1750-1800
The first item of especial interest in this period is the performance of the "Beggar's Opera" at the "Theatre in Nassau Street," New York. This theatre was a rather tumbledown affair and was not built for the purpose. It had a platform and rough benches. The chandelier was a barrel hoop through which several nails were driven, and on these nails were impaled candles, which provided all the light, and from which the tallow was likely to drip on the heads of such of the audience as had the best seats.
But three years later (in 1753) Lewis Hallam, who had been giving performances with his company in the more southern States, got permission to build a theatre on the site of this old place, and the house was opened in September with a play, "The Conscious Lovers," followed by a ballad farce, "Damon and Phillida."
In 1759 we find the first avowedly musical organization in America, "The Orpheus Club," was in existence in Philadelphia, and concerts were becoming more frequent. We also find a St. Cecilia Society founded in Charleston, S. C., an organization which lasted for a hundred and fifty years.
Other societies followed at short intervals and in widely scattered localities; the "Handel Society" of Dartmouth College, about 1780, the "Stoughton (Mass.) Musical Society," 1786, and "The Musical Society" of New York City, all tend to show that social centres were developing, and the people were finding expression in music.
An indication of what had been growing by degrees is found in the reports of concerts. Mention of instruments such as violins, French horns, oboes, trombones, etc., was made here and there, and especially in connection with the Moravian settlements in Bethlehem, Pa., where was established the first music school.
We find the first mention of an orchestra made in connection with a performance of "The Beggar's Opera" at Upper Marlboro, Md., in 1752, and a few years later (1788) a great concert was given in Philadelphia with an orchestra of fifty and a chorus of two hundred performers.
There is also a record of a concert given in Charleston, S. C., in 1796, when an orchestra of thirty instruments was employed in a performance of Gluck's overture to "Iphegénie en Aulide," and Haydn's "Stabat Mater."
It is quite possible that orchestras were used more or less in other concerts. Mr. Sonneck shows, in his "Early Concert-Life in America," many programs in which orchestral works are mentioned. And it is well to state here that it is almost impossible to locate the first performance in America of many of the works of the older composers, including Haydn and Mozart, because no opus number is mentioned, nor anything to indicate the identity of the work. Pleyel, Gluck and Clementi were much in vogue.
The American composer was beginning to be heard from during this period. Francis Hopkinson, who is generally regarded as the first American composer, wrote, in 1759, a song with the title "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free." Some time later, in 1788, a small volume of songs was published under the title "Seven Songs," by the same composer.