a century hence ago

[calimac]

This is the second part of the post on the history of musical taste that I began here.

It's 1909. What are the symphonies by currently-living composers that have been most often played by major American orchestras in the last ten years?

And then, how often were those works played in the decade 50 years later? A century later?

Rating, decade of the 1900s   written	      1900s	      1950s	      2000s
1. Goldmark “Rustic Wedding”	1876		19		 2		 2
2. Strauss “Domestica”		1903		 6		10		 9
3. Balakirev No. 1		1897		 5		 -		 -
   Elgar No. 1			1908		 5		 -		21
   d’Indy No. 2			1903		 5		 4		 -
   Sibelius No. 1		1899		 5		22		64
7. d’Indy “Cenevole”		1886		 4		11		 -
8. Bischoff No. 1		1906		 3		 -		 -
   Gilchrist No. 1		1891		 3		 -		 -
   Glazunov No. 4		1893		 3		 3		 -
   Glazunov No. 6		1896		 3		 -		 -
   Hadley No. 2			1894		 3		 -		 -
   Mahler No. 5			1902		 3		10		90
   Saint-Saëns No. 2		1859		 3		 1		 1
   Saint-Saëns No. 3		1886		 3		16		96
   Sibelius No. 2		1902		 3		63	       119
   Suk No. 1 (E Major)		1899		 3		 -		 -
   Weingartner No. 2		1901		 3		 -		 -

Now, flip it. Of the works that would have qualified for that 1909 list, which ones were most played in the 1950s, regardless of whether they'd been played earlier or not? And similarly for the decade of the 2000s?

Rating, decade of the 1950s   written	      1900s	      1950s	      2000s
1. Sibelius No. 2		1902		 3		63	       119
2. Rachmaninoff No. 2		1908		 2		48	       112
3. Mahler No. 1			1888		 1		34	       137
4. Mahler No. 4			1900		 1		22		86
   Sibelius No. 1		1899		 5		22		64
6. Mahler No. 2			1894		 1		17		61
7. Saint-Saëns No. 3		1886		 3		16		96
8. d’Indy “Cenevole”		1886		 4		11		 -
9. Mahler No. 5			1902		 3		10		90
   Strauss “Domestica”		1903		 6		10		 9
11. Ives No. 2			1902		 -		 5		12
12. d’Indy No. 2		1903		 5		 4		 -
    Mahler No. 9		1909		 -		 4		36
    Scriabin “Poem of Ecstasy”	1908		 -		 4		14
15. Glazunov No. 4		1893		 3		 3		 -
    Schoenberg Chamber No. 1	1908		 -		 3		 9

Rating, decade of the 2000s   written	      1900s	      1950s	       2000s
1. Mahler No. 1			1888		 1		34		137
2. Sibelius No. 2		1902		 3		63		119
3. Rachmaninoff No. 2		1908		 2		48		112
4. Saint-Saëns No. 3		1886		 3		16		96
5. Mahler No. 5			1902		 3		10		90
6. Mahler No. 4			1900		 1		22		86
7. Sibelius No. 1		1899		 5		22		64
8. Mahler No. 2			1894		 1		17		61
9. Mahler No. 6			1904		 -		 1		40
10. Mahler No. 9		1909		 -		 4		36
11. Mahler No. 3		1896		 -		 1		33
12. Mahler No. 7		1905		 -		 2		30
13. Elgar No. 1			1908		 5		 -		21
14. Sibelius No. 3		1907		 -		 2		17
15. Vaughan Williams “Sea”	1909		 -		 -		14
16. Scriabin “Poem of Ecstasy”	1908		 -		 4		14
17. Ives No. 2			1902		 -		 5		12
    Ives No. 3			1904		 -		 1		12
19. Rachmaninoff No. 1          1895*            -               -               9
    Schoenberg Chamber No. 1	1908		 -		 3		 9
    Strauss “Domestica”		1903		 6		10		 9
*This work was withdrawn after its premiere and was not available to be performed again until the 1940s.

