Pattison Concert Troupe

“The part singing of the admirable vocal quartet of the Pattison troupe was fully equal to anything we have had on the concert stage for a long time, and individually the members, especially Miss Barron, were exceedingly felicitous in the selection and rendering of the solos set down for them. Mr. Pattison played with his old fire and neatness of delivery the sparkling ‘Firefly’ of Prudent and his own last and best work, ‘The Stormy Petrel,’ is a fantasia in the form of a polka. This is a composition of high merit and vividly descriptive in its style and arrangement. It commences with a stately, massive movement in the bass, typical of the majesty of the ocean and the profound calm that at times reigns around the ship at sea. Then follow the petrel’s melody, which has all the beauty of Chopin and is framed in a rich setting of arpeggio passages for the left hand. Two dashing polka movements succeed this melody, and for brilliancy, ‘go’ and warmth they have no superiors even in the ever popular ‘Soiree et Bal’ of the composer. A rapid flight of fourths and sixths leads to the ‘Storm,’ which is worked up in chromatics, a rush of octaves in the bass and every conceivable variety of piano passages in the treble. Notwithstanding the Lisztian character of this portion of the work, there is nothing vague or unintelligible in it. During the pauses in the storm the lovely melody of the Petrel appears, each time in a new form, until at length it comes forth in all its beauty, brilliant in ornate passages, sometimes a chromatic scale of seven octaves, and again in arpeggios, trills, thirds and sixths. The first polka movement is then repeated, which leads into a magnificent finale, in which the changes of arpeggio from the key of D flat major to A major give a bizarre and telling effect. It is a work worthy of any composer.”