Castle Garden (ca.1853)

Castle Garden (ca.1853)
Site for Louis Jullien's Concerts and Jenny Lind

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Camilla Urso's "Monster" Concert

Society for American Music


Bulletin, Volume XXVI, no. 1 (Spring 2000)



A Lady Gives a Monster Concert




By Betsy G. Miller, Columbia, South Carolina



Every scholar of nineteenth century American music knows of the "monster" concerts of bandmaster Patrick S. Gilmore and perhaps also that these concerts may have been inspired by similar concerts in the United States given by French bandmaster Louis Jullien. What is not often noted is that celebrated violinist Camilla Urso was able to mount a "monster" concert of her own on the West Coast, a feat remarkable for any musician of the time, but most likely a singular event among the female musicians of her day.

Camilla Urso, born in Nantes, France in 1842, was the first female to enter the Paris Conservatory. A child prodigy, Camilla began touring the United States at the age of ten in 1852. Her success in Boston was such that in 1854 soprano Henriette Sontag chose Urso as a replacement in her concert company for the celebrated boy violinist Paul Jullien, who was ill with brain fever.1 After taking a brief break from touring in 1856-1863, Urso continued to concertize for the rest of her life in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and South Africa. She died in New York in 1902.

French conductor Louis Jullien (1812-1860) was a musician-showman of enormous proportions. From his thirty-seven names, to his reputation, to his popularity, and most of all in the size of his concerts, he was a colossus. Born as the son of a bandmaster, he toured America in 1853-54, performing in New York, Boston, and several other American cities. Jullien, who received thirty-six Christian names from the thirty-six members of the Philharmonic Society who were his godfathers,2 developed the promenade concert in England into a highly popular form of entertainment. These concerts generally had an orchestra, multiple bands, choirs, and soloists. They also had novel effects designed to amuse and intrigue those attending such as cannon fire and performance on enormous, one-of-a-kind instruments.3 This type of concert, including large number of instrumentalists and vocalists, eventually became known as a "monster" concert. When Jullien toured America, he brought with him a cadre of fine musicians. His appearance in Boston coincided with Gilmore's tenure as the conductor of the Boston Brass Band,4 and Urso's own concerts.5 This was not the only occasion that Urso would have to observe Jullien's spectacular productions.

Urso's connections with Gilmore run even closer than with Jullien. Gilmore began his career as a bandleader of several Boston bands. In 1859 he formed his own band, which, like many others, served as a regimental band in the early years of the Civil War until an Act of Congress declared all regimental bands were to be discharged in 1862. When Gilmore returned to Boston, he re-organized his band and gave many popular concerts.6 In the fall of 1863, Gilmore hired Urso to play at his concerts in Boston and later to tour in New England. She also toured for him in 1867.7 While details of these tours are not known, Gilmore was among the numerous Boston musicians signing a testimonial to Urso on 7 March 1867.8 He was one of four conductors for a testimonial concert given for Urso in Boston in January 1969, an event so popular that it demanded extra trains be added to accommodate the attendees.9

Possibly with some idea of the success of Jullien's large concerts, Gilmore first conceived of a National Peace Jubilee on June 1867 to commemorate the restoration of peace in the United States. Because of the length of time that it took to find supporters, the Jubilee did not take place until 15 June 1869, after six months of preparations.10 One of the most striking effects in Gilmore's Jubilee was in Verdi's "Anvil Chorus." One hundred firemen hammered anvils while two batteries of guns were used in sequence to blast the first beat of every measure. The orchestra was enormous with two hundred violins and a chorus of ten thousand. The Jubilee lasted five days and was a complete success.11 Did Camilla Urso view the Jubilee? Barnard's biography says only that Urso spent that summer in Bologne and Paris.

