Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1881 — Jenny Lind. [ARTICLE]

Jenny Lind.

It would not be an easy matter nowadays to Giscover a young lady of sixteen able to play and sing from memory, from the first to the last note, Gluck’s “Armida,” Spontini’s “Vestale,” Cherubini’s “Deux Joannees,” Dalayrac’s “Chateau de Montenero,” besides the operas of Mozart and’Weber, the oratorios of Haydn, and all the melodies of Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn. It would be still more difficult to find an artist who could understand and enter into the spirit of these great masters, divine their intentions, preserve their local coloring and appropriate their style. But it «ould be almost impossible to name a voc ilist able to read at sight the most difficult compositions, to remember strains of irregular rhythm, and perform them immediately, as if she had herself created them. Such, however, was Jenny Lind, and in this preparation, this perseverance, in this early and undivided study may be seen the germ of her subsequent prodigious popularity. Quite different this from the system now adopted of venturing on the first European stages after a few lessons from a renown master, some drawing room successes, and without even a sprinkling of the real acquirements which alone can justify a public career.