Deutsche Liederkranz Annual Ball

     “Supper will be served from 11 pm to 4 am.  All masks must be removed at 1 o’ clock, at a given signal from the orchestra.”

     Long review.  Includes a section on the history of the Liederkranz.

     “The Liederkranz Society, whose festivities are always of a first class and select order, held its annual bal masque at the Academy last night. . . . The dancing did not commence until after nine o’clock.  A splendid orchestra, numbering one hundred and thirty instruments, under the lead of Mr. A Bernstein, was in attendance to provide the music for the dances, while another orchestra under Mr. Dietz furnished the accompaniments for the promenade, which commenced to discourse shortly before nine o’clock. . . .

THE MUSIC AND DANCING

     The music was of that dreamy and contrasted style peculiar to the Fatherland.  There is something irresistibly fascinating about the German waltz and gallop.  Two hundred couples spin around in automatic order, yet with a vim and dash that communicates itself to the mere spectator, and the inspiring strains of a hundred instruments send the blood in lava streams through the veins.”

     “Another brilliant success was added last night to the list of terpsichorean triumphs of the season. The Liederkranz ball . . . was showy, gay and enjoyable. There was, of course, a crowd, but it was a good-natured, laughing crowd, perfectly determined to enjoy itself.

     The costumes exhibited the usual variety of monk and peasant, nun, Yankee, Chinese, cavaliers, crusaders, clowns, harlequins, and characters from fiction. The decorations of the house were more elaborate that at the Arion ball. They are thus described in an official circular which was distributed to the guests last night.

     The decorations are designed to illustrate the origin of masked festivals, and are comprised in a combination of Grecian and Roman architectural effects. From the box tier of the auditorium at equal-distant points rise a series of fantastically ornamented pillars—nine in number—the capitals of which are severally mounted by huge masks, tinted and formed in plaster, typifying Comus, Satyr and Medusa.

     Above these rest a number of gigantic swans, representing the Myth, the Fable, the Grand, Grotesque, &c. From between the necks of each pair of swans golden lilies shoot upward, while from the flowers in turn rise a company of Gnome-like goblins (with movable eyes), whose out-spread emerald-tinted wings produce a most wild but pleasing effect. These figures measure about five feet in height. Each Gnome bears upon his bent shoulders a huge shell, painted with every color of the rainbow. From the shell springs the Goddess of Joy, in very gay mood, wreathed with flowers, and grasping the staff of Momus. This is succeeded by emblematical representations of the Muses, Satyrs and Bacchantes. From the centre of the ceiling depends in every direction a vast golden net, in the baroque style, the construction of which has involved the use of twenty thousand pounds of cord. Grotesque figures in countless variety are mysteriously made to float in the air beneath this glittering canopy, while directly over the centre of the floor is discovered a very large and ornamented balloon, which may or may not have been occupied upon the occasion of a recent marriage in very high [illeg.]

     The several pillars described are connected by garlands and festoons arching over intermediate candelabra filled with rare flowers.

     The stage is converted into a vast tent, though the further opening of which is seen a far reaching landscape and ocean view, with a famous tree in the foreground. A huge head of Momus surmounts the entrance to the tent. Fountains of Eau de Cologne are variously grouped upon the stage in the midst of natural flowers.

     At either side of the main entrance to the ball room is stationed a giant sphinx, that cries unmistakable signs of intelligence, as may be discovered by propounding to it a conundrum.

     ‘The Match Box,’ another circular, contained some very funny illustrations, the gallery of family portraits being especially good.

     The music of the evening was excellent, and the dancing vigorous, if not very comfortable. There might have been some singing; but the circular explains that the Liederkranz Society numbers nine hundred members, of whom one hundred and fifty sing, while seven hundred and fifty have colds.  So the music was provided by instruments.”

     “They were bold spirits who dared propose to give the last grand ball of this brilliant season.

     Ingenuity had long sighed, exhausted, in the gaudy litter of the decorators’ wareroom. Wealth had lost its golden potency since the spirits of Novelty and Change, summoned from the vasty deep of the upholsterers’ resources, refused to come when it did call for them.

     The antipodes had been made tributary in spoils of silk and scent of roses. The tropics offered orange bloom, and pomegranates, and chalices of purple wine. Grim War and gentle Peace, light Vanity and lovely Charity, had been the equal sponsors of these frequent festivals. And each was brighter, and costlier, and more luxurious than its antecedent, from whose past glory some rays of reflected light fell on the present.

