MUSIC IN VICTORIA. (1862, May 17

To the editor of the Argus

Sir, - it must be indeed pleasing to all lovers of really good music to watch the rapid advance which the art is making among all classes of our community. The fact was never more apparent than at the Theatre Royal last night. The musical Union and Mr Lyster’s opera company have reason to congratulate themselves upon the successful experiment of introducing instrumental compositions of the very first water to an Australian audience. It has been long urged that the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, and others were of too classical a nature and too tediously long, to be listened to with patience and pleasure by a Melbourne audience; but the breathless attention during the performance of Beethoven’s No 2, an the symphonies of Mendelssohn, and the outburst of genuine applause at the termination of each movement, must clearly prove the promulgation of such objection to be in error.

It is to be hoped, now that the experiment has been tried, with result so successful, that our musical societies will often introduce such competitions into their programmes, and that we shall have periodical performances after the same model as those which at the present time command so much public attention in the metropolis and provincial cities of the mother country.

Yours &c.

Allegretto