Songs of Scotland

Gives prices.

Includes program.  “Reappearance of Mr. D. KENNEDY. . . . The Songs of Scotland have a great historic value—they are truly the history of the people.  We seem to sit down beside the simple peasant, and from his own lips learn the story of his life.  To the peasantry of Scotland we are mainly indebted for our country’s songs, and, most of all, to the peasant ploughman, Robert Burns.

MR. KENNEDY prefaces each song with a few remarks intended to remove any difficulty or obscurity arising from peculiarities of the national language or allusions to local customs.

Miss KENNEDY will preside at the Pianoforte, and each evening play a selection of Scottish reels.”

Includes program.

“…Scottish songs are a cordial and genuine part of the popular treasury of music; and Mr. Kennedy’s enterprise of singing them needs no commendation in itself. We have much to learn from any studious lover of folk-songs, who can sing them for us in the spirit in which they were conceived; but this is rarely done. Mr. Kennedy’s singing is at least instructive. He has a tenor voice which, like many Scottish voices, is either very loud or very soft, but this is a fault of the English school also. His merits are a good clever feeling, a self-possession, and a vocal sympathy with dialectic character. Added to this, Mr. Kennedy’s knowledge of his subject is pleasantly illustrated in his lectures.”  

“…The reappearance of Mr. D. Kennedy, the Scottish vocalist, last evening in Irving Hall was heartily greeted by a select and respectable, if not very numerous audience.  The gentleman, accompanied by his talented daughter, on coming forward was welcomed in the most flattering manner. One of the peculiarities of the entertainment given by Mr. Kennedy is that he prefaces each song with remarks explanatory of the Scottish dialect and customs of bonnie Scotland.  His rendering of the ballads ‘My Boy Tammie’ and ‘Scotland Yet’ were well given, and frequent applause greeted many of his other efforts.”

“…Mr. Kennedy, the Scottish vocalist, gave the first of his characteristic as well as national entertainments on Friday, at Irving Hall. For this evening he announces a second, at the same place. Little Miss Kennedy assists him at the piano. The only drawback to continuous interest in these concerts is their danger of becoming monotonous; but Mr. Kennedy’s fund of anecdote, upon which he draws for an interesting prelude to each song, is, in some degree, a preventative of this.  And more than that, these ballad concerts have an audience exclusively their own—people, the throbbing of whose hearts are never excited by more scientific music; whose inner pulse is never stirred by higher strains; and if the tears start to their eyes at the sound of those simple melodies which made their grandsires weep—such melodies as Mr. Kennedy sings.”