sake of the organ and the band, and we tliink the
result proves him to have made an artistic mis-
take. The four voice parts are, of course, all em-
ployed in the lowest portions of their registers, until
the last three bars at the end, where the sopranos
are suddenly taken an octave higher, giving the
audience the impression which would be created by
a soloist trying to sing in an unsuitable key. The
effect is not by any means improved by the fact of
the key being well adapted for tlie band, because, just
at the very end, where the inspiring old psalm tune
should appeal in stately grandeur in its true shape,
it is disguised utterly, and the chorus, which the
composer lias treated as a grand solo, seems as if it
were lost and only managed to right itself at the
last three bars. ' Old Hundred,' we think, should
have been treated in a more popular form, as no
other version but the familiar one could possibly
reach so directly the hearts of a Scotch audience.
LiBItA.
MUSIC IN NEW YORK.
ALL prejudice being laid aside, it will doubtless be freely admitted among well-informed musicians, as well as among intelligent artists of all kinds in Europe, that true talent finds its warm patrons, as it dees its bountiful reward, in New York, and the country which that metropolis represents. It is an ungenerous, ungrateful, prejudiced mind which denies this fact. But America must recognise, as Europe must remember, that in Music and Art the United States are the successfully educated of their distant parent. The true- born Americans of the first half of this century were not musical or artistic in any respect. Their interests were all too material, their necessities and inspirations too local, the temptations and sugges- tions all too commercial, for time or taste to be given to much that was cesthetic or spiritual. It was not until after success in all busi- ness connections became known that we began to receive here the influxes of English and European taste and talent which led us on. But American nature was ambitious also, and aspiring. It was not willing to open a New World and not emulate the Old. Every taste and study and elevating pursuit of the older nations has been most zealously followed, and every impulse for novelty and originality, so characteristic of the American people, has been brought to bear strongly on its study and practice of all the Arts of the Old World. In this, too, it has been aided by the strangely cosmopolitan character of the growing population. New York, like every part of this sixty millions of people, is made up of every nationality in Europe, and the largest contributions to the population have come from the most advanced among the nations of that Continent. It is needless to enumerate the causes that have sent thither so many, from the better classes even, of German, P'rench, Russian, as well as of British people during the last quarter of a century ; and the additions that have been made in music and the various arts to the scanty repertoire that existed here before is a very marked feature of the progress of this people in that time. New York prides itself very justly on the high standard that its taste and judgment have reached at this day in all these matters, but it is by the invaluable aid of the spirit infused among its population by importations from abroad, that it has been enabled to reach that high position. We may be able to set forth in these pages conclusive evidence of the high grade to which musical judgment, performance, and culture have attained in New York and her sister cities, but in doing so it will be too plain how much she depends on English, German, French, Italian, — in fact on European instmction and inspiration for gaining and for maintaining that standard. Europe is the mother in a thousand ways of these growing cities and states, but she must recognise how wonderfully her children have progressed in their training, and try to feel only a cosmopolitan pride, if she sees them leading the way in appreciation and execution of what has been given them to learn. Almost every kind of musical culture has reached as high a perfection in New York and in this country as anywhere in the world ; every style of composition, vocal or instrumental, is as well rendered here as in any part of Europe. But it is because Europe herself is here, and not in the least because America has herself oulstripped the mother countries. She has lent the spirit, the motive, the ambition, the material means for the study and practice of mus'c, as well as of other arts, but it is European talent, skill, experience, and elevating influence that are guiding and controlling all the artistic successes of this country. It is not easy to see to this day what head Great Britain would make in rendering the great orchestral compositions of the German classics without German performers themselves ; and when your readers consider that New York city contains a larger Geriimn population than any German city itself (except Berlin), they will easily see that orchestral performances of the concert room and opera can be carried here to the utmost limit of perfection now known. Italian Opera relies here, as in London and in other European centres, on Italian artists for instruction, resident or imported, and few countries supply so many successful native-born singers in this field as the United States. Then again, in the great school of Oratorio, and religious harmony, which are peculiarly, almost exclusively, the stronghold of British musical talent, nowhere is the appreciation stronger, and study of these compositions carried to higher success, than here in New York and the other cities about her. Abundant facts shall appear to illustrate the no longer growing but mature and elevated tastes that characterise the spirit of New Yorkers in their attention to this style of composition. This is perhaps the British, or the Anglo-Saxon, nature cropping out in her people, and here more than in anything else the English element in the population asserts itself. There are very many oratorio and sacred choral societies successfully in existence in our cities, and a striking feature of the musical life of the last few years in New York has been the formation of very numerous private amateur societies for the rendering, simply for their own enjoyment, of many of the less-known works of this sort from British composers. It is noticeable, too, that these gatherings for oratorio-singing bring together more of our native Saxon or British stock blended, now and then, with the addition of the rich voices and natures of other Teutonic branches.
Indeed, New York is hardly or fairly an American city, except in the sense that what is of the United States is of Europe, enlivened, animated, impelled by the freedom of a new home and a new World. The people are, to a feverish degree, hastening in their progress, and after what is new, but they are guided by European rules and standards, when such exist, and are fully abreast of Europe herself in all that pertains to the study and appreciation of science, as of any of the arts. WORTE.
