European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840-1900 (Eastman Studies in Music)

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English, and French, during the 1860s, and Kathryn Preston investigates the practices of one of the first American booking management agencies. contributors: Adrienne Fried Block, Christopher Bruhn, Raoul F. Camus, Frank J. Cipolla, John Graziano, Ruth Henderson, John Koegel, R. Allen Lott, Rena Charnin Mueller, Hilary Poriss, Katherine K. Preston, Nancy B. Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, Wayne D. Shirley. John Graziano is professor of music, The City College and Graduate Center, CUNY, and co-director of the Music in Gotham research project.

T

he musical scene in mid-nineteenth century New York City, contrary to

“For the first time, New York’s position as a major outpost of European musical culture is given its due in this much-needed book. A

common belief, was exceptionally vibrant. Thanks to several opera companies,

series of fascinating and well-documented studies show the astonishing richness and variety of the city’s culture of high art music.”

no fewer than two orchestras, public chamber music and solo concerts, and numerous

—Nicholas Temperley, emeritus professor of musicology, University of Illinois

choirs, New Yorkers were regularly exposed to “new” music of Verdi, Meyerbeer, Schu-

european

“This marvelous compendium documents the stories of music and musicians that entered America in the nineteenth century through

Music & Musicians

New York City, the immigrants’ portal that was emerging as the continent’s intellectual and economic center, a modern metropolis shap-

in New York CiÄ

ing the cultural practices and tastes of the nation. The richly detailed profiles reveal an array of music making stunning in its intensity and

1840–1900

variety. European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900 will be essential reading for historians and students of American life and culture.” —Deane L. Root, professor and chair of the Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh, and director and curator of the Center for American Music

mann, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. The efforts of such conductors as Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, and Leopold Damrosch to program this music are documented by Nancy Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, and Rena Charnin Mueller. John Koegel investigates how GermanAmerican musical theater developed and flourished. Christopher Bruhn explores the role of the Liederkranz Society and William Steinway in Gotham’s musical life, Wayne Shirley surveys Leopold Damrosch’s compositions, and Adrienne Fried Block addresses the knotty issue of determining American identity in the immigrant population. Frank Cipolla traces the career of bandmaster Patrick Gilmore, and Raoul F. Camus looks at the most famous of the National Guard bands—the Seventh Regiment—and two of its illustrious leaders, Claudio Grafulla and Carlo Cappa. R. Allen Lott relates the details of pianist Sigismund Thalberg’s American tour, and Hilary Poriss examines the phenomenal

jacket images

edited by

Photo of Adelina Patti. © N. Sarony. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number:

John Graziano

LC-USZ62-68664. Back cover and flap: sketches of the costumes for Bateman’s production of La Grande-

ISBN

Duchesse de Gerolstein, from Harper’s Weekly, 28 September 1867. Collection of John Graziano. Design by Adam B. Bohannon

university of rochester press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731 P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF, UK www.urpress.com

1–58046–203-0

™xHSLFSAy462037zv*:+:!:+:!

appearances of soprano Adelina Patti. The rivalries and friendships of several Bohemian immigrant families that produced opera— the Maretzeks, the Strakosches, and the Graus—are described by Ruth Henderson. John Graziano looks at the exceptional repertory of operas heard, in Italian, German, (continued on back flap)

European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900

Eastman Studies in Music Ralph P. Locke, Senior Editor Eastman School of Music Additional Titles on Nineteenth-Century and American Music Analyzing Wagner’s Operas: Alfred Lorenz and German Nationalist Ideology Stephen McClatchie Berlioz: Past, Present, Future Edited by Peter Bloom Berlioz’s Semi-Operas: Roméo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust Daniel Albright “The Broadway Sound”: The Autobiography and Selected Essays of Robert Russell Bennett Edited by George J. Ferencz Explaining Tonality: Schenkerian Theory and Beyond Matthew Brown French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor Edited by Lawrence Archbold and William J. Peterson Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations Edited by Stephen A. Crist and Roberta Montemorra Marvin Letters I Never Mailed: Clues to a Life by Alec Wilder Annotations by David Demsey Foreword by Marian McPartland

“The Music of American Folk Song” and Selected Other Writings on American Folk Music Ruth Crawford Seeger, edited by Larry Polansky and Judith Tick Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair Annegret Fauser The Musical Madhouse (Les Grotesques de la musique) Hector Berlioz Translated and edited by Alastair Bruce Introduction by Hugh Macdonald Schumann’s Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul Erika Reiman Wagner and Wagnerism in Nineteenth-Century Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic Provinces: Reception, Enthusiasm, Cult Hannu Salmi “Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist” and Other Essays on American Music

Arthur Farwell, edited by Thomas Stoner

A complete list of titles in the Eastman Studies in Music Series, in order of publication, may be found at the end of this book.

European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900 EDITED BY JOHN GRAZIANO

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS

The publication of this volume was made possible, in part, through support from the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, and the Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust in England.

Copyright © 2006 John Graziano All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2006 University of Rochester Press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.urpress.com and Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN: 1–58046–203–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data European music and musicians in New York City, 1840-1900 / edited by John Graziano. p. cm. – (Eastman studies in music, ISSN 1071-9989 ; v. 36) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58046-203-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Music–New York (State)–New York–19th century–History and criticism. 2. Musicians–New York (State)–New York. 3. Europeans–United States–Music–19th century–History and criticism. I. Graziano, John Michael. II. Series. ML200.8.N5E97 2006 780.94⬘097471--dc22 2006013870

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America.

Contents List of Illustrations Introduction John Graziano 1

Robert Schumann’s Music in New York City, 1848–1898 Nancy B. Reich

2

Presenting Berlioz’s Music in New York, 1846–1890: Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, Leopold Damrosch Ora Frishberg Saloman

3

Liszt (and Wagner) in New York, 1840–1890 Rena Charnin Mueller

4

“Home, Sweet Home” Away from Home: Sigismund Thalberg in New York, 1856–1858 R. Allen Lott

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29 50

71

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Leopold Damrosch as Composer Wayne D. Shirley

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New York’s Orchestras and the “American” Composer: A Nineteenth-Century View Adrienne Fried Block

114

Between the Old World and the New: William Steinway and the New York Liederkranz in the 1860s Christopher Bruhn

135

The Development of the German American Musical Stage in New York City, 1840–1890 John Koegel

149

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8

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Patrick S. Gilmore: The New York Years Frank J. Cipolla

10 Grafulla and Cappa: Bandmasters of New York’s Famous Seventh Regiment Raoul F. Camus

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182

198

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11 She Came, She Sang . . . She Conquered? Adelina Patti in New York Hilary Poriss

218

12 A Confluence of Moravian Impresarios: Max Maretzek, the Strakosches, and the Graus Ruth Henderson

235

13 An Opera for Every Taste: The New York Scene, 1862–1869 John Graziano

253

14 “Dear Miss Ober”: Music Management and the Interconnections of Musical Culture in the United States, 1876–1883 Katherine K. Preston

273

Bibliography

299

Notes on the Contributors

317

Index

321

Illustrations Plates 4.1 Caricature of Sigismund Thalberg 4.2 Sheet Music Cover for Sigismund Thalberg’s Home! Sweet Home!, Identified as “100th Edition” 4.3 “Mr. Ullmann’s Musical Tour Through the United States” 7.1 Program of the first Liederkranz concert, 17 May 1847 7.2 Past presidents of the Liederkranz, 1867–1883 8.1 Stadttheater exterior 8.2 Stadttheater interior 8.3 Adolf Neuendorff 8.4 Neuendorff’s Germania Theater 8.5 Mathilde Cottrelly 8.6 Georgine von Januschowsky 9.1 Patrick S. Gilmore, ca. 1890 9.2 Inaugural concert by Gilmore’s 22nd Regiment Band at the Academy of Music, 18 November 1873, in The Guidon 9.3 Program of a concert by Gilmore’s Band at Manhattan Beach, 25 July 1880, advertisement from unidentified newspaper 10.1 “National Band,” advertisement for Titus & Angevine Circus from unidentified newspaper, Albany, New York, 29–30 April 1834 10.2 “Boston Brass Band, Eben Flagg, Leader, with their new uniforms and improved instruments” from Gleason’s Pictorial, 20 September 1851 10.3 Claudio S. Grafulla, Delavau’s Quick Step, 1852 10.4 Frederick H. Nash, Fat Man’s Polka Redowa 12.1 Max Maretzek 12.2 Maurice Strakosch 12.3 Jacob Grau 13.1 Sketches of the Costumes for Bateman’s production of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, from Harper’s Weekly, 28 September 1867 13.2 Sheet music cover of selections from La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867)

74 76 84 140 143 152 153 156 158 168 169 183 185

189

199

200 203 206 238 239 241

260 261

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14.1 14.2

14.3 14.4

14.5

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list of illustrations

Undated portrait of Effie Ober Kline Premiere performance of the troupe that would become the Boston Ideal Opera Company, in H. M. S. Pinafore, 14 April 1879, at the Boston Theatre Undated portrait of William Castle, from Dexter Smith’s Paper Playbill from the Boston Ideal Opera Company performance of William Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, 14 April 1881 Playbill from the Boston Ideal Opera Company performance of the Planquette operetta The Bells of Corneville, from the Boston Theatre, 16 May 1881

Figures 12.1a Map of the Austrian Empire, 1848 12.1b Czech Republic today (includes Bohemia and Moravia)

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278 282

291

292

236 237

Introduction John Graziano

It has long been accepted that culture in general and the fine arts in particular were not especially important to nineteenth-century Americans, that the country was concerned primarily with the growth of commerce and capitalism. Although there is a modicum of reality to this thesis, it is true only on the most superficial level. As the country expanded westward, its land mass was almost equal to that of Europe.1 Along with this growth came an intensive migration into the various cities springing up throughout the country. By 1860, more than 31 million people were living in the United States,2 with about 16 million on the East Coast. While much of the economy was based on local trade, international sales and purchases were crucial to the success of many business ventures.3 For a variety of reasons, the hub of the economy was New York City, which in 1825, as the Erie Canal was nearing completion, was dubbed the “London of the New World” by the Times of London.4 The accumulation of wealth that was evident in several older established families, including the Astors, Vanderbilts, and Tappans, helped fuel the desire for culture, to demonstrate to the Old World that the New World did not lack the ability to support the fine arts. Even in the years before the Civil War, a number of permanent cultural groups existed, including the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (1815), the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia (1820), and the Philharmonic Society of New York (1842).5 As with most cities and towns in the United States, New York grew by leaps and bounds during the first half of the nineteenth century.6 The official population in 1800 was 60,489. By 1820, it had more than doubled, to 123,706. Over the next two decades, the population soared once again; in 1840, there were 312,852 residents. In spite of economic ups and downs experienced through

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a number of business cycles, New York (and the rest of the country) continued to attract immigrants; by 1850, the city’s population had risen to 515, 394, and ten years later it was 814,257.7 Unlike London’s large, ethnically similar population,8 which in 1850 totaled 2,363,341, New York’s was multicultural. By the 1860s, there was a significant German and Irish population and many French, Welsh, and Italians as well. As recounted in several of the chapters in this volume, their presence in the city helped influence and shape the diversity of musical and theatrical offerings. To be sure, popular entertainment was a part of the nation’s life from the earliest days of the Republic. English immigrants brought their culture to the New World, and several musicians and composers continued to write musical shows similar to those they had written in London. In addition to the theatrical presentations that many attended, urban working-class residents could also find more ordinary entertainments. In New York City, for example, by the 1820s the Bowery had become a “full-blown working-class entertainment strip . . . [with] taverns, brothels . . . dance halls,” and at least one theater.9 During the 1830s and 1840s, the city’s growth, primarily as a result of the immigration of vast numbers of Europeans, was enhanced by the presence of a large middle class, whose members brought to their new home not only their professions but also their culture. The shift in ethnicity from a city that was primarily English to one inhabited by people of many nationalities was crucial to the city’s cultural growth. Several attempts had been made to establish a permanent orchestra, beginning in 1799, when a group of New Yorkers first met to establish a Philharmonic Society; it performed successfully through the fall of 1816. A second orchestra with the same name was founded in 1824; it lasted only three years, probably because of poor audience response.10 But as immigrant New Yorkers continued to prosper, they began to support cultural institutions. A New-York Philharmonic Society was once again organized in 1842. Although the orchestra gave only three concerts during its first season, this time there was enough support from wealthy and middle-class music lovers to allow the orchestra to continue. During the 1850s, the city became increasingly cosmopolitan and prosperous, with residents showing off the latest in French fashions and other European novelties. New York’s citizens began to view their city as equal to the greatest cities in Europe. Their opera house on Astor Place, which opened in 1847, boasted upholstered seats in the orchestra as well as two tiers of private boxes.11 The city’s performing arts were supported by a large middle class, estimated to be about one-third of the workforce, or roughly 70,000 people.12 By some estimates, by 1870 more than 40 percent of the city’s population had been born outside the borders of the United States.13 To a greater extent than many of its European counterparts, New York in the mid-nineteenth century was a cosmopolitan melting pot. Many Europeans imagined that life in America was primitive everywhere, without the luxuries and culture available in Old World cities. Images of the Wild West, of native tribes,

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of vast distances devoid of people, and of the California Gold Rush reinforced that impression. At mid-century, however, all the major East Coast cities were striving to establish a cultured society. In Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, cultural leaders encouraged the fine and performing arts. One need only read Dwight’s Journal of Music, which chronicled cultural events in Boston and other American cities and towns from 1852 to 1881, to get a sense of the central function of the arts in the country. New York, as the young country’s largest city, led in the number of events presented in any one year. It was a city where multiple events took place virtually every evening, where one could choose between two competing opera performances or a chamber music concert or the extremely popular minstrel show. Following the opening of the Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street in 1854, Irving Hall in 1860, and Steinway Hall in 1866, musical events became an increasingly important part of the city’s cultural fabric. The city prided itself on offering the latest operas; during several seasons in the 1860s, there were over 200 performances of more than forty operas per season. The Mason-Thomas chamber music series offered all of Beethoven’s string quartets, as well as works by Schubert, Schumann, and the world premiere of Brahms’s Trio, op. 8, over the fourteen-year period from 1855 to 1868. The quartets were first performed by the Mason-Thomas quartet on the following dates; several were performed more than once: 18 December 1855 26 February 1856 29 April 1856 30 January 1858 13 March 1858 28 December 1858 30 April 1861 28 January 1862 8 March 1862 23 December 1862 3 March 1863 21 April 1863 26 January 1864 22 March 1864 7 March 1866 18 April 1866

op. 59, no. 1 op. 95 op. 130 op. 18, no. 3 op. 59, no. 2 op. 18, no. 6 op. 74 op. 18, no. 4 op. 18, no. 2 op. 18, no. 1 op. 59, no. 3 op. 131 op. 127 op. 132 op. 18, no. 5 op. 135

While orchestral concerts were not heard as frequently during the regular season, several conductors—including the German-born Carl Bergmann (1821–1876), Leopold Damrosch (1832–1885), and Theodore Thomas (1835–1905)— programmed the “new” European music; along with Beethoven’s symphonies, New Yorkers were able to hear recent works by Liszt, Berlioz, Wagner, and

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Schumann. For several summers after the end of the Civil War, Thomas conducted his orchestra in nightly concerts in Central Park; admission was twentyfive cents, although one could purchase a season ticket for all one hundred concerts for ten dollars. Many important European artists, including Vieuxtemps, Thalberg, and Bülow, as well as many first-rank singers, came to the New World where they were paid significant sums to perform before New York audiences before touring the rest of the Eastern seaboard and sometimes venturing into the interior. Additionally, a profusion of bands, both brass and wind, played both vernacular and cultivated music at balls, at afternoon concerts in the city’s many parks, and in parades. Although we can only speculate on the quality of the performances during this period, a letter from the departing Anton Rubinstein to William Steinway touches upon the issue: I shall take away with me from America one unexpected reminiscence. Little did I dream to find here the greatest and finest orchestra in the wide world. I have been in Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and all the great European art centers, but never in my life have I found an orchestra and a conductor so in sympathy with one another, or who followed me as the most gifted accompanist can follow a singer. There exists but one orchestra of sixty or eighty men which plays so perfectly, and which is known as the Imperial Orchestra of Paris, and was created by a decree of the French Senate in the days of the first Napoleon in 1808. Only trained musicians are its members, and they are engaged for life. They may have twenty or more rehearsals for one performance, to insure absolute perfection, and they play as perfectly as the Thomas Orchestra, but, unfortunately, they have no Theodore Thomas to conduct them.14

In short, the musical scene in New York during this sixty-year span was one of quantity and quality, vibrant and multifaceted, in many ways equal to the scene in the largest of the Old World’s cities. While the city’s population through the second half of the century was significantly smaller than that of London (less than a third) and Paris (about half), New York wanted to be viewed as, and took pride in being considered, a major international center of culture. Thus, in its Saturday 26 December 1863 issue, the Evening Post announced the variety of events taking place in the city that day: after listing all the plays—more than a half dozen—one could see, the article then mentions the French Theatre, the theaters in the Bowery and in Brooklyn, the poetry reading at Irving Hall, Barnum’s Museum, three circuses, the steroscopticon at Hope Chapel, and the exhibition at Cooper Union. The notice continues: Yet Saturday is, after all, peculiarly a day of music. During this afternoon the lovers of opera have been attracted to the Academy by the programme of “Don Giovanni,” while concert-goers have found a superb entertainment in Theodore Thomas’s popular concert. To-night there will be the concert at the Academy for the New England Soldiers’ Relief Association; at the Seventh regiment armory Grafulla’s band will give the fifth promenade concert with a very fine programme, including the gems of the “Ballo” and

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“Lombardi.” At the Brooklyn Academy Mr. Anschutz’s German company will give the opera of “Faust.” Then there are the three minstrel halls of the Woods, Christy and Bryant’s. No city in the world—not even London or Paris—can offer such a variety of amusement as the New York public can have to-day and to-night.

While that opinion was probably incorrect, the comment surely reflects the impressions of many Gothamites. There was, however, one significant difference. The arts in the New World were not supported by a monarchy; in New York and other American cities and towns, all musical events took place in an entrepreneurial context. If the concert did not produce a profit or at least reach a break-even point, it would not be offered to the public again. When the Metropolitan Opera was organized in the early 1880s, it was set up as a real estate venture that leased the opera house to an impresario. His job was to make a profit for himself after paying the auditorium rental, the singers’ and orchestra members’ salaries, the costumes and scenery, and similar costs. He had little room for mistakes. In spite of these financial insecurities—no Old World country had ever attempted to publicly fund all its artistic endeavors—the arts in the New World thrived. Still, one can argue that New York in particular, and America in general, was still a backwater of culture—a provincial outpost of the European tradition. Of the composers, primarily of German origin, who settled in the States, none was a major figure whose music had been well-known and played throughout Europe. Only a few immigrants, mostly singers, could be singled out for their outstanding vocal talents. Of the native-born talent—both creators such as Chadwick, Parker, and Paine and performers, who were to establish their credentials and secure some fame in the Old World in the final quarter of the century—there is still the perception that their artistic accomplishments were second-rate. This argument, however, is on slippery ground, for when one looks at the development of the performing arts in nineteenth-century Great Britain, there is little difference from that seen in the States. No great continental composers settled permanently in London, and the performers, both native-born and immigrant, were essentially of the same caliber as those who settled here. Certainly, no nineteenth-century British composer wrote an opera or a symphony that has remained part of the standard repertory. A few European cities, such as Paris, had a more international artistic colony, but when one examines the musicians who resided in specific German cities, once again, there appears to be little difference. For example, the article in the current New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians on Berlin—a city whose population (826,000) approximated New York’s in 1871— notes that the court orchestra, whose repertory “remained conservative throughout the 19th century,” gave only two or three annual public concerts; public orchestras, such as Gung’l’s, were active there as well, but his was known primarily for its performances of “popular” music (e.g.: Strauss, Lanner, and Gung’l waltzes,

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gallops, and marches). During the first half of the nineteenth century, several public orchestras were formed as an alternative to the court-sponsored groups, and private house concerts in the city, which flourished, were limited to small audiences; a few public concerts were given by visiting artists. The passion for opera in Berlin was similar to that in New York; residents heard operas by Lortzing, Wagner, and a few other German composers, but after 1851, mirroring the repertory in New York, the royal opera prospered by offering “Meyerbeer’s grand operas and works by Italian and French composers [that] dominated the repertory for the next three decades.”15 No composer of international stature appears to have resided there permanently. Wagner and other major composers visited the city, but they did not have to commit to staying there for a prolonged period as they would have when visiting New York; there was no ocean to cross to get there. The question of how one assesses Old World versus New World culture is intriguing. Music historians do not question the migration of national musical styles from one country to another—indeed, they often trace how it progressed. Yet the almost simultaneous migration across an ocean of a number of European cultures (German, Irish, Italian, and French, among others) is viewed negatively. The New World, so the argument goes, having no culture of its own, had to rely on imports; there was little native culture of value. This argument, however, ignores the reason and impact of mass immigration—that the middle and artisan classes that came here for a better life brought their culture with them, that these received cultures were accepted by those already in residence, that they were digested and integrated into the emerging country’s new musical culture. The resulting mix led to the development of a language of musical plurality that was not heard elsewhere. During the last third of the century, the country’s wealth increased greatly; it was estimated that in 1850, total wealth was over $7 billion, and by 1910 it had increased to $130 billion.16 Some of this money belonged to the wealthy entrepreneurs whose sometimes shady dealings gave the period its “Gilded Age” label; their largesse in supporting the arts substituted for the absence of royal patronage. During the 1880s, their money provided support for the founding or expansion of some of New York’s most important institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The richness of the artistic life of the city (and the country), particularly during the second half of the nineteenth century, has been vastly underrated and undervalued. Historians have examined some of the major continuing cultural institutions, such as the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, which have become icons for the arts during that time. They have not, however, looked into the many smaller, less permanent groups around the city or the traveling companies that provided musical sustenance year after year. There have been only sporadic forays into the rich fabric of musical events, both vernacular and cultivated, that comprise the flourishing of the arts in the

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city. An examination of the place of the fine arts in antebellum New York is presented in a recent book, Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825–1861, edited by Catherine Hoover Voorsanger and John K. Howat, which was published in 2000 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with an exhibition. It documents in a series of essays how art, prints, sculpture, photography, architecture, and cabinetmaking developed as the city grew. Since the mid-1980s, a serious effort has also been made to investigate musical events in New York City. In her monumental three-volume narrative, which documents the diary comments on music of George Templeton Strong, Vera Brodsky Lawrence explores their variety and abundance from 1836 through 1862. For the years covered by her volumes, her detailed survey of concerts has eclipsed George Clinton Densmore Odell’s multivolume Annals of New York. Although the general outlines of musical life in mid-nineteenth-century New York are known, there are still many lacunae in our knowledge of the period, particularly during the years 1860 to 1880. To begin to address that need, a conference, “Importing Culture: European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1890,” was held in April 2002 at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The presentations were organized around several general areas of inquiry.17 “The Reception of European Music in New York” opened the conference; Nancy B. Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, and Rena Charnin Mueller examined the reception histories of Schumann, Berlioz, and Liszt, respectively. In the second session, “Visiting Virtuosi and Resident Composers,” R. Allen Lott documented the American tours of Sigismund Thalberg and Anton Rubinstein, while Wayne D. Shirley examined Leopold Damrosch as a composer rather than a conductor, surveying his mostly unknown compositions. The immense contribution of German immigrant musicians to New York’s cultural scene was the topic of the third session, “The German Community in New York”; Adrienne Fried Block addressed the issue of German American musicians and the Philharmonic Society, Christopher Bruhn documented William Steinway’s relationship with the Liederkranz Society during the 1860s, and John Koegel examined Adolf Philipp’s musical theater works performed in the city’s Kleindeutschland neighborhood. In the fourth session, “New York Bandmasters,” Frank J. Cipolla, George Foreman, and Raoul F. Camus concentrated on the New York careers of Patrick Gilmore and Frederick Innes, as well as on the Seventh Regiment Band and its conductors, Grafulla, Noll, and Cappa, respectively.18 A lecture-recital, “The Super-Star and Her Music,” by Hilary Poriss, Julia Grella, and Francesco Izzo on the later career of Adelina Patti in New York comprised the fifth session. In the final session, “Opera, Opera Impresarios, and Opera Managers,” Ruth Henderson examined the interesting confluence in New York of the Moravian impresarios Max Maretzek, the Strakosches, and the Graus; John Graziano chronicled the abundance and variety of opera heard in the city from 1862 through 1869; and Katherine K. Preston documented the way one of the first music management agencies in the United States scheduled

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the many native-born and immigrant musicians who traveled up and down the East Coast to perform in various musical venues. A concert performed by doctoral students at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and pianist Steven Mayer offered music by Damrosch, Herz, Thalberg, William Vincent Wallace, Maurice Strakosch, Charles Grobe, and Victor Massé. The chapters in this volume have been revised to permit the authors to include material they were not able to present because of the time limitations imposed by oral presentations. Chief among their additions is the presentation of the demographic patterns seen in New York over this fifty-year period. Even in their expanded form, these essays are not able to explore many other areas of inquiry. They represent but the first foray into unraveling the complex relationship of European music and visiting musicians, resident immigrants, native-born practitioners, and American musical institutions and audiences during the nineteenth century.

Notes 1. Waldo Seldon Pratt, American Music and Musicians (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 12. 2. D. T. Valentine, Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1866 ([n.p.]: D. T. Valentine, 1866), 415. 3. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 435 ff. 4. Ibid., 450. 5. For a detailed history of the Handel and Haydn Society, see H. Earle Johnson, Hallelujah, Amen: The Story of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1981). For the Musical Fund Society, see Louis C. Madeira, Annals of Music in Philadelphia and History of the Musical Fund Society, ed. Philip H. Geopp (Philadelphia: [n.p.], 1896); Howard Shanet, Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975). 6. A comparison of total U.S. population with that of Great Britain is given in D. T. Valentine’s 1866 edition of Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. In 1800, America’s population (5,305,000) was almost a third of Great Britain’s (16,338,000); by 1830, it was a bit more than half (12,866,000 to 24,306,000); and by 1860, the U.S. population (31,148,000) had surpassed that of Great Britain (30,040,000) (p. 415). 7. Ibid., 414. 8. Britannica online (accessed 23 August 2005). 9. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 486. 10. Shanet, Philharmonic, 43–53. 11. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 724. 12. Ibid. 13. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed. (1974), Macropaedia 13: 29. 14. Rose Fay Thomas, Memoirs of Theodore Thomas (1911; reprint, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 86–87, quoting a speech given by William Steinway, as reported in The Musical Courier, 29 April 1891.

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15. Heinz Becker, Richard D. Green (with Hugh Canning, Imre Fábián (3)), and Curt A. Roesler, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 25 July 2005), http://www.grovemusic.com 16. Pratt, American Music, 30–31. 17. A number of areas were not addressed, including popular musical theater and minstrelsy, which thrived more as homegrown American genres than those discussed here. 18. Dr. Foreman’s presentation is not available for inclusion in this volume.

Chapter One

Robert Schumann’s Music in New York City, 1848–1898 Nancy B. Reich

On 30 December 1847, Robert Schumann, who kept meticulous accounts in his household books, recorded: “Exciting time—Peri in Newyork [sic]!” His oratorio, Das Paradies und die Peri, was scheduled for April of the coming year. Schumann and his contemporaries were astonished to hear of the performance in a city considered at that time to be an outpost of civilization. Even today, more than 150 years later, few are aware of New York’s rich musical life in the nineteenth century. A close examination, however, of the years between 1848 and 1898 reveals thriving musical institutions, cultivated music lovers, opinionated critics, and a large number of performances of music by Robert Schumann. By the third decade of the nineteenth century, New York City had a bustling cultural life on many levels: theaters presented Shakespeare plays as well as popular ballad operas; literary masters like Washington Irving worked on translations of opera libretti, including Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz and Abu Hassan,1 as well as folklike tales such as “The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow”; wealthy Americans collected European and American art, but great art was also hung in public exhibition halls and was available to paying customers. The many influential daily and weekly newspapers and magazines employed knowledgeable (and often contentious) critics of literature, art, and music. By the 1840s, the New York musical scene included presentations of operas in English, Italian, French, and German2; English musical theater; sacred and

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Schumanniana Nova: Festschrift Gerd Nauhaus zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Bernhard R. Appel, Ute Bär, and Matthias Wendt (Sinzig: Studio Verlag, 2002), 569–95. It has been revised and appears here with the kind permission of the editors. I would like to thank Adrienne Fried Block of the Music in Gotham project, and Anette Müller and Kristin R. M. Krahe of Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, for their help with this project.

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secular oratorios; song recitals; chamber music; symphony orchestra concerts; and open-air band concerts, as well as beer gardens with popular entertainment. Even Dwight’s Journal of Music, an influential periodical based in Boston, which considered itself the intellectual capital of the United States, conceded that New York was “the great metropolis of our Western world, like our own smaller, but not less music-loving city.”3 Dwight’s New York correspondents sent regular news from the rival city. An 1854 column reported: “[L]ast night, in spite of the attractions of Wood’s Minstrels, Christy’s Minstrels, Buckley’s Minstrels, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin . . . a fine, large audience assembled at the Tabernacle to hear . . . the Philharmonic Society.”4 Robert Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri was the first major Schumann work given in New York City: the American premiere was heard on 4 April 1848 by an audience of over 2,000, just five years after it was written and premiered in Leipzig. The next work played in New York was his Andante and Variations for Two Pianos, op. 46, performed on 17 March 1849. All four Schumann symphonies, all the string quartets, the Piano Quintet, op. 44, and the Piano Quartet, op. 47, were premiered in the city before 1860. Between 1851 and 1860 the quintet, especially favored by performers and audiences, had at least ten public performances and was sometimes performed twice in one week by competing chamber groups. To better understand the course of Robert Schumann’s music in nineteenthcentury New York City, I will begin with a brief overview of the history and musical life of the “Empire City,” or “Gotham,” as it was often termed. This will be followed by a discussion of the musicians who performed his music and its reception among critics and music lovers. Pertinent excerpts from diaries, reviews, and other documents will be presented. A preliminary checklist of first performances of Schumann’s works in New York between 1848 and 1898 appears in appendix 1.1.

The Growth of New York City The major influences on the arts in the United States in the nineteenth century came from Europe through New York City, then as now the major gateway to the United States. Although Philadelphia and Boston were also seaports, New York had established itself as the major port of entry by 1790, primarily because of its great harbor. During the next fifty years, the building and opening of the Erie Canal and the influx of immigrants, as well as the development of the water supply system and the invention of steamboats, combined to make New York City a great trading, financial, and manufacturing center. The mix of printing, publishing, and bookselling establishments, insurance companies, mercantile firms, real estate enterprises, railroads, and construction and allied industries made New York the fastest-growing city in the United States.5

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The hundreds and, later, thousands of immigrants pouring into the city were—and continued to be—major factors in the establishment of New York’s dominance. The first immigrant groups after the American Revolution were French émigrés who came seeking refuge after the French Revolution. In the 1840s, the Irish began emigrating in huge numbers to escape the potato famine that swept their country. Political unrest in England and the 1848 revolutions in Italy and Germany brought immigration to new heights: by 1855, over 176,000 immigrants from Ireland, 98,000 from Germany, and 37,000 from Great Britain were living in New York. The statistic most significant for this study, however, is the astounding increase in the number of immigrants from Germany: in 1845, 24,416 German-born immigrants were living in New York City; by 1860, that number had increased to 118,292.6

Music in Gotham European soloists and touring groups almost invariably gave their first performances in New York City. The first concert of Jenny Lind (1820–1887), on her grand triumphal tour of the United States (1850–1852), was given on 11 September 1850 at the Battery, in Castle Garden, which was filled with over 7,000 fanatic devotees. Henriette Sontag (1806–1854) gave concerts in New York in 1852; Henri Herz (1803–1888) made his American debut in New York in October 1846, and Sigismund Thalberg (1812–1871) played first in the city on his American tour in 1856 (see chapter 4). After appearances in New York, visiting artists and performers gave concerts in midwestern and southern states by sailing up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal, opened in 1825, which linked the city to the rest of the country. Most of these traveling virtuosos had financially lucrative tours and returned to Europe, leaving a heritage long remembered. A number, however, remained in the United States. Of those remaining, the majority were Germans, and by the 1840s they were the most conspicuous in New York musical life. The dominance of German music was aided by the many native-born American musicians like William Mason (1829–1908) and Ureli Corelli Hill (1802–1875), who studied in Germany and became admirers of the new German music. The Philharmonic Society of New York, America’s first permanent orchestra, gave its first concert on 7 December 1842.7 Of the fifty-two members of the society in its first year, twenty-two were German, thirteen native-born American, eleven English, four French, and two Italian. By 1855, the personnel included sixty-two Germans, twelve native-born Americans, seven Englishmen, four Italians, three Frenchmen, and one Dane.8 The German influence in New York was reinforced by a number of touring German orchestras, in particular by the twenty-four musicians of the Germania Musical Society orchestra, a touring ensemble formed in Berlin in 1848. According to a memoir written in 1869 by H. L. Albrecht, a violist

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in the group, their ambition was to undertake a voyage to the United States “to further in the hearts of this politically free people the love of the fine art of music through performance of masterpieces of the greatest German composers [such] as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann; also, Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner.”9 The Germania musicians made their first appearance in New York in September 1848 and toured the country with a mainly German repertoire. When they disbanded in 1854, all of the young musicians remained in the United States and became American citizens. German musicians had begun to be noticed two decades earlier. In an article dated 27 July 1828, an anonymous writer described conditions in the new country: “Young musicians from Germany, even those with moderate talents, who could scarcely keep body and soul together at home by their music, find good incomes, and if economical, make their fortunes [in America]. . . . However, for lesson giving, English is an indispensable necessity here. Good teachers get 1 thaler (75 cts.) a lesson; others get 18 thalers ($13.50) for twenty-four lessons.”10 Within twenty years, German-born musicians with talent and versatile skills were teaching, as well as performing in and conducting New York’s orchestras. They were also highly visible in chamber music soirées, organ recitals, choral societies, and other music groups. There was considerable controversy regarding the prominence of German conductors and German repertoire in New York concert life and concern about the lack of support for American composers. Those who argued for inclusion of American music were unable to sustain an interest in American composers such as William H. Fry (1813–1864) and George F. Bristow (1825–1898). Despite complaints from American composers11 and the efforts of conductors like Theodore Thomas to include their music on concert programs, Germans and German music continued to dominate the New York musical scene through the end of the nineteenth century and beyond.

Schumann’s Music and the Artists Who Performed It The artists who performed Schumann’s music in New York City were almost all multitalented German emigrés. The most prominent supporters of his music were Henry Timm (1811–1892), Theodor Eisfeld (1816–1882), Carl Bergmann, Otto Dresel (1826–1890),12 Theodore Thomas, and later, Leopold Damrosch and his son, Walter Damrosch (1862–1950). With the exception of Dresel, all the others served as conductors of the Philharmonic Society of New York and directed other groups as well. All were born in Germany but spent their productive years in America—and except for Dresel, who settled in Boston—mainly in New York. William Mason, a pianist and composer, was the only native-born American in this group. A son of Lowell Mason (1792–1872), one of America’s leading music

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educators and composers, he sailed from New York in 1849 to study in Leipzig and Weimar and remained in Europe until 1854. Through Julius Schuberth (1804–1875), a shipmate,13 Mason met many of the leading European pianists and composers of the day, including Meyerbeer, Moscheles, Liszt, Brahms, and Robert and Clara Schumann. He was tremendously impressed by Schumann and his music and wrote in his memoirs: I knew little or nothing of Schumann’s music, for Mendelssohn then dominated the musical world; but the first orchestral composition of Schumann’s that I ever heard placed him far above Mendelssohn in my estimation. . . . What a contrast there was between [Schumann’s] personality and that of the ever-affable, polished Mendelssohn! There is the same contrast between their music: Schumann’s profound, and appealing to us most when we wish to withdraw entirely within the very sanctuary of our own emotions; Mendelssohn’s smooth, finished, and easily understood.14

Mason continued: “[W]hen I returned from Germany and found Schumann virtually unknown here, I made it my mission to introduce his music into this country—a labor of love in which I was afterward greatly aided by the quartet concerts and by my teaching.”15 He also made it his mission to encourage publication of new American editions of Schumann’s music by recommending that his pupils buy Schumann’s piano works.16 The quartet concerts to which Mason referred were a chamber music series he organized with Theodore Thomas, first violin, Joseph Mosenthal, second violin, George Matzka, viola, and Carl Bergmann, cello (later replaced by Carl Bergner). During the thirteen seasons (1855–1868) of the historic Mason-Thomas concerts, as they were known, New Yorkers had an opportunity to hear virtually every chamber music work Schumann had composed. “It was my purpose in organizing these concerts to make a point of producing chamber-work, which had never before been heard here, especially those of Schumann and other modern writers,” Mason wrote in his memoir.17 The Mason-Thomas chamber music series was by no means the first in New York: Eisfeld, one of the early conductors of the Philharmonic Society, had inaugurated chamber music soirées in 1851. The Piano Quintet, op. 44, was given during the first season and remained one of the most frequently performed Schumann works in New York City. Although the work received mixed reviews at its early hearings, Eisfeld programmed it as often as twice a season during the four years of his soirées. Another devoted Schumann advocate, and undoubtedly the most influential, was Theodore Thomas—the first nationally known conductor in America—who led orchestras in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Cincinnati, and Chicago and toured the United States during the 1870s and 1880s with his own orchestra. Thomas, who came to the United States from Germany as a boy of ten, was the son of a professional musician and received all his training in New York, beginning as a violinist (and occasional French horn player) before he took over on the podium. Thomas was tireless, persevering, and determined to set performance standards

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as high as any in the major European cities. He was equally determined to bring the best orchestral music to New York audiences, who were accustomed to hearing operatic arias and fantasies on well-known tunes. In the eight seasons of his popular summer concerts in the Central Park Gardens, for example, he built an audience for symphonic music by programming all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies and all four symphonies of Schumann.18 His biographer, Ezra Schabas, points out: “When Thomas had conducted the New York Philharmonic, 82 percent of the music he programmed had been Austro-German, 9 percent Russian, and 5 percent French. He conducted Beethoven fifty-six times; Wagner, thirty-four; Schumann, twenty-seven; Schubert, twenty; Mozart, seventeen; Rubinstein, seventeen; Brahms, sixteen; Bach, thirteen; Liszt, twelve; Berlioz, eleven; and Weber and Dvorak, ten each.”19 Carl Bergmann, a leading New York conductor, initiated a series of Sunday evening concerts in 1858, which stirred much controversy. Some elements of New York society objected to these Sabbath concerts on religious grounds;20 others objected to the “serious” programming, which included “new” symphonies such as Schumann’s Fourth. But Bergmann ignored the complaints and continued to perform Schumann’s works.

American Editions of Schumann’s Music The earliest American editions of Schumann’s music appeared in 1850 when Julius Schuberth set up the New York branch of his publishing house. Two American editions of Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, op. 68, were published in 1852. The first—Schuberth’s edition—was reviewed in Dwight’s: We are almost afraid to say how much we have been charmed by the (to us) newly discovered little gems in this collection. . . . Observe, they are very little pieces;—too brief and unpretending, it would seem, to warrant many words about them. But . . . they embody so much variety of beauty, both of thought and form, they show so much real invention, they are so characteristic, and indicate such a fresh well-spring of musical genius . . . that they seem to bring you into acquaintance with the leading features and the peculiar spirit of Schumann. He is revealed here in miniature as perfectly as Mendelssohn is in his “Songs Without Words.”21

A few months later, another edition of op. 68, 43 Clavier Stücke für die Jugend von Robert Schumann, in four numbers, each seventy-five cents, by the Boston publisher G. P. Reed, was announced and reviewed in the same journal: We have already spoken at length of this delightful addition to the library of the pianist and have now only to add that Reed’s edition is a fac-simile of the German copy, with a well engraved title, far superior to the writing-master scrawls and shabby lithographs which usually embellish our American musical publications. Why should not real

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artists oftener lend the aid of the sister art to decorate our Music? Every pianist will be glad to place this Album among his choicest treasures.22

Dramatic Music The overtures to Genoveva and Manfred were heard frequently in New York beginning in the 1850s. The first performance of the complete Manfred was given in May 1869, with Edwin Booth (1833–1893), one of the first great American actors, as the reader. Although the New York Tribune reviewer found the performance “more valuable as a curiosity than as a work of art” and considered the Overture to Manfred “by far the best of it,”23 interest in and appreciation for Schumann’s dramatic music grew over the years, with one conductor inspiring—or perhaps competing with— another. The Oratorio Society of New York, a choral group founded by Leopold Damrosch in 1875 and directed by his son, Walter, after his death, gave four successful performances of Manfred in 1886 and 1887. Theodore Thomas conducted the first performance of Scenes from Faust in 1883; by 1891 the Oratorio Society, led by Walter Damrosch, had given three additional performances of that work.

Vocal Music Although Schumann is considered one of the greatest composers of lieder, his songs were rarely performed in New York from the 1850s through the 1870s, chiefly because of the huge popularity of opera. In earlier decades, singers who appeared in concert—usually in a mixed program of instrumental and vocal music—sang arias from Italian operas or popular German operas by Meyerbeer and Weber. Even a singer like Jenny Lind, who delighted in performing Schumann lieder in her European appearances, catered to the tastes of her American audiences. Her programs, like those of most singers who appeared in America, were potpourris of popular songs, Swedish folk songs, instrumental works, and arias from operas and sacred works. Schumann was enthusiastic about Lind’s performances of his lieder. In his Tagebuch he wrote: “We met together with Jenny Lind, the kind, magnificient artist, often; she herself asked to sing in our concert on the 10th and she did sing. I will not forget the rehearsal of many of my songs before the concert.”24 He dedicated his op. 89 (Sechs Gesänge) to her and sent a copy of the music with the dedication to New York on 19 December 1850.25 Although a letter from the Schuberth Verlag26 mentions the American copyright and a Jenny Lind performance of op. 36, no. 4 (“O Sonnenschein”) in English, there is no record that the Swedish Nightingale sang any Schumann lieder in public in her New York concerts, although she may have sung them in another city. By the 1880s, however, song recitals were heard more frequently in the great metropolis: Schumann’s lieder entered vocalists’ repertoire but were often sung in English translation.

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Concert Programs During the years 1848 to 1898, concerts generally followed a format similar to that of European concerts: an overture, arias, lieder, a concerto, instrumental solos, and similar works might all appear on the same program. Caroline Lehmann’s “Grand Concert” on 3 March 1855, as announced in the Daily Tribune, for example, included a Mendelssohn piano quartet, arias from Weber’s Der Freischütz, a flute solo on themes from Auber’s Masaniello, a German Psalm sung by a male quartet, and “The Erl King” by Schubert in the first half. The second half opened with a popular song; continued with a Grand Scene from Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable, three short piano works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Gustav Satter (an Austrian pianist) “Prayer” by Robert Franz, and “Dedication” (first performance of “Widmung”) by Schumann; and closed with a Mendelssohn quartet for four male singers and “Eckert’s Swiss Song” sung by the soloist.27 A concert by one soloist without accompanying or assisting artists was rare at this time, and a concert consisting of music by one composer was rarer still. Eighteen years later, Anton Rubinstein (1829–1894) began a new tradition by giving an all-Schumann recital in New York on 17 May 1873. The Tribune praised the visiting virtuoso’s concert: The programme of Mr. Rubinstein’s fourth recital on Saturday afternoon was devoted to Schumann and embraced two or three of the “Etudes Symphoniques;” the charming group of fantaisies [sic] published under the title “Kreisleriana;” three of the Fantaisiestücke [sic] op. 12, namely “Warum?” “Des Abends,” and “Traumeswirren;” the Romanza in D minor; the “Bird as Prophet” from the “Waldscenen;” three studies for the Pedal Piano (A minor, A flat major, and B minor); and the famous “Carneval [sic]—Scenes Mignonnes.”28

Soon after Rubinstein’s tour, other artists followed suit, and concerts of music by one composer were given more frequently in the city. Two years later, Thomas started to present orchestral concerts of music by a single composer in his Central Park Summer Series. Beginning with an all-Beethoven program on 3 August 1875, he proceeded through his favorite composers: Schubert, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. On 11 September 1875, the all-Schumann night included the Piano Concerto, Thomas’s orchestral arrangement of “Traümerei,” selections from Manfred, and the Overture to Genoveva. And on 8 January 1889, ten distinguished New York musicians presented “A Concert of the Composers Club, devoted to the Music of Schumann.” The evening included the Quintet, a number of songs, piano and violin solos, and closed with the String Quartet in A Minor.

Reception of Robert Schumann’s Music In 1892, Henry Edward Krehbiel (1854–1923), generally acknowledged as the “dean” of American critics, described the progress of the reception of

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Schumann’s music: “Even to the discerning and tolerant minds of the Philharmonic and its auditors, his works seemed unintelligible and difficult of access. They won their way slowly for a time.”29 An examination of various reviews and diary entries gives further evidence that it took many years and repeated performances by devoted conductors and performers before New York audiences fully accepted Schumann’s music. The diaries of George Templeton Strong (1820–1875)—an ardent music lover, well-to-do New York lawyer, founding member of the Philharmonic Society, and assiduous concertgoer—reveal that for many years New York listeners considered Schumann’s music avant-garde and strange. “Outré” and “unnatural” were other adjectives listeners and critics applied to his work. Beginning in 1836 and continuing all the way to 1875, Strong recorded his personal impressions of concerts, both public and private. On his first hearing of Carnaval on 21 March 1855, he characterized it as an “unmeaning sequences of notes to show off a player’s muscle and aplomb; puzzles for an artist to undo.”30 Despite responses of listeners like Strong, pianists—like the conductors—continued to program Schumann’s music, and reactions began to change. A Tribune critic described Anna Mehlig’s performance of the Piano Sonata in F-sharp Minor in 1873 as “a superb performance . . . of the sonata by Schumann, a strangely rich and imposing composition over whose difficulties she won a brilliant triumph.”31 That same year, Rubinstein’s playing of Carnaval was acclaimed as “remarkable as an illustration of the variety which genius can extract from the combinations and permutations of four notes.”32 Strong, however, continued to respond to Schumann’s works in a hostile manner. He left an open rehearsal of Schumann’s Second Symphony and wrote: “Cleared out after an Allegro and Scherzo . . . proving that Herr Schumann had worked very hard to produce something great and genial and had panted and sweated in hope of doing what Beethoven did easily, and had not done it, and had produced something troublesome to play and dismal to hear.”33 He found the Overture to Manfred “heavy and dead—mere diligent dullness.”34 Nor did the Schumann symphonies fare well at the hands of early reviewers. An Albion critic wrote of the “Spring” Symphony, which premiered on 23 April 1853: Robert Schumann’s 1st symphony demands more than a passing notice. Its entire construction is pretentious and challenges criticism. It is highly elaborate, denoting profound knowledge of harmony and great skill in instrumentation. The various movements are constructed after the model of the great masters, and display considerable acquaintance with the resources of art, and a certain degree of characteristic talent almost amounting to originality. Most of the effects of the modern combination of the instruments [orchestration] can be found in one or the other of the various movements, while a classical and masterly progression of the various parts indicates a learned musician and a keen observer. . . . The most glaring defects of this symphony are its poverty of melody, and its incongruous and incoherent character. . . . [W]e consider Schumann’s symphony an inferior work not to be ranked even with . . . Spohr, Mendelssohn, Gade, etc.35

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Oddly, similar reviews of other Schumann symphonies36 seemed only to stimulate more performances by New York conductors, who ignored this virulent criticism and were determined to bring the composer’s music to New York listeners. Eisfeld, Bergmann, and Thomas conducted all four symphonies frequently with the Philharmonic Society, and both Leopold and Walter Damrosch did the same with the Symphony Society Orchestra. Thomas programmed them with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Irving Hall Symphonic Soirees, the Central Park Garden Concerts, and other orchestras he conducted. Appendix 1.2 lists the performances of Schumann symphonies given by the New York Philharmonic and the New York Symphony Society. Although a number of New York critics in the 1850s and 1860s were not favorably disposed toward his work, Schumann did have some early and influential supporters. Chief among them were Theodore Hagen (1823–1871) and Henry Cood Watson (1815?–1875). Hagen, a German-born critic who began writing in New York in 1854, was the editor of the New-York Musical Review and Gazette from 1856 to 1860 and stayed on when it merged with Musical World in 1860; he was enthusiastic about almost every Robert Schumann work he heard. Of the New York premiere of the Piano Concerto, op. 54, he wrote: “I[I]t possessed rare freshness, spontaneity of feeling and invention, fluency, and originality of ideas in the writing not only for the solo instrument but also for the orchestra, with which it continuously intermingled.”37 Watson received his musical training and education in England and came to New York in 1840. He soon became the busiest critic in the city, writing for newspapers as well as literary and musical journals. Watson was the editor of The American Musical Times from 1847 to 1849. When Schumann heard that Peri was to be given in New York, he wrote to Watson on 7 January 1848 to ask whether the performance was to be given in English and, if so, to request a copy of the English text.38 In a letter of 19 February 1848, Watson expressed his pleasure at hearing from Schumann, gave him the requested information, and added: “It will be my pleasure for you to know that your name is well known and your works appreciated in this far-off land, you may believe me when I tell you that [you] count [among] the first.”39 Watson’s letter to Schumann was followed by a missive from Charles Burkhardt:40 Honored Sir! As a German and as an editorial associate in what is almost the only musical journal in America, I am taking the liberty to add a few words to the previous letter of the editor-in-chief. As Herr Watson himself has informed you, the performance of your composition, “Paradies u Peri” which has been somewhat delayed because of circumstances, will, however, take place at the beginning of April, and, actually with an English text which Herr Loder,41 the conductor, has taken partly from Moore’s poem and partly from a translation which I myself made. We will take the liberty of sending you several numbers of our paper with the next Havre packet. With this letter you will also receive two numbers, one of which bears upon the great Mendelssohn

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memorial42 which was attended by over 12,000 [?] people which is certain to have some interest for you. Should you honor us at some time in the future with a contribution (in German, French or English, as you prefer) which, I can positively assert—will certainly evoke the greatest musical interest—that would assuredly give us the greatest pleasure.43

As is clear from these letters, there were initial difficulties with Peri. Announced in 1847 by the American Musical Institute (founded in 1844) but withdrawn for a “less heavy program,”44 it was finally performed on 4 April 1848 by the group at the Broadway Tabernacle, directed by Timm (who had replaced Loder), with a chorus of 120 voices and an orchestra of 60. The Albion reported on 11 April 1848 that “more than $1000 and more than a year of intensive rehearsing had gone into the preparation of Das Paradies und die Peri.” Watson’s review of Peri was a notice that would have warmed Schumann’s heart: The long promised and exquisite work by Robert Schumann, Paradise and the Peri, was at length produced on Tuesday at the Tabernacle. There was a crowded and brilliant audience assembled, amounting in numbers to over 2000 persons. With a rarely seen finer audience . . . the strenuous efforts made to so good an end were so warmly appreciated and so literally rewarded by the public. Most of our readers are acquainted, doubtless, with Moore’s beautiful poem, “Paradise and the Peri. [Lalla Rookh]” We will, however, give a brief description of the plot. . . . Robert Schumann has handled his subject with a power and a felicity truly great. He has carried out the thrilling interest of the story with a fidelity which is beyond all praise. . . . The music is as various in the character as the characteristics it describes. It displays profound knowledge of harmony and inexhaustible resources of melody. In its design, it is a perfect model and shows deep reflection and profound appreciation of contrast and dramatic skill. It is philosophical and imaginative to the highest degree. It is full of the purest sensibility, and replete with earnest passion and refined sentiments. . . . We must content ourselves by stating that as a work of high art it can hardly be excelled; and we believe that “Paradise and the Peri” will alone be sufficient to give immortality to the name of Dr. Robert Schumann. . . . The wish was universally expressed that Paradise and the Peri should be repeated but we do not know if it is the intention to produce it again this season.

He added, “Much credit is due to Mr. Timm for his constant exertions to produce this work well, and if he did not succeed to the extent desired, we feel assured that it was not from the want of earnest endeavors, but from [mysterious] circumstances over which he has no control.”45 After its successful premiere, Peri was given at least twelve more times between 1848 and 1888 in New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Montreal.46

Conclusion Robert Schumann’s music was introduced to New York in 1848—a period when prosperous citizens of the “gateway” city were turning their attention to music

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organizations that performed European music. Schumann’s music was often dubbed “mystifying” and “enigmatic” and was initially resisted by audiences and many critics. However, the influx of German musicians and the increasing number of Americans who had studied in Germany and who respected his compositions and championed his works aided his cause. These musicians ignored the critics and those they considered to be uninformed listeners and offered Schumann’s music regularly from 1848 onward. By the end of the century, Robert Schumann was fully accepted by New York audiences, and his music had become a staple of New York concert life.

Appendix 1.1 A Preliminary Chronological Checklist of First Public Performances of Robert Schumann’s Works in New York City, 1848–1898a Works for Orchestra Konzertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra, op. 86 Symphony no. 1 in B-flat Major, op. 38 Symphony no. 2 in C Major, op. 61 Symphony no. 4 in D Minor, op. 120 Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, op. 52 Overture to Manfred, op. 115 Introduction & Allegro Appassionato, op. 92 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A Minor, op. 54 Symphony no. 3 in E-flat Major, op. 97 Overture to Genoveva, op. 81 Overture to Julius Caesar, op. 128 Overture to The Bride of Messina, op. 100 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A Minor, op. 129 Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra, op. 131 Chamber Music Quintet for Piano and Strings, op. 44 Quartet for Piano and Strings, op. 47 String Quartet in A Major, op. 41, no. 3 String Quartet in A Minor, op. 41, no. 1 String Quartet in F Major, op. 41, no. 2

4 December 1852 23 April 1853 (Boston, 15 January 1853) 14 January 1854 30 March 1856 11 May 1856 (Boston, 3 January 1852) 27 April 1856 25 April 1857 20 February 1859 10 November 1860 16 March 1861 8 April 1861 8 April 1865 8 February 1888 (Boston, 3 February 1888) 28 March 1889

15 March 1851 15 April 1855 27 April 1856 30 January 1858 10 April 1858

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Appendix 1.1 (continued) Sonata in D Minor for Violin and Piano, op. 121 Sonata in A Minor for Violin and Piano, op. 105 Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 63 Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 110 Piano Trio in F Major, op. 80 Fünf Stücke im Volkston, op. 102 (selections) Piano, Pedal Piano Andante & Variations for Two Pianos, op. 46 Carnaval, op. 9 Drei Romanzen (selection), op. 28 Fantasiestücke (selections), op. 12 Novelletten (selections), op. 21 Piano Sonata no. 1 in F-sharp Minor, op. 11 Faschingsschwank aus Wien, op. 26 Piano Sonata no. 2 in G Minor, op. 22 Kreisleriana (selections), op. 16 Albumblätter (selection), op. 124 Waldszenen, op. 82, “Vogel als Prophet” Etudes Symphoniques, op. 13 Klavierstüke, op. 32, “Romanze” Studies for Pedal Piano, op. 56 (selections) Arabeske, op. 18 6 Fugues on B-A-C-H, op. 60 (selection) Bilder aus Osten (arr. orch.), op. 66 Toccata, op. 7 Waldszenen, op. 82, “Jagdlied” Fantasie, op. 17 Sketches for Pedal Piano, op. 58 (selections) Impromptus, op. 5 Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6 Zwölf Klavierstücke, op. 85, “Am Springbrunnen” Drei Clavier-Sonaten, op. 118, “Abendlied” Kinderszenen, op. 15 (selections) Nachtstücke, op. 23 Vocal Music Das Paradies und die Peri, op. 50 Myrthen, op. 25, “Dedication” Fest-Overtüre on the Rheinweinlied, op. 123 Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, op. 112 (excerpts) Dichterliebe, op. 48 (selections)

13 March 1858 8 February1859 26 April 1859 26 February 1861 25 February 1862 14 March 1862 17 March 1849 21 March 1855 3 December 1861 23 December 1862 24 March 1863 12 January 1864 28 March 1868 11 April 1868 1 January 1873 13 January 1873 13 January 1873 17 May 1873 17 May 1873 17 May 1873 14 November 1874 5 May 1875 27 May 1875 23 April 1885 1 December 1885 3 March 1886 7 January 1886 21 January 1887 21 January 1887 25 April 1887 19 April 1889 27 February 1890 10 March 1893 4 April 1848 3 March 1855 24 January 1861 (Boston, 6 March 1858) 9 April 1862 21 April 1863

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robert schumann’s music Appendix 1.1 (continued) Liederkreis, op. 39, “Frühlingsnacht,” “Waldesgespräch,” and “Mondnacht” Sechs Gesänge, op. 107, “Abendlied” Liederkreis, op. 39 (selections) Spanische Liebeslieder, op. 138, “Romanze” Dichterliebe, op. 48, “Ich grolle nicht” Motet, op. 93, “I Wrestle and Pray” Drei Gedichte, op. 29, “Gypsy Life Nachtlied, op. 108 Manfred, op. 115 (selections) The Page and the King’s Daughter, op. 140 Dichterliebe, op. 48, “Und wüssten’s die Blumen”and “Aus alten Märchen” Sechs Gedichte, op. 90 (selections) Romanzen, op. 69, “Soldatenbraut” Romanzen und Balladen, op. 49, “Die beiden Grenadiere” Frauenliebe und Leben, op. 42, “Thou Ring upon My Finger” Genoveva, op. 81 (scena) Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, WoO 3 Belsatzar, op. 57 New Year’s Song, op. 144 Myrthen, op. 25, “Lieder der Braut” A Cycle of Spanish Songs, op. 74 Liederkreis, op. 39, “In der Fremde” and “Schöne Fremde” Romanzen und Balladen, op. 53, “Blondel’s Lied” and “Loreley” Romanzen und Balladen, op. 64, “Tragödie,” I, II, III Fünf Lieder und Gesänge, op. 127 “Sängers Trost” Myrthen, op. 25, “Die Lotosblume” Frauenliebe und Leben, op. 42, “Er der herrlichsten von allen” Zwölf Gedichte, op. 35, “Wanderlied” Fünf Lieder und Gesänge, op. 127, “Dein Angesicht” Sechs Gedichte, op. 36, “Sonntags am Rhein” Dichterliebe, op. 48, “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” and “Die alten bösen Lieder” Myrthen, op. 25, “Du bist wie eine Blume”

11 January 1865 9 January 1866 23 January 1866 23 November 1866 11 January 1868 13 March 1868 13 March 1869 3 April 1869 8 May 1869 25 October 1869 4 May 1872 9 November 1872 16 December 1876 22 January 1881 2 March 1882 18 March 1882 17 March 1883 (Boston, 28 March 1881) 22 November 1885 2 February 1886 (Boston, 1 January 1866) 9 March 1886 1 February 1887 3 February 1887 3 February 1887

3 February 1887 3 February 1887 5 March 1887 5 March 1887 5 March 1887 13 March 1887 28 October 1887 5 November 1887 1 December 1887

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Appendix 1.1 (continued) Frauenliebe und Leben, op. 42, “Ich kann’s nicht fassen” Zwölf Gedichte, op. 35, “Wer machte Dich so krank” and “Alte Laute” Ritornelle, op. 65, no. 3 Patriotisches Lied, WoO 1, “The Patriots’ Meeting” Myrthen, op. 25, “The Almond Tree” (“Der Nussbaum”) Myrthen, op. 25, “Two Venetian Boat Songs”

10 December 1887 1 December 1888 11 December 1888 11 December 1888 8 January 1889 27 April 1889

a

New York City was the major site for Schumann performances in the United States, but a few works were premiered in Boston, as indicated here. Titles of works are given as they appeared on the New York programs or in reviews. Since the titles of many works were translated into English, German titles or opus numbers, as listed in the Robert Schumann Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, have been added for identification.

Appendix 1.2 Performances Of Schumann’s Symphonies by the New York Philharmonic and the New York Symphony Society Orchestra (SSO), 1853–1898 Symphony no. 1 23 April 1853 7 January 1860 31 January 1863 28 January 1865 18 April 1868 17 January 1874 20 December 1879 10 February 1883 5, 6 March 1886 13 November 1886 7 February 1891 1, 2 April 1892 15, 16 November 1895 2, 3 April 1897

Conductor Eisfeld Eisfeld Eisfeld Eisfeld Bergmann Bergmann Thomas Thomas Damrosch, W. (SSO) Thomas Thomas Damrosch, W. (SSO) Seidl Damrosch, W. (SSO)

Symphony no. 2 14 January 1854 7 March 1857

Conductor Eisfeld Eisfeld

Appendix 1.2 (continued) 7 November 1863 17 November 1866 7 May 1870 18 January 1873 9 December 1876 2, 4 January 1879 15 January 1881 15 March 1884 13 February 1886 8 March 1890 24, 25 March 1893 25, 26 November 1898

Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Damrosch, W. Damrosch, L. (SSO) Thomas Thomas Thomas Thomas Seidl Paur

Symphony no. 3 10 November 1860 2 February 1861 10 March 1866 4 March 1871 12 December 1874 11 January 1879 14 January 1882 13 December 1884 16 November 1889 2 January 1891 17 November 1893 17 April 1896

Conductor Eisfeld Eisfeld Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Neuendorff Thomas Thomas Thomas Damrosch, W. (SSO) Seidl Damrosch, W. (SSO)

Symphony no. 4 12 February 1859 1 February 1862 4 November 1865 6 March 1869 3 February 1872 19 February 1876 3, 5 February 1881 12, 13 January 1883 15 December 1883 23, 24 January 1885 11, 12 March 1887 14 January 1888 15 November 1890 13 February 1892 5, 6 January 1894 3, 4 January 1896 5, 6 March 1897

Conductor Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Bergmann Damrosch, L. (SSO) Damrosch, L. (SSO) Thomas Damrosch, L. (SSO) Damrosch, W. (SSO) Thomas Thomas Seidl Damrosch, W. (SSO) Damrosch, W. (SSO) Seidl

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Notes 1. On a European trip in 1822, Washington Irving (1783–1859), a great music lover and one of America’s first internationally known writers, attended performances of Der Freischütz in Prague and is said to have met Carl Maria von Weber. See Percival R. Kirby, “Washington Irving, Barham Livius, and Weber,” Music and Letters 39 (1950): 133–47. Irving’s works were known to Schumann, who noted in his diary: “Gestern Bracebridge [Hall] von Irving angefangen. Herrlich.” Cited in Robert Schumann Tagebücher, ed. Georg Eismann, vol. 1, 1827–1838 (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971), 415. 2. See Karen E. Ahlquist, Democracy at the Opera: Music, Theater, and Culture in New York City 1815–1860 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 1997; Delmer Dalzell Rogers, “Public Music Performances in New York City from 1800 to 1850,” Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Research 6 (1970): 5–48. 3. Dwight’s Journal of Music 3 (4 June 1853): 69. Dwight’s Journal of Music, founded by John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893), was published from 1852 through 1881. Hereafter referred to as Dwight’s. 4. Dwight’s 4 (28 January 1854): 131–32. 5. Ira Rosenwaike, Population History of New York City (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1972), 33, 36. See also Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 434. 6. Rosenwaike, Population History, 42–43. 7. The inaugural concert of the Philharmonic Society was conducted by Ureli Corelli Hill, the first president of the society. 8. Henry Edward Krehbiel, The Philharmonic Society of New York: A Memorial Published on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Philharmonic Society (New York: Novello, Ewer, 1892), 76. 9. H. L. Albrecht, Skizzen aus dem Leben der Musik-Gesellschaft Germania (Philadelphia, King and Baird: 1869), quoted in H. Earle Johnson, “The Germania Musical Society,” The Musical Quarterly 39, no. 1 (January 1953): 75. 10. “Music in New York twenty-five years since (By a German musician),” Dwight’s 3 (May 1853): 38. 11. Bristow was particularly derisive, complaining that the Philharmonic had been overrun by a German clique whose purpose it was “to crush and extinguish everything American.” Quoted in Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 2: Reverberations, 1850–1856 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 488. 12. Dresel was the only one of the group who knew Schumann personally. When he left Germany in 1848, he sought letters of recommendation from a number of eminent musicians including Schumann. The original Schumann letter of 9 October 1848 (in Houghton Library, Harvard University) is translated in part by David Francis Urrows in his article “Apollo in Athens: Otto Dresel and Boston, 1850–90,” American Music 12 (Winter 1994): 348. 13. Schuberth founded a music publishing house in Hamburg in 1826 and established a branch in Leipzig in 1832. He first came to America in 1843 as manager of the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull (1810–1880) and made several subsequent trips, founding a New York branch of his publishing house in 1850. 14. William Mason, Memories of a Musical Life (New York: Century, 1901), 39–40, 43.

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15. Ibid., 209. 16. Ibid., 209–10. 17. Ibid., 195. One of the “other modern writers” was Johannes Brahms, whom Mason had met in Weimar. He was very much taken with the young man’s genius (see pp. 139–41 in ibid.). The world premiere of Brahms’s Trio in B Major, op. 8, was given in New York City at the opening concert of the Mason-Thomas series on 27 November 1855. 18. Ezra Schabas, Theodore Thomas: America’s Conductor and Builder of Orchestras, 1835–1905 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 38. 19. Ibid., 232. 20. It would not even have been possible to schedule such concerts in puritanical Boston. 21. Dwight’s 1 (10 July 1852): 109. 22. Ibid. (18 September 1852): 189. It was reported in Dwight’s 2 (31 October 1852): 30–31, that 250 copies of Album no. 1 had been sold in the first week. 23. The review appeared on 10 May 1869, p. 5. Edwin Booth, the reader, was the brother of John Wilkes, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The scandal that followed almost ruined Edwin’s career; he retired from acting for some time but eventually returned to the New York stage. He was persuaded to read Manfred by Dr. R. Ogden Doremus, then president of the New York Philharmonic Society (Krehbiel, Philharmonic Society, 68). 24. “Mit Jenny Lind, der lieben herrlichen Künstlerin, trafen wir oft zusammen; sie erbot sich von selbst, in unserem Concert am 10ten zu singen und sang auch. Die vorhergehende Probe vieler meiner Lieder will ich nicht vergessen.” Robert Schumann Tagebücher, ed. Gerd Nauhaus, vol. 2, 1836–1854 (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1982), 411. Schumann is referring to a concert tour to Vienna on which he accompanied his wife, Clara, and where they spent much time with Lind. The concert in which Jenny Lind took part was given in Vienna on 10 January 1847. 25. A copy of the letter he sent with the music is in the Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, Brief-Verzeichnis 1752. 26. The letter, 15 October 1850, from Julius Schuberth to his brother, Fritz, was sent to Robert Schumann. It is in ibid., 4029. 27. The New-York Daily Tribune, 2 March 1855, 1. Mlle. Caroline Lehmann is described as a member of the Opera Royal in Copenhagen. Although the names of the lieder are given in English, they may have been sung in the original language. 28. The New York Tribune, 19 May 1873, 5. 29. Krehbiel, Philharmonic Society, 89. 30. Lawrence, Reverberations, 561–62. 31. The New York Tribune, 17 April 1873, 7. 32. Ibid., 19 May 1873, 5. 33. Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, Repercussions, 1857–1862 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 9. 34. Ibid., 63. 35. The Albion, 30 April 1853, 212. Lawrence, in Reverberations, 420, names Charles Burkhardt as the reviewer. 36. The Albion critic greeted the first performance of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, on 30 March 1856, with these words: “The work of Schumann has no significance whatever. It is impossible to discover a single leading idea and the only

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truth to be extracted from so long a musical poem is that the author is sadly deficient in creative spirit” (5 April 1856, 164). 37. Quoted in Lawrence, Repercussions, 278. 38. Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, Brief-Verzeichnis 1288. 39. Watson’s letter, dated 19 February 1848, and the letter from Charles Burkhardt that follows it are in Biblioteca Jagiellonska, Krakow, Polen, Corr. Bd. 19, Nr. 3450, and are given here courtesy of the Robert-Schumann-Forschungsstelle, Düsseldorf. Watson’s letter is reproduced in full in my article, “Clara Schumann and America,” in Clara Schumann: Komponistin, Interpretin, Unternehmerin, Ikone, eds. Peter Ackermann and Herbert Schneider (Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 1999), 197–98. 40. Charles Burkhardt, a German-born musician, was a bass player in the New York Philharmonic and also worked as an editor and music critic for a number of New York papers. 41. George Loder (1816–1869), English conductor, emigrated to the United States in 1835. He was one of the early conductors of the New York Philharmonic. 42. Felix Mendelssohn had died on 4 November 1847. 43. Geehrter Herr! Als Deutscher, und als Mitarbeiter in der Redaction der beinahe einzigen musikalischen Zeitung in Amerika, erlaube ich mir die Freiheit, vorhergehenden Briefe des Hauptredakteurs einige Worte beizufügen. Wie Ihnen Hr. Watson selber berichtete, ist die Ausführung Ihrer Composition “Paradies u Peri” durch Umstände etwas verzögert worden, wird aber Anfangs April zu Stande kommen, und zwar mit englischem Texte, den Hr. Loder der Dirigent theilweise von Moores Gedicht nahm und der theilweise von mir selbst übersetzt wurde. Mit dem nächsten Havre Packet, werden wir so frei sein, Ihnen einige Nummern unsers Blattes zu-zuschicken,—hiermit übrigens erhalten Sie auch zwei Blätter wovon das eine besonders auf [das] die grosse Mendelssohn Todesfeier Bezug hat, bei der über 12000 [?] Personen zugegen waren, was gewiss einiger Interesse für Sie hat. Sollten Sie uns zu irgend einer Zeit in Zukunft mit Mitteilungen beehren (in Deutsch Französisch oder Englisch nach Belieben) die gewiss von Ihrer Hand in musikalischer Hinsicht das grösste Interesse haben müssen, so wird es uns gewiss das grösste Vergnügen machen dieselben zu publiziren. C. B. Burkhardt. 44. The Albion, 14 December 1847, 479. 45. Ibid., 15 April 1848, 192. 46. H. Earle Johnson, First Performances in America to 1900: Works with Orchestra (Detroit, MI: Information Coordinators, 1979), 331–32.

Chapter Two

Presenting Berlioz’s Music in New York, 1846–1890 Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, Leopold Damrosch Ora Frishberg Saloman

The music of French composer Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) gradually appeared in New York concerts under a radical banner unfurled primarily by three intrepid German-born conductors. They were gifted leaders whose dedication to his challenging scores enabled them to wield immense re-creative power, whether perceived as symbols of “the composer’s actual authority”1 or as important interpreters of culture.2 Berlioz’s reputation in the United States depended on their efforts, since he never visited this country to conduct his own works. That situation differed notably from those in Western Europe and Russia, where his heralded concert tours produced authoritative performances of his music that he had personally rehearsed and conducted. Knowing that in other hands his scores could be rendered incomprehensible without sensitive treatment,

For their gracious assistance in providing information, I thank Wilda M. Heiss, Music Specialist in the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., and Richard C. Wandel, Associate Archivist of the New York Philharmonic, New York. Thanks also to Maurice Edwards, Archivist of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Brooklyn, New York, for kindly allowing me to see the preface and the first two chapters of his unpublished manuscript, “History of the Brooklyn Philharmonic: The Biography of an Orchestra.”

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Berlioz advised composers to conduct their own pieces, for “conductors, never forget, are the most dangerous of all your interpreters.”3 Berlioz’s reputation in New York benefited from the favorable impact of his extensive travels, especially to Germany. Well before his published account of 1844, Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie,4 which chronicled the early concert tours, press reports by Berlioz and others had disseminated vivid details of his German successes.5 Before and especially after 1848, emigrant musicians from Germany increasingly dominated musical organizations in New York and Brooklyn.6 Berlioz’s name would have been familiar to them and to New York audiences, less as the leading French composer of the era than as an artist admired in German locations. In 1846, Berlioz’s overtures Les francs-juges and Le roi Lear became the first complete original compositions to be introduced to New York and America.7 Other occasional performances followed. In 1858, when program notes for a Berlioz Night at Alfred Musard’s Concerts referred to Les francs-juges and Le carnaval romain as the “music of the future,” a skeptical reporter for The Albion could not discern the reason; nor could he understand why Berlioz should have been called “the father of the future.”8 The phrase music of the future recurs frequently in Berlioz criticism in New York. It may represent a distorted reference to Wagner’s book, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (The Artwork of the Future) (1850), but it was used by Liszt and his disciples at Weimar, where Berlioz had been honored, in connection with their idealistic goals for new music. Carolyne, Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, Liszt’s close friend, claimed she had created the term Zukunftsmusik in connection with Wagner’s Lohengrin. Whatever the case, in 1859 Liszt’s circle dropped the phrase music of the future in favor of the less controversial New German School,9 but journalists in New York continued to use the former appellation. The period 1846 to 1890 can be divided into four broad phases in relation to performances of Berlioz’s music in New York. Appendix 2.1 provides information about selected presentations in each. The first, from 1846 through 1862, marks the period of early acquaintance. Although several conductors presented a few pieces, Carl Bergmann dominated the field; Theodore Thomas was then a young violinist. In phase two, from 1863 through 1876, an expanded group of primarily orchestral works or excerpts received more frequent performances. Bergmann and Thomas were both engaged at the helm of orchestras. In phase three, from 1877 to early 1885, Berlioz’s music attained heightened prominence in New York with greater emphasis on complete works, including those for combined vocal and instrumental forces. Leopold Damrosch blazed the trail, but Thomas maintained fruitful activity. Phase four, from mid-1885 to 1890, extended the circle of conductors who programmed Berlioz’s music, although they often performed excerpts. During the entire epoch, keen rivalries between the main conductors, exaggerated by their supporters and fomented by the press, enhanced performance opportunities for Berlioz’s music.

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Carl Bergmann: Hardy Pioneer Carl Bergmann advanced the cause of Berlioz in New York with particular fervor from 1856 to 1876. Born in Ebersbach, Saxony, in 1821, Bergmann immigrated to New York in 1849. He was an accomplished cellist and, subsequently, conductor of the highly regarded Germania Musical Society, which disbanded in 1854. Bergmann joined the Philharmonic Society of New York one year later as cellist and maintained a lengthy association with that orchestra as alternating or sole conductor.10 He was also cellist in pianist William Mason’s chamber music series. At Mason’s request, Bergmann formed a string quartet that included the young Theodore Thomas.11 Friction developed between Bergmann and first violinist Thomas about the ensemble’s musical leadership, a sign of future tensions, and Bergmann eventually withdrew in late November 1860. From the outset, Bergmann’s gifts on the podium were recognized. As an early champion of Berlioz’s music, in 1856 he presented a revival of Les francsjuges with the Philharmonic Society of New York, as well as the American or New York premieres of the overtures Le carnaval romain and Waverley with his Carl Bergmann Orchestra in a Sunday concert series. Despite a tendency to be “a little too vivid” and “impatient,” he could do “very good things with the right material.”12 In 1860, an Albion reporter emphasized that unlike an orchestral leader in distant locations who was apt to be a pianist or a pedant, on this side of the Atlantic he could be, as with Bergmann, “a sensible and well informed man, who knows clearly what he is about, and exercises a wise eclecticism.” The reporter called Bergmann “our best and most liberal minded chef d’orchestre.”13 Bergmann was renowned for his enthusiastic promotion of new music, with emphasis on the works of Richard Wagner, a predilection he shared with Thomas and Damrosch. Commentators in the press could not resist taking aim at “the modern school,” another euphemism of the age, but they accepted Bergmann’s advocacy of it. His temperament suited the acknowledged dynamism of Berlioz’s music. After Bergmann led Les francs-juges with New York’s Philharmonic Orchestra in 1861, a reviewer commented: Wherever Mr. Bergmann is found, two things are inevitable, Liszt’s “Preludes” and Berlioz’s overture. They have both a great deal of “bang” in them, and their respective composers push instrumentation to the verge . . . of distraction. That they possess technical knowledge of a valuable, because progressive, kind is apparent enough.14

In this article, the writer, who did not admire modern music, conceded that Berlioz and Liszt produced striking orchestral effects because they possessed the expertise to introduce new ideas and contemporary techniques, in contrast to Schumann, about whose music he held negative views.

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An outspoken adversary of Berlioz among New York critics was Philadelphiaborn composer and journalist William Henry Fry,15 whose antagonism emanated chiefly from Fry’s preference for symmetrically constructed Italian vocal melody coupled with his knowledgeable impression of Berlioz’s resistance to that style as composer and critic. Having served for six years as European correspondent for Horace Greeley’s Daily Tribune earlier in his career, Fry was aware of Berlioz’s articles in the Journal des débats and the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, in which the French composer railed against the predictability of la phrase carrée, the symmetrically shaped phrase arranged in corresponding antecedent-consequent units.16 La phrase carrée defined an approach that Fry equated with pleasing melodic structure. To reinforce his arguments in its favor, Fry occasionally cited Pietro Scudo, reactionary music critic of the Parisian journal Revue des deux mondes and a vitriolic adversary of Berlioz. Commenting on the Philharmonic Orchestra’s playing of Berlioz’s Le carnaval romain on 9 November 1861 under Bergmann’s direction, Fry asserted: “M. Berlioz is not rich in ideas—and, as M. Scudo says, ‘cannot compose’—given certain requirements for composition— such as lovely melody, graceful connection of phrases, and some other things. But he has a marvelous sense of color, or orchestration, and is noble in his aims.”17 Bergmann had placed Wagner’s Overture to Rienzi on the same program. Fry attacked both composers for their eccentric melodic and rhythmic “oddities.” Fry’s complaints incorporated the primary grounds of controversy inspired by Berlioz’s winding and irregularly shaped melody, with its unexpected metric shifts. The music’s remarkable coloristic combinations, however, were unassailable. They had been produced by the author of the Grand Traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes, parts of which had appeared serially in 1841–1842 before becoming well-known by 1856 in translation as A Treatise upon Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration.18 Other New York critics were more favorably disposed than was Fry. When Bergmann conducted the New York Philharmonic in four of the five movements from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique on 27 January 1866, Charles Bailey Seymour (1829–1869), English-born music critic of The New-York Times, took the management to task for presenting the work without its final movement. He praised conductor Bergmann for the orchestra’s superb playing of the “very difficult pièce de résistance” but denounced the society for its unwillingness to meet the expense of obtaining an additional clarinet in E flat and two bells, as required for the fifth movement. The society justified the omission by asserting that Berlioz had approved the selection of a portion of the symphony “as circumstances may require.” Seymour astutely responded: Berlioz had actually stated that distributing the published program, not the fifth movement, could be dispensed with, if absolutely necessary, in a concert performance if the titles of the five movements were retained; the composer had added his hope that the work offered “enough musical interest in itself independent of all dramatic intention.”19

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Seymour’s important review refers to perceived differences between Berlioz’s youth and his current honored situation. It praises the work as “in every way interesting . . . clear, and even popular,” with special regard for the second and fourth movements. It describes the responsive steadiness of Bergmann’s baton in observing “the many rapid transitions from pppp. to ffff. and pizzicato to bow passages . . . with the greatest precision.” Significantly, it signals Berlioz’s flexible approach toward retaining, minimally, the titles for each movement as suggestive clues to the music’s expressive character. It also points to Seymour’s use of a recent edition containing Berlioz’s new program—designed to accommodate the symphony’s sequel, Lélio, and printed with a German translation—attesting to recognition, especially in Germany, of Berlioz’s prominence.20 Another reviewer, reporting for The Albion, became more typically enmeshed in extramusical considerations but offered corroboration of Bergmann’s conducting ability: he led with a “nervous energy, well calculated to bring out all of the bold originality floating on the surface of the Berlioz and Wagner school,” although the writer thought the “latent dreaminess” of the scenario’s young artist had not fully emerged.21 Performances of the Symphonie fantastique continued to generate hostile comment from conservative commentators unwilling to accept the implications of Berlioz’s stated position that movement titles sufficed without the published program. The extent to which instrumental music could be connected to a program and how that might be accomplished remained explosive issues. At the zenith of Carl Bergmann’s career, he was “the most respected and admired musical leader in the country”; he communicated the beat distinctly “for his band, and not for the audience,” according to nineteenth-century music historian Frédéric Ritter.22 He pioneered new music not merely to introduce novelties but also to foster the deep aspirations emanating from the contemporary artistic spirit. Ritter hailed Bergmann as the genuine originator of the modern music movement in New York, forgotten by those “who have gained most by his plucky labors.”23

Theodore Thomas: Determined Disseminator In 1845, ten-year-old Theodore Thomas and his family emigrated from Esens in Hanover to New York. The teenage violinist played as a resident supplementary string player in the orchestra of French conductor Louis Jullien at Castle Garden in 1853, where he could not have failed to note Jullien’s precision on the podium as well as his ability to construct varied programs that attracted large audiences—two characteristics of Thomas’s later career. In 1854, at age nineteen, Thomas became the youngest member of the first violin section in New York’s Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1862 he conducted his first independent

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orchestral and vocal concert, after which he was engaged as conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra by its society. A bold choice for his Irving Hall concert on 9 May 1863 was the first American performance of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie with soloist Edward Mollenhauer (1827–1914). The work was favorably received. Although he had previously commented negatively about Berlioz, Fry remained consistent in praising enthusiastically the French composer’s mastery of orchestral writing as differently revealed in his Treatise on Instrumentation and in Harold. On this occasion, despite his objections to Berlioz as “an anti-Rossini man” who was “not a melodist,” Fry conceded that Harold’s melodic inventiveness would cause even Scudo to revise his earlier judgment.24 Seymour of the Times hailed Berlioz as an originator of innovative ideas whose Harold “contains the materials for a dozen Liszts and Wagners.” According to Seymour, this piece possessed more melody and coherence than other large works by Berlioz. In Harold, the “thoroughly dramatic” plan emerged clearly with the logical aid of the solo viola, which represented the hero as spectator to a succession of scenes. The remarkable instrumental colors and their sonorous effects proved “the hand of the master, and the daring invention of a man of genius.” Seymour praised Thomas for introducing the work and for conducting his eighty-piece orchestra with “consummate ability.”25 Another English-born music critic, Henry Cood Watson, maintained an independent editorial position in his Watson’s Weekly Art Journal of the 1860s that enabled him to support the Philharmonic Society of New York, despite its faults,26 and still laud Thomas’s newly founded orchestra. Declaring that New York’s cultural activities were neither as numerous nor as varied as those of London, Watson welcomed Thomas’s recognition of New York’s great need for inexpensive popular concerts in establishing evening symphonic programs at Irving Hall in 1864 and well-attended summer concerts at Koch’s Terrace Garden in 1866.27 Contrasting the Thomas orchestra’s frequent concerts with the limitations in rehearsals and programming inherent in the Philharmonic’s five-concert season, Watson credited Thomas with initiating a rigorous rehearsal regimen and a vast expansion of the repertoire. Thomas prohibited his musicians from sending substitutes and enforced the rule by providing them with regular employment (including touring).28 His orchestra was a formidable young rival to the venerable New York Philharmonic, which Watson encouraged to become more progressive.29 In 1867, Thomas visited Berlioz while on a trip to Europe. In his diary, Thomas recounted how Berlioz had inscribed his copy of the Requiem as a gift “To Theodore Thomas in remembrance of the grateful author, Hector Berlioz.”30 After Berlioz died in 1869, Thomas continued to present his music; along with performing works by the classical masters, however, the conductor believed his responsibility was to introduce music by living composers representing varied styles and nationalities.31 Thomas planned concerts according to catholic musical interests and educative principles.32 In earlier years he

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constructed programs around Beethoven and Wagner, with a view to achieving balance, contrast, and a gradual increase in brilliance toward the concert’s finale.33 His manuscript notebooks of programs show that Berlioz’s compositions are well represented but not notably prominent in the 1870s and 1880s.34 The fact that he considered them brilliant and effective can be inferred from their frequent placement as culminating pieces. Among those he programmed often are Le carnaval romain and Le roi Lear, as well as excerpts from La damnation de Faust and Roméo et Juliette. In 1878, Thomas offered views about Carl Bergmann’s past role, as well as the likelihood that Berlioz’s music would receive revivals in the future without attaining “popularity.” In an interview granted to the Tribune, Thomas stated that Bergmann, whose innate capacities he never questioned, had been “probably the best conductor that we have ever had in New York of such works as he was in full sympathy with.” Further, he declared that “in his earlier years” the recently deceased conductor had raised the Philharmonic Society of New York to a previously unequaled level of excellent execution.35 These carefully crafted remarks should be recalled when reading Thomas’s disparaging comments about Bergmann in his later autobiography.36 In the other revelation of 1878, Thomas praised Berlioz’s high gifts but explained in a letter that his scores are so complex that few musicians knew them. To produce them required virtuosity from orchestra and conductor alike. The first could be obtained with sufficient funding, but the second was rare. In addition, Thomas’s autonomist bias created an aesthetic misunderstanding about literary inspiration in Berlioz’s creativity. Awarding highest rank to the classical symphonic lineage interpreted as abstract, Thomas denied Berlioz’s symphonies similar worth because they did not develop the forms received from Haydn and Mozart, as Beethoven did. Instead, they comprise a compositional type Thomas designated “Music for the concert hall, written to scenes from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ [and] ‘Childe Harold.’ ” Faust, too, comprises “nothing but scenes or pictures, strung together.” On this “literal-minded”37 premise, Thomas concluded that Berlioz “required a subject for inspiration,” whereas the “great masters” composed from inner necessity and needed “no outward influence.”38 He reinforced this position elsewhere by privileging Beethoven’s works as seminal for those by Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner.39 His esteem for these composers was based on the degree to which he judged they had followed Beethoven’s path. In Berlioz’s case, his handling of dynamic nuances, new orchestral colors, and contrast comprised positive outer innovations connecting his style to Beethoven without achieving the individuality Thomas equated with Beethovenian “expression of the soul.” This literal approach hindered Thomas from appreciating the subtle imaginative world comprising Berlioz’s innovative genres but reinforced the conductor’s adherence to the compositional markings in a score.

