Rehearsal for Forthcoming Performance at St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Church

R: GTS 04/23/63 – “Mrs. Gibbs, Mr. D’Ormieulx, Dick Willis & his handsome Mrs. W[II]- Centeneri, Frank Otis, Cousinery, & a lot of amateurs beside have been practising for a Mass to be performed at the 29th St. R.C. Church Easter Sunday, & met here tonight for a rehearsal with organ accompaniment. The church organist and choir assisted. The proposed Mass was composite, Credo and Agnus Dei from that most intense Mass by Niedermayer, and all the rest Haydn’s music. Not a homogeneous combination by any means. They came and they rehearsed--somewhat roughly, by the by. The organist, one Mora,—a flippant young fellow and seemingly no thorough musician (he read very badly), announced at last that he did not want to play that music next Sunday. Everybody that came to church would come to hear his performance, and he had no solo passages, and no opportunity of doing justice to his fingering. He preferred that they should put all this stuff of Niedermaer’s and Haydn’s aside, & rehearse a MS Mass of his own composition. Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs Habicht and others recalcitrated—so the little donkey of an organist marched off, and this proposed Easter service was given up. Mrs. D’O took his place at the organ, and we had the Kyrie & Gloria of Haydn’s no. 3 (Centeneri sang the solo Qui tollis superbly, and the final fugue went very smoothly after two or three trials) also parts of no. 2, including its Sanctus & Benedictus—of fragrant memory. No entertainment, (i.e. supper) of course, tomorrow being Good Friday.”