American city in western Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1758 as a military settlement. The earliest musical heritage was English, but from the start of the 19th century important contributions were made by Welsh and German immigrants. The Welsh brought their singing festivals, known as cymanfa ganu, and in 1807 the American artist Samuel H. Dearborn founded the Apollonian Society, devoted to performing popular songs and marches of the day, as well as the music of Mozart and his contemporaries. From 1820 Handel's choruses were regularly performed, and most musical instruments were available after 1830. Choral singing became quite popular, although in Presbyterian churches the presence of choirs and instruments was a matter of controversy through much of the 19th century.
The best-known native composer of the 19th century was Stephen C. Foster (1826–64). An active musician after the Civil War was P.L.C. Tetedoux, a singing teacher and former pupil of Rossini, who organized a Cantata Society that performed sacred works. In the 1890s the industrialist Andrew Carnegie presented Allegheny (which became part of Pittsburgh in 1906) with a library and a music hall containing a large Roosevelt organ. The renovated Carnegie Music Hall (cap. 1972), part of Carnegie Institute in the city’s Oakland district, remains the chief venue for chamber music and recitals. The music division of Carnegie Library (founded 1938) is a rich collection that is still the city's major resource for these materials. Among the other wealthy families who have contributed significantly to Pittsburgh's cultural life in the 20th century are the Fricks, the Heinzes, the Mellons and the Scaifes.
The first ensemble in the city that endured for more than a couple of concerts was the Pittsburgh Orchestral Society, organized and conducted by Gottlieb A. Anton (1854–6). Ad hoc ensembles and visiting orchestras performed during the following decades, until the city's first permanent professional orchestra, the Pittsburgh Orchestra, was established in 1895. Conducted by a local organist named Frederick Archer, the Pittsburgh Orchestra – which developed into the present Pittsburgh SO – gave its first concert in the new Carnegie Music Hall on 28 February 1896. Victor Herbert (1859–1924) was the first to be named music director, a post he held from 1898 to 1904. Herbert was succeeded by Emil Paul until 1910, when financial problems arose and the board disbanded the orchestra. It was not until 1926 that the orchestra was reorganized as the Pittsburgh SO, performing in the 3750-seat Syria Mosque (built 1916), and not until 1930 that a new music director was named: the Pittsburgher Antonio Modarelli (1927–37). Subsequent music directors have been Fritz Reiner (1938–48), William Steinberg (1952–76), André Previn (1976–85), Lorin Maazel (1988–96) and Mariss Jansons, who took over in 1997. In September 1971 the orchestra moved to the 2856-seat Heinz Hall, an elegantly converted 1920s cinema which it owns. Under Maazel's leadership the orchestra achieved international status, with numerous recordings, successful tours to several continents and an ever-growing endowment. Its regular season in Heinz Hall is 22 weeks long, plus seven weekends of Pops concerts. Marvin Hamlisch, composer of A Chorus Line, was appointed principal Pops conductor in 1995.
In 1945 Marie Maazel (mother of the conductor) founded the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, which is conducted by one of the Pittsburgh SO's resident or associate conductors. A second professional orchestra, composed of local union members, now plays for the Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Ballet and the Civic Light Opera Association (which presents Broadway musicals) as well as several smaller local ensembles.
The Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, founded by the composer and conductor David Stock in 1976, performs a wide range of contemporary repertory, commissions new works and has been enormously successful in increasing awareness of contemporary music among conservative Pittsburgh audiences. Stock resigned as music director at the end of the 1998–9 season and was succeeded by Pittsburgh-born Gil Rose in August 1999.
