Antonia Dolores

  • Horace Stevens (Part 2)

    DAVID HIBBARD's overview of the life and times of the Australian bass-baritone Horace Stevens continues with Part 2.

    1876-1902

    The life and career of Horace Ernest Stevens (1876-1950) remains largely forgotten, despite accolades from Sir Edward Elgar as “the best Elijah I have ever heard.... not even excepting Santley” 1 and from Dame Nellie Melba who said, “Horace Stevens was one of the greatest in the part of Wotan”.2

    Few remember him today. Those who do met him during Stevens’s seventies, in the late 1940s. Lauris Elms, the great Australian contralto, met him on several occasions.  She described him as “pompous”,3 a trait echoed by one of his last students, bass Russell Smith. Geoffrey Chard, baritone, remembered him as “very old fashioned”4 according to the new patterns of operatic performance post-World War Two, with new “singing actors” like Tito Gobbi making headlines. This may account for the disappearance of Horace Stevens from the Australian operatic consciousness soon after his death in 1950.

    Details concerning his personal life are relatively few in secondary sources. He was born in Prahran in Melbourne on 26 October 1876 to Horace Stevens (1850-1916) and Fanny, nee Gittins (1850-1936), who had married on the 21 November 1874. His paternal grandfather, Alfred, was from Reading, Berkshire, while his maternal grandfather, Cyrus, was from Shrewsbury, Shropshire.5

    Interior of the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings in 1888 showing the stage and Grand organ. State Library Victoria, Melbourne.

    The register of All Saints Grammar School, St Kilda, lists him as an only child.6 This is incorrect, as his parents also had a daughter, Emily Frances in 1875.7 Emily (Emelie) Frances Stevens, named after her mother, was a contralto who was to sing alongside her brother on several occasions, including his debut in his most famous role, Elijah in 1902. She married organist W.F.G. Steele in 1904, and as Mrs. W.F.G. Steele continued to sing in Melbourne.8 The All Saints Grammar School registers Horace’s enrolment at the age of “seven years, eleven months and ten days” on the 6 October 1884, Horace Stevens senior being listed as a dentist of Chapel Street, St Kilda. His teacher at All Saints was a Mr. W.H. Goff JP, and more importantly, his choir master, and first voice teacher was Mr. Charles Truelove.9 According to Stevens’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Mr. Truelove later created the choir for the opening of St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, in 1891.10

    Stevens’s solo debut as a singer was in the duet ‘I waited on the Lord’ (Mendelssohn) with “Master William Chamberlain”. The Prahran Telegraph doesn’t give his age but records that the performance was so successful that it was repeated at the Bishops Court.11 In 1888, Horace was selected by Mr. Frederic Cowen (1852-1935), the Music Director of the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition, to sing the part of the Youth in Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah. His fellow soloists were Madame Gabriella Boema (an Italian operatic soprano, who had recently sung Donna Anna and Valentine in Melbourne), Miss Christian (contralto and a popular ballad singer),12 Sir C.M.J. Edwards (tenor) and Mr H. Morton in the bass-baritone title role. Stevens’s contribution was chronicled in The Age: “Master Horace Stevens singing with good effect the short fragments of solo allotted to the youth”.13

    Madame Patey

    Madame Patey. Photo by Elliott & Fry, London.

     

    Sir Charles Santley

    Sir Charles Santley, 1890. Photo by Barraud, London.

    National Portrait Gallery, London

    In 1889 and 1890, celebrated British baritone Sir Charles Santley (1834-1922) sang two sets of performances of Elijah in Melbourne, with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic. In the 1890 performances the youth was again sung by Master Horace Stevens.14 Santley was supported by an all-star cast, including tenor Armes Beaumont (1842-1913), who although born in England, was discovered and trained in Australia, and specialised in high lyric tenor roles.15 The contralto in the quartet was Australian Ada Crossley (1871-1929) who had made her professional debut only the year before. In 1894 she went to England to have lessons with Santley and went on to have a stellar international career.16The soprano was American Emma Osgood; the contralto arias sung by Janet Patey (1842-1894), the great contralto of the era before Clara Butt. Stevens’s contribution was acknowledged by The Argus and The Age respectively: “The small part of the youth sent by Elijah to ‘look toward the sea’ was undertaken by Master Horace Stevens”.17 “A word of praise must be given to Master Horace Stevens for his rendering of the recitatives of the youth”.18 Santley and Madame Patey presented Stevens with photographs of themselves as a memento.

