Flagg-waving in Colonial Boston?

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1768, two regiments of British redcoats marched into colonial Boston accompanied by martial music provided by their regimental wind band. It was that city’s introduction to the exotic sound of massed oboes, bassoons and French horns.

One Bostonian who was very impressed by these new sounds was Josiah Flagg, an engraver by trade and a boyhood friend of famous Boston silversmith Paul Revere. Before long, Flagg had formed his own musical ensemble, which he called The First Band of Boston.

Flagg organized that city’s first concert series, presenting music by J.C. Bach, Stamitz, and other European composers. Occasionally, the First Band of Boston was augmented by musicians from the same British regiment whose entry into town had inspired Flagg’s own musical ambitions.

In October 1773, Flagg presented a gala concert at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, which proved to be his last. He included music from Britain — excerpts from Handel’s Messiah — but closed with the “Song of Liberty,” the marching hymn of Boston’s patriots. We rather suspect the British troops did not participate in that concert.

Soon after, Flagg moved to Providence, where he served as a colonel in the Rhode Island regiment during the American Revolution, and disappeared from our early musical history.

Music Played in Today's Program

Oliver Shaw (1779-1848): Gov. Arnold’s March; Members of the Federal Music Society; John Baldon, conductor; New World 80299

On This Day

Births

• 1832 - American composer Henry Clay Work, in Middletown, Connecticut. A printer by trade, he wrote some famous popular songs, including “Grandfather's Clock,” “Father, Come Home,” and “Marching Through Georgia.”

• 1865 - French composer Paul Dukas, in Paris

• 1931 - Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti, in Florence

Deaths

• 1708 - British composer John Blow, 59, in London

• 1964 - Austrian-born American composer Ernst Toch, 76, in Santa Monica, California. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for his Symphony No. 3.

• 1979 - American composer Roy Harris, 81, in Santa Monica, California

Premieres

• 1733 - Rameau: opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, in Paris at the Palais Royal Opéra

• 1913 - Elgar: symphonic poem, Falstaff, at the Leeds Festival, with the composer conducting

• 1937 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 18, in Moscow, Alexander Gauk conducting

• 1961 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 12 (The Year 1917), by the Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting

• 1967 - Sessions: Symphony No. 7, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by the Chicago Symphony, Jean Martinon conducting

• 1975 - Shostakovich: Viola Sonata, in Leningrad, by Fyodor Druzhinin (viola) and Mikhail Muntyan (piano)

• 1992 - Michael Torke: Chalk for string quartet, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (U.K.), by the Balanescu Quartet

• 1998 - Ives (arr. David G. Porter): Emerson Overture, for piano and orchestra, with soloist Alan Feinberg and the Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi conducting

• 2005 - John Adams: opera Dr. Atomic, in San Francisco by the San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles, conducting

Others

• 1880 - John Philip Sousa, 25, is appointed 17th Leader of the U.S. Marine Band, a post he would hold for 12 years. During this time, the band made its first concert tour, premiered many of Sousa’s most famous marches, and produced some of the first phonograph recordings ever made.

• 1924 - Opening of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, funded by a gift of $12.5 million from the American patroness Mary Louise Curtis Bok, who had inherited her fortune from the Curtis Publishing Company. The faculty, providing instruction for 203 students, includes Leopold Stokowski and Josef Hofmann heading conducting and piano departments, respectively; Polish-born coloratura Marcella Sembrich; Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch; French-born harpist/composer Carlos Salzedo; and Italian composer Rosario Scalero.