Thomas Popular Musical Matinee: 8th

“Mr. Theodore Thomas’s popular matinée on Saturday was again injured by the weather.  The damage, however, was only to the audience; not to the programme.  Mozart’s Symphony in E flat, with its piquant minuet, was charmingly rendered.  In the second part a concert overture, by Mr. J.N. Pattison, was performed.  It is an early work of this studious and painstaking young pianist.  Without any marked characteristic of style it displays an ingenious fancy, and a good knowledge of instrumental coloring.  The themes are of a popular character, and the whole work is light, graceful, and creditable to a composer, whose speciality is the piano.  Mr. Pattison played, with orchestra, Mendelssohn’s capriccio, in a very intelligent and satisfactory way; subsequently, as a solo, Liszt’s arrangement of Paganini’s difficult Campanella piece.  In the latter he was encored, and gave a reverie, nocturne, idyll, or something that means nothing and expresses it fully.  Mr. Theodore Thomas is entitled to the thanks of the community for continuing these entertainments.  They are thoroughly excellent, and if the weather were not always against him would be popular.”