     Then the ball of the Arion, glittering and splendid, closed the long procession of pleasure, and beauty sank exhausted on pillows of down, wearily glad that there were no new worlds of gayety beyond, and no dancing Alexander to conquer them. The gray garments of penitential Lent looked easier than the corseted brocades of fashion, and the pinching of Ash Wednesday had no terrors for the surfeited mortals who had sat at one long feast for three months.

     Last night, however, the gay invitation of the bugles, and the sad sweetness of the oboe, and harp, pealed again from the Academy, and drowned the sound of steeple chime, and psalm, So the devotee left the untasted herring on their plates, slipped a black domino over their dinner dresses, and rushed forth to see what these echoes of a mundane past might mean.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE MASQUE.

     People of the world worldly, knew that they were the melodious allurement of the great Liederkranz Society, the kindly rival of the Arion. Those music-loving Teutons, undaunted by the splendid success of the last Masque, are only stimulated thereby to achieve new distinction, and pale its glory in the effulgence of their own.

     One wonders what chimerical schemes they cherish. Unless they hang the balconies with cloth of gold, and bring forth living fountains of perfumed water, from the arid waste of the corridors, and trail flaming banners of exotic plants over the balustrades, and woo birds of Paradise from the Oriental tales to fan the scented air; unless they transplant the moon-lit gardens of Hafiz, and tempt nightingales to warble therein their ball will hardly surpass the magnificence of its harbingers, you fancy.

     One crowning glory the Society might win, and be embalmed in tender memory by every panting reveler. It might invite only so many guests as it could offer hospitable welcome, giving seats to the weary, and room to the dances, and supper to the famishing.

     But that is a benefice which it has not entered into the heart of the Ball Committee to conceive, and we cherish no foolish hope of it. We do look, however, for gorgeous decorations and elaborate whimsies, for to that effect have whispered promises of managers been heard.

DECORATIONS.

     Coming out of the bitter night into this warm, bright palace of the Fantastic, we see at once that they were words of promise kept to the ear, nor broken to the hope.

     Over the paneled ceilings a net-work of golden cords is interlaced, through which the floating nymphs above look at the great gay floor. From the center depends a huge inverted bowl, with a lesser offspring beneath, which is a balloon, it appears, and expresses to the metaphysical German mind some bit of fine humor which the blunter Yankee perception cannot quite grasp. From the proscenium boxes stream silk banners, yellow as gold, and gay with emblematic devices. All around the balcony are wonderful trees in boxes. Trees with long palm-like leaves of glittering chrysoprase, and grand yellow primroses which must be topaz, they are so pellucid, and red roses which seem huge rubies in their depth of color and some strange purple flowers whose clear luster is amethystine.

     Then, between these bright exotica rise odd columns, like the case of a mummy, but gorgeous with crimson, and green and yellow. And leering from these capitals are grotesque, ugly faces forever parted from the kindly, but hideous giants to whom they once belonged. Above them, the legendary sevams support an airy base, whereon a convention of griffins, with unpleasantly obtrusive knees, sits as ease. And here are drooping festoons of the same gorgeous flowers that bloom down stairs and which could have blossomed only in the courtyard of Aladdin’s Palace. Still above them, trooping around the circle of the upper gallery, is a mad procession of fancy Neptune and the Nereids, Comus and the Satyrs, nymphs and fairies. Every tier is bright with gay hangings and the blaze of countless lamps.

     At 11 o’clock, the inevitable procession begins its queer march, and the order of the course is here appended in the following Liederkranz phraseology.

      [A long description of the procession follows, which ends with a “Broadsword Combat Quadrille.”]

TEUTONIC ENJOYMENT.

     Shouts of laughter greet it, and follow it, and little rills of merriment trickle through the crowd at only the recollection of some of its vagaries.  It is delightful to receive the contagion of fuss with which the air is saturated.

     How these Germans laugh—from the very depth of their souls.  You could count the Americans by seeing that their smiles stop at the lips, and the weary look haunts the eyes still, and the madness of the moment cannot dispel it.  The keen oxygen, which makes the Yankee nerves so sensitively fine, is potent poison, perhaps, and tempts them into a swift race of existence, which wears them out before their time, and shows them that the burden of life is heavy to be borne.  Hamlet is an American character, though possibly not a National one, and to-day and here, would translate his—

‘How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,

Seems to me all the uses of this world,’

 —into the terser, ‘I am bored to death.’

THE MASKERS.

