Venue(s):
Steinway's Rooms
Price: $1
Event Type:
Chamber (includes Solo)
Performance Forces:
Instrumental, Vocal
Status:
Published
Last Updated:
27 August 2016
“S. B. Mills…has kindly consented to play the first piano part of Mr. Pease’s new duo on Godfrey’s ‘Mabel Waltz’.”
“Music. Monday afternoon’s concert at Steinway’s was favored by pleasant weather, and crowds attended it. We remember only a few salient features of the programme--the first, a mere dash of piano-spray over Godfrey’s ‘Mabel Waltz,’ by Messrs. Mills and Pease. Then came Miss Sterling’s contralto, with Mr. Pease’s ‘Il Sospiro’—the flowing melancholy of this excellent composition well suited to the calm, rich voice—the voice, one of the best we know in ballads, desirable wherever the qualities of repose and pathos are to be expressed in song. Severini sang Mozart’s ‘Dalla sua pace,’ the Elisir air, ‘Una furtiva’ (one of Donizetti’s very best) cleverly as usual; gave us a Norwegian song in capital taste, and concluded by singing Beethoven’s Adelaide poorly. It is the most beautiful, difficult of love-songs, and to sing it and miss its rapture is easy enough for artists or lovers who are not geniuses. Once in a generation, perhaps, some one may walk the stage undepraved by its mannerisms—an evangelist of troubadours—and sing Adelaide as the unhappy Staudigl sang the Wanderer—that is to say, so as to move to tears. Sig. Severini had an excellent programme.”
“Signor Severini and Mr. Pease brought their succession of agreeable Monday Morning Concerts to a bright conclusion with their last. These pleasant entertainments have had a fair attendance, and they served to make familiar to intelligent audiences the talent of an extremely pleasing tenor, and to give a deal of profitable practice to a hitherto recognized and always clever pianist. Signor Severini—who, like Madame Parepa, can sing in a little Babel of tongues—has made his way unostentatiously. His voice is clear, although light, and has been most faithful to those limited flights which he has attempted. Mr. Pease has displayed his ambition as a composer, and has not failed to exhibit some tokens of talent for that higher position. His song ‘Il Sospino’ [sic] is quite a tasteful work. An entertainment which these two gentlemen will give to-day at 3 o’clock, in the Steinway Music-room, in aid of the Laides’ Southern Relief Association, may be looked upon, we suppose, as a species of P. S. or appendix to the regular series.”