USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 54
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the ladies, which was called the Minerviad. In the last years of this period appeared two more journalistic ventures. In 1838 flourished, for one year at least, the Boston Musical Gazette, edi- ted by Bartholomew Brown; and in 1839-41 the Musical Magazine of Theodore Hach, a work of real value, an earnest, able advocate of mu- sical progress in the best sense. Mr. Hach, a
German of intelligence and culture, in the few years which he spent here figured as the principal violoncellist in the concerts of the Academy, and his return to Europe was felt to be a real loss to Boston.
1 Address at the Opening of the Odéon, Aug. 5, 1835, by Mr. S. A. Eliot, the president of the Academy.
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towns and cities. The method of the professors was embodied by Mr. Mason in the Manual of the Boston Academy of Music, based on the Pestalozzian system, for the use of teachers. The Academy also published its own Collection of Church Music. Letters of inquiry from all parts of the Union showed that the new influence was felt beyond Boston and the State.
By this time the need of a suitable building for the now crowded school- rooms, exhibitions, oratorios, and concerts of the Academy was felt; and, fortunately, a lease was obtained for a term of years of the old Boston (Federal Street) Theatre, haunted with memories of the elder Kean, Cooper, Conway, and so many famous actors.1 This was remodelled so as to afford school and lecture rooms, a spacious stage, and a comfortable auditorium, seating fifteen hundred persons in its parquet and four galleries, with stand- ing-room for about one thousand more. It took the Greek name of. the Odéon, and was dedicated, with an address by the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Aug. 5, 1835. Here until 1843 the work of the Academy went on, concerts coming more and more into the foreground.
In 1839 Mr. Hach, in his Musical Magazine, exhorts the Academy to make itself in fact, if not in name, a real Musical Conservatory, like those in Europe. In that year Mr. Schmidt formed the nucleus of an Academy orchestra with an amateur club. These amateurs played with him a Mozart- ish symphony by Romberg, and several good overtures of the light and pleasing order; and among things sung that season were a madrigal by Wilbye, a chorus from Graun's Tod Jesu, a duet from Rossini's Mose, and Romberg's Harmony of the Spheres. In 1840 Hach gathers courage, and says : -
" The establishment of the Academy of Music in Boston will do more to advance the art among us in ten years than the New York Opera could have effected in ten centuries. . . . And what are the pieces that week after week draw two thousand of our fellow-citizens at a time to the Odéon? Certainly not of a low order of music, but selected from the highest productions of the art, - the compositions of Haydn, of Mozart, of Neukomm, of Romberg, and other great masters."
Yes, O Hach ! and a yet greater master stands even now at the door, presently to enter with footstep as resounding and with presence as im- pressive as the "l' uom di sasso" in Don Juan. Mr. Hach ventures to say that the Creation at that time was as well known and as popular in Boston as in its birthplace, Vienna. That year the Academy sang Haydn's "Spring" (Seasons) and first part of the Creation, a psalm by Fesca, a chorus by Righini, a cantata by Zumsteeg, etc. The Freyschütz overture began to be played. There were organ performances by Mr. F. F. Müller, violin solo by Mr. Schmidt, etc.
In 1841 Romberg's music to Schiller's "Song of the Bell " was given January 2, the translation of the poem being by S. A. Eliot. The next
1 [See the chapter on the " Drama " in the present volume. - ED.]
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concert (January 16) was wholly instrumental, -Romberg symphony, over- tures to Anacreon (Cherubini), Masaniello, Weber's Jubilee, and solos. We see where all this is tending. The first phase of the Academy has passed the full, and is now on the wane. The didactic, pedagogic, choir, " convention," psalm-book making mission is exhausted, the master spirits thereof tempted into larger business in richer fields and pastures new; it must turn over a new leaf now, or find its occupation wholly gone. The ninth annual Report speaks of the first and chief end of the Academy as now accomplished; it has secured access to elementary musical instruction for every child within its reach; and the Report proceeds to state that dif- ferences between its professors had arisen, resulting in their separation; and that " instead of continuing its vocal concerts, in which it cannot do more or better than its neighbors, the Academy has concluded to engage the best orchestra it can afford, and give classical instrumental concerts." The day of the Symphony in Boston has come! Beethoven enters; we have reached our second station. A new era has begun for us in music. Doubt- less we owe this wise resolve, this new departure, to the sagacity, the taste, the public spirit of his Honor the Mayor of Boston at that period, Samuel A. Eliot, president of the Academy throughout its whole career.
