ITHE OLD GERMANIA ORCHESTRA. 
99 
total ignorance of the business part of their 
enterprise. A Kunstreise of such magni- 
tude as the one now projected must be con- 
ducted on business laws as strict as the laws 
of music itself An orchestra is a large and, 
when in incompetent hands, an unwieldy 
affair to manage. A number of concerts 
were given in London, but while the ap- 
plause was liberal, the financial results were 
far from satisfactory. The performances 
given were three matinees at the Princess’ 
Theater, two concerts in Hanover square, two 
in Crosby Hall, and eight promenade con- 
certs, together with numerous private enter- 
tainments which were often very enjoyable. 
The most memorable among these latter 
was a soiree given at the magnificent villa 
of the Messrs. Baring Brothers, where nu- 
merous celebrated operatic stars took part, 
including Grisi, Garcia, Alboni, Mario, and 
Tamburini. The invited guests were from 
the highest circles, and the new orchestra 
obtained a large share of the applause. The 
Duke of Cambridge, himself an amateur on 
the violin, was particularly interested in this 
department of the orchestra, turning the 
leaves for the first violins, and calling the 
attention of the entire company to the per- 
formance of the orchestral pieces. Other 
prominent occasions wherein the Germani- 
ans took part seemed to be gradually di- 
recting the public attention more and more 
to their merits, and it is quite possible that 
they might have remained and done well in 
London during the succeeding season. But 
the charms of distance and of novelty; the 
never-ebbing tide of golden rumor that was 
now beating constantly against the shores 
of the old world, lured our young musi- 
cians more and more strongly to the new. 
To the United States they were bound, 
and to the United States they sailed as 
aforesaid. 
The passage must be called, we suppose, 
a “ speedy and prosperous voyage,” as it 
occupied only fifty-eight days. They reach- 
ed New York on the 28th of September, 
and on the 5th of October they gave their 
first performance in America at Niblo’s 
‘‘ Opera-House.” 
It would be difficult to attempt a descrip- 
tion of the condition of musical affairs in 
America at that period, which would be in- 
telligible to one who knows only the stand- 
ard of the present. Very few celebrated 
virtuosi., either singers or instrumentalists, 
had yet visited the “States.” Even the 
opera was almost a novelty, although at 
this very period Madame Laborde, with 
a meager troupe, was performing in New 
York. Jenny Lind, who occasioned the 
earliest general furore in regard to music, 
did not arrive until nearly three years later. 
There was not even a decent opera-house 
in America. Dingy theaters and barren 
public halls were the sole provision made 
for accommodating public gatherings. 
The condition of orchestral music was 
even still lower than vocal. Twenty-three 
years earlier, when that greatest of all music 
teachers, Manuel Garcia, with his young 
daughter, afterward Malibran, the greatest 
of all dramatic singers, essayed the first 
Italian opera ever given in America, it is re- 
lated that he was so maddened by the shock- 
ing style in which the second finale to “ Don 
Giovanni” was rendered by the orchestra, 
that he rushed to the foot-lights, sword in 
hand, and indignantly compelled them to 
play it over. In the long interval there had 
been little or no opportunity for orchestral 
music to improve. The only intervening 
opera company, that of the Woods, in 1840, 
could have done very little to advance its 
condition, and the Steyermark band, which 
came over under the conductorship of Riha, 
in 1846, scarcely gave a whole season’s per- 
formances before it was disbanded. 
The advent of the Germania, therefore, an 
orchestra which, although small in numbers, 
was almost complete in its various parts, 
and composed of really fine performers, was 
indeed something of a musical wonder. 
But there was another feature of this enter- 
prise which was altogether without a par- 
allel in the history of American musical 
enterprises. The public taste at that day, 
in such matters as music, the drama, and 
fine arts generally, was almost entirely 
founded on foreign choice and reputation. 
The few great artists who had ventured so 
far, came here with the thickly woven laurels 
of the Old World on their brows. Then, in 
addition to this, a soloist is always more of 
an attraction to the average mass of pleas- 
ure seekers than any combination. When, 
therefore, we consider that the “ Germania” 
was organized especially for the American 
“market,” that it came here with no foreign 
reputation clinging to it, either as a whole, 
or in any of its members, such an enterprise 
argues not only great faith in the sound, 
good taste of the American people, but an 
equally firm consciousness of the strength 
and thoroughness of its own organization. 
The first concert in New York, above 
mentioned, was, in an artistic point of view, 
highly successful. The few who could ap- 
