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EARLY ONCERT-LIFE IN AMERICA

(1731-1800)

BY

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LEIPZIG

BKEITKOPF & HARTEL

1907

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TO MY WIFE

PREFACE.

WITH this book I attempt to lay the historical foundations of one im- portant side of our country's musical life. Intended as a source-book, it is addressed to those seriously interested in musical history and it is cast in a form peculiar to source-books, which necessarily resemble mosaics and — mosaics are not to everybody's taste. While I have taken pains to leave as little dust as possible on these pages, I fear that they lack that literary brilliancy which makes, at first reading, even a poor book attractive. Those sterner critics who will take issue with me on that score I beg to remember how very difficult a task it is to turn a virgin- forest into a garden.

On the other hand, as this work is addressed to the student more than to the amateur, his famiUarity with the history of music in Europe was taken for granted. Therefore European conditions were discussed only where I disagreed with current doctrines, where a European background was necessary for the proper historical perspective, or, where danger-signals might be helpful. References to early opera in America were kept as brief as possible because I hope to complete a comprehensive essay on this sub- ject before long. For the same reason, other topics, bearing indirectly on our early concert life, were kept in the background. Similarly, biogra- phical and bibliographical data were included in so far only as they seemed called for or affected the biographical notes given in the index to my Bibliography of Early Secular American Music.

In order to preserve as much of the eighteenth century flavor as possible, names have been spelled as they appeared in my sources and only, when it would have been cruel to let the reader wrestle with the printer's devil, have I adopted the form now commonly used. Probably it will also prevent confusion if I remark that, as a rule and for obvious reasons, not the earliest announcements but those nearest to the date fixed for the concert have been quoted.

The data on concerts given in our country until 1750 have been published in form of a separate article in the New Music Review, 1906.

Washington, D. C, May 6, 1906.

O. G. Sonneck.

CONTENTS.

Page INTRODUCTION 1

CHARLESTON AND THE SOUTH 10

Charleston S. C: 1732—1765 — The St. Coecilia Society — 1766—1775 — 1781—1800; Annapolis, Md. ; Baltimore, Md. ; Williamsburg, Va., Fredericks- burg, Va., Petersburg, Va., Norfolk, Va., Richmond, Va., Alexandria, Va., Savannah, Ga., New Orleans, La.

PHILADELPHIA 65

1757 — 1776: Francis Hopkinson, James Bremner and Giovanni Gualdo's \ concerts; The War of the Revolution ; (John Bentley's) City Concert 1783—1788, 1792 — 1793; How the history of music in America should not be written; Duplessis' subscription concerts; The Amateur concert 1786 — 1791; Amateurs and Professional Concert, 1794; IVIrs. Grattan's Ladies Concert, 1796 — 1798; Summer concerts 1786 — 1800; Andrew Adgate, the Uranian Academy, its Uranian Concerts, and other choral concerts; Benefit concerts 1783 — 1800; 'Lectures, moral and entertaining' and other Theatre-concerts; Bethlehem, Pa.

NEW YORK 158

1733 — 1760: The first subscription concerts; Ranelagh Garden concerts and other open-air entertainments; Benefit concerts 1762 — 1775; Herman Zedtwitz, William Tuckey, the pioneer of choral concerts and the first American performance of the Messiah; The War of the Revolution; William Brown's New York Subscription Concerts, 1785—1786, 1788—1792; the Subscription Concert of Hewitt etc. 1792— 1793; The aty Concert and the Old City Concert, 1793 — 1798; Musical Societies; Summer concerts, 1793 — 1800; Benefit concerts 1786—1800; New Jersey; Albany.

BOSTON AND NEW ENGLAND 2.50

1731—1761; Subscription concerts 1761—1775; "Public" concerts at Concert Hall, 1763—1773; Benefit concerts 1767—1775; Josiah Flagg; James Juhan ; W. S. Morgan ; William Selby, Bostons' princeps musices; The Musical Society of Boston, 1786—1789; Subscription concerts, 1790—1793; Benefit concerts 1779 — 1800; General remarks on music in New England; Salem, Mass. ; Newport, R. I. ; Providence, R. I. and other cities of the North ; Hartford, Conn.

CONCLUSION 32-1

INDEX 326

INTRODUCTION.

JOHN BANISTER is generally credited with ha\ing given the first pubhc concert to which admission was gained by way of payment. After losing his place at the EngHsh court, he hired "over against the George Tavern in White Friars", London, a room with "a large raised box for the musitians, whose modesty required curtains", as Roger North puts it in his Memoirs, and advertised the first of his daily public afternoon-concerts for Dec. 30, 16721). But it has always appeared rather incredible to me that the democratic idea of pubUc concerts should have taken concrete form at so late a date. In view of the fact that about forty years only had elapsed since the discovery of opera when pubhc opera was introduced at Venice in 1637, this sceptical attitude towards tradition \vill be pardoned if it is further remembered that concerts, in one form or the other, certainly antedated the birth of opera and became indispensible to the happiness of music-lovers during the seventeenth century.

