Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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£04 SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN U.S. SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN U.S.
Alboni, 'William Vincent Wallace, Thalberg,
Mme. Parepa-Rosa, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner,
Joachim Raff, Anton Rubinstein, and
Dvordk.
The history of the Philharmonic Society of
New York had Its beginning at a meeting of
professional musicians called by Ureli Corelli
Hill (an American musician, violinist, and conductor,
pupil of Spohr in Cassel) held on April
2, 1842. The impulse to organise such a
Society seems to have come from the artistic
success achieved at a Musical Solemnity ' ' given
in June 1839, in honour of the memory of Daniel
Sohlesinger, one of the first thoroughly trained
musicians to make his home in New York.
The most prominent musicians in the city were
present at this meeting and the meetings which
followed, at which the organisation of the
Society was perfected. Among them were Mr.
Hill ; A. P. Heinrioh, an eccentric Bohemian
composer who presided at the first meeting, but
took no further interest in the affair ; Charles
E. Horn {q.v.) ; William Vincent Wallace, who
was a member during the first two years ;
Alfred Boucher, a connection of Alexandre
Jean Boucher {q.v.) ; Dr. Edward Hodges,
an English Cathedral musician, afterwards
organist of Trinity Church ; H. C. Tiram and
William Seharfenberg, pianists of German birth
and training ; George Loder, a member of the
English family of musicians of that name ; and
D. G. Etienne, a French pianist who could play
the horn when required. To Loder, who was
connected with the Society throughout the first
decade, fell the honour of conducting the first
performance in the United States of Beethoven's
Choral Symphony at a concert of the Society
on May 20, 1846. Thi-ee concerts were given
in the first season (1842-43), and the first
programme is such excellent testimony to the
seriousness of the founders' aims that it deserves
publication here.
Plrgt Concert. Dec. 7, 1842—Symphony No. 5, in C minor, Beethoven
(conducted by U. C. Hill) ; Scena from Oberon,' Weber
'
(Madame Otto) ;
Quintet in D minor, for pianoforte, violin, viola,
violoncello, and double-bass. Hummel (Messrs. Seharfenberg, Hill,
'
rierwort, Boucher, and Rosier) ; Overture Oberon,' Weber, (conducted
by Mr. Etienne) ; Duet from Armida,' Rossini (Madame
'
otto and Mr. C. B.Hoto); Sceniifrom'Fidelio,' Beethoven (Mr.C.E,
Horn); Aria Bravura, from 'The Seraglio,' Mozart (Madame Otto)
New Overture In D, Kalliwoda, (conducted by Mr. Tlmra). The
orchestra during the vocal music was directed by H. C. Timm.
For the next sixteen years four regular
concerts were given each season, then for ten
years five. In the twenty-seventh season the
number was increased to six, and this remained
the rule until the fifty -sixth season, when the
number was increased to eight. Out of a
custom of admitting amateurs to the rehearsals
of the Society which was inaugurated in the
second season there gi'ew the so-called public
rehearsals, which for several decades differed in
nothing but name and the time of performance
from the regular concerts. In 1906 the title
' public rehearsals was abandoned ' for ' Afternoon
Concerts.' This explains the statement,
heretofore made, that now the Society gives
sixteen subscription concerts annually. It was
the custom during the early years of the Society,
when the president was a professional musician
and necessarily a member of the Society, to
leave the conducting of the concerts in his
hands, though for a number of years that
ofiicial found it expedient to share the duty
with the leading members of the Society,
especially such as were at the head of singing
and other musical societies. Thus in the first
season, though only three concerts were given,
five members ofliciated at the conductor's desk,
viz: U. C. Hill, H. C. Timm, W. Alpers,
Alfred Boucher, and George Loder. D. G.
Etienne aided Hill, Loder, and Alpers in the
second season. Two new men, one of whom
was destined to play an important rSle in the
history of the Society, appeared in the seventh
season. They were Theodore Eisfeld, who
came from Europe with experience gained in
conducting concerts in Paris and elsewhere
and Max Martezek, whose real activities belonged
in the field of opera. In Eisfeld 's second season
the directors changed their policy and elected
Eisfeld sole director for the season. In 1854
Carl Bbegmann was associated with him and
H. C. Timm, who was then president, and
thereafter for ten years, save the fifteenth and
sixteenth seasons conducted solely by Eisfeld
and the fourteenth and seventeenth conducted
by Bergmann, these two men conducted
alternately. Bergmann was sole conductor
from 1865 to 1876. Then came an interregnum
of three years with Dr. Leopold Damrosch,
Theodore Thomas, and Adolph Neuendorff as
conductors. Mr. Thomas was conductor for
the next twelve years, Anton Seidl for the next
seven (holding the position at the time of his
death on March 28, 1898) ; and Emil Paur
for four. Under the artistic administration of
Messrs. Thomas and Seidl, the Society giew
steadily in prosperity and reached its zenith.
falling oflT in popular interest during the Paur
regimeandtheoneseason, the sixty-first, inwhich
Walter Damrosch was conductor, led to the
adoption of the custom, wliioh had gained a
foothold in some of the European capitals, of
engaging a different conductor for each concert,
instead of one for the entire season. These
'
guests " in the sixty - second season were
Edouard Colonne of Paris, Gustav F. Kegel of
Frankfort, Henry J. Wood of London, Victor
Herbert of Pittsburgh, Felix Weingartner of
Munich, and Richard Strauss of Berlin. In the
sixty- third season the conductors were Gustav
F. Kogel, Edouard Colonne, Wassili Safonoffof
Moscow, Felix Weingartner, and Karl Panzner
of Bremen ; Theodore Thomas, who had also
accepted the invitation of the directors, died
before the concert which he was to conduct, and
Herr Kogel was called back from Frankfort to
take his place. In the sixty-fourth season the
A