224 BIRMINGHAM MUSICAL FESTIVAL. 



ror of the festival directors. Why should they not have produced 

 the entire Crucifixion, in order to give the public an opportunity, 

 for the first time, fairly to judge of and appreciate its undeniably 

 great beauties ? The production of such a work would have re- 

 dounded equally to the credit of the festival and to the gratification 

 of the public. 



But of the treatment of Sebastian Bach, we can scarcely think 

 or speak with any degree of patience. It was alluded to in the 

 last number of The Analyst in terms of strong animadversion, but we 

 never expected to witness anything half so injudicious as the man- 

 ner in which this great man was for the first time introduced to 

 the public as an oratorio composer. When are we to see the end 

 of these eternal selections — of this tearing out a leaf in order to 

 give an idea of the scope and tendency of a book — which, when ap- 

 plied to a great work of art, which must be heard and studied as a 

 whole in order to understand in all their grandeur the sublime concep- 

 tions of the master, are in the highest degree absurd ? We do not 

 disapprove of selections in every case, provided they are made with 

 judgment and in a spirit congenial to that of the author. Indeed 

 (considering the rarity of musical festivals), they are absolutely ne- 

 cessary, unless we would restrict ourselves to the works of one or 

 two masters. But there are some works of which the most judi- 

 cious selection can never give an adequate idea ; and such, if they 

 cannot be performed entire, should not be performed at all. Such a 

 work is the Passions-musik, which we fear, even if done ample 

 justice to in the performance, would not meet with a responsive 

 echo in a Birmingham festival or in any English audience equally 

 large and equally promiscuous. Every one can admire the simple 

 and massive grandeur of Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus: to a few 

 only is as yet revealed the true meaning of the glorious conceptions 

 contained in Bach's gigantic and eternal harmonies. It behoves, 

 then, those who cater for and, at the same time, by producing the 

 works of a great composer, hitherto unknown, desire to improve, the 

 public taste, to use great discretion in their choice. They must not 

 rest satisfied with indolently confining their researches to the works 

 of which common report speaks the most highly; they must not 

 present a disjointed fragment (and in a minor key, too !) as a spe- 

 cimen of the whole, or of the composer's powers ; nor must they be 

 astonished, or impute it to the bad taste of the public, when their 

 injudicious and abortive eflTorts utterly fail of attaining their end. 

 This, however, was the course pursued at Birmingham : on those 

 who follow it rest the blame and the disgrace. At the next festi- 