Mr. Louis C. Elson is the possessor of the constitution, hst of members, etc. in a latin manuscript volume pertaining to a musical club which existed, as the entries prove, at least from 1560 to 1588 presumably at Amsterdam, the members frequently joining with distinguished visitors in consort^). That this was not the earhest musical society on record, the term implying performances of music, in other words, concerts, goes without saying as in Bologna and Milan such existed under the venerable name of Accademia as early as 1482 and 1484 and rapidly increased there and elsewhere until in the seventeenth century some Itahan cities possessed three or four^). In France, as Brenet pointed out in her admirable book on 'Les Concerts en France sous I'ancien regime', the poet Jean Antoine de Baif and the musician Joachim Thibaut de Courville founded not later than 1567 the Academic de Baif, receiving therefore lettres patentes in 1570 and though mixed literarv-musical entertainments were offered to the members, yet

1) See Davey's History of English Music.

2) Described in the Musician, 1904, p. 464 though ^Ir. Elson did not take cognizance of the great importance of his find for the history of musical societies.

3) Grove, New ed., article Academia.

Sonneck, Early Concert Life. 1

— 2 —

we may see in this academy the cradle of concerts at Paris. Nor did the provincial towns remain in the rear of the movement for very long as such academies, though their financial and material side escaped even the scru- tinizing eye of Brenet, were frequent throughout France about 1625 and in Mersenne's time (1588 — 1648) assemhlees de concerts evidently were a common occurrence.

In the German speaking countries such musical societies seem to have been of somewhat later origin, though the Cantorey Gesellschaften and their antipodes, the convivial gatherings at which the rollicking Quod- libets were sung, did much to pave the way for the Collegia Musica, the term originally being merely the latin for "eine musikaUsche Zusammen- kunft" (Walther) and not implying an academic flavor. In Switzerland the first Collegium Musicum with weekly meetings has been traced by Nef to Zurich and to the year 1613, others soon following in other Swiss towns. A few years later, in 1616, Prague saw a similar club spring into existence; Philip Spitta has entertainingly wTitten of the Musikalische Societat of 1617 at Mlihlhausen, and so on until Germany, like France, was well sup- plied with musical societies whose members to their own and their guests' delight played and sang the music of their times, as becomes sensible ama- teurs, without pretensions to virtuosity, this probably being true even of the famous Collegium Musicum founded by Mathias Weckmann and "zween vornehme Liebhaber der Musik" at Hamburg in 16601).

In England the movement appears to have set in not later than 1600, otherwise Dekker's line in 'A Knights Coniuring' of 1607

"To this consort roome resort none but the children of Phoebus (poets and musitions)"

would be incomprehensible. A few decades later, Pepys mentions in his diary a concert at 'The Mitre' in 1659 — 60 with no hint that concerts were still a novelty (Davey). This impression is strengthened by Roger North who describes the weekly meetings held in a tavern near St. Paul's

„Where there was a chamber organ that one PhiUips played upon, and some shop keepers and foremen [apparently forming a musical club!] came weekly to sing in concert, and to hear and enjoy ale and tobacco, and after some time the company grew strong."

1) Not 1668 as generally stated. See Max Seiffert's 'Mathias Weckmann und das Collegium Musicum in Hamburg' (Sbde. d. IMG. 1900—1901, p. 76—127). This Colle- gium jNIusicum of 1660 is said to have been the first founded in Germany, but I am confident that others will be found to antedate it, once an exhaustive history of musical societies in Germany is attempted. Thus, for instance, Alfred Heuss recently drew attention to a remark in Mattheson's Ehrenpforte which would lead to infer that Jodocus Willichius founded one at Frankfurt a. d. Oder towards the end of the sixteenth century and it is also well known that such literary clubs as Harsdorfer's Hirten und Blumen Orden an der Pegnitz (1642) in Niirnberg resembled the Academie de Ba'if in the com- bination of literary and musical interests.

Finally Anthony Wood who was at Oxford University in 1651 has left

us a vivid account of the practice of chamber music for viols at Oxford

where he went to a weekly meeting of musicians^ amateurs and professionals,

combining into a band of over sixten performers.

Of this weekly music meeting, Hawkins remarked in his History of

Music, after enumerating the names of the "Noblemen", "Drs" (Doctors),

"Masters" and "Strangers" who constituted it in 1665 that it

. . . was the first subscription concert of which any account is to be met with: indeed it seems to have been the only association of the sort in the kingdom ; the reason of this might be, that the pretenders to the love of music were not then so numerous as they have been of late years. A concert was formerly a serious entertainment, at which such only as had a real and genuine affection for music assembled . . .

