This is the story of the orchestra, from 16th-century string bands to the "classical" orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Spitzer and Zaslaw document orchestral organization, instrumentation, social roles, repertories, and performance practices in Europe and the American colonies, concluding around 1800 with the widespread awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.

This book traces the emergence of the orchestra from 16th-century string bands to the 'classical' orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries. Ensembles of bowed stringed instruments, several players per part plus continuo and wind instruments, were organized in France in the mid-17th century and then in Rome at the end of the century. The prestige of these ensembles and of the music and performing styles of their leaders, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Arcangelo Corelli, caused them to be imitated elsewhere, until by the late 18th century, the orchestra had become a pan-European phenomenon. Spitzer and Zaslaw review previous accounts of these developments, then proceed to a thoroughgoing documentation and discussion of orchestral organization, instrumentation, and social roles in France, Italy, Germany, England, and the American colonies. They also examine the emergence of orchestra musicians, idiomatic music for orchestras, orchestral performance practices, and the awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.

This book traces the emergence of the orchestra from 16th-century string bands to the 'classical' orchestra of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries. Ensembles of bowed stringed instruments, several players per part plus continuo and wind instruments, were organized in France in the mid-17th century and then in Rome at the end of the century. The prestige of these ensembles and of the music and performing styles of their leaders, Jean-Baptiste Lully and ArcangeloCorelli, caused them to be imitated elsewhere, until by the late 18th century, the orchestra had become a pan-European phenomenon.Spitzer and Zaslaw review previous accounts of these developments, then proceed to a thoroughgoing documentation and discussion of orchestral organization, instrumentation, and social roles in France, Italy, Germany, England, and the American colonies. They also examine the emergence of orchestra musicians, idiomatic music for orchestras, orchestral performance practices, and the awareness of the orchestra as a central institution in European life.

Studies of concert life in nineteenth-century America have generally been limited to large orchestras and the programs we are familiar with today. But as this book reveals, audiences of that era enjoyed far more diverse musical experiences than this focus would suggest. To hear an orchestra, people were more likely to head to a beer garden, restaurant, or summer resort than to a concert hall. And what they heard weren’t just symphonic works—programs also included opera excerpts and arrangements, instrumental showpieces, comic numbers, and medleys of patriotic tunes. This book brings together musicologists and historians to investigate the many orchestras and programs that developed in nineteenth-century America. In addition to reflecting on the music that orchestras played and the socioeconomic aspects of building and maintaining orchestras, the book considers a wide range of topics, including audiences, entrepreneurs, concert arrangements, tours, and musicians’ unions. The authors also show that the period saw a massive influx of immigrant performers, the increasing ability of orchestras to travel across the nation, and the rising influence of women as listeners, patrons, and players. Painting a rich and detailed picture of nineteenth-century concert life, this collection will greatly broaden our understanding of America’s musical history.

This book explores the relationship between the history of orchestration and the development of modern musical aesthetics in the Enlightenment. Using Haydn as a focal point, it examines how the consolidation of the modern orchestra radically altered how people listened to and thought about the expressive capacity of instruments.

In this book the author traces the history of America's oldest symphonic organization down to the beginning of Pierre Boulez's conductorship. Against the background of changing cultural patterns of American life over a century and a quarter, the author examines interactions between the New York Philharmonic and the society in which it functioned. There are colorful personality portraits, often tied to surprising reappraisals of such glamorous Philharmonic stars as Arturo Toscanini (who enjoined other conductors to play every note "as written," but who felt free - as the author documents - to make his own changes to the scores of the masters), Gustav Mahler, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, and the spectacular Leonard Bernstein. The author gives the reader insight into an organization that has helped shape America's musical taste - an organization that has brought its performances to the largest audiences in the annals of symphonic music, yet has often suffered from "the vast, and largely unjustified, inferiority complex that has oppressed American music throughout its history."