Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman. Jaargang 22

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The development of public concerts during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Maria A. van der Heijde-Zomerdijk

Concert (ii). A term derived from a conjunction of concertare (Lat.: contend, dispute) and consortium (Lat.: society, participation) and brought into English usage in the 17^th century to signify a musical performance, as a rule by more than one executant.^1.

Nowadays a concert is understood to be a public event to which one can gain admission by payment. This democratic concept of public concerts developed during the eighteenth century. Private concerts have, in a sense, always existed. The church, courts and ruling nobility supported such events as patrons of music. Much of this music was sacred music, to be performed during services, public or private, in church or chapel. Concerts as secular cultural events came into significant existence during the Renaissance period. In cities and states all over Europe secular music events became largely the responsibility of an Academy or Collegium Musicum. Although these institutions were technically private entities, one could, without too much difficulty, gain admittance to performances. Often performances were held in the open air, or on the city square, to be heard by anyone in the vicinity.

The democratization and secularization of musical performances took place all over Europe and North America at approximately the same time. Public concerts without paid admission were being organized in many places in Europe, but in England government control of music was rather weak compared to France and Germany and musicians enjoyed exceptional freedom to develop public musical events. During the Commonwealth period in England there was no court to support music, as the monarchy had been abolished. Theaters, where music traditionally was plentiful, were closed by the Puritans for almost twenty years. Musicians, trying to make a living, were forced to play in taverns and public houses. The taverns, most likely for economic reasons as well, eagerly supported musicians and music meetings and clubs. Roger North (1651-1734), a country gentleman and retired lawyer, who in his later life liked to write about (especially musical) subjects that had interested him in life, tells in his Memoires of Musick about such public music meetings:

[...] The first of those was in a lane behind Paul's, where there was a chamber organ that one Phillips played upon, and some shopkeepers and foremen came weekly to sing in consort, and to hear, and injoy ale and tobacco; and after some time the audience grew strong, and one Ben. Wallington got the reputation of a notable base voice, who also set up for a composer, and hath some songs in print, but of a very low sence; and their musick was cheifly out of Playford's Catch Book. But this shewed an inclination of the citisens to follow musick. And the same was confirmed by many litle enterteinements the masters voluntarily made for their scollars, for being knowne they were always crowded.^2.

1. Percy M. Young, ‘Concert (ii)’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Ed. by Stanley Sadie. London 1980, v. II, p. 616-25, cit. p. 116.

2. Roger North, Roger North on Music. Transcribed and edited by John Wilson. London 1959, pp. 351-352.

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This particular performance took place in 1664, since after Restoration, the court favored the French style of playing and many good non-French musicians still played in the taverns, which were acknowledged centers of English culture.

Most scholars agree that the first public concert for which admission was charged, was organized in 1672 in Whitefriars, London by John Banister. A first, apparently in all of Europe^3. and an important step on the way to musical life of the modern sort Banister, considered to be one of the finest violinists of his day, had experienced some career problems. He had been appointed leader of the King's band of twenty-four violins in 1664. This was a prestigious position, since this band was formed by Charles II after Louis XIV's famous Petits Violons du Roi. Unfortunately Banister fell out of favor in 1667 and was replaced as principal by a second-rate French violinist (although he kept his place among the 24 violins). Rumors go, that his fellow band members had complained about their payment Banister, who possessed according to North ‘a good theatricall vein’^4., put an advertisement in the London Gazette of December 30, 1672, giving notice of a musical performance by ‘excellent masters’. This concert was to be held at Banister's house, which he called ‘the music school’. He set up a stage for the musicians and protected them with curtains. The public, existing of many shopkeepers, was seated in the way Banister knew from the taverns: ‘ale-house’ fashion, around small tables. For a shilling one could have as much ale and tobacco as one wished. From later announcements it can be learned that the best places cost one shilling, the rest half that much. Performances were held every afternoon at ‘precisely 4 of the clock’. The improvised music room was apparently a successful venture, as the next season Banister moved his concerts to a larger place. These concerts were held on a subscription basis. One paid for a number of concerts in advance. In this way, Banister had found a way to support himself and his starving fellow-musicians at a time when the court, plagued with financial problems, did not pay them regular wages. There were definite programs, sometimes announced beforehand and new music on the first day of every month. The public determined the program. Roger North remembers:

[...] There was very good musick, for Banister found means to procure the best hands in towne, and some voices to come and performe there, and there wanted no variety of humour, for Banister himself did wonders upon a flageolett to a thro-base, and the severall masters had their solos.^5.

