Evening of English Glees: 1st

“Since we last heard the English Glee Club in New-York it has been improved by the addition of the sweet and sympathetic tenor of Mr. J. R. Nilsen. Otherwise its composition remains as before, and the selections given at its first concert of the season last night, at the Union League Theater, were of the same general character which the previous entertainments of these ladies and gentlemen have commended to the popular favor. Of the genuine old music from which the club takes its name the principal specimens were [see above]. There were many miscellaneous pieces, including three or four by Robert Goldbeck, and a charming soprano song of Sullivan’s, ‘Orpheus with his Lute;’ and the length of the concert was nearly doubled by encores. The theater was filled by a very cordial audience. It was a place well chosen for such an entertainment, since this is music rather for the drawingroom and the social gathering than for the great public halls, and its finer beauties are fully perceived only when it is set right down in the midst of us. It appeals at once to the fancy and the feelings of all cultivated and gentle-minded people; but it demands a certain art which very few singers in this country possess, and Miss Beebe, Mr. Bush, Mr. Aiken, Mr. Florio, and their associates are doing a good work in their attempt to give it a more general vogue. It is pleasant to see that they do not lack appreciative listeners, either in New York or in the other cities to which they occasionally carry their enterprise.”