Academy of Music (New York City)

“ Truly a beautiful dream, and one which, it might seem, should easily materialize in a country so rich, so young, so eager, so progressive. A charter was obtained from the state of New York authorizing the establishment of an 'Academy of Music for the purpose of cultivating a taste for music by concerts, operas, and other entertainments, which shall be accessible to the public at a moderate charge; by furnishing facilities for instruction in music, and by rewards of prizes for the best musical compositions.' American music-lovers were naturally gratified and Mr. ”

“ It has happily fallen to the lot of the Women’s Trade Union League to have charge and supervision of the kindergarten department in the great school of organized labor. It is for this reason that music and merry-making is so essential a feature of our league work, with books and story telling and all that makes for color and music and laughter and that leads to essential human fellowship—a sure foundation for the industrial union of our younger sisters. ”

“ An institution incorporating in a systematic and substantial way the public and philanthropic spirit which has called into existence so many of our conservatories and schools of music is the Institute of Musical Art of the City of New York. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MUSIC Fifty-one years ago the center of operatic activity had shifted to the Academy of Music, at Fourteenth Street and Irving Place, and there it remained until the Metropolitan Opera House was built. From the opening of the Academy in 1854 to the opening of the Metropolitan in 1883 the former had no rival as an establishment, though the rivalry between managers and singers was the liveliest that New York has ever seen during the first decade of the time. ”

“ Such institutions as the National Conservatory of Music and the New York College of Music have each from 600 to 800 piano students, and there are some thirty smaller conservatories in the city. The number of private pupils is enormous, and one often wonders whether it can be possible that Americans are so fond of music that every family contains a student. The truth is, however, that nine-tenths of the girls who study the piano—I had almost said study music, but they do not do that—are actuated not by a love of music, but simply by a desire to possess an accomplishment. ”

“ Musical education, which has played so vast a part in this development, shares, nevertheless, the general chaotic condition of American musical life. The absence of a National Academy of Music leaves the country still without any official standard of musical education, although high ideals and thorough courses are maintained in the music departments of the larger universities. ”

“ The city of New York has become one of the great musical centers of the world. The Philharmonic Society, the opera season, the Kneisel Quartet, and many others of high artistic merit, afford opportunities for the gratification of musical taste which are hardly to be excelled elsewhere; and the popularity of these and of the countless pianoforte recitals and chamber-music concerts bears eloquent testimony to the growth of an intelligent musical taste among us. Boston and Chicago have their world-renowned orchestras, led by Gericke and Thomas, who are passed masters of their art. ”

“ Cities of from 8,000 to 200,000 inhabitants usually employ a special teacher to direct instruction in music in the public schools. Larger cities have a number of these teachers and one or more supervisors or directors of public school music. New York, for example, has one director, one assistant director and fifty-six special teachers. From the vastness and complexity of the situation in the largest cities, musical education has of necessity become highly systematized and correspondingly efficient. ”

“ There are many cities holding summer opera.
There is every reason to be proud of the growth of music in America, and New York City today is the great musical center of the world.
Since writing this chapter, New York has lost the State Symphony, The American Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Symphony Society. Walter Damrosch has turned his orchestral interests to the radio in order to enlarge the sphere of music education. Due to the merger of the Philharmonic Symphony, Ernest Schelling conducts the concerts for children. ”

“ A modern and thorough curriculum includes all branches of instrumental and vocal music, theory and composition, dramatic art, expression, physical culture, and modern languages. Special features are: a complete and well-established Normal School, a student's orchestra, a musical bureau and a carefully arranged series of faculty and pupils' recitals.
In 1885 two conservatories, the American Institute of Applied Music and the National Conservatory of Music, were established in New York. ”

“ What is the real value, for instance, of the many thousands of dollars annually expended upon public Music in a city like New York? The educated listener finds the programs faulty, falling far short of a true expression of a composer’s idea, while to the uneducated hearer, it is principally a diversion of his attention, without teaching him anything. ”

“ The school has a strong faculty and a large number of pupils, whose work receives credit for graduation in the college courses; the students in music have all the privileges of those entered in the regular colleges. Oberlin has been a great factor for musical progress in the Middle West. [Pg 559]
The East.—New York City has two schools that deserve mention: the National Conservatory of Music, founded by Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, a school which has offered as teachers to the American pupils such musicians as Rafael Joseffy and Antonin Dvořák ”

“ Again, our culture is fluid and development rapid. One recalls the establishment, nearly two decades ago, of the High School of Music and Art in New York, and similar establishments come to mind, but such practical institutions scarcely answer the problem of fares suitable for [Pg 106] both amateurs and professionals. ”

“ During the nineteenth century the United States seems to have received its real musical education. In 1825 Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, at that time professor of Italian literature at Columbia University, and Manuel Garcia, famous both as singer and teacher, were among those who established a first operatic theater in New York, which city thereby became acquainted with the most celebrated operatic works and artists of the time. ”

“ Musical Society," 1786, and "The Musical Society" of New York City, all tend to show that social centres were developing, and the people were finding expression in music.
An indication of what had been growing by degrees is found in the reports of concerts. Mention of instruments such as violins, French horns, oboes, trombones, etc., was made here and there, and especially in connection with the Moravian settlements in Bethlehem, Pa., where was established the first music school. ”

