In 1855 George Bristow composed the second American opera, Rip Van Winkle. He and Fry started a crusade against the German musicians who had come over to America after the revolution of 1848, fearing that they would extinguish the feeble American flame of composing.
Orchestras
The father of American orchestras was a German oboe player, Gottlieb Graupner. When Haydn went to London to direct the largest orchestra formed, up to that time, Graupner played with him. Graupner went to Boston (1799), and at once formed the first American orchestra. About the same time in New York, a society called the “Euterpian” was founded; it gave one concert a year for thirty years! From 1820 to 1857 there was in Philadelphia, a “Musical Fund Society”; its object was to improve musical taste and to help needy musicians. It gave the first performance in America of Beethoven’s First Symphony, as well as choral works.
In Boston the last concert of the Philharmonic Orchestra as Graupner’s band was called, took place in 1824, and another more important orchestra was formed sixteen years later. Before the Boston Symphony came, an orchestra was given to the city by the Harvard Musical Association. It was controlled by a group of people brought up on Handel, Haydn and Beethoven, who would not permit their idols to be replaced by such anarchists as Berlioz and Wagner! Many of the young foreign orchestral players wanted the new works by the “anarchists,” so they seceded from the Harvard Musical Association and called themselves the Philharmonic Society. As there were not enough people interested in classical music to support two orchestras they were soon replaced by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which was put on a permanent basis by Colonel Henry L. Higginson, who founded it and supported it during his lifetime. Georg Henschel conducted the first concert in 1881, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra has always been one of the greatest musical institutions in America. The conductors have been Wilhelm Gericke, Arthur Nikisch, Max Fiedler, Karl Muck, Henri Rabaud, Pierre Monteux, and Serge Koussevitzky.
The New York Philharmonic Society, born in 1842, was founded through the efforts of a violinist, Uriah Hill, its first conductor, and it always gave works of value. Among its conductors have been: Theodore Thomas, Dr. Leopold Damrosch, Anton Seidl, Walter Damrosch, Emil Paur, Wassili Safonoff, Henry Hadley, Gustav Mahler, Theodore Spiering, Josef Stransky, Willem Mengelberg, Willem van Hoogstraten, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Arturo Toscanini, a genius among conductors.
Theodore Thomas (1835–1905), who was born in Germany but came to this country at the age of ten, was the first great musician to live in America and to advance the condition and standards. He gave this country its first taste for the aristocrat of music, chamber music, and with William Mason, the pianist, presented Schumann and Brahms to America. They were young radicals, and wanted to make everybody love the music they loved. Thomas introduced Wagner, too, and can’t you imagine the discussions the Wizard’s music raised when even Europe was torn in its opinions of the master innovator? Franz Liszt sent Thomas parts of the scores which the young conductor tried out even before they had been played in Europe. He had an orchestra of his own in 1864 that ran a close race with the Philharmonic Society in New York, and he took it out on tour, giving other cities the chance to hear orchestral music. Theodore Thomas was a musical missionary! In 1877 and 1879 he was conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and in 1890 the Chicago Orchestra was formed where he remained until his death in 1905. Frederick Stock followed Thomas, and the Chicago Orchestra has helped to cultivate music in the Middle West.
The Damrosch Family
In 1871, a German conductor, destined to develop music came to New York and after a few months, sent for his family. This was Dr. Leopold Damrosch, who founded the Oratorio Society (1873), and the New York Symphony Society (1877), which was merged with the Philharmonic in 1928. The Oratorio Society, for many years directed by Walter Damrosch, is today conducted by a gifted American, Albert Stoessel.
In the early years feeling ran high between the followers of Theodore Thomas and Dr. Damrosch, and many stories are told of the rivalry in playing new European scores. One of Damrosch’s greatest early triumphs was the performance of Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. He also gave the first performance of Brahms’ First Symphony.
During this time, Dr. Damrosch’s young son, Walter, was playing second violin, learning through experience, his father’s profession, and he is today the conductor of the New York Symphony Society, and a commanding figure in America.