 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-05-07 14:01
Does anybody happen to know approximately how many orchestras there were in New York City in the early 20th century? The period I most need to know about is 1914-1916. I don't need particulars; I just need to know whether there were more than one or two professional or advanced amateur orchestras that needed at least two clarinet players and could have handled big, symphonic pieces such as the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.
I'm asking because I've set an extended flashback for a short story in New York City during the period when WWI was starting but the USA hadn't yet declared war. The New York Philharmonic wouldn't work for this story and neither would any opera orchestra. I need to make up a fictional orchestra. Plausible? Not?
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2010-05-07 14:06)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2010-05-07 15:24
David Spiegelthal wrote:
> I believe GBK was playing in a New York City orchestra at about
> that time...
>
> ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
>
And also working part-time, marking corned beef sandwiches at the Carnegie Deli ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
...GBK
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Author: clarinet60
Date: 2010-05-07 16:12
The Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1880 and they employed professional musicians.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-05-07 17:09
Well, Wikipedia says this:
"In 1921 the Philharmonic merged with New York's National Symphony Orchestra (no relation to the present Washington, D.C. ensemble)."
So we can infer that in 1916 there were at least two major (non-opera) orchestras in NYC, that is, the NY Philharmonic and the New York National Symphony.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-05-07 17:19
Thanks, clarinet60 -- but as I mentioned above, I need to write about a fictional orchestra, not a real one, and I can't use an opera orchestra. A plot point involves performances of symphonic works that wouldn't be in the Met's repertory. To have any hope of selling the story, I need to keep the word count down. Shoe-horning this plot into the real (and well-known) history of the NY Phil., for instance, would take too much space.
What I need to know is whether there were enough orchestras in New York at the time (1914-1916) to make adding another (fictional) one plausible then, the way it would be plausible today with so many different groups in town. I'd rather not have these two clarinetists travel in and out with an orchestra from elsewhere playing gigs in New York, because the plot requires one of the men to make repeated visits to a fictional clarinet maker's shop on Pearl Street. Better he should just go in there regularly for reed cane and minor adjustments on the clarinet this shop made for him: If he's local, then I don't have to waste the word count on boring explanations of why he's in town again and again.
But maybe I could have these guys stop off for GBK's corned beast sandwiches at that deli.... ![[tongue]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie6.gif)
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-05-07 17:35
Look how many actual world-class orchestras exist in London, UK? I'm sure there's room for another (fictional) one in NYC..............
I read somewhere that the secret to the popularity of GBK's corned beast sandwiches was that he mixed a bunch of Vandoren reed dust into the sauce. That's why he always bought #5s but by the time he played on them they were whittled down to about #3-1/2 strength......
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Author: weberfan
Date: 2010-05-07 19:31
Lelia, there were AT LEAST two in the period you mention. My memory is not clear about the total number but you are on safe ground for your purposes. Besides the two major ones, in Manhattan, there were others, I'm sure, in Brooklyn, which became part of Greater New York in the 1890's.
If you have time, Howard Shanet's history of the NYPhil explains all that in detail.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-05-08 15:43
Weberfan, thanks for the author's name. The Library of Congress has that book (Howard Shanet, "Early Histories of the New York Philharmonic," New York: Da Capo, 1979) in the Performing Arts Reading Room. I have to go there anyway to do some other research in the next week or so.
You've saved me a lot of time, because when I searched subjects in the Library of Congress catalog, I got more than 2,000 hits on "New York Philharmonic" and even more cumbersome results for less specific searches for New York City orchestras. I was afraid my only alternative might be to search the New York Times page by page on microfilm, to find orchestras' ads. I'd planned to start with the first week of December, 1914, since most orchestras give holiday concerts.
Someone asked me in private e-mail why I can't just use the real first clarinet player from the N. Y. Phil. as the character. Because it's a horror story and the last sentence of the first paragraph cites the fictional character's obituary. I'm saying he died of Spanish Influenza in 1918, while an inmate of New York's Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. That's the plot hook -- not something I can attach to a real person.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2010-05-08 16:06)
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-05-09 02:20
Lelia, if clarinetists are "geniuses" as suggested in another thread, can they be criminally insane as in your story? ![[huh]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie11.gif)
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Author: moolatte
Date: 2010-05-09 02:40
I'd buy your story. Unfortunately, that's all I can say. I'm not too knowledgeable about anything orchestra. I just barely found out that you could also have woodwinds and brass in an orchestra not even a year ago.
Hope everything works well for you.
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2010-05-09 15:58
Have you checked out these sites?
http://www.oratoriosocietyofny.org/history.html (with Walter Damrosh)
http://www.newyorkjourney.com/carnegie_hall.htm
History
Carnegie Hall was built in 1890 by industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, for whom the hall is named. Interestingly, the stone Italianate building was designed by a cellist, William Burnet Tuthill, not an architect. His knowledge of music undoubtedly led to the venue's unrivaled (at the time) acoustics. The building, one of the last large New York City buildings to be built with masonry (not steel) supports is decorated in a Florentine renaissance style. Particularly noteworthy is the foyer, with its arched openings and Corinthian pilasters.
Carnegie Hall opened on May 5, 1891, with a concert by maestro, Walter Damrosh and composer, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Ownership of the building stayed in the Carnegie family until 1925, when Mr. Carnegie's widow sold the concert hall to real estate developer, Robert e. Simon. Simon kept the building until the Philharmonic announced in the mid-1950s, their intended move to Lincoln Center. Unable to find a buyer, there was talk of destroying the landmark building for yet another skyscraper. Before that could happen, a grass-roots effort, led by violinist Isaac Stern, saved the building and it was purchased by the city of New York in 1960.
Good luck,
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-05-10 12:02
A big thank you to everyone who has given these helpful suggestions. Writing historical fiction is always perilous, because inevitably, if I can get the story published, some of the readers will have access to Wayback Machines. They'll catch every anachronism.
(Meanwhile, I've explained to Jane Feline that my Time Turner is unfortunately only a nonfunctional Harry Potter souvenir from Borders Books, but she seems determined to get it to work. Or maybe she's batting it around the floor because she's afraid I'll get it to work but won't know how to use it properly, so she'd better save me from myself and break the gadget first.)
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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