Great, in whose reign the Russian horn-music was well known, we must own that we see no degradation in it all. The man of one note has as much to do, to say the least, as many a brother horn in our orchestra, who patiently bides his time through intervals of fifty bars, and far more scope for his sense of time and expression-in which the proficiency of the Russian hornist is marvellous. His instrument may have but one note, but so have others, and his note has the merit of being indispensable to the piece. If D or G be ill, all are stopped. The case, however, of the Greek chorister is not strictly parallel. According to this hypothesis he represents not only one note, but one syllable; and, in a people whose instincts for poetical accent were so acute that they compelled even that of music to bow before them, it is difficult to imagine how such a division of labour could produce the requisite effect. At all events it may safely be accepted that to the development of that art which charms modern ears and hearts all the labours of Greek musicians never contributed one iota; but on the contrary, greatly clogged its progress-everywhere raising up before the timid gropers after musical truth a wall of false theory which they had not the courage to pull down. We are apt, and no wonder, to look upon the Greeks as more than men in matters of art. It is as well that painted statues and enharmonic intervals remain to prove their fallibility. Mr. Kiesewetter opens his History with a decided repudiation of their musical services :"It is a preconceived and deeply-rooted opinion that our present music has been perfected upon that of the Greeks, and that it is only a further continuation of the same. Authors, even of our times, talk of the revival of ancient music in the middle ages. Tae, there was a period when the music of the Christian West sought counsel with that of the Heathen East, and the decisions of Greek writers were looked upon as the source of all true musical inspirations; but the fact is, that the later music only prospered in proportion as she disengaged herself from the earlier, and then first attained a certain degree of perfection when she had succeeded in throwing off the last fetters, real or conventional, of old Hellenic doctrine. There had been long nothing further in common between them but the mere fundamental elements of tone and sound. Even had ancient Greece continued to exist for two thousand years more, no music, in any way analogous to ours, could possibly have proceeded from her. The systems in which the art was bound, the purposes for which she was used, the very laws of the state regarding her, offered unconquerable impediments to her development. The old Greek music perished in its infancy, an interesting child, but one predestined | never to arrive at maturity. For the human race her fall was no loss." The first few centuries of the Christian era have transmitted no sounds to posterity. We know nothing of the low chanting which echoed in the catacombs of Rome; which Constantine listened to, and which St. Ambrose reformed. We have no idea ›n what the beautiful musical tradition of St. Cecilia was founded. There is no proving whether the music of the day was borrowed from the choruses of the idolaters Greek, or the hymns of the unbelieving Jew, or whether, in the exclusiveness of early Christian feeling, it was independent of both. Not till the end of the sixth century, is the silence broken with the Gregorian chants, which rise up from the vast profound of the past like solemn heralds of a dawning world of sound-pure, solemn, and expressionless,-like those awful heads of angels and archangels we discover sometimes in rude fresco beneath the richer colouring and suppler forms of a later day. It was these chants, it may be supposed, given in the thrilling tones of young singing boys, whom the Popes had already trained in their service, that melted the great heart of Charlemagne when on a visit to Hadrian I., and caused the importation of the antiphonal books into the monasteries of middle Europe. But the course of true music was not to run smooth. It lay too deep at the human heart not to be subjected to every human caprice. Strange theories of concord were propounded and laid down by old monks, themselves probably hard of hearing, which if ever performed in presence of their brethren, must have made them bless the thickness of their cowls. No convent penance, Mr. Kiesewetter remarks, could have exceeded that "sweet com mixture of sounds," compounded of consecutive fourths and fifths, which good Thibaldus, who died 930, so complacently announces in his "Organum." We listen to the specimens he gives with that contraction of the brow and wincing of the nerves with which we see a child place a pencil upright on a slate, and know what must ensue before we can prevent it. This ingenious discord was partly the result of a revived respect for the doctrines of Boethius —a disciple of the Greek theory of music, in the fourth century, who unfortunately suffered martyrdom after he had written those commentaries which have been the curse of