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Theodore Thomas (musician)
Encyclopedia
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
of German birth. He is considered the first renowned American orchestral conductor and was the founder and first music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
(1890–1905).
Early life
Theodore Christian Friedrich Thomas was born in Esens, Germany on October 11, 1835, the son of Johann August Thomas. His mother, Sophia, was the daughter of a physician from GöttingenGöttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
. He received his musical education principally from his father, who was a violinist of ability, and at the age of six years he played the violin in public concerts. His father was the town Stadtpfeifer (bandleader) who also arranged music for state occasions.
Career
Thomas showed interest in the violin at an early age, and by age ten, he was practically the breadwinner of the family, performing at weddings, balls, and even in taverns. By 1845, Johann Thomas and his family, convinced there was a better life for a respected musician in America, packed their belongings and made the six-week journey to New York City.In 1848, Thomas and his father joined the Navy Band, but in 1849 his father ceased to support him, and he set out on his own. Thomas soon became a regular member of several pit orchestras, including the Park, the Bowery, and the Niblo. He then toured he United States performing violin recitals. During this time Thomas served as his own manager, ticket sales, and press agent. He reached as far south as Mississippi.
Thomas returned to New York in 1850 with the intent of returning to Germany for advanced musical education; instead, he began his studies conducting in New York with Karl Eckert and Louis Antoine Jullien
Louis Antoine Jullien
Louis Antoine Jullien was a French conductor and composer of light music.Jullien was born in Sisteron, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and was baptised Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roche Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noë Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas...
. He became first violin in the orchestra that accompanied Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
in that year, Henrietta Sontag in 1852, and Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
and Giuseppe Mario in 1854. Also in 1854, at the age of nineteen, he was invited to play with the Philharmonic Society
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
's orchestra.
He led the orchestras that accompanied La Grange, Maria Piccolomini, and Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
through the country. Meanwhile, in 1855, with himself as first violin, Joseph Mosenthal
Joseph Mosenthal
Joseph Mosenthal was a German-American musician, born at Kassel. He studied under his father and Spohr and in 1853 went to America, where he played the organ in Calvary Church, New York City, from 1860 to 1887...
, second violin, George Matzka, viola, Carl Bergmann
Carl Bergmann
Carl Bergmann was a German-American cellist and conductor.-Biography:...
, violoncello, and William Mason
William Mason (composer)
William Mason was an American composer and pianist and a member of a musical family.Mason's father was composer Lowell Mason, a leading figure in American church music...
as pianist, he began a series of chamber music soirées which were given at Dodworth's Academy. The Mason-Thomas concerts lasted until his founding of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1862.
In 1864, Thomas began a series of summer concerts with his orchestra, first in New York City, and later in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, Milwaukee, and eventually Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. The orchestra toured regularly and received consistent critical and popular acclaim, despite persistent financial setbacks. One such setback occurred on October 9, 1871, when he and his orchestra arrived in Chicago for a new concert series where they learned large portions of the city were destroyed by fire the night before, including the Crosby Opera House where he was to perform. The orchestra was ultimately dissolved in 1888.
Thomas was also music director of the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
in 1877-78 and from 1879 to 1891; of the short-lived American Opera Company
American Opera Company
The American Opera Company was the name of four different opera companies active in the United States. The first company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886 that lasted only one season...
in New York in 1886; and of the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Brooklyn Philharmonic
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, commonly known as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, is an American orchestra based in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City...
Society 1862 to 1891. He was director of the Cincinnati College of Music from 1878 to 1879, and from 1873 to 1904 the conductor of the biennial May festivals at Cincinnati. To Theodore Thomas is largely due the popularization of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's works in America, and it was he who founded the Wagner union in 1872.
Thomas always received an enthusiastic welcome in Chicago. In 1889, Charles Norman Fay, a Chicago businessman and devoted supporter of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, encountered Thomas in New York and inquired whether he would come to Chicago if he was given a permanent orchestra. Thomas's legendary reply was, "I would go to hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
if they gave me a permanent orchestra."
On December 17, 1890, the first meeting for incorporation of the Orchestral Association, organized by Fay, was held at the Chicago Club
Chicago Club
The Chicago Club, founded in 1869, is a private social club located in downtown Chicago. Its membership has included many of Chicago's most prominent businessmen, politicians, and families.-Press coverage:...
