Thomas Popular Garden Concert

General overview of the concert series. “There is no place of amusement in the city which is so well attended just as present as the Central Park Garden. The hall and garden are always cool and breezy, and the fresh air which wanders into the enclosure from the neighboring Central Park is exceedingly grateful in contrast with the heated atmosphere of the theatres. Mr. Thomas’s orchestra is large, well balanced, carefully drilled, and, in the main, admirably led; and the music which it furnishes comprises symphonies and overtures by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Rossini and Meyerbeer, as well as lighter selections from Bellini, Verdi, Strauss and Offenbach. That these concerts have already improved the musical taste of the people is shown by the fact that, while Strauss’s waltzes and Offenbach’s quadrilles were the pieces which received the most frequent applause during the first season[,] the audience this summer evidently prefers the grand harmonies of the German masters to the sensuous melodies of the song and waltz writers. Mr. Levy’s cornet solos are not only faultlessly played, but the music which he selects is never meretricious or worthless. The general management of the Garden is excellent, and drunkenness or disorder of any kind is a rare occurrence. The average number of persons who nightly visit the Garden is nearly three thousand, and a more orderly and respectable audience cannot be found at any of our theatres, not excepting Booth’s or Wallack’s.”