    In 1890 Horace began studying dentistry with his father,19 a somewhat unnerving thought that a fourteen-year-old boy would be checking one’s teeth.  This was to become his primary career until the end of World War 1 with singing as a major interest, nevertheless. An article on “Modern Dentistry” (Darling Downs Gazette,30 November 1908) by Mr Horace Stevens (the article doesn’t mention whether senior or junior) describes injecting the pulp of the tooth and the gum with “a hypodermic syringe … a cocaine and adrenaline solution. The adrenaline having an astringent effect on the pulp, and it is the more easily removed, while the cocaine desensitises, not only the nerve matter itself, but the sensitive dentine of the tooth”.20

    The article “Sketches of prominent youths: Our boy Nightingale” from The Prahran Telegraphof 17 September 1892,notes of Stevens: “His voice showed signs of breaking last year while singing alto, and it was determined that he should sever his connection with All Saints Choir at the end of the year, but last January, while on a visit to Launceston, he suddenly and fully recovered his voice, and sang several times at the Launceston churches and at the Tasmanian exhibition most successfully”. At around this time, he began lessons with Melbourne singing teacher, Miss Bessie Jukes, who helped settle his adult technique. His first performance under her tutelage was the solo in ‘Consider the Lilies’ (E.H. Packard) at a choral service for the relief of the distressed at Melbourne Town Hall in 1892.21

    Horace Stevens

    Horace in a photograph dedicated to his second teacher, Bessie Jukes

    Horace Stevens

    Horace the athlete

    This last piece appears to be for soprano and choir, which implies that maybe Bessie Jukes was working with the young Stevens’s head voice, rather like a modern countertenor today. The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry states that his voice did not break, but rather transitioned down, and that he stayed singing soprano until he was seventeen, which would have been 1893. Bessie Jukes must have been a remarkable teacher. She was a mezzo soprano, and in 1889 performed Messiah(Handel) with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic.22 In 1899 she was described as “Miss Bessie Jukes, the well-known contralto of Melbourne”.23 Jukes described herself as Horace’s mother’s “life-long friend” when the latter’s death in 1936.24

    In a 1936 interview in the magazine Table Talk, it was reported of Stevens, “He does not forget to give credit to whom credit is due, and says he always feels he owes much to his first teacher, Miss Bessie Jukes, with whom he studied when he was singing in the choir as a lad. ‘Every solo I had to sing, I always went over with her, and it is to her I owe many of my ideas now’.” In the same interview, the story that Horace’s voice didn’t “break”, as such, but “merely changed gradually” is mentioned again. This allowed him, by 1898, at a mere twenty-two years of age, to make his debut as a semi-professional solo baritone with quite advanced works.25

    In the choir of All Saints church at East St. Kilda, Melbourne, the 20 year old Horace stands fourth from the right in the second last row. Third from the right next to Horace, is his first singing teacher, Charles Truelove.

    Stevens’s extensive experience of singing in church choirs was also foundational in his musical development. The regularity of weekly rehearsals and sung services required choristers to sight read and learn their music swiftly and accurately. The rules of the Choir of All Saints’ Church, St Kilda, forwarded to me by Michael Humphries, the archivist, stated that a chorister absent for two Sunday services in a row was liable to be dismissed. According to Stevens’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the boys of All Saints Choir, St Kilda, were selected and trained specifically for the opening of St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne in 1891. He became a lay clerk in the Cathedral choir in 1898. Griffin notes that Stevens sang at the opening of the Cathedral as “a silver voiced soprano” and at the fiftieth anniversary of his membership of the choir as a “silver haired” baritone.26 Dorothea Rowse, the archivist for St Paul’s, stated that the choristers were paid a small stipend to cover costs. When one realises Stevens was working as a dentist, singing in the choir, rowing sculls (at which he was to become a major sportsman), playing cricket and later, hunting, it is astounding that he had time to fulfil his professional engagements as a singer!

