Symphony Soirée: 3rd

Includes program.

“The third of Mr. Theodore Thomas’s series of Symphony Concerts at Steinway Hall drew a fine audience on Saturday night and the performance seemed to be keenly appreciated. The best class of connoisseurs was conspicuous in the assemblage, and the applause was not only enthusiastic but discriminating. The following was the programme [see above].

The most remarkable feature of this performance was the symphony. It is hard to praise the execution of it and deserves to be praised without the appearance of exaggeration; but, indeed, we doubt whether we shall ever hear in New-York a more satisfactory interpretation of Mozart’s beautiful work. Mr. Thomas’s orchestra, good in all things, is perhaps never so thoroughly well suited as in the strong, healthy, full-blooded music of which this symphony is such a fine example. Although it is in the minor key, it is conceived, like nearly all of Mozart’s most characteristic compositions, in a bright, hearty mood, and Mr. Thomas and his fifty men seem to have entered fully into the spirit of it. The allegro (first movement) was fairly exhilarating, so perfect was the correspondence between the thought and its interpretation. The execution of the minuet was marvelously good, and the finale was superb, the whole symphony being remarkable alike for vigor, clearness, and extreme delicacy and finish. The ‘Manfred’ overture was hardly less excellent, and Liszt’s ‘Hungaria’ furnished an admirable exhibition of the proficiency of the band in an entirely different class of music. Mr. Jacobsohn’s violin solo and the superb intonation and expression of several of the leading instruments were especially relished, and we can say of the whole piece that it was picturesque and highly colored. There are few, however, of Liszt’s extraordinary series of symphonic poems which we relish less than this striking national picture. It abounds in magnificent scoring, in bold effects, in phrases of unmistakable poetry; yet, like so many of the Abbé’s works, it is grotesque rather than grand, and entirely deficient in the beauty of form. Mr. Thomas does a noble service to art when he brings us these fruits of the thought and genius of the world’s new masters, for whether we like them or not it is well that we should know in what direction contemporary intellect and scholarship are moving. But we cannot believe that the new standards of beauty are to be found in the dim and troubled region which Liszt is exploring, or that the methods of ‘Hungaria’ are to be eternal.

Mr. Rubinstein gave a glorious performance of the concerto, with two elaborate and brilliant cadenzas of his own, not at all in the spirit of the composition. The fantasia and the two Etudes of Chopin were not in his best vein, the second Etude especially being heavy and confused. He was in fact by no means in so magnificent a mood as at his concert with Mr. Thomas in the Academy of Music on Thursday; but he played for an encore a charming little piece—we believe it was a romanza of his own—with a beauty of expression we have rarely heard equaled.”

“The Thomas symphony concert at Steinway Hall, on Saturday evening, attracted an overflowing audience, and afforded the large sum of gratification which a programme of fine, if rather heavy music, always gives to the appreciative audience whose attendance Mr. Thomas’ promises are potent to secure. The classical selection of the entertainment were Mozart’s symphony in G minor, played with a precision almost mechanical by the band, and Beethoven’s fourth concerto, whereof Mr. Anton Rubinstein offered an admirable interpretation in point of appreciation and delivery. The second part of the programme was devoted to Schumann, Chopin and Liszt. The ‘Manfred’ overture, by the first-named composer; a polonaise and an étude, by the Frenchman of the North, as the Parisian enthusiasts were wont the gifted Pole, and the long and elaborate symphonic poem of ‘Hungaria’ were the pieces which made up, with those above cited, the bill.”

“On Saturday evening, Jan. 11, came the third of the Thomas Symphony Soirées, which are now generally regarded as the best of our musical entertainments. Mr. Thomas offered us [see above].

Mr. Thomas combines a perfect repose of manner with all the qualities essential to a leader, and throughout the symphony all the crescendos, diminuendos, and fine gradations of light and shade were accomplished, apparently, without effort on the part of either conductor or orchestra. As this was Rubinstein’s very last appearance in New York for the present, his performance naturally attracted an unusual degree of attention. As we come to know him better we find that we can never tell just how he is going to play, even if it is a piece which we have heard him render half a score of times. Usually, however, it is only a variation in degrees of excellence, and we are willing that our curiosity should be piqued at the beginning.

He played the Concerto magnificently, more than realizing all that we could have expected; but, I regret to say that he marred and defaced that noble composition by the introduction of cadenzas in a style utterly at variance from the spirit of the work or the composer. Of course there is not the slightest objection to his executing an Indian war dance on the piano, if he chooses to do so; but, when he introduces one into the middle of a Beethoven Concerto it is time to remonstrate. The Chopin Fantasie (Op. 49), was fairly rendered, and the first of the Etudes, the lovely one in E major (op. 10), was given with all the accuracy, all the clearness, all the ideal pathos and passion with which Chopin himself might have played it. The second Etude, that in C minor, was played with an utter disregard of any rhythm, and a general mixing up of notes which was quite unnecessary, and which seemed almost like affectation on the part of the performer.”