In the eight concerts of the season ending in February, 1841, the Academy brought out two of Beethoven's symphonies (first time to Boston ears), namely, the First and Fifth, besides one by Romberg. The precise date of the first performance of the immortal number Five (C-minor) we do not find.
For seven winters these symphonic feasts were continued regularly at tlie rate of six or eight each season, for the most part in the Odéon (though finally they were compelled to take refuge in the Melodeon), until the public'pat- ronage fell off, and they came to an end, ever regretted by " the appreci- ative few," in the spring of 1847. The programmes, from an educational point of view, were most judicious: always a noble symphony, commonly by Beethoven, occasionally by Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn; while for relief and recreation after the close attention these required, there were always two or three light, captivating overtures by genial composers like Rossini, Auber, Reissiger, Lindpaintner, and Carafa. Nor was there want- ing " milk for babes " in the shape of instrumental solos, songs, duets, and choruses, -- the last especially in the later seasons, when the Musical Edu- cation Society, a well balanced choir of one hundred voices, organized within the Academy and trained by Mr. Webb, took part. This society outlived its parent, and grew up to greater work, as we shall see. Six of the nine Beethoven symphonies became more or less familiar in these con- certs; the Fifth was the great favorite, and was given more than a dozen times; number Seven, at least nine times; the Pastoral and number Four, some four times each. Mendelssohn's Scotch symphony figured twice ; a prize symphony by V. Lachner, twice; and one by Romberg. In one of the earlier concerts there were two symphonies, - the Militaire of Haydn,
VOL. IV. - 54.
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and the " Jupiter " of Mozart. In one programme only we find no sym- phony, but instead thereof six (!) overtures. These overtures, especially Auber's, were played over and over, year after year, - more wholesome food than much of the light, or of the heavy, " effect" music more recently and even now in vogue. But overtures of higher character were not neglected ; for instance, Beethoven's to Egmont, Fidelio, and Prometheus ; Weber's Freyschiits; Mozart's Titus ; Mendelssohn's Hebrides and Mid- summer Night's Dream. The instrumental solos were for violin or 'cello, · reeds or flute, and were commonly of a respectable order. The age of brass had not arrived. The virtuoso of the cornet (always going out of its own sphere to ape flute variations, or to parody some love-lorn tenor's swan-song) had not begun to haunt the concert room. For solo singers the Academy could not afford famous prima donnas, but it was thoughtful in the employment of acceptable domestic talent.
Here then was a foundation laid for musical culture in a good direction. Here was development. These opportunities, for those who improved them, had been for seven years implanting seeds and principles of higher, purer taste, and had raised the standard in what was demanded of concert givers, singers, teachers, and musicians. What though a "popular " reaction against entertainments of so intellectual and " classical" a standard might spring up occasionally? The best must always meet resistance, now as well as then ; the victory never rests entirely undisputed; the struggle has to be renewed. Nevertheless the seeds are sown; they will spring up anew, however often trampled down. Such a reaction did, before these concerts were abandoned, raise its head under the misnomer of a " Philharmonic " Society (about 1844), which devoted itself for several seasons to a more showy, " popular," and miscellaneous class of concerts.
The orchestra of the Academy must have been a small one, - from twenty-five, perhaps, to forty instruments, - and made up in part of but indifferent materials. For two or three years it was conducted by tall Henry Schmidt, violin in hand. The annual Report of 1843 congratulates the society on having for the first time a conductor with batôn, not playing in the orchestra himself. This was Professor Webb, supported by Mr. William Keyzer, from Holland, an old conservative, intelligent musician, at the head of the violins, and sometimes officiating as conductor. Under their reign things went on in a respectable and quiet way, with few concessions to bad taste; though there can be little doubt that the decline and dying out of this most admirable movement was hastened by the want of vigorous young life in the conductorship. But it will readily be seen that that early experience of seven years' exposure to Beethoven programmes must, in spite of all shortcomings in performance, have set Boston well upon the way to an appreciation of the best in music. Many can remember how eagerly these concerts were sought, how frequently the audience was large, and what a theme of enthusiastic comment and congratulation these first fresh hearings of the great masters was. And what willing cars were those that
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THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.