“ To this may be added that when there were but two decades of the century left it was made plain that the Academy of Music could by no possibility accommodate the two classes of society, old and new, which had for a number of years been steadily approaching each other. ”

“ We have more great composers in this country right now than any other country in the word, and the United States supports its composers less than any other country. ... They want so desperately to perform their music. A composer does a piece and gets a performance in New York, and that may be the last performance it ever gets. ”

“ Great as is the value of such fine stimulating influences—the visits of distinguished players, singers, composers, and conductors, and performances of master works by musical societies,—they are not enough to leaven the mass of the people without systematic educational endeavour. Reference has been made to the founding of the Royal Academy of Music. ”

“ There is nothing strikingly remarkable about it; but one can say of it as of the Academy of Music in New York, that if a broom or a shovel has ever been used in it there is no circumstantial evidence to back up the fact. It is curious that cabbages and hay and things do not grow in the Academy of Music ”

“ Since then the society has pursued the even tenor of its way and, freed from all financial worries, has contributed much to the cause of music. The orchestra plays over a hundred symphony concerts during the winter, in New York and elsewhere. These include a series of Sunday-afternoon concerts at Æolian Hall, Thursday-afternoon and Friday-evening concerts at Carnegie Hall, and a series of young people’s concerts and another of children’s concerts. ”

“ The Musical Art Society has succeeded very well in its difficult task and its concerts are invariably among the most interesting events of the New York season. Its repertory to date includes the names of over one hundred composers, with special emphasis on Palestrina, Bach, and Brahms, and it includes also a large number of delightful old Minnelieder, mediæval hymns and German, Scandinavian, Scotch, French, Bohemian, and English folk-songs. ”

“ Hope springs eternal in the breast of the musical woman devotee and I have just heard of a new orchestra now being formed in order to enable still another foreigner, whose interpretations will of course be a revelation to our public, to wield his stick in this country as his own has refused to accept him at his own valuation.
In recent years chamber-music in New York has received great encouragement and intelligent support from women. ”

“ The present system of musical education in this country may be said to commence with the establishment of the Royal Academy of Music in the year 1822. The advantages offered by an institution of this kind are so obvious that one need only specify a choice of subjects with an expert to teach each, a permanent orchestra for the practice and interpretation of the classics, and the atmosphere engendered by an association of individuals guided by the aspiration to acquire knowledge and stimulated by the generous rivalry of their comrades. ”

“ Professional educators are inclined to lay too much stress on school education as a means of developing appreciation in the mass, forgetting that the time must come when the chief musical training of the people, with respect of their ultimate enjoyment of music, must consist in a general public hearing of music of the highest order.
In centres of highly refined musical culture, America, from East to West, is not lacking. An aristocracy of musical appreciation has followed upon the establishment of symphonic and chamber music organizations in a number of cities. ”

“ In 1867, under a charter from the State, he finally transplanted his school to this metropolis under the name of the New England Conservatory of Music, which it retains to the present date. It has, with characteristic American rapidity, become the largest music-school in the world, having within fifteen years instructed over twenty thousand pupils: in a single term it frequently numbers between eight and nine hundred. ”

“ Rise of Schools As music outgrows childhood, Schools of Music are started. But these are not like the schools to which we go every day, but are rather music groups or centers. Suppose you were a composer and lived in New York and knew a dozen or so musicians who were writing the same kind of 152music as you; the music, if good enough to be known and played, would be called the New York School, or it might be called the 1925 School! ”

“ The Royal Academy of Music, founded in 1822, had done some good but limited service and, in 1875, he placed himself at the head of a movement to further the love and practice of music amongst the people. ”

“ At great cost it is arranged to offer every facility for thorough, systematic and complete work in this direction. The school rooms and equipment are unequalled by the Artists' League for the Academy of Design in New York, and are not excelled by the great schools of Paris, up to the present time. ”

“ New York is the acknowledged leader of American cities, and in many respects is their model in this development of municipal music from the most defective of instrumentalities for educating the people in musical appreciation into possibly its most effective one. ”

“ Many a picture he bought to help the artist, rather than for his own gratification as a collector. Further on in life he became deeply interested in the Academy of the Fine Arts, which was then in Chestnut street above Tenth. Subsequently he became its President, and very largely through his influence and his personal means that fine building at the southwest corner of Broad and Cherry street, which all of you ought to visit as opportunity is afforded, was erected as a depository of art. The splendid building of the Academy of Music at Broad and Locust street, is also largely indebted to Mr. ”

“ His real claim to distinction, however, is not his musicianship, but the energy, perseverance and success with which he advocated, and ultimately succeeded in procuring, the establishment of an Academy of Music in London, and the zeal with which, as its President, he strove at all times to advance its interests. ”

“ Perhaps no finer orchestra exists anywhere than that of Theodore Thomas of New York; while nearly as high praise may be given to the Mendelssohn and Beethoven Quintette Clubs of Boston, and to others in different parts of the country.
Music is quite generally cultivated in this country; and there are many excellent critics, musical writers, and periodicals devoted to this beautiful and elevating science. ”