Charles Jerome Hopkins Concert: Orpheon Fund Benefit

“Mr. SNOW announces the sixth and last Concert of the eminent artist, for the Orpheon Free School Fund.”

“We admire the work to which Mr. Jerome Hopkins has devoted his efforts—that of benefiting the cause of free vocal culture, or more particularly the Orpheon Free Choral or Choir-boy School Fund. For this purpose he has presented a number of popular programmes, interspersed with classical music.”

“Amusements. Musical…The sixth and last concert of Mr. Jerome Hopkins, for the benefit of the Orpheon Free School fund, took place at Steinway Hall last night, in presence of a large attendance. The usual assistants of Mr. Hopkins in his concerts were on hand, and the programme was sufficiently diversified for the tastes of the Orpheon patrons.”

“Music. Jerome Hopkins’s concert last evening at Steinway’s was largely attended and popular, but that is not the best of it. A new organist from England, Mr. James Caulfield, appeared and discoursed the quaint, solid glee of one of old Sebastian Bach’s fugues—that in G minor—in a special and vigorous way. Quite as steady and free was Mr. Hopkins’s own piano rendering of Cherubini’s masterly fugue in D major. What came after this in Mr. Hopkins’s share of the programme is mainly creditable to his vitality as a pianist—saving only the Black Crook music, clever for its time and place, but obviously of no critical consequence in a concert-room just now. The Barcarole, tender and not overwrought, instanced the player’s better taste and culture as a composer, and we prefer it to any other original piece of the evening. Mr. Hopkins was assisted excellently at the piano by Messrs. Trastour and Dressler.  Mr. Matthison, a new tenor, appeared, and an incongruous piece of elocution was intruded upon the fitness of things. The elocutionary bore, generally rather express than admirable, is never more out of place than at concert, and when thus it happens the taste of somebody is to blame. Miss Viola Henriques, an interesting young soprano (from Caraccas [sic], as the bill informs us), has not impressed us with any enchantment borrowed from a distance, [illegible section] . . . and ringing, if a trifle attenuated; her lower register, uncertain, unconfirmed, and susceptible of improvement. But Miss Henriques is merely a debutante, and will doubtless be flattered with the reception she met with last evening. The concert has been pecuniarily a large benefit to the Orpheon cause, in which Mr. Hopkins has been a prime mover.”

“Amusements. Concerts of the Week…The sixth and closing concert of a series proposed and carried through by Mr. Jerome Hopkins was given at Steinway Hall on Thursday evening. The audience in point of numbers and quality must have been highly gratifying to the young pianist, in whose favor it was convened, and who for six years has been laboring persistently and enthusiastically in the cause of free musical instruction through Orpheon Schools. Mr. Hopkins played at his best, and his warm-hearted young friend recalled him after every piece. Mr. Arthur Mattison and Miss Viola Henriques added some vocalism of a nervous, incomplete order, while Prof. Frobisher, an elocutionist, introduced a couple of declamatory pieces which appeared to be rather out of place at a concert, however well they might have been in a school room. We believe Mr. Hopkins has the credit of having introduced more than one curious innovation into public entertainments, but this one (which was recently imitated at the opera) is by no means to be commended, no matter how much some indiscriminating persons may applaud.”

One line mention. “Mr. James Caulfield has assisted at various organ concerts during the past season, with much acceptance.”