120 THE MUSICIAN ABOUT TOWN. 
of the most meritorious dramatic writing of the English school for 
several years past, and which must have become eminently popular, 
had the incidents and dialogue of the pieces been ingenious and at- 
tractive, have died away for want of co-operative support in the 
outset to give them nctoriety. The junior Macfarren, like almost 
all ambitious youthful composers, has, we think, been a little osten- 
tatious in the instrumentation of his opera, and which is also a com- 
mon defect in youth. This is at times displayed to the detriment of 
the vocal score. The character of his instrumental music, also, is 
not uniformly in keeping with his subject in the drama immediately 
before him. It is not comic; neither is it diabolic; and his over- 
ture is decidedly commonplace. Against these drawbacks may be 
placed some very pleasing vocal melodies ; and one trio for female 
voices, in round or canon (“Good night! may slumber lend its 
balm”), which it were no extravagance to pronounce exquisite in 
character and ingenious in detail. There is alsoa very pretty bar- 
carole in the second act, and a sweetly plaintive song for a tenor, 
“Oh, blame me not that I have strayed.” The trio will, in all pro- 
bability, become a favourite concert piece. The chorusses—indeed, 
the whole of the music, is strictly dramatic: we may, therefore, and 
it is with gratified feelings that we express the opinion, look with 
confidence to the future efforts of this meritorious young musician. 
By the last annual report of “The Sacred Harmonic Society,” 
whose performances are held in Exeter Hall, it is with much gratifi- 
cation that we notice the steadily increasing prosperity which at- 
tends all their movements. We take no ordinary interest in the 
transactions of this energetic body of amateurs ; both for the bene- 
ficial influence which their performances are evidently producing 
with “ae middle and lower classes of society, in directing, regulating, 
and refining their tasteful perceptions ; but also because we have 
watched its progress almost from its infantile commencement. This 
large association of five hundred members was originated by its pre- 
sent conductor, Mr. Joseph Surman, a man of unwearied persever- 
ance and industry. He, with five or six associates, held their first 
meetings for the practice of choral singing in a small back room in 
the suburbs of the metropolis. With, of course, no audience to en- 
courage them, this was the outset of their career; and by their last 
report, for 1837, it appears that their eight meetings for the year 
were held in the audience of fifteen thousand and thirty-five per- 
sons. The performances consisted of the ‘ Messiah” three times re- 
peated ; Mendelssohn’s “ St. Paul” twice ; the “Israel in Egypt,” 
with a selection ; Haydn’s “ Creation ;’? and Handel’s ‘‘ Dettingen 