If Urso did not attend any of Louis Jullien's concerts in Boston, there is no question that she was fully aware of him when she toured as a performer with Sontag. Jullien and Sontag were scheduled to appear in New Orleans, Louisiana, within days of each other in February 1854, and they were to be followed by the popular violinist Ole Bull who was in concert with the rising operatic star, the young Adelina Patti. The Daily Picayune of New Orleans was full of articles and advertisements for these coming events. As the time grew closer to the scheduled events, the dates kept being juggled. Both Jullien and Sontag were supposed to appear in Odd Fellows Hall.

The competition between touring companies was at times expressed quite openly. Sontag appeared first. Ole Bull and Patti left after one successful concert and one that failed to draw an audience.12 Jullien entered as Sontag departed. When a letter in the Daily Picayune mentioned that prior to her arrival in the city Sontag had held a concert on board ship to benefit the New Orleans Orphan Asylum, Jullien announced that he, too, had given a concert to benefit the Orphan Asylum while on board the Eclipse. Sontag donated $100.00; Jullien's donation was for $200.00.13 After performances in Mobile, Sontag and her troup returned to New Orleans about two weeks later with the addition of Luigi Ardit and his Italian Opera Company to direct them in a series of operas. Jullien was still firmly ensconced in the city. The two battled nightly for audiences. He advertised a bal masque. Sontag offered a Grand Combination Concert for the same night, although she did bow to the competition and postpone this particular concert until after Jullien left the city.14 The real winner in this competition was the city of New Orleans. The Daily Picayune continued to be ecstatic in its praise of both performers. No doubt the young Camilla Urso, who was a part of the Grand Combination Concert, absorbed many details about Jullien.

Henriette Sontag left New Orleans to go to Mexico. Camilla Urso was to have rejoined her upon Sontag's return, but Sontag died of cholera in Mexico. Two years later, Urso, who again was in New York, was asked to join a lady reader, Mrs. Macready, on tour. In 1856, Mrs. Macready left Urso stranded without funds in Nashville, Tennessee.15 Here, Camilla met and married her first husband, George M. Taylor,16 and gave birth to a daughter and son.17 It is possible that the Civil War drove her out of Nashville when that city was evacuated in 1862. By 1863, Urso was back in Boston performing and being hailed as a mature violinist, no longer the child prodigy.

Altough Urso toured under Gilmore's direction in 1863 and 1867, she left Boston in the summer of his National Peace Jubilee for her customary travel abroad. When she came back from Europe, rather than making her usual return to the East Coast, she pushed across the United States to San Francisco. Armed with a letter of introduction from the composer Auber,18 Urso soon enchanted the citizens of San Francisco with her performances. She gave two performances at Platt Hall and then a Sunday Sacred Concert that was described by the Daily Examiner as filling the California Theatre "to its utmost capacity with as brilliant an audience as ever greeted an artist, ... Mlle. Camilla Urso fairly enraptured them with her brilliant execution of master pieces on the violin, and was encored after each."19

Because of the success of her concerts, Urso decided to contribute to a charitable cause for the people of San Francisco. Urso wrote a letter to the President and Board of Directors of the Mercantile Library Association of San Francisco:

    Gentlemen: The present embarrassment of your Society having come to my knowledge, and wishing in some suitable manner to show my gratitute to the people of this city for the kindness and appreciation I have met with during my visit, I have thought of no better method to do so than in offering you the benefit of a grand musical entertainment such as I originally intended giving here, with the sincere hope that it may prove a help towards relieving the Mercantile Library of its present difficulties. Should my offer be accepted, I will, gentlemen, consecrate all my time during the two months necessary for its preparation, to make it a grand success.20

The idea of a grand festival in San Francisco caught hold. It was scheduled to coincide with the celebration of George Washington's birthday on 22 February.

