How popular was classical music in 19th century America?

[KPavia]

As a amateur violinist myself, I was just wondering how popular the European composers (like Mozart, Bach and Beethoven) were in 19th century America? Would the normal, run-of-the-mill American be familiar with their works, or was that something that the more well-to-do Americans were familiar with?

[Will Hickox]

Re: How popular was classical music in 19th century America?

One way to track popularity is to search for musicians in newspaper databases. You can then look for those mentions and see announcements and reviews of performances, etc.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which billed itself as one of the highest-circulating dailies in the country, had 75 mentions of Beethoven between 1861-1865.

http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/search/pages/results/?SearchType=all&from_year=1861&to_year=1865&lccn=sn83031151&county=&city=&ortext=&andtext=Beethoven&phrasetext=&proxtext=&proxdistance=&dateFilterType=range&date1=01%2F01%2F1861&date2=12%2F31%2F1865&rows=20&searchType=advanced

I didn't search for Mozart because it was the name of an important Democratic faction in New York City, or Bach because it could be a common surname in heavily German New York.

No hits for Vivaldi, but 17 for Schubert. Judging from the frequency of advertisements and discussions of opera performances, classical music was very popular, at least in Brooklyn.

Of course this doesn't take the place of actual thorough research into classical music in America, which unfortunately I haven't done.

[cheswick]

Re: How popular was classical music in 19th century America?

Nicholas Tawa's excellent book High-Minded and Low-Down suggests that the average American preferred music that we would term "folk," in other words, music that they could sing or dance to. Cities, particularly New York and New Orleans were the main locations of classical music and opera. That's not to say that Americans throughout the country couldn't appreciate such music (although many didn't at all), a number simply did not have the opportunity, since symphonic orchestras rarely traveled. It seems many Americans associated cultured music with aristocracy and were highly suspicious of it. Tawa also mentions the difficulty of finding highly trained professional symphonic musicians in this country, although the revolutions of the 1840s sent many German musicians to this shore. German communities often encouraged a more musical culture and enjoyed art music. The fact that the Library of Congress contains numerous pieces of classical music published in America in these years indicates that some young women played it on their pianofortes, possibly as one of their cultured achievements. Story after story relates a young woman playing a "showy piece" (as many Americans called this type of music) but then moving into old ballads, which her listeners appreciated more than all the technical perfection of the prior pieces.

Elaine Masciale

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: How popular was classical music in 19th century America?

Dwight's Journal of Music shows a wide range of tastes. Here's an issue from 1865: https://books.google.com/books?id=pI...page&q&f=false

While full symphony orchestras didn't get around much, smaller troupes did, and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk was not far from a rock star. His "Notes of a Pianist" is a journal of his travels, mostly during the civil war: https://books.google.com/books?id=Qz...page&q&f=false

This is one of my favorite of his pieces, though "The Banjo" was the one he complained about having to play over, and over, and over... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lli2DL2oAPE

A bit of Canadian trivia -- organist and cornettist Callixa Lavallee served in the 4th Rhode Island, survived the war, and went on to compose the music for "Oh, Canada."

And as Jarni Villanueva with the Federal City Band would tell you, a great many classical pieces ended up arranged for military band, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plec0kBFaLs

Enjoy! :)

[Gary of CA]

Re: How popular was classical music in 19th century America?

Post Civil War era saw many small towns build their own opera houses. Traveling companies performed in them and brought the world to these tiny communities. Why the demand? Pulp novels depicted the west as wild and the small towns wanted to prove they were just as sophisticated as the big city folks. From Kurt Gentry's book on John Moses Browning, I know Browning used to whistle a tune from Gounard's Faust. Now I know how Browning heard the tune.