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
"'The concert-room was the brilliant and picturesque hall I
have before described to you. It looked more picture-like
and dreamy than ever. The piano was on the flat stairway
just below the broad central landing. It was a grand piano,
standing end outward, and perfectly banked up among
hot-house flowers, so that only its gilded top was visible.
Sir George Smart presided. The choicest of the _elite_ were
there,--ladies in demi-toilet and bonneted. Miss Greenfield
stood among the singers on the staircase, and excited a
pathetic murmur among the audience. She is not handsome, but
looked very well. She has a pleasing dark face, wore a black
velvet head-dress and white carnelian ear-rings, a black
moire-antique silk made high in the neck, with white lace
falling sleeves and white gloves. A certain gentleness of
manner and self-possession, the result of the universal
kindness shown her, sat well upon her. Chevalier Bunsen, the
Prussian ambassador, sat by me. He looked at her with much
interest. "Are the race often as good-looking?" he said. I
said, "She is not handsome compared with many, though I
confess she looks uncommonly well to-day." The singing was
beautiful. Six of the most cultivated glee-singers of London
sang, among other things, "Spring's Delights are now
returning," and "Where the Bee sucks, there lurk I." The
duchess said, "These glees are peculiarly English." Miss
Greenfield's turn for singing now came, and there was
profound attention. Her voice, with its keen, searching
fire, its penetrating vibrant quality, its _timbre_ as the
French have it, cut its way like a Damascus blade to the
heart. She sang the ballad, "Old Folks at Home," giving one
verse in the soprano, and another in the tenor voice. As she
stood partially concealed by the piano, Chevalier Bunsen
thought that the tenor part was performed by one of the
gentlemen. He was perfectly astonished when he discovered
that it was by her. This was rapturously encored. Between
the parts, Sir George took her to the piano, and tried her
voice by skips, striking notes here and there at random,
without connection, from D in alto to A first space in bass
clef. She followed with unerring precision, striking the
sound nearly at the same instant his finger touched the key.
This brought out a burst of applause.
"'Lord Shaftesbury was there. He came and spoke to us after
the concert. Speaking of Miss Greenfield, he said, "I
consider the use of these halls for the encouragement of an
outcast race a consecration. This is the true use of wealth
and splendor, when they are employed to raise up and
encourage the despised and forgotten."'
"TUESDAY, May 31, 1853.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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