Freeman, Charles S. (Palm Beach Atlantic University)
Karl Muck, Americanist: American Composers at the Boston Symphony Orchestra 1881-1919

From its founding in 1881, the Boston Symphony Orchestra was filled almost exclusively with German musicians, and led by German conductors. Not surprisingly, the works of German and Austrian musicians was consistently represented most prominently. The orchestra did, however, include works of American creation in its concerts, particularly by those composers collectively called the “Second New England School” including John Knowles Paine, George Chadwick, and Horatio Parker, as well as by members of the orchestra such as Charles Martin Loeffler and Gustav Strube. This study tabulates the prominence of works by US or US-based composers on BSO programs before and immediately after World War I.

Tabulation of performances and observing patterns followed by particular conductors makes several points clear. The orchestra clearly developed a strong working relationship with the American composer before World War I. That relationship extended beyond Boston as demonstrated by the presence of such figures as Henry Hadley, Ernest Schelling, and Edgar Stillman Kelley. Selected composers, such as Chadwick and Edward MacDowell, were advancing toward repertory status. Perhaps most ironically, Karl Muck, the conductor remembered mostly as an arch-Wagnerian, the conductor arrested and imprisoned as an enemy alien during the war, may have been at this time one of the best friends an American composer could have, compiling the most extensive and impressive repertory of performances in this survey.