When asked to identify an American symphonist of the nineteenth century, it is unlikely that even the most dedicated classical music cognoscente would be able to come up with one name. Yet there existed a multifariously active compositional scene for orchestral music in the United States prior to the arrival of the familiar figures of Ives and—later—Copland and Bernstein in the twentieth century, as Douglas Shadle has established in his pioneering study Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise. His jumping-off point were the questions: What happened to this nineteenth-century symphonic repertoire of almost one hundred works by over fifty composers? How could such a substantial body of music have remained unknown in its day?

Through tireless hours of digging in archives and meticulous historical research, Shadle has managed not only to unearth this “lost” repertoire of orchestral music, but also to offer a cogent explanation for why these works never found their way onto concert programs of their day. The public was (for once) not to blame, Shadle discovered, but rather the American musical establishment consisting of cultural brokers—critics, conductors, and performers—who held up central European (i.e., German, Austrian, Czech) compositions as models for indigenous efforts in the symphonic realm. However, the local endeavors never seemed to meet the standards set by the arbiters of taste: they were either not “serious” (i.e., European) enough or, in the later nineteenth century, not American enough, and whatever the style, not good enough. A quotation from 1882 by virtuoso American conductor Theodore Thomas (1835–1905) about the program of his May Festival well illustrates the problem: “… a festival like this is not the place to bring out the compositions of Young America to compete by comparison with such masters as Beethoven, Bach, and Handel” (273). And such rhetoric poured forth from the pens of the critics, whose rejection of the American symphonic work “frequently had nothing to do with the work itself, but rather with personal animosity” (136). Shadle correctly cautions us not to overestimate the representativeness of the universalist, conservative opinions of nineteenth-century super-critic John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893), and yet most of his colleagues shared Dwight's disdain of new music. They felt it a duty to uphold the character lessons from the German symphonic muse, especially Beethoven: seriousness, moral elevation, and even democracy.

In coming to these observations, Shadle painstakingly reviews the historical record, laying bare the unique paths of the antebellum symphonists who struggled with establishing a national identity in music, then composers who struggled over Wagner's aesthetic legacy, and finally late-century figures who again fell short of critics’ standards. Along the way, we discover the eccentric orchestral composer Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781–1861), whose descriptive works on such topics as The Ornithological Combat of Kings and To the Spirit of Beethoven achieved some popularity but not critical acclaim. In contrast, William Henry Fry (1813–1864) presented American audiences with symphonies (including Niagara: A Symphony and Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony) that translated familiar operatic sensibilities onto the concert stage. George Frederick Bristow (1825–1898), whose career extended to the end of the century, also composed descriptive symphonies (five in number) that met with critical disapprobation, in part stemming from their innovative structures “within the conservative, Mendelssohnian strain of symphonic writing” (104). Ironically he enjoyed greater renown abroad than at home, which would be the case with the next generation of American symphonists, after the hiatus created by the Civil War. This was also true of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869), the “Pan-American Republican,” whose orchestral works achieved considerable success in Spanish America.

In the years after the war, the latest music from central Europe (Wagner, Liszt, Joachim Raff) filtered across the ocean, adding a complicating factor: with which generation of German works were the American products to be compared? The stamp of “Europeanness” did not offset the ongoing problems of the symphonic establishment with the “new.” The most successful composer to emerge from the war years was John Knowles Paine (1839–1906), whose travels to Europe and conservative orchestral scores led to an American reputation as the successor to Beethoven. Virtuoso conductor, German émigré, and gatekeeper of American musical taste in the second half of the century, Theodore Thomas supported Paine's career, but otherwise reinforced the trope of German musical supremacy, as established in the quote above. While the conservative symphonic work of George Wakefield Chadwick (1854–1931) found an audience and modest critical support, another popular trend at century's end was the incorporation of “American” elements into orchestral music, which the much touted visit of Antonín Dvořák helped foster (but also problematized). At the end of the century, after the many decades of opposition to American symphonic composition, we are left amazed over those contemporary conductors and critics who would advocate the challenging music of a Charles Ives, figures like Henry Gilbert and E. Robert Schmitz.

Shadle guides us chronologically through this overwhelming forest of detail and often contradictory opinion with a masterful hand. His is a fine line to walk, critically engaging with this unknown repertoire while avoiding the pitfalls of Eurocentric standards on the one hand and American boosterism and exceptionalism on the other. While his study focuses on the leading composers, he introduces us to the activity of neglected figures like Robert Stoepel (1821–1887), Ellsworth C. Phelps (1827–1913), and Louis Maas (1852–1889), all of whom significantly contributed to the American symphonic enterprise of the nineteenth century. The book's emphasis resides in the lesser-known antebellum era, which is justifiable given the state of research, and yet one wonders about the relative absence of composer Edward MacDowell, for example, who may not have composed a symphony and yet was responsible for four symphonic poems, the first two of which received prominent American performances (Hamlet and Ophelia was presented in 1887 by Frank van der Stucken at one of his all-American concerts, for example). Indeed, one wishes that Shadle would have unpacked the thorny issues surrounding terminology for descriptive orchestral music, for his description of Fry's “painterly” symphonies—“a single movement divided into distinct episodes”—could well describe Liszt's symphonic poems (90). Liszt is one central European composer whose role in the New World deserves closer examination, for if we look beyond the disdain of the Northeast, we will observe his descriptive symphonic works receiving applause in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, in no small part through the performances of Theodore Thomas.Footnote ¹

Thus, like other pioneering works, Orchestrating the Nation serves as much as a launching pad for further exploration as it provides answers to Shadle's important, overarching research questions. The enterprising researcher might focus on the response to “American music” in specific markets outside the Northeast. Or she might wish to uncover archival sources for those music critics above and beyond Dwight who engaged in the construction of America in music. Or explore how the music of contemporary central European symphonists like Joachim Raff, Anton Rubinstein, and even Johannes Brahms found their way to and through America.

Shadle has produced a book that is a delight to read, with discoveries on virtually every page and written in a style that impels the reader onward. The non-musician need not fear getting entangled in dense music analysis or running up against incomprehensible jargon: the author has a talent for the nontechnical description of musical processes. While suitable for the text, these descriptions become problematic when they are used as captions, such as “Insipid Second Theme,” “Rhythmically Vital Dance Theme,” or “Slithering Movements” (78, 152, 202). The images are well chosen, possibly to highlight the lesser-known figures like Hopkins and Phelps; and the musical examples are usefully selected for the purpose of supporting the analysis. One complaint aimed at the publisher: if you use endnotes, please indicate chapter titles as well as numbers in the endnote section, or have the chapter number included in the running head in the text; this would facilitate the use of the notes.

But none of this diminishes the virtuosic accomplishment that Orchestrating the Nation represents, a most welcome addition to the core literature about music in nineteenth-century America.