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Leopold Damrosch: Fervent Advocate Leopold Damrosch’s championship of Berlioz’s music directly links the progressive musical ambience abroad to cultural life in New York. Damrosch emigrated from Breslau (Silesia) as an experienced instrumental and choral conductor, violin soloist, and composer who had been a member of Liszt’s inner circle at Weimar. Early success in Berlin as a sonata partner of Hans von Bülow had led to Liszt’s invitation to play in the Weimar Court Orchestra under his direction. Liszt described Weimar as a “musical workshop where every talented artist who strives earnestly and continuously can find satisfaction”; he offered “warmest interest and friendship.”40 During his time there in 1857 and early 1858, Damrosch played many new works and became friendly with the composer Peter Cornelius (1824–1874),41 German translator of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, L’enfance du Christ, and La captive for performances in Weimar. Damrosch learned of the deep bonds of artistic admiration and friendship between Liszt and Berlioz. The latter had been present for tributes and performances of his music at Weimar in 1852, 1855, and 1856.42 When Damrosch became conductor of the Philharmonic Society of Breslau in 1858 and then founder of its choral union, his modernist concerts featuring works by Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz generated considerable opposition.43 In 1871, Damrosch accepted an offer to relocate to New York as conductor of the Arion Society, a German men’s choral group, rather than move to Vienna because he believed that in America he would find “a more receptive public, less hampered by tradition and [with] a genuine willingness to make progress in every field.”44 Damrosch acknowledged in a letter that he was attracted to the “unceasing throbbing life of the city” but was concerned about the difficulties of establishing his name.45 In 1873, he founded the Oratorio Society of New York as a mixed amateur choir, drawing membership primarily from the city’s German families. After the society’s first concert, John R. G. Hassard of the Tribune noted a consistent aspect of the founder’s conducting: “Dr. Damrosch takes the tempi of most of the choruses with more freedom than has been customary in New York, varying the accent and expression by that means with rather striking effect.”46 Damrosch’s flexible approach to tempo was modeled on Liszt’s conducting, well-known for its disregard of standard conducting patterns, to achieve an expressivity based on the arc of a phrase rather than on the individual measure. It represents that era’s modern German style of conducting in which emphasis is placed on the shape of the entire melodic unit, the melos.47 On this point, Berlioz firmly disagreed with Liszt. Berlioz’s manual, The Orchestral Conductor, opens with a clear explanation of conducting patterns, complete with diagrams.48 His comment concerning the “excessive rhythmic fluidity” of Liszt’s playing reinforces this contrast.49

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Damrosch conducted the Philharmonic in 1876–77 following Bergmann’s obligatory resignation after a ten-year tenure as its sole leader and Thomas’s refusal to give up his orchestra to accept the post.50 Damrosch’s challenging programming exacerbated the society’s financial losses. Nevertheless, in his limited time as leader, Damrosch achieved notable results that included the American concert premiere, on 13 January 1877, of excerpts from the second part of Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens. The next season he formed the Leopold Damrosch Orchestra, which he led with his Oratorio Society of New York in the first American performance of Berlioz’s “La fuite en Égypte,” part two of the sacred trilogy L’enfance du Christ, on 15 December 1877. By October 1878, Damrosch had established the Symphony Society of New York; its orchestra, the New York Symphony, drew most of the musicians from the former Damrosch Orchestra. Two memorable Berlioz events occurred in 1879: the New York firm of Henry Holt and Company published an English translation of the composer’s selected letters and essays,51 and Damrosch led the first complete performance in the United States of the Symphonie fantastique with his seventy-five-piece New York Symphony. A review of that event in The New York Evening Post overemphasizes biographical connections rather than imagined states in an artist’s life and voices opposition to the symphony’s unconventional structure. Revealing an autonomist preference, the writer names as authoritative Robert Schumann, August Wilhelm Ambros, and Edouard Hanslick. He revisits the contentious issue of programmatic association in instrumental music, although acknowledging that Beethoven combined music and text in his Ninth Symphony. Stressing that Berlioz’s second and third movements can be admired without a program, the reviewer questions the unfamiliar fifth movement’s “doubtful taste . . . wildness and . . . utter want of traditional form.” He concludes, however, that Berlioz was a genius who “opened a new road” for others, including Wagner and Liszt.52 Almost a year later, after an enthusiastically received public rehearsal two days earlier, Damrosch led his vocal and instrumental organizations in the first complete New York performance of La damnation de Faust on 14 February 1880.53 In Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Frederick Nast greeted that premiere as one of the two “most important musical events of the past year in New York” and lauded the opportunity to hear familiar excerpts in the perspective of the whole, with its striking contrasts.54 La damnation de Faust became so widely acclaimed that Damrosch programmed the complete work eleven times within a three-year period. Another milestone occurred as part of Damrosch’s five-day Music Festival, mounted in the Seventh Regiment Armory, when, on 4 May 1881, an estimated 10,000 listened to the first complete performance in America of the monumental Grande messe des morts, or Requiem. The soloists, 1,200 choristers, and 225 orchestral players had been carefully prepared in months of separate, and then

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coordinated, rehearsals. Praising the work’s powerful qualities, the Times reviewer asserted that although Berlioz had not hesitated “to discard traditions,” he was justly acclaimed as “a musical inventor.” It was now well understood “among musical people . . . that [Berlioz] was a writer of commanding genius.”55 Damrosch mounted the first complete New York performance of Roméo et Juliette on 8 April 1882. Genteel sensibilities considered that its initial literary inspiration transcended the harsh features of the Symphonie fantastique’s program; it was received as a work of beauty whose “Scène d’amour” and “La reine Mab Scherzo” were especially pleasing.56 Damrosch and his loyal forces also produced the first complete American performance of all three parts of L’enfance du Christ on 18 December 1882. Throughout that remarkable period, as Damrosch led complete performances of Berlioz’s works, Thomas continued to present varied selections—including Act Two from each of the two parts of Les Troyens— in concert performances during his Music Festivals of 1882 and 1883, respectively, with the Thomas Orchestra and a nucleus of singers from his recently formed New York Chorus Society. The untimely passing of Leopold Damrosch in February 1885 abruptly closed a decisive epoch. As the next conductor of the New York Symphony and the Oratorio Society of New York, Walter Damrosch carried forward his father’s avowed admiration of Berlioz.57 In the fourth phase of continued activity, from 1885 to 1890, Walter Damrosch and Thomas shared leadership with a widening circle of conductors. They included American-born Frank Van der Stucken (1858–1929), who presented several concert performances of Les Troyens à Carthage in 1887.58

Conclusion Berlioz once stated about his compositions that “to perform them well, everybody concerned, the conductor most of all, must feel as I feel.”59 To arrive at that high standard would require an excellent conductor, and Berlioz described in his Memoirs the varied qualities he deemed most essential: “precision, flexibility, sensitivity, intensity, presence of mind, combined with an indefinable instinct.”60 Bergmann, Thomas, and Leopold Damrosch may have possessed that indefinable instinct, but each also manifested some of the other characteristics Berlioz named that contributed to the different ways in which they successfully communicated his music. Thus Bergmann, in his prime, revealed sensitivity; Thomas emphasized precision with presence of mind; and Damrosch manifested flexibility with intensity. The ardent musical temperaments of both Bergmann and Damrosch suited well the “inward intensity” emanating from Berlioz’s music.61 Thomas’s decisive beat and control of his forces most resembled the “air of command” for which Berlioz as conductor was celebrated.62 Bergmann courageously forged a path in an epoch when Berlioz’s radical music was least comprehensible, Thomas clearly disseminated it to diverse audiences, and Damrosch imbued

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complete works, including the choral music, with the passion of an exponent. Their exceptional leadership fostered growing support for Berlioz’s compositions despite the controversy new music aroused. An 1881 article in the Tribune hinted at the contradictions Berlioz’s works posed in that period. The writer acknowledged that Berlioz’s music was gaining popularity by gratifying the contemporary “love of sensation and excitement which distinguishes our reckless high-pressure lives,” but it also caused listeners to clamor for “stronger sensations.”63 Musicians, audiences, and writers in the press wrestled with their constraints as well as with the music’s inherent difficulties. The trajectory of Berlioz’s career, from the early instrumental works to the later large dramatic pieces combining vocal and instrumental forces, has a parallel in the reception history of his music during the second half of the nineteenth century in New York: audiences there initially became acquainted with his overtures and symphonies but only gradually experienced opportunities to hear the big dramatic vocal works. Before 1890, New Yorkers grouped Berlioz together with Liszt and Wagner as avant-garde composers. They perceived Berlioz to be an innovator of unconventional symphonies with programmatic connections, as well as a composer who possessed exceptional mastery of orchestral resources. Only in the second half of the twentieth century did exemplary achievements in both scholarship and performance create new opportunities enabling the broad public to discover the strikingly distinctive stylistic individuality of Berlioz’s music.

Appendix 2.1 Selected Performances of Hector Berlioz’s Works in New York, 1846–1890 Date 1846 7 March

21 November

1853 26 November 1856 12 January 13 April

Short title

Main organization Conductor

Les francs-juges— first American performance Le roi Lear— first American performance

PSNY

A. Boucher

PSNY

G. Loder

Le roi Lear

PSNY

T. Eisfeld

Les francs-juges Le carnaval romain—first American performance

PSNY CBO

C. Bergmann C. Bergmann

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Appendix 2.1 (continued) Date

Short title

Main organization Conductor

25 May

Waverley— first New York performance

CBO

C. Bergmann

Berlioz Night

Alfred Musard’s Concerts

C. Anschütz

1859 26 April

Rêverie et caprice

Mason’s Concerts

T. Thomas, violin

1860 10 and 16 February 12 May

Weber, Der Freischütz, with Berlioz’s recitatives Rêverie et caprice

Ullman Opera, C. Bergmann Academy of Music Mason’s Concerts T. Thomas, violin

1861 16 March 9 November 14 December

Les francs-juges Le carnaval romain Les francs-juges

PSNY PSNY PSB

C. Bergmann C. Bergmann C. Bergmann

1862 8 March

Le carnaval romain

PSB

C. Bergmann

Le corsaire—first American Performance Les francs-juges Harold en Italie— first American performance

PSB

T. Thomas

PSNY Irving Hall Orchestra, Edward Mollenhauer, viola

C. Bergmann T. Thomas

TTO

T. Thomas

17 December

Roméo et Juliette, Part 2— first American performance Le roi Lear

PSNY

T. Eisfeld

1865 11 March

Le carnaval romain

PSNY

C. Bergmann

Symphonie fantastique, four movements Harold en Italie

PSNY

C. Bergmann

TTO, George Matzka, viola

T. Thomas

1858 19, 20, 21, and 23 April

1863 7 March

25 April 9 May

1864 3 December

1866 27 January 24 March

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presenting berlioz’s music in new york Appendix 2.1 (continued) Date

Short title

Main organization Conductor

21 April 15 December

Les francs-juges Le carnaval romain

PSNY PSNY

C. Bergmann C. Bergmann

Roméo et Juliette, Part 1 Roméo et Juliette, Parts 3 and 4—first American performance Overture to Benvenuto Cellini—first American performance

PSB

T. Thomas

PSNY

C. Bergmann

PSB

T. Thomas

Overture, Benvenuto Cellini Roméo et Juliette, Part 2 Symphonie fantastique, movements 3 and 4

TTO

T. Thomas

PSB PSNY

T. Thomas C. Bergmann

Symphonie fantastique, two movements

PSB

C. Bergmann

1870 8 January

Le roi Lear

PSNY

C. Bergmann

1871 6 May

Le carnaval romain

PSNY

C. Bergmann

La damnation de Faust, three excerpts Roméo et Juliette, “Scène d’amour”

TTO

T. Thomas

PSNY

C. Bergmann

Roméo et Juliette, two parts

PSB

T. Thomas

1874 7 November 12 December

Harold en Italie Le carnaval romain

TTO PSNY

T. Thomas C. Bergmann

1875 24 April 9 September 9 September

Les francs-juges Le carnaval romain Harold en Italie

PSNY TTO TTO

C. Bergmann T. Thomas T. Thomas

1867 19 January 20 April

9 November

1868 21 March 4 April 28 November 1869 18 December

1872 5 September 14 December 1873 20 December

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Appendix 2.1 (continued) Date 1877 13 January 13 January

17 February 15 December 15 December

1878 12 January 1879 1 March

5 April 22 November

Short title

Main organization Conductor

Absence Les Troyens à Carthage, quintuor, septuor, choeur—first American performance Roméo et Juliette, three excerpts La damnation de Faust, excerpts “La fuite en Égypte” from L’enfance du Christ—first American performance

PSNY PSNY and OSNY

L. Damrosch L. Damrosch

PSB

T. Thomas

PSB

T. Thomas

Roméo et Juliette, “Scène de bal”

PSNY

Symphonie fantastique— first complete American performance Le carnaval romain Le roi Lear

LDO and OSNY L. Damrosch

SSNY

T. Thomas

L. Damrosch

PSNY PSNY

A. Neuendorff T. Thomas

SSNY, OSNY, and AS

L. Damrosch

13 November 20 November

La damnation de Faust—first complete New York performance Harold en Italie Harold en Italie

PSNY PSB

T. Thomas T. Thomas

1881 2 April 9 April 4 May

Le cinq mai Roméo et Juliette, excerpts La captive

SSNY and OSNY L. Damrosch PSNY T. Thomas SSNY and Annie L. Damrosch Louise Cary SSNY and OSNY L. Damrosch

1880 14 February

4 May 5 November

Requiem—first complete American performance Symphonie fantastique

SSNY

L. Damrosch

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presenting berlioz’s music in new york Appendix 2.1 (continued) Date

Short title

Main organization Conductor

26 November 17 December

Requiem, Sanctus Béatrice et Bénédict, Nocturne–duo

SSNY and OSNY PSB

L. Damrosch T. Thomas

Benvenuto Cellini, duet Benvenuto Cellini, duet, recitative, and aria Roméo et Juliette—first complete New York performance La prise de Troie, Act 2 Requiem, complete performance L’enfance du Christ—first complete American performance

PSNY TTO

T. Thomas T. Thomas

SSNY and OSNY

L. Damrosch

TTO and NYCS SSNY and OSNY

T. Thomas L. Damrosch

SSNY and OSNY

L. Damrosch

La damnation de SSNY and OSNY Faust—eleventh complete performance by L. Damrosch Les Troyens à Carthage, TTO and NYCS Act 2 Le roi Lear PSNY

L. Damrosch

1882 11 February 25 March 6 and 8 April

6 May 15 and 16 November 18 December

1883 31 March

6 May 10 November 1884 6 February 16 February 20 December 1885 10 January 5 February 14 March 12 November 19 November 19 November

La damnation de Faust, excerpts Roméo et Juliette, Scherzo Le carnaval romain Overture, Benvenuto Cellini Tristia—first American performance Symphonie fantastique La damnation de Faust, excerpts Requiem Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, “Apothéose”

T. Thomas T. Thomas

PSB

T. Thomas

PSNY SSNY

T. Thomas L. Damrosch

PSNY

T. Thomas

TTO and NYCS

T. Thomas

PSNY PSB

T. Thomas T. Thomas

SSNY and OSNY

Walter Damrosch W. Damrosch

SSNY and OSNY

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Appendix 2.1 (continued) Date

Short title

Main organization Conductor

21 November

Overture, Benvenuto Cellini Berlioz’s Night

PSB

T. Thomas

TTO

T. Thomas

La damnation de Faust Symphonie fantastique La damnation de Faust, excerpts Le roi Lear Roméo et Juliette, excerpt Le roi Lear

SSNY and OSNY PSB TTO and NYCS

W. Damrosch T. Thomas T. Thomas

PSNY PSB PSB

T. Thomas T. Thomas T. Thomas

L’île inconnue Les Troyens à Carthage, English concert performances Roméo et Juliette, Part 2 Roméo et Juliette, three parts

PSNY AS

T. Thomas F. Van der Stucken

SSNY and OSNY TTO

W. Damrosch T. Thomas

Le spectre de la rose Roméo et Juliette, three parts Le roi Lear Harold en Italie

PSB PSB SSNY SSNY

T. Thomas T. Thomas W. Damrosch W. Damrosch

TTO

T. Thomas

12 March

La damnation de Faust, excerpts Roméo et Juliette, Scherzo

W. Gericke

23 November

Le carnaval romain

Boston SO at Steinway Hall SSNY TTO

T. Thomas

8 December 1886 6 February 27 February 11 March 13 March 23 March 17 April 1887 15 January 26 February and 11 March 16 April 22 November 1888 17 February 17 February 25 February 15 December 1889 5 February

1890 2 January

La damnation de Faust, excerpts

W. Damrosch

AS ⫽ Arion Society; CBO ⫽ Carl Bergmann Orchestra; LDO ⫽ Leopold Damrosch Orchestra; NYCS ⫽ New York Chorus Society; OSNY ⫽ Oratorio Society of New York; PSB ⫽ Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn; PSNY ⫽ Philharmonic Society of New York; SSNY ⫽ Symphony Society of New York; TTO ⫽ Theodore Thomas Orchestra.

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Notes 1. Edward T. Cone, “A Lesson from Berlioz,” in The Composer’s Voice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 88. 2. Lawrence Kramer, Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 14–20, 187–89. 3. Hector Berlioz, The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz, trans. and ed. by David Cairns (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 237. See also D. Kern Holoman, “The Emergence of the Orchestral Conductor in Paris in the 1830s,” in Music in Paris in the Eighteen-Thirties, ed. Peter Bloom (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1987), 417–18. 4. Hector Berlioz, Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie, 2 vols. (Paris: Jules Labitte, 1844). 5. David Cairns, Berlioz. Vol. 2: Servitude and Greatness 1832–1869 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 261–98. 6. Howard Shanet, Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 38, 61, 72, 80–81, 109–110, 122, 138–45; letter by Theodore Eisfeld in Henry C. Watson, Watson’s Weekly Art Journal 1, no. 6 (4 June 1864): 89: “[N]early all the performers in the [Brooklyn] Philharmonic are Germans. Is this to be wondered at? We Germans are brought up to be the best orchestral performers, and that fact is recognized all over the world”; Edwin T. Rice, “Personal Recollections of Leopold Damrosch,” The Musical Quarterly 28, no. 3 (July 1942): 271, in Box 1, Folder 14, Damrosch–Tee Van Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress. Rehearsals of the orchestra of the New York Symphony Society were then “conducted in the German language, for the musicians were predominantly German in nationality.” For further information and bibliography about the musical forty-eighters, see Nancy Newman, “Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society and Transatlantic Musical Culture in the MidNineteenth Century,” Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 2002. General cultural information is available in Henry A. Pochmann, German Culture in America: Philosophical and Literary Influences, 1600–1900 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957). 7. H. Earle Johnson, First Performances in America to 1900: Works with Orchestra (Detroit: Information Coordinators, 1979), 61. For information about the first performances of Berlioz’s orchestrations of Leopold de Meyer’s Marche marocaine and Marche d’Isly, see R. Allen Lott, From Paris to Peoria: How European Piano Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 19–20, 313; Lott, “A Berlioz Premiere in America: Leopold de Meyer and the Marche d’Isly,” 19th-Century Music 8, no. 3 (1985): 226–30. 8. Raimond, “Music,” The Albion 36, no. 17 (24 April 1858): 199. Also performed on the Berlioz Night program were his arrangement of Rákóczy March and his orchestration of Carl Maria von Weber’s Aufforderung zum Tanz, listed as Invitation to the Dance. The same journal reprinted from the London Athenaeum a positive appraisal of Berlioz’s knowledge and skill in supervising the successful 1860 Parisian revival of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orphée. See “Music,” The Albion 38, no. 8 (25 February 1860): 91. 9. Alan Walker, Franz Liszt, Vol. 2: The Weimar Years, 1848–1861 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 336–37, 511. See also William Mason, Memories of a Musical Life (New York: Century, 1901), 168.

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10. For basic information, see H. Wiley Hitchcock and Joseph Horowitz, “Bergmann, Carl,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), 3: 343. See also Shanet, Philharmonic, 132, 136–39, 143, 147–50, 154–59, 161, 169–71. For Bergmann’s earlier connection to the Germania Musical Society, see Newman, “Good Music for a Free People.” 11. Mason, Memories of a Musical Life, 193–97. 12. “The German Opera,” The Albion 35, no. 1 (3 January 1857): 7–8; “Music,” The Albion 38, no. 2 (14 January 1860): 19. 13. [“Robin”], “Music,” ibid., 38, no. 52 (29 December 1860): 619. 14. “Music,” ibid., 39, no. 12 (23 March 1861): 139. 15. For basic information, see David E. Campbell, “Fry, William Henry,” in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1986), 2: 174. 16. For discussion of Berlioz’s rhythmic originality, see Julian Rushton, The Musical Language of Berlioz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 142–43. 17. [William Henry Fry], “Amusements. The Philharmonic Concert,” The New-York Daily Tribune (11 November 1861), 7. 18. Hector Berlioz, Grand Traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes (Paris: Schonenberger, 1843; rev. Paris, 1855; Eng. trans. Mary Cowden Clarke as A Treatise upon Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration [London: J. A. Novello, 1856; 2nd ed. London: Novello, Ewer, 1858], rev. 1882). See also Hugh Macdonald, “Berlioz, (Louis-) Hector,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., 3: 406, 415; Joël-Marie Fauquet, “The Grand Traité d’instrumentation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Berlioz, ed. Peter Bloom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 164–70; Berlioz’s Orchestration Treatise: A Translation and Commentary, trans. and ed. by Hugh Macdonald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 19. [Charles Bailey Seymour], “Amusements,” The New-York Times (26 January 1866), 5. See Programs of the Philharmonic Society of New York, unpaginated, Archives of the Philharmonic Society of New York. For further information about Berlioz’s statement, see Nicholas Temperley, ed., “The Programme,” in Foreword, and “Versions of the Programme,” in Critical Notes, Hector Berlioz. New Edition of the Complete Works (New Berlioz Edition): Symphonie fantastique (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1972), 16: x, 170. See also Edward T. Cone, “The Symphony and the Program,” in Hector Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, ed. Cone, A Norton Critical Score (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 30–31. 20. Cone, “The Symphony,” 31. 21. “Music,” The Albion 44, no. 5 (3 February 1866): 55. 22. Frédéric Louis Ritter, Music in America (1890; New York: Johnson Reprint Co., 1970), 370–71, 462–65. 23. Ibid., 464. 24. [William Henry Fry], “Amusements,” The New York Daily Tribune (11 May 1863), 3. 25. [Charles Bailey Seymour], “Amusements,” The New-York Times (11 May 1863), 4; see also a reprint of most of that review in “Music,” The Albion 41, no. 20 (16 May 1863): 235. 26. Henry C. Watson, ed., “New York Philharmonic Society,” Watson’s Weekly Art Journal 1, no. 24 (8 October 1864): 377.

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27. Ibid., “Editorial” 1, no. 1 (30 April 1864): 8; Watson, “Warm Weather” and Advertisements, American Art Journal 5, no. 12 (12 July 1866): 179, 191; ibid., Advertisement, 5, no. 21 (13 September 1866): 335. 28. Watson, “Theodore Thomas,” Watson’s Art Journal, 14, no. 1 (5 November 1870): 4. 29. Ibid., “Editorial Glances,” 14, no. 3 (19 November 1870): 30. 30. Rose Fay Thomas, Memoirs of Theodore Thomas (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1911), 37. 31. Ibid., 67–68; See also Ezra Schabas, Theodore Thomas: America’s Conductor and Builder of Orchestras, 1835–1905 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 25, 29, 140–42, 232, 256. 32. George P. Upton, “Reminiscence and Appreciation,” in Theodore Thomas, Theodore Thomas: A Musical Autobiography, George P. Upton, ed. 2 vols. (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1905), 1: 152; Charles Edward Russell, The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1927), 43. 33. Thomas, “Introduction,” in Upton, ed., Theodore Thomas, 2: 15–17. 34. Theodore Thomas, “Programs of concerts given by Theodore Thomas while conductor of his own orchestra in New York City; the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society of New York and the Philharmonic Society (of Brooklyn, New York), the Theodore Thomas Orchestra of Chicago, and the Orchestral Association Orchestra (of Chicago),” 46 manuscript vols., mainly in Thomas’s handwriting, vols. 1–29 (1871–1889), Music Division, Library of Congress. 35. “Theodore Thomas. His Opinions on Musical Matters,” The New-York Daily Tribune (28 August 1878), 5. See also the clipping in Box 96, Damrosch-Blaine Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress. 36. Thomas, Theodore Thomas, “Life Work”, 1: 36–37. See Rose Fay Thomas, Memoirs, 24–25, for the view that her husband acknowledged Bergmann’s talent but believed he lacked thoroughness and a standard of performance commensurate with Thomas’s ideals. More egregious is Upton’s unsubstantiated assertion that Thomas “had no precedents, no traditions, no experiences of others to aid him in his great task”; see Upton, “Reminiscence and Appreciation,” in Thomas, Theodore Thomas, 1: 217. 37. Sam Franko, an American-born violinist who had played in the orchestras of both Thomas and Leopold Damrosch, thus described Thomas as part of a larger contrast between the two leaders. Franko’s comment, which appears in his Chords and Discords, is quoted in George Martin, The Damrosch Dynasty: America’s First Family of Music (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), 49–50. 38. Letter by Thomas quoted in Rose Fay Thomas, Memoirs, 142–43. 39. Thomas, “Introduction,” in Thomas, Theodore Thomas, 2: 28–30. 40. Photographic reproduction in German and translation of autograph signed letter from Franz Liszt to Leopold Damrosch, 1, in Box 1, Folder 21, Damrosch–Tee Van Collection. 41. Frank Damrosch, “Biography of Leopold Damrosch,” typescript, 7, in Box 1, Folder 11, Damrosch–Tee Van Collection. 42. Walker, Liszt, the Weimar Years, 7, 20, 161–62, 255–58, 288–90; Berlioz, Memoirs, 606–7. 43. Damrosch, “Biography,” 3. Walker, Liszt, the Weimar Years, 296, suggests that Damrosch’s position in Breslau was part of Liszt’s plan to place his disciples in important posts throughout Germany to fight for new music. 44. Damrosch, “Biography,” 5.

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45. Typed translation by “H. D.” of letter from Leopold Damrosch (19 May 1872), 1–2, in Box 1, Folder 19, Damrosch–Tee Van Collection. The original letter is not available at the Library of Congress. 46. Cited in H.[enry] E.[dward] Krehbiel, Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music and the Oratorio Society of New York (1884; reprint, New York: AMS, 1970), 64. 47. Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Conductors (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 156–62; Walter Damrosch, My Musical Life (1923; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972), 24. 48. Berlioz, “The Orchestral Conductor. Theory of his Art,” in Clarke, A Treatise upon Modern Instrumentation, 2nd ed., 245–57. See also Elliott Galkin, A History of Orchestral Conducting in Theory and Practice (New York: Pendragon, 1988), 274–85. 49. Berlioz, Memoirs, 607. 50. H.[enry] E.[dward] Krehbiel, The Philharmonic Society of New York: A Memorial, reprint in Early Histories of the New York Philharmonic (1892; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1979), 70. 51. Hector Berlioz: Selections from his Letters, and Aesthetic, Humorous, and Satirical Writings, trans. William F. Apthorp (1879; reprint, Portland, OR: Longwood, 1976). 52. “Music and the Drama. The Fifth Symphony Concert at Steinway Hall,” The New York Evening Post (3 March 1879), 4. See also the clipping in Box 96, DamroschBlaine Collection. 53. “Record of Amusements. Musical and Dramatic. ‘La Damnation de Faust,’” The New-York Times (13 February 1880), 5, and (15 February 1880), 7; see also Rice, “Personal Recollections,” 271, in Box 1, Folder 14, Damrosch–Tee Van Collection. Although Rice and press accounts usually allude to this performance as the first complete one in America based on its billing, Thomas had accomplished that in Boston two weeks earlier with his orchestra; see Martin, Damrosch Dynasty, 55. 54. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 62, no. 72 (May 1881): 806–7, in Box 4, Folder 31, Mannes-Damrosch Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress. The other significant musical event of that year, according to Nast, was the performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, described as “Bach’s Passion Music,” conducted by Damrosch in St. George’s Church. 55. “Dr. Damrosch’s Triumph. Second Day of the Great Music Festival. The Evening Concert,” The New-York Times (5 May 1881), 5. See also a clipping in Damrosch Scrapbook, 9, in Box 61, Damrosch-Blaine Collection, as well as a piano score of the Requiem transcribed by Leopold Damrosch [with Walter Damrosch’s assistance] published by G. Schirmer (1880), in Box 2, Folder 3, Damrosch–Tee Van Collection. 56. Unidentified New York newspaper clippings, 7 and 9 April 1882, in Damrosch Scrapbook, 32, in Box 61, Damrosch-Blaine Collection. A very well-attended public rehearsal took place on 6 April 1882. 57. Walter Damrosch states: “From my father I have inherited a deep admiration for Hector Berlioz and have conducted many performances of his greater works”; see Damrosch, My Musical Life, 180. 58. “Musical Notes,” The New-York Times (26 February 1887), 4. 59. Berlioz, “Postscript: Letter to M.–,” Memoirs, 526. See also Edward T. Cone, “Inside the Saint’s Head: The Music of Berlioz,” in Music: A View from Delft: Selected Essays, ed. Robert P. Morgan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 241. 60. Berlioz, Memoirs, 32–33. See also Holoman, “Emergence of the Orchestral Conductor,” 427.

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61. It was one of the “predominant features” of his music, according to Berlioz, “Postscript: Letter to M.–,” Memoirs, 524. 62. [Charles Hallé], The Autobiography of Charles Hallé with Correspondence and Diaries, ed. Michael Kennedy (pub. as The Life and Letters of Sir Charles Hallé: Being an Autobiography [1819–1860] with Correspondence and Diaries, ed. C. E. Hallé and Marie Hallé, 1896; New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 86. See also Schonberg, The Great Conductors, 107–14. 63. “Hector Berlioz,” 4. See also clipping in Box 97, Folder 1, Scrapbook, 15, Damrosch-Blaine Collection.

Chapter Three

Liszt (and Wagner) in New York, 1840–1890 Rena Charnin Mueller

August Göllerich once wrote that whenever faced with a puzzle concerning Franz Liszt, he always looked to Richard Wagner for the answer.1 And so it is with this brief overview of the reception of Liszt’s music in the concert life of nineteenthcentury New York. Liszt’s entire career was heavily interlaced with that of his contemporary, and, to a large extent, the reception of his music declined in almost direct proportion to the ascent of Wagner’s in New York. Clearly, Liszt’s music rose and then fell in the general public’s taste while he was still alive and active, during and following the American Civil War—a situation that directly paralleled his performances on European programs—which was somewhat a result of Liszt’s own actions. After negative reviews in Germany greeted the premieres of a good number of the symphonic poems and other major orchestral works in the late 1850s and early 1860s, Liszt actively discouraged performances except when hard-pressed. He was not an opera composer, and his compositional attention had turned to semisacred works—music that was hardly suited to the contemporary concert venues of Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna as well as those in the United States. Thus the European perception that Liszt’s orchestral music was not widely accessible in the post-1860 period (the first print run of the symphonic poems was only one hundred copies) was also prevalent in America, and this resulted in the repetition of many more familiar works that then became—for want of a better word—hackneyed. At the same time, Wagner’s operas were arriving on the concert stage, often as a result of Liszt’s efforts, and then making their way to the opera houses—a kind of “double whammy” few other composers enjoyed. I will not retrace Joseph Horowitz’s admirable steps in chronicling the career of Anton Seidl (1850–1898) and his contribution to the course of Wagner’s music in New York in the so-called Gilded Age—that is, post–Civil War America up through World War I.2 And others in these pages will relate the stories of the

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Philharmonic Society and its conductors—Eisfeld, Bergmann, Leopold Damrosch and the dynasty that followed him, and Thomas and his orchestra. My story deals only in part with these gigantic figures in American musical life but also describes some of the other important individuals—men and women who were disciples, direct pupils, or associates—such as Édé Reményi (1828–1898), William Mason, Hans von Bülow (1830–1894), Rafael Joseffy (1879–1915), Anton Seidl, Julia Rivé-King (1855–1937), and Adele Aus der Ohe (1864–1937) and individuals on both sides of the Atlantic who were stimulated by the forward reach of the so-called Neudeutsche Schule, such as Agricol Paur (1823–1897) of the Deutscher Liederkranz in New York, the pianist Sebastian Bach Mills (1838–1898), and the singer Emma Thursby (1845–1931). As early as 1841, programming in New York had led one major New York critic to say that the city was far ahead of Europe in the modernization of musical events,3 and these Liszt disciples only added to the luster of the events. By the time a piece of Liszt’s music was first performed on a New York stage, which appears to have been in 1839 when the émigré Polish pianist C. Kossowski played the Liszt Grand Galop chromatique (LW A43)4 at the Apollo Rooms on 4 November,5 Liszt had already embarked on his monumental eight-year concert tour, which took him across the length and breadth of Europe—from St. Petersburg in the north to Constantinople in the south, from Ireland to Kiev.6 The Grand Galop was a popular bauble of a piece, a staple of Liszt’s concert repertory even well before it was published in 1838. After publication, it was standard fare for any aspiring concert pianist. Liszt’s published music followed two paths at this point in his compositional development: the original compositions, such as the Galop, the early versions of the Hungarian Rhapsodies, the Transcendental Etudes, and the Paganini Etudes, which included keyboard pyrotechnics; and virtuostic yet contemplative works, such as the early versions of the Années de pèlerinage, then called the Album d’un voyageur. But Liszt was also heatedly creating an entirely new repertory for himself in his newly invented “solo recital”; for these concert stage appearances he was fashioning works that were original to him: transcriptions of Schubert lieder from Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise, and Schwanengesang; transcriptions of Beethoven’s Adelaide and the Beethoven Symphonies for solo piano; and a host of piano fantasies and transcriptions, such as the Lucia Fantasy, of Italian, French, and German operatic fare currently popular on the European scene.7 In 1847, Liszt’s virtuoso reputation in Europe rested on these piano collections alone. No orchestral music was yet in print; indeed, almost none had been composed apart from the early versions of the piano concertos.8 Liszt was considered “the greatest pianist alive today”—a title he shared fitfully with Sigismund Thalberg. After their 1837 Paris “duel of the pianists,” Cristina Belgiojoso quipped “Thalberg is the greatest pianist alive today, but Liszt is the only one.”9 Liszt settled in Weimar in 1847 as Kapellmeister for the Grand Duke of SaxeWeimar-Eisenach, head of a particularly well-connected and enlightened noble

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family whose in-laws were the rulers of Russia.10 Though enlightened, the small court was a stifling environment where Liszt’s flamboyant personality and unorthodox living arrangements with his still-married companion, Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, led to much social ostracism for her, which inevitably spilled over into his relationships in the town as well.11 At a time when Europe was erupting in flames, Weimar remained a bastion of stability. Liszt, however, was actively engaged in a series of polemical writings and compositions that dealt with his ideal of the relationship of art to life and of artists to their environment—an ideal clearly not on the horizon for him.12 He grew increasingly at odds with the theatrical Intendant over questions of programming and money, as Alan Walker documents: Weimar was, and always remained, a city of the stage. Music was of secondary importance in Carl Alexander’s grandiose scheme to revive the cultural life of “the Athens of the North,” [as Weimar was called at the time]. And even when a Franz Liszt was placed in charge of its development, the literary traditions of the city were too powerful for him to correct the imbalance. Weimar never had a separate concert hall—a plain enough symbol of music’s second-class standing there. The practical difficulties arising from that simple fact became the bane of Liszt’s existence.13

Only a year after his arrival in Weimar, Liszt was already impatient with his position and was musing over an invitation for a concert tour in America in 1849 that included both the East and West coasts. His secretary, Gaetano Belloni, had left his service and emigrated to Paris, where, upon encountering Berlioz, he told him of Liszt’s American invitation. That conversation resulted in an undated letter from Berlioz to Liszt, one that clearly reflects one of the worst periods in the French upheaval: Belloni told me of all the troubles you have been having. I was very upset, as you can well imagine. But I know how energetic and decisive you are in times of crisis. Still your project for a tour of the United States seems violent to me—to cross the Atlantic to make music for Yankees who just now are only thinking of California gold! You are the best judge of the advisability of such a trip. As for what can be done here beforehand, I really don’t know: it changes from day to day with the riot-meter.14

Liszt did not pursue the American tour and never again contemplated such a journey, although more than one of his American students urged him to make the trip. His rationale for declining to undertake such a tour, while unspoken, can be easily surmised: like Tchaikovsky many years later, Liszt realized that “piano, vocal and string music received the best coverage [in the press], with only a passing condescending mention of conductors, who ‘adroitly’ or ‘competently’ managed the orchestra. Any serious analyses of their performance were out of the question. As to the concert-goers—even the most sophisticated ones—they seldom even wondered who was conducting.”15 His fame as a

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conductor was not yet as great as that of a composer for the piano, but Liszt was determined never again to mount the stage for a solo recital for a fee. It was conducting—of orchestral music, both his own and that of his contemporaries, and of opera—that now engaged him, and because in America he was wanted simply as a piano virtuoso, he would not make the trip. It therefore remained for his students, major European artists who toured America following Liszt’s tutelage as well as native Americans who returned home, to bring with them the learning and knowledge of his compositional oeuvre. The works we can document as having been played regularly in the major concert venues in New York in particular fall into two categories and are listed in appendix 3.1 by medium. The column on the right gives the original date of publication and the performer(s) listed as giving the premieres. The sources for this information include newspapers, diaries, and recollections of the individuals. At least two of these compositions were not original works by Liszt but were presented as such, either for the sake of the performer or simply through misadventure. The preeminent sources for anyone working in this area are the Strong diaries, with extensive commentary by the late Vera Brodsky Lawrence.16 Strong disliked Liszt intensely, and Mrs. Lawrence touched only gingerly on this attitude when she said: I have not allowed my admiration for Strong’s dazzling journal to deafen me to the dissonant ostinato of social snobbery, intellectual intolerance, and religious and ethnic bigotry with which his otherwise witty and graceful pages are tainted. (Strong often applies these characteristics as well to his musical dislikes, notably in disdaining his bêtes noires Berlioz, Verdi, and Liszt.)17

Strong’s views were not always shared by his contemporary American critics. At the same time Strong was dismissive of Liszt’s music, Henry Cood Watson, the music critic of the New York newspaper New World, was describing an 1842 performance by Frederick Rakemann of Liszt’s Grand Fantasia on La Serenata and L’orgia (LW A25, published 1836) as “a work of ‘extreme wildness’ of character, ‘but mingled with passages of extraordinary beauty; the cadences are truly an image of the composer’s mind—wild, quaint, yet discordantly beautiful.’ ”18 This affective view of Liszt’s work at the time captures well the prevailing attitude toward the composer: a virtuoso pianist with virtuoso music under his belt and someone to reckon with. It is also interesting that Liszt himself seems to have settled in his own mind his position vis-à-vis the hoards of other pianists who had taken up the itinerant road life after him and plied the musical highways of Europe and, later, America. Thus when Louis Moreau Gottschalk crossed the Atlantic in the mid-1840s and became a sensation in Europe, fueled by Berlioz’s glowing praise in the Journal des Débats,19 Liszt, on the road in southern and eastern France and Germany, felt no inclination to return to cement his position as

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number one on the concert stage or to confront this American contender who was being compared to him. We need only think back eight years to 1837 when the Parisian papers were touting Thalberg as Liszt’s rival; then Liszt raced back to Paris to engage in the Liszt-Thalberg battle of the pianists.20 Ignoring the upand-coming Gottschalk—which says something about how secure Liszt felt in his position in 1846—he calmly set his course for Constantinople and the Ukraine where his fate would be forever sealed.21 Thus Liszt was known to New York audiences, and to America in general, mostly as a pianist and a writer for the keyboard, a situation that held true until late in the 1850s. His innovation—the independent recital—which he had first mentioned in a letter to Princess Cristina Belgiojoso in 1839 with the quip paraphrasing Louis XIV, “Le concert c’est moi,”22 was taken up by a few European concert pianists at the same time, but it came to New York only around fifteen years later when Strong attended a private-invitation concert by Gustav Satter (1832–1879) at Breusing’s music store on 19 March 1855. Strong commented that Satter had dispensed with assisting artists, “in the manner of Liszt, except for Henry Christian Timm at a second piano, and confined the program to compositions for piano and transcriptions for two pianos.”23 At a time when Liszt was breaking new ground for the production of opera and symphonic music in Germany, as well as establishing new methods of teaching, he was still being cited in the United States merely as the inventor of the solo recital—albeit an innovator who was doing away with the older style of concertizing with multiple supporting artists. But this should not surprise us: such innovations of operatic production—Liszt’s production of the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin on 28 August 1850 serves as the best example—and new repertory were slow to reach the staid musical establishments of European theaters, and one might even say that Liszt’s efforts bore greater fruit, and sooner, in New York than they did in Europe.24 However, the Atlantic was still wild and wide, and Liszt’s pianistic innovations were only beginning to arrive after twenty years. U.S. audiences still loved the variety concert, and it continued in America well into the 1870s, as noted in the Bülow programs in New York and Boston in 1875. One curious side note: earlier in that week in 1855, Satter played the “Emperor” concerto at a Philharmonic Society concert at which, according to Strong, he “introduced the Cadenza of Listz [sic].”25 Recall that Liszt’s cadenzas to the last three Beethoven piano concertos were not written down until 1879 and were published then only in the two-piano versions by Schott (LW C29). Clearly, Satter had heard something Liszt played while he was still in Europe and later imported it into his own concerts, claiming on his concert program that he was playing a Liszt cadenza for a sacred Beethoven work. Strong reacted somewhat adversely: Witness[ed] Beethoven’s concerto played by Satter at the last Philharmonic, and the interpolation of Liszt’s wonderfully difficult and much lauded “cadenza.” What business

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had it there? What did it mean? If Mr. Satter wanted to give special testimony of his power and was not satisfied with rendering clearly and forcibly what Beethoven wrote, he might have played ten or twelve bars of the composition standing on his head and balancing a music stand on his heels. But why introduce an unmeaning scrap of manual dexterity into a beautiful creation like that?26

Interestingly, the number of pianists who traveled to America claiming to be pupils of Liszt was so numerous that it led a correspondent for Dwight’s Journal of Music to deride the tendency as early as November 1853. Dwight’s correspondent was reacting to the arrival, in short order, of a lady named Julie de Berg— who claimed to be a pupil not only of Liszt but also of Thalberg, Meyer, and Henselt, as well as a Viennese baroness—followed in November by Gabrielle de la Motte, “like Gottschalk a native of New Orleans, who had been studying in Europe, according to her publicity, with Liszt, Mendelssohn, Prudent, and Thalberg.”27 Lawrence summarized his opinion: “As to those who claimed to be pupils of Liszt, a few, at most, might have played one or two pieces in the presence of the master at one of his musical gatherings at home; others had merely been present and had never even spoken to Liszt. Yet, as soon as they reach the American shore they become ‘pupils of Liszt.’ ”28 By the end of the 1850s, Liszt’s reputation as a promoter of the newest operatic and instrumental music in Europe was being furthered in New York by some authentic champions, such as his pupil Mason, his Weimar concertmaster Leopold Damrosch, and an emigré English pianist named Sebastian Bach Mills. This new constellation of artists returning from musical training abroad brought the newest music to New York. Mason, who studied in Weimar with Liszt for only a year between 1853 and 1854, returned to America to begin an extended musical career in New York, both as a soloist and as one of the originators of the Mason-Thomas chamber series, in which Bergmann played the cello. In a letter to Mason dated 14 December 1854, Liszt remarked on a review in the Musical Gazette that Mason had sent him: The “Musical Gazette” of New York has in particular given me genuine satisfaction, not alone on account of the agreeable and flattering things concerning me personally which it contains, but furthermore because this journal seems to me to inculcate an excellent and superior direction of opinion in your country. As you know, my dear Mason, I have no other self-interest than to serve the good cause of art so far as is possible, and wherever I find men who are making conscientious efforts in the same direction, I rejoice and am strengthened by the good example which they give me. Be so good as to present to your brother, the head editor of the “Musical Review,” as I suppose, my very sincere thanks and compliments.29

Sebastian Bach Mills, an English pianist who studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and came to New York in 1859 to teach piano, apparently never had any direct connection with Liszt but nonetheless became one of the most authoritative

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proponents of his repertoire on the American scene. From his first concert in 1859, when he played Liszt’s difficult Concert Paraphrase on Mendelssohn’s Wedding March and the “Elfenreigen” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (LW A166), to his last concerts shortly before his death in 1898, Mills was a powerful exponent of Liszt’s music, one to whom critics gave accolades not only for the performances but also for the music he played. He [Mills] belongs to the school which acknowledges Liszt as its head, and which regards an orchestral effect as the legitimate effect of all piano emulation. Massive combinations, demanding manual strength and digital dexterity, huge fantastic designs requiring a specific mechanism in the player before they can be approached, great certainty and flexibility of touch, these are some of the characteristics of the artists of the Liszt school. . . . It was not, however, until LISZT’s Concert paraphrase on MENDELSSOHN’s Wedding March, that all the strong points of Mr. MILLS’ mechanism became thoroughly apparent. There are few piano pieces that possess so much orchestral color as this, or demand greater presence of mind to the performer. Mr. MILLS played it faultlessly.30

Mills liked to program new works, and at a Philharmonic concert in 1860 he played the newly published Rigoletto Paraphrase (LW A187), which did not suit the critic as well as his performance of the Mendelssohn. Some of the old vitriol previously hurled at Liszt for daring to transcribe the newest operatic material for the piano resurfaced in the Times review: Of the two morceaux subsequently played by Mr. MILLS, we prefer the Welsh melody to the very commonplace transcription from “Rigoletto” by LISZT; in the first there is rare beauty of melodic form and delicacy of treatment; in the latter an excess of vulgar and impotent effect. LISZT is undoubtedly a great man, but when he approaches an Italian he is to be dreaded. Melody with a German is a flavor like garlic, or Worcestershire sauce, or red pepper, or any other condiment. . . . LISZT is such an eminent musical swell, and has dined off the reputation of so many first-rate composers, that it can never be pleasant to see him gobble up a mere naturalist like VERDI. This particular quartette has always been considered good, and we see no reason why it should be brought into disrepute by the oppressive patronage of a magnate who never yet touched a simple melody without strangling it. Mr. MILLS, we may add, gave the piece what little interest it possessed.31

Leopold Damrosch, Liszt’s concertmaster in the Weimar Hofkapelle in 1857 and 1858, was a full-fledged virtuoso violinist and conductor by the time he took over the Arion and Oratorio choral societies in New York in the early 1870s and the Philharmonic Society in 1876 (see chapter 2). During Damrosch’s debut year at the philharmonic, Liszt’s newly composed epilogue to his symphonic poem Tasso, entitled Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse (LW G25), was performed. It is dedicated to Damrosch, and a manuscript copy of the work with Liszt’s handwritten title page was sent to New York especially for the performance. The manuscript now resides in the Music Division of the Library of Congress.

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But it was Carl Bergmann’s programming for the Philharmonic Society that resulted in the greatest number of Liszt orchestral works performed on the New York scene. From his introduction of Les Préludes (LW G3) in 1859 to the Dante Symphony (LW G14) in 1869, Bergmann treated his audience to a steady diet of Liszt that sometimes left the critics gnashing their teeth and exclaiming that they were bored.32 In spite of their ennui, Bergmann was sometimes au courant when it came to his performances: soon after Julius Schuberth published the score and parts for the Zwei Episoden aus Lenau’s Faust (LW G16) in Leipzig in 1866, Bergmann acquired the materials from the publisher’s New York branch and programmed the first episode, “Der nächtliche Zug,” but not its more popular counterpart, the first Mephisto Waltz—which became one of the most popular of Liszt’s orchestral works—on Philharmonic programs. The result was not exactly what he (or Liszt) would have hoped for: The second orchestral piece was the Nachtlicher Zug [sic], an episode from LENAU’s “Faust” by LISZT. The composition is more remarkable for deliberation and repose than for anything else. The linked sweetness is long drawn out. As in everything else by the same composer, he reveals all his knowledge of the orchestra and slowly produces every effect of which he is cognizant. It is what RUSKIN calls “a luscious form of nonsense.” In the absence of LENAU’s poem (with which we are wholly unacquainted,) it would be vain to imagine what LISZT has arrived at. If his intent was to hit the public taste, he has failed of the mark. The repose to which we have referred is entirely on his part. To the public, the “Episode” is irritating.33

This point brings up a problem that plagued the music of composers such as Liszt and Wagner throughout this period: often, their new music was performed by competent acolytes who somehow misjudged the audience’s ability to deal with the extramusical connections. A German critic would not have blinked at the exclusion of the German text of Lenau’s poem from the program; but by 1866, Lenau had been dead for sixteen years, and while his poetry was still very much in favor in Germany and Austria, it was not well-known among the New York critical establishment, despite the enormous German immigrant population.34 The nomenclature for Liszt’s music—and that of Wagner—on concert programs through the 1870s raises some interesting questions. Liszt first used the term poème symphonique in print with Tasso (LW G2) on a Weimar concert program on 19 April 1854. Wagner had earlier used the phrase symphonische Dichtung in a letter to Liszt, a discussion concerning Wagner’s setting of the Faust material.35 For Wagner, the term meant the realization in musical terms of a poetic idea—specifically, one he himself had already written down in poetic form. Liszt found the term to his liking and translated it into French, but with an expanded meaning: Liszt interpreted the words to include the use of extraneous poetic material by any composer of purely symphonic music—and so was a genre born. It became the regular appellation after the 1856 publication of the first six symphonic poems by Breitkopf & Härtel.36 But New York critics and

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programmers could not get used to this new term, and despite its appearance on all printed copies of the newly published score, they applied it indifferently to Liszt’s works in concert programs but enthusiastically—and anachronistically—attached it to Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony more than a few times during the same period. Obviously, while the term was viewed as interesting, its usage took a while to become normative in the United States. On the other hand, New York critics and writers took to Wagner’s new nomenclature, “Vorspiel” (“Prelude”)—used to replace “Overture” for the orchestral introductions to the individual acts of his operas and in place since Lohengrin—with considerable alacrity. Thus the Lohengrin, Meistersinger, and Tristan preludes are all labeled as “Introductions” or “Prologues” in the early 1870s, something of which Wagner would have approved, since they emphasized the dramatic context in which he wanted these orchestral sections to be viewed. As early as 1861, the unnamed New York critic of The Albion voiced an opinion of Liszt that showed clearly how much his star seemed to be diminishing in America, particularly with respect to orchestral composition. In a review of a performance of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony by the Philharmonic in February, attended by George Templeton Strong—music of which he approved in his diary—Lawrence cites The Albion critic, who denigrated Schumann’s melodic gifts, comparing them to those of Liszt and Wagner: “According to our judgment, [Schumann] is the least meritorious in these respects of any German writer. Liszt, who is unimportant as a composer [my emphasis], is his superior, and Wagner, with a simple instrument of each kind, would make a better effect than Schumann with an entire orchestra of eighty.”37 Liszt’s newest piano works were also unfavorably compared to those of his American contemporaries. In his review of Gottschalk’s blockbuster return to New York on 11 February 1862 after a five-year absence, The Albion critic said the pianist’s own Rigoletto Fantasie (now lost) was “altogether better than Liszt’s [Rigoletto Paraphrase] in point of effect, and yet it is totally different in the means by which it is produced.”38 Even Bergmann’s dedicated presentations of Liszt’s symphonic poems, in programs such as the Sunday “sacred” concert at Irving Hall on 16 March 1862, resulted, as recounted by Lawrence, in a scathing—albeit bipolar—commentary in the The Sunday Dispatch on 23 March 1862: Another of Liszt’s baffling “fugitive orchestral works . . . all of which are characterized by an individuality certainly startling, but which abound in monstrosities of harmonic modulation, progressions, prolongations, and instrumental techniques which one has to woo a long time before he can regard them as particularly tame or tractable, but which we cannot help admiring and regarding with an affectionate interest and a longing to take him into his bosom to pet and fondle until better acquainted.”39

By 1872, the Times was moved to devote an entire column to an article entitled “The Absence of Liszt” (27 January 1872). The anonymous writer, corresponding from Rome, lamented Liszt’s new vie trifurquée, which took him from

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permanent residency in Rome, where he had moved in 1861 three years after resigning his Weimar post in a flurry of ill will. The article clearly describes the aging pianist-Abbé, not the composer-conductor, and contains a remarkable amount of personal gossip. But Liszt’s new life was a kind of musical shuttle diplomacy. As he aged, he followed the European seasons from Weimar to Rome to Budapest—in the latter city Liszt had been named the first president of the newly organized Royal Conservatory of Music in March 1875—conducting master classes in each city that attracted a host of rising musical talents, not only pianists but also singers, composers, and conductors who wanted to receive his imprimatur for their careers. The most famous American pupil of this period, Amy Fay, left an indelible memoir of his teaching in her description of the master classes, but she also included some highly volatile comments—hearsay, of course—that bear on my greater point: “Liszt helped Wagner,” said he to me sadly, “but who will help Liszt? though, compared with Opera it is as much harder for Oratorio to conquer a place as it is for a pianist to achieve success when compared to a singer.” So he feels as if things were against him, though his heart and soul are so bound up in sacred music, that he told me it had become to him “the only thing worth living for.” He really seems to care almost nothing for his piano-playing or for his piano compositions.40

Fay’s worries were prescient: from the mid-1870s on, Liszt warned his pupils and disciples, at home and abroad, time and again of the dangers to their careers if they programmed his music—orchestral and, apart from the standards of the repertory from the pre-Weimar period, piano. Truth be told, his newer music, even that from 1865 on, for both keyboard and orchestra confounded all who surrounded him, Wagner included. Some of Wagner’s most vitriolic comments were made in front of Liszt and were communicated through the diaries of his wife, Cosima, Liszt’s daughter.41 Liszt held much of this music back from publication during his lifetime, and it appears that many of his closest associates heeded his warnings. When Dionys Prückner, the dedicatee of Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, visited New York in 1871–1872, not one work by Liszt save the transcription of the Weber Polonaise Brillante (LW H10) appeared on his programs. It appears that, by 1890, the first of Deux Légendes, “St. François d’Assise. La Prédication aux oiseaux” (LW A219, no. 1), first published in 1865, was the latest solo keyboard work heard in New York, played on a Steinway Hall program conducted by Seidl that featured Liszt’s pupil, Conrad Ansorge, on 10 November 1888. The efforts by Bergmann, Thomas, and both Leopold and Walter Damrosch to program Liszt’s music were destined to bore New York audiences: they repeatedly offered Tasso, Hunnenschlacht (LW G17), and especially Les Préludes, the latter by now standard fare. More rarely, the Faust Symphony and the Dante Symphony (LW G14) were programmed. The last Liszt orchestral work heard in New York before 1890 appears to have been the aforementioned Le Triomphe

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funèbres du Tasse, written in 1866 and sent to New York ten years later for its world premiere by the Philharmonic Society and Leopold Damrosch, the dedicatee. The work was performed from manuscript on 29 April 1877 in a concert at the Academy of Music and was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig that same year. In the 1879–1880, 1883–1884, and 1890–1891 seasons, no works by Liszt were programmed by the Philharmonic. It remains to present a brief overview of how Wagner fared during this period. As noted before, his fortunes waxed as Liszt’s waned, no doubt because of American audiences’ greater predilection for opera than for instrumental music. The Tannhäuser Overture was a favorite for a while, until by the mid1860s too many repetitions tried the patience of audiences and critics alike. Indeed, when many orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s operas were introduced to New York audiences in the concert hall, the selections were poorly received because they were seen to be out of context. It didn’t matter whether it was early or late Wagner, the attitudes were the same. The Times on 24 April 1876, reviewing the Thomas orchestra’s concert of the previous night, said: Novelty was represented upon the bill by the “spinning chorus” and ballad from Wagner’s “Fliegende Hollaender.” We cannot say a great deal about either for the selection or for the rendering—the latter so far as the vocalists’ share of the performance is in question. The scene loses much by its transfer from the stage to the concert-room, and its execution by Mr. Thomas’ soloists—Misses [Lina] Pfeil and [Ella L.]Harrison, with a small chorus—dragged somewhat as to time, and was, moreover, somewhat deficient in massiveness.42

Die Walküre also fared poorly at first. In a review of an April 1875 concert that also included excerpts from Die Meistersinger, the reviewer noted: The first half of the programme closed with “Siegmund’s Love Song,” from “Die Walküre.” Mr. Bischoff, who has a good tenor voice, but, seemingly, a bad ear, interpreted with decided spirit this piece, in which the singer’s tones are borne upon the waves of instrumental sound, much as blades of grass would be carried on the billows of the ocean. Of its expressiveness as a musical effort, it is, however, impossible to form any idea without hearing the context. The same opinion may be ventured in relation to the introduction to the third act of “Die Meistersinger,” and to “Walther’s Prize Song,” two magnificently sonorous excerpts from an opera we hope to enjoy in its entirety, for we fancy that Herr Wagner would not willingly admit that the proverb ex pede Herculem is applicable to his wonderfully symmetrical works.43

Wagner’s reputation—and the programming of his newest works—took a decided leap forward after the opening of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth in the summer of 1876, which was front-page news in the New York press. Much of Wagner’s positive reception in New York—and indeed in America—was owed to

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the superb singers and conductors who brought his art, learned at his knee, to these shores. Among these disciples were the soprano Lilli Lehmann (1848–1929), who made her triumphant American debut as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre on 6 December 1885 and performed Isolde a year later, on 1 December 1886, under the baton of Seidl; the tenor Albert Niemann (1831–1917), who debuted as Siegmund in New York on 10 November 1886; Emil Fischer (1838–1914), Wagner’s preeminent King Marke; Amelie Materna (1845–1918), the original Brünnhilde; Marianne Brandt (1842–1921), a Bayreuth holdout in 1876 for the first cycle who then stepped in for an indisposed singer in the part of Waltraute for the second cycle and went on to become a formidable Wagner interpreter; and Emil Scaria (1838–1886), the first Bayreuth Hagen. Seidl’s role in this constellation has already been mentioned. Suffice to say that Seidl’s art was a direct product of the Liszt-Wagner circle, a circle Seidl himself, however, escaped in the early 1880s to become one of Wagner’s greatest proponents in European concert halls. Joseph Horowitz makes the interesting point that Seidl’s cuts (some of which he had learned directly from Wagner when he was touring with Angelo Neumann in the Ring productions of the late 1870s and early 1880s)— of the Norns, of Waltraute’s speech, of Alberich’s scene with Hagen, all fraught with foreboding—streamlined the narrative toward a succession of robust set pieces, beginning with Dawn, the love duet, and the Rhine Journey, culminating with the Funeral March and Immolation. . . . Americans identified with Wagner’s characters. Unlike Tristan and Isolde, unlike Hans Sachs, Siegfried and Brünnhilde championed a new world, a realm of experience unencumbered by tortured needs or thoughts. “There is something peculiarly sympathetic to our people in the character of their chief personages of the drama,” Krehbiel wrote of Siegfried. “In their rude forcefulness and freedom from restrictive conventions they might be said to be representative of the American people. They are so full of that vital energy which made us a nation. . . . Siegfried is a prototype, too, of the American people in being an unspoiled nature. He looks at the world through glowing eyes that have not grown accustomed to the false and meretricious.”44

Curiously, descriptions of Seidl’s conducting techniques bear a marked resemblance to those of the mature Liszt, who was as revolutionary on the podium in the nineteenth-century as he had been at the keyboard. Liszt had conducted opera as early as 1843, with a performance of Die Zauberflöte in Breslau. The review of that performance shows how early his pathbreaking conducting attitude was evident: “Liszt doesn’t mark the beat; he only indicates the accents; an orchestra who does not know him and is not completely up to the demands of the music will be unlikely to be able to manage under his direction.”45 A series of highly perceptive caricatures of his pianistic postures was published in the 1830s in French journals, and similar caricatures of his conducting followed shortly thereafter.46 After collecting this and other evidence, Alan Walker wrote:

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Liszt was interested in purely musical considerations—in nuances, phrasing, shading of colours, a proper balance among the parts, and, above all, in the expressive device of rubato, an unheard-of phenomenon in orchestral music. . . . In order to achieve these effects, Liszt developed a new repertory of body signals, for he recognized that conducting involves the whole man and not just the right arm. He frequently abandoned a regular square-cut beat in favour of an “arc” in which the baton described the actual shape of a phrase. . . . Sometimes he put the baton down and conducted with his hands . . . if he felt that this would draw more expression from the players. He would shush the musicians, forefinger to lips, if they played too loud, or growl threateningly if they played too soft. . . . Sometimes, when he required a pianissimo, he would crouch low over the podium, his body apparently sunk in on itself; at others, when he demanded a fortissimo, he would raise himself to his full stature, hands outstretched above his head. His constant search was for colour. . . . But the most telling of Liszt’s reforms was his facial expression, which registered every inflexion of the music and cast a spell over the orchestra, compelling them to play from the heart. . . . He conducted a great deal from memory, a practice that had an electrifying effect on his peers, and which became the model for the new generation of virtuoso conductors, with Hans von Bülow at their head.47

Descriptive adjectives were also used to describe Seidl’s conducting: “[. . .]the melos brought out in a more plastic fashion . . . at turns poised and mysterious, undemonstrative and impassioned. . . . [H]e was priestly . . . charismatic. . . . His eyes . . . riveted his men with a glance of steel.” Henry Finck described a conductor who would not beat a steady pulse: “Herr Seidl not only attends to every mark of shading and expression with a watchful eye, but he indulges in various minute modifications of tempo, which are indicated by the emotional character of the music.”48 Horowitz concluded that “Seidl was more mercurial, more prone to pervasive rubato than any conductor we are likely to encounter today” and rightly likened Seidl’s maturation to his belief in Wagner’s essay “On Conducting,” published in 1869. But it was Liszt and his conducting activities in the 1850s on whom Wagner based many of his observations. Our knowledge of the reception of Liszt in New York has recently expanded. One repository of original materials, that of the New York Liederkranz Society, has been acquired by New York University and is permanently situated in the Fales Collection of Bobst Library. At present, it is being cataloged and is not yet available for research, but it will clearly be an invaluable source of information on mid- and late-nineteenth-century concert life in New York. In a preliminary evaluation of the music collection’s contents, I have located a number of valuable first edition parts and full scores for several Liszt symphonic works—such as the Graner Messe, performed by the Liederkranz in March 1865 under the direction of Paur, with Eisfeld and the Philharmonic Society orchestra. While many of the scores and parts in the Liederkranz Collection were acquired through Schuberth’s New York store or from G. Schirmer, some unquestionably originated in Weimar and were shipped wholesale to New York for performance. They will doubtless tell us much about the connections between European and American concert life during the late nineteenth century.

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Appendix 3.1 Liszt Compositions: A Partial List of Performances, 1840–1890 LW# Piano Solo A22 A25 A36

A36 A37

A41 A42/2 A42/9

A43 A48? A50/4 A52/3

A58 A60

A80 A84c A111 A112 A118 A131

Title

Published

Performer/Date

Réminiscences de Lucia di Lammermoor Grand Fantasia on La Serenata and L’orgia Soirées musicales (Rossini), nos. 10 and 11 Soirées musicales (Rossini), no. 2 Symphonie de Beethoven, nos. 5 and 6, Partitions de Piano Héxameron Schubert-Liszt, “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” Schubert-Liszt, “Ständchen” (“Horch horch, die Lerche”) Grand Galop chromatique Mélodie hongroise Schubert-Liszt, “Die Post” La Campanella (Études d’éxécution d’après Paganini) Adelaide (Beethoven) Magyar Dallok (Hungarian National Melodies, early versions of the Hungarian Rhapsodies) Réminiscences de Don Juan Valse-Impromptu Consolation no. 5 Ungarischer Sturmmarsch

1840 1836

Fontana 1846 Hartmann 1862 Rakemann 1842

1838

Rakemann 1842

1837

Graever 1858

1837

Satter 1861

1839 1838

Rakemann 1842 Joseffy 1879

1838

Joseffy 1881

1838 1840 1840 1840

Kossowski 1839 Desvernine 1848 Julie de Berg 1853 Joseffy 1880

1840

Rakemann 1843

1840– 1843

Perabeau 1846

1843

Joseffy 1882

1852 1850 1844

Bülow 1875 Joseffy 1880 Wels/Reményi 1850 Pinner 1878 Joseffy 1879

Étude de Concert [no. 3?] Valse-Caprices d’après Schubert(Soirées de Vienne)

1849 1852– 1853

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Appendix 3.1 (continued) LW#

Title

Published

Performer/Date

A132?

[unspecified] “Rhapsody on Hungarian Airs” (Hungarian Rhapsody?) Rhapsodie Hongroise no. 2 Rhapsodie Hongroise no. 3 Rhapsodie Hongroise no. 9, “Carnival de Pesth” Rhapsodie Hongroise no. 10 Rhapsodie Hongroise no. 12 Schlummerlied von C. M. von Weber mit Arabesken Cantique d’Amour (Harmonies poétiques et religieuses) Au lac du Wallenstadt (Années de pèlerinage 1, Suisse) Au bord d’une source (Années de pèlerinage 1, Suisse) Illustrations du Prophète, part 2: “Les Patineurs” Concert Paraphrase on Mendelssohn’s Wedding March Mazurka brillante Polonaise in E Polonaise Héroique Ricordanza (Études d’éxécution transcendante) Fantasy on the Ruins of Athens Bénédiction et serment de Benvenuto Cellini

1851 ff.

Mason 1856

1851

Rivé 1875

1853

Rivé 1876

1853

Aus der Ohe 1887

1853

Mills 1876

1853

Mason 1856

1848

Mason 1858

1853

Bülow 1876

1858

Bülow 1876

1858

Bülow 1876

1850

LaMotte 1853

1860

S.B. Mills

1850 1852 1852 1852

Bülow 1876 Hartmann 1862 Bülow 1875 Bülow 1875

1865

Bergmann, Topp 1867 Gottschalk 1856

A132/2 A132/3 A132/9b

A132/10 A132/12 A150

A158/10

A159/2

A159/4

A165/2 A166

A168 A171/2 A171/2? A172/9

A177 A178

1854

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Appendix 3.1 (continued) LW#

Title

Published

Performer/Date

A183

Andante Finale und Marsch aus der Oper König Alfred (Raff) Rigoletto Six Chants Polonais Tarantella (Venezia e Napoli) Spinnerlied aus dem Fliegenden Holländer Valse de l’opéra Faust de Gounod Waldesrauschen (Deux études de Concert, no. 1) Gnomenreigen (Deux études de Concert, no. 2) St. François d’Assise. La Prédication aux oiseaux (Légende no. 1)

1853

Mason 1860

1860 1860 1861 1862

S. B. Mills 1860 Bülow 1875 Bülow 1875 Joseffy 1879

1861

Mills 1862

1863

Aus der Ohe, 1887

1863

Joseffy 1883

1865

Ansorge 1888

Beethoven Symphony no. 9, fourth movement Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 5 (with Liszt cadenza)

1853

Satter, Timm 1855

1879

Satter 1855

1857

Bergmann 1869

1856

Bergmann 1860

1856 1856 1856 1856 1856 1860 1861 1859 1858

Bergmann 1859 Thomas 1891 Bergmann 1865 Eisfeld 1862 Bergmann 1860 Mora 1870 Bergmann 1864 Bergmann 1870 Bergmann 1869

A187 A193 A197 A204 A208 A218/1 A218/2

A219/1

Two Pianos C4

C29?

Orchestral Music G1 Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne G2 Tasso, Poème Symphonique G3 Les Préludes G6 Prometheus G7 Mazeppa G9 Orpheus G10 Festklaenge (1860) G11 Vom Fels zum Meer G12 Faust Symphony G14 Dante Symphony G15 Die Ideale

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Appendix 3.1 (continued) LW#

Title

Published

Performer/Date

G16/1

First Episode from Lenau’s Faust, “Der nächtliche Zug” Second Episode from Lenau’s Faust, “Mephisto Walzer” (with no. 1) Hunnenschlacht Trois odes funèbres, no. 3: “Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse”

1866

Bergmann 1866

1866

Thomas 1881

1861 1877

Neuendorff 1878 Damrosch 1877

1857

Bergmann, Topp 1869 Bergmann, Mills 1870 Bergmann, Mills 1864

G16/2

G17 G25/3

Piano with Orchestra H4 Piano Concerto no. 1 E-flat Major H6 Piano Concerto no. 2 in A Major H10 Weber Polonaise Brillante (transcription) H12? Fantasie über ungarischen Volksmelodien H13 Schubert’s Fantasia for the Piano in C, op. 15 Concerted Sacred Music I2 “Graner” Messe—Credo I4 St. Elisabeth, “Crusader’s Chorus” I7 Christus, “Hirtengesang” Concerted Secular Music L12 Einleitung—Zur Säkularfeier Beethoven (Andante aus Beethoven’s op. 97) Solo Secular Music M4 or M5 Reiterlied

1863 1851

1864

Bülow 1875

1857

Mason 1862

1859 1867

Eisfeld, Paur 1865 Bergmann 1870

1872

Bergmann 1873

1870

Bergmann 1874

1843

Anschütz/ Bergmann 1862

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Appendix 3.1 (continued) LW# Songs N? N5 N8 N9 Editions U13

Title

Published

“The Exile” [no song by this title exists] “Die Loreley” Mignon (“Kennst du das Land”) “Er war ein König in Thule”

Performer/Date Jones 1851

Weber Conzertstück, ed. Liszt

1860 1860

Wilde 1878 Lehmann 1890

1860

Fassett 1878

1871–1875

Klahre 1891

Notes 1. August Göllerich, Franz Liszt (Berlin: F. L. Marquardt, 1908), 39. “Wagner scheint zum Schlüssel vieler Lisztchen Rätsel geworden.” 2. Joseph Horowitz, Wagner Nights: An American History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 3. Henry C. Watson, The New York Herald, 22 October 1841: New York was “in musical taste . . . now ahead of London, and [would] soon rival Paris, Berlin, and Vienna,” cited in Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875, Vol. I, Resonances, 1836–1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 139. 4. The numbers in parentheses following titles refer to the new chronological arrangement of the oeuvre in the “List of Works” by this author and Mária Eckhardt, published in “Franz Liszt,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2000, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 2000), 14: 785–872. 5. Lawrence, Resonances, 56. 6. The reasons Liszt undertook this tour are many. See Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811–1847 (New York: Alfred J. Knopf, 1983), 253 ff. 7. For an overview of Liszt’s compositional development, see Rena Mueller, “Liszt’s Tasso Sketchbook: Problems in Sources and Chronology” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1986), 98 ff.; Mueller, “Sketches, Drafts, and Revisions: Liszt at Work,” in Die Projekte der Liszt-Forschung. Bericht über das Internationale Symposion Eisenstadt, 19–21 Oktober 1989. Eds. Detlef Altenburg and Gerhard Winkler (Eisenstadt: Burgenländisches Landesmuseum, Eisenstadt, 1991), 26–36. 8. Although Liszt sketched and drafted a considerable amount of music that was eventually turned into the orchestral works we now know as the symphonic poems, the only surviving large instrumental scores from this early period are those of the piano concertos. 9. LaMara (Ida Marie Lipsius, pseud.), Liszt und die Frauen, 2nd rev. ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1919), 42.

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10. His appointment as Court Kappellmeister Extraordinary had been originally tendered and accepted in 1842, and from that point on he tried—and mostly failed—to spend at least three months of the year in Weimar. See Walker, Liszt: Virtuoso Years, 370 ff. 11. On the princess’s flight from Russia and her circumstances in Weimar, see Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years 1847–1861 (New York: Alfred J. Knopf, 1989), 35 ff. 12. As he prepared for the Goethe Centenary celebrations in 1849, Liszt sought to establish a Goethe Foundation for the distribution of prizes in the arts in Germany. His extraordinary pamphlet, De la fondation-Goethe à Weimar (published in 1851 by Brockhaus in Leipzig), uses an overview of Weimar history and its artistic culmination in Goethe and his circle as a rationale for the economic subsidization of artistic masterpieces. It was an attempt to raise artistic standards everywhere. See ibid., 128 ff. 13. Ibid., 97n. 14. Paris, end of March 1849, in Hector Berlioz, Selections from His Letters, selected, edited, and translated by Humphrey Searle (1966; reprint, New York: Vienna House, 1973), 110. 15. Quoted in Leonid Sidelnikov and Galina Pribegina, 25 Days in America (Moscow: Muzyka, 1991), 13–14. 16. I spoke with Mrs. Lawrence on a number of occasions while she was at work on these volumes, and several times we tried—fruitlessly—to track down obscure mentions of Liszt works that appear in Strong’s hand. For example, Strong mentions an untraceable Liszt song called “The Exile,” sung by Mrs. Laura A. Jones at a concert by Pieter Hendrik van der Weyde at the Tabernacle for the benefit of Hungarian refugees on 13 December 1851; see Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Vol. 2, Reverberations, 1850–1856 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 198. 17. Lawrence, Resonances, xiii. 18. Ibid., 172, quoting Watson’s review. 19. Ibid., 395. 20. Walker, Liszt: Virtuoso Years, 232–43. 21. It was in Russia in February 1847 that he first encountered Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, a married Polish noblewoman with whom he shared the remainder of his life. The princess decided to leave Russia in the fall of 1847 and moved with Liszt to Weimar, where he had accepted the post of kapellmeister. 22. Franz Liszt, Franz Liszt. Briefe, ed. LaMara (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1893), 1: 25: “Figurez-vous que de guerre lasse, ne pouvait parvenir à composer un programme qui eût le sens commun, j’ai osé donner une série de Concerts à moi tout seul, tranchant du Louis XIV et disant cavalièrement au public ‘le Concert c’est moi!’ ” (Albano, 4 Juin [18]39). “Imagine that, wearied with warfare, not being able to compose a programme which would have common sense, I have ventured to give a series of concerts all by myself, affecting the Louis XIV style, and saying cavalierly to the public, ‘The concert is—myself.’ ” Letters of Franz Liszt, ed. LaMara, collected and translated by Constance Bache (1894; New York: Haskell House, 1968), 1: 31. 23. Lawrence, Reverberations, 561n. 24. Ibid., 505 ff., gives considerable credit to William Mason, who had studied with Liszt in Weimar during 1853–1854, for bringing to America Liszt’s innovative penchant for giving recitals with minimal support from other artists. Mason’s Boston and New York concerts in 1854, and his subsequent tours, were also singled out for their

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original programming—which meant Mason played different programs at almost every concert, including works by Liszt as well as compositions by Dreyschock, Chopin, Heller, Handel, and Beethoven but excluding any of his own compositions. By comparison, during the same period, Louis Moreau Gottschalk played programs containing mostly his own compositions, utilizing numerous assisting artists. 25. Ibid., 560. American newspapers and typesetters of concert programs did no better than their European counterparts when it came to spelling Liszt’s name. Invariably, the final Z and T were exchanged, a situation that seemed to prevail throughout the 1830s and 40s. But once Liszt was ensconced in Weimar and the European correspondents for such periodicals as Dwight’s Journal of Music and the New-York Daily Times began regularly contributing anecdotal materials about the concert season and Liszt, his name stopped being mangled in print. 26. Ibid., 562. 27. Ibid., 414. 28. Ibid., 415, quoting Dwight’s Journal of Music, 26 November 1853, 61. 29. The letter appears in William Mason, Memories of a Musical Life (1901; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1970), 176. 30. The New-York Times, 28 March 1859, 4. 31. Ibid., 25 December 1860, 5. 32. After the first American performance of Liszt’s Tasso on 24 March 1860, Lawrence (Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Vol. 3. Repercussions, 1857–1862 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999], 326) comments on the opinion of the eminent New-York Times critic Charles Bailey Seymour: “[A]lthough—like everything Liszt composed—it abounded in startling effects expertly wrought, such a composition might just as well have been improvised by any ‘well-informed orchestra,’ for all the musical quality it possessed. Indeed, that a well-informed orchestra could ‘endure such deliberate non-sequences as a matter of choice’ baffled Seymour’s comprehension. ‘We can account for it only on the ground that any new combination of instrumental effects becomes pleasing after a certain amount of familiarity. . . . Excessively tedious,’ reported Seymour, the work fell flat” (The New-York Times, 26 March 1860). 33. The New-York Times, 19 November 1866, 5. 34. Wagner criticized even Liszt and Bülow when first Liszt and then Bülow gave performances of the Tristan Prelude in 1860; the work was resoundingly misunderstood out of its operatic context, mainly because Wagner had not yet provided a concert ending and Bülow’s composed ending was seen to be inadequate. Wagner was furious and railed against such liberties being taken with his precious score. 35. Franz Liszt, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, 2nd ed., revised by W. Ashton Ellis; translated by Francis Hueffer (1897; reprint, New York: Vienna House, 1973), 1: 235. 36. Oddly enough, Wagner ceased using the term himself shortly thereafter in favor of the more succinct and descriptive “Music-Drama,” which he felt better described his aims. 37. Lawrence, Repercussions, 400n. 38. Ibid., 479. 39. Ibid., 530n. The review concluded, “The work had a great success.” 40. Amy Fay, Music-Study in Germany, from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay (1880; reprint, New York: Dover, 1965), 236.

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41. Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebücher, eds. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, 2 vols. (München: Piper Verlag, 1976–1977). The English translations are available in an edition by Geoffrey Skelton (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978–1980). 42. The New-York Times, 24 April 1876, 5. 43. Ibid., 17 April 1875, 5. 44. Horowitz, Wagner Nights, 146–47, quoting Krehbiel in The New York Tribune, 22 February 1888. 45. “Liszt taktiert nicht, er bezeichnet nur die Accente; ein Orchester, das ihn nicht kennt und seiner musikalischen Aufgabe nicht volkommen Herr ist, möchte wohl kaum unter Liszt’s Direktion zurecht kommen.” Press clipping without masthead or date, Weimar, Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, Kasten 59/261, 1: Recensionen. The folder contains press clippings collected by Liszt’s secretary, Gaetano Belloni, between December 1841 and April 1843. 46. See Franz Liszt, Franz Liszt 1811–1886 et le romantisme français. Musée RenanScheffer (Paris), 27 mai–28 septembre 1986. Exposition organisée dans le cadre du centenaire de la mort der Liszt (Paris: Musée Renan-Scheffer, 1986), 54 ff. Liszt was caricatured at the keyboard by the sculptor Dantan in 1836 in two small bronze statuettes, with unnaturally long and articulated fingers and flowing hair that not only was long in the back but also covered his eyes. Another depiction with the caption “GALOP CROMATIQUE exécuté par le diable de l’harmonie le 18 avril 1843,” an anonymous pen and watercolor dating from 1843, shows Liszt comically astride the piano bench as if he were riding a horse, again with caricatured hands; also shown are the conductor Habeneck and the singer Lablache. 47. Walker, Liszt: Weimar Years, 276–78. 48. Quoted in Horowitz, Wagner Nights, 90–96.

Chapter Four

“Home, Sweet Home” Away from Home Sigismund Thalberg in New York, 1856–1858 R. Allen Lott

For most European musicians touring the United States in the nineteenth century, New York was the geographic point of arrival—the musical capital in which to make an American debut, establish a base, and launch a national tour and the city that could support the greatest quantity of performances and appreciate the greatest variety of musical offerings. For these reasons, New York became a home away from home for many visiting virtuosos. This was certainly true for the pianist Sigismund Thalberg, who lavished the city with eighty appearances during his two-year tour of the United States from 1856 to 1858 and presented a wider array of his repertoire there than anywhere else in the country. Thalberg was one of numerous pianists who made substantial American tours in the nineteenth century, and each tour illustrates New York’s central role for visiting performers and reveals details about the performance and reception of music in that city.1 The two most important pianists to precede Thalberg to the United States were the flamboyant Leopold de Meyer (1816–1883) and the more refined (and famous) Henri Herz. De Meyer’s tour of 1845–1847 exposed the seamy side of marketing music in New York that was already well in place by

This chapter is adapted from the author’s From Paris to Peoria: How European Piano Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland, copyright 2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

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the 1840s. The use of claques, deadheads, and self-purchased floral tributes, as well as charges of puffery, sabotage, and blackmail, kept journalists busy but did not prevent listeners from flocking to hear the mesmerizing pianist at the cavernous Tabernacle, then the principal concert hall in New York. Herz’s considerably longer tour of 1846–1850 included appearances in Gold Rush California. Arriving in Boston, then the terminus of the Cunard line, Herz refused to make his American debut there, insisting that New York was the place to begin. The pianist soon engaged the neophyte impresario Bernard Ullman as his manager, reflecting a trend toward a more professional approach to marketing concerts. Ullman later managed the American tours of Thalberg and Hans von Bülow.2 Thalberg arrived in New York in 1856, two decades after his triumphs in Paris that included a celebrated showdown with Liszt, which resulted in a draw. His reputation and music had been well-known for some time in the New World. The New-York Musical Review and Gazette, for example, asserted that Thalberg had “been known in America by reputation for many years” and that the “piano-forte of every advanced amateur and pupil has borne upon its desk the Lucia Fantasia, or some other of his compositions.” The New-York Daily Times likewise believed he was “an artist who is known in every clime, and whose compositions are the glorious effort of every beautiful and aspiring pianiste.”3 Still, many Americans assumed that a gradual decline in the pianist’s performance schedule was a sign of lessening technical powers. They soon realized, however, that although his music and reputation might be slightly passé, his technique was very much intact. Thalberg made approximately 330 appearances in more than seventy-five cities in the United States and Canada in two seasons,4 with 80 of them—almost one-fourth of the total—occurring in New York. A survey of his New York appearances (see appendix 4.1) is immediately striking for the sheer number of concerts, the density of their scheduling, and their remarkable variety.5 The quantity was a result not only of the city’s substantial population, by then nearing three-quarters of a million people, and the voracious musical appetite of New Yorkers, but also of the fame of the pianist and the popularity of his music with both professional and amateur pianists. Only a few musicians on the international scene had enough renown to seize the public’s interest so persuasively and enough musical charisma to maintain it so consistently. The quick pace and variety of Thalberg’s concerts resulted from the pianist’s astute management by Ullman, who had instigated the tour. Ullman and other American impresarios of the 1850s were no longer content to wait passively at home for a visiting performer to approach them for assistance. Instead, they aggressively pursued artists they wanted to represent and often made trips to Europe in search of new stars. Ullman’s decade of experience resulted in the stunning execution of Thalberg’s tour, which included more than 200 concerts in the first eight months alone, an average of 6 per week. Approximately onefourth of those concerts—53—took place in New York.

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Thalberg’s faithful audiences were continually enthralled by his flawless performances of celebrated virtuoso showpieces. Whatever doubts Americans may have harbored about Thalberg’s current status as a pianist immediately vanished upon witnessing his formidable technique. The New York Herald believed it spoke the “unanimous sentiment of the art world” when claiming that “no such finished and artistic pianoforte playing has ever before been heard in America.”6 Almost as extraordinary as Thalberg’s accuracy was the seeming effortlessness with which he accomplished it. American audiences were also enchanted by Thalberg’s conspicuous lack of the tasteless mannerisms typical of so many would-be virtuosos. The Herald believed “his quiet, modest, thoroughly gentlemanly manner at the piano makes him almost as many admirers as his splendid playing.”7 For many Americans, Thalberg’s works were the culmination of what could be achieved by a lone performer on a single instrument. As a leader in implementing the piano’s new technological capabilities, Thalberg required of the performer an immense technical facility and exploited the full range of the instrument, aided by the pedal. John Sullivan Dwight believed it was Thalberg who “first undertook to overcome the short-comings of the piano-forte” and “first made the piano speak through the whole length of its keyboard like an orchestra.”8 Although Thalberg was capable of grand masses of sound rivaling the orchestra, he was noted for his emphasis on a singing tone, no matter how virulent the accompaniment. Undoubtedly, Thalberg’s claim to posterity was his cultivation, if not invention, of the texture in which a melody in the piano’s middle register is divided between the two hands while they alternate swirled arpeggios, scale passages, and other figuration above and below the melody. He first introduced the technique in his Fantasia on Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, the piece he performed in his concert with Liszt, and he used it frequently in later works. This technique amazed audiences, who supposedly stood up to see how it was accomplished, for it gave the impression that three hands were required. Referring to a popular caricature of Thalberg with eight hands (see plate 4.1), the Times jested that it was “hard to believe that one man can do so much with the ordinary number of fingers, and one looks at his hands suspiciously, expecting to see them branching out with supplementary fingers.”9 Thalberg’s emphasis on a singing tone and brilliant virtuosic display coalesced in his opera fantasias, in which a lyrical melody from an operatic source is surrounded by the most severe technical demands. Instead of merely assembling a string of mechanical variations, Thalberg molded the work into a dramatic unity, gradually building toward a grand climax through various restatements of the unchanging theme while the accompaniment shifted kaleidoscopically. Based mostly on early-nineteenth-century Italian operas, Thalberg’s fantasias formed the core of his repertory in the United States. The works he most consistently offered included fantasias on Auber’s La muette de Portici (Masaniello); Bellini’s Norma and La sonnambula; Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Don Pasquale, La fille du

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 4.1. Caricature of Sigismund Thalberg (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

régiment, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Lucrezia Borgia; Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots; Mozart’s Don Giovanni; and Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto and Semiramide.10 If Thalberg’s music is remembered at all today, it is because of the reputation of the fantasias. Yet these works, so typical of the period, are perhaps the least likely to engage today’s listener. Their grandiose effects and overtly emotional appeal are no longer fashionable, and their existence in limbo between arrangement and original composition makes their artistic value suspect. Thalberg’s

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smaller, less pretentious works, in which technical demands are less stringent and more often subordinate to musical ideas, may be the best introduction to his music. Critics consistently praised Thalberg’s caprices, etudes, nocturnes, romances, and waltzes. Dwight found “a certain grace and flavor . . . a certain poetry and delicacy of feeling, something like original creation” in these works, which placed Thalberg among the “minor poets of the piano.”11 Among these smaller works Thalberg performed in America are a dizzying Tarantelle, a more serious Thème original et étude in A Minor, an Andante, a Barcarolle, a Marche funèbre, and a collection of Airs russes. He often offered as an encore a charming set of concert waltzes, Souvenir d’Amérique Valses brillantes. By turns graceful and brilliant, the waltz strains are a delightful cross between Chopin and Strauss. Like most visiting composers, Thalberg was compelled to write variations on tunes popular in America, including “Home, Sweet Home,” “The Last Rose of Summer,” and “Lilly Dale.”12 His setting of “Home, Sweet Home” was a phenomenal success, both in its popularity with audiences and in its sales as sheet music (see plate 4.2). Reports of his performances of the work are unashamedly sentimental. The critic for the New York Evening Post described the work’s effect on audience members, who “became fixed in their places, as if by a charm—not a muscle moving until the lips began to quiver, and the breast heave with stifled sobbing, and the tears stole in their eyes.” The work even seduced Richard Grant White, the frequently surly critic for the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, who believed the “purely vocal style in which [Thalberg] gave it, the tenderness that he threw into its unadorned phrases, and the manner in which he made the piano-forte sing it, made the performance of it a great piece of art.”13 Thalberg’s opening concerts included an array of assisting artists, primarily vocalists, typical of the time. Ullman soon apprised the public that an orchestra had been engaged that would double the nightly expenses, but Thalberg had incurred an obligation to his audiences for their overwhelming support, he reasoned unctuously. The Times acknowledged Ullman’s astuteness as a manager for adding new attractions in the “very hey-day of prosperity.” Most managements, it speculated, would have “continued in the old course, and reaped the full harvest of success down to the very stubble.”14 Ignoring his own youthful piano concerto, Thalberg offered the first movements of Beethoven’s Third and Fifth Piano Concertos, works he had performed in Vienna more than twenty years earlier.15 Both concertos had already received complete performances in the United States—the Third as early as 1842, the Fifth not until 1854—but neither had been played frequently. Surprisingly, two of New York’s most discerning critics were not thrilled to hear the works. White, in the Courier and Enquirer, did not believe the “union of the piano-forte with the orchestra a very congruous one,” since the piano did not “seem to have sympathy” with any one or all of the tones of the orchestra. Fry in the Tribune argued that there was “no logic in an accompanied concerto now,” given the recent developments in piano music, especially those cultivated by Thalberg. He saw no

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 4.2. Sheet Music Cover for Sigismund Thalberg’s Home! Sweet Home!, identified as “100th Edition.” Author’s collection.