listened? What souls were most susceptible to the new, quickening influ- ence? To what ideas, what sympathetic phase of thought and aspiration did those harmonies appeal? Partly, of course, to those most musically taught already ; partly to those trusting in authority; but largely also to a peculiar element then stirring in the intellectual and social life of this com- munity, to minds in sympathy with what was idly called the “ transcenden- tal " movement, - that class of young enthusiasts for culture, in the freest, highest sense, with whom Emerson (although not musical) and Beethoven came in, it may be said, together.1
Regarding those orchestral concerts as the Academy's most fruitful con- tribution to the musical development of Boston, we must, before taking leave of it, sum up in a few words the various activities of its earlier and purely educational period (1833-40), during which those noted teachers, Lowell Mason and George J. Webb, were its master spirits. It taught the elements of vocal music to the people, -children and adults. It carried music into the public schools. It taught how to teach, both in its classes and through that peculiarly New England institution the " musical conven- tions," which drew together choristers and teachers from the country for whole weeks at a time, giving a new stimulus, and diffusing through them many practical ideas, as well as every year the new Collection of psalmody, for which the convention was the annual fair and market, until the multipli- cation of that sort of ware threatened to bury real music out of sight. It formed choral clubs and classes. It published glee and chorus books, as well as psalms and chants and anthems, a Common School Songster, a
1 For fuller explanation of this hint the writer would refer to certain reminiscences of his own in the Atlantic Monthly of September, 1870, of which an extract follows : -
" For, be it remembered, the first great awakening of the musical instinct here was when the C-minor Symphony of Beethoven was played, thirty years ago or more, in that old theatre, long since vanished from the heart of the dry-goods part of Boston, which had been converted into an Odéon, where an Academy of Music gave us some first glimpses of the glories of great orchestral music. Some may yet remember how young men and women of the most cultured circles, whom the new intellectual day-spring had made thoughtful and at the same time open and impressible to all appeals of art and beauty, used to sit there through the concert in that far-off upper gallery, or sky-parlor, secluded in the shade, and give themselves up completely to the influence of the sublime harmonies that sank into their souls, enlarging and coloring thenceforth the whole horizon of their life. Then came the Brook Farm experiment ; and it is equally a curious fact, that music, and of the best kind --- the Beethoven Sonatas, the Masses of Mozart and Haydn -got at, indeed, in a very liumble, home-made, and imper- fect way, was one of the chief interests and refreshments of those lialcyon days. Nay, it was among the singing por- tion of those plain farmers, teachers, and (but for such cheer) domestic drudges, that the first example sprang up of the so-called Mass Clubs, once so much in vogue among small knots of amateurs. They met to practise music which to them seemed heavenly, after the old hack- neyed glees and psalm-tunes, - though little many of them
thought or cared about the creed embodied in the Latin words that formed the convenient vehicle for tones so thrill- ing. The music was quite innocent of creed, except that of the heart and of the common deepest wants and aspirations of all souls, darkly locked up in formulas till set free by the subtile solvent of the delicious harmonies. And our geuial friend who sits in Harper's 'Easy Chair' has lately told the world what parties from 'the Farm ' (and he was 'one of them ') would come to town to drink in the symphonies, and then walk back the whole way (seven miles) at night, elated and unconscious of fatigue, carrying home with them a new good genius, beautiful and strong, to help them through the next day's labors. Then, too, and among the same class of minds (the same 'Transcendental set '), began the writing and the lecturing on music and its great masters. treating it from a high spiritual point of view, and seeking (too imaginatively, no doubt) the key and meaning to the symphony, but anyhow establishing a vital, true affinity between the great tone-poems and all great ideals of the human mind. In the Harbinger (really in music the embryo of Dwight's Journal). for years printed at Brook Farm : in the Dial, whichi told the time of day so far ahead ; in the writings of Margaret Fuller and others,-these be- came favorite and glowing topics of discourse ; and such discussion did, at least, contribute much to make music more respected, to lift it in the esteem of thoughtful per- sons to a level with the rest of the 'humanities' of cult- ure, and especially to turn attention to the nobler compo- sitions, and away from that which is but idle, sensual, and vulgar."
