Organists of Old First | 2: Rafael Navarro (1893-1895)

A true man of the world, Navarro navigated the music scene as conductor, organist, composer, director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music – all while still serving his country of origin. This is the third part of an ongoing series.

Rafael Navarro: Musician and Revolutionary

First Reformed stepped up its game with the hiring of Rafael Navarro in May of 1893. A news item at his death relayed that he was organist “at various times” at the First Reformed Church; so one might assume that in years post 1895, he may have again played at Old First.

Navarro’s Early Life: Study in Europe, Refugee in New York

Newspaper accounts of Navarro’s background reveal that he was born on his father’s estate near Santiago, Cuba, in February 1848. He studied piano and composition in Paris, his piano teacher was Leouppey, composition Baudet. He then spent some years Milan and Florence, studying under Peragini and Testa. By the time he was 19, he was back in Cuba where he joined a band of student rebels fighting for Cuban independence – the Revolution of 1868. After three years in the field, he was captured and imprisoned under a sentence of death from which he escaped, becoming a refugee in New York. The next year, ca 1873, he removed to Brooklyn where he kept residence for the next 20+ years.

That same year he was married in absentia to his fiancée who was still in Cuba, after which she traveled to Brooklyn to join him as his wife. By 1878, Navarro’s father had fled to Jamaica, the Navarro estates were confiscated, friends and relatives arrested. While Rafael built up his musical career as a performer, director, teacher and composer in Brooklyn, he continued with his ties to Cuba, becoming an active member of the Cuban Junta in New York City, an organization that gathered and sent money and materials to the revolutionaries who continued a planned overthrow of the Spanish.

Rafael Navarro, 1902,The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

By 1875 (NYS Census) Navarro, married with a one year old son, was a music teacher. In 1876, he lived at 143 Vanderbilt Avenue. At the time of the 1880 Census, he lived at 477 Pacific Street and there were two more children; he was again listed as a music teacher. In 1885 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran an ad for a performance that he conducted at the Academy of Music, the organization which he would later manage. There were many more mentions in the Eagle; directing opera had become his main occupation, Brooklyn Operatic Association was an employer, and he regularly accompanied singers in concert. He supported concerts and recitals at the Brooklyn Institute and was a director in the Amateur Opera Society. In an 1888 directory, he was listed as “Director, Prof. Rafael Navarro, First Place Methodist Church, Brooklyn,” the first mention I have seen of church employment.

Organist at First Reformed Church

Navarro came to First Reformed Church during the season of Easter in 1893, at the time of H. C. Meserole‘s departure. On May 6, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported:

“First Reformed Church, Seventh av and Carroll st, services 11 AM and 8 PM— The pastor, James M. Farrar, D. D., will preach. Children’s sermon in the morning. Subject for evening: “Wrinkles: Their Cause and Effect.” [!!] Special Music in the evening under the direction of the new leader, Professor Raphael [sic] Navararro. All are invited.”

Several subsequent services in which he played are listed in the Eagle. On Easter, 1894, he performed a piece which he had composed. From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 24, 1894:

At the First Reformed church, Seventh avenue and Carroll street, the Rev. Dr. James M. Farrar, pastor, the music will be: Morning service — Organ, March du Sucre, Meyerbeer [Jacob Liebmann “Giacomo” Meyerbeer – a German Jewish opera composer, Berlin, Rome, Paris]; anthem, “The Day of Resurrection,” [Max] Vogrich [published in 1890]; doxology, choir and congregation; response, Cameron; bass solo, “The Resurrection,” Shelley [Harry Rowe Shelley – also played by Meserole in 1891]; hymn No. 33; anthem, “Hallelujah! Christ is Risen,” [Edwyn A.] Clare [London – published in 1891]; Gloria Patri; hymn No. 439; offertory, (soprano solo), “I Know That my Redeemer Liveth,” Handel; quartet. Chase: male quartet, “The Lord’s Day”; hymn No. 453; organ finale, Fifth symphony, Beethoven. Evening service — Organ, Andante in E minor, Navarro; anthem, “Christ the Lord is Risen,” [Dudley] Buck; hymn No. 446; alto solo, “Easter Dawn,” [Raymond Huntington] Woodman [who “opened” our organ in 1891, see Part 2]; response, “The Lord’s Prayer” (chant); anthem, “King All Glorious,” [Sir Joseph] Barnby [England]; hymn No. 457; offertory (tenor solo), “Every Flower That Blossoms,” [Harry Rowe] Shelley; male quartet, “Lead, Kindly Light,” [Dudley] Buck; doxology, choir and congregation; organ, march, “Consecration of Tone,” [Louis] Spohr [German]. The members of the choir are: Miss Anna F. Halsted and Miss Agnes E. Bowen, sopranos; Miss Margaret M. Leverich and Mrs. John N. Derby, contraltos; Mr. Benjamin M. Chase and Mr. L. Starr, tenors; Mr. William F. Cameron and Mr. Richard W. Wentz, basses. Mr. Rafael Navarro, organist and director.