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reason for an orchestra to “putty up the cracks of pianism, when the new lights have orchestrized the piano, doubled its volume, its expression and its interest, and made it, according to its circle, perfect.”16 Despite his reservations about the combination of piano and orchestra, White believed Thalberg played the Third Concerto with “absolute precision and most delicate appreciation of its significance,” and he was enraptured with Thalberg’s elaborate cadenza—“itself a concerto”—which was “so consonant with the spirit” of the original work. The Times, the only newspaper that dared to question Thalberg’s interpretations, considered his style too “chaste and exquisite” for Beethoven’s music, which demanded “rough vigor and fire.” Yet America’s most perceptive admirer of Beethoven, Dwight in Boston, was the most enthusiastic about Thalberg’s performances. He believed the pianist played the “Emperor” Concerto with “masterly power and beauty,” and his rendering of the Third Concerto was a “miracle of perfection” and “witchingly beautiful.”17 These performances by Thalberg—his most significant venture outside the repertoire of his own works—verified beyond any doubt his preeminence as a pianist and musician. Dwight’s only regret was that Thalberg did not subordinate himself more often to a “higher and more glorious calling” by programming more of the “beauties of inspired works like those of Beethoven.” Judging from a private letter the New York correspondent to Dwight’s received, that view was a minority opinion. Observing the reaction to the concertos, the writer was disheartened because audiences seemed indifferent to the better quality of music. “Why will mere glitter so far outweigh solid gold with the multitude?” he pondered. For him, Thalberg’s performance of the first movement of the “Emperor” was worth all the rest of the concert together, “yet it fell dead upon the audience, while I drank it in as the mown grass does the rain. A great soul was speaking to mine, and I communed with him.”18 The unusually generous and continually changing assortment of assisting artists of high stature suggested to one writer that although Thalberg’s profits must be large, he was “not greedy of gain.”19 After four months, the Times was impressed by the “prodigality” of Thalberg’s concerts, which “exceeds anything we have experienced in this country,” and he admired the pianist’s modesty in surrounding himself with so many first-rate artists.20 Among the performers who appeared with Thalberg were the singers Cora de Wilhorst (1835–?), Elena d’Angri (1821–1870s?), and Bertha Johannsen (fl. 1850s–1860s); the violinist Joseph Burke (1817–1902), who had gained fame touring with Jenny Lind; the young Theodore Thomas as violinist, then under Ullman’s management as concertmaster at the Academy of Music; and the cellist Carl Bergmann, who conducted most of Thalberg’s concerto appearances in New York. Ullman’s most unusual twist in programming, and indeed his masterstroke, was teaming Thalberg with America’s two leading pianists, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869) and William Mason—both recently returned from European triumphs but receiving only lukewarm receptions in their home country.

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Ironically, the Times believed Mason and Gottschalk, by developing in the public a “genuine appreciation of piano-playing,” had “contributed in an enormous degree to the success which attends . . . Mr. Thalberg.” Even more telling was the critic’s confession that “we should have forgotten all about the twain, had we not seen their enthusiastic faces at these concerts, beaming genial reciprocity on the great artist whom they honor with true artist’s pride,” indicating just how undervalued the two performers were.21 The two men’s ten respective joint appearances with Thalberg provided Americans with the prospect of a showdown à la Liszt-Thalberg and the opportunity to demonstrate their pride in American talent without sacrificing their desire to hear a celebrated European artist. Thalberg reciprocated by appearing on one of Gottschalk’s concerts, for which he composed the famous, but now lost, Fantasia on Il trovatore. Thalberg’s most satisfying appearances artistically comprised a series of eleven matinees in New York in early 1857, in which he became the first visiting virtuoso pianist to give solo recitals in America.22 A change of venue to a smaller hall (Dodworth’s Saloon) and the limiting of audiences to four hundred people allowed a closer inspection of the pianist’s flawless technique. More important, the matinees constituted his only appearances without the usual supply of subordinate performers (although other instrumentalists joined him for an occasional chamber work) and his only sustained effort at broadening his repertoire beyond his own works and the Beethoven concertos. He performed two of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words (“Volkslied,” op. 53, no. 5, and “Frühlingslied,” op. 62, no. 6); some Chopin mazurkas and the funeral march from the B-flat Minor Sonata, op. 35; transcriptions of three Schubert songs (“Ave Maria,” “Lob der Tränen,” and “Ständchen”); the Hummel Septet, op. 74; and several works by Beethoven: the “Moonlight” Sonata, op. 27, no. 2, the “Archduke” Trio, op. 97, the Trio in C Minor, op. 1, no. 3, and a transcription of Adelaide, op. 46. He also offered transcriptions of several operatic excerpts (the quartet from I Puritani, the trio from Robert le diable, and the “Miserere” from Il trovatore), which he performed on a reed organ manufactured by Alexandre of Paris. Ullman justified the change in repertoire by explaining that these works were written “at a time when audiences were counted by scores and not by thousands” and were not intended to “encounter the glitter of innumerable gaslights and the excitement of a modern Evening Concert.”23 Socially, Thalberg’s matinees unquestionably demonstrated the extensive patronage of music by women, at the time widely understood to be the principal supporters of the arts. Describing the audience at the first matinee, the Times stated that “a few gentlemen of strong nerves and much leisure were the solitary representatives of the sterner sex,” and the New York correspondent to Dwight’s claimed “there were so few gentlemen that they might well count for nothing.”24 Thalberg’s matinees were overwhelmingly successful with women for a practical reason: a respectable woman required a male escort to attend an evening event, but she could attend an afternoon concert alone.

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Ullman did not trust the public to attend the matinees solely for musical reasons. His drawing card was to have black waiters dressed in livery serve refreshments consisting of chocolate, cake, and ice cream during an “Intermission for Lunch.” The fare was probably attractive to the fashion-seeking subscriber, but the first series of matinees sold out before the delicacies were even publicized. Ullman had underestimated the public’s interest in serious music and the eagerness of women audiences. The culinary offerings, however, quickly became a lively topic of conversation and an easy target for satire. George William Curtis in Harper’s ridiculed the dainty refreshments and mocked the pretentiousness of the matinees, specifically their “charmingly foreign” character and the desire of many Americans to prove their sophistication to the world. He quipped: “It is such a comfort to have things done well when they are done at all, and to show mankind that we know how to have morning concerts as well as any body.” In all seriousness, Curtis believed “the playing of Thalberg was never so exquisite as at the Matinées. It is, in truth, perfect. . . . [We] wonder whether he has not touched the utmost possibility of the piano, and ask whether, when he is gone, we have not seen and lost the most perfect pianist that ever has been or ever can be.”25 A similar but shorter series of matinees in Boston, where the subscribers’ addresses were required to assure the absence of riffraff, elicited charges of elitism, and one journal dubbed the pianist “Tall Bug, the brother of the immortal ‘hum.’ ”26 A series of free concerts for schoolchildren offered by Thalberg should have spared him such accusations, although his—or Ullman’s—motive may not have been entirely altruistic. Giving free concerts for children was excellent publicity, and it created an image of an artist devoted to the furtherance of art. Yet Thalberg’s thoroughness in carrying out the plan—at least twenty such concerts were given in ten cities for as many as forty or fifty thousand children— suggests a genuine sincerity. The Tribune reported that Thalberg had performed for twenty thousand children in six New York concerts, and the Times claimed that “every urchin in the street” seemed to know his name.27 For the first children’s concert in New York, the music educator Lowell Mason introduced Thalberg to three thousand girls (“a more beautiful sight we have never seen” gushed the Times).28 At Mason’s suggestion, the girls sang “Home, Sweet Home” for the pianist. When Thalberg performed his own immensely popular version of the tune for the students, their “ruddy faces lighted up with a deeper glow, and a smile of pleasure rippled over them, and the whole house was vocal with whispered ejaculations of delight.”29 After a month of concerts, which were frequently standing room only, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper took pride in New York’s reception: “Thalberg’s triumph is literally a triumph of high art, unaided by clap-trap or any of the ordinary and extraordinary machinery usually employed to manufacture reputations and gull the public. Thalberg’s success decides, beyond contradiction, that our public has a critical judgment that needs no prompting, and can decide upon the merits of an artist without waiting for the verdict of the press.”30 At his

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twelfth New York concert “every seat was filled, and many ladies were obliged to stand during the entire performance.” After sixteen concerts, the Times declared that “the interest in this great and genial artist appears to be on the increase.”31 By the end of his first season, Thalberg had made more than fifty appearances in New York, with no seeming abatement in public interest. In addition to his public performances, Thalberg became indirectly associated in another of his manager’s ventures. Ullman was seeking to manage the opera at the Academy of Music in New York, newly opened in 1854. Opera management in New York was a risky undertaking, and no impresario had been financially successful at it for more than a season or two before either leaving the field or being forced to regroup. Besides its instability, the New York operatic world was filled with intrigue. A few days before Thalberg’s concerts began, Ullman had been struck down in the street by a slingshot, not the first time he had been assaulted in New York. Claiming he had been warned of an impending attack, Ullman suspected the assailant was a “general Man Friday” of rival impresario Max Maretzek, who feared Ullman and Thalberg might wrest the opera’s management from him. Responsible or not, Maretzek would have been right to be concerned about competition from Thalberg’s approaching concerts, whose great quantity and phenomenal success did indeed prove disastrous for the academy’s opera season. By mid-December, the Herald could state that Thalberg’s troupe has the “success and the dollars,” while Maretzek and his opera company had “beaten a retreat to Havana.”32 With the conspicuous financial success he was enjoying with Thalberg, Ullman was finally able to win the bid for the lease of the academy in early 1857, but only with the pianist’s backing.33 Thalberg’s involvement with the Academy of Music was small but not inconsequential: he supplied Ullman with muchneeded capital and with his name, endowing the joint venture with instant respectability and the prospect of success. Ullman soon consolidated forces in the opera house and concert hall with Maurice Strakosch, who had begun producing opera at the academy in late January. In early March, Thalberg joined with Strakosch’s singers in seven concerts in New York and Brooklyn; three of the appearances (10, 12, and 19 March) included a performance of Rossini’s Stabat Mater by members of the academy’s opera company and the New-York Harmonic Society. His two final New York appearances of the season were at the Academy of Music during opera intermissions, a trick to boost attendance that would be used the following season. With Thalberg’s apparent commitment to the Academy of Music, most people assumed he would be on hand the following season for his operatic venture there. It appeared that Thalberg was becoming an American musical institution. Matching the unqualified success of Thalberg’s first year in America would have been challenging under any circumstance, but a financial panic that coincided with the beginning of the 1857–1858 season made it impossible to do so. Fortunately, Ullman had arranged for the Belgian violinist Henry Vieuxtemps

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(1820–1881) to contribute some novelty to Thalberg’s second year. One of the first virtuosos to visit America, Vieuxtemps had toured here in 1843–1844 at the same time as Ole Bull (1810–1880) and Alexandre Artôt (1815–1845), but he had been no match for his Norwegian rival at capturing the hearts of Americans. One New York critic attributed Vieuxtemps’s lack of success to his being “in advance of the taste.” Among his small audiences, “very few could appreciate the grand simplicity of his style—his classic grace and strictness, his intellectual greatness and his unapproachable finish.”34 Despite closed banks and tight money, Thalberg’s new season began promisingly. Concert reports marveled at the unusually high attendance during the troubled economic conditions. Leslie’s thought the “public never tire of hearing” Thalberg and believed he was “more popular than ever.” For the first New York concert “nearly twice as many persons desired to get into Niblo’s Saloon as that pretty room will hold,” and at the third concert “a great many people had to enjoy the musical treats outside, in the corridors and on the stairs.”35 Thalberg continued to saturate audiences with his most popular works, prompting disenchantment with his unchanging repertoire. Suggesting that Thalberg’s pieces should be “laid aside for a while,” the New-York Musical Review and Gazette argued that the piano literature was “too rich to justify a constant repetition of the same compositions.” Yet that critic, like most others, was still fascinated by Thalberg’s playing, if not by his limited selection of works. Dwight’s New York correspondent claimed that “after not having heard Thalberg for six months, the perfection of his execution stood forth unmoved by any weariness of its sameness.” Fry in the Tribune dubbed the pianist “the evergreen Thalberg” and admitted that he “always sways his audience.”36 But the economic crisis soon took its toll, and many concerts were canceled. During the six weeks from late November to early January the previous season, Thalberg had made almost forty appearances in various cities; this season he made only four, all of them at the Academy of Music in conjunction with the opera. As the new lessee of the Academy of Music, Ullman had rotated singers between opera productions and Thalberg’s concerts, and Thalberg, as a silent partner with Ullman in his management of opera at the academy, occasionally performed there during intermission. With the season sputtering to a halt in the East, Ullman wisely decided to send Thalberg into virgin territory in the South and the West. But he first held an elaborate “Farewell Appearance” for the pianist on 2 January 1858 at the Academy of Music. Billed as the “Thalberg Testimonial,” the event comprised four different “entertainments” beginning at 1:00: an opera, a symphonic concert, a miscellaneous performance with Thalberg and others, and a performance of Mozart’s Requiem by five hundred musicians. The gala affair was so successful that it was repeated two days later, with only a few changes. Thalberg premiered a new piece written for the occasion, a fantasia on the popular song “Lilly Dale,” a rather uninspired arrangement that Dwight’s New York correspondent found “quite pretty in its way” but “unworthy [of] both the man and the occasion.”37

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Upon completing his inland tour in late March 1858, Thalberg made what would be his final East Coast appearances in humbling circumstances as an assisting artist in a series of concerts with the French conductor Alfred Musard (1828–1881). The elaborate performances, held at the Academy of Music, were the inspiration of Ullman, who imported Musard as a remedy for the worsening opera season. A popular conductor of balls and promenade concerts, Musard specialized in dance music performed by a large orchestra and was not unlike Louis Jullien (1812–1860), who had toured the United States with his orchestra in 1853–1854. Musard was not a natural showman like Jullien, who conducted with gloved hands and diamond-studded batons—a “vulgar humbug” according to the Courier and Enquirer. Musard’s lack of flamboyancy was mitigated by Ullman, who rarely presented music to the public on its own merit. Boasting that the Musard concerts would be the “most colossal and artistic entertainment that has ever been introduced in America,” Ullman redecorated the academy with “rich velvety carpets, luxurious divans . . . twenty-five monster candelabras and new and splendid chandeliers.” One thousand fans were given away at every performance—ladies were “requested not to take the trouble of bringing fans with them”—and evening newspapers were sold by “young gentlemen in uniform,” as was “customary in Paris and London.” Ullman continued a feature he had introduced in Thalberg’s matinees: “Persons wishing to take refreshments (ice creams, tea, coffee, cakes, &c.) without leaving their seats, can have them brought to them by waiters in livery, who will be stationed for that purpose in the parquet and dress circle.” Two final touches were apparently novel to New York: a “new contrivance” announced the program’s selections by “transparent placards on the stage,” and the sounding of a gong signaled the beginning of the second half of the concert.38 These concerts featured stunning performances by a first-rate orchestra composed of 120 local musicians and virtuoso soloists from Paris. Musard’s specialties, however, had no artistic pretensions. Many of the works he performed were lighthearted quadrilles of patchwork design, often using preexisting material. Gotham: or the Electric Telegraph Quadrille, for example, was a medley of popular tunes ranging from “Yankee Doodle” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “The Arkansas Traveller” and “Oh! Susanna.” Many of the quadrilles were descriptive: The Zouaves on the Malakoff depicted “with startling reality” an episode from the Crimean War, and Boeufs et moutons imitated with instruments “the baaing of the lambs, the lowing of the cows, [and] the roaring of the bulls” as flocks and herds descend a mountainside. In The Express Railroad Gallop, the sounds of the conductor’s whistle, the locomotive bell, “the puffing of the locomotive,” and “the whiz of the cars” were produced by special machinery. The paraphernalia surrounding the concerts, as well as the frivolous repertory, caused Dwight’s New York correspondent to proclaim that “Humbug is great, and Ullman is his prophet!”39 The most noteworthy aspect of the concerts was the performance of more serious music under the direction of Carl Anschütz (1815–1870), engaged by

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Ullman the previous fall for the Academy of Music. Two evenings were devoted to the music of Beethoven, with Thalberg performing the first movement of the Third Piano Concerto and Vieuxtemps the first movement of the Violin Concerto. More daring was a “Berlioz Night,” given four times, that offered the most concentrated dose of Berlioz yet heard in the United States: the Overture to Les Francs-juges, Le carnaval romain, the Rákóczy March (from La damnation de Faust), and Berlioz’s orchestration of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance.40 With the assistance of the Liederkranz Society and the New-York Harmonic Society, Mozart’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Elijah were performed on other evenings. To lure audiences to hear a stellar array of performers, Ullman charged a rock-bottom admission of fifty cents, but he still could not entice large enough crowds to break even, given the economic situation (see plate 4.3). Even Thalberg’s frequent role in the series—he appeared eighteen times during the first three weeks—did not seem to help. The Musard concerts ultimately failed because they were too much of a hodgepodge affair. Their sensational aspects and mostly light repertoire did not appeal to the connoisseur, whereas the Beethoven and Berlioz works intimidated the person searching for a pleasant diversion. The Times sarcastically praised the “entertainments,” where one could “talk about the fashions without being frowned at by a surly amateur, or scowled at by an irate professor, as at the serious Philharmonic.” On the other hand, the Times was amused by the “laborious gravity” with which New York audiences listened to Musard’s selections. It believed the “serious interest, the breathless expectation” evinced by American audiences would “drive a genuine French orchestra to the verge of suicide.”41 The troubled economy had a devastating effect on Thalberg’s second season in the East, and he made one more trip to the Midwest before leaving unexpectedly. The advent of the Civil War discouraged many first-rate artists from pursuing American tours. Not until the visits of Anton Rubinstein (1872–1873) and Hans von Bülow (1875–1876) did pianists of a rank similar to Thalberg perform in New York. Unlike Thalberg, however, Rubinstein and Bülow were at the peak of their careers, surely a sign of America’s musical progress or at least an indication that the nation was perceived more positively by Europeans. Undoubtedly, the most significant development in Rubinstein’s and Bülow’s appearances was the shift that had occurred in the typical pianist’s repertoire: virtuosic fantasias on opera themes and variations on popular tunes composed by the pianist himself had been replaced by more profound works by a variety of composers, mostly deceased. Like Thalberg’s, Rubinstein’s New York appearances are significant in their quantity and variety. They also account for one-fourth of his slightly more than two hundred appearances in the United States in approximately sixty cities. By far the most extraordinary aspect of Rubinstein’s tour was his series of seven farewell recitals in New York, designed to present “an epitome of the great piano music.”42 Although slightly marred by Rubinstein’s uneven technique and

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 4.3. “Mr. Ullmann’s Musical Tour Through the United States.” This caricature depicts participants in the Musard concerts as struggling street musicians during the financially disastrous 1857–1858 season: the diminutive Ullman begs for coins; Vieuxtemps looks rather scruffy; Thalberg appears as an organ grinder, with the names of his most popular pieces on the front of his instrument (Moses in Egypt; Don Pasquale; Home, Sweet Home; Lucrezia Borgia; and Norma), suggesting that the works were so well known that they were part of the musical vernacular; and Musard wears a deadpan facial expression and stands nonchalantly, indicating his blasé stage persona (Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University).

occasionally faulty memory, the Herald declared the series “the greatest work ever accomplished by a pianist on the shores of America.”43 Bülow’s tour was also under Ullman’s management. Bülow was one of the few visiting performers to make his debut in Boston, but only because the new

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Chickering Hall under construction in New York, which he was to help dedicate, was not ready. An important issue during Bülow’s visit was the pivotal role of German immigrants in American musical life, both as performers and as audiences. Bülow repeatedly berated his countrymen in private and in the press. Almost immediately, he fired and denounced his conductor, Carl Bergmann, one of the most eminent German musicians in the New World (see chapters 2 and 3); consequently, many Germans boycotted his concerts, which had a disastrous impact on attendance, since German immigrants comprised a significant portion of the concertgoing public. Many visiting performers, however, established strong personal and professional friendships in the city where they spent much of their time and performing energies, and numerous of them contemplated putting down roots. Herz, who remained in the United States the longest, looked as though he might choose to remain when he established in New York a musical academy and piano showrooms to sell pianos from his own factory. Even Bülow, who was interested in escaping from the Germany of Wagner, made preliminary plans to become an American citizen and had offers to conduct orchestras in New York and Boston, despite some of the ill will he had created early in his tour. Although most of the great European performers returned to their homeland, many of them at least found in New York a home away from home.

Appendix 4.1 New York Appearances of Sigismund Thalberg, 1856–1858* Date 1856 November 10 November 11 November 13 November 15 November 17

Venue

Comments

November 18 November 20

Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon

November 21

Niblo’s Saloon

November 27

Niblo’s Saloon

concerto

November 29

Niblo’s Saloon

concerto

December 1

Athenaeum (Brooklyn)

Other performers

L. M. Gottschalk, piano L. M. Gottschalk, piano Carl Bergmann, conductor Carl Bergmann, conductor

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Appendix 4.1 (continued) Date

Venue

Comments

December 2 December 2

Niblo’s Garden Niblo’s Saloon

school children concerto

December 4 December 9 December 11 December 26

Niblo’s Garden Niblo’s Garden Niblo’s Garden Niblo’s Saloon

guest

December 29

Athenaeum (Brooklyn)

1857 February 16 February 16 February 18 February 19 February 19 February 20 February 20

Niblo’s Garden Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Garden Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon

February 21 February 24

Niblo’s Saloon Dodworth’s Saloon

February 24 February 26 February 26

Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Garden Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon

February 26 February 27 February 27 February 28 February 28 March 3 March 3

Dodworth’s Saloon Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Niblo’s Garden Odeon (Williamsburg) Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon

Other performers Carl Bergmann, conductor

L. M. Gottschalk, piano L. M. Gottschalk, piano

school children

school children

solo matinee guest, benefit

William Mason, piano

solo matinee

Joseph Burke, violin Carl Bergmann, violoncello

school children solo matinee

solo matinee

Joseph Burke, violin William Mason, piano Joseph Burke, violin

school children

solo matinee Joseph Burke, violin

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Appendix 4.1 (continued) Date

Venue

Comments

March 4 March 5

solo matinee school children

October 30 November 5 November 28 December 28

Niblo’s Saloon Odeon (Williamsburg) Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Garden Niblo’s Garden Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Garden Dodworth’s Saloon Niblo’s Garden Dodworth’s Saloon Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Academy of Music Academy of Music Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Academy of Music Academy of Music Niblo’s Saloon Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Niblo’s Saloon Niblo’s Saloon Academy of Music Academy of Music

1858 January 2 January 4

Academy of Music Academy of Music

March 5 March 5 March 7 March 10 March 10 March 11 March 12 March 12 March 16 March 16 March 19 March 19 March 20 March 21 September 15 September 17 September 24 October 2 October 3 October 9 October 10 October 23 October 29

Other performers

solo matinee

concerto solo matinee

schoolchildren solo matinee

solo matinee guest, benefit solo matinee

guest guest

guest guest

guest, benefit guest

Carl Bergmann, conductor

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Appendix 4.1 (continued) Date

Venue

April 3 April 5 April 12 April 13 April 14 April 15 April 16 April 17 April 19 April 20 April 21 April 22 April 23 April 24 April 25 April 26 April 27

Academy of Music Athenaeum (Brooklyn) Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music

April 28

Academy of Music

April 29 April 30 May 1 May 2

Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music Academy of Music

Comments

guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard, concerto guest, Musard, concerto guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard guest, Musard

Other performers

Carl Anschütz, conductor Carl Anschütz, conductor

*Includes Brooklyn and Williamsburg (now a part of Brooklyn), which at the time were separate cities.

Notes 1. Five of these pianists—Leopold de Meyer, Henri Herz, Thalberg, Anton Rubinstein, and Hans von Bülow—are the focus of From Paris to Peoria. 2. For information on Ullman, see Laurence Marton Lerner, “The Rise of the Impresario: Bernard Ullman and the Transformation of Musical Culture in Nineteenth Century America” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1970); R. Allen Lott, “Bernard Ullman, Nineteenth-Century American Impresario,” in A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock, eds. Richard Crawford, R. Allen Lott, and Carol J. Oja (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 174–91. 3. New-York Musical Review and Gazette 7 (4 October 1856): 305; The New-York Daily Times, 31 October 1856.

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4. Thalberg’s complete American itinerary is available in From Paris to Peoria, 297–99, and with more details online at www.rallenlott.info. 5. I include Brooklyn in this survey, even though it was not officially part of New York City until 1898. During the time of Thalberg’s visit, it was the third-largest city in the United States. 6. The New York Herald, 12 November 1856. 7. Ibid., 14 November 1856. 8. Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (11 October 1856): 14; see also Fry’s discussion in The New York Daily Tribune, 11 November 1856. 9. The New-York Daily Times, 11 November 1856; see Isabelle Bélance-Zank, “The ‘Three-Hand’ Texture: Origins and Use,” Journal of the American Liszt Society 38 (1995): 99–121. 10. The most thorough study of Thalberg’s fantasias appears in Charles R. Suttoni, “Piano and Opera: A Study of the Piano Fantasies Written on Opera Themes in the Romantic Era” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1973). Suttoni concludes that Thalberg brought a new “seriousness and a more sonorous type of lyricism” to the opera fantasia (p. 171). 11. Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (17 January 1857): 126, and 10 (11 October 1856): 14. 12. Thalberg’s setting of “The Last Rose of Summer” is reprinted in Jeffrey Kallberg, ed., Piano Music of the Parisian Virtuosos, 1810–1860, vols. 1–2: Sigismund Thalberg (1812–1871): Selected Works (New York: Garland, 1993). His set of variations on “Home, Sweet Home” is available in the online sheet music collections of Duke University, the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at Johns Hopkins University, and the Library of Congress; see the links at www.rallenlott.info. 13. The New York Evening Post, 19 February 1857, quoted in Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3: Repercussions, 1857–1862 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 25; Richard Grant White in Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, 28 November 1856, quoted in Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (6 December 1856): 76. 14. Ullman in The New-York Daily Times, 22 November 1856; The New-York Daily Times, 28 November 1856. 15. From early 1834 to early 1835, Thalberg performed Beethoven’s Third, Fourth, and Fifth Piano Concertos in Vienna (see the valuable chronology prepared by Daniel Hitchcock in The Sigismund Thalberg Society Newsletter 2 [April 1991]: 7–17). During his first season in the United States, Thalberg performed the first movement of the Beethoven Third Concerto in New York (27 and 29 November 1856), Philadelphia (27 December 1856), Boston (10 January and 31 March 1857), and Brooklyn (7 March 1857) and the first movement of the Fifth in New York (2 December 1856) and Boston (13 January and 4 April 1857). 16. Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, 28 November 1856, quoted in Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (6 December 1856): 76; New-York Daily Tribune, 28 November 1856. 17. Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, 28 November 1856, quoted in Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (6 December 1856): 76; New-York Daily Times, 28 November 1856; Dwight on the Fifth Concerto in Dwight’s Journal of Music 11 (11 April 1857): 14; Dwight on the Third Concerto in Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (17 January 1857): 126. 18. Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (17 January 1857): 126; New York correspondent, Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (21 February 1857): 164. 19. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 21 March 1857. 20. The New-York Daily Times, 6 March 1857.

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21. Ibid., 14 November 1856. 22. Thalberg gave a series of three matinees at Dodworth’s Saloon in New York beginning on 20 February, with subscriptions selling for five dollars and limited to four hundred people. Two more series of two matinees each were added, as well as four single matinees and a “soirée musicale” in the evening. 23. The New-York Daily Times, 16 February 1857. 24. Ibid., 21 February 1857; New York correspondent, Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (28 February 1857): 173. Theatrical matinees were being introduced at the same time for which women were targeted as the primary audience; see Richard Butsch, “Bowery B’hoys and Matinee Ladies: The Re-Gendering of Nineteenth-Century American Theater Audiences,” American Quarterly 46 (1994): 374–405. 25. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 14 (May 1857): 849–50. 26. The Boston Daily Ledger (23 and 25 March 1857) complained about the “foreign snobism” inherent in the matinees; the reference to “Tall Bug,” with an appropriate illustration, appears in Yankee Notions 6 (September 1857): 286, reproduced in From Paris to Peoria, 139. 27. The New-York Daily Tribune, 12 March 1857; The New-York Daily Times, 21 January 1857. 28. The New-York Daily Times, 3 December 1856. 29. Richard Storrs Willis in Musical Review, quoted in Dwight’s Journal of Music 10 (20 December 1856): 92. 30. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 6 December 1856. 31. The New York Herald, 10 December 1856; The New-York Daily Times, 19 February 1857. 32. Attack on Ullman in The New York Sun, 10 November 1856, and The New York Herald, 9 November 1856; The New York Herald, 13 December 1856. 33. For information on Ullman’s operatic activities, see Lawrence, Repercussions ; Lerner, “Bernard Ullman”; Max Maretzek, Sharps and Flats (1890; reprint, New York: Dover, 1968), 37–48. 34. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 19 September 1857. 35. Ibid.; first concert in Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, 16 September 1857, reprinted in Dwight’s Journal of Music 11 (26 September 1857): 203; third concert in New-York Musical Review and Gazette 8 (3 October 1857): 307. 36. New-York Musical Review and Gazette 8 (19 September 1857): 291–92; Dwight’s Journal of Music 11 (26 September 1857): 204; The New-York Daily Tribune, 17 September 1857. 37. Dwight’s Journal of Music 12 (9 January 1858): 325. The program is reproduced in Lawrence, Repercussions, 19. 38. Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, 13 April 1858, quoted in Dwight’s Journal of Music 13 (24 April 1858): 26; Ullman’s advertisements in The New-York Times, 3 and 12 April 1858. 39. Dwight’s Journal of Music 13 (8 May 1858): 45. 40. When Ullman had left for Europe the previous spring, he was said to be planning an American tour for Berlioz (Dwight’s Journal of Music 11 [11 April 1857]: 14; New-York Musical Review and Gazette 8 [2 May 1857]: 129). In a letter to Ullman dated 15 July 1857, Berlioz stated his intention to visit the United States the following season (reprinted in New-York Musical Review and Gazette 8 [22 August 1857]: 261). 41. The New-York Times, 3 May and 23 April 1858.

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42. The program booklet is reproduced in Ronald V. Ratcliffe, Steinway (San Francisco: Chronicle, 1989), 115–17. The programs contain numerous errors (even after being reprinted with corrections) and are annoyingly vague. Rubinstein made various deletions and additions not always readily identified by critics. A definitive list of what he performed is not possible, but see From Paris to Peoria, 305–307 for an attempted reconstruction. 43. The New York Herald, 21 May 1873.

Chapter Five

Leopold Damrosch as Composer Wayne D. Shirley

“The first mature European musician of high distinction and versatility to acquire a permanent residence in New York and to decide to make his future career in America was Dr. Leopold Damrosch,” recalls Edwin Rice in his article in The Musical Quarterly, published fifty-eight years after Damrosch’s death.1 Rice is perhaps not an impartial judge: an amateur chorister remembering his conductor, he focuses his recollections on the repertory Damrosch performed with the Oratorio Society of New York. Still, his statement is easy to agree with if we accept both of his qualifications: residence in New York (which eliminates such figures as the adoptive Bostonian Otto Dresel) and the permanence of his residence in the United States (which eliminates that transient New Yorker William Vincent Wallace). Leopold Damrosch is best known to music historians as a conductor—savior of the Met with his 1884–1885 season of German opera, founder and first conductor of both the New York Symphony Orchestra and the Oratorio Society of New York, and conductor of the Männergesangverein Arion (1871–1873) in New York City. But music dictionaries usually describe him as “violinist, conductor, and composer,” and when he emigrated from Breslau to New York in 1871, he had already composed eighteen published works bearing opus numbers.2 He carried in his trunk scores of his incidental music to Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans and his opera based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. He continued to compose and publish during his New York years, producing a list of works that includes a symphony and two extensive choral-orchestral works. Music historians have largely ignored Damrosch as a composer. George Martin’s indispensable biography of the Damrosch family, The Damrosch Dynasty, considers some of his works briefly. Of more general works, I know of only two that treat his music with respect and interest: Philip L. Miller’s anthology of song texts, The Ring of Words, and Susan Youens’s Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music. The generous seventeen-measure sample from Damrosch’s “Geh’, Geliebter, geh’ jetzt” in Youens3 is the only musical example from Damrosch’s music I am aware of in a post-World War I book.

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This chapter is an attempt at an appraisal of Damrosch as a composer. It offers a preliminary works list (appendix 5.1) and many musical examples, since the actual experience of a composer’s music is more useful than any number of abstract descriptions. The chapter considers Damrosch’s works written in both Europe and America. Thus it is, in a sense, a guest in this collection of essays on music in New York; but since we have so little experience of Damrosch’s music, it is more useful to consider his music as a whole than to isolate his New York works from their predecessors. Given our general knowledge of the works of Igor Stravinsky, it is useful and sometimes revelatory to look at the works of his late years as those of “an American composer”—but if we knew nothing of his works before he became an American citizen in 1945, would not our consideration of his American works be distorted?

Damrosch’s Instrumental Music It is no surprise that many of violinist-composer Damrosch’s works are for violin solo, with either piano or orchestra. His earliest published works are Stimmungsbilder-type works for violin and piano,4 and scattered through his works list are several salon works for this combination. There are also serious, more extended works for violin and orchestra. The first movement of his F# Minor Concerto (one of two concertos confusingly numbered “concerto no. 2”) shows his serious violin music at its most swashbuckling. Example 5.1 offers its opening. A passage from the middle of the movement (example 5.2) serves as an example of a long melody created by Lisztian motivic manipulation, a hallmark of Damrosch’s style. Example 5.3, from late in the movement, demonstrates Damrosch’s use of virtuosic writing. Damrosch also composed for orchestra without violin. The incidental music for Schiller’s Jungfrau von Orleans, unlike Romeo und Julie, has an overture. There is an undated but presumably early Orchester-Fantasie, now known only in a piano arrangement by Carl Tausig; there is also a Fest-Ouvertüre, op. 15, from the Breslau years. The Overture to Jungfrau von Orleans is functional (as is all the music for this early work), the Orchester-Fantasie is unpromising (Lisztian motive repetition without Lisztian imagination), but the Fest-Ouvertüre earns its opus number as a well-crafted piece, with a poetic introductory section (example 5.4) that yields to a vigorous (and duly festal) sonata-allegro. During his American years, Damrosch was more occupied with choral than with orchestral music, but he did produce in 1878—the year the New York Symphony Orchestra was founded—a four-movement Symphony in A Major. The symphony remains unperformed; Damrosch saw the New York Symphony Orchestra’s mission to be to perform the great works of the repertory, not to serve as a medium for the advancement of his career as a composer.5

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way n e d . s h i r l e y

Allegro ma non troppo, appassionato

solo:

orch:

etc. orch:

Example 5.1. Leopold Damrosch, Concerto in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Orchestra, first movement, mm. 1–9.

Tranquillo

molto tranquillo ed espressivo

Sul G

solo

[ ]

[simile]

orch

Sul D

etc.

Example 5.2. Leopold Damrosch, Concerto in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Orchestra, first movement, mm. 176–86.

Opera and Song If Damrosch’s music for Schiller is merely “functional,” the work of a musician in his early twenties, his opera Romeo und Julie (“Julie” in the title, “Julia” in the score proper), the work of a man in his thirties,6 is a solid, carefully crafted piece. One can imagine it being staged, although there is little chance it will be. Damrosch

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leopold damrosch as composer

95

deciso poco

solo

orch.

[poco] stringendo

3

etc.

Example 5.3. Leopold Damrosch, Concerto in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Orchestra, first movement, mm. 282–91.

wrote his own libretto for the opera rather than use a translation of Shakespeare. The action follows the general action of the play but is considerably condensed. It differs from the majority of musical versions of Romeo and Juliet in one key way: it does not give Romeo and Juliet a final tomb-scene duet. The opera ends with Juliet’s soliloquy, a sort of miniature Liebestod. The opening of this soliloquy— example 5.5 contains fifteen of its fifty-five measures—may be seen as an example of the style of the opera, which relies on Tannhäuser-Lohengrin–like noble declamation rather than on long-breathed melodies or florid singing. More of Leopold Damrosch’s opus numbers are given to songs than to any other form, and indeed, lieder writing was Damrosch’s major gift. The songs were published in a collected edition by G. Schirmer in 1903, edited by Frank Damrosch; the Geibel-Lieder, op. 11, were reprinted as recently as 1986. An occasional Damrosch song, such as “Die du bist so schön und rein,” op. 10, no. 3, is reminiscent of Liszt; but the main influence on his songs is Schumann. Sometimes, as demonstrated in example 5.6, the influence is so strong as to be disconcerting. More often, the influence is absorbed and internalized, and Damrosch’s debt to Schumann is the general debt of his generation of lieder writers.

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way n e d . s h i r l e y espress. [Lento;

= 52]

+ cl.

str.

+ob.

strings tr.

t. fg. fg.

fl. cl. w.w.

5 5

harp

str. pizz. fg. str. fg.

w.w.

5

5

harp

fg. str.

Example 5.4. Leopold Damrosch, Fest-Ouvertüre, op. 15, mm. 18–31, beat 1.

A good brief example of a Damrosch song is the opening of his op. 10, no. 5, “Wenn ich auf dem Lager liege” (example 5.7). These eighteen measures show several aspects of Damrosch’s craft as a song composer: his sense of a good accompaniment figure, his impeccable text setting, and his penchant for

[Mässig bewegt] mit Verklärung

Nun ob. cl.

3

lass

mich bei dem Heiss

ge lieb

ten

wei

len. 3

3

str. horns

Die

Lie

be,

die

im

Le

ben uns

ver

3

bannt,

sie

ei

nen uns

im

To

de.

oboe solo

Ihn

such’

Ich,

mein

en einz’

gen

Freund

vl. [+vla. 8va b]

Example 5.5. Leopold Damrosch, Romeo und Julie, “Nun lass mich bei dem Heissgeliebten weilen,” mm. 1–15.

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way n e d . s h i r l e y

Bewegt, mit Wärme

Som mer

3

will aus

hei

ssem Her zen

al

le

sei

ne

Lie

ben

3

3 3

con pedale

grü

ssen,

Example 5.6. Leopold Damrosch, “Der Lindenzweig,” op. 13, no. 1, mm. 1–5.

veering out of a key and then safely returning to it. The song as a whole shows another characteristic: it consists of four strophes set to the same music, followed by a brief coda. Damrosch is partial to strophic songs (often written out continuously rather than with repeat marks) and also to ABA patterns. The listener making first contact with his songs may wish for a somewhat bolder formal sense, but better a straightforwardly constructed song than a good beginning marred by an uncertain continuation. Of particular interest (although they are by no means his only songs worth performing) are the settings of Emmanuel Geibel’s translations from the Spanish, which comprise Damrosch’s opus 11. These texts were used by Schumann in his Spanisches Liederspiel, op. 74, and his Spanische Liebeslieder, op. 138, and would be drawn on by Hugo Wolf for his Spanisches Liederbuch, so they have major associations for anyone fond of nineteenth-century German song. Damrosch does not set himself up as a rival to Schumann, whose songs were written for vocal ensemble rather than solo voice, and Wolf’s were not written until more than a decade after Damrosch’s death. No individual setting of a poem eclipses Schumann’s or Wolf’s, but they do inhabit the same ground, and the reaction of another composer to a particular text often illuminates both songs.7

Nicht zu langsam

Wenn ich auf dem La

ger lie

ge,

in Nacht

una corda

und Kis sen ge

hüllt,

so schwebt

mir vor

ein

espress.

sü

sses,

an mu

thig

lie

bes,

lie

cresc. poco a poco

bes

Bild.

dim.

Example 5.7. Leopold Damrosch, “Wenn ich auf dem Lager liege,” op. 10, no. 5, mm. 1–18.

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Mässig bewegt, sehr zart

Von

Ro

Ro

sen

busch, o

Mut

dem

ter,

sen

von

komm’

den

ich.

cresc.

Example 5.8. Leopold Damrosch, “Von dem Rosenbusch, o Mutter,” op. 11, no. 2, mm. 1–8.

The next three examples give an idea of the range of Damrosch’s opus 11. Number 2, “Von dem Rosenbusch, o Mutter,” is an example of Damroschas-Schumann (example 5.8). “Dereinst, dereinst,” the fourth song of the set, is declamatory, a technique Damrosch handles particularly well (example 5.9). The fifth song, “Nelken wind’ ich und Jasmin” (example 5.10), starts with a delicate accompaniment figure that flames into an outburst—somewhat disconcerting to a listener brought up on Schumann’s setting, which never quite gets to fortissimo.

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Schwermüthig, getragen

Der

einst,

der

einst,

Ge dan ke

mein,

wirst

Langsam

ru

hig

sein.

Example 5.9. Leopold Damrosch, “Dereinst, dereinst,” op. 11, no. 4, mm. 1–9.

Damrosch delighted in writing songs that contained a touch of folksong. This is true not only for his opus 14, labeled specifically “im Volkston,” but also of other songs such as “Zaunstudien” (op. 8, no. 12, given in example 5.11). There are nine songs in manuscript on texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn in very straightforward, folkish settings. This delight in folksong served Damrosch well in writing his last published songs, which appeared in St. Nicholas Songs, a collection of songs for children published by Century in 1885. The collection of settings of poems, previously published in the children’s magazine St. Nicholas, was meant to be sung and played by children. American composers including George Frederick Bristow (1825–1898), George Whitefield Chadwick (1854–1931), Arthur Foote (1853–1937), Harrison Millard (1830–1895), and Samuel P. Warren (1841–1915) contributed settings; the poets included Celia Thaxter (1835–1894), Lucy Larcom (1824–1893), Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907), and—the most often set— Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905). Damrosch contributed ten songs to the collection—only Albert A. Stanley (1851–1932) contributed more. Additional unpublished children’s songs by Damrosch, sketched for the same collection, are found in manuscript at the Library of Congress.

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Innig bewegt

Nel

ken

wind’ ich und Jas min,

cresc.

und

ihn,

es

es

denkt

denkt

mein

an

Herz

an

ihn.

Example 5.10. Leopold Damrosch, “Nelken wind’ ich und Jasmin,” op. 11, no. 5, mm. 1–9.

Choral Works Damrosch continued to write songs—including German-language lieder—during his American years, but his major compositional energies turned to choral music. He was, after all, conductor of both the New York Oratorio Society and, during his early American years, the Männergesangverein Arion, as mentioned earlier. He performed other services for choral music as well. The piano-vocal

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Mit freiem, graziösen Vortrag.

Ein

Ma

ler 3

vor

dem

Zau

ne

sass,

a

ha!

stu

3

sempre colla parte

dirt’

da

ran

ohn’

Un

ter

lass,

ja

ja!

Example 5.11. Leopold Damrosch, “Zaunstudien,” op. 8, no. 12, mm. 1–6.

scores he prepared for the Oratorio Society’s performances of Berlioz’s Requiem and The Damnation of Faust, published by G. Schirmer, are the scores still most used by American choruses in preparing these works. He also edited two anthologies, Arion’s Liederkranz (1882), a collection of German-language male choruses published in partbook form, and Saint Cecilia (1875), described on its cover as “a Collection of Anthems, Motets, Chorals, Hymns, etc. With and without Accompaniment, selected from the works of the best ancient and modern composers, and including original compositions for solo voices and chorus. Compiled and Adapted for Church Service, Choral Societies, etc., by Dr. Leopold Damrosch.” Saint Cecilia was published as “Volume 1,” but no second volume appeared. Arion’s Liederkranz contained little music by Damrosch, but he wrote almost half of the pieces in Saint Cecilia. Damrosch’s music for Saint Cecilia is not impressive: it is music for not-veryadvanced church choirs (Episcopal, one imagines, given the service-music nature of many of the texts).8 Some of the pieces are musically stronger than others, notably the carol “O Come Emanuel, Prince of Peace” and “Bonum est confiteri”—the latter in English despite the title. In the eccentric second half of “Bonum,” the choir recapitulates the bass part of the opening in assertive octaves, while the organist projects the opening tune over them. But the “Te

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Adagio, molto con sentimento str.

vla. cl.

cresc.

horns

+fg.

+w.w.

cl.

sempre str.

timp.

ob.

; semplice, ma espressivo. Vl

Example 5.12. Leopold Damrosch, Notturno from Ruth and Naomi, mm. 1–22.

Deum,” the longest of Damrosch’s pieces in the collection, is the kind of deadlevel service music for which the only kind word is functional. Damrosch also wrote small-scale secular works. These tend to be effective but not substantial: “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” also available on the Internet,9 is a good example. His longer, single-movement National Ode for solo male quartet, male chorus, and orchestra, written for the American centenary but not published until 1899,10 is similarly effects based—always a danger for a celebratory occasional

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Lento, ma non troppo

8

How ob.

cl.

vla.

Vl. 1&2

dim.

vl. 2

8

fair,

how fair

horns

is thy

love,

my

sis ter,

my spouse,

how fair

vla.

Example 5.13. Leopold Damrosch, “How Fair, How Fair” from Sulamith, mm. 1–12, beat 1.

work—although the slow middle section, “Help for the Weak and Home to the Stranger,” has some attractive music. Damrosch wrote two large-scale works for soloists, chorus, and orchestra—both on Old Testament texts. The earlier of the two, Ruth and Naomi, was written in 1874. It is a two-act “scriptural idyll”—read “oratorio”—a setting of words from the Book of Ruth, with occasional choral incursions from other Old Testament texts. It suffers to an extent from the problems of the post-Mendelssohn biblical oratorio with tenor narrator, singers as characters in the drama, and moralizing chorus; but it contains a good deal of music of high quality. Particularly noteworthy is the orchestral Notturno at the spot where Ruth is lying at the feet of the sleeping Boaz (example 5.12). This is music that is both excerptable and worth excerpting.11 The entire work could be performed without apology to an audience sympathetic to the Victorian oratorio. Damrosch wrote Sulamith, for soprano and tenor soloists, chorus, and orchestra, in 1882 for the Oratorio Society of New York. It is in ten movements (two of them orchestral) and bears as its subtitle “The Song of Songs.” Its text, the reader will have inferred, is from the Song of Songs. More than Ruth and Naomi,

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it could be subtitled “a scriptural idyll.” It is, in fact, a long love duet with choral commentary, a one-act oratorio for want of a better name, but a sacred work only for those determined to find a sacred subtext in the Song of Songs. Several movements breathe an exoticism learned in part from the exotic sections of Anton Rubinstein’s “sacred operas” (whose own Sulamith dates from 1884, after Damrosch’s); there is also good craftsmanlike and expressive music (note especially the penultimate canonic duet, “Come, My Beloved.”). Sulamith is available in its entirety in vocal score on the Internet;13 it is a work I believe is worth hearing. Example 5.13 gives the opening of the tenor solo, no. 6. Conducting, rather than composing, was Leopold Damrosch’s main occupation during his New York years. But he did produce works in America as well as in Europe that reward the researcher’s time and study. Some are also worthy of performance. Kati Agocs’s excellent work on Damrosch, begun too late for this chapter to take advantage of, will tell us far more about Damrosch as composer. Until her work appears, I have suggested here where a performer might start to look.

Appendix 5.1 Preliminary Workslist for Leopold Damrosch ⬍material in angled brackets ⫽ publishers and dates of publication, when known⬎ Some early song titles are given in English, known only from their posthumous American publication by G. Schirmer. I. Works with Opus Numbers Opus 1. Stimmungen, for violin and piano ⬍Heinrichshofen⬎ 1. Idylle 2. Mazurka Opus 2. Stimmungen, for violin and piano ⬍Heinrichshofen⬎ 1. Sinnen 2. Träumen 3. Sehnen Opus 3. [Not identified] Opus 4. [Not identified] Opus 5. Five Songs by Nicolaus Lenau and Eduard Lasker 1. Bitte (Lenau) 2. Nachhall (Lasker) 3. Zuversicht (Lasker) 4. Kommen und Scheiden (Lenau) 5. Liebesfrühling (Lenau) Opus 6. Three Songs by Bodenstedt 1. Seh’ ich deine kleine Händchen an 2. Zuleika 3. Frühlingslied

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Appendix 5.1 (continued) Opus 7. Three Songs by various authors 1. Bei Mondenschein (Klaus Groth) 2. Wenn ich ihn nur habe (Novalis) 3. Dich lieb’ ich inniglich (E. Kern) Opus 8. Twelve Songs by various authors 1. Ich liebe dich! (Rückert) 2. Meine Furcht (Lenau) 3. Neid der Sehnsucht (Lenau) 4. An ein schönes Mädchen (Lenau) 5. An * (Lenau) 6. Trost (von Zedlitz) 7. Lenzes Lust (Klaus Groth) 8. Kalt und scheidend weht der Wind (H. Lingg) 9. Wieder möcht’ ich dir begegnen (P. Cornelius) 10. Am Klavier (Klaus Groth) 11. Dein auf ewig (Rückert) 12. Zaunstudien ( R. Reinick) Opus 9. Concertstück im Charakter einer Serenade, for violin and orchestra ⬍J. Schuberth, 1862⬎ Opus 10. Six Songs by Ludwig Uhland and Heinrich Heinea ⬍Lichtenberg?⬎ 1. In der Ferne (Uhland) 2. Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen (Heine) 3. Die du bist so schön und rein (Heine) 4. Es war ein alter König (Heine) 5. Wenn ich auf dem Lager liege (Heine) 6. Mädchen mit dem rothen Mündchen (Heine) Opus 11. Ten Spanish Songs by Geibel ⬍Cranz⬎ 1. Unter dem Schatten 2. Von dem Rosenbusch, o Mutter 3. Bedeckt mich mit Blumen (first setting) 4. Dereinst, dereinst 5. Nelken wind’ ich und Jasmin 6. Geh’, Geliebter, geh’ jetzt 7. Bedeckt mich mit Blumen (second setting) 8. Wann erscheint der Morgen? 9. Unter den Bäumen 10. An Manzanares Opus 12. Romanze in A Major, for violin and orchestra or pianoforte ⬍Lichtenberg⬎ Opus 13. Three Songs by Heinrich Heine and anonymous ⬍Lichtenberg?⬎ 1. Der Lindenzweig (folk song) 2. Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland (Heine) 3. Die blauen Frühlingsaugen (Heine) Opus 14. Three Songs “im Volkston” by various authors ⬍Lichtenberg?⬎ 1. Liebesgruss (folk song) 2. Der Kosakin Wiegenlied (Bodenstedt, after Lermontov) 3. Wer da lebt in Liebesqual (Heyse)

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Appendix 5.1 (continued) Opus 15. Fest-Ouvertüre, full orchestra ⬍Lichtenberg⬎ Opus 16. Five Songs by Heinrich Heine ⬍Hainauer⬎ 1. Das Meer erstrahlt im Sonnenschein 2. Frühling 3. Wandl’ ich in dem Wald des Abends 4. Ich halte dir die Augen zu 5. Jedweder Geselle, sein Mädel am Arm Opus 17. Five Songs by Goethe ⬍Hainauer⬎ 1. Nähe des Geliebten 2. Mignon [Kennst du das Land] 3. Nachtgesang [O gieb, von weichen Pfühle] 4. An den Mond 5. An Lina Opus 18. Five Lieder, four-part male chorus ⬍Lichtenberg?⬎ 1. Ausfahrt: Berggipfel erglühen 2. Reichtum und Ehre immer ich ‘gehre 3. Die Maulbrunner Fuge: Im Winterrefektorium 4. Blut und Eisen: Da schlag’ ein Donnerwetter drein! 5. Hurra Germania! Hurra, du stolzes, schönes Weib II. Works Without Opus Numbers (For unpublished works: LC ⫽ manuscript in Music Division, Library of Congress; NY ⫽ manuscript in the New York Public Library) Order: a. Stage Works and Oratorios; b. Songs and Duets; c. Choral Works; d. Works for Violin or Viola; e. Works for Orchestra Without Soloist; f. Miscellaneous a. Stage Works and Oratorios Jungfrau von Orleans, Overture and Incidental Music to Schiller’s Drama, 1856, LC Romeo und Julie [opera in three acts], 1864, LC Ruth and Naomi, a scriptural idyll [solo quartet, chorus, orchestra] ⬍G. D. Russell, 1874⬎ Sulamith [oratorio] ⬍G. Schirmer, 1882⬎ b. Songs and Duets [solo voice with piano unless otherwise noted] 1. Published, groups Vocal solos from Saint Cecilia (with organ) ⬍Pond, 1875⬎ Abide with Me! Crown the Saviour, Angels, Crown Him Awake, Ye Saints, Awake! Sun of My Soul! How Sweet, to Be Resigned Daughter of Zion! Children’s songs from St. Nicholas Songs ⬍Century, 1885⬎ Jessie (Bret Harte) In the Wood (Mary Mapes Dodge) Handel (Margaret Johnson) The Minuet (Laura E. Richards)

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Appendix 5.1 (continued) There’s a Ship on the Sea (Mary Mapes Dodge) An Easter Carol (Emily D. Chapman) A Million Little Diamonds (M.F.B.) Joy, Hope, and Love (Theodore Winthrop) The Lord’s Day (from the German) Four Two-Part Songs for soprano and mezzo-soprano ⬍G. Schirmer, 1876⬎ 1. Bar Not up Your Heart too Closely (Keiner soll die Thür verriegeln) 2. Preciosa’s Cure for Headacheb 3. The Trumpets Are Blowing (Sie blasen zum Abmarsch . . .) 4. Mother Dear, This Cavalier (Diesem schmucken Ritter, Mutter) Two Two-Part Songs for tenor and baritone ⬍Schuberth, 1876⬎ 1. Kommen und Scheiden (Coming and Parting) 2. Mailied (May Song) 2. Published, single songs An die deutschen Mütter, deren Söhne im Kampf für das Vaterland gefallen sind ⬍Lichtenberg, 1871?⬎ Lied des Fischerknaben (Schiller: from Wilhelm Tell) ⬍G. Schirmer, 1876⬎ Orgéni-Walzer ⬍Hainauer⬎ Siegfrieds Schwert (Uhland) [tenor and orchestra] ⬍G. Schirmer, 1875⬎ Wie die jungen Blüthen leise träumen (H. von Fallersleben) 3. Unpublished, groups Children’s songs on texts from St. Nicholas, LC Baby Bo (Laura E. Richards) The Boy and the Toot (M.S.) Cradle Song (Margaret Johnson) Ding, Dong! (Mary Mapes Dodge) Jamie’s on the Stormy Sea The Kitchen Clock (John Vance Cheney) Little Squirrels (Mary Mapes Dodge) Night and Day Punkydoodle and Jollyquin (Laura E. Richards) Rain, Hail, Snow (L.T.C.) Sewing (Ludlo Clark) The Trio (Mary A. Lansbury) The Wren and the Hen Zehn [sic] Lieder aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” LC 1. Ach Gott, wie weh tut Scheiden 2. Marienwürmchen 3. Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär 4. Spazieren wollt’ ich reiten 5. Wenn du zu mei’m Schätzel kommst 6–8. Liebesklagen des Mädchens: a. Nach meiner Lieb b. Wer sehen will c. Der süsse Schlaf 9. Jagdglück

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Appendix 5.1 (continued) 4. Unpublished, single songs Aus alten Märchen, NY [both voice and piano and voice and orchestra versions] Dein Aug’ ist dunkel wie die Nacht, LC Des fremden Kindes heiliger Christ (Rückert), LC, NY Frau Mette, NY Frisch gesungen! (Chamisso) [tenor and chamber orchestra], LC Der Grafensprung bei Eberstein, NY Gretchen vor dem Bild der Mater dolorosa (Goethe) [voice and orchestra; sketch], LC Arise from Dreams of Thee (Shelley), NY Ich halte ihr die Augen [1873], NY König Harald Harfagar (Heine), LC Lieb’ ist der Lilie Duft [? Not in LD’s hand], LC Maireigen. Im Volkston (v. Salis), LC, NY Martha (Oliver Wendell Holmes), NY Morgenlied (von Zesen), NY Selige Zufriedenheit (Schmolk), NY She Walks in Beauty (Byron), NY Spielmann’s Lied (Geibel) [1877], LC, NY Die verschwiegene Nachtigall (Walther von der Vogelweide) [1870], NY Volker’s Nachtgesang (Geibel) [1884], NY Warrior’s Song (Scott), NY When I Send Thee a Red Red Rose, NY c. Choral Works (including vocal ensembles larger than duets; see also “Stage Works and Oratorios” above) 1. Published [Vocal ensembles from Saint Cecilia ⬍Pond, 1875⬎] O Come, Emanuel, Prince of Peace, Christmas carol [SATB unaccompanied] Laudate Dominum, solo quartet, chorus, and organ [in English] Jesus, Merciful and Mild, hymn [SATB, organ ad lib] Benedic anima mea, SATB with organ [in English] Bonum est confiteri, SATB with organ [in English] And They That Know Thy Name, solo quartet and chorus, unaccompanied Two Kyrie Eleisons, solo quartet, chorus ad lib, unaccompanied [in English] Te Deum laudamus, SATB with organ [in English] Brautgesang, male chorus and orchestra ⬍Breitkopf, 1877⬎ Cherry Ripe, SATB (Herrick) ⬍G. Schirmer⬎ Fiedellied: Musikanten sollen wandern ⬍Eisoldt, 1886⬎ Maiennacht, TTBB [English reissue as “May Night” ⬍G. Schirmer⬎] National Ode, male chorus and orchestra ⬍G. Schirmer, 1899⬎ [written 1876] Ring Out, Wild Bells, SATB ⬍G. Schirmer, 1882⬎ Roving, TTBB ⬍G. Schirmer⬎

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Appendix 5.1 (Contineud) Tell Me, Where Is Fancy Bred? TTBB, for the dedication of the Shakespeare statue in Central Park, 1872 ⬍Oakes and Clayton⬎ Whither Is My Beloved Gone? Octet, women’s voices, 1889 2. Unpublished Frühlingsahnung (Uhland), SATB, NY; TTBB, LC He Shall Feed His Flock; Then I Will Sprinkle Clean Water upon You, SATB, NY Hymenäen, SATB with orchestra, 1883, NY [sketches, LC] 1. Choral Vorspiel und Choral “Ich singe dir mit Herz und Mund” 2. Silberfeier Hymne zur Friedensfeier, soli, chorus, and orchestra [1871?], NY In der Ferne, TTBB, unaccompanied or with four horns, NY Ins Weinhaus, TTBB, NY Jagdglück, TTBB, NY Kehr’ ein bei mir, TTBB, 1872, NY Lied eines Schmieds, TTBB, NY Mailied, TTBB/TTBB, 1879, NY Ueber’n Garten, durch die Lüfte, TTBB, NY Von allen Ländern in der Welt, SATB, NY [Arrangements: Auld Lang Syne, Minstrel Boy, Men of Harlech, Lorelei], NY d. Violin or Viola (violin unless otherwise specified; works other than concerti are with piano unless otherwise specified) 1. Published Capriccietto ⬍Schott, 1877⬎ (NY has ms. of version with orchestra) Concerto no. 1, D Minor ⬍Bote and Bock, 1877⬎ Liebesgesang, viola Nachtgesang, with orchestra ⬍Schott, 1877?⬎ 2. Unpublished Concert-Allegro, G Major, orchestra or piano accompaniment, LC (not in LD’s hand) Concerto, F# Minor [“Zweites Concert”], 1877, NY [full score], LC [violin and piano score] Concerto, G Major [“Zweites Violinconcert”] [⫽ Concert-Allegro plus two more movements], LC has violin part (not in LD’s hand) Mazurka, LC, NY Fantasie, with orchestra, NY Tarantelle, with orchestra, NY [Unnamed piece, OCLC no. 24087161],c NY e. Orchestra Without Soloists Orchester-Fantasie [ms. arrangement for piano by Carl Tausig], LC Symphony in A Major, 1878 [ms. at Juilliard School of Music] Symphony, presumably in Cd [sketches for movements 2–4, never finished?], LC f. Miscellaneous Arion March, piano ⬍Schuberth, 1882⬎ Independent N.Y. Schützen March, piano ⬍Schuberth, 1882⬎

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Appendix 5.1 (continued) Blut und Eisen, brass ensemble, NY Cadenza for Carl Maria von Weber, Clarinet Concerto in E flat, NY Cadenza for an aria from Mozart, Il re pastore [presumably “L’amerò, sarò costante”], voice and violin, NY a. A “Romanze, Violin & Piano, opus 10,” published by J. Schuberth, is listed by Pazdirek. It is probably a ghost for opus 12. b. There is a manuscript version of this for SSAA in NY. c. Not seen; may be the same as another piece on this list. d. There are no sketches for a first movement; the sketches for the final movement are in C major.

Notes 1. Edwin T. Rice, “Personal Recollections of Leopold Damrosch,” The Musical Quarterly 28, no. 3 (July 1942): 269. 2. Damrosch followed the custom of giving opus numbers only to published works. It is my assumption, rather than a proven fact, that he stopped giving works opus numbers when he left Europe and that the eighteen opus-numbered works were therefore published before he emigrated. Certainly, none of the opus numbers has been datable later than his departure from Breslau; and the titles of the last opus number (I have not seen the music) breathe the exultation of the victors of the Franco-Prussian War. 3. Susan Youens, Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 245–46. 4. I have not seen copies of these works. 5. The symphony was scheduled to receive its first performance in December 2005 as part of the celebration of the centenary of the Juilliard School, whose parent institution, the Institute of Musical Art, was founded by Leopold Damrosch’s son, Frank, in 1905. Frank Damrosch gave the manuscript of his father’s Symphony in A Major to the Juilliard library. It is published as a volume of A-R Edition’s Recent Researches in American Music. Damrosch’s two large choral works also contain extended orchestral movements. 6. The manuscript full score is clearly dated 1864. Bryan Gooch and David Thatcher, in A Shakespeare Music Catalogue (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), claim there was a production in Breslau in 1862 and a further production in Trieste in 1865. It is possible that the manuscript full score, which is fairly clean save for the opening of Act 1, represents a reworking for the Trieste production. 7. Youens, Hugo Wolf, 244–49. 8. The best source for Leopold Damrosch’s music on the Internet is the Library of Congress’s American Memory website (http://memory.loc.gov/). Click on “search,” enter “Leopold Damrosch,” and the site will yield seven items. Six, including “And They That Know Thy Name,” are negligible, but the seventh, Sulamith, stands with

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the symphony and Ruth and Naomi as one of Damrosch’s three most significant American works. 9. On http://memory.loc.gov/ 10. One suspects it was published at the urging of Frank Damrosch. 11. The manuscript full score of the work, the gift of Frank Damrosch, is in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. 12. On http://memory.loc.gov/

Chapter Six

New York’s Orchestras and the “American” Composer A Nineteenth-Century View Adrienne Fried Block

On 23 March 1863, William Henry Fry wrote a review of a special orchestral concert at the Academy of Music. Organized by Robert Goldbeck (1839–1908), the concert included the first performance of his new “Victory” Symphony. The work, probably lost, was in three movements: the first, entitled “Peace,” was minimally peaceful, for it presented the hustle and bustle of a noisy city—presumably New York. The second movement, “Struggle,” was equally but differently agitated—by the trumpets of war. The third movement “was rounded off by a species of chorale, to indicate triumph”—a gesture of hope for the Union side in the Civil War then raging. Thus, in two respects, it was American: in its titles and its provenance on American soil. As to why the work was not introduced by the Philharmonic Society of NewYork (then in its twenty-first year),1 Fry wrote: “We do not know what the Philharmonic Society is instituted for unless its office be equally to offer original American with original European music. . . . To see, as we do, seventy or eighty musical gentlemen composing the orchestra, apparently content to advertise year in and year out, pieces of foreign production, when equally good pieces can be and are written in this country, is a sorry sight.” Fry’s review also noted that Goldbeck, who came to the United States from Germany in 1857, “has become quite Americanised since.”2 Although the Philharmonic had totally neglected Fry, it had not neglected Goldbeck. In 1856 and 1862, the ensemble had presented selections from the latter’s Morceaux symphoniques that won critical praise.

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Born in Potsdam in 1839, Goldbeck was trained in piano and composition before he left Europe. He had recently become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Yet such was the attitude toward immigrants that Fry may have been in the minority when he claimed Goldbeck was an American. Goldbeck is one of many immigrant musicians who has an entry in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music.3 How those included were chosen is explained under the rubric, “What Is American Music”: In the sense we use it here, it comprehends first of all music made in the United States, by Americans; more ambiguous is the situation regarding music written by foreign composers who retain their national identity while living in the USA. Analogous to these are conductors, singers, and instrumentalists who settle in the United States or pay it prolonged visits. . . . [W]e have had to weigh the importance of such visitors to the United States in terms of their contributions to the musical life of the country and include them (or not) in the dictionary accordingly.4

Curious about the results of this policy, I counted the number of native- and foreign-born persons under the letter “S”; the result was a ratio of four to one. Had a similar tally of musicians been made back in the 1860s, however, my guess is that the ratio would have been one to four—the ratio of native-born to foreign-born players in the Philharmonic during its first season, 1842–1843. As the century progressed, the orchestra’s ratio of native-born players dropped even further: to one in five in 1855 and to one in seven in 1875. In 1891, H.[enry] E.[dward] Krehbiel wrote that “[t]he members of the orchestra are now, with but few exceptions, either musicians of German birth or German parentage.”5 This statistic appears overwhelming until one looks into the unspecified number who are of German parentage but native-born—counted as Americans in the United States census, yet still counted by Krehbiel as Germans. The question is, was there no assimilation—or even acculturation—among second-generation American musicians of German stock? John Tasker Howard, who in Our American Music tried to be as inclusive as the state of research in the 1930s allowed, left Goldbeck out but might have included him had he known more about him. Howard required that a composer be native-born and have had the major part of his or her career in the United States or, if an immigrant, that he or she had become a citizen and assimilated: Legal naturalization may make a citizen, but it does not in itself make an American. The foreigner must become one of us, become identified with our life and institutions. And also he must make his reputation here. He must come to us in his formative years, not as an established artist. Try this definition: a composer is an American, if by birth, or choice of permanent residence, he become[s] identified with American life and institutions before his talents have had their greatest outlet; and through his associations and sympathies he makes a genuine contribution to our cultural development.6

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The definition raises as many questions as it answers, among them the meaning of “the foreigner must become one of us.” If “one of us” means assimilated, to whose standards? Consider, too, the many American-born composers who spent long years studying and writing in Europe—for example, Edward MacDowell (1860–1908), celebrated around the turn of the twentieth century as America’s leading composer. Born in New York, he went to Europe at age fifteen to study with Raff and Liszt, remaining there for twelve years. Most of his piano studies and all of his formative years as a composer were spent in France and Germany. In addition, six of his eight completed orchestral works, including the two piano concertos, were written before his return to the United States in 1888. Howard devotes many pages to MacDowell, even while acknowledging the composer’s limitations.7 MacDowell’s close friend, George Templeton Strong (1856–1948), was born in the United States. The son and namesake of the well-known diarist, Strong Jr. became a professional oboist and violist and composed his first symphony while still in New York. In 1879, he went to Europe to study composition. Primarily an orchestral composer, he wrote most of his music in Europe. Among the works with American topics or themes are two songs with orchestra, Songs of an American Peddler and An Indian Chief’s Reply, for low voice and orchestra (1917). His piano suite, To the Land of the American Indians (1918), was written in response to MacDowell’s 1892 challenge to use indigenous melodies, as MacDowell was doing at the time in his Suite no. 2 (“Indian”) for Orchestra, op. 48. Given that the composer’s father had been a subscriber to the Philharmonic from its inception and its president from 1870 to 1874, the sympathetic reception of Strong’s music in the United States may suggest a certain bias. What stands out is the fact that the Philharmonic felt it necessary to write the following: “Intrinsic musical merit alone dictates the choice of the compositions presented.”8 The composer, despite his long expatriate state—sixty-eight years—is nevertheless included in both Howard and the New Grove. In this case, as in MacDowell’s, place of birth has primacy.9 The critic Louis C. Elson (1848–1920), writing almost three decades earlier than Howard, had a more accepting attitude toward immigrant composers, perhaps because he lived through the era of massive U.S. immigration. In his History of American Music, he summarizes several immigrants’ contributions to America’s orchestral music: Such composers as [Julius] Eichberg (1824–1893), [Otto] Singer [(1833–1894)], and [Charles Martin] Loeffler ([1861–1935]), who have lived among us for a generation or longer, who have taught hundreds of American pupils, who have written works on American subjects or have had all their works brought out first in America,—these men, although of foreign birth, are part of the warp and woof of the American musical fabric, and their honors belong to this country as Handel’s glory belongs to England, the country of his adoption.10

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Elson was not the first to include immigrants among “American” composers. An inclusive definition of “the American composer” had even earlier roots. In 1855, composer Charles Jerome Hopkins (1836–1898) founded the short-lived New-York American-Music Association to offer concerts of music by American composers. Prominent among the members were Fry and Bristow, who had recently been embroiled in a controversy with Richard Storrs Willis, critic of the New-York Daily Tribune, about the New York Philharmonic’s neglect of American composers. The new organization declared: “It has not been considered necessary to confine the privilege of membership to native Americans, but to allow foreigners to belong thereto, provided only their principles are Republican, and their aim be, in common with us, the production of native art. One of this latter description is Mr. Fritz [Frederick] Mollenhauer, the celebrated violinist,” who became a member.11 Hopkins, who had been active during the time of the large influx of German musicians, took the most accepting stance toward them. Faced with the reality of musical life in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, musicians such as Hopkins and Elson were not only accepting of foreign-born musicians and their concert music but also placed a high value on German Americans’ musical contributions. At the same time, American-born composers of symphonic music, usually exemplified in the histories by Fry and Bristow, were fewer in number, and their music was, when introduced at all, given one or two hearings and set aside, overwhelmed by the volume of European symphonic and chamber music given in New York and elsewhere. The picture as captured from contemporary sources is, however, neither simple nor straightforward and requires a detailed investigation, starting with the German community.

New York’s German Community As detailed in chapter 1, Germans were not the only large-scale ethnic community in New York: in the early 1860s, of a total population approaching 900,000, 25 percent were German and 25 percent were Irish. Music of Irish heritage was important in vernacular music, especially in the blackface minstrel tradition,12 while Germans were more important in the cultivated tradition, including symphonic music. New York’s Kleindeutschland was the third-largest German-speaking community in the world, topped only by Berlin and Vienna. It was only partially composed of German immigrants. Census figures show that between 1845 and 1899, well over four million Germans came to the United States.13 German immigrants alone constituted 15 percent of the population; to that percentage must be added a large number of native-born citizens of German stock. Their combined numbers constituted 25 percent of the city’s population. A decade later, they constituted 30 percent of the city’s inhabitants.14

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Many community organizations and businesses served that population: there were German theaters and opera houses, saloons and beer parlors, and all manner of societies with their bands, social, rifle, and singing clubs, benevolent and burial societies, newspapers and journals. Additionally, Landsmannschaften brought together people from the same cities or regions of Europe. Goods and services were provided by German butchers, bakers, grocers, brewers, carpenters, shoemakers, and tailors.15 Piano makers were among the highest-paid skilled workers, even after the introduction of machinery in the late 1860s.16 Acculturation was a slow process. Public schools, where English was spoken, offered the children of German speakers a first step toward assimilation. As a result, by the 1870s, second-generation young people were more likely to adopt American language and dress and to work outside their community.17 Few, however, married outside the community. Endogamy, or marrying within the community, remained the practice for 95 percent of German Americans.18 Regarding changes in the relationship of minority to majority or dominant groups, Fredrik Barth wrote that “a drastic reduction of cultural differences between ethnic groups [such as marrying out or acquiring English] does not correlate in any simple way with a reduction in the organizational relevance of ethnic identities, or a breakdown in boundary-maintaining processes.”19 In the 1850s and 60s, the three leading concert halls—the Academy of Music, Irving Hall, and Steinway Hall—were located at the upper border of Kleindeutschland, on or near Fourteenth Street and east of Union Square. Steinway Hall, which opened in 1866, was built through to Fifteenth Street as an extension of the piano maker’s showrooms. About the same size as Irving Hall, the hall seated about 2,500 people. The two smaller halls were acoustically superior to the Academy of Music, which had more than 4,000 seats.20 On Broadway, just west of Kleindeutschland, was the firm of Beer and Schirmer’s, first established in 1848 by two immigrant musicians; they published, imported, sold, and rented music. Another music firm, Scharfenberg and Luis, also sold both subscriptions and single tickets to the Philharmonic. William Scharfenberg (1819–1895), a well-schooled pianist, was a member of the board from its founding, and served as president of the Philharmonic from 1864 through 1867. He was known to be helpful in finding housing, professional contacts, and employment for newly arrived German musicians.

Acculturation or Assimilation? How were immigrants expected to adapt to their new country? One definition of acculturation, “the mutual influence of different cultures in close contact,” contrasts with that for assimilation, “the absorption of a minority group into the main culture.”21 As the forgoing suggests, whereas borders between national groups were variously permeable, those between German Americans and native-born

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Americans were minimally so, limiting either acculturation or assimilation. In this nation of immigrants, attitudes toward newcomers seem to have undergone little change over two centuries. During the past century, three paradigms have been offered to those who settled here. The most recent one, multiculturalism, welcomes people of all cultures while putting no pressure on any group to assimilate. That stance is in contrast to the earliest and longest-lasting paradigm, the melting pot, with its expectations of complete assimilation. That is, newcomers were obliged to blend into the social fabric, accept the culture of the dominant group—Anglo-Americans—and thus become “one of us.” In 1915, toward the close of the period of highest immigration (1840–1924), the social philosopher Horace M. Kallen criticized the melting pot idea, proposing instead a comprehensive plan, cultural pluralism. Diverse immigrant cultures were to be accepted as equal to those already established—with, however, the expectation that eventually all cultures would coalesce into a synthesis that could be called American. Kallen’s metaphor for society was the orchestra, in which each instrumental choir contributes its special timbre and line, together “making the symphony of civilization.”22 In response, John Dewey refined that goal: “I agree with your orchestral idea, but on condition we really get a symphony and not a lot of instruments playing simultaneously.” He elaborated: Neither Englandism nor New Englandism, neither Puritan nor Cavalier any more than Teuton or Slav, can do anything but furnish one note in a vast symphony. . . . The way to deal with hyphenism [German-American, Jewish-American, and so on] . . . is to welcome it but to welcome it in the sense of extracting from each people its special good, so that it all shall surrender into a common fund of wisdom and experience what it especially has to contribute. All of these surrenders and contributions taken together create the national spirit of America.23

Unquestionably, one of the special contributions of Austro-German musicians was instrumental music of the Classic and Romantic periods, which developed into an important contribution to New York’s musical life. The question is, was this only a contribution or something more rigid? Dewey considers this possibility: “The dangerous thing is for each factor to isolate itself, to try to live off its past, and then to attempt to impose itself upon other elements, or, at least, to keep itself intact and thus refuse to accept what other cultures have to offer, so as thereby to be transmuted into authentic Americanism.”24 The statement may describe the beliefs of some twentieth-century Americanists, who propounded that immigrant musicians of Austro-German descent promoted their own symphonic music during the nineteenth century and beyond while rejecting works by Americans. It implies no give on the German side—in effect, a closed border. But it was not only the cohesion of the German community that tended to maintain the boundary between Germans and native-born citizens. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, some American-born New Yorkers perceived the German

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community as a threat, both economically and politically.25 Nativists—primarily working- and lower-middle-class native-born citizens—wanted to limit immigration and naturalization. They feared that the Germans and the Irish, who together constituted half the population of New York, threatened the hegemony of the native-born (primarily Anglo) population.26 The rate of naturalization among immigrants was high in New York: “[N]early half the voters were foreign-born, and immigrant voters outnumbered native in at least nine wards,” including the Eleventh to the Fourteenth wards that constituted Kleindeutschland. This concentration was particularly alarming to those who believed political parties were “bending over backward to earn the immigrant vote.”27 German Americans were aware of these attitudes. Nevertheless, after the first shot was fired on Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861, they rushed to volunteer: “The German community was aflame with war fever. A huge meeting at Steuben House on the Bowery had already established enlistment stations all through Kleindeutschland. Three fourths of the New York Socialistichen Turnverein [athletic club] signed up, forming an all Turner unit.”28 Volunteers from Kleindeutschland were numerous enough to fill seven regiments of the Union Army. Among them were “veterans of the 1848 Continental Wars,” staunch fighters for freedom, “Republicans” who came to the United States because there was “kein König da.”29 By December 1861 the regiments were off to defend the U.S. Capitol. One regiment had a “royal sendoff”: its members “received a regimental flag from Mrs. August Belmont, feasted at the Bowery’s Atlantic Garden on sausage, dark bread, and beer, then set off to war.”30 Like the Irish, who also volunteered in large numbers, the German community expected that such commitment would make them first-class citizens in the eyes of the native-born. That, however, did not happen in the near future, for they experienced considerable discrimination in the Union Army. Issues of class as well as ethnicity were apparent among New York’s elite. The aristocratic George Templeton Strong (Sr.) devoted thousands of words in his diary to the music he heard night after night in New York City’s concert halls and salons. His passionate devotion to Austro-German symphonic music—his favorites were Beethoven and Haydn—was balanced by his disdain for the Germans who played it. Indeed, his diary is peppered with negative comments about German musicians—their beer drinking and careless dress and, by implication, their less than polished manners. He wrote of a musical evening when several “Deutscher” performed at his home—probably musicians from the Philharmonic: “People in their position cost one some thought and anxiety on occasions like this. They ought to be, must be, treated with cordiality and with rather special attention. They deserve it as ‘artists’ or rather as interpreters of Art. But you can’t quite comfortably present a seedy Teutonic doublebass to Miss X or Mrs. Y.” He sent the instrumentalists up to the library of his house for beer and cigars, while Strong deemed the amateur ladies of the choir—although only middle class—respectable enough to mingle with the invited guests.31

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Members of the non-German upper class, from the descendants of Dutch settlers to Anglo-Americans, did not socialize with upper-class Germans. Strong’s diaries mention no German guests at salons, while William Steinway (1835–1896) reported in his diaries social contact only with other Germans— including Oswald Ottendorfer, publisher of the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung. Steinway was rejected when he applied for membership in an elite yacht club, although he was a wealthy, respected participatory citizen and president of the piano company.32 Yet both he and Strong were deeply involved with the Philharmonic. Not only class but also social attitudes about music as a profession explain some of the imbalance among members of the Philharmonic and in concert music in general. European professional musicians tended to bring up their children to become, like themselves, members of an “artist-musician class.”33 Earlier, that tradition persisted among immigrant musicians. In the Federal period, Benjamin Carr and James Hewitt, sons of musicians, emigrated from England. Hewitt started one of the early American musical dynasties. William Richard Bristow, who came from England in 1824, was a conductor, composer, and clarinetist and “a leader in Brooklyn’s musical life.” As a result, his son, George Frederick Bristow, had an early start. By 1836, father and son were playing together in the Olympic Theater orchestra at 444 Broadway.34 Upper- and middle-class native-born males, however, lacked this artist-musician heritage. The belief that music was not an appropriate profession for elite males had early roots. In 1759, John Adams wrote a fable entitled “The Choice of Hercules: Manliness or Effeminacy.” Stressing the importance of self-control for men, Virtue asks, “Which, Dear Youth, will you prefer? a Life of Effeminacy, Indolence, and obscurity, or a Life of Industry, Temperance, and Honour?” If the latter, “[L]et no Girl, no Gun, no Cards, no flutes, no Violins . . . decoy you from your Books.”35 A century later, when Strong discovered that his son and namesake intended to make his living as a professional oboist, he locked him out of their home, forgiving him only shortly before his death in 1875.36 Yet Strong the elder was a lifelong supporter of music. Had the younger Strong been a gentleman amateur in music like John Ward (1839–1896), however, that would have been acceptable. By 1864, Ward had earned degrees in law and medicine but practiced music instead. Apparently gifted at both voice and piano, he played and sang with his social equals in many elite salons.37 Whether elite or middle class, women were expected to remain amateurs. Considered a diversion for amateurs, music making had to be carefully controlled lest it tempt young men from their proper studies and young women from domestic responsibilities. Could Americans have it both ways— could they discourage their sons and daughters from the profession of music but expect native-born American musicians to dominate that profession as performers and composers? From whence would come our professional musicians? From whence would come our “American” symphonic music?

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One of the results of this slow-changing process of acculturation, according to Howard Shanet, was that the “German” Philharmonic squelched the nascent American orchestral school by presenting only Austro-German music while ignoring music by native-born Americans.38 An examination of the nineteenthcentury record of the Philharmonic shows that this is largely true. The group also ignored compositions by German immigrants who, like Goldbeck, sought out “American” topics and musical themes. Because the Philharmonic is the American orchestra of record—with the longest continuous performing history—its repertory had an important influence on musical taste in nineteenthcentury New York and beyond.39

The Orchestra and Its Repertory European symphonic music came to New York in a rush, according to Paul Henry Lang, who wrote of the nineteenth century that “hundreds of years of Old World development [had] been packed into a few decades.”40 Earlier, whatever European concert music was heard in the United States came by way of England.41 By the 1830s, however, the balance began to change as large numbers of German-speaking musicians came to the United States, bringing their traditions, skills, and music with them. They sought economic opportunity and a democratic society without an aristocracy, as well as the right to make music as they saw fit. Some at least fit Hopkins’s requirement that “their principals [be] Republican.” The ethnic composition of the Philharmonic at the time of its formation was “twenty-two Germans, thirteen Americans, eleven English[men], four French[men], and two Italians.”42 Regarding the orchestra’s composition, Krehbiel wrote: “Though the spirit which prompted the organization of the Philharmonic Society went out largely from native musicians, the strongest prop of the organization already in its earliest days came from the German musicians who joined it. . . . [W]ithout them an orchestra would have been an impossibility.”43 Organized as a cooperative, the Philharmonic may have been modeled on the London Philharmonic, established in 1815. This arrangement suited both the democratic sentiments of the native-born musicians and the idealistic or socialist orientation of many of the Europeans who had fought in the 1848 revolutions.44 During the nineteenth century, the orchestra gave few concerts per year and could provide only a small part of a musician’s yearly income. It began by presenting three concerts the first season, gradually increasing to six by the 1868–1869 season; it remained at that number for forty years. At the end of each season, the New York Philharmonic players divided profits from the sale of tickets among themselves, earning well below the rate for performers in opera and theater.45 As a result, orchestra players had to continue as freelance musicians.

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Fortunately, the city was saturated with music: opera and variety shows of all kinds—indeed, every important theater—had an orchestra; and the musicians also played at balls, civic events, and private homes of the wealthy. Because these musicians had the cachet of playing in the Philharmonic, when orchestra players were needed elsewhere, they were usually the first called upon. The Philharmonic’s policy of allowing the public to attend three rehearsals for each program increased its presence and its income while giving the public additional exposure to the symphonic repertory at a time when live performances of music were all one could hear. Thus the Philharmonic had an impact well beyond its few yearly concerts. As noted earlier, the repertory’s European character became an issue. A typical Philharmonic program included one symphony, one or two overtures, a concerto, two arias, and perhaps a piano, violin, or cornet solo. At meetings of the Philharmonic board, when questions were raised about the inclusion of arias, it was argued that the greater popularity of opera compared with instrumental music demanded that arias be performed if the organization was to hold and build its audience. Vocal numbers were most frequently arias from Italian opera, although excerpts from German and French operas, as well as from the occasional opera in English, were also offered. Shanet’s summary statement does not reflect the diversity of opera offerings in New York or the importance of the music of European composers such as Schumann, Berlioz, and Liszt (see chapters 1, 2, and 3, respectively) in the symphonic repertory: “[B]etween the Italianization of the opera world and the Germanization of the symphonic [there was not] very much room for an indigenous American style.”46 Yet in general, he is correct. Later in the 1880s, under Theodore Thomas, the Philharmonic’s programs became increasingly devoted to the symphonic repertory; when singers were included, it was mainly to perform excerpts from Wagner operas with orchestra. Beethoven and Mendelssohn were the most frequently played composers between 1851 and 1865, followed by “Music of the Future” by Schumann, Wagner, Berlioz, and Liszt. Kleinmeister such as Heller, Hiller, Kalliwoda, Lachner, and Lindpaintner, whose works were played with some frequency before the Civil War, were replaced during the war by Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. This signaled the beginning of the Philharmonic’s paradigm shift toward music of the past. The music chosen for the seasons 1865–1876, when Carl Bergmann was the sole conductor, both continued that process and introduced more and more “Music of the Future.”47 Beginning in 1852, the Philharmonic’s conductors were all of German birth until the tenure of Vasilly Safonov (1906–1909). Theodor(e) Eisfeld began as an occasional conductor in 1849, was appointed sole maestro in 1852, and shared the podium with Bergmann from 1854 to 1866, when Eisfeld retired. Bergmann served as full-time conductor until 1876.48 Bergmann’s innovations were, with isolated exceptions, European, provoking a “bit of doggerel” that

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begins “The German Philharmonic/Rules the music of this town” and later adds, “Its music of the Future/On every pure ear palls.”49 Theodore Thomas, who took over from Bergmann for the 1876–1877 season, more closely approximated the title of promoter of American music—but not with the Philharmonic, which he conducted uninterruptedly from 1879 to 1891.50 Born in Esens, Hanover, in 1835, Thomas had arrived in New York in 1845. A violin prodigy, he played first violin in the Philharmonic from 1854 to 1868. He began his conducting career in 1859 with the occasional opera, gave his first orchestral concert in May 1862, and performed his first orchestral series in 1863. In 1868, when his conducting career with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra was flourishing, he resigned from the Philharmonic to devote himself to his newly defined career.51 He was at least partially “Americanized,” one of several musicians who married out of the German community: both his wives were native-born Americans. Another sign of his acculturation, if not assimilation, was his long record of conducting works by resident Americans with orchestras other than the Philharmonic. The inclusion of symphonic works, especially those with “American” topics and musical themes, by resident Americans was important in fostering an American tradition. As Emerson points out in The American Scholar, the introduction of American themes was “one of the most important declarations of cultural independence.”52

The Orchestra as Populist Medium While the Philharmonic strove for larger audiences, it was not in its sights to introduce for that purpose the popular symphonic repertory that included dance music such as waltzes, schottisches, galops, polkas, and quadrilles, along with overtures and symphonies. This, surprisingly, was a tradition brought in by visiting European orchestras—not to water down their serious offerings but simply to continue European practice by a class of orchestras William Weber called the “popular symphony orchestra.”53 In 1848, the Germania Musical Society came to the United States from German-speaking areas of Europe.54 Following European models, the chamber orchestra offered both dance music and symphonic works to attract a mixedclass audience. The Germania’s aim was to offer “good music for a free people.”55 The debut program in New York on 17 October 1848 included overtures by Mozart and Rossini and dance music by a member of the Strauss family and by Joseph Gung’l (1810–1889), Joseph Lanner (1801–1843), and others. At the behest of the Tribune critic, during a subsequent concert the chamber orchestra added Beethoven’s Second Symphony and Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Germania quickly became famous for the latter.56 If the orchestra did not include the overture on a program, the audience demanded and got it as an encore.

