Central Park Band Concert

“The charming weather yesterday, and the no less powerful attraction of music on the lake crowded the Mall, Terrace and adjoining grounds in the Park. There could have been no less than fifteen thousand people congregated in the vicinity of the lake at half-past four o’clock P. M., when Mr. Dodworth’s fifteen musicians huddled together in their little barge, left the landing. The scene was picturesque in the extreme. The gonfalons, emblazoned with the arms of the State, nodded lazily in the light breeze; the lake was alive with boats gliding amid the sleepy-looking swans, and darting out from mysterious nooks and creeks; the bridge was heavily freighted with humanity, in every variety of toilet; the fountain glistened and [flung?] its crystal drops across the slanting sunbeams…The programme of the music comprised among other pieces a selection from the ‘Sicilian Vespers,’ a quartet for French horns, arranged on this occasion for full band, and published under the name of Weber by a young modern composer; the ‘Columbanus’ and ‘Flick Flock’ gallops, and a ‘Capilla’ by Kreutzer. The shades of evening were falling when the last notes of ‘Home, sweet Home’ announced the conclusion of the concert.”