History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 67

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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But the time came when the gay general removed his headquarters to New Orleans and when Fort Washington passed into history. The artistic band also then disappeared, except from the pleasant memories of the pioneers and the old soldiers formerly at the fort.

One of the earliest musicians in Losantiville was Mr. Thomas Kennedy, a Scotchman who came in the spring of 1789, and afterwards removed to the Kentucky shore, long giving to what has since become Covington the name of Kennedy's ferry. This bonnie Scot, like the renowned Arkansas traveller, has found a place in litera- ture by the skillful use of his violin. A fellow-country- man of his, Mr. John Melish, was here in September, 1811, and of course visited Mr. Kennedy. In one of his volumes of travel he accordingly makes record :

Before we had finished our breakfast, Mr. Kennedy drew a fiddle from a box, and struck up the tune of "Rothemurchie's Rant." He played in the true Highland style, and I could not stop to finish my breakfast, but started up and danced Shantrews. Tbe old man was delighted, and favored us with a great many Scottish airs. When he laid down thie fiddle I took it up and commenced in my turn, playing some new strathspeys that he had not heard before ; but he knew the spirit of them full well, and he also gave us Shantrews, "louping ncar bawk hight," albeit he was well stricken in years. He next played a number of airs, all Scottish, on a whistle.

Herr Klauprecht, in his " Chronik," says that a mu- sical organization called the St. Cecilia society was in existence here as early as 1816; but very little else is now known of it. The notices gleaned from the newspapers of the decade 1810-19 probably furnish all that is now certainly known of the musical societies of that time. A number of them appear in the first few paragraphs of this chapter.

Somewhat earlier than 1816, probably, an amateur band practiced at the residence of Frederick Amelung,

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

on Sycamore street, opposite the later site of the Na- tional theatre, where the artists subsequently rendez- voused. He was himself a musician, and also received notice in the literature of travel, Mr. F. Cuming, in his Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country, made in 1808, having noticed him in connection with a visit to Pittsburgh, where Amelung then lived. Among the members of this early musical society are said to have been Martin Baum, already a prominent merchant in town; Mons. Menessier, the eminent jurist and parlia- mentarian in Paris, but here the humble pastry cook on Main and Third streets; Albert Von Stein, a famous builder of waterworks, including the first waterworks of Cincinnati; Dr. Carl G. Ritter, a confectioner on Lower Market street; and Augustus Zemmer, another on Main street ; Philibert Ratel, professional musician and the first dancing master in the place; George Charters, piano- maker; and Edward H. Stall, a druggist on Front street. It is shrewdly conjectured that the name of this musical club was the Apollonian society, since that was the name of the similar organization which met at Amelung's house in Pittsburgh, and is the name found in the Cincinnati Directory of 1825, as that of a musical organization here. This hypothesis, however, requires us to suppose a re- vival of an older society of the same title; for, says the authority of 1825, this "was organized about a year since," having "for its object the cultivation of vocal and instrumental music." The Directory goes on to say: "It is now in a flourishing state, and consists of forty active and honorary members, and is supported by a monthly tax on its members. The officers are a moder- ator, a standing committee of three, a treasurer, and a secretary. Singular to say, no musical leader or con- ductor is named. Old settlers suggest that he was very likely Mr. William Tellow, who came to Cincinnati from Germany in 1817, and afterwards settled at Dayton and traveled with his family as a concert troupe, dying finally at New Orleans about 1835, of yellow fever. The Apol- lonians of this date were wont to meet in the saloon of George Juppenlatz, a baker at No. 26 Main street, and then at the Apollonian garden kept in the Deer Creek valley by Kothe & Ott, later by Ruter & Ott, a pioneer of the famous German beer gardens of Cincinnati. '

In connection with this occurs the first notice of any- thing like public music in the city, in one of Klauprecht's pages. He says: "On festival occasions there was no want of a German orchestra at this resort of pleasure to play to the dancing of its visitors." Sebastian Rentz played the clarionet, "Speckheinrich" (nickname of Henry Schmidt) the violin; and Jacob Schnetz, the brother of Mr. Longworth's gardener, the piccolo. Mon- sieur Ratel, who is named above as a professional musi- cian, is deemed worthy, with a musical associate of his, of the following notice from the Gazette writer before cited:

He came from Philadelphia in July, 1877, and, besides the clarionet, flute, bassoon, flageolet, violin, and piano, he taught "country dances, cotillons, allemandes, waltzes, hornpipes, the mienuet de la cour with the gavote, the celebrated Gavote of Vestris, the much admired shawl dance, ballet and opera-dancing, with a variety of garland dances, such as constitute exhibitions. He was a solo player on the

clarionet and French flageolet, and played pieces on both these instru- ments at a concert given by Mr. Garner, at Mack's Cincinnati hotel, on March 16, 1820, at which he also led the "orchestre." In his an- nouncements he flatters himself that by his experience and methods he "can in four or six months, give his scholars a competent knowledge of music and its various tunes to perform alone or in harmony correctly." The Mr. Garner, whom he assisted on this last occasion, was an actor and singer from the east, evidently an Englishman, who played an en- gagement at the theater some time before, while on a visit from New York and Boston to New Orleans. During his engagement he pro- duced two of the light English operas then in vogne-viz: "The Devil's bridge," and "Lionel and Clarissa." The former is a work that Braham was a favorite in. He had composed the music for his part. "Lionel and Clarissa" is the composition of Charles Dibdin (1745-1814).

No concert seems to have been announced by the Apollonian ; and the musical beauties of this society were apparently born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness upon themselves alone. No vocal music is heard of, even in connection with the reception of Lafay- ette in 1825, when the best of everything the city had to show was brought to the front. There was fine instru- mental music in the parade, however, and at the ball, for which musicians had been expressly imported from the east, and over which the veteran Joseph Tosso (who is still living) swayed the impressive baton. Tosso, the sole surviving musical pioneer of those days, is a native of Mexico, trained as a musician in Italy and France, com- ing to America to try his fortune as a violinist, and to Cincinnati upon a concert-tour, or for the purpose of leading the orchestra during Lafayette's visit and remain- ing here permanently as a teacher and practitioner of music. He was professor of music in the Cincinnati Female academy on Walnut street, between Third and Fourth, in 1829, and six years thereafter was leader of the orchestra in the Musical Fund society, established April 29, 1835, on the plan of similar societies already existing in Philadelphia and New York. . The society had for its object "the cultivation of musical taste, by the encouragement and improvement of professional and amateur talent, and the establishment of a musical academy, by means of which pupils may be instructed in the theory and practice of music." It was also proposed to establish a relief fund for distressed musicians, and the families of musicians who died in poverty. The new society had originally a strong social and pecuniary backing, if we may judge from the names embodied in the following flattering notice, which appeared in the New York Family Minstrel in July 15, 1835:

MUSICAL FUND SOCIETY IN CINCINNATI.

We hear very favorable accounts of this institution, which is said to be fostered both by wealth and influence. . Its present officers are :

President-Morgan Neville.

Vice-presidents-John P. Foote, Peyton S. Symmes.

Treasurer-Samuel E. Foote.

Secretary-Linden Ryder.

Librarian-John Winter.

MANAGERS.

T. D. Carneal, T. Vairin,

Herman Cope, S. Wiggins,

Nicholas Longworth, W. G. W. Gano,

William Price, M. D.,

S. S. Smith,

Robert Buchanan, William Yerke,

David T. Disney, J. S. Armstrong,

Alexander Flash, David Benson,

William Greene, John W. Ryan,

VIIISS ENTE

. Shelby

HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

249

George Graham, jr., William R. Foster,

James Hall, I. F. B. Wood,

E. Haynes, Joseph R. Fry,

C. S. Ramsay, M. D., J. F. P. Moline.

Physicians-Alban G. Smith, M. D .; V. C. Marshall, M. D.

Counselors -- Robert T. Lytle, Bellamy Storer.

It is not probable, however, that all these influential personages took a lively interest in the society. Its primal career, at least, was brief; but it was re-animated after an interval of some years, in the autumn of 1840, when the amateur orchestra, with Mr. Tosso at the baton, was about all there was left of it. Still, Cist's book of the next year says it "promises much for the culture of musical taste and science in our city." He adds, however, that the society had not yet elected any other officers since its resurrection than Mr. Tosso as musical director.

Tosso and a Mr. Douglass assciated themselves in 1839 as "musical instrument makers and importers of musical instruments," in a store or shop on the north side of Fourth street, between Main and Walnut. He was thenceforth for many years prominently associated with music and musical interests in this city, and now makes his home at Latonia Springs, Kentucky, four miles from Covington.

