Tag Archives: mid 19th-century american music

“…subordinate to a central spirit”: An 1854 Concert Review Rooted in Christian Communism

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An article published in the June 17, 1854 edition of The Circular reviews a recent choral and orchestral performance at New York City’s Crystal Palace 1, an exhibition venue built to rival London’s own Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace opened in 1853, but was soon closed in 1854 due to financial constraints. Just four years later in 1854, the building and all its contents burned down.2

John Bachman, Birds Eye View of the New York Crystal Palace and Environs, 1853. Hand-colored lithograph. The Museum of the City of New York, 29. 100.2387. Image and caption from the Bard Graduate Center’s Exhibition: “New York Crystal Palace 1853.”

The Circular, a community-written and edited newspaper, makes sure to emphasize its values to its readers. The front page of this edition features the newspaper’s “fundamental principles,” “leading topics,” and “general platform,” all emphasizing a devotion to the Christian faith and the institution of Communism and Socialism.

An excerpt from this edition of The Circular‘s front page, detailing their mission and values. “Music in the Crystal Palace.” Circular (1851-1870), Jun 17, 1854. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/music-crystal-palace/docview/137665576/se-2.

Later on, the publication features a positive review of a concert performed by the “Musical Congress,” under the direction of Louis-Antoine Jullien. The review details the pieces performed, such as Handel’s Messiah, and, in an interesting bit of foreshadowing, an original composition by M. Jullien entitled, The Fireman’s Quadrille. According to the review, Jullien’s piece tells a story of a fire and the firefighters’ heroism, “expressing in music the silence of the night, the alarm, the rush of engines, the crackling of the fire, crash and falling of buildings, the final victory of the firemen.” The author seems entranced by M. Jullien, even calling his baton a “wand,” implying a sense of magic to his conducting. Read the sheet music for The Fireman’s Quadrille here.3

A colored lithograph of Monsieur Louis-Antoine Jullien by Edward Morton, after Alfred Edward Chalon. Edward Morton, “Louis Antoine Jullien,” digital image, National Portrait Gallery, 1840s, accessed October 3, 2022, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw195155.

But perhaps the most interesting part is the author’s thoughts on Christian Communism as it relates to the performance. They speak of the performance as a “splendid exhibition of unity, and of difference in unity.” Their remarks center around one specific idea, that each musician is bound to a sense of togetherness, in that each part of the music is essential to creating the whole sound. The author reflects that thousands of people attended this concert, each presumably leaving the venue with different thoughts on the music they just heard. This speaks to the connection of identity in music, as everyone who hears a piece of music may draw different personal conclusions and connections. One person, the author, may think from the lens of Christian Communism, but another spectator may be connecting the music to the Black experience, or listening for the French influences in Jullien’s writing. Whatever the case, this author clearly understands the significance of personal connection to music.

1“Music in the Crystal Palace.” Circular (1851-1870), Jun 17, 1854. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/music-crystal-palace/docview/137665576/se-2.

2 Henry Raine, “What was the New York Crystal Palace, and where was it located?,” New York Historical Society Museum and Library, January 12, 2012, video, 1:00, https://www.nyhistory.org/community/new-yorks-crystal-palace

3 Music Division, The New York Public Library. “The fireman’s quadrille” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed October 4, 2022. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-cf65-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Why don’t we talk about Arthur P. Schmidt?

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While scrolling the archives of the Sheet Music Consortium to find fodder for this weeks blog post, I found myself a bit at a loss. For the past few classes we’ve begun to study early American art music and I was hoping to find some manuscript of Amy Beach’s or Edward MacDowell’s to put on display. While I did find scores from both composers, what I found more compelling was the name at the bottom of nearly every score I examined.

Canadian Boat Song by Amy Beach

No, not Mrs. H.H.A. Beach like you see on the right, but rather Arthur P. Schmidt. This name appeared on several scores of both Beach and MacDowell. Who was Arthur P. Schmidt? Why does his name get to be on an exorbitant amount of the music published in 19th-century America? And why should you care?

Musical scholarship often focuses on the narratives of performers and mostly of composers, but equally important to these artistic forces were the business people that helped create the music industry. Figures like Theodore Thomas helped define the idea of a duality between art and the free market. Arthur P. Schmidt, while not a conductor or music director, was a music publisher. The publishing side of the music industry became increasingly important as the 19th century marched on. Soon, the publishers of Tin Pan Alley would help define American musical tastes.Arthur P. Schmidt, too, became a taste-maker of sorts. In fact, Douglas Bomberger states in an article about Edward MacDowell and Arthur Schmidt that the later 19th century became known as the “Golden Age” of music publishing in America. Schmidt’s Boston based publishing company would come to publish nearly the entire compositional body of Edward MacDowell and feature several compositions by Amy Beach. In total, the Boston office had printed over 15 000 titles. The publisher Arthur P. Schmidt, when searched in the Sheet Music Consortium, comes up with over 4,000 results.

From the back page of an Edward MacDowell Composition

The guy was really popular. But why don’t we hear about him? In Richard Crawford’s American Musical Life, there is an entire chapter devoted to the music of Edward MacDowell, but it never once mentions the way MacDowell’s music got published. In the scholarship this class has read about the music industry of mid to late 19th-century American art music, there has been little discussion of the way music publishers shape the reception and transmission of famous musical works. Money and music have never been as separate as we want them to be. The influences of capitalist market demand have no doubt shaped the way we consume, study, and participate in music. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the Arthur P. Schmidt company grew so popular that it opened an office in Leipzig, Germany. What impact did the transmission of American composers like MacDowell and Beach have on American and German cultural interactions? How did these relationships develop during the first world war? How did music publishers influence understanding of American musical culture? Music publishing is still and must have been incredibly important. So why isn’t it talked about more?

Personally, I think that this hesitancy to acknowledge the codependency of music and capitalism results from our societies binary system of thinking. The notions of artists and business people are often seen as contradictory by most of the public. We don’t want our art to be infected by money. But, like everything in life, it most definitely is. A complete understanding of American musical life demands that we consider not only our beloved composers and performers,  but the hardened business people responsible for shaping our musical tastes. Including examples of music published by someone like Arthur P. Schmidt in an exhibit about America’s music, for example, could help prompt further questions about the codependent relationship between music, money, and American markets.

Sources

Bomberger, E. Douglas. “Edward Macdowell, Arthur P. Schmidt, and the Shakespeare Overtures of Joachim Raff: A Case Study in Nineteenth-Century Music Publishing.” Notes 54, no. 1 (1997): 11-26. doi:10.2307/899930.

Cipolla, Wilma Reid. “Schmidt, Arthur P..” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed October 24, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/24937.