Philharmonic Society of New-York Public Rehearsal: 13th

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Price: $.50

Event Type:
Orchestral

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
5 May 2013

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

24 Mar 1866, 3:00 PM

Program Details



Performers and/or Works Performed

2)
Composer(s): Beethoven
3)
Composer(s): Wagner
4)
aka Franc juges
Composer(s): Berlioz

Citations

1)
Announcement: New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, 21 March 1866.
2)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 23 March 1866.
3)
Announcement: New-York Daily Tribune, 23 March 1866, 4.

“These rehearsals afford an excellent opportunity for the thorough comprehension of the great work to be performed at the concert.”

4)
Announcement: New-York Daily Tribune, 24 March 1866, 6.
5)
Review: New York Herald, 25 March 1866, 4.

“The programme for the next concert of this society is a formidable one, comprising the ever popular Seventh Symphony in A major, opus 92, by Beethoven; a Faust overture, by Wagner, and Les Francs Juges, by Hector Berlioz. The first is a well known work, and has been played by the society at several of their concerts since its first production at the Apollo Rooms in 1843. [list of movement tempos] Unhappily but few of the subjects of those immortal symphonies are now known, and that of the seventh is merely conjectured. Beethoven’s invariable custom, previous to composing a work, was to go to the country or read a poem by Goethe. Hence the opinion which prevails among many that the subject of the present symphony is the doleful tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. The slow movement is the gem of the composition. It commences with a majestic march for the violas and violoncellos, soon interrupted by one of those thunder claps with which the Jove of music sometimes astounds his hearers. The minuet and trio, hurried and broken, and the passionate finale, the very embodiment of mental distraction, give some color to the conjecture of those who say that the subject is Orpheus and Eurydice. It is one of those works which rarely go from one end to the other without having many points open to criticism in the rendering of it; therefore we cannot speak from a rehearsal of its treatment by the Philharmonic Society. However, with their careful and painstaking director, it is probably that at the next concert it will be as unqualified a success as those other great works which have been produced by them this season. The Faust Overture is founded on Goethe’s idea, and represents the characters of Marguerite, Faust and Mephistopheles in Wagner’s peculiar style. Of it and the secret judiciary tribunal of the middle ages, which the director of the Paris Conservatory so ably describes, we shall speak at the next rehearsal.”

6)
: Strong, George Templeton. New-York Historical Society. The Diaries of George Templeton Strong, 1863-1869: Musical Excerpts from the MSs, transcribed by Mary Simonson. ed. by Christopher Bruhn., 26 March 1866.

“I heard that symphony (No. 7) at Philharmon. Rehearsal Sat. aftn. with Wm. Schermerhorn, the nice gracious ladylike little Miss Fanny, who seems to inherit some share of her father’s strong feeling for music of the first order.  When that wonderful symphony was finished, I ‘cut.’ I fled Wagner’s Faust and M. Hector Berlioz’s Overture to ‘Les Francs Juges.’  Let Wagner and Berlioz
    ‘When they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched fears’ [?]  B but I prefer not hearing them just after Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.  One does not care to sit out an exhibition of musical automata immediately after an hour’s sojourn in the highest heaven of musical art.”