“ In spite of their solid workmanship, and the skill with which the ideas are treated, it is difficult to hear or read them through without smiling at some of the touches of quite unconscious humour often resulting from the way in which the Biblical narratives have been, as it were, dramatized. ”

“ A symphony by him was played at an Academy concert in 1830; for the opening of the Queen’s Theatre in Tottenham Street, under the management of his father, in 1831, he wrote an overture. His Chevy Chase overture, the orchestral work by which he is perhaps best known, was written as early as 1836, and in a single night. On leaving the Academy in 1836, Macfarren was for about a year a music teacher in the Isle of Man, and wrote two unsuccessful operas. In 1837 he was appointed a professor at the Academy, and wrote his Romeo and Juliet overture. ”