MR. BISHOP'S overtures are not perhaps upon a par with his other writings. They are high-sounding, but certainly not remarkable for learning or genius. He has a very extensive knowledge of the power of instruments, and yielding too ready an assent to a prevailing taste in a mixed audience, he is apt to admit solos for the display of particular instruments, which weaken the general effect. His overtures we believe have rarely extended beyond the orchestra of the theatre.

To conclude then, we give MR. BISHOP credit for fancy, study, and taste; and if his works should seem to lack the intensity and' variety of thought and feeling which constitute what is understood by ORIGINALITY, there is yet a brightness, a gracefulness, a suavity, and sometimes a strength in his writings, which place him far above the line of mediocrity. Whoever purchases his operas will find in most of them agreeable melodies, well adapted to singers whose aims are directed to the amusement of lighter hours and of general audiences-music commonly pleasing and rarely difficult of execution, and bearing the stamp and impress of the fashion of the day.

A Collection of Motells for the Offertory and other Pieces, principally adapted for the Morning Service. The whole composed, selected, and arranged, with a separate accompaniment for the Organ or Piano forte, and respectfully inscribed to WM. TROY, ESQ. by VINCENT NOVELLO, Organist to the Portuguese Embassy in London.-Six Numbers. London.

The earliest efforts of musical science were devoted to the service of the Catholic Church, and we owe to the learning and industry of her servants the bulk of those inventions which first methodized the knowledge of harmony, and afterwards preserved and continued it, To so remote a date as 590 of the Christian æra, probably almost all our readers well know, we are able to trace the exertions of POPE GREGORY, who collected the rudiments of church music, and arranged them in the order long continued at Rome, and adopted by the chief part of the Western church. "He banished," says the writer we quote, "the Canto Figurato as too light and dissolute, and substituted his own chaunt, called Canto Fermo, for its gravity and simplicity." Since this period, however, every species of learning and graceful contrivance have been at various times employed in the mass, and the Catholic Church has, in every age, been the fruitful origin of compositions of the highest merit and beauty, as well as the bountiful nurse and protectress of musical professors. Nor is it a matter less singular as connected with antiquity than remarkable in science, to find the musical productions of the early times of the great POPE GREGORY Connected and incorporated with the works of composers in the 19th century.

*

But during the establishment of the Protestant form of worship iņ England we have derived very little from the followers of the ancient worship. With the exception of MR.WEBBE's masses, which were the first to supersede the use of the Gregorian chaunt in Catholic choirs,

* Let us not however be understood to speak irreverently, or without the fullest recollection of the noble and glorious compositions for our Cathedral Services which have been written during the interval. In thus stating the temporary banishment of Catholic music from our shores, we merely relate a fact, and do not by any means wish to open a controversy, or even to institute a comparison respecting the benefits the science has or has not received from the change.

the selections of MR. LATROBE, the two volumes of selections and three of masses of MR. NOVELLO, we are not aware of any addition to the public stock of choir-music of this description. Hence the Catholic choirs of the kingdom have confined their music within narrower limitations, and general science has ceased to be enriched. The publications however we have recited have originated a feeling and desire for the enjoyment of such sound and delightful writings; and the compositions of CALDARA, HASSE, HAYDN, MOZART, PEREZ, MOREIRA, WESLEY, RUSSELL, and others scarcely less celebrated, have been heard in the form of masses, hymns, motetts, &c, not only in the choirs but in concerts, with the sincerest gratification. The world is already deeply indebted to MR. NOVELLO for the judg ment, taste, learning, and industry displayed in the elegant compositions and the masterly arrangement of his former collections. The work we have now before us entitles him still further to the marked acknowledgments of all real lovers of music. We think we may venture to add, that he merits the thanks of his own church; but perhaps these will experience some exceptions, for the clergy are in general studious to preserve a certain degree of simplicity in their music, and we have already found that there are even laymen among the Catholics who regard the introduction of secular compositions, though adapted in the finest possible manner to sacred words, as liable to objection. These pious persons, whose motives every one must respect, are apprehensive that original impressions of a light kind should be too fixedly associated with known melodies, and thus divert rather than elevate the mind in the solemn moments of devotion. The argument is not without its weight, but its appli cation is here reduced within very narrow bounds by the nature of the pieces selected for secular writings by the circumstances which have insulated them from very general observation in England. The persons who attend the King's Theatre are comparatively very few, and they are still fewer who visit the Opera sufficiently often to note and remember the melodies which they there hear. They are commonly of rank and education, and therefore secured from the danger of abstraction from the duties of devotion, which might accompany similar associations among a class more alive to

*Last winter the town flocked to Warwick-street Chapel to hear a mass composed by SIGNOR GARCIA, the tenor singer at the opera, but we have not understood that it is yet published.

external impressions of such a nature. For these reasons we think it consistent to vindicate MR. NOVELLO's choice, though perhaps rather from its benefit in practice than in principle. We consider that if devout feelings can be excited or raised by fine music, the melodies MR. N. has so beautifully adapted, will in the million of instances, be most successfully employed, while they will strike upon the recollection of very few indeed as appertaining to things less serious and important. We state the objection and its answer because we have heard it made, rather than because we hold it to be of any material validity, except in its general application as a principle. We deem this to be an exception to a rule.

