[ { "id": 211780, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "170 \n\nB. Musical \n\nMany of the theatrical entertainments of the amateurs were varied with musical interludes; sometimes the piece itself required an orchestra and for all these purposes resort was, of course, made to non-professionals. Just as with the dramatic companies, the orchestral accompanists were engaged on an ad hoc basis. As a result quality differed; occasionally the Herald thought the music \"first rate\"; then again, in 1856, it was of the opinion that \"the music was ineffective\", and seeing the underlying weakness, it advised that some combination of the musical talents of the place might be made with advantage”. \n\n55 \n\nSome years later, in 1861, in a letter to the Editor by one signed \"Philharmonic\" the subject was again broached; it had occurred to him \"how much gratitude the amateurs of Shanghai could evoke if it were possible for them to form a vocal or instrumental association to give occasional subscription concerts\", and, tongue in cheek perhaps, he added that “probably nowhere out of the profession is there so much musical talent to be found as in Shanghai and certainly nowhere an audience better also to appreciate that talent” \n\n56 \n\n― \n\n(1.9.1880) \n\nWith the arrival in 1864 of Jean Rémusat (11.5.1815) things began to look better. Rémusat was a French flautist of considerable fame. He had entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of fifteen, but had spent most of his professional career in London before coming to Shanghai. Among others he had starred in the Promenade Concerts that were organised by Louis Jullien in the Drury Lane Theatre. According to a contemporary, Rémusat was \"fort intelligent” but “un peu excentrique”, and his colleagues must certainly have thought so when he told them that he would sail off to Shanghai to live there till the end of his days. Whatever his motives, cultural life in the Yangtze port was boosted by Rémusat. He gave concerts in Shanghai (of which only one, however, has been chronicled in the Herald: May 10, 1866) and Macao (on June 3 and 17, 1866). And, to return to the subject of organised music, he inaugurated the Philharmonic Society, probably in late 1866 or early 1867. \n\nIn the meantime, apart from the music incorporated in an evening of theatricals, concerts and recitals were given. Again, a distinction must be made between local amateur performances, those that were given by members of the military forces, and the travelling professional musicians. \n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211783, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "173\n\nat Shanghai\" occurred on Friday September 19 1856\" and by a remarkable coincidence it also marked the introduction of a brand new instrument to the China Coast music lover, viz the Saxophone. This, though, was not how it was announced. The artist, Ali Ben Sou Alle, who had studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made a career in France and England as a clarinetist, was of Turkish descent and had seen fit to rename the instrument invented by Adolphe Sax in 1840 into something recalling his fatherland: the Turkophone. He had made a tour through Asia and in Hong Kong his success had not been unequivocal.\" In Shanghai, reception was somewhat mixed (cf Calendar: 19.9.1856). Apart from the \"Turkophone” he handled the \"Turkophonini” (which may have been the soprano saxophone), the clarinet, and an instrument \"which we trust our Scottish friends will pardon us for pronouncing something worse than the bagpipe”. \n\nAs details of the activities of other artists that visited Shanghai will be found in the Calendar of Performances it seems hardly necessary here to elaborate on them. But attention should be drawn to the first lady singer\" who engrossed the public there in July 1863: Miss Amelia Bailey. On a second trip some months later, in October and November, she drew \"crowded houses small wonder in a place with so many soldiers and bachelors.\n\nIV. The Actors\n\n>72\n\nJ\n\nFor those that did not belong to the taipan class, that is, those not partners in a firm but lower mercantile assistants, the freedom to engage in whatever activities they wanted in their spare time was limited. Employees out on their first term called griffins were usually not allowed to marry because the firm did not feel like paying for home leave for an entire family. Another restriction put in their way was that commonly there was a clause in their contract which ran: \"All horse and pony racing, or riding in races, and all acting in public theatricals is forbidden without the consent of the resident partner”.73\n\nHere the reasons were partly financial as the employers feared that the youngsters might be carried away with the rehearsals, with disadvantageous consequences for the job they were supposed to do; and partly social, in