Theodore Thomas Symphony Concert: 1st

Unsurpassed demand for tickets.

Forthcoming season. 

Includes program. 

“When Mr. Thomas took his baton in hand at eight o’clock last evening there was not a vacant seat in Steinway Hall. The popularity of his orchestra in New York has now reached a point that is not surpassed by any other attraction, musical or dramatic, that can be brought before the public. The programme was of especial interest to musicians. There were three works [lists works]. The work of Berlioz was first performed at Irving Hall on May 9, 1863, by Mr. Thomas, and afterward, under the same director, at the same hall, on March 24, 1866. The school of Berlioz was the first impulse given to composers to emancipate themselves from the traditions of the past and to use the boundless resources of modern instrumentation in a more pronounced, if not more effective, manner. His symphonies, ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘Episode in the Life of an Artist,’ ‘Fantasie,’ ‘Harold in Italy,’ and ‘Damnation of Faust’ awoke a world of heated discussion when they were produced. In the work under review at present the most striking characteristics of his style are displayed. It consists of four movements, which are classified as follows [titles of the movements]. The hero, as we have said on a previous occasion, is the Childe Harold of Byron. And the novelty of the work consists in the representation of the wanderer by a solo instrument, the viola, to which he gives a distinct theme. The immense command over instrumental effects so eminently possessed by M. Berlioz is shown in every movement of this work. There are many clashing effects in the first number that are akin to positive harshness. The second movement is a tone poem of real beauty. The march is a stately, impressive subject, and the intervening passages, representing the responses of the pilgrims chanting the litany, produce a singular effect. As the movement draws to a close with a sort of dialogue between the flute and the cor Français, while the pizzicati of the contra-basses repeat the measures of the march, nothing can surpass the expression and beauty of the instrumentation. The third part is eccentric, rather than symphonic. The effects are rather too much of the grotesque order to please the ear. In the ‘orgie’ finale the rich resources of the composer’s fertile imagination are poured out with lavish hand. The rendering by the orchestra was worthy of the highest praise, the precision of attack, the wonderful command of crescendo and diminuendo, the entire clearness of tone even in passages where there was danger of unintelligibility, and the perfect discipline and balance between the various departments of the band being particularly noticeable. Mr. Charles Baetens’ viola obligato presented a mechanically correct, but rather tame performance of the fanciful music with which the composer has invested ‘Childe Harold.’

Every one was agreeably surprised at the richness of thought, clever workmanship and variety of subjects shown in the concerto. Edward Grieg is a Norwegian, being born at Bergen, and has already made a name in the musical world. This concerto for piano, opus 16, played last night by Mr. F. Boschovitz, will add materially to his fame. It is a thoroughly enjoyable work, full of genial thoughts, melodious to a degree beyond the majority of piano compositions of the present day, and conceived in a fresh, hearty vein of mind that has no accord with the intricate theories of the new schools. The opening allegro moderato has a very charming, strongly defined theme in a minor key that is equally divided between the piano and the orchestra. It is instinct with the true poetic spirit, and enriched with many subtle devices of effect and coloring. The succeeding andante commences with a sort of chorale given by the strings, into which the piano enters, weaving arabesques around the solemn theme, and afterwards joining in the prayerful utterances of the other instruments. A charming effect is produced here by the cor Français, which seems to stand forth in relief from the orchestra like an instrumental Marcel. The finale is full of rugged rhythms and characteristic themes, decidedly Scandinavian. The first subject enters again; there are moments of wild passion and melting tenderness, and the movement pulsates with warm orchestral life from the first note to the last. The interpreter, Mr. Boschovitz, left nothing to be desired, so far as executive ability is concerned, but his hard, unsympathetic touch robbed the concerto of much of its attractiveness. The orchestral accompaniment was rather heavy and at times left the piano in the shade. Beethoven’s immortal symphony ‘Eroica,’ was given with an effect, warmth, earnestness and finish that would be sufficient alone to place the orchestra of Mr. Thomas at the head of all existing musical organizations.” 

