Scan 302
The American history and encyclopedia of music, 1908
8 lines. Read by computer on 11 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1they are in want of are, a first and second violin, two haut-boys and a bassoon, whom they are willing to agree with for one, two or three years."
3In 1792 this same society wrote to Major Thomas Pinckney, then Minister to England, to buy and send out for it "one grand pianoforte and twenty pounds' worth of the best modern concert music." Josiah Quincy of Boston visited Charleston in 1773 and attended a concert given by the St. Cecilia Society. In writing of the affair he states: "I was passed from servant to servant and finally ushered in. The music was grand, especially the bass viol and French horns." He also adds that the "first violinist, a Frenchman, played the best solo (he had) ever heard." Then he tells that "the salary of this violinist was one hundred guineas" per annum; that "most of the performers were gentlemen amateurs." Then Mr. Quincy comments upon the "richness of the dress of both ladies and gentlemen;" that there were "two hundred and fifty ladies present and it was called no great number;" that the "ladies in taciturnity during the performance are greatly before our (Boston) ladies."
5In 1773 the orchestral force of the St. Cecilia Society in its "Musical Festival," in which Gluck's overture, "Iphigenie en Aulide" and Haydn's "Stabat Mater" were rendered, was as follows: "One organ, twelve violins, three basses, five tenors, six oboes, flutes and clarinets, two horns, one bassoon, and two pair kettledrums, in all thirty." This early orchestra of thirty pieces, when measured by European standards of the period, was of fair size. Even in Beethoven's time the orchestra at Bonn numbered but twenty-two instruments.
7There were many French musicians resident in Charleston at this period. There was "Citizen" Cornet, with his "orchestra of French Music"—probably the pioneer of the small orchestras devoted to social functions—announcing to the people of Charleston by means of the Gazette, that he had "established a Vaux Hall, after the Parisian manner, in which there will be dancing on Saturday." Then "Citizen"
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