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chapter three “Music Is What Awakens in You When You Are Reminded by the Instruments” Hearing a New Life at Mid-Century jJ Song of Myself In the exploding urban concert market of the 1840s and 1850s, those interested in music found themselves having to actively manage their leisure time. Nathan Beekley, for example, a young clerk in Philadelphia, wrote in his diary of 1849 about regularly attending shows and concerts across several different establishments, including Philadelphia’s Musical Fund Hall, Chestnut Street Theatre, the Walnut Street Theatre, the National Theatre, McGuires’s Dancing Rooms, and the local Barnum’s Museum. As was appropriate for the time period, he did not distinguish between types of musical performance; he enjoyed the musical burlesque of The Virginia Serenaders’ minstrel shows as much as the serious dramatic productions of the Seguin Opera Company. Beekley was not wealthy—he mentioned making $500 a year, which put him just above the average worker—and he regularly chastised himself in the diary about the money he was spending on his pursuit of amusements, which, at one dollar for some of the performances , was “too salty.” As he wrote, “It won’t do—must stop going to places of amusement—it don’t pay—particularly since losing so much money.”1 But he was always back again after several days. By the end of the year, he shifted his attention to more refined venues. As he wrote, “To keep out of the broils, I went to the opera again this evening .”2 It was clearly an effort to better himself, since he had come to worry more and more about the presence of “rowdies” at minstrel shows and, recognizing his own inclinations, he wished to avoid the jeopardy they listening and longing / 76 posed to his character. Overall, while he sometimes played his violin at home on nights when he was tired, audiencing was a wider behavioral pattern in his life. In fact, outside of his job, which he rarely described in any detail, most of his off-hours were occupied with music. He continued to go to commercial musical performances at least once a week, and sometimes as often as six nights a week during the height of the concert season. In addition to his concert going, he found time to attend firemen’s parades, noting only that “the music was not as good as it might have been.”3 When he called on a young woman, more often than not he proposed to take her to a concert. On Sundays, he attended multiple Episcopalian, German Reformed , and Dutch Reformed churches; he did so simply to hear the organ or the choirs, and not to worship. While Beekley might appear overly fascinated with urban musical entertainment , he was not alone. Henry Clay Southworth, a young clerk in New York during 1850 and 1851, likewise wrote about regularly attending a variety of commercial entertainment venues. Not fond of dancing, nor inclined to play an instrument, he instead attended lectures, walked on Broadway “to view the beauty and the fashion,” and made regular visits to Niblo’s Garden (Monday evenings) and to burlesques and minstrel shows at theaters like Burton’s and Brougham’s Lyceum.4 Charles Tracy, a young man from a wealthy New York family that regularly attended concert and opera performances, reported in his diary during the 1850s that he was mostly bored by concerts and, instead, found himself “tempted” by the burlesques at Laura Keene’s Variety Theater or the “Ethiopian entertainments” at the Olympic. Though he attended such shows alone, without friends or family, he described them enthusiastically, coming home “perfectly satis- fied.”5 George Templeton Strong, a young lawyer in New York City at midcentury , left an extraordinarily detailed diary that indicated what he described as his “musical mania.” He maintained a strong fascination with the city’s musical environment, from military bands and amateur-musician neighbors (which mostly annoyed him) to popular singers like Henry Russell , from the rehearsals and concerts of private music societies like the New York Philharmonic and opera at the exclusive Astor Place to hugely popular events by traveling virtuosos.6 Why did these young men embrace the musical entertainments of the city so enthusiastically? What did the act of listening to musical performance mean, or do, for them? Beekley seemed to be seeking the right kinds of social associations—all while keeping a careful eye on his expenses. Southworth associated concert experiences specifically with...

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