The establishment of this firm reminds us that, so early as 1816, according to a correspondent of the Boston Courier, there were "piano-fortes by the dozen in Cincin- nati," although he complains that there was nobody to tune them. This must have been an error; for in Decem- ber of the previous year Mr. Adolph Wapper was adver- tised in the local journals as a teacher of music, and like- wise as a tuner and repairer of pianos. In the directory of 1819 Mr. George Charters is named as a piano-maker. He was also proprietor of the circulating library kept on Fifth, between Main and Sycamore streets.

Not far from this date the first organ was built here by the Rev. Adam Hurdus, a pioneer of 1806, an early merchant on Main street, between Front and Second, and also the first preacher of the gospel according to Swedenborg, west of the Alleghanies. He was minister to the New Jerusalem Society here while carrying on a regular business as organ-builder at No. 127 Sycamore street. It was no uncommon thing in those days, as we have already hinted, to see what would now be con- sidered a singular coupling of vocations. One sign in town read, "Bookseller and Tailor;" a line in the direc- tory informed the reader that Mr. was "House and sign painter and minister of the gospel." This pio- neer organ of Hurdus' is still in use in the village of Lockland, in this county. Another organ-builder, Israel Schooley, a Virginian, settled in 1825 in Cincinnati. The same year the piano-makers noted as here were George Charters, Francis B. Garrish, an immigrant from Balti- more, and Aaron Golden. In 1828 was added the firm of Messrs. Steele & Clark. Two years previously the first general dealer in sheet music and musical instru- ments, Mr. John Imhoff, opened his store on the west side of Main street, second door below Fourth, "at the sign of the violin," where he kept it for many years. Ed- ward Thomas is the only person mentioned in the direc-

tory of 1825 as a professional musician, and Alexander Emmons in that of 1829. Music, as a sole vocation, did not pay extensively in that decade.

The Eclectic Academy of Music dated from 1834, al- though it was not incorporated until the next year. Its founders were two notable musicians of that day, Pro- fessors T. B. Mason and William T. Colburn. A well- known German pianist, Mr. Louis Lemaire, was after- wards associated with them. A regular society was formed, however, of which Judge Jacob Burnet was president, Moses Lyon vice-president, and Charles R. Folger recording secretary. The object of the institu- tion, as specified in the charter, was "to promote knowl- edge and correct taste in music, especially such as are adapted to moral and religious purposes." In 1841, ac- cording to Mr. Cist's book of that year, the academy had " a good library of music, vocal and orchestral; also at- tached to it an 'amateur orchestra of twenty-four instru- ments." Probably the leader of this band was the only person named at this time among the teachers of the academy as "Instrumental Professor"- Mr. Victor Wil- liams. He is another of Cincinnati's musical veterans, a Swede by his nativity, and the active projector and origi- nator of the first musical organization in the city on a large scale, the " American Amateur Association." This society of the far-reaching name had its birth here about 1846. It performed for the first time in public any grand oratorio music, among which may be named, in successive renditions, Handel's Messiah, Mozart's Twelfth Mass, Haydn's Creation and Third Mass, and Neukomm's David. Mr. Rattermann says: "I remem- ber well the enthusiasm with which the first public pro- duction of the 'Creation' was received. It was per- formed before a large and fashionable audience in the Melodeon Hall, which was then the chief concert-room here." Afterwards, April 8, 1853, as a complimentary benefit to Professor Williams, Neukomm's David was given by the association in Smith & Nixon's Concert Hall, on the north side of Fourth street, near Vine. The society was aided in this, its final public appearance, by Mons. L. Corradi Colliere, a celebrated French baritone, who died in New York City a number of years ago; Mr. Henry Appy, a German violinist of some note, who re- sided here for a time; Mr. J. Q. Wetherbe, a basso singer of high accomplishment; Mr. Leopold Lowegren, pianist; and Mr. Henry J. Smith, long and favorably known as one of the local organists. Professor Williams still survives, a veteran of the profession, having practiced it here for nearly half a century, during a part of the time as a teacher of vocal music in the public schools.

With the extinction of the Amateur association in 1853, the second period of the musical history of Cincin- nati may be regarded as closed, the first having ended, so to say, with the end of the Apollonian society, twenty- five years before. Mr. Rattermann makes a clear defini- tion of these epochs in the following:

To distinguish these two periods from each other, we must view them in the light of their original intention. The first period had in object only a self-content purpose. Its beginning was of the most primitive nature, and all along its existence it bore only rudimentary signs of being. No public exhibit of its artistic existence was even attempted.

