Litchfield enquirer., 1875-11-25
A Week sn New York.


 Our week Tn New York ought really to have begun on tuesday evening, the 9th inst, when the Ofatorio Society gave Mendelssohn's St. Panl with Thomas orchestra for accompaniment, but weekly newspaper is hard mistress and we could not possibly slip of till Wednesday morning. Of course 1t pour ed and we spent many useful hours look ing over only small part of Schirmer's piles on piles of cello and piano music. Guessing at music from the eye is Q very exasperating business. The greater the variety, the greater the uncertainty. Nothing weakens musicians self-respect like it.
 The evening found us at Wa!lackis, where they are having tremendous run Oi
 .'cAsTR."
 One is always certsin of pleasant eve ming at Wallack.s, the least sensational and the most uniformly good of New York theatres. Caste" certainly deserves the run it is having. It is very bright, full oi good hits without being at all sensational. The characters were admirably sustained. Montagu, the handsome young fellov about whom the idle young ladies of New York have been making such goslings oi themselves, was the hero, an army officer sho:marries beautiful, lady-like ballet dancer with an intolerable old beast of a father, fat. jolly vulgariah of sister. and cockney brother-in-law-in-prospect who is in the gas fitting line. Tie mark ed situations" of the piece grow out of the social incompatibilities of this match. The great character of the play is old Eccles, father of the heroine and one of those earnest labor. reformers who have never done a stroke of work in tleir lives -an unutterably worthless, drunken, ser vile old scamp,-but most hatefully true to life, for we have his very gait and i'm. age before us here in Litchfield This part is taken by Mir. Honey, a recent inn portation from England, we believe, and splendid actor in his way, so splendid that after hls evenings performance VI feel positive he could not have borrowed quarter of dollar in that whole house.
 We cannot dismiss Caste without a word for sister-in-law Polly. She was the most perfect impersonation we ever saw, of impulsive. explosive good-nature. She even retained her faith in old Eccles to the last. When the audience were be- ing narrowed with the woes of the princi- pal characters, Polly came to their relief Once particularly, when the dead hero turned up as dead heroes are almost cer- tain to do at Wallack's, and the house was fairly sniveling with joy. Polly Ire stored order" at once by simply remarking to her gasman across the stage, ..Sam Kiss me. t.
 Thursday afternoon brought public rehearsal for the arst Symphony concert Of
 THEODORE THOMAS ORCHESTRA.
 The program opened with what happen ed to be very familiar piece to us- Gluck's Overture to Iphigenia in Aulis. Near thirty years ago we happened upon an ancient copy of this overture in music store, probably attracted by the we'll known story of the great contest in Paris under poor Louis XVI between the rival German and Italian schools of music, as by Gluck and Piccini. How decisively Chuck conquered in his great opera of Iphigenia one easily guesses from this overture. A century ago such a composition must have seemed most ''music of the future" It drops the stiff formality of the styles then prevalent and remains fresh. original and enjoyable today. Of course there are no difficulties of execution in it for the mod. ern orchestra nevertheless it brings ont finely one of the strong points of Thomas grand orchestra-the beautiful tone and perfect tune of his stringed instruments ts and, above all, their power of expression, simply unapproachable by any other band of strings we ever heard.
 Next the Iphigenia overture came the Pastoral and Cradle Song from Bach's Christmas Oratorio. These shepherds and shepherdesses ~ho are watching their fiocks by night" are not at all Orien- tai but eighteenth century gentlemen and ladies, in ruffies. powder and knee breech- oS i'm hooD1 ca&o1,as .rS haoI ~-.A:.. The beautiful. quaint string parts are de- entrusted with the reeds, and the vocal melody of the Cradle Song is full of the sweet gentility of the old pas toral style.
 Then came the inevitable Beethoven This unequalled master of instrumental harmony holds his place ev- en more firmly in the concert room than does Shakespeare on the stage. The sym phony played was the Eighth. not one of Beethoven's best. but much the finest thing of the concert. It is the hghtest of the whole series. we believe; nevertheless, it abounds in those grand melodies. not of S0C o0e oA 8Aa ekAo AuSe1U11C44Ss WHICH mark the higher styles of music. As we are not writing musical criticisms. but merely recording musical impressions, we shall only say of Beethoven that we always hear his works with wonder, admiration. and delight. such as we should vainly la- bor to express in words.
 The first part closed with Der Doppel- ganger, one of Schubertis songs. with am orchestral accompaniment by Thomas himself. Such perfect desolation of spirit we never before heard expressed in music. The violas and 'cellos intons . ghastly single note. while the double basses moan and groan below in harmony with the voice. Occasionally crescendo leads up to a crash of wind instruments, and then the rattle of brass dies down and only the moan of the basses is heard under the 0kA -R