Small Songs, Big Data: A Preliminary Study of Lieder in American Concert Life
Studying the programing of Lieder in public concerts in the United States is problematic. Performances of Lieder, unlike those of symphonies or operas, were not located in dedicated venues, and, similarly, the genre was not the province of specific organizations or companies. As a result programs from Lieder recitals have been lost, and those that have survived are randomly preserved within various collections of memorabilia and personal scrapbooks, which are often not easily accessible. Moreover, complete details of many Lieder recitals were not reported in music journals. Digitized newspapers, however, include a wide range of notices that provide scholars a way to assess how the genre was disseminated through public performances.
An analysis of thousands of advertisements, promotional articles and recital reviews retrieved from newspapers from across the country reveals a significant expansion in the frequency and repertoire of public performances during the 1880s and ’90s. America’s adoption of solo song recitals in the late 1880s only slightly lagged behind the development of Lieder recitals in Europe, which Edward Kravitt dates as 1876-1885. This development also led to an increase in the frequency of performances of complete cycles. In the space of less than fifty years critics went from opining that the entirety of Dichterliebe was not performed to bemoaning the frequency of poor performances.
Although digitized sources are not a panacea, they do reveal broad trends in America’s adoption of this foreign-language genre. They also aid in the identification of the main advocates for the genre. Some of these performers were opera singers, such as David Bispham, who are already known to historians, but many others, such as Villa Whitney White, have not previously found their way into histories of American concert life.
Studying the programing of Lieder in public concerts in the United States is problematic. Performances of Lieder, unlike those of symphonies or operas, were not located in dedicated venues, and, similarly, the genre was not the province of specific organizations or companies. As a result programs from Lieder recitals have been lost, and those that have survived are randomly preserved within various collections of memorabilia and personal scrapbooks, which are often not easily accessible. Moreover, complete details of many Lieder recitals were not reported in music journals. Digitized newspapers, however, include a wide range of notices that provide scholars a way to assess how the genre was disseminated through public performances.
An analysis of thousands of advertisements, promotional articles and recital reviews retrieved from newspapers from across the country reveals a significant expansion in the frequency and repertoire of public performances during the 1880s and ’90s. America’s adoption of solo song recitals in the late 1880s only slightly lagged behind the development of Lieder recitals in Europe, which Edward Kravitt dates as 1876-1885. This development also led to an increase in the frequency of performances of complete cycles. In the space of less than fifty years critics went from opining that the entirety of Dichterliebe was not performed to bemoaning the frequency of poor performances.
Although digitized sources are not a panacea, they do reveal broad trends in America’s adoption of this foreign-language genre. They also aid in the identification of the main advocates for the genre. Some of these performers were opera singers, such as David Bispham, who are already known to historians, but many others, such as Villa Whitney White, have not previously found their way into histories of American concert life.