John Spitzer teaches music history at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is coauthor of The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Toward a History of American Orchestras in the Nineteenth CenturyDeane L. RootI. Ubiquity and DiversityThe Ubiquity and Diversity of Nineteenth-Century American OrchestrasJohn SpitzerI.1. Building the American Symphony Orchestra: The Nineteenth-Century Roots of a Twenty-First-Century Musical InstitutionMark ClagueI.2. Modeling Music: Early Organizational Structures of American Women’s OrchestrasAnna-Lise P. SantellaI.3. American Orchestras and Their Unions in the Nineteenth CenturyJohn SpitzerII. The Orchestra and the American CityOrchestras: Local versus NationalJohn SpitzerII.1. Invisible Instruments: Theater Orchestras in New York, 1850–1900John GrazianoII.2. Beethoven and Beer: Orchestral Music in German Beer Gardens in Nineteenth-Century New York CityJohn Koegel and Jonas WestoverII.3. Performances to “Permanence”: Orchestra Building in Late Nineteenth-Century CincinnatiKaren AhlquistII.4. Critic and Conductor in 1860s Chicago: George P. Upton, Hans Balatka, and Cultural CapitalismJames DeavilleII.5. Amateur and Professional, Permanent and Transient: Orchestras in the District of Columbia, 1877–1905Patrick WarfieldIII. Conductors, Promoters, PatronsMarketing the American OrchestraJohn SpitzerIII.1. Bernard Ullman and the Business of Orchestras in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New YorkBethany S. GoldbergIII.2. John Sullivan Dwight and the Harvard Musical Association Orchestra: A Help or a Hindrance?Mary Wallace DavidsonIII.3. The Leopold Damrosch Orchestra, 1877–78: Background, Instrumentation, Programming, and Critical ReceptionOra Frishberg SalomanIII.4. Gender and the Germanians: “Art-Loving Ladies” in Nineteenth-Century Concert LifeNancy NewmanIV. America and EuropeOrchestras: American and EuropeanJohn SpitzerIV.1. “A Concentration of Talent on Our Musical Horizon”: The 1853–54 American Tour by Jullien’s Extraordinary OrchestraKatherine K. PrestonIV.2. Ureli Corelli Hill: His European Travels and the Creation of the New York PhilharmonicBarbara HawsV. Orchestral RepertoryOrchestral Repertory: Highbrow and LowbrowJohn SpitzerV.1.Orchestral Programs in Boston, 1842–55, in European PerspectiveWilliam WeberV.2. Theodore Thomas and the Cultivation of American MusicBrenda Nelson-StraussV.3. Thinking about Serious Music in New York, 1842–82Adrienne Fried BlockAfterword: Coming of AgeRonald G. WaltersBibliographyContributorsIndex

“This superb collection of essays breaks new ground. The scholarship by preeminent scholars relies on new archival sources. The volume’s contribution to the history of music in America is unique. Readers in many fields will benefit from Spitzer’s collection: an encounter with the extent of amateur concert life, the history of musicians’ unions and touring ensembles, and the origins of today’s professional orchestras in Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York. The richness and variety of concert repertoire in America, much of it forgotten, come alive. Playing and listening to orchestral music in nineteenth-century America assume a significance long underestimated. This is a long overdue contribution to understanding music within urban and public culture in America before 1900.”