masterpieces);—lastly, there are the two oratorios,
Psalms and Lobgesäng of Mendelssohn. If
Beethoven's Mount of Olives be heard from
time to time, it is because it was Beethoven's;
regarding whom the world has agreed to be
idolatrous without question. His great sacred
music is to be found in his two Masses. Spohr's
oratorios have already passed into the outer-
limbo of oblivion, because of their mannerism
and want of idea. Meyerbeer, that most
sagacious of artists, felt the difficulty of the task
too intimately even to be seduced into this form
of creation, though tempted again and again.
The few honourable and careful efforts made
by living men (whom there is no need to name),
are hardly destined to the honours of permanent
life.

England's great midland Festival, at all
events, has from the first done its liberal part in
endeavouring to widen, not to narrow, the list of
pleasures. It will not be forgotten that the
one only oratorio since Handel's and Haydn's
which can justifiably rank with theirs, Elijah,
was produced at Birmingham: on one of those
days which mark a period in the life of every
one concerned.

That this Birmingham liberality indirectly
brought about one of our most important
musical benefits during the last thirty years,
remains to be told. More than thirty years ago,
an invitation was sent to Zingarelli of Naples—
best remembered here as having framed the
Romeo in which Pasta acted and sung, but in
Italian repute as a sacred composer—to
confide some new work to England. His contribution
when completed was entrusted to the care
of a young Neapolitan student totally unknown,
and whose destination was said to be that of a
singer: who brought the motett to Birmingham,
and sang there without success. From a
beginning so obscure and unpromising, who
could have augured a career which will live in
history as one of the most remarkable, honourable,
and peculiar ever led by European
musician? Yet such—as the career of the greatest
conductor we have ever possessed—began,
continued, and followed out in England alone, in
the teeth of disinclination, class jealousy, and
national prejudice, has been that of the
conductor of the last Birmingham Festival—Mr.
Costa.

It is even yet too little understood that the
peculiar attributes which go to make a great
conductor of music, are among the rarities of
art. The number of those really admirable in
this capacity (as distinct from composers) who
have appeared during the last fifty years, could
be told on the ten fingers. The most eminent
among the dead, perhaps, were Habeneck of
Paris, Guhr of Frankfort, and Spontini at Berlin
(when presiding over his own operas). Among
the living may be named M. Berlioz (when he is
acquainted with the music under his care);
Herr Rietz of Dresden (when the work has not
the misfortune to be an Italian one); and Signor
Mariani of Genoa. When Mr. Costa took up
the conductor's bâton at the Italian Opera during
Mr. Monck Mason's one year of lesseeship, the
office there, as it were, had to be created. The
old conductors had sat at the harpsichord, or
else had figured away with the violin bow.
The choruses in the theatre were traditionally
wretched and out of tune, and never dreamed
of action; the orchestra was better or worse
as chance might please, the main weight of
the performance lying on the interest given
to the music by the principal singers. It
will be seen, then, that no common amount
of aptitude, patient study, energy,
enthusiasm, and that moral influence without which
discipline alone becomes despotism, were
required; no common clear-sightedness as to
the necessities, but also the latent means, of
this country, to raise a nameless youth, step by
step, to a supremacy in the management of
music in every form—regarding which there is
no longer possibility of contest, and which has
compelled stupidity and envy to take the safe
refuge of silence.

What the presidence of such an artist wisely
exercised during a time of transition, and over
materials such as have been imperfectly
enumerated, can do, was to be heard a few weeks
ago at the Birmingham Music Meeting,—in
the general excellence of performance
unapproached by any in my experience. The sacred
music included the Messiah, Elijah, the
Lobgesäng—these produced without rehearsal!
(to such high point of attainment have our
performers reached)—the superb music scene
from Solomon, Beethoven's Mount of Olives,
Mozart's disputed Twelfth Mass, St. Paul,
and Mr. Costa's own new oratorio, Naaman.
In particular must the two last performances
be dwelt on; that of St. Paul as a model of
grandeur, spirit, expression, and sobriety,
unapproached, it may be fearlessly averred, by
any previous rendering of the work, even when
its admirable and too early lost composer was
there to animate every one by his presence.
The scene of the burial of St. Stephen, with
its funeral chorus, thus rendered, is one of the
most precious possessions which musical memory
can have to keep.

It would be only fair, as further illustrating
the remarkable excellence of an English festival
of the present, as compared with that of a
German meeting of the future, to offer some
analysis of the new works produced at Birmingham:
—to speak of the dignified and thoroughly
artistic oratorio by Mr. Costa, just mentioned,
excellent because of its Italian style without
Italian flimsiness; and to dwell on the ability
shown by Mr. Henry Smart in his new Cantata
on an Irish legend, and the admirable treatment
in Kenilworth, a masque, by Mr. Sullivan, of
a scene from the Merchant of Venice (anew
showing as his Tempest music had already
done, that though the youngest he is our best
English illustrator of Shakespeare); but this
must be left to other hands. Enough has been
said to prove how well England may be satisfied
with her executive progress during the last
thirty years, so magnificently and triumphantly