Advertisements in the San Francisco Examiner described a Grand Orchestra of 150 members with an oratorio chorus of 1200 voices plus a military band. The festival was to last three days, and the third day was to feature a children's concert with 2,000 children from the public schools. The California Pacific Railroad offered special excursion rates from all points to San Francisco for the festival, and public schools were closed for the week.21

A Mr. R. Herold was the General Conductor, but there was no question that it was Urso's festival. Her name headed the advertisements, and her directions were mentioned in the newspaper accounts of the rehearsals.22 Barnard's biography of Urso describes the preparation for the festival from the remodeling of the Mechanics' Pavillion to the building of a great organ and "a drum more portentious [sic] than the Gilmore affair."23 He further states that Urso underwrote the financing of the event, a fact that points to her financial success as a concert artist. "Every bill was in her own name, be it for organ, contractors, printing music books or agents' fares by rail or boat."24 The Daily Examiner of 19 February 1870, noted that $20,000.00 worth of tickets had been sold by that date and that Samuel Mayer, organist and tenor, had traveled inland to deliver instructions to musical societies that were practicing for the event. Even Ole Bull came to town to do a series of concerts at Platt's Music Hall. No doubt he expected that the crowds attending the festival in the afternoons would come to hear him in the evenings.

In imitation of Gilmore's Boston Jubilee, a grand presentation of the "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore and of the "Star Spangled Banner" was planned. The Examiner describes these pieces as having a chorus of 1200 voices accompanied by "Organ, Grand Orchestra, Full Military Band, Drum Corps of the City Militia, 50 Anvils, 100 Firemen, City Fire Bells, and Cannon, to be fired from the Stand of the Leader by the use of electricity."25 The event garnered so much enthusiasm that a grand ball and benefit were given for Urso on Friday evening of festival week, and the festival was extended for two more days.

Urso herself did not perform until the second day. While the Examiner noted that 12,000 people were in the audience and they rose and cheered her when she was introduced, no description was given of her performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Her ball was attended by several thousand people who were described as "the beauty, culture and refinement of the city," and the festival itself was termed "so grand a success."26 Twenty-seven thousand dollars were given to the Mercantile Library after all the bills were paid.

Perhaps the best account of Camilla Urso's playing appears in a review of a performance for the Handel and Haydn Society in the Daily Examiner of 22 February 1889. Apparently the reviewer remembered the festival of 1870 as he described the concert as "bringing Madame Camille Urso again before a public which she bewitched with her violin eighteen or twenty years ago."27 The review continues with a fascinating description of one of the great violinists of the last century:

    Mme. Camilla Urso's appearance was the signal for a very cordial reception, and her playing was listened to with that intensely quiet attention that is most gratifying to a performer, and most significant of his or her rank. She is a rarely sympathetic violinist, and her technique, though not always so certain as it used to be, is wonderfully fine. She plays always with closed eyes, which looks rather odd till one gets used to it. The audience was inconsiderate enough to demand an encore after she had played the long Mendelssohn concerto, and she responded with a caprice of Wieniawski's, which she played exquisitely.28

In her later years, Camilla Urso pleaded for equality for women musicians as orchestra members.29 With her own successful monster concert, she certainly proved herself equal to two of the world's great concert organizers, Louis Jullien and Patrick S. Gilmore.

Notes
1. "Musical Intelligence," Dwight's Journals of Music, 7 January 1854, 111.

2. Adam Carse, The Life of Jullien (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd, 1951) 21.

3. Ibid., 53-54.

4. H.W. Schwartz, Bands of America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957) 16. Gilmore became conductor of the Boston Brass Band in 1852.

5. Musical Intelligence, Dwight's Journal of Music, 13 August 1853, 151 and 26 November 1853, 62.

6. Marwood Darlington, Irish Orpheus (Philadelphia: Olivier, Maney, Klein Co., 1950) 19-32.

7. Charles Barnard, Camilla: A Tale of a Violin (Boston: Loring, 1874) 101, 110.

8. Dwight's Journal of Music, 30 March 1867, 7.

9. "Camilla Urso," Dwight's Journal of Music, 30 January 1869, 391.

10. Darlington, Irish Orpheus, 39-40. The famous Norwegian violinist, Ole Bull, initially accepted the position of first violinist for the Jubilee, but apparently he found the task not to his liking. He retired after one day. "Boston musicians," Dwight's Journal of Music, 3 July 1869, 59.

