Teens invade Philharmonic!

Not long ago I visited the

w:st="on">New York Philharmonic’s archives. My main

job was to research Stravinsky performances. Had Stravinsky’s neo-classic works

ever been played during the 1920s, ’30s, and 40s when he himself wasn’t

conducting? The answer, confirming my instinct, was that they hardly ever had

been. But I was also interested in what the archives might show about the age

of the audience in the past, and while there wasn’t much information, Barbara

Haws, the Philharmonic’s fabulous archivist, did give me this. How times have

changed! (And by the way, on a more serious note: This is one more piece of evidence that classical music wasn’t always treated as serious, elite art.)

The

Philharmonic As Singles Hangout

By Vera Brodsky Lawrence

In 1855 the Philharmonic concerts

and public rehearsals became the favorite hangout of the city’s teenagers. To

more sedate music-lovers the rehearsals were a frustration: "There is

hardly a place in which one is not disturbed by the shameless talking and

flirting by which most of the audiences amuse themselves," wrote an

unhappy subscriber. But all efforts to enforce silence were vain.

Assigned to review a Philharmonic

concert the following year, a critic disgustedly wrote: "It was crammed,

jammed, steaming hot, noisy, and uncomfortable. The entire youthful population

of the city was present. All the ladies were under eighteen years of age, and

all their male accompaniments twenty or twenty-one. Those are the recognized

Philharmonic ages. Not only were all the regular seats occupied, but the

lobbies were filled by the youthful musical enthusiasts seated on chairs and

arranged in groups of from four to ten, enjoying t he Beethoven accompaniment to

their chit-chat and tittle-tattle. It had been suggested that another Society

should be started, to be called the ‘Old Philharmonic,’ to which mamas and

papas should be eligible."

The craze persisted. In 1857,

George Templeton Strong, dedicated concertgoer, brilliant diarist, and future

President of the Philharmonic Society, just back from a Philharmonic concert,

wrote in his diary: "Crowd. Clack. At last an excited

individual–Teutonic–rose up in the midst of a dreary Adagio on the

violoncello … and exclaimed, with much emphasis: ‘Well, I can talk, too. So

the every bodies can hear me! Is it not possible for us to have some place

where we can hear?’ And then subsided with like abruptness. People were still

as mice in that neighborhood for some time."