We are in the habit of thinking that what may be called the virtuoso orchestra is a product of our own time, but perhaps we flatter ourselves. It is very certain that the orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire played with splendid precision and with much fire half a century ago, and there are other orchestras in Europe which have to live up to some pretty old traditions. It was only last September (1898) that the Dresden Court Orchestra celebrated its three hundred and fiftieth anniversary. To be sure, when it was established by the Elector Maurice it was a singing choir, whose members learned to play instruments in order to supply accompaniments; but it developed into an orchestra, and as such it helped to produce Heinrich Schütz’s “Seven Last Words of Christ,” and his “Daphne,” which was the first German opera. The Esterhazy orchestra, under Haydn, was no mean band, and the famous Mannheim orchestra, under Stamitz, revealed possibilities of performance which did much toward forming Mozart’s symphonic style. The Leipsic Gewandhaus orchestra dates back to 1743, when it numbered sixteen players and gave its concerts in a private house. These concerts were interrupted by the Seven Years’ War, but were resumed in 1763 with an orchestra of thirty. The first concert in the new Gewandhaus rooms took place on September 29, 1781. Since that time the seasons have been regular. Mendelssohn was the conductor from 1835 to 1843, and Neils W. Gade from 1844 to 1848. The development of style and technic in the performances of this orchestra had very considerable influence on the advance of orchestral playing throughout Europe. Other notable German organizations are the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra of the opera at Munich. The Vienna Philharmonic is celebrated for its strings.
In France the progress of orchestral playing received its first impetus from the labors of François Joseph Gossec (1733-1829), whose extraordinarily long and active life enabled him to see not only the blossom, but some of the early fruit of his efforts. He was the first French composer of symphonies, and in 1770 founded the “Concert des Amateurs.” He did much toward developing good orchestral playing in Paris, and prepared the way for the famous François Antoine Habeneck (1781-1849), who, in 1828, founded the “Société des Concerts du Conservatoire.”
Orchestral playing has never reached a high plane in England, but the London Philharmonic Society has an important history because of the famous works written for it, among them symphonies and overtures by Cherubini, Spohr’s second symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony. In America orchestral performances have always been popular since the foundation of the New York Philharmonic Society in 1842. The labors of such admirable conductors as Theodore Eisfeld, Carl Bergmann, and, most of all, Theodore Thomas, did much to develop a high degree of skill among orchestral performers and a wide appreciation on the part of the public. The debt of the country to Mr. Thomas is one that it will carry to the end of its musical development. The foundation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in 1880, by Colonel Henry L. Higginson, of Boston, gave the United States its first concert orchestra established on a permanent basis, and the organization has come to be regarded as one of the leading orchestras of the world. The Chicago Orchestra, directed by Theodore Thomas, is its only rival in America.
From a photograph by Falk.
THEODORE THOMAS.
Nothing more excellently pictures the conditions under which an orchestra comes to the perfection of its work than a few words in one of Schumann’s comments on music in Leipsic: “Before we take leave of the Gewandhaus concerts for half a year,” he says, “we must award a crown of merit to the forty or fifty orchestral members. We have no solo-players like Brod in Paris or Harper in London; but even these cities can scarcely boast such fine, united playing. And this results from the nature of circumstances. Our musicians here form a family; they see each other and practise together daily; they are always the same, so that they are able to play a Beethoven symphony without notes. Add to these a concert-master who can conduct such scores from memory, a director who knows them by, and reveres them at, heart, and the crown is complete.”
PART III
How the Orchestra is Directed