New York Philharmonic Society Concert: 1st

Discusses programs (expressing regret for the absence of any American composition) and guest artists for the season.

Artists and repertory for the winter season.

“The opening of the Philharmonic season is the event of the year in musical circles.”  Discusses the importance of the Philharmonic, its new direction under a new president, Dr. Doremus, and the forthcoming season.

“Sent Louis and Temple to the Philharmonic tonight to hear the Eroica.  They say they liked it.”

“The first concert of the season, the twenty-seventh of the Philharmonic Society, was given at the Academy last evening to an audience which filled the house from top to bottom. The programme included Beethoven’s Symphony ‘Eroica,’ No. 3, in E flat, in four movements; Gade’s overture, ‘Hamlet,’ and a symphonie fantastique, in two parts, by Berlioz, given by the Philharmonic performers, and an aria ‘Lascia ch’io Pianga’ by Handel, and a scena from Gluck’s Orfeo, ‘Che faro senza Euridice,’ sung by Miss Adelaide Phillips [sic]. The performers are too well known to the music-loving portion of the community to need any comment. Suffice it to say that the one hundred performers moved, as usual, like a complicated yet highly finished machine, while the masterpieces which they essayed were given, of course, in most masterly style. Miss Phillips appeared to be, if possible, in better voice than ever and was greeted with most enthusiastic encores. The season opening thus brilliantly promises well for the rehearsals and performances yet to come.”

“The Philharmonic concert at the Academy of Music on Saturday night was a most auspicious opening of the season. The Academy of Music was crowded to excess, and the applause was liberal. Miss Phillips [sic] was the soloist, and in airs from Handel and Gluck displayed her rich voice and finished style to perfection. The orchestral pieces included Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, which received an admirable interpretation, an overture by Gade, and a fantastic symphony by Berlioz. This last attracted considerable attention, and gave rise to varied comments.  It is certainly quaint and original.”

“The audience at the Philharmonic concert on Saturday evening was as brilliant as the costume of the nineteenth century would permit. A more charming array of lovrly women, we venture to say, could nowhere be collected in the world, or a more gloomy army of black-coated men. The programme was worthy of the immense audience, if for no other reason, is that its chief feature was Beethoven’s ‘Heroic Symphony’ by many esteemed the greatest work of the master, by all as among the greatest. It is a work beyond all words of eulogy, and there is nothing left for criticism but to reacknowledge its profound beauty, its noble scope, its depth of feeling, the heavenly inspiration. The consent of humanity has placed it in the world’s archives among its chiefest treasures. What Homer gave to poetry in the ‘Iliad’ and Milton in the ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Regained,’ what Raphael gave to painting in the Dresden Madonna, that Beethoven gave to music in this composition. It is for us to be thankful that his very thought can be brought home to us and interpreted by so splendid and well trained an orchestra as that which gave expression to it on Saturday night. The rendering of the work was well nigh perfect. Different ideas prevail as to the time in which the dead march that forms the second movement should be taken. There are those who think that a higher expression can be given to the idea by retarding the time so that the sentiment of the movement is changed, and instead of being a march it becomes a sort of elegy, a musical ‘In Memoriam.’ Mr. Bergmann is evidently of this way of thinking, and led it accordingly with excessive slowness. The movement is marked for the metronome at 80. It may possibly have been led at the tempo, though we doubt it. Certainly, it lost in force by being taken so very slowly, and the theme was almost as it were drawled out, so reluctantly did the notes follow each other. In the middle fugued passage this effect was especially noticeable, and one felt a nervous desire to have the time quickened, and an inner consciousness that it must absolutely have been intended to be played faster.

