Sims Reeves

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Sims Reeves, circa 1889

John Sims Reeves (born October 21, 1821 in London , † October 25, 1900 in Worthing ), mostly Sims Reeves , was the most famous English opera , oratorio and ballad singer of the middle of the Victorian era .

Reeves began his singing career in 1838, but continued to study singing until 1847. He soon made a name for himself on the opera and concert stages, and particularly stood out with his ballad interpretations. The stage accompanied him until the 1880s, after which he shifted his activities to writing about music and training.

Musical beginnings

Sims Reeves was born in Shooter's Hill , Greater London , England . His parents were John Reeves , a Yorkshire native musician, and Rosina Reeves . He received his early musical education from his father, who was a bass soloist in the music band of the Royal Artillery . And probably also from their band leader George McKenzie . At fourteen he was appointed choirmaster of the North Cray Church in London , where he was organist. It also appears to have started studying medicine but changed its mind when it broke its voice . His voice was baritone and he trained it under the guidance of the Irish singer and composer Thomas Simpson Cooke . He also learned to play the oboe , bassoon , violin, violoncello and other instruments. He later studied the piano under Johann Baptist Cramer .

Reeves with Catherine Hayes at La Scala , 1846

Reeve's first appearance was in Newcastle in 1838 or 1839. He played the Gypsy Boy in HR Bishop's Guy Mannering and Count Rodolfo in La sonnambula . He later performed under the name "Johnson" at the Royal Grecian Theater in London. With teachers like Messrs. Hobbs and T. Cooke he continued to develop his voice. He appeared under the management of William Charles Macready in 1841 and 1843 at the Drury Lane Theater not only in (spoken) supporting roles, but also in Henry Purcell 's King Arthur ("Come if you dare"), Der Freischütz (as Ottokar) and Acis and Galatea .

In the summer of 1843 Reeves studied at the Paris Conservatory under the tenor and teacher Marco Bordogni . Bordogni was responsible for opening and developing the upper octave of his voice into the famous rich and shiny top notes. From October 1843 to January 1844 Reeves appeared in many different musical dramas, including the roles of Elvino in La Sonnambula and Tom Tug in Charles Dibdin's The Waterman at the Manchester Theater, and for the next two years he had engagements in Dublin , Liverpool and in smaller cities . At the same time, especially from 1845, he completed his studies abroad. Special mention should be made of Alberto Mazzucato (1813–1877), the composer and singing teacher at the Milan Conservatory .

He made his debut in Italian opera on October 29, 1846 as Edgardo in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala in Milan, together with Catherine Hayes . For this he received good reviews and Giovanni Rubini personally congratulated him. (It became Reeves' greatest role and his wife called him 'Gardie' from then on.) For six months he sang in all the major houses in Italy and finally in Vienna , where he ended his contract and was able to return to England.

1844–48: English debuts in opera and concert

He returned to London in early 1847 and appeared at a benefit concert for William Vincent Wallace in May and an Antient Concert in June. In September 1847 he sang in Edinburgh with Jenny Lind . He had his first leading role on an English opera stage together with Doras Gras (Lucia) and Willoughby Weiss in the opera "Lucia", which the French composer Louis-Antoine Jullien (1812-1860) wrote, among other pieces, in English specially rented stage at the Dury Lane Theater. (Which turned out to be a financial fiasco for Jullien, however) Hector Berlioz , the conductor of the performance, personally congratulated Reeves, but mistook him for an Irishman. In this series, directed by Louis-Antoine Jullien, he also sang the part of lyonnel ( tenor ) in Michael William Balfe's The Maid of Honor (based on a motif from Friedrich von Flotow's opera Martha ).

In May 1848 he became a member of Benjamin Lumley's (1811–1875) ensemble of Her Majesty's Theater and sang in Linda di Chamounix with Eugenia Tadolini , but soon left because instead of his Italo Gardoni sang Edgardo in Lucia with Jenny Lind should. But in the autumn he sang Edgardo again in Manchester and also in La sonnambula , a few days after Lind had already performed there and Reeves preferred the better houses. Reeves also sang La Sonnambula and Lucia at Covent Garden in October .

