Church of the Messiah Sunday Service

Event Information

Venue(s):
Church of the Messiah (1867-1930)

Event Type:
Choral

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
7 May 2022

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

08 May 1870, Morning

Program Details

For complete list of performers, see New York Herald review. Music in Gotham assumes the soprano “Mrs. Ficker” cited in the New York Herald review to be Johanna Ficher, some years prior a singer with the Maretzek Italian Opera.

Performers and/or Works Performed

2)
Composer(s): Unknown composer
3)
aka Mass, no. 12; Gloria in excelsis; Glory be to God on high
Composer(s): Mozart
4)
Composer(s): Howe [composer-org]

Citations

1)
Review: New York Herald, 09 May 1870, 3.

“…In accordance with the invariable custom the music, that great modern auxiliary to fashionable Christian worship in our great modern religious temples, was very fine—that artistic music congenial to the æsthetic tastes of the congregation meeting here—the music while bearing aloft on the wings of noble song the tired out and fagged soul, made so by the bitter experience, of our rough every-day life and its trials, giving inspiration to hope and to duty the impulse of ennobling purpose; the music that, as much as prayer and sermon, has really as good and Christianizing effect upon church attendants. After an exquisite voluntary, played on the organ with rare skill by Mr. Edward Howe, Jr., the organist, was sung Gloria in Excelsis, from Mozart’s ‘Twelfth Mass,’ with duet by C. F. Whiting and J. R. Thomas. This impassioned musical poem rarely finds more splendid voices for its interpreter. After this was sung the ‘Beatitudes,’ a trio, composed by Mr. Howe, the organist, and certainly a rarely sweet melody, with solos sang surprisingly well by Mrs. Ficker, Miss Rushby and Mr. C. F. Whiting.”