IN the seventies New York was interesting musically, chiefly because of its amateurs. This sounds something like a paradox, but at that time New York had a collection of musical amateurs who were almost as highly cultivated as professionals. It was a set that was extremely interesting and quite unique; and which bridged in a wonderful way the traditional gulf between art and society.
Those of us who were fortunate enough to know New York then look about us with wonder and amazement now. It seems, with our standards of an earlier generation, as if there were no true social life to-day, just as there are left no great social leaders. As for music—but perhaps it behooves a retired prima donna to be discreet in making comparisons.
Mrs. Peter Ronalds; Mrs. Samuel Barlow; her daughter Elsie, who became Mrs. Stephen Henry Olin; May Callender; Minnie Parker—the granddaughter of Mrs. Hill and later the wife of M. de Neufville;—these and many others were the amateurs who combined music and society in a manner worthy of the great French hostesses and originators of salons. Mrs. Barlow was in advance of everybody in patronising music. She was cultivated and artistic, had travelled a great deal abroad, and had acquired a great many charming foreign graces in addition to her own good American brains and breeding, and her fine natural social tact. When I returned to New York after a sojourn on the other side, she came to see me one day, and said:
"Louise, you've been away so much you don't know what our amateurs are doing. I want you to come to my house to-night and hear them sing."
Like all professionals, I was a bit inclined to turn up my nose at the very word "amateur," but of course I went to Mrs. Barlow's that evening, and I have rarely spent a more enjoyable three hours. Elsie Barlow sang delightfully. She had a limited voice, but an unusual musical intelligence; I have seldom heard a public singer give a piece of music a more delicate and discriminating interpretation. Then Miss May Callender sang "Nobile Signor" from the Huguenots, and astonished me with her artistic rendering of that aria. Miss Callender could have easily been an opera singer, and a distinguished one, if she had so chosen. Eugene Oudin, a Southern baritone, also sang with charming effect. Minnie Parker, an eminent connoisseur in music, had her turn. She sang "Bel Raggio" from Semiramide with fine execution and all the Rossini traditions. And I must not forget to mention Fanny Reed, Mrs. Paran Stevens's sister, who sang very agreeably an aria from Il Barbiere. Altogether it was a most startling and illuminating evening, and I was proud of my country and of a society that could produce such amateurs.
Mrs. Peter Ronalds was another charming singer of that group; as was, also, Mrs. Moulton, who was Lillie Greenough before her marriage. Both had delightful and well cultivated voices. Mrs. Moulton had studied abroad, but for the most part the amateurs of that day were purely American products.
I often visited Mrs. Barlow at her country place at Glen Cove, L. I. She was the most tactful of hostesses, and in her house there was no fuss or formality, nothing but kind geniality and courtesy. She was the first hostess in the United States to ask her women guests to bring their maids; and she never once has asked me to sing when I was there. I did sing, of course, but she was too well-bred to let me feel under the slightest obligation. American hostesses are certainly sometimes very odd in this connection. I have mentioned Fanny Reed and Mrs. Stevens in Boston, and the time I had to play "Tommy Tucker" and sing for my supper; and I am now reminded of another occasion even more unpardonable, one that made me indirectly quite a bit of trouble.
Once upon a time when I was visiting in Chicago, and was being made much of as an American prima donna freshly arrived from European triumphs, some old friends of my father gave me a reception. I had been for nearly fourteen months abroad, and had come back with the associations and manners of the best people of the older countries: and this I particularly mention to suggest what a shock my treatment was to me.
On the day of the reception I had one of my worst sick headaches. I did not want to go, naturally, but the husband of the woman giving the reception called for me and begged that I would show myself there, if only for a few moments. My mother also urged me to make an effort and go. I made it—and went. In view of what afterwards occurred, I want to say that my costume was a black velvet gown created by Worth, with a heavy, long, handsome coat and a black velvet hat. When I reached the house I was so ill that I could not stand at the door with my hostess to receive the guests, but remained seated, hoping that I would not groan aloud with the throbbing of my head.
The ladies began arriving, and nearly every one of them was in full evening dress—in the afternoon! Mrs. Marshall Field, I remember, came in an elaborate point lace shawl, and no hat.