Return to Cuba to Aid the Revolution

Early in 1895 Navarro, along with members of his Cuban society, were enlisted by José Martí, journalist and leader of the newly organized Cuban Revolutionary Party (1892), to return to Cuba and spread the doctrine of Cuban freedom. They were to travel throughout the island making speeches while Martí and a group of exiled generals would lead the military rebellion. Navarro left his position as organist at First Reformed, shut his music schools, put his business on hiatus, and returned to Cuba. The society had amassed considerable supplies and arms which they had dispatched to Fernandina, Florida, but their ships and all supplies were seized by the U. S. government just before they were to set sail. The men went on, but Martí was killed shortly after his arrival, leaving the generals to carry on. Many society members, including Navarro, remained until the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in the Havana harbor, February 15, 1898, after which the United States was drawn into the fight. At this point Navarro felt free to return home, with independence in sight. Read Navarro’s story in the Eagle, here.

His Musical Career Resumes

Rafael Navarro, vocal instructor, 1908, advertisement from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Upon his return to Brooklyn, Navarro took a position as organist at the Church of the Holy Rosary. Over the next several years, he worked with a multitude of singers and operatic productions as reported in the Eagle. Although primarily a musician and not a businessman, he held the position of manager of the old Brooklyn Academy of Music on Montague Street from 1898 until it burned down in 1903. Navarro focused more on teaching for income from this time.

In October of 1912, Navarro was interviewed and had great criticism of the music being performed in Brooklyn at that time, saying Brooklyn had fallen below Manhattan in stature. Navarro felt that all of the borough’s great musical patrons had died, and their children were fleeing, which was leading to the decline of financial support and quality of music. He was, in 1912, still prominent in the New York music world as an executive member of the National Association of Organists and one of thirty governors of the Musicians Club of New York, and organist and choirmaster of the Universalist Church of Our Father. The next year, 1913, he would remove to Montclair, New Jersey, where he continued to be influential in the music world.

A snipped from “Musical America”, 1917:

Montclair, N. J. …A valuable addition to Montclair’s circle of musicians is Rafael Navarro, the well-known organist, composer and former conductor of opera at the old Academy of Music, Brooklyn, who has recently moved here.

From a review in “The Musical Monitor”, 1917:

No finer religious music has been published in America than the two songs by Rafael Navarro entitled “Show Me Thy Ways, O Lord,” and “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.” Both begin with a well-devised recitativo (some of the best writing of that sort I have seen recently); the principal airs are dignified, sincere in their religious message, quite melodious and readily singable.

Navarro died in March 30, 1918. From one of his obituaries in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, we read this tribute:

Few persons in the past have been so active as Mr. Navarro to develop a genuine musical atmosphere in the Borough of Brooklyn. He was a composer of much ability, had filled the position of organist in prominent local churches, knew personally all of the famous living musicians and in his time labored unceasingly with his talent and experience to make Brooklyn musically better.

…During his career he was an executive member of the National Association of Organists, one of the governors of the Musicians’ Club of New York, organist at various periods of the Dutch Reformed Church, Seventh avenue and Carroll street, the old Masonic Temple, the Universalist Church of Our Father, conductor of the old Brooklyn Amateur Opera Association, and assistant conductor to the late Theodore Thomas when the latter was conductor of the Handel and Haydn choral societies [work which fell to Navarro while Thomas frequently traveled with the  Brooklyn Philharmonic of the Brooklyn Academy of Music], and lastly manager of the Academy of Music from 1898 to 1903, when it was destroyed by fire.

Obituary in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Obituary in The New York Times

. . .

The eerie story of our third organist, Henry E. H. Benedict, is now posted here.

Our church historian, Jane Barber, has compiled a comprehensive history of our amazing organ, and the people who have played it.

(read Part 1 here)  Organists of Old First | Intro: A History
(read Part 2 here)  Organists of Old First | 1: Harris Cornell Meserole