406 
REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC, 
From a Critique of a Concert. 
ENGLISH, 
The Bach Festival. 
The second concert of the Bach 
Festival at the Central Hall, Westminster, 
on Saturday, was devoted mainly to 
instrumental music, though there were 
two songs from church cantatas sung by 
Miss Dorothy Silk and Mr. Gervase Elwes. 
The Suite in B minor for Flute and 
Strings played by M. Fleury, with 
members of the London Symphony 
Orchestra, made a most genial opening, 
and was beautifully played. It was 
curious to find, however, that the solo 
flute stood out more clearly against the 
massed strings than when playing in 
company with a group of solo strings. 
The concert ended with the Overture 
in D (No. 3) for orchestra with three 
trumpets and drums. Here a word of 
congratulation is due to Mr. Barr for the 
remarkable assurance and skill of ‘his 
playing of the first trumpet part. The 
ensemble as a whole was not everywhere 
entirely satisfactory, possibly because the 
players had not had sufficient rehearsal 
to assimilate all Dr. Allen’s ideas of 
balance and tempi. In the air. where the 
first violins alone were unmuted, the inner 
parts were too subdued, and in the 
gavotte and elsewhere the orchestra 
hurried the conductor, the reverse of 
what one would expect. These things, 
however, were only slight defects in a 
finely executed programme, 
Latin. 
De Bachicis Festis. 
Secunda de commissionibus Musicis, 
quae nunc Bachis nomine celebrantur, 
Saturni die habita est Westminsterii in 
Testudine Centrali. Musica autem 
plerumque fuit instrumentalis, sed duo 
carmina e ‘ Cantatis Ecclesiasticis’ ex- 
cerpta cecinerunt voce Domina Dorothea 
Silk et Dominus Gervase Elwes. ‘ Sequen- 
tia’ quae in B minore est tibiae uni 
fidibusque pluribus accommodata, a Dno. 
Fleury una cum sociis Orchestrae Sym- 
phoniacae Londiniensis quamvis belle 
edita est—quod festivissimum  fecit 
initium. At id notandum videtur quod 
Tibia Solicana clarior erat magisque 
eminebat fidibus universis simul cum ea 
sonantibus quam paucis solicanis fidibus. 
Commissionis huiusfinis fuit‘ Apertura 
in ‘D’ (n. 3) ad Orchestram et tres 
tubas atque tympana accommodata. Et 
hic loci lubet nonnihil gratulari Dno. 
Barr, quod fidenter ac_ sollertissime 
primas partes tubae sustinuit. ‘Con- 
centus’ autem ‘ universitas’ hic illic 
non omni carebat offensione—et fieri 
potest ut Judentium chorus, parum 
crebris usus exercitationibus, quae de 
libratione temporibusque musicis prae- 
cepisset Doctor Allen, ea omnia penitus 
animo percipere non potuerit. Ad hoc 
in melodia, qua soli violini primi libere 
(remotis ligulis eis quibus sonus obfus- 
catur) recinebant, ‘partes interiores’ 
nimis submisse sonabant, necnon et in 
Gavotta et alibi Orchestra, contraquam 
exspectaris, velocius ire ac magistrum 
(or rectorem) quodam modo _incitare 
videbatur. Sed tamen haec vix notanda 
erant vitia in optima serie carminum 
optime redditorum. 
SO 
ae 