Banister's innovation was a success. He must have been able to pay his bills this way, as his concerts went on for six years, till the year before his death in 1679.

Less public and more like a music club, but also more acclaimed, were the weekly concerts started in 1679 by Thomas Britton in Clerkenwell. Britton had made his fortune as a small-coal merchant. He had, as an affluent member of the rising middle class, a remarkable love for music and literature. His music meetings gained such reputation that they were attended by civil servants, members of the aristocracy and other important persons. Among the notable musical guests were Handel and Pepusch. At first Britton refused to ask for payment of any kind from his guests, but eventually he was persuaded to take one shilling per person for admission. Apparently, he could not make ends meet, even though he received financial support for his concerts from the aristocrat Sir Roger L'Estrange and other gentlemen. The long, low room over the coal storage was used for the performances and also held a large collection of fine musical instruments and one of the most noteworthy private music libraries of its time. After

3. Hugh A. Scott, ‘London's Earliest Public concerts’, Musical Quarterly, 22 (1936), p. 446-457, cit. p. 447.

4. Roger North on Music, p. 352.

5. Roger North on Music, p. 352.

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Britton died in 1714, the concerts stopped and the music library was sold by auction and thus dispersed.

By the turn of the century special music houses were being dedicated, like the York Buildings which was the focal point for new music. These music houses were managed by enterprising individuals without financial support from patrons. The early eighteenth century public demanded novelty, both vocal and instrumental. Many young performers started their careers at these concerts. A large number of talented foreign musicians, such as Handel, Farinelli, Pepusch, and Dieupart immigrated from Germany, Italy and France and could be heard here.

It took France about fifty years after Banister put his advertisement in the paper to establish paid public concerts. In 1725, André Danican Philidor started the ‘Concert Spirituel’, a public concert organization, in Paris. Performances took place on religious holidays, when the Académie Royale de Musique was closed. The strict regulation of musical performances in all of France - a legacy of Lully - forced Philidor to pay 10,000 livres annually to the Académie. He also had to agree to prevent the performance of operatic fragments and of pieces with French texts. Danican had excellent contacts and procured the use of the Salle de Suisses of the Tuileries Palace for his concerts. The performers were first rate; the musicians came from Académie, the Opera and the court. After a three-year contract had been signed, the first concert took place on March 18, 1725, Palm Sunday. On the program were three pieces by Delalande and Corelli's ‘Christmas’ Concerto. The admission was four livres per person and from the beginning the ‘Concert Spirituel’ was well attended. The original intention was to offer Paris concerts of sacred music with some additional instrumental music, but as early as 1727 programs including secular vocal music, even with French text, were advertised. Philidor resigned in 1728 and in 1734 the Académie took control of the ‘Concert Spirituel’. Instrumental music became increasingly the mainstay of the program, although each concert included at least one grand motet.

The Concert Spirituel existed for 66 years. It provided an important forum for new music, vocal and instrumental, religious and secular, and in no small way it thereby contributed to the formation of new musical attitudes on the part of French composers, performers and consumers of music in the eighteenth century.^6.

In Germany a gradual shift took place from private to paid public concerts. Many cities and states had established a Collegium Musicum and the step from membership dues to subscription concerts was a small one. There is evidence, although sporadic, that already in the early eighteenth century concerts were organized in Hamburg for a ticketpurchasing audience. And in Frankfurt in 1723 tickets were offered to a concert with prices graded according to the buyer's means.^7. Telemann, the most prolific composer ever, was instrumental in the development of public concerts first in Frankfurt and later in Hamburg. In Frankfurt he established a Collegium Musicum in 1713. The Collegium met every Thursday between late September and Easter. Visitors were welcome, although no payment was asked. In 1721, Telemann moved to Hamburg. His position as the Kantor of the Johanneum and Director of Music of the five principal churches in the city gave him the opportunity to dominate musical life in Hamburg. He would do so for four decades until his death in 1767. He revived the Collegium and insisted on professional playing, conceivably making the performances worth paying for! Although on the program of his concerts Telemann conducted very little music by composers

6. James R. Anthony, French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau. New York-London 1981, pp. 24-25.

7. Percy M. Young, The Concert Tradition, From the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. London 1965, p. 65.

