transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] The Bowery Boys is now also on video. Go to YouTube and search for Bowery Boys podcast to watch today's episode, and don't forget to subscribe.
Speaker 2:
[00:09] This episode of The Bowery Boys is proudly sponsored by Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 1:
[00:14] When you think about the cultural history of New York City, few places define it like Carnegie Hall. For more than a century, Carnegie Hall has been the home of landmark, truly groundbreaking performances across classical music, jazz, Broadway, pop, folk and so much more.
Speaker 2:
[00:31] From early jazz and classical icons to today's leading voices in contemporary and popular music, its stage has seen the past, present and future of American music. Whether you're a long time concert goer or just looking for a memorable night out in the city, there's always something new to discover.
Speaker 1:
[00:51] How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Visit carnegiehall.org to get your tickets today and find out.
Speaker 2:
[00:58] The Bowery Boys, Episode 483, The Treasures of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 1:
[01:03] Hey, it's The Bowery Boys.
Speaker 2:
[01:05] Hey.
Speaker 1:
[01:20] Hi there, welcome to The Bowery Boys, this is Greg Young.
Speaker 2:
[01:22] And this is Tom Meyers. And look Greg, we're on location. We are at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 1:
[01:30] We're surrounded by supertalls everywhere. It just doesn't get more modern than this. And yet we're about to go back in time because we're about to step through the doors of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[01:41] We love Carnegie Hall. We love Carnegie Hall's story, its whole history. We've talked about it on the show before, but we've never really gone deep into not only its history, but the history of American music and performance, and great moments actually of the stage that have taken place right inside there.
Speaker 1:
[01:59] Their first concert was 135 years ago this year. So we're going to celebrate Carnegie Hall by going into Carnegie Hall, because how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, podcast, podcast, podcast, and practice a podcast. We didn't practice that. So we're going to go inside, and we're going to meet archivists who are going to take us through the history via some really valuable artifacts.
Speaker 2:
[02:22] Let's go inside now.
Speaker 1:
[02:24] Carnegie Hall, originally known as just Music Hall, is located at 881 Seventh Avenue, built by the steel mogul and industrialist Andrew Carnegie, and located two blocks south of Central Park and a few blocks north of Times Square. We headed into this landmark of Italian Renaissance architecture and up to the eighth floor offices.
Speaker 2:
[02:45] In there, we were met by Director Kathleen Sabogal and Assistant Director Rob Hudson of Carnegie Hall's Rose Archives and Museum. They led us through the modern light-filled offices to the archives.
Speaker 1:
[03:00] We sat down to talk about Carnegie Hall's history in a rather unusual space. It looked and felt like an old living room complete with a fireplace.
Speaker 2:
[03:11] Well, Kathleen Sabogal and Rob Hudson, thank you so much for bringing us way up here. We are way high above Carnegie Hall. Tell us where we are.
Speaker 1:
[03:21] Yeah, this is a very special room. It's just not where everyone gets to go when you come to Carnegie Hall, and it's full of beautiful artifacts. So tell us a little bit about this particular space.
Speaker 3:
[03:31] So this is our research room in the Susan Rose Archives at Carnegie Hall. But originally, it was a studio space. We're on the eighth floor. When Carnegie Hall was built in 1891, it was just the concert halls. But then later on, studio towers were added to generate revenue for the hall.
Speaker 1:
[03:51] So musicians, artists?
Speaker 3:
[03:54] Musicians, artists, dancers, writers, you name it. It was an artistic community.
Speaker 1:
[04:01] So this room will tell the history of Carnegie Hall. You also have a museum that people can visit. We'll talk about that later. But let's actually start before Carnegie Hall, right? Let's go to the 1880s. What is music in New York City like? What is the music scene, especially for, let's say, orchestral music? Where would you have gone? What was that scene like in comparison to the other things that were going on downtown?
Speaker 4:
[04:28] So in the 1880s, one of the big venues for music would have been the Academy of Music on 14th Street. That was the Opera House. It was kind of a cavernous place. That was sort of the old money Opera House. Then in 1883, the new money people built the Metropolitan Opera House on 39th Street and Broadway. So that was there.
Speaker 2:
[04:49] I've seen that on a TV show.
