The Philharmonic, of course, was never long without a rival in New York. Brooklyn made the first serious effort at competition when its own Philharmonic was established in 1857 with Theodore Eisfeld as conductor. During its initiatory season it produced Beethoven's Third and Seventh Symphonies, Mendelssohn's Fourth, and Gade's C Major. Carl Bergmann succeeded Eisfeld and after him came Theodore Thomas. The early history of the Brooklyn Philharmonic was brilliant with achievement and promise, but unfortunately that achievement was not sustained nor that promise fulfilled. The indefatigable Theodore Thomas maintained a lively rivalry with the New York Philharmonic off and on between 1864 and 1879. He gave annual series of what he called symphonysoirées, and for a few years he also gave garden concerts in summer. In 1879 he went west as director of the newly established Cincinnati College of Music, but two years later he returned as conductor of the Philharmonic.
Meanwhile Dr. Leopold Damrosch in 1878 founded the Symphony Society of New York with the avowed purpose of breaking away from the established conservatism of the Philharmonic and exploring newer fields of musical composition. Dr. Damrosch conducted the orchestra until his death in 1885, when he was succeeded by his son Walter. At first the society gave only twelve concerts yearly but its activities gradually increased until it was giving about one hundred—its average for the last ten years. These include extended tours throughout the United States and Canada. The career of the Symphony Society has not been without vicissitudes. For many years after the death of Dr. Damrosch it had to fight a discouraging struggle against lack of interest and of financial backing. In 1899 Walter Damrosch retired from the fight and devoted himself to composition; but in the following year he went to the Metropolitan as conductor of German opera, and apparently the experience revived his ambitions as aconductor. After he retired from the Metropolitan he succeeded in obtaining a subsidy for the Symphony Society from a number of prominent New York citizens. Since then the fortunes of the organization have been in the ascendant and they were definitely assured in the spring of 1914 when its president, Mr. H. H. Flagler, announced 'that in order to further its artistic aims, he was prepared for the future to defray any deficit of the society up to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars annually.'
Though the prime purpose of the New York Symphony is to produce important novelties, it has always rested its program on the foundation of the classics. Dr. Damrosch was a devoted lover of Beethoven, and it was entirely in accordance with his ideals that the society, in 1907, gave the first Beethoven festival in America. Many of the symphonic works of Brahms, Tschaikowsky, Sibelius, and Elgar were given their first performances in America by the Symphony Society and the first Brahms festival in this country was given by it in 1912. As if to complete the society's identification with the trio of immortal 'B's,' Mr. Damrosch has shown lately a large devotion to the works of Bach. Since 1907 the society has given much attention to the modern French school and has introduced New York to many compositions of Debussy, Dukas, Enesco, Chausson, and Ravel.
The popularity of 'guest' conductors, due to the experiment of the Philharmonic Society, led Mr. Damrosch in 1905-06 to hand over the bâton for several concerts to Felix Weingartner; but, as Mr. Henderson says, Weingartner's 'refined scholarship and intellectual subtlety escaped the notice of all save the connoisseurs' and his engagement failed to arouse much public interest. Except for this brief interim Mr. Damrosch has been the society's only conductor since 1885. In addition to its regular activities the orchestrais employed to play the programs of the Young People's Symphony Concerts given originally under the conductorship of Frank Damrosch but latterly under that of Walter. These concerts were planned as an educational series for juveniles, but they have come to make a much wider appeal and attract audiences which consist more of adults than of children. Their educational value is considerable.
Of even broader educational value, perhaps, is the work of the People's Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Franz X. Arens—though it is handicapped by lack of sufficient endowment. The object of the orchestra is to provide good music for working people of small means, and it would seem that such an object is sufficiently laudable to attract generous support from those wealthy music-lovers who profess a sincere interest in the promotion of the art. In spite of handicaps the People's Symphony has existed since 1900, but insufficient funds have spelled little rehearsal and few concerts, with a consequent circumscribing of its efforts.
