Great Triennial Handel Festival. Crystal Palace, June, 1865.

volve could not be incurred without the probability of considerable pecuniary success . How much of this is due to our cheap and rapid locomotion , and to the extraordinary development of postal aud press organization , is probably hardly sufficiently felt . In Handel ' s own days a Crystal Palace Handel Festival could only have been regarded as tbe

wildest of dreams . It is not improbable that it occupied Handel , in 1741 , nearly as long to travel from London to Dublin as to compose the " Messiah , " which , to the honour of the Irish metropolis , was first publicly heard there . At that time the performance of Oratoris was confined to a comparatively small and select class of persons . Except perhaps in London , the audiences must have been those resident within moderate

distance of the place of performance . The means of locomotion and of publicity were alike deficient . Elaborite musical criticisms in the daily newspapers , such as are now expected of every performance of any importance , were then utterly unknown . It will scarcely he believed that no notice can be found in

any public journal of the first performance in London of the "Messiah" on the 23 rd March , 1743 : and . that the production of " Israel in Egypt , " four years earlier , is only recorded , beyond Handel ' s own advertisements , by a letter in the London Daily Post , expressing a hope that Mr . Handel may be induced

to perform the work once again , notwithstanding the small attendance at the previous performance . Now , the fame and doings of a Handel Festival Great Rehearsal can not only be published to the residents of the metropolis the same afternoon , but , during its very progressinformation is flashed by

, telegraph from the Crystal Palace to all parts of the United Kingdom , and to many of the great Continental cities . It is thus brought before hundreds of thousands , perhaps millions , of readers by early

morning . The maguificence of the choral display , tbe excellence of the solo artistes , the minute details of the execution , the transcendent merits of the great master-works thus interpreted , detailed descriptions of the building , and the vast audience congregated within it & care canvassed and noticed by the

, , readiest of pens , guided by the most intelligent of minds . Other nineteenth century wonders of manipulative and mechanical skill , acting through type and stereotype , aided by the most involved , yet perfect and rapid , machinery , and by that remarkable system of newspaper expresses—only practicable

in these railway times —pi'esent a power and complete transference of observant thought , without parallel in the history of the world . It is no exaggeration to say that in any part of the United Kingdom printed accounts of the Friday rehearsal may be perused ou the Saturday , and that

the reader may at a moderate outlay be present ou tbe Monday in ample time to witness the commencement of the first day ' s performance . Returning the same night to his home , perhaps some hundreds of miles distant , he may so relate his own impressions of the " Mess i ah " as interpreted at the Crystal Palace ,

that , acting as the centre of the widening circle , he adds to the success of the Festival , by inducing friends and associates to go and do on the . Wednesday and Friday what he has done on the Monday . That this has been the case , the experience of the

' 57 , ' 59 , and ' 62 Festivals abundantly proves . Doubtless a large proportion of the tickets for the entire Festival is purchased at the earliest opportunity . The desire to secure certain favourite positions causes the demand for places , on the first opening of the ticket offices to increase year by year . But it is

only after the effect of the Great Full Rehearsal has been witnessed and described , that the furore to be present arises . The general desire to witness the " Messiah , " with its deeply-seated religious associations , further stimulates the demand ; which , increasing as the variety offered by the middle day ' s

Selection becomes appreciated , has invariably and appropriately culminated in the last day of the Festival , that occupied by " Israel in Egypt . " That much of this happy result is due to the facilities already noted , it is the duty of the writer gratefully to acknowledge . They are of incalculable

advantage to any great enterprise , extending over one week only ; they are facilities not enjoyed to the same degree in any country as they are in England . So much has been written in former programmes respecting the extent and complete organisation of the great orchestral force triennially assembled at the Crystal Palace , that it is needless again to enter minutely into the subject . Suffice it to say , that the experience gained eleven years since by the first

grand musical display at the opening of the Palace , by the past three Handel Festivals , by the opening of the International Exhibition of 1862 , and by constant observation of the best Continental and Provincial musical meetings , will be brought to bear on the coming Festival . A few remarks musthoweverbe made on the

, , prospects of the choral department . Since the last Festival , the combined practice of the 1 , 600 amateur members of the Metropolitan Division of the Handel Festival Choir has been kept up with regularity at Exeter Hall , and always under the direction of Mr . Costa . Carefully revised , and replenished from time

to time with fresh voices previously tried , this great choir has so improved that still greater choral effects may be confidently anticipated than at the preceding Festivals . The erection of large rooms and halls in the provinces , available for choral performances , has given a

great impetus to choral practice . This is evidenced by the more frequent meetings of provincial choral societies , and by the formation of new societies , which must also act favourably on the choral department of tbe Festival , largely recruited as it is from the provinces . At the last Festival , choralists were selected from the following towns and districts , besides numerous other places of minor importance : —

Aberdnre . Dublin . Manchester . Aberdeen . Durham . Newcastle . Armagh . Edinburgh . Nottingham . Bnth . Ely . Norwich . Belfast . Eton . Oxford . Birmingham . Exeter . Peterborough . Bradford . Glasgow . Rochester . Bristol . Gloucester . Salisbury .

Cambridge . Halifax . Sheffield . Canterbury . Hereford . Stockport . Chatham . Huddersfield . Sunderland . Chester . Leeds . Wells . Chichester . Leicester . Winchester . Cork . Limerick , Windsor . Coventry . Lincoln . Worcester . Derby . Liverpool . York .