Selected at random as these notes are, they suffice to prove that the idea of musical cooperation had gained root in Europe before the period with which this book occupies itself. Now the concerts given by the musical clubs whether they cultivated vocal or instrumental music or both, were public only in so far as the members chose to extend admission by way of invitation, the guests, as for instance in Switzerland, appreciating the courtesy with substantial souvenirs. Still less public were, of course, the concerts given by kings, princes and noblemen at their courts and palaces to the aristocratic Avorld, but rumors of the splendour of Cromwell's State Concerts, for instance, or of the daily concerts and spectacles at Versailles must have spread into the masses and our innate desire for forbidden fruit certainly helped to drive a democratic wedge into the absolute exclusiveness of the music -loving aristocracy and the relative exclusiveness of the bourgeoisie as maintained in their musical clubs. The general public had to be content with the glowing accounts of domestics, musicians and privileged friends except on such fairly frequent and regular occasions when by order of the sovereign or the city-fathers the court-mu- sicians, Stadtpfeifer and Ratsmusikanten would exhibit their skill in public. Thus entertainments partaking of the character of public concerts were not altogether missing in the daily life of a people, more passionately de- voted to home-music of the best kind and on terms of closer social intimacy with the musicians than is now unfortunately the case^).

1) See Naylor Shakespeare and music, 1896, p. 12.

2) By the way, those who, a few years ago, hailed the socalled Verleger-Concerte at Leipzig as a novelty, will perhaps hear with regret that even this happy idea was anticipated in the sixteenth century. Says N. Yonge in the dedication of his collection 'Musica transalpina', 1588 to Gilbert Lord Talbot:

"... a great number of Gentlemen and Merchants of good accompt (as well of this realme as of foreign nations) have taken in good part such entertainments of pleasure as my poor abilitie was able to afford them both by the exercise of Musicke daily used in my house, and by furnishing tliem with Bookes of that kind yearly sent me out of Italy and other places."

1*

However, public concerts proper in all probability claim an humbler origin. Had the gentleman or merchant of Shakespeare's time listened to or made others listen at the barbershop to the "stringed noise" of the lute or viol, to use Milton's words, until his turn came to busy the deft hand and gossiping tongue of the tonsorial artist, and did he then proceed for a bumper of ale to the taverns or "Musik Houses" of which there were many in the time of Charles II, as Hawkins says, he was almost sure to find there one or several ambulant musicians, the socalled "Waits", who, for a consideration, would strike up his favorite Pavana, Saltarello, Air or Jig. And if we remember that by far the majority of pubUc concerts were still held at taverns at the end of the eighteenth century, it will not be considered a fantastic idea, I hope, to trace the sources of our public concert-life to the taverns and their fiddling parasites. From the custom to collect the fee after the concert from everybody present to an arrangement by which such thirsty souls, who desired to enjoy music in privacy, agreed to pay an equal share, in other words an embryonic form of obhgatory admission-fee was but a short and logical step. Nor can I make myself beUeve that the idea of payment on a still more dignified and sohd business basis, with its obliga- tions, rights and advantages to both the performer and the audience, whether congregating in taverns or in the homes of music lovers, was either foreign to that age or remained so until John Banister's time. Indeed there are signs that it did not. If Mathias Weckmann's Collegium Musicum was "offentlich, sowohl fiir fremde als einheimische Liebhaber ausgestattet" it is plausible that the fifty instrumentalists and singers forming the club and performing weekly in the refectory of the Dom charged admission in order to defray expenses and if Jacques de Gouy describes the concerts spirituels held before 1650 at the house of Pierre de Chabanceau de la Barre as the first given at Paris, though they were not, Brenet was justified in arguing that de Gouy's statement would be acceptable only if he meant concerts publics et payants.

Should after all, John Banister's innovation have consisted merely in tliis that he was the first to planfully make pubhc concerts a regular and more dignified feature in the musical Kfe of the city? Again it is Hawkins who allows us to draw this inference. To be sure, he seems over-anxious to credit Thomas Britton with the introduction of public concerts simply because the assistants and patrons of the small-coal man belonged to the upper classes (and Burney, of course, when copying his in many respects histo- rically more important rival, was altogether too much of a historian for^ aristocrats to question the wisdom of such a course) yet Hawkins though reluctantly enough, felt obhged to write (v. 5, p. 1):

In the interim it is proposed to speak of those musical performances with ^^hich

the people in general were entertained at places of public resort, distinguishing between such as were calculated for the recreation of the vulgar and those which for their ele- gance come under the denomination of concerts. The first of these were no other than the musical entertainments given to their people in Music Houses, already spoken of, the performers in which consisted of fiddlers and others, hired by the master of the house, such as in the night season were wont to parade the city and suburbs under the denomination of the Waits. The music of these men could scarcely be called a con- cert, for this obvious reason, that it had no variety of parts, nor commixture of different instruments: Half a dozen of fiddlers would scrape Sellenger's Round, or John come kiss me, or Old Simon the King with divisions, till themselves and their audience were tired, after which as many players on the hautboy would in the most harsh and dis- cordant tones grate forth Green Sleeves, Yellow Stockings, Gillian of Craydon, or some such common dance-tune, and the people thought it fine music.

