Besides summer concerts at the various gardens and the subscription concerts already alluded to, there were between 1760 and 1775 a number of benefit concerts, as well as a few performances by military bands and theatrical companies. The fine program given at Mr. Stotherd's benefit on February 9, 1770, has been quoted in the preceding chapter. About the same year French and Italian virtuosi began to settle in New York and their presence soon made itself felt.
The only musician in New York at this period who stands out prominently is William Tuckey and, though he gave some benefit concerts, he was concerned mainly with the development of church music. However, it is worthy of note that he was the first to introduce the 'Messiah' to America, the occasion being a concert of sacred music in 1770, devoted largely to excerpts from that oratorio, including 'the overture and sixteen other pieces, viz. air, recitatives and choruses.' During the war there were a number of concerts in New York given by officers of the British army and navy. William Brown, who also appears in the concert life of Philadelphia and the South, gave a subscription series in New York in 1783 and again in 1785. Subsequently there seems to have been a lull in the musical affairs of the city until 1788, when subscription concerts were revived under the direction of Alexander Reinagle, 'member of the Society of Musicians in London,' and Henri Capron, a pupil of Gaviniés. They were continued by Mr. and Mrs. Van Hagen, 'lately from Amsterdam.' Pleyel, Stamitz, Dittersdorf, Martini, and Haydn shared the chief honors on the programs of that period, and we find a duet of Mozart on a program offered by Reinagle and Capron in 1789.
Beginning about the year 1797 the concert season in New York shifted from the winter to the summer, and regular subscription concerts consequently declined. Their place was taken by concerts which the enterprising proprietors of public gardens offered as special attractions to their patrons. It would seem at first blush that the musical taste of the people at large was exceptionally good when concerts of high grade really proved attractive, but the public gardens of that period usually did not cater to the masses. After the failure of Samuel Francis's Vaux Hall Gardens, enterprises of the kind seem to have lost favor. In 1793 we find Mrs. Armory running a Vaux Hall in Great George Street and announcing a concert of 'the most favourite overtures and pieces from the compositions of Fisher and Handel ... the orchestra being placed in the middle of a large tree.' Joseph Delacroix in the following year gave a very fine concert under the leadership of James Hewitt at his 'Salloon,' the Ice House Garden, No. 112 Broadway. Three years later he announced concerts of vocal and instrumental music to be given with an orchestra of fifteen of the best musicians three times a week at his newly decorated Vaux Hall Gardens. In 1798 he raised the number of his concerts to four a week, but in the following year, unfortunately, he had to abandon the enterprise. The concerts given by Delacroix were invariably of the highest grade, according to later eighteenth-century standards.
During the summers of 1798 and 1799 there were given nightly concerts of 'vocal and instrumental' music at B. Ishewood's Ranelagh Garden near the Battery. The programs were made up almost entirely of popular songs. Joseph Corre, who opened Columbia Garden, opposite the Battery, in 1798, and Mount Vernon Garden on Leonard Street in 1800, hit upon the idea of attracting both æsthete and philistine by a judicious mixture of serious and popular programs. His serious concerts were similar to those given by Joseph Delacroix; his popular programs contained the same sort of stuff as was offered at Ranelagh Gardens.
Besides these summer garden concerts and the winter subscription series already mentioned there were many single benefit concerts after the war. The first of these, apparently, was given by William Brown in 1786, and in the same year Alexander Reinagle gave a Gargantuan affair that included three Haydn overtures, five excerpts from the 'Messiah' and 'Samson,' a concerto for violin, a sonata for pianoforte, a duet for violin and 'cello, and ten miscellaneous vocal numbers. Between that year and the end of the century benefit concerts were given by Henri Capron, the Van Hagens, John Christopher Moller, Jane Hewitt, George Edward Saliment, Mrs. Pownall, Mrs. Hodgkinson, Mme. De Sèze, and others. As a rule these concerts followed the prevailing fashion in the make-up of their programs. Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Sacchini, Martini, Wranitzky, Kozeluch, and Clementi furnished the pièces de résistance for programs otherwise consisting of songs, concerts, sonatas and lesser instrumental forms by unidentified composers. The presence of a French operatic troupe in 1790 gave a theatrical tinge to a few concerts in which they participated.
Outside of New York City there was practically no concert life, either in New York or New Jersey. Occasionally some musician on his way between New York and Philadelphia or the South would give a concert in Princeton, Newark, Trenton, or New Brunswick. One concert in the last-named town featured 'speaking and elegant dancing between the parts.' Albany, presumably, had the benefit of a few concerts, perhaps by visiting musicians from New York. Mr. Sonneck has discovered the announcement of a creditable concert given there in 1797 by J. H. Schmidt, 'formerly organist of the cathedral of Schiedam in Holland,' also formerly of Charleston and Baltimore. On the whole, however, New York and New Jersey, except for New York City, were musically very backward compared with New England.
