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Untitled Article
of the audience , and where more than half their power was entirely lost . And such were the handiworks of this enlightened body . In every thing that they touched , the marks of incompetency , or the slirne of jobbing , were visible . But the public knew little and cared less about the dirty process by which the affair was carried on . Probably the daily papers supplied only the information which those who had an interest in the affair took care to furnish .
The puppet-show is now over , and it is time that the puppetmovers should be known . This duty we have endeavoured to discharge ; to strip the whole humbug of its mystery and intrigue and to let it be known why , how , and wherefore the Royal Musical Festival was undertaken . Have we then derived no pleasure from the Festival ? Unquestionably we have . The band , spite of all jobbing , and the choral music , spite of all hinderances and impediments , was , occasionally , grand . Of the principal singers , B rah am alone deserves any
notice , and even he contented himself with the same songs we have heard him sing every Lent ratorio Season for thirty years . Malibran , incomparably the finest singer of sacred music now living—for great as she is on the theatre , she is still greater when employed on the impassioned airs of Handel—Malibran , the only singer able to carry through a Festival of this kind , was not engaged , though in London . Perhaps she might have displaced
Miss A , or interfered with Miss B , a sufficient reason , doubtless , for her exclusion . These managers seem to have thought that a display of mere numerical force was sufficient , forgetting that fifty or five hundred ciphers will not make a single unit . It was altogether the very worst display of solo singing we ever have heard at a Festival . Even Grisi failed , simply because the right application of her powers was not regarded . Her range is a limited one , and the Opera House is her element ; in the
church she falters , gasps , and struggles , like an animal in an exhausted receiver . A similar display of ignorance pervaded the cast of most of the pieces—good and bad singers were joined together , and English style and pronunciation were barbarously associated with that of Italy . In short , all kinds of blunders , inconsistencies , and incongruities , were the result of this indecent and scandalous job . Commencing with a dirty intrigue , it has ended with an explosion of ignorance .
Untitled Article
588 The Royal Festival Job .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 588, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/58/
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