Theodore Thomas (conductor) facts for kids
Theodore Thomas (born October 11, 1835 – died January 4, 1905) was a talented German-American violinist and conductor. He is known as the first really famous American orchestra conductor. He also started the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1891 and was its first music director until 1905.
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About Theodore Thomas
His Early Life
Theodore Christian Friedrich Thomas was born in Esens, Germany, on October 11, 1835. His father, Johann August Thomas, was a skilled violinist and the town's Stadtpfeifer (bandleader). This meant his father led the town band and arranged music for special events.
Theodore learned music mainly from his father. He started playing the violin in public concerts when he was just six years old.
Starting His Career
Theodore loved the violin from a young age. By the time he was ten, he was already helping to support his family. He played music at weddings, dances, and even in taverns. In 1845, his family moved from Germany to New York City. They believed there would be more opportunities for a musician in America. The journey across the ocean took six weeks.
In 1848, Theodore and his father joined the Navy Band. But in 1849, Theodore decided to make his own way. He soon became a regular musician in theater orchestras. He played in places like the Park, the Bowery, and the Niblo theaters. After that, he traveled around the United States, giving violin concerts. He managed everything himself, from selling tickets to promoting his shows. He traveled as far south as Mississippi.
Becoming a Conductor
Thomas returned to New York in 1850. He planned to go back to Germany for more music lessons, but instead, he began studying to be a conductor in New York. He learned from famous conductors like Karl Eckert and Louis Antoine Jullien.
He became the first violinist in orchestras that played for famous singers. These included Jenny Lind in 1850, Henrietta Sontag in 1852, and Giulia Grisi and Giuseppe Mario in 1854. In 1854, when he was 19, he was invited to play with the Philharmonic Society's orchestra.
He also led orchestras for other well-known performers like La Grange, Maria Piccolomini, and Thalberg. In 1855, he started a series of chamber music concerts. He played first violin, along with other talented musicians. These concerts, called the Mason-Thomas concerts, continued until 1864.
The Theodore Thomas Orchestra
In 1864, Thomas started his own orchestra, the Theodore Thomas Orchestra. They began with summer concerts in New York City. Later, they toured many other cities, including Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Chicago.
His orchestra was very popular and received great reviews. However, they often faced money problems. For example, in 1871, they arrived in Chicago for a concert series. But they found that much of the city had been destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire the night before. The concert hall where they were supposed to play was also gone. The orchestra eventually stopped performing in 1888.
Thomas also held other important music jobs. He was the music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1877-78 and again from 1879 to 1891. He also led the Brooklyn Philharmonic Society from 1862 to 1891. From 1873 to 1904, he conducted the big May festivals in Cincinnati every two years. He helped make Richard Wagner's music popular in America.
Founding the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Theodore Thomas was always very well-liked in Chicago. In 1889, a Chicago businessman named Charles Norman Fay asked Thomas if he would come to Chicago to lead a permanent orchestra. Thomas famously replied, "I would go to hell if they gave me a permanent orchestra."
So, on December 17, 1890, a group of people met to create the Orchestral Association. Less than a year later, on October 16 and 17, 1891, the Chicago Orchestra played its first concerts. Thomas led these concerts at the Auditorium Theatre. The program included famous works by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Dvořák.
During his time in Chicago, Thomas introduced many new pieces of music to his audiences. He led the first performances in the United States of works by composers like Anton Bruckner, Dvořák, Edward Elgar, and Richard Strauss. Strauss, who was Thomas's friend, even became the orchestra's first guest conductor in 1904.
Thomas also conducted in other places. For example, in 1887, he led the first U.S. performance of Saint-Saëns's famous "Organ Symphony" in New York.
Thomas always dreamed of having a permanent home for the orchestra. He wasn't completely happy with the Auditorium Theatre because it was too big. His dream came true when Orchestra Hall was finished. Thomas led the first concert there on December 14, 1904.
Sadly, Thomas became sick with influenza during rehearsals for that concert. He continued to conduct for two more weeks. He led his beloved Chicago Orchestra for the last time on Christmas Eve 1904. He died of pneumonia on January 4, 1905.
After his death, Frederick Stock took over as conductor. Stock wrote a special piece of music dedicated to Theodore Thomas and the orchestra.
His Lasting Impact
Theodore Thomas was a legend in his time. A book about his life even won a Pulitzer Prize in 1927. He also appears as a character in the novel The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather. In the book, he talks about his early struggles and how listening to singers like Jenny Lind and Henrietta Sontag changed his violin playing.
He said he had spent the summer of his fifteenth year wandering about alone in the South, giving violin concerts in little towns. He traveled on horseback. When he came into a town, he went about all day tacking up posters announcing his concert in the evening. Before the concert, he stood at the door taking in the admission money until his audience had arrived, and then he went on the platform and played. It was a lazy, hand-to-mouth existence . . . and when he got back to New York in the fall, he was rather torpid . . . From this adolescent drowsiness the lad was awakened by two voices, by two women who sang in New York in 1851: Jenny Lind and Henrietta Sontag. They were the first great artists he had ever heard, and he never forgot his debt to them.
. . . . Night after night he went to hear them, striving to reproduce the quality of their tone upon his violin. From that time his idea about strings was completely changed, and on his violin he tried always for the singing, vibrating tone, instead of the loud and somewhat harsh tone then prevalent among even the best German violinists. In later years he often advised violinists to study singing, and singers to study violin. . . ." But, of course", he added, "the great thing I got from Lind and Sontag was the indefinite, not the definite, thing. For an impressionable boy, their inspiration was incalculable. They gave me my first feeling for the Italian style -- but I could never say how much they gave me. At that age, such influences are actually creative. I always think of my artistic consciousness as beginning then.
All his life Thomas did his best to repay what he felt he owed to the singer's art. No man could get such singing from choruses, and no man worked harder to raise the standard of singing in schools and churches and choral societies.
Thomas always tried to bring the beautiful "singing" quality of voices into his violin playing. He often told violinists to study singing and singers to study violin. He believed that the inspiration he got from these singers was incredibly important for his own artistic journey.
Family Life
Theodore Thomas married his first wife, Minna L. Rhodes, in New York City in 1864. They had five children together.
He married his second wife, Rose Emily Fay, in Chicago on May 7, 1890. Rose was a talented artist and writer. She was the sister of Amy Fay, a well-known pianist. Rose was also the sister of Charles Norman Fay, the businessman who helped Thomas start the Chicago Orchestra. Rose died in 1929 and is buried next to Theodore in Massachusetts.
Death
Theodore Thomas died in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 1905. His funeral was held at St. James Episcopal Cathedral in Chicago. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Memorials
There is a special memorial monument and garden in Chicago's Grant Park that honors Theodore Thomas. It is located near Orchestra Hall.
See also
In Spanish: Theodore Thomas para niños
- Felsengarten, the summer house of Thomas and his second wife