Much more a commentary on Zukunfstmusik and Berlioz than a review of the concert. “Symphony-Soiree. Music of the Future!—That was the phrase heard in every corner of Steinway Hall on Saturday night. The hall was taken over by an extremely large and select audience. Much has been dismissed under the banner of Zukunftsmusik, by musicians and critics alike. Anything that does not suit those people, or perhaps anything that is difficult to understand, was relegated by them as Zukunfstmusik. It was very convenient, to dismiss works in this manner…This is simply absurd. Genius does not precede its time. Genius creates for its own time, for its own generation. Berlioz, whose magnificent Harold Symphony—a much more Germanly [sic] work than his others, and the first to tangibly exhibit, especially in form, the composer’s new direction—was the first to raise doubts about Zukunftsmusik. Berlioz was the first to be accused of being a musician of the future…” Goes on about Berlioz, even quoting his orchestration treatise. “Another piece of futuristic music—if one can believe the critics of Beethoven’s lifetime—the sublime ‘Eroica,’ was performed at this concert. Beethoven, of course, was recognized by all the connoisseurs of his time for this work, as for all of his symphonies, and even by some publishers, while Berlioz had to fight until the end of his days against the masses, who had been turned against him by musicians and writers. Whether called Zukunfstmusik or Program Music, the ‘Eroica’ remains a sublime, magnificent work. Each performance awakens new admiration for the master who erected, in the ‘Eroica,’ a heroic monument to himself. In this work there is a great idea, which preoccupied Beethoven’s genius and inspired a wonderful Tonmalerei. In Beethoven’s ‘Erioca’ one also imagines all sorts of phenomena that Berlioz also tries to conjure for the spiritual eye of the listener of the Harold Symphony. Let the low A-flat of the basses answer the call of the violins’ A-flat in the funeral march, which resounds as if from higher spheres, before the armored riders rush forward for the nightly parade. All this is no farther from us, no less understandable than when Berlioz leads his Harold into the moutains, where he hears the sounds of the pilgrims’ march and evening prayers from afar, where a worthy mountain dweller recits his love song, and where Harold loses himself and meets his end. Between these two powerful works there was inserted a new piano concerto by Edward Grieg; that it was able to captivate and entertain the public in such a position [between Harold and the “Eroica”] is proof that the work has intrinsic value. Grieg’s concerto should not be underestimated; it stands worthy with many works of the genre which various composers of our own time have blessed us. There are fresh and original ideas in it, which are skilfully worked and developed [ausgesponnen]. The Andante, and especially the Scherzo, were best. Mr. Boscowitz, a pianist and music teacher from Boston, played the solo piano part with technical perfection. The orchestra could have, at times, been more discrete. The performance of the two symphonies left nothing to be desired.” Lists program for next concert.

“Theodore Thomas’s eighth season of Symphony Concerts has opened with the most brilliant prospects, not only of artistic interest, but of popular success. Steinway Hall was crowded on Saturday evening with an audience of the very best quality. To those who have carefully watched Mr. Thomas’s honorable course, and who understand not only what he has already accomplished in the popularization in the highest forms of musical art, but what he is ambitious of undertaking in addition, the evidence of [illegible] appreciation which the past week has afforded must be inexpressibly gratifying. Thomas has succeeded after ten years of almost heroic exertion in establishing the first real orchestra America has ever heard, (for it is only a permanent band that deserves the name of an orchestra,) and with it he has created almost a revolution in public taste. Thanks [illegible] to his labors, our country has now outstripped both France and England in the cultivation, the enjoyment, and the comprehension of symphonic music, and it would soon rival even Germany if the number of our orchestras [bore a fair ratio?] to the taste of our audiences. But Thomas’s friends are well aware that he has only taken the steps toward the realization of a [illegible] which, if fate, health, and public favor are continued to him, will make New-York one of the great musical centers of the world; and the [illegible] advances in popularity which the Symphony Concerts have just [illegible] is especially valuable because it brings us nearer in the project for which Thomas has been so long working.

The programme of the concert on Saturday night was one of the most interesting presented in Steinway Hall for a long while. The following were the selections [lists works].