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In 1853, the year before the Germanians disbanded, Louis Jullien arrived in New York with a first-class orchestra of twenty-seven members. He hired the best local musicians as well, assembling an orchestra of one hundred—possibly the largest orchestra yet heard in New York. As a conductor, Jullien combined fine musicianship and flamboyance, attracting as many as ten thousand people to each of his concerts at Castle Garden. Like the Germanians, he presented not only polkas, waltzes, quadrilles, arias, and overtures but also, increasingly, entire symphonies. The Boston musician Thomas Ryan considered offering a mixed repertory the recipe for building audiences and lamented the absence of such concerts in Boston, where attendance at orchestral concerts was dwindling.57 Such a mixed repertory encouraged the inclusion not just of dance music by European composers but also of music with American titles or themes. Both of the orchestras discussed in the preceding paragraphs presented new music on American themes written by orchestra members, perhaps out of a desire “to bridge the gap between native and non-native composers.”58 Soon after the Germania Musical Society arrived, its conductor from 1848 to 1850, Carl Lenschow, began programming American-influenced repertory—including a number of his own “American” works, such as his potpourri The Republican and the Indian Polka, each of which was performed several times during the orchestra’s first month in New York. Altogether, six original works played during the orchestra’s first two months had American associations, including the “Greeting to America March,” heard at least twice that autumn. On the orchestra’s final New York program on 29 November 1848, the Germania played Lenschow’s “General Taylor’s Triumphal March,” “Souvenirs de New York Waltz,” and the no longer extant musical potpourri, A Panorama of Broadway.59 In March 1849 the Germania repeated “General Taylor’s Triumphal March” at Zachary Taylor’s inauguration as president of the United States. The programming of similar works by members of the orchestra was continued by the group’s second conductor, Carl Bergmann, who was in charge from 1850 through 1854. In the short time he was in New York, Jullien programmed American-influenced music on dozens of concerts, offering repeat performances of music by Fry and Bristow, as well as his own American-inspired compositions. Among the most popular was his American Quadrille, based on “Yankee Doodle,” “The StarSpangled Banner,” Foster’s “Old Folks at Home,” and “Hail Columbia.”60

The Further Search for an American Repertory The domination of Austro-German music prompted few public objections from musicians or audiences until 1855, when Bristow joined Fry in making complaints about the neglect of American composers. The Philharmonic’s answer to charges of neglect was that it had played a number of works by composers “residing among us”—all of whom were orchestra members. Some were solo works for

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composer/performers or featured the composer/performer as soloist with the orchestra. Only three were for orchestra alone—the overture Marmion by British immigrant George Loder, organizer, occasional conductor, and double bassist of the Philharmonic; and the Overture in E-flat Major, op. 3, and Symphony no. 1 in E-flat Major, op. 10 (played only at two open rehearsals) by Bristow, Philharmonic violinist from 1843 to 1879, occasional concertmaster, and longtime officer of the orchestra.61 Over a thirty-year period the Philharmonic played six of his works, most within two years of their composition; Bergmann was the most frequent conductor of these performances (see appendix 6.1). Although Bristow’s music “remained typically European in harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and formal characteristics,” several of his orchestral works were on American topics. The program for the “Columbus” Overture describes episodes defined by “the march, the hymn, the three cannonades on the big drum, [and] the trumpet signal.”62 The “Arcadian” Symphony is about pioneers on their journey westward. This record of performances of his orchestral pieces demonstrates a considerable investment by the Philharmonic, although mainly for first performances. Additional support for incorporating American topics and themes came from Ole Bull, who, when he became manager of the Academy of Music in 1855, offered a $1,000 prize for an opera by an American on a musical theme from American history.63 Unfortunately, financial difficulties at the opera house prevented the prize from being awarded. The Germania and Jullien orchestras had a long-term resonance in the popular summer concerts presented by Theodore Thomas beginning in 1863. Although he disapproved of Jullien’s flamboyance, Thomas apparently admired Jullien’s programming; Thomas’s second season of conducting began with popular orchestral programs. In this ten-concert matinee series that attracted an audience composed mainly of women, each program included a symphony, an overture or two, waltzes and polkas and other dance compositions, as well as vocal and orchestral excerpts from operas. One of the featured soloists was Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a matinee idol who played his own works. Thomas also began a serious orchestral series that spring. From 1865 on he did both, offering lighter concerts in the summer and serious ones during the winter season. For the latter he led his own Theodore Thomas Orchestra, although its members may have included a large number of Philharmonic musicians. Over a ten-year period, he led a total of 1,227 popular concerts.64 When Thomas took over the Philharmonic, for one season in 1877 and then again from 1879 to 1891, he continued to program repertory by European composers. He built his orchestral programs, he declared, around the works of Beethoven and Wagner. During his tenure with the orchestra he conducted only one American work, John Knowles Paine’s symphonic poem, An Island Fantasy, op. 44 (c. 1888), written on the Isles of Shoals, offshore from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.65 Yet Thomas also wrote that he “played all [the American works]

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there were.”66 This is an exaggeration, although not a great one. An incomplete listing of Thomas’s orchestral programs from 1863 to his death in 1905 reveals over 150 performances of works by American composers, both native-born and immigrant, played by a variety of his orchestras. He had begun to champion American music in the 1860s and 1870s, introducing about fifty works during the two decades. They included Bergmann’s Trio for Two Horns and Bassoon; C. C. Converse’s “Festival” Overture; E. C. Phelps’s “Hiawatha” Symphony; J. Rietz’s “Festival” March; Hohnstock’s “Hail Columbia” Overture; Hillbrecht’s “Central Park Garden Festival” March; Hugo Kaun’s “Festival” March and National Hymn for Organ, Chorus, and Orchestra; and the Centennial Meditation of “Columbia” March by Dudley Buck (1839–1909). One might expect, at a time when the Philharmonic and the Theodore Thomas Orchestra were competing for the same audience, that the Philharmonic’s continuing existence might have been seriously threatened. On 19 November 1866, however, when the Philharmonic gave the first performance of Bristow’s “Columbus” Overture, the Times critic wrote of the concert, the first of the season: We rarely look for a crowded house on such an occasion. There was no particular attraction to call the subscribers from their homes; nevertheless the spacious salle [the new Steinway Hall] was well filled. The prospects of the Society are as good as ever. Neither good management nor bad management seems materially to affect its fortunes. It enjoys the enviable privilege of supplying a want with which the community supplies itself moderately and with relish.67

As mentioned earlier, the Philharmonic regularly held three open rehearsals before each concert, putting the public on ample notice when a more adventurous program would be given at the concert. The reviewer of the above-mentioned concert noted that music of the European moderns was featured on the program, including Schumann’s Second Symphony and Liszt’s “Nächtliche Zug,” which the audience found “irritating.” Bristow’s overture, on the other hand, was more conservative: “exceedingly melodious, and although light and catchy, [it] is very interesting. The themes are spirited and the coloring brilliant and effective.” The reviewer concluded with a recommendation for a repetition of the overture.68 The Tribune gave the work and its rendering a rave review: “The audience greeted the work with a burst of applause and its continuance at the close of the overture proved that the highly critical Philharmonic audience appreciated and recognized its high merits.”69 In the twenty-fifth season of its existence, the Philharmonic had deep enough roots in New York to ensure its continuation, shaken neither by the performance of an American work nor by the “moderns” nor by the stiff competition from the Thomas orchestra. Howard Shanet notes that the orchestral works of American composers in the second half of the nineteenth century “were valued to the degree that they

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sounded like the current European products.” He adds dismissively that some works had “an occasional little touch of Americanism accepted and even expected—in the form of a title, an alleged Indian theme, or some similar minor gesture.”70 But rather than dismiss this practice, it can be viewed as a move toward an “American” style, as Emerson suggested, even when embedded in European stylistic practice. Indeed, this was what composers in France, England, and Slavic countries would do later in the century—add traditional and ethnic “flavor” (as MacDowell put it) to the Central European instrumental idiom to create “nationalist” music.71 Native American themes were increasingly popular from mid-century on. Robert Stoepel (1821–1887) came to New York in the mid-1850s. Born in Germany to a musical family, he first studied music with his father, then continued at the Paris Conservatory. While in Paris, he composed music for plays by the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault (1820–1890). The two men went to London, where Stoepel continued to write and conduct the music for Boucicault’s plays, and they arrived in New York in the 1850s. Because the typical theater orchestras had between seven and twenty players, music directors spent considerable time composing and arranging orchestral and band overtures and dance music for their groups. By the 1860s, Stoepel was known as the best theater conductor in New York.72 As a composer, he actively sought an American topic, which he found—as did many other composers73—in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha.74 Stoepel’s Hiawatha: A Romantic Symphony, for chorus, orchestra, and reader, won the enthusiasm of the poet, who “attended all rehearsals and readings” as well as the premiere, at which he spoke.75 Its first of several performances in Boston was on 8 January 1859; New York performances took place a month later. Hiawatha was revived in 1863. Henry Cood Watson suggested that, at least in part, the work was American sounding. “[T]he keen appreciation of national characteristics . . . stands out in bold relief.”76 In fact, Stoepel had made more than a minor gesture toward “Americanism” in two musical numbers: he had created what later became the stereotypical “Indian” music. Watson found much to admire in the work, in its “marked individuality . . . and the charm of the elaborate and exquisite instrumentation which enhances the beauty of the musical conception.”77 At the same time musical immigrants sought American topics and themes in their desire to “become one of us,” in the second half of the nineteenth century five thousand native-born music students went to Germany to study, to absorb the musical style and ambience, and, upon their return home, to be validated by their European studies.78 Some may have aimed to eliminate any American localisms from their musical vocabularies, to the end that their music sounded as European as possible. It is perhaps ironic that those who chose popular music of the day as themes were in fact choosing music that had trans-Atlantic origins. Walt

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Whitman testifies firsthand regarding the songs he heard on the streets of New York in his poem “Proud Music of the Storm” (1868): All songs of current lands come sounding round me, The German airs of friendship, wine and love Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances, English warbles, Chansons of France, Scotch tunes, and o’er the rest, Italia’s peerless compositions.79 Dance music, for example, came from Ireland (fiddle tunes), England (Morris dance), Poland (polka), France (quadrille and galop), and German-speaking lands (waltz and schottische). For Whitman, arias from Italian operas outranked them all. Many arias were given an English translation and printed as sheet music, thus transforming them into popular songs to be played and sung at the parlor piano and by organ-grinders in the street. Charles Hamm has written that “the story of indigenous popular song in the New World has the same shape as that of virtually every other sort of music with which this book [Music in the New World] is concerned: the importation of European music to America; the composition of pieces in a similar style here; and the shaping of a native style from elements of several different national or ethnic styles.”80 It took several decades before most of these extra-national vernacular melodies were synthesized into recognizable “American” idioms. It took concert music somewhat longer. Can we say with assurance that American musical life would have been better off had the Europeans not come, bringing their music with them?

Conclusion Oscar Handlin said of his classic study, “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were America.”81 The closer historians were to the musical scene in the second half of the nineteenth century, the more they recognized that a history needs to include the music brought by large European populations who came to New York with their cultural traditions, among them orchestral musicians. And perhaps we can call “American” the compositions for orchestra written in this country by immigrant members of the musical community, alongside those by native-born Americans, no matter what their style—even a “derivative” one such as Paine’s. Perhaps the passions expressed in the debate by Fry and Bristow on one side and Willis on the other about the Philharmonic’s (almost) exclusive devotion to a European repertory need reconsideration in the light of discussions of who was and is an American composer and what is American music. The implication of such reevaluation for the writing of history needs exploration as well. As I noted in an earlier paper, “the measure of immigrant musicians’ legacy to American com-

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position has yet fully to be taken, and requires that we modify the current Anglocentric model to encompass the continuous cycles of exchange and synthesis that have taken place across oceans and despite borders.”82

Appendix 6.1 Philharmonic Performances of Works Written by Orchestra Members, 1846–1866 Aptommas, Thomas Bergner, Frederick Bristow, George Frederick

Dodworth, Allen Eisfeld, Theodore

Haase, C. Kyle, John A., or Timm, Henry Christian Loder, George Mollenhauer, Edward Mollenhauer, Frederick and Edward Schreiber, Louis

Fantasia on Lucia di Lammermoor for harp “Home, Sweet Home” for solo harp Reverie for cello solo Concert Overture in E-flat Major, op. 3 Symphony no. 1 in E-flat Major, op. 10 (two open rehearsals) Symphony no. 2 in D Minor, op. 24, Jullien Symphony no. 3 in F-sharp Minor, op. 26 Columbus Overture in D Major, op. 32 Duetto for two clarinets Concerto for Clarinet Elegie cantabile for cornet à piston La Solitude, nocturne for French horn Scena Italiana di Concerto Variations de Bravura Variations on The Carnival of Venice for trumpet solo Grand Duetto for flute and piano Marmion Overture La Sylphide for violin solo Concerto in A Major for violin Concerto in A Major for two violins Grand Duo for two violins Concertino for cornet à pistons, first movement Fantasiestück for cornet à pistons, first movement Fantasia Capricciosa for cornet à pistons

1853 1854 1863 1847 1852 1856 1859 1866 1846 1854, 1858 1861 1862 1862 1863 1852 1847 1846 1855 1861 1855 1856 1855 1858 1861

Notes 1. Familiarly known as “The New York Philharmonic,” the hyphen in New York was employed sporadically in the nineteenth century and dropped sometime before the twentieth century, according to Richard Wandel, associate archivist, the Philharmonic Society of New York. Throughout this chapter, “Philharmonic” will also be used in references to the organization.

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2. [Fry, William Henry]. “Amusements: Musical Entertainments,” New York Daily Tribune (23 March 1863), 4. 3. Bruce Carr, “Goldbeck, Robert,” in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, eds. H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1986), 2: 237. 4. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, 1: viii. 5. H.[enry] E.[dward] Krehbiel, The Philharmonic Society of New York: A Memorial (1892; republished in Early Histories of the New York Philharmonic, with a new introduction and notes by Howard Shanet, New York: Da Capo, 1979), 76. 6. John Tasker Howard, Our American Music: Three Hundred Years of It (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1931), xx. 7. Ibid., 323–44. 8. American Classics series, Naxos 8.559018, liner notes by Marina and Victor Ledin, 4. 9. William C. Loring Jr., An American Romantic-Realist Abroad: George Templeton Strong and His Music (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1996), 175–76. 10. Louis C. Elson, The History of American Music (1904; reprinted New York: Burt Franklin, 1971), 225. Eichberg taught a whole generation of string players at the Boston Conservatory of Music. Loeffler, a prolific composer, wrote several works with American inflections: a partita for violin and piano that incorporates jazz (1930); Ouverture pour le T. C. Minstrel Entertainment for two violins and piano (1906); and two choruses, “For One Who Fell in Battle” (T. W. Parsons) for eight voices (1911) and “Beat, Beat Drums,” from Drum Taps (Whitman), for unison male chorus and piano (1917). Singer was a teacher, conductor, and composer of many works including the cantata The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers (1876). 11. Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong. Vol. 2, Reverberations, 1850–1856 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 749; E. Douglas Bomberger, A Tidal Wave of Encouragement: American Composers’ Concerts in the Gilded Age (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 2. See also, “A Musical Family,” an unsigned article in Music 2 (Chicago, 1892): 628, 634, which describes the numerous fine musicians in the Mollenhauer family. Frederick came to New York in 1853 as a player in Jullien’s orchestra. Although he became blind in 1873, he nevertheless continued performing. Like his younger brother, Edouard, he remained in New York as both a performer and a teacher. 12. Charles Hamm, in Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979), states that “[t]he Irish were . . . known as great singers and music lovers, bringing with them a rich store of oral-tradition music.” He particularly notes the ubiquity of Thomas Moore’s songs, first published in England in 1808 and issued in the United States beginning in 1811 (p. 46). 13. Stanley Nadel, “Kleindeutschland: New York City’s Germans, 1848–1880” (Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1981), 42, 81. In the second column of the table below are census data; the third column provides Nadel’s estimate of the number of children born to German immigrants: Year

German-born

German Americans

1860 1870 1880

119,997 153,938 168,225

200,394 292,476 370,095

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14. Ibid., 81. 15. Ibid., 307. 16. Ibid., 148–49. 17. Stanley Nadel, Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845–1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 159. 18. Ibid., 156. 19. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference, ed. Fredrik Barth (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), 32–33. On boundaries between ethnic groups, see 21 ff. I am indebted to Kay Kaufman Shelemay for recommending this study. 20. D. W. Fostle, The Steinway Saga: An American Dynasty (New York: Scribner, 1995), 156–57. 21. Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2nd concise ed., gen. ed. David B. Guralnick (New York: Webster’s New World, 1982). 22. Horace Meyer Kallen, Cultural Pluralism and the American Ideal: An Essay in Social Philosophy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1956), 86. See also Oscar Handlin, Immigration as a Factor in American History (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1959), 146–66. 23. Quoted in Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (New York: Farrar and Giroux, 2001), 400. 24. Ibid., 400–401. 25. Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 46–47. I am grateful to Stephen Blum for recommending this book. 26. Dale T. Knobel, America for the Americans: The Nativist Movement in the United States (New York: Twayne, n.d.), 106. Among the immigrant communities, New York’s Irish population was as large as the German. Although no one with an Irish name is listed among the players in the Philharmonic between 1842 and 1900 with the exception of Victor Herbert, who played in the cello section in the years 1887–1898, Irish musicians were important in theater music, especially in the formation and continuation of the minstrel show and in the Harrigan and Hart Mulligan’s Guard plays that appeared on New York stages beginning in the late 1870s. 27. Ibid., 107. 28. Edward G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 868. 29. H. Earle Johnson, “The Germania Musical Society,” The Musical Quarterly 39, no. 1 (January 1953): 75. 30. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 870. 31. George Templeton Strong, Diary, 29 May 1868, New-York Historical Society. Quoted with permission. 32. Fostle, Steinway Saga, 349. 33. Nancy B. Reich, “Women as Musicians: A Question of Class,” in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed., Ruth Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 125–46. 34. Delmer Dalzell Rogers, “Nineteenth-Century Music in New York City as Reflected in the Career of George Frederick Bristow” (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1967), 60. 35. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, quoted in Philip Greven, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 242–43, 246.

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36. Allan A. Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Post-War Years, 1865–1875 (New York: Octagon, 1974), 558–59. 37. John Ward, Diaries, 1864–1867, New-York Historical Society. Quoted by permission. 38. Howard Shanet, Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 170. 39. The research project Music in Gotham is preparing a daily chronology of musical events from September 1862 through August 1876 that will include the most complete record to date of orchestral performances for those years. 40. Paul Henry Lang, One Hundred Years of Music in America (1961; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1985), 13. 41. John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1685–1815 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 301. 42. Krehbiel, Philharmonic Society, 76, quoting from the Philharmonic’s Thirteenth Annual Report (1855). 43. Ibid., 27. 44. Ibid., 23–24. On “Icarian communist” beliefs, see Nancy Newman, “Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society and Transatlantic Musical Culture of the Mid-Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 2002), 41ff. 45. Krehbiel, Philharmonic Society, 14. 46. Shanet, Philharmonic, 140. 47. Krehbiel gives Bergmann’s dates as conductor of the Philharmonic Society of New-York as 24 November 1855 (p. 112) to 19 February 1876 (p. 142). 48. Howard Shanet, “Eisfeld, Theodor(e),” and H. Wiley Hitchcock, “Bergmann, Carl,” in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2: 24–25 and 1: 191, respectively. 49. Krehbiel, Philharmonic Society, 69. 50. Thomas was first appointed conductor in 1877 but spent the following seasons in Cincinnati, during which Leopold Damrosch and Adolph Neuendorff replaced him for one year each. He began his long tenure on 22 November 1879; see Krehbiel, Philharmonic Society, 145. 51. Norman Schweikert, comp., “New York Philharmonic Orchestra, 1842–1928,” typescript, in the Philharmonic Society of New York Archives. 52. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 1, Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, eds. E. Spiller and Albert Ferguson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 69: “We have listened too long to the courtly muse of Europe.” 53. William Weber, Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), 1–15, 99. 54. Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Vol. 1, Resonances, 1836–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 168. 55. Newman, “Good Music,” 27–28, discusses the Germanian’s staunch “Republicanism.” 56. Ibid., 100, 104. 57. Thomas Ryan, letter to the editor, “Decline of Musical Interest in Boston. The Causes, &c.,” Dwight’s Journal of Music (15 November 1862): 260–61. 58. Newman, “Good Music,” 99. 59. Lawrence, Resonances, 548 n.33, describes the panorama: it “began at Castle Garden and ended at Union Square, passing such New York landmarks as Barnum’s Museum, with its ear-splitting brass band that played all day on a balcony overlooking Broadway [and Ann Street], a firemen’s parade, complete with firebells and

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‘machines,’ a dance hall, with appropriately raucous dance music and calling of figures, a church, from which emanated solomn [sic] sounds of organ music and chanting, and then into the hubbub at Union Square with two brass bands going full blast in warring keys, and a final burst of fireworks culminating in a triumphant rendition of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’” Up Broadway may have been a musical analog of the popular nineteenth-century medium, the painted panorama. 60. John Graziano, “Jullien and His ‘Music for the Million,’” in A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock, eds. Richard Crawford, R. Allen Lott, and Carol J. Oja (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 199. 61. Gregory Martin Fried, “A Study of the Orchestral Music of George Frederick Bristow,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1989), 73–74. 62. Review by Frédéric Louis Ritter in Dwight’s Journal of Music (24 November 1866): 349. 63. Frédéric Louis Ritter, Music in America (2nd ed., 1890; with new introduction by Johannes Riedel, New York: Johnson Reprint Co., 1970), 315. 64. Ezra Schabas, “Thomas, Theodore,” in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music 4: 380–82. 65. Repertory choices were not only the conductor’s prerogative. They were proposed and voted upon at Philharmonic board meetings. 66. Quoted in Shanet, Philharmonic, 170. 67. The New-York Times, 19 November 1866, 5. 68. Ibid. 69. The New York Tribune, 19 November 1866, 5. 70. Shanet, Philharmonic, 140. 71. Newman, “Good Music,” 101; Weber, Middle Class; especially the chapter “The High Status Popular Music Concert,” 30–52. 72. Michael Pisani, “Longfellow, Robert Stoepel, and an Early Musical Setting of Hiawatha, 1859,” American Music 16, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 51–52. 73. Elson, American Music, 215–27, lists both expatriate and immigrant composers. Among the latter are several who “sought out American subjects in music”: Hugo Kaun (1863), two symphonic poems, Hiawatha,” and Minnehaha; and Edward von Sobolewski (1808–1872) the opera, “Mohega, the Flower of the Universe.” 74. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855). 75. Pisani, “Longfellow,” 56, quoting from Watson’s review in The Spirit of the Times. 76. Ibid., 57. 77. Quoted in Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong. Vol. 3. Repercussions, 1857–1862, 293. The work survives only in a piano-vocal score. 78. E. Douglas Bomberger, “The German Training of American Students” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, College Park, 1991), 38. 79. Leaves of Grass: The Collected Poems of Walt Whitman, ed. by Emory Holloway (New York: The Book League of America, 1942), 339. 80. Charles Hamm, Music in the New World (W. W. Norton, 1983), 173. 81. Quoted in Jacobson, Whiteness, 11. 82. Adrienne Block, “The Composer, the Work, and its Audience, 1820–1920,” Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter 14, no.1 (Fall 2004): 2, a revision of the introductory address for the conference, “A Century of Composing in America, 1820–1920,” sponsored by “Music in Gotham,” with support from the Elebash Endowment.

Chapter Seven

Between the Old World and the New William Steinway and the New York Liederkranz in the 1860s Christopher Bruhn

William Steinway, who became the driving force behind the Steinway & Sons piano manufacturing company from the 1860s until his death in 1896, was an active member of the New York Liederkranz, a men’s singing society in the tradition of the German Männerchor, throughout the same period. The importance of the Liederkranz in Steinway’s daily life cannot be overestimated. Chart 7.1 shows that Steinway recorded increasingly frequent evenings at the Liederkranz in his diary throughout the 1860s.1 He participated as a singer in the chorus and as a longtime member of the board of trustees and an officer of the organization. Steinway biographer D. W. Fostle noted that 22 percent of Steinway’s diary entries from the period 1867–1870 mentioned the Liederkranz, compared to 12 percent of entries mentioning the family business and only 6 percent mentioning outings with his wife, Regina—a total of 62 out of 1,095 entries.2 The impact of the Liederkranz on William Steinway’s daily life made me curious to discover more about the organization and what it might have meant to its members, most of whom, like Steinway, were German immigrants. While Steinway’s experience in the New York Liederkranz is the primary focus of this investigation, I also consider the complexity of the German immigrant experience in New York and the impact of the German musical tradition on mid-nineteenthcentury New York. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the German Romantic aesthetic had supplanted the previously dominant Anglo-American musical

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Number of Liederkranz evenings

120

100

80

60

40

20

0 1863

1864

1865

1866

1867

1868

1869

Year

Chart 7.1. William Steinway’s Liederkranz evenings, 1863–1869.

tradition, and the German presence increasingly influenced musical life in America. By the 1860s, the finest musicians in New York City typically were Germans. German names, for example, dominated the roster of the New York Philharmonic Society (see chapter 6), which was also conducted by a German, Carl Bergmann. Contemporary accounts in the New York press suggest that German listeners were among the most attentive in the city’s concert halls, and the music of German composers—such as Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and, increasingly, Wagner—filled concert programs. Germans also proved to be among the finest craftsmen in the domain of piano building at a time when no civilized American home was without one. Paradoxically, however, despite the ease with which German music and musicians were accepted in the cultural life of the city, the acceptance of Germans as human beings was another matter. Only the Irish were more despised than Germans as an immigrant group in New York. There are several possible reasons for the Anglo-American response to Germans. Perhaps most important, Germans were the first non-English-speaking immigrant group to come to New York. Second was their love of Lagerbier and the association of German drinking habits with a range of suspect behaviors, summed up by one contemporary account as “Teutonized merriment.”3 Third, and closely associated with the second, Germans brought with them a tradition of presenting musical entertainments on Sundays, which was frowned upon by the dominant Anglo culture. Sunday performances billed as “sacred concerts” seldom actually included any music with a religious

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theme. Misconceptions about Germans were no doubt intensified by the tendency of German immigrants to settle primarily within the hermetic boundaries of Kleindeutschland, where they established an insulated community in which they could keep alive their language and traditions. Yet, through the activities of their craftsmen and musicians, their influence transcended those boundaries. At the same time, the language and the ways of the dominant culture also began to infiltrate Kleindeutschland. For many of the 1.5 million Germans who, like William Steinway, came to America between 1843 and 1864, Männerchöre provided oases in which the challenges of the transition between life in Germany and life in an alien new land could be eased.4 They provided their members with a social setting that offered the comfort of fraternity with other German immigrants, conversation in the mother tongue, and the performance of familiar music. Those comforting elements, however, were grounded in the perpetuation of Old World traditions that slowed the process by which German immigrants—especially those as ambitious as William Steinway—could gain social parity in New York City. The members of the New York Liederkranz, Steinway among them, no doubt felt pulled in two directions simultaneously—caught between a desire to maintain traditions they held dear and a desire to make their way in the New World.

Early Immigration The first waves of German-speaking immigrants came to America following the Napoleonic wars. There was no “Germany” during this period, just a weak German Confederation of thirty-nine states deeply divided across linguistic, religious, and geographical subdivisions. A slow but steady stream of migrants continued to arrive through the 1830s, and networks of social contacts were established across the Atlantic that would define subsequent patterns of immigration. The earliest immigrants tended to be small farmers escaping various agricultural disasters in their homeland, and they often settled in the Midwest to work the land. The effects of a potato rot that began in 1842 continued to drive people out of German-speaking lands during the 1840s. Added to this, an 1848 “revolution” failed in its aim to establish a German republic, sending into exile large numbers of liberals and intellectuals, as well as artisans and peasants, many of whom had socialist or utopian ideals. Bankruptcy among craftsmen soared during this period, inspiring many master artisans to come to America. Among these artisans was Heinrich Steinweg, who came to New York from Seesen, a town in the Harz Mountains, in 1850, along with his wife, three daughters, and four of his six sons.5 Heinrich’s oldest son, Charles (born Carl), had already come to America in 1849. William (born Willhelm), the secondyoungest son, was fourteen years old at the time. The family trades had been cabinetry and piano making, and after working for other piano makers during their

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first few years in New York, the Steinwegs began building their own pianos there in 1853. By that time, the family name had been changed from Steinweg to the arguably less-German-sounding Steinway in an effort better to appeal to potential American piano buyers who might have held negative stereotypes of Germans. Each of the sons had a specific role in the family business. Charles managed sales, and young William worked with him. Henry was in charge of the manufacturing end of the business and is credited with many of the early technological advancements of the Steinway piano, including his 1859 innovations in cross-stringing. In keeping with the highly patriarchal social norms of traditional German culture, Papa Heinrich was the ultimate authority on any business matter, but he was able to balance elements of Old World authoritarianism with a more modern sensibility that allowed him to encourage his sons’ innovations.6 The business experienced tremendous initial success, reflecting not only the quality of the product but also the exponential increase in piano sales overall in America during the 1850s and 60s. The Steinwegs’ arrival in America could not have been better timed. In one three-and-a-half-year period in the late 1850s, a 700 percent increase in the annual output of Steinway pianos resulted in a 1,500 percent increase in the partnership’s net worth, to $360,000.7 One of Heinrich’s sons, Theodor, continued to live in Germany, for reasons that are not clear. Like his family, Theodor made pianos, and, like young Henry, his interests lay primarily in piano technology. The two brothers maintained a correspondence across the Atlantic, and while they exchanged ideas about piano construction, more original ideas tended to flow from Henry to Theodor than the reverse.8 Theodor finally visited New York in May 1864 for the inauguration of the new Steinway store on East Fourteenth Street. A marginal note in William’s diary entry of 25 May reads, “All five sons together first time since 1849.”9 Following the untimely passing of both Charles (of typhoid, while visiting Theodor in Germany) and Henry (of tuberculosis) in 1865, Theodor reluctantly returned to New York at William’s request, selling his successful piano business in Brunswick and joining William as full partner in Steinway & Sons. If Theodor’s reasons for initially remaining in Germany were unclear, his reasons for not wanting to return to America are much better documented. His picture of American life is described in undated correspondence sent to William. “You are used to the idea of sacrificing yourself to the idea of big numbers on paper, from which you poor fellows will reap nothing but an early death,” he wrote.10 Nevertheless, Theodor did come back to New York to help his brother. His role in the partnership was essentially to assume Henry’s position, continuing to develop technological advancements for the production of Steinway pianos.11 Theodor was delighted to return to Germany in 1880 to manage the new Steinway operation in Hamburg, after having taken several trips between New York and Europe in the intervening years.

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By contrast, the American way of life seemed to suit William perfectly. The death of his brothers propelled William to the fore of the family business in the second half of the 1860s, which became a period of aggressive marketing of the business and the family name. Perhaps the most visible manifestation of this marketing strategy was the construction of Steinway Hall (see chapter 6). Of course, Steinway pianos were used exclusively on the hall’s stage.12 Steinway Hall continued to have a significant impact on the cultural life of New York City until Carnegie Hall was completed in 1891.

Steinway and the Liederkranz In addition to being the first full year of operation for Steinway Hall, 1867 was the first of a dozen years during which William Steinway served as president of the New York Liederkranz. The original mission of the Liederkranz, which was established in January 1847, was “the promotion of artistic taste in general and vocal and instrumental music in particular.”13 That taste, of course, almost exclusively emphasized German music. The Liederkranz was meant to foster fellowship among its largely German and, at least in the early years, largely immigrant membership. By 1870, almost forty Männerchöre were active in New York City.14 In Germany, Männerchöre had provided an atmosphere in which working-class men could come together socially. There were hopes within the German-American community that having singing societies established in New York would have a similarly unifying effect on the German immigrant population. The reality of the New York Männerchöre, however, was that a hierarchy of groups emerged, from the working class to the elite.15 Indeed, the Liederkranz distinguished itself as the oldest and the most elite of the New York organizations. Its membership included not only William Steinway and his older brother Charles but also Oswald Ottendorfer, the editor of the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung—which had begun as a weekly German-language newspaper in 1834 but became a daily paper in 1850—and John Hoffman, a non-German-speaking, second-generation German American who served as mayor of New York City from 1866 to 1868 and governed New York state from 1869 to 1873. The Liederkranz’s elite status was also reflected in the annual dues its members were required to pay. For active Liederkranz members who participated in the chorus or held elected office, the membership fees rose dramatically from $2 in 1857 to $24 in 1869, prohibitively high for most of the working-class German American population of New York City. Annual dues for “passive” members— those who joined to attend concerts and participate in other social gatherings— rose even higher, to $50 per year by 1867. Passive members always far outnumbered active members, which suggests that the society’s primary importance was for members to have the opportunity to socialize and make connections,

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Plate 7.1. Program of the first Liederkranz concert, 17 May 1847. Courtesy of The Liederkranz of the City of New York.

business or political—for example, with other Germans. During the period 1860 to 1870, Liederkranz membership reached a high of 1,012 members, only 119 of whom were active, in 1869. The year of lowest membership was 1863, with only 388 members (45 active), clearly registering the effects of the Civil War.16 In its entire history, Liederkranz membership peaked in 1884 with 1,557 members.17 In spite of the economic differences among New York’s Männerchöre, their musical tastes were remarkably similar. Plate 7.1 provides a reproduction of the program of the first Liederkranz concert, which took place at the Apollo Saloon on 17 May 1847, just five months after the group was initially organized. The first director was one Professor Krauskopf, about whom little seems to be known or was remembered in either of the two published histories of the society. The advertisement for the event promised “nearly TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MALE VOICES,” but the society’s histories admit that this claim must have been highly exaggerated, since the society started with only twenty-five members. The program combined classic German fare—works of Mendelssohn, whose music was a ubiquitous presence during this period, Beethoven, Mozart, and Spohr—

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with the works of lesser German and German American composers such as Joseph Panny (1794–1838), Conradin Kreutzer (1780–1849), Ernst Julius Otto (1844–1877), and Professor Krauskopf.18 The program offered a mixture of styles of repertory—including religious, German patriotic, and classical pieces— performed by the full chorus, as well as various soloists and small ensembles with piano accompaniment. The general aesthetic characteristics of this program, with its heavy dose of romantische Sehnsucht for the homeland—evident in the titles of the “grand choruses” (Panny’s “Herbst am Rhein” and Kreutzer’s “Vaterland”) that concluded each half of this program—were hardly unique to the Liederkranz and would change very little for decades to come.19 An account of a Männerchöre festival complained of an abundance of “compositions . . . generally calculated to suit the German taste for the sublime and sentimental only. . . . [A]nything like lighter or more pleasing music, better suited to the general taste, was set aside.”20 The activities of the Liederkranz chorus ranged from participation in concerts of what we might call serious music in New York City to participation in summertime Sängerfesten, which often involved traveling to regional competitions in other cities. During the 1860s, many of the local concerts were benefits for causes such as wounded Union soldiers and soldiers’ families, as well as causes related specifically to the German community in New York such as the FrauenVerein and the German Hospital. The Liederkranz also made numerous appearances with the New-York Philharmonic Society, including performances of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 (1860), Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht (1861) and Symphony no. 2 in B-flat Major (“Lobgesang”) (1864), Bruch’s Frithjof’s Saga (1867), and Schumann’s Manfred (1869). The Liederkranz gave its own series of four subscription concerts during the 1862–1863 season at Irving Hall. The first concert included “Gesang der Geister über dem Wasser,” op. 36, by Ferdinand Hiller; “Hymne an die Musik” and “Sturmesmythe” by Franz Lachner (1803–1890); and the finale from Die Lorelei, op. 98, by Mendelssohn. The second concert featured a chorus from Mozart’s Così fan tutte; Palestrina’s eight-voice motet “Fratres Ego”; and the cantata Comala, op. 12, by Niels Gade (1817–1890). The third concert included Panny’s “Kriegerchor” and Mendelssohn’s Symphony no. 2. The final concert offered “Hymne an Hertha” by a composer named Kurz, an encore performance of the Palestrina motet, the opening double chorus (“Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen”) from Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, excerpts from the Mozart Requiem, and the Credo from Liszt’s Missa solemnis (“Graner Messe”). The fiftieth anniversary history of the society notes that the ambitious “experiment” of the subscription concert series would never be repeated because of losses of nearly $1,200.21 Nevertheless, such high-profile appearances outside its own clubhouse helped set the Liederkranz apart from the other New York Männerchöre. It pushed the group from an insulated amateur organization to one recognizable as an active participant in the cultural life of the city at large,

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making it a part of German music’s conquest of New York City. Only the Männergesangverein Arion, which parted ways with the Liederkranz in 1854 but reunited with the latter in 1920, was similarly visible.22 During the 1860s, the New York Liederkranz participated in Sängerfesten in Buffalo, New York (1860); Columbus, Ohio (1865); Providence, Rhode Island (1866); Louisville, Kentucky (1866); Philadelphia (1867); Chicago (1868); and Baltimore (1869), testifying to the presence of other large and active German communities in 1860s America as far “west” as Chicago. The group also hosted a Sängerfest in New York in July 1865, which had originally been planned for 1861 but was postponed because of the war. The repertoire for the Sängerfesten typically featured the music of composers we might think of today as second tier. “Die stille Wasserrose” by Franz Abt (1819–1885) was performed in Columbus in 1865, according to William Steinway’s diary, “amid thundering applause in encore. . . . Are awarded 2nd prize.” In Providence in 1866, Steinway described a “magnificent” performance of “Waldabendschein,” also by Abt, “tremendous encore . . . and carry off the honor of the evening.” “Wasserrose” was again offered in Philadelphia in 1867, this time apparently under William’s direction. He wrote in his diary on 23 July, “Grand Commers in eveg.23 Nearly 700 persons at the Liederkranz. [Director Agriol] Paur being sick I preside and also conduct ‘Wasserrose’ and our Prize song ‘Wie kam die Liebe’ both of which are sung splendidly.”24 In fact, by unanimous decision of the seven judges, the Liederkranz took first prize in that competition. Steinway was already active in the New York Liederkranz when he began keeping his diary in 1861, and his active membership in the organization continued until his death in 1896. By all accounts he possessed a fine singing voice, which he exercised at social gatherings in the private homes of various friends and, especially, through his participation in the chorus. He often happily noted those occasions when he was “in good voice”—he wrote on 1 December 1868, “am in splendid voice and sing high C with ease”—and recorded with distress those times when he had a cold or sore throat that prevented him from singing well (or at all). In addition to singing solos, he reported participating in various duets and quartets in domestic and social settings. His repertoire included a number of lieder by Schumann, including “Die Lotosblume” and “Ich grolle nicht,” as well as the composer’s duet “Liebesgarten.” The number of diary entries in which Steinway mentioned performing in the Liederkranz chorus peaked in 1864 and then dramatically dropped off, as his energies turned toward administrative duties in the organization. In 1863, he reported singing solos in Liederkranz performances of Mendelssohn’s Symphony no. 2 (“Lobgesang”) and Liszt’s Missa solemnis (“Graner Messe”). In 1864, he reported performing in three works of Mendelssohn’s: An die Kunstler, also with a solo; Die erste Walpurgisnacht; and unspecified Volkslieder. In the same year, he sang in the society’s performances of “Frühling” and “Winter” from Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, as well as a performance of Abt’s “Die stille Wasserrose” with

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Plate 7.2. Past presidents of the Liederkranz, 1867–1883. Courtesy of The Liederkranz of the City of New York.

the New York Philharmonic Society. Steinway also had a solo in an 1865 rendition of Die erste Walpurgisnacht. In addition to performing in the Liederkranz chorus, Steinway served on the board of trustees for almost three decades and was elected president of the organization in twelve different years.25 He was also a tireless fundraiser and generous contributor to the society’s coffers. Plate 7.2 shows an image of early presidents of the Liederkranz, taken from the centennial history, in which Steinway’s portrait appears at the top center, framed with laurels. The anonymous author

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of the history is generous in praising Steinway’s contributions to the organization: “Without taking well-merited credit from any of its presidents who served the Liederkranz so well, it will be acknowledged by historians and the older members who are still with us, that William Steinway not only impressed his personality upon the club but led it on to greater achievements.”26 Steinway was first elected president of the organization in 1867. His guest appearance as conductor at the Philadelphia Sängerfest that summer, and the taking of first prize for “Wie kam die Liebe,” were only two musical highlights of Steinway’s first year as president of the society. It is probably no coincidence that the Liederkranz gave no fewer than four performances at Steinway’s new hall in 1867. On 24 January the chorus participated in a concert to benefit the German Frauen-Verein, sharing the stage with a number of musical luminaries of 1860s New York, including the pianist Carl Wolfssohn (1834–1907) and the violinist Camilla Urso (1842–1902). On 6 April the group participated in a performance of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, again featuring Wolfssohn, under the direction of Theodore Thomas. The Tribune reviewer wrote: Players and singers more congenial than [the] principal executants [of this concert] seldom come together, and when they do we have a true German service of the good things of art. . . . [T]he two comfortable bodies of chorus and orchestra—one of the Liederkranz, and the other under the baton of Theodore Thomas—[formed] a grand background to Mr. Wolfsohn’s [sic] lustrous performance of the piano passage in the Choral Fantasia of Beethoven. . . . It was well rendered altogether—essentially a more important doing than many an opera.27

In May the Liederkranz returned to Steinway Hall to perform in Bruch’s Frithjof’s Saga as part of the twenty-fifth anniversary concert of the Philharmonic Society, under the direction of Carl Bergmann, which received an enthusiastic notice: The cantata of Frithjof’s Saga, a fine work by Max Bruch—the breath of the Norlands and the mystery of the Sagas running through its choral chapters—was sung at length by the Liederkranz, Madame Rotter, Mr. Frederick Steins, and a tasteful tenor whose name does not appear on the bill, giving acceptable soli. The Liederkranz has never acquitted itself more ably, and it is seldom that choral performances are so deeply and delicately, and, at need, so vaguely and darkly shaded.28

Finally, at the end of the year, the society gave a concert at Steinway Hall to benefit the German Hospital, which is now Lenox Hill Hospital, raising over $2,000. Steinway resumed leadership of the Liederkranz in 1869 after traveling in Europe from May to October 1868. According to the society’s histories, 1868 was a quiet year for the organization. One wonders whether Steinway’s absence had anything to do with that lull in activity. In any event, he was back on the

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scene in 1869 and, in quite a different tone from his “protest against” election in 1867, wrote in his journal of 12 January 1869, “General Meeting of L. K. Stormy & excited. Am elected President by 142 against 70.” The highlights of 1869, as recorded in the histories, largely concerned the business end of the organization: the dues of active members hit the twenty-four-dollar mark that year, and an adjoining building was purchased and added to the East Fourth Street clubhouse. A concert and ball celebrating the completion of the enlarged clubhouse took place on 23 October. The Liederkranz also participated in a Sängerfest in Baltimore in July 1869, taking first prize. Steinway was called away from Baltimore before the prize concert took place to attend the funeral of his father-in-law. He did, however, note the receipt of a telegram on 14 July reporting “our members half crazy with joy” at the victory. This intrusion of Steinway’s personal life into his Liederkranz commitments is an anomaly in his diaries from the 1860s. Birthdays and holidays were spent at the clubhouse with increasing frequency through the decade. Steinway’s diary entries at this time tend to be terse, perhaps reflecting the difficulties in his personal life with Regina, only vaguely hinted at in the diaries in cryptic entries such as “Had long talk with wife.” Steinway’s ebullient descriptions of Liederkranz outings, the Sängerfesten in particular, provide a sharp contrast to the tone of typical diary entries from this period and strongly suggest the great pleasure his clubhouse activities provided him. If the mission of the Liederkranz was to foster a love of German song and fraternity in its members, then Steinway clearly partook of both aspects of the organization with great enthusiasm.

Conclusion The combination of Old World culture and tradition, especially through music making, with New World networking opportunities in a predominantly social setting that the Männerchöre provided must have been very appealing, not only to William Steinway in the Liederkranz but to any number of Germans in any number of Männerchöre in New York or other cities with large German populations trying to make their way in a strange new land. As I suggested at the outset of this chapter, however, while involvement in these Männerchöre may have helped ease members’ transition into the culture and society of the New World, their strong adherence to Old World traditions can also be understood as a burden, holding German immigrants back from achieving complete assimilation. This certainly seems to have been the case for someone with Steinway’s aspirations. His significant contributions to and active participation in the Liederkranz in the 1860s— combined with the recognition he gained as a businessman through the highly successful Steinway & Sons piano manufacturing company and as a patron of the arts through the construction of Steinway Hall in the same decade—paved the way for the highly visible position in New York City’s public life that he held

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during the last two decades of his life. This visibility was manifested perhaps most significantly in his service on the New York City Rapid Transit Commission and even more so in the establishment of Steinway Village, located in what is now Long Island City, Queens—vestiges of which remain today in the names of some Long Island City businesses, as well as Steinway Street. In the 1880s, Steinway imagined a train passing beneath the East River that connected Steinway Village with Manhattan. A hole was dug, but the project was halted after a fatal accident, only to be completed after Steinway’s death as what is now the Number 7 train. These accomplishments notwithstanding, however, Fostle notes that Steinway remained near the center of power but always outside it. . . . In part, this was a product of the social stratification of the time. Though he owned a yacht, William was never invited to join the New York Yacht Club. The Union Club, a center of economic power, tendered him no application, though some of its members were certainly less wealthy. The Century Club, home to many with interests in literature and culture, had few, if any, obviously German names on its rolls. William’s assets with the powers that were were based on his Teutonicity; this, however, was also a liability.29

In this view, William Steinway in some sense would always be left stranded between the traditional culture of his homeland and free access to all that New York society had to offer. Perhaps this problematic situation recalls that noted earlier between the acceptance of German music and music makers in New York City and the much less positive response to those of German origin as a group. While German music was allowed to make the transition to the New World with little significant resistance, a host of other perceived German traits and traditions were much less welcome. An article in the Times, for example, characterized the Germans as engaged in “dancing, drinking, shooting, drinking, jumping, drinking, scupping, drinking, flirting, drinking and all that sort of Teutonized merriment,” a view decidedly out of sync with that, also widely held, of the Germans as purveyors and connoisseurs of high culture.30 The Liederkranz itself simultaneously occupied a space as a private organization that catered to the fraternity and entertainment of its members (including, certainly, the consumption of Lagerbier), steeped in the tradition of the “sublime and sentimental” songs of the homeland, and as an organization whose chorus often appeared in public concerts with the most highly respected soloists and orchestras in the city, performing high-brow musical fare to rave reviews in the mainstream English-language press. In this way, the Liederkranz can be viewed as embodying the very paradox contained in the public perception of Germans in 1860s New York—a paradox that would only be resolved at some indefinite point in the future with the absorption of German immigrants into the complicated and constantly shifting weave of cultural identities that continues to define, and redefine, the American ethnic landscape today.

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Notes 1. Steinway and his wife, Regina Roos, spent much of 1868 traveling in Europe, resulting in the dip in the number of Liederkranz mentions during that year. 2. D. W. Fostle, The Steinway Saga An American Dynasty (New York: Scribner, 1995), 191–92. One wonders whether Steinway’s devotion to the Liederkranz had an impact on his marriage—which had begun in 1861, the year he started keeping his diary, and ended in divorce in 1876 after Regina’s long series of scandalous affairs— or whether these outings were a means of escape from difficulties at home. 3. The New-York Times, 16 April 1864. 4. Most of these immigrants came from the west and south of the German-speaking lands, especially Bavaria, Franconia, Württemberg, and Baden, as well as from Prussia. Stanley Nadel traces the early history of German immigration in chapter 1 (“Germany, German States, and Germans”) of Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845–80 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990). 5. Carl (Charles), Heinrich Jr. (Henry), and Wilhelm (William) all participated in the family business; Hermann returned to Germany in 1854 and, according to Fostle, “somehow fell from the family tree, never to be mentioned again” (p. 107); and Albert, the youngest son, who died of typhoid in 1877 at age thirty-seven, played a much less active role in the business than did his brothers. Theodor, as we shall soon see, did not come to America with the rest of the family. 6. Fostle, Steinway Saga, 65. 7. Ibid., 75. 8. Ibid., 119. 9. Clearly, Hermann had become persona non grata by this time. Excerpts from the William Steinway Diary, 1861–1896, are used courtesy of the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 10. Quoted in Fostle, Steinway Saga, 117. 11. Of special note are Theodor’s advancements in the upright piano, which had been successful in Europe and which he is largely responsible for having brought to America by 1870. 12. In November 1866, a scheduled Steinway Hall performance by James Wehli was cancelled because of the pianist’s insistence that he play a Chickering grand. Chickering was Steinway’s most serious American competitor. William Steinway recounted the incident in his diary entry of 24 November. 13. Liederkranz of the City of New York, History of the Liederkranz of the City of New York, 1847 to 1947, and of the Arion, New York (New York: Drechsel, 1948), 3. Hereafter referred to in the text as “the centennial history.” 14. Mary Sue Morrow, “Somewhere Between Beer and Wagner: The Cultural and Musical Impact of German Männerchöre in New York and New Orleans,” in Music and Culture in America, 1861–1918, ed. Michael Saffle (New York: Garland, 1998), 81. 15. Männerchöre not only organized themselves along economic lines but also according to profession, linguistic dialect, and regional origin. Morrow discusses the social dimensions of Männerchöre in New York at greater length (ibid., pp. 79–107). 16. This is a condensation of data presented by Hermann Mosenthal in Geshichte des Vereins deutscher Liederkranz in New York (New York: F. A. Ringler, 1897), 19–29.

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17. History of the Liederkranz, 19. 18. Mendelssohn’s significance in this period in American musical life is explored in detail in Steven Baur, “Music, Morals, and Social Management: Mendelssohn in Post–Civil War America,” American Music 19 (2001): 64–130. 19. Morrow, “Beer and Wagner,” 93. 20. The New-York Times, 19 July 1867. 21. Mosenthal, Geschichte, 21. 22. The History of the Liederkranz suggests three possible reasons for the defection: frequent changes in musical directors and meeting places during the first few years; the proposal to form an auxiliary Damenchor, or women’s chorus (which the Liederkranz succeeded in establishing in 1856); or—and, from the perspective of the history’s anonymous authors, most plausibly—the bad food (typically red cabbage and sausages) served at the early meetings (p. 8). 23. A Kommers is given in the glossary of the History of the Liederkranz as “a convivial gathering for drinking and singing” (p. 161). 24. Most contemporary accounts give Paur’s first name as “Agricol,” although both Liederkranz histories use “Agriol,” which I use here. The composer of “Wie kam die Liebe” was named Frey, according to Mosenthal, Geschichte, 28. 25. The bylaws of the Liederkranz prohibited any member from serving as president for more than two consecutive years. 26. History of the Liederkranz, 12. 27. The New York Tribune, 8 April 1867. 28. Ibid., 6 May 1867. 29. Fostle, Steinway Saga, 349. 30. The New-York Times, 16 April 1866.

Chapter Eight

The Development of the German American Musical Stage in New York City, 1840–1890 John Koegel

From 1840 to 1918, a year after the United States entered World War I, German theater flourished in New York City, in Manhattan.1 Amateur theatrical groups were continually active from 1840 onward, and at least one resident, professional German company offered regular performances at any one time between 1853 and 1918. Between 1879 and 1918, there were usually two and sometimes three commercial theaters (see appendix 8.1). After World War I, in the early 1920s, the German American stage resumed regular activity, although in a reduced state and in a peripatetic existence—moving between theaters and German social clubs in New York City and throughout its metropolitan area. Audiences in New York’s Kleindeutschland attended operas, operettas, musical comedies, plays with music, dramas, comedies, farces, variety acts, and tableaux vivants by foreign-born and local German American authors. However, the German theater was not the only “ethnic” (non-English-language) theater in New York City or the United States, although it was the most active one during the second half of the nineteenth century. For example, Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish, and other stages flourished at different times in the city and elsewhere in the country. Among these, the Yiddish theater experienced the most substantial activity in nineteenthcentury New York, after its German cousin.2 The relationship between the Kleindeutschland and Yiddish stages was both close and complicated. Some New York German Jewish actors spoke Yiddish and German and appeared in both German and Yiddish theaters. Both theaters also shared audiences to some extent. In nineteenth-century America, wherever there were German speakers there were German amateur or professional theatrical companies, singing societies,

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orchestras, bands, and other musical ensembles.3 Germans celebrated an amazing variety of secular and religious occasions—theater, spectacles, living tableaux, balls, parades, and other ritual events—with music designed to reinforce German solidarity and pride.4 German American composers and authors wrote many works based on both German and American models. In fact, no other immigrant group created for itself a greater multiplicity of musical, social, or cultural organizations than did German Americans in nineteenth-century America.5 Moreover, no other ethnic group in the United States documented its own activities in greater detail. After more than 150 years of cultural and linguistic acculturation and assimilation, however, the influence and legacy of German and German American musicians in the United States, who helped in large measure to create the infrastructure for the current American art music scene and music education establishment, have blended into American national musical life. The principal purposes of this chapter are to establish and interpret the accomplishments of German composers, conductors, musicians, and musical theater figures both within New York City’s Kleindeutschland and in other performance arenas in the city; to trace the history of the German stage in New York from its beginnings in 1840 to the 1890s; and to show how German American cultural and ethnic sensitivities and aspirations were represented on Kleindeutschland’s musical stages while at the same time following continental German models and traditions. Since the German American musical theater (like its mainstream English-language counterpart) was directed by a succession of manager-impresarios who largely determined its direction, special attention is given here to these individuals and the theater companies they directed, as well as to the buildings in which they performed. In particular, I examine the career of conductor, manager, and composer Adolf Neuendorff, a strong advocate for the cause of German music and musical theater for German audiences in New York City (and elsewhere) during the second half of the nineteenth century. Neuendorff led the German theater through periods of both artistic and financial triumph and challenge, and, like other conductor-impresarios of his time, he worked in a wide range of professional capacities and situations to further his career and the cause of German and American theater and music.

The Stadttheater A brief summary of the history of New York’s German theater begins with the first documented performance, on 6 January 1840, by the Deutscher dramatischer Verein (German Dramatic Society), at a hall on Anthony Street, of a German play given in German. (Earlier, German plays and operas had been given regularly in English translation in New York.) A local critic described the production as “highly successful in view of the novelty and the difficulty of the

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enterprise.”6 This overly enthusiastic critic also characterized the orchestral music by Johann Strauss Sr. that accompanied the play as “the best German music that we have yet heard in America.”7 During that same season, Carl Maria von Weber’s Preciosa was performed three times, as were excerpts from his Der Freischütz, and the entire opera was given during the second season, held in 1842.8 These were probably the first performances in New York of German opera sung in German. In this early period between 1842 and 1854, theatrical performances in German were given only by semiprofessional and amateur groups rather than by professional companies. The first professional German theater in New York was the Stadttheater, which was established in 1854 and remained in operation until 1864.9 (See plates 8.1 and 8.2 for exterior and interior views.) The complicated history of the building in which it was housed is typical of many New York City (and American) nineteenth-century performance spaces, in that its intended use changed frequently according to shifting fashions and an ever-changing parade of lessees. The Stadttheater occupied the site of the Bowery Amphitheater at 37–39 Bowery, which had opened in 1833 to house a circus sideshow. In 1835 the building reopened with a stage and equestrian ring. It was transformed into a menagerie in 1849, and in 1852 circus acts were seen there. It was rebuilt as a theater and reopened as the Stadttheater in September 1854, with space for two thousand spectators.10 In 1865 or 1866, after the Stadttheater had moved a few doors north to 45–47 Bowery, the original theater building was converted into an armory and was later demolished.11 Although its performance schedule was interrupted during the Civil War, the Stadttheater otherwise maintained a regular season of almost daily theatrical performances, most often with music, which usually lasted from September to May. Following the German repertory system, upwards of 100 different works were staged each season, although not all benefited from extensive rehearsal. The services of the prompter were often indispensable because of the great number of different works performed.12 Dramas, comedies, farces, and musical works were produced in alternation at the Stadttheater. The theater was first managed by German actor and director Otto von Hoym-Söllingen (1823–1876) and August Siegrist; when the latter withdrew a season or two after the theater’s opening, he was replaced by Eduard Hamann, a china dealer with an interest in the theater, who assisted Hoym for a number of years as his managerial partner. Hoym appointed Julius Unger the first musical director at the Stadttheater. Unger, a former member of the famous Germania Musical Society, was then currently serving as violist in the New York Philharmonic and conductor of the Sängerbund, a German singing society. Hoym was by most accounts a very talented and versatile actor, as well as an enterprising impresario, and he is representative of the performer-manager— exemplified by Daniel Bandmann, Ned Harrigan, Lester Wallach, Tony Pastor, and David Belasco—who dominated the American stage at various times in the

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Plate 8.1. Stadttheater exterior, New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, April 16, 1905.

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Plate 8.2. Stadttheater interior, “Sketches of the People Who Oppose Our Sunday Laws,” Harper’s Weekly, October 22, 1859. nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As an actor, Hoym had been active at Chemnitz, Posen, Leipzig, Coburg, and Weimar and had been a member of the Court Theaters in Dresden and Darmstadt before he was forced to leave Germany because of the 1848 revolutions.13 Arriving in New York in 1850, Hoym regularly appeared at the Stadttheater with his second wife, Elise, a financial supporter of the theater.14 As one of the principal figures of the German American stage, Hoym did a great deal to further German drama in his adopted country. He, like other leading German actors, was often noted for his willingness to perform both principal and secondary roles. A writer in the early twentieth century commented on this tradition: “One hesitates to speak of any part in a German play as ‘small’ because the well-schooled players make it ‘big.’ ”15 As with most other actor-managers, Hoym experienced alternating periods of artistic and financial success and failure. This was especially a factor in the German

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American theater, which depended primarily, but not exclusively, on the German immigrant community for patronage. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, Kleindeutschland experienced alternating periods and varying degrees of support and neglect of its immigrant stage. The fact that New York’s German American theater endured in a mostly vibrant state for about one hundred years is a result of the dedication and perseverance of German American managers, actors, and musicians. Hoym performed regularly in New York at the Stadttheater between 1854 and 1872 (at its two locations), except for three seasons: 1861–1862, when he fought on the Union side in the Civil War as a lieutenant and later a captain with the Twentieth Regiment of Infantry, United Turner Rifles, a German group;16 and again in 1868–1869 and 1870–1871, while he was performing on other German stages in the United States. He appeared as a guest with German theater companies throughout the country in cities such as New Orleans, Louisville, San Francisco, and St. Louis.17 Hoym was also a playwright and the author of such works as the parody Der Fliegende Holländer oder das gespensterische Schiff (The Flying Dutchman, or the Phantom Ship), with songs by I. Ellison (1856); Empire City (1856); and Der Pedlar (1860), all performed at the Stadttheater.18 At the conclusion of his career in America in the 1870s, Hoym returned to Germany and performed for several years at the Stadttheater in Nuremberg.19 At the New York Stadttheater, Hoym and Hamann balanced popular preference with high artistic aspirations by alternating the dramas of Schiller, Goethe, and Shakespeare—all performed in German—with operas, operettas, folk plays (Volksstücke), musical comedies, farces (Possen), and other plays. They also balanced performances by the resident Stadttheater stock company with guest performances by visiting German singers and actors. This would be a constant practice throughout the history of the Kleindeutschland stage. The high point of musical theater occurred later on the German American stage, from the 1870s through the 1890s, during the golden age of European operetta in America. The musical and theatrical repertory that dominated the stage at the Stadttheater was similar in most respects to that performed elsewhere in German American and German theaters. Kleindeutschland periodically enjoyed musical theater pieces with local New York or American references (Lokalstücke) during this earlier period, and they later dominated the stage at Adolf Philipp’s Germania Theater in the 1890s. While German operas and French and Italian operas in German translation were seen regularly, they were performed less frequently than other musical theater pieces at the Stadttheater. As discussed earlier in this volume, George Templeton Strong is well-known today for the extensive diaries he kept over many years, which included lengthy commentary about the musical activities he attended. In his diaries he frequently noted the German concerts and theatrical events he attended and events organized by German American performers. Since German musicians dominated the concert scene in Strong’s day, it would have been difficult for a music lover such

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as Strong to avoid contact with German music and musicians. However, he seemed to have a somewhat conflicted relationship with German music and theater, and his diaries reflect this ambivalence. While the evidence suggests that the Stadttheater was an acceptable and capacious performance venue, Strong called it the “little, dingy, sour-smelling Bowery Stadt-Theater” or the “plebian StadtTheater in the Bowery” while at the same time praising the performance there in April 1859 of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, conducted by Bergmann, with the assistance of the Arion Society chorus.20 Perhaps his reaction had more to do with his views on class and ethnicity than with the music or performance venues. Vera Brodsky Lawrence points out that among the general run of New York newspapers, which often ignored or slighted German theatrical events, the Evening Post favorably reviewed German activities in New York—including performances at the Stadttheater—on numerous occasions in the mid-nineteenth century.21 This more detailed coverage of Kleindeutschland’s stages allowed English speakers access to German theatrical productions and activities in a way not otherwise available to them, unless they were fluent in German and could read such newspapers as the Staats-Zeitung or attend performances at the Stadttheater. Hoym and Hamann closed the Stadttheater in 1864 and soon thereafter opened the Neues Stadttheater, located a few doors north in Hartmann’s Hotel, on the site of the former German Volksgarten at 45 Bowery. The Neues Stadttheater, in operation from 1864 to circa 1878, was billed as “The Largest Theatre in America” for a time and reportedly had a seating capacity of 3,500.22 The repertory at this new theater mirrored that of its predecessor, and it continued the tradition established by Hoym and his company of presenting the latest lighter fare alongside classics of German drama. As at the first Stadttheater, opera and operetta were performed alongside plays with numerous interpolated songs in the popular style. Whatever the New York German press and its theatrical critics thought of this balancing of popular and high culture, they did not deter Hoym and later impresarios from continuing this tradition. This was also the practice in many of the metropolitan and provincial theaters in Germanspeaking Europe. The reasons for the decline of the Stadttheater in the 1870s remain obscure, although it probably closed as a result of financial difficulties, possibly brought on by economic depressions and recessions during that decade. During the 1878–1879 season, it completely ceased activity as a German house, and its name was changed to the Windsor Theater.23

Adolf Neuendorff and the Germania Theater As a result of the decline of the Neues Stadttheater, theater manager, composer, and conductor Adolf Neuendorff (1843–1897)—one of the most important

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Plate 8.3. Adolf Neuendorf. Reproduced by permission of the Dramatic Museum Photographs, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

figures in Kleindeutschland’s cultural life—took up the mantle of theatrical manager forfeited by Hoym and Hamann when he opened his own theater, Neuendorff’s Germania Theater, in 1872 (see plate 8.3).24 His career was marked by an upward trajectory interrupted periodically by economic setbacks. Through alternating periods of artistic success and hardship, he maintained a vital interest in musical and theatrical life in New York and elsewhere in America.

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Neuendorff immigrated to the United States with his father in 1855 at age twelve; he began his musical career as a timpanist in the orchestra of the Stadttheater that same year.25 Moving quickly from the percussion section through the ranks of chorus master, second violin, concertmaster, and assistant conductor, he eventually assumed the duties of music director at the Stadttheater. On 21 March 1859, at age sixteen, he made his debut as a solo violinist at Dodworth Hall in a concert directed by his teacher, Gustav Schilling (1801–1883).26 After violin lessons with George Matzka (1825–1883), composition studies with Carl Anschütz, and singing lessons with operatic bass Joseph Weinlich,27 in 1860 or 1861 Neuendorff reportedly toured South America with his father, giving violin recitals. He returned to the United States in 1862 and in 1863 took up the position of music director of the German theater in Milwaukee.28 Between 1864 and 1867, he conducted German opera and operetta, as well as opera in German translation, in New York; he also conducted opera in Philadelphia in 1867 and again in 1871–1872.29 Between 1867 and 1871, Neuendorff served as music director of the Neues Stadttheater in New York, assuming the role of comanager with Carl Rosa in 1871, shortly before the beginning of its decline.30 Neuendorff is important in the annals of American operatic history as the conductor of the American premieres of several of Richard Wagner’s operas, including Lohengrin in April and May 1871 (thirteen performances at the Neues Stadttheater), Die Walküre in 1877 (at Wagner festivals held at New York’s Academy of Music and in Boston), and Rienzi in 1878 (the Academy of Music).31 On 17 September 1876 he reported on the opening of Wagner’s Bayreuth Festival for the Staats-Zeitung, New York’s principal German-language newspaper, noted for its extensive coverage of musical and theatrical life in the city and region.32 Neuendorff also conducted performances of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Die fliegender Hollander in 1877 at the Academy of Music and six other operas—including Faust, Fidelio, Die Königer von Saba and three Wagner operas—for the Metropolitan Opera’s Midwestern tour in March and April 1886.33 Between 1872 and 1881, Neuendorff managed his own theater, the Germania, located in Tammany Hall on East Fourteenth Street, adjoining the Academy of Music, in the space formerly occupied by Bryant’s Minstrels (see plate 8.4).34 The Germania Theater used a performance space separate from the main meeting area in Tammany Hall and had its own stage doors to the left of the main entrance. Since Neuendorff leased the space from the Tammany Society, which frequently hosted rallies and other political meetings in the adjacent main hall, the Germania company periodically had to temporarily cease theatrical performances so they would not interrupt Tammany business. For a number of years the Germania was the principal German stage in the city and was generally well patronized. The Germania offered theatrical entertainment similar to its predecessor, the Stadttheater, and since Neuendorff was its manager, musical theater in the form of opera, operetta, and lighter popular plays with music figured prominently in the repertory.

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Plate 8.4. Neuendorff’s Germania Theater, New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, April 16, 1905.

Neuendorff’s management of the Germania Theater was sometimes marked by controversy. For example, the well-known German actor and playwright Gustav Kadelburg (1851–1925), who briefly worked as an actor and served as stage director at the Germania during the 1877–1878 season, published a vicious diatribe against Neuendorff and his management in his pamphlet Das deutsche Theater in New York.35 Among the many things Kadelburg objected to in

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this somewhat suspect and shrill condemnation was Neuendorff’s composition of symphonies, which he conducted at the Germania. Kadelburg also complained, perhaps rightly so, that Neuendorff was engaged in far too many musical and theatrical activities.36 Probably feeling the need to compete with the rival Thalia Theater—also a German-language house—that had been established in 1879, Neuendorff took over the lease of Wallach’s Theater in 1881 and renamed it Neuendorff’s Neues Germania. It was located at Broadway and Thirteenth Street and was a much larger performance space than his previous theater. Neuendorff sponsored and conducted a number of important theatrical and musical events there, including the New York appearances in March 1882 of Adelina Patti, who performed in a short season of Italian opera.37 However, his move to the larger venue proved unwise, and he could not sustain the resulting financial loss.38 When Neuendorff closed the theater on 24 March 1883, he “read a statement to the audience, lamenting his failure to establish . . . a fine German theatre, though he had never placed dollars nor advantage (Vorzug) before art.”39 After this closure Neuendorff nevertheless remained very active as a conductor, arranger, and composer. Even before he gave up theatrical management, the overall range of his career was extensive because of his work as the conductor of various resident and touring theatrical companies and orchestras. He conducted the New York Philharmonic during the 1878–1879 season in six concerts (and six public rehearsals) that included, among other works, the U.S. premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 3.40 Neuendorff conducted popular promenade concerts given by the predecessor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1884 to 1889.41 From 1889 to 1891, he was the music director of Emma Juch’s English Opera Company, which toured to acclaim throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.42 And in 1891 he conducted operatic performances for impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. Besides Neuendorff’s principal work as a conductor and impresario, he was also active as a composer and arranger. Neuendorff wrote the music for at least thirty operettas, Volksstücke, comedies, and farces, all with an abundance of songs, in both German and English for performances at the Neues Stadttheater, his two Germania theaters, and other stages—including his sometime rival, the Thalia (see appendix 8.2).43 He also adapted or arranged a number of foreign plays and operettas and wrote many nontheatrical vocal and instrumental pieces. His lighter musical stage works followed the models then current in Germany and Austria and integrated catchy, topical songs—sometimes using regional dialect—and instrumental sections into humorous continuities based on local situations and locales. These include such works as New Yorker Leben (New York Life), 1869, Die Reise durch New York in 80 Stunden (The Trip Through New York in 80 Hours), 1876, a New York version with new songs by Neuendorff of Hermann Salingré’s Die Reise durch Berlin in 80 Stunden (original music by Lenhardt), itself a parody of Jules Verne’s Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days), 1873;44 Onkel

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Knusperich, oder eine Nacht in New York (Uncle Knusperich, or a Night in New York), 1880;45 and Der Pawnbroker von Harlem (The Pawnbroker from Harlem), 1882. When some of Neuendorff’s New York stage pieces were performed in other American cities, they were adapted for new audiences. For example, his reworking of Salingré’s Die Reise durch Berlin became Die Reise durch Cincinnati at the German theater in Ohio’s Queen City and Die Reise durch San Francisco in San Francisco. It was also adapted for performance in German theaters in Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and St. Louis; and each time it assumed a local title and character. The intended purpose of these comic plays, farces, and Volksstücke with a number of interpolated popular-style songs was to draw in audiences and lighten the dramatic fare, providing a popular diversion from the heavier classics of Shakespeare, Schiller, Lessing, and Goethe—a tactic damned by critics, embraced by theatergoers, and a common practice in both Kleindeutschland and Germany. With his Volksstücke and musical farces, Neuendorff preceded by several decades the work of ethnic parodist Adolf Philipp (1864–1936), whose humorous New York Volksstücke of the 1890s, with catchy songs about local situations and immigrant life in Gotham, captured the pulse of the increased wave of German immigration at the century’s end. Neuendorff also competed and collaborated with his contemporary, the actor and playwright Max Cohnheim, in the creation of locally oriented musical theater works. From the 1850s through the 1870s, Cohnheim also wrote a number of plays and plays with songs for New York’s Kleindeutschland stage that reflected German American situations and humor, and thus his career is both illustrative and representative. These musical stage pieces were similar in theme and probably in musical style to Neuendorff’s works of the 1870s and 1880s, as well as to Philipp’s works of the 1890s, and they included, among others, Die Adoptirte (The Adopted), 1883; Fürsten zum Land hinaus, oder die Schul’ ist aus (The Count’s Off to the Country, or School Is Over), 1853; Herz und Dollar (Heart and Dollar), ca. 1860—his most popular work; Klein Deutschland (Little Germany), 1882; and New York und Berlin, oder wo macht man am besten aus? (New York and Berlin, or Where Does One Make Out Best?), ca. 1857?. Although he was apparently well-known in the German American community in his lifetime, details about Cohnheim’s life and career remain hidden today, and all of his dramatic works appear to be lost. A few facts are known, however. The Staats-Zeitung for 10 December 1853 identified him as a journalistic “collaborator on the Berliner Kladderadatsch.”46 In 1858, Cohnheim edited the New Yorker Humorist: Illustrirte Wochenschrift für Humor, Satyre, Kunst und Belletristik (New York Humorist: Weekly Illustrated Journal for Humor, Satire, Art, and Belles Lettres).47 Like his New York contemporary, Hoym, Cohnheim also fought in a German American company on the side of the Union in the Civil War, as a lieutenant in the DeKalb Regiment.48 Cohnheim was also connected in some way with the German stage in San Francisco, since his Die Reise durch San Francisco in 80 Stunden, a Lokalposse (local farce) based on Jules Verne’s famous

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story, was performed there—probably with Neuendorff’s music—on 17 November 1878.49 (Cohnheim is also listed in San Francisco city directories during this period.) In the late 1880s, Connheim [sic] may have worked in Berlin as a broker or agent for stage plays, as a certain M. Connheim [sic] advertised his services in a theatrical almanac of the time.50 Like many of his compatriots on the German American stage, Connheim lived a peripatetic existence, as did Neuendorff after he gave up the Germania Theater in 1883. And like many of contemporaries, details of his personal life are scant. Although Neuendorff’s Lokalstücke with music were undoubtedly popular with New York audiences and reflected German American experiences in various ways, his most important contributions as a composer were made in the field of German operetta during that genre’s heyday on the German American and American stages from the 1870s through the early 1900s. Scores for the three operettas he wrote in collaboration with librettist Heinrich Italianer (dramaturg for the Germania and Thalia theaters in New York) survive: Der Rattenfänger von Hameln (1880),51 Don Quixote (1882), and Prinz Waldmeister (1887). They reveal a mastery of late-nineteenth-century German operetta style, with ambitious large-scale ensembles and quasi-operatic vocal solos delivered with panache and attention to dramatic and musical possibilities. A number of songs from these operettas were performed separately from their theatrical connection, and at least one, “Wandern, ach wandern” from Der Rattenfänger, achieved international acclaim.52 Given Neuendorff’s extensive experience as a conductor of much of the standard nineteenth-century theatrical and symphonic repertory and his special interest in Wagner’s music dramas, it is not surprising that his operetta scores show a large-scale conception of musical and dramatic form, as well as harmonic originality and melodic inventiveness, although he made no attempt to emulate Wagner by writing continuous music for his stage works. The larger-scale compositional style of his operettas must have gone well beyond what was certain to have been a much simpler style used in his populist Volksstücke. Although the scores to three of his most important operettas were published, the music to his operetta Der Minstrel (1892),53 the one-act opera Hagar (1894),54 his local New York Volksstücke and Possen, and his two symphonies have not yet been found. Neuendorff gave yeoman’s service in fostering German drama and musical theater from the 1850s through the 1880s as a theatrical manager, and his compositional activity by all appearances merits attention. However, his greatest lasting contribution to nineteenth-century American cultural life was probably his work as a conductor. No less a figure than the controversial and influential conductor, writer, and impresario Max Maretzek (1821–1897) praised Neuendorff for his conducting, especially his musical versatility.55 After his death in December 1897, Neuendorff was honored by his peers at a memorial concert— conducted by Anton Seidl, Walter Damrosch, Nahan Franko, and Heinrich Zoellner—held in January 1898 at the Metropolitan Opera.56 Although important

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conductors active in New York in the late nineteenth century, such as the Damrosches, Thomas, and Seidl, overshadowed him, Neuendorff nevertheless deserves significantly more than the footnote to which he has been relegated, particularly because of his tireless efforts to promote European—especially German—artistic culture and to educate and entertain both American and German American musical and theatrical audiences.

Other German Theaters and Halls In addition to New York’s principal professional German theaters, German musical stage productions, as well as vocal, instrumental, orchestral, and dance music, were offered in a variety of other performance venues in Kleindeutschland. These included beer halls and gardens, dance halls, assembly rooms, society and club halls, and auditoriums (and other venues)—all of which sponsored musical and theatrical performances, especially on Sundays. The working classes frequented many of these performance spaces, although some catered primarily to a bourgeois clientele. While theatrical performances on Sundays were generally prohibited by city statutes (“blue laws”), German entrepreneurs got around this prohibition by advertising these entertainments as “Sacred Concerts,” although they were not always concerts and were rarely sacred in nature. Sporadic attempts by temperance leaders and civic authorities to eradicate Sunday sacred concerts were met with stiff opposition from the German American community, which strongly supported public entertainments on the workingman’s day of rest and vigorously opposed any attempts to stamp out the practice.57 For example, Hoym and his partner Hamann were charged in 1860 with violating the Sunday blue laws at the Stadttheater and were forced to defend themselves in court; a series of reports on their legal troubles appeared in the Times over a six-month period in that year.58 The Society for the Reform of Juvenile Delinquents, the recipient of the fees generated by obligatory theatrical licensing, sometimes led the campaign against the German theater, accusing managers such as Hoym and Hamann of being atheists because they followed the German custom of giving theatrical and musical performances on the Sabbath. The controversy that raged strongly in 1860 was a prelude to the Anti-Concert Saloon Bill passed in 1862 by the New York state legislature, which, as Gillian Rodger has shown, resulted in many changes, including a ban on the sale of alcohol in public theaters.59 One of the premier German entertainment venues at which a wide range of musical, theatrical, dance, social, and political events took place was Wilhelm Kraemer’s Atlantic Garden at 50–54 Bowery, next to the Thalia Theater. It was a music hall that could accommodate more than 1,000 people.60 Lager beer flowed freely, and the extensive menu offered a varied German and American cuisine—Wiener schnitzel (35 cents), pigs’ knuckles (25 cents), sirloin steak

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(45 cents), and similar items.61 Popular variety singers and performers and a renowned orchestra of about a dozen women musicians, the Damen Elite Kapelle, or Elite Lady Orchestra (directed first by Marie Roller and later by Charles Eschert), provided nightly musical entertainment.62 This may have been one of the first groups of its kind in the country. During the day, the “Mammoth Pneumatic Orchestrion” provided music for patrons.63 The proprietor strongly encouraged dancing to the music provided by the Damen Elite Kapelle or the orchestrion. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Atlantic Garden was home to vaudeville performers and acts—including, for example, Harry von Tilzer, Emma Carus, Harrigan and Hart, and Cole and Johnson—who played to large German and American audiences. Extended families, including children, frequented the Atlantic Garden for more than half a century, from its establishment in 1858 until its closure in 1910 or 1911. Newspaper and journal reports and accounts in city guides often mentioned the festive and orderly air that prevailed at the Atlantic Garden, as well as its family atmosphere. They also noted the difference between the Atlantic Garden and other entertainment venues on the Bowery, such as concert saloons, dime museums, and suspect or disreputable places that involved prostitution and catered primarily to a working-class male clientele.64 However, despite its primarily bourgeois and respectable clientele, the Atlantic Garden periodically attracted sharpers and sirens in search of prey. Their illicit activities were sometimes noted by the sensationalistic press, such as the National Police Gazette, a favorite newspaper of the male sporting crowd, which often reported on the stage and popular entertainments.65 By the time of the Atlantic Garden’s closure in the early 1910s, much of Kleindeutschland had moved away from the Lower East Side to uptown Manhattan and the outer boroughs, and, as a result, the Atlantic Garden had fallen on hard times. But during its high point, German Americans and other New Yorkers, German sailors and their officers, and German tourists stopped at the Atlantic Garden for refreshment, the convivial atmosphere, dancing, and musical entertainment. To sum up his philosophy, owner Wilhelm Kraemer had etched in one of the Atlantic Garden’s stained-glass windows Martin Luther’s famous aphorism “Denn wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang, der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang” (“Who loves not wine, wife, or song, will remain a fool his whole life long”).66 In 1879, while Neuendorff was still proprietor of the Germania Theater, Kraemer purchased one of the oldest and largest stages in the city, the Bowery Theater, which was directly adjacent to his property. He appropriately renamed it the Thalia Theater after the muse of comedy—a name it retained until its demolition in 1929. Kraemer dedicated the theater to German drama and music and hired a managerial team made up of impresario Gustav Amberg (1844–1921), singer and actress Mathilde Cottrelly (1850–1933), and stage director Heinrich Conried (1855–1909).67 The rechristened Thalia Theater was a definite success and, with its larger performance space and popular repertory,

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was a strong competitor to both of Neuendorff’s Germania theaters. It ultimately was the victor in the battle for audiences and financial profit. Conried was first brought to the United States by Neuendorff; he made his debut in his signature role of Gringoire in the play of the same name by Théodore de Banville on 19 September 1878 at the Germania Theater. Through his directorship of various New York resident and German touring companies, including the important Irving Place Theater, Conried became one of the most significant figures of the German American stage. He also managed the Metropolitan Opera toward the end of his life. Amberg, like Conried, Neuendorff, and Adolf Philipp, was one of the most influential individuals in the German American theater.68 As with all the other managers profiled here, Amberg had a long, interesting, and controversial career, which lasted from the 1860s through the 1910s.69 He left his native Prague for the United States circa 1864, and during his early years as a manager he produced German theater in Detroit, St. Paul, and Cincinnati. Sometime around 1876, Amberg moved to New York, where his influence would be felt well beyond the turn of the century.70 Amberg, Neuendorff, Cottrelly, Conried, Philipp, and later also Maurice Baumfeld and Rudolf Christians were the principal managers of New York’s German theater from the 1870s until its temporary closure in 1918 during World War I.71 These seven individuals were connected through various interlocking and shifting personal, artistic, and financial relationships. They alternately cooperated with each other and fought bitter, bloody fights over power, repertory, audiences, and money. As did all of his competitors, Amberg experienced periods of artistic and financial success and failure. Like Neuendorff, he always seemed to bounce back eventually from financial disaster. And also like Neuendorff, his successes and failures regularly attracted the attention of New York’s English- and German-language presses. The Thalia Theater presented a rapidly changing succession of classic plays, farces, comedies, musical comedies, operettas, and operas—thereby maintaining the repertory tradition so deeply ingrained in the continental and immigrant German theater. However, its management did accede to audience demands, in which case longer runs of popular plays or musical pieces were sometimes permitted. In those instances, the management capitulated to popular sentiment. Frequent performances of the latest European operettas helped assure the company’s financial stability in the 1880s. Members of the company, under Amberg’s management, toured throughout the United States in 1881–1883 with visiting Austrian operetta superstar Marie Geistinger (1828–1903). Famous for her saucy interpretations of leading roles in Offenbach’s operettas (sung in German) and Strauss (she was the first Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus), Geistinger was one of the most important and versatile performers in the second half of the nineteenth century. She frequently appeared—to great popular acclaim—in German theaters in New York and also

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made three extensive American tours.72 Her appearances usually guaranteed full houses for German American impresarios. Like other singers in the German tradition, she performed in operetta as well as in spoken drama, in comic and serious roles. For a time she was also a leading theater director in Vienna, at the important Theater an der Wien.

The German American Stage in the 1880s The 1870s and 1880s represented a high point for European operetta at New York’s two main German theaters of the time, the Germania and the Thalia. Many of the European operettas by Offenbach, Strauss, and Millöcker that impresarios such as Rudolf Aronson—another German American composerimpresario—produced to great success in English for a number of years at venues such as the renowned Casino Theater were first heard in New York in German at the Thalia and at Neuendorff’s Germania.73 By 1888, the area surrounding the Thalia Theater was increasingly changing from a German to a Jewish neighborhood; Kleindeutschland had been gradually moving away from the Bowery and the Lower East Side for some time.74 The construction in the late 1870s of the Third Avenue Elevated Railway directly in front of the Thalia (with stops at nearby Canal and Grand streets) must have had an adverse effect on performances at the theater.75 Consequently, in 1888, Amberg gave up the building to a Yiddish theater company and commissioned architect Theodore G. Stein to build a Moorish-style theater for his German company farther uptown, probably with the financial assistance of William Steinway, a longtime protector of German theater and music in New York City. The new Amberg Theater, with a seating capacity of about 1,100,76 opened in December 1888 at Irving Place and Fifteenth Street and for several successful seasons was the home of operas, operettas, musical comedies, and plays—although operetta dominated the theatrical fare.77 Despite all this activity, Amberg was forced to give up the management of his theater in July 1891 because of financial losses. The Times reported his financial difficulties on 4 June, indicating that Steinway held a $75,000 mortgage on the theatrical properties and that printer and publisher Leo von Raven held a chattel mortgage of $12,185 on the “music, etc.”78 Amberg later transferred his financial interest in the lease to von Raven and his partner Max Mansfeld, a poet, journalist, and newspaper editor.79 Despite his financial failure, Amberg stayed on for a time as assistant manager at the theater bearing his name. By February 1893, however, Amberg had lost all control of his former theater, which was later renamed the Irving Place Theater.80 Conried took charge of this new venture, presumably with the support of Steinway, the theater’s principal patron.81 Because of Conried’s change in programming and dramatic approach at the Irving Place and his recruitment of a new group of actors and singers from Germany, a number of members of

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the former Amberg Theater migrated to a newly opened venue, once again called the Germania—the third and last performance space to bear that name. Singer-actor-playwright-composer-director Adolf Philipp managed this new Germania Theater in the 1890s. Under Conried’s direction, the Irving Place reached a high point of artistic excellence in the late 1890s and following years and was in almost continuous existence as a German theater from 1893 until 1918. German plays dominated, although German operetta was regularly performed. Conried initiated a successful outreach program to eastern universities, offering performances of the German classics to Yale and Harvard audiences. As a result, he came to be viewed by both the German American and American intelligentsia as one of the most important American stage directors and managers, a sort of German Belasco. Even Conried, the high priest of German classic drama, however, had to bow periodically to popular taste and permit the performance of farces and comedies, in addition to the beloved classics of Schiller and Goethe and the operettas of Strauss and Millöcker. Despite his reportedly autocratic and tightfisted nature, financial success was sometimes fleeting at the Irving Place, and the company at the new Germania, under the direction of Philipp, frequently provided strong competition for Conried and his players. The Staats-Zeitung often supported Conried and the Irving Place, with its mix of highbrow entertainment of classic and popular plays and operettas, while giving lesser coverage to Philipp and his company at the Germania, which presented musical comedies and plays based on the German American experience designed for a widely divergent popular audience. Competition between the two theaters, repertories, and managers was a constant factor for years to come, and Philipp and his various companies remained a threat to Conried and to the dominant position of the Irving Place Theater.82

German American Performers The success of the German stage in New York City and throughout America did not result from the artistic and entrepreneurial talents of only a few individuals. Rather, a wide range of actors, singers, musicians, composers, stage directors, impresarios, backstage personnel, and others, worked to assure the long-term viability of German theater for German Americans. (Of course, this can also be said of the English-language stage.) The following sketches of a few of Kleindeutschland’s most important performers demonstrate their true dedication to the recreation of German stage traditions in their adopted homeland, as well as their connections to mainstream English-language theater. The careers of two important German American singers and several conductors (who, like Neuendorff, were also composers) serve as representative examples of the large number of German émigré musicians who enriched the musical theater in the nineteenth century.

