Wehli/Katow Vocal and Instrumental Concert: 5th

     “The last concert of these favorite artists took place  . . . yesterday evening, in presence of a very large house. The performance of Mlle. de Katow was as delightful as ever. She gains more applause, and seems to win more upon the audience every night, as her command over the violoncello is more completely demonstrated. It is rare to see a lady exercise so thorough a mastery over so difficult an instrument as Mlle de Katow does. Mr. Wehli was, as usual, exceedingly fine on the piano. His Huguenots fantasia is a marvelous performance, and both in the spirit of the composition and the facility of the execution, stamps him as a perfect artist.”
 

     ". . . . . As for Mlle de Katow, I believe I can say that she has surmounted the difficulties of her instrument as much as a woman can; sadly, that's not all, and she's far from perfect. [Comments about how women don't have the strength to play like a man] . . . her fingers have too much delicacy to bend with a firm precision, like a steel screw . . . . It results, in Mlle de Katow, in a certain lack of clearness, or rather a kind of indecision which is like a veil over the playing . . . . Mlle de Katow is assuredly an artist of great merit, and I doubt that another woman could displace her; but she isn't at the level of the foremost masters of her art, as Mlle Urso is, who is regarded as one of the greatest violinists.

     Now, I hasten to say that, if Mlle de Katow is the pearl of the duo that M. Strakosch has brought to America, her partner, M. Wehli, is surely the diamond. M. Wehli is a complete pianist; he's one of those artists for whom their art has neither difficulties nor secrets, and who can do everything well enough--not following their talent, but following circumstances--to be placed in the first rank rather than the second or third. The piano has created, in the past 25 years, a constellation of artists like this among whom reputation, milieu, success, and this nuance or that predilection, establish a difference rather than a distance. Some are named Litz [sic], others Thalberg, or Shopin [sic], or Prudent, or Gottshalk [sic]--or perhaps Vehli [sic] --without which one could say precisely who is the first and who is the last, or why this one rather than that one. It would be foolhardy, doubtless, to place M. Wehli, right away and without having examined more deeply, in this legion of honor, nevertheless I am convinced that his place is there, and that if he doesn't take it, it will be because luck, not talent, is lacking. He still has to prove himself in certain areas; he hasn't yet shown all the delicacy, passion, originality and bravura of Gottschalk; but he has perfect technique, a pure style, and a feeling for nuances which are the fundamental bases of his art . . . .

     One also heard, at Mlle de Katow's concerts, a young American singer, Miss Laura Harris, who has only one falut: she's a little young . . . . Miss Harris has a pretty voice, fresh, vibrant, supple and congenial, but she asks sometimes more of herself than she can give, the effort isn't the power : '--Don't force your talent,' says the moralist, 'you will not do anything graceful.'"