Orpheon Fund Concerts; 4th

“Mr. Hopkins is indefatigable in his belief of his pet scheme—the Orpheon Free Schools. It has been the reproach of the musical tribe that they lacked practical ability, but Hopkins is proving that energy is not incompatible with melody, and that the same man may carry on a business scheme and play the piano equally well. He has had a rugged road and many an obstacle. One such he encountered last evening. At 8 o’clock his audience stood in the lobbies of the Young Men’s Christian Association, vainly battering at the doors of the Hall for admission. The fact seems to be that the Young Christians are not unmindful of the main chance, and wanted to see their money in hand before they opened the concert room door. Hopkins was naturally indignant at this distrustful way of looking at his ability or willingness to pay for the hall, and was strongly inclined not to yield to the thumb-screw; but the audience was clamorous, and the situation grew complicated. For once in his life, Hopkins yielded. If the Young Christians, however, fail to hear of it in the next number of The Orpheonist and Philharmonic Journal, then we are mistaken in the man that edits it—the name of that man being Charles Jerome Hopkins. He is not used to spare the rod. Our own shoulders are honorably scarred, and we wait good humoredly to see our Christian friends take their turn.

“The programme indicated strong names. Bach, Chopin, Handel, Haydn, and Liszt were represented, and had the performance been equal to the promise the concert would certainly have been a great success. But candor compels us to say that the Orpheon Society sang neither in time nor in tune—that the alto voices were harsh and strong, and overpowered the timid sopranos. One young lady, a Miss Irma St. Claire, sang Stradella’s divine aria, ‘Pieta, Signore.’ It was credited on the programme to Flotow, but was really composed some two centuries before the advent of that composer, and in a manner immeasurably above his capacities. Miss St. Claire has naturally a sympathetic voice, and one of good quality, but she uses it in the crudest manner, forcing her low tones in such a way as to destroy all evenness of register. It is always a pity to find a good voice made ineffective simply from lack of such instruction as any good teacher could impart in a few lessons. A Miss Lilliendahl played one of Liszt’s compositions in a cautious and correct way, though without that bravura that this composer requires of those who play his pieces. Really, the most artistic thing of the evening was the manner in which Mr. Hopkins accompanied a baritone solo. To play an accompaniment well is what not one musician in a hundred is capable of, and Mr. Hopkins certainly played this one with delicacy and finish, following the voice well, and keeping the piano in strict subjection to the air it was intended to sustain and complement. The thumping out of accompaniments is one of the greatest infractions of the concert room, and when we do really find a man who is willing to fill the humble rôle unobtrusively, and to subordinate himself to the singer, we pause to render him our thanks.”