When musical cultivation in any community reaches a certain stage it tends to specialize. That stage has long been passed in New York and during recent years there has been a notable outcrop of societies devoted to the study and performance of the compositions of different nations, periods or schools. In the symphonic field the most notable of these is the Russian Symphony Society, founded in 1903. The orchestra, under the direction of Modest Altschuler, is composed largely of Russian musicians and is devoted almost exclusively to the performance of works by Russian composers. Since its foundation it has introduced New York to new compositions by Tschaikowsky, Glinka, Napravnik, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Glazounoff, Rubinstein, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Davydoff, Gretchaninoff, Taneieff, Moussorgsky, Arensky, Borodine, Kallinnikoff, Rachmaninoff,Dargomijsky, Afanasyeff, César Cui, Glière, Scriabine, Balakireff, and others.
There remains to be mentioned the Volpe Symphony Orchestra founded by Arnold Volpe in 1904, the Italian Symphony Orchestra, formed in 1913 by Pietro Floridia, and a number of temporary orchestras got together for special purposes, such as park concerts. For several years New York has maintained a high standard in its open air free concerts in Central Park. These have been so extensively patronized that it has been found desirable to give as many as seven a week, from June to September.
Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century Boston lagged considerably behind New York in the matter of orchestral music. After the demise of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra in 1824 the city was without any permanent symphonic organization until 1840, when the Academy of Music established an orchestra. During its existence of seven years the Academy orchestra varied in size from twenty-five to forty performers, many of whom were amateurs. It introduced to Boston most of the standard symphonies and some other works of importance, but its ambition seems to have been greater than its ability. It was succeeded in 1847 by the Musical Fund Society, founded in imitation of the Philadelphia society of that name, by Thomas Comer. Comer leaned emphatically to the popular in music and there was little value to the performances of the Musical Fund until George J. Webb took over the leadership during the last few years of the society's life, which ended in 1855. In the meantime Boston had been enjoying good music through the agency of the Germania Orchestra, a body of youngGerman musicians who had come to America during the revolutionary troubles of 1848. The Germania was a travelling orchestra, but it gave a large proportion of its concerts in Boston. Its conductors were successively Carl Lenschow and Carl Bergmann and there seems to be little doubt that it was by far the best orchestra America had yet heard.
In 1855 Carl Zerrahn, flute player of the Germania, founded an orchestra which became known as the Philharmonic and which gave regular concerts in Boston until 1863. He was invited, in 1866, to the conductorship of the orchestra newly formed by the Harvard Musical Association. This was really the first permanent orchestra of value that greater Boston possessed, and during the twenty years of its existence it clung with remarkable consistency to the highest musical ideals. Included in the works performed by it were the nine Beethoven symphonies; twelve Haydn and six Mozart symphonies, Spohr'sDie Weihe der Töne; Schubert's B minor (unfinished) and C major; Mendelssohn's 'Italian,' 'Scotch,' and 'Reformation'; the four symphonies of Schumann; Gade's First, Second, Third, and Fourth; two of Raff and two of Brahms; Rubinstein's 'Ocean'; Berlioz'sFantastique; the Second of Saint-Saëns; two of Paine; one of Ritter; Liszt's symphonic poems,TassoandLes Préludes; Lachner's first suite and Raff's suite in C; Spohr'sIrdisches und Göttlichesfor double orchestra; and overtures by Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Cherubini, Schubert, Weber, Schumann, Gade, Bennett, Bargiel, Buck, Goldmark, Paine, Chadwick, Parker, Henschel, Rietz, and others. Nevertheless the Harvard Orchestra did not receive very warm support from the people of Boston. Among musicians, too, there grew up gradually a certain impatience at its undoubted conservatism and finally a rival wasstarted which was organized as the Philharmonic Society in 1880.