all musicians, instead of before; and also partly from the state of the times. We might be tempted to ask how such a perversion of the common use of what is called ear could have occurred; but we must remember that the science we were boasting of a few pages back has here to be taken into consideration. If music united the double importance of an art and a science too, she had to struggle with the difficulties and vicissitudes of each. As an art she had very little chance till her science was defined, and as a science she had to run the gauntlet of the same tedious scholastic absurdities which accompanied the course of all knowledge in those days. False theories were her bane, as they have been the bane of every system of ethics and physics. Even the celebrated Guido of the eleventh century, whose name has come down to us as one of the early musical fathers, seems to our ears to have done but little towards developing the pleasing properties of the art-for though he invented the sol fa, or the art of solmisation, and is said, like another Mainzer, to have taught Pope John XX. to read music in one lesson, yet the harmonies thus admitted to the Pontifical ears were such as Mr. Mainzer's fifteen hundred little choristers, if all accounts of them be true, would have repudiated in one grand unison of horror. (To be continued.) Original Correspondence. ORGANISTS AND CLERGYMEN. (To the Editor of the Musical World.) SIR,--My brother held the organist's situation at All Saints' Church, Caledonian Road, Islington; the salary was £20 per annum; the duties, to attend three services on a Sunday, one in the week, and to practise the children for an hour. My brother, being a violin player, was obliged occasionally to send a deputy on the week days (he took care always to send a competent one), and, not being in very good health, was obliged to be sometimes absent on the Sunday afternoons, although he did not make a practice of so doing. The con sequence was that he received a letter from the minister, stating that, if he did so again, he would receive "three month's notice and be dismissed from his situation!"- also stating that he had received the admonitions, criticisms, and dictations of the churchwardens in an 86 unbecoming manner. My brother did not give the "rev." the opportunity of dismissing him, but threw up the situation, such as it was; and when he had occasion to call on this meek successor of the Apostles, he was kept standing in the passage like a common porter; and when he had to go out of town, for a fortnight, for the benefit of his health, he was obliged to procure a medical certificate, as he knew his word would not be believed. This is a pretty good specimen of what yonng and enthusiastic organists may expect from miuisters, and those Jacks in office, yclept "churchwardens," many of whom it would be for the benefit of society to "put down." I remain, Sir, Islington, Sept. 14, 1853. Your very obedient servant, MDLLE. CLAUSS, Mdlle. Magner, and M. Salabert, will give a concert on Tuesday morning next, at St. Leonards; and a concert in the evening at Hastings. MR. E. L. HIME.-The entertainment written by Mr. Samuel Lover for this popular artiste will, in all probability, be produced at the St. James's Theatre. TO BED! TO BED! STILL around the garden bowers Floats the voice of melody, Still among the waking flowers Murmurously toils the bee; The lawn with dewdrops is unwet, THE MUSICAL WORLD. The cistus blossoms are unshed, Though doth nought of weariness They are gone against their will:- Mother, tired with household work; Doth a secret sorrow lurk; Is not going to the tomb, Who are oft the earliest sped? Is it not the lusty-hearted? Till the glory hath departed Well, so be it! What doth matter MARY MAYN ARD. ON THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE MUSIC. I am now going to attempt what I fear will be considered a hopeless task, namely an account of Chinese Music. So many contradictory accounts have been given, and the materials so scattered, and many of them not within the reach of the general reader, which makes them more difficult to collect. The subject, also, is not of the most prepossessing character, if we are to believe the modern travellers who have been so far favoured as to listen to some of their "discordant harmony." But, however this may be, I shall endeavour to examine as much as it is possible into the state both of their ancient and modern music, as far as the case will admit. Tradition carries the invention of music to Fo-Hi, their first prince, (contemporary with, and by some thought to be no other than Noah,) or according to M. Gorget, Ching-hong, who appears to have been the same person, and is said to have made a beautiful lyre and a guitar, adorned with precious stones, which produced a noble harmony, curbed the passions, and elevated man to virtue and heavenly truth. Chao-Hao, and after him, Confucius, greatly contributed to the improvement of music. The latter compiled a work on the science, but according to M. Klaproth, it was burnt by command of Shi-huang-ti, an Emperor who flourished about 200 years