Some Recollections: XIII. Of Prime Donne and Another Author(s): Joseph Bennett Source: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 41, No. 683 (Jan. 1, 1900), pp. 16-18 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3366232 Accessed: 20-03-2016 06:34 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.137.5.42 on Sun, 20 Mar 2016 06:34:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE MUSICAL TIMES.-JANUARY I, I900. The time absorbed in lettering may seem a serious London urent half mad about Sontag7s beauty obstacle, but it does not turn out to be so. The average and marvellous singing. Again to quote time taken is about twelve seconds. I have often tested Chorley: 4'The Sunday papers told of Dukes fifty in ten minutes. You must do something in your dying for her; of Marquises only waiting to time. Examination of this kind is not a waste of time it is unmistakably an excellent employment of time, and lay their coronets at her feet; Royalty itself it is intensely interesting and edllcative to the class. was said to have mingled in this dance. The teaching. Give short, bright, incisive lessons to two Colours and racehorses were called by her or three sections grouped. The others must, of course, name, and (not the least signiScant tribute to meantime either be silent or, if a higher section. be called upon to pattern (often a proud moment) and if a lower her fascinations) a fashionable publisher tickled section be strongly urged to learn by listening. the Town's curiosity by announcing as forth- A dvaxtagas-Besides the advantages already enumerated conling, ' Travelling Sketches, by Mdlle. the plan permits a teacher to easily select his best pupils Sontag."' The object of all this adulation or eliminate his worst when he wishes to prepare good music. The best are then guides to the others and did not proclaim on the house-tops, for the unhampered by the hangers-on, they work more willingly. benefit of amorous Dukes and Marquises Here are the results in two classes at the end of that her hand was pledged to a noble but a term:- far from wealthy Italian diplomat, Count A B C D E F G H I J K L M Rossi. That secret she kept in her heart till, 6 2 o 5 6 7 7 8 5 5 5 4 3=63 4 3 o o o 6 8 5 9 8 7 6 6=62 having made moIley enough, she suddenly retired from the stage, accepted a patent of The doses can be strengthened according to circumstances. I daresay other teachers have adopted other and better nobility from the King of Prussia, and married plans of meeting this special difficulty. the man of her choice as his equal. (To be continged.) Twenty years passed over the Countess Rossi's fair head-twenty years of high rank, as the wife of an ambassador, and of still more SOME RECOLLECTION S. marked distinction, since the public did not forget XIII OF PRIME DONNE AND ANOTHER. Henrietta Sontag, or lose any opportunity of demonstrating that they carried the memory THE ;'forties" had not quite run their course of the bright and beautiful singer in their when I came to London, a first time, as a visitor hearts. to the lions of the metropolis. Though a raw The revolutionary year, I848, came with its lad, I had plenty of enthusiasm for music, and disasters, and Count Rossi was not one of the the king of all the lions, in my estimation, was least sufferers. So serious were his Enancial the opera. What more natural ? I had never losses that the brave wife made up her mind to seen a performance on the lyric stage. Imagine, resume her profession. She had dowered her- therefore, the eagerness with which I hurried, self by hard work; why should she not again on the very earening of my arrival, to the gallery build up the fortunes of her household ? So it door of Her Majesty's Theatre, not troubling to became known to all whom it might concern discover the opera to be perforlned or the artists that the public favourite of I828, and after, was who were to play in it. Lyric dramas and their again available. True, she had reached the age expoIlents were all pretty much alike to me, of forty-three, but Sontag had preserlred her but, on reading the bills at the theatre entrances, beauty in a marvellous degree, and, in no less I felt some satisfaction in that I was to hear measure, her vocal powers also. Chorley tells *; La Sonnambula.'7 Bellini's melodies were us: " She had never laid aside the care and everywhere at that time. There was hardly a culture of her delicious voice during her tenor who did not essay to languish with episode of ante-chamber work and monotonous Elvino; scarcely a soprano whose repertory Court splendour. She sang in public, as failed to contain an extract from the lyric an amateur, once or twice, for charitable woes of A mina. I thought myself in luck, purposes. In private noble circles she was therefore; but the opera did not represent all frequently to be heard." Hence, there was my good fortune. The bills promised a hearing nothing in her appearance or her powers to of Madame Sontag, the great German make return to the stage a risky adventure, and artist, concerning whom the thousand tongues at least one stage that of Her Majesty's of Rumour had for some time been wagging Theatre-was willing and eager to receive her. loudly enough to arrest attention even in the Jenny Lind, the stay of Lumley's fortunes, had heart of the country. In London, Henrietta abandoned opera, and later attractions had Sontag was no stranger to veteran opera-goers, poorly supplied her place. The enterprise was though since her previous appearances, in I828 marching to ruin, and the manager knew it. a generation had grown up which knew her Imagine how gIadly he received the news not. On the Continent she had made a name of Sontags fortunate resolution, and how before that date. Weber's " Euryanthe" was promptly he came to terms with her. His written for her, and, according to Henry Chorley, only risk in the matter was a possibility Beethoven chose her as his leading soloist ln that the public, scarcely recovered from the the great Mass. She was the Fairy Princess Lind fever, would make unfavourable com- of Young Germany. One of her shoes, which parisons, not only between the Swedish Young Germany had stolen, was used as a Nightingale and her sister of Germany, but drinking cup. Even comparatively sedate This content downloaded from 129.137.5.42 on Sun, 20 Mar 2016 06:34:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I7 THE MUSICAL TIMES. JANUARY I, I900. prejudice against native artists was strong in also between the Sontags of I828 and I849. aristocratic circles, which alone, then as now, However, all went well. A contemporary had weight with managers, while the foreign journalist wrote: " No magic could restore to singers agreed in nothing so much as a desire her voice an upper note or two which Time had to keep their preserve to themselves. For some taken . but she was greeted, as she time beforeS however, letters had appeared in deser+red to be, as a beloved old friend come the public prints asking why the English tenor, home again, in the late summer days." whose debut at Drury Lane had made an im- This was the artist whom a lucky chance pression, was not called to one of the fashionable placed among my recollections my Erst houses. Because of this, and, no doubt, through prima donna, heard in the freshness of other influences as well, Reeves and Lumley youth and youthful enthusiasm; so heard that came together. The part of Donizetti's Carlo no phonographic ;' record" is clearer than is not one of first-class importance, but the my memory of her Amina after the lapse of English debutant gained plenty of honours in Efty years. I see her now as, amid a storm of it. The Times declared him " really a valuable applause, she made her entry in the character acquisition to the theatre"; the Morni>zg of the innocent maiden whose simple fortunes Chronicle hailed him as ' signally successful"; so interested the public till simplicity and the Daily News praised the beauty of his artlessness passed out of fashion. Her age voice and the warmth of his expression. So was unknown to me, but I imagined Sontag as with other journals, and everything promised only a few years older than myself, so successful brilliantly for " Signor Reeves." But fair had been conservation of face and figure plus mornings are often clouded over.