Private Symphony Concert: 3rd

“At Edmund’s yesterday afternoon. About 50 auditors, & a brilliant concert. (1^st) Andante cantabile from Beethoven’s trio, op. 97, orchestrated by Franz Liszt. Decidedly effective. Liszt’s great command of musical language enables him successfully to expand the ideas of a great composer. Had he ideas of his own, his original works would be valuable. (2^nd) Mehul’s lively & pretty overture to Le jeune Henri, which I heard once before, long ago. N. B. Curious coincidence with a striking phrase in the Hunting chorus in 3^rd part of Haydn’s Seasons. [Illegible] is it an audacious plagiarism, or is the phrase a bit of popular melody to which Mehul has as much right as Haydn? I remember poor dear Mr. Whittelsey listening to The Seasons with me at the old Tabernacle in Broadway 25 years ago, I suppose, & saying that this perhaps was the tune in some child’s game at his Wallingford home (Connecticut) to the words ‘Nobody knows—Where oats pease beans & barley grows,’ or some such thing. (3^rd) Spohr’s ‘Historical Symphony,’ op. 116. Not disagreeable at all—but a bad imitation of Handel & Beethoven. How if I should give a series of readings, consisting of imitations by myself of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Pope, Coleridge, Tennyson, etc. (4^th) ‘Di tanti palpiti’ by nice Miss Antonia Henne, who was much approved, I am glad to say. (5) Orchestral fricassee of Meyerbeer’s ‘Pardon de Ploermel,’ showy & worthless.”