William Hayman Cummings

William Hayman Cummings (22 August 1831 – 5 June 1915) was an English musician, tenor and organist at Waltham Abbey Church.

His performance at the Triennial Festival of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston was noticed as follows by the Chicago Tribune of 15 May 1871: The tenor is also a new-comer, brought from England for this occasion, Mr. Wm.

[This quote needs a citation]He is credited in 1855 with linking music adapted from Mendelssohn's Festgesang to Charles Wesley's words "Hark!

At the Birmingham Festival he was the last-minute tenor soloist at the premiere of The Masque at Kenilworth (1866) by Arthur Sullivan, taking Giovanni Matteo Mario's place (with only half-an-hour's notice to prepare).

As late as 1907 he gave an address on "The Culture of the Voice" in which he praised the messa di voce (which was obsolete by then) and, according to the Derby Daily Telegraph of 4 January 1907, administered: a crushing rebuke to those who indulge in what is known as the 'tremolo'.

Apart from the fact that it mars the beauty of many fine voices, it is, I agree, "a most distressing fault to the auditors, who frequently listen in doubt as to the precise pitch of the note the singer is endeavouring to produce".