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.