THE MANCHESTER GENTLEMEN’S GLEE CLUB.
PRIZE GLEES for 1832.
THIS club, in furtherance of the purpose for which it was established—the cultivation of the glee—gives annually prizes for the best serious and the best cheerful glee. The prizes offered last year to be decided this, were ten pounds each, and have just been awarded.
There were forty-six candidate compositions—twenty-five serious, and twenty-one cheerful—written by twenty-nine different composers, including many of the most distinguished composers of this kind of music in the kingdom. Twenty-four of the glees were sent in by authors residing in London, all of whom, with an exception or two, are eminent in the profession. Seven came from Manchester gentlemen; the remainder from Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, Bristol, Hull, and Plymouth.
The productions which this competition—unparalleled, we believe, for the extent and variety of the compositions—furnished, were many of them of a high order: the serious glees were particularly excellent, a large proportion of them being, in style and merit, beyond the average of such as are considered established works. The whole collection exhibited a gratifying proof that this peculiarly English branch of musical science is extensively and successfully cultivated.
All the glees were, by means of frequent rehearsals, well executed by the singers. They were sung before the committee appointed to award the prizes at five successive meetings, especially held for the purpose; the last of which took place on Monday, the 21st of January, when, on opening the sealed packets containing the names and mottos of the respective authors, it appeared that the prize for the serious glee had been adjudged to Mr. Henry R. Bishop, for a four-voice glee, beginning ‘Where shall we make her grave?’ and that for the cheerful glee, by Mr. Vincent Novello, a glee also for four voices, to original words, commencing “Old May morning.”
OBITUARY.
THE French school of music, and indeed the lovers of the art everywhere, have just sustained a great loss by the death of M. HEROLD. He fell a victim to a pulmonary complaint with which he had been for some time afflicted, and which has carried him off before he had completed his fortieth year. His death is an almost irreparable loss to the French school of music, as he almost alone, among the operatic composers of the present day, had shown a genius worthy to compete with those great German masters whom he had made the idols of his adoration. He was a pupil of the Conservatoire, where he obtained the grand prize of composition, and was sent to complete his studies at Rome at the expense of Government. His opera Marie first made his name popular, and shortly afterwards Zampa, particularly the finale of the first act, secured to him a more solid and imperishable renown. His last work, Pré aux clercs, is now in the zenith of its popularity. It is said that the agitation which he felt in consequence of the suspension of the performances of that opera after its first representation, in consequence of the refusal of Madame Casimir to sing, tended to hasten his end. The managers of the Opera Comique, as soon as they learnt the fatal event, announced that the theatre would be shut for one night.
SIGNOR NOZZARI, the celebrated tenor singer, died at Naples, the beginning of last month. He was born in 1775, and studied under the famous David, who was in England some forty years ago. Nozzari first appeared at Milan, and in 1802 and 1807 sang at the Opera Buffa in Paris. He afterwards went to Naples, where at the theatre San Carlos, he continued to perform till bad health much weakened his vocal powers, and finally compelled him to quit public life. He has left a fortune of above 100,000 dollars.