THE OLD GERMANIA ORCHESTRA. 
formances were continued at the Holliday 
Street Theater. 
Now followed success as great as it was 
unexpected. Eight concerts were given to 
crowded houses, and the members of the 
orchestra were wonderfully elated. Many 
excellent compositions were now perform- 
ed for the first time in America, among 
them Beethoven’s Third, Fifth, Sixth, and 
Seventh* Symphonies, Spohr’s Consecration 
of Tones, overtures by Mozart, Weber, 
Mendelssohn and Spohr, a large amount of 
chamber music, and, in connection with the 
Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, Ros- 
sini’s “ Stabat Mater,” and Romberg’s “ Lay 
of the Bell.” The business agent of the' 
orchestra, Mr. Helmsmuller, was at his wits’ 
end to plan suitable announcements for many 
of these concerts. At the very beginning of 
the series, so unexpectedly successful, he had 
advertised the “ Farewell Concert.” Now 
he was obliged to follow it up with such 
titles as “ Grand Symphonic Entertain- 
ment ; ” “ By request, One More Concert ; ” 
“ Another Farewell Concert ; ” “ They won’t 
let us go,” &c. But at last it had to come 
to an end, and the posters read “ Most 
Positively the last Farewell Concert.” 
Having pushed their success in Baltimore 
as far as prudence would seem to dictate, 
they now resolved upon a visit to Boston. 
On the route to that city concerts were given 
at New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Wor- 
cester, and Providence, with moderate suc- 
cess. They arrived in Boston on the 14th of 
April, and played the same evening. Here, 
again, a slight misunderstanding of Ameri- 
can customs seemed likely to mislead them 
and disconcert their plans. The musical 
“ season” ends in America while still at its 
height in London; and in the continental 
cities to which our artists had been accus- 
tomed the changes of season were very lit- 
tle regarded. But in America, even now, 
by the 14th of April, the concert season 
may be considered very far spent ; and so 
the result of this first Boston concert was 
far from encouraging. They made a very 
small beginning indeed, the entire receipts 
being only twenty-three dollars. 
The artistic success of this concert, how- 
ever, was complete, and succeeding perform- 
ances were more and more encouraging. 
The Boston public has enjoyed, for two 
generations or more, the reputation of pos- 
* It is said, by another authority, that the Seventh 
Symphony of Beethoven was first given in Boston 
about 1842. 
sessing the most refined and enlightened 
taste to be found on this continent. With 
no disposition to dispute her high artistic 
repute, we are inclined to trace it to a some- 
what different source than superior judg- 
ment and unerring taste. The chief cause 
of it rests in the simple fact that what her 
people really like they will have, and are 
always ready to pay for. While other cities 
may be haggling over terms, and other au- 
diences are hanging back until prices fall, 
Boston, having found a good thing, steps in, 
and, outbidding every vacillating competitor, 
bears the prize triumphantly within her own 
charmed circle. It was very much in this 
way that Boston treated the Germania Soci- 
ety. The season was virtually over. Accord- 
ing to all precedent, the violins should have 
been boxed up, the flutes unscrewed, the 
kettle-drums hustled into their musty garrets 
to keep company with spider-webs, and the 
general average of concert-goers prepared 
gratefully to button up their pocket-books 
and thank God that one expense was over. 
But the first concert of the Germania 
Musical Society opened the Bostonian eyes, 
and the unfastening of the Bostonian purse 
followed as a matter of course. They did 
not stay to ask whether it was May or 
November. Twenty-two concerts were now 
given in rapid succession, and the unabated 
enthusiasm was highly encouraging to the 
members. The last five concerts were play- 
ed in connection with the then famous vocal- 
ist, Fortuneda Tedesca, and the hall was 
invariably filled to overflowing. It is a 
fact worth recording that at these twenty- 
two concerts the overture to “ Midsummer 
Night’s Dream” was played entire forty-four 
times , the audience in every instance insist- 
ing upon a repetition. 
The high-road to success was now at length 
reached, and despite the near approach of 
summer, engagements from other cities flow- 
ed in rapidly. Good, paying concerts were 
given in Lowell, Taunton, and New Bed- 
ford, directly following the Boston series ; 
and even New York, which had so decidedly 
given the cold shoulder to this enterprise,' 
now offered an engagement to play at “ sum- 
mer festivals ” in Castle Garden. This offer 
was accepted, and by the end of the series 
summer had come in good earnest. 
About this time some of the more influ- 
ential pioneer visitors at Newport had set 
about the project of making that resort a 
fashionable watering-place. Their artistic 
taste and judgment were well shown in their 
engagement of the Germania Orchestra for 