Speaker 4:
[04:52] Yes. They cover it pretty well in there and you get the sense for that. But the other aspect that I think is important is pianos were huge. So if you think about this is at least a couple of decades before commercial audio recordings came into the picture, 30, 40 years before commercial radio. So entertainment for people was having a piano in their home. So there were scads of piano manufacturers in New York City and a lot of them, like Chickering, Kenabi, Steinway, they would have their own little recital halls. So you had that going on. But then in the orchestral scene, at that time there was really only three permanent orchestras in the whole of the United States, and they're all here in New York City. So you had the New York Philharmonic, Philharmonic Society of New York founded in 1842, and then you had the conductor by the name of Theodore Thomas, who was a really important figure in American music scene in the 1860s, 70s, 80s. He was here and he had his own orchestra. Then there was actually the Brooklyn Philharmonic, which was what the Brooklyn Academy of Music was originally built for. So you had orchestras, there's a choir that will figure very importantly in our early history. But there was really only one big place for groups to perform before the Metropolitan Opera House is the Academy of Music.
Speaker 2:
[06:16] Right. And so when we've talked about the Academy of Music and then the opera house opening and the opera wars and everything, it's usually in the context of the operas, right?
Speaker 3:
[06:26] Yes. And opera was really big and that was primarily a social outing. And so it was German opera, Italian opera. And so when Carnegie Hall comes on the scene or music hall at the time, it opens up a whole new avenue for all kinds of music.
Speaker 2:
[06:44] And was that the need then, the fact that these other performance spaces dealt largely with opera, that there was a need for a Philharmonic hall?
Speaker 3:
[06:52] Well, primarily because the Oratorio Society, for whom the hall was built, didn't have a space. They were mostly rehearsing in the Canobie Piano Hall. And they had problems, like, as Rob said, there was competition to get into the Met or the Academy of Music. So when the Oratorio Society was founded by Leopold Damrosch in 1873, and then a couple of years later, 1877, he founds the Symphony Society, the New York Symphony Orchestra. They don't have a good place for choral music or symphonic music. And that's when Leopold starts the dream of, I'd love a proper home for that music.
Speaker 1:
[07:38] So he's really like, in a way, he gives birth to this idea of this place, right?
Speaker 3:
[07:43] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[07:43] So tell us a little bit more about him. And then how does he get connected, of course, with this grand mogul, Andrew Carnegie?
Speaker 3:
[07:51] Well, he emigrates to the United States in 1871. And he comes specifically to conduct the Arian Society, which is a German singing organist. Yeah. But he has dreams of bigger choral music. So that's when he founds the Oratorio Society of New York. And Louise Carnegie becomes a member, a supporting member of the Oratorio Society.
Speaker 2:
[08:17] And Louise Carnegie is Andrew's wife.
Speaker 3:
[08:19] Yes. And she's Louise Whitfield before she marries Andrew Carnegie.
Speaker 2:
[08:24] Okay. And in the 1870s, they are living in New York.
Speaker 4:
[08:27] They actually don't get married until 1887. So that kind of plays a role.
Speaker 2:
[08:31] Oh, this just got more interesting.
Speaker 3:
[08:33] Yeah. That plays a big role. But Leopold Damrausch unfortunately dies in 1885, but he passes the dream on to Walter.
Speaker 1:
[08:41] His son.
Speaker 3:
[08:42] His son Walter who picks up the dream of a concert hall. And the really magical moment you would say is in 1887, Andrew and Louise are getting ready to go on their honeymoon. They're sailing to Europe and who happens to be on the boat with them? Walter Damrausch. What a coincidence. Interesting. But they become friends. And Louise is a member, a supporting member of the Oratorio Society. Andrew Carnegie is on the board of the Oratorio Society, but they become friends and Walter is invited to visit them on their honeymoon. And that's when Walter starts to plant the seeds of, we need a concert hall.
Speaker 2:
[09:24] And where is this in Andrew Carnegie's journey of philanthropy?
Speaker 4:
[09:29] Very early.
Speaker 2:
[09:30] Right. Because the library is coming a little later or is it the same time?
Speaker 4:
[09:34] He had started building libraries. He had built his first one in, was that in Braddock or just outside Pittsburgh for the workers. And so he was building libraries. He was paying for church organs. He liked doing that. But the real philanthropy that we know him for was not in the picture.
Speaker 2:
[09:53] Because he was still running his company.
Speaker 4:
[09:54] He was.
Speaker 2:
[09:55] At that time, the philanthropy sort of happens. The big chunks come after he sells it. Is that sort of how it's-
Speaker 4:
[10:01] Really after he retires in 1901, he sells Carnegie Steel to JP Morgan. And he had made a pledge even back in his 30s. He wrote a manifesto that said, I want to give away my wealth before I die.