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Although generally less famous on the national level in late-nineteenth-century America than their counterparts on the English-language stage, a large core group of German American actors and singers helped assure the success of theatrical managers. German American performers, often equally gifted at both singing and acting, were frequently known for their great versatility—appearing, for example, in a light and frothy musical comedy one night and on following nights in an opera or a classic operetta such as Strauss’s Die Fledermaus or in Shakespeare’s Macbeth or Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans.83 One of the most important German American singing actresses during the 1870s and 1880s was Mathilde Cottrelly (see plate 8.5). She made her New York debut at Neuendorff’s Germania Theater on 5 October 1875 in Ehrliche Arbeit (Honest Work), a Volksstück by German composer Rudolf Bial (1834–1881).84 Cottrelly appeared very successfully for many years on the New York stage in German and English roles, and she was a beloved figure in Kleindeutschland and one of few German American female theatrical managers.85 She earned particular favor and success in operetta roles by Strauss, Millöcker, and Planquette that she sang in English at Rudolph Aronson’s Casino Theater and with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in the 1880s in New York and on tour throughout the country.86 She also appeared on the German stage in other cities, including Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and St. Louis. Like her sometime rival, Georgine von Januschowsky (1850–1914), Cottrelly later successfully appeared in a wide range of character roles in English-language plays on Broadway. Januschowsky, who was married to Neuendorff, was an opera and operetta singer and a dramatic actress with a distinguished reputation, who often appeared with her husband (see plate 8.6).87 She made her New York debut at the Germania Theater on 21 September 1880 in a performance of Bial’s Ehrliche Arbeit.88 She appeared for several seasons in operettas in English at Aronson’s Casino Theater beginning in 1883 and was a mainstay of the German and English theaters in New York for over three decades.89 She also sang leading roles in several of her husband’s German operettas, including his most popular and important work, Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, as well as his Prinz Waldmeister and Der Minstrel. Neuendorff frequently conducted operatic performances in which his wife appeared, including, for example, her performances with the Boston Ideal Opera Company (1889) and Emma Juch’s English Opera Company (1889–1891).90 Januschowsky also appeared with the Metropolitan Opera for six seasons between 1886 and 1906 (1885–1886, 1886–1887, 1895–1896, 1896–1897, 1903–1904, 1906–1907), in thirteen works and forty performances. Her career with the company included roles in six Wagner operas—Rienzi (Messenger), Tannhäuser (Venus), Tristan und Isolde (Isolde), Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde), Die Walküre (Ortlinde), and Siegfried (Brünnhilde)—and in Beethoven’s Fidelio (Leonora), Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots (Valentine), and Gounod’s Faust (Siebel) and Romeo et Juliette (Gertrude), all sung in German.91 In

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 8.5. Mathilde Cottrelly. Reproduced by permission of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 8.6. Georgine von Januschowsky. Reproduced by permission of the Dramatic Museum Photographs, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

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the late 1890s, Neuendorff accompanied his wife to Vienna, where she continued her operatic career at the Hofoper. After his death, Januschowsky returned to New York, where she performed with the German company at the Irving Place Theater and appeared once again at the Metropolitan Opera. When her singing voice declined, she worked as an actress on Broadway in English-language plays. After performing leading roles in her youth, Januschowsky later turned to a wide range of character parts, including, for example, appearances at the Irving Place Theater in 1909, at age fifty-nine, as one of the Boston University coeds in Millöcker’s popular German operetta with an American theme, Der Arme Jonathan (Poor Jonathan).92 At the turn of the twentieth century she established a private voice studio and trained numerous singers, most notably Metropolitan Opera star Margaret Matzenauer (1881–1963). Januschowsky had remarkably versatile musical and theatrical abilities, for which she received frequent praise. At the high point of her career during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, she was the most successful and gifted German singer to appear alternately on both German American and German musical and dramatic stages, other than operetta superstar Marie Geistinger. Unlike Geistinger, who made three extensive tours to the United States but did not establish American residency, Januschowsky lived for many years in New York City and must be considered a German American performer. In addition to German American singers and actors, some of the hardestworking yet least-known figures today were the many conductors who worked in German and American theaters and concert halls throughout the country. Excepting Theodore Thomas, who achieved national prominence, the first two generations of important German American conductors included Anschütz, Bergmann, Hermann Grau,93 and Neuendorff in New York;94 Gustav Luders, Christian Bach,95 and Hans Balatka in Milwaukee; and Gustav Hinrichs in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York.96 A number of other German American composer-conductors also achieved success in New York City at the Germania, Thalia, Amberg, and Irving Place theaters from the 1870s through the early 1900s and also outside of Kleindeutschland, on Broadway, or in New York’s concert scene. Ludwig Engländer (1853–1914) was the composer of such German operettas as 1776 (1884) and Madelaine, oder Die Rose der Champagne (1888) and of English-language works such as the first American topical revue, The Passing Show (1894).97 Prior to emigrating to New York in 1879, Rudolf Bial wrote German musical stage works, including Mein Leopold, Nimrod, and Erhliche Arbeit, which were also very popular in America.98 Gustav Kerker (1857–1923) conducted the orchestras in German American theaters before he wrote the music to the popular show The Belle of New York (1907) and numerous other successful English-language comic operas. Max Gabriel conducted at the Irving Place and Germania theaters, as did Carl von Wegern (1853–1916), Adolf Philipp’s musical collaborator. Sam Franko (1857–1937) had a long and distinguished career in the United States as a violinist and conductor.99

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Conclusion The history of the musical stage in New York’s Kleindeutschland is demarcated by the careers of a group of impresarios who directed its development. Headed by Hoym, Neuendorff, Cottrelly, Amberg, Conried, Philipp, and Christians, they were a diverse lot and, except for Amberg, were also actors or musicians. The repertories and artists they promoted and employed reflected German theatrical traditions and strategies dictated by the requirements of the American stage. While they upheld the German classic drama as an idealized art form, they also recognized the necessity of promoting German popular theater in the form of farces, melodramas, and plays with extensive music, as well as German operetta and opera. Because only one or two German professional companies usually existed at any one time in Manhattan (although there were countless amateur theatrical groups), these managers were forced by necessity to continually balance the competing and complimentary forms of spoken drama and musical theater, in all their different varieties. Neuendorff’s tenure as an impresario in the 1870s and 1880s marked the beginning of the ascendancy of the German American musical stage, noted especially for its promotion of European operetta. This trend reached its zenith from the 1890s to the turn of the twentieth century and continued until its gradual decline during and after World War I. As one of the most important musical figures in Kleindeutschland who was also extremely active outside the German American community, Neuendorff represents the nexus between the immigrant and mainstream theaters and their respective cultures and repertories. The multifaceted nature and trajectory of his career as a theater manager, composer, and conductor exemplify the challenges and successes such individuals encountered in the creation, promotion, and maintenance of German culture in their adopted land.

Appendix 8.1 Principal German Stages in New York, 1853–1918 Deutsches National Theater; 53 Bowery, between Bayard and Canal Streets?; 1853 St. Charles Theater; 17–19 Bowery; 1853–1854 *Stadttheater (formerly Bowery Amphitheater); 37–39 Bowery, southeast corner of Bayard and Bowery; 1854–1864a Atlantic Garden; 50–54 Bowery, west side of Bowery near Bayard Street; 1858–1910/1911 (demolished 1916) *Neues Stadttheater (in Hartmann’s Hotel; later Windsor Theatre); 45–47 Bowery, east side of Bowery between Bayard and Canal Streets?; 1864–ca. 1878? Thalia Theater (in Wood’s Theatre); 514 Broadway; 1866–1867 *Terrace Garden Theatre (Lexington Avenue Opera House); 145–155 58th Street, between Third and Lexington avenues; 1869–1920s

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Appendix 8.1 (continued) *Neuendorff’s Germania Theater, in Tammany Hall (formerly Bryant’s Minstrels Hall, later Tony Pastor’s Theatre); 141–143 East 14th Street, north side of East 14th Street between Third Avenue and Irving Place; 1872–1881b *Thalia Theater (formerly Bowery Theatre); 46–48 Bowery, west side of Bowery between Bayard and Canal Streets; 1879–1888 (demolished 1929) *Neuendorff’s Neues Germania Theater (formerly Wallach’s Theatre, later Star Theatre); 844 Broadway, southeast corner of Broadway and 13th Street; 1881–1883 (demolished 1901) *Amberg Theater (later Irving Place Theater); 11 Irving Place, Irving Place and 15th Street; 1888–1893 (demolished 1985) Irving Place Theater; 11 Irving Place, Irving Place and 15th Street (in the same building as the Amberg Theater); 1893–1918 (demolished 1985) Germania Theater (formerly Aberle’s Theatre; later known as Philipp’s Germania); 147–149 East Eighth Street, between Broadway and Fourth Avenue; 1893–1902 (demolished 1903) Wintergarten zum schwarzen Adler (Deutsch-Amerikanisches Theater); 160 East 86th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenue; 1907–ca. 1911 Neues Deutsches Theater; Madison Avenue and 59th Street; 1908–1909 Adolf Philipp Theater (later Bandbox Theatre); 205–209 East 57th Street; 1912–1914 Yorkville Deutsches Theater (Yorkville Theatre); East 86th Street; 1916–1918 (demolished 1928) Asterisked theaters are associated with Adolf Neuendorff. See Leuchs, Early German Theatre, and Odell, Annals, vols. 5–15, for details of hundreds of other, shorter-lived German theaters, halls, and performance spaces. The New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung charted a constant parade of thousands of German theatrical, musical, and social events in nineteenth-century New York. a. Engle, “Stadt Theater Company.” b. Engle, “Germania Theater Company.”

Appendix 8.2 Adolf Neuendorff’s Theatrical Works Key: Title (translation given in roman in square brackets) Genre (when known); included music by Neuendorff (unless otherwise indicated) Librettist (when known) Date or year performed or premiered New York performance venue (when known) Adaptations of works by others are not included; works are listed in chronological order. König Alfred oder die drei Thränen [King Alfred, or, the Three Tears]; dramatisches Märchen mit Gesang (dramatic tale with songs); Rudolf Kneisel (1832–1899); 27 October 1859; Stadttheater; possibly revived on 26 January 1870 at the Neues Stadttheater

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Appendix 8.2 (continued) Ludwig der Eiserne [Ludwig the Strong]; Alexander Rost; 2 December 1867; Neues Stadttheater Müller und Schulzes Liebesabenteuer in Italien [Müller and Schulze’s Love Adventure in Italy]; dramatisches Gedicht (dramatic poem); Rudolf Kneisel; 8 January 1868; Neues Stadttheater Ein Heirathsbureau [A Matrimonial Agency]; Posse? with music; Hermann Salingré (1833–1879); 29 January 1868; Neues Stadttheater Eine Weinprobe [A Wine Sampling]; Posse? with music; 10 October 1868; Neues Stadttheater Die alte Schachtel [The Old Maid]; Posse with music; Emil Pohl (1824–1901); 14 January 1869; Neues Stadttheater Kadetten [Cadets]; operetta; Rudolf Hahn (1815–1889); 26 February 1869; Neues Stadttheater New Yorker Leben [New York Life]; Volksstück with music; Friedrich Berg; 20 April 1869; Neues Stadttheatera Das Geld liegt auf der Strasse [The Money Lies in the Street]; Posse with music; Hermann Salingré; 14 September 1869; Neues Stadttheater Die Familie Hummel oder su muss es kommen [The Hummel Family, or, It Had to Come Like This]; Posse with music; Wilhelm Mannstädt (1837–1904); 11 December 1869; Neues Stadttheater In Saus und Braus [In the Fat of the Land]; Posse with music; Eduard Jacobson (1833–1897) and Rudolf Hahn; 5 February 1870; Neues Stadttheater Das Mädel ohne Geld [The Girl Without Money]; Posse with music; Eduard Jacobson; 1 April 1876; Germania Theater Gefahrvolle Wege [Dangerous Paths]; Posse with music?; Sturenburg; 29 April 1876; Germania Theater Die Riese durch New York in 80 Stunden [The Trip Through New York in Eighty Hours]; “local sketch” (⫽ Posse with music?); based on Hermann Salingré’s Die Reise durch Berlin in 80 Stunden, a parody of Jules Verne’s Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours [Around the World in Eighty Days] of 1873; produced 3 November 1876; Germania Theater. Alternate versions were arranged for performance in Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati (see below), Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, each titled Die Reise durch [name of the city] in 80 Stunden Ein vorsichtiger Mann [A Cautious Man]; Posse with music?; Gustav von Moser and Eduard Jacobson; 5 December 1876; Germania Theater Drei Monat nach Dato [Three Months After Dato]; Posse with music?; Moser; 8 May 1877; Germania Theater Der Berliner in Philadelphia [The Berliner in Philadelphia]; Posse with music; 24 March 1878; Deutsches Theater, Cincinnati 80 Stunden in Cincinnati (Die Reise durch Cincinnati in 80 Stunden) (Cincinnati version of Die Reise durch New York in 80 Stunden); Posse with music; 7 April 1878; Deutsches Theater, Cincinnati

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Appendix 8.2 (continued) Onkel Knusperich, oder eine Nacht in New York [Uncle Knusperich, or, A Night in New York]; Volksstück with music?; Hermann Raberg and Heinrich Italianer; 14 April 1880; Germania Theater Der Rattenfänger von Hameln [The Ratcatcher of Hameln]; operetta; Heinrich Italianer (German libretto), Frederick Williams (English libretto); 13 December 1880; Germania Theater Don Quixote; operetta; Heinrich Italianer; 9 January 1882; Neues Germania Theater Der Pawnbroker von Harlem [The Pawnbroker from Harlem]; Volksstück with music?; Eugene Boremsky and Max Cohnheim; 16 November 1882; Neues Germania Theater Evelyn, or, Only a Woman; English-language play; by Neuendorff?; 1884 Ninety-Seven or Seventy-Nine (also known as 97 or 79); English-language play; by Neuendorff?; 2 June 1884; Third Avenue Theatre; 8 performances Sieba and the Seven Ravens; English-language “Romantic Spectacle,” with “dramatic music composed” by Neuendorff; 18 August 1884; Star Theater; 72 performances Rather Mixed; English-language play, by Neuendorff?; 1884 Prinz Waldmeister (also known as Waldmeisters Brautfahrt); operetta; Heinrich Italiener; 2 May 1887; Thalia Theater Der Schalk von Jönköping [The Scoundrel of Jönköping]; operetta; Heinrich F. Urban; 1889 Der Minstrel [The Minstrel] (also known as Der Schalk von Aberdeen) [The Scoundrel of Aberdeen]; operetta; German text Heinrich F. Urban, English text Henry F. Urban (the same person); 18 May 1892; Amberg Theater Hagar; English-language operetta; Wilhelm Müller; 1894 a. The three acts of New Yorker Leben were titled “Frisch von Castle Garden,” “In der Fünften Avenue,” and “In Jones Wood” (Leuchs, Early German Theatre, 169).

Notes 1. German theater companies existed in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens at various times, although they are not considered here since the major German theaters were located in Manhattan. 2. Most of New York’s German theaters later became Yiddish stages, including the Stadttheater, Thalia, Neuendorff’s Neues Germania, and Irving Place. 3. See H. Earle Johnson, “The Germania Musical Society,” Musical Quarterly 39, no. 1 (January 1953): 75–93; Mary Sue Morrow, “Somewhere Between Beer and Wagner: The Cultural and Musical Impact of German Männerchöre in New York and New Orleans,” in Music and Culture in America, 1861–1918, ed. Michael Saffle (New York: Garland, 1998), 79–109; George von Skal, Arion, New York, von 1854 bis 1904 (New York: Arion Society, 1904); Suzanne Gail Snyder, “The Männerchor Tradition in the United States: A Historical Analysis of Its Contribution to American Musical Culture” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1991).

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4. Kathleen Neils Conzen investigates the enduring practice of German American festivities in her seminal article, “Ethnicity as Festive Culture: Nineteenth-Century German America on Parade,” in The Invention of Ethnicity, ed. Werner Sollors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 44–76. 5. See Karl J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson, The German-Language Press of the Americas, 3rd ed. (Munich: Verlag Dokumentation, 1976); Rudolf Cronau, Drei jahrhunderte deutschen Lebens in Amerika: Eine Geschichte der deutschen in den Vereinigten Staaten (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1909); John A. Hagwood, The Tragedy of German-America: The Germans in the United States of America During the Nineteenth Century and After (New York: G. B. Putnam’s Sons, 1940); Stanley Nadel, Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845–1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990); Henry A. Pochmann, German Culture in America: Philosophical and Literary Influences, 1600–1900 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957); Henry A. Pochmann and Arthur Schultz, Bibliography of German Culture in America to 1940 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953); Otto Spengler, Das deutsche Element der Stadt New York: Biographisches Jahrbuch der Deutsch-Amerikaner New Yorks und Umgebung (New York: Spengler, 1913); Don Heinrich Tolzmann, German Americana: A Bibliography (Metuchen, N.J,: Scarecrow, 1975); Tolzmann, Catalog of the German-Americana Collection, University of Cincinnati, 2 vols. (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1990); Robert E. Ward, A Bio-Bibliography of German-American Writers, 1670–1970 (White Plains, NY: Kraus, 1985). 6. Fritz A. H. Leuchs, The Early German Theatre in New York, 1840–1872 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), 21. 7. George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927–1941), 4: 393. 8. Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Volume 1: Resonances, 1836–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 104, 165–66. 9. Ron Engle, “Stadt Theater Company,” in American Theatre Companies, 1749–1887, ed. Weldon B. Durham (New York: Greenwood, 1986), 470–77; Issac Newton Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909 (New York: R. H. Dodd, 1915–1928), 3: 937. 10. The Stadttheater’s stage was 45 feet wide by 60 feet deep and was lit by gas. See “The Bowery,” The New York Daily Times, 6 September 1854, 3. 11. The plaza of the Manhattan Bridge now covers the original site of the first Stadttheater. See Mary C. Henderson, The City and the Theatre: The History of New York Playhouses—A 235-Year Journey from Bowling Green to Times Square (Clifton, NJ: James T. White, 1973), 65–66. 12. Odell, Annals, 7: 72. 13. Wilhelm Kosch, Deutsches Theater-Lexikon: Biographisches und bibliographisches Handbuch (Klagenfurt: Verlag Ferdinand Kleinmayr, 1953), 1: 533. 14. Leuchs, Early German Theatre, 52. 15. Milwaukee Sentinel, 18 October 1915, 5, cited in Glen Gadberry, “Pabst Stadt Theater” [Milwaukee], in American Theatre Companies, 1888–1930, ed. Weldon B. Durham (New York: Greenwood, 1987), 350. 16. Friederich Phisterer, ed., New York in the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1865, 3rd ed. (Albany: J. B. Lyon, 1912), 3: 1960–61, 1965; Richard A. Wilt, New York Soldiers in the Civil War (Bowie, MD: Heritage, 1999), 1: 350. 17. John J. Weisert, “Beginnings of German Theatricals in Louisville,” Filson Club History Quarterly 26 (October 1952): 352–53; Heinrich Kadelburg, Fünfzehn Jahre

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deutschen Theaters in San Francisco (San Francisco: Rosenthal & Roesch, 1883), 31; Alfred Henry Nolle, “The German Drama on the St. Louis Stage” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1917; published as Americana Germanica, no. 32), 43; Leuchs, Early German Theatre, 257, 268. 18. Leuchs, Early German Theatre, 96. 19. Ernst Gettke, ed., Almanach der Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger (Berlin: Selbstverlag “Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger,” 1876), 4: 363. 20. Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Volume 3: Repercussions, 1857–1862 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 230, 416. 21. Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. Volume 2: Reverberations, 1850–1856 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 544. 22. Odell, Annals, 12: 64; T. Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1903), 2: 356. The claim was not true, since the Academy of Music originally accommodated 4,600 patrons and after the fire of 1866 was reconfigured to seat 4,000. 23. See Odell, Annals, 11: plate facing p. 64, for a fine illustration of the Windsor (formerly Stadttheater). 24. Ron Engle, “Germania Theater Company,” in American Theatre Companies, 1749–1887, ed. Weldon B. Durham (New York: Greenwood, 1986), 263–67. 25. Francis P. Brancaleone, “Neuendorff, Adolph Heinrich Anton Magnus,” American National Biography Online. Internet address: http://www.anb.org 26. Lawrence, Repercussions, 301. 27. For a number of references to Weinlich, see Lawrence, Strong on Music, vols. 2 and 3. 28. Norman James Kaiser, “A History of the German Theater of Milwaukee from 1850 to 1890” (M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1954), 178. 29. C. F. Huch, “Das deutsche Theater in Philadelphia seit dem Bürgerkriege,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Pionier-Vereins von Philadelphia 8 (1908): 15–16. 30. Odell, Annals, 9: 172. 31. Joseph A. Mussulman, Music in the Cultured Generation: A Social History of Music in America, 1870–1900 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971), 146; Joseph Horowitz, Wagner Nights: An American History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 48–50, 52, 74, 79, 141, 326; “Wagner in the Bowery,” Scribner’s Monthly (June 1871): 214–16. 32. F. O. Jones, ed., A Handbook of American Music and Musicians Containing Biographies of American Musicians and Histories of the Principal Musical Institutions, Firms and Societies (Canaseraga, NY: F. O. Jones, 1886), 119. Mark McKnight incorrectly dismisses German efforts to produce Wagner’s music dramas in New York for German audiences. See his “Wagner and the New York Press, 1855–76,” American Music 5, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 149, 151. 33. Metropolitan Opera Guild, Metropolitan Opera Annals, 1883–2000, CD-ROM (New York: Metropolitan Opera Guild, 2001); also available as Metopera Database, Metropolitan Opera Archives: http://66.187.153.86/archives/frame.htm 34. Photographs of the interior and exterior of the building are reproduced in Frank Vos, “Tammany Hall,” in The Encyclopedia of New York, ed. Kenneth T. Jackson (New York: Yale University Press, 1995), 1150. After Neuendorff’s departure in 1881, it was

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leased by Tony Pastor for his famous variety theater. Three nineteenth century New York theaters would bear the name Germania, a figurehead of German nationalism. 35. Gettke, Almanach 6 (1878): 344; Gustav Kadelburg, Das deutsche Theater in New York (New York: Willmer & Rogers, 1878). Kadelburg, an important figure of the German stage, was a very successful and prolific playwright and the author of the immensely popular comedy Im weissen Rössl (later made into an operetta). He was also the first person to be given a membership number in the German actor’s union, the Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehöriger. See Kosch, Deutsches TheaterLexikon; Gettke, Almanach 1 (1876). 36. Kadelburg’s brother, Heinrich (1856–1910), also acted in Neuendorff’s Germania company in New York; unlike his more famous brother, he published a highly laudatory history of the German American stage (Kadelburg, Fünfzehn Jahre deutschen Theaters). 37. H.[enry] E.[dward] Krehbiel, Chapters of Opera (New York: Henry Holt, 1908), 89. Announcements and reviews of Patti’s performances are in The-New York Times, 9, 28 February; 3, 7, 10, 30 March 1882. 38. “Failures and Suspensions—Neuendorff, Adolph,” The New-York Times, 28 June 1883, 8. 39. Odell, Annals, 12: 72. 40. Programs for these six concerts are in the New York Philharmonic Archives, New York. 41. Steven Ledbetter, 100 Years of the Boston Pops (Boston: Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1985). 42. E. Douglas Bomberger, ed., “Emma Juch,” in Brainard’s Biographies of American Musicians (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999), 155–56; Enrique Olavarría y Ferrari, Reseña histórica del teatro en México, 1538–1911, 3rd ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1961), 2: 1304–6, 1311, 1316. 43. For a history and interpretation of the German Volksstück, see Hugo Aust, Peter Haida, and Jürgen Hein, Volksstück: Vom Hanswurstspiel zum sozialen Drama der Gegenwart (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1989). 44. Die Reise durch New York in 80 Stunden included the following scenes: In the Rathskeller, In the Central Park Menagerie, Unter Spielern, In a Boudoir, In a Variety Theater, In the Photographer’s Studio, At the Masked Ball of the “Harmonie Français” (Brown, New York Stage, 3: 81; program, New York Public Library, call number MWEZ n.c. 24,125). 45. The story of Onkel Knusperich, oder eine Nacht in New York concerns a (singing?) German grocer from Pittsburgh who visits his relatives in New York. Its popularity may have inspired Adolf Philipp’s singing corner grocer, Hein Snut, played by Philipp in his very popular New York musical Volkstück, Der Corner Grocer aus der Avenue A of 1893. 46. Cited in Leuchs, Early German Theatre, 65. 47. A copy for 1 May 1858 of the New Yorker Humorist: Illustrirte Wochenschrift für Humor, Satyre, Kunst und Belletristik is at the University Library, University of Maryland, College Park. 48. “The DeKalb Regiment,” The New York Times, 9 August 1861, 8. 49. Kadelburg, Fünfzehn Jahre deutschen Theaters, 25. 50. For references to Cohnheim, see A. Entsch, ed., Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach 51 (Berlin: n.p., 1887), advertising p. 14; Leuchs, Early German Theatre, 65, 96–97; Library of Congress Copyright Office, Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United

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States, 1870 to 1916, 2 vols. (1918; reprint, New York: Johnson Reprint Co., 1968), 15, 910, 1195, 1786, 2468; “Hundert Jahre deutsche Theater in New York,” New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, April 1938. 51. The story of the ratcatcher of Hamelin was very popular in the nineteenth century and was set as an operetta by several other German composers in addition to Neuendorff, including Victor Nessler. The one hundredth performance of Neuendorff’s operetta version of Der Rattenfänger von Hameln was given at the Amberg Theater on 9 May 1892 (Odell, Annals, 15: 89). 52. “Wandern, ach wandern” became a standard in the German song repertory and was recorded many times from the turn of the century onward in the United States and Germany; one recent performance on disk is that of Fritz Wunderlich, who recorded it in 1960s. It has also been performed in other languages and arranged as an instrumental solo; the words to the song appeared in a number of German American songsters and Männerchör songbooks at the turn of the century. It is still in print today (published by Simrock). 53. Neuendorff’s operetta Der Minstrel was set in Scotland in 1688. 54. Hagar, a story of miscegenation on a Louisiana plantation after the Civil War, tells of the ill-fated love of Hagar (an almost white octoroon) and the white planter Randolph Deau. 55. Max Maretzek, Sharps and Flats (1890; reprint in Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th-Century America (New York: Dover, 1968), 39. 56. “Neuendorff, Adolf—Memorial Concert at Metropolitan Opera House,” The New-York Times, 15 January 1898, 7; obituary and death notices in The New-York Times, 5, 7, and 8 December 1897; The New York Tribune, 5 December 1897, 7. 57. See the series “Sketches of the People Who Oppose Our Sunday Laws,” published in Harper’s Weekly in 1859. The second installment, “Sunday Evening in a Beer Garden,” illustrated festivities in the Volksgarten, an important German beer garden at 45 Bowery. The third installment, “The Stadt Theatre,” described this important theater during a Sunday “Sacred Concert.” Harper’s returned to this theme again in 1871 (W. O. Stoddard, “Bowery, Saturday Night,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 42, no. 251 [April 1871]: 670–80, with an illustration of the Atlantic Garden); also see Edwin G. Burrows, and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1202–3. 58. “Disregarding the Sunday Law,” 1 May, 8; “Enforcement of the Sunday Law— The German Theatres,” 16 June, 6; “Constitutionality of the Sunday Law,” 22 June, 3; “Oyer and Terminer,” 4 July, 2; “Law Reports,” 1 October, 2. 59. See Gillian Rodger, “Legislating Amusements: Class Politics and Theater Law in New York City,” American Music 20, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 381–98. 60. Julian Ralph, “The Bowery,” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 43 (new series 21), no. 2 (December 1891): 236. 61. Wilhelm Kraemer’s Atlantic Garden periodically attracted the attention of the police for excise violations. See “Atlantic Garden Raided,” The New-York Times, 4 March 1876, 8; “Excise Arrests, Raids, &,” The New-York Times, 17 February 1885, 8; “Excise Law Violations,” The New-York Times, 13 May 1892, 8. 62. A humorous firsthand sketch of the musical entertainment at the Atlantic Garden at the turn of the twentieth century, including its famous “Lady Orchestra,” appears in music publisher Edward B. Marks’s anecdotal memoirs, They All Sang: From Tony Pastor to Rudy Vallée as Told to Abbott J. Liebling (New York: Viking, 1935), 4–9, 30, 111.

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63. The orchestrion was a mechanical instrument that imitated the orchestra, with organ pipes controlled by pinned cylinders. A fine view of the spacious interior of the Atlantic Garden, showing the mammoth orchestrion and a typical large crowd, was published in Matthew Hale Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York (Hartford, CT: J. B. Burr, 1868), plate facing p. 216. 64. See Richard Butsch, “Bowery B’hoys and Matinee Ladies: The Re-Gendering of Nineteenth-Century American Theater Audiences,” American Quarterly 46, no. 3 (September 1994): 374–405; Daniel Czitrom, “The Politics of Performance: From Theater Licensing to Movie Censorship in Turn-of-the-Century New York,” American Quarterly 44, no. 4 (December 1992): 525–53; Gustav Lening, Die Nachtseiten von New York und dessen Verbrecherwelt von der Fünften Avenue bis zu den Five Points (New York: Friedrich Gerhard, 1873); I. L. Nascher, The Wretches of Povertyville: A Sociological Study of the Bowery (Chicago: Joseph J. Lanzit, 1909), especially “Interior of a Bowery Dive and Dance Hall” (plate facing p. 43) and chapter 4, “Dives and Dens.” 65. “A Queer Partner,” National Police Gazette 36 (10 April 1880): 12; “Bowery Romances,” National Police Gazette 38 (16 July 1881): 3; “Gleanings of Gotham,” National Police Gazette 39 (24 December 1881): 10. 66. “Atlantic Garden Curtain Delayed,” The New York Telegraph, 23 March 1916. 67. See Montrose J. Moses, The Life of Heinrich Conried (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1916). 68. Adolf Oppenheim and Ernst Gettke, Deutsches Theater-Lexikon (Leipzig: Carl Reissner, 1889), 31; Hermann E. Rothfuss, “Gustav Amberg: German-American Theater Promoter,” Monatsheft: A Journal Devoted to the Study of German Language and Literature 44, no. 7 (November 1952): 357–65. 69. In the 1910s, Amberg served as European theatrical agent for the Shubert brothers and also periodically returned to managing German theater in New York. Extensive business correspondence between Amberg and the Shuberts regarding the latest European operettas and plays they were considering producing in their theaters is in the Shubert Archive. However, it breaks off during World War I. See Amberg Correspondence File, Shubert Archives, New York; “Gustav Amberg Dies at 77 Years,” The New York Times, 24 May 1921; Maryann Chach et al., The Shuberts Present: 100 Years of American Theater (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001). 70. A measure of Amberg’s prominence in New York theatrical circles is seen in the inclusion of his photograph in Moses King’s Notable New Yorkers, along with those of other influential managers such as Tony Pastor, Daniel Frohman, Augustin Daly, Rudolph Aronson, and David Belasco. See Moses King, Notable New Yorkers of 1896–1899 (New York: Moses King, 1899), 371. 71. See Peter Conolly-Smith’s fine article on Christians: “Kulturkrieg: Direktor Christians, the Irving Place Theater, and German-Language Drama in New York,” in Not English Only: Redefining “American” in American Studies, ed. Orm Øverland (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2001), 48–66. 72. Emil Pirchan, Marie Geistinger: Die Königen der Operette (Vienna: Verlag Wilhelm Frick, 1947); Heinrich Steiner, Kunstlerfahrten vom atlantischen bis zum stillen Ocean (mit einer Vorrede von Marie Geistinger) (New York: International News Company, 1883); Marie Walle, “Marie Geistinger: La Reine de L’Operette,” Austriaca 46 (1998): 119–30. 73. Aronson, Theatrical and Musical Memoirs. 74. For a broadly based interpretive study of how theaters as architectural entities relate to and are influenced by their surroundings (with many references to New

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York’s theaters and changing theatrical districts), see Marvin A. Carlson, Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). 75. W. Louis Sonntag’s evocative watercolor illustration The Bowery at Night, 1895 (at the Museum of the City of New York) captures the hustle and bustle of the Bowery and the Third Avenue Elevated Railway that ran in front of the Thalia Theater when it was a Yiddish theater. This watercolor is reproduced in Jerry E. Patterson, The City of New York: A History Illustrated from the Collections of The Museum of the City of New York (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1978), 232. 76. Michael Marks Davis, The Exploitation of Pleasure: A Study of Commercial Recreations in New York City (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1911), 25. 77. On the opening of the Amberg Theater, see Franz Gahl, “Das deutsche Theater in New York,” Deutsch-Amerikanische Dichtung 2, no. 1 (1889): 11–12. 78. Quoted in Brown, New York Stage, 3: 230. 79. “Manager Amberg’s New Allies,” The New-York Times, 15 July 1891, 8. 80. See Felicitas Winckelman, “Das deutschsprachige Theater in New York unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Irving Place Theaters (1888–1917)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ludwig Maximilians University, 1981). 81. “Amberg’s Theatre: Name Changed to Irving Place Theater, Leased by Mr. Conried,” The New-York Times, 10 February 1893, 8. 82. My parallel article, “Adolf Philipp and Ethnic Musical Comedy in New York’s Little Germany” (forthcoming in the journal American Music), carries forward the story of German American musical theater in New York City under Philipp’s direction from the 1890s through World War I. 83. For extensive information about German actors and musicians active in German theaters in New York and throughout the world, see Paul S. Ulrich, Biographisches Verzeichnis für Theater, Tanz, und Musik/Biographical Index for Theatre, Dance, and Music (Berlin: Verlag Arno Spitz, 1997), 2 vols. with accompanying CD-ROM; Ulrich, “Sources for German-Language Theatre Research: Theatre Almanacs, Yearbooks, and Journals,” in Die Geschichte des deutschsprachigen Theaters im Ausland: Von Afrika bis Wisconsin—Anfänge und Entwicklungen/A History of the German-Language Theatre Abroad: From Africa to Wisconsin—Beginnings and Development, ed. Laurence Kitching (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 127–65; Ulrich, Theater, Tanz, und Musik im Deutschen Bühnenjahrbuch (Berlin: Berlin Verlag Arno Spitz, 1985), 2 vols. 84. Germania Theater programs (1874–1876), Quinn Theater Collection, New York Historical Society. 85. Kadelburg, Fünfzehn Jahre deutschen Theaters, 11, 32; Moses, The Life of Heinrich Conried; Cottrelly, Mathilde, clipping file; NYPL; Brenda Murphy, “Cottrelly, Mathilde,” American National Biography Online. Internet address: http://www.anb.org; Rudolph Aronson, Theatrical and Musical Memoirs (New York: McBride, Nast, 1913), 104–5; Robert Grau, Forty Years Observation of Music and the Drama (New York: Broadway, 1909), 147–48. Ottilie Genée (1834–1911), San Francisco’s German theater director, was also a very talented singer and soubrette. She appeared on German stages in other American cities, including New York, in 1865. See Adolf Kohut, Die grössten und berühmtesten deutschen Soubretten des Neunzehten Jahrhunderts (Düsseldorf: F. Bagel, 1890). 86. Grau wrote that Cottrelly “selected the operas, staged them, was his [John McCaull’s] chief organizer, and even designed the costumes” for the McCaull Comic

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Opera Company. Grau also called Cottrelly the “most versatile artiste that the history of the German Theatre of New York can record” (Grau, Forty Years, 148). 87. Von Januschowsky and Neuendorff married in 1884 (“Stage Whispers,” National Police Gazette 44 [10 May 1884]: 3). Their son, Adolf Neuendorff Jr., followed their footsteps into a theatrical career, appearing with his mother in the early 1900s at the Irving Place Theater. 88. “Januschowsky (Von), Georgine, Personal Sketch,” The New-York Times, 13 October 1895, 16; obituary, The New York Dramatic Mirror, 9 September 1914; obituary, The New York Times, 8 September 1914, 11. 89. For a photograph and brief history of the Casino Theater, see William Morrison, Broadway Theatres: History and Architecture (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999), 4–5. 90. Eugene Tompkins and Quincy Kilby, The History of the Boston Theatre, 1854–1901 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908), 361–62. 91. Metropolitan Opera Guild, Annals of the Metropolitan Opera. 92. Der arme Jonathan; Irving Place Theater program, Theatre Collection, Museum of the City of New York. 93. Hermann Grau conducted the orchestra at the Stadttheater and the Terrace Garden Theater in New York City and, according to his nephew, Robert Grau, was an opera impresario at various times from 1868 to 1895 (Grau, Forty Years, 178–79). 94. The activities of Anschütz, Bergmann, and other German conductors are extensively chronicled in Lawrence, Strong on Music. 95. According to Gadberry, Bach was music director of the Kurz Stadttheater Company in Milwaukee, 1868–1890 (Glen Gadberry, “Kurz Stadt Theater Company” [Milwaukee], in American Theatre Companies, 1747–1887, ed. Weldon B. Durham [New York: Greenwood, 1986], 296). 96. June C. Ottenberg, Gustav Hinrichs (1850–1942): American Conductor and Composer (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park, 2003). 97. Deane L. Root, “Engländer, Ludwig,” American National Biography Online. Internet address: http://www.anb.org 98. Many of the musical scores Bial contributed to farces by authors such as Salingré, Wilken, and Jacobson were performed in New York before he emigrated. 99. See Sam Franko, Chords and Discords: Memoirs and Musings of an American Musician (New York: Viking, 1938). Sam Franko’s brother, Nahan, was also a violinist and conductor who was also active in Kleindeutschland theaters.

Chapter Nine

Patrick S. Gilmore The New York Years Frank J. Cipolla

When Patrick Gilmore (1829–1892) came to New York City in 1873, he was an internationally recognized bandmaster, in no small part because of the great musical jubilees he presented in Boston in 1869 and 1872 (see plate 9.1). Ironically, it was perhaps the 1872 World Peace Jubilee that eventually brought him to New York City. Some of the best European bands were invited to perform at the second Boston festival, including the Grenadier Guards Band of England, the Garde Republicaine Band from France, and the Prussian Band of the Kaiser Franz Grenadiers. These bands were repeatedly praised in the press as superior to those of the United States.1 The fact that each was subsidized by its home country did not go unnoticed by Gilmore, who subsequently went to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to convince authorities of the need for government support to develop a first-rate national band.2 He was not successful, but during the summer of 1873, he received a lucrative offer to become bandmaster of the Twenty-second Regiment of New York. The regiment agreed to fund a band of sixty-five musicians of Gilmore’s choosing and, aside from a stipulated number of services, left the group free to take other engagements or to tour as it wished. It was not quite the federal support he had wanted but was nevertheless a very handsome arrangement.3 Gilmore took up residency at 61 West Twelfth Street, in a palatial brownstone within easy walking distance of the Twenty-second Regiment Armory on Fourteenth Street near Sixth Avenue. He immersed himself in the details of organizing and rehearsing a new band, which included some of the finest musicians in the city plus saxophone soloist Edward Lefebre (1835–?), who came from Philadelphia, and Mathew Arbuckle (1828–1883), cornetist, who Gilmore brought from Boston. In a characteristic move, Gilmore welcomed himself to

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 9.1. Patrick S. Gilmore (ca. 1890), ABA Collection, Performing Arts Library, University of Maryland.

New York by hosting an elegant reception at his home—inviting officers of the regiment, prominent local musicians, business and civic leaders, newspaper writers, and other notables. Members of the new band provided periodic musical selections, and Gilmore performed a cornet duet with Arbuckle. A sumptuous supper was served, and many cordial speeches were given. Gilmore then spoke of the aspirations he had for his new band; it was his fervent hope that he would

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prove worthy of the regiment’s generous support by organizing a band that would be second to none in the United States or Europe.4 Newspaper advertisements soon appeared announcing the band’s first concert and reiterating Gilmore’s desire to provide the American continent, and the city of New York, with the best military band in the world: “No band in Europe has as many distinguished musicians in its ranks as the organization now preparing for its first concert in this city.”5 The inaugural concert (see plate 9.2) took place on Tuesday evening, 18 November 1873, at the Academy of Music. It included overtures, opera selections, a concert waltz, a polka for eight cornets, and solo pieces featuring individuals and entire sections of the band. Two new marches, “Salute to New York” and the “22d Regiment,” both composed by Gilmore, were also on the program. Reviews the next day were favorable, praising the soloists and complimenting Gilmore on his ability to put together “a military band worthy of America, and particularly of the city of his adoption.”6 By special request of the regiment, the program was repeated the following Saturday at the regimental armory.7 It was billed as the first of a series of promenade concerts, whose popularity increased each week, firmly placing Gilmore’s band in the mainstream of the city’s musical life. This was no easy task, since New York already had three excellent bands—the Seventh Regiment Band under Claudio Grafulla (1810–1880); the Ninth Regiment Band, led by David Downing (?–1880); and the Dodworth Band, one of the oldest and most prestigious bands in the city. Furthermore, the Thomas Orchestra had become a cultural icon, and at least two grand opera companies and several established theaters were competing for public support. The focus of Gilmore’s prom concerts was the band as a musical unit performing serious but entertaining programs. The program for 29 November 1873, for example, included another march by Gilmore; selections from Meyerbeer’s early opera, Il crociato in Egitto (1824); Johann Strauss’s An der schönen, blauen Donau (1867); Weber’s Jubel-Ouverture (1818); and more. The prom concerts were extended through the winter and into the spring, and as the series progressed, Gilmore took advantage of visits to New York by famous musicians, such as world-renowned violinist Henri Wieniawski (1835–1880), by adding them to his programs.8 Gilmore’s first year in New York proved financially rewarding for both himself and his talented players. It was crowned by a contract to play at the Central Park Garden immediately following the annual summer series of nightly concerts presented by Theodore Thomas. Patrons of those concerts were accustomed to the sophisticated performances of the Thomas Orchestra, but Gilmore’s programming magic—a mix of serious music for the cultured listener interspersed with lighter pieces for everyone—captivated the audience. Gilmore was initially engaged to perform for just one week, but by popular demand his stay was extended to several weeks. In 1875, Gilmore leased P. T. Barnum’s Hippodrome, an arena-like structure on Madison Avenue that Barnum used for his circus performances. Gilmore

Plate 9.2. Inaugural concert by Gilmore’s 22nd Regiment Band at the Academy of Music, 18 November 1873, in The Guidon no. 1 (18 November 1873).

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transformed the Hippodrome into a pleasure garden complete with waterfalls, flowerbeds, promenade walkways, and enough greenery for an outdoor park. He renamed it Gilmore’s Concert Garden, increased his band to one hundred players, and added the internationally acclaimed cornetist Jules Levy (1838–1903) to his already stellar list of soloists. The programs combined some light music for a summer evening’s entertainment with the best and latest classical works by Beethoven, Weber, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, and Strauss. Gilmore’s model for expanding the band’s instrumental forces was the Garde Republicaine Band of Paris, which utilized a large number of clarinets in place of orchestral strings to perform band transcriptions of the symphonic repertory. Gilmore even hired some clarinetists from the famous French band for his new venture.9 The enlarged instrumentation was composed of 60 woodwind, 37 brass, and 4 percussion players, for an actual total of 101, but usually listed as 100 members. A closer look at Gilmore’s instrumentation also reveals an effort to enhance the tonal colors of the band—a flageolet to counter the more brilliant sound of the piccolo, flutes pitched in both F and C, a full range of saxophones, a large clarinet section, and four sarrusophones, which were keyed brass instruments blown with a double reed. Other brasses included flugelhorns, tenor horns, and low-pitched E-flat trumpets to soften the more brilliant sound of the cornets, trumpets, and trombones. Performances began on 29 May 1875 and continued into October, attracting nightly audiences that numbered in the thousands. Beyond a doubt, Gilmore’s performances at the garden were an overwhelming success, and the impresario was the head cheerleader. Within days after its opening, his newspaper ads proclaimed the garden “the most brilliant success of the year,” adding that “Gilmore’s great band of one hundred performers . . . [is said] to be the best band in the world.”10 He may have been striving to develop a more cultivated band, but he certainly had not lost his grandiose “Barnumesque” tendencies. Gilmore’s Garden remained open well into the fall, after which the band, now down to its normal roster, presented a series of concerts in Boston before going on tour throughout the New England states. Engagements in and around New York, including promenade concerts at the Twenty-second Regiment Armory, kept the band busy through the winter. The next major project was a cross-country tour by rail in the spring of 1876. The transcontinental rail line, completed only in 1869, was still a dangerous mode of travel, especially the farther west one ventured. But the Gilmore band did it, becoming the first professional musical organization to cross the country by land from one coast to the other. The travel route included performances in Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Omaha, and Salt Lake City before reaching its final destination, San Francisco, where the group performed a two-week series of concerts in Mechanics’ Pavilion, beginning 17 April 1876. The band’s return to New York, after such an extensive and arduous trip, was very brief. On 11 May, several days after its homecoming, the band opened a monthlong engagement at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Again, the

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press was complimentary, praising Gilmore for developing such a fine band in the less than three years he had been in New York and extolling that he “has certainly brought military band music to a degree of perfection equal to that of any organization of the kind in Europe.”11 Such comments, typical of Gilmore’s early years in New York, are usually overshadowed by the publicity given to the grandiose and bombastic endeavors historically associated with his name. At the conclusion of the Philadelphia engagement, the band returned to New York City and Gilmore’s Garden. The group returned to Philadelphia for a grand Fourth of July celebration in honor of the one-hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The remainder of the summer and the fall season were taken up with the nightly garden concerts, once again with a roster of 100 players. Of particular note was Gilmore’s introduction on 30 September of a promising soprano, Lillian Norton (1857–1914), who later became famous as Lillian Nordica.12 The garden concerts continued in the same format for one more season, but in May 1878, Gilmore and his band sailed for Europe to begin an extended concert tour—the first American band to undertake such a venture. The band, consisting of sixty instrumentalists and Norton, began its European tour with a series of concerts that began on 14 May in Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall. Performances continued in Dublin’s Exhibition Palace, London’s Crystal Palace, the Trocadero in Paris (in conjunction with the Exposition), and other cities and towns in England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Despite the critical acclaim the group received, rumors circulated in the stateside press that the tour was going poorly and the band was in serious financial difficulty. Gilmore later refuted such negative comments. Among other issues, he declared that the purpose of the trip was to “compare our skill with that of foreign organizations; money was not the object.”13 The results can be summed up in the attitude of one of the band members who, leaning on the ship’s rail, said, “We’re home again, and I wouldn’t have missed that trip for $1,000.”14 Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, became the summer home of the Gilmore band in 1879 and remained so for the rest of Gilmore’s career. Rail and ferry transportation to and from New York City had recently been upgraded, and the Manhattan Beach Hotel had doubled in size, making the resort a very attractive venue for the band. Performances of music somewhat lighter in character, more in keeping with the atmosphere of a beach resort, were presented two and three times daily, to the great pleasure of the large audiences they attracted. Arbuckle’s long association with Gilmore appears to have ended, for Jules Levy was the lone cornet soloist featured that year. There was a great deal of rivalry between these two distinguished cornetists, which Gilmore frequently had to mediate. On one such occasion, when both were still members of the band, Levy was particularly upset with Arbuckle and would not be calmed by Gilmore’s continued intervention, to the point that Levy challenged Gilmore to a duel. This was obviously a serious situation, but

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Gilmore convinced Levy that the two men should forgo mortal combat in favor of taking six shots each at targets at a nearby popular shooting gallery, with the loser paying for a champagne dinner at Delmonico’s restaurant for the group that would witness the challenge. The contest began with Levy firing the first shot and hitting the target straight on. His lead continued until the fifth shot, when Gilmore tied the match. Then, on the sixth shot, Levy missed; with the full weight of the match squarely on Gilmore, he slowly took aim and fired a perfect bull’s eye. Levy took his defeat well, and the group proceeded to Delmonico’s, where they enjoyed a fine dinner and stayed late into the night telling stories and drinking champagne. The next morning, Levy opened his newspaper and read a full account of the previous evening, including the fact that the pistols were not loaded. Gilmore had rigged the match by arranging with the boy who rang the bell to be sure the score and the results were in Gilmore’s favor.15 The year ended with another highly publicized event. Patrick Gilmore is not particularly remembered as a composer, even though he wrote a number of marches and songs—many of which were quite successful—throughout his career. None, however, was introduced with the bravado of “Columbia,” a song he hoped would become the national anthem of his adopted country, the United States (see appendix 9.1). A concert was planned for Christmas Day at the Academy of Music, which Gilmore announced was his “gift to the American people.” He claimed to have received the anthem, complete in every detail, in a vision from “an angel on high.”16 Members of the press took notice, resulting in several tongue-in-cheek articles—some wondering if perhaps too much Irish whiskey was involved and speculating as to whether the angel or Gilmore would be entitled to royalties from the composition. Gilmore joined the levity, ordering five hundred copies of The New York Tribune for distribution to friends and suggesting to the editor that if the review of the program were less than favorable, he would burn the papers, with the reviewer on top of the pile.17 A capacity audience heard the anthem praised in an introductory address and then sung by the well-known American soprano Emma Thursby. It was also performed by a three hundred—voice choir, read as poetry, played on the cornet by Jules Levy accompanied by a large orchestra, and finally sung by the entire audience in a repetition of the final verse. “Columbia” did not become the country’s national anthem, but it did provide Gilmore with a great deal of press coverage18 and a centerpiece for many future concerts, such as the Manhattan Beach concert on 25 July 1880 (see plate 9.3). In 1880, Gilmore increased his roster of stellar performers by adding Miguel Raffayolo (1847–?), a phenomenal Italian euphonium soloist from Milan, where he was a member of the Garde Nationale Band and the La Scala Orchestra, and the English trombonist Frederick Innes (1854–1926), whose technical proficiency was sensational. Innes’s vanity equaled Levy’s, whom he rankled by performing the latter’s difficult cornet solos on the trombone. Visitors to Manhattan Beach that summer were thus privileged to hear some of the greatest instrumentalists in the

Plate 9.3. Program of a concert by Gilmore’s Band at Manhattan Beach, 25 July 1880, private collection, George Foreman, Danville, Kentucky.

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world, and the New York Twenty-second Regiment could boast of having the best military band bar none. The Seventh Regiment had always been regarded as the premier New York regiment, but competition between it and the Twenty-second reached a higher level, with Gilmore at the center. His contract with the Twenty-second was up for renewal in 1881 at the same time the Seventh was searching for a new bandmaster. Gilmore made it known that he was extremely interested in leading the Seventh, since the regiment had recently built a spacious new armory that would give him a better locale for his concerts. He reached a verbal agreement with the music committee of the Seventh, but when nothing transpired over the summer he signed a new contract with the Twenty-second. It appears that the contract with the Seventh had not been finalized because many of the officers involved were away from the city during the summer months. Gilmore tried to disengage himself from the Twenty-second, but the regiment considered the contract binding and would not give him a release.19 Gilmore evidently made no further attempt to break the contract, for the Seventh secured the services of Carlo Cappa (1834–1893), and Gilmore enjoyed a successful relationship with the Twenty-second for the remainder of his career. Promenade concerts at the Twenty-second’s armory, winter and spring concerts in venues such as Madison Square Garden and the Broadway Theatre, plus a residency at Manhattan Beach in the summer became Gilmore’s New York routine. He was so popular at Manhattan Beach that he was given a lifetime contract. On a typical day he rose early, swam, and, after breakfast, read newspapers and planned daily programs. The band performed between thirty and fifty pieces of music a day, sometimes rehearsing new pieces prior to a performance but mostly reading them at sight, regardless of their difficulty. Fireworks displays were a special attraction at the summer resort. On a special day honoring Gilmore, the evening program included the launching of a rocket that, when it exploded, spelled Gilmore’s name across the evening sky.20 Another major addition to Gilmore’s schedule came in 1885 when he agreed to perform at the St. Louis Exposition. This popular midwestern fair took place each fall following the band’s Manhattan Beach commitment. The St. Louis public was so impressed with the band on the first day of performances that most attendees would not leave their seats during the intermissions for fear of losing them, which created a serious problem for exhibitors. The press treated the situation as a “passing fancy,” predicting that “for a while the exhibitors will be neglected by the great attraction of the band, but in a few days, the novelty will wear off and visitors will settle down to the usual routine of taking the music merely as dessert to the feast which exhibitors provide.”21 That did not happen, but by the time the band’s engagement ended on 24 October, the exhibitors, Exposition committee, and general public were all completely enthralled by Gilmore and his band. Attendance at the fair was greater than ever, and the St. Louis Exposition became a permanent part of Gilmore’s fall schedule.

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Gilmore’s first concert season in St. Louis was especially important because it led to the band’s association with David Blakely (1834–1896), president of one of the largest and most successful book, newspaper, and periodical printing and binding establishments in the country; he was also a dedicated amateur musician. As director of the Philharmonic Choral Society and Mendelssohn Club of Minneapolis, he had produced several successful festivals, including one that featured Theodore Thomas.22 Blakely wished to do the same with the Gilmore Band and traveled to the St. Louis Exposition to make his request in person, suggesting that he could arrange a concert tour through the Midwest that would conclude in Minneapolis. Gilmore accepted his offer, and the association between the conductor and his band and the businessman turned manager was created. During the six years they were together, the Gilmore Band’s success was raised to an entirely new and enviable level. No American band had ever attained such a continuously popular and profitable concert and traveling schedule.23 Under Blakely’s management, a spring tour preceded the band’s annual summer residency at Manhattan Beach, and a fall tour began following the close of the band’s engagement at the St. Louis Exposition. The efficient staff Blakely assembled included assistants to handle local managers, payment records, and transportation, plus an advance man who preceded the band by a week or ten days to check local arrangements. Tour programs of eight to ten pages, with press notices of past accomplishments of Gilmore and the band, were sent in advance to each locality. The tours became longer and more elaborate each year, to the point that in 1888 the band performed almost every day from early March into late fall. Although constant travel and performing almost every day must have been fatiguing, the band did enjoy the comfort of a special train consisting of a baggage car, Pullman sleepers, and a parlor car with kitchen, dining area, music room, plus sleeping rooms for Gilmore and his wife and several of the soloists. The 1889 tours were even more elaborate, since that year was the twentieth anniversary of the first Peace Jubilee. An octet of vocal soloists and a large cadre of band members were featured. The tour stayed in the larger communities for several days, with a local chorus usually added for performances of pieces such as the “Anvil Chorus,” which was reminiscent of the 1869 jubilee. Although the concerts were fairly successful, Gilmore was feeling the strain; in a letter to Blakely from San Antonio he wrote: “[C]ontinual night travel and conducting two concerts everyday takes the marrow out. I always work up to ‘concert pitch’ for duty, but when the day is over and I lay down for another rattling roll over hill and dale the devil himself could not induce me to answer a telegram, much less write programme.” Gilmore concluded: “I[I]t is now ringing 8 o’clock and in ten minutes, I must ‘face the music.’ ”24 The final collaborative tour between Blakely and Gilmore took place in the spring of 1891. The violinist Maud Powell (1867–1920) was included, along

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with a vocal sextet. But Gilmore was growing tired of the constant travel and the bombastic “jubilee”-style programming. He wanted to present more serious musical fare with a band of one hundred players, not only for special programs or venues in New York City but also on his nationwide tours. He did just that for the spring 1892 tour and for a concert series in Madison Square Garden prior to his Manhattan Beach residency. He and the entire one hundred–member band then traveled to perform at the 1892 St. Louis Exposition, where he died suddenly on 24 September of a heart seizure. His funeral in New York City was conducted with all the pomp accorded a dignitary of the highest order, beginning with a procession from his home on West Eighty-sixth Street down Fifth Avenue to St. Francis Xavier Church on West Sixteenth Street. The procession left by ferry for Calvary Cemetery in Queens, as the band played “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” The name Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore conjures up thoughts of gigantic festivals and grandiose enterprises. As one reporter noted: “[H]e is more popular than a president. His name is a household word, and as a leader of monster jubilees, musical festivals, and popular concerts he has no equal on the two continents.”25 Of more significance was his crusade to develop the finest band in the world. From the time he took up residency in New York City, he constantly searched for new wind instruments to add to the tonal qualities of his band, with the goal of having the band accepted equally with the orchestra. He likened the orchestra to a charming lady whom society adores and the band to a highly cultivated gentleman, a fitting and equal companion: “In a word, the orchestra, in the voluptuousness of its swelling and fascinating melodies, may be recognized as a very queen, but the military band, in the sonority and grandeur of its ravishing harmonies, shall be king.”26

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Appendix 9.1 “Columbia,” a New National Song

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Notes 1. Orpheus 8, no. 1 (July 1872): 1–10, and 8, no. 2 (August 1872): 22–25. See also Brainard’s Musical World, Peace Jubilee Extra (7 June–4 July 1872): 1–8. 2. Brainard’s Musical World 10, no. 109 (April 1873): 52–53. See also Orpheus 8, no. 11 (May 1873): 174. 3. For a discussion of Gilmore’s early years in the United States and subsequent meteoric rise to fame as a bandmaster, see my article, “Patrick S. Gilmore: The Boston Years,” American Music 6, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 281–92. 4. Watson’s Weekly Art Journal 20, no. 3(15 November 1873): 31–32. 5. The New York Herald, 16 November 1873. 6. Ibid., 19 November 1873. 7. The Guidon 1, no. 2 (22 November 1873): 1. 8. Ibid., 1, no. 17 (23 March 1874): 1. 9. The New York Herald, 5 June 1875. 10. Ibid., 31 May 1875. 11. The Philadelphia Bulletin, 17 May 1876. 12. The New York Tribune, 2 October 1876. 13. The New-York Times, 30 September 1878. 14. Ibid. 15. John C. Freund, “How Pat Gilmore Fought a Duel with Jules Levy,” Music Trades 24 (6 December 1902): 77, 79. 16. The New York Herald, 27 November 1879. 17. “Personals” in Gilmore clipping file, Essex Institute Library, Salem, Massachusetts. 18. As expected, the Herald (26 December 1879) reported on the presentation of “Columbia” in great detail and with favorable comments. The Times also produced a long article, but of a more general nature, as did the other newspapers and journals. However, a series of negative articles appeared in Musical Review. The first ridicules the thought that Gilmore received the piece as a gift from the angels to earth (1, no. 13 [8 January 1880], 199), the second gives a critical review of the music (“Columbia,” 1, no. 15 [22 January 1880], 226), and the third accuses Gilmore of making an exact copy of the first eight measures of a march by the French American composer Antony LaMotte (“Mr. Gilmore’s Angel,” 1, no. 17 [4 February 1880], 262.) 19. The New-York Times, 18 November 1881. 20. Ibid., 1 September 1882. 21. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 24 September 1885. 22. “Mr. D. Blakely,” The Musical Courier 26 (1 February 1893): 20. 23. Margaret L. Brown, “David Blakeley, Manager of the Sousa Band,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 65 (May–June 1961): 314–15. 24. P. S. Gilmore to David Blakely, 5 December 1889, in “Blakely papers,” correspondence, box 1, Manuscript and Archives Division, New York Public Library. 25. “Personals,” The Musical Courier 22 (10 June 1891): 611. 26. P. S. Gilmore, “American Military Bands,” Music Trade Review 8 (15 March 1879): 6–7.

Chapter Ten

Grafulla and Cappa Bandmasters of New York’s Famous Seventh Regiment Raoul F. Camus

The trouble with history is that there is so much of it. As an example, the band of the Seventh Regiment New York State Militia achieved national renown in the nineteenth century for its excellence under two of its bandmasters. But to understand the significance of this famous music organization, it is necessary to know where it fits into the historical development of American bands. Further, since it was a regimental band, it is also necessary to have a passing familiarity with military ceremonies and the band’s musical responsibilities and functions during much of the nineteenth century, roughly from 1825 through the Civil War to the death of Carlo Cappa in 1893. This is especially true today, when even the armed forces have greatly diminished the number of formal ceremonies in which music is an integral part.1 In 1825, some New York musicians decided to form a band that was not attached to a militia unit. They called themselves the Independent Band and advertised that they were available for civilian as well as military engagements. In 1834 the name was changed to the National Band, with Allen Dodworth as conductor. An Albany, New York, newspaper advertisement that year for the Titus and Angevine Circus includes the National Band “from the City of New York”; it shows a mixed variety of instruments performed by fourteen musicians, the normal size for a band at that time (plate 10.1). The Dodworth family—Thomas (1790–1876) and his four sons, Allen T. (1817–1896), Harvey B. (1822–1891), Charles R. (1826–1894), and Thomas J. (1830–1896)—were central to the musical scene in New York, not only founding the famous Dodworth Band but also important in the formation of the New

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Plate 10.1. “National Band,” advertisement for Titus & Angevine Circus from unidentified newspaper, Albany, New York, 29–30 April 1834.

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Plate 10.2. “Boston Brass Band, Eben Flagg, Leader, with their new uniforms and improved instruments,” Gleason’s Pictorial, 20 September 1851. York Philharmonic. At first all were involved in performing, but Allen later became a very influential and successful social dance instructor, while Harvey directed the Dodworth Band and went into music publishing and retailing. The Dodworths also innovated the way marching bands were heard; they developed the over-the-shoulder brass instruments seen in an 1851 illustration of the Boston Brass Band, which calls the reader’s attention to “their new uniform and improved instruments” (plate 10.2). These instruments were extremely popular with marching and military bands during and following the Civil War.

The Seventh Regiment Band New York’s Seventh Regiment has a long and distinguished history, and readers may be familiar with its imposing armory on Park Avenue, between Sixty-sixth and

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Sixty-seventh streets. This is the regiment’s second armory, built in 1880 with private funds raised by members of the regiment. The architect estimated the cost of the building, exclusive of the furniture, at $330,000, almost $5,904,156 today.2 The armory was luxuriously furnished at the regiment’s expense, which reflects the economic level of many of the members. Still referred to as the “silk stocking” regiment, its members were some of the most important men in New York. The fact that its influence was formidable can be seen by the federal government’s adoption of the regimental designation “National Guard” for all militia troops, known today as the National Guard. When the regiment was formed as the Twenty-seventh Regiment in 1826, it had only the company fifers and drummers to provide music. In 1836 it engaged one of the finest bands in the city, the New York Brass Band, led by Napier Lothian, for its parades. Lothian’s independent brass band consisted of twelve men working for pay in uniforms of hussar caps and blue coats with white trim. The band also played for other regiments and gave nightly concerts at New York’s Castle Garden. One member of the band, Claudio Grafulla, often led the band in its engagements for the Twenty-seventh Regiment. He had emigrated to the United States in 1838 and joined the New York Brass Band. In addition to his reputation as a composer, he was known as a very quick and accurate arranger of band music, as demonstrated by an incident recounted by William Bayley, a member of the State Fencibles Band of Philadelphia, who was visiting New York in 1845: On one occasion my band was playing for the day in New York City. One of the members was engaged in the Chestnut Street Theatre, where they were to produce [William Henry] Frye’s [sic] new opera, Leonora. Opera music was not published in advance in those days. This man whistled from memory some of the popular airs to Grafulla, who wrote them down, and before we returned he handed me a completely arranged potpourri, which we played in Philadelphia that night while marching past the Chestnut Street Theatre. This off-hand arrangement, with trifling corrections, became very popular with the bands shortly afterwards. The New York Seventh Band, then, as now, was deservedly popular, and made up of first class performers. A considerable amount of the music used by my band was arranged to order by Grafulla.3

The Twenty-seventh Regiment was reorganized in 1847 and renamed the Seventh Regiment. In addition to the New York Brass Band, over the years the regiment also engaged Dodworth’s Cornet Band and Adkin’s Washington Brass Band. Apparently, the officers of the regiment were dissatisfied with the bands available in New York, so in 1852 they invited Joseph Noll—a well-respected violinist and conductor of various orchestras in the city—to form a forty-two-piece band made up of professional musicians from the Germania Musical Society. According to the history of the regiment, “[T]he new band used both brass and reed instruments in due proportion, and performed only modern and popular music of the highest order.”4 By 1853 the band “numbered sixty musicians[,] being the largest band that had ever paraded in the city of New York.”5 At the

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time, line companies ranged in size from thirty-seven to sixty-eight men, making the band one of the largest units in the regiment. Noll was an excellent musician but a poor disciplinarian. On a trip to Richmond, Virginia, in 1858, Noll apparently could not control his men. Whether it was the long journey, the hot weather, or too much wine and beer, the musicians were indifferent, sullen, constantly grumbling, and in one instance insubordinate. No sooner had the regiment returned to New York than it was decided to seek another bandmaster as soon as Noll’s contract expired.

Claudio S. Grafulla Claudio Solomon Grafulla was born on the Spanish island of Minorca on 31 October 1812.6 Nothing is known of his early life before he emigrated to the United States in 1838, but he obviously had thorough musical training, as he was accepted immediately into one of the finest bands in the city. He became an American citizen in 1846. After several years with the New York Brass Band, he joined Shelton’s American Band, eventually becoming its leader. One of only two known illustrations of Grafulla (the man on the right making the presentation to his friend) is seen on the cover of Delavau’s Quick Step (plate 10.3). In 1859, the Seventh Regiment authorized Grafulla to select thirty-eight musicians for a new band. A contract was made for new uniforms and equipment, and on 18 February 1860 the band made its first formal appearance in a concert at the 4,600-seat Academy of Music. At the time, the Academy of Music, on Fourteenth Street and Irving Place, was the premier opera house in New York and the largest in the world. In spite of stormy weather, the theater was crowded, and the concert was a complete success. Over the next twenty years, Grafulla made the Seventh Regiment Band one of the finest professional music organizations in the country. A few days after the band’s debut concert, a congressional committee invited the regiment, the only nonlocal military group invited, to participate in the dedication ceremonies for the unveiling of a statue of George Washington in Washington, D.C. While lodging would be provided, the men would have to pay their own transportation costs. Some indication of the men’s dedication and esprit de corps can be seen from the fact that over six hundred men made the trip at their own expense, equivalent to about two hundred dollars today. As with other events the regiment participated in, this engagement was front-page news in the Times. The regiment at that time did not yet have an armory. The companies were scattered about the city, only coming together for parades, important events, and the annual summer encampment. In the summer of 1860, the regiment set up camp at Fort Scott, Staten Island, and the Times published articles on the regiment’s activities each day of the encampment, as well as on its triumphant return to Manhattan. Thousands of people traveled by coach, ferry, and on foot

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Plate 10.3. Claudio S. Grafulla, Delavau’s Quick Step, 1852, sheet music, Lester J. Levy Collection, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

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to watch the evening parade. The band was a major attraction, playing not only for ceremonies but also in concerts at various times during the day. Regarding the evening parade, the reporter waxed poetic: [A]fter the general had inspected the troops, almost immediately the Drum-major gave his nine-foot staff with a ball on the end a mighty toss, caught it on his thumb, balanced it between his fingers, and whirled it in the air with the rapidity of a locomotive wheel. Then, winking at the cornet player, he gave the signal for the band to play, and “Yankee Doodle came to town, Yankee Doodle Dandy,” was immediately wafted by the pleasant ocean breeze to the tympana of our ears.7

For the pass in review, the regiment was preceded by a troop of horses, followed by “the band and the famous drum corps, all timed by that remarkable Drum-major and his wonderful staff.” The regiment passed in review in both slow (alla breve, at 90 steps per minute) and quick time (110 steps per minute), “receiving on each occasion the hearty plaudits of the thousands of visitors who gazed with delight at the unaccustomed scene.”8 An estimated fifteen thousand people were in camp the last night, when a grand ball with music supplied by the band was held on the parade grounds. Undoubtedly, part of the band’s great success was the result of its new bandmaster, Claudio Grafulla. Returning from camp, the regiment heard the good news that the city had renovated the dilapidated Tompkins Market on Third Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets and that space had been allocated to the regiment. Similar to Boston’s Faneuil Hall, the street floor was to remain a market, with the upper two floors reserved for the regiment. The rooms, however, were to be furnished at the regiment’s expense. In January 1861, the band played for the opening of the new armory, and “the hours of the evening floated away upon its delightful music like a period of short-lived ecstacy [sic].”9 Two days later, the band announced that it would give its “second annual concert” at the Academy of Music, with vocal soloists and a “full orchestra” under Theodore Thomas. The advertisement gave the complete program and promised that the band and drum corps would appear in full uniform. A separate announcement in the paper promised that the concert would be “the best of the season, and will unquestionably be the most brilliantly attended.”10 It was reported that the attendance was “large and fashionable” and that there was a $2,000 profit, about $41,521 today. Fort Sumter was fired upon on 12 April 1861. On 15 April, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers. The Sixth Massachusetts left Boston on 17 April, the same day Virginia seceded from the Union. Passing through Baltimore on the nineteenth, the regiment was mobbed by Southern sympathizers, causing great consternation and loss of life. The Seventh New York was ordered to Washington that same day but was not disturbed en route. As part of the state militias, the regiments could be ordered to active duty only for

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a period not to exceed thirty days. This was not the first time the Seventh Regiment had been called to active duty. The regiment had earned its reputation by serving faithfully during many New York riots, such as the 1834 Election and Abolition Riots, the Stevedore Riot (1836), the Flour Riots (1837), the Antirent War (1839), the Croton Water Riot (1840), the Astor Place Riot (1849), the Police and Dead Rabbit Riots (1857), and the Quarantine War (1859).11 After completing its service in Washington, the regiment returned to New York in June. It was again called to active duty in 1862, this time for three months, serving mainly in Baltimore. Grafulla and the band went with the regiment on both tours and no doubt gave concerts for the troops as well as the civilian population. Back in New York, Grafulla organized a series of weekly concerts at the armory that proved very successful. The regiment’s historian reported that “the concerts were attended exclusively by the members of the Regiment and their friends, and became quite the fashion, and although the admittance was nominal (twenty-five cents), the armory was so crowded on these occasions that a considerable revenue was the result.”12 Grafulla continued the armory concerts in 1863, and in June of that year the regiment was once again mustered into federal service for thirty days. Under Grafulla’s direction, the band was achieving great fame and soon rivaled the Dodworth Band as one of the finest in the country. In addition to the armory concerts and regimental ceremonies, it provided music for sporting events, fashionable promenade concerts, balls, weddings, and receptions. Just one of many such events was the 1869 ball of the Fat Man’s Association and Clam Bake Society, commemorated by the sheet music cover illustrated in plate 10.4. Promenade concerts continued and apparently had such success that the captain and hack inspector of the police precinct had to publish a notice to coach owners in the Times on 13 April 1871 giving directions for an orderly approach to the Academy of Music. In 1873, Grafulla gave a concert in tribute to Emmons Clark, colonel of the regiment, for which he composed the Tribute Quick Step. In January 1874 the regiment held a grand ball at the Academy of Music. The effusive review of the ball reads more like a fashion page than like news reporting. The reporter had nothing but praise for every aspect, meticulously describing the decorations at the academy, the “sheeny silks and gold-laced uniforms” of the large “crowd of famous beauties and society men [from] the best circles of Manhattan Island,” and a complete history of the regiment.13 Following the opening grand march, led by Colonel Emmons Clark, the band divided itself— one half retreating to the back of the stage to play for the promenades, the other half ascending to the right-hand gallery to play for dancing. Since the account is so interesting and informative of the grand balls of the golden age, the complete review is included in appendix 10.1. Needless to say, great attention was given to Grafulla and the music, including printing the complete dance program.

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Plate 10.4. Frederick H. Nash, Fat Man’s Polka Redowa, sheet music, Lester J. Levy Collection, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

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A few months later, the regiment voted the sum of $7,000, almost $112,441 today, to purchase new uniforms for the band. The uniform consisted of a blue coat, crimson hussar jacket, hussar or “busby” hat, cadet gray trousers with a scarlet stripe, belt, baldric, and music pouch of red morocco and gold. It was hoped that the “most showy uniform ever seen in New York” would be ready in time for the coming dedication of the Seventh Regiment Memorial Statue.14 The monument to members of the regiment who had been lost during the Civil War, at 69th Street and Central Park, was dedicated on 22 June. The band led the regiment while another band provided music for the Veterans Association, which marched in the parade to the ceremony. At the unveiling, Grafulla conducted the combined bands of 120 musicians in appropriate music. A year later, in 1875, the regiment was invited to visit Boston for the celebration of the centennial of Bunker Hill. Traveling by steamship, the forty-eight-piece band set up on the main deck enlivening the trip “with a variety of stirring airs, both martial and operatic,” as well as an evening concert.15 In 1876, the officers of the regiment decided to show their appreciation for Grafulla’s long and valuable service by giving a grand reception in his honor. The concert review was highly laudatory: Seldom has the Academy of Music—the scene of so many splendid festivals—presented a more brilliant appearance than it did last night on the occasion of the testimonial reception of the Seventh Regiment to its veteran bandmaster, C. S. Grafulla. The attendance was large, the music exquisite, the toilets rich, and the arrangements all that could be desired. . . . This portion of the building was rendered particularly brilliant during the performance of the overture by the presence on the balcony of the military band of fifty pieces, the members of which, in their splendid uniforms of scarlet, blue, and gold, formed a magnificent tableau, and under the baton of the veteran Grafulla himself, performed a splendid programme of promenade music, including the ten new quicksteps composed by him and dedicated to the different companies of the regiment.16

In 1876, the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, a grand International Exhibition was held in Philadelphia, and the Seventh and Twentythird regiments spent their summer encampment there in July. The Times sent a special correspondent, who reported on 3 July 1876 that the six hundred men were awakened by the morning gun at sunrise, and breakfast was served at 5:45. Apparently, the caterer was not used to such early hours, so things did not run smoothly, and, as a result, guard mount was late. Matters were soon ironed out, and the encampment continued without further unexpected problems. The band did much to enliven the men’s spirits with music at the many ceremonial formations and with frequent informal concerts. On Sunday, the men went to Divine service in their dress uniforms, and the band provided appropriate religious music. Later in the day, the band played a program of promenade music while the tents were inspected. The camp was thronged with several thousand visitors who had come to see the evening parade and applauded enthusiastically as the regiment went through the manual of arms.

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Regular concerts and ceremonies continued at the armory, and in October 1877 the band and drum corps participated in a ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone of the new Seventh Regiment Armory. The Dodworth Band provided the music for the Veterans Association. Over the next two years, the band was busy giving promenade concerts to raise funds for the armory. According to the newspaper reviews, which usually included the complete concert programs, attendance was always large, with as many as 2,300 attendees. The regiment was finally able to move into the new armory in April 1880, and the band was ever present to provide concerts and music. As reported a month later, during the muster and inspection of the regiment, a crowd made up of hundreds of women and children surrounded the fifty-six-piece band as it gave a concert during the ceremony. After the inspection, the band returned to the armory and played numerous airs in different parts of the large drill room so the Music Committee could decide where there was the least reverberation: “Marching airs and pianissimo music were rendered, and the effect was very fine.”17 Age and ill health finally forced Grafulla to retire in September 1880, and he died less than three months later. Music at his funeral was provided by the Dodworth Band, the only band in New York that rivaled Grafulla’s in reputation and popularity. Grafulla is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, along with many dignitaries and Civil War generals. From all accounts, Grafulla was a superb musician and had “a remarkable talent for organizing, governing, and disciplining” his musicians.18 He was a quiet man, modest and unassuming, with a kind word and a genial smile for everyone. He never married and seemed to devote himself fully to music and his regimental duties. He was a great favorite with the officers and men of the regiment, and when a mock army was organized in a club farce, Grafulla was named general. He was succeeded by his close friend of many years, Charles W. Wernig. Apparently, Wernig was unable to fill the position to the same degree of satisfaction as his mentor, and, in spite of good newspaper reviews of his concerts on the Iron Pier at Coney Island and in Baltimore, the regiment authorized another Grafulla veteran to form a new band. He was Carlo Cappa, a dedicated and accomplished musician who had served with Grafulla for many years.

Carlo Alberto Cappa Cappa was born on 9 December 1834 in Alessandria, then a part of the kingdom of Sardinia. His father, a military officer, died when Carlo was only four, but his father’s military status still permitted Carlo, at age ten, to enter the Royal Academy at Asti, a school for the sons of soldiers. He began to study music when he was eight, and at age fifteen he enlisted in the Italian Army as a trombonist. As part of his duties, he often performed with the band before King Victor Emmanuel. One day in 1856, as he was playing a solo, he attracted the attention

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of the commander of the U.S. frigate Congress, then at Genoa, who invited him to join the ship’s band. Cappa enlisted and served aboard the ship for two years, the last six months as leader of the band. When the ship returned to Boston, Cappa decided to remain in America, and he joined Ned Kendall’s band. He remained with Kendall for two years, then moved to New York, where he joined Grafulla’s band. Later, he served for seven years as first trombonist for Theodore Thomas and as solo euphoniumist with the Mapleson Opera and the Philharmonic Societies of New York and Brooklyn. After serving with the Seventh Regiment Band for twenty-one years, Cappa was appointed leader by Colonel Emmons Clark on Thomas’s recommendation. Cappa had one benefit his predecessors had not enjoyed: it has often been said that Grafulla served the regiment without pay. Certainly, he was paid for his musical services, but he did not receive extra pay for serving as bandmaster. The regimental historian, Colonel Clark, explained that when Cappa was engaged in 1881, because other military organizations in New York and Brooklyn did provide extra pay for bandmasters, the Seventh Regiment was compelled “to follow their example, and the salary of the bandleader was fixed at fifteen hundred dollars, and [that] of the drum-major at five hundred dollars.”19 In 2002, that would be $26,837 per year for the bandmaster and $8,946 for the drum major. Presumably, this was in addition to regular pay for musical services. Cappa’s new band consisted of fifty-five men with the following instrumentation: flute, piccolo, three E-flat clarinets, eight B-flat clarinets, oboe, two bassoons, a cornet soloist, two E-flat cornets, ten B-flat cornets, two horns, four alto horns, five trombones, two tenor horns, three baritone horns, six basses, two snare drums, bass drum, and cymbals. The cornet soloist was Alessandro Liberati (1847–1927), who later formed his own distinguished band. Under Cappa’s direction, the band began to give a series of daily concerts at the Brighton Beach Hotel on Coney Island. By 1886, the band was giving simultaneous concerts at Central Park under Cappa, at Brighton Beach under assistant conductor George Wiegand, and at a resort in St. George, Staten Island. In a glowing tribute to Cappa in 1886, Metronome magazine commented on his programming: He abhors meretricious aids to render his work notorious, trusting rather to win the sympathies of the public by representing what is true in music, than by resorting to those expedients which, appropriate as they might be in pantomime or circus, are entirely out of place on a concert programme. He appeals to the feelings, not to the sense of wonderment; strives to delight the ears and interest the mind, not to astonish the aural faculties.20

Cappa also undertook a series of extensive tours with the band. In 1883, the group performed in Louisville, Kentucky, at the Southern Exposition. The 1886 tour again took the band to Louisville, where it followed Walter Damrosch and his orchestra. The Metronome, reviewing the concerts, stated:

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Mr. Cappa has an army of friends here. Many believe in him to the exclusion of Damrosch, and vice versa. In fact, the taste is quite divided, and it is amusing to notice the change of audience since Cappa’s arrival, and to hear the comments of preference between the band and the orchestra. There is the cultured listener, who discusses the symphonies, rhapsodies, etc., and who turns up his nose at the more popular music, and, again, there is the auditor who eats popcorn during the interpretation of Beethoven and Liszt, and applauds Swanee River and Old Kentucky Home.21

By this time, Walter Rogers had replaced Liberati as cornet soloist. In 1887, Cappa and a forty-five-piece band visited twelve cities on its way to San Francisco, in addition to its regular season at Brighton Beach. The following year the ensemble played two concerts per week to very large audiences in Central Park during the summer and in August left for several Southern and Western Expositions and concerts in Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Richmond, not returning to New York until January. The assistant conductor, George Wiegand, fulfilled all regimental requirements while Cappa was away. Cappa toured again in 1889 and on his return found that the regiment had decided to have new uniforms made for the band, at a cost of more than $4,000 ($79,302 in 2003). As described in the Metronome: [T]he coat is to be a double-breasted tunic of dark blue cloth, faced with French red on collars and cuffs, garnished with trimmings of marine gold lace. The cuff trimmings, also gold, will be inverted chevrons. The trousers are to be cadet grey, with broad French red stripe running down the outer seams. The helmets will be black, on which will be worn vulture plumes.22

The new uniforms were ready in time for the band to play promenade music at most of the prominent balls and receptions in the city that year. Seemingly ubiquitous, the band was also engaged by a clothing firm on Broadway to give a free concert in its showrooms. During the summer it also continued its regular Central Park concerts. Apparently, the tours and many concerts took their toll on Cappa’s health; in the fall of 1889, he went to London to recuperate. He visited the Paris Exposition but returned to New York in time to take the band to an Exposition in Detroit. Such was Cappa’s fame that a man who represented himself as an agent of Cappa’s band was able to advertise a concert in Rochester, New York; sell tickets; then disappear the day the concert was to be given. Cappa was reported to have been very indignant at the use of his name. Following the Central Park concerts in 1890, Cappa and his band went back to Detroit. The ensemble was so popular and well regarded that the managers of the Exposition promised to build a music hall to Cappa’s specifications. In 1891, the band celebrated its tenth year of Central Park concerts, playing “every Saturday and Sunday before from twenty to forty thousand people.”23 There was summer

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camp with the regiment and then off to Pittsburgh for seven weeks, with a concert in Baltimore on the way. It was reported that the band had a very successful season in Pittsburgh, attracting thousands to that city’s Exposition. Cappa also had a very successful season the next year in Tacoma, Washington, where he was awarded a gold medal. The fifty-piece band gave concerts daily during the five weeks of the town’s Exposition. Returning to New York, he was chosen to make the musical plans for the city’s Columbian celebration. Unfortunately, he contracted a severe cold during the celebrations, which, added to his fatigue from constant work and an earlier heart condition, caused his death on 6 January 1893. The funeral procession was led by one hundred uniformed musicians from Gilmore’s band and other volunteers, led by D. W. Reeves (1838–1900). The Seventh Regiment Band, without instruments, followed the hearse and the family. Cappa was interred with military honors in Evergreen Cemetery, Brooklyn, while the band’s solo cornetist, Walter Rogers, played “Taps.” In addition to the gold medals he was awarded at various Expositions, Cappa was knighted by King Humbert of Italy. He was a pioneer in establishing low pitch for military bands. But like Gilmore and later Sousa, perhaps his most lasting impact was the educational value of his concerts. An 1892 article in The Musical Courier, later reprinted in Metronome, lauded Cappa as “An Educator of the People.” Commenting on the series of twelve Saturday and Sunday concerts in the Central Park Mall, the reviewer recounted the compositions performed: Mendelssohn’s Symphony no. 3 (“Scotch”) and Overtures to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ruy Blas; one of Beethoven’s Leonora Overtures and movements from the Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth symphonies; Massenet’s Scènes Pittoresques, Scènes Napolitaines and ballet music from Le Cid; two works by Bach; Wagner’s Overtures to Tannhäuser and Rienzi, selections from Die Meistersinger and Der fliegende Holländer, and a scene from Die Walküre; Schubert’s Overture in Italian style; Berlioz’s Le carnaval romain; Liszt’s Second and Fourteenth rhapsodies and Les Préludes; Rossini’s Overture to Guillaume Tell and selections from various operas; selections from operas by Verdi, Meyerbeer, Donizetti, Bellini, Gounod, and Mascagni; Bizet’s L’Arlesienne and selections from Les pêcheurs de perles and Carmen; Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” from La Gioconda; Gottschalk’s Pasquinade and Last Hope; and miscellaneous compositions by Litolff, Suppé, Strauss, Waldteufel, and others. As the reviewer noted, “One hundred and eighteen different pieces cannot be performed in only twelve concerts and in only forty-five days, excepting by a corporation of true professors—born artists—and in perfect accordance with the artistic sentiments of their chief.”24 This at a time when the New York Philharmonic’s complete season consisted of eleven concerts and the only other professional orchestras in America, the Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras, had just been founded. Considering the many years of daily concerts at Coney Island, the years of free summer concerts in Central Park, the many cities in which Cappa and his band played, and the many other professional bands also performing this repertoire,

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one can understand why it has been said that more Americans heard serious art music in band transcriptions than in their original form. In this chapter, I have only examined the concerts given by a single band over a thirty-year period. Many other bands performed in New York City during this time as well, and their programs should be documented, to the extent possible, so one can compare their repertories with that of the Seventh Regiment Band. Virtually every resident of the city heard bands perform—through park concerts, in parades, at balls, and during holiday celebrations. Bands played both highbrow and lowbrow music; they offered the public the opportunity to learn and enjoy the popular pieces of the day. Until a detailed study of their many public functions is undertaken, we will not have a complete picture of the music scene in New York and the United States.

Appendix 10.1 From The New-York Times, January 7, 1874, 5

THE SEVENTH’S BALL. SCENE AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC LAST EVENING. THE FIRST OF THE GREAT BALLS OF THE SEASON—THE REGIMENT AND ITS STORY —NOTABLE PEOPLE WHO WERE PRESENT. The first of the great public balls of the season took place last night, and was a pronounced, a gratifying success. It was in the cause of charity, under the auspices of the gallant Seventh Regiment, of our National Guard, and a large sum must have been realized, for the huge building was completely filled, every tier of boxes presenting a bright array of beauty, and there was an overflowing tide of sheeny silks and satins and gold-laced uniforms that flooded the corridors. The Seventh has ever been a favored regiment; indeed, its warm friends have long claimed for it the position of chief favorite. Whoever had glanced over the crowd of famous beauties and society men would have been convinced that the appeal of the Seventh, in so sacred a cause, had been promptly responded to by the best circles of Manhattan Island. Perhaps it may be interesting to retrace the past career of this organization, as its history will go far to explain the pride of its present position, and the entente cordiale between it and the best society.

