52 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
for building musical performance more fully into the life of Monticello, his Vir-
ginia country estate. Jefferson saw music in America as standing “in a state of
deplorable barbarism” compared with its place in Europe. He invited his cor-
respondent to visit him or to send “a substitute... profi cient in singing, & on
the Harpsichord.” To reconcile his “passion for music” with the constraints of his
budget, he considered importing from Europe a domestic staff who could dou-
ble as gardeners, weavers, stonecutters, and instrumental performers. Living in
the country, Jefferson imagined a musical environment that would allow him to
play and also to retain a “band of music” to gratify his appetite as a listener.MILITARY, CONCERT, AND THEATER MUSIC
In the earliest years of the republic, much public music making took place in the-
aters, as part of dramatic performances. W hen music was performed for its own
sake in a large meeting room, that room became, at least for the duration of the
performance, a concert hall. Meanwhile, military music resounded outdoors.MILITARY MUSIC
Musical instruments have long been used for outdoor communication. Drums,
for example, played an important signaling role in early American life. In today’s
sonic world, where music’s volume is often boosted by electronics, the sound of
fi fes and drums being played outside might not seem especially loud, but early
accounts show that they were sometimes considered almost deafening. At a pub-
lic ceremony to discipline a Continental soldier convicted of thievery in 1775,
another soldier wrote that the drums “made such a report in my ears, when
accompanied by such screaking of whifes [sic] that I could not hear the man next
to me.”K Music was an important
part of middle-class family
life, as illustrated in this
portrait of the Schuyler
family, painted in New York
by Ambrose Andrews in
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