When but ten years old, he had become a performer of such excellence as to attract the notice and to receive the unequivocal praise of such good judges as Strakosch, Dodworth, W.V. Wallace, and other noted musicians of New York.
When it was resolved to form as public performers the "Luca family," the decided musical powers possessed by young Cleveland made his services indispensable, and he was of course taken as a member. As the "wonderful boy pianist," he everywhere created quite a furore. The ladies in the audiences were especially delighted with him; and forgetting often, in their enthusiasm, that he was black, it seemed that they would certainly carry him away.
Never satisfied to rest alone upon his fine natural endowments, our young artist pushed his studies, entering the classical, the technical domain of the great master-composers, and playing with easy, graceful, magnetic touch, and delightfully winning expression, any of their works. As a reader at sight of compositions the most difficult, it is doubtful whether he had an equal in this country.
The prejudiced or incredulous, before having observed his rare powers for reading and playing, often as a test, and sometimes with a hope to embarrass him, placed before him some technical and very difficult work. But the readiness with which he played the piece changed one who had come to doubt or to scorn into a silent, deeply surprised, and interested listener; and it was most always the case, too, that such a one, yielding to the exquisite charm of the music, as well as to the gentlemanly, graceful manners of the young virtuoso, became from that time forth his warm admirer and friend.
But this brilliant artist did not confine himself to the interpretation of the more difficult compositions for the piano. At the time of which I am writing,—twenty years ago,—his success as a performer before miscellaneous audiences could not have been so great, had he not possessed, in a most pleasing degree, a versatility of talent. His repertoire was an extensive one, and decidedly "taking" in the varied character of its excellent pieces. Many of the latter were simple, yet always purely musical, and of course highly pleasing.
Before the public, Mr. Luca was, in the best sense, a successful performer; while, in those smaller and finer artistic circles where the more delicate and higher musical forms were appreciated, he delighted and even instructed his listeners, receiving their warmest praise.
True art is ever noble and ennobling: in its domain its devotees are known and valued, not by the color of their faces, but by the depth of artistic love that they feel, and by the measure of success to which they attain. And so the subject of this sketch, although of a complexion quite dark, and often suffering from the coldness, if not the insults, of those afflicted with "color-phobia," was yet ever sought after and cordially received upon terms of equality by all the great musicians wherever he journeyed. Nor did the press of the country, nor people of culture generally, fail to pass upon him the highest encomiums. A few of these are elsewhere given.
Besides his ability as a pianist, Cleveland Luca was also a vocalist of fair powers. No especial pains being taken, however, to develop this faculty, he attracted, as a singer, no great attention.
On the 27th of March, 1872, in far-away Africa, whither he had nobly gone to carry the bright, cheering, and refining light of his musical genius, his frail constitution yielding to a fever, he died at the age of forty-five.
It is hard to over-estimate the great good this remarkable artist accomplished for his much-abused race in dissipating, by his wonderful musical qualities, the unjust and cruel prejudice that so generally prevailed against the former at the beginning of his career; for in him was fully and splendidly illustrated the capacity of the dark-hued race for reaching the highest positions in the walks of the art melodious. The example, moreover, of his intelligent parents, who, when they discovered his talents,—avoiding the mistake often made by some, who, alas! but too frequently rest content merely with observing the signs of genius in their children, allowing the at first bright spark to go untended, to burn "with fitful glare," and to finally become, from this neglect, extinguished,—devoted themselves at once to their fullest and most artistic development,—this example, I say, is one to be highly commended, and ever to be followed.