REMINISCENCES OF THE REGIMENT. This favorite regiment of the National Guard may be said to have had its origin in a dissolution of partnership between the artillery and infantry battalions

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of the old Eleventh Regiment of Artillery, which regiment was enrolled as far back as the year 1812. It was in 1824, at the time of Lafayette’s last visit to this country, that the project of making the infantry battalion an independent organization was decided upon. [two columns of regimental history cut]

THE BALL About 9 o’clock the lamps around the Academy of Music, and specially in front, on Irving place, were all lighted, and a crowd began to gather of those motley idlers who love to watch more fortunate people than themselves stepping from their carriages. The weather was horrible. The streets were a sea of mud, the air was fogy, and a thick, drizzling rain descended ceaselessly. Yet the crowd at the entrance increased momentarily, and the ragged loungers waited with patient expectation until about 9:30 o’clock [when] the first carriage drove up, and a vision of tulle and lace, flowers, jewels and satin rewarded their watching. The ice once broken, the carriages began to arrive rapidly, and deposited their beautiful burdens in quick succession. Inside, the various committees, with their badges of variously-colored ribbon, were alert and courteous, indicating to ladies and cavaliers the disrobing rooms, around which loitered small boys with trays of button-hole bouquets for those who might have come unprovided. Beyond the corridor, through the many openings, a brilliant scene presented itself to the eyes. The parquette had been boarded over even with the stage, and at the end of the stage the orchestra of Grafulla was stationed. At the principal openings from the dress-circle to the floor were vases filled with the choicest hothouse flowers, camelias [sic], calla lilies, sweet-scented heliotrope, and the graceful similax, the vine of Dan Cupid fell in graceful festoons down the side, the vivid green leaves contrasting exquisitely with the snowy white of the marble. Similar floral decorations were placed beneath the principal boxes, Mr. Kingsland’s and the one opposite, which was sacred, apparently, to the Major Generals of the National Guard. The wings were hidden on each side by appropriate scenery, and the deep curtain beyond the orchestra was one that has caught the eyes of many fair ladies when a prima donna has died to slow music, sending forth sweet sounds to each expiring agony, like the white swan of the Greek fabulist. Viewed from the floor, the house was resplendent with light and color; the great crystal chandelier in the centre of the ceiling sparkling in futile emulation of the diamonds and the bright eyes below. All the seats in the dress circle were occupied by brightly-dressed dames and black appareled cavaliers. Above the boxes rise tier upon tier until the gallery is reached. All were occupied, and the flashing of jewels, the hum of many voices, the glancing of fair eyes, the radiance of epaulets, and the warmth of Mar’s colors, all combined to present a scene charming to the eye, and invested with still greater attraction from its contrast with the cold, the rain, and the desolation of the streets.

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Looking down upon the floor from the boxes overhead, the view was even more interesting. Seeing all the toilets in motion in juxtaposition with the grey uniforms of the Seventh and the blue coats of the staff, one was irresistibly reminded of a gorgeous bed of tulips. At first there seemed to be no order, but a chaotic mingling and crossing of groups. But at a given signal up flew the baton of Mr. Grafulla, the well-known conductor of the Seventh Band, and the quickstep march composed by him and dedicated to the gallant Col. Emmons Clark, pealed forth with brilliant effect. Then began the opening march, headed by the commander of the Seventh and his fair wife. Three times the promenaders made the circuit of the floor. Then the band, making division of itself, one half retreated to the back of the stage, and the other ascended to the right-hand gallery, the former to play the dance music, the latter the airs for the promenade, which were to succeed each other like the strophe and anti-strophe of a Greek play. And now the ladies consulted their programmes and began to inscribe thereon the names of happy dancing men, and then everybody took places for the Lancers, which it is the present detestable fashion to call “Lanciers.” It was the opening dance, and naturally was not very lively. Gentlemen are conscious of their unwonted costume, and hesitate about plunging into conversation with strange girls, and the ladies are naturally like ghosts, and cannot speak until they are spoken to. The heroes who dance the first dance at a public ball ought to be presented by society with a medal for bravery. Probably every one was glad when it was over. But then the ice was broken, and the sacred ceremony of introductions was commenced with great vigor. Everybody who was near to the floor commenced to promenade; and presently, when the band struck up the sweet seductive strains of one of Strauss’ waltzes, the press was so great that waltzing became a thing of infinite labor. And now observers began to remark the immense preponderance of blue and red dresses at the ball. It really seemed as if every blonde had chosen blue, and every brunette pink or garnet or coraline, or some other shade of red. Of course, there were other toilettes, but they did not force themselves upon the eye as did these. And another thing was also noticeable, that the economy which The New-York Times has preached so eloquently has apparently been practiced, for although the dresses were beautiful and the wearers lovely, there was a distinguished absence of toilettes de luxe. The trains were modest, and there were not many of them. There were, indeed, some few alarming toilettes: one, especially, worn by an English lady of rank, whose magnificent diamonds were the admiration of the assembly. Between 11 and 12 the arrivals were very numerous, and as waltz, quadrille, galop, &c., succeeded each other in rapid succession, the tide of incomers and of flushed and panting dancers met and mingled in the corridor. Dancing was kept up with vigor, nor was there any formal interval for supper, but people went and had it when they felt disposed, after the manner of Mrs. Gamp. Between 2 and 3 o’clock the carriages arrived to bear back their lovely freights, and soon the Academy of Music relapsed into its pristine grimness and the Charity Ball of

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the Seventh Regiment was a thing of the past. Doubtless it will have furnished many pleasant memories to those who were present, and will be another laurel leaf in the chaplet which adorns the Seventh. Among those present were Gen. Dunn, of Gov. Dix’s staff; Gen. Knox, of Gov. Dix’s staff; Col. Griswold, of Gov. Dix’s staff; Gen. Shaler, and the following officers of his staff: Gen. Liebenan, Col. Mecham, Col. Kearny, Lieut. Col. Mitchell, Lieut. Col. Wrisley, Lieut. Col. Jussen, Capt. Parker, Col. Seward, of Gen. Varian’s staff; Col. Gray, of Gen. Varian’s staff; Capt. Mellick, of Gen. Varian’s staff; Lieut. Holland, of Gen. Varian’s staff; Col. Stetson, Seventy-ninth Highlanders; Major Hess, First Artillery; Major Valentine, First Artillery; Col. Mitchell, United States Army; Adjt. Gen. Fry, United States Army; Gen. Duryee. The members of the lately-organized Veteran Corps of the Seventh Regiment, in splendid new uniforms of dark blue and gold, which closely resembles the dress of United States Navy officers, turned out in great force, and attracted much attention. The officers of the Guard were represented by Adjt. C. B. Bostwick. The members of the Old Guard, in their magnificent uniforms of blue pantaloons and white tunic, with heavy epaulets and decorations, looked splendid, and formed a pleasing contrast to the dark uniforms of the visiting officers and sober colors of the Seventh Regiment. Among the members of the Old Guard present were: Major Geo. W. McLean, Lieut. Webster, Lieut. Gurney, Lieut. Davis, Commissary G. B. Smith, Joseph Naylor, John Martine, and about twenty others. Among the members of the Seventh Regiment present were: Col. Clark, Lieut. Col. Ryder, Major Smith, Capt. Smith, Capt. Pollock, Capt. Bird, Lieut. Steele, Surgeon Morris, and about 500 privates. THE PROGRAMME. Overture “Banditenstreiche” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suppe Selections “La Donna del Lago”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rossini Quickstep “Tribute” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grafulla ORDER OF DANCES. 1. Lanciers “Adelia”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Wiegand (Dedicated to Mrs. Col. Clark.) Promenade “Nabucodonosor” 2. Valse “Huldigungen” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Strauss Promenade “cannon” 3. Galop “Nach Kurzer Rast” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strauss Promenade “AIl Poliuto” 4. Quadrille “Rotunde” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Strauss Promenade “Haute Volee”

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5. Valse “Seventh Regiment” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Grill Promenade “Attilla” 6. Galop “Windspiel”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herrmann Promenade “Kikeriki” 7. Lanciers “Constellation” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Wiegand Promenade “An Sie” 8. Deux Temps “Wiener Blut” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Strauss Promenade “Camp Sherman” (Saratoga) 9. Galop “Schwalbenflug”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hermann Promenade “Anvil” 10. Quadrille “Academy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Grill Promenade “Seventh Regiment (1873)” 11. Valse “Liebes Traeume”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Lanner Promenade “Luisa Miller” 12. Galop “Am Donaustrande” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Strauss Promenade “Ye Mdnight Stars” 13. Lanciers “Morton Commandery” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. Doerr Promenade “Westphalia” 14. Valse “Studentenball” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Strauss Promenade “Liebeszauber” 15. Galop “Spornstreichs” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Faust Promenade “Barcarole” 16. Quadrille “Augusta”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hohmann Promenade, “A Poor Girl’s Heart” 17. Valse “Carnevalsbilder” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. Strauss Promenade “Goldelse” 18. Galop “Lustig im Kreise” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Strauss Promenade “Sleigh” 19. Lanciers “F. C. B.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Wiegand Promenade “Ernani” 20. Galop “Eisport”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Strauss Promenade “Good Night, Farewell” Musical Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. S. Grafulla

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Notes 1. For a brief overview of the history of civic and military bands in the United States, see my dictionary entries in the works mentioned in the bibliography. 2. The New-York Times, 23 January 1876, 2. 3. William R. Bayley, in an article prepared for the Philadelphia Evening Star but apparently never published, as quoted in William Carter White, A History of Military Music in America (New York: Exposition, 1944), 62. 4. Emmons Clark, History of the Seventh Regiment of New York 1806–1889 (New York: The Seventh Regiment, 1890), 1: 379. 5. Ibid., 1: 390. 6. Presumably born in Mahón, the largest town in Minorca. Date of birth from gravestone, Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. 7. The New-York Times 12 July 1860, 1. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 10 January 1861, 8. 10. Ibid., 12 January 1861, 3 and 7. 11. Frederick Phisterer, ed., New York in the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1865, 3rd ed. (Albany: J. B. Lyon, 1912), 1: 546. 12. Clark, History, 2: 46–47. 13. The New-York Times, 7 January 1874, 5. 14. Clark, History, 2: 222–23. 15. The New-York Times, 18 June 1875, 2. 16. Ibid., 9 February 1876, 5. 17. Ibid., 19 May 1880, 8. 18. Clark, History, 2: 290. 19. Ibid., 2: 311. 20. Metronome 2, no. 10 (1886): 5. 21. Ibid., 3. 22. Ibid., 5, no. 1 (1889): 15. 23. Ibid., 7, no. 12 (1891): 16. 24. Musical Courier 25, no. 3 (1892): 10, reprinted in ibid., 8, no. 12 (1892): 7.

Chapter Eleven

She Came, She Sang . . . She Conquered? Adelina Patti in New York Hilary Poriss

What distinguishes the diva you have chosen from the divas you merely admire is that you are interested in everything your diva has done—even the mistakes.1

Biographers of Adelina Patti (1843–1919) are nearly unanimous in their opinion of this soprano.2 From the moment she stepped onto the stage in 1851 as a child prodigy until her final public appearances in 1914, Patti was unequaled— a singer whose voice soared above all others, who could bring an audience to its feet with a simple folk tune, and whose acting was flawless. Both of the fulllength biographies dedicated to her life, as well as many shorter chronicles, are packed from beginning to end with accounts of her triumphs.3 John Frederick Cone, for example, declares that Patti was “perhaps the most gifted of all singers during [the nineteenth] and this [the twentieth century],” and at the conclusion This chapter originated as a lecture/recital presented at “Importing Culture: European Music and Musicians in New York, 1840–1890,” a conference held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 19 April 2002. Julia Grella (soprano) and Francesco Izzo (piano) performed a set of Adelina Patti’s favorite arias, written by Luigi Arditi, Sir Henry Bishop, and Thomas Moore. I thank them for their brilliant input, especially Julia, who initiated the project and got me thinking about Patti’s life and career. I am grateful to Mary Sue Morrow for her comments on an earlier version of this essay. I also thank Paul Charosh for pointing me toward Charles Harris’s and Robert Grau’s memoirs, both of which contain significant information pertaining to Patti’s final tour through the United States.

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of Herman Klein’s biographical tome he writes, “her singing was an . . . unalloyed delight to all who heard her, not only in her prime, but long after her career had passed its meridian.”4 To be sure, these writers faced no shortage of material to illustrate their points. According to firsthand testimonials, Patti’s voice was a marvel. The American soprano Emma Eames, for example, described Patti’s voice in her own autobiography: “Hers was the most perfect technique imaginable, with a scale, both chromatic and diatonic, of absolute accuracy and evenness, a tone of perfect purity and of the most melting quality, a trill impeccable in intonation, whether major or minor, and such as one hears really only in nightingales, liquid, round, and soft. Her crescendo was matchless, and her vocal charm was infinite.”5 Writing about her in 1879, Eduard Hanslick had this to say: “[I]n Adelina Patti I have learned to know a musical organization perfect beyond all others—I may, indeed, say: a musical genius.”6 Patti was most successful in such florid bel canto roles as Rosina, Lucia, and Gilda, but she was fluent also in more dramatic parts like Aïda and Valentine from Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. By the end of her career, she had mastered the leading roles in almost forty operas, as well as a wide variety of concert repertory that ranged from simple folk tunes to virtuosic showpieces. Biographies of this remarkable artist occasionally include accounts of her capricious nature: her blanket refusal to attend rehearsals (she sent a maid or her manager in her place), her slap to the face of Ole Bull when he refused to give her a glass of champagne (she was nine years old), her demands to receive payment before appearing on stage (forcing impresarios to scramble unnecessarily for funds minutes before curtain time), and so on. Almost without exception, though, Patti’s biographers describe her as beyond reproach, and on the rare occasion that they detect fault in her singing or acting, they brush off these problems as insignificant. The fact that Patti’s biographers have downplayed criticism aimed in her direction is understandable: their objective was to chronicle the life and career of “the greatest singer the world has ever known,” and they selected their evidence accordingly. It is possible, then, to emerge from a reading of these biographies persuaded that Patti’s voice was nearly perfect and that her acting left little to be desired. But how is it possible that a singer who trod the boards of the world’s opera houses for over fifty years never had an off night? That she was consistently sublime? By saturating their chronicles with catalogs of endless triumphs, writers run the risk of relying almost exclusively on biographical myth—the myth of Adelina Patti’s perfection—and ignoring these important questions.7 In her recent article, Marian Wilson Kimber offers an insightful critique of the tendency among biographers of famous women to rely on myth.8 Legends resurface time and again because, Kimber argues, they provide easy, sometimes comforting explanations for the actions women of the past have taken that appear puzzling to modern scholars and readers. In Fanny Mendelssohn’s case, for

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instance, the most commonly recycled myth states that her brother, Felix, and her father actively dissuaded her from pursuing her compositional ambitions— that she was “suppressed.” By reevaluating a dazzling array of primary and secondary sources, however, Kimber demonstrates that the men in Fanny’s life did not directly impede her compositional pursuits; rather, her reluctance to write stemmed from a variety of factors, including societal demands and her own ambivalence concerning her creative talents. Her decision not to compose and to lead instead the “normal” life of a wife and mother was Mendelssohn’s own, Kimber explains, disappointing though it may seem to those seeking a more “modern” role model. Kimber’s article draws attention to the fact that myths such as that of Fanny Mendelssohn’s “suppression” are tendentious, often revealing more about the biographers’ desires for their subjects than about the subjects themselves. This realization raises critical questions concerning biographers’ descriptions of Patti: Why must she be portrayed as beyond reproach? What is at stake when some of her faults are unveiled? In response, this chapter attempts to reevaluate biographical narratives that convey the myth of Patti’s perfection, investigating some of the less flattering aspects of her life and career. My focus here falls on her various appearances on the concert and opera stages of New York City. She traveled annually to that city during three periods of her life, each separated by ten to twenty years: childhood (from 1851 to 1861), middle period (from 1881 to 1894), and old age (from 1903 to 1904). Patti’s visits were extraordinarily successful, first serving to establish her reputation as one of the finest young musicians in the world and later extending the fame she had garnered on European stages back to America. During none of these time periods, however, were her experiences entirely free from tension, and it is to the diverse challenges Patti faced that I now turn.

Patti as Prodigy From the time she turned eight, Adelina Patti assumed a performance schedule that seasoned artists would consider exhausting. She initiated her career in New York’s Tripler Hall on 22 November 1851;9 spent the following months appearing in venues throughout the city, including the Astor Place Opera House, Niblo’s Garden, Metropolitan Hall, and the Lyceum; and in 1852 embarked on the first of many tours that brought her to venues throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Until the fall of 1859, Patti’s public appearances required her to sing only two or three arias in the context of ad hoc concerts that featured such famous artists as Bull and Gottschalk. On 24 November 1859, Patti tackled fully staged opera for the first time, performing the title role in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and over the course of that year she sang the lead in no fewer than thirteen other operas, including Il barbiere di Siviglia, La sonnambula, and I puritani.10 It is difficult to disagree with Klein when he pro-

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claims that “such a monumental achievement for a beginner was never known before or since.”11 Even so, chronicles of her childhood and early teens fixate on the successful aspects of this period, obscuring the challenges she faced in her acting and in coping with physical and emotional fatigue. At the conclusion of his discussion of Patti’s first season in fully staged operas, Klein summarizes her accomplishments: “What an exhibition of genius! What determination to conquer all obstacles—physical, musical, and histrionic alike!”12 He often overlooks, however, that many contemporary reviews and firsthand accounts of these performances voice significant disappointment in her acting abilities. (Klein reproduces some of these reviews as appendixes but refers to them infrequently in the body of his text.) A review published in the Herald describing Patti’s first appearance as Lucia, for instance, praises her voice, but the critic tempers his enthusiasm with this caveat: “Of course we speak to-day only of Miss Patti’s qualifications as a singer. Acting she has yet to learn; but artists, like poets, are born, not made.”13 A second review of the same performance corroborates this opinion: “There is in her as much sentiment as we ought to look for in one so young. Great passion, heart-rending pathos, can only be found in the artist, whether the singer, actor, or the orator, after an experience with the world realities, with its sadness, its sorrows. These will all come fast enough to give the tragic element to the young aspirant.”14 Remarks such as these are not out of the ordinary in commentaries on performances of prodigies—one often reads of child stars who demonstrate remarkable technical facility but lack expressive warmth.15 Rarely do critics blame their subjects, however, aware that with the passing of time, they will grow more sophisticated.16 Patti’s critics were no exception: while they sensed plainness in her acting, they also gave her the benefit of the doubt, stressing that she possessed the potential to become a superior actress—she needed only to have a few tragedies of her own before convincingly portraying those of characters like Lucia and Gilda.17 Both Klein and Cone admit that some critics took issue with Patti’s acting. Cone, for example, cites George Bernard Shaw’s rather harsh assessment: “She seldom even pretends to play any other part other than that of Adelina, the spoiled child with the adorable voice; and I believe she would be rather hurt than otherwise if you for a moment lost sight of Patti in your preoccupation with Zerlina, Aïda, or Caterina.”18 Instead of drawing attention to this review, however, Cone embeds it in a web of praise for Patti’s acting, lending the impression that Shaw’s opinion represents the exception rather than the rule. Similarly, Klein admits that in the earlier stages of her career, Patti was not yet the “matchless and impeccable vocal artist” she would one day become, and he cites reviews from the Times and the Athenæum that fault her acting as well as her singing. Rather than carefully considering the contents of these reviews, however, Klein argues that, in the long run, they were insignificant, disappearing within a few years as “the youthful artist contrived to rid herself of her imperfections, one by

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one, until at last perfection alone remained.”19 Why are biographers so eager to smooth over the rough patches of Patti’s early acting career? Perhaps because her acting was problematic well beyond her childhood: critical ambivalence toward Patti’s histrionic talents remained a fixed component of her reception throughout her life. Reacting to her first appearances on London’s stages in the early 1860s, for example, G. M. Dalmazzo comments that “[a]s to her acting, she was recommended to study, and that earnestly, because she had yet a great deal to learn.”20 More troubling, however, are assessments that appeared later in her career. Clara Louise Kellogg (1842–1916), for instance, waxes lyrical about Patti’s vocal prowess but also remarks that her histrionic gestures were consistently “mechanical” and that “[s]he never acted; and she never, never felt. As Violetta she did express some slight emotion, to be sure. Her Gran Dio in the last act was sung with something like passion, at least with more passion than she ever sang anything else. . . . But her great success was always due to her wonderful voice.”21 Given that Kellogg and Patti were rivals, this may not be the best testimony on which to rely.22 Richard Aldrich, music critic for the Tribune and then the Times from 1891 to 1923, however, corroborates Kellogg’s sentiment in a retrospective account of Patti’s life. He writes that throughout her career she was quite effective in “gayer and ‘half-character’ parts,” such as Rosina in the Barber of Seville or Amina in La sonnambula. “But,” he continues, “she longed to do something else; and this longing is represented by her wish to take the part of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni rather than that of Zerlina. She could by no means have done it; nor could she portray any operatic personage that required depth of characterization.”23 What we can glean from these commentaries, then, is that throughout her life Patti’s histrionic efforts did not always reach the highest level of achievement, nor did they impress every critic and spectator. She was usually well received as an actress in lighter roles, as Aldrich points out, but when she portrayed such parts as Carmen or as Margherita in Gounod’s Faust, critics consistently took issue. Her biographers’ reluctance to discuss Patti in anything less than glowing terms, then, might convey a belief that she was convincing on stage. Another possibility, however, is that these writers are aware that Patti was not a fine actress, but they perceive that characteristic as a strength rather than a weakness. Wayne Koestenbaum’s description of her enlightens: “Patti imperiously refuses to alter her gestures from role to role; and her indifference thrills us. She doesn’t fall short of her role; she surpasses it. Our pleasure derives from her acting’s insufficiency, its laxness, its willed remoteness from truth. Realism is beneath Patti.”24 In other words, what critics might perceive as a negative, some fans read as provocative—the diva need not be held to the same standards as the actress of spoken dramas; she need only present herself extravagantly. In refusing to conform to accepted dramatic standards of realism (either because she was unable or because she did not want to), therefore, Patti managed simultaneously to thrill

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her fans and dismay her critics. The disparity between these two reactions represents a crucial facet of her early reception, and in constructing a biography it is imperative to articulate the distinction. Attempting to prove that Patti was a superior actress and that her critics were wrong evades a crucial point: Patti’s success might have stemmed from a willful rejection of accepted dramatic norms, explaining her rejection by some critics and tremendous devotion by audience members. Similarly, her biographers’ reluctance to admit that Patti may have encountered some physical problems during her childhood obscures another fascinating aspect of her early reception. According to Klein, she “never knew the meaning of the word fatigue,” neither during her years as a child prodigy, nor as an adult.25 Although he notes that during the “summer or autumn of 1855” Patti began a prolonged period of vocal rest under the advisement of her brother-in-law and manager, Maurice Strakosch, he provides no clues pertaining to the reason(s) for this break.26 Why, if Patti never complained of fatigue, would her family have discontinued her public performances, which by 1855 had become extremely lucrative? An explanation appears in Aldrich’s retrospective, in which he reveals that “as a little girl . . . her voice was then already on the road to ruin and had begun to show a tremolo.”27 Aldrich supplies no dates, but he tells his readers that Strakosch “made her refrain from singing for two whole years” to safeguard the voice, a time that likely corresponds to the period of rest Klein mentions. Cone corroborates this story and provides some definitive dates: she began to experience vocal problems toward the conclusion of her spring 1854 tour of the United States. She stopped singing altogether for the remainder of 1854, made only a handful of appearances during 1855, and did not resume performing on a full-time basis again until March 1856.28 Patti, in other words, was not an indefatigable singing machine. She spent her childhood on the road, not always happily—as Klein himself notes—and three years into her life as a famous performer she began to feel the effects of the demands placed on her at such a young age. Perhaps it is no coincidence that her vocal breakdown occurred during the years when she might have begun to reach puberty (in 1854, she was eleven years old), a time of physical and emotional turbulence for most boys and girls. It is even possible that between 1854 and 1855, Patti entered into what psychologist Jeanne Bamberger has termed a prodigy’s “midlife crisis”—a period, typically occurring in the midteens, when a child’s “extraordinary musical capabilities as performers seem to come apart, to break down.”29 In her study of prodigies, Bamberger traces the problems and insecurities that afflict young talents as they develop from youthful marvels into adult musicians, noting that these years of increasing self-consciousness are critical for determining whether the subject will succeed as a performer beyond his or her childhood. Many prodigies reach the ends of their careers at this point, unable to reconcile a mature worldview with their phenomenal talent. While it is clear that, in the long term, Patti’s career was unaffected by any sort of “midlife

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crisis,” she probably suffered from short-term uncertainty and a lack of confidence. In avoiding discussion of Patti’s “midlife crisis,” her biographers have not protected her from an embarrassing revelation. Instead, they have obscured an extraordinary facet of her career: she was able to do what so many child prodigies were not—she overcame this crisis, successfully making the painful transition from prodigy to adult star. These early experiences with doubt and hesitation, moreover, may have provided her with the tools necessary for coping with the negative criticism she encountered when she first returned to New York as an adult.

The Superstar Returns: Patti’s Middle Period in New York Patti’s last performance as a child in the United States took place in 1861. That year marked the beginning of a twenty-year hiatus, during which she moved to Europe and—to make a long story short—became an international superstar. She appeared on nearly every major stage in Europe, including London’s Covent Garden, Madrid’s Teatro Real, Paris’s Théâtre Italien, St. Petersburg’s Imperial Theater, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, and Milan’s La Scala, among many others. By the time she returned to the United States her fame was widespread, and newspapers heralded her arrival with excitement. The Times wrote, for instance, “[Patti] will be welcomed with genuine and cordial enthusiasm. . . . Those fortunate persons who have heard her lately unite in saying that she is as charming as ever in appearance and sings with all the graces of a finished artist and with the same lovely, pure soprano quality of voice which she showed at the beginning of her career.”30 Her first season lasted five months (9 November 1881–3 April 1882), during which she performed in New York City and in many other major cities throughout the country. She returned to the States nearly every year thereafter until 1894, and her reception was almost uniformly favorable. Her first season, however, was different: the Times in particular was dismayed by Patti’s performances, and some negative criticism was directed at her during that year. Although her biographers draw attention to some of this condemnation, they ignore most of it. It is worthwhile, therefore, to reexamine its content and possible causes. On first arriving in New York, Patti presented four ad hoc concerts at Steinway Hall and two at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; she was assisted by a group of singers and instrumentalists, including her husband, tenor Enrico Nicolini (1834–1898). Her biographers note that critics and audiences disapproved of her supporting cast. Cone writes that her company, “except for a violinist, received only fair or poor comments from critics, who found Nicolini barely acceptable as a vocalist.”31 A glance at reviews corroborates this negative assessment of Patti’s husband, a French tenor whose prime had long since passed. Following the first concert the Times recorded, “Signor Nicolini was, of course, distressing, and

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though he sang with a force that was sometimes overwhelming, he was not entirely bad, though he was never good,”32 and after the third performance one critic had only this to say about him, “Signor Nicolini was more than commonly noisy.”33 The opinion of Nicolini remained largely negative throughout the entire season, but there are indications that similar difficulties did not befall other troupe members. The Times critic covering the first concert waxes enthusiastic about the supporting cast, remarking that “several of the other members of the company deserve praise for some good work” and admiring the performances of Mlle. Hohenchild, mezzo soprano, Mlle. Castillan, violin, and the pianist, Signor Gorno, “to whom much of the success of the concert was due.”34 True, one can find lukewarm reactions to these performers, but only rarely did critics remark on them in anything more than passing and almost never in the same derogatory terms with which they attacked Nicolini. In fact, what seems to have disturbed New York critics was not their performances per se—as Cone and Klein imply—but rather that this supporting cast was not drawn from the top ranks. The sentiment consistently lodged in reviews is that Patti and her managers tried to get away cheap by hiring second-rate musicians, paying them less than they would have paid top performers, and making off with the profits. A larger source of frustration, however, stemmed from the fact that this supporting cast participated at all; the format of these concerts—consisting of a hodgepodge of opera arias, ensembles, folk tunes, and instrumental solos, performed by a principal soloist in alternation with other artists—was quickly falling out of style in the final quarter of the nineteenth century in New York City. By 1881, spectators were growing accustomed to solo recitals featuring only one performer, and the anachronistic programming of the Patti concerts offended a concertgoing public that considered itself more sophisticated.35 Piling insult onto injury, the admission fees charged for the Patti extravaganzas (ten dollars for orchestra seats and marginally less for the others) far exceeded what New Yorkers had been accustomed to paying.36 Many spectators, who otherwise would have gone to hear Patti, staged a small revolution using the most powerful weapon at their disposal: a boycott. As a result, Steinway Hall was only moderately filled for the first concert, and attendance sank even lower for the second. After these two disastrous evenings, Patti’s management decreased the price of admission to two dollars, but even this did not satisfy potential attendees entirely (although it did have the benefit of filling the concert hall). A lingering source of displeasure stemmed from a suspicion among New York critics that even though by 1881 the city had become one of the most important musical centers in the Western world and was overflowing with knowledgeable connoisseurs, there still remained a perception among European cognoscenti that the city—indeed, any city in the United States—was not as discerning as those on the other side of the Atlantic. Protest against this perceived elitist attitude was voiced time and again in reviews of Patti’s performances: “The public in this City, not being composed exclusively of idiots, evidently do not propose

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to have anything to do with a fifty-cent country concert at $10 a ticket. Without any appreciation of the fact that New York is one of the leading musical capitals of the world, Mme. Patti or her agents have come here with the idea that anything was good enough for Americans.”37 Complaints launched by New York critics against Patti’s supporting musicians, passé performance practices, and high ticket prices, therefore, were symptoms of a broader problem: New York spectators and critics in the late nineteenth century had developed a sense of the unique—some might have argued “superior”— nature of the New York stage. Performers, therefore, could not rely exclusively on their European reputations: they needed to strive toward the same high standards they would aim for if appearing in Europe, or the results would be disastrous. Perhaps, then, because critics believed Patti and her management were evading this responsibility, presenting low-quality concerts for the sake of extravagant profit, they felt justified in lashing out at her most prized asset: her voice. Accusations of “monotony,” of a voice in decline, surfaced repeatedly in the pages of the Times during the 1881–1882 season. Of course, she may have been in poor vocal health that year, but complaints about her singing emerge frequently enough in reviews that also protest the managerial aspects of the concerts that one begins to suspect a connection. A review that opens with bitter protests against high admission prices makes these comments about Patti: “It is not a matter of doubt that she sang out of tune . . . and not withstanding the lovely character of her voice, there was disappointment in her performance. In her upper notes her voice is now cold and hard, very much like the tone of her sister Carlotta.”38 After prices for the concerts were reduced, negative commentaries on her voice diminished but did not disappear, perhaps because critics and audiences were still frustrated by her concert format—they wanted to hear her in a fully staged opera: “[W]hile it is undeniable that Mme. Patti is as brilliant and effective as could be, one cannot but remember that she should not be singing in concert and should have the advantages of scenery, costumes, and orchestra to do herself justice.”39 Another review expressing the same sentiment also maintains that Patti’s tones “do not extend beyond the ordinary soprano limits” and that her singing “was not of the best.”40 Significantly, the critics voicing disappointment in Patti’s singing were also quick to point out that her European reputation was deceptive, that her voice did not measure up to what spectators and critics across the ocean had been saying about her. This small notice, for example, appeared following one of her appearances in Brooklyn: “[N]ot withstanding the glamour which has surrounded the lady’s career in Europe, she is not quite the marvel which too lively imaginations may have led many persons to await.”41 And an article evaluating Patti’s performance in February 1882 states that “many readers will no doubt find it hard to reconcile the stories of the vocalist’s triumphal progress through the Old World with the comparative absence of enthusiasm in the public and press of the New.” This author explains the disparity, attributing Europe’s high esteem for

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Patti to nostalgia for what she sounded like during the 1860s when her voice could be “distinguished by an evenness of tone-color, a richness of quality, and a flexibility the like of which no living singer could boast of.” After ten years of performing throughout Europe, however, she had “lost her highest tones, the medium became broader, and the whole voice took on increased power. Unfortunately . . . the style underwent comparatively little modification.” Most European spectators, the author maintains, were aware of this disturbing transformation but were unwilling to voice their concern, which the critic ascribes to two causes: “the prestige of Mme. Patti’s name and what has been prettily called in French the worship of memory.”42 The American public, on the other hand, was free of this unhealthy stranglehold that sentiment placed on listening and interpretation and therefore was able to articulate its complaints without the cumbersome impediments of nostalgia or guilt. The message this and other critics were sending is clear: from the historical reality that set spectators in the United States chronologically behind their European peers, one crucial benefit emerged—the ability of these audience members to judge what they heard objectively. Americans, in other words, possessed keener musical ears, and to satisfy them, Patti would need to work harder than she had done in her first season. We will never know for certain how Patti sounded during her initial return to America, and we cannot discount the possibility that the negative reviews quoted here represent an accurate record of her performances—as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, it is inconceivable that a singer who performed as frequently as Patti did never had an off night. It is revealing, though, that following her first season in the States, she never again faced a similar deluge of negative criticism. Beginning with her 1882–1883 tour, she sang here almost exclusively in fully staged opera, and the critics were thrilled. While they frequently detected fault in her acting, they almost never disparaged her voice. One might attribute this sea change to a real improvement in her voice; but one might also read it more broadly as a tangible symptom of reconciliation between New Yorkers and the diva, a righting of perceived wrongs she and her European management had committed against the public. Following this reconciliation, critics and spectators alike were free to enjoy her voice, at least until she returned to New York for one last time at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Farewells, Final Farewells, and “The Last Farewell” Patti’s last tour in the United States occurred over six months in 1903 and 1904 and comprised nearly sixty concerts that took her through every major city in the country. This was not the first of her official “farewell” tours; since the mid-1880s, her performances had been advertised as her last, and by 1903 her “farewell” concerts had become the source of both humor and admiration.43 For example, the Times review of her 1892 concert in Madison Square Garden begins: “It is not

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often that the world is blessed with a new thing in music; but the future historian of the divine art will be obliged to record the fact that toward the end of the nineteenth century some genius invented the Patti farewell, which grew so in popular favor that in the course of a few years it came to be a great public festival.”44 This sense of amusement, however, was replaced frequently by serious disdain for her singing and, more broadly, for the fact that these tours were taking place at all. Aldrich was one of the most vocal in this respect, detecting fraud in “farewell” performances as early as 1893; he was appalled by the large sums of money Patti acquired on these tours, arguing that she succeeded only by means of her past reputation and not through her current artistry. In his opinion, the “farewell” tours were simply schemes to “exploit the curiosity of the younger generation and the fond memories of the older.”45 Patti’s voice was only a shadow of what it had once been, according to another critic: “Of [the voice’s] old purity, lusciousness, and velvety smoothness, there were sometimes traces, but of its old flexibility, its spontaneous full-throated freedom of utterance, its sustained power, its long, rounded phrasing, its exquisite finish and perfection of vocalization, there were fewer. It sounded like an old voice, with little charm or color.”46 According to this review, spectators at these performances filled the house and managed to applaud loudly, but true enthusiasm was conspicuously lacking—many perceived the endeavor as maudlin. Patti’s biographers are forthright when describing her 1903–1904 tour. Cone in particular takes careful account of the negative sentiments aimed at Patti’s voice in the press, acknowledging that her voice was failing in spite of extreme attempts at preservation.47 Even in these mostly honest assessments of Patti’s final years, however, the authors subtly evade touchy matters, a tendency illustrated in the discussion surrounding a ballad she performed, “The Last Farewell.” Of the music Patti sang during this final tour, “The Last Farewell,” newly composed by the American songwriter Charles K. Harris (1865/7?–1930), was the only song that was not one of her standard warhorses—it was intended as a respectful nod to the American public, showcasing a “local” composer. The manager of the tour, Robert Grau, commissioned Harris—whose earlier ballad, “After the Ball,” had sold a record five million copies, making him one of the most popular (and richest) American songwriters of the time—to write the piece. “The Last Farewell” consists of two verses and a refrain, for which Harris also wrote the text (six four-line stanzas in all: two for each verse and two for the refrain). This poetry contains numerous self-conscious gestures, some of which must have engendered chuckling among Patti’s spectators. Reference to this tour as her “final” farewell, for instance, might have sounded disingenuous in light of how many farewells she had already presented (“So fare thee well, old home, farewell forever / Goodbye old friends, we’ll never meet again”). Harris also alludes to Patti’s past glories throughout the piece: at the end of the first stanza he includes the phrase “Home, sweet home,” referring to the ballad of the same name by Sir Henry Bishop, which Patti sang regularly throughout her career in concert and

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Example 11.1. Charles K. Harris, ‘The Last Farewell,’ mm. 5–8. during operatic performances.48 The first stanza of the second verse, moreover, draws an intimate connection between the soprano and the United States, where she spent her childhood and made her first stage appearances: It seems so sweet once more to meet, To know and feel your love is real, And here tonight, with faces bright, Your hearts have shown, I’m welcome home. As is evident from these brief excerpts, the poetry of the song relies on standard clichés and trite imagery (ringing church bells, singing birds, and so on). Harris’s musical setting is not much more profound. “The Last Farewell” opens with a four-bar piano introduction; each verse consists of sixteen measures divided equally into four-bar phrases, and the refrain is composed of sixteen measures, also divided evenly into four-bar phrases. The monotony that results from this structural repetitiveness is heightened by a somewhat bland harmonic palate. The most interesting harmonic moves are tonicizations of the submediant, as in measures 5–6 (see example 11.1), although they disappear once the refrain arrives. Harris relies, moreover, on uniform melodic and rhythmic gestures throughout the piece. The first four measures of the vocal line, for example, are dominated by the three-eighth-note pickup B, A-sharp, B, which leads each time to a different pitch on the downbeat. Although this pattern is broken in measure 11, the rhythm remains the same throughout the entire verse (three eighth notes followed by a half note tied to an eighth). New York critics were quick to ridicule “The Last Farewell.” Aldrich described it as “an unspeakably vulgar sentimental song, fitted for the artistic plane of the vaudeville stage,”49 and although W. J. Henderson did not mention Harris’s piece by name, he may have been referring to it when he wrote that “[s]he [Patti] . . . deliberately pandered to low tastes and cultivated cheap sensationalism. Her singing of parlor ballads, which genuine artists avoid, is a piece of

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cheap clap-trap.”50 The composer took this criticism to heart and sent a defensive response to the Times, vehemently protesting Aldrich’s characterization of the piece as “vulgar” and insisting that “out of respect to Mme’ Patti,” readers of the Times needed to reconsider the merits of “The Last Farewell.”51 Harris’s reaction is interesting, not because he felt compelled to defend his ballad but rather because he did so by forming a direct connection between song and singer, as if condemning “The Last Farewell” necessarily implicated Adelina Patti in the music’s “crime” (something Aldrich did not do). After her final tour concluded, Patti quit performing Harris’s ballad, but the tendency to inbricate singer and song, as well as attempts to “set the record straight” on why she sang it and how she felt about it, lingered for years. In his memoirs, Grau tells his side of the story “[i]n justice to her honored name and great fame,” maintaining that he was under no obligation to vindicate her but that his explanation would do so anyway. He claims that when Patti signed a contract with him, in which she agreed to perform one newly written ballad, Harris insisted on composing it. According to Grau, moreover, once completed he presented “The Last Farewell” to the singer, who promptly rejected it, “found [it] wanting as to words and music.” She ultimately decided to sing it only because Harris had agreed to revise it and because Grau begged her to do it, fearing hurt feelings on the composer’s part.52 Not surprisingly, Harris tells the story quite differently in his own memoirs: he maintains that Grau approached him to commission the piece, that Patti loved it upon first hearing, and that spectators were speechless and teary-eyed whenever they heard it.53 It is significant that in Grau and Harris’s attempt to vindicate Patti, they never discuss the music itself but instead justify their statements based exclusively on what they claim her opinion was. These rhetorical moves and denials of true intention are part and parcel of what Catherine Clément refers to as the “false love and suffocating tenderness” imposed on the prima donna by many of her “fans,” forcing her to carry the brunt of fantasies that are not of her own making and that ultimately can smudge or damage her reputation.54 By centering their narratives on Patti’s approval, it might seem as though Harris and Grau were empowering her, allowing her to voice her views. In fact, their strategies were founded on a ventriloquizing effect that whisks away the soprano’s voice in favor of her chroniclers’ voices and forces her to shoulder a burden that is in no way her own. Recognizing such actions is helpful, for it is only when we allow the diva to speak for herself in matters such as these that the biographical record might be set straight.

Epilogue To many ears, Adelina Patti was perfect, and it goes without saying that she certainly was extraordinary. Perfection, however, can be a very limiting concept: if convinced that his or her subject is flawless, the biographer has little choice but

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to reiterate the worshipful myths that hover incessantly around her, avoiding mention of anything that on the surface appears potentially damaging and, by extension, potentially enlightening. Some might argue that by shying away from negative aspects of a diva’s life, her chroniclers are acting nobly, avoiding the gossipmongering and nasty battering to which these women are so often subjected. However, as I hope to have demonstrated, these techniques of evasion can have a detrimental effect as well, obscuring interesting and important components of her career. Biographers need not fear the less savory aspects of a diva’s career, for if handled thoughtfully they will not shatter her image but instead will reveal fascinating information pertaining to her reception, to the people with whom she worked, and to the wider musical culture in which she performed. In her own day, Patti was able to maintain her fabulous reputation and unparalleled popularity, even though the press and others occasionally waved negative sentiments in her direction. We owe it to her today to demonstrate that her image is still as durable as it was then.

Notes 1. Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat (New York: Poseidon, 1993), 21. 2. The expression “She came, she sang, she conquered” was repeated many times by Patti’s biographers and others who wrote about her. See, for instance, Luigi Arditi, My Reminiscences, ed. M. A. Zedlitz (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1896), 74; Herman Klein, The Reign of Patti (New York: Century, 1920), 86. 3. John Frederick Cone, Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts (Portland, OR: Amadeus, 1993) and Klein’s The Reign of Patti are the two full-length biographies. Shorter sketches include Jack Belsom, “En Route to Stardom: Adelina Patti at the French Opera House, New Orleans, 1860–1861,” Opera Quarterly 10 (1994): 113–30; G. M. Dalmazzo, Adelina Patti’s Life and Her Appearances at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden (London: Cooper Bros. and Atwood, Milton Press, 1877); H. Sutherland Edwards, “Adelina Patti,” in The Prima Donna: Her History and Surroundings from the Seventeenth Century to the Nineteenth Century (1888; reprint New York: Da Capo, 1978), 2: 64–124; Eduard Hanslick, “Adelina Patti,” in Hanslick’s Musical Criticisms, trans. Henry Pleasants (New York: Dover, 1978), 167–83; Michael Mortier, Biographical Sketch of Madame Adelina Patti (New York: Steinway and Sons, 1881). Additionally, anecdotes of Patti are scattered throughout these books and memoirs: Arditi’s My Reminiscences (1896; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1977); John Dizikes, Opera in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); William Kuhe, My Musical Recollections (London: R. Bentley, 1896); James Henry Mapleson, The Mapleson Memoirs, 1848–1888, 2 vols. (London: Remington, 1888); Max Maretzek, Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th-Century America (New York: Dover, 1968); Moritz Strakosch, Souvenirs d’un impresario, 3rd ed. (Paris: Ollendorff, 1887); George P. Upton, Musical Memories (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1908). 4. Cone, Queen of Hearts, xi; Klein, Reign of Patti, 382. 5. Emma Eames, Some Memories and Reflections (New York: D. Appleton, 1927), 36. Other singers who respected Patti’s extraordinary talent, even idolized her, were

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Jenny Lind, Minnie Hauk, Frances Alda, and Nellie Melba. See Stephen A. Willier, “Review: Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts by John Frederick Cone,” Notes 52 (1995): 100. 6. Hanslick, Musical Criticisms, 168. 7. This situation is the corollary of that which Mary Ann Smart describes in “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz,” in En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, eds. Corinne E. Blackmer and Patricia Juliana Smith (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 169–89. Smart demonstrates how scholars cultivate negative images of Stoltz in an effort to discredit the singer. As a result, she has never been given significant credit for her many accomplishments. In her essay, Smart attempts to remedy that situation. 8. Marion Wilson Kimber, “The ‘Suppression’ of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography,” 19th-Century Music 26 (2002): 113–29. 9. At her debut Patti performed two arias, and, according to her biographers, she was an “extraordinary success.” There is some dispute, however, as to which two arias she sang. Cone writes that Patti performed Eckert’s “Echo Song” (one of Lind’s favorites and thus a popular tune in the 1850s) and “I am a Bayadère.” Klein, on the other hand, maintains that she sang “Ah! non giunge” from Bellini’s La sonnambula, as well as Eckert’s song. This confusion likely stems not from carelessness on either Cone’s or Klein’s part but from insufficient source material pertaining to these early concerts—reviews of this performance are difficult to locate, and the ones that do exist lack precise details about the event. 10. Most of this information is gleaned from Thomas G. Kaufman’s chronology of Patti’s career, published as an appendix to Cone, Queen of Hearts, 317–81. 11. Klein, Reign of Patti, 50. 12. Ibid., 50–51. 13. The New York Herald, 25 November 1859, cited in Klein, Reign of Patti, 390. 14. Ibid., 391. 15. In today’s reviews of prodigies, one occasionally comes across this view expressed self-consciously by the prodigy him- or herself. This comment, for example, appears in the biography on Charlotte Church’s official Web page: “It’s true that, because of my age, I don’t have the life experience to sing about things like love and death. But, as I get older, I find I can be a bit more of a narrator, telling the story and conveying the emotion of a song” (“Charlotte Church Official Website,” accessed 4 April 2003 ⬍http://www.charlottechurch.com⬎). 16. Carolyn Abbate explores the uncanny and disturbing effect child prodigies sometimes produce on their spectators. She summarizes the ambivalence they create with this humorous yet frank statement: “[They] make us uncomfortable and we tend to wish they would die or grow up” (In Search of Opera [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001], 198.) Interestingly, at least one of Patti’s early critics voices a sentiment that mirrors Abbate’s. He concludes his review of her appearance at the Lyceum Theater in 1852 with this almost violent comment: “I never see a prodigy of this kind, who is really as interesting as little Patti is, without remembering the young Mozart, and that whom the gods love, die young; or grow old, faded, and forgotten, which is worse” (Dwight’s Journal of Music 1 [22 May 1852]: 53). 17. At least one critic, “Presto” from Dwight’s Journal of Music, believed Patti’s voice needed time to mature as well. In his review of two concerts that occurred in June 1860 he commented: “But we confess to great disappointment in the divine Patti. Her voice is decidedly thin and unsympathetic, and though quite clear in her high notes, very husky at times when singing within the reach of ordinary performers.” As

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disappointed as he is, however, he concludes on a hopeful note: “When increasing years and practice shall give her organ more fullness, and make her execution more perfect; when she comes to conclude that singing a piece faster than anyone else ever sang it, is not necessarily singing it better, we predict for her a position second to no living singer” (Dwight’s Journal of Music 17 [23 June 1860], 103). 18. George Bernard Shaw, London Music in 1888–1889 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1937), 371. Cited in Cone, Queen of Hearts, 130. 19. Klein, Reign of Patti, 69. 20. Dalmazzo, Patti’s Life, 9. 21. Clara Louise Kellogg, Memoirs of an American Prima Donna (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 130. 22. Several passages in Kellogg’s autobiography indicate that she was not particularly fond of her rival. On her first trip to London in 1863, for example, Kellogg writes, “Adelina Patti came to see us at once. I had known her in America when she was singing with her sister and when, if the truth must be told, many people found Carlotta the more satisfactory singer of the two” (ibid., 129), and she refers to Adelina a bit later on as “monstrously sweet” (ibid., 130). 23. Richard Aldrich, “Adelina Patti,” The New-York Times, 5 October 1919. 24. Koestenbaum, Queen’s Throat, 110. 25. Klein, Reign of Patti, 51. 26. Ibid., 40. 27. Aldrich, “Adelina Patti,” The New-York Times, 5 October 1919. 28. Cone, Queen of Hearts, 31. 29. Jeanne Bamberger, “Growing Up Prodigies: The Midlife Crisis,” in Development Approaches to Giftedness and Creativity, ed. David Henry Feldman (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982), 62. 30. “Amusements,” The New-York Times, 29 May 1881. 31. Cone, Queen of Hearts, 138. 32. “Amusements—Mme. Adelina Patti,” The New-York Times, 10 November 1881. 33. Ibid., “Record of Amusements—Musical—The Michigan Sufferors,”17 November 1881. 34. Ibid., 10 November 1881. 35. Mark N. Grant, Maestros of the Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998), 62; Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 88–104. 36. New Yorkers were led to anticipate, and dread, high ticket prices months before Patti arrived, for it was a subject of intense discussion in newspapers. A New-York Times article “Lights of the Drama and Opera,” comments, “Adelina Patti has finally decided to visit America with her own manager, having refused the co-operation of Messrs. D’Oyly Carte, Gunn, and Abbey, who, I learn, offered her £50,000 for 50 concerts. It is reported that she intends to charge $20 a seat, but this statement may be an invention of the enemy” (19 June 1881). 37. Ibid., 13 November 1881. 38. Ibid., 10 November 1881. This is a review of Patti’s first appearance in Steinway Hall on 9 November 1881. In the review of her fourth appearance at the hall, “Mme. Adelina Patti,” the Times critic says: “But the highest praise that may be accorded her should be modified by the undoubted fact that her voice has lost its freshness and is no longer of sweet quality, that she often sings out of tune, that under the disguise

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of a tour de force she attempts to cover up evident vocal difficulties” (24 November 1881). 39. Ibid., “Mme. Adelina Patti,” 10 November 1881. 40. Ibid., “Mme. Patti in Brooklyn,” 29 November 1881. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid., “Mme. Patti in Opera,” 28 February 1882. 43. “Farewell” concerts fall snugly into typical diva lore, not just with Patti’s biography but with those of many others as well. Koestenbaum discusses the over-the-top nature of many “farewell” performances in The Queen’s Throat and includes a commentary on Patti’s final performances by the Wagnerian mezzo-soprano Ernestine SchumannHeink: “I almost wish I hadn’t seen her, because it was at the end of her career. Her singing days were over, and when I saw her there she was at the breaking point” (p. 129). 44. The New York Times, “Amusements—The Patti Festival,” 11 May 1892. 45. Richard Aldrich, Musical Discourse from the New York Times (London: Humphrey Milford, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1928), 259. 46. “Patti’s Reappearance,” The New-York Times, 3 November 1903. To a certain extent, we are able to assess today whether Aldrich and other critics were accurate in their assessments of Patti’s voice in old age, for she was among the first singers to take advantage of recording technology. In 1905 and 1906, she recorded nearly thirty individual numbers that have been reissued by EMI (1973) and Pavilian Records (1988). A few authors have evaluated these recordings, such as J. B. Steane, The Grand Tradition: Seventy Years of Singing on Record (London: Duckworth, 1974) and Michael Scott, The Record of Singing to 1914 (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1977), pointing out a number of faults and problems similar to those indicated by Aldrich (she was unable to hit her highest notes, she often sang flat, and so on). These authors also note, however, that her tone in the middle voice was still “beautiful and distinctive” and that her trills and coloratura in such pieces as Gounod’s “Jewel Song” were unrivaled. For a thorough investigation of Patti’s recordings, including a complete catalog, see William R. Moran, “The Recorded Legacy of Adelina Patti” in Cone, Queen of Hearts, 305–16. See also Cone’s discussion of these recordings, pp. 247–48. 47. Although Klein describes this season as the “ ‘beginning of the end’ of Adelina Patti’s long association with the city of New York,” he also exaggerates more than Cone, concluding that “the impression she left behind was one of astounding juvenility and extraordinary preservation of vocal power in an artist who had been singing in public for well over half-a-century” (Reign of Patti, 356–60); see also Cone, Queen of Hearts, 230–37. 48. During the lesson scene in act 2 of Rossini’s Il barbieri di Siviglia, Patti regularly performed “Home, Sweet Home” and a group of other arias instead of “Contro un cor,” the number Rossini had composed for that moment. 49. “Patti’s Reappearance,” The New-York Times, 3 November 1903. 50. “In the World of Music,” The [New York] Theatre (1903): 320–22. Cited in Cone, Queen of Hearts, 233. 51. “Of Music and Musicians,” The New-York Times, 8 November 1903. 52. Robert Grau, Forty Years Observation of Music and the Drama (New York: Broadway, 1909), 355–57. 53. Charles K. Harris, After the Ball: Forty Years of Melody (New York: Frank Maurice, 1926), 223–30. 54. Catherine Clément, Opera, or the Undoing of Women, trans. Betsy Wing, foreword by Susan McClary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 51.

Chapter Twelve

A Confluence of Moravian Impresarios Max Maretzek, the Strakosches, and the Graus Ruth Henderson

The influx of European musicians to the United States from the 1840s through 1890 was extraordinary. Attracted by competitive salaries and eager audiences, many of whom were recent immigrants, the musicians’ visits were facilitated by the development of rapid transatlantic steamers and the expansion of the American railroad system. New York, as the nation’s chief port and largest city, was uniquely positioned to prosper from this flow of visitors. The visits of most foreign professional musicians were arranged through one of a number of artist managers who became active during the era. Most of the managers or agents were themselves originally visitors, although many remained in America for a number of years, if not permanently. An intriguing common factor is that several of them emigrated from Brno (then Brünn), the capital of Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), at that time a province of the Austrian Empire (see figure 12.1). This chapter explores what might have led them from Brno to artist management in New York and what influence they may have had on one another, on musical life in New York, and, because of that city’s leading role in the arts, thereby on the nation.

The Impresarios and Their Families Moravian impresarios in New York in the mid-nineteenth century were particularly active in opera management. Italian opera had made its New York debut in 1825 but failed to achieve any degree of economic success until midcentury.

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Figure 12.1a. Map of the Austrian Empire, 1848, from R. John Rath, The Viennese Revolution of 1848 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1957).

The Moravians came from three families: the Maretzeks, the Strakosches, and the Graus. The Maretzeks and Strakosches were most active during the third quarter of the century, whereas the Graus achieved greater prominence later (see appendix 12.1). Maximilian Maretzek (see plate 12.1) arrived in New York in September 1848 at age twenty-seven to assume the post of music director for the second season of the Astor Place Opera House. He had been engaged by Edward Plunket Fry (1815–1889), brother of William Henry Fry, after occupying conducting posts in Croatia, Germany, France, and, most recently, at Drury Lane Theatre in London. He had studied piano as a boy, but it was only after enrolling first in medical courses and then in law (to please his parents) at the University of Vienna that he turned to music as a profession, learning composition under Ignaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried (1776–1841), who had studied piano with Mozart. When the Fry company failed the following spring, Maretzek was awarded the lease and direction of Astor Place.1 He subsequently managed a series of New York–based opera companies under various names—often with overlapping personnel—that toured the eastern United States, Cuba, and Mexico for thirty years, performing Italian opera almost exclusively.

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Figure 12.1b. Czech Republic today (includes Bohemia and Moravia), from National Geographic Communications Division/National Geographic Image Collection. Maretzek wrote two lively books of memoirs: Crotchets and Quavers, published in 1855, and Sharps and Flats, published in 1890.2 A manuscript for a third book, incomplete at his death in 1897, surfaced in 1981; I have edited and prepared it for publication (Further Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th Century America, Harmonie Park Press, 2006). Max Maretzek was the only member of his family to achieve lasting recognition as an impresario, although other members of his family participated in his enterprise: a younger brother, Raphael Jr., assisted with business aspects, and his brother Albert (former stage manager at Drury Lane) sometimes managed divisions of the company on tour, as well as independent companies of his own. Max’s wife, Apollonia Bertucca (1819–1909), while not involved in management, was a professional harpist and singer. She sang the first Gilda in New York for the 1855 U.S. premiere of Rigoletto and was a teacher of the American soprano Lillian Nordica (1857–1914). Maurice Strakosch (see plate 12.2), son of a liquor distiller in Gross-Seelowitz (now Zidlochovice) near Brno, arrived in New York at age twenty-three, a few months earlier than his cousin Maretzek. He was a virtuoso pianist and had traveled extensively throughout Germany after making his debut in Brno at age

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Plate 12.1. Max Maretzek, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 12.2. Maurice Strakosch, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

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eleven. He studied composition in Vienna under Bohemian theorist and composer Simon Sechter (1788–1867). To advance his aspirations for an operatic career, he accepted a position as a tenor in Zagreb, where Maretzek had conducted before coming to the United States. When his salary was cut, he applied to study voice with Giuditta Pasta (1797–1865), then in retirement at her home on Lake Como. She instead encouraged him to observe her teaching other students, an offer he accepted. He made his New York debut as a pianist on 10 June 1848 and also earned his living as a composer and owner of a piano store.3 His joint purchase of a Maryland lottery ticket in 1852 yielded a $24,940 prize, which must have provided a welcome boost to his career and perhaps contributed to the opening of his piano store.4 Maretzek’s company presented the premiere of Strakosch’s only known opera, Giovanni Prima di Napoli, in January 1851.5 By 1856, Strakosch had become a major rival in opera management of both Maretzek and Bernard Ullman (1817–1885), a Hungarian who had begun his career as a New York impresario in 1846. The three were highly competitive during Strakosch’s remaining years in New York. Strakosch, married to mezzosoprano Amalia Patti (1831–1915), managed and coached the early career (1860–1868) of his young sister-in-law, Adelina Patti, whose remarkable coloratura soprano voice would propel her to international renown (see chapter 11). The Maurice Strakosch family moved to Europe in 1861, together with the Pattis, where Maurice lived for the rest of his life. (His parents and several siblings still lived in Moravia.) He often worked in management with his son Robert and his brother Ferdinand, both in Paris.6 His nephew Edgar was a manager of the Baltimore Music Hall and was later associated with Maurice Grau at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.7 Maurice Strakosch published his memoirs, Souvenirs d’un Impresario, in 1887, the year of his death. Strakosch provided financial assistance for his younger brother Max to come to New York at age eighteen in 1853 (rather than devote eight years of his life to the Austrian Army).8 Although not trained as a musician, Max became an agent for Maurice four years later. The two brothers continued to collaborate after Maurice’s return to Europe. Max organized his first Italian opera company in 1865 and managed most of Gottschalk’s American tours, as well as U.S. appearances of Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson, from 1870 to 1874.9 The Strakosches also managed American soprano Clara Louise Kellogg, who married their nephew Karl Strakosch, her manager from the mid-1880s on. Jacob Grau (see plate 12.3), the first in a family of impresarios, came to the United States from Brno in 1847 at age thirty-one. He was not a musician and had trained for the medical profession but had been attracted to the theater early in life. His brother Herman was active in New York as an impresario of German opera from 1868 to 1895, and Herman’s sons, Jules and Matt, later managed an English comic opera company from 1882 to 1903. It was Jacob’s nephew Maurice Grau, however, who had the most distinguished management career of anyone in the family. His parents brought him to New York (where they

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Plate 12.3. Jacob Grau, Dramatic Museum Archives, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

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ran a boardinghouse) from Brno in 1854 at age five.10 He graduated from City College of New York (then called the Free Academy) and dropped out of Columbia Law School to enter artist management. Maurice was an important figure during the early years of the Metropolitan Opera (1896–1903); Luigi Arditi described Maurice in his memoirs as the “cleverest of entrepreneurs.”11 Maurice Grau was one of the first American opera managers to retire with a significant personal estate. His brother Robert, who was associated with him, subsequently managed tours for operatic stars and eventually became a writer.12 Both Maurice Strakosch and Jacob Grau were more active as agents than as impresarios. Agents served as intermediaries between artists and impresarios or supervisory bodies, providing artists to management and negotiating contracts for artists. The sale of musical instruments was often combined with being an agent; for example, as noted earlier, Strakosch sold pianos. While an impresario was usually better compensated, the number of agents swelled by the second half of the nineteenth century, and as the century passed their commission increased, growing from 5 or 6 percent of the soloist’s fee to 8 or even 10 percent.13

The Road to Artist Management In addition to emigrating from the same area of Moravia, all three families were of Jewish descent. The Jewish community in Moravia, while small, was larger than its counterpart in Bohemia. Six to eight medium-sized Jewish centers existed in various Moravian cities, whereas in Bohemia they were located only in Prague. Most Moravian Jews spoke German and had stronger ties to Vienna, the nearest large city, than to Prague. The Moravian Jewish community evinced strong ethnic unity, which was greater than that of most German Jews. In the eighteenth century many Moravian Jews had left their country as a result of restrictions enacted by various Austrian monarchs. Charles VI (1711–1740) circumscribed the boundaries within which Jews were allowed to live and imposed a family law restricting marriage to just one son. Maria Theresa (1740–1780) contemplated expulsion, although she eventually relented, implementing harsh legal and economic restrictions instead. Joseph II (1780–1790) increased the number of Jewish families permitted in the country from 5,106 to 5,400, but Francis I (1804–1835) increased sanctions against Jews. Moravia had no university, a deficiency that encouraged the more prosperous Jews to emigrate—usually to Vienna, the city where Maretzek and Strakosch had pursued their university studies.14 By 1848, revolutions were causing convulsions throughout Europe, making settlement in Vienna or elsewhere in Europe undesirable. In Moravia, reforms ensuing from the 1848 insurgence led to the abolition of most restrictions against Jews and to full legal emancipation in 1867. Evidence documenting why members of these three Jewish families were drawn from Brno (or nearby) to New York is meager. Jacob Grau reportedly

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relinquished his medical career because of ill health and came to the United States because of “political complications in his country.”15 After completing his university education, Maretzek lived in Brno only for about six months, long enough to oversee the production of his opera, Hamlet, before moving on to conducting posts of similar duration in Pressburg (now Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic), Bamberg, and Nuremberg, where the opera was also produced. To fulfill his ambitions for a more cosmopolitan experience, he moved to Paris and later London (1844). A glimpse at the options elected by compatriots of Maretzek, Strakosch, and Grau may offer insight into factors that influenced them as well. Young Jewish Moravians who emigrated to the United States sought a better life, free of the restrictions that had limited opportunity in Europe. Land was inexpensive, and the proliferation of steamships made transatlantic travel quick and affordable. Once settled in the United States, they often sent for other family members to join them. The chief occupation of Jews in nineteenth-century Moravia had been door-to-door peddling; opening a shop was the next rung up the economic ladder. Since peddlers and middlemen were in demand in the New World, the vast majority of German-speaking Jewish immigrants at midcentury became peddlers, later moving on to storekeeping. They soon dominated the clothing industry and related mercantile occupations. In the Northeast, many worked in local industries or became small entrepreneurs.16 Max Strakosch, for example, after a stint as a shipping clerk while he learned English after his arrival in New York, was sent through a family connection to work in a dry goods house in Wilmington, North Carolina, for two years. It was therefore not unusual that members of these three Brno-based Jewish families should make their way to America; how they all then almost simultaneously entered artist management—a field then atypical for German-speaking Jewish immigrants—is less clear. Moravia had long supported a musical tradition, but opportunities for European Jews to participate in secular music had been limited, both by restrictions imposed from outside the Jewish community and by rabbinical authorities, who disapproved of instrumental and secular vocal music. Later Moravian musicians, many of them Jewish, achieved greater renown as performers than as original or creative artists, perhaps because no structure had been cultivated to nurture their training.17 Maurice Strakosch’s career as pianist and Maretzek’s as conductor were among the first in their generation of Moravians to develop after Jews were granted civil rights, although neither man lived there for any appreciable time after completing university studies in Vienna. A closer examination of the profession of impresario is needed to resolve the puzzle of how these Moravians became so involved in a music-related field not a part of their tradition. The position originated, along with opera, in seventeenthcentury Italy. While no formal requirements existed, impresarios usually came from musical or theatrical families, but unless they were former singers, they

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were unlikely to be musicians themselves. This was true of the Graus. Impresarios frequently pressed members of their immediate families into service, and relatives and succeeding generations were often predisposed to enter the field, as were the Strakosches and the Graus. Many former singers (Strakosch, for example), dancers, and choreographers became impresarios. Instrumentalists and conductors were unlikely to become impresarios, unless drawn into the profession by an association with management that had failed, as Maretzek had been at Astor Place. Strakosch was typical of other Paris impresarios when he moved there in 1861: he was bourgeois, educated, from a professional background, and interested in speculative ventures. His background differed from that of nineteenth-century Italian impresarios, who were more often tradesmen.18 The Moravians’ entry into artist management was therefore a logical (although not a predictable) step for young professionals with earlier training in music or the theater. It was an extension of the commerce system long familiar to them, but the product in trade was music performances rather than mercantile goods.19 This was a profession for which their proficiency in languages and familiarity with European travel and customs undoubtedly served them well, both in recruiting musicians to tour the United States and in facilitating their travel as they toured a country foreign to them. While artist management was not a usual field for Moravian or German-speaking Jews to enter, it no doubt appealed to Maretzek and Maurice Strakosch because it allowed them to work as musicians while applying their knowledge of music to a business venture. The music trade, furthermore, was consistent with the prominence of German-speaking Jews in other areas of commerce. It is still curious, however, that members of three families from the same city (or nearby) should choose to enter the same profession in the same American city at nearly the same time. To reconstruct how this might have happened, we need to look more closely at their personal interaction and the circumstances under which each became an impresario.

New York The first to enter the field in each of the families were Maurice Strakosch, Max Maretzek, and Jacob Grau. Strakosch probably began his career in artist management before the other two men.20 Bertucca sang under his management in Turin during the 1840s before being hired by Maretzek (her future husband), who probably learned of her through Strakosch.21 Managing other musicians would have been a logical career step for Strakosch. He was in Paris in February 1848 when the revolution broke out, and he resolved to make a new beginning in America as an artist manager. He toured the United States for two years with a small company that included Amalia Patti (later his wife); Strakosch served as both virtuoso pianist and tour manager.22 From 1852 through 1854 he again

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toured the United States, this time with Amalia, her sister Adelina, and Ole Bull—a tour Maretzek and his wife joined in October 1854, near its conclusion, after he failed to win the lease on the new Academy of Music.23 In 1855, Strakosch undertook his first venture as an opera impresario, together with his brother Max and Ole Bull, by arranging a short season at the Academy of Music. By 1856 he had organized an opera troupe, which he merged with Bernard Ullman’s company in 1857. They remained partners until 1860. Whereas Maurice Strakosch was the first agent, Maretzek was the first impresario. As noted earlier, he found himself in his new role by default when the Fry company failed at Astor Place and he stepped into the breach. The careers of Maretzek and his cousin were often parallel, and each appears to have influenced the other. Both showed early talent in music, although Strakosch was the more precocious. Both sets of parents opposed their sons’ aspirations to a music career, perhaps because of the Jewish community’s religious sanctions against secular and instrumental music. Both young men left Brno to be educated in Vienna, and while they came to the United States for ostensibly different reasons—Strakosch to escape the revolution of 1848 and Maretzek to accept a job offer—their reasons for not remaining in their country of birth were probably similar. It was Strakosch who conveyed Fry’s offer to Maretzek in London for the music directorship at Astor Place and whetted his appetite for fame and fortune in the United States.24 While the two became rivals at the height of Strakosch’s career as an impresario in New York, they frequently collaborated, and the animosity that sometimes marked Maretzek’s dealings with Ullman does not appear to have existed between them. Their friendship extended beyond professional contact. Maurice and his family lived at the same address as Maretzek’s parents and siblings when his brother Max arrived in 1853, and in the late 1850s Maurice twice lived in the same buildings as Maretzek’s father and brother Albert. Max Strakosch bought a house on Staten Island and lived across the road from the Maretzeks for a short time in the early 1870s.25 During that same decade, Apollonia Maretzek was harpist and Maretzek was musical director for Max Strakosch’s company. Maretzek served as witness for Maurice’s U.S. citizenship naturalization (2 January 1855). Although the Strakosches had left New York in 1861, two photos of Maurice’s daughter, Julia, taken in 1869 and 1870, are inscribed on their versos “to my darling cousin, Marie” (Maretzek’s elder daughter).26 Late in life, Maretzek described Max Strakosch as “a liberal, high-minded, noble fellow, benevolent and charitable, and a successful operatic manager.”27 Strakosch, in turn, in his unpublished memoirs (1888), described Maretzek’s early career in New York: “Max Maretzek was then at the head of the operatic affairs in this country, and a great favorite with the musical public, and most deservedly so. He was young, active, and had had an excellent musical education in his native country (Austria).”28 He earlier had noted that Maretzek engaged the irresponsible Carlo Patti to lead the orchestra at Jim Fisk’s Grand Opera

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House to please him (Max) and his brother Maurice. The careers of the Maretzeks and Strakosches were in fact so closely intertwined that they operated in effect as branches of the same family. The entry of Jacob Grau into artist management is somewhat murkier. It appears that he may have been strongly influenced by the success of Maretzek and Strakosch. Grau was the first to arrive in New York, but if he envisioned a career in artist management, he did not become visible until his name appeared in association with theirs. An 1853–1854 city directory lists a J. Grau at the same East Tenth Street address where Maretzek’s parents and family, as well as the Maurice Strakosches, lived, next door to the Salvatore Pattis.29 Maretzek recalls Grau hawking opera librettos for him outside Castle Garden.30 Maretzek and Strakosch may well have been role models for Grau, and it would have been easy in the close-knit Moravian immigrant community for him to make contacts to advance his career. Grau likely knew Maretzek, and perhaps Strakosch, while growing up in Brno. Maretzek offers this withering appraisal of Grau’s abilities in his newly published volume of memoirs: Mr. Jacob Grau (during my absence in Mexico in 1861 and after the departure of Maurice Strakosch with Adelina Patti for Europe), taking advantage of the situation, united the floating remainders of singers and attempted a few spasmodic operatic enterprises on a smaller scale. Mr. Jacob Grau was more of a speculator than a director, more of a jobber in all kinds of theatricals than a legitimate impresario of opera. The artistic merit of his lyric representations were [sic] not of such importance to his mind as the sale of librettos, the hiring out of opera glasses, the receipts at the bar for refreshments and other perquisites pertaining to the business. The only novelties produced under his management of Italian opera during that time were Verdi’s Ballo in maschera and Meyerbeer’s Pardon de Ploërmel under the name of Dinorah.

He continues to elaborate on the Grau productions of these two operas (with particular attention to the live goat in Dinorah), concluding: The opera [Dinorah], however, was withdrawn in time, for the prima donna Mlle. [Angiolina] Cordier exhibited signs of jealousy against her rival, the goat, and accused Mr. Jacob Grau of undue partiality by starring the goat and overlooking her own merits. The manager, however, regretted to part with his new star, who claimed no salary and could be satiated with unsold admission tickets or with empty tin cans.31

Jacob Grau became a role model, in turn, for other members of his family who later entered the field, as did Maurice Strakosch in inspiring other members of his family to become impresarios. The professional interactions among the three impresarios (particularly in the late 1850s) are an integral part of the historical record for this era, as documented by Lawrence in her three volumes devoted to the diaries of George Templeton Strong and by Maretzek in his three volumes of memoirs. In addition to the rivalry, a number of short-lived

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collaborations and partnerships involving the three existed, as dictated by circumstance. When Maretzek retired in 1874, he sold the music for forty operas and his entire operatic wardrobe to Maurice Grau.32

Influence What, then, was the impact of this trio from Brno on the musical life of the time? Grau’s most important contribution may have been his influence on other members of his family who followed him into artist management. Strakosch was similarly important in founding an important family of impresarios. He also brought many notable European musicians to the United States and presented them not only in urban centers but also in small towns, whose inhabitants would have had few opportunities otherwise to hear professional musicians of that caliber.33 Maretzek introduced numerous European singers to New York audiences, as well as to audiences in other cities where his company appeared, and he was instrumental in making opera affordable to the middle class, not only for the upper stratum of society. He presented the U.S. premieres of at least twenty-two operas, including virtually all of Verdi’s operas written after 1845 except the last three. Maretzek’s special relationship with Verdi is demonstrated by the following account, in which he describes in his third book of memoirs a visit to Verdi preceding his company’s premiere of La forza del destino (1865): Knowing from correspondents how Verdi appreciated my exertions to worthily produce his operas in America, I paid him a visit during one of my travels in Europe and asked him point-blank for the advance sheets of his new opera La Forza del Destino in the hope that it would compare favorably with Trovatore or even surpass it. Of course he refused at first, excusing himself with the obligations of his contract with the Imperial [Bolshoi] Theater in St. Petersburg (which stipulated its first representation) and with his duties towards his publishers, but, at my reiterated solicitations, he yielded so far as to give me as a mark of his friendship . . . [a] letter to his publisher Ricordi in Milan. . . . I showed the letter to Ricordi, but kept the original, which is still in my possession.34 Verdi’s recommendations to Ricordi were considered a command, and, six weeks after its first performance at Petersburg, I had the second copy of La Forza del Destino in New York, in advance of all theaters in Europe. . . . Although in possession of the score, the production of Forza del Destino in New York was retarded by the run of Faust, Ione,35 and Don Sebastian until the following season of 1864–65, when in February [24th] of that year its first representation took place with Madame [Carlotta] Carozzi-Zucchi [soprano, Leonora], Miss [Catarina] Morensi [contralto, Preziosilla],36 Sgrs. [Bernardo] Massimiliani [tenor, Don Alvaro], [Fernando] Bellini [baritone, Don Carlo], [Domenico] Lorini [tenor, Trabuco], and [Agostino] Susini [bass, Padre Guardiano] in the cast and with a brilliant mise-en-scene. Several arias and the camp scene, literally transferred from Schiller’s Wallensteins Lager (the Camp of Wallenstein), won enthusiastic applause, but the expectations for a revival of another Trovatore furor were doomed to disappointment.37

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It is also likely that these Moravian impresarios and their family members played a significant role in attracting later Jewish immigrants from other parts of Europe to the profession. While the field would have been appealing for the reasons noted, it is possible that later aspirants were encouraged by the strong presence already established by these three families with backgrounds similar to theirs. For example, Oscar Hammerstein I (1846–1919), from a Berlin Jewish family, frequently attended performances by Maretzek’s company at the Academy of Music.38 Hammerstein, in turn, influenced Sol Hurok, a Russian Jewish immigrant, in his career choice.39

Conclusion Max Maretzek, Maurice Strakosch, and Maurice Grau were pioneers; they elected to leave Moravia and Europe in search of greater opportunity in the United States, choosing a profession as new to them as they were to the New World. Capitalizing on their musical training (or interest in music and theater, in the case of Grau) and drawn toward a commerce tradition long familiar to them, they stepped in to fill a need, expediting the booking and travel of guest artists to and within the United States and helping to satiate American audiences’ desire for opera. They were assisted in this task by the availability of rapid transatlantic steamship travel and the proliferation of railroads in the United States and Cuba. In addition to influencing members of their families and later Jewish immigrants to become impresarios, these three men played critical roles in increasing the diversity of musical events40 and in presenting European artists and new repertory in New York and throughout the country. Probably influenced by one another in their career choice and sometimes adversarial, they nonetheless established a Moravian dynasty in artist management that has left a lasting impact on musical life in both New York and the rest of the country.

Appendix 12.1 Maretzek, Strakosch, and Grau Families Maretzek

Birth/death dates and profession

Max b. Brno 1821, d. 1897 Staten Island Apollonia (wife) b. France 1819, d. 1909 Staten Island; soprano Marie (daughter) 1850–1948; piano teacher, Staten Island Max Jr. (son) 1853–after 1920; music teacher, New Jersey, California

Arrived in NY September 1848 (age 27) U.S. debut, November 1849 b. New York b. New York

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Appendix 12.1 (continued) Maretzek

Birth/death dates and profession

1866–after 1930; voice teacher, California Antoinette (daughter) 1860–1952; not professionally active in music Albert (brother) b. Brno, d. 1863 Santiago de Cuba Raphael Jr. (brother) Assisted with business aspects Leontine (sister) Not professionally active in music Rosa (sister) Married Ignazio Marini, Italian bass, 20 September 1851 Sophie (sister) Married Geremia Bettini, Italian tenor, 27 April 1852

Arrived in NY

Marguerite (wife)

Strakosch Maurice Amalia (wife) Robert (son) Julia (daugher) Max (brother) Max Jr. (son) Guila (daughter) Maria (daughter) Hannah (daughter) Ferdinand (brother) Siegfried (son) Karl (son) Phoebe (daughter)

Minna (daughter)

b. Zidlochovice 1825, d. 1887 Paris 1831–1915; mezzo-soprano Manager, Paris Not professionally active in music b. Zidlochovice 1835, d. 1892 New York Not professionally active in music Not professionally active in music Not professionally active in music Not professionally active in music b. Zidlochovice 1823? manager, Paris Long Island farmer Manager, Paris Singer, English Opera Co., Metropolitan Opera House (her uncle Max managed co. 1877–80) Not professionally active in music

b. New York

Before 10 June 1848 (age 23)

1853 (age 18)

U.S. debut, Jan. 1900

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Appendix 12.1 (continued) Strakosch Julia (daughter) Lena (daughter) Ignace (brother) Karl (son)

Sigismund (brother) Edgar (son)

Grau Jacob Herman (brother) Jules (son)

Matt (son) Emmanuel (brother) Maurice (son) Robert (son)

Birth/death dates and profession

Arrived in NY

Not professionally active in music Not professionally active in music Not professionally active in music b. ca. 1859, d. 1916 Hartford (married Clara Louise Kellogg) Not professionally active in music Manager, Baltimore Music Hall; associated with Maurice Grau at Metropolitan Opera, New York b. Brno 1817, d. 1877 New York Impresario of German opera, 1868–1895 d. 1905; managed English comic opera, 1882–1903 Managed English comic opera, 1882–1903 Not professionally active in music b. Brno 1849, d. 1907 Paris, opera manager b. 1858, d. 1916 Mt. Vernon, New York, manager, writer

1847 (age 31)

1854 (age 5) (born in New York)

Notes 1. Maretzek vividly recalls the difficulties that beset the Fry company in his first letter (addressed to Berlioz) in Crotchets and Quavers (Revelations of an Opera Manager) (New York: Dover, 1968). The search committee informed him that he was the successful candidate for manager on the morning following the devastating Astor Place riot, in which twenty-three people had been killed. 2. Crotchets and Quavers was reissued by Da Capo in 1966, and the two books were reissued together by Dover in 1968 under the subtitle of the first book, Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th-Century America, with an introduction by Charles Haywood.

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3. William Brooks, “Strakosch, Maurice,” The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 1992), 4: 559; Maurice Strakosch, “Strakosch and Patti,” The Musical Courier 41, no. 17 (24 October 1900): 26; Laurence Marton Lerner, “The Rise of the Impresario: Bernard Ullman and the Transformation of Musical Culture in Nineteenth Century America” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1970), 38. 4. The New-York Daily Times, 5 October 1852, 1. He may have invested a part of his bonanza in a parcel of land he purchased while on tour with Teresa Parodi in Chicago in 1852 (Lawrence, Reverberations, 744). 5. Katherine K. Preston, Opera on the Road: Traveling Opera Troupes in the United States, 1825–60 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 174, 185–88. 6. Brooks, “Strakosch,” 560. Ferdinand’s daughter Phoebe made her American debut as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust at the Metropolitan Opera (1 October 1900). Her aunt, Carlotta Patti, had instructed her in singing as a child (The New York Times, 17 September 1900, 7). 7. Strakosch, “Strakosch and Patti,” 26. 8. Max Strakosch arrived (September 1853) on the same steamer, the Washington, as Max Maretzek had in September 1848. Max Strakosch, unpublished memoirs, 1. 9. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Notes of a Pianist (New York: Knopf, 1964), 43; Lerner, “Rise of the Impresario,” 123. 10. Henry Edward Krehbiel, Chapters of Opera (New York: Henry Holt, 1908), 278. 11. Luigi Arditi, My Reminiscences (1896; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1977), 282. 12. Robert Grau, Forty Years Observation of Music and the Drama (New York: Broadway Publishing, 1909), 178–79, 275–77; Krehbiel, Chapters, 58; Karen Ahlquist, “Grau, Maurice,” American National Biography (New York: Oxford, 1999), 9: 433; The New York Times, 10 August 1916, 18. 13. John Roselli, “Impresario,” The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 1992), 2: 789; Roselli, The Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi: The Role of the Impresario (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 138–39, 142–43. 14. Meir Lamed, “Moravia,” Encyclopedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 12: 300, 302–3; Wilma Abeles Iggers, ed., The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: A Historical Reader (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), 18–19, 57; Gotthard Deutsch, “Moravia,” The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1905), 8: 684. 15. The New York Times, 17 December 1877, 8. 16. Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 103–4, 106; Ruth Kestenberg-Gladstein, “The Jews Between Czechs and Germans in the Historic Lands, 1848–1918,” in The Jews of Czechoslovakia: Historical Studies and Surveys, ed. Avigdor Dagan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968), 1: 38; Jeffrey S. Gurock, Central European Jews in America, 1840–1880: Migration and Advancement (New York: Routledge, 1998), xiii, xv. 17. Paul Nettl, “Music,” in The Jews of Czechoslovakia: Historical Studies and Surveys, ed. Avigdor Dagan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968), 1: 539–40; Alexander Knapp, “Jewish Music: Emancipation to World War II,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (New York: Grove, 2001), 13: 93. 18. Roselli, The Opera Industry in Italy, 17, 19, 22–23. 19. The Moravian impresarios worked almost exclusively in music, although both Jacob and Maurice Grau also managed theater. Maretzek engaged Fanny Janauschek,

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a German tradgedienne, to alternate nights with his opera company at the New York Academy of Music in 1867 (The New-York Times, 30 September 1867, 5). 20. Although Maretzek’s responsibilities as a musical director at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London during the mid-1840s had included visiting the continent at season’s end and engaging new artists (including Jenny Lind). “Max Maretzek,” unidentified New York publication, probably fall 1849. 21. Ida Howard, “A Prima Donna of the Old Days,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1 February 1903, 8. 22. Strakosch was apparently mistaken when he recalled in his memoirs forty years later that the troupe had included Teresa Parodi, a pupil of Pasta (Souvenirs, 10). Maretzek first brought her to the United States amid much fanfare in the fall of 1850, as he recalls in Revelations of an Opera Manager (Crotchets and Quavers), 123–27. Following her engagement with Maretzek, she toured the eastern United States and Havana with Strakosch and a concert troupe. 23. Lawrence, Reverberations, 580. 24. “Max Maretzek,” unidentified New York publication, probably fall 1849. 25. Maretzek’s parents, Raphael and Anna, had lived at 168 East Tenth Street, next door to the Salvatore Patti family, when they first came to New York. City directories for 1857 list them, as well as Albert Maretzek and Maurice Strakosch, at 202 Ninth Ave., a five-story building still extant. Maurice Strakosch’s application for United States citizenship (2 January 1855) lists his address as 200 Ninth Ave., the same as Raphael Maretzek’s in the 1854–1855 Rode’s City Directory. 26. The photos are dated 4 May 1869, taken in Paris, and 31 August 1870 (Lineback Collection, New York Philharmonic Archives). 27. “Max’s Memories,” American Art Journal 59 (1892): 94. 28. Max Strakosch, unpublished memoirs: “Fragments,” 2. 29. 168 E. 10th St. (Rode’s City Directory, 1853–1854). 30. Maretzek, Revelations, 70. 31. Max Maretzek, Further Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th Century America: The Third Book of Memoirs (Sterling Heights, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2006), 49–50, 52. 32. The Spirit of the Times, New York, 27 June 1874. 33. Lerner, “Impresario,” 38. 34. The autograph manuscript of this letter does not appear to have survived. 35. Errico Petrella’s Ione (Jone, or The Last Days of Pompeii), which Maretzek had produced in Havana, was premiered in the United States by his company at the New York Academy of Music on 6 April 1863; it was the highlight of the spring season. 36. Pseudonym for American singer Kate Duckworth. 37. Maretzek, Further Revelations, 79–82. Amati Dubreuil, baritone, sang the role of Fra Melitone. While the critics applauded the opera and its production, it did not prove popular with the public. It received only seven performances at the Academy of Music in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn. 38. John Frederick Cone, Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 5. 39. Harlow Robinson, The Last Impresario (New York: Viking, 1994), 26. 40. Their competitiveness frequently resulted in performances or seasons by more than one opera company in New York at the same time. Jacob Grau also managed nonsingers, such as Thalberg, Gottschalk, Rubinstein, Bull, Wieniawski, and Adelaide Ristori (La Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris 45 [13 January 1878]: 15).

