Oratorio Society of New York Concert

“Mr. Leopold Damrosch’s Oratorio Society will give its first concert at Knabe’s Hall, 112 Fifth avenue [sic], on Wednesday night. The programme includes choral pieces from Bach, Mozart, Palestrina and Mendelssohn; vocal solos from Haydn and Handel; and a Beethoven trio, to be played by Von Intent, Damrosch and Bergner. There will be much interest in musical circles as to the success of Mr. Damrosch in organizing and training a new choral society.”

Brief.

“Mr. Damrosch’s new vocal society, in which a number of our resident German families are interested, gave their first concert at Knabe’s Hall last night. The solo singing was generally fair, but the choral efforts were the main features of the programme. The ‘Adoramus Te’ of Palestrina was sung with excellent effect, and Mendelssohn’s ‘Departure’ also received excellent treatment. A solo for the violin, arranged from Chapin [sic] and played by Mr. Damrosch so well as to awaken the warmest approbation of the more critical portion of the audience. The concert concluded with the air and chorus from Handel’s ‘Samson,’ ‘Great Dagon has subdued our foes.’”

“The first concert of the New-York Oratorio Society was given last night at Knabe’s piano rooms in Fifth-ave. The audience was a good one, and the performance was creditable, and the Society may be said to have begun its public career under very favorable auspices. It has been but a few months in existence, and numbers, as yet, not more than fifty or sixty members, largely recruited, we should judge, from German families of the highest class—a section of the community which manifests a better taste and warmer enthusiasm for music, and much more perseverance in the drudgery that vocal societies must undergo, than any other nationality. In the person of Dr. Leopold Damrosch the Society has secured a valuable conductor—a man of culture, sound scholarship, energy, and personal magnetism; and the result of good training was consequently conspicuous last night. Of course we do not look for perfection in a new chorus; but we found many merits in the first performance of the Oratorio Society which are painfully missed in the concerts of older organizations. These ladies and gentlemen sang with correct intonation, firm attack, and a great deal of expression; and if they continue in the road upon which they have entered with so much promise they will do some capital work before many seasons have passed. Their programme last night was not too ambitious. Besides a few unhackneyed selections from Handel and Mendelssohn’s beautiful and well known ‘Farewell to the Forest,’ it contained a choral [sic] of J. S. Bach’s, Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum,’ and a noble ‘Adoramus Te’ of Palestrina’s, which we wish all our modern church organists could have been taken in a body to her. Solemnity and devotion were in every line of it, and the Society sang it beautifully. Dr. Damrosch takes the tempi of most of the choruses with more freedom than has been customary in New-York, varying the accent and expression by that means with rather striking effect; and although he must be on that account rather a difficult conductor to follow, the Society seem sot have a perfect understanding with him.

The choruses were interspersed with other music by Mr. Graf, Miss Mendes, Dr. Damrosch, and others, and Dr. Damrosch took part with Mr. von Inten and Mr. Bergner in Beethoven’s Trio in G, Opus 1, No. 2, this charming composition being interpreted by all three performers with great taste and delicacy.”