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The (Jreat Musical Festival This Week.Cincinnati, as a center of cultivated taste, Is to be put this week to a test at once novel andtrying. The pride of our citizens should be ■warmly enlisted In the success of the splendidmusical effort which will begin Tuesday night in Ex position Hall, and embrace In all four night eoncerta, three matinees, and one open air con cert. The elevated character of the music selected, and the unrivaled elements, as a whole, which have been assembled and combined to render it faithfully and massively, are a proper subject for congratulation. The aim has been lofty, and the energy displayed In the work of organization has accomplished all that the most sanguine could have hoped for. The public now must do the rest.This has been a great season for music throughout the country, the most remarkable year ever known in fact, in the development of a taste for classical and choral composition; or in other words, of music in its highest form, as interpreted thus far by human genius. The opera had a great bound into popularity in 1872, and now we Hud the works that translate nature and Its magnificent forces, coming in to overshadow the music of human emotion and romantic action. The opera may tell us of love and adventure, but it requires the chorus, the grand orchestra and the organ to speak of that which Is beyond mere human ripening and decay. The one delights the ear and the imagination, the other rouses the soul and its latent capacity. The fact must be admitted that we know but little in this country of the tremendous effects that are compassed by a trained orchestra and chorus of grand dimensions. A beginning must be made, and it will be made for the great West In Cincinnati this week.Within the last fortnight a fine experiment of this kind has transpired in New York. Mr. Theodore Thomas, who is one of the Invaluable men who plan the best attainable achievements and then compel success, waiting patiently for pecuniary reward, transported to New York the best chorus in the United States—the Handel and H *ydn Society of Boston, numbering five hundred singers, many of whom have been in training for from ten to twenty-five years. He gave the mercurial metropolis a week, of Just ■uch glorious though unfamiliar music as we are promised in Cincinnati. The series of concerts opened dubiously so far as listeners were concerned, but the triumph of the musicians was so overwhelming that the multitude soon poured Into the hall, first with eagerness, and then with enthusiasm. The result was a success beyond expectation. Mr. Thomas was called daring to temerity by managers with no soul above a four-dollar coupon of admission, but others esteem him bold to the point of chivalry. His ambition is to reproduce here the best musical outgrowth of Europe, and he must educate no less than entertain.No one can fall to anticipate the oertain success of th^ orchestra under Mr. Thomas at the Festival this week. The approved merit of the aolo singers also removes their tasks from the region of doubt. The acoustic property of Exposition Hall is singularly favorable. The organ has a volume extremely full and impressive. The chorus alone remains to bequestioned. Their rehearsals have been very satisfactory. Eternal vigilance—or, at all events, the highest order of vigilance and earnest attention for five days—will be the price of their winning the jjrecuest laurels.The^preiiminary work nears a gratifying completion, and our citizens must be prompt and zealous in their support. The love of music is universal, and we have generally observed that those who are said technically to have no ear are the very princes of listeners.Cincinnati will attract, this week, the scrutiny of every musician and musical society on the Continent. The attitude of the city, for five days, will be that of a pioneer in high art. Money spent fbr tickets, no matter how freely, will be profitably placed. This is a central metropolis, and the possibilities of a first successful musical festival on this noble scale are simply beyond calculation. Our annual Exposition is but art iu another form. Now let us give music of the highest order a focal point for the future.
Newspaper Details
Cincinnati Commercial
Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Sun, May 04, 1873
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Joanne G.
NA, 22 Feb 2025
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