B.C. Music was certainly held in great estimation amongst the early Chinese, and was called "the science of sciences," the "rich source from whence all the others spring." The Father Amiot speaks quite in raptures of the Chinese skill in the art, and has written nearly a volume to prove, that Linghen Kouei (who is said to have lived one thousand years before Orpheus, and "when I is recorded to have made use of the following words, strike harmonious chords, the beasts of the field encompass me leaping for joy,") was superior to Hermes Trismegistus, that the Kin of Pin-mou-kai far excelled the lyre of Amphion. And Tchoyong, the sixteenth Emperor of the ninth period, hearing a concert of birds, invented a species of music whose harmony was irresistible. It touched the intelligent soul, and calmed the heart of man, so that the external senses were sound, the humours in a just poise, and the life of man lengthened. 66 I shall not enter into any discussion on the very strange incongruity and contradictory accounts of many writers who have asserted in some part of their works that the Chinese possessed a noble harmony, and was irresistible, but have almost immediately contradicted themselves by stating that the Chinese have no musical notation, that composition in parts is entirely unknown to them, they always singing the same melody, and that their music European is altogether of the diatonic kind, and wretched to a ear;" but leave these incredibly absurd accounts to their fate, and endeavour to trace, as distinctly as the records will allow, what is known of the real state of their music. With respect to the ancients, we have the same cause to lament how little can be gleaned respecting it, in consequence of a similar destruction of their works of science and art (as I had occasion to mention in my account of the Persians), by order of Shi-huang-ti, one of their most able and greatest emperors; he was wishful to make many alterations in the government and other things, which were considered by the Chinese courtiers as innovations, and when any improvement was named, they always brought him the archives that such things had not been done by any of the preto prove ceding emperors. Now because he did not wish to be constantly reminded of the records and actions of his ancestors, he commanded all their old historical books should be burnt, which command was executed with the greatest severity, by which we have lost all means of attaining any true knowledge of their ancient music anterior to that time. Father Semedo, in his History of China, mentions the ancient reputation and great estimation in which the art was held but says, "the music they have at present is not much thought of by the nobility, and their best way of singing was with one voice; for all others joining sung in Their first instrument was of unison, and not in harmony. metal, and contained bells of all sorts, cymbals, cistra, &c. The second was made of jasper, like the Italian squadra, except that the lowermost end is very large, and they strike or play upon it as it hangeth up." They have also ordinary drums and kettledrums, some of which are of a very large size; also an instrument resembling a viol, with silk strings, sometimes three, and someDr. Careri thus times seven, and played upon with a bow. instruments wholly differ from ours, as well in their shape as the describes the Chinese music in 1696:"The Chinese musical manner of playing them. And, not to speak of those made of stone, brass, and of skins, extended after several manners, they have some of only one string, of three, and of seven, which are their lutes and violins. and another most ancient sort, partly like our harps; but their strings are not of small guts, nor of metal, but of silk twisted; sometimes one hundred musicians are It is therefore to be supposed that in their concerts heard keeping the very same tone, and never parting from the they have not music arranged in different parts; for, although many sing or play together, it is always in unison, in consequence of which their music will be pleasing only to those of their own country. same note." Since the time of Father Semedo and Dr. Careri, the Chinese appear to have made very little progress in the science of music. Their melodies bear a strong resemblance to those of Scotland, and the scales that have been collected by the Abbé Roussier, Rameau, and others, seem to confirm the great resemblance; and Dr. Burney says nothing can be more Scottish than the whole cast of their airs; and all the specimens of Chinese melody he could collect were of this sort; "and Dr. Lind, who resided in China for some time, assured Dr. Burney that all the melodies he heard there bore a strong resemblance to the old Scots' tunes." It is not therefore unreasonable to suppose that the one nation had its music from the other, or that either was obliged to ancient Greece for its melody, as there is a strong resemblance in all three. The Chinese are extremely tenacious of old customs, and equally enemies to innovation with the ancient Egyptians, which favours the idea of the high antiquity of this simple music. (To be continued.) Provincial. BRIGHTON. (From a Correspondent.)