The Berlioz symphony, if we are not mistaken, had been played only twice before in New-York. Mr. Thomas produced it for the first time in America at one of his annual concerts, eleven or twelve years ago, before the Symphony Series were undertaken. He repeated it two or three years later. On neither occasion was it appreciated. The execution undoubtedly was far inferior to that of last Saturday, and this is a work which absolutely requires a virtuoso orchestra of the very highest efficiency. But ten years ago New-York was not prepared to understand ‘Harold,’ however well performed, and although a few accomplished critics, like the late William H. Fry, of the Tribune, were prompt to recognize its extraordinary [illegible], to the great mass of connoisseurs Berlioz was a man who comes before his time. In this work we had one of his earliest departures from the formalism of the classical symphony into the [boundless?] freedom of the modern school of progress. It was written long before the appearance of Liszt’s Symphonic Poems or Wagner’s ‘Eine Faust Symphonie;’ and although it is no longer incomprehensible and barbaric to a public which has learned so much familiarity with the Music of the Future as we have, the ability to relish it is still a good test of the hearer’s tendencies towards the old and perishing forms of art or the new and vigorous. It has been before the world for forty years, and we are just beginning to listen to it. Well, the greatest monuments of Beethoven’s genius stood still longer uncomprehended, and the romanticism of Schumann even now is only half understood. The triumph of Berlioz is undoubtedly close at hand; and [illegible] critics, who stand in the way to frighten us back, and protest that music has been at a dead halt for half a century and is never going forward any more, cannot prevent it. The ‘Harold’ Symphony has been so [fully?] described in the programme—for it is a typical example of that kind of music which cannot be enjoyed without an accompanying verbal text—that we may spare our readers the weariness of a fresh analysis. We [illegible] in it not only that wonderful command of the resources of the orchestra and surprising ingenuity in the treatment of instruments for which Berlioz has been admired by all schools of musicians, but also a surprising wealth of beautiful and poetic fancies. The monody of Harold and the melodious allegro in the first movement, as well as a fine scherzo and romanza of the third, are gems of the brightest and clearest [illegible], while the March and Evening Prayer in the second movement never fail to entrance the whole audience, learned and unlearned alike. In the last movement reminiscences of all the preceding themes are woven into a texture of astonishing color, and the symphony closes with a finale of dazzling brightness and immense force. Of the impression of the work upon the audience we are in doubt what to say. By a large number of the most cultivated persons present it was received with delight; most of the others probably listened with interest and wonder, and wanted to hear it again. In Boston, where it was played last week, it seems to have caused a conflict of cliques, one party denouncing it and the other clamoring for its repetition. About the excellence of the performance on Saturday there cannot be two intelligent opinions. It was as near perfection as any we can hope to hear.

The second piece on the programme was hardly less interesting than the first. Edvard Grieg is a young composer upon whom the eyes of Europe have lately been [illegible] with hopeful anticipation. He is 31 years of age, and was born in Bergen, Norway, where his father was Consul of Great Britain. He was sent to the Leipsic Conservatory by the advice of Ole Bull, who discovered his extraordinary gifts when the boy was 15 years old. He studied under Hauptmann, Reinecke, Rietz, Richter, and Plaidy, and in 1867 settled in Christiana [Oslo], where he still lives. He has published only about twenty compositions, including piano-forte pieces, songs and choruses; all of them, it is said, are distinctly original and colored with the familiar national characteristics. The concerto certainly is charming. It is so fresh, so melodious, so brilliant, and so exquisitely constructed that every musician will welcome it with enthusiasm as a precious addition to the pianist’s repertory. It begins with a beautiful melody in A minor, an allegro moderato, striking both in theme and treatment, which is given out by the wind instruments and repeated by the piano with ingenious elaborations. The second theme is equally charming and is managed in substantially the same manner as the first. The tremendously elaborate cadenza is furnished by the composer instead of being left to the discretion of the executant. The second movement is a delicious adagio in D flat, most of which is given to the piano solo, with an accompaniment of muted strings, and it passes without pause into the bold and passionate finale, which rushes on, gathering strength and fire, to a grand maestoso passage, first delivered by the solo instrument fortissimo, and repeated with the whole force of the band. Mr. Boscovitz interpreted the piano part in this extremely difficult work with great taste and an excellent technique, playing from memory.

In the ‘Heroic’ Symphony the orchestra gave a signal illustration not only of the perfect drilling and efficiency of the band but of the rare ability of the conductor. It was a rare treat to hear this difficult and somewhat obscure work—which musicians once thought incomprehensible—interpreted with such beautiful clearness and performed with such majesty and vigor. Though it came at the close of a hot evening and was nearly an hour long, it held the unflagging attention of the whole house to the very end.”