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other than Telemann, these concerts became such an important part of social life in Hamburg that in 1761 they were given their own home in the Konzertsaal auf dem Kamp, the first hall exclusively built for concerts in all of Germany.^8. Against the ancient tradition forbidding the Kantor to perform sacred music outside the church, Telemann performed repetitions of cantatas and Passions in these secular concerts, thus bridging the gap between sacred music as ritual and sacred music as entertainment. The city council was not altogether happy with this novelty and protested that a decree should be issued forbidding the performance of sacred music for money in a public inn where all kinds of disorder could take place!

In North America the first mention of public concerts is from Charleston, South Carolina,^9. in the 1730s. The first concert in New York with time and place indicated was announced in The New York Gazette in 1736. These early concerts were mostly benefit concerts. The words ‘for the benefit’ indicated at the time that these concerts were performances by professionals - the monetary rewards were meant to be for the benefit of the performer - to distinguish them from those concerts given by amateurs, with or without the assistance of professionals, for their own amusement. Organized public concerts gained popularity and by the 1770s most American cities had established one or more subscription series in addition to independently performed benefits by traveling virtuosos. However, in many places opera was the musical entertainment of choice, making public concerts less well-attended.

The programs of the ‘Concert Spirituel’ in France with its mix of sacred and secular pieces and Telemann's repetitions of sacred pieces outside the church indicate a trend also evident in fine arts, known as ‘l'art pour l'art’. Artefacts or, in this case, compositions, were appreciated purely for their aesthetic values, separate from their original context. Compositions originally intended for worship, funerals, dancing, and coronations were now resuscitated for use in the concert hall. From the early years of public concerts new music, sacred or secular, was the mainstay of the performances. ‘New and never been seen or heard before’ was a major attraction, while strange instruments or combinations of instruments, virtuosos and child prodigies always made for good potential investments. Lured by the unlimited possibilities in London, foreign virtuoso instrumentalists popularized the sonata in the public concert in England:

In particular, two of the musicians involved in the York Buildings concerts in the 1690s, the German harpsichordist Gottfried Keller and the Moravian Bass viol player Gottfried Finger, wrote and published many sonatas for exotic combinations of recorders, oboes, trumpets, and strings. Their mixture of tunefulness and virtuosity was just what was required by a public that was becoming accustomed to listening to music rather than playing it.^10.

The ‘Concert Spirituel’ featured French as well as foreign virtuosos and composers; music by Leclair, Delalande, Telemann and Stamitz appeared on the programs. However, Corelli's music was universally popular. Nicola Matteis, a violin virtuoso from Italy, introduced Corelli's works to the English in 1695; in 1744 in Manchester a concert program lists more than half of the pieces by Corelli, and in 1783 in London Corelli was still on the programs of the subscription concerts organized by the Wesley brothers. On the first ‘Concert Spirituel’ in Paris in 1725 Corelli's Christmas Concerto was featured and in 1793 in Charleston in the newly formed United States of America a concerto grosso by Corelli could be heard.

8. George J. Buelow, ‘Hamburg and Luebeck’, in: Music and Society: The Late Baroque Era, from the 1680s to 1740. Ed. by George Buelow. Englewood Cliffs NJ 1994, p. 207.

9. O.G. Sonneck, Early Concert-Life in America (1731-1800). Leipzig 1907, p. 10.

10. Peter Holman, ‘London: Commonwealth and Restoration’, in: Music and Society: The Early Baroque Era, from the late 16^th century to the 1660s. Ed. by Curtis Price. Englewood Cliffs NJ 1993, p. 322.

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By the end of the eighteenth century the shift in the field of music from patron to collective sponsorship, usually in the form of ticket sales, was complete. Increased dependence on ticket sales caused a demand for larger concert halls, which in turn fostered the musical developments of the nineteenth century.