There was not room enough in Boston for two orchestras, but there was room and need for one good orchestra which would cater fully to the city's musical tastes. Such an orchestra needs a sponsor in the shape of heavy financial backing and thedeus ex machinain this case was Henry L. Higginson, the banker, who founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra at his own risk and guaranteed its permanency. Under the leadership of George Henschel the orchestra opened its first season in 1881 with Beethoven's 'Dedication of the House.' It gave twenty concerts that season and twenty-six in the third season. Since then the regular number has been twenty-four, in addition to public rehearsals. Regular visits are made to New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Providence, and other large cities, bringing the total number of concerts each season to the neighborhood of one hundred.
George Henschel returned to Europe in 1884 and Wilhelm Gericke came over from Vienna as conductor. To Gericke must be awarded the chief credit for making the Boston Symphony Orchestra what it is to-day—the finest in America and one of the most perfectly balanced and finished symphonic ensembles in the world. Gericke was a disciplinarian of the most rigid type and under his iron rule practically all the technical weaknesses of the orchestra were eliminated. Musically, like Theodore Thomas, he was an ardent devotee of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and he was more concerned with strictly traditional interpretations of the classics than with incursions into new and untried fields. Just as Thomas in New York had an ideally suitable successor in Anton Seidl, so Gericke had an ideally suitable successor in that remarkable orchestral virtuoso, Arthur Nikisch. Perhaps musical America has never known anything like the four seasonsduring which the temperamental and fiery Nikisch performed on the perfect instrument which Gericke had left to his hand. He was succeeded by Emil Paur, a decided modernist in his tendencies, who made Boston familiar with Tschaikowsky, Richard Strauss, and lesser post-Wagnerians. Gericke returned in 1898 and in the following year Symphony Hall was built. Max Fiedler was the next conductor, and after him came the present incumbent of the post—the scholarly and immaculate Dr. Karl Muck.
When Theodore Thomas left the New York Philharmonic he accepted the musical directorship of the American Opera Company, to which we have already referred in a previous chapter. When he got back to New York after an absence of two seasons he attempted to revive his old orchestral organization, in spite of the fact that there were three competing orchestras in the field. His attempt was a dismal failure and he found himself stranded without money, engagements or prospects. At this ebb-tide of his affairs he met Mr. C. N. Fay, of Chicago, who inquired whether he would be willing to go to that city if he were given a permanent orchestra. 'Oh,' said Thomas, 'I'd go to hell if you would give me a permanent orchestra.' So he went to Chicago.
Before the fire of 1871 Chicago had an orchestra of its own, conducted by Hans Balatka. Then it was without one until Mr. Fay issued his invitation to Theodore Thomas in 1890. Fay succeeded in getting fifty men to guarantee $1,000 each for a season and formed the Orchestra Association. After taking a year in which to organize his players, Thomas started the career of the orchestra that bears his name in 1891. A most instructive essay might be written upon the successionof difficulties, financial and other, which the Theodore Thomas Orchestra was compelled to surmount before it reached the position of solid permanency which it now occupies. That it did surmount those difficulties is due chiefly to the iron obstinacy of Thomas himself and to the persistent optimism of Mr. Bryan Lathrop, who steered the enterprise through many critical situations. Shortly before his death on January 4, 1905, Thomas succeeded in realizing his desire to secure for the orchestra a home of its own. Had he failed in that object it is quite probable that the orchestra would have been disbanded after his death, but in succeeding he raised the orchestra to the position of an institution in which Chicago has since taken an increasingly great pride.
Thomas was succeeded in the conductorship by Frederick A. Stock, who still holds the post. We have had occasion to point out before that Thomas was very fortunate in his successors. In Chicago, as elsewhere, his conservatism held him more or less closely to the classics and his interpretations of these established a high and dignified standard which was of incalculable value in educating the public taste. Accepting this standard as his own, Mr. Stock ventured gradually into new paths and, while still maintaining the classic tradition, he led his public into greater intimacy with the moderns. César Franck, d'Indy, Debussy, Chausson, Glazounoff, Gretchaninoff, Balakireff, Borodine, Sinigaglia, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler have all figured on his programs, together with Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, with Haydn and Mozart, with Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn, with Wagner, Liszt, and Tschaikowsky. Like the other big American orchestras, the Theodore Thomas organization makes an annual tour, bringing to the smaller cities their meed of musical entertainment and to the larger ones an opportunity of comparing notes.
