Thomas Popular Garden Concert

Event Information

Venue(s):
Central Park Garden

Manager / Director:
J. [manager] Gosche

Conductor(s):
Theodore Thomas [see also Thomas Orchestra]

Price: $.35; $2.35 private boxes

Event Type:
Orchestral

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
8 February 2020

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

19 Jul 1869, Evening

Program Details

An announcement of 07/19/69 in the New York Herald makes note of “Theodore Thomas’s two orchestras.” It is unclear if this means that the Thomas Band also participated in this event. An announcement of 07/18/69 in the New York Times states that Jules Levy will leave for Saratoga with the Seventh Regiment but does not provide a departure date. If in fact this ever happened, it would have been after the summer season, as Levy continued to perform nightly with the Thomas Orchestra at the Central Park Garden. The citations note that the romance from Halévy’s L’éclair was arranged for flute and French horn, but it is unclear if it was performed this way (no citations offer the names of any soloists). Meyerbeer is listed in the advertisements as the composer of the L’Africaine fantasia, but Music in Gotham assumes it to be Thomas’s own arrangement.

Performers and/or Works Performed

2)
aka Introduction
Composer(s): Hérold
3)
Composer(s): Gung'l
4)
aka Blitz, Der ; Eclair, L'
Composer(s): Halévy
5)
aka One heart, one soul
Composer(s): Strauss
6)
Composer(s): Unknown composer
7)
aka Introduction
Composer(s): Mozart
8)
aka Méditation sur le 1er Prélude de piano de J. S. Bach; Meditation, prelude, for piano, organ and cello; Meditation on Bach's Prelude No. 1
Composer(s): Gounod
Participants:  Jules [cornet] Levy
9)
Composer(s): Strauss
10)
Composer(s): Thomas [see also Thomas Orchestra]
11)
Composer(s): Rossini
12)
Composer(s): Frewin
Participants:  Jules [cornet] Levy
13)
Composer(s): Unknown composer

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New-Yorker Musik-Zeitung, 17 July 1869.
2)
Announcement: New-York Times, 18 July 1869, 4.

Brief. “Mr. J. Levy, the talented and popular cornet player, goes to Saratoga with the Seventh Regiment.”

3)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 19 July 1869, 2.
4)
Announcement: New York Herald, 19 July 1869, 6.

“The Central Park Garden is nightly thronged with the lovers of good music, Theodore Thomas’ two orchestras proving quite sufficient to dispel dull care, if not the heat.”

5)
Announcement: New-York Times, 19 July 1869, 5.

“At this sultry, not to say seething, time of the year, the only public entertainments that can hope for positive success are those in which the opportunities of personal comfort are freest and most complete. In proportion to the consideration bestowed by managers upon the ventilation of their houses, their chances of prosperity rise and fall. A little atmosphere agitation is just now worth all the advertising in the world, in proof of which witness the eagerness displayed in claiming for almost every theatre the distinction of ‘the coolest in the City.’ That the play-houses should lose a portion of their customary popularity during such an overheated season, is only natural. Excellent dramatic performances are afforded at more than one establishment, but the incompatibility between intellectual glow and physical swelter is too great to be reconciled in the minds and bodies of any but the most resolute theatrical devotees. Happy the manager, then, who can combine the most priceless blessing of the period, a cool, invigorating temperature, with an entertainment more in harmony than any other could possibly be with what the father of all the English poets calls ‘The gentle senses and the sighs of Summer.’ Mr. Thomas has no occasion to proclaim his concert hall ‘the coolest in the City.’ We all know it to be so. We all know, too, that its elements of natural refreshment are susceptible of artificial augmentation by mild and innocuous processes, with which neither American nor German citizens are wholly unfamiliar. But what we are, perhaps, too apt to forget, or at least not to sufficiently consider, in our enjoyment of the limitless breezy and bibulous benefits of the Central Park Garden, is the fact that the musical entertainment nightly afforded is unquestionably one of the best in quality that has at any time been offered in this City. Mr. Thomas’ compact orchestra, trained by long and united practice to a skill which few similar bodies have attained, affords in each concert a profusion and a variety which abundantly satisfy the wishes of all visitors. The programmes are frequently changed, and are so catholically arranged as to pleasantly appeal to the widest and most diverse tastes. Solo vocalists are not provided, and they are not needed. The stars sing overhead, and that is sufficient, as it ought to be, for everybody. Over one hundred concerts, we believe, have been given this season, and with constantly-increasing success. We are glad to record it. Mr. Thomas merits the thanks, no less the congratulations, of the community. It is understood that a complimentary benefit will presently be given to him. So much the better; although how, even under such attractive circumstances, the attendance could be greater than it is on all fair-weather evenings, it puzzles us to imagine. Something might possibly be gained by suggesting that none but thin people attend on the occasion, or by permitting stout visitors to pay a double admission fee—a privilege of which they would doubtless gladly avail themselves, provided the line could be satisfactorily drawn.”