Central Park Garden Concert: Theodore Thomas Annual Benefit Concert

Includes program. A military band will perform during the intermission.

“To say that the Central Park Garden was [illegible] on Thursday evening would be to tell only half the truth. The audience was probably the largest ever [illegible] in that place. Before the concert opened the [illegible] was completely filled, and the garden was gay with [illegible] and fluttering ribbons, and vocal with merry [illegible] and laughter. In the hight [sic] of the evening it was difficult to find even standing room, except in a few [illegible] and remote corners, and promenading was almost impossible. Such a benefit night was a high compliment to Mr. Thomas, and a credit to the musical taste of our [illegible]. The lover of art must have seen with unqualified pleasure that the substantial recognition for which Mr. Thomas labored so long has rewarded him at last. For [illegible] years he expended his rare talents in the cause of [illegible] with little or no acknowledgment save [illegible] a few of the more cultivated [illegible]. But the populace has found him [illegible] at last, and all classes are ready to do him [illegible]. He has not only succeeded in organizing the most perfect orchestra ever heard in America, but he has certain personal qualifications which especially fit him to the place he now fills. He is a thorough scientific musician, an accomplished artist, a man singularly well [illegible] with all the best works [illegible] of the old and new composers, familiar with the labors of the active musicians of the day; gifted not only with a correct and [illegible] taste, but with great tact in choosing what his listeners will relish; hating humbug; despising all the [illegible] of notoriety; always and in all things conscientious. [Illegible] Mr. Thomas has two other qualities which Americans never fail to honor. He is enterprising, and he is [full?] of pluck. No great piece of orchestral music is played in Europe but he has it before anyone else in America. The Philharmonic Society spent a year in [trying?] to get Raff’s new symphony, and did not succeed; Mr. Thomas has been playing it this long time. Wagner’s great March of Victory, written for the celebration of the revived empire, and just published in Leipsic, was imported immediately on its appearance. Mr. Thomas got it out of the Custom-House on Wednesday night and performed it on Thursday. What courage and [illegible] he showed in keeping his orchestra together [although?] the public was indifferent to his labors we need to say. If ever a musician in America earned his [illegible] by sheer hard work it is he.

When Mr. Thomas appeared on the stage he was greeted with repeated rounds of enthusiastic applause, which he acknowledged with his usual modesty. We [illegible] not criticise the performance as a whole, for it was [illegible] of that excellent character which is habitual at the Central Park concerts. One or two points, however, deserve special mention. A military band was placed in the gallery outside the hall, in a position commanding a view of the conductor’s stand. It played light music during the intermissions, and joined with the orchestra in Weber’s Jubel overture, the March and Battle Hymn from ‘Rienzi,’ [illegible], producing, to those who were favorably seated, a gorgeous effect. The programme [illegible] a happy variety of classical and popular music, and contained several novelties. The most important of these were a Fest Vorspiel of Liszt’s a short and curiously abrupt composition which is not likely to become popular, and Wagner’s Kaisersmarsch, of which we have already spoken. This is a work of great splendor and marvelously rich effects, closing with an effective and [illegible] adaptation of Ein feste Burg. Elaborate as it is, it was admirably played, although, as we have said, it had been in Mr. Thomas’s possession only 24 hours. Among the standard pieces performed during the evening were the adagio from Beethoven’s ‘Promehteus,’ with an excellent obbligato by the new violoncellist, Mr. Appy, the adagio and scherzo from the Ninth Symphony, and the adagio and rondo from Paganini’s violin concerto in E-flat, well played by Mr. Bernhard Listemann, who has left Boston in order to become a leading violinist under Mr. Thomas. Mr. Listemann is an excellent musician, and we are glad to have him once more in New-York.”