In spite of the great strides made by Chicago in musical culture during recent years, its importance in the musical history of the Middle West is second to that of Cincinnati. From the beginning the elements composing the citizenship of the latter city were such as to introduce musical activity at a very early stage. The firstSängerfestin the West was held at the old Armory Hall there about 1842, and in 1878 the Cincinnati College of Music, equipped to teach all branches, was founded by Miss Dora Nelson.
The Cincinnati College of Music, which has since become the College of Music of Cincinnati, became the vibrant centre of musical growth in the Middle West. It was never without its own orchestra, string quartet, chorus and school of opera and expression. Through its faculty concerts, lectures, and other forms of educational entertainments the people of Cincinnati became interested and discriminating auditors.
Theodore Thomas was the first musical director of this school, and it was from Cincinnati that he first exercised the influence which has since resulted in such remarkable advance in all musical centres of the Middle West. The first May Music Festival to be given in America was organized and performed under his direction in 1873. Five years later, during which time the Cincinnati Festival had become an established institution, the Springer Music Hall was erected for the future use of the May Festival Association.
The May Festivals were given loyal public support and were successful from the beginning. Choral societies were numerous and the cause of advanced musical education found sincere support in every section of the city. The first orchestra to give public concerts was organized and operated by Michael Brand, a 'cellist of considerable local fame. He had gathered about him the more advanced of the local musicians and in 1894an orchestra of forty men was giving concerts under his direction.
In 1895 public spirited women, interested in the advancement of music, conceived the idea of establishing a regular symphony orchestra on a substantial basis through public subscription. This movement was led by the Ladies' Musical Club, of which Miss Emma L. Roedter was president and Mrs. William Howard Taft, wife of the later President of the United States, secretary. The conception of the plan that was followed is accredited to Miss Helen Sparrman, at that time honorary president of the Ladies' Musical Club. As a result, the Cincinnati Orchestra Association Company was organized and nine concerts were given under its direction during the season 1895-96.
The season was divided into three series of three concerts each, and three prospective conductors, all of them men of wide experience, were engaged to conduct a series each.
Following the performance of these trial concerts ten thousand dollars was secured by public subscription and the succeeding fall an orchestra of forty-eight men, with Frank Van der Stucken as permanent conductor, was established. The first regular season in 1895-96 consisted of ten pairs of concerts given in Pike's Opera House, on Friday afternoons and Saturday evenings, from November 20 to April 11, inclusive. The orchestra was increased to seventy men during the season 1896-97 and the concerts transferred to Music Hall, where they were given until the winter of 1911. About this time Mrs. Thomas J. Emery had begun the construction of a building for the use of the Ohio Mechanics Institute and the auditorium was so constructed that it could be made the home of the orchestra, which at this time was being operated under the corporation title of The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Association Company.
Mr. Van der Stucken's incumbency as conductor of the orchestra ended in 1906. The concerts given by the association during the season 1907-08 were given with orchestras from other cities and in 1908 no concerts were given. During the summer of 1909, however, the association, under the leadership of Mrs. Holmes, placed the orchestra on a permanent basis by raising a subscription fund of fifty thousand dollars a year for five years. Mr. Leopold Stokowski was installed as conductor and ten pairs of concerts were given the following year. The orchestra numbered sixty-five men.
The season 1911-12 was marked by an increase to seventy-seven men. On the retirement of Mrs. Holmes as president, the orchestra had been brought up to a membership of eighty-two men and Mr. Stokowski had been succeeded by the present conductor, Dr. Ernst Kunwald, for five years an associate of Arthur Nikisch in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
The orchestra's sphere of influence began to extend beyond the environs of Cincinnati in 1900. Since that time it has made annual tours, visiting Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Louisville, Terre Haute, Oberlin, Akron, Dayton, Springfield, Kansas City, Omaha, Wichita, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, and other cities of the Middle West and South.