Chapter Thirteen

An Opera for Every Taste The New York Scene, 1862–1869 John Graziano

New York City in the mid-nineteenth century was a major metropolis that, in terms of opera, easily equaled the largest cities in England and on the European continent. With a population of more than 800,000, of which about 40 percent were immigrants, the city was more multicultural than most of its counterparts across the ocean. That ethnic diversity was reflected in many of its cultural offerings; in opera, for example, New Yorkers could hear Auber’s Fra Diavolo or Gounod’s Faust in German or Italian or, in the case of Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, in addition to those languages, in English as well. Between 1862 and 1869, more than a thousand performances of opera took place in the city. Of the more than one hundred operas performed, thirty-eight were “current” works; that is, they had received a world premiere in 1855 or later. Certain operas were clearly audience favorites. Fourteen—including the current international hits, Gounod’s Faust and Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera—were heard every season or every season but one. An additional fifteen operas, including eight that were recent, received more than ten performances, although they were not presented every year. During the early 1860s, even though the Civil War was being fought, Gothamites could expect to attend between forty and fifty different operas each season. Only the ferocity of the war reduced the number of performances given during the 1864–1865 season. Three composers’ works dominate the list of works seen by metropolitan audiences: Donizetti, with twelve operas; Verdi, with ten; and Offenbach, with at least seventeen! The works of several composers famous in the nineteenth century but unknown today are also represented: Petrella’s Ione, Cagnoni’s Don Bucefalo, and the Ricci brothers’ Crispino e la comare. English operas heard include Sir Julius Benedict’s Lily of Killarney, William Vincent Wallace’s Maritana and Lurline,

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and Michael Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl and The Rose of Castille. Comic operas by resident composers include Julius Eichberg’s The Doctor of Alcantara and The Two Cadis, both of which were well received; and Robert Stoepel’s Gamea, or the Jewish Mother and Edward Mollenhauer’s The Corsican Bride, which did not garner acclaim. Taken in its entirety, this list is impressive in its variety and inclusiveness. (See appendix 13.1 for a list of the operas performed during these seven seasons.) Although I have not yet had the opportunity to compare the yearly offerings in New York City with those of large European cities, I believe, on the basis of anecdotal evidence, that the residents of America’s largest city were justified in depicting it as an international center of culture, with all the greatness that designation implies.1 Opera “seasons” were presented by several impresarios each year. The venues included large and medium-sized theaters leased by each impresario for the duration of his offering. Although cultural events in New York City during the 1860s were as diverse as those in any other metropolis—including symphonic and chamber music concerts, theater, minstrel shows, and performances by visitors from across the ocean—the great passion of the public and the critics was clearly focused on opera. A six-week gap in performances was seen as a cultural calamity. In December 1865, the Times critic bemoaned, at the end of Maretzek’s fall season in the middle of the month, that the city would be without opera until February.2

Maretzek’s Italian Opera During much of this period, Max Maretzek was the impresario to be reckoned with. He traveled to Europe every few years and brought back the newest singing sensations as well as established stars. As the Times noted in 1864, “He, of all the New-York managers, is the first in the field.”3 For the 1865–1866 season he had secured the services of eight Italian singers, including the sopranos Carlotta Carozzi-Zucchi (1831–1898) and Elvira Brambilla (?–?). Carozzi-Zucchi was much in demand in Europe, and Maretzek had to woo her to America by offering a huge salary—$2,500 a month in gold—which the Times noted was equal on 2 August 1864 to $6,475. Brambilla, who was less well-known but may have been a member of the famous family of Italian singers that flourished during the nineteenth century, had settled for $4,150.4 In addition to the large salaries the soloists required, Maretzek had to keep in mind his other costs, which included the hall rental and municipal and federal taxes. In 1864 there was a city license of $500; a 2 percent federal tax on gross receipts; state, county, and city taxes on the capital invested in his business; and an income tax on profits, assuming there were some.5 But singers alone did not ensure a successful season: similar to the current practice, an impresario had to offer his audiences a mixture of opera novelties

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and standard works. Because the Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street was huge—with 4,600 seats before its renovation—filling it with patrons was a major concern for any entrepreneur who wished to make a profit. The season did not usually begin before the end of September because “opera being for a more select class, has to wait until the class returns from the watering-places, the hilltops, and the pleasant vallies [sic].”6 Yet the impresario could not depend only on that select class—his subscribers—for patronage: “In New-York opera has become a necessity of every class. . . . When MR. MARETZEK commences a season, he scarcely considers the subscription list except for the convenience of the habitués. He looks to the amphitheatre, the family circle, the lobbies where ‘standing room only’ is the modest requirement, and there he reads the verdict of the town.”7 Filling his house, then, depended on the attendance of out-oftown visitors and city residents—both foreign and native-born—of all classes. Indeed, a mix of classes at a performance was vital to its success. While the critics’ opinions may have had some influence over audiences, the “buzz”—word of mouth—appears to have been as important a source for whether an audience materialized for a series of performances. An example of audience and critic reception of two operas—Verdi’s La forza del destino and Meyerbeer’s L’africaine— demonstrates the problem an impresario could face. On 24 February 1865, after a delay of more than a year, Maretzek produced Verdi’s La forza del destino (see chapter 12). His was the fourth production worldwide, coming after the double premiere in St. Petersburg and Rome and a later one in Madrid.8 The New York critics were very positive. The critic for the Herald said it was Verdi’s best opera; the “rousing rataplan by Preziosilla, and the chorus . . . was enthusiastically encored. The duo of Alvaro and Carlos in this [third] act is delicious, and was very well sung.”9 The Evening Post’s critic noted that [the opera] resembles the “Ballo in Maschera” more than his other operas. . . . [I]t is in his later style. At the same time it does not contain as many salient melodies, nor has it any of those melodic trios or quartets in which Verdi is usually so successful. The composer seems rather to depend upon grandiose effects, dramatic situation and elaborate harmonies of the Meyerbeer school, and those who are fond of this, the modern school of music, will at once acknowledge “La Forza” to be the most scholarly of Verdi’s operas. . . . In the third act there is a delicious solo for the clarinet, preluding a romanza in A flat for the tenor. . . . The fourth act opens with an amusing buffa scena. . . . A magnificent duet for tenor and baritone—perhaps the gem of the opera— follows. Then comes a noble dramatic scena for soprano, and a death scene in Verdi’s best manner. . . . It is a thoroughly grand opera, and was produced last night in a thoroughly grand style.10

After a brief description of the libretto, Charles Bailey Seymour in the Times opined that Forza was “an opera of fine proportions, not overcharged with tunes but filled with broad, masterly effects, and far better, we think, than any late work from his pen. . . . The second act is important, alike in length and in merit.

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The scenes are contrasted with rare skill, and VERDI exhibits very thoroughly his ability to write church music.” After extolling the opera’s many strengths, he concluded that “[f]eeling and versatility, with frequent occurrence of great dramatic intensity, are the characteristics of ‘La Forza,’ and will distinguish it from other and less meritorious works by the same composer.”11 Two days later, before the second performance, Seymour returned to his discussion of Forza: The work was received with unquestionable favor. . . . The critics are unanimous on the subject of its merits. . . . [W]e have no hesitation in predicting that it will take its place for many years to come as one of the best standard operas. . . . There is a strong degree of coherence about “La Forza del Destino.” . . . The melodies are reticent, not blatant; they are vitally connected with the orchestral tissue, not trumpery excrescences that may be cut at pleasure. The ensembles are dramatic, and occur naturally, not artificially, at the end of each act. In short, the work exhibits the ripened knowledge of a master— the careful intention of one who knows what he is about, and the indispensable charm of a natural melodist. . . . When familiarity has brought acceptance, we are quite certain that “La Forza” will be accepted as the great work of its composer.12

Audiences came for eight performances, but attendance dropped off sufficiently that Maretzek did not offer Forza again through the 1868–1869 season. Clearly, the critics’ enthusiasm did not rub off on the public. Perhaps the plot of Verdi’s first version was too tragic, with everyone dead at the end of the opera. Or perhaps the lack of “blatant” melodies contributed to its failure. One might also speculate that audiences stayed away because, as several critics noted, Forza was an opera of the modern school, influenced by Meyerbeer’s style of composition. But this last idea could not be further from the truth. During the 1864–1865 season, no fewer than four Meyerbeer operas were performed, including L’étoile du nord, which had not been heard in ten years in the city. As one of the major events of the fall 1865–1866 season, his last opera, L’africaine, premiered in Paris only eight months earlier (on 28 April), was receiving its first American performance in an Italian translation. In a two-column review, the Times reported on how “the audience of overwhelming proportions . . . manifested itself by frequent bursts of applause, and during the entr-actes expressed its appreciation in unmistakeable [sic] terms. The first nights of MEYERBEER’S operas have rarely been demonstrative. The music has never been of the sort that could be swallowed at a gulp. It requires many auditions before its beauties are perceived or become impressed on the memory. . . . The ‘African’ has fallen on better times. Its acceptance was immediate and positive.”13 Maretzek had assembled a stellar cast, which the critics acknowledged. But in spite of the fine performance—preceded by five general rehearsals—and the audience’s enthusiasm, the critics were not totally satisfied with Meyerbeer as a composer. During the previous season, the Times critic had assessed him negatively: “It was knowledge that made MEYERBEER, not inspiration.”14 Now, in his discussion of L’africaine, Seymour noted: “All the music allotted to [Inez] is

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exquisitely wrought, but it sometimes lacks inspiration.”15 Yet audiences of all classes came: “The ‘African’ on Saturday night [the second performance] attracted another splendid house—different in its elements . . . to the ordinary audiences, for Saturday has not yet been taken into the good graces of our fashionable theatre-goers.”16 Demand was so great that L’Africana, as it was known to New Yorkers, was performed twenty-three times over a six-month period. Its popularity with audiences was phenomenal. During his fall and spring seasons, Maretzek sold about 100,000 seats for this opera alone, which undoubtedly made him very happy.

Anschütz and German Opera While Maretzek was the most successful opera impresario in New York during this period, he was not without competition from several other entrepreneurs. In the fall of 1862, Carl Anschütz formed a German opera company to cater to the city’s large German population. His ambitious first season, in which he offered more than a hundred performances over a six-month period, was predicated on the presentation of standard operas of the time that would not compete with those given by Maretzek. Anschütz did not program recent novelties, concentrating on those operas his core audience, primarily of German descent, would have known prior to their emigration to the United States. Thus, the most important German operas of the 1820s and 1830s—including Weber’s Der Freischütz, Kreutzer’s Das Nachtlager in Granada, and Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann—were scheduled. A few more recent works, such as Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz and Flotow’s Stradella and Martha, were also given. Several favorite French operas—including Adam’s Le postillon de Lonjumeau, Auber’s Fra Diavolo, Mehul’s Joseph, and Boieldieu’s Jean de Paris—were heard in German translation.17 Anschütz’s historical survey included two of Mozart’s German operas, Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Die Zauberflöte, which had not been heard in their complete versions in the city. He also conducted a German translation of Le nozze di Figaro and gave New Yorkers a chance to hear one of the most important German operas—Beethoven’s Fidelio, which received nine performances during the first season. The New York press lauded Anschütz for both the quality of his performances and his programming. Unlike some of Maretzek’s other competitors, who offered many of the same operas as Maretzek, the critics noted that Anschütz was giving New Yorkers a viable alternative to Italian opera by presenting standard works from the German repertory. While his company was successful from a critical standpoint, Anschütz had difficulty financing a six-month season that competed with Maretzek’s shorter seasons, which featured more contemporary operas from Italian composers. During the 1862–1863 season, for example, Maretzek introduced Petrella’s Ione, which received its world premiere in 1858, to great acclaim. For Gotham’s elite,

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seeing a recently composed opera was sure evidence that their city was equal to any major European capital. Whether Petrella’s opera was as good or as important as Lortzing’s didn’t matter because the latter’s works were more than twenty years old and did not promote New York as America’s most important up-to-date city. Anschütz had evidently miscalculated the number of performances of older operas New Yorkers were ready to patronize; his brave experiment failed. Had he attempted a shorter season or tried to appeal to a wider audience by offering a mixture of old and more current operas, perhaps he might have succeeded. Although he continued, over the next few seasons, to present some performances of German operas, he was no longer a major provider of opera in the city.

Opéra Bouffe In the fall of 1867, H. L. Bateman, an actor and manager known more for his dramatic than his musical presentations, unwittingly became another of Maretzek’s competitors when he decided to offer Offenbach’s opéra bouffe La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, which was sweeping all of Europe. While some Offenbach, including Orphée aux enfers (in German translation), had been seen in New York, there was no particular audience demand for his other opéra bouffes. For La Grande-Duchesse, Bateman imported most of his singers and the conductor, Lefevre, directly from Paris, and on 24 September the first performance was seen at the French Theatre, which seated 1,600 patrons. Seymour began his review by stating that the large audience had witnessed the “merriest of all” comic operas, a “very naughty mixture of the witty, the ridiculous and the broad.” Offenbach, he opined, was the most eminent talent of the new style, in which music was the chief attraction and dialogue was secondary. He gave the production high marks. He noted that the theater was crowded with French men and women who were able to respond sympathetically to “every gesture, note and sentiment presented . . . with as much appreciation as a Parisian crowd.”18 After declaring the actors below the level of the original Parisian cast, he complimented Mlle. Lucile Tostée and the other leads for “being much above any French artists we have had here.”19 The other critics were very positive as well. Their approval was noted by the critic for New York’s daily French newspaper Le Courrier, who wrote that the Grande-Duchesse was an immense success and that the critics of the Times and Tribune “overflowed with enthusiasm.”20 He continued with an analysis of Offenbach’s musical style, noting that it owed something to Italian opera buffa and French vaudeville but that, in the end, its success was the result of the individuality of an artist on the level of Gounod.21 Describing the first performance as a triumph, he concluded by predicting that the Grande-Duchesse would have a grand career in New York and that within two weeks “every piano between 14th street and Central Park will be playing the tunes.”22 Four days later, on 28 September, a page of sketches of the costumes

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for Bateman’s production was published by Harper’s Weekly (see plate 13.1). Several of the costumes, seen in silhouette, adorned the sheet music selections that appeared shortly thereafter (see plate 13.2). Bateman unexpectedly had a hit on his hands. There were four performances a week, and most were sold out. While Maretzek’s season of Italian operas was in full swing at the Academy of Music, the Grande-Duchesse continued to draw standing-room-only crowds at the French Theatre. In February 1868 the opéra bouffe celebrated its one hundredth performance; it seems New Yorkers still had not tired of “Voici le sabre de mon père” and General Boum. Toward the end of February, Bateman announced that his next offering would be another of Offenbach’s frothy musicals, La belle Hélène, in its American premiere, but the continuing popularity of the Grande-Duchesse forced him to delay it by almost a month. Finally, on 26 March, “an audience as large as could well be packed into the French Theatre” eagerly awaited Offenbach’s latest work. The reviewer for the Post assessed the popularity of opéra bouffe: “A year ago the announcement of the production of one of Offenbach’s operas would not have excited much curiosity. Since then . . . opera bouffe has become almost naturalized here, with what advantage to public morals we will not now discuss.”23 He was not amused by the new work’s plot: “La Belle Hélène” consistently ridicules the stupidity of husbands in attempting to prevent their wives from having love affairs with handsome young adventurers. . . . The humor of the libretto depends very much on whether it is intrinsically funny that a husband should have any claims over his wife, except that she should bear his name and spend his money. Taking this for granted, the action of the opera is broadly humorous.24

In spite of his objections to the plot and production—“The acting was capital, and of a worse character morally than that of the ‘Duchess,’ while some of the costumes were notably indecent”—and his perception that the music in La belle Hélène was subordinate to the libretto—“its melodies will not become anything like so popular as those of the [Grande-Duchesse]”—audiences clamored for tickets for each of the nightly performances.25 The Courrier’s critic, as might be expected, was much more positive: “[T]he Belle Hélène will become this spring’s sensation, as the Grande-Duchesse was that of the fall and winter. After tomorrow, every piano will resound with the motives from Belle Hélène, and [New Yorkers] will be dancing quadrilles taken from the score.”26 Tostée was once again the star—the Courrier said she was “the soul of Offenbach’s works”—and she and some of her costars, including Messrs. Duchesne and Lagriffoul, proved very popular with audiences. English-speaking critics were aghast at the show’s immorality. The Tribune’s critic predicted that the popularity of La belle Hélène indicated an increased degeneracy in the audiences that attended, which were now applauding that which they would not have tolerated two years earlier. His

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 13.1. Sketches of the Costumes for Bateman’s production of La GrandeDuchesse de Gerolstein, from Harper’s Weekly, 28 September 1867. Author’s collection.

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 13.2. Sheet music cover of selections from La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein (1867). Author’s collection.

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Gallic colleague disagreed, noting that the same comments had been made when the Black Crook opened. He referred pointedly to the severity of the Puritan ethic and suggested that those complaining had meager faith in the strength of men’s souls. The public’s enthusiasm for opéra bouffe led other groups, both within the city and from other parts of the country, to exploit the popularity of Offenbach and his music. Soon after the hundredth performance of Grande-Duchesse, Kelly and Leon’s minstrel troupe, resident in the city for the entire season, lampooned it with their farce “The Grand Dutch Cheese,” during which Kelly, in blackface, sang “Voilà le cheese-knife de mon père.” While it proved very popular with audiences, the Courrier’s critic did not appreciate the parody. He asked whether it was possible to parody a parody. In April, a translated version of La belle Hélène was seen at the New-York Theatre. A troupe from New Orleans came to the city after playing in Washington for members of Congress and the cabinet. Under Grau’s management, they opened with Orphée aux enfers. Seymour was not impressed: “There was an insufficiency of bills [programs] last night, so that we are unable to mention the names of the artists who took part in the performance. No one was announced in the papers, with the exception of Mlle. Lambelé, implying, we take it, that no one was worth announcing.” After a discussion of the kind of voices suitable for Offenbach’s music—not those of the first rank—he continued: Taken on the basis of mere vocalism, the performance was a failure; taken in any other way, it was tame. . . . The scenery was beneath notice, and the costumes were common, and evidently “washed out.” There is a sufficiently large chorus, but it lacks the Parisian instinct—whether it comes from that City or not. The orchestra was simply wretched; worse, if that can be possible, than the band at the New-York Theatre. The conductor of course conducted without the score. Notes would have embarrassed him.27

The Post’s critic was somewhat less negative, although he cautioned his readers that this was a peculiarly “French” libretto and that Americans should be warned that “[t]he immorality of this class of operas is too manifest to require demonstration. Those who go to see them know very well what they are. We simply report, and leave to those whose function it is to educate public morality.”28 By the next week he had evidently softened a bit, since he encouraged “[t]hose who have not yet heard ‘Orphée’ . . . to pay the French Theatre a visit some time this week.”29 While the New Orleans troupe clearly would not be permanent competition for Bateman, as the spring season drew to a close he announced his new season, informing the public that he had secured a theater and cast and would continue to present Offenbach’s opéra bouffes. Up to this point, Tostée had been the toast of the city. She was described as “delicious” by several reviewers, and her voice and acting were considered superb, beyond any other Offenbach soubrette. As each new troupe performed

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in the city, critics compared its performances to the high standard Bateman had offered. Inevitably, his star, Tostée, was subjected to a comparison as well. Lambelé, we are told, was undoubtedly a star who could stand beside Tostée but could not eclipse her. The critics’ infatuation with Tostée was put to the test when, at the end of July, Mlle. Irma made her American debut in Bateman’s production of Barbe-bleue. The opera was well received, with the cast—including some from Grau’s troupe who had been criticized two months earlier—lauded for their versatility. By the end of September, Bateman’s company was completing the run of Barbe-bleue at Niblo’s Garden and preparing for the fall season at Pike’s Theatre. Grau had leased the French Theatre, which was newly decorated—the original decor was considered cheap and tawdry—and expanded to 2,050 seats by the addition of 450 seats, of which 300 were on the parquet. The stage had likewise been enlarged by six and a half feet in the back. Grau had announced that he would open his season with Geneviève de Brabant, but at the last minute he substituted the Grande-Duchesse. On 5 October, Grau’s opening night, “an audience fairly representing the culture and fashion of the city”30 came to the newly renovated house, filling it to its utmost capacity. The Post’s reviewer noted that the new company labored under the disadvantage that the Grande-Duchesse was no longer a novelty; everyone knew it, and therefore the cast had to work harder to provoke mirth. But the performance was deemed a success, even in comparison to Bateman’s company: “[The] audience . . . was thoroughly satisfied and often enthusiastic over the . . . jolly opera.”31 Three nights later, Bateman closed his Niblo’s Garden season by thanking the audience members for their constant support. He told them that his company would temporarily split into two troupes to tour but that they would reunite in the near future to play the new fall season in New York. A week later, on 14 October, Bateman’s reunited company, with Tostée in the title role, opened with the Grande-Duchesse at the newly renamed Pike’s Opera House. According to the Post, Tostée “was welcomed with thunders of applause and covered with showers of bouquets.”32 Although Grau had announced that Geneviève was ready to be seen, he continued to present Grande-Duchesse, giving New Yorkers the opportunity to attend competing performances. Finally, on 22 October, Geneviève de Brabant received its New York premiere: the French Theatre “fairly overflowed; boxes, parquette and standing room being all needed to accommodate those who have braved the disagreeable weather. . . . The attendance last night showed that a novelty was desired.”33 Once again, the question of the libretto’s immorality was called into question, but the reviewer noted that much of it was lost on American listeners. The opéra bouffe was deemed a success, and it was predicted that Geneviève’s melodies would take their place next to those from Grande-Duchesse at pianos in parlors around the city. By mid-November, Bateman’s company was in the midst of a repertory season of Offenbach, presenting the by-now-familiar Barbe-bleue, La belle Hélène, and the Grande-Duchesse. He promised, however, that another

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Offenbach novelty, La Périchole, would be seen shortly. Bateman’s new star, Irma (sometimes referred to as Irma Marié), was slowly becoming an audience favorite; in Barbe-bleue she “showed all the vivacity and the gaucherie which made [her] personation . . . a success.”34 Two weeks later, Bateman scheduled both Tostée and Irma for the same evening. Tostée opened in Offenbach’s 1863 oneact conversation alsacienne, Lischen et Fritzchen, and Irma followed in Barbe-bleue. Grau’s company, still at the French Theatre, began its seventh week of Geneviève. On 9 December, Bateman offered another Offenbach work, Les bavards, in its New York premiere. Once again, the critics were enthusiastic. Just before the Christmas holidays, probably in an attempt to keep his audience interested, Bateman added a curtain raiser, Offenbach’s one-act opéra comique La chanson de Fortunio. The Post’s critic thought the music was charming, adding that “the vivacious acting of Irma does a great deal to ensure the popularity of the piece.”35 Several days later, the same critic commented on the popularity of opéra bouffe: It is interesting, by the way, to note how the appetite for opera bouffe has grown by what it feeds on. A year ago there was one opera bouffe company in the city, and the monthly receipts were about twenty thousand dollars. Last month, Mr. Grau took in thirty-five thousand dollars of gross receipts at the French Theatre, while Mr. Bateman, at Pike’s Opera House, was busily engaged in a similar way. This does not look as if the taste for this class of entertainment were dying out in New York.36

Perhaps the Post’s critic was misreading the extent of the profits or the continuing popularity of opéra bouffe, for two weeks later it was reported that Bateman “has sold out to Mr. James Fisk, Jr. [owner of Pike’s Opera House], his contracts with the artists and chorus . . . and all the wardrobe, scenery, and properties. He states in a card that he intends to retire from operatic management. . . . The unexpected withdrawal of the father of opera bouffe in America has created considerable surprise in musical and theatrical circles.”37 I have found no further reference to Bateman’s decision, but since the flamboyant Fisk was involved, there is no doubt that he made a financial offer Bateman could not refuse.38 Even as he was in negotiation with Fisk, on 4 January 1869 Bateman gave the premiere of yet another opéra bouffe, Offenbach’s most recent work, La Périchole. The Post critic noted that it was not an extravagant burlesque like Offenbach’s other works but rather “a graceful comedy with some humorous positions.”39 On 11 January, Grau introduced another novelty, the opéra bouffe L’oeil crevé, by one of Offenbach’s Parisian competitors, Hervé. The critics were mostly in agreement that his opera was not at the level New Yorkers had come to expect from Offenbach: “[It] is inferior to Offenbach in that dashing vivacity, that fluent grace and ease which has made the composer . . . so very popular.”40 After a run of less than a month, on 2 February Hervé’s piece was replaced by Lecocq’s Fleur de thé. The Times critic put it in perspective:

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HERVÉ’S work did not improve on acquaintance. It descended rapidly from tameness to staleness. All the advertising quirks of Mr. GRAU could not make people believe that it possessed volatility, inspiration or gracefullness. Produced sumptuously it failed supremely. “Fleur de Thé,” we venture to think, will have a different record. The thing is bright, melodious and interesting. . . . [It] is, we think, a success, and on its own merits deserves the recognition of the public.41

The Post’s critic, however, thought there was too little music: “The music . . . is quaint and graceful, but there is scarcely enough of it. The deserts of dialogue should be more often relieved by oases of music.”42 Several nights later, Fisk’s company gave Orphée aux enfers. The Post indicated that although the opera had been seen in the city previously, this was the first time it had been heard in really good style. Tostée sang the role of Euridice, one of her benchmark roles, to great effect: “Her higher notes are clearer and fuller than ever before. . . . [T]here is no doubt that her voice has much improved since she last sung here.”43 I am not certain how long Fisk kept control of the Bateman company; by mid-February his name does not appear in news items or advertisements, and by the beginning of March the Irma-Aujac company, as it was then known, had moved from Fisk’s Opera House—which, according to one article, was reverting to dramatic presentations—to Brougham’s Theatre, now renamed the Fifth Avenue Theatre. After a break for Holy Week, Grau offered Offenbach’s two-year-old opéra bouffe La vie parisienne. The Post’s critic noted that “the plot, though coupled with innumerable ludicrous, lascivious and scandalous entanglements peculiar to misdirected passion, is purely domestic, and turns upon the time-worn fact of an old Baron marrying a pretty young girl. It is the old story of May and December. There is, however, a savory piquancy about all the tangled incidents of the plot which electrifies the audience and intoxicates their senses.”44 The reviewer for Horace Greeley’s usually conservative Tribune, which did not regularly review opéra bouffe, was outraged by the show: Nobody goes [to] the French Theatre, however, for the sake of the music. So long as the dialogue is broad, the action suggestive, and the dancing free, most of the audiences ask no more. . . . For those who want to blush we are bound to say “La Vie Parisienne” affords sufficient opportunity. . . . The scent of the bagnio infects every scene. Incipient Anonymas flaunt across the stage, and toss their feet skyward at restaurant levels. Husbands and wives run away from each other to the arms of strange lovers, and almost every woman in the play is at least one man’s mistress. It is not a wholesome entertainment, and we are utterly at a loss to understand how, to persons of average refinement, it can be . . . even tolerably amusing.45

While the Tribune’s opinion of opéra bouffe was somewhat more severe than that of the Times, one reviewer bemoaned the fact that New Yorkers did not have the variety of entertainments available in European cities of similar size; rather, their choices were limited to lowbrow opéra bouffe and minstrelsy.46

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On 6 April the Post’s critic began his review with a surprising statement: “It has been claimed of late by various managers, and others who have good facilities for testing the public taste, that the popularity of Opera Bouffe is practically at an end—that, like other manias, it has had its day. . . . [F]or though [Grau] has produced a rapid succession of new operas, in good style and with popular artists, they have not seemed to hit the public taste to any remarkable extent.”47 While he goes on to say that the Irma company at the Fifth Avenue Theatre drew a crowded audience, the writing was on the wall: New Yorkers were finally tiring of opéra bouffe. Irma’s troupe tried to draw in audiences with a new double bill of Offenbach works, Le mariage aux lanternes and Monsieur Choufleuri. They were received as bonbons—the merest trifles. On 10 May the French troupe, as it was now called to distinguish it from Grau’s company, presented an opéra comique, Les dragons de Villars by Maillart. The Post thought it was “a genuine success . . . though it will not prove a sensation like some of its predecessors.”48 Toward the end of May, the Post informed its readers that a French opera troupe was coming to the Academy of Music at the beginning of the new season for six weeks: “In operatic circles here there is not felt any lively hope as to the success of the enterprise.”49 On 1 June, Lucile Tostée made a farewell appearance. The Post’s critic elegized her disappearance from the New York stage: She returns to France, leaving a public which is certainly as fickle as any public can be. A year or two ago Tostée was the pet of New York. She filled the largest theatre every night with enthusiastic admirers. Her Grande Duchesse and Belle Hélène were the town talk. . . . But since her return this year the lady seems to have pined in comparative neglect, quite overshadowed by the richer voice and more characteristic acting of Irma. As a singer, however, who has really given considerable pleasure, Tostée deserves to be kindly remembered. She was the originator of a style of vocalization, tempered with kicks and winks, which has since been generally imitated by burlesque actresses. At first it shocked the moral susceptibilities of the public, but they soon became accustomed to it, as they usually do to shocking things, and now it is the rule rather than the exception.50

The following night, Grau’s company presented one more new opera, Chilpéric by Hervé. It was not well received by the critics, who complained that, as with his other opera, the music was too heavy for the slight plot and was more appropriate for grand opera. A week later Grau announced the end of his season. It was noted that the opera “did not make such an impression on the public as to cause them to crowd the house.”51 By midmonth a number of Grau’s stars had sailed back to France; the Irma company continued to the end of the month. Opéra bouffe had unexpectedly taken New York by storm at the beginning of the 1867–1868 season. Audiences could not get enough of it; such was “the verdict of the town.” It had overwhelmed the presentations of serious opera to such an extent that the critics suggested that no other opera was being heard in the

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city. That certainly was not the case. Maretzek continued to present new and old operas, and the public attended those as well as these lighter works. Opéra bouffe hit its high point during the summer and fall of 1868, when Grau began his own company. But perhaps profits were not as good as he indicated; Bateman made a canny decision when he sold out to Fisk, for six months later the passion for the genre had evaporated as audiences returned to their normal diet of Donizetti, Verdi, and Gounod. Opéra bouffe did return a few years later, when Offenbach toured the United States during its centennial celebration. While audiences were eager to see him and hear his works once again, the light, fluffy, and somewhat risqué opéra bouffes no longer dominated the music scene as they had for two glorious seasons in the 1860s.

Appendix 13.1 Operas Heard in New York City, Fall 1862–Summer 1869 Composer

Opera

Adam, Adolphe (1803–1856)

Les pantins de Violette (1856) Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836) Le toréador (1849) Les diamants de la couronne (1841) *Fra Diavolo (1830) Le maçon [Mason and Locksmith] (1825) Masaniello (1828) Le serment (1832) The Bohemian Girl (1843) The Enchantress (1845) [Richings’s adaptation] The Rose of Castille (1857) Satanella (1858) [Richings’s adaptation] Un noche in Sevilla (1865?)

Auber, Daniel-FrançoisEsprit (1782–1871)

Balfe, Michael (1808–1870)

Barili, Antonio (1826–1876) Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770–1827) Bellini, Vincenzo (1801–1835) Benedict, Julius (1804–1885) Boieldieu, Adrien (1775–1834) Cagnoni, Antonio (1828–1896) Dalayrac, Nicholas (1753–1809)

Fidelio (1814) *Norma (1831) *I puritani (1835) *La sonnambula (1831) Lily of Killarney (1862) La dame blanche (1825) Jean de Paris (1812) Don Bucefalo (1847) Marianne (1796)

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Appendix 13.1 (continued) Composer

Opera

Donizetti, Gaetano (1797–1848)

Belisario (1836) La fille du régiment (1840) Don Pasquale (1843) Don Sébastian, roi de Portugal (1843) L’elisir d’amore (1832) La favorite (1840) Linda di Chamounix (1842) *Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) *Lucrezia Borgia (1833) Maria Stuarda (1835) Poliuto (1848) Roberto Devereux (1837) The Doctor of Alcantara (1862) A Night in Rome (1864) The Two Cadis (1868) *Martha (1847) Alessandro Stradella (1844) Orfeo ed Euridice [arr. Berlioz? (1762/1774/1859)]

Eichberg, Julius (1824–1893) Flotow, Friedrich (1812–1883) Gluck, Christophe Willibald (1714–1787) Gounod, Charles-François (1812–1893) Halevy, Fromental (1799–1862) Herold, Ferdinand (1791–1833) Hervé [Ronger, Louis] (1825–1892) Kreutzer, Conradin (1780–1849) Lecocq, Charles (1832–1918) Lortzing, Albert (1801–1851) Maillart, Louis Aimé (1817–1871) Massé, Victor (1822–1884) Mehul, Etienne-Nicolas (1763–1817)

*Faust (1859) Roméo et Juliette (1867) L’éclair (1836) La Juive (1835) Les mousquetaires de la reine (1846) Zampa (1831) Chilpéric (1868) Gargouillada (?) L’oiel crevé (1867) Das Nachtlager in Granada (1834) Fleur-de-thé (1868) (1837)Der Wildschütz (1842) Zar und Zimmermann Les dragons de Villars (1856) Galathée (1852) Les noces de Jeannette (1853) Joseph en Egypte (1807)

Appendix 13.1 (continued) Composer

Opera

Meyerbeer, Giacomo (1791–1864)

Dinorah (1859) L’africaine (1865) L’étoile du nord (1854) Les Huguenots (1836) Le prophète (1849) Roberto le diable (1831) The Corsican Bride (1863)

Mollenhauer, Edward (1827–1914) Montaubry (?) Mozart, Wolfgang (1756–1791)

Nicolai, Otto (1810–1849) Offenbach, Jacques (1819–1880)

Pacini, Giovanni (1796–1857) Paer, Ferdinando (1771–1831) Peri, Achille (1812–1880) Petrella, Errico (1813–1877) Ricci, Luigi (1805–1859) and Federico (1809–1877)

Entre Paris et Montargis (?) *Don Giovanni (1787) Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) Le nozze di Figaro (1786) Die Zauberflöte (1791) Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1849) Barbe-bleue (1866) Les bavards (1863) La belle Hélène (1864) La chanson de Fortunio (1861) Les deux aveugles (1855) Geneviève de Brabant (1859/1867) La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) Lischen et Fritzchen (1864) Le mariage aux lanternes (1857) M. Choufleuri (1861) Orphée aux enfers (1858) La Périchole (1864) La romance de la rose (1869) La rose de Saint-Flour (1856) Tromb-al-ca-zar (1856) La vie parisienne (1866) Le violoneux (1855) Saffo (1840) Le maître le chapelle (1821) Giuditta (1861) Il carnevale di Venezia (1851/1858) Ione [Jone] (1858) Crispino e la comare (1850)

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Appendix 13.1 (continued) Composer

Opera

Rossini, Gioachino (1792–1868)

Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) Otello (1816) Semiramide (1823) Guillaume Tell (1829) Gamea, or the Jewish Mother (1863)

Stoepel, Robert (1821–1887) Thomas, Ambroise (1811–1896) Verdi, Giuseppi (1813–1901)

Wagner, Richard (1813–1883) Wallace, William Vincent (1812–1865) Weber, Carl Maria von (1786–1826)

Le caïd (1849) Le songe d’un nuit d’été (1850) Aroldo (1857) *Un ballo in maschera (1859) I due Foscari (1844) *Ernani (1844) La forza del destino (1862) Macbeth (1847) Rigoletto (1851) *La traviata (1853) *Il trovatore (1853) Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) Tannhäuser (1845) The Desert Flower (1864) Lurline (1860) Maritana (1845) *Der Freischütz (1821)

*Indicates operas that were heard every season, or every season but one, during the 1862–1869 period. Opera titles are given in their original language.

Notes 1. There is, to my knowledge, no complete published list of operas performed in London or Paris for this time period. My survey has been made possible through the Music in Gotham project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with matching grants from the Baisley Powell Elebash Endowment. This project is documenting all extant musical events in New York for the years 1863–1876. 2. The New York Times, 16 December 1865. 3. Ibid., 1 August 1864. 4. Ibid., 2 August 1864. 5. Ibid., 1 August 1864. 6. Ibid., 2 August 1864. 7. Ibid., 26 September 1865.

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8. The world premiere in St. Petersburg took place on 10 November 1862. Several months later, on 7 February 1863, it was heard in Rome. In Madrid the opera was first seen on 21 February 1863 and in London on 22 June 1867. See also chapter 12 for the letter Verdi wrote for Maretzek. 9. The New York Herald, 25 February 1865. 10. The New York Evening Post, 25 February 1865. 11. The New-York Times, 25 February 1865. 12. Ibid., 27 February 1865. 13. Ibid., 2 December 1865. 14. Ibid., 27 February 1865. 15. Ibid., 2 December 1865. 16. Ibid., 6 December 1865. 17. The popularity of some of these operas in Germany continues today. It is still possible to purchase German-language performances of Fra Diavolo and Le postillon de Lonjumeau. 18. The New-York Times, 25 September 1867. 19. Ibid. 20. Le Courrier des États-Unis, 26 September 1867. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. “La Grande-Duchesse est destinée à parcourir une glorieuse carrière à NewYork, et avant quinze jours, tous les pianos répartis entre 14me rue and le ParcCentral en répéteront les motifs.” 23. The New York Evening Post, 27 March 1868. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Le Courrier des États-Unis, 27 March 1868. “La Belle Hélène va devenir la sensation du printemps, comme la Grande-Duchesse a été celle de l’automne et de l’hiver. Après demain tous les pianos retentiront des motifs de la Belle Hélène, et on ne dansera plus que des quadrilles tirés de cette partition.” 27. The New-York Times 5 June 1868. 28. The New York Evening Post, 5 June 1868. 29. Ibid., 10 June 1868. 30. Ibid., 6 October 1868. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 15 October 1868. 33. Ibid., 23 October 1868. 34. Ibid., 17 November 1868. 35. Ibid., 23 December 1868. 36. Ibid., 29 December 1868. 37. Ibid., 13 January 1869. 38. By the 1860s Fisk’s reputation as a wheeler-dealer was well-known. He had made a fortune during the war and lost much of it speculating on Wall Street. In 1867 he teamed up with Jay Gould and Daniel Drew to repel Cornelius Vanderbilt’s attempt to take control of the Erie Rail Road. After a number of financial maneuvers, Fisk and Gould gained control of railroad, which purchased, at Fisk’s urging, Pike’s Opera House to house the executive offices. Fisk was then able to consolidate his working day into a single building where, on the upper floors, he could run the railroad and down in the theater, as an impresario, present varied attractions. (Edwin G.

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Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 911–12). 39. The New York Evening Post, 5 January 1869. 40. Ibid., 12 January 1869. 41. The New-York Times, 3 February 1869. 42. The New York Evening Post, 3 February 1869. 43. Ibid., 9 February 1869. 44. Ibid., 30 March 1869. 45. The New York Tribune, 30 March 1869. 46. This statement was not particularly accurate. There were many events taking place during the winter season. During the week of 14 February, for example, in addition to the two opéra bouffe companies and three minstrel companies giving nightly performances, New Yorkers could have attended several sacred concerts and a concert/recitation with the Thomas orchestra at Steinway Hall; Maretzek’s Italian Opera performances of Meyerbeer’s L’africaine and Robert le diable and Donizetti’s Belisario; benefits for Robert Goldbeck and Ole Bull; a public rehearsal of the upcoming philharmonic concert; an organ concert at Plymouth church; or several nightly variety shows, pantomimes, and burlesque shows. 47. The New York Evening Post, 6 April 1869. 48. Ibid., 11 May 1869. 49. Ibid., 21 May 1869. 50. Ibid., 1 June 1869. 51. Ibid., 7 June 1869.

Chapter Fourteen

“Dear Miss Ober” Music Management and the Interconnections of Musical Culture in the United States, 1876–1883 Katherine K. Preston

The papers presented at the conference “Importing Culture: European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1890”—and the resulting essays collected in this volume—explore in depth the impact of European music and musicians on the nineteenth-century inhabitants of New York City. Some of the chapters document the performance of European repertory (by American and European musicians and ensembles); others concentrate on the activities of European performers (both visitors and immigrants). The overall focus, however, is on the significance of an imported culture to the musical fabric of New York City during a fifty-year period. Several authors also allude to the spread of this culture to other areas in the United States, for many of the musicians or ensembles examined in various chapters mounted national tours and presented concerts of European music in such cities as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and elsewhere. My intention in this final chapter of Importing Culture is to expand upon this implied broader picture by presenting my own research within the context of the detailed composite portrait of New York that has emerged from the pages of this volume. Some would argue that nineteenth-century New York City was the center of the American musical universe; the information presented in this collection, in fact, seems to support the commonplace assumption that the city was a hub from which everything else radiated. But a rich musical life in New York does not preclude a similarly vibrant life elsewhere in the country, and in this essay I suggest

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an alternative model: New York not as the center but rather one part of an intricate and extraordinarily rich web of musical activity that stretched from Boston to Charleston, from Chicago to New Orleans, and from New York to San Francisco. Anyone who has conducted research into or read much about the cultivation of music in the United States knows that each of these places—and many towns and even hamlets in between—boasted of a rich musical life in the nineteenth century.1 A related observation—supported by both this chapter and some of the others in this collection—is that many nineteenth-century professional performers were similarly peripatetic, sometimes even as nomadic as are twentieth- and twenty-first century musicians. When we understand that musicians then hopped on trains, steamers, and stagecoaches and moved from place to place almost as regularly as modern performers and ensembles move today from city to city, town to town, and even continent to continent, we begin to comprehend the complexity of musical life in the United States of the nineteenth century. In this chapter, then, I examine in detail the itinerancy of some midcentury American musicians. By doing so, I explore a component of musical life that is little understood today and suggest some ways to rethink certain aspects of American musical culture at midcentury. Presented within the context of this collection, I furthermore suggest that because many nineteenth-century American cities and towns were so thoroughly and regularly linked (by these itinerant musicians), the wealth of insight into musical life in New York contained in this volume can also help us to understand better the impact of imported music in the rest of America. The basis for my argument is information from a remarkable collection of almost 350 letters written between 1876 and 1883 by performing musicians (and a few managers, like Max Strakosch and Max Maretzek) to one Miss Ober, a woman connected with a music management firm in Boston during this period.2 (The salutation of the vast majority of the letters in the collection is “Dear Miss Ober,” hence my title.) The newly discovered existence of such a wealth of detail about the day-to-day dealings of musicians with a management agency is in itself important, for although we are aware of the managerial activities of individuals— like Bernard Ullman, Maurice and Max Strakosch, Jacob, Maurice, and Robert Grau, and Max Maretzek (see chapter 12)—detailed information concerning the activities of music or theatrical agencies from this period is almost nonexistent.3 A scholar, indeed, can extract from the letters in the Roberts Collection myriad details about concert and operatic management of the period, including information about choices of repertory, acquisition and distribution of scores, logistics of travel and lodging, publicity techniques, and interpersonal relationships between sometimes competing members of an operatic troupe. Just as informative, however—and the focus of this chapter—is what these letters reveal about both the shared relationships of musical and musical/theatrical life during the period and the connectedness of musical culture in various places in the eastern half of the United States during the 1860s, 70s, and 80s.

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I deal, in turn, with two overall issues. First is the ease with which performers moved back and forth between and among different types of musical/theatrical performances (styles that we, in the twenty-first century, tend to think of as mutually exclusive): from Italian to English opera, from theatrical company to opera troupe, from opera to operetta performance, and from blackface minstrelsy to the operatic stage. Second—and most important in reference to the overall theme of the conference—is the reality that the itinerancy of performing musicians in nineteenth-century America was normal and (to use a contemporary term) unexceptional. The fact that tours were undertaken by “superstar” visitors like Anton Rubinstein, Christine Nilsson, Henri Vieuxtemps, and Etelka Gerster is well-known. Here, however, I will explore the idea that many rank-andfile musicians also toured widely and frequently and that by so doing they both linked New York City inextricably with the rest of the country and created a web of performance activities that—to our eyes—is nothing short of astonishing in its geographical and temporal complexity.

Effie Ober and the Boston Ideal Opera Company Before turning to the contents of the letters, it would be useful to introduce the individual to whom they were addressed and to provide some background information about some of the artists whose communications provide a majority of the primary source information in this chapter. “Miss Ober” was Effie Hinkley Ober Kline (1844–1927), a native of Sedgwick, Maine (see plate 14.1). A fairly obscure figure, Ober is known primarily as the founder of the Boston Ideal Opera Company and as manager of that troupe for the first six years (1879–1885) of its illustrious existence.4 Her name first appears in the Boston City Directory in 1871 (as a purveyor of “fancy goods”); from 1876 through 1887 she is identified first as “corresponding secretary” (presumably) of the James H. Roberts & Co. Lecture and Musical Agency (her business address—2 Music Hall Building—is the same as that of the company), then as part of the agency—first under the heading “Roberts, James H. & Co (E. F. Ober)” (1879), next as “Secretary” (1881), and finally as “manager” (1882). In 1883 she is described as “Prop., Boston Ideal Opera Company” and from 1885–1887 as an “opera manager,” after which time her name disappears from the annual directories, as does that of the Roberts Agency.5 Information from other sources corroborates this bare-bones outline. According to a “sketch” published in 1885 (for which she was interviewed), Ober started her career “about 1872” as a “corresponding secretary” in a Boston musical “bureau,” probably the Williams Lecture Bureau, that contracted engagements for speakers and musicians.6 Described in the article as “a young woman of . . . sanguine, pushing temperament and eager intellect and ambition,” she apparently was not satisfied with being a mere paper pusher and in

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 14.1. Undated portrait of Effie Ober Kline, Blue Hill Historical Society, Blue Hill, Maine.

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1875 set out to found her own “bureau,” called the James H. Roberts & Co. Lecture and Musical Agency, which was located in Boston’s Music Hall—the building that was replaced by Symphony Hall in 1900.7 One of her most prominent artists, the singer Henry Clay Barnabee, later—and somewhat humorously—described this agency in his memoirs as “a large ‘bureau,’ with many sections, in which [Ober] kept a large and choice assortment of artists to be hired out for a consideration, herself absorbing an equitable percentage thereof.”8 Ober ran this agency, apparently quite successfully, for four years. In 1879 several of her artists were hired by the Boston Theatre to appear in that year’s blockbuster hit, H. M. S. Pinafore (see plate 14.2), in which they were so successful that she decided to form an operetta company (named the Boston Ideals) and take it on the road.9 This troupe, which quickly became one of the most successful, bestknown, and most musically skilled English opera companies active in the postbellum period, performed in cities and towns up and down the East Coast (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) and on tours that took the group as far west as Denver and Colorado Springs. Initially formed on the crest of the Pinafore craze (the troupe’s name came from a desire to perform an “ideal” version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta), the company remained under Ober’s management for six years, after which time (1885) it was reconstituted as the Bostonians, with many of the same singers.10 Under that name it continued as a very successful ensemble until 1904.11 During the time of her management of the troupe, Ober continued to represent other artists—apparently mostly singers—who were either connected with other opera or theatrical companies or or were free agents who used her services to set up concert engagements. From the very beginning, the Boston Ideals included among its members some of the best singers (in particular singers in English) active in America, and this undoubtedly was its principal strength. They included the well-known contralto Adelaide Phillipps (1833–1882), sopranos Mary Beebe (1858–1902) and Georgia Cayvan (1857/8?–1906), tenors Tom Karl (1846–1916) and George Frothingham (1844–1915), bass-baritone and comic actor Henry Clay Barnabee (1833–1917), and Myron Whitney (1836–1910), one of the most prominent basses of the nineteenth century.12 The company, slightly later, would add Marie Stone (soprano), George Fessenden (tenor), and William H. MacDonald (baritone) to its ranks. Most of the singers were Americans. The exceptions were Phillipps, who was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England (but who came to the United States at age seven), and Karl, a Dublin-born tenor who performed widely in Italian opera in Europe before coming to America in 1871 with the company of Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa (1836–1874) to perform English opera. The Boston Ideals also boasted a chorus of fifty and assiduously cultivated the public image of an amicable group of performers—a “big happy family” of touring musicians—during Ober’s tenure as manager. She commented on this image just prior to her retirement in 1885, contrasting her singers favorably with

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 14.2. Premiere performance of the troupe that would become the Boston Ideal Opera Company, in H. M. S. Pinafore, 14 April 1879, at the Boston Theatre, Playbills and Programs, U.S. Theatres, Boston. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

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contemporary European vocalists who had visited the United States. “My singers are all ladies and gentlemen,” she is quoted as saying, and they all are Americans. Our home people are not as cross-grained as the Italians and Germans, who have been taught to hate and wrangle with each other. The Ideals have been associated for several years, and they are like one family. There is no jealousy or disagreement among them. They all like each other, and this puts me in an easy position [as manager].13

Perusal of the letters, however, quickly reveals that Ober was engaged in some glossing of her own about the warm fuzziness among all the singers (Karl and Fessenden, in particular, carry on in their letters a rather spirited behind-thescenes competition, attempting consistently to outmaneuver each other and to curry Ober’s favor). Despite the occasional squabbles, however, this image of amicability—and its contrast with the reputations of European singers—seems to have been generally accurate. Ober’s statement, in fact, is fascinating for two reasons: first, it hints at the existence of some level of resentment by American musicians (or, at least, managers) toward the overwhelming cultural hegemony of Western Europeans that is the subject of many of the chapters in this collection. Second—and equally as fascinating—is the fact that Ober could, on the one hand, criticize European musicians while, on the other, arrange for her company to perform an exclusively (imported) European repertory. Although originally established to perform Sullivan’s operettas, the company quickly assembled in its performance inventory operas that included warhorses from the English-opera repertory (Balfe’s Bohemian Girl, Auber’s Fra Diavolo), translations of standards from the operatic stage (Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, Flotow’s Martha, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro), and the most up-to-date and popular operettas of the time, including The Chimes of Normandy by Planquette; Lortzing’s Czar and Carpenter; von Suppé’s Fatinitza and Boccaccio, or the Prince of Palermo; Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride, and The Sorcerer; Offenbach’s Barbe-Bleue; Lecocq’s Giroflé-Girofla; and Audran’s The Mascott and Olivette.14 This mixture of repertories—some old (Auber, Mozart, Balfe), some new (Sullivan, Offenbach, Planquette), some “real” operas (mostly older works by composers such as Donizetti and Mozart) mixed in with many “light” works from the operetta stage—was completely characteristic of postbellum English opera companies and marks one of the many ways musical life in the late nineteenth century continued to be much more heterogeneous than is musical life (or, for that matter, musical scholarship) today. It is also a manifestation of one element of the “interconnectedness” that is the theme of this chapter: in this single English opera troupe (similar to many others) we see an extensive commingling of repertories that would be highly unlikely today, sung by a cohort of singers perfectly comfortable performing this assortment of musical/theatrical styles.15

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The troupe’s complete reliance on European repertory is worth noting for two reasons. First, it positions the company comfortably within the framework of a discussion of “imported” European music. Second, it contrasts with the practice of the dominant English opera company active in Great Britain at the time (the Carl Rosa Opera Company), which made a point to commission and mount operas by British composers.16 Third, it is a characteristic of the company that would change after 1885, by which time the Bostonians would become closely associated with the works of American operetta composers, in particular Reginald de Koven (The Knickerbockers, Robin Hood, and Rob Roy) and Victor Herbert (Prince Ananias, The Serenade, and The Viceroy).17 The repertory of the Boston Ideals during the period 1879–1885, however, is an excellent example of imported European music—performed not just in New York but also throughout the rest of the country. Many of the members of the Boston Ideals, as well as other singers not connected with the troupe, wrote to Effie Ober on a regular basis. Both the backgrounds of the singers and the professional activities to which they refer in their letters also suggest that late-nineteenth-century musical theater artists were comfortable performing in a wide variety of different styles and genres. This clearcut integration of musical/theatrical genres tends to belie our modern assumptions about the type of pursuits in which one might expect a particular singer to have been engaged. The activities of several performers suffice as examples. Tom Karl—as mentioned earlier, an Irish tenor trained in Italy— moved freely from Italian to English opera and back again, singing in the 1870s with the English opera troupes of Parepa-Rosa, Kellogg, and Abbott and with the Italian companies of Max Strakosch and Adelaide Phillipps.18 The contralto Phillipps likewise sang in both Italian and English opera companies, performing in Max Maretzek’s Italian troupe starting in the late 1850s and 1860s; appearing in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Prague, Budapest, and Warsaw in the early 1860s; and returning to the United States in 1862, where “she settled down to the relatively routine life of a traveling opera and concert singer” before signing on with the Ideals in 1879.19 The bass Myron Whitney sang not only the operas and operettas mounted by the Ideals but also performed regularly a more “exalted” repertory with the New York Oratorio Society, Thomas’s orchestra, the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, and in concerts with Italian opera stars such as Christine Nilsson.20 Georgia Cayvan was a soprano who sang with the Ideals in 1879 but who left the troupe a year later to join the company of the Madison Square Theatre; she was known thereafter primarily as an actress rather than a singer.21 Tenor George Fessenden was a member of the Temple Quartet of Boston in the mid-1870s and performed as one of the company at the Standard Theatre in New York during the 1880 season before he joined the Ideals.22 Baritone William MacDonald also performed with both the Ideals and “straight” theater companies; in April 1879, for example, he wrote to Ober that he had been offered a position by the management of the Fifth Avenue Theatre

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in New York.23 And George Frothingham, who performed as a tenor with the Ideals, was a blackface minstrel before he heard the siren call of English opera.24

William Castle The career of William Castle serves as a particularly good example of a performance fluidity that was not uncommon among musical theater players during this period. The tenor formed his own English Opera Company in the 1860s and sang Italian opera with Jacob Grau’s troupe at the Academy of Music in New York during that same decade.25 In general, Castle was a musical jack-of-alltrades, appearing on the dramatic, operatic, and concert stages in New York and elsewhere throughout his career (see plate 14.3).26 He was a veteran of Christy’s Minstrels, and during the 1870s he sang with a veritable who’s who of English opera companies: those managed by Caroline Richings, Clara Louise Kellogg, Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa, C. D. Hess, Gustav Hinrichs, and Emma Abbott.27 In March 1880, in fact, William MacDonald mentioned in a letter to Ober that Castle, then a member of the Abbott company, was hoping to jump ship and sign on with the Ideals.28 Castle corresponded with the Roberts Agency from October 1876 through January 1877, and his activities during even this short period illustrate his professional versatility.29 During these four months, he appeared in New York in a variety of guises, including drama (at the Fifth Avenue Theatre), opera (in two different engagements with the Clara Louise Kellogg English Opera Company, in November and January), and in various concerts.30 Evidence of the latter activity is contained in a letter Castle wrote to the Roberts Agency on 24 October 1876, in which he mentions that he had just accepted an engagement with the Oratorio Society of New York for early November. It is not surprising to discover that in addition to this performance, during those several months the tenor participated in a number of other concerts in New York: in October he sang in one of J. C. Fryer’s Sunday night concerts, on 19 November he appeared in concert with Gilmore’s Band, and on 6 February (1877) he participated in a “Grand Literary and Musical Entertainment” at Steinway Hall.31 This suggests a rather typical array of professional activities for a popular and well-regarded musician who was in demand from various quarters. But Castle evidently was also in demand as a singing actor. On 31 October he mentions in a letter an upcoming position (in November) with the Fifth Avenue Theatre company to sing in As You Like It; according to Odell, he was “specially engaged for the songs of Amiens.”32 The tenor must have possessed some histrionic ability, however, for Augustin Daly re-engaged him for the role of Sir Harry Bumper (a character who sings a solo in act 3, scene 3) in the stock company’s subsequent show, a revival of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal.33 It should be clear that Castle—who, judging by the varied backgrounds of many Boston Ideal

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 14.3. Undated portrait of William Castle, from Dexter Smith’s Paper, Opera Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

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Company singers, was probably not that unusual—was comfortable performing in many guises, in a manner that would not be very common today. Even more interesting is what the letters reveal about a side of Castle’s professional life that cannot easily be reconstructed even by close examination of standard sources about concert and theatrical life in New York City. The previous paragraph clearly suggests that William Castle was a musician who was fairly busy as a performer in his hometown of New York; what we discover from the letters in this collection, however, is that the secondary sources reveal only a portion of his—and presumably other musicians’—professional activities. For example, in a letter dated 17 October 1876, Castle, in the course of negotiating for a concert date in Haverhill, Massachusetts, mentions “I allways [sic] [get] 125 and 150 [dollars] when going out of N.Y.,” suggesting that non-New York engagements were not uncommon; he furthermore hastens to point out that if the Haverhill job were to materialize, he would need a commitment soon, “as I am wanted for Phila and Baltimore.”34 His letter of 31 October furthermore contains a piece of information very telling for what it reveals about the professional work of musicians of the period. After passing on the information about his engagement with the Fifth Avenue Theatre, Castle points out that he had received permission from the theater “to take concerts that will not keep me away more than one night from New York[.]” He further explains: “I did not wish to give them all my time in case anything turned up” and adds in conclusion, “I would like to do some of the oratorios in Boston,” presumably those mounted regularly by the Handel and Haydn Society there.35 When Castle writes again on 30 November to inform the agency that his theater engagement had been extended into late December, he mentions that he was negotiating with theater manager John T. Ford of Baltimore for an engagement in that city. Castle’s letter dated 20 December is particularly informative and is worth quoting at length: I have today arranged to sing with the Haydn Society of Baltimore on the 21st [of] December. I shall in all probability remain at the 5th Ave Theatre up to the first of the year, as I have been re-engaged for the run of ‘School for Scandal.’ I am arranging for Saratoga [for the] first week in Jan[uary]. What are the prospects for filling the time during the week I go to Portland [Maine]? Also please let me know the style of concert it will be, so that I may choose my pieces. [A]nd how many times am I in the programme? The prospects are that I shall have plenty of business after the 1st [of] Jan[uary]— although it will be of a varied character, in all probability the Bohemian Girl will be done on a grand scale for a run of at least a month. With regards, I am yrs truly, William Castle.36

In his next letter (26 December), Castle mentions that he had been out of town during the previous week; the following day he complains that terms for an engagement in Cincinnati were entirely insufficient. On 8 January he notes that he had taken the Cincinnati job nevertheless, that he had just returned, and that

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although the concert “went very well and was a success,” the entire affair was “very fatiguing,” for he “got there just in time to jump upon the stage . . . after riding 48 hours” on a train.37 In his final letter in the collection (dated 21 January) he mentions that he had just “made an engagement with the Oratorio Society of New Haven” for a performance of Elijah on 13 February and that he had also “just concluded an engt in New York for the 8th [of] Feb.”38 By fleshing out the bare-bones particulars from Castle’s letters with corroborating information from other sources, we can draw a persuasively accurate picture of a musician busy with concert, operatic, and dramatic performances in New York City who was at the same time industriously lining up jobs elsewhere to take place during and in between the New York engagements. To put all the pieces together: in mid-October Castle was negotiating for jobs in Haverford (Massachusetts), Baltimore, and Philadelphia.39 He accepted an engagement to perform with the New York Oratorio Society, directed by Leopold Damrosch, and was featured as one of four soloists in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Steinway Hall on 7 and 8 November.40 He was engaged by the Fifth Avenue Theatre for the part of Amiens in As You Like It, starting on 11 November; the troupe mounted performances from Saturday 18 November through 4 December.41 Theaters were typically dark on Sundays, and on 19 November Castle appeared as a soloist (along with the young Lillian Norton— the future Lillian Nordica) in one of a series of Sunday concerts given by Patrick Gilmore’s Band.42 During the engagement at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, Castle expressed interest in singing in oratorios in Boston and had permission from the management of the theater to miss an evening performance to do so. Castle’s offhand mention of his arrangement suggests that this type of agreement was not particularly unusual; furthermore, a combination of theater work in New York City with a concert performance in Boston would have been possible had Castle skipped a Saturday evening performance, taken the train to Boston, participated in an oratorio concert on Sunday, and returned to New York by curtain time on Monday evening.43 Castle was re-engaged by the Fifth Avenue Theatre for The School for Scandal, which ran for two weeks from 5 to19 December.44 The singer is named prominently in the theater’s advertisements for both shows; for the former he is described as playing the part of “Amiens (with the songs).”45 His performances are also mentioned positively in reviews: in one that appeared on 19 November we read that “Mr. William Castle comes forth as Amiens and endows the delightful music in the piece with a charm that seldom penetrates it”; two weeks later presumably the same critic wrote that the singing actor “lent the sweetness of his tones to the song of Sir Harry Bumper.”46 Because he was re-engaged at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, Castle evidently turned down a job he had been discussing with John Ford of Baltimore, probably to sing as a member of the cast of Trial by Jury, presented as an afterpiece by the Ford Theatre Company during the run of the Emily Soldene English Opera Company at that house the week of 11 December.47 The Baltimore job was apparently a

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backup engagement that Castle did not need. Just after School for Scandal closed on 19 December, however, he headed south to Baltimore anyway to perform three solos with the Haydn Musical Society at the Academy of Music there two days later.48 During the first week of January, Castle performed in Cincinnati, where he was the star tenor in a production on Wednesday, 3 January, of Wallace’s Maritana, mounted by the Arion Operatic Society, an amateur company; evidently, the engagement he had anticipated for that week in Saratoga (mentioned in the letter of 20 December) had not materialized.49 He subsequently returned to New York from Cincinnati and had planned to travel immediately to Portland, Maine, where he was engaged for a concert on 11 January—in between the Cincinnati engagement and a job singing in The Bohemian Girl in New York with the Clara Kellogg Opera Company at the Academy of Music—but the Portland concert was canceled.50 Prior to the conclusion of the Kellogg Company’s run on 10 February, Castle had secured another New York job (the nature of which is unknown) for the eighth.51 After the final curtain of the Kellogg engagement, Castle must have left almost immediately for New Haven, where he had a job singing in Elijah on 13 February with the Oratorio Society there.52 This litany of performances negotiated, accepted, canceled, or declined suggests several issues. First, it should be clear that William Castle was quite versatile as a musical and musical/theatrical performer active in the second half of the nineteenth century. He moved—apparently effortlessly—from the theater to opera to the concert stage and back again. Second, his work during these several months indicates that performers who were willing to endure sometimes grueling travel conditions could piece together a career as peripatetic as those of some jet-setting musicians today. Third—and most important—Castle’s activities suggest that his primary stomping ground (New York City) was actually quite connected with the rest of the country in terms of musical performances. If his career is representative, it suggests that musicians who enjoyed rich and varied performing careers in New York were also busy regularly hopping on trains, coaches, and packet steamers, scurrying from one “gig” to another—in cities and towns as far away as Cincinnati, Haverford (Massachusetts), Baltimore, New Haven, Saratoga, Portland, and Boston.

The Boston Ideal Opera Company It is useful at this point to return to the opera company, to demonstrate both how a performer like Castle might fit into the large picture and how his activities were neither unique nor perhaps even unusual. For this section I rely on letters written to Effie Ober by several members of the Ideals during the period August through October 1880, when the company was launching its first engagement of the 1880–1881 season. The letters contain a wealth of information about the dayto-day management of the opera troupe, a thorough investigation of which must

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await another essay. Some of the detail is useful and relevant, however, for it is expressed in the casual and sometimes chaotic language of personal correspondence and as such lends to the discussion a delicious sense of immediacy that is absent from most information gleaned from journals or serials. The letters also contain insight into the extra-operatic activities in which the star singers of the troupe were routinely engaged, which is pertinent to the topic at hand. As mentioned earlier, the Boston Ideal Opera Company was founded in the troupe’s namesake city in April 1879.53 Subsequently that year (1879–1880), the company took to the road and toured widely in New England and as far west as Cincinnati; its first appearances in New York City were in March 1880 at Niblo’s Garden.54 During the six years that Ober managed the troupe, the Ideals performed regularly in both New York City (at Niblo’s, Booth’s Theatre, and the Fifth Avenue Theatre) and Brooklyn (at the Academy of Music and Haverly’s Opera House). These New York appearances, however, were clearly within the context of performance itineraries that included much of the country. The troupe toured widely in the United States, traveling as far west as Colorado while under Ober’s management; its home base, however, remained Boston. It is telling that one of the most popular and successful English opera companies of the postbellum period was not a troupe that originated in New York and traveled from there to other parts of the country but rather a company that visited Manhattan—as it visited many other American cities, towns, and hamlets—from elsewhere. As such, the company itself is emblematic of the web of musical/theatrical activity that connected different parts of the country and of which New York was an important part, but not necessarily the center. The activities of the troupe’s members—as revealed in their letters to Effie Ober—likewise suggest that the complexity and itinerancy of William Castle’s professional life was not atypical. As members of an itinerant opera troupe, the Boston Ideals singers were by definition nomadic individuals. What the letters to Ober reveal, however, is the surprising degree to which many of the singers engaged in concertizing and performing completely independent from the company’s activities, much of which required additional travel beyond that undertaken by the opera troupe. Surely this wealth of activity occurred wherever the company performed; this, again, reinforces the concept of a web of musical/theatrical activity connecting many parts of the country. The subset of letters that concerns us here commences in August 1880 (prior to the troupe’s engagement in New York), with the singers scattered geographically (in Saratoga and Livingston County, New York; Chiltonville and Worcester, Massachusetts; New York City; Carlsbad, Germany; and elsewhere). They are preparing to assemble in Manhattan, where they will commence the 1880–1881 season on 13 September with a month’s engagement at Booth’s Theatre. The August letters to Ober reveal an accelerando of activity as the rendezvous date in New York grew nearer. Adelaide Phillipps, the troupe’s contralto, wrote a letter full of questions from Carlsbad, Germany, in early August:

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Now about the Chimes of Normandy—What edition are we to sing? Can I get the music in London? For you must know that [William] Castle had it arranged for his (or Hess’s?) company—the part that Castle sings (who is a Tenor) is a Barytone in the original—and Germaine—Miss Seguin (Contralto) is Soprano in the original & you ought if possible to have Hess’s arrangement for it is very good! Now then[,] how am I going to study it, for I cannot sail till the 9th of September—that brings me home about the 19th or 20th & I could not study it in seven days. You see as they do it in America it is all arranged to suit a contralto. If you have not known all this you had better find out from Mr. [Tom] Karl what is to be done. Please let me hear from you about it. . . . I, in the mean time, will write to London & see if there is an English edition—& if so have it sent me[,] as I know nothing about the Opera. I will also have the Bohemian Girl sent me, & [study?] on that. . . . I have been . . . to see Fatinitza, & Boccaccio [here] to try and get some points. I go to hear anything I think may be of use to us.—I tried to find Suppe [sic], but he is not in Vienna.55

The tenor Tom Karl wrote in early August from his summer home in the Finger Lakes region of western New York State, complaining that the Pirates part Ober had had sent to him was difficult to use, as it had neither the piano accompaniment nor the words of the dialogue (only cues); two days later he wrote again that he was still awaiting the dialogue but meanwhile was “trying hard on the vilest manuscript ever given to a singer to study from to learn the musical part” to the operetta.56 The MacDonalds (baritone William and his wife, soprano Marie Stone) wrote from Worcester, Massachusetts, requesting the scores to Arthur Sullivan’s The Sorcerer and Franz von Suppé’s Fatinitza and Boccaccio.57 Several days later MacDonald wrote again, reassuring Ober that he and wife “are pegging away at the opera with a good will and expect to be dead letter perfect for rehearsals in New York.”58 On 20 August Karl wrote again, this time about travel arrangements: “I will be in Boston the 30th,” he noted, but if you would sincerely oblige me by calling the first rehearsal in the afternoon at 3 oc I can then arrive at 2 pm from Salem NY [near Saratoga] where I go to pass a day with the McCartees and as I cannot leave Sunday as there is no train and must wait until Monday and desire absolutely to be present in my place at the first as well as every rehearsal I trust you will grant my request.59

Three days after that, the soprano Mary Beebe penned this frantic note from Saratoga: “My Dear Miss Ober. Can you tell me anything about the movements of the Co. What is to be done and when, and where. I am very anxious to know something about it. Also can you please send me the dialogue part as I should like to study it.”60 These August letters indicate that the singers were to converge on New York from a variety of locations, that they were willing and eager to learn new repertory quickly, and that they relied entirely on Ober (who was somehow supervising all this activity from Boston) to pull everything together. Some of the correspondence suggests the many problems associated with acquiring adequate scores and

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learning new repertory from a distance; others letters contain both repertory suggestions for the troupe and advice concerning the best itinerary for the company’s upcoming tour. Other topics (costumes, publicity issues, hints of turf battles among the singers) reveal some of the many details involved in managing an opera troupe. For the most part, however, the singers at this point are focused on the task at hand: learning their parts and converging on New York from various places during the first week of September to prepare adequately for opening night. Comments from the singers—and newspaper reviews—indicate that the launch in New York was successful. Tom Karl wrote to Ober on 15 September (two days after opening night) that “things are going along most pleasantly,” and William MacDonald wrote the next day to inform Ober of the “big success” enjoyed by his wife (Marie Stone) in her debut performance the previous night.61 The season was no sooner launched, however, than troupe members turned their attention to other issues. Karl, for example, in his first letter after opening night, was already thinking ahead to troupe activities subsequent to the New York engagement, which was to end on 9 October. “I have had an offer of a concert for November 4th for Philadelphia,” he wrote, “and before I write [to answer] I want to know your plans for me or if it will interfere with anything if I make arrangements accordingly. An immediate answer will oblige.”62 Karl was not the only troupe member engaged in negotiating non-opera troupe jobs. Now that the Ideals had successfully launched its season and was settled in for a month of performances, other company singers also wrote to Ober to ask about her plans for them and to announce their plans to her; some of the complicated arrangements undertaken by the singers, in fact, were apparently at the instigation of Ober herself, who seemingly juggled opera and concert schedules with great aplomb. It is illustrative to describe several of the various arrangements and negotiations that went on between Ober and her singers during September and October. William MacDonald, for example, wrote to the manager on 16 September to inquire about scheduling for his wife for the subsequent week. The baritone pointed out that as the company’s other soprano, Mary Beebe, was singing four times during opening week, “Mrs. Mac” should “have the same privilege next week.” He proposed a schedule for the week of 20 September that had the two sopranos alternating. MacDonald was surely acting as his wife’s advocate, but he also had a practical need to know her opera schedule so he could help her make decisions should other engagements arise. Another engagement, in fact, did arise, almost immediately. Ober arranged for Stone to perform in concert at Lynn, Massachusetts, on Friday, 1 October, with Annie Louise Cary (1841–1921), one of the manager’s other star singers.63 In late September MacDonald bombarded Ober with letters concerning the logistics involved for that concert. On the twenty-second he suggested that “Mrs. Mac had better sing Wed. & Thurs [29–30 September] and leave after the performance on Thursday evening . . . leaving Miss Beebe to finish the week.” Later he proposed that “if necessary Mrs. Mac can sing Thursday night [30 September] and leave on the late train for Boston—I

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suppose she could take the 8:30 [a.m.] train from Boston on Saturday and get here [New York] for the evening performance.” An alternative plan was for Stone to leave on Thursday and stay overnight in Worcester, Massachusetts, arriving in Boston on Friday. This was appealing, for Worcester was Stone’s hometown, and she and her husband maintained a residence there. MacDonald asked if Ober could “arrange a rehearsal for noon Friday with Miss Cary and accompanist,” which she apparently did. The next day MacDonald penned a brief note to Ober: “Mrs. Mac left for Worcester to-day at 4 p.m. and will arrive in Boston tomorrow— Friday—at 11 a.m.”64 Other singers were likewise working on the side. The company’s bass, Myron Whitney, also traveled to Worcester late in the second week of the New York season, to sing in a concert performance of Judas Maccabeus at a music festival with— again—Annie Cary.65 And William Fessenden wrote to Ober on 24 September about a job offer he had from a concern in Littleton, New Hampshire, noting “they will probably be willing to pay a good price if it will be practical to make the engagement.” He does not mention a date for this concert but does announce that he planned “to go to Boston tomorrow night [Saturday, 25 September] after the performance.”66 Finally, Tom Karl, writing on 4 October, toward the end of the New York season, penned these revealing comments: After next week I wish if you will be kind enough to tell me what are your plans for me. . . . You told me, I believe, I was to sing at a concert the first days of November and I think Miss Stone said she thought I was advertised to appear also with some Quartette or instrumental combination alone. Please enlighten me. I am not going to Philadelphia[,] as the man desired I should go for nothing almost and pay my own expenses as well. I did not reply to the letter. Fatinitza has made a splendid hit and we all think it a shame to put on Pinafore.67

The troupe closed its New York engagement on 9 October; the season there had been a success. The company subsequently performed in a number of New England cities (Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island) before landing in Boston, where Ober advertised a series of “Grand Concerts” by the Boston Ideal Opera Concert Company, for the benefit of home missionary work under the aegis of Henry Ward Beecher, commencing on 4 November at Tremont Temple.68 The subsequent tour included visits to Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Chicago, and points further west, but we can part company with the troupe at this point, as it has served its purpose.69

Conclusion Information from the letters in the Roberts Collection clearly indicates that many of the performing musicians in America in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s were comfortable wearing a variety of musical and musical/theatrical caps. They

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frequently and easily moved from genre to genre, sometimes shifting focus over the course of a career, sometimes performing within one season or with a single company—works from repertories today considered vastly dissimilar—sometimes doing both. This suggests that much of the musical/theatrical repertory of the late nineteenth century, which we tend to label “opera,” “operetta,” “oratorio,” “concert,” “theater,” and “minstrelsy,” functioned in a manner that was much more interconnected and integrated than is generally accepted today. The letters also indicate that many musicians during this period were both comfortable and sufficiently flexible—with the travel and the varied repertory—to bounce from one genre or style to another and from one location to another. This fluidity of repertory, genre, and venue likewise indicates a state of mind about musical/theatrical performance significantly different from that of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; it suggests furthermore that even this late in the nineteenth century the bifurcation that marks culture of the twentieth century was not yet—at least in some areas—a fait accompli. The extent to which these performers left many of the day-to-day details of their professional lives in the hands of an agent or manager is likewise eye opening from a twenty-first-century point of view. The singers whose letters I have quoted in this chapter could go from one week to the next not knowing exactly what they were going to do or where they were to be. The comments in Tom Karl’s letter of 4 October—the sentiments of which are echoed by Mary Beebe on 24 August 1880, by William Castle on 20 December 1876, and in others letters not cited here—are worth quoting again for what they reveal: “After next week I wish if you will be kind enough to tell me what are your plans for me.” This state of affairs, of course, is not unknown in the twenty-first century, for surely the details of some celebrities’ lives are managed by agents. But the similarity nonetheless breaks down, for most modern celebrities—even if they do not know where they are to perform—have a fairly clear idea what they will be doing when the curtain rises. As we have seen, this was not necessarily the case with some musical/theatrical performers of the late nineteenth century. Finally, the information in the letters studied for this chapter reveals that nineteenth-century American cities and towns were culturally linked to a degree generally not understood today and that New York City was part of an intricate and extraordinarily rich web of musical activity that included much of the country and incorporated a significant percentage of imported European repertory (see plates 14.4 and 14.5). Some performers, such as William Castle, were based in New York City but nevertheless relied for part of their livelihoods on work elsewhere and did so on a regular basis. Some ensembles, such as the Boston Ideals, were not based in New York City but performed there—as well as in countless other American towns and hamlets. And many ensembles (like the Ideals) had individual members who (again like Castle) frequently engaged in a multiplicity of performing activities in a variety of venues. The aggregate result of these many cultural activities is that American cities and towns, including New York, were

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 14.4. Playbill from the Boston Ideal Opera Company performance of William Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, 14 April 1881. Glase Scrapbook Collection, Theatre Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

linked on a regular, even a daily, basis and that audiences in these many towns and cities shared with New York this rich imported musical repertory. The chapters in this volume illustrate in great and persuasive detail the profound significance of imported European musicians (visitors and immigrants) and musical repertory (performed by Americans and Europeans) to the musical fabric of New York City during the second half of the nineteenth century. In this final essay, I have focused not on musical activity in New York City per se but rather on how the city was intrinsically connected—musically and culturally— with the rest of the country. By viewing the former (the wealth of European-based musical activity in Gotham) in the context of the latter (the connections between New York and the rest of the country), we can readily apply what we have learned about musical culture in New York to much of the rest of the country. This broader interpretation is both valid and valuable, for it deepens our understanding of American musical culture in general during the period 1840–1900.

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Plate 14.5. Playbill from the Boston Ideal Opera Company performance of the Planquette operetta The Bells of Corneville, from the Boston Theatre, 16 May 1881. Glase Scrapbook Collection, Theatre Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

Notes 1. A number of scholars have recently contributed greatly to our understanding of the rich musical culture of non-New York America in the nineteenth century. Several recent works deal with nineteenth-century itinerant musicians whose activities

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contributed immensely to musical culture all over the country. Among these are my Opera on the Road: Traveling Opera Troupes in the United States, 1825–1860 (1993; reprint, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001); R. Allen Lott’s From Paris to Peoria: How European Piano Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Nancy Newman’s as-yet-unpublished dissertation “Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society and Transatlantic Musical Culture in the Mid-Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 2002). Some biographies of American composers serve the same purpose, e.g., S. Frederick Starr’s Bamboula: The Life and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Studies devoted to musical life in various American cities have furthermore contributed greatly to our understanding of American musical culture outside New York. Among these works are my Music for Hire: A Study of Professional Musicians in Washington, D.C., 1877–1900 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1992); Michael Broyles’s Music of the Highest Class: Elitism and Populism in Antebellum Boston (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Henry Kmen’s not-so-recent (but still very useful) Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years, 1791–1841 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966); Verdi at the Golden Gate: Opera and San Francisco in the Gold Rush Years (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) by George Martin; Eugene H. Cropsey’s Crosby’s Opera House: Symbol of Chicago’s Cultural Awakening (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1999); and Catherine Parsons Smith’s forthcoming study of music in Los Angeles (in press at the University of California Press). There are, in addition, scores of dissertations and master’s theses about the history of music in various American cities. A huge amount of work, however, remains to be done. 2. The letters are in the Autograph Letters Signed (ALS) Collection of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (hereafter HTC). Each letter is cataloged under the name of the individual who wrote it. I would like to thank Annette Fern, curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection, for helping me to identify authors of letters that are part of what once must have been an intact collection of materials related to the Roberts Musical Agency of Boston. What I refer to as the Roberts Collection is “intact” only in my notes and in a stack of photocopies of the constituent letters in my personal collection. 3. Very few scholars have dealt with the important issue of music management in nineteenth-century America, especially during the postbellum period; secondary source material is much more readily available in relation to theatrical management. The most thorough treatment of the subject (although limited to the antebellum period) is R. Allen Lott’s “Bernard Ullman: Nineteenth-Century American Impresario,” in A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock, eds. Richard Crawford, R. Allen Lott, and Carol J. Oja (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 174–91. Lott also deals extensively with music management and the business of music in “Chickering, Steinway, and Three Nineteenth-Century European Piano Virtuosos,” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 21 (1995): 65–85, and “The American Concert Tours of Leopold de Meyer, Henri Herz, and Sigismond Thalberg” (Ph.D. dissertation, CUNY, 1986). Lott has expanded this latter work significantly and moved into the late nineteenth century in From Paris to Peoria. Another useful, although not completely reliable, source of information on management in the antebellum period is Laurence Marton Lerner, “The Rise of the Impresario: Bernard Ullman and the Transformation of Musical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of

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Wisconsin, 1970). Readily available primary source information about operatic, theatrical, or music management is found in published memoirs from the period, such as Max Maretzek’s two volumes of reminiscences, Crotchets and Quavers (1855) and Sharps and Flats (1890), republished as Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th-Century America, with an introduction by Charles Haywood (New York: Dover, 1968); Maurice Strakosch’s Souvenirs d’un Impresario, 2nd ed. (Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1887), abridged translation in “Strakosch and Patti,” The Musical Courier 41, no. 17 (24 October 1900): 26–36; and Robert Grau’s Forty Years Observation of Music and the Drama (New York: Broadway, 1909). Scattered secondary sources on European musical management include John Rosselli, The Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi: The Role of the Impresario (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); and Gabriela Dideriksen and Matthew Ringel, “Frederick Gye and ‘The Dreadful Business of Opera Management,’ ” Nineteenth-Century Music 19, no. 1 (1995): 3–31. The most complete work on antebellum opera management in the United States is my Opera on the Road. For a still-useful treatment of theatrical management in nineteenth-century America, see Alfred L Bernheim, The Business of the Theatre (New York: Actors’ Equity Association, 1932). 4. Mention of Ober’s non-Boston Ideals activities does occasionally surface. In the entry on Georgia Cayvan in one biographical dictionary, for example, Ober is described as someone “who had managed Miss Cayvan’s reading assignments” (before engaging her to sing for the Ideals). See Edmond M. Gagey, “Cayvan, Georgia Eva,” in Notable American Women, 1607–1950. A Biographical Dictionary, ed. Edward T. James (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 314. 5. The Boston Directory Embracing the City Record, a General Directory of the Citizens, and Business Directory (Boston: Sampson, Davenport, 1869–1889). 6. Description of Ober is from an unidentified article titled “Miss E. H. Ober” and filed under “Ober” in the Clipping File in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The clipping is undated, but internal information suggests it was published in or around 1885. Ober’s managerial activities (including reference to the Williams Bureau) are also described by Esther Wood in Deep Roots: A Maine Legacy (Camden, Maine: Yankee Books, 1989); see esp. 74–76. 7. Boston’s Music Hall, a 2,700-seat auditorium that opened in 1852, was built through the efforts of the Harvard Musical Association. It was supplanted in 1900 by the New Boston Music Hall, later called Symphony Hall, which was built at the instigation of Henry Lee Higginson. See Leonard Burkat and Pamela Fox, “Boston: 2. Concert Life to 1881; 8. Theatres and Concert Halls,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 2002), http://www.grovemusic. com; H. Earle Johnson: Symphony Hall, Boston (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950), chapter 1; “Boston Music Hall,” Dwight’s Journal of Music 41, no. 1051 (3 September 1881): 125. 8. Henry Clay Barnabee, Reminiscences of Henry Clay Barnabee, ed. George Leon Varney (1913; reprint, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 309–10. I have discovered no information about the Roberts Agency in any secondary sources, and my assertion that the bureau was Ober’s own is based both on Barnabee’s claim and on information from the Boston directories. The name James H. Roberts is listed in the directory, but this individual is identified as the apparently very successful owner of a company that manufactured and sold machinery (“steam engines, boilers, and machinery . . . all kinds of new and second hand machinery bought and sold” [1873]). The likelihood that he ran a music and lecture agency on the side seems

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slight. Further corroborating evidence is the fact that entries for the Roberts Agency disappeared from the Boston Directory the same year Ober’s name dropped from sight. It is possible—and not unprecedented—that James Roberts provided behindthe-scenes financial support for Ober’s agency. But there is no evidence to support that idea. Gerald Bordman describes Ober as “an agent for several respected artists” in American Operetta. From H. M. S. Pinafore to Sweeney Todd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 21. 9. Eugene Tompkins and Quincy Kilby, The History of the Boston Theatre, 1854–1901 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908), 262–65. H. M. S. Pinafore premiered in the United States on 10 February 1879 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City (George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage [New York: Columbia University Press, 1939], 10: 578). 10. In 1885 Ober married Virgil Kline, a Cleveland attorney who worked for Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller. She left the business world—she apparently had made a small fortune—and retired to Blue Hill, Maine, where she founded an artists’ colony (Obituary, The Boston Evening Transcript, 26 February 1927; Wood, Deep Roots, 75–76). My thanks to Elvira Bass of the Blue Hill (Maine) Historical Society, who located Ober-related photographs for me. 11. The esteem in which the Boston Ideals/Bostonians was held is reflected, for example, in Robert Grau’s Forty Years, in which he describes the company as “a gathering of singers and players that has never been equaled in the history of the American stage” (p. 173). Bordman describes the troupe in 1879 as ‘the finest artistic ensemble ever presented on America’s popular lyric stage” (American Operetta, 21). 12. Barnabee, Reminiscences, 309–17; Jane W. Stedman, “Barnabee, Henry Clay,” in American National Biography, general eds. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 2: 168–70; Montrose J. Moses, “Barnabee, Henry Clay,” in Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928–1936), 615. For citations for the other singers, see notes 18–24. 13. Undated Ober clipping, Music Division, NYPL. 14. Titles are as they were used by the company—sometimes in translation, sometimes not. 15. The repertories of some opera companies today occasionally include operettas and Broadway musicals mixed in with the “standard” repertory, but these are generally the exceptions rather than the rule. During its 2004–2005 season, for example, the Virginia Opera Company performed The Merry Widow (Franz Lehár), as well as Turandot, Faust (Gounod), and Tristan und Isolde; in 2005–2006, the New York City Opera included Sullivan’s Patience in addition to more standard repertory by Rossini, Puccini, and others. Local and community-based opera companies are also likely to program the occasional “lighter” work. In contrast, however, both the Washington National Opera and the New York Metropolitan tend to program standard operatic works, although the National Opera mounted a production of Porgy and Bess in 2005–2006, and the Met performed Offenbach’s Contes d’Hoffmann in 2004–2005. No companies today regularly mount the mixture of grand opera and operetta that was the normal and everyday fare of the Boston Ideals or many other late-nineteenth-century English opera troupes. Information on repertory is taken from the Web pages for the various opera companies, accessed 2 June 2005: www.vaopera.org/index.htm; www.nyopera.com/index.aspx?detect⫹yes; www.dc-opera.org/, and www.metoperafamily. org/metopera/home.aspx

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16. See Carole Rosen, “Carl Rosa Opera Company,” in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 2002), http://www.grovemusic.com. John Ward of Manchester, England, is working on an authoritative study of the Carl Rosa company. See also his, “Carl Rosa Comes to Town: The Opera Season of 1873,” Manchester Sounds 5 (2004–2005): 5–27. 17. According to Barnabee, in addition to works by de Koven and Herbert, the Bostonians also “waved the star-spangled banner of native art” by performing The Ogallalas (Henry Waller) and The Maid of Plymouth (G. Thorne) (p. 401, 426). See also Barclay F. Gordon, “The Bostonians,” Operetta Then and Now, http://www.operetta.org/ bostonianstext.html. 18. Information on Tom Karl is from a number of sources, including an unidentified clipping titled “Karl Hails from the Ould Sod” (1896), in the Clipping File of the Music Division, NYPL, and obituaries in Musical America (25 March 1916) and The Rochester Times (20 and 21 March 1916). 19. Quotation from Victor Fell Yellin, “Phillipps, Adelaide,” in Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, ed. Edward T. James (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 62–63; see also “Adelaide Phillipps” (obituary), The Folio 22, no. 5 (November 1882): 408; Mrs. R. C. Waterson, Adelaide Phillipps: A Record (Boston: A. Williams, 1881). 20. John Tasker Howard, “Whitney, Myron William,” in Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928–1936), 164–65; “Whitney, Myron William,” in National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White, 1921), 2: 143; Odell, Annals, 9: 95, 98. 21. See Gagey, “Cayvan, Georgia Eva,” 314–15; “Cayvan, Georgia Eva,” in National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White, 1921), 2: 453; Edwin Francis Edgett, “Cayvan, Georgia,” in Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928–1936), 580. 22. Odell, Annals, 10: 111, 11: 264. 23. ALS MacDonald to Ober, 24 April 1879, ALS Collection, HTC. 24. According to Barnabee, when George Frothingham joined the Ideals in 1879 he was “a recent graduate from minstrelsy,” 310. A photograph of Frothingham (in costume but not in blackface) is part of the Minstrel Show Collection at the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Inscribed beneath the photo is the information “George Frothingham/Famous Minstrel/1860.” 25. Information about Castle’s operatic work (including mention of the Campbell and Castle English Opera Company) is from George Ade Davis’s “The Requiem of a Grand Opera Pioneer,” Theatre (August 1909): 67–68 (copy in the Clipping File of the Music Division of NYPL). Information about Castle’s work with Grau is from Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong. Vol. 3, Repercussions, 1857–1862 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 511–12. 26. Castle’s employment at Augustin Daly’s Fifth Avenue Theatre is from ALS Castle to Roberts, 31 October 1876, ALS Collection, HTC, and reference to his work as a concert singer is from Lawrence, Repercussions, 529, 530, 539. 27. Castle is identified as a member of Christy’s Minstrels in Lawrence, Repercussions, 510 n; on his work with various English opera companies, see Tompkins and Kilby, History of the Boston Theatre, 141, 153, 161, 170, 182, 220, 362; Odell, Annals, vols. 9 and 10; Davis, “Requiem.” 28. ALS MacDonald to Ober, 11 March 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. Ober did not sign Castle, as she had a perfectly good tenor in the person of Tom Karl.