. Less than one year later on October 16 and 17, 1891, the first concerts of the Chicago Orchestra, led by Thomas, were given at the Auditorium Theatre. The concert included Wagner's Faust Overture, Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Piano Concerto No. 1
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between November 1874 and February 1875. It was revised in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888. The first version received heavy criticism from Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's desired pianist....
with Rafael Joseffy
Rafael Joseffy
Rafael Joseffy was a Hungarian pianist and composer.-Life:Raael Joseffy was born in Hunfalu in 1852. His youth was spent in Miskolcz , and there, at the age of 8, he began his study of the piano. He studied in Budapest with Friedrich Brauer, the teacher of Stephen Heller...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1804–08. This symphony is one of the most popular and best-known compositions in all of classical music, and one of the most often played symphonies. It comprises four movements: an opening sonata, an andante, and a fast...
, and Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
's Hussite Overture.
During his tenure, Thomas introduced several new works to his Chicago audiences, including the United States premieres of works of Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
, Dvořák, Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
, Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
, Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
, Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
, Tchaikovsky, and his personal friend Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
who became the orchestra's first guest conductor, appearing with his wife Pauline de Ahna
Pauline de Ahna
Pauline Maria de Ahna was a German operatic soprano. She is best remembered today as the wife of composer Richard Strauss who wrote several of his works for her.-Biography:...
in April 1904 at Thomas's invitation.
During this time, he also conducted in other places. For example, on 19 February 1887 at the Metropolitan Opera House
Metropolitan Opera House (39th St)
The Metropolitan Opera House was an opera house located at 1411 Broadway in New York City. Opened in 1883 and demolished in 1967, it was the first home of the Metropolitan Opera Company.-History:...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, he conducted the U.S. premiere of Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
's "Organ Symphony"
Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns)
The Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, was completed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1886 at what was probably the artistic zenith of his career. It is also popularly known as the "Organ Symphony", even though it is not a true symphony for organ, but simply an orchestral symphony where two sections out...
(Symphony No. 3).
Thomas, who was never completely satisfied with the Auditorium Theatre (finding it far too cavernous and nearly impossible to sell over 3,000 tickets twice weekly), fully realized his dream of a permanent home, when Orchestra Hall
Symphony Center
Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta, Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and...
, designed by the Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham, was completed. Thomas led the dedicatory concert on December 14, 1904. He would only lead two weeks of subscription concerts in the new hall, after contracting influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
during rehearsals for the dedicatory concert. Though he continued with his customary vigor, he conducted his beloved Chicago Orchestra for the last time on Christmas Eve 1904 and died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
on January 4, 1905.
His post was assumed by Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...
, who in 1905 wrote a symphonic poem Eines Menschenlebens Morgen, Mittag, und Abend, dedicated to "Theodore Thomas and the Members of the Chicago Orchestra." The work was first performed on April 7 and 8, 1905.
Music historian Judith Tick writes: "Theodore Thomas was a legend in his own time, and in 1927 the journalist Charles Edward Russell
Charles Edward Russell
Charles Edward Russell was an American journalist, politician, and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
's biography of Theodore Thomas won the only Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
ever awarded for the biography of a musician." Thomas also makes a brief appearance as a character in Chapter VI of Willa Cather's Song of the Lark (1915) in which he recounts some of the struggles of his early years and describes how listening to the singing of sopranos Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
and Henrietta Sontag influenced his violin playing:
He said he had spent the summer of his fifteenth year wandering about alone in the South, giving violin concerts in little towns. He traveled on horseback. When he came into a town, he went about all day tacking up posters announcing his concert in the evening. Before the concert, he stood at the door taking in the admission money until his audience had arrived, and then he went on the platform and played. It was a lazy, hand-to-mouth existence . . . and when he got back to New York in the fall, he was rather torpid . . . From this adolescent drowsiness the lad was awakened by two voices, by two women who sang in New York in 1851: Jenny Lind and Henrietta Sontag. They were the first great artists he had ever heard, and he never forgot his debt to them.
. . . . Night after night he went to hear them, striving to reproduce the quality of their tone upon his violin. From that time his idea about strings was completely changed, and on his violin he tried always for the singing, vibrating tone, instead of the loud and somewhat harsh tone then prevalent among even the best German violinists. In later years he often advised violinists to study singing, and singers to study violin. . . ." But, of course", he added, "the great thing I got from Lind and Sontag was the indefinite, not the definite, thing. For an impressionable boy, their inspiration was incalculable. They gave me my first feeling for the Italian style -- but I could never say how much they gave me. At that age, such influences are actually creative. I always think of my artistic consciousness as beginning then."