Pittsburgh, like all other cities preëminently industrial, has developed but slowly that side of its civic life in which the arts find important place, and not until 1873 did it possess a musical body that might properly be called an orchestra. This was known as the 'Germania' and was founded and conducted by George Toerge. It consisted of from thirty-five to forty-two instruments and its programs were made up chiefly of symphony movements, overtures, and lighter music. There was nothing very ambitious in its aims orachievements, but undoubtedly it was not without its influence in preparing the way for others. Later Carl Retter organized what was known as Retter's Orchestra, which, under his leadership and that of Fidelis Zitterbart, continued valiantly the pioneer work done by the Germania. Its first concert was devoted to Gluck, Beethoven, Boccherini, Johann Strauss, and Keler-Bela. Retter was succeeded in 1879 by Adolph M. Foerster, who conducted the orchestra for the next two years.
As yet there was not sufficient interest in musical affairs in Pittsburgh to support a permanent orchestra worthy of the city, but there were a number of valuable musical organizations, such as the Gounod Club, the Symphonic Society, the Art Society, and the Mozart Club, which, singly or together, did excellent work in providing orchestral concerts. Then came the twenty-eighth National Saengerfest, which was held in Pittsburgh in 1896 and which inaugurated an epoch in the musical affairs of the city. This festival, to quote Mr. Adolph Foerster, 'aroused the first impulse of bringing order out of the chaos existing at that time. It was to create an orchestra for this great event and thus lay the foundation for a permanent organization to give concerts at Carnegie Hall, then nearing completion. Though concerts were begun a few months after the dedication of the hall, the orchestra was not, however, engaged, since the elaborate programs designed excluded the possibilities of adequate interpretations by the orchestra as then equipped. Perhaps to no other one man than to Charles W. Scovel is due the credit of solving the intricate problem of establishing the guarantee fund, bringing the different elements into harmony, and thus making the orchestra a possibility.'
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert on February 27, 1896, with Frederic Archer asconductor and with a program that included compositions of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Rameau, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Liszt, and Wagner. In 1898 Archer was succeeded in the conductorship by Victor Herbert, whose brilliance, verve, and tendency toward the picturesque in music appealed strongly to the Pittsburgh public and established for his orchestra of sixty-five men a popularity which a more severe and conservative leader might have failed to attract. Theodore Thomas always took his position firmly on the heights and compelled his audience to climb up to him; Herbert adopted the reverse method, starting in the pleasant, flower-decked plain and cheerfully leading his public by his hand to more stimulating altitudes. Possibly his plan was not the best sort of educational discipline, but it seems to have been productive of good results. Emil Paur, who succeeded him in 1910, paid more respect to the great gods on high Olympus, bowing down with especial reverence before the shrine of Brahms. 'It must be recorded,' says Mr. Foerster, 'that ever since Mr. Paur has conducted the orchestra the non-local financial as well as artistic successes have been much increased. The orchestra is a regular visitor each season to many large cities.... Each season the demand for the orchestra has increased, and thus it has become a national educator, a notable benefactor in the musical development of this country, probably traversing a larger area than any of the great symphony orchestras.' In addition to its regular conductors the orchestra has at various times played under the leadership of guest conductors, including Richard Strauss, Eugen d'Albert, Walter Damrosch, and Edward Elgar.
