Concert

“A cordial and friendly audience filled Steinway Hall last night on the occasion of the concert given by Miss Vienna Demorest. The young vocalist sang the aria from ‘Linda,’ so popular in the concert room, several ballads, and a duet with Mr. J. R. Thomas. She is easy in manner, graceful in appearance, and achieves with her sweet soprano voice all that its present degree of culture will allow. Her trill last night was decidedly good, and her intonation throughout was correct. The upper notes of her register are very sweet and pure; but in the middle range there are crudities which the course of study to which this young lady intends to devote herself will probably remove. Miss Demorest leaves the city soon on a concert tour to the east. She will then go to Europe, and after studying in Italy, will finally enter the ranks of the musical profession. Now she stands smiling on the threshold.

Among the assisting artists last night, Miss Tedesca, the violinist, deserves special mention. She played a concerto by De Beriot with exquisite grace. There is something peculiarly graceful in her method of bowing, while the staccato notes she produces from her instrument are notable successes, in a difficult phase of technics. Miss Tedesca always pleases her audiences, and her name is ever welcomed in a concert programme.

Mr. J. W. Hill sang excellently last night, and Mr. J. R. Thomas added to the completeness of the entertainment. Mr. Poznanski, the pianist, played an original ‘American Caprice,’ after the style of Gottschalk’s ‘Banjo,’ introducing the melody of ‘Old Folks at Home.’” 

“Miss Vienna Demorest gave her first public concert at Steinway Hall on Wednesday evening. There has never within our remembrance been a singer who commenced her career under such a weight of praise. The press has teemed with the most extravagant compliments of her voice and her singing, and recently, in a magazine printed in this city, her portrait was published on the opposite page and face to face with that of Nilsson. The suggestion was that these were sisters in art; and, in fact, several papers have not hesitated in plain words to award the young singer an equal place with that held by the distinguished Swede.

Amid this general course of laudation, Miss Demorest will not perhaps take it amiss if she hears one voice of quiet and truthful dissent, especially if that dissent is spoken only in a spirit of kindness! It may even serve as a foil and to give greater zest to the overwhelming flattery that has preceded her public appearance, just as the King of Macedon in the midst of his obsequious courtiers took a curious delight in the grim official whose sole duty it was to repeat from hour to hour the caution: ‘Philip, thou art but mortal!’

We freely say therefore that few vocalists that have ever appeared on the stage of Steinway Hall have had so many conspicuous faults and so little actual attainment in their art as Miss Demorest.

The young lady is entirely unprepared for a public appearance. The programme of the evening announced that she was about to go to Europe to study, and this is well; but it seems a little singular that the concert that should have come at the conclusion and as the culminating point of this study should have been allowed to precede it. To begin with a public concert and then to commence to learn to sing is rather reversing the natural order of events. It may however serve to mark the progress that Miss Demorest will undoubtedly make; and after the discipline that she will be subjected to by any first rate teacher, she will herself be the first to acknowledge that she stood but at the very beginning of her art on the occasion of giving this concert, and perhaps to wonder at her own temerity.

As words of general criticism are but of little use, we shall briefly refer in detail to some of Miss Demorest’s characteristics as a singer. In the first place, her tone is exceedingly bad. It is neither pure nor sweet, but on the contrary thin, reedy, and unpleasant. And this arises apparently not from any organic defect, but from an absolute lack of knowledge of how to produce the tone, which is indeed the basis of the art of singing. The young lady is without training—the merest novice in an art, the elements of which she has yet to master.

Among the pieces that she sang was Donizetti’s very charming, brilliant, and familiar aria, ‘O Luce di quest’Anima.’ It is a difficult aria, and served as well as any that could have been selected to exhibit all the defects of Miss Demorest’s voice and execution. The tone, in the first place, owing to the wrong position of the vocal cords and muscles, was, as we have said, bad and thin. The vocalization was slipshod, the notes in rapid descending passages being slurred over and not distinctly given. The intonation was faulty—in other words, she failed to sing the notes in perfect tune; the pronunciation of the vowel tones was that of an untaught beginner undertaking, with more ambition than judgment, what only an artist could perform.

If Miss Demorest goes to such a teacher as Wartel of Paris, or to any man of repute, he will at once tell her all this and a hundred other wholesome truths, and will dispel the illusions that injudicious flattery has thrown about her. Probably she will be kept steadily at singing simple scales, and more especially at singing single notes, for months, until she has learned to produce an even tone. Nor in all likelihood will she be permitted so much as to sing a ballad for a year or two. It takes five years of unremitting training to make a vocalist, and we sincerely hope that, at the end of that time, Miss Demorest may be able to make good the half of what her unwise and injudicious friends have said of her. If there is any one stumbling-block in the way of true success, it is the falsehood of undiscerning and insincere flattery. When Miss Demorest first discovers and recognizes the fact that she has no method—which is the touchstone of all vocalism—then she will be prepared to take the first earnest step forward in her art, and not til then. The A B C of music must first be acquired, and upon this alphabet she may afterward build.

We cannot refrain from referring to the unknown accompanist, whose name was wisely omitted from the programme, and who might have spoiled a better concert. He accompanied Mr. Thomas in his singing of Schubert’s ‘Wanderer,’ and so discreditable a player we have never heard in public. Whole handfuls of chords were played falsely, the minor ones often being played major and the major ones converted into minor. He began with the wrong chord, and continued a series of blunders to the very end. So wildly discordant did he become at times, that it seemed as though he would inevitably lead Mr. Thomas off into some other key; and it was only the fact that that gentleman is a correct and excellent musician that saved him from completely breaking down.” [Reprinted DJM, 05/20/71, pp. 27-28]

“At Steinway Hall last night, Mlle. Vienna Demorest made her first public appearance in this city to a distinguished audience, at a grand concert, in which she was assisted by Mlle. Tedesca, violinist; J. R. Thomas, baritone; W. J. Hill, tenor; J. Poznanski, pianist; and Carlo Mora, conductor. In the first part Miss Demorest sang, from Donizetti’s opera of ‘Linda,’ ‘O Luce di Quest Anima,’ with considerable feeling and taste. In the second part she sang Ganz’s song, ‘By Rippling Brook,’ for which she obtained a decided encore. She returned to sing a valse by Arditi, which brought out that peculiar charm of voice for which Miss Demorest will obtain a well deserved and enduring fame. At present it is very evident that Miss Demorest requires a sojourn in Europe, where she will receive that musical education and finished training which her great natural powers entitle her to seek. The devotion to her art that characterizes all that Miss Demorest attempts augurs well for her future and the promise that she will attain to the renown of our leading prima donna.”