“How few songs have ever been written that could be sung after this symphony and not have seemed frivolous. One of the few that are able to stand the test Miss Adelaide Phillips [sic] had selected—the noble aria by Handel, ‘Lascia ch’io pianza,’—one of the purest efforts of that great composer’s genius; a song full of tender feeling and deep true emotion.  Miss Phillips sang it as it deserved to be sung, with true artistic feeling, with breadth and fervor, and tenderness. Her voice never seemed fuller smoother or more pure. The audience, of course, recalled her, and the noble air grew only more beautiful and sad, and touching with repetition. So ended the first part of the programme. It was not in the nature of things that is should hold out as well to the end, and indeed it did not.  The instrumental portion of the second part consisted of the overture to Hamlet by ‘Gade,’ and two parts of a symphony by Berlioz; the vocal part, of the great scena and aria from Gluck’s Orpheus,’ Che farò senza Euridice,’—a song in perfect accord with the dignity of the programme, for this great aria is kindred in spirit and genius to that of Handel, of which we have spoken, and worthy to claim relationship and to take its place side by side with it.  The overture to ‘Hamlet’ was a well-considered, well-composed work, not indicative of great genius, but musicianly and interesting.

“Finally came the symphony by Hector Berlioz. This is a work so full of eccentricity, so utterly defiant of precedent, so extravagant and grotesque, and the composer of it is so persistently lauded as a great genius, that we give it more than a passing notice. Without an explanatory key it would be impossible to understand. The composer has furnished us the key in the story of a young musician who, being in love and also in despair, seeks to poison himself with opium. He takes an underdose, and instead of dying has vision, and these vision form the subject of this symphony. We quote from the programme:

[description of the first four movements—not clear if the fifth movement was performed]

“This singular jumble of volcanic passion, delirious anguish, jealous fury, and religious constellations, shepherds’ songs, thunder, and funeral march, is sufficiently extravagant when considered in plain prose; when it comes to be expressed by a large orchestra, the effect becomes truly startling to the American mind.  Frenchmen have got used to it. Lamartine, Rousseau, Geroge Sand, Eugene Sue, and their novels, have quite accustomed them to it. Cupid’s armory does not consist, for them, of plain bow and quiver; he carries an assorted quantity of narcotics and poisons, with occasional ropes for hanging in desperate cases. It it quite the orthodox thing for the lovers to rave about in a wild and distressing way, to keep those they love in constant turmoil, and to act generally after a demented fashion. When this kind of novel writing comes to be reproduced in music, the effect on the mind is very much the same as that produced by the reading of the novel.

“For own our part, we like neither the thing expressed, nor the manner of its expression. The ideas lack continuity and grace, and well-defined form, in the first place; in the second, the orchestra is not well kept together, and bizarre combinations of instruments are made, the effect of which is far from agreeable. It would be very easy to go into detail in regard to this, but we only instance the case of the duet between the oboe and the kettledrums as illustrating what we mean. The effect of the whole piece is fragmentary, and while it is exceedingly interesting as a study of instrumentation, of which Berlioz is a wonderful master, we cannot hope that this school of composition will ever prevail to any great extent. The march to execution, however, was full of fine somber orchestral color, and the musical figure solemn and melodious, which reminds us to say that there was something a little sepulchral in having three funeral marches in one evening—that in Beethoven’s symphony, another occurring incidentally in the overture to Hamlet, and the third by Berlioz, just referred to.

“The Society is in the full tide of success, for which it may thank the enterprise of Dr. Doremus, and we trust its career under his presidency will be long and bright.”