Perhaps the most striking feature of recent musical history in the United States is the remarkable growthof musical culture in the West. So rapid has been this growth, so widely has it spread, so numerous and varied are the activities it has brought in its train that it would be impossible to follow it in any detail. The number of musical clubs and organizations which have sprung up in recent years in the vast territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific is too great even to be catalogued in a general sketch of this nature. In many of the large cities, however, some of these organizations have reached a position of national importance and rival the best products of the older cities of the East. Notable among those is the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which is generally conceded to rank with the Boston Symphony, the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. It owes its inception entirely to Emil Oberhoffer, who started it as a support for the chorus of the Philharmonic Society of Minneapolis, of which he was conductor. He succeeded in obtaining a guarantee of $30,000 for three years, then one of $90,000 for three years, and finally one of $65,000 annually for three years. With that backing he was able to organize and perfect an orchestral body which has few equals in America and of which he still remains conductor. During its first season the orchestra gave six concerts. Since then the number has increased to forty annually. After its regular season the orchestra makes a spring tour extending from Winnipeg in the North to Birmingham, Ala., in the South, and from Akron in the East to Wichita in the West. St. Paul also has an excellent orchestra, organized in 1905, which gives a season of ten concerts, seventeen popular Sunday afternoon concerts, and three children's concerts—so that, on the whole, the twin cities are very generously supplied with orchestral music.
San Francisco, curiously enough, has been somewhat tardy in orchestral matters and it was not until 1911that it organized an orchestra of any importance. So far the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Henry Hadley, has done excellent work. During its three seasons it has given five symphonies of Beethoven, three of Brahms, one of Dvořák, one of César Franck, two of Hadley, one of Haydn, three of Mozart, one of Rachmaninoff, two of Schubert, one of Schumann, and three of Tschaikowsky, besides compositions by Bach, Berlioz, Bizet, Borodine, Chadwick, Debussy, Elgar, Goldmark, Gounod, Grieg, Victor Herbert, Humperdinck, Lalo, Liszt, MacDowell, Massenet, Mendelssohn, Moszkowski, Nicolai, Ravel, Reger, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Rossini, Rubinstein, Saint-Saëns, Sibelius, Smetana, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Svendsen, Coleridge Taylor, Verdi, Wagner, Weber, and many others—it would be impossible to conceive of a more catholic assemblage.
Seattle has a fine symphony orchestra of its own, and in the Southwest Denver shines as the possessor of an ambitious symphonic organization. Since 1907 St. Louis has had a good orchestra under the leadership of Carl Zach. In 1911 The Kansas City Musical Club, a women's organization, succeeded in promoting an Orchestra Association to guarantee the losses of an orchestra which is doing good work under the leadership of Carl Busch. Los Angeles, Wichita, Cleveland, Detroit, and other Western and Middle Western cities also have creditable orchestras of their own.
Returning East we note the orchestra of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Washington, New Haven, and Buffalo. These are all relatively modest organizations, but they supplement excellently the work of the large visiting orchestras. Philadelphia, however, possesses an orchestra which has now definitely taken its place among the greatest in the country. It is the outgrowth of about fifty amateur and semi-professional musicianswho, between 1893 and 1900, gave a few concerts each season at the Academy of Music under the leadership of Dr. W. W. Gilchrist. These men formed the nucleus of a permanent orchestra of seventy-two players, which was organized in 1900. Fritz Scheel, then conducting an orchestra at one of Philadelphia's summer parks, was appointed conductor. Under him the important formative work was solidly accomplished and when Carl Pohlig, first court conductor at Stuttgart, came over as conductor in 1907 he found at his disposal a finished ensemble. Pohlig was succeeded by Leopold Stokowski in 1912. The latter's knowledge of American traditions and artistic needs, gained at first while conductor of the Cincinnati orchestra, served to put him in sympathy with the musical desires and ideals of his public and the success of the orchestra under his leadership has been very marked. Besides its regular season of fifty-one concerts (season of 1913-14) the Philadelphia orchestra gives a number of popular concerts, fills many engagements in nearby towns and cities, and makes two tours of a week each in the Middle West and New England.
