Vocal Society Concert: 3rd

“There never has been such a week of music in this city as the present one. The Handel and Haydn Society, Theodore Thomas’s Orchestra, with Rubinstein, Mills and Mason Club, the Mendelssohn Glee Club, and the Vocal Society, are all in the field. The madrigal concert of this latter organization was given last evening at Steinway Hall, and the counter attractions did not in the least diminish the attendance.

Each concert of this society seems better than its predecessors, and none have ever been more replete with enjoyable compositions than this last one. Morley, Mendelssohn, Macfarren, Leslie, Lachner and Gade were among the composers represented. Mendelssohn’s superb setting of the psalm, ‘Judge me, O God,’ was the most grand and solemn of all the pieces sung; Henry Leslie’s six-part madrigal, ‘Thine Eyes so Bright,’ the most gracious and tender; John Benet’s madrigal, ‘All Creatures now are Merry-minded,’ the most intricate, learned, and elaborate; and Macfarren’s four-part song, ‘Hark, hark, the Lark,’ the most delicate, and perhaps on the whole the most pleasing. This was sung by Miss Beebe, Miss Finch, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Aiken, an unexceptionable quartette. Indeed, Miss Beebe has rare qualities as a quartette singer. There are many vocalists with larger, richer, and weightier voices, but few with such refinement of taste, purity of tone, and perfection of style.

The madrigals evinced all those qualities that we have so often had occasion to praise. The results of Mr. Mosenthal’s indomitable drill are fully realized when the moment of public performance comes, and he now seems to have brought this organization as far in that direction as it can well go. They have done the best that there is to be done in the way of madrigals and part songs. Has not the time come when they are prepared to advance a step further and occupy higher ground? The presence of the Handel and Haydn Society painfully reminds us that we in this great city are without an organization capable of giving the great works of the masters of choral composition. Some time such a society must be built up, and just such admirable singers as belong to this vocal society would form its most fitting nucleus. From such a foundation what a noble and honorable structure might be reared. It would be a pity to lose the delightful madrigals but on the whole, would not the gain both to the public and to the society itself more than compensate? We simply suggest the subject prompted only by the feeling of constant regret, shared by so many, that the great field of oratorio music is ripe with a golden harvest, and not a gleaner in its broad borders.”