Boston Symphony Orchestra

Boston, Massachusetts, is the leading city in the group of six northeastern United States known collectively as New England. It is one of the oldest cities in North America and a leading seaport. The original European settlers of the area the Pilgrims (Nonconformists, who arrived in 1620) and the Puritans brought a tradition of unaccompanied religious singing. Instrumental concerts can be dated back only to 1731. Orchestras were sometimes gotten together to play in oratorios and other special occasions. Gottlieb Graupner, formerly an oboist in Haydn's London orchestra, arrived in 1797 and was frequently conducted concerts. In 1809 he founded a "Philo-Harmonic Society," which gave concerts, sometimes of orchestral music. A succession of other amateur societies presented symphonic music through most of the 1800s. A banker, Henry Lee Higginson, founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881. His purpose was to establish a full time orchestra striving for the best quality in performance. He hired Georg Henschel as its first conductor. The core of the orchestra was German-born musicians. They gave their first concert on October 22, 1881. The first season comprised twenty-two pairs of concerts. The BSO's original home was the Music Hall, built in 1852 and now known as the Aquarius Theater. The next several music directors of the orchestra were Wilhelm Gericke (1884), Arthur Nikisch (1889), Emil Paur (1893), and Gericke again (1898). Under Gericke the BSO moved into its acoustically excellent home, Symphony Hall, which opened on October 19, 1900. Carl Muck assumed leadership in 1906. He was away for three years (1908-1912) when Max Fiedler filled in on the podium, then returned, only to lose his position in a scandal caused by his supporting his native Germany when he found...