    In 1898, he began his career as a solo baritone with the Castlemaine Liedertafel and Associated Ladies choir, on the 6 September at the Mechanic’s Institute, Mount Alexander. Liedertafel (literally ‘song table’) societies sprang up in Australia from the 1850s onwards. Of German origin, they were male voice choirs, and proved very popular in Melbourne in the 1870s and 1880s right up to the outbreak of World War 1. They produced a highly professional standard of choral music including recently composed works. On this occasion the society performed Dr C.H. Lloyd’s dramatic cantata Hero and Leander. Miss Maggie Stirling performed Hero, while Horace sang Leander. “The passion of the lovers found able exponents by these artists, while parts of the Liedertafel and Associated Ladies’ Choir were done justice to”. Hero and Leander, while not a vocally demanding piece, and running to a mere seventy pages of vocal score, is nonetheless ideal for young singers. Only when he drowns, is Leander required to sing sustained F’s above the staff (although alternative notes are supplied).  It was common practice after a cantata or oratorio performance for a piano to be brought on stage and for the soloists to perform encores.27 There was no exception here: “the first song fell to Mr Horace Stevens, ‘Strong Hearts’ (Home), in which his full baritone voice of much sweetness was so much appreciated that there were loud calls for an encore, but a bow from him passed. Upon the second occasion, however, he grew still higher in favour by his singing of ‘the Yeoman’s Wedding’ and for an encore he delighted with the song ‘I’m off to Philadelphia’.”28

    Mors et Vita

    Mors et Vita, Melbourne Town Hall, 26 October 1897

    State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    Judas Maccabaeus

    Judas Maccabaeus, Melbourne Town Hall, 22 November 1898

    State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    On 22 November 1898 in the Melbourne Town Hall, Stevens made his baritone debut with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, in Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus.29 For a twenty-two-year-old, this was quite a remarkable undertaking. Featuring four arias for the bass, the first is the show piece ‘Arm, Arm ye brave’. The Age opined, “HoraceStevens it may be said that, without possessing a voice of special resonance or power, he contrived to sing the bass airs with credit, though in the recitatives, his intonation was not always above reproof”.30

    Although not an unanimously brilliant review, his performance was judged successful enough for the Society to offer him the far more taxing baritone role in Gounod’s oratorio Mors et Vita in 1899.31 Seldom performed today, the work was composed in 1885 for the Birmingham Festival. A wonderful late piece of Gounod, the baritone solos are quite dramatic and declamatory. The tessitura of the aria Et Ego Johannes is unremittingly high and soft, a difficult undertaking even for an experienced singer. The entire role sits a little higher in the voice than the Handel, which may explain the intonation criticism the year before. Perhaps his voice sat naturally as a higher baritone. “Miss Nellie McClelland had not sufficient voice to do justice to the soprano music, and a similar remark is applicable to Mr Horace Stevens in the baritone part. With further practice and experience better results may be expected from both singers”.32

    Alongside Mors et Vita, 1899 was a busy year of recital engagements for Horace. In May were the celebrations for Queen Victoria’s Eightieth Birthday, for which a concert was given in Ballarat, conducted by Alberto Zelman,33 followed by performances of the ‘Victorian Operatic Company’ where young singers, including Horace, gave a concert prior to curtain up.34 He also appeared with sister Emelie in a concert in aid of St Thomas’ Church, Essendon, 35 and the following month took part in a recital for the Royal Melbourne Liedertafel.36 In September he performed with the ailing Armes Beaumont, the tenor from the performances of Elijah he had sung as a boy, with the Royal Melbourne Liedertafel at the Melbourne Town Hall. As was the fashion, the concert consisted of one or two major works, followed by various songs and arias. The major choral work on this occasion was Columbus! by Caspar (or Carl) Joseph Brambach (1838-1902), for male chorus, a baritone soloist (Columbus) and a tenor (The Captain). Its subject matter deals with the end of the voyage of discovery and the arrival in the New World. The baritone part appears much more suitable for a twenty-three-year-old baritone, featuring only one exposed, sustained F above middle C, and a far more comfortable tessitura.37 “Mr Horace Stevens sang his parts in very good style” being encored after his first solo. Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony was also performed.38

