And Henry Leslie's amateur chorus,
And fair Arabella, so melting and mellow,
That she charms the stern judgment of Autocrat Ella,
And Rubinstein—rapid and rattling of fist,
That one cries out with Hamlet's Papa, "Liszt, Oh Liszt."
Ella was the founder and director of the "Musical Union," which gave Chamber Music Concerts much on the lines of the famous "Pops"; Arabella was Arabella Goddard, the leading British pianist. Henry Leslie's choir for the performance of madrigal music carried off the prize against all comers at Paris in 1867. Wilhelmine Clauss was the Bohemian pianist, known in later years as Mme. Szarvady. To return to opera: it is amusing to find precisely the same charge hurled against Verdi as against Wagner twenty or thirty years later—that he cracked or wore out voices in their vain effort to contend against orchestral din. Grisi was still the chief diva, though a new star had arisen in Titiens, whose name spurred Punch to display his metrical prowess:—
We've got a great artist, a lady named Titiens,
Whose praises we'd sing, but her name will not rhyme.
Stuff! Horace reminds you, with "Tantalus sitiens,"
We've thirsted for music like hers a long time.