But a concert, properly so called, was a sober recreation ; persons were dra^vTi to it, not by an affectation of admiring what they could not taste, but by a genuine pleasure which they took in the entertainment. For the gratification of such the masters of music exerted their utmost endeavours and some of the greatest eminence among them were not above entertaining the public with musical performances, either at their own houses, or in more commodious, receiving for their own use the money paid on admission. And to these performances the lovers of music were invited by advertisement in the London Gazette . . .

And then follows not only John Banister's advertisement of his concert on December 30, 1672 but also the announcements of his concerts in subse- quent years and many others until 1698. Yet Hawkins sought to brush John Banister aside in favor of Thomas Britton! Whatever his reasons for tliis strange contradiction might have been, Banister's example was followed in 1678 by Britton, whose famous concerts in Clerkenwell lasted until 1714. Another concert room, independent of ale and tobacco, was opened about 1680 in Villiers Street at the York Buildings. If Mr. Davey says that the entertainments there became very fashionable he is probably mistaken as Roger North, evidently alluding to the same undertaking, asserts that the music masters finding that "money could be got that way" had the room built in Villiers Street but that their socalled Music Meeting failed for lack of proper management. It is also Roger North who says that about the time of Banister's venture a society of gentlemen of good esteem met "often for consort". Their room becoming crowded they took one in a tavern in Fleetstreet but, and this remark is interesting, disbanded when the taverner made a "pecuniary consort of it". However the tide was not to be stemmed and public concerts soon became a permanent, prominent and ever growing branch of concert-hfe in London with those of the Academy of Ancient Music (1710), the Castle Society (1724), and Mrs. Cornely's subscription concerts (1765), conducted by Abel and Bach, as principal stepping stones, quite apart from the benefit concerts given by Gluck, Quantz, and innumerable other virtuosos.

On the continent, the concert-life continued to center in the activity of the Collegia Musica, Academies and other more or less private organi-

— 6 —

sations. Brenet tells us that about 1700 it had become quite customary for music teachers to give musicales at their homes "pour s'attirer pratique" and that in 1724 the monthly musicales, given since about 1720 by Crozat, the richest man in Paris, were combined with the 'Concert Italien' of Mad. de Prie on the subscription basis, the sixty members wittily being dubbed gli Acadetnici 'paganti, but it remained for Philidor to introduce periodical concerts, in appearance and principle really public. This he did with his 'Concert Spirituel' of 1725, but it should be remembered that these concerts took place at the Academic Roj^ale de Musique only on days of great rehgious festivals when operatic performances were prohibited and that they originally were subject to other curious strictures.

By this time Liibeck had enjoyed her unique 'Abendmusiken' on the five Sundays before Christmas for more than fifty years. Founded by Buxte- hude in 1673 and blessed with the fruits of his genius these 'Abendmusiken', though perhaps not in theory, practically were public sacred concerts with admission fee. Later on, Telemann founded in 1713 the 'wochentliches grosses Concert im Frauenstein' at Frankfort o/M., continued in 1723 by the 'Winter Concert' which formed the back bone of Frankfort's organized concert-life until the end of the century i). It was also Telemann who after his removal to Hamburg introduced similar subscription concerts about 1720 first in the Drillhaus and since 1722 at his home, performing princi- pally his own vocal music of larger compass. Though Telemann retained for both his ventures the title of Collegium Musicum, the entertainments were really more public than private^). This was certainly the case with the weekly 'Musikalische Concerte' at Leipzig, the one under Joh. Seb. Bach and the other under Joh. Gottlieb Gorner, the performers being recruited to a large extent amongst the students, for Mizler in his Neu-eroffnete Musi- kalische Bibliothek, 1739 says (I, 63) plainly enough:

"Die beiden offentlichen Musikalischen Concerten, oder Zusammenkiinfte, so hier Avochentlich gehalten werden, sind noch in bestandigem Flor."

In Berlin and Vienna the democratic idea of public concerts was naturally slower in assuming permanent shape than in such cities as Frankfort, Ham- burg or Leipzig and thus we notice that in Berlin the 'Akademie', the 'As- semblee', Agricola's Concert, and especially the 'Musikiibende Gesellschaft' still retained about 1750 an air of exclusiveness and that their concerts were decidedly more private than public in character^). If furthermore Hanslick

1) Israel, Frankfurter Concert -Chronik von 1713 — 1780.