Reeves sang an oratorio ( Messiah ) for the first time in Glasgow in 1844 . In February 1848 he sang Handel's Judas Maccabaeus at Exeter Hall, Acis and Galatea in March, and Jephtha in April and May. He also established himself as a leading English ballad singer. In September 1848, on the occasion of the Worcester Festival, he took on a solo in Elijah and sang in Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives and filled the hall at an Oberon song evening. At the Norwich Festival, he excelled in Elijah and Israel in Egypt . After his November appearance at the London Sacred Harmonic Society in Judas Maccabaeus , a critic wrote that the cloak of John Braham was meant to fall on Reeves. The critic HF Chorley wrote that Reeves created a positive revolution in the interpretation of Handelian oratorios.

Event in Dublin

In 1849 Reeves had an engagement at the Theater Royal in Dublin . After the end of his successful performances, he attended a performance of the well-known piece Lucia di Lammermoor and took a seat in an upper box. The Irish soprano singer Catherine Hayes made her debut in the piece . The singer who played Edgardo, the tenor Sig. Paglieri, was hissed off the stage during a pathetic duet with Hayes (Act 1) when his voice failed towards the end . Reeves, who had already been recognized by the audience, was asked to jump in with loud shouts ("Reeves! Reeves!"). The director of the Theater Royal, John William Calcraft , who came on stage to apologize for the tenor's poor performance, asked Reeves to sing. Since it sounded more like a request than a request, Reeves clearly declined. When the noisy audience persisted, Calcraft promised that Reeves would sing. The person addressed promptly appeared on stage and complained that he did not want to perform because Calcraft asked him to sing in a highly autocratic manner. Calcraft denied this and so a minute-long argument developed on the stage until they finally reconciled with a handshake at the request of the audience and Reeves sang the opera to the end as Edgardo. In encores, Reeves! a widespread reputation.

Italian opera

Reeves in the title role of Fra Diavolo , which he played at Drury Lane in 1852

His debut in Italian opera was in Covent Garden in 1849 , where he played Elvino in Bellini's La sonnambula with Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani . He carried the full lyric declamation in Tutto e sciolto ... Ah! perche non-posso odiarti? with great effect. Shortly after his Edgardo in Lucia , Reeves' Elvino was recognized as his best role in Italian opera. In the winter of 1849 he returned to English opera, but in 1850, at Her Majesty's, he had another great success in Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani , along with Mademoiselle Parodi ( Elvira ) and Giovanni Battista Belletti ( Carlo ), who shortly thereafter was about to perform was to embark on a tour to the USA (at the invitation of Jenny Lind).

Private life

On November 2, 1850, he married Charlotte Emma Lucombe (1823-1895), a soprano who had a short but celebrated season with the Sacred Harmonic Society and also played in the same ensemble as Reeves at Covent Garden. There she shone as Haydee in the opera of the same name by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber and remained loyal to the stage for four to five years after her marriage. Emma Reeves adored her husband all her life. In February 1851 they returned to Dublin. There Sims Reeves should appear with the soprano Giulia Grisi . However, since the singer was indisposed, the couple stepped on stage together and embodied the respective leading roles in Lucia di Lammermoor , La Sonnambula , Ernani and Bellini's I Puritani . Reeves also played Macheath in The Beggar's Opera there . Emma and Sims Reeves had five children, two of whom also became singers ( Herbert and Constance ).

The ensemble immediately took on an engagement at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, where Reeves sang Ernani , Carlo in Linda di Chamounix (together with Henriette Sontag ) and Gennaro in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia . In 1851 Reeves took over the Florestan in Fidelio together with Sophie Cruvelli , who played the Leonore. Some observers said that his performance clearly outshone that of his stage partner.

Increased concert activity from 1850

For the next three decades, Reeves was Britain's leading tenor. He had the privilege of singing in front of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert . Michele Costa , Arthur Sullivan, and other leading British composers of the time wrote tenor pieces especially for him. Reeves could call up wages of up to £ 200 a week.

The star tenor supported young singers, which would later pay off for him. Around 1850, Reeves encouraged James Henry Mapleson , who applied to sing with him, and sent him to the Milan Conservatory with Alberto Mazzucato . In 1855 he gave the young Charles Santley encouragement and suggested that he go to Francesco Lamperti for his advancement . She then presented Reeves publicly at concerts by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra . Reeves' musical connection with Santley lasted until the end of his life. Mapleson, who became an important theater director, promoted Reeves' operatic appearances in the 1860s.