that the senior merchants were perhaps afraid that the juniors would prove to be more popular on the stage than they themselves. Of those that were permitted and willing to don sock and buskin it is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211803, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 218, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "193\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Prologue, music\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (A)\n\nN: First performance of the season\n\nR: The proscenium had been adorned with \"a very pretty drop scene of the Port of Leghorn\". The report was in general terms only; both pieces were cleverly and effectively sustained”, During the interval “a most effective Irish song was sung and the orchestra under the veteran melodist Sir George Smart gave unqualified satisfaction* (NCH 31.1.1852).\n\n23.2.1852 (Mon)\n\nT. MORTON: “A Roland for an Oliver\" (1819)\n\nT: Farce (2 acts)\n\n\"No!\" by W.H. MURRAY or F. REYNOLDS\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: Theatre Royal (A)\n\nN: Second performance of the season\n\nR: Tonight there was a \"numerous attendance of the beau monde, but not so much as on the previous occasion\". A Roland for an Oliver was \"an old established favourite and we need only say that the scenery was admirable, the ladies well dressed, the bride quite lovely and the whole went off amidst enthusiastic cheers and bursts of applause”. The other farce \"No!\" was \"replete with fun and sly sarcasm on unequal matches between lovely young wives and gentlemen rather the worse for wear\". Somewhat contradictorily the critic continued, \"it decidedly exhibited much more spirit than its precursor and was hailed accordingly with more enthusiasm and good will\".\n\nThere was also “a solo on the pianoforte by a young lady, her first appearance, as we believe, on any stage. The rapidity of her fingering, the clearness of her touch and what is so frequently wanting with many performers, her musical emphasis, were striking. We hear that the young lady graduated at the Conservatoire at Paris and her style is characterised by that brilliancy and distinctness so marked in performances at that capital”. No more was heard of this pianist; as to her name and career we are left in the dark. Was she the wife of a local merchant or a touring artist? Or was the \"lady\" in this instance too, a “gentleman\"?? (NCH 28.2.1852).\n\n24.3.1852 (Mon)\n\nG. COLMAN Jr: \"The Review\" (1800)\n\nT: Musical farce (2 acts)\n\nR. AYTON: \"The Rendezvous\" (1818)\n\nT: Operetta (1 act).\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: New Theatre Royal (A)\n\nN: Third performance of the season\n\nR: For the occasion a new drop scene, depicting the Bay of Naples, had been painted. Apart from the plays \"a company of excellent jugglers amused the visitors, with a good display of surprising feats of sleight of hand\". Possibly these were Chinese, for in the announcement (NCH 20.3.1852) it was stated that there are several parties endeavouring to obtain Native Conjurers for the next theatrical night\".\n\nOf course the whole “went off with much eclat, the characters were well sustained and admirably dressed, the scenery as usual very good and the music first rate” (NCH 27.3.1852).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211808, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "198\n\nT: Farce (1 act) C: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: D\n\nR: This was the last theatrical entertainment organised by Horatio BUSKIN and he could look back on a successful \"career\" as manager. Only the music had flagged of late (tonight \"a buzz in a box near the proscenium represented the music — we were ten feet away from it and it was therefore lost upon us\" the days of \"Sir George Smart and Messrs Thalberg\" and \"Koenig\" were over).\n\n—\n\nTo make up for these shortcomings \"Mr. CLAY as Honeybun (in the Infanticidal Farce) was, as he always is, first rate\". In Slasher and Crasher the public witnessed the debut of \"Miss Polly DEXTER as Rosa, affording hope of a new evening star of the first magnitude\" (NCH 23.2.1856).\n\n14.8.1856 (Thur)\n\nN.N.: The Nigger Doctor and his Patient Patient or the First Lesson in Surgery\n\nT: Negro farce\n\nC: Travelling American Company (Messrs Baker, Woodward and Montgomery) Th: Old Theatre (C)\n\nN: The whole evening was announced as a \"Grand Ethiopian Musical Soirée\"\n\nR: An advertisement only was published in the NCH of August 9. In it the above mentioned gentlemen (formerly of the New York Serenaders) praised their performances as having been \"the theme of universal admiration during the past four years throughout the East Indies as well as the Australian Colonies\". In addition to the farce, the programme consisted of \"Negro songs, interspersed with willy saying and doings peculiar to the African race in America\".