2) Sittard, Geschichte des Musik- u. Concertwesens in Hamburg. On the other hand the famous cuUnary- concerts given by Count Eckgh at Hamburg in 1700 — 1701 at which ReLnh. Keiser conducted himself "mehr als ein CavalUer, denn als einMusikus" Avere private. (See Mattheson.)

3) See Marpurg, Hist.-Krit. Beytrage, 1754/5, Entwurf einer ausfiihrlichen Nach- richt von der "Mvisikiibenden Gesellschaft zu Berlin".

failed to trace public concerts at Vienna before 17401)^ this failure cer- tainly is significant enough, though, or rather because, Hanslick's statement is not correct. He overlooked Mattheson's ironical entry in the 'Musika- lische Patriot' (p. 26) :

"Meiner Correspondenten einer . . . meldete mir vor einiger Zeit aus Wien, dass daselbst ein gewisser netter Clavier Spieler, etc. ein Concert gehalten, wobey sich die Liebhaber so haufig eingestellet hatten, das.s, nach geschlossener Rechnung, just 101/2 gute Grosclien von dem Maestro eingebiisset worden; anstatt, dass er vermuthet haette, einen guten Beutel voUer Gulden davon zu streiclien."

Consequently public concerts of the benefit type were actually given at Vienna at least as early as 1728 but they seem to have been sporadic. Nor does it appear from the pages containing the quotation that the fate of this particular maestro was exceptional in German cities. Indeed men like Mattheson seem to have cultivated a grudge against the virtuosos especially the Italian, who were rapidly forcing — and not always in a, manner legitimate or artistic — a new element into the musical life of their time. To have foreseen that the musical life of Europe was irrisistibly gliding into democratic channels by sheer force of the underlying current in general sociological conditions and by the equally strong trend towards disintegration in the evolution of musical forms and their vehicles of per- formance, in short the steadily crystalUzing distinction between orchestral and chamber music with all the consequences, to have clearly foreseen this could not reasonably be expected of Mattheson and his contemporaries. However, without going too far into evolutional theories, this much appears from ail contemporary and historical accounts to be certain: the public concert-life of German cities remained in an undeveloped condition for decades after John Banister's innovation had borne plentiful fruit in London. This fact is of great importance and carries with it obvious inferences if we wish to assume a proper and impartial attitude towards the early history of concert-hfe in the British Colonies of North America. When reading the histories of music in America we almost gain the impression that the emigrants of the seventeenth century detested not so much the religious, political or economic atmosphere of Europe as the musical and we feel overawed by the constellation of mysterious motives prompting Providence to send to our shores out of all the millions who inhabited Europe just those few thousand beings who had no music in their souls. Now, the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Irish, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swedes, the Cavaliers of Maryland and Virginia and the Huguenots of the South may have been zelots, adventurers, beggars, spendthrifts, fugitives from justice, convicts, but barbarians they certainly were not.

1) Hanslick, Geschiclite des Concertwesens in Wien. 1869.

Until some historian displays the courage, the skill and the patience to unearth and collect the data pertaining to our musical Ufe before 1700 all ponderous meditations on the subject will remain guesswork. Possibly, even probably, music was at an extremely low ebb, but this would neither prove that the early settlers were hopelessly unmusical nor that they lacked interest in the art of 'sweet conchord'. It was simply a matter of opportunity, for what inducements had a handful of people, spread over so vast an area, strugghng for an existence, surrounded by virgin-forests, fighting the Red- man, and quarelhng amongst themselves to offer to musicians? We may rest assured that even Geoffrey Stafford, "lute and fiddle maker" by trade and ruffian by instinct, would have preferred more lucrative cKmes and gracefidly decUned the patronage of musical Governor Fletcher had he not been deported in 1691 to Massachusetts by order of ,ttiis Majesty King William along with a batch of two hundred other Anglo-Saxon convicts i). In fact, as Mr. Elson pointed out 2), the 'Observations made by the Curious in New England', printed at London in 1673, inform us that "in Boston there are no musicians by trade". Of the dilettanti nothing is said, but that such existed in the Colonies, we know well enough from Sewall's diary and as the early settlers were not unhke other human beings in having voices, we may take it for granted that they used them not only in church, but at home, in the fields, in the taverns, exactly as they would have done In Europe and for the same kind of music as far as their memory or their supply of music books carried them. That the latter, generally speaking, can not have been very large, goes without saying, for the emigrants of those days, even the well-to-do, had but vessels like the Mayflower — a wonderful box of Pandora though she must have been — at their disposal for the storage of household goods that were absolutely necessary. This would also explain why so seldom musical instruments are mentioned in the inventories of those days. They were to be found, however, in the homes of the wealthy merchants of the North and in the homes of the still more pleasure seeking aristocratic planters of the South. Indeed, there can be httle doubt that the nearest approach to a musical atmosphere in feeble imitation of European conditions was to be found in the South rather than in the North. Still, we might call the period until about 1720 the primitive period in our musical history without fear of being convicted of hasty conclusions.