Speaker 2:
[10:13] Right.
Speaker 4:
[10:14] And so he started doing that in 1901, but he couldn't give it away fast enough. And so he formed the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1912.
Speaker 2:
[10:24] But so that's all after- We're talking 1880s, they meet and was he in a mood to give money? And how much were they asking?
Speaker 3:
[10:32] Walter, in his autobiography, says that he had to be convinced. He said- Well, it's a big ask. It's a big ask. And it wasn't on his radar in terms of he could understand why somebody would need a library or an organ, but a concert hall. But Walter was invited back again to visit the Carnegie's in Europe in Scotland in 1888. And that's when he really convinces him and Carnegie says, okay, we're going to do it.
Speaker 1:
[11:03] One of the fascinating things about Carnegie Hall then as that's from inception to construction is its location in the city. And what's happening in New York then, it's sort of the late 1880s, the heart of the Gilded Age. I mean, there are a lot of Gilded Age families going up Fifth Avenue. In fact, Carnegie will build further, further up Fifth Avenue. But it is a kind of different place compared to the other music venues of the city, right?
Speaker 3:
[11:28] Yes. And it's considered, the location is considered very far uptown. I mean, as you said, there were Gilded Age mansions already being built. There were nice residences along 57th Street. But there was a stables here. Central Park was built, of course. But people weren't coming up here to hear music or entertainment. They were going two and a half miles south, down to like 14th Street and that area. They were coming here to live. But Carnegie already saw, I mean, I guess he saw everyone moving uptown and he didn't want, once he decided to build the hall, he didn't want it below 56th Street. Really?
Speaker 2:
[12:08] So he saw the way that this was all moving?
Speaker 3:
[12:10] He saw the way it was going and people thought he was, in fact, William Steinway, if you've ever looked at the diaries, William Steinway diaries, he called this in his diary, this would be Carnegie's White Elephant because he didn't think that people would come. Originally, as conceived, there were four performance spaces in the hall, so he thought there are too many performance spaces. But he closed the concert hall at Steinway warehouses in 1890, and then started eventually booking his artists in Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[12:43] So once Carnegie agrees to gift $2 million, I guess, to this cause.
Speaker 3:
[12:50] All told. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[12:51] All told. It's still the late 1880s. What happened? Did he form a company to do this? Was he really involved in the construction and the day-to-day operations of this?
Speaker 4:
[13:01] I think so. I mean, he, Damroch kind of convinces him in the summer of 1888. And so by early 1889, he's already looking into this. He starts buying up parcels of land through a man named Morris Reno, who was active in all these, like the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie would have known him well.
Speaker 3:
[13:19] And I'll just say also, he was president of the Oratorio Society. So you can see the through line of the Oratorio Society.
Speaker 4:
[13:26] So Reno is doing this, and this is kind of in March of 1889. Then William Steinway talks in his diaries about, oh, they're blasting by Carnegie Hall again. And this is in like August, as late as December 1889. But Carnegie had paid for the land. He was, they created what was called the Music Hall Company of New York. So it was a stock company and he got, he had kind of convinced people. He said, look, I can cover most of this, but if you can at least give a nominal amount to look like we have a lot of people subscribed in this. And so he was getting the various board members to chime in on this.
Speaker 1:
[14:01] So let's talk a little bit about the architect that was chosen and the specific look of the building. Who was chosen and why did they go with this particular style?
Speaker 3:
[14:10] William Burnett Tudhill. And here's another oratorio society connection. He was the secretary of the oratorio society.
Speaker 1:
[14:18] So they're all just like friends with one another. They're singing choral songs and then they're building music halls together.
Speaker 2:
[14:24] Was he an architect?
Speaker 3:
[14:25] Yes, he was an architect. A famed architect. But he was also a cellist. He had an amateur string quartet that performed in his home for 30 years. And he sang. So he was a natural choice. He also had consulting architects, Richard Morris Hunt, who he worked under and learned under, and Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan were also conducting.
Speaker 2:
[14:52] So he had help as well.
Speaker 3:
[14:53] Yeah, he had help. But he was already known for his interest in acoustics. So it wasn't that he didn't know anything about it, but it wasn't a science at the time.
Speaker 1:
[15:05] Sure.
Speaker 3:
[15:05] Right.
Speaker 2:
[15:06] In fact, I have read that the choices that he made were somewhat unusual in terms of the main concert hall and the space and the acoustics. How did he go about approaching this in a scientific way?
