Thomas Popular Garden Concert: 34th

No program given.

Brief. "A grand matinee concert will be gievn to-day at Koch's Terrace Garden, by Mr. Theodore Thomas. A second concert will be given in the evening."

“The alarming state of the thermometer for the past week seems not to have had any effect on the attendance at those popular and really excellent entertainments. Night after night the beautiful Terrace Garden is crowded, and the extraordinary number of visitors taxes the energies and resources of the six brothers Koch to the utmost. On Tuesday and Friday nights in particular there is always a jam, and many persons have to be turned away at the entrance. The classical character of the programmes on those nights will explain the cause of the increased attraction. Last night the gardens were illuminated as brilliantly as usual, and every nook and corner, even in the secluded arbors, had a circle of music loving visitors. [Lists program.]

Those pieces were all given in a style such as we might expect from such an orchestra and such a leader. After this eminently successful inauguration of garden concerts in the metropolis, we may expect to see them firmly established here every summer. They have already become as popular in New York as they are in Germany. If they were given on Sunday evenings, with a programme of sacred and classical music, they would supply a musical want long needed by those who are obliged to remain in the city during the heated term. It is too bad, certainly, that the working classes should not have some intellectual recreation of this kind on the only day of the week on which they can have an opportunity of enjoying it. The most austere Puritan cannot prove in what manner a sacred concert of this kind will violate the Sabbath.”

“The taste for popular music is increasing in this country with great rapidity. The vast number of people that flock to the Central Park on Saturday afternoons ‘to hear the music’ is proof of this. Thousands also flock to the Orchestral Gardens and to the Lion Park, where some of the finest works of the masters are performed in the open air, under the supervision of the best conductors in the City; for even Theodore Thomas and Carl Bergman [sic] do not consider themselves too great to give their services to the people at these places. This growth of the love for out-door concerts of this character, is to be attributed in great degree to the efforts of the German element of our population.  In Berlin and other German cities, popular music forms a much more prominent feature of life than with us; and the people give up time and business for its enjoyment. In this City, and indeed throughout the country, the greater part of our performers are Germans; and our German fellow-citizens always turn out in large numbers to the Parks and Gardens where music is given. The American people may well be grateful to the Germans for what they are doing for us in this direction.”