Symphony and Popular Concert: 3rd

Includes programme.

“The audience last night at Steinway Hall, at the third of Thomas’ concerts, was much larger than on either of the preceding evenings, a sufficient guarantee of the interest taken by the musical public of New York in the highest kind of music. The programme was as follows [see above].

The orchestra did their work nobly, as usual, and interpreted the works of Wagner, Liszt, Volkmann and Beethoven in admirable style. No other orchestra in the world could have acquitted themselves better. Miss Krebs played magnificently, but she has not yet acquired the ease, intelligent rendition and correct phrasing that we look for from a first class pianist. As for Mr. Listemann, he may be an excellent orchestral player, but, like Mr. Matzka on Saturday night, he has not the first quality to recommend him at present as a solo violinist."

“Mr. Thomas gave his third symphony concert at Steinway Hall last evening. The overture to ‘Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg,’ by Wagner, recently executed by the Philharmonic Society, was the opening piece. The first movement of Beethoven’s violin concerto in D was recited next, with Mr. Bernhard Listemann as the soloist. Mr. Listemann needs nothing but repose of manner. His tone is sufficiently full and exceedingly pure, and his mastery of the mechanism of the instrument is complete. His performance was much applauded. That of Miss Marie Krebs, who interpreted Bach’s ‘Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue’ with great precision and fluency, had equal appreciation. The first part of the entertainment was ended with Liszt’s ‘Fest-Klaenge,’ a ‘symphonic poem,’ as the composer is pleased to call it, and, in reality, a work in which a lack of ideas is concealed by instrumentation of barbaric splendor. It is difficult to conceive why Volkmann’s composition following should be called a serenade. The title of ‘fantasia’ would have been much more suited to it, for it embodies a variety of themes, none remarkable for originality or beauty, but all developed with a thorough knowledge of the poverty of the composer’s creative power, and of the resources of orchestration, as understood by musicians of the present. Miss Marie Krebs afterward rendered Litolff’s ‘Concerto Symphonique’ in two movements, and did herself credit. Beethoven’s ‘Egmont Overture’ was the last piece. It is unnecessary to say that the orchestra delivered it admirably, as it did all the works the enumeration of which has been attempted in these columns since Monday.”

“The third concert, Jan. 10, presented the following programme [see above].

Perhaps the most interesting feature was Miss Krebs’s playing of Bach’s ‘Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue,’ a composition in which she appeared to excellent advantage. Mr. Listemann’s effective rendering of the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto reminded me of Theo. Thomas in the days when he had not yet exchanged the bow for the bâton.”