    W.F.G. Steele in 1908, seated at the organ at St Scot’s Church. Mrs W.F.G. Steele, Horace’s sister, is fourth from the right in the second row from the front. From The Encore, 15 August 1908.

    In November Horace took part in a patriotic concert to assist the Boer War effort and “in aid of the choir stalls for St. Martin’s Church, Hawksburn”. Horace’s friend and future brother in law, W.F.G. Steele played the organ, and following a rendition of ‘The Soldiers’ Chorus’ from Gounod’s Faust, Colonel Reeve, commander of the 1st Battalion announced the latest news from the Transvaal, “about the Victorian Contingent”. Prior to a grand tableau, arranged by Sergeant Bead, late of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and portraying the defence of Her Majesties’ Colours in the field, Horace Stevens sang ‘Rule Britannia’ (originally from Thomas Arne’s masque Alfred, but by this stage achieving the status of a National Song). The entire entertainment was arranged and conducted by Mr Charles Truelove, Horace’s first voice teacher, and director of All Saints’ Choir.39

    Many of Steven’s concert appearances during 1900 were linked to Boer War events. On the 16 January, Horace and Emelie Stevens took part in a fund raiser for the Tasmanian Contingent Fund, at the Albert Hall in Launceston. Billed as a “Concert and Military Tableaux”, Stevens was hailed as “one of the soloists of the celebrated Melbourne Philharmonic Society” and sang ‘The Gay Hussar’ by Louis Diehl (1838-1910), a “dashing song”.40 In February Stevens performed in “A Grand Kipling” concert, another Boer War fundraiser at the Melbourne Town Hall. Stevens sang the emotive ‘Danny Deever’, from Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads, set to music by Walter Damrosch (1862-1950), future director of The New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The “Kipling Concert” was repeated the following Thursday at the Athenaeum Hall but was poorly attended.41

    Lyric Orchestra

    The Lyric Orchestra, Melbourne Cricket Ground, 5 February 1900

     State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    Eli

    Eli, Melbourne Town Hall, 18 September 1900

    State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    Horace was a life-long member of the Savage Club of Melbourne, and he is documented as being one of the club commemorators of the lifting of the Siege of Mafeking, one of the signature events of the Boer War.  Starting at the Savage Club, the celebrations of a “large party” shifted to an impromptu theatre at 4:00 pm at the music warehouse of Messer’s W.H. Glenn & Co., Collins Street. There, Stevens performed the song ‘Bobs’ from Kipling’s ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ (composed by Joseph Gillott (d. c.1939) several times. Bobs was the soldier’s nick-name for Lord Roberts, whose flying column relieved the besieged township.42

    On the 18 September 1900 the Melbourne Philharmonic Society performed the oratorio Eli, by Sir Michael Costa (of which only the March is heard today). Stevens sang the minor role of ‘A man of God’, who sings two recitatives and a duet of limited difficulty with the character of Eli. The music critic for The Age wrote, “Mr Horace Stevens acquitted himself with credit in the ‘Man of God’”.43 On the 22 September, Eli was repeated in the Adelaide Town Hall.44