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29. Castle’s ten letters are the earliest identified as part of this reconstructed “collection.” The first of the letters is addressed to A. P. Peck, Esq., and is dated 17 October 1876; the other nine are to J. H. Roberts & Co. and are dated 24 and 31 October; 30 November; 8, 20, 26, and 27 December 1876; and 15 and 21 January 1877, ALS Collection, HTC. Lawrence identifies Peck as a chorus master in Repercussions, 460. 30. Kellogg in Brooklyn (Odell, Annals, 10: 133). 31. Odell, Annals, 10: 176, 207, 299; see also The New-York Times, 8 October 1876 (advertisement for one of Fryer’s Sunday concerts), 5 November 1876 (advertisement for the concert by the Oratorio Society of New York), 5 February 1877 (advertisement for the Grand Literary and Musical Entertainment), and 7 February 1877 (for a detailed review of the concert). 32. ALS Castle to Roberts, 31 October 1876, ALS Collection, HTC; Odell, Annals, 10: 185. 33. Odell, Annals, 10: 186. 34. ALS Castle to A. P. Peck, Esq., 17 October [1876], ALS Collection, HTC. 35. ALS Castle to Roberts, 31 October 1876, ALS Collection, HTC. 36. ALS Castle to Roberts, 20 December 1876, ALS Collection, HTC; Odell, Annals, 10: 252. 37. Information from contemporary travel guides indicates that Castle could have boarded a train in New York City and traveled all the way to Cincinnati without even changing rail companies. See the map of the Baltimore & Ohio rail system for routes from New York to Cincinnati in W. F. Allen, ed., Travelers’ Official Guide of the Railway and Steam Navigation Lines in the United States & Canada (Philadelphia: National Railway Publication, May 1875), in the Railroad Collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. My thanks to Caroline F. Sloat, Director of Scholarly Programs at the Antiquarian Society, for calling my attention to this collection. 38. ALS Castle to Roberts, 21 January 1877, ALS Collection, HTC. 39. ALS Castle to A. P. Peck, 17 October [1876], ALS Collection, HTC. 40. This was the Oratorio Society’s first concert for the 1876–1877 season, and it featured Henrietta Corradi (soprano), Anna Drasdil, W. E. Stoddard, and William Castle as soloists (Odell, Annals, 10: 309). 41. ALS Castle to Roberts, 24 October 1876, ALS Collection, HTC. Castle could have misreported the beginning date of his engagement at the theater; it is also possible that he was engaged for rehearsals a week prior to opening night. See The NewYork Times, 17 November–5 December 1876. 42. Odell, Annals, 10: 207. 43. ALS Castle to Roberts, 31 October 1876, ALS Collection, HTC. 44. Odell, Annals, 10: 186–87. 45. The New-York Times, 18 November, 3 December 1876. 46. Ibid., 19 November, 6 December 1876. 47. ALS Castle to Roberts, 30 November 1876, ALS Collection, HTC; advertisements for Ford’s Theatre, The Baltimore Sun, 11–16 December 1876. 48. ALS Castle to Roberts, 26 December 1876, ALS Collection, HTC; The Baltimore Sun, 27 December 1876. 49. The Cincinnati Commercial, 1, 2, 3 January 1877. The opera was produced at the Grand Opera House in Cincinnati as a midweek matinee. 50. Details about the Kellogg engagement at the Academy of Music are from The New York Evening Express, 23 January–10 February 1877, and Odell, Annals, 10: 252.

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51. ALS Castle to Roberts, 21 January 1877, ALS Collection, HTC. 52. Ibid. 53. Tompkins and Kilby, History of the Boston Theatre, 262 ff. 54. Barnabee, Reminiscences, 330–31; Odell, Annals, 11: 58. 55. ALS Phillipps to Ober, 1 August 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 56. ALS Karl to Ober, 7 August 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 57. ALS MacDonald to Ober, 14 August 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 58. ALS MacDonald to Ober, 18 August 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 59. ALS Karl to Ober, 20 August 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 60. ALS Beebe to Ober, 23 August 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 61. ALS Karl to Ober, 15 September 1880; ALS MacDonald to Ober, 16 September 1880, both in ALS Collection, HTC. 62. ALS Karl to Ober, 15 September 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 63. ALS MacDonald to Ober, 22 September 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 64. ALS MacDonald to Ober, 28 and 29 September 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 65. The Boston Evening Transcript, 25 September 1880. 66. ALS Fessenden to Ober, 24 September 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 67. ALS Karl to Ober, 4 October 1880, ALS Collection, HTC. 68. Worcester and Springfield are mentioned in several letters, including those from MacDonald to Ober, 2 and 21 October 1880, ALS Collection, HTC; information about Providence is from The Providence Daily Journal, 9 November 1880; information about Boston concerts is from The Boston Daily Globe, 21 October 1880. 69. Folio 20, no. 1, 7 and 20; no. 2, 53.

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Periodicals The Albion; or, British, Colonial, and Foreign Weekly American Art Journal American Musical Times Brainard’s Musical Times Dwight’s Journal of Music Folio: a Journal of Music, Art, and Literature Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper Gleason’s Pictorial The Guidon Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Harper’s Weekly Metronome Music Trade Review Music Trades The Musical Courier

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Encyclopedias The Boston Directory Embracing the City Record, A General Directory of the Citizens, and Business Directory. Boston: Sampson, Davenport, 1869–1889. Hofmeisters Handbuch der Musikliteratur. Leipzig: Hofmeister, 1844–1943. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1974. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. London: Macmillan, 1986. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2000. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London: Macmillan, 1992. Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur aller Zeiten und Völker. Vienna: Pazdírek, 1904–1910.

Contributors ADRIENNE FRIED BLOCK is the coauthor of Women in American Music: A Bibliography of Music and Literature (1979), author of Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian: The Life and Work of an American Composer (1999), awarded the Sonneck Society’s Lowens Award and the ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award, and is editor of Amy Beach: String Quartet in One Movement, op. 89, published in Music in the United States of America. A specialist in music by American women, her numerous articles have appeared in American Music, The Musical Quarterly, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and other leading journals and encyclopedias. She was honored by the Society for American Music with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Currently she is co-director of “Music in Gotham: The New York Scene, 1862–1875,” a project that is chronicling the performance and reception of music in New York City. CHRISTOPHER BRUHN completed his Ph.D. in musicology at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2006. He has been a research assistant with the Graduate Center’s Music in Gotham project (directed by Adrienne Fried Block and John Graziano) for over three years. His dissertation considers Charles Ives as American cosmologist. RAOUL F. CAMUS is professor emeritus of music at Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York. A past president of the Sonneck Society for American Music, he contributed numerous articles on bands and military music for the New Grove Dictionary of American Music and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He is co-author of the computer-generated microfiche index Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources 1589–1839, compiler of an anthology of wind and percussion music in G. K. Hall’s series Three Centuries of American Music, the author of Military Music of the American Revolution, and articles on bands and their repertoire in journals, encyclopedias, and the Alta Musica series. FRANK J. CIPOLLA is emeritus professor of music and former director of bands, State University of New York at Buffalo. After receiving degrees from the Eastman School of Music, he began his professional career as a trumpet player in the Kansas City Philharmonic and later as instructor of brass instruments at

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the University of Missouri. He is an active researcher and has published numerous articles, record notes, and reviews focusing on nineteenth-century American bands and bandmasters, as well as the book, The Wind Ensemble and its Literature which he co-edited with Donald Hunsberger, Conductor Emeritus of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. Most recently he was awarded life-time honorary membership in the American Bandmasters Association. JOHN GRAZIANO is professor of music at The City College and Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is co-director, with Adrienne Fried Block, of “Music in Gotham: the New York Scene, 1862–1875,” a National Endowment for the Humanities “We the People” project. His most recent publications include “Images in African-Americans: African-American musical theatre, Show Boat, and Porgy and Bess” in The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, “The Reception of Verdi in Mid-Nineteenth Century New York,” in Verdi 2001: Proceeding of the International Conference, and “Dialect Songs, Barbershop Harmony, and the American Art Song,” Black Music Research Journal (forthcoming). His article, “The Early Life and Career of the ‘Black Patti’: the Odyssey of an AfricanAmerican Singer in the Late Nineteenth Century,” was recipient of the Irving Lowens award for the best article on American music published in 2000. RUTH HENDERSON is music librarian at The City College of New York. She is the editor and annotator of Max Maretzek’s third (incomplete) volume of memoirs, Further Revelations of an Opera Managr in 19th Century America: The Third Book of Memoirs. JOHN KOEGEL, associate professor of musicology at California State University, Fullerton, is an Americanist with a broad interest in musical life in the contexts of ethnicity and immigration. He has extensively studied Latino musical life in the United States, Mexican music, as well as German-American musical traditions. He has published articles and reviews on these topics in American Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Latin American Music Review, Historia Mexicana, Revista de Musicologia (Spain), Heterotonia (Mexico), California History, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and Notes, among others. He is completing a book on the German-American musical theater in New York, 1840–1930 (University of Rochester Press) and an edition of nineteenth-century songs from Mexican California for the series Music in the United States of America. R. ALLEN LOTT received the Ph.D. in musicology from the City University of New York and has taught music history in the School of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth since1986. His publications include From Paris to Peoria: How European Piano Virtuosos Brought Classical Music to the American Heartland (Oxford University Press), A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock as co-editor (University of Michigan Press), and articles in American Music, Journal of the

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319

American Musicological Society, The Journal of Musicology, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, and 19th-Century Music. He is now working on a critical edition of nineteenth-century American hymnody for the series Music in the United States of America. RENA CHARNIN MUELLER teaches in the Department of Music at New York University, Faculty of Arts and Science. A specialist in nineteenth-century music, including the compositional aesthetic of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner, her essay and annotated commentary on the questionnaires sent to Liszt by his biographer, Lina Ramann, will appear in the volume Franz Liszt and His World, published in conjunction with the August 2006 Bard Festival. Her chapter on the Liszt Lieder appeared in the Cambridge Companion to the Lied (2004). She has also published source-critical editions of Les Préludes (Editio Musica Budapest), the Trois Études de Concert and the two Ballades (Henle Verlag); and her edition of the recently discovered Liszt Walse was published by Thorpe Music, Boston. With Mária Eckhardt, she is the author of the Franz Liszt “List of Works” for The New Grove 2000, and together they are preparing a complete Thematic Catalogue of Liszt’s music. HILARY PORISS is assistant professor of music at Northeastern University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2000, was a Mellon Fellow at the Columbia University Society of Fellows in the Humanities (2001–2002), and a Whiting Fellow in residence at the Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago (2004–2005). Her articles and reviews appear in 19thCentury Music, 19th-Century Music Review, Cambridge Opera Journal, and The Verdi Forum. She is currently completing a book titled Arias, Authorship, and the Prima Donna. KATHERINE K. PRESTON is the David N. and Margaret C. Bottoms Professor of Music and chair of the Department of Music at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Her area of specialization is music in nineteenth-century America, with a primary focus on musical theatre (including opera) during that period. Among her many published works are Music for Hire: Professional Musicians in Washington, D.C., 1877–1900, Opera on the Road: Traveling Opera Troupes in the United States, 1825–1860, David Braham: The Mulligan Guard Ball and Reilly and the 400 (an edited volume in the series Nineteenth-Century American Musical Theatre), and articles in the The Cambridge History of American Music, and The Cambridge Companion to the Musical. Preston currently is working on two major publications: an edition of Symphony No. 2, “The Jullien” (1853) by the American composer George Bristow (a volume in the series Music in the United States of America) and a book tentatively titled Against the Grain: Women Performer /Managers and English Opera in Late 19th-Century America. NANCY B. REICH received a Ph.D. from New York University, has served on the faculties of Manhattanville College and New York University, and has been a

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visiting professor at Bard College and Williams College. She is the author of articles and reviews on women musicians and composers of the nineteenth-century which have appeared in 19th Century Music, Keyboard Classics, Piano Today, The Musical Quarterly, Notes, Journal of Musicological Research, and Music and Letters, and has also contributed to monographs on Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Robert Schumann. Essays have been published in Women and Music: A History; Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship; and Women’s Voices Across Musical Worlds. Reich’s award-winning biography, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, Cornell University Press, has been hailed by critics as a major contribution and has been translated into German, Japanese, and Chinese; a revised edition appeared in 2001. She is currently working on a translation and commentary of the Girlhood Diaries of Clara Wieck. ORA FRISHBERG SALOMAN is professor of music at Baruch College and Graduate Center, The City University of New York. Her publications focus on connecting European and American nineteenth-century music criticism and reception history particularly of music by Beethoven and by Berlioz as well as on opera in France. She is the author of Beethoven’s Symphonies and J. S. Dwight: The Birth of American Music Criticism (Northeastern University Press, 1995); of articles in journals including the Journal of Musicological Research, The Opera Quarterly, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, The Musical Quarterly, The Journal of Musicology, American Music, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, and Acta Musicologica; and of essays in Music and the French Revolution (1992) and in Festschrift Walter Wiora (1997). WAYNE D. SHIRLEY retired as Senior Music Specialist from the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 2002. During his tenure in the Music Division one of his duties was the putting in order of the Division’s several collections of the papers of the Damrosch family. His most recent publication is Selected Letters of Aaron Copland, co-edited with Elizabeth B. Crist.

Index

Abt, Franz, composer (1819–85) “Die stille Wasserrose,” 142 “Waldabendschein,” 142 Adam, Adolphe, composer (1803–56) Les pantins de Violette, 267 Le postillon de Lonjumeau, 257, 267 Le toréador, 267 Adams, John, politician (1735–1826), 121 Aldrich, Richard, critic (1863–1937), 222 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, poet (1836–1907), 101 Amateur musicians, 121 Amberg, Gustav, impresario (1844–1921), 163–65 as theatrical agent for the Shuberts, 179n69 American composers definition of, 115–17, 128 lack of support for and interest in, 13 study in Europe, 128 American life, German influence on, 136 American music, definition of, 129–30 American themes, music on, 125, 127–28, 134n73 d’Angri, Elena, singer (1821/4?–70s?), 77 Anschütz, Carl, conductor (1815–70), 40, 67, 82, 88, 157, 170 opera company, 5, 257 praise from reviewers, 257

Ansorge, Conrad, pianist/composer (1862–1930), 59, 65 Aptommas, Thomas, harpist/composer (1829–1913) Fantasia on “Home, Sweet Home,” 130 Fantasia on Lucia di Lammermoor, 130 Arbuckle, Mathew, cornetist (1828–83), 182–83 rivalry with Levy, 187 Arditi, Luigi, composer (1822–1903), 242 Arion’s Liederkranz, 103 Aronson, Rudolf, impresario (1856–1919), 165, 167 Artôt, Alexandre, violinist (1815–45), 81 Auber, Daniel-François-Esprit, composer (1782–1871) Les diamants de la couronne, 267 Fra Diavolo, 253, 257, 267, 279 Le maçon, 267 Masaniello, 17, 267 Le serment, 267 Audiences, 2, 4, 78, 136, 149, 225, 254 Audran, Edmond, composer (1840–1901) The Mascot, 279 Olivette, 279 Aus der Ohe, Adele, pianist (1864–1937), 51, 64–65 Bach, Christian [Christoph], conductor, (1835–1927), 170

322

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Bach, Johann Sebastian, composer (1685–1750) Matthäus-Passion, opening chorus, 141 unspecified works, 211 Balatka, Hans, conductor (1825/7?–99), 170 Balfe, Michael, composer (1808–70) The Bohemian Girl, 254, 267, 269, 285 The Enchantress, 267 The Rose of Castille, 254, 267 Satanella, 267 Bandmann, Daniel, performer/manager (1840–after 1900), 151 Barili, Antonio (1826–76) Un noche in Sevilla, 267 Barnabee, Henry Clay, singer and actor (1833–1917), 275, 277 Bateman, H. L., impresario, 258, 262–64 Baumfeld, Maurice, theater manager (fl. 1900–1920), 164 Beebe, Mary, singer (1858–1902), 277 letter to Ober, 287–88 Beer and Schirmer, 118 Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770–1827) Adelaide, op. 46, 78 Fantasia, op. 80, 144 Fidelio, 157, 167, 257, 267 Leonora overture, 211 Piano Concerto, op. 37, 75, 77, 83, 89n15 Piano Concerto, op. 58, 89n15 Piano Concerto (“Emperor”), op. 73, 54, 75, 77, 89n15 Piano Sonata (“Moonlight”), op. 27, no. 2, 78 Piano Trio (“Archduke”), op. 97, 78 Piano Trio, op. 1, no. 3, 78 String Quartet, op. 18, no. 1, 3 String Quartet, op. 18, no. 2, 3 String Quartet, op. 18, no. 3, 3 String Quartet, op. 18, no. 4, 3 String Quartet, op. 18, no. 5, 3 String Quartet, op. 18, no. 6, 3 String Quartet, op. 59, no. 1, 3 String Quartet, op. 59, no. 2, 3 String Quartet, op. 59, no. 3, 3 String Quartet, op. 74, 3 String Quartet, op. 95, 3 String Quartet, op. 127, 3

String Quartet, op. 130, 3 String Quartet, op. 131, 3 String Quartet, op. 132, 3 String Quartet, op. 135, 3 Symphony no. 2, op. 36, 124; excerpts, 211 Symphony no. 3, op. 55, excerpts, 211 Symphony no. 5, op. 67, excerpts, 211 Symphony no. 6, op. 68, 58, excerpts, 211 Symphony no. 7, op. 92, excerpts, 211 Symphony no. 8, op. 93, excerpts, 211 Symphony no. 9, op. 125, 37, 141 Violin Concerto, op. 61, 83 Bellini, Vincenzo (1801–35) Norma, 267 I puritani, 220, 267 La sonnambula, 220, 222, 232n9, 267 unspecified selections, 211 Belmont, Mrs. August, (1829–92), 120 Benedict, Julius, composer (1804–85) Lily of Killarney, 253, 267 Berg, Julie de, pianist, 55, 63 Bergmann, Carl, conductor (1821–76), 3, 13–14, 30–33, 35, 37–41, 44, 51, 55, 57, 59, 65–67, 77, 85–87, 123, 125, 136, 144 biography, 31 on Liszt’s Les préludes, 31 on programming Berlioz, 31 Bergner, Frederick, cellist/composer (1827–?), 14 Bergner, Frederick, works by: Reverie, 130 Berlioz, Hector, composer (1803–69), 3, 13, 123 American tour planned, 90n40 “Berlioz Night,” 83 Treatise on Orchestration, 34 visit from Thomas, 34 Berlioz, Hector, works by: Absence, 42 Béatrice et Bénédict, excerpt, 43 Benvenuto Cellini, 36; excerpt, 43; Overture, 41, 43–44 La captive, 36, 42 Le carnaval romain, 30, 31, 35, 39–44, 83, 211 Le cinq mai, 42

Berlioz (continued) Le corsaire, 40 La damnation de Faust, 43, 44, 103; excerpts, 35, 37, 41–44; Rakóczy March, 88 L’enfance du Christ, 36, 38, 43; excerpt, 42 Les francs-juges, 30, 31, 39–41, 83 Grande messe des morts (Requiem), 37, 42, 43, 103 Harold en Italie, 34, 35, 40–42, 44 L’île inconnue, 44 La prise de Troie, 43 Rêverie et caprice, 40 Le roi Lear, 30, 35, 39–44 Roméo et Juliette, 38, 43; excerpts, 35, 40–42, 44 Le spectre de la rose, 44 Symphonie fantastique, 27, 32, 33, 38, 40–44 Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, 43 Les Troyens à Carthage, 37, 38, 42–44 Waverley, 31, 40 Bertucca, Apollonia, singer (1819–1909), 237, 244 Bial, Rudolf, composer (1834–81) Ehrlich Arbeit, 167, 170 Mein Leopold, 170 Nimrod, 170 Bizet, Georges, composer (1838–75) L’Arlesienne, 211 Carmen selections, 211 Les pêcheurs de perles, selections, 211 Blakely, David, businessman/manager (1834–96), 191 Boieldieu, Adrien, composer (1775–1834) La dame blanche, 267 Jean de Paris, 257, 267 Booth, Edwin, actor (1833–97), 16, 27n23 Booth, John Wilkes, actor (1838–65), 27n23 Boucicault, Dion, playwright (1820–90), 128 Brahms, Johannes, composer (1833–97), 14, 27n17 Brahms, Johannes, works by: Piano Trio, op. 8, 3, 27

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323

Brambilla, Elvira, singer (fl. 1860s–70s?), 254 Brandt, Marianne, singer (1842–1921), 61 Bristow, George Frederick, composer/violinist (1825–98), 13, 101, 117, 121, 125, 129 Columbus Overture, op. 32, 126, 127, 130 Concert Overture, op. 3, 126, 130 Symphony, op. 10, 126, 130 Symphony, op. 24, 130 Symphony, op. 32, 126, 130 Bristow, William Richard, conductor/composer, 121 Bruch, Max, composer (1838–1920) Frithjof’s Saga, 141 Buck, Dudley, composer (1839–1909) Centennial Meditation, 127 Bull, Ole, violinist/composer (1810–80), 26n13, 81, 126, 219, 220, 245, 272n46 Bülow, Hans von, pianist (1830–94), 4, 36, 51, 63–66, 72, 83–85 Burke, Joseph, violinist (1817–1902), 77, 86 Burkhardt, Charles, critic, 19 Cagnoni, Antonio, composer (1828–96) Don Bucefalo, 253, 267 Cappa, Carlo, conductor (1834–93), 190, 198, 208–11 appointed leader of the Seventh Regiment Band, 209 biography, 208–9 compared to Damrosch, 210 concerts at Coney Island, 209 funeral procession, 211 tribute to Cappa, 209, 211 Carozzi-Zucchi, Carlotta (1831–98), 254 Carr, Benjamin, composer (1768–1831), 121 Carus, Emma, entertainer (1879–1927), 163 Cary, Annie Louise, singer (1841–1921), 288–89 Castle, William, singer (1836–1909), 281–85, 290 correspondence with Roberts Agency, 281, 283–84

324

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Castle (continued) professional life, 281–83 varied career, 281 Cayvan, Georgia, singer (1857/8?–1906), 277, 280 Chadwick, George Whitefield, composer (1854–1931), 5, 101 Christians, Rudolf, theater manager, 164 Chopin, Fryderyk, composer (1810–49), 75 Chopin, Fryderyk, works by: mazurkas, 78 Piano Sonata, op. 35, 78 Civil War, 204 Cohnheim, Max, actor/playwright biography, 160–61 Cohnheim, Max, works by: Die Adoptirte, 160 Fürsten zum Land hinaus, 160 Herz und Dollar, 160 Klein Deutschland, 160 New York und Berlin, 160 New Yorker Humoriste, 160 Conried, Heinrich, actor/impresario (1855–1909), 163–65 outreach to eastern universities, 166 Converse, Charles Crozat, composer (1834–1918) “Festival” Overture, 127 Cornelius, Peter, composer (1824–74), 36 Cotrelly, Mathilde, actresss (1850–1933), 163, 167, 180n86 Curtis, George William, critic (1824–92), on Thalberg, 79 Dalayrac, Nicholas, composer (1753–1809) Marianne, 267 Damrosch, Leopold, composer/conductor (1832–85), 3, 13, 36–38, 42, 43, 55, 56, 60, 66, 92–113, 133n50, 162, 284 as editor, 103 biography, 36 debt to Schumann, 95 early works, 93 manuscript of Symphony in A major, 112n5 music in St. Cecilia, 103–4 texts used by Schumann and Wolf, 98 Damrosch, Leopold, works by:

“An die deutschen Mütter,” 109 Arion March, 111 “Aus alten Märchen,” 110 Blut und Eisen, 112 Brautgesang, 110 Cadenzas for Mozart and Weber works, 112 Capriccietto, 111 Cherry Ripe, 110 Concert-Allegro, 111 Concertstück im Charakter einer Serenade, op. 9, 107 “Dein Aug’ ist dunkel wie die Nacht,” 110 Fantasie, 111 Fest-Ouvertüre, op. 15, 93, 96, 108 Fiedellied: Musikanten sollen wandern, 110 Five Lieder, op. 18, 108 Five Songs, op. 5, 106 Five Songs, op. 16, 108 Five Songs, op. 17, 108 Four two-part songs, 109 “Des fremden Kindes heiliger Christ,” 110 “Frau Mette,” 110 “Frisch gesungen!,” 110 Frühlingsahnung, 111 “Der Grafensprung bei Eberstein,” 110 “Gretchen vor dem Bild der Mater dolorosa,” 110 “He Shall Feed His Flock,” 110 Hymenäen, 111 Hymne zur Friedensfeier, 111 “I arise from dreams of thee,” 110 “Ich halte ihr die Augen,” 110 In der Ferne, 111 Independent N. Y. Schützen March, 111 Ins Weinhaus, 111 “Jagdglück,” 111 Jungfrau von Orleans, 92, 93, 108 Kehr’ ein bei mir, 111 “König Harald Harfagar,” 110 “Lieb’ ist der Lilie Duft,” 110 Liebesgesang, 111 “Lied des Fischerknaben,” 109 Lied eines Schmieds, 111 Mailied, 111

Damrosch (continued) “Maiennacht,” 110 “Maireigen. Im Volkston,” 110 “Martha,” 110 Mazurka, 111 “Morgenlied,” 110 Nachtgesang, 111 National Ode, 104–5, 110 Orchester-Fantasie, 93, 111 “Orgéni-Walzer,” 109 “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” 104, 110 Romanze, op. 12, 107 Romeo und Julie, 92–95, 108, 112n6 “Roving,” 110 Ruth and Naomi, 105–8, 113 Saint Cecilia, 103, 108, 109 St. Nicholas Songs, 101, 108, 109 “Selige Zufriedenheit,” 110 “She Walks in Beauty,” 110 “Siegfrieds Schwert,” 109 Six Songs, op. 10, 93, 96, 107 “Spielmann’s Lied,” 110 Stimmungen, op. 1, 93, 106 Stimmungen, op. 2, 92, 106 Sulamith, 105–6, 108, 113 Symphony in A major, 93, 111 Symphony in C, 111 Tarantelle, 111 “Tell Me, Where Is Fancy Bred?,” 111 Ten Spanish Songs, op. 11, 95, 98, 100–101, 107 Three Songs, op. 6, 106 Three Songs, op. 7, 107 Three Songs, op. 13, 107 Three Songs, op. 14, 101, 107 Twelve Songs, op. 8, 107 Two two-part songs, 109 Ueber’n Garten, durch die Lüfte, 111 “Die verschwiegene Nachtigall,” 110 Violin Concerto no. 1, 111 Violin Concerto, F-sharp minor, 93, 111 Violin Concerto, G major, 111 Von allen Ländern in der Welt, 111 “Warrior’s Song,” 110 “When I Send Thee a Red Red Rose,” 110 “Wie die jungen Blüthen leise träumen,” 109 “Whither is my beloved gone?,” 111

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325

Zehn Lieder aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” 109 Damrosch, Walter, conductor and composer (1862–1950), 13, 16, 38, 43–44, 59, 161–62, 209 on Berlioz, 48n57 Dance music, 129 Dantan, Édouard, sculptor (1848–97), 70n46 DeKoven, Reginald, composer (1859–1920) The Knickerbockers, 280 Rob Roy, 280 Robin Hood, 280 Devernine, pianist, 63 Dewey, John, educator (1859–1952), 118 Dodge, Mary Mapes, poet (1831–1905), 101 Dodworth, Allen T., composer (1817–96), 198 Dodworth, Allen T., works by: Duetto, 130 Dodworth, Charles R., (1826–94), 198 Dodworth, Harvey B., conductor (1822–91), 198 Dodworth, Thomas, conductor (1790–1876), 198 Dodworth, Thomas J., (1830–96), 198 Doerr, H., composer Lanciers, “Morton Commandery,” 216 Donizetti, Gaetano, composer (1797–1848), 253 Donizetti, Gaetano, works by: Belisario, 268, 272n46 La fille du régiment, 253, 268 Don Pasquale, 268 Don Sebastian, 268 L’elisir d’amore, 268 La favorite, 268 Linda di Chamounix, 268 Lucia di Lammermoor, 268 Lucrezia Borgia, 268 Maria Stuarda, 268 Poliuto, 268 Roberto Devereux, 268 Doremus, R. Ogden, educator, (1824–1906), 27n23 Downing, David, conductor (?–1880), 184

326

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index

Dresel, Otto, composer (1826–90), 13, 26n12, 92 Dubreuil, Amati, singer (fl. 1860s–70s?), 252n37 Duchesne, E., singer (fl. 1860s–70s), 259 Eames, Emma, singer (1865–1952), 219 Eckert, Carl, composer (1820–79) “Echo” song, 17, 232n9 Eichberg, Julius, composer (1824–93), 116, 131n9 Eichberg, Julius, works by: The Doctor of Alcantara, 254, 268 A Night in Rome, 268 The Two Cadis, 254, 268 Eisfeld, Theodore, composer/conductor (1816–82), 13, 14, 39, 40, 51, 62, 66, 123 Eisfeld, Theodore, works by: Clarinet Concerto, 130 Elegie cantabile, 130 Scena Italiana di Concerto, 130 La Solitude, 130 Variations de Bravura, 130 Elson, Louis C., writer (1848–1920), 116–17 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, writer (1803–82), 124, 127 Engländer, Ludwig, composer (1853–1917) Madelaine, oder die Rose der Champagne, 170 The Passing Show, 170 English Opera Companies, repertory of, 279 Expositions Paris (1889), 210 Philadelphia Centennial (1876), 186, 207 St. Louis (1892), 190–92 Fassett, singer, 67 Fay, Amy, pianist (1844–1928), 59 Faust, Carl, composer (1825–92) Galop “Spornstreich,” 216 Fessenden, George, singer, 277, 280, 289 Finck, Henry T., writer (1854–1926), on Seidl’s conducting, 62

Fischer, Emil, singer (1838–1914), 61 Fisk, James, Jr., 264–65, 271n38 Flotow, Friedrich, composer (1812–83) Alessandro Stradella, 257, 268 Martha, 257, 268, 279 Fontana, Julian, pianist, 63 Foote, Arthur, composer (1853–1937), 101 Franko, Nahan, conductor (1861–1930), 161 Franko, Sam, violinist and conductor (1857–1937), 47n37, 170, 181n99 Franz, Robert, composer (1815–92) “Prayer,” 17 Frothingham, George, singer (1844–1915), 277, 280, 296n24 Fry, Edward Plunkett, librettist (1815–89), 236, 245 Fry, William Henry, composer/critic (1813–64), 13, 75, 81, 114, 117, 125, 129, 236 on Berlioz, 32, 34 on Berlioz and Wagner, 32 on Goldbeck, 114–15 on performance of American music, 14 Gabriel, Max, conductor/composer (1861–after 1920?), 170 Gade, Niels, composer (1817–90) Comala, 141 Geistinger, Marie, singer (1828–1903), biography, 164–65 Gericke, Wilhelm, conductor (1845–1925), 44 German American culture, 150, 155 German Americans, 118, 120 German theatrical companies, 149, 158 Gershwin, George, composer (1898–1937) Porgy and Bess, 295n15 Gerster, Etelka, singer (1855–1920), 275 Gilmore, Patrick Sarsfield, conductor and composer (1829–92), 182–197 contract negotiations, 190 duel with Levy, 188 European tour, 187 Gilmore’s popularity, 192 increased size of band, 186 later tours, 191

Gilmore (continued) lifetime contract at Manhattan Beach, 190 programs, 184 reception of band, 187 repertory, 190 reviews of Columbia, 188, 197n18 Gilmore, Patrick Sarsfield, works by: Columbia, 188, 193–96 “Salute to New York,” 184 “22d Regiment,” 184 Gluck, Christoph Willibald, composer (1714–87) Orfeo ed Euridice, 45n8, 268 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, playwright/poet (1749–1832), 166 Goldbeck, Robert, composer (1839–1908), 114, 272n46 Goldbeck, Robert, works by: Morceaux symphoniques, 114 “Victory” symphony, 114 Gottschalk, Louis Moreau, composer and pianist (1829–69), 53–54, 65, 69, 77–78, 85–86, 220, 240 Gottschalk, Louis Moreau, works by: The Last Hope, 211 Pasquinade, 211 Rigoletto paraphrase, 58 Gounod, Charles, composer (1818–93) Faust, 5, 157, 167, 222, 251n6, 253, 268, 295n15 Roméo et Juliette, 167, 268 unspecified selections, 211 Graever, Johanna Magdalena, pianist (1829–after 1870s?), 63 Grafulla, Claudio, conductor and composer (1810–80), 184–201, 202–8, 216 as an arranger, 201 biography, 202 reception for, 207 Grafulla, Claudio, works by: Delavau’s Quick Step, 202 Tribute Quick Step, 205, 215 Grau family members, 250 Grau, Herman[n], conductor, 170, 181n93, 240, 250 Grau, Jacob, impresario, (1817–77), 240, 242–43, 246, 250, 274, 281

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327

management of non-singers, 252n40 Grau, Jules, manager, 240, 250 Grau, Matt, manager, 240, 250 Grau, Maurice, impresario (1849–1907), 240, 242, 247, 250, 274 Grau, Robert, impresario (1858–1916), 181n93, 228–30, 250, 274 Grau family members, 250 Grill, Emanuel, violinist/composer Quadrille “Academy,” 216 Valse “Seventh Regiment,” 216 Grobe, Charles, composer (1817–79), 8 Gung’l, Josef, conductor/composer (1809–89), 5, 124 Haase, C., composer Variations on The Carnival of Venice, 130 Habeneck, François, conductor (1781–1849), 70n46 Händel, George Frideric, composer (1685–1759), 123 Händel, George Frideric, works by: Judas Maccabeus, 289 Hagen, Theodore, critic (1823–71), 19 Halevy, Fromental (1799–1862) L’éclair, 268 La Juive, 268 Les mousquetaires de la reine, 268 Hamann, Eduard, businessman, 151, 155 Hamm, Charles, writer (b. 1925), 129, 131n12 Hammerstein, Oscar I, impresario (1846–1919), 159 Hanslick, Eduard, critic (1825–1904), 219 Harrigan, Edward (1844–1911) and Hart, Tony (1855–91) 132n26, 151, 163 Harris, Charles K., composer (1865/7?–1930), works by: “The Last Farewell,” 228–30 Hartmann, pianist, 63, 64 Haydn, Franz Joseph, composer (1732–1809), 13, 120, 133 Haydn, Franz Joseph, works by: Die Jahreszeiten, 142 Heller, Stephen, composer (1813–88), 123 Henselt, Adolf, composer (1814–89), 55

328

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index

Herbert, Victor, composer (1859–1924), 132n26 Herbert, Victor, works by: Princess Ananias, 280 The Serenade, 280 The Viceroy, 280 Herold, Ferdinand, composer (1791–1833), Zampa, 268 Herrmann, composer, Galop “Schwalbenflug,” 216 Galop “Windspiel,” 216 Hervé [Ronger, Louis], composer (1825–92) Chilpéric, 266, 268 Gargoullada (?), 268 L’oiel crevé, 264, 268 Herz, Henri, pianist/composer (1803–88), 8, 12, 71, 85; American tour, 72 Hewitt, James, composer (1770–1827), 121 Hill, Uriel Corelli, violinist/conductor (1802–75), 12 Hillbrecht, composer “Central Park Garden Festival March,” 127 Hiller, Ferdinand, composer (1811–85) “Gesang der Geister über dem Wasser,” 41 Hinrichs, Gustav, conductor (1850–after 1920), 170 Hoffman, John T., New York governor and mayor (1828–88) Hohmann, composer, works by: Quadrille “Augusta,” 216 Hohnstock, composer “Hail, Columbia” Overture, 127 Hopkins, Charles Jerome, composer (1836–98), 117, 122 Horowitz, Joseph, writer (b. 1948), on Seidl, 62 Howard, John Tasker, writer (1890–1964), 115 Hoym-Sölligen, Otto von, playwright (1823–76), 151, 155 biography, 153–54 Hoym-Sölligen, Otto von, works by: Der fliegende Holländer, 154

Empire City, 154 Der Pedlar, 154 Hummel, Johann Nepomuk, composer (1778–1837) Septet, op. 74, transcribed for piano, 78 Innes, Frederick, conductor (1854–1926), 7, 158 Irma Marié, singer (fl. 1860s–70s), 263–64, 266 Irving, Washington, writer (1783–1859), 26n1 Italianer, Heinrich, playwright, 161 Janauschek, Fanny, actress (fl. 1870–80s?), 251–52n19 Januchowsky, Georgine von, singer (1859?–1914), 181n87; biography, 167–70 Johannsen, Bertha, singer (fl. 1850s–60s), 77 Jones, Laura A, singer, 67, 68n16 Joseffy, Rafael, pianist (1852–1915), 51, 63–65 Jullien, Louis, conductor/composer (1812–60), 33, 82, 125 programming, 126 Jullien, Louis, works by: American Quadrille, 125 Kadelberg, Gustav, actor/playwright (1851–1925), 158 Kallen, Horace M., social philosopher (1882–1974), 119 Kalliwoda, Johann Wenzel, composer (1801–66), 123 Karl, Tom, singer (1846–1916), 277, 280, 286, 290; letter to Ober, 287, 289 Kaun, Hugo, composer (1863–1932) Festival March, 127 Hiawatha, 134n73 Minnehaha, 134n73 National Hymn, 127 Kellogg, Clara Louise, singer (1842–1916), 222, 240 Kerker, Gustav, composer (1857–1923) The Belle of New York, 170 Klahre, Edwin, pianist, 67

Klein, Herman, biographer (1856–1934), 219–21, 223 Kleinduetschland boundaries of, 118, 137 breakup of, 163 change of ethnicity, 165 performance venues, 162 Kossowski, C., pianist (fl. 1830s–40s), 51, 63 Krauskopf, Professor, 140–41 Krehbiel, Henry Edward, critic (1854–1923) on Philharmonic Society members, 115, 122 reception of Schumann, 17 Kreutzer, Conradin, composer (1780–1849) Das Nachtlager in Granada, 257, 268 Vaterland, 141 Kurz, composer “Hymne an Hertha,” 141 Kyle, John A. composer, 130 Lablache, Luigi, singer (1794–1858), 70n46 Lachner, Franz, composer (1803–90), 123 Lachner, Franz, works by: “Hymne an die Musik,” 141 “Sturmesmythe,” 141 Lagriffoul, singer, 259 Lambelé, Aline, singer (fl. 1860s–70s?), 262, 263 Lanner, Joseph, composer and conductor (1801–43), 5, 124 Lanner, Joseph, works by: Valse “Liebes Träume,” 216 Larcom, Lucy, poet (1824–93), 101 Lawrence, Vera Brodsky, writer/chronicler (1909–96), 7, 53, 68n16, 246 on Kleindeutschland and English newspapers, 155 on Seymour’s review of Liszt’s Tasso, 69n32 Lecocq, Charles, composer (1832–1918) Fleur-de-thé, 264, 268 Giroflé-Girofla, 279

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329

Lefebre, Edward, saxophonist (1835–?), 182 Lehár, Franz, composer (1870–1948) The Merry Widow, 295n15 Lehman, Caroline, singer, 27n27 Lehmann, Lilli, singer (1848–1929), 61, 67 Leipzig Conservatory, 55 Lenschow, Carl, conductor/composer (d. 1890), 125 Lenschow, Carl, works by: “Greeting to America” March, 125 “Indian” Polka, 125 A Panorama of Broadway, 125, 133n59 The Republican, 125 “Souvenirs of New York” Waltz, 125 Levy, Jules, cornetist (1838–1903), 186–88 Lind, Jenny, singer (1820–87), 12, 16, 77 Lindpaintner, Peter Joseph von, composer (1791–1856), 123 Liszt, Franz, composer and pianist (1811–86), 3, 13–14, 30, 35–37, 39, 78, 116, 123 European tour, 51 fame as a conductor, 53 on Goethe centenary, 68n12 invitation to tour America, 52 letter to William Mason, 55 on nomenclature for Liszt’s music, 57 reception, 50 reputation in New York City, 54 on solo recitals, 68n12 in Weimar, 51–52 Liszt, Franz, works by: Adelaide (Beethoven), 51, 63 Andante aus Beethoven’s op. 97, 66 Andante Finale und Marsch aus der Oper König Alfred, 65 Années de pèlerinage, 51 Au bord d’une source, 64 Au lac du Wallenstadt, 64 “Auf dem Wasser zu Singen” (Schubert-Liszt), 63 Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 5, 65 Beethoven Symphony no. 9, 65 Bénédiction et Serment de Benvenuto Cellini, 64 Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne, 65

330

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index

Liszt (continued) Christus, excerpt, 66 Concert Paraphrase on Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, 56, 64 Consolation no. 5, 63 Conzertstück (Weber), 67 Dante Symphony, 57, 59, 65 Deux études de concert Gnomenreigen, 65 Waldesrauchen, 65 Deux Légendes St. François d’Assise, 65 “Er war ein König in Thule,” 67 Étude de Concert, 63 Études d’éxécution d’après Paganini La campanella, 63 Études d’éxécution transcendante Ricordanza, 64 “The Exile,” 67 Fantasie über ungarischen Volksmelodien, 66 Fantasy on the Ruins of Athens, 64 Faust Symphony, 59, 65 Festklaenge, 65 Grand Fantasia on La Serenata and L’orgia, 63 Grand Galop chromatique, 51, 63, 70n46 “Graner” Messe, 62, 142 Credo, 66, 141 Harmonies poétiques et religieuses Cantique d’Amour, 64 Héxameron, 63 Hunnenschlacht, 59, 66 Die Ideale, 65 Illustrations du Prophète, 64 “Kennst du das Land,” 67 Légende no. 1, 65 “Die Loreley,” 67 Magyar Dallok, 63 Mazeppa, 65 Mazurka brillante, 64 Mélodie hongroise, 63 Orpheus, 65 Piano Concerto no. 1, 66 Piano Concerto no. 2, 66 Polonaise in E, 64 Polonaise Héroique, 64 “Die Post” (Schubert-Liszt), 63

Les préludes, 31, 57, 59, 65, 211 Prometheus, 65 Reiterlied, 66 Réminiscences de Don Juan, 63 Réminiscences de Lucia di Lammermoor, 51, 63 Rhapsodie hongroise (unspecified), 51 Rhapsodie hongroise no. 2, 64, 211 Rhapsodie hongroise no. 3, 64 Rhapsodie hongroise no. 9, 64 Rhapsodie hongroise no. 10, 64 Rhapsodie hongroise no. 12, 64 Rhapsodie hongroise no. 14, 211 Rhapsody on Hungarian Airs, 64 Rigoletto-Paraphrase, 56, 65 Schlummerlied von Weber, 64 Schubert’s Fantasia, 66 Six Chants polonais, 65 Soirées musicales, 63 Spinnerlied aus dem Fliegenden Holländer, 65 St. Elizabeth excerpt, 66 “Ständchen” (Schubert-Liszt), 63 Symphonie de Beethoven nos. 5 and 6, 63 Tasso, 56, 59, 65 Trois odes funèbres no. 3, 60, 66 Ungarischer Sturmmarsch, 63 Valse de l’opéra Faust de Gounod, 65 Valse-Caprices d’après Schubert, 63 Valse-Impromptu, 63 Venezia e Napoli Tarantella, 65 Vom Fels zum Meer, 65 Weber’s Polonaise brillante, 59, 66 Zwei Episoden aus Lenau’s Faust, 57, 66, 127 Litolff, Henri, composer (1818–91), selections, 211 Loder, George, composer/conductor (1816–68), 20, 39 Loder, George, works by: Marmion Overture, 126, 130 Loeffler, Clarles Martin (1861–1935), 116, 131n9 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, poet (1807–82) Song of Hiawatha, 128

Lortzing, Albert (1801–51), 6 Lortzing, Albert, works by: Der Wildschütz, 257, 268 Zar und Zimmermann, 268, 279 Lothian, Napier, conductor, 201 Luders, Gustav, composer (1865–1913), 170 MacDonald, William, singer, 277, 280–81, 288 MacDowell, Edward, composer (1860–1908), 116, 128 MacDowell, Edward, works by: Suite no. 2 (“Indian”), op. 48, 116 Maillart, Louis Aimé (1817–71) Les dragons de Villars, 266, 268 Männerchor, 135, 139–41, 145, 147n15 Maretzek, Albert (1863–?), 237, 249 Maretzek family members, 248–49 Maretzek, Marguerite, music teacher (1866–1920s?), 249 Maretzek, Marie, music teacher (1850–1948), 248 Maretzek, Maximilian, composer/conductor/impresario (1821–97), 80, 161, 245, 248, 257, 267, 274 as a conductor, 256 on Grau as a manager/impresario, 246 immigration to New York City, 236–37 as an impresario, 256 letter from Verdi, 247 on Maretzek’s parents, 252n25 retirement, 247 singers’ salaries, 254 Maretzek, Max. Jr., music teacher (1852–1920s?), 248 Maretzek, Raphael, Jr., manager, 237 Mascagni, Pietro, composer (1863–1945), unspecified selections, 211 Mason, Lowell, educator (1792–1872), 13, 79 Mason, William, pianist (1829–1908), 12, 55, 64–65, 77–78, 86 advocate for Schumann, 14 concerts, 40 solo concerts, 69

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331

studies abroad, 13–14 Massé, Victor, composer (1822–84), 8 Massé, Victor, works by: Galathée, 268 Les noces de Jeannette, 268 Massenet, Jules, composer (1842–1912) Le Cid ballet music, 211 Scènes napolitaines, 211 Scènes pittoresques, 211 Materna, Amalie, singer (1844–1918), 61 Matzenauer, Margaret, singer (1881–1963), 170 Matzka, George (1825–83), 14, 40, 157 Mehlig, Anna, pianist, 18 Mehul, Etienne-Nicolas (1763–1817) Joseph en Egypte, 257, 268 Mendelssohn, Fanny [Henselt], composer (1805–47), 219–20 Mendelssohn, Felix, composer (1809–47), 13, 17, 55, 123, 136, 140 Mendelssohn, Felix, works by: An die Kunstler, 142 Elijah, 83, 284–85 Die erste Walpurgisnacht, 141–43 Die Lorelei, finale, 141 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 124; overture, 211 Ruy Blas overture, 211 Songs without Words, 78 Symphony no. 2, 141–42 Symphony no. 3, 211 Meyer, Leopold de, pianist (1816–83), 55, 71 Meyer, Leopold de, works by: Marche d’Isly, 45n7 Marche marocaine, 45n7 Meyerbeer, Giacomo, composer (1791–1864), 6, 14 Meyerbeer , Giacomo, works by: Il crociato in Egitto, selections, 184 Dinorah, 246, 269 L’africaine, 255–57, 269, 272n46 L’étoile du nord, 256, 269 Les Huguenots, 167, 219, 269 Le prophète, 269 Robert le diable, 17, 269, 272n46 Millard, Harrison, composer (1830–95), 101

332

❧

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Millöcker, Carl, composer (1842–99), 165–67 Millöcker, Carl, works by: Die arme Jonathan, 170 Mills, Sebastian Bach, pianist (1838–98), 51, 55–56, 64–66 Mollenhauer, Edward, composer/violist (1827–1914), 34, 40 Mollenhauer, Edward, works by: The Corsican Bride, 254, 269 La Sylphide, 130 Violin Concerto, 130 with Frederick Grand Duo, 130 Violin Concerto, 130 Mollenhauer, Frederick, composer/cellist (1818–85), 117 Montaubry, J. B. E., composer (1824–?) Entre Paris et Montargis (?), 269 Moore, Thomas, poet/composer (1779–1852), 131n12 Mora, conductor, 66 Moravian artist managers, 244–46, 248 parents’ objections, 245 Moscheles, Ignaz, composer and pianist (1794–1870), 14 Mosenthal, Josef, violinist (1834–96), 14 Motte, Gabrielle de la, pianist, 55, 64 Mozart, Wolfgang, composer (1756–91) Così fan tutte, chorus, 141 Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 257, 269 Don Giovanni, 4, 222, 269 Le nozze di Figaro, 257, 269, 279 Requiem, 81, 83; excerpts, 141 Die Zauberflöte, 61, 257, 269 Musard, Alfred, composer and conductor (1828–81) concerts, 30, 40, 82–83, 88 Musard, Alfred, works by: The Express Railroad Galop, 82 Gotham: or the Electric Telegraph Quadrille, 82 The Zouaves on the Malakoff, 82 Music in Gotham, 132n39, 270n1 Napoleon I, 4 Nash, Frederick H., composer Fat Man’s Polka Redowa, 206

Neuendorff, Adolf, composer/conductor (1843–97), 42, 66, 133n50, 150, 159, 161–64, 166, 170, 181n87 biography, 155–57 at first Bayreuth festival, 157 on the style of his music, 161 lost symphonies, 161 Neuendorff, Adolf, works by: Die alte Schachtel, 173 Der Berliner in Philadelphia, 173 Don Quixote, 161, 173 Drei Monat nach Dato, 173 Evelyn, or, Only a Woman, 174 Die Familie Hummel oder su muss es kommen, 173 Gefahrvolle Wege, 173 Das Geld liegt auf der Strasse, 173 Hagar, 161, 174, 178n54 Ein Heirathsbureau, 173 Kadetten, 173 König Alfred oder die drei Thränen, 172 Ludwig der Eiserne, 173 Das Mädel ohne Geld, 173 Der Minstrel, 161, 167, 174 Müller und Schulzes Liebesabenteuer in Italien, 173 New Yorker Leben, 159, 173 Ninety-Seven or Seventy-Nine, 174 Onkel Knusperich, oder eine Nacht in New York, 159, 174 Der Pawnbroker von Harlem, 174 Prinz Waldmeister, 161, 167, 174 Rather Mixed, 174 Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, 161, 167, 174 Die Reise durch Berlin in 80 Stunden, 159–60 Die Reise durch New York in 80 Stunden, 159, 173 Die Reise durch San Francisco in 80 Stunden, 160 In Saus und Braus, 173 Der Schalk von Jönköping, 174 Sieba and the Seven Ravens, 174 Stunden in Cincinnati (Die Reise durch Cincinnati in 80 Stunden), 160, 173 Ein vorsichtiger Mann, 173 Eine Weinprobe, 173

New York City as America’s financial and manufacturing center, 11 as America’s musical center, 273–74 on antebellum cultural life, 10–11 immigrants, 12, 119, 129, 136 English, 2 French, 2, 12 German, 2, 12, 115, 117–22, 135–37, 144n4 Irish, 2, 12, 117, 132n26, 136 Italian, 2, 12 Jewish, 242–43 as a melting pot, 2, 118–21 population, increase in, 1–2, 8, 117, 131n13; compared to Berlin, 5 riots, 205 socialization of Germans and nonGermans, 121, 146, 155 Sunday “blue laws,” 162 violation by Hoym and Hamann, 162, 178n57 visiting musicians, 4, 13, 124–25 wealth, 6, 10 Welsh, 2 Nicolai, Otto, composer (1810–49) Die lustigen Weiben von Windsor, 269 Nicolini, Enrico, singer (1834–98), 224 Niemann, Albert, singer (1831–1917), 61 Nilsson, Christine, singer (1843–1921), 240, 275 Noll, Joseph, conductor/violinist, formation of Seventh Regiment Band, 201 Nordica [Norton], Lillian, singer (1857–1914), 237, 284 Ober [Kline] Effie Hinkley, manager (1844–1927), 275–89, 294n4 early career, 275–77 letter from singers on the successful New York opening, 288 managerial activities, 279, 294n6 Odell, George Clinton Densmore, chronicler (1866–1949), 7 Offenbach, Jacques, composer (1819–80), 164–65, 253, 258, 267 Offenbach, Jacques, works by: Barbe-bleue, 263–64, 269, 279

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333

Les bavards, 264, 269 La belle Hélène, 259, 263, 269 La chanson de Fortunio, 264, 269 Les contes d’Hoffmann, 295n15 Les deux aveugles, 269 Geneviève de Brabant, 263–64, 269 La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, 258–59, 262–63, 269 Lischen et Fritzchen, 264, 269 Le mariage aux lanternes, 266, 269 M. Choufleuri, 266, 269 Orphée aux enfers, 258, 262, 265, 269 La Périchole, 264, 269 La romance de la rose, 269 La rose de Saint-Flour, 269 Tromb-al-ca-zar, 269 La vie parisienne, 265, 269 Le violoneux, 269 Opéra bouffe, 258–67 Ottendorfer, Oswald, newspaper publisher (1826–1900), 121, 139 Otto, Ernst Julius, composer (1844–77), 141 Pacini, Giovanni, composer (1796–1857) Saffo, 269 Paer, Fernando, composer (1771–1831) Le maître de chapelle, 269 Paine, John Knowles, composer (1839–1906), 5, 129 Paine, John Knowles, works by: An Island Fantasy, 126 Panny, Joseph, composer (1794–1838), 141 Panny, Joseph, works by: “Herbst am Rhein,” 141 “Kriegerchor,” 141 Parepa-Rosa, Euphrosyne, singer (1836–74), 277, 281 Parker, Horatio, composer (1863–1919), 5 Parodi, Teresa, singer (1827–after 1878), 252n22 Pasta, Giuditta, singer (1797–1865), 240, 252n34 Pastor, Tony, entertainer (1837–1908), 151, 177n34

334

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Patti, Adelina, singer (1843–1919), 159, 218–34, 240, 245 on admission prices, 225–26 on her acting, 221–22 on her concert programs, 225–26 on her early career, 219–21 on her final tour, 227–30, 234n43 on “The Last Farewell,” 229–30 on her possible physical problems, 223–24 on her recordings, 234n46 on her reputation, 226–27, 234n43 on her return to New York City, 224–27 reviews of Nicolini, 224–25 on her singing, 219 Patti, Amelia, singer (1831–1915), 240, 244, 245 Patti, Carlotta, singer (1835–89), 251n6 Patti, Salvatore, singer (1800–69), 252n25 Paur, Agricol, conductor (1823–97), 51, 62, 66, 142, 148n24 Perabeau (Perabo), Ernest (Ernst), pianist (1845–1920), 63 Performance places Academy of Music, 3, 40, 60, 80–81, 88, 114, 126, 157, 176n22, 184, 202, 205, 213, 245, 254, 266, 281, 285 Adolf Philipp Theater, 172 Amberg Theater, 165, 170, 172 American Musical Institute, 20 Apollo Rooms, 51 Apollo Saloon, 140 Astor Place Opera House, 2, 220, 236, 244, 245, 250n1 Athenaeum (Brooklyn), 85–88 Atlantic Garden, 120, 163, 171, 178n62, 179n63; as an entertainment center, 162 Barnum’s Hippodrome, 184 Booth’s Theatre, 286 Bowery Theatre, 151, 163 Broadway Tabernacle, 20 Broadway Theatre, 190 Brooklyn Academy of Music, 5, 224, 286 Brougham’s Theatre, 265 Carnegie Hall, 139

Casino Theater, 165, 167 Castle Garden, 33, 125, 133n59, 201, 246 Central Park Gardens, 4, 15, 184 Central Park Mall, 85 Chickering Hall, 85 Cooper Union, 4 Deutsches National Theater, 171 Dodworth’s Saloon, 78, 86–87, 90n22 Drury Lane, London, 236 Fifth Avenue Theatre, 265–66, 281, 284–86 Fisk’s Opera House, 265 French Theatre, 256 Germania Theater, 154–57, 163, 170, 172 Gilmore’s Concert Garden, 186–87 Grand Ball, 205, 212–16 Haverley’s Opera House (Brooklyn), 286 Hope Chapel, 4 Irving Hall, 3, 4, 34, 40, 58, 118, 141 Irving Place Theater, 165, 166, 172 Koch’s Terrace Garden, 34 Lyceum Theatre, 220 Madison Square Garden, 190, 192 Madison Square Theatre, 280 Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, 187–88, 190, 192 Mechanics’ Pavilion (San Francisco), 186 Metropolitan Hall, 220 Music Hall (Boston), 294n7 Neues Deutsches Theater, 172 Neues Stadttheater, 155, 159, 171 Neuendorff’s Germania Theater, 164–65, 171 Neuendorff’s Neues Germania Theater, 159, 165–67, 172 Niblo’s Garden, 86, 220, 263, 286 Niblo’s Saloon, 85–87 Odeon (Brooklyn), 86 Olympic Theater, 121 Pike’s Opera House, 263, 271n38 St. Charles Theater, 171 Seventh Regiment Armory, 4, 37, 208 Stadttheater, 151, 154, 157, 162, 171; description of, 155

Performance places (continued) Steinway Hall, 3, 59, 118, 139, 144, 147n12, 224–25, 233n38, 272n46, 281 Tammany Hall, 157 Terrace Garden Theatre, 171 Thalia Theater, 159, 162–65, 170–72, 180n75 Tripler Hall, 220 Twenty-second Regiment Armory, 186 Wintergarten zum schwarzen Adler, 172 Yorkville Deutsches Theater, 172 Performing groups and institutions Adkins’s Washington Brass Band, 201 Boston Brass Band, 200 Boston Ideal Opera Company, 167, 275, 277, 280, 285–89 1880–81 season, 286–87 founding of, 286 repertory, 279–80 reputation, 295n11 tours, 286, 289–90 Boston Pops Orchestra, 159 Boston Symphony Orchestra, 44 Brooklyn Philharmonic, 34 Bryant’s Minstrels, 157 Carl Bergman Orchestra, 31, 39–40 Carl Rosa Opera Company, 280 Caroline Richings English Opera Company, 281 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 211 Christy’s Minstrels, 281 Clara Louise Kellogg English Opera Company, 281, 285 Deutscher dramatische Verein, 150 Dodworth Band, 184, 198, 200, 205, 208 Dodworth Cornet Band, 201 Elite Lady Orchestra, 163, 178n62 Emily Soldene English Opera Company, 284 Emma Juch’s English Opera Company, 159, 167 Ford Theatre Company, 284 Garde Nationale Band, 188 Garde Republicain Band, 182, 186 Germania Musical Society, 12, 124–26, 151, 201

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335

American tour, 13 Gilmore Band, 186 coast-to-coast tour, 186, 281 European tour, 187 Grenadier Guards Band, 182 Handel and Haydn Society, 1, 280 Imperial Orchestra of Paris, 4 Irma-Aujac Company, 265 Jullien Orchestra, 126 Kelly and Leon’s Minstrels, 262 Leopold Damrosch Orchestra, 42 Männergesangverein Arion, 42, 44, 56, 92, 102, 142 Mapleson Opera Company, 209 Mason-Thomas Chamber Music Series, 3, 55 formation of, 14 Mendelssohn Club of Minneapolis, 191 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 6 Metropolitan Opera Company, 5, 6, 157, 164, 167, 240, 242, 251n6, 295n15 McCaull Comic Opera Company, 167, 180n86 Musical Fund Society, 1 National Band, formation of, 198 New England Soldiers’ Relief Association, 4 New-York American-Music Association, 117 New York Brass Band, 201, 202 New York Chorus Society, 38, 43–44 New York City Opera, 295n15 New-York Harmonic Society, 80, 83 New York Liederkranz Society, 51, 62, 83, 135, 137, 139–46 New York Public Library, 6 New York Symphony Orchestra, 45n6, 92–93 Ninth Regiment Band, 184 Oratorio Society of New Haven, 284–85 Oratorio Society of New York, 16, 36, 38, 42–44, 56, 92, 102–3, 280–81, 284, 297n40 Philharmonic Choral Society, 191 Philharmonic Society of Breslau, 36 Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn, 40–44, 209

336

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Performing groups and institutions

(continued) Philharmonic Society of New York, 1, 2, 6, 31–36, 39–44, 51, 56–57, 60, 62, 114–15, 117–18, 126, 136, 141, 151, 159, 200, 209 membership, 122 organization, 122 Prussian Band, 182 Seventh Regiment, 198, 200; history of, 204; ball, 212–16 Seventh Regiment Band, 4, 184, 190, 201–2 appearances, 205, 207 at Centennial Exposition, 207 Central Park concerts, 210–11 comparison with orchestras, 211 history of, 209 opening of new armory, 204 purchase of uniforms, 207, 210 raising funds for new armory, 208 repertory, 211–12 tours, 209–10 weekly concerts, 205 Shelton’s American Band, 202 Symphony Society of New York, 42–44 Temple Quartet (Boston), 280 Theodore Thomas Orchestra, 38, 40–41, 43–44, 124, 126, 184, 272n46, 280 Twenty-second Regiment Band, 182, 190 Twenty-seventh Regiment Band, 201 Virginia Opera Company, 295n15 Washington National Opera, 295n15 Peri, Achille, composer (1812–80) Giuditta, 269 Periodicals and Newspapers: The Albion on Bergmann, 31 on Berlioz’s Les franc-juges, 31 on Liszt, Schumann, and Wagner, 58 on Schumann’s Symphony no. 1, 18 on Schumann’s Symphony no. 4, 27n36 Le Courrier on the positive reception of La Grande-Duchesse, 258

Dwight’s Journal of Music as chronicler of culture, 3 on Liszt’s pupils, 55 on New York City as an American metropolis, 11 on Patti’s voice, 232n17 on Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, 15–16 on Thalberg, 81 The New York Herald on Patti’s first appearance as Lucia, 221 The New York Musical Review on Thalberg’s repertory, 81 on Thalberg’s reputation, 81 The New York Post on the popularity of opéra bouffe, 264, 266 on the premiere of La forza del destino, 255 on the success of Offenbach, 259 The New-York Times on Bristow’s Columbus overture, 127 on Charles K. Harris’s “The Last Farewell,” 229 on German traits and traditions, 146 on Hervé’s L’oeil crevé, 265 on Liszt’s “Der nächtliche Zug,” 57 on Mills’s performances of Liszt, 56 on Patti’s concerts, 226–27 on Patti’s farewell tour, 227–28 on performances of excerpts from Wagner operas, 60 on the absence of Liszt, 58–59 on the premiere of L’africaine, 256–57 on the premiere of La forza del destino, 255–56 on the premiere of La GrandeDuchesse, 258 on Thalberg’s reputation, 72 on Thalberg’s technique, 73 The New York Tribune on accompanied concertos, 75 on La belle Hélène, 259 on the Liederkranz performance of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, 144

Periodicals and Newspapers (continued) The New York Tribune (continued) on a performance of Manfred, 16 on Rubinstein’s concert, 17 on Thalberg, 81 on La vie parisienne, 265 Petrella, Errico, composer (1813–77) Il carnevale di Venezia, 269 Ione, 252n35, 253, 257, 269 Phelps, Ellsworth C., composer (1827–?) “Hiawatha” Symphony, 127 Philipp, Adolf, composer (1864–1936), 7, 154, 160, 164, 166, 170, 177n45 Phillipps, Adelaide, singer (1833–82), 277, 286 correspondence with Ober, 287 Pinner, pianist, 64 Planquette, Robert, composer (1848–1903), 167 Planquette, Robert, works by: The Chimes of Normandy, 279, 287 Ponchielli, Amilcare, composer (1834–86) La Gioconda, excerpt, 211 Powell, Maude, violinist (1867–1920), 191 Prudent, Emile, pianist (1817–63), 55 Prückner, Dionys, pianist, 59 Puccini, Giacomo, composer (1858–1924) Turandot, 295n15 Raff, Joachim, composer (1822–82), 116 Raffayolo, Miguel, euphoniumist (1847–?), 188 Rakemann, Frederick, pianist, 53, 63 Reeves, D. W., conductor and composer (1838–1900), 211 Reményi, Ede, violinist (1828–98), 51, 63 Ricci, Luigi (1805–1859) and Federico (1809–77), composers Crispino et la comare, 253, 269 Rice, Edwin, writer (1862–1940), on Leopold Damrosch, 92 Rietz, Julius, composer (1812–77) “Festival” March, 127 Ritter, Frédérick, composer and educator (1834–91): on Bergmann, 33 Rivé-King, Julie, pianist (1855–1937), 51

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337

Roberts, James H. & Co., agency, 275, 277, 294n8 Ronger, Louis, see Hervé Rossini, Gioachino, composer (1792–1868), 124, 186 Rossini, Gioachino, works by: Il barbiere di Siviglia, 220, 222, 234n48, 270 La donna del lago, selections, 215 Guillaume Tell, 270 overture, 211 Otello, 270 Semiramide, 270 Stabat Mater, 80 unspecified opera selections, 211 Rubinstein, Anton, pianist and composer (1829–94), 4, 18, 83, 91n42, 275 comments on performances in New York City, 4 on his New York City performances, 83–84 programs, 17 Rubinstein, Anton, works by: Sulamith, 106 Ryan, Thomas, clarinetist (1827–1903), 125 Sacred concerts, 136–37, 162 Saint Cecelia, 103 Safanov, Vasily, conductor (1852–1918), 123 Satter, Gustav, pianist (1832–79), 17, 54–55, 63, 65 Sayn-Wittgenstein, Princess Carolyne (1819–95), 30, 68n21 Scaria, Emil, singer (1838–87), 61 Scharfenberg, William, pianist (1819–95), 118 Schiller, Friedrich, playwright (1759–1805), 166 Schiller, Friedrich, works by: Die Jungfrau von Orleans, 167 Schilling, Gustav, conductor (1801–83), 157 Schreiber, Louis, trumpeter/composer, works by: Concertino, 130 Fantasia capricciosa, 130 Fantasiestück, 130

338

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index

Schubert, Franz, composer (1797–1828), 13, 17 Schubert, Franz, works by: “Erlkönig,” 17 Overture in Italian Style, 211 Die schöne Müllerin, 51 Schwanengesang, 51 unspecified songs, 3 Winterreise, 51 Schuberth, Julius, publisher (1804–75), 14, 15, 26n13 Schumann, Clara, pianist and composer (1819–96), 14 Schumann, Robert, composer (1810–56), 3, 4, 13–14, 17, 123 on concert tour with Clara and Lind, 27n24 general reception, 17–21 letters from Burkhardt and Watson, 19 reception in Dwight’s, 15 vocal music, 16 Schumann, Robert, works by: 4 Skizzen für den Pedal-Flügel, op. 58, 22 Album für die Jugend, op. 68, 15 Albumblätter, op. 124, 22 Andante and Variations, op. 46, 11, 22 Arabeske, op. 18, 22 Belsatzar, op. 57, 23 Bilder aus Osten, op. 66, 22 Die Braut von Messina, overture, op. 100, 21 Carnaval, op. 9, 18, 22 Concerto for Piano, op. 54, 17, 19, 21 Concerto for Violoncello, op. 129, 21 Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6, 22 Dichterliebe, op. 48, 22–23, 142 Drei Clavier-Sonaten, op. 118, 22 Drei Gedichte, op. 29, 23 Drei Romanzen, op. 28, 22 Etudes Symphoniques, op. 13, 22 Fantasia for Violin, op. 131, 21 Fantasie, op. 17, 22 Fantasiestücke, op. 12, 22 Faschingsschwank aus Wien, op. 26, 22 Fest-Ouvertüre, op. 123, 22 Frauenliebe und–Leben, op. 42, 23, 24 Fünf Lieder und Gesänge, op. 127, 23

Fünf Stücke im Volkston, op. 102, 22 Impromptus, op. 5, 22 Introduction and Allegro appassionato, op. 92, 21 Genoveva, op. 81 Overture, 16–17, 21 Scena, 23 Julius Cäsar, op. 128 Overture, 21 Kinderscenen op. 15, 22 Klavierstücke, op. 32, 22 Konzertstück, op. 86, 21 Kreisleriana, op. 16, 22 Liederkreis, op. 39, 23 Manfred, op. 115, 16, 141 Overture, 16, 18 Selections, 17, 23 Motet, op. 93, 23 Myrthen, op. 25, 22–24 Nachtlied, op. 108, 23 Nachtstücke, op. 23, 22 New Year’s Song, op. 144, 23 Novelletten, op. 21, 22 Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, op. 52, 21 Vom Pagen und der Königstochter, op. 140, 23 Das Paradies und die Peri, op. 50, 10–11, 19–20, 22 Patriotisches Lied, WoO, 1, 24 Piano Quartet, op. 47, 11, 14, 21 Piano Quintet, op. 44, 11, 17, 21 Piano Trio, op. 63, 22 Piano Trio, op. 80, 22 Piano Trio, op. 110, 22 Ritornelle, op. 65, 24 Romanzen, op. 69, 23 Romanzen und Balladen, op. 49, 23 Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, op. 112, 22 Scenen aus Goethes Faust, WoO3, 16, 23 Sechs Fugen über den Namen: BACH, op. 60, 22 Sechs Gedichte, op. 36, 23 Sechs Gesänge, op. 107, 23 Spanische Liebeslieder, op. 138, 23 Spanische Liederspiel, op. 74, 23 Sonata for Piano, op. 11, 18, 22 Sonata for Piano, op. 22, 22 Sonata for Violin, op. 105, 22

Schumann (continued) Sonata for Violin, op. 121, 22 String Quartet, op. 41, no. 1, 17, 21 String Quartet, op. 41, no. 2, 21 String Quartet, op. 41, no. 3, 21 Studien für den Pedal-Flügel, op. 56, 22 Symphony no. 1, op. 38, 18, 21, 24 Symphony no. 2, op. 61, 18, 21, 24–25, 127 Symphony no. 3, op. 97, 21, 25 Symphony no. 4, op. 120, 21, 25 Toccata, op. 7, 22 Waldszenen, op. 82, 22 Zwölf Gedichte, op. 35, 23 Zwölf Klavierstücke, op. 85, 22–24 Schumann-Heink, Ernestine, singer (1861–1936), 234n43 Scudo, Pietro, critic (1806–64), on Berlioz, 32 Sechter, Simon, composer and theorist (1788–1867), 240 Seidl, Anton, conductor (1850–98), 50–51, 59, 61, 161–62 conducting techniques, 61–62 on cuts in Wagner’s Ring, 61 Seyfried, Ignaz Xaver Ritter von, composer (1776–1841), 236 Seymour, Charles Bailey, critic (1829–69), on Berlioz, 32–34 Shakespeare, William (?–1617) As You Like It, 281, 284 Macbeth, 167 Shanet, Howard, writer (1918–2006), 122, 127 Shaw, George Bernard, playwright and critic (1856–1950), 221 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, playwright (1751–1816) The School for Scandal, 281, 284–85 Siegrist, August, theater manager, 151 Singer, Otto, composer (1824–93), 116 Sobolewski, Edward von (1808–72), 134n73 Society for the Reform of Juvenile Delinquents, 162 Sontag, Henriette, singer (1806–54), 12 Spohr, Louis, composer (1784–1859), 13, 140 Stein, Theodore G., architect, 165

❧

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339

Steinway, Charles, 137–38 Steinway Piano Company, 138, 147n5 Steinway, Theodor, 137–38 Steinway village, 146 Steinway, William, piano manufacturer (1835–96), 4, 121, 135–48, 165 diary, 142 Liederkranz president, 143 personal life, 145, 146n2 as a soloist, 142 Steinweg, Heinrich, 137–38 Stoepel, Robert, composer (1821–87), 128 Stoepel, Robert, works by: Gamea, or the Jewish Mother, 254, 270 Hiawatha: A Romantic Symphony, 128 Strakosch family members, 249–50 Strakosch, Karl, 240 Strakosch, Maurice, impresario/composer (1825–87), 80, 223, 245, 249, 274 immigration to New York City, 237, 240, 242, 252n25 on Maretzek’s early career, 245 as a pianist, 243 as tour manager, 244 Strakosch, Max, impresario (1835–92), 249, 274 Strakosch, Robert, manager, 249–50 Stanley, Albert A., composer (1851–1932), 101 Stone, Marie, singer, 277 Strauss. Eduard, composer (1835–1916) Galop “Eisport,” 216 Galop “Lustig im Kreise,” 216 Valse “Huldigungen,” 215 Valse “Studentenball” Strauss family, 124 Strauss, Johann, Jr., composer (1825–99), 5, 75, 150, 164–67, 186 Strauss, Johann, Jr., works by: An der schönen, blauen Donau, 184 Die Fledermaus, 164, 167 Galop “Am Donaustrande,” 216 Galop “Nach kurzer Rast,” 21 Quadrille “Rotunde,” 215 Valse “Carnevalsbilder,” 216 Wiener Blut, 216 Strauss, Johann, Sr., composer/conductor (1804–49), 151

340

❧

index

Stravinsky, Igor, composer (1882–1971), 93 Strong, George Templeton, [Sr.] (1820–75), 5, 7, 18, 120–21 on attending German cultural events, 154 on Liszt’s cadenza to Beethoven, 54–55 on Liszt’s compositional innovations, 54 on Schumann, 18 Strong, George Templeton, [Jr.] (1856–1948), works by: An Indian Chief’s Reply, 116 Songs of an American Peddler, 116 To the Land of the American Indians, 116 Stucken, Frank van der, composer and conductor (1858–1929), 38, 44 Sullivan, Arthur, composer (1842–1900) H.M.S. Pinafore, 277 Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride, 279, 295n44 The Pirates of Penzance, 279 The Sorcerer, 279 Trial by Jury, 284 Suppé, Franz von, composer (1819–95) Banditenstreiche overture, 215 Boccaccio, or the Prince of Palermo, 279 Fatinitza, 279 unspecified selections, 211 Tammany Society, 157 Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, composer (1840–93) Symphony no. 3, 159 Thalberg, Sigismund, composer and pianist (1812–71), 4, 8, 12, 51, 54, 71 American tour, 81–82 appearances in New York City, 72–73, 81 free concerts, 79 matinees, 78, 90n24, 90n26 New York reception, 79 performances of Beethoven, 77 reputation, 74 solo recitals, 78 Thalberg, Sigismund, works by: Airs russes, 75 Andante, 75 Barcarolle, 75

Fantasia on Don Giovanni, 74 Fantasia on Don Pasquale, 73 Fantasia on L’elisir d’amore, 73 Fantasia on La fille du régiment, 73 Fantasia on Les Huguenots, 74 Fantasia on Lucia di Lammermoor, 72, 74 Fantasia on Lucrezia Borgia, 74 Fantasia on Mosé in Egitto, 73 Fantasia on La muette de Portici, 73 Fantasia on Norma, 73 Fantasia on I Puritani, 78 Fantasia on Robert le diable, 78 Fantasia on Semiramide, 74 Fantasia on La sonnambula, 73 Fantasia on Il trovatore, 78 Marche funèbre, 75 Schubert songs, 78 Souvenir d’Amérique: Valses brillantes, 75 Tarantelle, 75 Thème original et étude, 75 Variations on “Home! Sweet Home!,” 75 Variations on “The Last Rose of Summer,” 75 Variations on “Lilly Dale,” 75, 81 Thaxter, Celia, poet (1835–94), 101 Thomas, Ambroise, composer (1811–96) Le caïd, 270 Le songe d’un nuit d’été, 270 Thomas, Theodore, conductor (1835–1905), 3, 4, 33–35, 37–38, 40–44, 51, 59, 66, 77, 123–24, 126, 133n50, 144, 162, 184, 191, 209 advocate of Schuman, 14 biography, 14–15, 33 on Bergmann, 35, 47n36 on Berlioz’s music, 35 on the first performance of La damnation de Faust, 48n53 programs, 13, 15, 17, 30–31, 127 as promoter of American music, 124, 126–27 Thorne, G., composer The Maid of Plymouth, 296n17 Thursby, Emma, singer (1845–1931), 51 Tilzer, Harry von, composer (1872–1946), 163 Timm, Henry Christian, pianist and conductor (1811–92), 13, 20, 65

Timm, Henry Christian, works by: Grand Duetto, 130 Topp, Alide, pianist, (fl. 1860s–80s?), 65–66 Tostée, Lucile, singer (fl. 1860s–70s?), 258–29, 262–66 Ullman(n), Bernard, impresario (1817–85), 72, 77–79, 82, 84, 240, 247, 274 astuteness acknowledged, 75 on Berlioz’s American tour, 90n40 opera company, 40, 80, 245 on ticket prices, 83 Unger, Julius, conductor, 151 Urso, Camilla, violinist (1842–1902), 144 Verdi, Giuseppe, composer (1813–1901), 186, 253 Verdi, Giuseppe, works by: Aroldo, 270 Un ballo in maschera, 4, 253, 255, 270 I due Foscari, 270 Ernani, 270 La forza del destino, 252n37, 255–56, 270 I Lombardi, 5 Macbeth, 270 Rigoletto, 237, 270 La traviata, 270 Il trovatore, 270 Les vêpres siciliennes, 270 selections from unidentified operas, 211 Verne, Jules, novelist (1828–1905) Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, 159 Vieuxtemps, Henry, composer and violinist (1820–81), 4, 80–81, 275 Wagner, Richard, composer (1813–83), 3, 6, 13, 31, 35–37, 39, 50, 60–62, 85, 123, 136, 186 criticism of Liszt and Bülow, 69n34 on Liszt’s later music, 59 Wagner, Richard, works by: On Conducting, 62 Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, 30

❧

index

341

Der fliegende Holländer, selections, 60, 211 Götterdämmerung, 167 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, selections, 60, 211; Prelude, 58 Rienzi, 157, 167; Overture, 32, 211 Siegfried, 167 Tannhäuser, 155, 167, 270; Overture, 60, 211 Tristan und Isolde, 167, 295n15; Prelude, 58; excerpts, 61 Die Walküre, 157, 167; excerpts, 60–61, 211 Waldteufel, Emil, composer (1837–1915), selections, 167 Wallace, William Vincent, composer (1812–65) The Desert Flower, 270 Lurline, 253, 270 Maritana, 253, 270 Wallach, Lester, performer/manager, 151 Waller, Henry, composer The Ogallalas, 29n17 Warren, Samuel P., composer (1841–1915), 101 Watson, Henry Cood, critic (1818?–75), 19, 34 on Paradies und Peri, 20 on performance of Liszt’s Fantasia, 53 on Schumann’s Piano Concerto, 19 on Stoepel’s Hiawatha, 128 Weber, Carl Maria von, composer (1786–1826), 186 Weber, Carl Maria von, works by: Abu Hassan, 8 Aufforderung zum Tanz, 45n8 Der Freischütz, 8, 17, 26n1, 40, 257, 270; excerpts, 151 Jubel overture, 184 Preciosa, 151 Wegern, Carl von, conductor (1853–1916), 170 Wehli, James H., pianist, 147n12 Wels, Carl, pianist, 63 Wennlich, Joseph, singer, 157 White, Richard Grant, critic, 75

342

❧

index

Whitney, Myron, singer (1836–1910), 277, 280, 289 Wiegand, G., composer, 209–210 Wiegand, G., works by: Lanciers “Adelia,” 215 Lanciers “Constellation,” 216 Lanciers “F. C. B.,” 216 Wieniawski, Henri, violinist and composer (1835–80), 184 Wilde, singer, 67 Wilhorst, Cora de, singer (1835–?), 77

Willis, Richard Storrs, critic (1819–1900), 117 Wolf, Hugo, composer (1860–1903), 92 Wolf, Hugo, works by: Spanisches Liederbuch, 98 Wolfssohn, Carl, pianist (1834–1907), 144 World Peace Jubilee (1872), 182 Zoellner, Heinrich, conductor/composer (1854–1941), 161

Eastman Studies in Music

The Poetic Debussy: A Collection of His Song Texts and Selected Letters (Revised Second Edition) Edited by Margaret G. Cobb Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies Edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann Music and the Occult: French Musical Philosophies, 1750–1950 Joscelyn Godwin “Wanderjahre of a Revolutionist” and Other Essays on American Music Arthur Farwell, edited by Thomas Stoner French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor Edited by Lawrence Archbold and William J. Peterson Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century China: Abing, His Music, and Its Changing Meanings (includes CD) Jonathan P. J. Stock Elliott Carter: Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937–1995 Edited by Jonathan W. Bernard Music Theory in Concept and Practice Edited by James M. Baker, David W. Beach, and Jonathan W. Bernard Music and Musicians in the Escorial Liturgy under the Habsburgs, 1563–1700 Michael J. Noone

Analyzing Wagner’s Operas: Alfred Lorenz and German Nationalist Ideology Stephen McClatchie The Gardano Music Printing Firms, 1569–1611 Richard J. Agee “The Broadway Sound”: The Autobiography and Selected Essays of Robert Russell Bennett Edited by George J. Ferencz Theories of Fugue from the Age of Josquin to the Age of Bach Paul Mark Walker The Chansons of Orlando di Lasso and Their Protestant Listeners: Music, Piety, and Print in Sixteenth-Century France Richard Freedman Berlioz’s Semi-Operas: Roméo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust Daniel Albright The Gamelan Digul and the Prison-Camp Musician Who Built It: An Australian Link with the Indonesian Revolution Margaret J. Kartomi “The Music of American Folk Song” and Selected Other Writings on American Folk Music Ruth Crawford Seeger, edited by Larry Polansky and Judith Tick

Portrait of Percy Grainger Edited by Malcolm Gillies and David Pear

Debussy’s Letters to Inghelbrecht: The Story of a Musical Friendship Annotated by Margaret G. Cobb

Berlioz: Past, Present, Future Edited by Peter Bloom

Explaining Tonality: Schenkerian Theory and Beyond Matthew Brown

The Musical Madhouse (Les Grotesques de la musique) Hector Berlioz Translated and edited by Alastair Bruce Introduction by Hugh Macdonald The Music of Luigi Dallapiccola Raymond Fearn Music’s Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac Sylvia Kahan The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué Paul Griffiths “Claude Debussy As I Knew Him” and Other Writings of Arthur Hartmann Edited by Samuel Hsu, Sidney Grolnic, and Mark Peters Foreword by David Grayson Schumann’s Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul Erika Reiman Bach and the Pedal Clavichord: An Organist’s Guide Joel Speerstra Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations Edited by Stephen A. Crist and Roberta Montemorra Marvin The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology Edited by Arved Ashby

The Substance of Things Heard: Writings about Music Paul Griffiths Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair Annegret Fauser Aspects of Unity in J. S. Bach’s Partitas and Suites: An Analytical Study David W. Beach Letters I Never Mailed: Clues to a Life Alec Wilder Annotated by David Demsey Foreword by Marian McPartland Wagner and Wagnerism in NineteenthCentury Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic Provinces: Reception, Enthusiasm, Cult Hannu Salmi The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams Steven Schick Bach’s Changing World: Voices in the Community Edited by Carol K. Baron CageTalk: Dialogues with and about John Cage Edited by Peter Dickinson European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900 Edited by John Graziano

The musical scene in mid-nineteenth century New York City, contrary to common belief, was exceptionally vibrant. Thanks to several opera companies, no fewer than two orchestras, public chamber music and solo concerts, and numerous choirs, New Yorkers were regularly exposed to “new” music of Verdi, Meyerbeer, Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. The efforts of such conductors as Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, and Leopold Damrosch to program this music are documented by Nancy Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, and Rena Charnin Mueller. John Koegel investigates how German-American musical theater developed and flourished. Christopher Bruhn explores the role of the Liederkranz Society and William Steinway in Gotham’s musical life, Wayne Shirley surveys Leopold Damrosch’s compositions, and Adrienne Fried Block addresses the knotty issue of determining American identity in the immigrant population. Frank Cipolla traces the career of bandmaster Patrick Gilmore, and Raoul F. Camus looks at the most famous of the National Guard bands—the Seventh Regiment—and two of its illustrious leaders, Claudio Grafulla and Carlo Cappa. R. Allen Lott relates the details of pianist Sigismund Thalberg’s American tour, and Hilary Poriss examines the phenomenal appearances of soprano Adelina Patti. The rivalries and friendships of several Bohemian immigrant families that produced opera—the Maretzeks, the Strakosches, and the Graus—are described by Ruth Henderson. John Graziano looks at the exceptional repertory of operas heard, in Italian, German, English, and French, during the 1860s, and Kathryn Preston investigates the practices of one of the first American booking management agencies.

“For the first time, New York’s position as a major outpost of European musical culture is given its due in this much-needed book. A series of fascinating and well-documented studies show the astonishing richness and variety of the city’s culture of high art music.” —Nicholas Temperley, emeritus professor of musicology, University of Illinois “This marvelous compendium documents the stories of music and musicians that entered America in the nineteenth century through New York City, the immigrants’ portal that was emerging as the continent’s intellectual and economic center, a modern metropolis shaping the cultural practices and tastes of the nation. The richly detailed profiles reveal an array of music making stunning in its intensity and variety. European Music and Musicians in New York City: 1840–1900 will be essential reading for historians and students of American life and culture.” —Deane L. Root, professor and chair of the Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh, and director and curator of the Center for American Music

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English, and French, during the 1860s, and Kathryn Preston investigates the practices of one of the first American booking management agencies. contributors: Adrienne Fried Block, Christopher Bruhn, Raoul F. Camus, Frank J. Cipolla, John Graziano, Ruth Henderson, John Koegel, R. Allen Lott, Rena Charnin Mueller, Hilary Poriss, Katherine K. Preston, Nancy B. Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, Wayne D. Shirley. John Graziano is professor of music, The City College and Graduate Center, CUNY, and co-director of the Music in Gotham research project.

T

he musical scene in mid-nineteenth century New York City, contrary to

“For the first time, New York’s position as a major outpost of European musical culture is given its due in this much-needed book. A

common belief, was exceptionally vibrant. Thanks to several opera companies,

series of fascinating and well-documented studies show the astonishing richness and variety of the city’s culture of high art music.”

no fewer than two orchestras, public chamber music and solo concerts, and numerous

—Nicholas Temperley, emeritus professor of musicology, University of Illinois

choirs, New Yorkers were regularly exposed to “new” music of Verdi, Meyerbeer, Schu-

european

“This marvelous compendium documents the stories of music and musicians that entered America in the nineteenth century through

Music & Musicians

New York City, the immigrants’ portal that was emerging as the continent’s intellectual and economic center, a modern metropolis shap-

in New York CiÄ

ing the cultural practices and tastes of the nation. The richly detailed profiles reveal an array of music making stunning in its intensity and

1840–1900

variety. European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900 will be essential reading for historians and students of American life and culture.” —Deane L. Root, professor and chair of the Department of Music, University of Pittsburgh, and director and curator of the Center for American Music

mann, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner. The efforts of such conductors as Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, and Leopold Damrosch to program this music are documented by Nancy Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, and Rena Charnin Mueller. John Koegel investigates how GermanAmerican musical theater developed and flourished. Christopher Bruhn explores the role of the Liederkranz Society and William Steinway in Gotham’s musical life, Wayne Shirley surveys Leopold Damrosch’s compositions, and Adrienne Fried Block addresses the knotty issue of determining American identity in the immigrant population. Frank Cipolla traces the career of bandmaster Patrick Gilmore, and Raoul F. Camus looks at the most famous of the National Guard bands—the Seventh Regiment—and two of its illustrious leaders, Claudio Grafulla and Carlo Cappa. R. Allen Lott relates the details of pianist Sigismund Thalberg’s American tour, and Hilary Poriss examines the phenomenal

jacket images

edited by

Photo of Adelina Patti. © N. Sarony. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number:

John Graziano

LC-USZ62-68664. Back cover and flap: sketches of the costumes for Bateman’s production of La Grande-

ISBN

Duchesse de Gerolstein, from Harper’s Weekly, 28 September 1867. Collection of John Graziano. Design by Adam B. Bohannon

university of rochester press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731 P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF, UK www.urpress.com

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appearances of soprano Adelina Patti. The rivalries and friendships of several Bohemian immigrant families that produced opera— the Maretzeks, the Strakosches, and the Graus—are described by Ruth Henderson. John Graziano looks at the exceptional repertory of operas heard, in Italian, German, (continued on back flap)