An Introduction to America’s Music

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SPOTLIGHT ON HISTORYSPOTLIGHT ON HISTORY

Congregations and Organists

L

ike oratorio societies, church choirs brought

aesthetic pleasure to singers and listen-

ers alike. But psalmodists remained wary of

sacred choral singing’s aesthetic side. If choirs strove

only for a pleasant sound, Thomas Hastings wrote,

“why, then, let us have at once the prima- donnas of

the drama for our leading singers.” Though Hast-

ings was being ironic, by the time of the Civil War

many urban churches boasted quartet choirs, in

which professional soloists—a soprano, alto, tenor,

and bass—replaced volunteer choirs. Professional

singers brought into churches a mastery that

amateurs could not match. But, evangelical lead-

ers warned, some also displayed an insincerity that

could blunt the religious impact of performances

during worship service.

Another aesthetic force in nineteenth-century

churches came from the organ loft, as more and

more congregations made the largest fi nancial

investment in music that Americans of that era

were ready to make. “Perhaps no work of man’s,”

an enthusiast wrote of the organ in the mid-1830s,

“can claim equal power of exciting and arresting the

feelings.” But that power also drew criticism. Hast-

ings thought organists often became “dictators”

over public worship and complained about the way

some organists buried hymns in “massive peals of

legato harmony.”

As affl uence grew in the United States, so did

the grandeur of organs. In 1846 a Brooklyn builder

completed a large instrument for New York City’s

Trinity (Episcopal) Church at a cost of $10,500.

The Trinity organ, then the largest in the coun-

try, impressed both eye and ear. An observer who

found the lowest pipes “big enough for a small fam-

ily and room for boarders” wondered whether the

organist intended “to save house rent” by living in

one of them.

The opening of Trinity Church’s giant instru-

ment brought the organ’s dual function of worship

and artistry into confl ict. Two days were set aside

for a public display in which local organists were

invited to play anything they chose. The result,

one newspaper reported, included opera arias,

“marches from military bands, and waltzes from

the ballroom.” Dismissing the display as “a farce,”

the report charged that the house of God had been

turned into “an exhibition room.” Like choral sing-

ing, organ playing was more than a means of sacred

expression; it fostered both performing skill and an

aesthetic sense. By the 1840s, thanks partly to opera

and partly to the church, the idea of music as an art

was beginning to take hold in concert life.

CLASSICAL INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC COMES TO

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

Just as sacred music fl ourished in churches, other kinds of music were linked to

the theater, the military, the school, and the parlor. But one kind of Old World

music had no tie to entertainment, religion, education, or the home: instru-

mental music in what today is called the classical style. Originating in the latter

1700s, this music followed the design of a sonata: in three or four movements,

and typically with no descriptive program. In Europe, Haydn, Mozart, and

Beethoven raised the symphony, a sonata for orchestra, to prominence in the

concert hall. For more intimate settings, they wrote string quartets (sonatas for

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