\n\n19.9.1856 (Fri)\n\nConcert by Ali Ben Sou Alle and some local amateurs.\n\nInstruments: Turkophone, \"Turkophonini\", clarinet, piano.\n\nProgramme:\n\nG. ROSSINI: Two overtures. V. BELLINI: Selections from \"La Sonnambula\". F. MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY: \"The Fairest Flower\" (song). Some German songs, The \"Shanghai Redowa Walse\", Medley of English, Scottish and Irish airs. Th: N.N. (C)\n\nR: Tonight was the occasion of the first real concert in the Settlement's history. It was given by Mr. ALI BEN SOU ALLE, a Turk who, after a study at the Conservatoire de Paris, had been appointed Directeur de Musique de Marine in Senegal (which had been French since 1871) in 1844. In 1847 he returned to Paris to enter the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, but the following year he went to London where he found employment in the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theatre at the Haymarket. He learned to play some instruments that had been invented by Adolphe Sax, the Belgian musician (1814-1894) and thereafter he made an extensive tour to Australia, Java, Singapore, Manila and China (CM 16, 10, 1856). In Hong Kong and even Canton he had appeared in August and October 1856 (CM 7.8. 14.8. 21.8. 16.10.1856). In between he gave two recitals in the Yangtze port. In the Survey it has already been stated that the soloist entertained the public with performances on several instruments that had been rechristened Turkophone and Turkophonini: in reality they were the Saxophone and (probably) the soprano saxophone. Well may we ask how these instruments, which were only of recent origin (1840s), were received by an audience completely unused to their sound. The artist interpreted a selection from Bellini's \"La Sonnambula\" on the \"Turkophone\" and the critic wrote that \"the compass of the instrument is very great but we confess to some disappointment as regards its quality of tone, and correctness of tone also, in some few notes, and altogether we think it an imperfect instrument", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211858, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 273, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "248\n\n39 NCH 14.3.1863.\n\n40 NCH 2.5.1863.\n\n41 NCH 17.6.1865, 24.6.1865.\n\n42 NCH 28.3.1863.\n\n43 For minstrel shows see: Engle; Toll.\n\n44 NCH 13.2.1864.\n\n43\n\n46 NCH 7.5.1864. cf Dictionary of National Biography, Suppl. 2, Vol. I, p. 545. Here it is mentioned that the touring group was disbanded in 1863, but this is obviously incorrect.\n\n47 NCH 15.2.1862. Could it be that the originator of this Company was the same as \"G.B.W. Lewis\", who built the Astley Amphitheatre in Melbourne in 1854? Cf MacGuire, p. 97, n. 1.\n\n43 NCH 19.11.1864.\n\n49 Smith, p. 243.\n\n50 SCR 5.5.1865.\n\n51 NCH 14.1.1865.\n\n52 SCR 25.1.1865. Probably they first tried their luck in Macao, but there the public interest was very small on February 11 and the next day the performance had even to be cancelled (BGM 13.2.1865).\n\n53 of Appleton, p. 54; about the decline of the benefit system see Troubridge, p. 87ff. 34 Performance 24.3.1852. NCH 27.3.1852.\n\n53\n\n36 NCH 26.1.1856. NCH 28.2.1861. Letter to the \"Daily Shipping & Commercial News\" 27.12.1861; see also NCH 9.10.1858.\n\n47 Carse, p. 70; this was in the 1851-1852 season. Biographical data are given in Fétis, Vol. VII, p. 229; Born in Bordeaux, 11.5.1815; he was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris, 25.10.1830, where he became a pupil of the famous flautist Jean Louis Tulou. In 1832 he won the first prize in a competition for his qualités précieuses: beau son, reticulation brilliante dans les traits et belle manière de phraser. He spent part of his life in Britain, where he was engaged as the first flautist of the \"Théâtre de la Reine\". This should not read Queen's Theatre (as it is translated by Riemann and others), but Her Majesty's Theatre at the Haymarket. In Fétis it is stated that the theatre closed in 1853; in fact it closed for the season 1852-1853 (Howard, P. 111). Rémusat subsequently returned to France to become a member of the Théâtre Lyrique orchestra (Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique?). Pougin, in the Supplement (Vol. II, p. 403) however doubts this: \"Je ne sais si le fait est exact; en tout cas Rémusat n'aurait pas tardé à retourner en Angleterre, car en 1856 j'ai connu cet excellent artiste à Londres où il occupait une brilliante situation\". He died in Shanghai 1.9.1880. Besides being a soloist he composed a number of concertinos, fantasias, etc for his own instrument.\n\n58 Supplement to Fétis by Pougin, Vol. II, p. 403. of note 57.\n\n59 BGM 4.6.1866, 18.6.1866.\n\n60 Lang, p. 51.\n\n61 A concert of the Philharmonic Society on 26.2.1867 is mentioned in NCH 23.3.1867.\n\n42 NCH 26.2.1859.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]