Mason and Thomas Chamber Music Soiree: 4th

Event Information

Venue(s):
Steinway's Rooms

Price: 4/4

Event Type:
Chamber (includes Solo)

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
11 August 2016

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

04 Apr 1867, Evening

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
LIST OF PERFORMER(S)/ORGANIZATION(S)
Participants:  Theodore Thomas [see also Thomas Orchestra];  William Mason;  George Matzka;  Frederick Bergner;  Joseph Mosenthal
2)
Sonata, cello, piano, no. 3, op. 69, A major
Composer(s): Beethoven
Participants:  William Mason;  Frederick Bergner
3)
Quartet, strings, K. 458, B-flat major
aka Hunting quartet; Quartet, strings, no. 3
Composer(s): Mozart
Participants:  Theodore Thomas [see also Thomas Orchestra];  George Matzka;  Frederick Bergner;  Joseph Mosenthal
4)
Trio, piano, strings, no. 1, op. 63, D minor
Composer(s): Schumann
Participants:  Theodore Thomas [see also Thomas Orchestra];  William Mason;  Frederick Bergner

Citations

1)
Announcement: New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, 04 April 1867, 8.
2)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 04 April 1867, 7.
3)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 04 April 1867, 1.

Last soiree of the season.

4)
Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 06 April 1867, 4.

“…The fourth and last of Messrs. Mason and Thomas’s Soirées of Chamber Music was heard at Steinway’s on Thursday last. Beethoven’s Sonata (piano and violoncello), op. 69; Mozart’s String Quartet, B flat, No. 3; Schumann’s Piano Trio, D minor—made up an unsurpassed programme--rehearsed with distinguished ability by a quintet of musicians whose services are of the highest importance to our local music—Mason, Thomas, Mosenthal, Matzke, and Bergner—good players all of them, and all excellent in concert. They have finished a labor of love; much of which has been its own exceeding great reward; and now it is fit to be said that no work whatever of the present season of music has been of higher credit to the culture of our musicians than the classical soirées just closed. We regret that untoward circumstances have prevented the press and the public from extending to so good an enterprise a more cordial recognition.”

5)
Review: New-York Times, 08 April 1867, 5.

“…Messrs. Mason and Thomas’ fourth and last soirée of Chamber Music was given at Steinway’s Rooms on Thursday. The sonata in A, op. 69, by Beethoven; Mozart’s string quartette in B flat, No. 3; and Schumann’s trio for violin, piano and violoncello, in D minor, op. 63, made up the programme, which received the closest attention from the usual critical and absorbed audience which attends these soirées. It is to be regretted that the present series of chamber concerts should have to be so brief.  No musical entertainments of the season are more elaborately rehearsed, or more perfectly performed than these; and although recent programmes have contained nothing new, yet the familiar works have been less attentively followed.”

6)
Review: New-Yorker Musik-Zeitung, 13 April 1867, 568.

The artists have not offered anything new this season; however, they deserve recognition for the continuous development of good taste for the dignified old music with a dignified performance. As we were told, Thomas will depart next Thursday for a short visit in London and Paris, and will then travel on to Germany, where he will spend his summer vacation.