MUSIC HALL, BOSTON. BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. ARTHUR NIKISCH, Conductor. Tenth Season, 1890-91. PROGRAMME OF THE Fourteenth Rehearsal and Concert FRIDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 30, AT 2.30. SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 3 I , AT 8.00. WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES PREPARED [BY G. H. WILSON. PUBLISHED BY C. A. ELLIS, Manager. (417) PSALTERY. CLAVICEMBALO. VIRGINAL. SPINET. HARPSICHORD. CLAVICHORD. PIANOFORTE. One of the greatest steps in the history of the Pianoforte is the Screw-stringer, an improved method of holding the strings, invented and pat- ented in 1883 by Mason & Hamlin, and which has proved so successful that the MASON & HAMLIN PIANOFORTE Is fast becoming as famous as the Mason & Hamlin Organ. Mason & Hamlin Organ and Piano Company. 154 and 155 TREMONT STREET. (418) ' Fourteenth Rehearsal and Concert. Friday Afternoon, January 30, at 2.30. Saturday Evening, January 31, at 8.00. PROGRAMME. Schumann ------ Symphony No. 1, in B-flat ( Andante un poco maestoso. - ( Allegro molto vivace. Larghetto. Scherzo. Allegro animato e grazioso. Handel - - Concerto Grosso, No. 5, in D, for String Orchestra Introduction. Allegro. Presto, l Largo. I Allegro. Minuet. (FIRST TIME IN BOSTON.) --..-- Brahms Symphony No. 1, in C minor, Op. 68 Un poco sostenuto; Allegro. Andante sostenuto. Un poco allegretto e grazioso. Adagio piu andante; Allegro non troppo, ma con brio, The Programme for the next Public Rehearsal and Concert will be found on page 443. (419) : SHORE LINE BOSTON TO NEW YORK NEW YORK TOU BOSTON Trains leave either city, week-days, as follows, except as noted DAY EXPRESS at 10.00 a.m. Arrive at 4.30 p.m. AFTERNOON SERVICE at 1.00 p.m. Arrive at 7.30 p.m. Dining Car beween Boston and New London. "GILT EDGE" LIMITED at 5.00 p.m. Daily, Sundays included, and arrive 1 1 p.m. Dining Car between Boston and New London. The last trains between the two cities to leave and arrive at termini the same day. MIDNIGHT EXPRESS at 12.00 o'clock. Daily, Sundays included, and arrive at 7.00 a.m. The LAST TRAIN from either City. Wagner Drawing-room Cars on Day Trains. Compartment Sleeping Cars on Night Trains. Trains leave Boston from Park Square Station ; New York, from Grand Central Station. J. R. KENDRICK, Gen'l Manager. GEO. L. CONNOR, Gen'l Pass'r Agent. oxjXd QQHrQiLNrir railboad. Royal Blue Line for Washington. BALTIMORE & OHIO R.R. FOR BALTIMORE, CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, ST. LOUIS, CINCINNATI, INDIANAPOLIS, COLUMBUS, PITTSBURG. Only Line via Washington to the West. Two Through Trains Daily to Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Without Change. Six Fast Trains Daily to Washington. Magnificent Pullman Palace, Drawing-room and Sleeping Cars ON ALL TRAINS. NEW YORK TO WASHINGTON IN FIVE HOURS. CHAS. O. SCULL, Gen 1 Pass'r Agt., A.J. SIMMONS, New Eng. Pass'r Agt. Baltimore, Md. 211 Washington St., Boston, Mass. C. P. CRAIG, Gen'l Eastern Pass'r Agent, New York. (420) Symphony No. 1, in B-flat, Op. 38. Schumann. Andante un poco maestoso. Allegro molto vivace. Larghetto. Scherzo, molto vivace with Trio I. and Trio II. Allegro animato e grazioso. This is Schumann's "Spring" symphony. It emanates from the happiest period of his life. The obstacles to his marriage had been overcome, and he had won a high position as a composer and an authority in music. In a letter to Dorn in 1839, Schumann complains of the pianoforte as "too narrow a field for his thoughts," and announces his intention of applying himself to orchestral writing to make up for his want of practice. The B- flat symphony is the first published essay in the new (to him) and larger field. Years before, in 1829, when a Heidelberg student, undecided be- tween the professions of law and music, he wrote to Wieck, his old piano- " forte teacher and future father-in-law : I detest theory pure and simple, as you know ; and I have been living very quietly, improvising a good deal, but not playing much from notes. I have begun many a symphony, but finished nothing, and every now and then have managed to edge in a Schu- bert waltz between Roman law and the pandects, etc." Of these juvenile student attempts in the symphonic form, one at least, in G minor, was played in public (in Schneeberg in 1833). Schumann's love for Clara Wieck was the incentive which led him to persistent work in mastering the science of music, in overcoming his youth- LP. HOLLANDER & CO. NEW GINGHAMS, CHALLIES, FRENCH LAWNS, FIGURED FOULARDS, WASH SILKS. NOW OPEN. 82 AND 83 BOYLSTON ST. AND PARK SQ. (421) LADIES' TAILOR, Annual Sale of Model Garments, STREET GOWKS, JACKETS, DLSTERS, and MAPS. All to be sold WITHOUT REGARD to Cost 96 Boylston Street, Opp. Public Garden, BOSTON. OYSTERS AND SALADS WEBER'S A SPECIALTY. GENUINE VIENNA ICES. 25 Temple PL and 33 West St. Established 1873. A BAILEY'S CHAS. E. FOSS, 1873-1876, PAGE & BAILEY. UMBRELLA STORE. 