11. Ibid, 55-57.

12. "Musical and Theatrical," The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 19 February 1854, 1.

13. The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 19 February 854, 4 and 21 February 1854, 1.

14. The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), Evening Edition 9 March 1854, 1.

15. While Barnard's biography gives the date of this event as 1855, this is contradicted by a reference in Pen and Sword, the Life and Journals of Randal W. McGavock, edited by Herschel Gower and Jack Allen (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1959), 365. The Daily Gazette of Nashville also shows performances by Macready and Urso in the issue of 3 May 1856. Another version of this event is given in Eminent Women of the Age, edited by James Parton, Reprint edition by Arno Press Inc., 1974, p. 559.

16. Charles Robert Crain, "Music Performance and Pedagogy in Nashville, Tennessee, 1818-1900" (Ph.D. diss., George Peabody College for Teachers, 1975), 112.

17. These events are verified by church and census records of Nashville, Tennessee.

18. "Amusements," Daily Examiner (San Francisco), 23 November 1869, 3.

19. "Sacred Concert," Daily Examiner (San Francisco), 29 November 1869, 3.

20. Charles Barnard, Camilla: A Tale of a Violin (Boston: Loring, 1874), 113-114.

21. "Advertisements," Daily Examiner (San Francisco), 15 February 1870, 2.

"Brief Local Mention," Daily Examiner 26 Feburary, 1870, 3.

22. Details of Urso's Grant Musical Festival can be found in issues of the Daily Examiner for February 1870.

23. Barnard, Camilla: A Tale of a Violin, 115.

24. Ibid., 115-116.

25. Advertisements, Daily Examiner (San Francisco), 15 February 1870, 2.

26. "Local Intelligence," Daily Examiner (San Francisco), 26 Feburary 1870, 3.

27. "A Brand New Oratorio," Daily Examiner (San Francisco) 22 February 1889, 8.

28. Ibid.

29. Susan Kagan, "Camilla Urso," The Strad 102 (February 1991): 150+.




Betsy Miller has been writing a series of articles about nineteenth century performers whose lives intersected with her Pelham and Hopper forebears. Harry George Hopper, a London-trained pianist, emigrated to Boston about 1885. He toured with Camilla Urso in 1888.






Return to the Society for American Music Bulletin Index




Return to the American Music Network Home Page




Updated 6/23/00

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Everything you want to know about Ellis Island!

Everything you want to know about Ellis Island in this link to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island

Musicians Wanted Play Historic American Music

Wanted keyboard players, vocalists, strings, etc...

To record American Historic Sheet music in the public domain from 1850 to 1920 on 20 different subjects with 60 different songs.
I have good recording equipment, two violins, a cello, two flutes, and a guitar
in my music studio, plus a Yamaha keyboard and a Kawai piano.
Singers from glee clubs welcomed.
Arrangers are also welcomed.

Call: 602-256-2830 or jordanp.richman@gmail.com

Ellis Island vs Castle Garden 1892-1924

Castle Garden Records

Castle Garden Records When searching Ellis Island Records, there are many factors to consider in order to successfully locate your immigrant ancestor. The peak period of American immigration occurred between 1892-1924, with the majority of these arrivals coming through the Port of New York at Ellis Island. As the number of arrivals increased, so too did the controls imposed upon steamship companies bringing passengers to American ports.
In general, the later your ancestors arrived in America, the more detail you should be able to obtain. This will hold true for both first-time arrivals, as well as for American citizens returning home from abroad. Since many passengers made multiple trips, you should be sure to evalutate each arrival for new or different information.
Listed below are the various items you may find recorded on an original ship manifest. Expect variations in handwriting from one manifest to the next (typewritten records become common about 1917/1918).
Beginning in 1892:
• Port of Departure, Date of Departure, Port of Arrival, Date of Arrival, Name of Ship

Monday, June 20, 2011

From Allpurposeguru

Louis Jullien's Baptism names (1812) after every member of his father's orchestra! 

Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roch Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noé Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-Brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué Vincent Luc Michel Jules-de-la-plane Jules-Bazin Julio César Jullien was born in 1812 to the conductor of the local orchestra in Sisteron, France. All the members of the orchestra wanted to be his godfather, so his father named him for all of them.
 
Let’s start that over for easier reading. Jullien, a famous conductor of the nineteenth century, was born in 1812. His father, a local conductor, named him for every member of his orchestra. No wonder he became a musician. No wonder his fame rests as much on his eccentricities as on his musical accomplishments.
Jullien
Jullien

Some background

According to William Weber (in Music and the Middle Class, 1975), important social distinctions became important to music in the 1820s and 1830s. The nobility and the upper middle class each became divided between partisans of classical music and what he called high-status popular music. Low status concerts featured the same music as high-status concerts, but drew less affluent audiences. Philippe Musard, conductor of a popular Parisian dance orchestra, introduced the prototype of the low status concert in an attempt to make money with his orchestra during the off-season for balls.

The promenade concerts, as Musard called them, were far less formal affairs than the high-status symphony orchestra concerts of classical music. People could move around as they listened, eat, drink, socialize, even dance. He kept ticket prices low enough that members of the lower middle class, artisan class, and working class could afford to attend. His concerts always included dance music, popular novelties, and classical music.

Jullien was only one of several conductors who tried to compete with Musard in Paris, starting his series in 1836. It proved popular, but not enough to succeed financially. Meanwhile, several promoters had introduced promenade concerts in London, but no one had yet achieved a dominant position. Jullien left Paris for London in 1838, intending to take that position for himself.
The Times, March 9, 1842
The Times, March 9, 1842

Jullien the humbug

Like Musard, Jullien’s reputation rested both on showmanship and musicianship. His dress shirt for concerts had diamond studs. He conducted from a gold-studded crimson podium, and after each piece, sank exhausted into a white and gold chair. Whenever he conducted Beethoven he ostentatiously donned special gloves and used a jewel-encrusted baton, which a page always brought to him on a silver salver.

He regularly advertised some concerts as “monster concerts.” The advertisement for one in 1845 promised selections from Bellini’s I puritani, including “Suona la Tromba” performed by 20 trumpets, 20 cornets-a-piston, 20 trombones, 20 ophicleides, and 20 serpents. (Italian opera, by the way, was not regarded as classical music at that time. It was one of the components of “high-status popular music”).

A quadrille, something of an aristocratic square dance with four or five separate movements occupied pride of place in Jullien’s programming. He composed one for every season. It gave him a chance to showcase the talents of the many soloists in his orchestra, which included renowned players of every instrument, especially those like the cornet, trombone, and ophicleide that would never have been welcome as solo instruments by symphony orchestras.

Jullien took his orchestra on an annual tour, usually around the British Isles. In 1853, he took 40 players to New York and filled out the rest of his orchestra with local musicians. Jullien introduced his Fireman’s Quadrille for the American tour. Before the premiere performance at the Crystal Palace, he warned the audience of 42,000 that something unusual “might happen.”

Special effects started early in the piece, as Jullien had designed instruments to simulate the sounds of fire engines, water turning to steam in the heat, and the eventual collapse of the house. A brass band quietly assembled behind the amphitheater during all of the noise. The orchestra suddenly stopped playing and the unseen band began to blare. It marched on stage and joined the orchestra. Some minutes later a second band of mixed brass and woodwinds likewise made its way to the stage.
Above the sound of a 100-piece orchestra and the two bands, an alarm bell sounded and, to all appearances, a fire started in the cupola. On cue, three companies of firemen entered with their hoses to douse the flames. During all of this commotion, the orchestra never missed a beat. Despite the forewarning, ushers had to deal with some minor panic and carry ladies that fainted out for fresh air. When it was over, of course, the audience loved it.
Jullien's Orchestra at a Promenade Concert in Covent Garden Theatre, 1846
Jullien's Orchestra at a Promenade Concert in Covent Garden Theatre, 1846