After 1720 we notice a steadily growing number of musicians who sought

1) See the amusing account of Geoffrey Stafford in Spillane's History of the Ame- rican pianoforte, p. 14.

2) See his book on 'the National Music of America', p. 46.

their fortunes in the Colonies i), an increasing desire for organs, flutes, guitars, vioUns, harpsichords, the establishment of "singing schools", an improvement in church music, the signs of a budding music trade from ruled music paper to sonatas and concertos, the advent of music engravers, publishers and manufacturers of instruments, the tentative efforts to give Enghsh opera a home in America, the introduction of public concerts, in short the beginnings of what may properly be termed the formative period in our musical history, running from 1720 until about 1800. If I further maintain that during this period secular music developed more rapidly than sacred and soon became the more important of the two, a comparison between the history of our early sacred music, with which we have been fairly well acquainted, and this history of our early concert life — together with opera, the other main branch of secular music — will substantiate my theory contrary to popular axiom though it may be.

1) In this connection a glimpse into Boston of "ye olden Time" may afford entertainment. Mr. Thomas Brattle, a wealthy Puritan and a man of artistic in- stincts, bequeathed in 1713 an imported organ to Brattle Square Church. It was promptly rejected for religious reasons and was then presented, in accordance with the will, to King's Chapel, the vestry procuring in a Mr. Price, the first organist as "the sober person to play skilfully thereon with a loud noise" as Mr. Brattle put it. The second organist was Mr. Edward Enstone, imported from England in 1714 at a salary of £ 30 yet" with dancing, music etc" it was thought it would answer (See Hist, of King's Chapel). Accordingly he filed on Feb. 21, 1714 a "petition for liberty of keeping a school as a Master of Music and a Dancing Master 'but it was disallowed by ye Sel. men." Not withstanding this refusal Mr. Enstone opened his school and the Select Men felt so chagrined by his impertinence that they promptly instructed in the following year the town-clerk to present "a complaint to Session." This the town-clerk probably did but evidently Mr. Enstone and not "ye Ssl. men" carried the day for in 1716 Mr. Enstone inserted in the Boston News Letter on April 16—23 this instructive~"a(Jvertisement, a veritable historical docu- ment. "This is to give notice that there is lately sent over from London, a choice Collection of Musickal Instruments, consisting of Flageolets, Flutes, Haut-Boys, Bass- Viols, Violins, Bows, Strings, Reads for Haut-Boys, Books of Instructions for all these Instruments, Books of ruled Paper. To be Sold at the Dancing School of Mr. Enstone in Sudbury Street near the Orange Tree, Boston.

NOTE. Any person may have all Instruments of Musick mended, or Virgenalls and Spinnets Strung and Tuned at a reasonable Rate, and likewise may be taught to Play on any of these Instruments above mention'd ; dancing taught by a true and easier method than has been heretofore."

Mr. Enstone still apjDears to have resided at Boston in 1720 advertising him- self as dancing master and keeper of a boarding house "where young Ladies may be accommodated with Boarding, and taught all sorts of Needle Work with Musick and Dancing, etc."

CHARLESTON^) AND THE SOUTH.

TXTHEN and where the first public concert took place in what are to-day I T the United States of North America would be difficult and useless to answer. Difficult, because the earliest concert recorded in our newspapers, diaries, documents, etc. by no means would imply it to have been the first; useless because the history of our concert hfe as concert-life could not reaso- nably be deducted from a stray concert without noticeable traces. Still, there is a good deal of fascination in unearthing first events and it must be admitted that chronology, too, imposes certain duties on the historian.

The earliest allusion to a pubUc concert in our country of which I am aware dates back to 1731 but it would not surprise me to see still earlier references brought to light, now hidden in some neglected source of in- formation. If theatrical performances, however primitive, seem to have been given at New York as early as 1702 including such of the 'Fool's Opera' — we are indebted to the autobiography of the adventurer and comedian Anthony Aston for the statement — and if between 1702 and 1730 other performances have been traced^), then we might hesitate in dat- ing the first concert in our country as late as 1731.

Though this concert was advertised in the Weekly News Letter of Boston and though, therefore, Boston seems to have the right of precedence, I pre- fer to trace the earliest concerts given at Charleston, S. C, be it only to em- phasize the fact that New England's share in the development of our early musical life has been unfairly and unduly overestimated to the disadvantage of the Middle Colonies and the South.