1876-1888,-J. B. BAILEY. 9 TEMPLE PLACE. (formerly with C. F. Hovey & Co.). Special attention given to recovering and repairing umbrellas and parasols. *F A large and complete assortment of umbrellas of th: best makes constantly on hand. The only store exclusively devoted to umbrellas 1888-1890, W. M. LOWNEY. in Boston. Feb,, 1890, J. B. BAILEY. 45 WEST ST. (422) ful " detestation of theory." The earliest of the four published symphonies was first performed at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Mendelssohn conducting, on March 31, 1841, having been composed but shortly before. A few weeks after the performance he wrote to a friend : "I have now a household of my own, and my circumstances are different from what they were. The time since you last heard from me has passed in happiness and work. I wished for you to hear my symphony. How happy I was at the perform- ance ! — I, and others also, for it had such a favorable reception as I think no symphony has had since Beethoven." This state of things, as Grove says, the music reflects very characteris- tically. So full of it was Schumann's mind that the composition of the entire work — without the scoring — is said to have taken only four days. The title " Spring Symphony," which, however, is not adopted upon the printed title-page, is Schumann's own. In the volume of letters (" Robert Schumann's Briefe neue Folge," new series, B. & H., Leipzig), the first mention of it occurs : " Fancy," he says, " a whole symphony,— and a ' Spring' symphony, too !" Schumann has also put on record the fact that its connection with the bursting season of spring was his original idea ; for an inscription on a portrait of himself, which follows the first two bars of the symphony, reads : " Beginning of a symphony, occasioned by a poem of Adolf Biittger's. To the poet, in remembrance, from Robert Schumann, Leipzig, 1842." OLD VIOLINS, VIOLAS and 'CELLOS, Artist Italian Strings, Imported Silver Ws. ARTIST BOWS By Knopf, Gand, Tubbs, Lamy, &c. Sole Agent for the BARZONI VIOLINS AND VIOLONCELLOS. All styles of Plush Lined Leather Boxes, Paris Rosin, Sarasate G Strings, Weichold Tested Strings, etc. Instruments taken in exchange and sold on instalments. Artistic repairs by my own workmen. Spe- cialty of bridges and bass-bars. Bows re-haired. A fine Music Box for sale cheap, just imported. FREEMAN A. OLIVER, Winter Street, Rooms 8 and g, Chandler's Building, near Music Hall. (423) It is conceded that the buoyant B -flat symphony witnesses, in a truly astonishing manner, Schumann's forward stride in the technique of com- position. Purists point out its "lovely imperfections"; but few of these " are unwilling to say, with Ehlert : It possesses all the charm of a first creation ; it is imbued with the fragrant breath of a young pine grove, in which the sun plays at hide-and-seek ; it embodies as much of a bridal air as if Schumann were celebrating his symphonic honeymoon." Joseph Bennett points out the distinctions which marked the approach to compo- sition in the higher forms between Schubert and Schumann. The former " worked up to higher manifestations of the symphonic forms through his larger pieces for the chamber, such as the octet ; but Schumann passed at a step from the pianoforte to the orchestra, from the sonata to the symphony." " Schumann," writes Wasielewski, " conceived and treated the sym- phonic form in a peculiar spirit, based on the study of masterpieces, espe- cially those of Beethoven. The ideas are thoroughly Schumannic. Higher artistic value is bestowed on them by the fact that these ideas are expressed in the old established form. They seldom reveal the arbitrary enormities which so often occur in his earlier works." Grove remarks that the trombone passage in the second portion of the finale, while, perhaps, containing a reminiscence of the first movement of Schubert's C major symphony,— heard by Schumann (who brought the MSS. from Vienna) at Leipzig, only a few months before the composition of the B. PRIESTLEY & CO.'S Silk Warp Henriettas are made of the Purest and Finest Silk and the Best Quality of Australian Wool. Every yard is guaranteed to be perfectly satisfactory to the wearer. All the Priestley fabrics are STAMPED EVERY FIVE YARDS, on the under side of the selvedge, with the manufacturers' name (B. Priest- ley & CO.) in gilt letters. Unless so stamped, they are not genuine. (424) work,— is yet treated in his own way, producing a solemn effect not easily forgotten. An instance of Schumann's imperfect acquaintance with the orchestra of that date, also pointed out by Grove, is shown in the original score of the introduction.