All his life Thomas did his best to repay what he felt he owed to the singer's art. No man could get such singing from choruses, and no man worked harder to raise the standard of singing in schools and churches and choral societies.
Marriage and family
He married as his first wife in 1864 in New York City, Minna L. Rhodes. She was a graduate and later a teacher at Miss Porter's SchoolMiss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School, sometimes simply referred to as Porter's or Farmington, is a private college preparatory school for girls located in Farmington, Connecticut.- History :...
in Farmington, Connecticut
Farmington, Connecticut
Farmington is a town located in Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census. It is home to the world headquarters of several large corporations including Carrier Corporation, Otis Elevator Company, and Carvel...
. They met at a series of chamber concerts in Farmington, Connecticut. Thomas and Minna had five children: Franz Thomas, Marion Thomas, Herman Thomas, Hector W. Thomas and Mrs. D.N.B. Sturgis.
He married, as his second wife, in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
, at the Church of the Ascension
Church of the Ascension, Chicago
The Church of the Ascension is an Anglo-Catholic parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Founded in 1857 as a mission of St. James Church, it is now located on N. LaSalle Blvd. on Chicago's Near North Side. The church became a part of the Anglo-Catholic movement in 1869. The church's present...
on May 7, 1890, Rose Emily Fay, the daughter of Rev. Charles Fay, Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
1829, an Episcopal priest and Emily Hopkins. She was born in 1853 in Burlington, Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
and died on April 19, 1929 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is buried next to her husband at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
, in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
.
Rose was a gifted women who contributed many of the critical notices published in the New York and Chicago Journals; Rose was well known in Chicago as a decorative artist. Her marriage was a society event. She was a sister of Amy Fay, a prominent violinist, and Harriet Melusina "Zina" Fay who married in 1862, Charles Sanders Peirce, an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist. The philosopher Paul Weiss
Paul Weiss (philosopher)
Paul Weiss was an American philosopher.-Background:Paul Weiss grew up on the lower east side of New York City. His father, Samuel Weiss , was a Hungarian emigrant who moved from Europe in the 1890s. He worked as a tinsmith, a coppersmith, and a boilermaker. Paul Weiss's mother, Emma Rothschild ...
called Peirce "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician". She was also the sister of businessman Charles Norman Fay, who was Thomas's chief booster and supporter in organizing a major Chicago orchestra.
She was the granddaughter of John Henry Hopkins
John Henry Hopkins
John Henry Hopkins was the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont and was the eighth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.-Early life and career:...
, who was the first bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont
Episcopal Diocese of Vermont
The Episcopal Diocese of Vermont is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the state of Vermont. It was the first diocese in the Episcopal Church to elect a woman, Mary Adelia McLeod, as diocesan bishop....
and was the eighth Presiding Bishop
Presiding Bishop
The Presiding Bishop is an ecclesiastical position in some denominations of Christianity.- Evangelical Lutheran Church in America :The Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the chief ecumenical officer of the church, and the leader and caretaker for the bishops of the...
of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. She was also the granddaughter of Samuel Prescott Phillips Fay (1778–1856). He was a Probate Judge for Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
-National protected areas:* Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge* Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge* Longfellow National Historic Site* Lowell National Historical Park* Minute Man National Historical Park* Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge...
for 35 years and served on the Board of Overseers of Harvard College for 28 years. She was the great-great granddaughter of Dr. Abel Prescott
Abel Prescott
Abel Prescott was a physician in Concord, Massachusetts and the father of two American patriots who sounded the alarm on April 19, 1775....
, a physician in Concord, Massachusetts and the father of two American patriots who sounded the alarm on April 19, 1775.
Her first cousin was Harriet Eleanor Fay, the wife of Rev. James Smith Bush
James Smith Bush
Rev. James Smith Bush was an attorney, Episcopal priest, and religious writer, and an ancestor of the Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of US Senator Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former US President George H. W. Bush and...
, an attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and Episcopal priest and religious writer, and an ancestor of the Bush political family
Bush family
The Bush family is a prominent American family. Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across three generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents...
.
Death
He died at Chicago, Illinois on January 4, 1905. His funeral service was held at St. James Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago and he was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Memorials
Thomas is honored with a memorial monument and garden in Grant Park (Chicago)Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
, near Orchestra Hall.
Further reading
- Russell, Charles Edward. The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas. New York: Doubleday, 1927.
- Thomas, Rose Fay. Memoirs of Theodore Thomas. New York: Moffat, Yard, 1911.
External links
- Theodore Thomas Papers at Newberry LibraryNewberry LibraryThe Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...