Local music history — Teen composer

Fifty years ago, 13-year-old composer Timothy Lloyd honored his father and mother by penning works in their honor, and the parents honored the son by performing the pieces at Glens Falls.

“Two compositions by a very young composer gave unanticipated pleasure Sunday evening at Christ Church, United Methodist,” Post-Star reporter Florence McIlvaine reported on Nov. 16, 1971.

The Glens Falls Concert Association presented tenor David Lloyd, the father, violinist Maria Llloyd, the mother, and Timothy, the son, in concert at Christ Church.

David Lloyd, in addition to his singing career, was director of the Lake George Opera Festival.

The son composed “Fantasy for Violin” and a musical setting to the poem “Peace,” which the parents performed as closing works of the concert.

“Both compositions were worthy of the artists that brought them before the audience, and his anthem, written specially for this concert, was a fitting close to the program in the church sanctuary,” McIlvaine reported.

Timothy Lloyd, at the time, was a student at the High School of Music and Art in New York City.

He had been a choir boy for four years at the Cathedral School of St. John the Divine, and had sung in a number of Lake George Opera Festival productions.

“His chorister days are ending, but his treble still sounded accurate and pure in his two (vocal solo) selections, ‘The Organ Grinder’ …and the lovely ‘Serenade.’”

The major work in the concert was “Die Schone Mullerin,” a series of 20 Schubert German-language songs with lyrics by poet Wilhelm Muller.

In other music news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

• It was a “glowing tribute” of the Rhondda Welsh Male Glee Singers, set to appear Jan.1 at the Glens Falls Armory.

“Tell the people they need have no fear of not getting their money’s worth,” the Rev. Edward D. Gaylor, pastor of Pilgrim Congregational Church in Boston, wrote in a letter that The Post-Star published on Dec. 22, 1922.

“We did have the Rhondda Welsh Male Glee Singers in our church last Saturday night, and the people were delighted. The solo voices were fine, the ensemble work was great. The program was varied, all in thoroughly good taste, but nonetheless popular.”

First Presbyterian Church and National Guard Company K jointly sponsored the concert.

• On Nov. 8, 1971, The Post-Star reported that Mayor Robert Cronin proclaimed “Operetta Club Week” in Glens Falls to recognize the opening of the 35th anniversary season of the Glens Falls Operetta Club, now Glens Falls Community Theater.
• On Aug. 23, 1946, The Post-Star reported that Elkan-Vogel Co. of Philadelphia would publish a “Saratoga Orchestration Series” of new works that debuted at the Spa Music Festival Sept. 3–15 at Saratoga Springs.
• On March 2, 1946, The Post-Star reported that Mary Reardon, organist at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Glens Falls, supervised the installation of a new Hammond organ at the church.

The model was same as used at St. Teresa’s Church and at the College of Saint Rose in Albany.

• On Dec. 27, 1946, The Post-Star reported that Robert Jacobs of Glens Falls was a member of the 250-voice Syracuse University School of Music Choir that performed Brahms “Requiem” on a national radio broadcast.

Quotable:

• “The night toilers of The Star dropped their sticks and pencils temporarily last evening to look down upon a varied and enlivening scene in Fountain Square and the immediate vicinity. The Citizens’ Drum Corps was starting off its street parade.” — The Morning Star, July 30, 1887

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