James M. Wehli Matinee Concert: 3rd

Brief. Lists performers. “The hall was pretty well crowded, the audience in good humor, and the programme satisfactorily rendered.”

Brief. “Mr. Wehli’s matinée was well attended, and the gentleman played, as heretofore, with faultless technique and unfailing brilliancy. He was assisted by Miss Viola Henriques and Mr. Frank Bartlett. The lady has no qualifications for the concert-room, but can with much propriety begin to take music lessons. The gentleman has a fine baritone voice, and sings with earnestness and intelligence.”

“Mr. Wehli gave his third Morning Concert at Irving Hall last Saturday. The success of these concerts is really remarkable. Notwithstanding the attractions held out at other places on that day, such as the the [sic] Rehearsal and Concert of the New-York Philharmonic Concert at Steinway Hall, Opera Matinees at the Winter Garden and Theater Francaise [sic], and Miss Payne’s concert at Irving Hall in the evening, Mr. Wehli’s concert attracted an audience of over a thousand people, composed mostly of our fashionable ladies. It must be remembered that Mr. Wehli is the sole attraction, for he has been assisted, so far, by the most inferior performers, with one or two exceptions, Miss Henne and Miss Kate Macdonald [sic].

     His performance on this occasion was equal to his best public efforts, and his success was as genuine and as unmistakable as ever. Of his audience, nine-tenths were ladies, and yet the applause was hearty and the encores persistent. Mr. Wehli’s success is his perfect mastership over the resources of the piano. He has studied the aesthetic principles of the instrument and has found in its refined and sympathetic tone, in its pure vocal utterance, the key to his control over the public. His manipulation is great and admirable, and his power is equal to the resources of the piano, but in his fine, delicate and artistic coloring lies the charm, which fascinates the people and seems to compel them to demand repetition upon repetition, as though never wearying of listening to the delicate tissues which his fingers weave into a web of rare and surpassing beauty.”