Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-06-02
TIE JuDomgsr OF a SINGER.

From one so gifted and experienced W:
should expect many thoughts of original
ity. Bat such expectation has not beer
realized. The paper is very gentle and
harmless, and quite an insipid production
She tells US that to the public singer, more
than any other artist, sympathetic appre
citation is necessity, and that the audi
ence exhibiting the most appreciation gets
all things. Human energies are stimu
lated, and human capacity is enlarged by
appreciative recognition; genius always
responds with its best to appreciation
She Gays there is no power in mechanical
singing. But this is not new truth, and
applies to all arts. The mechanical per.
Torrance is never effective. The spirit Of
a musical, dramatic or other effort appeal
ing to human sympathies or passions must
give warm and breathing life to the form
that human beings are asked TO embrace
There are one or two statements, however,
the ordinary level of the essay. Referring
to the frequent repetition of musical part
she testifes that while it is accompanied
by certain amount of tediousness Oh
WEAKNESS, yet song which gives fitting
expression to any genuine emotion of the
human heart is ole of the most durable Of
all things in art. The artist finds with
each rendering an experience more
or less peculiar to ITSELF Different
audiences, different stage companionship,
different acoustic properties, the Carrying
experiences of the private life of the singer,
all have their effect upon her performance
Thus each rendering has something new il
it. She might have gone beyond this ex.
preston. The lady so gifted in voice is evi'
IDENTIFY unable to express IN words all
she feels. She might have expressed the
fact thatthe emotions are quickened by their
exercise fine sympathies never refuse an
| appeal the melodies that speak to US never
speak wholly in vain. A gifted singer,
who was renowned in California for her
genius and the erratic life she led, and who
never knew what true home was, but was
possessed of all the qualities that would
have made home sacred shrine and a
castle of strength and peace and joy,
achieved her highest triumphs in the
popular heart by the singing of Home,
Sweet Home" She once remarked to the
writer: 1" have sung the song from the
fooslights of the grand opera houses, be-
fore the most brilliant and cultured an
diehces in many places, in music halls and
melodeons and theaters, in wild mining
camps, at public festivals and in the con-
cert, and l never sang it vet, sick or well,
sore at heart or gay, that l did not feel
its sweet influence or that my hearers did
not come into full sympathy with my own
feelings. 1 have sung it thousands of
times, but it was always new to me and to
to Them" Nilsson explains that at times
the singer, for no apparently adequate rea-
efforts; then, again, the least unexpected
event may make her hoarse, and, despite her
desire, her vocal organs will refuse to
respond. The voice, she believes, cannot
be trained to overcome such causes of de-
preston. She believes the Americans
thoroughly appreciate good music; they
travel much, have money to crafty their
tastes, deliberate with good judgment and
refuse to patronize that which does not
suit their tastes, Appreciation Of good
music in the chief cities of the United
States is fully equal, she declares, to that
OF the European capitals, This is but
cumulative testimony, but she does go a
little beyond her colleagues in art in distin-
gushing between the judgments of sections.
Thus she accords to the Eastern and Mid
die State audiences more deliberation Of
Judgment, and to our Western and South
ern audiences heartier responses and those
that are quicker in expression. There is
little provincialism in America, and as
consequence society is pretty much the
same in all parts of the country, and so
with the advantages the Americans pos
sess they have arrived at a point where
they know what is fine in the music art.
The pride of perhaps one locality may be
touched by the remark of the lady that it
may almost be said there is no intellectual
metropolis in this country, our institu.
tions, education and degrees of refinement
being substantially the same in Boston
and San Francisco, Chicago and New
York, st. Louis and Philadelphia. She
loves to sing, she remarks. She thanks
God for the gift of melody and enthusiasm
for its exercise it is her life and enjoy.
ment, and if her auditors in America have
received any genuine pleasure from it, it is
in great degree due to their own responsive
sympathy. which has made the benefit and
the obligation mutual. TAis is very
graceful compliment; but if Nilsson is SO
disintsrestedly pleased in giving pleasure
should she not have afforded broader op-
portunity to the people to manifest their
sympathetic appreciation ?" She held
her talents at such price when in Amer.
lea that only the few, and those well to do
in the world, were enabled to hear her
She confined herself to the greater cities,
because her demands upon managers would
not permit them to venture beyond the
centers of wealth, and even then her con.
cerss cannot be said to have been in the
broAdess sense popular, for the masses Of
the people were not given the opportunity
to hear her. Her gift of melody" was
not only limited in its exercise to the me-
tropolis, but was unhesrd by the mass Of
the metropolitans who would have been