Article March 29, 1900 Issue

Miss White's Song Recital

M. B.

With much pleasure we republish from the Concord Daily Monitor the following critique of Miss Villa Whitney White's song recital recently given before the Concord Woman's Club. This review of Miss White's work and capabilities is from the pen of one eminently qualified to write intelligently and critically thereof.

Miss White, it is perhaps unnecessary to say, is the soloist of the Christian Science Church of Conocord, N. H.

The exquisite cycle of folk-songs sung by Miss White before the Concord Woman's Club recently, was greatly enjoyed by an audience which filled the Baker Memorial Chapel to overflowing and afforded our music lovers an opportunity for learning a good deal about this primitive music, which more than any other has come straight from the heart of the people originating it. And Miss White's singing, even if she were not engrossing her hearers in one of the most fascinating subjects of musical history, would captivate her audience, for she has besides a genuine musical temperament and artistic cultivation of the highest sort, a voice full and rich, of an appealing warmth and possessing dramatic force. She has also that unerring taste which allows that the poetic interpretation of a song, be it great or little, is of more import than the display of those vocal feats, tricks of style, which, while they dazzle the audience contribute nothing to the musical or poetic idea. It was on the interpretative side of her performance that we felt Miss White showed her superiority and her rare accomplishments. She certainly gave us the cream from a large body of musical literature covering a period of four or five centuries, and we regret we could not have heard some of the numbers over again. The simplicity, not to say the sincerity, with which one must approach these quaint, bizarre, often dainty, sometimes religious, and sometimes grotesque bits of writing, are the qualifications only the trained artist can bring to them in full measure. As Madame Essipoff, the distinguished pianiste now wife of the famous teacher Leschetitzky, once said of the works of Mozart: "They are harder than all other compositions to play, because they require so much care and simplicity in their treatment." The success with which Miss White acquitted herself in the presentation of these simple, unaffected little songs, representing as they do so much highly wrought art, really meant more to us than the successful performance of any number of operatic feats, which are essentially muscular rather than poetic or imaginative.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Fast Day Proclamation