     These monks, and kings, and dervishes, and knights at armor, and queens and flower-girls, and maids with milking-pails, and priests all shaven and shorn, ready to marry the men all tattered and torn, who are readier still to kiss the maidens all forlorn, if those lachrymose damsels could be found in this gay crowd—these laughing maskers are not thinking of Hamlet and his woes, and very sensible they are therein. One ought not to wear rue at bridals, or dance the saraband in crape [sic].

THE COSTUMES.

     We have seen these costumes before—all of them. We took tea with prince Rupert, yonder, last Sunday night, and we know, being neighbors, that Cardinal Woolsey has serious trouble with his wife. This pleasant damsel in a red silk skirt who chose her costume because she has such pretty feet, is own cousin to fifty others who are here to-night, and next of kin to the thousand peasant girls we have seen at fancy-dress balls since our infancy.

     Restricted petticoats, and a satiety of spangles are the popular feminine conceptions of a fanciful costume. The masculine idea is broader, as is fitting, and comprehends a monk’s bowl and rosary or a court-dress of any period which permits a generous display of silken hose, and ruffles of—we grieve to say it—cotton lace. One wishes that individual taste and character might select the costumes for once, and offer us the charming result. It would be a gay epitome of history and romance; any cheerful incarnation of legend and tradition. And for such a party, the study of dress would be worthwhile and the swift toil of busy needles.

THE GYMNASTS.

     Here are the wonderful Turnvereins, whose gymnastic feats are amazing, and whose mastery of muscle and sinew is admirable.  But shall we become a hissing and a byword if we venture to suggest that somersaults in the midst of a quadrille are not gratifying, and that a pyramid of men, unnumbered stories high, though it must satisfy the vaulting ambition of the top-most Teuton is inconveniently bulky and unpleasantly uncertain among 500 waltzers.  In short, excellent gymnasts, and irreproachable fellow-citizens, if you would curb your desire to climb and remain in the safe shelter of the ferry-boat, or dance like reasonable Christians, while the band plays this delicious music, you would keep your memory green in the hearts of your adopted countrymen.

     Nine athletic fellows, whose muscles are iron and whose bones are Indian rubber, construct pyramids and Roman wheels, and tie themselves up in hard knots, and walk on head or hands with such delightful sportiveness as to persuade you that feet are a pleasant extravagance of Nature, and that they are not men at all, but very perfect machines which do all sorts of muscular miracles; and if the ballroom be the fit arena for the divertissements of the gymnasium, nothing could be better. We might believe, however, that the spectacle of two men recklessly playing with death in the trap of a cloud swing is not an edifying one. Their courage is admirable—their self-possession excellent—their quick suppleness a thing equally to be desired. But the sickening horror of the fascination which compels me to look at them, condemns such an exhibition in such a place.

THE CROWD.

     The crowd at the Liederkranz was much great than at the Arion Ball, and would have seemed very uncomfortable if we had not painfully remembered the Seventh Regiment Reception, and deemed ourselves, even last night, comparatively blessed.

     The hundred or more who chose to dance—those who attend the Academy balls are aware it is not the mode to woo Terpsichore in any form—succeeded in moving to and fro and whirling about with no more serious inconvenience than constant collision with each other, and a bewildering confusion of lingerie would necessarily produce.

     We admire energy and perseverance all the more perhaps because we are the firmest believer in the dolce far niente doctrine, and because no one of our ancestors was ever known to be guilty of any effort when it could be made vicarious. But when we beheld the superhuman exertions of the dancers who grew crimson in the face and panted and became faint on the floor of the Academy last evening and yet persisted, in spite of perfume and perspiration in their maddened gyrations hour after hour, without the least pleasure or the smallest pecuniary inducement, our admiration arose to the celsitude [sic] of worship.

     Americans would have voted the whole thing a bore, drank a glass of wine, gone home to their sofa and [illeg.] and declared with Sir Charles Coldstream that there was nothing in it.  Not so our good friends the Germans.  They danced like the mad dervishes, and, after fortifying themselves with beakers of lager and segments of limburger, returned to the voluptuous waltz and the thrilling galop with more zest and energy than ever.

RETROSPECT.

     The toilets were never more superb, the music was never finer—the arrangements were never more careful and lavish, that at the ball of the Liederkranz last night. The Society bravely assaulted a dangerous position, and gallantly held it—and our memory of the last great ball of the brilliant season will also be a memory of one of the best.”

     Very successful and elaborate event. $ 18,000 was spent on decorations, and it was not even that spectacular. Revenue was $4000 – 5000 which will be credited to the Liederkranz.