Ella commenced his swansong season in April 1880 with the intention of reprising ‘the most admired works by the great masters’ and showcasing some of the finest players who had appeared in recent years. The concerts certainly exemplified the Musical Union’s abiding essence. Quartets were led by Papini and Auer, with Wiener, Hollander and Lasserre as lower strings. Scharwenka, Joseph Wieniawski and Von Bulow were among the pianists. Repertoire included string works by Mozart (D major quintet and quartet k499), Haydn (quartets op. 71 no. 1 and op. 77 no. 2), Beethoven (the op. 29 string quintet, the third Razumovsky quartet and the newly introduced op. 95, which Ella announced as an ‘especial favourite’ of the amateurs in St Petersburg but privately admitted he found ‘incomprehensible’), Mendelssohn (the Bb quintet op. 87), and Schubert (‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet). Music with piano comprised the three great trios by Beethoven (Von Bulow playing op. 70 no. 1 and op. 97 on a specially demanded Bechstein instrument), Mendelssohn’s C minor trio (with Wieniawski), Schumann’s piano quintet (Mme Montigny-Remaury), and Hummel’s septet op. 74 (Duvernoy, who played it at the Grand Matinee; this included the by now expected Beethoven septet). Von Bulow also performed Beethoven’s solo sonata op. 31 no. 3, and Duvernoy and Auer gave two movements of the celebrated ‘Kreutzer’. All were well-worn works at the Union’s concerts, many were Ella’s choices, and as such there was little room for the contemporaneity that Ella had accepted in recent years, a few solo instrumental pieces excepted.

❧ Closure

Economically, it was time for Ella to pull out, the 1880 season seeing the smallest ever subscription list (380 published names, probably masking an actual total of significantly fewer) and diminished box-office at some performances. Just twenty-eight single tickets were sold for the first matinee and forty-two at the second one, Ella noting to himself that the ‘Circle [was] nearly empty!’ The presence of the magnificent Von Bulow at two concerts drew in 117 and 179 additional listeners respectively – a fair and profitable showing, especially since the pianist once more refused an ‘honorarium’.