    On 22 November 1900, Stevens was among a group of singers performing at a Civic Reception held by Mrs C.J. Davies, Mayoress of Flemington and Kensington. He sang the cavatina ‘Eri Tu’ from Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera.45 Based on hearing later recordings of him, the writer believes that this repertoire would have suited Stevens to perfection. It is one of the lower of the Verdi baritone parts. Rudolph Kloiber, in the Handbuch der Oper, lists Renato as a ‘Kavalier Baritone’ - almost a bass baritone, whereas most Verdi baritone roles are listed as ‘Heldenbaritone’, with a fairly unforgiving and high tessitura. This is noteworthy of mention because in Stevens’s later career he sang only two Verdi roles; Falstaff, listed in Kloiber as ‘Heldenbaritone’, and Ramphis, the High Priest in Aida, a ‘Seriöserbass’.46

    At Christmas 1900 Stevens gave his first chronicled performance of Handel’s Messiah, a work that stands alongside Elijah and The Dream of Gerontius amongst the principal concert roles with which he would be most associated. Although W.A. Carne noted that the press reports were ‘at variance’,47 The Argus reported “the bass solos were satisfactorily undertaken by Mr Horace Stevens, whose delivery of ‘But Who May Abide’ (sung with becoming reverence), ‘The People that walked in Darkness’ and ‘The Trumpet shall sound’ was decidedly praiseworthy”.48

    Concert

    Concert, Town Hall, Melbourne, 18 April 1901

    State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    The Messiah

    The Messiah, Melbourne, 25 December 1901

    State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    On 11 January 1901, Stevens accompanied Charles Truelove and the boys of All Saints Choir as assistant choir master and guest baritone soloist on a short but concentrated tour of Tasmania. The tour concluded on the 14 January with a performance of Messiahat St John’s Church, Launceston. The reviewer, ‘Modkbato’ wrote that Stevens “displayed a fine voice” but worried that an excessive vibrato “may hold him back from reaching the highest pinnacle of fame”.49 Vibrato is often a result of unsupported singing, but tiredness was noticed in the boys’ singing perhaps due to the concentrated schedule of the concerts.

    Otherwise, the usual round of concerts filled Horace’s diary for 1901. He performed the baritone solos in Brahms’s German Requiem at St Paul’s Cathedral as part of the official ‘in memoriam’ activities marking the passing of Queen Victoria, who died on 22 January. He was not included as a soloist in the Melbourne Philharmonic’s performances for the opening of the first Federal Parliament at the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings on 7 May, although the choir was expanded with both the Royal Metropolitan and Melbourne Liedertafel.50 However, on the 5 April, he was one of the bass soloists in Charles Gounod’s The Redemption. This piece was first composed for the Birmingham Choral Festival in 1882, the first of a trilogy of oratorios, the second being Mors et Vita. On the 8 April 1901, the critic for the Melbourne Age described Stevens as a “rapidly improving singer who deserves to get on”.51 Stevens finished 1901 with a Messiah performance with the tenor James Gregor Wood (d.1938) who was to share the stage with Horace for much of his pre-war work.

    1902 was a monumental year for Stevens. On 28 March he gave his first performance with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society as Elijah in Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, a role that would define his career and which he sang some 500 times. The part of Elijah is written for a bass-baritone in the truest sense of the term although it has been sung regularly by basses, baritones and all voice classifications in between. The reviews were critical. The Age opined, “Horace Stevens, who made his chief successes in the airs, ‘Lord God of Abraham’ and ‘It is Enough’ would have been a very acceptable exponent of the heavy part allotted to the Prophet, were his vocal utterance less thick”.52 I can only assume he artificially darkened his voice, a common vice in young basses and baritones, in an attempt to sound mature. His sister, Emelie, joined him on the podium, singing the contralto part.

    Antonia Dolores

    Antonia Dolores. Photo by Falk, Sydney.

