Sixty Years of California SongAlverson, Margaret Blake
History
Sixty Years of California Song
Alverson, Margaret Blake
Music -- California -- History and criticism
REMINISCENCES OF LATER CALIFORNIA MUSICIANS AND SINGERS
JOSEPH MAGUIRE
In the death of Joseph Maguire, California lost one of its finest
tenors. He was known to a wide circle, both in this state and Nevada.
He was a mining man, but it was as a musician that he made his
reputation. He was a tenor singer of great sweetness and power. The
public had a keen appreciation of the purity of his vocalization and
had the opportunity to hear him weekly at the Unitarian Church, Dr.
Stebbins, pastor. His sickness was of short duration and his death
came as a severe blow to his many musical friends and associates. He
was a member of the Amphion Quartette and Bohemian Club chorus. He was
tenor in the St. John's Presbyterian Church on Post street, in the
quartette, where he and I sang for two and a half years. It was a half
hour previous to his death while in a delirium that he sang like a
bird Gounod's Ave Maria, imagining himself at a musical gathering. The
last sad rites were performed under the auspices of Occidental Lodge,
F. & A.M., of which Mr. Maguire was a well-beloved member. He was a
native of Bolton, England, aged forty-four years.
In memory of our much beloved Joe Maguire, as he was affectionately
called by his California friends who loved him for his beautiful
singing and for his own self, I shall give the musical service as it
was rendered at the church. A most beautiful tribute of flowers, in
the shape of a lyre with the silver strings snapped and hanging
loosely, was placed in the choir where he stood each Sabbath and sang
his glorious songs. Certainly no one knew him but to love him, and the
last tribute of song given him by his friends will last as long as
memory remains in the living musicians who assisted in the ceremonies
at the church.
Funeral Services in Memory of
_JOSEPH MAGUIRE_
September, 1833--March, 1878
First Unitarian Church, Geary street
San Francisco, Sunday, March 24, 1878.
1. Organ voluntary.
2. Chorus of male voices:
Brother, through from yonder sky
Cometh neither voice nor cry,
Yet we know from thee today
Every pain has passed away.
Brother, in that solemn trust
We commend thee dust to dust,
In that faith we wait 'till risen,
Thou shalt meet us all in heaven.
3. Readings from the Scripture: Extracts from the Book of
Job.
Rev. Horatio Stebbins.
4. Double quartette for female voices.
Their sun shall no more go down; the Lord shall be their
everlasting light; and the days of their mourning are ended.
For the Lord shall feed them and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes.
5. Funeral oration, by Harry Edwards.
6. Choral from Spohr's Last Judgment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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