[See the chapter on "Philosophic Thought in Boston," in the present volume .- ED.]
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teacher's Manual, and a translation of Fétis's useful treatise, Music Explained to the World. It probably created an inducement for other good publica- tions, like that long series of Gems of German Song, carried on for years by G. P. Reed. It gave lectures on music. It created a higher kind of interest in music, and prompted a number of young men (one or two of them gradu- ates of Harvard) to seek an artistic education in the schools of Europe. It multiplied concerts until our city became a point of attraction to travelling artists from abroad, like the violinists Nagel and Herwig, the violoncellists Knoop and Bohrer, and those pioneers to us of the best classical and mod- ern piano-forte music, the Brothers Rackemann, who were the first to give us Thalberg, Henselt, Chopin, Liszt, Stephen Heller, as well as the sonatas of Beethoven. It was harder for pretenders to gain ground here after that. Then in 1844 came two of the most famous virtuosos of the violin, - Ole Bull, who charmed the multitude, and Vieuxtemps, who won the cultivated ear and taste; followed in 1846-47 by Sivori, one of the most genial inter- preters of classical composers. Henri Herz, about the same time, played for us in person those ornate and flowery piano-forte fantasias and varia- tions which were already much in vogue in parlors.
The Academy Concerts came to an end in the spring of 1847 (the very year when the Siren of Italian Opera began to work her countercharm !), and were succeeded in the fall by those of the Musical Fund Society. This was an organization of the musicians themselves, for mutual encourage- ment and for the establishment of a relief fund. They formed an orchestra more numerous than select, and gave concerts every season to the end of our present period (1852), and for some years later in the new Boston Music Hall, under the direction for some years of Mr. C. H. Müller and Mr. Thomas Comer. It was a league of interest. Managed by musicians who looked to music for their daily bread, it did not, at the outset, trust itself to follow in the classical and unrewarding path of the Academy, but made large concessions to that popular taste already fed by miscellaneous " Philharmonic " programmes, and now exposed to the more irresistible temptation of the Italian Siren. For a time singers were of more con- sequence than symphonies, and virtuosity more honored and admired than art.
A glance at the Fund's old programmes is suggestive. Symphony seems to have been voted a bugbear. There was none at all in the first concert (November, 1847), but four overtures, with songs, duets, etc. The second and third concerts offered, for a startling novelty, the one piece of mere sensational "effect" music which Beethoven ever condescended to write, and that to oblige his friend Maelzel, -the Battle of Vittoria symphony, so called, but not one ever mentioned with the nine! With it, however, were coupled two of the overtures which never lose their interest, - Rossini's to William Tell, and Sterndale Bennett's Naiades. One other symphony was ventured upon that season, chiefly for its curious history, -the Farewell, by Haydn. There were plenty of overtures; solos and quartet for flutes;
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piano solos; once, a piano quartet with violins, etc., in which the then noted singer and composer Charles E. Horn took the principal part; and there was a Mozart aria, sung by Miss Anna Stone, already for some years famous in the oratorios.
In the following years, that refined and classical musician Mr. George J. Webb being the conductor, the great symphonies recovered their place. The Eroica and the Fourth were added to the six already familiar ones of Beethoven ; the Italian to the Scotch of Mendelssohn; also Mozart's model Symphony in G-minor, and the Surprise of Haydn. Other additions to the repertoire were Beethoven's great Leonore Overture; Hummel's Septet, with Mr. H. Perabeau for pianist; Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, played by August Fries; a Concerto by Hummel, and Mendelssohn's Capriccio in A-minor, played by William Scharfenberg; Beethoven's C-minor Piano Concerto (Mr. G. F. Hayter) ; a Concert Overture by Gade; and the overture to Waverly, by Berlioz. On two occasions organ fugues of Bach were played by Mr. J. E. Goodson, from England. Among the singers who appeared were Mme. Biscaccianti, Signor Corelli, Mr. J. L. Hatton, Signor Novelli, Signora Truffi, Mme. Stephani, Signor Perelli, Mr. Arthurson (a fine English tenor and a model in pure recitative), Mme. Anna Thillon, and Mrs. Bostwick. The Musical Fund Concerts were commonly given in the old Tremont Temple, then the largest hall in Boston. Public afternoon rehearsals, too, were given at a low price of admission, placing such music within the reach of all who cared for it; so that, although they had swerved for a season from the classical traditions of the Academy, these Fund Con- certs must have contributed essentially to the creation of a taste among our people for the music of the masters. They were continued through eight seasons: the last of which we find mention was in April, 1855, and in the new Boston Music Hall.
