Performances

private performance

On 10 January 1880, the Rossetti family attended a small, private performance of Goblin Market: Cantata in composer Emanuel Aguilar’s Hyde Park home. William Michael Rossetti declared the composition “bright, spirited, & tuneful, & not in the least tedious; in fact, I enjoyed it considerably--& the same feeling seemed very general among the small audience” (WMR diary, qtd. in Ives 265). It would appear that this was modest performance for which the composer performed the cantata’s piano score and his daughter sang some of the music; therefore, the cantata’s duets and choral sections were not sung for the Rossetti party. CGR wrote to Amelia Barnard Heimann on 26 January 1880: “Of course the only way really to judge of it would be to hear it sung--but he [Aguilar] tried it over on the pianoforte lately for our benefit, & it pleased us very decidedly” (Letters, no. 836, vol. 2, p. 226).

concert performances

In a 28 March 1882 letter to Heimann, Rossetti offers to her friend a ticket to a concert that promises among the “new compositions” on the program a performance of Aguilar’s Goblin Market (Letters, no. 994, vol. 3, p. 30). Rossetti says she has had “a good many” tickets to this concert when she makes a similar offer to William Michael: “Is there any one you will care to send the enclosed concert ticket to? Mr Aguilar’s Goblin Market is among the pieces to be performed. But simply throw away the ticket if it worries you, as I have had a good many. I had hoped you would yourself go, but this becomes impossible” (Letters, no. 998, vol. 3, p. 33). Rossetti herself cannot attend as she is in Birchington-on-sea attending her brother Dante Gabriel in his final illness. There were other such tickets or invitations offered by Rossetti to Heimann when Rossetti herself could not attend an event, as for example in a letter of 15 December 1881. William Michael and his wife Lucy did attend a concert performance of the cantata at Hanover Square (Christina Rossetti in the Maser Collection, p. 119); this is presumably the Hanover Square performance that William Michael describes for Christina when he visits her and Dante Gabriel at Birchington-on-sea (Packer, p. 348).

Other performances of Aguilar’s cantata remain unidentified. For instance, A Rossetti Family Chronology mentions an entry in William Michael Rossetti’s diary recording that on 20 June 1885 “Grace Aguilar visits CGR to show her cantata of ‘Goblin Market’, which she wants to perform (p. 362). This might possibly be a misidentification: Emanuel Aguilar had been given exclusive rights to set “Goblin Market,” and is seems more likely that the composer that consulted with Rossetti was this Aguilar. It was certainly not Grace Aguilar, Anglo-Jewish writer and sister to the composer, who had died in 1847; and Emanuel Aguilar’s daughter Grace (1849-1918) by 1885 would have been married and have gone by her married name, Grace Lord. Nevertheless, the reference does lead us to a letter from Christina Rossetti to Caroline Gemmer, that mentions a recent performance by Emanuel Aguilar that Gemmer had attended: Rossetti writes, “At any rate I am pleased that you admired Mr Aguilar’s execution. He is an acquaintance of mine and has wasted upon me I know not how many such tickets at different times” (Letters, no. 1330, vol. 3, p. 267). Clearly, Rossetti did not regularly attend concerts prompted by Aguilar’s gift of complimentary tickets, but the performance mentioned in this letter could possibly have been the planned performance of Goblin Market: Cantata that had prompted a visit from Aguilar the previous month. Interestingly, Gemmer wrote a note onto Rossetti’s letter that contradicts Rossetti’s comment that she was pleased that Gemmer admired Mr Aguilar’s performance: Gemmer commented “I fear that I did not. C.G.” (Letters, no. 1330, vol. 3, p. 268 n1).

The textual revisions that Rossetti approved for the libretto of Goblin Market: Cantata overall tend to eliminate the sexual suggestiveness of the original poem, rendering it innocent enough to be sung by the “treble voices” denoted in the cantata’s subtitle. However, public performances of the cantata also included classically trained adult performers, particularly in the solo roles. For instance, a public performance sponsored by the Musical Artists Society took place at the Royal Academy in London on 1 April 1882 and the chorus consisted of “ladies” as opposed to school children. This performance was announced in the London Times on 29 March 1882, and it received this positive review in the Musical World:

 Mr Aguilar’s “Goblin Market” (from a correspondent).--Mr E. Aguilar has set Miss G. [sic] Rossetti’s pretty poem, Goblin Market, as a cantata for treble voices, and last Saturday night, at the trial concert of the Musical Artist’s Society, it was performed with great success. Mr Aguilar has caught the spirit of the story, and dramatically treated all the incidents, the folicsome fun and spiteful tricks of the goblins, the waywardness of Laura, and the tender affection of her guardian angel, sister Lizzie. Mrs Sicklemore and Miss E. Burnett sang the parts of the two sisters, and a circle of ladies (some of them Mr Aguilar’s pupils) effectively rendered the choral music. Mr Aguilar and Mr Charles E. Stephens accompanied on two grand pianofortes.

review of school performance of Goblin Market: Cantata [Aguilar]

school performances

We also know that the cantata was republished and marketed specifically for younger performers: “In 1893, Mathias & Strickland advertised Goblin Market for sale as number 10 in a series of ‘Cantatas for schools and classes’ (the Musical Times, 1 Feb. 1893: 120)” (Ives 265). There is also evidence that the school age market did take up Aguilar’s setting. A periodical titled The School Music Review records a school performance of Aguilar's Goblin Market: Cantata in 1912:

The Hulme Grammar School for Girls, Oldham.—At the annual Prize Day, held on Nov. 22 [1912], the Upper and Middle School singing-classes combined to perform Aguilar’s cantata, "Goblin Market," under the direction of Miss Mitchell, the words being adapted from Christina Rossetti’s poem of that name. The solos were taken by two former pupils of the School." (The School Music Review: a monthly periodical devoted to the interest of music in schools).