In the 1850s, Reeves moved away from the opera stage and focused more on concert works. He performed all over England, including the smaller towns. Michele Costa, (later ennobled) composed two oratorios, with leading roles for Reeves, which were to be performed at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival . The first, Eli , was introduced in 1855 and encores were also required , which is unusual for oratorios .

Handel Festival, London 1857

Reeves achieved his greatest triumphs in oratorio singing at the Handel Festival in London's Crystal Palace . He delivered Messiah, Israel in Egypt and Judas Maccabaeus at the inaugural festival in June 1857, and repeated at the 1859 Handel Festival. In the play Sound an Alarm (from Judas Maccabaeus ) Reeves caused a sensation and the audience stood up to applaud him. However, the Musical World was of the opinion that his "The Enemy Said" from Israel in Egypt even surpassed that and was thus the vocal masterpiece of the festival.

At the opening of Leeds Town Hall ( Rathaus ) in 1858, he joined the premiere of a soloist Pastorale The May Queen by William Sterndale Bennett forth.

Stage comeback

Photograph by Reeves from the 1860s

After being absent from the stage for a while, an English version of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride , arranged by HF Chorley and voiced by the Hallé Orchestra , was performed in Manchester in 1859-60 . In addition to Reeves, Charles Santley , Belletti and Catherine Hayes sang . Two private performances with Lord Ward followed. Mapleson took over Reeves, Santley and Helen Lemmens-Sherrington for a summer and winter season from Benjamin Lumley and together they celebrated a great success at Her Majesty's in 1860 with George Macfarren's Robin Hood (text: John Oxenford , conductor: again Charles Hallé ). This new work included several powerful passages written for Reeves in his role as Locksley , including "Englishmen by birth are free," "The grasping, rasping Norman race," "Thy gentle voice would lead me on," and a great one Prison scene.

In 1862 Reeves presented Mazeppa , a cantata composed for him by Michael Balfe . In July 1863 Reeves appeared as Huon in Oberon with Therese Tietjens , Marietta Alboni , Zelia Trebelli-Bettini, Alessandro Bettini, Edouard Gassier and Santley. After performing that winter as Huon, Edgardo and in the title role of Faust , (with Tietjens) in Dublin, he appeared in Her Majesty's in 1864 and was especially celebrated for the dramatic instinct in Faust's monologue in the first act and the great energy in the duet with Méphistophélès in the final act.

Concert watchers noted that he was in good vocal condition on that day. And that although the critic Eduard Hanslick is said to have said two years earlier that Reeves' vocal skills were "over". The music critic Herman Klein , however, believed that the voice was still in its prime in 1866: "A more exquisite example of true Italian tenor quality that one cannot imagine: and this delicious sweetness, this rare combination of" velvety "richness of sounding timbre and held it, with decreasing volume, almost to the end.

Oratorios and cantatas

In May 1862 Reeves took part in what he believed to be the first complete performance in England of Bach's St. Matthew Passion at St James's Hall . This was directed by William Sterndale Bennett , with Mme Lemmens-Sherrington, Mme Sainton-Dolby and Willoughby Weiss. Reeves wrote of this performance (with due respect for the composer):

'The tenor part ... is in many places so unvocal, and the intervals are so awkward to take, that I was obliged to re-note it: without, of course, disturbing the accents or making it in any way unsuitable to the existing harmony . As soon as I had finished my work, to which I had devoted the greatest possible care, I submitted it to Bennett, who, except in one place, approved of all that I had done; and it was my version of the tenor part which was sung at Bennett's memorable performance, and which is still sung even to this day. '

( The tenor part… is so unvoiced in many places and the intervals so uncomfortable that I felt obliged to rewrite it: without of course disturbing the accents or in any way making them unsuitable for the existing harmonies. As soon as I finish my work When I finished doing it with the utmost care, I handed it to Bennett, who approved of all but one passage, and it was my version of the tenor parts that was sung at Bennett's memorable performance, and like her is still sung today. )

Reeves' greeting card to Sullivan: "To Arthur from his Prodigal Son"

