Popular Concert

Event Information

Venue(s):
Young Men’s Christian Association Hall

Price: $.25

Performance Forces:
Vocal

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
23 October 2021

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

05 Mar 1870, 3:00 PM

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
LIST OF PERFORMER(S)/ORGANIZATION(S)
Participants:  Antonio L. Mora;  Lina Luckhardt [piano];  Henrietta Beebe;  Jennie [mezzo-soprano] Bull;  William H. [baritone] Beckett;  William J. [tenor] Hill;  Robert Elder [organ]
2)
"Estasi, L'"
aka Ecstasy; Extase
Composer(s): Arditi
Participants:  Henrietta Beebe
3)
Recollections of home, op. 23
Composer(s): Mills
Participants:  Lina Luckhardt [piano]
4)
Stabat Mater, selection
Composer(s): Rossini
5)
"Consider the lilies"
Composer(s): Topliff
Participants:  Jennie [mezzo-soprano] Bull
6)
"More light, more love"
Composer(s): Unknown composer
Participants:  William J. [tenor] Hill;  Henrietta Beebe;  Jennie [mezzo-soprano] Bull;  William H. [baritone] Beckett

Citations

1)
Announcement: New York Post, 02 March 1870, 2.
2)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 05 March 1870, 7.
3)
Review: New-York Times, 06 March 1870, 4.

“The usual weekly concert took place yesterday afternoon, in Association Hall, before the customary large audience. The performers were Misses Beebe, Bull and Luckhardt, and Messrs. Hill, Beckett, Elder and Mora. A new and commendable feature of the concert was the introduction of trios and quartets, pleasantly varying the monotony of the usual series of solos. If the Young Men’s Christian Association have a ‘hobby,’ it is their organ, and like most other ‘hobbies,’ it is ridden to death. To tell the truth, it is neither a very large organ nor a noticeably fine one, and it is abused to such an extent that it is not wonderful it is out of tune. The accompaniment to ‘L’Estasi Waltz’ with cymbals &c., was in poor taste, and marred Miss Beebe’s creditable interpretation. Mr. Elder is (literally, not figuratively,) a blind organist, a fact which accounts for his self-confinement to his own compositions. When he did stray from that ground he wandered among Offenbach’s melodies, under the head of operatic selections. Miss Luckhardt is a débutante and a pupil of Mr. S. B. Mills, whose ‘Recollections of Home’ she rendered with sufficient accuracy and real feeling to win an encore. The quartett Sancta Mater, by Rossini, had the same fortune, and deservedly so. If the Y. M. C. A. seek to make money by their ‘popular’ concerts they are on the high road to success; if they desire to improve the musical taste and to cultivate a love for really good music in the Metropolis, they are on a boulevard leading in the opposite direction. The concerts are pleasing, it is true, but they are seldom satisfactory. We do not advocate the adoption of the useful at the sacrifice of what is pleasant, but a proper combination of the two. These Saturday afternoon concerts, with strong composers, faithful interpreters, a fair mingling of the light and the heavy, and programmes conveying some information about the music instead of mere advertising intelligence, ought to be as popular as the Plymouth Church concerts across the river. However, when musicians give such an excuse as that ‘good music is not applauded,’ and as amateur claqueurs are not always to be relied upon, perhaps it is unreasonable to look for a total change of plans.”