Philharmonic Society of New York Public Rehearsal

“The recent public rehearsal of the representative instrumental society of this city for their fourth concert of the present season took place yesterday afternoon at the Academy of Music. The audience was large and satisfactorily appreciative. Three orchestral works were rehearsed—[see above]. We reserve detailed remarks on the last two works for the occasion of the concert. Gade and Wagner have been made familiar to the New York public long ago by Mr. Theodore Thomas, and their works, interesting as they may be to a musical surgeon, can bear the postponement of a detailed criticism. But a genuine American work of positive merit and dealing with purely American subjects, written by an American musician (although we always cling to the theory that music is entirely cosmopolitan), claims even at a Philharmonic rehearsal something more than a mere passing notice. The audience yesterday evidently entertained the same opinion, for their attention seemed to be concentrated upon the native work. The symphony (E minor) is divided into four movements:--1. Allegro appassionata; 2. Andante Religioso; 3. Allegro ma non troppo; 4. Allegro con spirito.

The idea, or story (it is always better to have a distinctive, easily defined subject in orchestral works, without going to the extent of mere ‘programme’ music), which Mr. Bristow wishes to illustrate in this magnificent work is the grandest of all subjects in real American life—which novelists have ever endeavored to portray in this country—the trip across the Plains of an emigrant train to their cherished ‘Arcadia.’ The first movement is indicative of the commencement or initiatory scenes of the new ‘Pilgrims’ Progress.’ In the restless, yet distinctively defined thoughts, actions and kaleidoscopic movements of the prairie caravan, the music is a faithrul photographer, and the various scenes of the journey are delineated with an artist’s skill. Recollections of home mingle with present fatigue of body; but occasionally the latter overpowers the frame of the emigrant, and the music now and then sinks down to a description of utter lassitude. But for the moment only. The irrepressible instinct of the prairie emigrant to ‘go West,’ in face of all imaginable obstacles, surges up through the orchestra, and the appassionata element is clearly defined. Here the clever treatment, independent of the wealth of melodic beauty with which the work abounds, of the composer is shown. Anxiety, restlessness, fatigue and constant watchfulness are limned in the strongest possible colors and effects.

The quiet pastoral measures of the second movement typify the rest of the emigrant train on the prairie when the sun sinks in the horizon. Here the composer takes the old ‘Evening Hymn’ of Thalli’s, a musician of Queen Elizabeth’s time—not in its original canon form, but with modern graces and improvements. The treatment of this ancient chorale is simply exquisite in point of variety and originality. Purists in symphonic forms—they are, to a great extent, myths—may find fault, and some yesterday ventured to join such ranks, with the freedom of thought and scope of treatment indulged in by Mr. Bristow in the third movement—a genuine scherzo. But the composer here wished to illustrate an Indian war dance and night attack on the aforesaid train. It is a lively, characteristic, well instrumented number, of the genre of the scherzo of Mendelssohn’s Scotch symphony or ‘Misdummer Night’s Dream’ or the ‘Queen Mab’ of Berlioz. Bits of orchestration, like morceaux from the ball of the Culinaire Philanthropique, are delicately interwoven in this delicious number. The last movement represents the emigrant train arriving at its destination, its western ‘Arcadia,’ and is the most enjoyable movement of the symphony. The entire work represents the highest credit on the renowned composer and on the society for presenting before the metropolitan public a vivid musical picture of Western life. After the ‘Desert’ of Felicien David we place the ‘Arcadian’ symphony of Bristow.”