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 or achievements, 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 as conductor 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.
IV
Perhaps the most striking feature of recent musical history in the United States is the remarkable growth of 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 1911 that 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.