Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

802 SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN U.S. SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN U.S.
one iu the United States which bears ofEoially
the name of its creator ; it is also the only one
of its kind which occupies its own hall. This
hall is its endowment, an endowment which
may fairly be said to be more enduring than
that of any other concert institution in the
country, inasmuch as it does not depend upon
the wealth and inclination of an individual, a
body of guarantors or the interests of the players
themselves as is the case of one or the other of
the Societies discussed in this article. The
management of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra
is in the hands of the Orchestral Association of
Chicago, and for fifteen years it was known as
the Chicago Orchestra, though popularly spoken
of by the name by which it is now officially
known. It had its origin primai-ily in the
admiration excited by Mr. Thomas (q.v.) in the
metropolis of the Middle West in the course of
a long series of concerts given by him when he
was still the leader of an itinerant orchestra
which went out from New York, and a series
which he gave every summer for a number of
years in a building erected for exposition purposes
on the Lake Front. The first Thomas
concert was given in Chicago in 1869, when the
city was only thirty-four 3'ears old as a municipal
corporation, and when it was surpassed in
population by Cincinnati and St. Louis. But
the love of good music which Mr. Thomas
implanted in the city would not have yielded
its present fruit had it not been for the disasters
which overwhelmed Mr. Thomas's private enterprises
during the last few years of his sojourn
in New York City. The chief causes; which
operated against his efforts to maintain his own
orchestra in the American metropolis may be
looked for in the variety and number of interests
developed by the growth of musical culture in
New York. In 1890, when he ended his labours
in the city which had been his home since
childhood, orchestral concerts were regularly
given by the Philharmonic and Symphony
Societies, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and
the band conducted by Anton Seidl. Mr.
Thomas had himself helped to raise the Philharmonic
Society to a proud position, and many
circumstances conspired to prevent him from
commanding the large allegiance which his
ambition and ideals exacted. Moreover, Grand
Opera, which hitherto had been an exotic, had
taken firm root in the Metropolitan Opera- House
(see Opera in the United Stater, vol. iii. pp.
466-472) and gathered unto itself a munificent
public patronage. In a sense, Mr. Thomas's
missionary labours were done in New York,
and it was for the good of music that he transferred
his work to Chicago.
It waa in the summer of 1890, when Mr.
Thomas had abandoned all of his individual
enterprises in New York, that he was met by
C. Norman Fay, his brother-in-law, of Chicago,
and from him received the suggestion that he
come to that city and organise an orchestra
there. He agreed, provided that a guarantee
fund of 150,000 a year for three years should be
raised. Fifty -two citizens of Chicago were
found who subscribed $1000 a year for three
years, an official invitation was extended and
accepted, and Mr. Thomas took a habitation in
the city in 1891, spending the intermediate time
in organising his new band. Meanwhile the
Orchestral Association, which was conceived as
a self - perpetuating body, was organised by
N. K. Fairbank, C. Norman Fay, E. B. M'Cagg,
A. C. Bartlett, and C. D. Hamill. This association
entered into an agreement with Mr. Thomas
and the guarantors to give two concerts a week,
on Friday afternoons and Saturday evenings,
for twenty weeks each season for three years.
The musicians were engaged for twenty-eight
weeks, eight of which were devoted to concerts
outside Chicago. The Chicago concerts were
given in the Auditorium, a new theatre- with
a seating capacity of between 4000 and 5000.
At the end of the contract period the losses
entailed by the concerts amounted to |153,000,
which fact, together with certain unpleasant
experiences in which Mr. Thomas had become
involved as Musical iDirector of the World's
Fair held in 1893, had a discouraging effect
upon the guarantors. Originally there were
fifty-two ; two of them failed to pay their
assessments, and twenty declined to renew their
subscriptions. The Orchestral Association was
now reorganised, and new subscriptions were
asked on a basis of a unit of $50, each unit to
entitle the subscriber to a vote for the trustees
who were to take over the financial administration.
An eflfort to create another three years'
term failed, and the guarantee fund for the fourth
season amounted to only $30,000, which proved
to be $4000 less than the cost of the concerts.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons created
deficits of $27,000 and $39,000 respectively,
the last largely due to injudicious travelling.
The guarantee for these seasons being only
122,000 for each year a debt of $30,000 accumulated,
for which a special subscription was
raised. This was done, the debts paid, and a
contingent fund of $30,000 was created, which
soon disappeared under the flood of losses. On
guarantees raised from year to year the orchestra
continued the concerts until the final phase of
the enterprise was reached. On Feb. 13,1903,
the patrons of the concerts were asked by the
trustees of the Association to subscribe to a fund
for the purpose of building a hall which should
be a permanent home of the organisation, the
theory of the trustees being that a hall with a
seating capacity of 2500 would secure better
support than one with so many seats that there
was little if any inducement to subscribe for the
season. It was argued, besides, that the saving
in rentals and an income from the same source
would put the orchestra on a self-supporting