    Theatre Heritage Australia

    Death of Minnehaha

    Death of Minnehaha and The Creation, Town Hall, Melbourne, 24 June 1902

    State Library Victoria, Melbourne

    In early June, 1902, Horace and Emelie Stevens are listed as members of the St. Paul’s Cathedral Quartet Party, a group of four singers which also included J. Gregor Wood.53 This was followed, on 24 June  by a Miscellaneous Concert given by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, featuring part of another piece with which Stevens’s name would be linked: the second part of the Hiawatha trilogy Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (1898), The Death of Minnehaha (1899) and Hiawatha’s Farewell (1900), settings of the Longfellow poem by  composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912). The only mention of the Australian premiere of The Death of Minnehaha comes from The Adelaide Critic in the weekly section of goings on in Melbourne.54 In The Death of Minnehaha, the part of Hiawatha is a true baritone, rarely dropping below G below middle C, with frequent passages staying up around the d to f above middle C. From this, we get an intimation of Stevens as the Wagnerian he was to become. This is repertoire that would, had he been born in Europe, put him in that peculiarly German Fach of ‘Barak the Dyer’ from Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, or the father in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.

    Horace Stevens in the bow seat of a winning Mercantile maiden pair in 1904. Australian Rowing History

    In November, Horace undertook the title role in Mendelssohn’s St Paulwith the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society. The soprano was Antonia Dolores, a pupil of Melba, the contralto was Miss Emilie Kefford, while J. Gregor Wood was the tenor.  Stevens was “congratulated on achieving a higher degree of success than he had previously attained”.55 The Age similarly congratulated Stevens.56

    At a concert on 4 December 1902, attended by Melba, Stevens performed the solo baritone part in Stanford’s Cavalier Songs with the men of the Royal Melbourne Liedertafel. A reviewer noted that “Madame Melba was a very vigorous plauditor”.57

    Stevens was a renowned sculler and on 13 December he discovered a floating corpse of one George Montgomery in the Yarra river. The body “was floating on the surface when it was seen by Mr Horace Stevens of Collins Street, who was rowing past the spot. He informed Constable Hunichen, and the body was put into a boat and taken to the morgue”.58

    His year ended as a soloist in the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic’s annual Messiah.59

    To be continued...

     

    Endnotes

    1. Herbert Hughes. ‘Sir E. Elgar on the Music Crisis’, Daily Telegraph, 5 November 1931. The Telegraph Historical Archive.Accessed 14 October 2017.

    2. The Age (Melbourne), 29 November 1923. Trove. Accessed 21 June 2017.

    3. Personal interview, 23 March 2017

    4. Personal interview, 8 May 2017

    5. The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian, 21 November 1874. Trove. Accessed 30 June 2017.

    6. Personal Note from Michael Humphries, Archivist of All Saint’s Church, St Kilda, 21 March 2017

    7. The Age (Melbourne), 31 July 1875. Trove. Accessed 30 June 2017.

    8. Theatre Heritage Australia Inc., STEELE, Mrs W.F.G. (1875-1957) - Theatre Heritage Australia Accessed 11 March 2026; and The Prahran Telegraph, 17 September 1892. Trove. Accessed 21 March 2017.

    9. The Prahran Telegraph, 17 September 1892, p.3. Trove. Accessed 21 March 2017.

    10. James Griffin, ‘Horace Ernest Stevens (1876-1950)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, MUP, 1990.Accessed 23 July 2017, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stevens-horace-ernest-8653

    11. The Prahran Telegraph, 17 September 1892, p.3. Trove. Accessed 21 March 2017.

    12. Gabriella Boema came to Australia in 1880 with the W.S. Lyster touring company, and apparently had a fine voice, if somewhat insecure in her high notes. Madame Ellen Christian is better known for running the ‘Garcia School of Singing’ in Pott’s Point, Sydney. See Alison Gyger, Opera for the Antipodes Currency Press, 1990, pp.75, 292.

