The composer’s design is obvious, but nothing in music can justify what is disagreeable to a cultivated ear.
The fourth, ‘Oh! Sky-lark!’ in F, also for four equal voices, is throughout graceful, especially in melody; the repetition of certain pleasing phrases conduces here very much to effect.
The fifth, ‘In tears, the heart oppressed with grief,’ in E, for soprano, tenor, and base, a single movement, is elegant and gentle, and the words are most judiciously set. Some chromatic notes in this will put glee-singers on the alert: they are, generally speaking, averse from trouble, but it is time to rouse them, and break through their ancient habits.
The sixth and last, ‘Come forth, sweet spirit!’ in F, for four equal voices, in two movements, is a good composition, and quite irreproachable, yet not very captivating. It is best calculated to please those critics who judge music by the eye rather than the ear,—who deal largely in the phrases ‘fine writing,’ ‘parts well put together,’ &c., and seldom look beyond the mechanism of a composition.
We may pronounce this to be a successful work: the glees are all of the orthodox kind, deficient in nothing that good taste requires, or that the nature of the composition, by a prescriptive right, demands. No very hazardous attempts are made at novelty, but we meet with nothing common, and no pedantic show of mistaken learning. Mr. Bishop has written to please, not without a sufficient regard for his own reputation, and has not failed in his endeavour.
- SONGS OF THE BOWER, composed byC. W. MANNERS. (Goulding and D’Almaine.)
- The Spring Wreath,TWELVE SONGS, composed by Messrs. JOHN THOMSON, R. WEBSTER, J. P. CLARKE, T. MACFARLANE, and W. HINDMARSH: the words by T. ATKINSON, author of The Cameleon. 8vo. (Goulding and D’Almaine.)
WITHOUT being at all informed on the subject, and judging only from the dedication of the Songs of the Bower, we are inclined to believe that they are the production of an amateur, and that the words are by the author of the music. If we are in error as to the latter point, the composer is bound to excuse us, for he should have named the writer of them, if not from his own pen. They are six in number, show a vast deal of taste, a desire to avoid commonplaces, (though not always successful in this respect,) and a most correct manner of setting the poetry, both as regards expression and accentuation. Indeed, it is the latter circumstance which leads us to think that the composer and poet are one and the same person, for mere musicians, more often than not, are influenced by the meaning of particular words rather than by the context, and almost as frequently commit mistakes in quantity and in emphasis.
The first of these, ‘Once more to the bower,’ in E, is a slow, expressive air, well accompanied, but not very original, particularly in its cadences. The second, The Regret, in F, if sung slowly, rather ad libitum, and with feeling, will always make an impression. The accompaniment to this is very appropriate. The third, ‘When youth first leads,’ in D, is more pleasing than new. Of the fourth, ‘Now is the hour,’ in E flat, precisely the same may be said, though it is not as a whole equal to the former. The fifth, ‘Come welcome with me, lovely May,’ in G, should have been written in triple time; it has a strong polacca tendency, and halts exceedingly in its present measure. The praise we have bestowed on the composer’s accentuation must be abated so far as this song is concerned: giving a long note to ‘with,’ and in the strong part of the bar too, cannot escape censure. The sixth, ‘The last red rose,’ in E flat, is another expressive air, and the accompaniment shows much good taste in harmony; but the cadences here, as once or twice before, are, contrary to the moral rule, not the more valuable for being old acquaintances.