Harrison’s Sunday Concert: 8th

Event Information

Venue(s):
Steinway Hall

Conductor(s):
George W. Colby

Price: "As usual"

Performance Forces:
Instrumental, Vocal

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
26 September 2016

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

24 Nov 1867, Evening

Program Details

Program included an unidentified duet sung by Mme. Parepa-Rosa and Ferranti.

Performers and/or Works Performed

2)
Composer(s): Mozart
Participants:  Pietro Ferranti
3)
aka Devil's trill sonata; Trille du diable
Composer(s): Tartini
Participants:  Carl Rosa
4)
aka Angels ever bright and fair
Composer(s): Handel
Text Author: Morell [librettist]
Participants:  Euphrosyne Parepa
5)
Composer(s): Wood
Participants:  Euphrosyne Parepa
6)
Composer(s): Pfeiffer
7)
aka Ernani variations
Composer(s): Pfeiffer

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 21 November 1867.
2)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 22 November 1867.
3)
Review: New-York Times, 25 November 1867, 5.

“The taste for Sunday entertainments of a more or less secular character would seem to be vastly on the increase. The experiment which Mr. Harrison began with some misgivings, a year ago, of instituting a regular series of Sunday concerts, has met with a larger and speedier popularity than he or any one else anticipated. The slight cloak of giving a few pieces of sacred music to mask the more interesting character of the other selected pieces, has, very properly, been dropped, and now the programmes, at Steinway Hall at least, are made up from the livelier operas or other compositions less serious in spirit than hymns or oratorios. Last evening there were no less than three ‘Sunday Concerts,’ and each had its own great and attentive audience.

At Steinway Hall Mr. Harrison gave his eighth concert, and made the programme especially attractive by giving the public a chance to hear Mme. Parepa–Rosa, after her recent ramble away East. The new song by Mr. A. H. Wood, ‘One Year Ago,’ which Mme. Rosa sang, is a harmonious blending of tender sentiment and gentle words to a graceful and pretty melody. There can be no doubt that it will be a favorite song at other concerts than this. Tartini's fantastic concert for the violin called the ‘Devil’s Trill,’ was given by Mr. Carl Rosa, and Mr. Oscar Pfiffer [sic] was heard in his own arrangements for the piano, upon ‘The Carnival of Venice’ and ‘Ernani,’ both familiar, but all the better for being so.”

4)
Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 25 November 1867, 4.

“THE SUNDAY CONCERT AT STEINWAY HALL.

The eighth Grand Sunday Concert at Steinway Hall, last evening, under the direction of Mr. L.F. Harrison was a perfect success. The hall was filled with a brilliant assemblage anxious to welcome Madame Parepa-Rosa, Carl Rosa, and Signor Ferranti, after their successful New-England tour. Signor Ferranti sang with great effect the cavatina Non piu andrai, and was greeted with hearty applause. He was followed by Carl Rosa with his wonderful violin in a fantasia, ‘Trille du Diable,’ composed in 1730. It is a legend with the country folk among the good people known as ‘Pennsylvania Dutch,’ who have lost much of the love for music [illeg.] . . . try in the Fatherland, that the fiddle is well-known— possibly because this ‘Devil’s Trill’ came into vogue about the time those ancestors committed themselves to the deep for the New World. But, had they heard the strains of Carl Rosa’s strings, they would at least have been compelled to acknowledge that the music of the Evil One had a heavenly sweetness. But, of course, Madame Parepa received the most complete ovation of the evening. She sang an aria ‘Angels Ever Bright and Fair,’ a duet with Signor Ferranti, and a song ‘One Year Ago’ for ‘the first time in New-York.’ The song was by Mr. A.H. Wood, and if the music as Parepa rendered it was excellent, the poetry was certainly execrable. It was almost painful to hear her sing the lines:

                        ‘The music of the voice is gone—

                         No more we’ll hear that evening song’

But the prediction that might have seemed to be conveyed by the music was neutralized by the poetry. It is pitiful that artists like Parepa should be asked to sing such miserable verses as ‘One Year Ago,’ especially when they are kindly printed for the perusal of the assemblage. Mr. G.W. Colby contributed the piano accompaniments to the entertainment yesterday evening.”