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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Anthony Heinrich (1781-1861) was an American pioneer in many ways: the first American to compose a piece for orchestra, conducted only the second-ever performance of a Beethoven symphony in the United States, and as chairman at the first meeting of the New York Philharmonic Society could be considered the founder of the New York Philharmonic.
Heinrich was also one of the most idiosyncratic composers of his time. Apart from some piano and violin lessons in his childhood, he was a self-taught musician. Born in Bohemia, he inherited his uncle's trading empire in 1800 and arrived in Boston in 1805 intending to expand the business to the United States. Instead, tragedy struck in 1814: he lost his entire fortune when the Napoleonic Wars plunged Europe into an economic crash, and his Bostonian wife died the same year. Suddenly penniless, he was unable to return to Europe, and he instead went west. After settling in Bardstown, Kentucky (today a suburb of Louisville), he became locally known as a violinist, and decided to make his living as a musician. It was there, in a log cabin on the frontier, that he began to teach himself to compose and conduct. Somehow, he assembled an orchestra and, hundreds of miles from the nearest large city, conducted a performance of Beethoven's 1st Symphony in Lexington, Kentucky in 1817 -- only the second time a Beethoven symphony was heard in the United States. His earliest surviving compositions date from about the same time: a collection of songs accompanied by piano, composed between 1818 and 1820. The success of his early published works led Heinrich to leave Kentucky and return to Boston in 1823, and for the next decade and a half he crossed the Atlantic several times, splitting time between Boston and London before settling in New York City in 1837.
Having taught himself composition out on the American frontier, Heinrich developed a style that was perhaps far ahead of his time. Much of his music was programmatic and inspired by nature, and he anticipated Wagner's chromaticism by more than two decades. Because American orchestras struggled with his highly chromatic music, much of his orchestral output was more successful in Europe than in the United States. Some of his orchestral pieces were performed in his two tours of continental Europe in 1835 and 1857-58 and not heard again until very recently. These include this piece, The Columbiad, which was composed in 1857-58, performed once in Prague, and not performed again until October 2014 when the orchestras of Yale University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison both performed it two weeks apart. The Columbiad is a musical portrait of the migration of American passenger pigeons, and while described by the composer as a "symphony" is divided unusually into nine "scenes" described by captions Heinrich wrote in the score. This recording, from the Yale Symphony Orchestra's US premiere performance, is accompanied in the YouTube video by those captions. A little incongruously, the finale incorporates "Yankee Doodle" and other familiar American tunes, perhaps alluding to the title Columbiad's dual meaning -- referring both to the columbine family of birds and to Columbia, a national personification of the United States.
As a bonus, here's another interesting orchestral work by Heinrich: The War of the Elements and the Thundering of Niagara, a symphonic poem that was was never performed during Heinrich's lifetime and received its premiere only in 1976.
Anthony Heinrich (1781-1861) was an American pioneer in many ways: the first American to compose a piece for orchestra, conducted only the second-ever performance of a Beethoven symphony in the United States, and as chairman at the first meeting of the New York Philharmonic Society could be considered the founder of the New York Philharmonic.
Heinrich was also one of the most idiosyncratic composers of his time. Apart from some piano and violin lessons in his childhood, he was a self-taught musician. Born in Bohemia, he inherited his uncle's trading empire in 1800 and arrived in Boston in 1805 intending to expand the business to the United States. Instead, tragedy struck in 1814: he lost his entire fortune when the Napoleonic Wars plunged Europe into an economic crash, and his Bostonian wife died the same year. Suddenly penniless, he was unable to return to Europe, and he instead went west. After settling in Bardstown, Kentucky (today a suburb of Louisville), he became locally known as a violinist, and decided to make his living as a musician. It was there, in a log cabin on the frontier, that he began to teach himself to compose and conduct. Somehow, he assembled an orchestra and, hundreds of miles from the nearest large city, conducted a performance of Beethoven's 1st Symphony in Lexington, Kentucky in 1817 -- only the second time a Beethoven symphony was heard in the United States. His earliest surviving compositions date from about the same time: a collection of songs accompanied by piano, composed between 1818 and 1820. The success of his early published works led Heinrich to leave Kentucky and return to Boston in 1823, and for the next decade and a half he crossed the Atlantic several times, splitting time between Boston and London before settling in New York City in 1837.
Having taught himself composition out on the American frontier, Heinrich developed a style that was perhaps far ahead of his time. Much of his music was programmatic and inspired by nature, and he anticipated Wagner's chromaticism by more than two decades. Because American orchestras struggled with his highly chromatic music, much of his orchestral output was more successful in Europe than in the United States. Some of his orchestral pieces were performed in his two tours of continental Europe in 1835 and 1857-58 and not heard again until very recently. These include this piece, The Columbiad, which was composed in 1857-58, performed once in Prague, and not performed again until October 2014 when the orchestras of Yale University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison both performed it two weeks apart. The Columbiad is a musical portrait of the migration of American passenger pigeons, and while described by the composer as a "symphony" is divided unusually into nine "scenes" described by captions Heinrich wrote in the score. This recording, from the Yale Symphony Orchestra's US premiere performance, is accompanied in the YouTube video by those captions. A little incongruously, the finale incorporates "Yankee Doodle" and other familiar American tunes, perhaps alluding to the title Columbiad's dual meaning -- referring both to the columbine family of birds and to Columbia, a national personification of the United States.
As a bonus, here's another interesting orchestral work by Heinrich: The War of the Elements and the Thundering of Niagara, a symphonic poem that was was never performed during Heinrich's lifetime and received its premiere only in 1976.