“The first of Mr. Thomas’ symphony concerts of the present season took place Saturday evening, and brought together an audience that filled Steinway Hall to overflowing. A capital programme was interpreted. It included [lists works]. The excellence and freshness of such a selection cannot be questioned. ‘Harold’ is not, indeed a work unknown to the Metropolitan public, but its rehearsals have been so few that its effect is unimpaired. It is as good specimen of its author’s achievements as could be desired. Beautiful thoughts and eccentric ideals, puerile passages and grandiose combinations are found in the writings of Berlioz in ever-varying proportions. In truth, ‘Harold in Italy’ enables one to form a higher estimate of the composer’s creativeness and skill than would most of his efforts. It compasses what it seeks to grasp, it is symmetrical in form, and at least one part of the symphony compels general admiration. After mentioning that ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ suggested the task to the composer, his scenario is described as follows [synopsis of the program follows]. Berlioz, in this symphony, introduces the representation of the hero by a solo instrument, the viola, to which he gives an individual melody. This monody is carried through, floats over, and mingles with all the themes of the different parts of the symphony, changing in mood and rhythm, but always prominent and recognizable. The work thus outlined is divided into four sections, entitled respectively, ‘Harold in the Mountains;’ ‘Scenes of Melancholy;’ ‘Happiness and Joy;’ ‘March and Evening Prayer of the Pilgrims;’ ‘A Mountaineer’s Serenade;’ and ‘An Orgy of Brigands.’ We were not profoundly touched by the first part, although the ingenious management of the pretty theme for viola denotes the hand of a master; the ‘Mountaineer’s Serenade’ is only noticeable for its quaintness and for its dainty orchestration, and the final movement is conspicuous more by the barbaric vigor of its coloring than by grandeur or charm of thought. But the second more than justified the choice of the symphony for the opening concert of a series of important entertainments. Its caption, as we have said, is ‘March and Evening Prayer of the Pilgrims.’ The rhythm of the march is broken, at every eighth bar, by a sort of musical imitation of psalm-singing voices, murmuring to themselves the monotonous responses of the evening liturgy. Harold, sunk in silent reflection, allows the pilgrims to pass him by; the viola betrays his presence by the monody that floats over the clear evening scene. The march is interrupted by a religious chant; earnest and devout harmonies float through the air, while in the lowest tones of the basses the rhythm of the march continues, gradually dying away in the distance. The suavity and richness of the instrumentation in which the phrases illustrative of this picture are clothed are simply unsurpassed, and the melody is of the sweetest kind and of the most graceful pattern. The ideas and setting would not have done discredit to Beethoven, and might have been fathered with pride by Mendelssohn. Mr. Thomas’ band, which was quite equal to the difficulties of the whole composition, replete with violent transitions and exacting in its easiest bars, executed this part of ‘Harold’ with particular sentiment and delicacy, and won for it and for their reading applause significant of a wish for a repetition of the entire section. Grieg’s piano concerto followed the symphony. The composer is a young Norwegian whose performances have lately excited considerable attention. The concerto is a scholarly achievement, full of healthful spirit, but rather savage and disconnected, if breezy and virile in thought. The opening of the second movement, an andante enfolding a very melodious phrase, gives us most pleasure; the quick movement—a sort of scherzo—following, did not strike us as remarkably original in design, and the peroration, in which the instrumentation (if not the instruments) would have drowned a dozen pianos had they been in use, is not notable for novelty of idea or treatment. The pianist was Mr. Boscowitz, whose technique is irreproachable, and whose tone is powerful without being clangorous. Mr. Boscowitz coped bravely and successfully with his long and trying task; a little more of the singing quality to be readily evoked from a Steinway grand, and a little less dryness of touch in rapid passages would have made his rendering of the concerto unexceptionable. The evening closed with the orchestra’s interpretation of the ‘Eroica,’ a familiar achievement, but one which, because of the magnificence of its subject and its own perfection, cannot be too often repeated.”

[Very faint--difficult to read] “The first of Mr. Thomas’s winter series of symphony concerts was given on Saturday night at Steinway’s before a crowded audience. ‘Everybody’—in musical regards at least—was there, with proper exception for those who were otherwise employed at Booth’s, and everybody was cheery, sympathetic, and content. The more limited numbers of the summer orchestra are filled out by a considerable accession of new performers, and the effect is to give to the orchestral renderings a gratifying breadth, fullness, and dignity which numbers alone can insure.

