THE NEW SINGERS AND MUSIC OF THE ADELPFH.
A PIECE called the Mason of Buda, with music by Mr. G. H. RODWELL, was brought out at the Adelphi Theatre on Tuesday. It is certainly a prodigious stride in the musical pretensions of the Adelphi, that it attempts a mimic opera of WEBER, with songs, duets, trios, and finales ;—but it is only an imitation of the man- ner of WEBER, while the spirit is wanting. This sort of style, though to be hailed at a minor theatre as especially indicative of improvement in the taste, is, when ill-imitated, injurious to the mu- sical nurture and admonition of our yet tender town. People who find they listen to no purpose, are liable to think that there is nothing after all in good music ; or are apt to imagine, as a defect in their nature, that which is in truth only the fault of the com- poser. Mr. Bisuor has, in his piece the Miller and his Men, given all young musicians an excellent model for a melodrame : it con- tains the melody of inspjration—the harmony of one conversant with the best authors. In such stage pieces, it is as incumbent upon the composer to exert himself as the scene-painter: for the story is generally insipid ; and the midnight disasters of those most amorous hussars Count von Lindenberg, the Baron Widdenstein, &c., &c., with their frightened servants, and the delicate distresses of the fair Bertha or Agnes, immured in the most desolate of castles, are wholly unable to fill the human mind without the aid of good music. If that be interesting, we can relish a robber story with the best of grown children. A little air in G minor, sung by Mrs. HUGHES, is the only music in the Mason of Bathe which we like. An abundance of trite melody, superficial harmony, and poor scoring, show, in RODWELL, the musician against na- ture. On Tuesday we made an excursion to the North Pole of Mr.
SINCLAIR'S voice, and to the South Pole of Mr.
G.S.urrsfs. ±
° We stared about us at these terra incognita;
but all between was a dreary waste in our enjoyment. SiNcrsia's falsetto is remarkable,—he gets up almost as high as Jonu REEVE or VELLUTI. Whoever has informed Mr. SINCLAIR that the dis- play of this stretch of voice (fitter itself for a Methodist clerk, when in a hymn he leads off the women,) is characteristic of a tenor song, has misled him. His roulades are all staccatoed in so peculiar a manner, that, with a little exaggeration, they would be nothing beyond a melodious fit of laughter. Mr. SiNeLain. sang in tune—with • a thin quality of voice, and an abundance of ornament ; and received so much applause, that he ought to expect none from any but the critics extempore—the clappers of hands.
Miss GRADDON did not sing well on Tuesday : we shall hear her under more favourable circumstances when she is accustomed to the size of the house.
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