The two Philharmonic Societies have had concerts this week ;
the Old on Monday, the New on Wednesday. Both were good, and they resem- bled in this that no new composition was produced at either. At the Old Society's concert, the principal feature was the performance of one of Moscheles's concertos, by Mr. Lindsay Sloper, with Beethoven's colossal choral symphony. The Cologne Choral Union, who gave concerts in London this time twelvemonth, have now resumed. We may remind our musical readers, that this society is a body of amateurs respectable citizens of Cologne, who cultivate choral singing as a pastime to themselves, and as a means of spreading among their countrymen the taste for that innocent and sa- lutary recreation. For this purpose, they have had many publio per- formances throughout Germany, the proceeds of which, as well as of those given in England, are devoted to objects of beneficence and charity.
The concerts now going on at the Hanover Square Rooms are precisely similar to those of last season. There are about eighty male voices, under the Society's permanent director, Herr Franz Weber, who sing the choral and part-songs of Mendelssohn, Kuhlau, Kucken, and other modern German masters, besides specimens of their old national harmony. They sing, wholly without instrumental accompaniment, and with a pre- cision, delicacy, and purity, from which the best of our chorus-singers might take a lesson. They receive much encouragement, their concerts being crowded by the most fashionable company in London.
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