Venue(s):
Steinway Hall
Manager / Director:
Lafayette F. Harrison
Conductor(s):
Carl Bergmann
Price: $1, 1.50
Event Type:
Orchestral
Performance Forces:
Vocal
Status:
Published
Last Updated:
12 February 2016
“It began with Beethoven’s Symphony Eroica, gave a number of gems ‘too numerous to mention’ and concluded with the overture to William Tell.”
“To Steinway Hall for the fourth evening of this ‘Musical Festival.’ Tonight was a ‘Miscellaneous Concert,’ beginning with the Eroica. We perspired until the last chord of its matchless peroration had been sounded, and then came home (still perspiring, by the by) for there was much bosh in the rest of the programme.”
“The Festival of Music entertained us with its fourth programme last evening. It was a miscellaneous one, deriving its principal popularity from the presence of some of the leading artists of the Italian opera—Mme. Carmen Poch and Signori Bellini and Baragli. We did not expect, therefore, that the memory of the concert public would be enriched by any striking novelty of select morceaux. Signor Baragli’s singing of ‘Il mio tesoro,’ Mozart’s rich aria, was nevertheless, an unexpected addition to our pleasure. He sings it with [?] ingenuity and almost gossamer-like delicacy, as we took occasion to say in comment on a performance of Don Giovanni. Very few things, however, that Mr. Baragli is able to give us with his sweet, but manneristic tenor, show such good tendencies as this. Wenzel Kopta’s violin performance [of] a fantasia of Vieuxtemps, witching and tender, was still more interesting. Anything heard from this skilful and able young concertist must excite a special and lively attention to which older reputations must yield. Mr. J. N. Pattison played in a correct and spirited style the grand Concerto in F minor of Henselt—a composer not as widely known as he deserves to be, out of whose good tone-sketching we have heard a great deal. The Hesse organ solo by Mr. G. W. Morgan was soundly handled in this player’s vigorous way. Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony, note of which we reserve to the last, was, it need not be said, most capably orchestrated under Carl Bergmann’s baton. All its great chapters, and particularly its sublime funeral march, its scherzo, and finishing allegro and andante, were read with an intelligence that hardly left anything to be desired. Considered as a picture brought to the mind by the magic of the bow, we could not reasonably ask a finer shading and coloring than were given to the body of the work by Mr. Bergmann’s well drilled artists. This symphony has been heard time and again under Mr. Bergmann’s conduct; but it must always take an absolute place on any program in which it appears.”
“…Thursday evening a miscellaneous concert ushered in and completed the fifth entertainment of the festival. This was led off by a singularly finished performance of Beethoven’s “Heroic Symphony”—a work which Mr. Thomas’ orchestra has given so often and so well in their recent series of concerts. The same artists were concerned in the delivery last night. The evening was further enlivened by a marvelous display of Mr. Wensel Kopka’s fantastic but thoroughly finished exercise on the violin in Vieuxtemps’ fantasia for that instrument. Mr. Pattison’s excellent performance in Henselt’s “Concerto for the Piano in F Minor,” the trio from Verdi’s “Lombards,” by Mme. Poch, Sig. Bellini and Baragli, and Mr. Morgan’s performance on the organ, were the other notable things of this entertainment.”