it, and the instrumentation is
always effective. There are few more beautiful cantatas than "The May
Queen," though the composer was hampered by a dull and not very inspiring
libretto. Poor words, however, could not affect his delightful grace and
fancy, which manifest themselves in every number of this little pastoral.
It is surprising that so excellent a work, and one which is so well
adapted to chorus singing and solo display, without making very severe
demands upon the singers, is not more frequently given in this country.

The Exhibition Ode.

The music for the opening of the International Exhibition at London,
which occurred in May, 1862, was of unusual excellence. Auber sent a
composition which, though called a march, was in reality a brilliant
overture. Meyerbeer contributed an overture in march form, in which three
marches were blended in one, the whole culminating in "Rule Britannia."
Verdi wrote a cantata, which was rejected by the Commissioners because by
the side of the national anthem he had introduced the revolutionary
Marseillaise and the Italian war-song called "Garibaldienne." Its
rejection not only caused great indignation in the musical world, but at
once made it famous; and it was afterwards publicly performed,
Mademoiselle Titiens taking the soprano solos, Sir Julius Benedict
conducting.

The prominent feature of the musical programme, however, was the Ode
which the poet laureate and Bennett conjointly furnished. Never before
were Mr. Tennyson's verses more completely united with music. The work is
divided into three parts, all choral, linked by recitatives. The first
number is a hymn to the Deity ("Uplift a thousand Voices full and
sweet"), written as a four-part chorale, which is very jubilant in style.
The next movement,--

"O silent father of our kings to be,
Mourned in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee,"

eloquently referring to the Prince Consort, is set in the minor key, and
is one of the most pathetic musical passages ever written. Then follows a
descriptive catalogue of the industries represented,--"harvest tool and
husbandry," "loom and wheel and engin'ry," and so on, through which the
music labors some, as might have been expected; but in the close it once
more resumes its melodious flow, leading up to the final chorus, in which
the theme of the opening chorale is borrowed and developed with peculiar
origin