The weakness of the orchestra of that day was the want of finished tech- nical performance, and of an infusion of young life and spirit into the con- ductorship, respectable and high-toned as it was. Already there had come to us a quickening example, from which something could be learned. That miniature but model orchestra from Germany, the Germania Musical Society, began to visit Boston in the spring of 1849. It soon supplanted its forerunners, which made flying visits here, - the Steyermarkers (under F. Rziha) in 1846; the Saxonians (Kotzschmar) in 1848; and Gungl's Waltz Band in 1847-48. There was a romantic flavor in the mutual devotion of the Germanians. They were young men, friends, who had been drawn together in a little social orchestra in Berlin. This was in 1848, the year of social revolution. By much playing together they had grown expert in the interpretation, or at least the expressive outlining, of the master composi- tions; they were at home in Haydn, 'Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Gade, and even Liszt, Berlioz, and Wagner. They organized for an extended concert tour in America, - the land of freedom, their ideal ! Their union had a communistic character, in a pure sense ;
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the individual merged his private interests in the whole; their motto was, " One for all, and all for one." They arrived in New York in September, 1848, and at once excited great enthusiasm by their fine and delicate per- formance, particularly of the fairy Shakespeare overture of Mendelssohn. After giving eighteen concerts there, and some in Philadelphia, they made their first appearance in Boston April 14, 1849, where they gave twenty- two concerts in the Melodeon in six weeks. The effect was magical. The Midsummer Night's Dream Overture had to be repeated thirty-nine times, such was. the exquisite precision, delicacy, and poetic beauty of the rendering. Yet they only numbered twenty-three musicians; they had but pairs of violins, violas, basses, as of reeds and flutes, and but a single vio- loncello. They had excellent conductors, first in Carl Lenschow, afterward in Carl Bergmann. It was the fraternal spirit of their union, with their self- sacrificing zeal for art, each member feeling bound to merge himself in the ensemble of performance, - it was this "art religion," so to speak, that gave them an immense advantage over all the larger orchestras in every city where they let themselves be heard. In three winter seasons they performed here nearly all the great orchestral compositions. In one season they gave more than twenty concerts, besides filling the Music Hall, mostly with young ladies, by their public afternoon rehearsals. With the Handel and Haydn Society they gave to Boston its first two hearings of the Ninth (Choral) Symphony of Beethoven. Every concert offered a whole sym- phony, a classical overture, and frequently a concerto, and solos vocal and instrumental. Distinguished artists were employed ; many piano-forte con- certos were played by Alfred Jaell, Otto Dresel, Robert Heller, and Karl Müller; violin solos by Camilla Urso; and in the list of vocalists we find Adelaide Phillipps, Elise Hensler, Caroline Lehmann, Mme. Devries, Sig- nora Tedesco, August Kreissmann, J. F. Rudolphsen, and others. In the eighty or ninety concerts which they gave here, the little orchestra was sometimes doubled by the addition of the best resident musicians. In the United States the Germania gave over seven hundred orchestral concerts, besides about one hundred concerts of chamber-music, - sonatas, trios, quartets, etc.
The disbanding of the Germania in 1854 (some of its members wish- ing to exchange their bachelor Wanderjahre for a more fixed domestic life) was seriously regretted by all lovers of good music. It had done good mis- sionary work throughout the Union, spreading the gospel of pure, noble music. Nowhere more than in Boston did it find the soil (already loosened by the efforts of the Academy and Fund) receptive to the good seed of its sowing; nowhere did it produce a greater list of master compositions, or find them hailed with more enthusiasm. It came at the right moment, and has left a lasting influence. Its departure threw us once more on our own resources, only to find that we were all the stronger for the momen- tary perturbation which this bright little wanderer had caused in our own waning stellar group.
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