Jullien the musician

If Jullien could be explained entirely in terms of stunts and gimmicks, he would not be worthy of our attention. As a critic in Putnam's Monthly (November 1853, p. 573) noted, "He is a humbug, not in essence, but in form. He is like a good book gaudily bound. . . But the music is true and great."
His first season in London, Jullien presented four complete Beethoven symphonies. He sometimes devoted entire concerts to music of a single classical composer.  He probably went through his entire shtick with the special baton, crimson podium, and chair, but while he conducted the music, he was all business.


Most conductors of the time took it upon themselves to update and “improve” the orchestration of the masters by adding parts for instruments that had not been customary in earlier generations. Jullien himself once added four ophecleides, a saxophone, and side drum to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But usually he left great classical pieces alone, and thus earned critical praise.
After one Mozart night, when Jullien presented two symphonies and the overture to The Magic Flute, the Times noted:
It was consoling to find that music, in order to be relished by a modern audience, is not obliged, as a matter of necessity, to be boisterous and overpowering, full of violent contrasts, fantastic, exaggerated, and so forth. In the two symphonies there are no loud instruments--no trombones or ophicleides. In the second, the immortal "Jupiter" (so called, not by the unassuming Mozart, but by his admirers)--there are not even clarionets. M. Jullien, with real artistic feeling, refrained from interference with the original scores, simply adding a third bassoon in the last-named symphony.
In New York, Jullien programmed symphonies by two American composers, George Bristow and William Fry. How ironic that a visiting conductor would play the music of local composers that the local orchestra disdained to touch. Jullien performed both symphonies again after he returned to London. Although American orchestras continued not to play American symphonic music, they did notice that Jullien’s orchestra played with a polish and precision they could not match. Jullien’s legacy in America includes an elevation of performance standards.

Lessons modern American orchestras can learn from Jullien

As quoted in the Illustrated London News in 1850, Jullien declared that he aimed “to ensure amusement as well as attempting instruction, by blending in the programmes the most sublime works with those of a lighter school.” It may come as a surprise to many readers of this article, but symphony orchestras have been doing that for at least a century and a half. William Weber discerned that the division between “classical” and “high-status popular” music disappeared by mid-century, at about the same time that any real distinction between the aristocracy and the upper middle class disappeared.
While the culture wars among the upper crust never took notice of the flash and dazzle of the promenade concerts, “high-status popular” music favored flash and dazzle of another sort and offended the sensibilities of classical music audiences by favoring such low-brow musicians as Rossini, Meyerbeer, Johann Strauss (Sr.), and Liszt. After mid-century, that music became so acceptable on symphony concerts that is it easy for us to forget that it was not originally considered classical music at all. Now it’s time to look back to Jullien and his contemporaries to learn from what made them successful
We do not need the gimmicks. We do not need musically empty quadrilles that depend on bizarre staging for their effect. Modern music videos provide enough of that. What we do need is Jullien’s ability to connect to an audience, to blend classical music and contemporary lighter fare, and give those who already like the one a chance to like the other.
Music by modern composers from Philip Glass and his generation onward can at least occupy the parts of every program that Jullien devoted to lighter music. So can film music, or even video game music The audience that comes to hear it will also hear the great classics on the same program. If there is no overt attempt to “elevate” their taste, they will have the opportunity to learn on their own that the new music indeed has some connection to the old music. Who knows? Maybe some of new music will catch on and join the classical repertoire.

What orchestral music do you most like?

  • Classics (Beethoven, for example)
  • Light classics (Strauss waltzes, for example)
  • Film sound tracks (Harry Potter movies, for example)
  • Video game sound tracks
  • Orchestra music? Hrmpf
See results without voting

London 1849, Michael Alpert

Louis Jullien, Daily Alta California, October 5, 1853