“The first concert (twenty-seventh season) of the Philharmonic Society of New-York took place at the Academy of Music on Saturday evening. Under the direction of its present President, Prof. DOREMUS, the Society has recovered all its former prosperity, and the house in consequence was literally crowded from floor to roof. The practical organization of the leading musical society of America justified this result, but it cannot always be obtained by organization—practical or otherwise. We are therefore glad to see that it has been obtained by the cooperation of a gentleman of musical enthusiasm and culture. The orchestra was composed of 101 members—representing the cream of the New-York musical profession—and in the varied aggregations of effect equal to any orchestra in the old country. Miss ADELAIDE PHILLIPS [sic] was the vocalist. Her appearance was the signal for a genial burst of applause, which increased to enthusiasm after a clear and musical rendering of HANDEL’S aria, “Lascia ch’ io pianga.” The morceau is melodious and depends on phrasing more than any other express quality of voice.  Miss PHILLIPS is in this respect admirable. Her success was complete. But we think that in this piece, as in the scena from the ‘Orfeo’ of GLUCK, (a scena since made ridiculous by OFFENBACH) the selection of both from their mere simplicity was injudicious. Rightly or not, we expect some effort on the part of a singer at a Philharmonic Concert. It must be said also that some of the freshness of Miss PHILLIPS’ voice has departed, and freshness is what is most needed in compositions calling for but few other requisites, albeit true art, like Miss PHILLIPS’, accomplishes vast results, as we have recognized. The orchestra portion of the programme opened with Beethoven’s well-known Eroica Symphony, (No. 3 in E flat,) which was superbly rendered by the orchestra. It is a long work, but it did not lose an atom of interest at the hands of Mr. BERGMANN.  The funeral march was most touchingly interpreted. It may be mentioned here that every instrumental piece in the programme had a funeral march in it—an arrangement which we can hardly suppose was originally contemplated. Thus there was one in the overture to ‘Hamlet’—a fine, broad, sensitive work; and another in the ‘Symphonie Fantastique,’ by BERLIOZ. The latter is not new to a New York public. It was played here by Mr. THEODORE THOMAS, and is, if our memory does not fail us, the first of the composer’s large works. It is eminently dramatic, and, therefore, cannot be played in sections. Two movements only were given by the Philharmonic Society—the best, perhaps, but not the most interesting for a miscellaneous audience, and, at all events, destitute of coherence. Mr. BERGMANN conducted with admirable delicacy and decision. The soft parts were never purer, or the pronounced passages more vehement and overwhelming.”

“The Philharmonic society opened its twenty-seventh season Saturday night at the Academy of Music with an excellent and interesting programme, and an audience which crowded every part of the building. As early as half after seven many people were already reduced to the necessity of sitting on the floor. The programme was as follows [see above]

“There is perhaps nothing of Beethoven’s which gives one so good an idea of the breadth of his genius as the first movement of the Heroic Symphony, with its wonderful variety of treatment and unity of idea, its charming simplicity of thought, and its wealth of instrumental effects. One discovers in it new beauties every time it is heard, and to our mind there is no other music which can be heard so often without weariness. The Symphony as a whole is rightly esteemed the grandest ever written, except the Choral Symphony, the last of Beethoven’s immortal nine, and there are some critics who place it before even that stupendous work. It was written in honor of Napoleon, during the Consulship, when Beethoven, in common with so many others, believed that the young conqueror was to be the champion of popular liberty all through Europe; and it is well known how, in his disappointment at Napoleon’s subsequent career, he changed the title and dedication of his work, and made it an illustration of military heroism in general instead of a tribute to individual greatness. On the back of the programmes last Saturday evening was printed a highly fanciful essay on the sentiments supposed to be embodied in the Symphony and the pictures it attempts to paint. We had ‘the faltering steps of the last gazers into the grave,’ and ‘tears falling on a coffin and repeated fainting by an echo,’ a piece of idiocy for which the writer deserves instant incarceration. Mendelssohn in one of his letters ridicules the German critics who tried to illustrate one of his overtures in this way, and found in it pictures and heard voices which he never had imagined; and he reminds us that the higher forms of music are a medium for the utterance of conceptions which cannot be out into words, of poetry which is not to be measured by the rules of prosody. A good illustrative programme is music needed at our better class of concerts, but it should confine itself to the history of the works it mentions. This absurd attempt at verbal interpretation of thoughts which are intrinsically incapable of any other than musical expression, is not much better than the late dreadful effort at a certain theater in New York to ‘illustrate’ the Pastoral Symphony by a troupe of ballet girls and a real wheelbarrow. The performance of the first and fourth movements of the Heroic Symphony (allegro con brio and allegro moto) was almost perfect, and for the first concert of the season was remarkable. The second movement (the Funeral March) was taken too slow, and as it is quite long, it seemed to drag, especially in the fugue. The scherzo would have been faultless if the horns had not been husky.

