A less-than-magnificent reception for Bach's 'Magnificat'

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival in the first American performance of J.S. Bach’s Magnificat.

Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also revised, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus.

Bach’s Magnificat served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers reported that “Ninth Symphomania” was breaking out in their city.

The newspapers were less impressed with Bach’s Magnificat. The Cincinnati Commercial Review opined: “The work is difficult in the extreme … most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the Magnificat the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken … possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies.”

Well, whatever they thought in 1875, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach’s “inconsequential intricacies” since then.

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Magnificat

On This Day

Births

• 1842 - English composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, in Lambeth (London)

• 1913 - American organist and record retailer, William Schwann, in Salem Illinois. In 1949, he began publication of the Schwann Record Catalog, a guide to phonograph records in print.

Premieres

• 1833 - Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 (Italian), in London, by the Philharmonic Society, with the composer conducting

• 1877 - Franck: Les Eolides, in Paris at a Lamoureux Concert

• 1949 - Panufnik: Sinfonia Rustica, in Warsaw

• 1987 - Harbison: Symphony No. 2, by the San Francisco Symphony, Herbert Blomstedt conducting

• 1993 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Bassoon Concerto, by the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Lorin Maazel, with Nancy Goeres the soloist

• 1995 - first professional production of Any Beach: opera Cabildo, at Alice Tully Hall in New York City as a Great Performances telecast conducted by Ransom Wilson. The world premiere performance was given on Feb. 27, 1945 (two months after Beach's death), by the Opera Workshop at the University of Georgia in Athens, directed by Hugh Hodgson.

• 2001 - Harbison: North and South (Elizabeth Bishop Cycle), by the Chicago Chamber Musicians

Others

• 1862 - First concert by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in New York City. His program includes the American premieres of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman Overture and Liszt’s arrangement for piano and orchestra of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy.

• 1875 - American premiere of J.S. Bach’s Magnificat, during the May Festival in Cincinnati, conducted by Theodore Thomas. The Cincinnati Commercial review of May 14 was not favorable: “The work is difficult in the extreme … most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the Magnificat the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken … possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies.” Thomas also conducted the next documented performance in Boston on Mar. 1, 1876 (for which composer John Knowles Paine performed as organ accompanist to a chorus of 300).