In 1856 he played in Germany and Poland, and made a tour in England in 1857 with Sivori and Piatti. In that year Arthur Napoleon went to the Brazils and was enthusiastically received by his countrymen. In the first four concerts he gave in Rio Janeiro he made a profit of over £3000. Having travelled through South America he returned to Portugal in 1858. From thence he went to the United States, making several long tours, and to the West Indies in 1860, where he played with Gottschalk in Havana, and resided for some time during 1860 and 1861 at Porto Rico. At this time the constant travelling and excitement of continued public playing proved prejudicial to that musical progress which was expected of one so gifted. His re-appearance in London at St. James's Hall in 1862, when he gave a concert with the sisters Marchisio, was not entirely satisfactory. He now perceived that serious study of the classical composers was essential to his artistic development and to the ultimate attainment of the position for which his natural talents fitted him. He, however, while not neglecting this discipline, continued his tours, going again to the Brazils and Portugal, where he was charged with the direction of the opening fête at the Exhibition at Oporto in 1865. His last tour was made in Portugal and Spain in 1866, when he played before Queen Isabella. Owing to circumstances entirely independent of art, Arthur Napoleon left off playing in public at a time when he might really have begun a distinguished career as one of the first pianists in Europe, for which he had all the requisites. In 1868 he established at Rio Janeiro a business in music and pianofortes that has become the first in South America, the present style of the firm being Arthur Napoleaõ & Miguez. He married a lady of Rio in 1871. He has not altogether abandoned music as an art, having written several successful pieces for piano and for orchestra. At the request of the Emperor of the Brazils he directed in 1876 the performance of Verdi's Requiem, and in 1880 undertook the direction of the Camoens tercentenary festival.
NARDINI. Add day of death, May 7.
NARES. Add that he was born shortly before April 19, 1715, on which day he was baptized.
NATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOL. Additions and corrections will be found under Training School, vol. iv. p. 158. The date of the incubation of the scheme is 1854, as in vol. ii.; not 1866, as in vol. iv.
NAUMANN. Add that Dr. Emil Naumann's exhaustive 'History of Music' has been translated by Ferdinand Praeger, edited and furnished with very necessary additional chapters on English music by Sir F. A. G. Ouseley, and published by Cassell & Co. (1886). The author died June 23, 1888.
NAVA, Gaetano. Add days of birth and death, May 16 and March 31 respectively.
NAYLOR, John, one of our best cathedral organists, was born at Stanningley, near Leeds, on June 8, 1838. As a boy he was a chorister at the Leeds parish church, and also received instruction on the pianoforte from the well-known musician and organist Mr. R. S. Burton. With this exception he is a self-taught man. At the age of 18 he was appointed organist of the parish church, Scarborough, where he soon began, in spite of his youth, to promote a taste for good music in the town. He graduated at Oxford in 1863 as Mus.B. and proceeded to the degree of Mus.D. in 1872. In 1873 he became organist of All Saints' Church, Scarborough, where in collaboration with the vicar, the Rev. R. Brown-Borthwick, he raised the musical services to a pitch of great excellence. He was here able to make experiments in connection with the chanting of the Psalms which were not without their influence in bringing about the publication of Dr. Westcott's Paragraph Psalter. Dr. Naylor is now organist and choir-master of York Minster, for which post he was selected out of numerous candidates in 1883. He is a musician of catholic tastes, and a composer of no mean merit. His works include, besides various anthems and services, the cantatas 'Jeremiah' and 'The Brazen Serpent,' written with organ accompaniment, which were performed with great success by a large body of voices in York Minster in 1884 and 1887 respectively.
[1]NEGRO MUSIC OF THE UNITED STATES. The nearest approach to 'folk music' in the United States is that played or sung by the negroes in the Southern States. Before the Civil War (1861–65) brought freedom to the slaves, the ability to read was very rare among those held in bondage. Indeed, in many of the States which authorized slavery, education of the slave was a misdemeanour. The tunes to which they danced or to which they sang their songs and hymns were, therefore, traditional. The origin of some of the tunes is held to be African on these grounds:—they can be reduced to a pentatonic scale, which is the scale of musical instruments said to be still in use in Abyssinia, Nubia, and other countries in Africa; they have the same 'catch' that appears in songs still sung in Africa, according to the observations of several travellers. Both 'catch' and scale are also common in the traditional music of the Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Magyars, the 'catch' being the rhythmic device known as the 'Scotch snap.' There are, however, many tunes in common use among the American negroes which have neither peculiarity. The negroes have the imitative faculties very highly developed, and most of their tunes which do not resemble those of the old races were probably caught from Methodist preachers, whose system of conducting 'revivals,' with its appeals to the imagination of the hearer, was such as readily to capture these impressionable people. Many of the negro hymns have lines and phrases that show a Wesleyan origin. Traces of Catholic teachings are visible also, but these are infrequent. Resemblances between various sections as to the tunes and the words used are noted by close observers, the differences being such as would naturally be produced in
- ↑ Copyright 1889 by F. H. Jenks.