- Madlle. D'Egville Michan's soirée, Sept. 22, was very well attended, and gave general satisfaction. Some pieces of the programme had to be altered, as Signor Arigotti was absent, on account of indisposition. Mons. Pague, the violoncellist, whom we had the pleasure to hear for the first time, came in as a most acceptible substitute. He performed Schubert's beautiful song, "Flowrets blooming," (Eloge des Larmes) with much delicacy and feeling, which elicited universal applause. Herr Oberthür played two solos on the harp; one of them entitled "La Cascade," is one of the most effective compositions he has composed-it has already become a general favourite. Madlle. Michan's fine performance on the pianoforte and harmonium are well known, and received, on this oceasion, their well-merited approbation. HERR KUHE afforded the amateurs of our town the opportunity of hearing some excellent chamber music, on Monday last. He had originally announced an Evening Concert, but, owing to Madame Castellan being obliged to leave the same evening for Lisbon, it was altered to a Matinée. Herr Kuhe was assisted by Madame Castellan, Mdlle. Bellini, Signor Tagliafico, and Signor Gardoni. The chief attraction lay in the instrumental compositions; of these, we have particularly to signalize Mayseder's Second Grand Trio, op. 52,-piano (Herr Kuhe), violin (Mr. Oury), violoncello (Herr Hausmann), which, in such hands, passed off admirably. Mr. Oury delighted, also, by his chaste performance of his solo on "The Soldier's Dream," and Herr Oberthür on the harp, by his Fantaisia brillante "Souvenier de Londres," as well as in a grand duet, harp and piano, on Kreutzer's Nachtlager in Grenada, with Herr Kuhe. Stephen Keller's charming "Improvisata," for piano solo, on Mendelssohn's beautiful lied, "On Song's bright pinions," (which was lately so successfully introduced into our town by Miss Arabella Goddard) found in Herr Kuhe an accomplished interpreter, and one with whom the author himself would have been delighted. This composition is already widely circulated amongst the more advanced class of pianists here, and will add to the European fame of the author of the "Art of Phrasing." Herr Hausmann's fine execution of his "Recollections of Scotland," is too well known to require further remark. Suffice it to say, he was greatly applanded. The concert was fully and fashionably attended. boxes present a chaste and 'elegant appearance-the prevailing Miscellaneous. M. BILLET'S PIANOFORTE PERFORMANCE ON WOOLLEY AND M. Billet made his first appearance before a Leicester audience, Co.'s PATENT UPRIGHT GRAND PIANO.-On Wednesday evening, in the New Hall. We need hardly say that we enjoyed a great leading characteristics of the various schools of composition and treat in listening to this accomplished pianist, as he exhibited the to the power and clearness of tone of the instrument on which he styles of performance, while we have pleasure in bearing testimony performed. We refrain from further comment, to make room for the following note we have received from our vivacious critical veteran, formance" Leicester, Sept. 22, 1853. Mr. Editor,-Pray spare townsman, Mr. Gardiner, expressing his opinion upon the perperformance, on Wednesday evening, upon Woolley's curious grand me a little room in your over-filled columns, to speak of M. Billet's pianoforte. Such are the wonders of the present age, that the last BRISTOL The Theatre opened on the 12th instant. The added prodigy obliterates all the former. There was much novelty in the stage and dressing rooms-the heaviest portion of the new works plan of the evening, in exhibiting the different styles of the ancient -are roofed in, while the painting and decoration of the front and modern composers, and, by the arrangement, the interest was of the house are complete. The ceiling embraces light compart- kept up to the very last. M. Billet is a Russian, and we discover ments or panels, diverging from the ventilator, handsomely carved the same freshness of thought that we find in American literaand gilded, and forms an effective centre. In the midst of the panels, ture [?] He is to be classed in the school of the romance of the are allegorical figures, representing the four elements and the four art. The pieces of Thalberg and Mendelssohn, full of thunder seasons, and, upon a handsome border, running round the whole, are and lightning, were performed with a marvellous execution, enough small shields, with medailions of Shakspeare and other dramatic to raise the great German from his tomb! There was but one poets. The ceiling, and ornamented work generally, are from the piece from the divine Beethoven: it was masterly done. The perdesign of Mr. I. S. Lenox, the talented scene painter of the estab-formance of La Sylphide, M. Billet's own composition, cannot be lishment, and they have been painted by that artist, Mr. Gilbert, described. He is the Paganini of the piano."-Leicestershire Mer Mr. Thorne, and assistants. The fronts of the proscenium and cury, Sept. 24. |