MR. NOVELLO, in his six books of Motetts,* falls under our consideration in several capacities. He has selected, arranged, and adapted various works of celebrated authors, and he has favored us with compositions of his own. The world has so fully decided on his judgment and taste from his former publications, that we might safely consider we had truly discharged our function in assuring the musical reader that the later productions only continue to add to the sum of his acquired reputation. But we cannot be satisfied with so slovenly a mode of performing our duty. We think far too highly of the elegance and ability displayed throughout the whole to dismiss them with so loose a notice. We are under much obligation to the author for having made known to us some compositions which, but for his assistance and direction, we might but too probably never have enjoyed the opportunity of seeing.

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*The Motett is a species of vocal harmony appropriated to the service of the church. The etymology of the word is not easy to be ascertained; MENAGE derives it from modus, to which it bears not the least affinity. BUTLER, a motu, because, says he, "the church songs called moteta, move the hearts of the hearers, striking into them a devout and reverent regard of them for whose praise they were made." On Music, page 5, in notis. MORLEY seems to acquiesce in this etymology, but understands motion in a sense different from BUTLER, as appears by these his words: "A motet is properlie a song made for the church, either upon some hymne or anthem, or such like; and that name I take to have been given to that kinde of musicke in opposition to the other, which they called canto fermo, and we do commonlie call plain song, for as nothing is more opposit to standing and firmness than motion, so they did give the motet that name of moving, because it is in a manner quite contrarie to the other, which after some sorte and in respect to the other, standeth still."-Introd. Part III. page 179.

DU CANGE voce Motetum says, that though this kind of composition is now confined to the church, it was originally of the most gay and lively nature; an opinion not inconsistent with the definition of the word.-Hawkins's History of Music. vol. 3. page 79.

By far the largest portion of the volume, it will be conjectured, appertains to the classes of selection and arrangement. These labours, however, are neither slight in themselves nor in their effects. We give MR. NOVELLO full credit for the implied task of searching out, through an immense body of music, the beauties he has chosen. There is not a single specimen that has not pre-eminent merit, while the whole collection embraces a far greater variety of style and diversification of parts than could be well imagined in so few pages. This diversification renders the work particularly applicable and useful both in the choir and the chamber, for there is hardly a possible combination of treble, counter-tenor, tenor, and bass, that is not to be found in the book; and although none of the airs are to be called light in the customary acceptation of the word, there are yet among them vory graceful, pleasing, and elegant melodies in one, two, three, four, and five parts-pieces which cannot fail, whether used for the purposes of devotion or of scientific amusement, to elevate and gratify the mind.

Where MR. NOVELLO has adapted secular music to sacred words, he has surmounted the difficulties with great felicity. WINTER'S "Mi lasci o madre amata," "Grand Isi," from MOZART's "Zauberflotte," HAYDN'S "Distressful nature fainting sinks," "Deh prendi un dolce amplesso," from the Clemenza di Tito, and some other things of a like sort, go so well that they appear to have been composed to the words they now bear. But the chiefest praise we can bestow upon the motetts is, the direction of the taste to the soundest compositions of the best masters, which in their original form would probably have been lost to the greater part of the world. PEREZ and MOREIRA are almost unknown to the British public, except through MR. NOVELLO; and we may fairly conclude that nothing but such a collection could have brought the single compositions of the WEBBES, WESLEY, RUSSELL, and EVANS, or the masses of MOZART and HAYDN, into general acquaintance. They come to us too divested of the less popular and pleasing parts.

In the arrangement, MR. NOVELLO has evinced a profound

* DAVID PEREZ was by birth a Spaniard, and brought up in the Conservatorio of Santa Maria di Loreto, at Naples, under ANTONIO GALLO and FRANCESCO MANCINI. He wrote many operas and much church music. DR. BURNEY speaks of him at length in his Îlistory of Music, vol. 4. page 570. He was Born in 1711, and died after being many years blind, at the age of 67. His Mattutino dei Morti was published in England in score about 30 years since.