May 13, 1904
SOCIETY.
scans from newspaper collection of
Ruth Adams-Battle

transcribed by Dorothy Wiland

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Harmony Combined With Grand Showing of World Society.
Inspiring Scene as Thomas First Uplifted His Baton.

Luminous with color from the view point of the spectacle, the very zenith of success managerially and more important than all else, the apex of profound brilliance musically was the opening of the sixteenth biennial festival.  Defects there were to be sure.  Perfection is an art that has not been reached, but these minor ripples on the stream of successful attainment on the memorable Wednesday evening are matters of the merest passing comment.  The subtle, salient fact remains after calm deliberation over night that there are few citizens in the world that can do themselves as high credit over a task so stupendous, requiring such masterly detail and entailing the deepest knowledge of the subject at hand.

No more engaging scene of radiant brilliance and color than that which met the eyes of the late arrivals at the historic old Music hall can readily be pictured.  There have been other openings that were marked, but it was very graciously conceded by the experts that have followed them for years that this inaugural holds a little niche of beauty and kaleidoscopic varience (six) all to itself.

The stream of humanity began to pour upon the canopied walkway, through the lane of street urchins and weary women toilers thirsty for a glance at the modish gowns and beautiful faces of their more fortunate sisters into the hall long before 7 o’clock.  The Thomas ultimatum that every one, irrespective of modes or vogues, or social status would have to wait for the intermission  had its effect and  it is doubtful if a Cincinnati fin de siecle sudienco ever finished its demi-tasse and brie at an earlier hour.

All the women looked pleased and appreciative when they saw that General Manager Wilson had draped the house in red, they gave another sign of appreciation when they saw all members of that chorus, save one ambitious women, in white.  The red hangings, the double rows of red boxes and the dictum that the chorus must be in white made possible a contrast for their own confections of the modiste’s highest art that only a woman can appreciate, and man, ignorant man, applaud.

Once seated the house presented a scene of modish splendor, spectacular and fashional picturesqueness that brought to mind the glories of Covent Carcen on a Melba night, of a Metropolitan opening or a production at the Paris Grand Opera.  The entire house with a few bare, ostracized and ? exceptions, who had the grace to sit far back and look very shamed-face was in its finest raiment and a brave showing it made.

Mr. Thomas, whose seventy years still sit so lightly on his shoulders that he may yet love to look upon a fair face, stood in the little opening in the rear of the chorus and gazing out upon the house said: “”Pon My honor, I believe there are more beautiful women in Cincinnati than in any city I know.”

Perhaps that is why the great conductor, who is always obdurate about his rules allowed them a little extra time to arrange trains and get comfortably seated before he began.  In any event it was nearly 8 o’clock when he raised his baton and started the serious solemn work of the evening.  Then the picture was complete.  As far as the eye could reach, from pit to dome of the great hall, the audience rose tier upon tier, a veritable ocean of fashion’s butterflies; one great mass of buds and belles and sweethearts of the olden days against whom the conventional black and white of the beaux of all types from those in their lettuce days to the sere and yellow old fellow of the club window made contrast.

No scene could have better illustrated the prosperity and wealth and the splendid social environs of a great city, and doubtless no similar event could have more pertinently evinced its good tastes and inclinations.  City after city the world over has tried to successfully conduct great music festivals.  It is a curious fact and one worthy of commend that there are less than a score in the entire world that possess the cult, the refinement and musical culture to support these festivals successfully.  And yet Cincinnati’s institution has ripened with the years until it culminated in the veritable triumph on Monday evening.

Thirty years ago some of the dames of Monday evening who were demoiselles then split their sundes when Mr. Thomas in rhythmic time batoned the merry strains of the “Blue Danube,” the first and perhaps best of the dances that were written for the Emperor’s children.  Some of us still have an affection for the old dance, but imagine asking Mr. Thomas to play the Viennese melody at a festival of to-day!  And yet the matter is worth a passing thought.  The “Blue Danube” thirty years ago!  To-day the master work, the most intricate, the most involved, and one of the most difficult works extant, the Bach mass.  Could better proof be asked of the educational advantage in the progress and development of the musical taste of a great city than the musical chasm that has been so successfully bridged in these years?

It has been said that Mr. Thomas made an error when he opened with the Bach mass.  In all verity it must be said that it towers above the heads of the average music lovers as the pyramids above the plains.  Some of the subscribers would rather he had opened with one of the more popular programmes.  It takes half a lifetime to acquire the musical culture that makes it possible to appreciate the work in its fullest sense.

The precentage (sic)  of those past masters in the arts and wiles of the muse who were present at the initial performance were about as a ratio of one in one hundred.  Be that as it may, every one thought that the others knew it all and there were no acknowledgements and it did not take any high musical knowledge to appreciate that the band was in splendid form and the chorus fully competent except in one or two incidents, and there was no serious fault on these occasions.

Mr. Thomas reading of the mass was a surprise to some of his hearers, however.  The dominant idea of Bach in everything he did was Force, Power, classical dominance and he hated beauty as strongly as Verdi loved melody.  In all the work of the orchestra and in the phrasing of the chorus it could be readily observed that Mr. Thomas was doing much to soften the more stringent passages of the mass.  In this pleasing process he met with the highest approval.

It is a wonderful work, one that all should hear, even those that do not harken, but it will never awaken any degree of popular interest with the musical masses for it carries too far into the heavens, is too distantly removed from the intellect and understanding of the normal student.  That it is well to hear it can not be gainsaid, however.  A child reared among the stubs and thistles can garner no wheat in the after years.  So it is fitting and pleasing that one should see the azure and the gold lines of the clouds even if one does not reach them. And this mass stands on an ? all by itself.