In Michael Costa's second oratorio for Reeves, Naaman (first performed in the fall of 1864), the soloists were Reeves, Adelina Patti (her first oratorio), Miss Palmer and Santley. The quartet "Honor and Glory" was even repeated at the immediate request of the audience. Both oratorios probably owed their original success and their later unclear comparability to the fact that Reeves was their ideal interpreter and no successor could adequately replace him with changing vocal fashion. Reeves, Santley and Tietjens sang in the premiere of Arthur Sullivan's cantata The Prodigal Son ( The Prodigal Son ) at the Three Choirs Festival ( Worcester ). Santley saw Reeves' performance of the passage “I will arise and go to my father” as “a once in a lifetime experience”. Reeves also appeared in the premiere of Sullivan's oratorio The Light of the World with Tietjens, Trebelli, and Santley.

Reeves always claimed the close and excellent connections to the various leading tenors of Handel and Mendelssohn 's oratorios . The songs "Men, Brothers and Fathers, Hearken to me" (from St Paul ) and "The Enemy has Said" as well as "Sound an Alarm" (from Judas Maccabaeus ) were particularly popular, and his friend the clergyman Archer Gurney praised them likewise his "Waft her, angels" ( Jephta ), and his Samson, as well as Acis and Galatea ("Love in her eyes sits playing").

Chamber Tone Debate

Reeves' declamation at the Crystal Palace was the main attraction and was repeated at each of the successful triennials until 1874. In the course of the 1860s Reeves saw it necessary to publicly complain about the higher concert pitch in England . This is always half a whole tone higher than anywhere else in Europe and even a whole tone higher than in Gluck's time. The organ's pitch at the Birmingham Festival was lowered after a similar reduction was enforced on Drury Lane by senior performers. Singers like Adelina Patti and Christine Nilsson made similar comments. Sir Michael Costa opposed it, however, and Reeves eventually withdrew from the Crystal Palace Handel Festivals, performed by the Sacred Harmonic Society, before the 1877 Festival. So he did not join and subsequently more at the Sacred Harmonic Society on

Late years

The illustrated cover of Reeves' Memoirs, 1888

In the winter of 1878–1879, he appeared at Covent Garden with great success in The Beggar's Opera and in The Waterman Edward Lloyd , who had taken Reeves' position as main tenor at the Handel Festival, sang with Reeves and tenor Ben Davies in 1889 , in a trio of tenors 'Evviva Bacco' by Friedrich Curschmann , on the occasion of a concert in St James's Hall.

Reeves' withdrawal from the public, first announced in 1882, did not take place until 1891. Then a farewell concert was given for him at the Royal Albert Hall , in which Reeves also sang himself, accompanied by Christine Nilsson . He received the eulogy from Sir Henry Irving . George Bernard Shaw noted that in Handel's airs like Total Eclipse ( Samson ), Reeves , "leaves the next best tenor at an immeasurable distance." The song "Come into the Garden, Maud", which Balfe wrote for him in 1857, he sang in his later concerts.

It is certain that Reeves appeared in front of an audience long after his greatest vocal powers had waned. He invested his savings in an unfortunate speculation and was thus forced to perform for a few more years. In his later career, however, he often withdrew from promised appearances due to the effects of colds on his fragile vocal apparatus and nervousness.

This also brought him financial difficulties: In addition to the loss of income from the canceled performances, court orders were also issued against him in 1869 and 1871 with regard to contractual non-performance . Rumors that Reeves were becoming increasingly alcoholic was rejected by his friend Sir Charles Santley.

In 1890, Shaw stated that “Reeves canceled many performances solely for reasons of purely artistic integrity, which few really understood. This requires enormous efforts of artistic conviction, courage and self-respect. "He wrote of an appearance in Jacques Blumenthal's The Message ," Despite all his order (husbandry), he left only a few notes; but the wonderfully enlightening effect and the unique quality of these few still prove him to be the one English singer who worked in his own way and at all costs to achieve and maintain the ideal tone perfection. "

Klein commented similarly: “To hear him singing 'Adelaide' or 'Deeper and Deeper Still' or 'The Message' long after he was seventy is an exposure of breath control, of tone coloring, the phrasing and expression, that may really be described as unique. ”Reeves sang in two concerts in 1895 at the very first The Proms , in the Queen's Hall (in which the lower continental concert pitch was established). It was also the only two concerts of the season that were sold out: everyone else lost at least £ 50.