Aside from the further canonization of Mahler and a few other composers, the interesting rediscovery of the neglected Elgar First, and the even more curious disappearance of d'Indy's "Symphony on a French Mountain Air" (the last remaining piece of a once-popular composer), not a lot happened to the list between 1959 and today. The sorting-out process had already pretty much taken place by then. But look at the 1900s column - how many of the works played in the 1950s and even more the 2000s were unheard then, and how many had disappeared. Some of them are still well-recognized names, like Balakirev and Glazunov, who've made Elgar-like resurrections in recent years, but more on record than in concert. But others are still forgotten.

You can't make too much out of the original 1900s list. Of the 27 orchestras analyzed by Mueller, only eleven were yet in business by 1909, and most of them didn't play a lot of concerts. Special favor on a local boy would be enough to make the list. William Gilchrist, for instance, was from Philadelphia and was only ever played there. Henry Hadley, on the other hand, was a widely popular composer, and not just at the orchestras where he served as music director, until the 1930s when he died and so did his music. I'd heard of him, but more as a conductor: I know nothing of his compositions.

And look at Karl Goldmark's "Rustic Wedding" Symphony (really more a symphonic poem). Not a totally forgotten work by any means, but until I compiled these statistics I'd had no idea how hugely popular it was in its heyday. In the 1900s decade it was the 15th most-played of all symphonies by any composer, living or dead, and those ranked above it, and just about as many immediately below, are all still standard repertory works. It was tied with Brahms's Third and Schubert's Great C Major. Imagine that!

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

What this tells me (who is not terribly familiar with the music) is that there are a great many more American orchestras than earlier. 50 years down the road, the top half-dozen or so symphonies were played more than the top symphony in the previous list. Interestingly (at least to me), in both the 50s and 00s, the cutoff is Sibelius No. 1.

I can't find what your asterisk is referencing.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

But consider - with all that greater number of performing opportunities in the 1950s and 2000s, many works still lost raw number of performances or dropped off the radar entirely. How much more, then, does it change when you measure by relative position on the list.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Asterisk: Rachmaninoff's First (no. 19 on the 2000s list): "This work was withdrawn after its premiere and was not available to be performed again until the 1940s."

[barondave.livejournal.com]

A greater number of performing opportunities, but also a greater number of works to perform (as your last list indicated). Not just new works, but non-American works that received wider recognition.

Where are you getting your data? Would it be useful to calculate the equivalent of tv's rating/share? (That is, raw number of performances vs. percentage of performances.) Are music halls the same size in 1900 as they are today? That is, more people (potentially) hear a performance when the symphony hall is larger. Are they?

This doesn't include sales of recorded concerts (virtually non-existent in 1900) or televised concerts (just beginning to make an impact in the 50s) or video recordings of concerts (how many of these are on DVD/YouTube).

I'd be curious to know just how many people were able to listen, not just how many times it was played. That's a much harder calculation, I imagine, but if you're trying to measure popularity than live concerts were the sole measure in 1900 but a small part of the equation now.

Ah, I see the asterisk next to the date, not near the name of the piece where I was looking. Thanks.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I gave my sources in the earlier post.

Everything you say is quite apt. Size of halls is probably the least affected of all the variables you mention. The Boston Symphony, for one, is still playing in the same hall they used in 1909, and other orchestras' newer halls are much the same in size. But the number of programs, the number of performances of each program, the growing size of the repertoire, the growing alternative methods of receiving music (and the question of how that affects orchestral programs), and one other thing - since I've only taken statistics for symphonies, variability in their importance within the repertoire - all change the baseline tremendously.

I could make a table measuring decade of composition vs. decade of performance, and mark it in percentages, but due especially to the last variable I don't think it would prove much.

This is why I took just a small slice of the repertoire, and am interested only in comparing the relative rankings within one decade's list with those of another decade, rather than matching raw numbers which are misleading at best.