2o'« S. VII. May 7. '69.1 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



371 



band and chorus consisted of 616; in 1786, of 749; 

 and in 1787, of 806 musicians, exclusive of 22 

 principal singers ; and such, says Dr. Burney, in 

 concluding his history of the art, 



" is the state of practical music in this country, that the 

 increase of performers, instead of producing confusion, as 

 might have been expected, has constantly been attended 

 with superior excellence of execution ; as experience, the 

 best of all teachers, has so guided the zeal of the direc- 

 tors, and the science of the conductor and leader of this 

 great enterprise, that a certain road to full perfection in 

 every department seems to have been attained." 



Edwakd F. Kimbault. 



Permit me to offer a correction of some erro- 

 neous statements in R. W.'s Note, headed as 

 above. In his enumeration of the performers en- 

 gaged, R. W. sets down the Cantos as 22. There 

 are discrepancies between the list given in the 

 books of words published for the performances 

 (from which, judging from the general agreement 

 in the numbers, I imagine R. W.'s information 

 has been derived), and that published by Dr. 

 Burney in his account of the Commemoration, but 

 both lists show the Cantos to have been more than 

 twice as numerous ; 58 being the number given in 

 the former, and 60 that in the latter. Burney's 

 list is, in my opinion, the more trustworthy ; as it 

 appears, on comparison with that in the word- 

 book, to have been carefully revised, and to con- 

 tain only the names of those actually present at 

 the performances. The numbers shown by it are 

 as follows : — Instrumentalists. First violins, 48 ; 

 second violins, 47 ; tenors, 26 ; first oboes, 13 ; 

 second oboes, 13; flutes, 6 ; violoncellos 21 ; bas- 

 soons, 26 ; double bassoon, 1 ; double basses, 15 ; 

 trumpets, 12 ; trombones, 6 ; horns, 12 ; kettle 

 drums, 3; double drums, 1. Vocalists (including 

 principal singers). Cantos, 60 ; altos, 48 ; tenors, 

 83 ; basses, 84 ; making, with the conductor and 

 organist (united in the person of Joah Bates), a 

 total of 526. 



R. W. is also mistaken in supposing the Mes- 

 siah to have been repeated on the Wednesday and 

 Saturday following its first performance on Satur- 

 day, 29th May. It was repeated on Saturday, 5th 

 June only. The fourth of the Commemoration 

 performances took place on Thursday, 3rd June ; 

 and the programme was nearly identical with that 

 of the first day's performance. A public rehearsal 

 for this concert was held on Wednesday, 2nd 

 June ; and a like rehearsal of Messiah seems to 

 have been intended on the Friday following, but 

 to have been dispensed with, owing to that day 

 being the king's birth- day. W. H. Husk. 



three clauses : and one oithe three — the one to the 

 phrase, " And lo ! the Angel of the Lord came 

 upon them," was set twice by Handel (though set 

 only as recitative the second time — having been 

 the first time set as air). So again, in Handel's 

 "Occasional Oratorio," — the words "O Lord, how 

 many are my foes," were set twice by him ; and 

 again the second time were changed yV-ow air to 

 recitative ; — but in this recitative the leading 

 notes of the first air are used up. — I fancy that, 

 besides having decomposed air, Handel may have 

 "reproduced recitative" among his other thousand 

 exercises for the minute, by which a musical com- 

 poser is proved to be a composer, Jbr the minute : 

 but not the less, therefore, for ever. — We have an 

 instrumental example in Mozart something ana- 

 logous to this, who changed, during rehearsal, the 

 far-famed trombone part in the cemetery scene of 

 Don Juan (a leaf, by the way, on which the change 

 was made, it is said, is wanting to the MS. of the 

 opera lately secured by Madame Viardot). — But, 

 laying speculation aside, the fact is, that Mendels- 

 sohn did "reproduce recitative": — since, after the 

 first triumphant performance of "Elijah" at Bir- 

 mingham, he rewrote the part (a recitative part, 

 too,) of Jezebel, in her great scene, — feeling that it 

 was a cardinal point in the oratorio, to the height 

 of which he had not arrived by his first essay. 

 The recitative, as it now stands, is among the finest, 

 and most sinister, specimens of modern declama- 

 tion in music extant. Y. L. Y. 



Handel. — I find amongst my notes two little 

 passages relating to Handel, and perhaps the pre- 

 sent is the most fitting time to offer them to " N. 

 & Q." The first is from one of Lady Luxborough's 

 Letters to the poet Shenstone (published by J. 

 Dodsley in 1775) : — 



« Sunday, Oct. 16th, 1748. 



" .... the great Handel has told me that the 

 hints of his very best songs have, several of them, been 

 owing to the sounds in his ears of cries in the street . . ." 



The next is from the " Diary of Mr. T. Green," 

 which was printed in the Gentleman's Magazine 

 for 1836: — 



«' 1811, August 26. 



" . . . . Mr. Bacon also came — was present at the 

 last Oratorio at which Handel played, apparently in great 

 suffering ; but when he came to his Concerto, he rallied, 

 and kindling as he advanced, descanted extemporane- 

 ously, with his accustomed ability and force, of a most 

 dignified and awe-inspiring part — died the following 

 Friday." 



A. R. 



HaudeVs " Recitatives" (2°* S. vii. 289.) — " No 

 man reproduces recitatives," writes a writer on 

 "The Messiah," — and writes this with express 

 reference to that peculiar recitative which follows 

 the Pastoral Symphony. This recitative contains 



IRISH FRESCO PAINTINGS OF THE FIFTEENTH 

 CENTURY. 



Visitors to the Dublin Exhibition will recollect 

 some copies on a large scale of certain frescoes 

 existing at Knockmoy, co. Galway, which were 



