New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-02-01

Music
Russian and F rench Art Songs
Mingle With Negro "spirit-
uals" at Aeolian Hall
By H. E. Krehbiel

The music of the black people of the
United States when it has been heard
III our concert rooms hitherto has
come, as rule, from negro choruses.
or, latterly, in more or less sophisti-
Gated form as isolated examples in the
1oikseng programmes CT some of our
white concert givers. The most eff
1ective presentation which we can re-
call, outside of the concerts of the
original Fisk Jubilee Singers forty years
ago, was by a large chorus in Mr..
oauisbury's pictures of Southern plan
tatlon life out of doors across the East
River. Since then the singing of the
tine mems choirs sent out from time
to time by the negro educational insti-
tutlons has challenged admiration for
the singers and the beauty of Afro
American melody, but too often the
spirit Of the music has been lost either
IN the decentralization or the affected
manner of the singers. Of negro
artlsta who have appeared before the
public on their purely artistic merits
there have been few, though we cherish
pleasant recollections, at least three
decades old, of the violinist Senior
White, who was one of the ornaments
OF South American art.
Last night at Aeolian Hall Roland
". hayes, negro tenor, gave q concert
IN winch he disclosed himself in q two
told capacity-as singer who asked no
odds on the score of his color, and as
an interpreter of the songs of his peo-
PIE 1t Is no5 necessarily the duty of
critical recorder Of musical doings
to confess in what capacity it was that
singer or instrumentalist evoked the
most pleasurable emotions in him; but
IN this case it may be said that it was
quite impossible TO avoid the attitude
winch was most sensib1y displayed also
by the audience.
Mr.. Roland w. Hayes's hearers were
largely black people, who naturally
were most powerfully moved by the
group of "spirituals" which he sang
after examples of Russian art-song by
hachmanlnoff and Tschaikoffsky, French
songs by Massenet and Fourdrain and
English songs (the first sung in
hrench( by Campbell Upton, Harry
Burleigh and Coleridge- TAYLOR CON
away, Awake, Beloved" from "Hia-
Watha.D Nevertheless the fact that
the splrituals" made the most pro-
found emotional appeal to the audi
ence was quite as much due to the
manner in which they were sung as to
their purely musical contents addressed
to the critical faculty of all hearers
alike Mr.. Hayes put as much art into
them as he did into the French songs
and more than he did into the Russian,
whose more varied sentiment taxed his
understanding as we'll as his somewhat
limited range of dramatic expression.
Ih1s was particularly the case in the
Ischaikofsky song "Why?" which calls
Tor large gamut of expression.
The negro "spirituals" aside, as a
vocal artist he was at his hest in the
Dream Song from "Manon," in which
not only his beautiful voice but also
vocal culture of high order was in
evidence. Few singers of recent years
nj. Clement excepted have sung the
ecstatlc bit as exquisitely as Mr. Hayes
sang 1t. His voice is a tenor of fine and
pure quality, peculiarly delightful in
tmbre when he sings mezza-voce, and
so admirably schooled in almost every
respect that we fancy his occasional
strenuous production of acute tones is
bit of forgetfuness of his teachers
injunctions, though it may be a con-
cesslon to the popular tendency to i'm
pose upon his hearers by sheer volume
and sorority. That vice is more gener-
ally practised in opera than in the con-
cert room.
Mr.. Hayes's interpretative territory
was not disclosed as large one last
night, bit that may have been due to
his list of songs. The opportunities in
this direction were confined chiefly to
two songs of fine melodic and harmonic
texture by Mr.. Burleigh and the two
Russian songs already referred to. The
"spirituals' on the programme were 81
Stood on de Ribber oh Jordan" otis
Me, 0 Lord" "By and By" and peter,
Go Ring-a Dem Bells" to which he
added Didn't 1t Rain!" and GO Down,
Moses the arrangements by Mr..
Burleigh, who played the accompani-
ments to them delightfully."-. The songs
have been Transmitted into art-songs by
these arrangements, which employ de-
lincative devices as we'll as modern
harmonic devices. but the sentiment of
their tunes has not been spoiled They
are soon to be published by the Ricordi
house.