The first number of the programme, Berlioz’s ‘Harold in Italy,’ attempts to interpret, far more distinctly than usual with the older composers, a certain definite and comprehensible thought, i.e., the melancholy and misanthropy of the wandering poet, his efforts to find distraction in nature and the intercourse with all strange and new personality, and his final despair and death. If the much-talked-of ‘programme music’ is ever to commend itself to our approval it will hardly be by such examples as the present. Not to mention that a purer taste looks with some suspicion on all efforts to introduce definitely dramatic elements into the symphony, the execution here lags behind the ambitious intent. Spite of the novel device of representing Harold, his thoughts, emotions, and the like, by a viola and harp obligato, the symphony does not tell a very interesting tale, nor tell it especially well. With some pleasant and fluent melody in the march and prayer of the second movement, and a quaint and fresh [illegible] air in the third, the general treatment of the theme is eccentric and startling rather than original, noisy rather than grand, and incoherent rather than imaginative, or really musical in any fine sense. It is interesting to hear it once, but not even the noble execution of Mr. Thomas’s orchestra makes it desirous to hear it again.

And disappointment on this score was [illegible] redeemed by the later parts of the programme. Grieg, the author of the concerto which occupied the second place list, is a young Norwegian composer of promise, who has been, though with slight propriety, called the Chopin of the North. His work, as heard on Saturday, is clear, fresh, and vigorous, graceful, and attractive in melody in many points, scored with unusual fullness, and particularly charming in certain silvery and brilliant runs for the piano, breaking in on the harmony of the orchestra in the later movements. M. Boscovitz, the pianist of the occasion, is hardly a [illegible] accession to our concert lists. His execution is rapid and facile, occasionally not without a certain delicacy, but on the whole lacking in neatness, fire, and expression. His touch is apt to be mechanical; the instrument never sings under his hands, as under those of Rubinstein, to say nothing of many less noted artists.

And finally, to crown it, the perennially great, rich, and satisfying work of Beethoven—the world’s eternal music—the ‘Eroica.’ We surely have no need to dwell either upon the grandeur of the work or the excellence of the execution. Some weakness here and there in the [illegible] passages, which readily present most serious difficulties and the mistaken length of [illegible] on the left of a nervous [illegible] were the only [illegible] upon a nearly faultless performance of the sublime composition.”

“The first symphony concert of the present season was given on Saturday evening at Steinway Hall.

Mr. Theodore Thomas displays the most liberal spirit in his programmes. They do not present indications of a preference for the works of any particular style or period. He appears content to exhibit good music in the best possible manner, that it may be judged on its own merits, without betraying his own personal likes or dislikes, still less, by excluding works of a particular school, attempting to act the part of censor on this free and, artistically speaking, neutral soil. The critics also—who present statements based on solid argument, with proofs, and endeavor to point out the characteristic excellences of the compositions performed, without bigotry, dogmatism, prejudice or being warped by personal tastes and inclinations—occupy a similar position between composers and the public, rendering the best service to both. Yet it must not be supposed that he or they, to use Mr. Tennyson’s words,

‘Sit apart, holding no form of creed, but contemplating all.’

On the contrary, they have opinions, but as public officers do not force them on others.

Musical art is developed in many directions, and being universally cultivated throughout the whole world must of necessity have many styles. Yet persons are often found who refuse to believe that which is essentially true; who expect that the music of to-day shall resemble the time of Bach or the Elizabethan era; who repeat, ad nauseam, such platitudes as ‘human nature is the same in all ages,’ &c. Others, again, affect disappointment if works of the same kind, say the orchestral symphony, are not all similar in form and contents to those by Beethoven. They do not exactly expect to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, but are too frequently surprised or indignant on not finding grapes on a fig tree or figs on a vine. Such persons are also often unwilling to see beauty or utility in thorns or thistles.

For these reasons, in the previous notices of the ‘Harold’ symphony by Berlioz, comparisons between it and the ‘Eroica’ by Beethoven have been purposely avoided. It is obviously unjust to condemn a work or an artist for deficiency in the qualities which distinguish some other.

The great Frenchman in his realistic symphonies may have aimed lower than if he had chosen to produce most abstruse and wholly abstract works. For, after regarding the decline of Greek art, it becomes evident that it is a more difficult task to produce a highly original and beautiful form than to invent a pleasant story and illustrate it; and, as Mr. Rankin truly observes, an unpleasant story is easier still. Yet, at the same time, the conception, for instance, of elevating one instrument to execute a principal part, which should oppose dramatically the other voices of the orchestra also treated dramatically, and other artistic deeds, must be considered before an estimate of the work which Berlioz attempted can be formed.

It would be wrong to assume that because this ‘Harold’ symphony is realistic, little or no demand is made on the imaginative powers of the auditors. Even Shakespeare—whose characters use ordinary speech and are fully exhibited in bodily presence before our gaze—says in ‘King Henry the Fifth,’

‘Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind.’

And again:

‘Think when we talk of horses that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth.’