'Believing that a great orchestral organization should have an educational influence'—we quote from the prospectus of the Philadelphia orchestra—'he (Mr. Stokowski) chooses the compositions to be played from all periods and all schools and arranges his programs in the manner which he considers most likely to prove both pleasure-giving and enlightening. The list of programs for the past season (1913-14) included two devoted wholly to Wagner, one of which was made up of excerpts from the four operas of the "Ring," presented in their natural sequence. From Bach to Richard Strauss, from Gluck to Erich Korngold—the repertory, though kept always up to his high standard, is inclusive and comprehensive. It touches upon all fields of music, faltering before no technical requirements—thereis nothing in the most modern range of the most complicated orchestral works that the orchestra has not at one time or another essayed, one of its achievements being the entirely successful performance of Richard Strauss's tremendousSinfonia Domestica.'
Altogether, in orchestral matters America has sufficient reason to be proud of her attainments. Of course, one cannot argue from the existence of good orchestras the coincidence of a high or widely diffused state of musical culture. They are to some extent the joint product of money and civic pride. But their educational influence is beyond question and thus we may at least argue from the increasing number of good orchestras in America a bright promise for the future.
Aside from purely orchestral organizations there has been in recent years, especially in the larger cities, an increasing number of societies devoted to the study of special phases of musical art and which give occasional illustrative concerts with orchestra. As these are quasi-social in their activities and somewhat restricted in their appeal, their influence on the musical culture of the country generally is not of much account. Quite the opposite, however, is true of the large number of important ensembles devoted to the performance of chamber music. The growth of public interest in the smaller instrumental forms promoted by these ensembles is not the least interesting and significant feature of musical conditions in present-day America. It might not, perhaps, be extreme to say that a real appreciation of chamber music is the identifying mark of true musical cultivation, and the ever-increasing public which patronizes the concerts of chamber music organizations in this country is one of the mostencouraging signs patriotic American music-lovers could wish to see.
Probably we must go back to our charming old friends, the cavaliers of Virginia, with their 'chests of viols' and their compositions of Boccherini and Vivaldi, to find the beginnings of chamber-music in America. Undoubtedly small private ensembles antedated orchestras in this country as they did everywhere else. We know that at Governor Penn's house in Philadelphia Francis Hopkinson and his friends met together frequently for musical entertainment, and such gatherings must have been numerous in New York, Boston, Charleston, and other colonial centres of culture. However, we must grope along until well into the nineteenth century before we find a public appearance in America of a chamber music ensemble. The pioneer, as far as we can discover, was a string quartet brought together in 1843 by Uriah C. Hill, founder of the New York Philharmonic. Samuel Johnson, an original member of the Philharmonic, writes about this quartet as follows: 'A miserable failure, artistically and financially. It would be gross flattery to call Mr. Hill a third-rate violinist; Apelles was a good clarinet, but a poor violinist.... Lehmann was a good second flute; Hegelund was a bassoon player and naturally best adapted to that instrument; he was a very small-sized man, with hands too small to grasp the neck of the 'cello. The whole enterprise was dead at its conception.' But perhaps Mr. Johnson did not like Mr. Hill. Richard Grant White said that thesoiréesof the Hill Quartet 'were well attended and successful.'
In 1846, however, New York was treated to a quartet headed by the great Sivori. 'This was something like a real quartet' according to Samuel Johnson. Three years later Saroni's 'Musical Times' arranged a series of four chamber music concerts in which the best artists in New York appeared. The program of the firstconcert included Mozart's D minor string quartet, Beethoven's B flat piano trio, and Mendelssohn's D minor piano trio—rather a choice dish. Then came Theodore Eisfeld, who, in 1851, established a string quartet that set a very high mark for its successors to shoot at. At its first concert it presented Haydn's Quartet, No. 78, in B flat, Mendelssohn's trio in D minor, and Beethoven's quartet No. 1, in F major. Eisfeld maintained that standard for several years, clinging religiously to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Spohr. And, furthermore, hissoiréeswere well patronized. Beyond question he created a real demand for that sort of thing, so that in 1855, at the suggestion of Dr. William Mason, Carl Bergmann instituted a series ofsoiréesfor the performance of chamber music and organized a quartet consisting of himself, Theodore Thomas, Joseph Mosenthal, and George Matzka. Mason was pianist. These concerts, known first as the Mason and Bergmann and then as the Mason and Thomas series, were continued every season (except that of 1856-57) until 1866. They improved considerably on the work done by Eisfeld, adding to the names of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven on their programs those of Schumann, Rubinstein, Brahms, Raff, and other contemporaries.