III
Nothing, perhaps, could better illustrate the contradictory complexity of environmental influences than the state of musical culture in eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Compared with the Quaker attitude toward music, that of the Puritans was almost indecently liberal. Yet Philadelphia was beyond doubt musically the most cultured city in eighteenth-century America. The cause is not apparent, but we have ample evidence of the fact. As in the case of other American cities, it is impossible to say when public concerts started in Philadelphia. The first mention of concerts there, so far discovered, is in Gottlieb Mittelberger's Reise nach Pennsylvanien im Jahre 1750. But these, the author states, were private concerts 'auf dem Spinnet oder Klavicymbel.' No announcements of public concerts appear in the Philadelphia newspapers until 1757, when the 'Pennsylvania Gazette' announces one under the direction of Mr. John Palma. The same gentleman gave another concert a few months later, as we find from the ledger of George Washington, who bought tickets for it. No more public concerts appear before 1764 and, indeed, they seem to have been far from common until after the war. During the last years of the century the musical life of Philadelphia was extremely rich, both as to public concerts and otherwise.
We know nothing about the concert of 1764 except that it was under the direction of James Bremner.[31] Another concert under the same direction was given in the following year. It was announced as a 'Performance of Solemn Music,' the 'vocal parts chiefly by young Gentlemen educated in this Seminary' (College of Philadelphia), and accompanied by the organ. It was a very fine concert, and the fact that it was highly successful is eloquent of the state of musical culture in Philadelphia at that time. Besides a chorus and airs set to scriptural texts the program included a Stamitz overture, the Sixth Concerto of Geminiani, an overture by the Earl of Kelly, Martini's Second Overture, the overture to Arne's 'Artaxerxes,' a sonata on the harpsichord, and a solo on the violin. Two orations were added for good measure. A series of subscription concerts was inaugurated on Thursday, January 19, 1764, and continued every Thursday until May 24 following. Apparently these also were under the direction of James Bremner and there is prima facie evidence that Francis Hopkinson was connected with them in some capacity. A second series was advertised to begin on Thursday, November 8, 1764, and to be continued until March 14 following. The programs of these concerts were not printed in the newspapers, as admission was confined to subscribers, and it seems to have been customary to print programs for distribution with the tickets—an eminently sane and praiseworthy custom which fortunately still survives in America.
A concert given in 1764 by Stephen Forrage for his own benefit and that of other 'assistant performers at the Subscription Concert,' may be mentioned, were it only for the fact that Mr. Forrage appeared as soloist on Benjamin Franklin's 'famous Armonica, or Musical Glasses, so much admired for their great Sweetness and Delicacy of its tone.' We trust he had more respect for the musical proprieties than he evidently entertained for the grammatical ones. After 1765 no concerts appear until November, 1769, when Giovanni Gualdo gave a 'Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick ... directed by Mr. Gualdo, after the Italian method'—whatever that may have been. Most of the program consisted of compositions by Mr. Gualdo, and there were two overtures by the Earl of Kelly.[32] In the same month a subscription series was started—'The Vocal Music by Messieurs Handel, Arne, Giardini, Jackson, Stanley, and others. The instrumental Music by Messieurs Geminiani, Barbella, Campioni, Zanetti, Pellegrino, Abel, Bach, Gualdo, the Earl of Kelly and others.' Gualdo gave two benefit concerts in 1770 and one in 1771. He died soon after. In the latter year also Mr. John McLean, instructor on the German flute, gave a concert 'performed by a full Band of Music, with Trumpets, Kettle Drum, and every instrument that can be introduced with Propriety,' and 'interspersed with the most pleasing and select Pieces, composed by approved authors.' A concert of popular songs by a Mr. Smith in 1772 was apparently the only public attempt to break the musical monotony of Philadelphia until Signior Sodi, 'first dancing master of the opera in Paris and London,' gave a grand affair at which a Mr. Vidal, 'musician of the Chambers of the King of Portugal,' played 'on divers instruments of music,' while Signior Sodi, Miss Sodi, and Mr. Hullett (of New York) danced minuets, a louvre, a 'new Philadelphia cotillion,' a rigadoon, an allemande, a jigg, and a hompipe. In the same year 'Mr. Victor, musician to her late Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and Organist of St. George's, London,' advertised a performance on 'his new musical instruments ... the one he calls tromba doppio con tympana, on which he plays the first and second trumpet and a pair of annexed kettle drums with the feet, all at once; the other is called cymbaline d'amour, which resembles the musical glasses played by harpsichord keys, never subject to come out of tune, both of his own invention.'