It should therefore not cause surprise if Hector Berlioz requires of an audience, that are not spectators also, to ‘work out their thoughts and therein see’ in mental visions what he tries to enable them to conjure up.

The works of Berlioz seem very much to depend on the material for which they were designed, for his orchestral or vocal compositions do not appear to find favor when re-arranged for other instruments. He may even appear to some as a materialist, for it is certain that he attaches more importance to the physical nature of the musical tones employed than the majority of composers, though they do not fail to acknowledge the mysterious conjunction and interpenetration of the material element of art by the spiritual. Berlioz speculated largely on effects, and even seemed to depend greatly on them. He expressed great surprise, on seeing Mendelssohn’s score of the ‘Walpurgis Night,’ that so much had been accomplished by such simple means; and in his work on instrumentation, which has become an invaluable text-book in all music schools, elaborate plans are given for the formulation of orchestras for highly artistic purposes; in one of which two items attract attention namely, thirty harps, thirty piano-fortes, that indicate a certain extravagance.

The choice of the somber tones of the viola for the part of ‘Harold’ is a most happy one, and many other instances in his works prove him to have been fully conscious of the fitness of certain instruments to perform particular duties. Mr. Charles Baetens executed the part entrusted to him with great ability.

The Grieg concerto, of which an account has already been given in these columns, was admirably played by Mr. F. Boscovitz, who showed that the composition gratified him and was worth the attention of an audience by committing it to memory.

The pianissimo passages were most effective, especially the soliloquy in the Adagio; but the forte parts did not seem to obtain the full strong tone, of which the Steinway piano-forte is capable. Mr. Boscovitz has contracted a habit of moving the head in contrary motion with the hands on strongly marked down beats, which seems to detract from, rather than add to, the force of the stroke. However, his performance was in other respects highly artistic.

The ‘Eroica’ symphony formed the second part of the concert. It was delivered in the most faultless manner. Beethoven asserted his greatness on this occasion, if only by showing how grand, heroic works may be produced without having recourse to trombones and other heavy brass instruments. When the French horns are employed in the ‘Eroica’ only the natural sounds of open tubes are employed, and therefore the coloring is truly classic.

Beethoven has written four movements, all in the key of three flats, which do not, by incessant modulations into distant keys or the use of far-fetched harmonies, show a straining after brilliant effects. His spirit, dwelling in the fullness and might of the orchestra, compels it to deliver his broad and weighty statements so forcibly than one is elevated above all considerations of the poverty or wealth of the means employed.

It seems hardly necessary to add that the performance was most excellent.” 

“…The Symphony, ‘Harold in Italy’ has been called the greatest work of a composer whose precise artistic status has never yet been fixed. Passing much of his life in France, he found his most enthusiastic admirers in Germany, where the romantic character of his music was best appreciated, and where any departure from the classical form is apt to be taken as an indication of progress.

The Harold symphony is not entirely new to our public. Mr. Thomas produced it here many years ago, but it was, doubtless, new to nearly all of the audience last Saturday night. A brief analysis of the work reading like a translation from the French, was appended to the programme. The symphony has been described as one which cannot be properly enjoyed without the accompaniment of a verbal text—but I think this cannot be said truly of any really great composition, nor would any composer of genius feel the need of giving a written explanation of his music, that those not having ears may hear. Art speaks for herself and to her own elect. In the ‘Harold’ symphony we have, not a work of genius, but one of stupendous talent; and the monody for the viola, which serves as a central theme, (the ‘Child Herold’ of the poem) is treated throughout with wonderful skill and beauty. Part second, entitled ‘The march and evening prayer,’ where the rhythm is broken at regular intervals by one clear note of a horn sounding like a deep-toned bell, took a strong hold of the audience; and the same may be said of the last part, ‘Orgies of Brigands.’ This work taxes the best powers of the Orchestra, and the playing, from first to last, was perfection.

The Grieg Concerto is quite new and seems to be full of beautiful and original ideas. It is long indeed since anything so fresh and charming in the way of pianoforte composition has been presented here. Mr. Boscovitz played the concerto from memory with taste and feeling; although some of the most delicate passages were a trifle blurred by his nervousness.

A noble performance of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony ended the concert; and it was in this familiar work that the strong points of the orchestra were most delightfully apparent. Even those passages for horns in the Scherzo—passages which cannot be played by any possibility—were not slighted, and the exquisite Finale, which is the best part of the whole work, was treated superbly.”