“There are very few songs and very few singers that could be heard with satisfaction after the Heroic Symphony, but the aria from Handel’s ‘Rinaldo’ as it is rendered by Miss Phillipps, is never out of place. Here we have that deep pathos in the music and that true feeling in the singer, which fill the heart right up and touch the listener to the very soul. We have never appreciated it so fully as in listening to this song the exclamation of the dying Beethoven as he pointed to a copy of Handel’s works, ‘There is the truth!’ And it is because there is so much truth and simplicity in the music and so much soul and conscience in the singer that Miss Phillipps made a deep impression upon the real lovers of art, even while the echoes of the Symphony were still ringing in their ears. She was recalled by a storm of applause, and after receiving a handsome basket, in which the words ‘Welcome Home’ were woven in flowers, repeated the aria. Her scena from Gluck’s Orfeo is another composition full of true passion and she gives it admirably; but Gluck does not bear so well as Handel the contrast with Beethoven, and consequently it scarcely produced its due effect.

“The overture to ‘Hamlet’ we should have been glad to hear under different circumstances; for it too was unfavorably affected by the pieces which came before it. Niels Gade, the Danish composer, was a friend and favorite of Mendelssohn, whom he succeeded for a while in the direction of the famous Gewandhaus concerts at Leipsic, and is now about 52 years of age. He is supposed to possess a good deal of Mendelssohn’s spirit, with a strong vein of originality. The ‘Hamlet’ overture is not one of his best works. It is dry in thought, but admirable in treatment and the instrumentation is superb.

“Of the Berlioz nonsense it is difficult to speak with patience. It is bad in itself, false, frightful, outraging every poetical perception and its horrors were aggravated on Saturday by the Idiot of the Programme, who got loose again, and tried to tell us what it all meant. The Symphonie fantastique represents the ravings of a love-sick artist, who dreams dreadful dreams about the lady of his heart, and finally imagines that he has killed her. Two of the four movements of the Symphony were mercifully spared us; we had only the third, which represents a pastoral scene, with an ugly Ranz-des-vaches running through it, and the fourth, which symbolizes the march to execution, and at last the chop of the headman’s ax. In plain English, the symphony is a night-mare set to music. The third movement ends with what the programme calls ‘the sinking of the sun—a distant roll of thunder—solitude—silence;’ the thunder is well imitated, and the silence is delicious.  In the fourth we have a funeral march which is merely the grand march from the Prophète, a little spoiled, and contains a galloping passage on the drums, as if the horses run away with the hearse. The performance, however, was as spirited and careful as anyone could desire.”      

“The first concert (twenty-seventh season) of the honored Philharmonic Society, was on Saturday evening the 28th, given at the Academy of Music, before an audience which gladdened and inspired the hearts of all present, especially the performers, who appeared in solid lines ‘one hundred strong;’ and such an hundred!—apparently glowing with the electric fire of an enthusiasm, which, say what you will, was and can be like to nothing else in the world, as it was the enthusiasm of artists—an enthusiasm sui generis, and not to be tainted by comparison.

“Beethoven’s ‘Eroica Symphony,’ in E flat, and two parts of Berlioz’ Sinfonie Fantastique, were the main orchestral attractions, and were rendered in a style which caused us to experience a delicious vision.

“We thought we were in some feudal mansion, and this heavenly music was being made for us alone. O, how grand we felt! No performers were visible; the elements alone kept us company, as it were, ‘tho’ at a distance,’ and viewed through narrow windows from the afore-mentioned grand old mansion.

“Ere long a form, great and terrible appeared, on which our whole attention was at once ardently fixed. A massive brow, with deep-set gray eyes, hair like a forest torn by hurricanes, a mouth whose rigid lines betokened an iron and invincible will, and a visage in which determination and kindliness, suffering and the possibility of extacy [sic], intellect and simplicity were strangely blended. The figure appeared hovering in the air above the music, nor did it rest still, for quite a while. At length its motion ceased, when the ‘Marche Funebre’ commenced. O, we can never forget the expression of that wondrous countenance during the performance of that march. We thought we saw a few large tear-drops coursing down the furrowed cheeks, although the facial muscles were fixed, but when the last movement was being played, with ‘Heroism Triumphant’ proclaimed in its every note, then we certainly saw a benignant smile in the face of the aerial stranger—a smile which seemed to say—‘I now return to my rest, leaving the world to enjoy what I have create,’ Then he vanished. It was Beethoven, but he could not see our tears!

