Music and Some Highly Musical PeopleTrotter, James M.
History
Music and Some Highly Musical People
Trotter, James M.
African American musicians -- Biography; African Americans -- Music
A knowledge of his great abilities as a soloist spreading among
musicians in New York, he was induced to appear in public. It is
needless to say that his success was unequivocal. Of the impression
he made in New York, a city that has so often been the scene of the
success or failure of the foreign artist, I shall call another
person--a purely disinterested and competent art critic--to testify in
the following, written from New York to "The Musician and Artist" of
Boston of March, 1876:--
"Joseph White is in some respects the best violinist who has
visited this country within my remembrance, _not_ excepting
Wieniawski. He and his companion Ignasio Cervantes, pianist,
made their appearance in this city some few months since,
very modestly advertised, and unheralded by any sensational
newspaper paragraphs, and at their very first concert
insured themselves undoubted future success. This success
has been due entirely to White; for, although Cervantes is
quite a nice pianist, he is nothing wonderful. But White was
a _revelation_. His first New-York introduction to a large
general audience was at a philharmonic concert (the date of
which I cannot now recall), when he played the Mendelssohn
concerto and the Bach chaconne. The Mendelssohn concerto was
excellently played, especially the last movement; but it was
in the Bach chaconne that he proved how really good he was.
I have heard this composition by every violinist of eminence
(except Vieuxtemps) who has visited our city; but I never
heard so satisfactory a playing of it. The three voices
flowed on so smoothly and evenly, never seeming to be in
each other's way: there always seemed to be plenty of bow,
and just in the right place for each individual voice to
receive exactly its due prominence. The vociferous recall
that followed this worthy performance was well earned. White
is a Cuban mulatto, fine-looking, and extremely gentlemanly
in appearance and conversation. A Brooklyn writer speaks of
him as follows: 'His style is perfection itself; his bowing
is superb, and his tone exquisite. His execution is better
than Ole Bull's; he possesses more feeling than Wieniawski;
the volume of his tone is greater than that of Vieuxtemps.'
All of which I indorse."
On March 12, 1876, he appeared in New York as soloist at a grand
concert given by that justly celebrated and almost perfect body of
musicians, the Theodore Thomas orchestra. His performances on this and
several previous occasions elicited the most enthusiastic and
unbounded praise from the critical "Arcadian" and the other New-York
papers, nearly all of whom placed him beside the three or four great
violin-artists of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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