CHAPTER 5 | CLASSICAL INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 121
music “an intellectual and social enjoyment” of a high order, the report warned
that rejecting such a worthy cultural force would be a “discouraging and painful
symptom of the character of our population.”
This last comment and others like it have led some scholars in recent years
to conclude that, even more than a love of art, what stood behind the estab-
lishment of classical music institutions after the Civil War was the wish of
some wealthy patrons to exercise social control by excluding people because
of their class or ethnic background. That charge, however, seems not to apply
to the Academy of Music. The academy was financed by its hundreds of mem-
bers and devoted chiefly to activities in which those members participated:
sacred singing, choir music, and elementary musical training. Its involve-
ment in the whole range of music making, from simple to complex, reflected
a political outlook that has been described as republicanism in Thomas Jef-
ferson’s mold. That view saw society as both hierarchical, in that the best-
qualified citizens held authority, and egalitarian, in that all members of
society were free to earn the position they deserved. Though the cultivation
of classical instrumental music may have stood at the top of that hierarchy,
any attempt to exclude people from the enjoyment of that music on the basis
of class or ethnicity would have contradicted the principle of wholeness the
Boston Academy of Music had embraced.
Meanwhile, in 1842 a number of New York’s leading musicians gathered to
discuss the founding of an orchestra whose members would be permanent,
unlike the ad hoc orchestras of the Boston Academy of Music. The constitution
that resulted called for a structure of “actual” and “professional” members, who
performed, and associate members, who attended rehearsals and concerts. The
new ensemble, named the New York Philharmonic Society, was thus founded
as a cooperative venture embracing both music-loving listeners (the name phil-
harmonic means “loving harmony”) and performers who welcomed the chance
to play the best symphonic music. The United States’ oldest professional orches-
tra, the New York Philharmonic gave its fi rst concert in December 1842, opening
with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
The new orchestra sought to edify players and audiences alike. With only
four programs per season, the Philharmonic could be no more than a comple-
ment to any musician’s livelihood. Yet its survival shows that it fi lled a need on
the local scene. Moreover, the Philharmonic’s early history is intertwined with
the careers of many infl uential musicians, including Theodore Thomas, who
will appear in chapter 8 as the premier conductor of his generation.
The activities of the Boston Academy of Music and the New York Philharmonic
Society complemented the ideas of John Sullivan Dwight, who believed “in the
capacity of all mankind for music,” because music satisfi ed “a genuine want of
the soul.” Just as the Handel and Haydn Society had given Bostonians a chance
to hear oratorios, the Boston Academy and the New York Philharmonic were
now introducing the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven to the public. In the
early 1840s, with Dwight’s idealistic notions in the air and an appetite for instru-
mental music apparently growing, there seemed reason to hope that American
listeners of all stripes would come to embrace “music of the highest class.” And
already the United States was producing its fi rst signifi cant composers of instru-
mental music in the classical tradition: Anthony Philip Heinrich, William Henry
Fry, George Frederick Bristow, and most famous of all, Louis Moreau Gottschalk.music and
republicanismthe New York
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