The first opera given in Pittsburgh was an English version of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia by the visiting Francis Courtney Weymyss Troupe on 16 April 1838, but opera did not flourish in Pittsburgh until 1873, when the Frohsinn Society gave Flotow's Alessandro Stradella (in German) to much acclaim. In 1874 the Gounod Club performed another of Flotow's operas, Martha, in its first operatic series. While famous opera companies (including the New York Metropolitan Opera) visited the city regularly on their tours in the early 20th century, the first permanent professional organization, Pittsburgh Opera, was not established until 1939. Richard Karp, a German viola player who came to the USA to escape Nazi oppression and played in the Pittsburgh SO under Reiner, directed the opera company from 1942 to 1975, when illness forced him to step down in favour of his daughter, Barbara. Cincinnati Opera director James DeBlasis became artistic adviser after Karp resigned following a disagreement with the board in 1979, remaining in that position until Tito Capobianco was appointed general director in 1983. Capobianco increased the budget and production values, especially after the company moved into the state-of-the-art Benedum Center – another renovated cinema – in October 1987. A reorganization took place in 1997, when Capobianco's title was changed to artistic director and Mark Weinstein was brought in for the newly created post of executive director, to take up the administrative responsibilities Capobianco had relinquished. Capobianco retired from Pittsburgh Opera at the end of the 1999–2000 season. Weinstein was appointed general director.
With few exceptions, Pittsburgh Opera sticks stubbornly to the most familiar repertory. Contemporary operas, American works, even most of the German repertory, have been ignored. Der Rosenkavalier did not reach Pittsburgh until 1995. The gap has partly been filled by the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, an enterprising small company operated on a shoestring budget by former Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller Posvar, who founded the troupe in 1978. It was known until 1987 as Pittsburgh Chamber Opera. Dedicated to promoting young professional singers in standard and modern repertory, the company tours with educational projects in addition to its performances at home. Jonathan Eaton succeeded Posvar as director in August 1999.
Jenny Lind gave concerts in Pittsburgh in 1851. Today the Y Music Society has the city's oldest recital series, which since 1926 has brought in first-rank artists, from Nathan Milstein and Marian Anderson to Vladimir Feltsman and Itzhak Perlman. The Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, founded in 1961, offers six concerts each year by well-known ensembles. The Tuesday Musical Club presents free recitals by entry-level performers in the élite, exclusive spaces of the Frick Art Museum. Early music is well served by the Renaissance and Baroque Society, which has developed one of the area's most faithful and enthusiastic followings.
One of the earliest choral societies in the area was the Teutonia Männerchor, formed in 1854. Numerous other singing societies soon arose. The Mozart Club (1879–1919), founded and directed by James Knox Polk McCollum, presented oratorios and other large-scale choral works. The oldest choral society still functioning in Pittsburgh is the Mendelssohn Choir, founded in 1908. Under its music director Robert Page it is the official choir of the Pittsburgh SO, but also gives a three-event subscription series of its own. Other thriving choral groups include the Bach Choir (founded 1934) and the Pittsburgh Camerata, an a cappella chamber choir.
The earliest music teachers and performers in Pittsburgh were trained in England. Peter Declary, who arrived in Pittsburgh in 1799, was the city's first teacher of music, while William Evens, a native of Sussex who came to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia in 1811, opened a singing school soon afterwards. He also amassed Pittsburgh's first collection of music scores, histories, theory books and biographies, but was a reluctant lender who allowed few people access. His collection eventually went to the Carnegie Library.
Pittsburgh was one of the first American cities to introduce music into schools (in 1844). Will Earhart, who became music director for the Pittsburgh Public Schools in 1912, produced a widely read report, ‘Music in the Public Schools’, that strongly influenced music education at this level.
The city's three universities all offer strong undergraduate and graduate courses in music. The state-related University of Pittsburgh is strongest in musicology and composition, while Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University (affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church) have extensive courses for performance and music education. All have faculty and student recital series, chamber music, orchestral and choral ensembles, opera workshops and contemporary music groups that perform regularly on their respective campuses and explore repertory more adventurous than do the area's commercial organizations.
Pittsburgh was an early centre in the development of radio and the home of KDKA, one of the first commercial radio stations in the USA. KDKA was the first to produce a choral broadcast (by the Westinghouse Community Chorus, in 1922) and the first to have its own orchestra, also in 1922. Pittsburgh's arts radio station, WQED-FM, broadcasts classical music for a large part of every day. Some of its programmes are locally produced and feature local performers. It is associated with the public television station WQED-TV.
G.M. Rohrer: Music and Musicians of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1940)
E.G. Baynham: A History of Pittsburgh Music 1758–1958 (MS, 1970, US-Pc)
Carnegie Magazine, xlix (1975) [whole issue]
F. Dorian and J. Meibach: A History of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (Pittsburgh, 1986)
IDA REED/ROBERT CROAN