Boston Symphony Orchestra

“ Of all the arts, music doubtless gets her highest favor.
The aid Boston has been to American music is vital, and far outweighs that of any other city. That so magnificent an organization as its Symphony Orchestra could be so popular, shows the solidity of its general art appreciations. The orchestra has been remarkably willing, too, to give the American 270 composer a chance to be heard. Boston has been not only the promulgator, but in a great measure the tutor, of American music.
In Boston-town, folk take things seriously and studiously. In New York they take them fiercely, whimsically. ”

“ The predominant mood is heroic and affirmative, at times tragic in its fervid intensity, sombre recurringly, but essentially an assertion of joyous strength, with momentary bursts of sidelong gaiety reserved for the last movement. A terse and searching analysis of the Fifth Symphony was made by John N. Burk for the program-book of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It reads:
“I. Andante. The opening movement is built on two full-voiced melodic themes, the first in triple, the second in duple beat. Contrast is found in the alternate rhythm as both are fully developed. ”

“ The leaders of orchestras have also offered an almost insurmountable obstacle to the production of any work from an American hand until very recently. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has been a noble exception to this rule, and has given about the only opening possible to the native writer. The Chicago Orchestra, in eight seasons under Theodore Thomas, devoted, out of a total of 925 numbers, only eighteen, or something less than two per cent., to native music. ”

“ Many new men came from Europe at his summons,—young men of eager blood, like the “young lions” of the Conservatory orchestra that were the delight of Berlioz in Paris,—for whom the orchestra was not a refuge, but a field for ambitious and energetic labor. ”

“ In Boston he did much in the next three years to bring himself into prominence as one of the most original, daring, and intensely subjective of the modern school of conductors—a man who, with certain exaggerations and affectations, is illuminated by the living flame of genius. ”

“ As he organized it, it numbered seventy performers. There were twelve first and eleven second violins, eight violas, nine cellos, nine double-basses, and the number of wood- and brass-wind players usual in a small orchestra.
The growth of the orchestra is shown by a comparison of these figures with those of its present constitution. There are now, when all the players are in requisition,—which, of course, they are only in the most modern compositions,—about ninety men ”

“ During the first few years he paid out a fortune annually, but year by year the sum grew less, and to-day Boston so thoroughly enjoys its twenty-four symphony concerts, which are not surpassed by those of any European orchestra, that the large music-hall is too small to hold those who wish to attend. ”

“ The theme of the slow movement and that of the allegro are sung everywhere. There is one theme that I must mention, because it is less noticed, and also because it moves me incomparably more than all the rest. It is that long, groaning melody, thrown by the clarinet over the tremolo of the orchestra, like unto a far-off lamentation scattered by the winds in the depths of the forest. It strikes home to the heart ”

“ Each year the guarantee fund for the maintenance of the orchestra was increased by the supporters of the New York Symphony Society, and more and more men were engaged on regular weekly salaries. At last my dream was realized, and New York had an orchestra organized on the same lines as the Boston and Chicago Orchestras, devoted exclusively to symphonic music and assembling daily for rehearsal. ”

“ In case of direst need, should conductor and orchestra lose touch with each other in a public performance, the concert-master must divine the cause of the trouble, and, through his intimacy with the men and his knowledge of the conductor’s wishes as well as of the score, bring them together again with the sound of his instrument, at a critical moment more potent than the conductor's stick. ”

“ The Parisian orchestra, which Haydn undoubtedly had in mind, was a large one—forty violins, twelve violoncellos, eight double basses—so that the composer could be sure of strong contrasts in performance by the string section. Fortunate composer—whose symphonies one can, sitting back, enjoy without inquiring into psychological intention or noting attempts at realism in musical seascapes and landscapes—music not inspired by book or picture—just music ”

“ The ear hesitates—but will this mystery of harmony end?—and the dull pulsations of the drums, growing louder and louder, reach the violins, which now take part in the movement and with a change of harmony, to the chord of the dominant seventh, G, B, D, F, while the drums roll obstinately their tonic C; the whole orchestra, assisted by the trombones, which have not yet been heard, bursts in the major into the theme of a triumphal march, and the finale begins.... ”

“ The first measures of the finale are now played softly by the horns, then by the flutes. Preceding themes are again combined. The repetition section opens powerfully. The decisive rhythm of the chief theme spurs the full orchestra. The coda begins quietly, but it soon becomes intense. In the triumphant ending in C major, chief themes of the four movements are heard exulting.
I am indebted in a measure for the preceding sketch of the contents of this symphony to the analysis by Werner Wolff, published in the programme book of the Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin, October 29, 1906 ”

“ There is a struggle for the mastery, and this struggle ends in the defeat of the restless, diabolical element. The phrase rises to orchestral heights, and rests there as in the blue of a clear sky. After a vague reminiscence of the initial theme of the first movement, a maestoso in C major announces the approaching triumph of the calm and lofty thought. The initial theme of the first movement, wholly transformed, is now exposed by divided strings and the pianoforte (four hands) , and repeated by the organ with the full strength of the orchestra. ”

“ Higginson has found in the establishment, the upbuilding, and the maintenance of a consummate artistic institution the keen personal delight that other men take in perfecting a collection or pursuing supremacy in a sport. If horse-racing is the sport of kings, there is also something regal, even imperial, in the possession of an orchestra. ”

“ The chief one is given to the first violins; the clarinet has an expressive air; the third melody is for oboes and violins. In the middle section there is a return to the chief theme of the symphony. It occurs in dialogue form, and it also appears at the end of the repetition of the first section.
The finale, allegro vivace, begins with a lively introduction which is rhythmically developed out of the first jubilant motive for full orchestra. There is a march theme for wind instruments. The second theme is for strings, D major, and is in lyric mood. ”

“ Thomas’s Chicago orchestra is one of them. The orchestra of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam is one. Are there many others? The Gewandhaus players in Leipsic, those of the Vienna Philharmonic, and those of the great Paris orchestras have their operatic and other duties; the members of the Berlin Philharmonic are subject to the wear and tear of almost daily popular concerts. ”

“ One summer evening many years later a262 traveler came to Queen Content’s country. He had traveled far and was weary, but he stopped to listen to the most beautiful music he had ever heard.
It was Queen Content’s Symphony Orchestra playing on the Green.
Do you know, little reader, what a symphony orchestra is? No? Then ask papa and mamma. If you live in Boston they will tell you about delightful Saturday evenings in winter, when they go to a concert. Or better still ask big sister. Watch her face light up as she tells you about “dreamy” Friday afternoons ”

“ Richard Strauss in New York last spring, when he was rehearsing his enormously difficult “Symphonia Domestica” for the eighth or ninth time with an orchestra supposed to have some claims to at least a season’s permanency. An unlucky horn-player made a mistake that the composer had repeatedly corrected at previous meetings, and when Dr. Strauss angrily threw down his baton and reproached the musician for inattention and neglect of his directions, the culprit replied: “But, Herr Doctor, I have n’t been here before—I ’m a substitute!’ Playing in the theater orchestras is forbidden ”

“ The fact was that Major Higginson, of Boston, with his permanent orchestra composed of young men, many of them the best of their kind, with their daily rehearsals and at least seventy-five symphony concerts a season, had set a new standard of orchestral technic which the old Philharmonic, under its archaic conditions, could not hope to equal. ”