• Estates Theatre orchestra: participating orchestra
• BÜLOW, Hans von: director of ensemble
• BÜLOW, Hans von: soloist, pf
• BÜLOW, Hans von: accompanist
• DAWISON, Bohumil: actor / actress / theatre performer, v
• BĚLSKÁ, Louisa: soloist, v

The first announcement by the Czech music periodical Dalibor 20/4/1860 of this benefit concert in aid of poor students of the medicine faculty stated that the event would take place on 28th April, that von Bülow would perform a capriccio by Liszt on themes from Beethoven’s Die Ruinen von Athen, and that Miss P. Luccová would sing two Liszt songs, Mignon and Loreley. The information provided by this report seems to have been premature. Detailed news of the concert appeared in identical reports published on 26/4/1860 by the German-language newspapers Der Tagesbote and Bohemia noting the date and time of the concert as 4pm on 30th April, and listing the programme and participating soloists. No mention was made of the participation of Miss Luccová, her place evidently being taken by Miss Bělská. The information about the programme given by these reports was confirmed by the subsequent Dalibor review.

The unsigned Dalibor 10/5/1860 review noted that all the works given were ‘very precisely performed and achieved a favourable result.’ The critic refrained from making any detailed comment upon Liszt’s style or aesthetic as a composer, pointing out that such an analysis had been published in Dalibor during the previous year. However, each of the works performed in this concert inspired at least a short comment, which in itself provided an illustration as to the extent to which Liszt’s music and ideas of neo-Romanticism inspired mixed feelings among certain sections of the Prague critical musical community during the early 1860s. ‘The symphonic poem Préludes, which had already been given in 1857 in [Alexander] Dreyschock’s concert, is next to Tasso [Liszt’s] clearest and, in ideas, richest work. Not less pleasing was the brilliantly worked March for the Goethe festival, whose E flat major motive, however, is greatly reminiscent of Wagner. The Ballad Loreley is a quite characteristic composition. . . The numerous audience was less charmed by the symphonic poem Prometheus, it does not have rounded form, and the title Prometheus in this composition is no way justified... the same title could be given to some sonatas of Beethoven, for in them [the composer] also portrays inner struggle and an aspiring to freedom. The Overture to Julius Caesar by Bülow is a composition which in the [opening] andante is particularly interesting; but [the work] loses its character in the too passionate allegro. The actor Mr Dawison caused a great sensation with his masterful and distinguished performance of Bürger’s Leonore, to which the melodrama music of Liszt did not contribute much. Hans z [von] Bülow performed the charming [piano] Concerto in E flat, the 12th Hungarian Rhapsody, and added, being many times [curtain-]called, the paraphrase on the Rákóczy [Radetzky] march.’

The programme is listed in the event record in the order specified by the Der Tagesbote and Bohemia 26/4/1860 texts.