Matinee: 1st

“Mr. Mills, one of our most esteemed resident artists, gave the first of a series of matinées at Steinway Hall on Saturday afternoon. The audience was numerous, attentive and evidently conversant with a high grade of music.

The programme comprised eight judiciously-selected pieces, commencing with a gem from Mendelssohn, and ending with an ever-memorable sonata by Beethoven. In playing the ‘Polonaise’ from Chopin, Mr. Mills well maintained his high reputation; but in the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ from Beethoven, he ascended to a degree of artistic perfection which surprised as well as delighted everybody present. There was no sudden chopping or twitching curtailment of sounds; but all melted into each other like the gentle pulsations of a midsummer’s stream. His hearers intelligently recognised his artistic power and paid reverential homage to it.

Senor Sarasate is a violinist of unusual merit, mingling passion and feeling in his playing, and evolving in a masterly way all the great resources of the violin. His execution of the ‘Romance et Gavotte de Mignon’ was both mellow and tender, and elicited great admiration. His playing of the Beethoven sonata with Mr. Mills was also a great success. He imparts a breathing sadness and tearfulness to the tones of his violin which denote a most thorough musical sympathy between him and his instrument.

Mr. Bergner was heard to great advantage in the trio from Mendelssohn. The violoncello never loses its sweet musical power in his well-trained hands. Mr. Randolfi undertook the vocal part of the entertainment, his fine baritone organ doing full justice to the two pieces assigned to him. He received a recall after the second, to which he responded by singing a piece more in keeping with his vocal powers than even the songs on the programme.

We are sure that all lovers of classical music will be anxious to attend the matinées of Mr. Mills, which we presume will be continued.”

Review: New-York Times, 29 January 1872, 4.

“Messrs. Mills and Sarasate gave, on Saturday afternoon, in Steinway’s smaller hall, the first of a series of matinées which seem destined to be very successful. The talent of the two gentlemen has a sufficiently wide appreciation to be the means of attracting to many successive entertainments quite as numerous and fashionable audiences as that which attended Saturday’s performance; and if subsequent programmes are as nicely balanced, as varied, and, withal, as substantial as the first interpreted, no slacking of the public interest will be possible. The recital of concerted music will, of course, be bettered with each concert. From the rendering, on Saturday, of Mendelssohn’s tuneful trio in C minor, it was evident that the work of three soloists such as Messrs. Mills, Sarasate and Bergner may result, after a brief term of united energies, in recitals not to be excelled in harmoniousness and finish. The thoughtfulness, taste and executive skill of the artists need no maturing process. The intellectual quality of Mr. Mills’ delivery and the equableness of his style are as admirable in their way as the more impassioned playing of Señor Sarasate, whose thorough command of the technique of his instrument is subservient to a musical temperament of the finest kind, and to a culture gathered in the foremost schools of Europe. Mr. Mills first performed Schumann’s opus No. 12, the pieces of which bear the respective superscriptions, ‘Des Abends,’ ‘Traumeswirren,’ and ‘Ende von Liede,’ and are very acceptable specimens of a composer whose more frequently-heard writings, of the ‘Carnaval’ order, are ambitious rather than effective. He next rendered Chopin’s brilliant Polonaise in E flat, opus 22, in which the excellences of a touch remarkable for brilliancy and vigor rather than for singing-quality had abundant opportunities for display. Señor Sarasate contributed to the bill a ‘Légende,’ by Wienawsky, and his own arrangement of themes from ‘Mignon.’ That he is capable of more solid labor than the staccato and harmonic effects which his compositions, and notably his transcription of motives from ‘Mignon,’ call for, was clearly proven by his delivery of Wienawsky’s work, in which the grave beauty of several passages was expressed with unsurpassable eloquence. The other and familiar selection was handled with Señor Sarasate’s customary boldness, and was as impressive as ever, though occasionally a harmonic was taken with less than wonted surety. In addition to the solos named, Signor Randolfi sang a romance called ‘Oh! how Dear Thou art to Me!’ by M. F. Korbay, and ‘Oh! Ruddier than the Cherry.’ In the former song, the opening phrase of which is melodious and graceful, the gentleman’s voice was heard to advantage. Signor Randolfi’s choice of Handel’s air was exceedingly injudicious. He has neither the accuracy of intonation nor the flexibility of organ to do justice either to the difficult recitative, or to the florid treatment of the subject. A splendid accompaniment by Mr. Mills caused Signor Randolfi’s vocalization to suffer still more by a comparison which Mr. Santley alone could have supported. Indeed, to court an opinion at all, is, with the slender claims of Signor Randolfi, presumptuous. A fine performance of Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ by Messrs. Mills and Sarasate, brought the matinée, during which all the instrumental solos were redemanded, to a close.”