Evening of English Glees: 3rd

“The crowded hall, the hearty applause and the repeated encores of last evening at De Garmo’s Hall indicate in a very satisfactory way that the public put a high estimate upon the English glees, of which this was the third ‘evening.’ The performers are only seven in all—the male quartet, consisting of Messrs. Bush Rockwood, Beckett, and Aiken, assisted by Miss Beebe, soprano, Miss Finch, contralto, and Mr. Florio, accompanist. The rendering of the selections was unusually fine, fine up to the exacting standards of a select and cultivated audience, whose appreciation was genuine, hearty and liberal.

‘With Sighs, Sweet Rose’ was listened to with breathless attention, and for delicacy and earnest feeling was hardly surpassed during the evening. But ‘Beauties, have you seen?’ was a gem of peculiar, fanciful and airy music, rendered by a quintet. Byron’s translation of Anacreon’s ode—‘I wish to Tune my Quiv’ring Lyre’—was given with dignity and martial fire, lapsing into the soft murmurs of love, that were effective in a very high degree. The daintiest bijou of the evening was ‘O hush Thee! My Babie,’ with its airy, quiet and lulling waves of melody. The last piece—‘Hark! the Cock Crows’—was very peculiar, with its rapid movement, odd onomatopoetic effects and iterations of sweet sounds. The solos of the evening were given to Mr. Beckett, first basso, and Miss Beebe, whose ‘Bid Me Discourse’ was warmly received. In response to a most cordial encore she sang Schubert’s ‘Hark the Lark’ with graceful and pleasing effect.

This approval was so decided that the management determined to announce a fourth or supplementary ‘evening’ on the 12^th of March.”

“It is very curious to note how the popular taste drifts about in musical matters. A little time ago the whole inclination of concert-goers and concert-givers was toward Italian music. Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi were the composers most in vogue, and their names were upon every programme. Nobody expected to understand what was sung, or to get a particle of delight from the words; the sensations were of a purely musical kind. But now the mother tongue again asserts itself in the concert rooms, and, thanks to certain little societies that have lately sprung up in this city, a healthier and purer musical taste is being developed. Among these organizations we now specially refer to a male quartette club that has recently given three evenings of English glee music at De Garmo’s Hall. The singers are Messrs. Bush, Rockwood, Beckett, and Aiken, all of whom are well known among those persons in this city who are interested in musical matters. Mr. Aiken has been for many years identified with this kind of music, and probably no man in the community has a more wide, varied, and exact knowledge of the works of the English composers of the last two centuries, or indeed a happier faculty in their interpretation. The results of this scholarship have been apparent in the admirably selected programmes of the three concerts to which we have referred, where the best works of such men as Calcott, Horsley, Spofforth, Hatton, and Sullivan, together with those of many other less widely known composers, have been grouped together. Many of these writers were careful to select the words that they used from the best poets, and Herrick, Ben Jonson, Scott, Byron, and our own Longfellow are among the authors used. The difference in enjoyment between an evening devoted to listening to these English glees, each with a distinct purpose and beauty of its own—noble words allied to noble music—and the enjoyment to be obtained from an evening of arid and empty cavatinas, having no purpose but the display of the voice, and no meaning worth finding out, is a difference not to be measured in words.

So pleasant an opportunity to hear this class of music competently interpreted seldom occurs. The four gentlemen have been accustomed to sing together, and are in accord as to the sentiment of the music. The glees go to a charm. The disposition of those who attended the three concerts was so manifest to hear the club that another and final concert will be given at De Garmo’s on the 12^th of this month.”