Arion Gesangverein Sommernachtsfest

The large orchestra, under the direction of Bergman and Rietzel, will provide promenade and dance music.

“The benighted wayfarer or ‘solitary traveller’ who might have found himself in the vicinity of Eighth avenue and the upper part of the Park last night would have thought that he had suddenly been transported from prosaic Gotham to the vale of Cashmere or to one of those scenes which Scherazade [sic] so vivdly depicts in the Arabian Nights, for many a jolly, ruddy faced Teuton wended his way to the Arion trysting place to do honor to Comus, Puck, Apollo and Terpsichore. A strangely matched quartet, something like what the incorrigible Offenbach would delight in, but nevertheless they got along swimmingly together. Lion Park from its eyrie [sic] above the park threw out long lances of light as beacons to the pilgrims from the east side and blazed forth as the night advanced like the palace of Aladdin on St. Peter’s at Easter. From a thousand blazing lights, from the blinding glare of the calcium to the merry twinkle of the prisoner within the Chinese-lantern, from many a loud tongued instrument which spoke as Reitzel [sic] or Bergmann directed, from many a peal of merry voices or murmur of pattering feet over the broad floor, was wafted a welcome to the hundred wanderers from all points of the compass. We have never seen the Lion Park appear in more resplendent style than on this occasion, and the illusion was by no means dispelled as the visitor passed along the extended entrance to the park. Two fierce looking men-at-arms clad in armor scrutinized each passer by and funny little lanterns winked from every tree. On the platform all night long a hundred couples fitted around like the shifting colors of the kaleidoscope, and the strains of the orchestra magnetized every foot, tiny and otherwise, into motion. [Lists committee members.]”

A big success.

The concert and festival went in a very satisfying fashion.