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

The music rendered was of the most modest kind possible, performed only for self-amusement. The actors of this period played behind a closed scene. But presently we see the desire visible that the curtain rise, and the efforts of the actors communicated to others, to participate in its enjoyment.

The leading spirit in this movement must be ascribed to the German element. "To the Americans belongs the credit," says Klauprecht, "of being the first pioneers of music in Cincinnati; but the Germans may boast of having brought about its higher development." .

In Cincinnati the Germans practiced music already in the early years of the city's existence. At first, when the number was small, they con- fined their chorus-singing to the church, and when the divine service was over on Sundays they would flock into the country, and there, seated or lying in the grass, beneath the green crown of a shady tree, they would sing the songs of their native land in swelling chorus. And in the evening often would the guitar or the zither, the flute or the violin, send the melodious strains of a German ballad from the lone window of his small cottage, or even the garret-window of the tenement house:

"In einem kuehlen grunde ;"

Or- "Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten."

A number of young Teutons, in 1838, formed the first German singing society in the city, and the first organi- zation of a chorus of male voices. It was part of an at- tempt to introduce the chorus-singing of four-part songs here. Every Thursday evening the members assembled in the dancing-hall of the Rising Sun tavern, "beyond the Rhine," on the corner of Main and Thirteenth streets. Among them were General Augustus Moor, Frederick Gerstaecker, the famous German traveller and writer, who spent some years in this city; with Godfrey Frank, Chris- tian Lange, and other well-known German gentlemen of that era. Mr. William Schragg, later of Lebanon, War- ren county, was the first leader of the chorus. Herr Rat- termann adds:

That the songs of this pioneer of our German singing societies were as yet of a primitive character, we may safely infer from the fact that all beginnings are necessarily small. The singers seated themselves around a table, and alongside the music-book of each stood the quart of beer, for the expenses of the illumination of the hall, which con- sisted of two large lard-oil lamps, had to be covered by the profit real- ized from the sale of the beer to the members. Thus the drinking may have played a greater role in this first German singing society than the singing.

The choirs of the German Protestant church on Sixth street and the German Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity on Fifth street, united some years afterwards to form a singing society, which met regularly at the resi- dence of Fritz Tappe, a watchmaker on Clay street. For- tunately, the names of this organization are on record: Fritz Tappe, leader; George Labarre, Adolphus Menzel, Henry Poeppelmann, Christ Lange, Louis Dieck, Godfrey Frank, Anthony Nuelsen, Arnold Weigler, Augustus Friedeborn, William Ballauf, Charles Beile, and Charles Schnicke, sen. All are now dead, except Poeppelmann, a professor in the Woodward High School; Beile, teacher in the Twenty-first ward; Frank, a grocer on Central avenue; and Nuelson, the well-known Front street tobac- conist.

The German Liedertafel was founded anonymously, as a modest organization of musicians, in 1841, but took a name and something more of a formal organization in June, 1843, and was regularly and fully constituted a year thereafter. Its musical conductors included George Valentine Scheidler, an early German musician here, whose wife, Bertha Scheidler, held high rank as a local

singer down to 1855; with successors George Labarre, William Runge, Franz Schoenfeld, Carl Barus, and Robert T. Hoelterhoff. The society, as the Liedertafel, lasted fourteen years quite successfully, doing a good work, and was finally, in 1857, merged in the greater Maennerchor.

The Gesang- und Bildungs-verein deutscher Arbeiter had its beginnings in 1846. It was the first German or- ganization here which allowed female voices in the chorus. Henry Damm was its first and Xavier Vincent the last conductor of the society. Under the latter a perform- ance of Haydn's Creation was given. The Verein lasted but six years, disbanding in 1852.

A small society was founded among the Germans in the spring of 1848, and called the Eintracht. It had but one leader, Anthony Bidenharn; and with his death from cholera the next year, the organization also expired.

A number of Swiss musicians in Cincinnati, about the same time, formed a Schweizer-verein, whose first leader was Emanuel Hinnen. In 1850 its identity was lost in the Nordische Sængerbund, a select double quartette. The members were: First tenors-Augustus Klausmeyer and Louis Haidacker; second tenors-Professor William Klausmeyer (leader) and Frederick Winkler; first basses-Dr. C. F. Hetlich, H. A. Rattermann; second basses-John Sterger, Charles Niemann. It was a favor- ite society with the Cincinnati public during 1849-50, and in October of the latter year the consolidation with the Schweizer-verein was made, the two forming the Sængerbund, which, after a somewhat distinguished career, became in its turn a part of the Meannerchor.

