[
    {
        "id": 210728,
        "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-1986",
        "page_number": 79,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "62\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\nThe site referred to is the area of rising ground to the south of the site occupied by the present Government House and on a site formerly occupied by the Record Office on \"Government Hill\" which had served as a temporary Government House from 1841 to 1842.\n\nOn Oct 7th in 1861 Mr. Th. Donaldson was appointed Curator of the Public Gardens and the gardens were thrown open to the public under certain regulations on August 6th 1864. In October of that year the military band began giving promenade concerts in the gardens at stated intervals. The establishment of the public gardens had obviously done much to instill among the European community a sense of both pride and achievement and this sense of well-being was reflected in the wide-scale level of planting in the colony and confirmed by Eitel (1895) who stated that:\n\n\"The increased attention, given to the cultivation of trees along the public roads and around European dwellings on the hill side, had already done very much to displace the pristine barrenness of the site on which the city was built by patches of shrubbery.\"\n\nIn the copious correspondence between Hongkong and London, the gardens were referred to either as a Botanical Garden (as when the Surveyor General ordered seeds for it from a Mr. Veitch of Chelsea in 1861) or as a Public Garden and was under the auspices of the Surveyor General and a Garden Committee.\n\nIn 1871 Charles Ford was appointed as the first Superintendent of Gardens and in his first letter back to Dr. Hooker of Kew after his arrival, he reported:\n\n\"The Public Gardens are in a very fair order and well stocked with plants as regards quantity, but we require greater variety.\n\n\"Very few of the plants are labelled and I believe, no catalogue of them has been drawn up. We have not any Orchids nor Ferns except those indigenous to the Island. The plants which have been introduced are chief-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "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": 211782,
        "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": 197,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "172\n\nstationed in Shanghai during the 1860s were nearly always open air ones. But sometimes a theatrical company co-operated with one of the bands, like the Amateur Burlesque Company on June 29, 1864. Otherwise, performances took place on the Bund, or Embankment, along the river, which was the favourite promenade of the foreigners as well as the most prestigious section of the Settlement. Records have come down to us of concerts by the French 101st regiment in March 1861 (“By permission of Colonel Pouget [who was the commanding officer of the regiment JH] we are authorised to state that the band of the 101st regiment will perform every Sunday and Thursday (weather permitting) before the headquarters of General De Montauban at Messrs Rémi, Schmidt & Co. [this was in the French Concession JH] between the hours of 3 and 4”*. Further concerts by the Rhenish Band and the band of the 67th regiment in June and July 1864 provided entertainment which “the residents evidently appreciated (...) large numbers (...) congregating during the performances”.67\n\nProfessional musicians\n\nFrom time to time professional musical artists visited Shanghai, and, as with the travelling dramatic companies, 1864 and 1865 were a golden age for the public. In the first decades of the twentieth century Shanghai was honoured with recitals by, to name just a few, Feodor Chaliapine, John MacCormack, Fritz Kreisler and Amelita Galli-Curci, but during the fifties and sixties it was only the lesser gods that came to the city. In fact, hardly any one of the artists in this period can be traced in contemporary reference works. This does not mean, of course, that they could not have been capable musicians able to provide enjoyment during an evening. That such was not always the case, though, has already been shown by the criticism drawn by the performance of Prof. Shonbrun, which led the Herald to state that \"in this remote place we have so few opportunities of hearing really good music that we hunger for it and can ill brook disappointment\".68 But then there were Messrs Desvachez and Grossi whose concert in February 1865 had \"called for favourable comment at the hands of our music critic\".69\n\nYet, bearing in mind the conditions of travel in the 19th century, it is amazing enough that European musicians were at all willing to undertake an Asian tour with only very uncertain financial prospects.\n\n\"The first public concert (properly so called) that has ever been given",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211826,
        "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": 241,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "216\n\nR: Nearly five years after his last recital in Shanghai, Martin SIMONSEN returned to the port, this time as a member of \"Mr. Smythe's troupe\". There was also the novelty of a lady singer, Miss Amelia BAILEY, who \"could not fail to render the entertainment attractive even had her voice been less excellent than it is\". This was the last night of a series for which public interest had not been particularly large; only on July 31st had there been an \"excellent house\" and in a reproaching comment, the Herald trusted that the company would \"meet with more uniform support at Hong Kong, the residents of which are reputed more willing to put up with a little heat for the sake of an evening's amusement\". (NCH 1,8,1863).\n\nOctober 1863\n\nOn October 24, the North China Herald informed its readers that \"the Circus Company announced more than a year ago as upon its way to Shanghai has at length arrived and promises to be a valuable means of dispelling the ennui inseparable from winter in China\".\n\n17.10.-23.10.1863\n\nA series of promenade concerts by Miss Amelia Bailey (singing) and Marquis Chisholm (piano), as well as the Rhenish Band.\n\nTH: N.N. (H)\n\n7.11.-13.11.1863\n\nA continuation of the concerts mentioned above.\n\nR: In spite of the meagre support met in Shanghai, the Smythe troupe ventured to return in October after a visit to Nagasaki. This time the concerts were more rewarding - financially, for in November it was noticed that “Miss BAILEY has continued to draw crowded houses\" and that she has no reason to complain of the reception she has met in Shanghai\". (NCH 17.10, 24.10, 14.11.1863).\n\n10.2.1864 (Wedn)\n\nE.B. LYTTON: \"The Lady of Lyons\" (1838)\n\nT: Romantic comedy (5 acts)\n\nC: C.R. Faylor's travelling company\n\nTh: Olympic Theatre (H)\n\nR: The port was honoured by a visit of Mr. FAYLOR's theatrical company in February and May. This was after it had toured Macao (in December 1863; see BGM 14.12.1863) and Hong Kong. There it was highly successful, but the first performance in the Yangtze city was unfortunately a failure in consequence of the ludicrous incompetence of that portion of the company which had been collected in Shanghai and pressed into service. The audience, moreover, was riotous in the extreme and displayed the worst possible taste in exciting themselves to increase the confusion on the stage\" (see also Survey, p. 22). (N.C.H. 13.2.1864).\n\n13.2.1864 (Sat)\n\nC. DANCE: \"Delicate Ground\" (1849)\n\nT: Comic drama (1 act)\n\nC. SELBY: \"A Lady and a Gentleman in a Peculiarly Perplexing Predicament\" (1841)\n\nT: Burletta (1 act)\n\nC: C.R. Faylor's travelling company\n\nTh: Olympic Theatre (H)\n\nR: It is not quite clear how many nights were given by the FAYLOR company. The Herald of February 27 states that **it still continues its performances\", but, in view of what had happened earlier, \"naturally enough has not been patronised by any of the ladies resident in the Settlement\". In May, it turns up again in the pages of the paper. (NCH 27.2.1864).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]