Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 436

Edinburgh Journal, No. 436, by
Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 Volume 17, New Series,
May 8, 1852
Author: Various
Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers
Release Date: July 8, 2006 [EBook #18796]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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EDINBURGH JOURNAL ***

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'
'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
No. 436. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2d.

THE MUSICAL SEASON.
'The English are not a musical people.' The dictum long stood
unquestioned, and, in general estimation, unquestionable. All the world
had agreed upon it. There could be no two opinions: we had no national
airs; no national taste; no national appreciation of sweet sounds;
musically, we were blocks! At length, however, the creed began to be
called in question--were we so very insensible? If so, considering the
amount of music actually listened to every year in London and the
provinces, we were strangely given to an amusement which yielded us
no pleasure; we were continually imposing on ourselves the direst and
dreariest of tasks; we were tormenting ourselves with symphonies, and
lacerating our patience with sonatas and rondos. What was the motive?
Hypocrisy was very generally assigned. We only affected to love music.
It was intellectual, spiritual, in all respects creditable to our moral
nature, to be able to appreciate Mozart and Beethoven, and so we set up
for connoisseurs, and martyrised ourselves that Europe might think us
musical. Is there more truth in this theory than the other? Hypocrisy is
not generally so lasting as the musical fervour has proved itself to be. A
fashion is the affair of a season; a mania goes as it came; but regularly
and steadily, for many years back, has musical appreciation been
progressing, and as regularly have the opportunities for hearing good
music of all kinds been extending.
Take up a daily newspaper, published any time between April and
August, and range your eye down the third or fourth column of the first
page--what an endless array of announcements of music, vocal and
instrumental! Music for the classicists; music for the crowd;
symphonies and sonatas; ballads and polkas; harmonic societies; choral
societies; melodists' clubs; glee clubs; madrigal clubs. Here you have

the quiet announcement of a quartett-party; next to it, the advertisement
of one of the Philharmonic Societies--the giants of the musical world;
pianoforte teachers announce one of their series of classic performances;
great instrumental soloists have each a concert for the special behoof
and glorification of the bénéficiaire. Mr So-and-so's grand annual
concert jostles Miss So-and-so's annual benefit concert. There are
Monday concerts, and Wednesday concerts, and Saturday concerts;
there are weekly concerts, fortnightly concerts, and monthly concerts;
there are concerts for charities, and concerts for benefits; there are
grand morning concerts, and grand evening concerts; there are matinées
musicales, and soirées musicales; there are meetings, and unions, and
circles, and associations--all of them for the performance of some sort
of music. There are musical entertainments by the score: in the City; in
the suburbs; at every institute and hall of science, from one end of
London to the other. One professor has a ballad entertainment; a second
announces a lecture, with musical illustrations; a third applies himself
to national melodies. All London seems vocal and instrumental. Every
dead wall is covered with naming affiches, announcing in long array
the vast army of vocal and instrumental talent which is to assist at such
and such a morning performance; and the eyes of the owner of a vast
musical stomach are dazzled and delighted by programmes which will
at least demand five hours in the performance.
So is London, in the course of the season, the congress of nearly all the
performing musical notabilities of Europe. Time has been when they
came to London for cash, not renown: now they come for both. A
London reputation is beginning to rival a Parisian vogue, besides being
ten times more profitable; and, accordingly, from every musical corner
in Christendom, phenomena of art pour in, heralded by the utmost
possible amount of puffing, and equally anxious to secure English gold
and a London reputation. It is strange to observe how universally the
musical tribute is paid. A tenor turns up from some Russian provincial
town; a basso works himself to London from