The oldest surviving musical society in the city is the Cincinnati Mannerchor, dating as it does from June 27, 1857. It had its being by the union of three German singing societies, the Liedertafel, the Sangerbund, and the Germanic; to which was added, in 1859, the literary society, "Lese und Bildungs-verein," which added a fine library and substantial pecuniary aid to the new society. In 1860 the Mannerchor, being, as its name implies, exclusively a male society, undertook the pro- duction of the opera "Czar and Zimmerman," with but one female voice in the cast, that of the prima donna. Lady members were afterwards admitted, and many fine operas produced. Since the withdrawal of a number of members to form the Orpheus society, in April, 1868, from difficulties resulting from the production of operas, the society has been simply a choral organization. Weekly meetings for practice have been held in Mannerchor Hall, corner of Vine and Mercer streets. The building was destroyed by fire on the fourth of August, and the valuable musical library belonging to the society burned. It will be replaced as rapidly as possible.

The list of German singing societies of this era is filled with the addition of the musical section of the Turnverein, formed in 1849. Mr. Rattermann com- ments and continues the history as follows :

The existence of these societies brought life into the musical silence of our city. Each one of them gave a regular series of concerts an- nually, generally followed by a ball. Those of the Liedertafel, and afterwards of the Sængerbund, were considered the bon ton entertain- ments of our German citizens of those years.

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HISTORY OF CINCINNATI, OHIO

The narrow compass to which these societies, according to their na- ture and tendency, were limited, soon called for an extension of the boundary. This could not be accomplished in one association, as that would soon become unwieldly for the general purpose. The Liederta- feln, as societies for the object of cultivating the male voice chorus, without instrumental accompaniment, are called, and of which the first was founded in Berlin under Zelter in 1809, are, on account of their original intention, not adapted for massive choruses. Wherever they are found, they seldom number as many as a hundred singers, generally averaging about twenty-five members. If, then, a more powerful, a massive chorus is desired, it becomes necessary to bring several of these Liedertafeln together, and by their united efforts the massive chorus is obtained. For that purpose festivals, to be given at stipulated inter- vals in the larger cities of a country, arc devised. The earlier of these fes- tivals have their origin in Germany. The first festival of the kind was held in the city of Wuerzburgh, in Bavaria, August 4th to 6th, inclu- sive, 1845.

The first attempts to introduce them in America were, in comparison with these festivals in Germany, very diminutive in size. Already in 1846 endeavors were made in Philadelphia and Baltimore to organize friendly relations between the German singing societies of these cities. They, however, were restricted to mutual visits paid each other, con- nected with a social festivity, in which the public of these cities partici- pated. No formal organization was attached to these visits, and there- fore they cannot be classified as Sangerfests. Festivals of this charac- ter were likewise held in Cincinnati in the summer each of 1846, 1847, and 1848.

A formal organization was first effected in 1849, by a union between the singing societies of Cincinnati, Louisville, and Madison, Indiana. These societies held the first German Sængerfest in America in the city of Cincinnati, June Ist-3d, inclusive, 1849, and at this festival, on June 2d, the German Sængerbund of North America was founded.

This was the first effort of its kind in America, and the city of Cin- cinnati can boast, not only of being the author of them, but also of the fact that these festivals were originated here in America. With that indeed diminutive Sængerfest there was inaugurated a new era in the musical history, not only of Cincinnati, but of America; for then the foundation was laid to the great musical festivals which have given to our city the titles of 'The Paris of America' and 'The City of Festivals.'

Notwithstanding Mr. Rattermann modestly styles this initial step diminutive, it seems to have comprised five important German societies from the three cities named, and informal delegations were present from the Maenner- chors of St. Louis and Columbus, and the Deutscher Liederkranz of Milwaukee. These societies, it is said, had promised attendance, but failed to come as bodies. One hundred and eighteen singers, nevertheless, partici- pated in the concerts given at the Fest; and at the open air concert and social gathering on Bald Hill, near Col- umbia, several thousand people were present. This was held on Sunday, after the German manner; and was much disturbed by roughs from the city, who posted themselves in force at the entrance to the picnic grounds. Mr. Rat- termann relates that --

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 67

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666