At 10:03 PM -0700 5/26/07, Mariposa Symphony Orchestra wrote:
Andrew Stiller wrote:
<There *were* no American symphony orchestras in the mid-late 19th
c.except for the NY Phil and Theodore Thomas's touring outfit.>
And Les replies:
Andrew, with considerable respect, that just isn't the case
whatsoever: I referenced in a previous e-mail symphony orchestras
and opera companies sprouting everywhere the mid-to late 1800's, and
that was happening. Perhaps not in every single case as permanent,
fixed, still-in-existence-to-this-day orchestras, but sure-enough
symphony orchestras. I referenced elsewhere the timeline of
today's New York Phil from its roots in 1842, but even previous to
that, there was an unrelated precedent Philharmonic in New York from
1824 - 1827; in no particular order, only some of those American
symphony orchestras I cite (and this is ONLY a brief list:) the
American premiere of Messiah was given in New York in 1831 with an
orchestra; the Brooklyn Philharmonic had sprung up by 1862. The
Chicago Orchestra was in existence by the very early 1890's; the
1869 and 1872 Boston Jubilee concerts of orchestral/choral work; by
1878 Theodore Thomas had established his orchestra at the Cincinnati
College of Music and was playing a 24-concert annual series - again,
in 1878. The Pittsburgh Orchestra came into being in 1896.
Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881. But Andrew: even predating the
founding of the BSO, the world premiere of Tchaikovsky's b-minor
Piano Concerto took place in Boston....on October 25, 1875.....with
a symphony orchestra!
Hi again, Les. I think any gigging musician would pick up on
something important in your brief listing. "With an orchestra,"
"concerts of orchestral/choral work," and "with a symphony orchestra"
do NOT in any way imply an orchestra that existed for more than those
performances, what we would call a pickup orchestra. Heck, that's
exactly the kind of orchestra Beethoven put together from his friends
in Vienna, since there WAS no Vienna Phil during his lifetime! I've
played gigs at a lot of churches, but it would not be correct to say
that those churches "have orchestras."
Nor do I think a conservatory orchestra, no matter how active a
season, should count, although any given conservatory orchestra may
indeed have been very significant historically. What do you have on
Oberlin?
And of course the orchestras (or "performances") you cite are exactly
where I predicted they would be, on the East Coast in seaport cities,
and then on the riverport cities which were next to grow into their
cultural expectations.
Not that I disagree with your thesis, which I think is a good one if
perhaps a bit exaggerated, but there certainly should be some
criterion of length of existence before an orchestra can be
considered more established than just a pickup group.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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