The miracle of Google Books! I have found the Book of the Programmes of the Buffalo Philharmonic Society for the Year of 1885.
Felix Mendelssohn was Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Johannes Brahms was "one of the greatest of living composers and quite prominent in the departments of choral and chamber music."
There is music by Joseph Joachim Raff and Heinrich von Herzogenberg. I heard some Raff recently and it was very good.
Of Herzogenberg the program says: "As a composer he has been more or less known for some years, but it is only of late that the full power of his genius has asserted itself." That is our friend Heinrich pictured above. He was amazing looking.
There is also Norbert Bergmueller: "One at whose birth the gods smiled, but before his 26th year, he was already 'going the road which no one e'er retraces.'" I guess that means that he, ahem, died. Back then they liked to be more proper about things like that.
It is fascinating to look at old programs like this and think of how musicians wax and wane, you know?
At least we may begin to refer to Mendelssohn again as Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Keep the past alive!
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