“Berlioz’ Fantastic Symphony, like all of the works of this great Master, requires close study by the critic, after an orchestra even of virtuosi have interpreted its many intracies. It was wonderfully performed, and we crave a repetition of it before venturing upon a description therof.

“The New York Philharmonic is beginning to receive numerous compliments from English papers for the ‘many novelties’ produced by it. This is itself a ‘novelty’ in connection with this Society. We hope it will not long continue so to be however. We want at least one new work at every concert. Conductor Bergman was covered with honor by this perfect concert.”

“On Saturday evening, occurred the 1st Philharmonic Concert with this programme: [see above]

“The Eroica, with its interminable Marche Funebre was well done by the ‘orchestra of 100’ and the Scherzo was quite above praise; the crescendos and diminuendos were carefully graduated and the general effect excellent.

“The ‘Hamlet’ Overture opens with a subdued March in C-minor, and subsequently is succeeding by a stirring vigorous Allegro in the same key; a lovely episode in A-flat is soon introduced, and this eventually reappears in E flat; there is also an enchanting little fragment in B major—taken by the wind instruments—but this soon disappears and again comes the Allegro, which is worked up to a climacteric conclusion, and then—after a pause—comes the slow, subdued march, which terminates with a long roll of drums and immense crescendo, and thus endeth the overture.

“The Handel Aria—which Miss Phillips [sic] sang at the 4th Brooklyn Philharmonic last winter and also at Mr. Morgan’s concert—deepens for its effect upon well sustained tones and correct expression, and Miss Phillips—need I say—sang it most admirably, and also Gluck’s charming ‘Che faro.’  Miss P. deserves to be complimented for her wisdom in having selected solos devoid of the usual opportunities for vocal gymnastics, and dependent upon the voice and not the execution of the vocalist.

“The Academy was crammed with people and the audience behaved—for a Philharmonic one—with unusual decorum; again must I enter my protest against the abominable chandelier in the centre of the building, by its numerous flaring gas jets incalculable injury is done to one’s eyes.”

“As to the Philharmonic concert, instead of calling Beethoven’s Marcia funebre ‘interminable,’ as our correspondent does, most of the critics ascribe that impression to a more likely cause. Thus the Sun says:

“Different ideas prevail as to the time in which the dead march that forms the second movement should be taken. There are those who think that a higher expression can be given to the idea by retarding the time so that the sentiment of the movement is changed, and instead of being a march it becomes a sort of elegy, a musical ‘In Memoriam.’ Mr. Bergmann is evidently of this way of thinking, and led it accordingly with excessive slowness. The movement is marked for the metronome at 80. It may possibly have been led at that tempo, though we doubt it.  Certainly, it lost in force by being taken so very slowly, and theme was almost as it were drawled out, so reluctantly did the notes follow each other. In the middle fugued passage this effect was especially noticeable, and one felt a nervous desire to have the time quickened, and an inner consciousness that it must absolutely have been intended to be played faster.

“The same writer speaks thus plainly of the ‘Programme Symphony’ of Berlioz:

“This is a work so full of eccentricity, so utterly defiant of precedent, so extravagant and grotesque, and the composer of it so persistently lauded as a great genius, that we give it more than a passing notice. Without an explanatory key it would be impossible to understand. The composer has furnished us with the key in the story of a young musician who being in love, and also in despair, seeks to poison himself with opium. He takes an underdose and instead of dying has visions, and these vision form the subject of the symphony.

