Full Description
The first thorough exploration of musical life in nineteenth-century New York City, with topics ranging from military bands and immigrant impresarios to visits from operatic diva Adelina Patti.
The musical scene in mid-nineteenth century New York City, contrary to common belief, was exceptionally vibrant. Thanks to several opera companies, no fewer than two orchestras, public chamber music and solo concerts, and numerouschoirs, New Yorkers were regularly exposed to "new" music of Verdi, Meyerbeer, Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner.
In European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840-1900, the first thorough exploration of musical life in New York City during this period, editor John Graziano and a number of other distinguished essayists assert that the richness of the artistic life of the city, particularly at this time, has been vastly underrated and undervalued. This marvelous new collection of essays, with topics ranging from military bands and immigrant impresarios to visits from operatic diva Adelina Patti, establishes that this musical scene was one of quantity and quality, lively and multifaceted -- in many ways equal to the scene in the largest of the Old World's Cities.
Contributors: Adrienne Fried Block, Christopher Bruhn, Raoul F. Camus, Frank J. Cipolla, John Graziano, Ruth Henderson, John Koegel, R. Allen Lott, Rena C. Mueller, Hilary Poriss, Katherine K. Preston, Nancy B. Reich, Ora Frishberg Saloman, Wayne Shirley.
John Graziano is Professor of Music, The City College and Graduate Center,CUNY, and co-Director of the Music in Gotham research project.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. Robert Schumann's Music in New York City, 1848-1898
2. Presenting Berlioz's Music in New York, 1846-1890: Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, Leopold Damrosch
3. Liszt (and Wagner) in New York, 1840-1890
4. "Home, Sweet Home" Away from Home: Sigismund Thalberg in New York, 1856-1858
5. Leopold Damrosch as Composer
6. New York's Orchestras and the "American" Composer: A Nineteenth-Century View
7. Between the Old World and the New: William Steinway and the New York Liederkranz in the 1860s
8. The Development of the German American Musical Stage in New York City, 1840-1890
9. Patrick S. Gilmore: the New York Years
10. Grafulla and Cappa: Bandmasters of New York's Famous Seventh Regiment
11. She Came, She Sang ... She Conquered? Adelina Patti in New York
12. A Confluence of Moravian Impresarios: Max Maretzek, the Strakosches, and the Graus
13. An Opera for Every Taste: The New York Scene, 1862-1869
14. "Dear Miss Ober": Music Management and the Interconnections of Musical Culture in the United States, 1876-1883
Bibliography
Notes on the Contributors
Index