A few months only separate the concert given on Dec. 1731 at Boston

1) Population: 1790—163.59; 1800—20473 inhabitants. With one or two excep- tions all similar data on the population of the cities appearing in this book have been gleaned from the statistics on "Comparative population of thirty-two of the largest cities in the United States", as printed in the Seventh Census, 1850. It might also serve a useful purpose to remark here that Mr. B. Franklin Dexter has estimated the entire population in the American colonies at onlv 400 000 inhabitants in 1714, 1 200 000 in 1750, 2780000 in 1780 and 4 000 000 in 1790.

2) More about Mr. Daly's and Mr. ]\IcKee's discoveries will be said in a volume on 'Early opera in the United States'.

— 11 —

and the earliest — to my knowledge earliest — concert at Charleston, for

we read in the South Carolina Gazette, Saturday April 8 — 15, 17321):

"On Wednesday next will be a Consort^) of Musiok at the Council Chamber, for the Benefit of Mr. Salter."

It will be seen presently that the good citizens of Charleston encouraged

Mr. John Salter sufficiently to give further concerts during the following

seasons. In the meantime concert second and third took place during the

summer of 1732 and the respective advertisements contain a few additional

details. We read in the same newspaper on June 24 — July 1 :

"For the Benefit of Henry Campbell the 6th of this Month, at the Council Cham- ber, will be performed a Consort of Vocal and Instrumental Musick: To begin at 7 o' Clock.

N. B. Country Dances for Diversion of the Ladies^)."

and on Saturday, Sept. 23 — 30:

"At the Council Chamber, on Friday the 6th of October next, will be a Consort of Vocal and Instrumental Musick. Tickets to be had at Mrs. Cook's and at Mrs. Sau- reau's House at 40 s. each.

N. B. To begin precisely at Six o'clock."

It is a pity that we are not informed of what the "Vocal and Instru- mental Musick" consisted but this absence of detail by no means permits us to infer that the program was not worth mentioning for it should be remembered that in Europe, too, the custom prevailed to observe silence in the advertisements as to the program*). Then as now it was considered

1) T. Witmarch began to publish the S. C. Gaz. in Jan. 1732. As previous to this month concerts could not very well have been advertised in Charleston, it is very possible that concerts were given there before 1732. The inference is plain.

2) For the history of the obsolete term consort see James A. H. Murray's 'New English dictionary on historical principles. 1893'. From the partial similarity of mea- ning with the French concert and the Italian concerto it is clear how instead of this un- familiar word the English woi'd consort, meaning originally a number of people con- sorting together, was substituted in musical terminology for 1) several instruments or voices playing or singing together (Fleming, 1587) 2) singing or playing in harmony (Marlowe 1586) 3) "a company of Musitions together" (Bullokar, 1616) 4) a musical entertainment (Evelyn's Diary, 1617: "Sir Joseph . . . gave us ... a handsome supper, and after svipper a consort of music"). Not until well into the 18th century did the current form concert take the place of consort. For instance, Grassineau still defines in 1740 "Concerto, or Concert, popularly a consort, . . ." and also W. Tansur in his 'New Musical Grammar', 1746 says: "Concert-Consort: A piece of musick in parts."

3) During the following years Henry Campbell appears in newspaper advertise- ments mainly as dancing master. He gave a number of balls at the Theatre in Queen- street. From the fact that in Dec. 1750 a "Sarah Campbell, Dancing Mistress" inserted an advertisement it may be inferred that Henry Campbell had died in the meantime.

4) It should also be kept in mind that printed programs did not become custo- mary outside of France, England and America until towards the end of the eighteenth century. Sittard traced such in Hamburg as far back as 1729, but Ho/inburg, in this and other respects, presents an exception to the rule (perhaps on account of vicinity to London) and we need but read what Hanslick had to say on printed programs in Viemia to find the above remarks corroborated. To further illustrate the point, I quote the following anecdote from ^Nlarpurg's 'Legende einiger Musikheiligen', 1786:

"Ein Liebhaber der Musik, der in Paris und London gewesen war, und die dortigen

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sufficient to draw attention to the place of performance, name of the virtuoso or society, prices of tickets, date and hour of performance and the ticket agents. It might also be opportune to remark here that "Country dances for Diversion of the Ladies" after the concert were not a Colonial invention. Indeed it would have been a suicidal plan to thus insure a better atten- dance had not the same custom prevailed in Europe, for Colonial society would hardly have submitted to any innovation not sanctioned by London society.

In the absence of proof to the contrary we may argue that the Colonials were treated, in imitation of concerts given at London, to more or less skill- ful renditions of Corelli, Vivaldi, Purcell, Abaco, Handel, Geminiani and such other masters whose fame was firmly estabhshed in Europe and per- haps what Mattheson said in his Ehrenpforte of the programs played at the concerts of the MusikaHsche Alcademie of Prague was true also of our earhest concerts :

"Der Anfang wurde mit einer Ouverture gemacht, hierauf wurden auch Concerte gespielt, und auch wechselweise darunter gesungen, oder Solo gehoret. Den Schluss aber maclite eine starke Symphonie."