“This singular jumble of volcanic passion, delirious anguish, jealous fury, and religious consolations, shephards’ songs, thunder, and funeral march, is sufficiently extravagant when considered in plain prose; when it comes to be expressed by a large orchestra, the effect becomes truly startling to the American mind. Frenchmen have got used to it. Lamartine, Rousseau, George Sand, Eugene Sue, and their novels, have quite accustomed them to it.

“For our own part, we like neither the thing expressed, nor the manner of its expression. The ideas lack continuity and grace and well defined form, in the first place; in the second, the orchestra is not well kept together, and bizarre combinations of instruments are made, the effect of which is far from agreeable. It would be very easy to go into detail in regard to this, but we only instance the case of the duet between the oboe and the kettledrums as illustrating what we mean. The effect of the whole piece is fragmentary, and while it is exceedingly interested as a study of instrumentation, of which Berlioz is a wonderful master, we cannot hope that this school of composition will ever prevail to any great extent. The march to execution, however, was full of fine somber orchestral color, and the musical figure solemn and melodious, which reminds us to say that there was something a little sepulchral in having three funeral marches in one evening—that in Beethoven’s symphony, another occurring incidentally in the overture to Hamlet, and the third by Berlioz, just referred to.”

“ . . . . I have an old debt to pay and I’m eager to honor it. I haven’t yet spoken of the first concert by the Philharmonic Society and it would be a veritable denial of justice to keep silent about such a remarkable evening. Beethoven’s heroic symphony [Eroica] amd Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique were carried off with a mastery above all praise.

“Gade’s overture to Hamlet had only a succès d’estime. It’s an academic work, from a high academy even, but which, except for a well-enough-handled agitato, contains nothing remarkable.

“The most substantial success, I mean the one created spontaneously by the audience who applauded a bit too often out of assurance, was carried off by Mme Adelaide Phillips. She sang Handel’s air Lascia ch’io pianga with her most beautiful voice and the style of a master. This air, unfortunately too short, is one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever heard, and yet it’s not complicated; it doesn’t have the least bit of breakneck; it’s grand music without abstraction that goes right to the heart. No artifice, no roulades, arpeggios, vocalizes; a simple theme that unfolds on three notes, starting from the tonic, passing by the third to rest on the dominant and brought back from there to the tonic by a simple reappearance in the cello. It’s possible that this music may have passed out of fashion; in any case, I strongly wish that the fashion for it comes back quickly.

“Mme Phillips had the honor of an encore, and never had applause been more merited. The listeners were seized by the expression of that distress, full of depth and majesty. One would have spoken of ancient Niobe, and Mme Viardot alone was able, I believe, to interpret, in a manner so heart-rending and so complete, the concentrated grief, the most terrible of pains, that which can’t be mourned.”

“The first Philharmonic concert was attended by a large audience.  We have before mentioned the orchestral selections for the occasion.  Beethoven’s Sinfonia Eroica, Gade’s Overture, Hamlet, and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.  Both performers and listeners were in thoroughly good humor and therefore in a favorable condition for giving out and receiving musical thoughts and impressions.  But when we speak of musical thoughts we do not wish to be understood as countenancing such absurdities as the managers of this society are guilty of in the descriptions offered in their programmes.  Instead of leaving Beethoven to interpret his own ideas, they undertake to analyze the symphony and as an inevitable result, make the whole thing ridiculous.  Only one illustration need be given.  The reader of the programme is informed, in the description of the Funeral March, that ‘the listener hears the tears fall on the coffin ere the funeral volley is fired.’  We wonder the old composer, who so heartily despised nonsense and clap-trap did not make his appearance and offer a ghostly protest.  That we may not be regarded as unnecessarily severe, we will quote Mendelssohn’s sentiments upon the subject.  He had a highly imaginative nature, and would be as likely as any one to give his music a fanciful embroidery if the process were a legitimate one.  But this is what he thinks of it.  ‘Many person’ he says, ‘consider Melusina to be my best overture; at all events, it is the most deeply felt.  But as to the fabulous nonsense of the musical papers about red coral and green sea monsters, and magic palaces and deep seas, this is stupid stuff, and fills me with amazement.’”