In 1888 Reeves Sims published Reeves, his Life and Recollections , followed by My Jubilee, or, Fifty Years of Artistic Life in 1889. At the same time he was a teacher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama . His book On the Art of Singing , published in 1900 , describes his pedagogical methods. After his wife's death in 1895, he soon married one of his students, Lucy Maud Madeleine Richard (* 1873), and traveled with her to South Africa the following year .

Reeves died on October 25, 1900 in Worthing , England, and was cremated in Woking .

Self-reflection and reception

Braham's The Death of Nelson was the preferred piece in Reeves' concerts. Reeves was well aware that his career was similar to that of Braham, and noted that his success, like Braham, had been multifaceted, in opera, oratorio and ballad concerts. The coincidence that his career began in that year 1839, when Braham withdrew from the stage and the first critics already prophesied that Reeves would have "put on the cloak of Braham", proved to be true. Braham was a virtuoso of the old Italian school, always ready to deliver flowering passages with intensity, precision and performing power. In an effort to “wear the cloak of Braham”, Reeves deliberately denied the entire breadth of his repertoire and in the best pieces he displayed an extremely strong and agile declamation in combination with great tones and melodic power. Shaw classified his singing as 'beautiful firmness with high tonal purity', similar to that of Patti and Santley. Sir Henry Wood compared the tender nature of his voice with that of Richard Tauber and added, "I can never hear the title Deeper and deeper still (Handel) without thinking of its lovely tone and quality."

Reeves was a member of the Garrick Club and known from a young age to Thackeray , Dickens , Talfourd , Charles Kemble , Charles Kean , Albert Smith, and Shirley Brooks.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dates according to The Life of J. Sims Reeves, Written by Himself (1888), p. 15: see also Reeves, My Jubilee (1889), p. 20, '1839, when I was just 18 years old ...' ( means: His 17th birthday was in October 1838). However, CE Pearce writes in Sims Reeves - Fifty Years of Music in England pages 17-18, (which has been adopted by many) that a Woolwich Parish entry for September 26, 1818 indicates a baptism (not birth) of a John Reeves. If this should really be the singer, this makes Reeves' and that of his oldest friends unbelievable and postpones his voice break at the age of 16, contrary to his claim that this was done at the age of 12 (ibid. P. 20). John Reeves (1818) could also be a relative who died before 1821.
  2. ↑ C. Pearce 1924, pp. 18-22.
  3. ↑ J. Sims Reeves, The Life of J. Sims Reeves, Written by Himself (Simpkin, Marshall & Co, London 1888, p. 16).
  4. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 16.
  5. ↑ See Pearce 1924, pp. 28-30.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g Biddlecombe, George. "Reeves, (John) Sims (1818-1900)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed June 28, 2019
  7. ↑ Pearce 1924, p. 44.
  8. ↑ Pearce 1924, p. 37.
  9. ↑ Pearce 1924, pp. 68-74.
  10. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 32: Rosenthal & Warrack 1974, p. 331.
  11. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 33.
  12. ↑ Santley 1909, pp. 83-87.
  13. ↑ Pearce 1924, pp. 83-84.
  14. ↑ Louis-Antoine Jullien on Grandemusica.net
  15. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 60-65.
  16. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 65-68.
  17. ↑ Pearce 1924, pages 117-23.
  18. ↑ Pearce 1924, pp. 128-29.
  19. ↑ Pearce 1924, p. 69.
  20. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 80-81; Pearce 1924, pp. 112-14.
  21. ↑ Pearce 1924, pp. 124-27.
  22. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 82. Braham said goodbye to his audience in 1839.
  23. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 83.
  24. ↑ Annals Of Theater Royal Dublin 1821 1880 in archive.org
  25. ↑ Matthew John Caldwell Hodgart, Ruth Bauerle: Joyce's Grand Operoar: Opera in Finnegans Wake . University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1997, ISBN 0-252-06557-3 , pp. 24 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  26. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 125-34.
  27. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 161-65.
  28. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 175-77.
  29. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 177-78.
  30. ↑ Santley 1909, pages 79-87: Mapleson 1888, I, pages 74-76.
  31. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 190.
  32. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 201-02.
  33. ^ Chorley 1862, II, p. 142.
  34. ↑ Mapleson 1888, I, p. 4.
  35. ↑ Santley 1893, p. 60.
  36. ↑ Santley 1892, p. 36.
  37. ^ The Musical World was a London music magazine, which appeared weekly from 1836-1891
  38. ↑ Reeves, 1888, pages 229-31.
  39. ↑ Santley 1892, p. 169.
  40. ↑ Reeves 1888, pages 214 and 220-228.
  41. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 231.
  42. ↑ Santley 1892, pp. 199-200.
  43. ↑ Reeves 1888, pages 231-33: Santley 1892, pages 201-03 and 206-07.
  44. ↑ Quoted by M. Scott 1977, p. 49.
  45. ↑ Klein 1903, pp. 460-61.
  46. ↑ Klein's review in the Gilbert and Sullivan Archives
  47. ^ S. Reeves 1889, pp. 178-79.
  48. ↑ Reeves 1888, pp. 216-19.
  49. ↑ Santley 1892, pp. 277-78.
  50. ↑ Introduction to The Light of the World , in The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive (2008) ( Memento from December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  51. ↑ Reeves, 1888, pages 219-20.
  52. ↑ Reeves, 1888, pages 203-05: as Klein 1903, pages 7 and 462nd
  53. ↑ Reeves 1888, pages 242-52.
  54. ↑ Reeves 1888, pages 213-14 and 252-55.
  55. ↑ Pearce 1924, p. 24.
  56. ↑ Shaw 1932, pp. 191-92.
  57. ^ Scott, Derek B. "Come into the Garden, Maud" (1857), The Victorian Web , September 10, 2007
  58. ↑ Santley 1909, pp. 88-97.
  59. ↑ GB Shaw 1932, p. 191.
  60. ↑ Klein 1903, p. 462.
  61. ^ R. Elkin, Queen's Hall 1893-1944 (Rider, London 1944), p. 25.
  62. ↑ Reeves 1888, p. 214.
  63. ^ Shaw 1932, iii, pp. 255-56.
  64. ^ HJ Wood, My Life of Music (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd 1946 Edition), pp. 82-83.
  65. ↑ Reeves 1889, pp. 146-47.