But to return to Mr. John Salter! For Wednesday, Oct. 25, 1732 he advertised for his benefit a concert in the South Carolina Gazette in the usual form with "a Ball after the Consort" and this concert is of some historical importance as it probably was the first to which our newspapers paid attention. Under the local news the Gazette printed on Sat. Oct. 21 — 28 :

"Charlestown, Oct. 28. On Wednesday Night there was a Concert for the Benefit of Mr. Salter, at which was a fine Appearance of good Company. A Ball was afterwards opened by the Lord Forester and Miss Hill."

May be it is mortifying to us musicians that this first musical criticism should have been a bit of society-news with special allusion to the beau of the town, Lord Forester, but did the New York papers of our own times subject us to less mortification when the first performance of Wagner's Parsifal at New York brought their society-editors into greater-prominence than the musical?

This benefit concert at the Council Chamber of Mr. Saltar, as the Ga- zette sometimes called him, was followed by others, in 1733 on Feb. 26 and April 2, in 1735 on Jan. 23; in 1737 on March 8; in 1738 on Jan. 17. i)

musikalischen Eini'ichtungen kennete, kam in eine Stadt Deutschlands, wo ein ansehn- liches Concert war. Weil er glaubte, dass es allhier eben so wie dort seyn wiirde, so fragte er beym Eingang im Concert den Herrn Director, ob er nicht so gefallig seyn woUte ihm den gedruckten Anschlag der aufzufiihrenden Tonstiicke zu communicieren. 'Mein Herr, antwortete der Herr Director, ich weiss zur Zeit noch nicht, was wir heute machen werden, noch wer sich solo wird horen lassen."

1) See the corresponding numbers of the South Carolina Gazette.

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when I lost track of this musician whose wife, by the way kept a boarding school for Young Ladies where John taught music. Other benefit "con- sorts of Vocal and Instrumental Musick" were given during these years for Mrs. Cook, the ticket-agent, in 1733 on Feb. 26, when "none but Enghsh and Scotch songs" were to he sung", in other words the first song recital in our country, and in 1737 on June 14 1) for "the Widow and Children of the late Mr. Cook". This concert took place at the Play House in Queenstreet as did on Nov. 22 of the same year a benefit concert for a musician of quite an illustrious name. Tliis and the naive tenor of the announcement, in the South Carolina Gazette, Oct. 29 — Nov. 5 will warrant a quotation:

"At the new theatre in Queenstreet on Tuesday the 22d instant being St. Cecilia's Day, will be performed a Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, for the Benefit of Mr. Theodore Pachelbel, beginning precisely at 6 o' Clock in the Evening.

Tickets to be had at the House of the said Mr. Pachelbel, or at Mr. Shepheard's Vintner.

N. B. As this is the first time the said Mr. Pachelbel has attempted anything of this kind in a pviblick Manner in this Province, he thinks proper to give Notice that there will be sung a Cantata suitable to the Occasion."

Of Pachelbel's career nothing is known except that in February 1733, according to the church records of Trinity Church, Newport, R. I. "the Wardens procured the Services of Mr. Charles Theodore Parchelbel, of Boston (who was the first organist to assist in setting up the organ" pre- sented by Bishop Berkeley^). From Newport he drifted in 1736 to New York and hence to Charleston.

Students of our early musical Ufe will have surmised the reason for grouping the henefit-concevts together. The words "for the benefit" were usually added in the advertisements to distinguish such concerts from those given by amateurs with the assistance of professional musicians for their own amusement, in short, serial subscription concerts. Now, a number of concerts were advertised in the South Carohna Gazette that evidently were not intended for the benefit of any particular musician, the form of the advertisements being essentially the same as for the concert on Oct. 6, 1732. By way of general analogy, therefore, it might be argued that the first effort to establish a series of concerts at more or less regular intervals in Charleston, is to be dated 1732. This supposition certainly is streng- thened by the following N. B.s to concert advertisements published on Jan. 20 and June 30, 1733 :

"N. B. This will be the last Consort" and

"N. B. This is the first time on the Subscription."

1) S. C. Gaz. May 21—28, 1737.

2) See Brooks, Olden Time Music, p. 52.

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Hence it would seem as if the concert season opened in the summer and lasted until Spring! As far as I found them in the Gazette the dates were these: 1732, Oct. 6th, Dec. 5th (postponed from Nov. 21st "on account of the Council's sitting"); 1733, Feb. 5th, JuHGthi); 1734, Feb. 19, March 19, May 14, Dec. 17th; 1735, Dec. 19.

For the folloAving years until 1751 I have found no concerts announced except the benefit concerts for John Salter and Charles Theodore Pachelbel. This may be