Hampton Institute Students Concert

“Entire change of programme.”

“Not only for the peculiar and interesting character of the music which they sing, but for the praiseworthy object in which they are engaged we can recommend them to the cordial favor of the public. The school for whose benefit their earnings are expended is one of the noblest institutions designed for the elevation of the freed people—well conceived and well managed—and also very much in want.”

“The third concert of the Hampton students was given last night at Steinway Hall. It was curious to mark the deep sympathy of the crowded and cultivated audience with the rude verses and almost equally rude tunes brought by these young freed people out of the land of bondage. The reminiscences of the dark and cruel days of Slavery seemed to touch singer and listener alike. The pathos of these wild hymns, with their burden of sorrow and their brightness of faith and hope, went home to every heart. For the songs of this interesting company of students are not the weak ditties of the burnt-cork minstrels, nor are they the ordinary music of the concert-room which we can hear at any time. They are genuine slave songs, produced, nobody knows how, among the plantation cabins and camp-meetings. Their words are almost invariably of a religious character, sometimes simple, and even beautiful, sometimes grotesque. Jesus is represented ‘aboard de Gospel train,’ which carries rich and poor alike for the same fare. The ‘ship comes sailing’ full of angels:

‘How do you know they’re angels?

Oh, I know them by their meaning’

And as usual these hymns of the oppressed are full of visions of glory:

‘Gwine to put on de starry crown, in de morning.

Gwine to try on de long white robe, in de morning.

Gwine to put on de golden slippers, in de morning.

Oh done die! Oh, I ain’t gwine to die no more!’

The music is indescribable. It is rude; it is sometimes almost barbarous; yet it is upon the whole constructed with a tolerable observance of scientific laws, and it needs but little to make it perfectly correct; certainly a remarkable circumstance when we remember that it is the production of an untutored people.

The performance of the Hampton Students is very similar in kind to that of the Jubilee Singers whom we noticed at length some weeks ago. It is less polished, less artistic in every way, but we suspect that it is more genuine. It retains some very characteristic roughness, both in the notation of the songs and in the manner of singing, which the Jubilee band had refined away. These Hampton people are consequently rather more interesting as a sample of slave life, while the young folks from the Fisk University are more attractive to musicians. Among the selections last night the most remarkable were ‘I hope my mother will be there,’ a hymn admirable for its tenderness, and known in Virginia as the ‘Mayo Boys’ Song,’ because it was sung by the hands in Mayo’s tobacco factory at Richmond; a highly ludicrous hymn with the burden ‘Now, ain’t that hard! O Great Tribulation!’ and one of the hearty shouting kind, called ‘There’s a great camp meeting in the Promised Land.’”