Saturday Popular Concert: 1st

“Mr. J. H. Bonawitz began last Saturday at Steinway Hall what he calls a series of popular concerts. The programme contained many excellent things, but the epithet ‘popular’ was applicable to none of them. Neither was it applicable to the audience, for there was nobody present except a handful of connoisseurs. Mr. Bonawitz had a vigorous orchestra of 36 pieces, which played a festival overture of Leutner’s, and Schumann’s beautiful B flat Symphony. The overture was rendered pretty well; but such a work as the Symphony ought not to have been attempted without better executants or more careful preparation. Miss Sterling contributed two interesting groups of songs. The first, illustrating an ancient style which we might wish could be revived, embraced arias by Astorga, Salvator Rosa, and Handel, the first and third belonging to the the earlier half of the eighteenth century, the second belonging to the middle or latter part of the seventeenth. She sang them with excellent simplicity and sentiment, and the Handel aria especially with considerable pathos. The second group represented the best modern German school, and contained selections from Schubert, Schumann, Liszt and Rubinstein. Miss Sterling always makes up her programme like a true musician, with an extensive knowledge of her art and a profound reverence for it.

“The concert was, moreover, interesting for the appearance of Miss Ottilie Klauczek, a young pianist, who is practically a stranger to our halls, though she has once already appeared in Brooklyn, and once at a semi-private entertainment by the Liederkranz. She played a concerto in D minor by Kalkbrenner—not a very strong composition, but a very pleasing one—and if the audience had not been too distressingly small to be enthusiastic, she would no doubt have won an emphatic testimony of approval. Her execution is sure, forcible, and highly finished. She makes no blunders, she neglects no little graces; she has more vivacity, we should say, than sensibility, and is more remarkable for precision and endurance than for exceptional brilliancy or freedom. A good, honest, conscientious, and well trained performer, she will be a welcome acquisition to our list of resident pianists.”

The first of a series of popular concerts.

“The Bonawitz concert last Saturday evening was attended by a small audience only, but the merits of the performance were worthy of a warm acknowledgment. The selections presented were all excellent, and the efforts of Mr. Bonawitz and Miss Sterling met the usual favor. The concert was the nominal first appearance of Miss Ottilie Klauczek, whose powers as a pianist are highly commended by all the critics present.”