Theodore Thomas Symphony Concert: 5th

Includes program.

“The fifth symphony concert of the series of six undertaken some months ago by Mr. Theodore Thomas, was given at Steinway Hall, last evening, and was quite largely attended. While the perfect work of Mr. Thomas’ orchestra is to be placed to their credit, whenever a mention of any entertainment in which his forces are concerned is necessary, we cannot always admire unreservedly the programme he selects for recital. Last night’s, we are bound to say, was not only trying for the performers, but for the audience. If we except the first piece performed, there was really very little in the bill worthy the labors of so capital a band, or of the attention of so discerning an audience as Mr. Thomas has the good fortune to attract to his reunions. The composition in question was Raff’s delightful symphony ‘Im Walde,’ the three parts of which—the first, expressive of day-time impressions and sensations in the forest, charmingly tuneful, and free and graceful in rhythm; the second, divided into an illustration of a twilight reverie and of a quaint dance of wood-nymphs; and the third, descriptive, with much weirdness and vigor, of a phantom chase breaking upon the stillness of the night—were superbly played by the band. The choice of the number following was not so felicitous. Beethoven’s concerto (Opus 56) for piano, violin, ‘cello, and orchestra, is not one of the best of its great, almost too fecund, author, and the developments of the ideas seemed altogether out of proportion to their value. Throughout the concerto, Miss Mehlig was at the piano, and Mr. Bernard Listemann, who has a thorough mastery of technique, was the violinist. Both artists executed their thankless task with unswerving precision. There are more capable violoncellists than Mr. Heinmann, but the inaccuracies of intonation to be charged to the performer did not go far toward increasing the listlessness of the assemblage to a well nigh endless performance. In the second portion of the concert, ‘Genoveva,’ a finely-scored and remarkably lucid overture, by Schumann, was faultlessly delivered and heartily applauded. The rich instrumentation of the second half of Berlioz’s dramatic symphony of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the interpretation of which brought the entertainment to a close, wrought a like effect, although the festal music is rather trivial. Of the intermediate composition, Liszt’s symphonic poem of ‘Hamlet,’ it is needless to write at length. It is without doubt the most insignificant and meaningless production of the Abbate’s contributions to modern art. This is saying a great deal, for Liszt can justly be taxed with much that is absurd, and the vagaries are the more to be deplored in that the influence of his name is potent and wide-spreading. But his ‘Hamlet’ outdoes the most reprehensible of his achievements. Further than this, he cannot go.”

“The fifth of Mr. Thomas’s Symphony Concerts was given on Saturday evening at Steinway Hall. The audience, as usual at these, the best concerts of the year, was very large, and a good deal of enthusiasm was manifested at different periods of the evening. The programme was as follows [see above].

This was a rather trying entertainment for the taste of the average public, and we doubt whether Mr. Thomas has yet educated his audiences to a real appreciation of enjoyment of a programme in which the intellectual as distinguished from the emotional element so largely predominates. We must except, however, from this remark Raff’s beautiful Forest Symphony, a part of which has become decidedly popular. Two movements from it have long been familiar to the frequenters of the Summer Garden Concerts, and the whole work has been played here before both by the Thomas Orchestra and the New-York Philharmonic Society. We can hardly praise too highly the manner in which it was rendered on Saturday. The broad and vigorous measures of Part First (‘Daytime’), symbolizing the ‘impressions and sensations’ of woodland life, were so magnificently interpreted that we hardly noticed the prolixity which has generally seemed to us the characteristic fault of this movement. Part Second (‘Twilight’) has always been recognized as the richest portion of the work. The delicious [illegible] was given with given with inevitable tenderness, and the Dances of the Wood Nymphs with exquisite grace and finish. In the first of these two movements of Part Second the perfection of the reeds in Mr. Thomas’s orchestra was especially conspicuous, and the wonderful tone and discipline of his first violins must have impressed the least attentive musician. Part Third (‘Night’) represents the chase of the supernatural huntsmen, and here all the forces of the grand orchestra are loosed in a furious allegro. It does not appear to us a very valuable addition to our store of picturesque descriptive music, but it is effective and well scored, and at the close there is an admirable short passage indicating the Break of Day. All this was played with extraordinary spirit and correctness.

If Beethoven’s great triple concerto seemed to most of the audience rather long, this was because Beethoven, of all composers, requires in his interpreters something more than mechanical excellence. Miss Mehlig interpreted her share in the work with all the proper intelligence and feeling. The orchestra was of course almost faultless. But Mr. Listemann, though a fine artist, is not a sympathetic one, and Mr. Hemmann, who is a valuable member of the orchestra, failed sometimes to express all that should have been expressed in the violoncello part. After all, perhaps these criticisms are needlessly minute, for despite small deficiencies the concerto was played with a fidelity and smoothness which deserve the warmest recognition. It would be hard to find any fault with the performance of Schumann’s romantic overture; but what shall we say of Liszt’s ‘Hamlet!’ Mr. Thomas may have had either of two purposes in presenting it. It was the only important orchestral work of Liszt’s which had never been heard in New-York (indeed we believe it had never been played anywhere), and there was a sort of satisfaction in rounding off our experiences of the most eccentric of composers. Or Mr. Thomas may have produced it as a great practical joke—and we are rather inclined to suspect that such was his intention. Nothing that we have had before approaches it in melancholy extravagance. In the wildest of Liszt’s music we can generally trace a vein of poetry, but we can trace nothing of the sort here. It is a series of perplexed and hesitating modulations, wandering through the mazes of doubt and inquiry and never coming to a solution—a succession of inchoate phrases, perpetually stopping to ask themselves the question, to be or not to be, and never getting an answer. A faint attempt at applause at the end of the piece was instantly suppressed by a counter demonstration, and Mr. Thomas acknowledged both with a most quizzical countenance.”

“Mr. Theodore Thomas gave the fifth of his symphony concerts at Steinway Hall on Saturday evening. The programme consisted of [see above]. The ‘Im Walde’ of Raff was by far the most entertaining piece of the evening. It is divided into three parts, Day-time, Twilight and Night, part second changing from a delicious reverie to a graceful dance of the wood nymphs, and part third being interrupted by the tumultuous approach and departure of the wild huntsmen. The composition was played throughout with exquisite fidelity and grace. In the second part of Beethoven’s concerto Mr. B. Listemann, a most modest and conscientious violin player, imbued the cold intellectuality of the composition with a little feeling, in which he was ably assisted by Miss Mehlig at the piano.

The audience was large, notwithstanding the bad weather, and although the concert did not equal, in our opinion, some of the preceding ones of the series, it was in an absolute sense of most excellent quality.”