Euterpe Concert: 2nd

Partial programme.

“The second concert of the Euterpe Society on Thursday evening at association Hall was better attended than the first, and we are glad to see that people of real musical culture are beginning to appreciate the valuable service which this young and serious association is rendering to the art. We are far from saying that Mr. J. P. Morgan’s undertaking has yet received the support which it deserves; but its high character is coming to be appreciated, and that at least is encouraging. Any community is fortunate which has a society with pluck and intelligence enough to offer a programme like the following, and ability enough to give it a creditable rendering: [see above].

“Very little of this music is familiar even to musicians in this city, and some of it is absolutely new. The forty ladies and gentlemen who interpreted the choral parts have excellent voices,—indeed, Mr. Morgan has been peculiarly fortunate in getting together so much valuable material,—and did their work with a conscientiousness and taste which we cordially admire. There were some blemishes, and once Mr. Morgan stopped the singers and ordered a repetition—a proceeding which, in our judgment, was not necessary—but every allowance must be made for imperfections where the society is new and the music is unfamiliar, and especially when it is difficult music, sung without accompaniment, as all the motets were sung on Thursday night. Even had the imperfections been more serious, the concert would have been a rare treat. To say nothing of the beautiful Hauptmann and Mendelssohn motets, there was the delightful work of Richter, a real treasure, which Mr. Morgan has the credit of first presenting to an American public, and the Goldmark trio, another novelty, which will take a high place in the estimation of musicians. The selection from ‘Christus’ consists of the soprano recitative, followed by trio for tenor and two basses, in which Mr. Morgan himself took the tenor part in place of Mr. Loebner who was sick. It was excellently done, and the audience insisted upon a repetition. Mr. Von Inten played the Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue, with a neat touch and refined expression, and Mr. Kopta deserves our compliments for his violin solo. This sarabande and gavotte was announced on the programme as ‘new,’ but it is the same which Vieuxtemps has frequently played during his present visit to this country; the sarabande is is closely imitated from Bach.

“At the next concert of the Euterpe we are promised Mendelssohn’s ‘Walpurgis nacht.” Mr. Morgan’s plan is, we believe, to give chamber music alternately with orchestral and choral works.”