Boston in the meantime had been initiated into the beauties of chamber music by the Harvard Musical Association, which gave a regular series ofsoiréesthere every year between 1844 and 1850. Stimulated by the success of these affairs, five professional musicians—August Fries, Francis Riha, Edward Lehman, Thomas Ryan, and Wulf Fries, to wit—organized the Mendelssohn Quintet Club. This was the first important chamber music ensemble in America and for nearly fifty years it continued to cultivate its chosen field, not only in Boston, but all over the United States. Its first concert included Mendelssohn's Quintet, op. 8,a concertante of Kalliwoda for flute, violin and 'cello, and Beethoven's Quintet, op. 4. The Mendelssohn Quintet Club was an active and progressive organization, keeping well up with contemporary composition and frequently augmenting its members so as to give sextets, septets, octets, nonets, and other larger chamber-music forms.
The next noteworthy chamber music organization in the East was the Beethoven Quintet Club formed in Boston in 1873. Then came the era of what we might call the Boston Symphony graduates, viz., the Kneisel Quartet, the Hoffman Quartet, the Adamowski Quartet, and the Longy Club (wind instruments)—all offshoots of the same great orchestra. Of these perhaps the most notable is the Kneisel Quartet (founded in 1884), which has won a deservedly high reputation as well for its splendid interpretations of standard compositions as for its frequent presentation of interesting novelties. Since 1905 the Kneisel Quartet has made New York its headquarters and like the Flonzaleys and other organizations tours the entire country every season. In 1904 Mr. Kneisel's successor as concertmeister of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Prof. Willy Hess, founded the Boston Symphony Quartet, which has since then given concerts of very high standard in Boston and elsewhere. The Longy Club of wind instruments (founded in 1899) is also a noteworthy organization and does work of the highest artistic excellence in a field but slightly exploited. Among other chamber music ensembles which have seen the light in Boston may be mentioned the Theodorowicz Quartet, the Olive Mead Quartet, the Eaton-Hadley Trio, and the Bostonia Quintet Club, composed of string quartet and clarinet.
New York is not quite so well favored in this respect, but it possesses several chamber music organizations of some distinction. Chief of them is the Flonzaley Quartet, which in point of individuality has probably nopeer in America. The Barrère Ensemble of woodwinds, headed by George Barrère, first flutist of the New York Symphony Society, is also an organization of exceptional excellence, though it does not possess the perfect balance and all-round finish of the Longy Club. Among others, the Marum Quartet, the Margulies Trio, and the New York Trio are worthy of note.
In Chicago the principal chamber music organizations are the Heerman Quartet and the Chicago String Quartet. Practically every other city of importance in the country has one or more such ensembles, some of them professional, some of them semi-professional and some of them amateur. While the private performance of chamber music in any community usually precedes the institution of public concerts, regular professional bodies follow as a rule the establishment of large orchestras; hence it would be futile to look for good chamber music ensembles outside the principal cities.
The activities of the musical clubs all over the country include in a majority of cases the occasional performance of chamber music works. In the small towns these are usually private, social affairs; in the large cities they often succeed in reaching a wide public. There are literally thousands of such clubs in the United States and their influence in the promotion of musical appreciation is very great. Of course, many of them are namby-pamby pink tea gatherings, leaning languidly toward the Godard's Berceuse style of composition and conversational clap-trap touching art and artists. But the majority of them, we are inclined to believe, are serious in aim and accomplish an amount of good in their immediate environment. It is worthy of remark that a very large proportion of them are composed exclusively of women.
W. D. D.