    13. TheAge (Melbourne), 9 November1888. Trove. Accessed 14 June 2017.

    14. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, pp.114-115

    15. Kenneth Hince, ‘Beaumont, Edward Armes (1842–1913)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Accessed 27 June 2017, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/beaumont-edward-armes-2960/text4307

    16. Barbara Mackenzie and Findlay Mackenzie, Singers of Australia from Melba to Sutherland, Lansdowne Press Pty Ltd. 1967 pp. 83-87

    17. The Argus (Melbourne), 24 January 1890. Trove. Accessed 14 June 2017. Trove.

    18. The Age(Melbourne), 24 January 1890. Trove. Accessed 14 June 2017.

    19. The Prahran Telegraph,17 September 1892. Trove. Accessed 21 March 2017.

    20. The Darling Downs Gazette,30 November 1908. Trove. Accessed 14 June 2017.

    21. The Prahran Telegraph,17 September 1892. Trove. Accessed 21 March 2017.

    22. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, p.114

    23. The Geelong Advertiser, 21 August 1899. Trove. Accessed 8 June 2017.

    24. The Argus (Melbourne), 11 June 1936. Trove. Accessed 21 October 2017.

    25. Table Talk (Melbourne), 19 August 1920. Trove. Accessed 21 March 2017.

    26. James Griffin, ‘Horace Ernest Stevens (1876-1950)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, MUP, 1990.Accessed 23 July 2017, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stevens-horace-ernest-8653

    27. Personal Interview with Nicholas Braithwaite, 5 April 2017

    28. Mount Alexander Mail, 7 September 1898. Trove. Accessed 19 April 2017.

    29. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, p.127.

    30. ‘Amusements’, The Age (Melbourne), 25 November 1898, p.3. Trove. Accessed 9 July 2017.

    31. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, pp.127-128

    32. The Australasian, 8 April 1899, p.36. Trove. Accessed 9 July 2017.

    33. The Ballarat Star, 22 May 1899, p.4. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    34. The Ballarat Star, 25 May 1899, p.4. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    35. The Australasian, 13 May 1899, p.44. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    36. The Argus(Melbourne), 28 June 1899. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    37. C. Joseph Brambach, Columbus!, Male chorus, soli and orchestra, William Rohlfing, Milwaukee, 1886

    38. Table Talk (Melbourne), 22 September1899, p.17. Trove. Accessed 8 June 2017.

    39. Prahran Chronicle, 25 November 1899, p.3. Trove. Accessed 10 Jul. 2017.

    40. Launceston Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1900, p.3. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    41. The Australasian, 10 February1900, p.36. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    42. The Age (Melbourne), 21 May 1900, p.6. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    43. The Age (Melbourne), 19 September 1900, p.8. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    44. Adelaide Critic, 22 September 1900, p.15. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    45. Weekly Times, 1 December 1900, p.25. Trove. Accessed 10 July 2017.

    46. Rudolph Kloiber, Wulf Konold, Robert Maschka, Handbuch der Oper GemeinschaftlicheOrigionalausgabe, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co, KG, München, 2002, www.dtv.de. Bärenreiter-verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG Kassel, Basel, London, New York, Prague. Translated by the author.

    47. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, p.129

    48. The Argus (Melbourne), 26 December 1900, p.6. Trove. Accessed 10 Jul. 2017.

    49. Launceston Daily Telegraph, 19 January 1901, p.7. Trove. Accessed 30 May 2017.

    50. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, pp.130-131

    51. The Age (Melbourne), 8 April 1901, p.6. Trove. Accessed 20 July 2017.

    52. The Age (Melbourne), 29 March 1902, p.10. Trove. Accessed 19 July 2017.

    53. The Age (Melbourne), 3 June 1902, p.8. Trove. Accessed 19 July 2017.

    54. ‘The Gay Metropolis’, Adelaide Critic, 28 June 1902, p.26. Trove. Accessed 7 June 2017.

    55. The Argus (Melbourne), 18 November 1902 p.8. Trove. Accessed 27 July 2017.

    56. The Age (Melbourne),18 November 1902, p.8. Trove. Accessed 27 July 2017.

    57. The Age (Melbourne), 2 December 1902, p.5. Trove. Accessed 19 April 2017.

    58. The Argus (Melbourne), 13 December 1902, p.16. Trove. Accessed 19 July 2017.

    59. W.A. Carne, A Century of Harmony. The official Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society,Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Melbourne, 1954, p.133