Opening
The first performance at the hall was The Hymn of Praise by the Vocal Association, under Julius Benedict. Sims Reeves sang Beethoven's 'Adelaide' there (the first of many successes), accompanied by Arabella Goddard, in a concert at the end of May 1858. According to Reeves' biographer, 'The hall itself met with general approval, but the arrangements for chorus and orchestra were severely condemned.' In the same year, one of the first complete performances of J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion to be heard in England was given there under William Sterndale Bennett, with Sims Reeves, Helen Lemmens-Sherrington, Charlotte Sainton-Dolby and Willoughby Weiss.
Read more about this topic: St James's Hall
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“But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as initial, and promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, and behold what was there already. I make! O no! I clap my hands in infantine joy and amazement, before the first opening to me of this august magnificence, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert.”
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