literature

  • HF Chorley, Thirty Years' Musical Recollections (Hurst and Blackett, London 1862).
  • HS Edwards, The life and artistic career of Sims Reeves (1881)
  • R. Elkin, Queen's Hall 1893–1941 (Rider, London 1944)
  • Arthur Jacobs, Arthur Sullivan: a Victorian musician , 2nd edn (Constable & Co, London 1992)
  • H. Klein, Thirty Years of Musical Life in London (Century Co., New York 1903)
  • RH Legge and WE Hansell, Annals of the Norfolk and Norwich triennial musical festivals (1896), pages 116 and 144
  • JH Mapleson, The Mapleson Memoirs, 2 vols (Belford, Clarke & Co, Chicago and New York 1888).
  • Charles E. Pearce, Sims Reeves - Fifty Years of Music in England (Stanley Paul, 1924)
  • S. Reeves, 1888, Sims Reeves, His Life and Recollections, Written by Himself (8th Edn, London 1888).
  • S. Reeves, My Jubilee: Or, Fifty Years of Artistic Life (Music Publishing Co. Ltd, London 1889).
  • S. Reeves, On the art of singing (1900)
  • C. Santley, 1892, Student and Singer, The Reminiscences of Charles Santley (Edward Arnold, London 1892).
  • C. Santley, 1909, Reminiscences of my Life (London, Pitman).
  • M. Scott, 1977, The Record of Singing to 1914 (London, Duckworth), 48-49.
  • GB Shaw, 1932, Music in London 1890–94 by Bernard Shaw , Standard Edition 3 Vols
  • The Athenaeum , November 7, 1868, p. 610; and November 3, 1900, p. 586

Web links

Commons : John Sims Reeves  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Reeves, Sims
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reeves, John Sims
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English opera singer (tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1900
Place of death Worthing