Excerpt from Six Sovereigns of Song: Lectures
It is generally said that Braham had been so poor that he had had to sell pencils in the street. But I do not picture him as a street urchin badly fed and clothed, out in all weathers. I do not think he could have had that beautiful boy’s voice if that had been the case, and the late Lady Strachie has left it on record that she did not believe the legend. But there may be this in it - I remember my grandfather, John Levien, saying that Braham as a boy sold pencils at the entrance to the Stock Exchange, and Mr. Paul Emden tells us in his book The Jews of Britain that pencil making was a Jewish trade. Braham when a child did not receive any regular education, and it seems to me that the pencil selling was an early effort to be up and doing, selling a wanted communal product on a favourable pitch.
Abraham Goldsmid having constituted himself Braham’s patron (and a lifelong and close friendship thus began with the whole family) Leoni continued to teach him, and so well that at thirteen years of age, after singing with success as Cupid, at the Royalty Theatre, near Goodman’s Fields, in a piece in honour of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, we find him singing at Covent Garden Arne’s The soldier, tir’d of war’s alarms, with its alarming runs. It was said his vocalization, i.e. The singing of these runs with smoothness yet with distinctness of note, could only be compared With that of the remarkable coloratura singer, Madame Mara. It must be remembered that in the early days of music, before the pianoforte - which quite outdistanced the harpsichord in its power and range of effect - came, and the instruments of the orchestra were perfected and combined in symphonies, the voice was the great instrument, its skilled use being the concern of the leading musicians, who often themselves were singers - as today they are pianists - and technical accomplishment in singing was higher than it is today.
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