Central Park Garden Concert

Includes program. 

“Mr. Theodore Thomas has inaugurated his season of summer concerts with a degree of brilliancy and éclat remarkable even for one who may be regarded as the favored musician of the American public. Tuesday night the programme was interesting to an extent that few would anticipate in a summer garden, unless with such a superb orchestra as Thomas provides. There was for an opening Mendelssohn’s chivalric ‘Ruy Blas’ overture, and after it, as a fitting companion piece, a wreath of choral and orchestral laurels from ‘William Tell.’ A charming Strauss waltz, ‘Publicisten,’ and a stupid march by Liszt, who seems to be equally uninteresting nowadays for chorus or orchestra, completed the first part. Schubert’s overture, ‘Fier-a-Bras,’ the quintet from the third act of the ‘Meistersinger’ (one of Wagner’s most attractive conceptions); the quaint Mozartish, delicious allegretto from the Eighth Symphony, Beethoven (rapturously encored), and an Hungarian Suite by Hoffmann constituted the selections for the second part of the concert. Then came a Weber overture, ‘Abu Hassan;’ the delightful ‘Meditation’ of Gounod, which on the opening night created a marked sensation; a carnival waltz of Strauss and the Indian march from ‘L’Africaine.’ The admirable finish of the rendering of each work, the perfect balance of tone between the various departments of the orchestra, the exquisite shading and coloring in expression, and the unanimity of thought evinced in the ready response to the baton of the conductor could not be [illegible line] than last evening by this evening.”