William J. Hill Concert

“It is only when surrounded by a galaxy of stars such as appeared at Hill’s concert, at Association Hall, filled to overflowing by an audience eager, fashionable, and critical, that each artist strives to do his very best. We all know what Mills’ best is; still on that occasion, he fairly electrified his audience by his marvelous playing. Untrammeled by an orchestra, which often overshadows the finest [illeg.] of the pianist, he proved conclusively that among the many great pianists in this country at present he is still the pianist par excellence, and ranks first in the order of merit. Mills is a most thorough and pains-taking artist, and invites rather than shuns difficulties, and while en rapport with his piano, as on that evening, a splendid Weber Grand, he produces most excellent effects. He made the piano literally sing in his ‘Recollection of Home,’ and in the evenness of his scale, his chromatic passages [illeg.] a wonderful succession of immense power in the base [sic], graduating into pianissimo in the extreme treble, in which every note came out with a silvery clearness and distinctness which he was the very [illeg.] of piano-playing. To make such effects needs a perfect piano. An instrument may be good, but if a maker improves on a good one and makes a better, the artists speedily discover the fact. The fact is incontrovertible that the action of the Weber Piano is unrivaled. Possessing all the valuable qualities of any composer, and having a deep, rich diapason tone, all its own, it has besides the merit of an easy, silent action, which is the most perfect and delicate in the world, and herein lies the reason of the recent great interest taken in the Weber Piano throughout the United States, and the cause why all the great artists prefer the Weber instrument.” [reprinted from the Evening Express.]