Speaker 4:
[15:18] It's really interesting. Kathleen brought out, he much later in the 1920s, he put together a pamphlet called Practical Acoustics, gathering all of his ideas about this. He would do things like roll billiard balls around on a billiard table, thinking about how sound might reflect off of different surfaces. When he was with the Oratorio Society going around to all these different venues that they had to sing in, I think he was really keenly aware of the acoustical properties of those places, what sounded good, what didn't sound good. So he really paid attention to these environments. So I think he understood that you didn't want the direct reflection of sound. As you'll see when we get down on the hall, he came up with this idea of this parabolic shape that's the shell above the stage and extends in these concentric patterns out from there, because he's envisioning the way the sound will travel out, particularly from a large chorus like the Oratorio Society.
Speaker 3:
[16:11] There's no chandelier in the hall, so there's nothing to obstruct the sound.
Speaker 2:
[16:15] The Metropolitan Opera had a big chandelier. He was taking out some of the decorative elements.
Speaker 4:
[16:21] The Metropolitan Opera also, when Kathleen was talking about the orchestras and things competing for space, they would talk about how it wasn't designed for an orchestra, the stage, it was designed for opera. So that was, he was designing it for a chorus, but it ended up working really well for orchestral and choral music both.
Speaker 1:
[16:44] So, I mean, we are blessed to actually be here today, of course, as you're celebrating the 135th anniversary of the opening. So that opening was in 1891, and what was the first concert?
Speaker 3:
[16:57] May 5th, 1891 was the opening concert. Although there were a few things that happened before that, but that was the big concert. It was the first of a five-day festival, six concerts. How do you get people to come? You bring the most famous composer of the day over, Tchaikovsky, who along with Walter Damrosch, conducted the New York Symphony Orchestra. The Oratorio Society was on the stage as well.
Speaker 1:
[17:25] It's amazing. Starting with the bang, right? It was like a historic moment in American music history to having him over.
Speaker 3:
[17:32] Yes. People came and lined up and wanted to come and see him. The New York newspapers the next day were all in agreement that music crowned in its new home.
Speaker 2:
[17:45] The program for the first night, it opened with an American piece, did it not? Or did it actually open with a Tchaikovsky piece?
Speaker 4:
[17:52] Well, it opened actually with the old hundred, the doxology. There was a big kind of a stemwinder speech from Bishop Henry Cobb and Potter, kind of giving this history of sort of music in New York and on and on and Tchaikovsky in his diaries talks about it and it's basically calls it a long boring speech. And then Damraush came out and conducted Beethoven's Lenore Overture No. 3. And then it was after that that Tchaikovsky came out and he conducted a piece called The Marche Solennel, which was a piece that he kind of repurposed. It was a coronation march for-
Speaker 2:
[18:26] He regifted?
Speaker 4:
[18:27] Yeah. He regifted it.
Speaker 3:
[18:28] I guess they wanted him to write something, but he thought, no one's going to really know, but everybody knew.
Speaker 4:
[18:36] But then the really interesting thing is the final piece on that concert was the US premiere of a piece by Hector Berlioz, who's a very iconoclastic composer. And they performed this piece called the Te Deum, which Tchaikovsky said he didn't like it at first, but by the end he warmed up to it.
Speaker 3:
[18:54] Yeah, and it was pretty significant to have the Berlioz Te Deum because Leopold Amrach was a big proponent of Berlioz's music. So that was kind of a wonderful moment for Walter to perform the premiere of this piece.
Speaker 2:
[19:10] He thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 4:
[19:12] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[19:13] And so that opening night performance was being held in the Main Concert Hall. But we should just clarify that there were more spaces here. There were more performance halls.
Speaker 3:
[19:24] Sure. Yeah. So the Main Performance Space was called Main Hall in 1891. That's today's Isaac Stern Auditorium. Directly below that was what was called Recital Hall at that time. That's today's Zankel Hall. And then there was a small hall, the Chamber Music Hall, which is on the third floor. And that's today's Wyll Music Hall. The fourth space was called the Chapter Room. That space no longer exists.
Speaker 2:
[19:49] But from the beginning, there was this idea that there were at least these three halls, and they could be holding things simultaneously or on the same day.
Speaker 3:
[19:58] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[19:58] Sure.
Speaker 4:
[19:59] And what's fascinating is when Kathleen mentioned there were things happening, even before May 5th, there was kind of this rush to get the hall completed. I mean, Tchaikovsky even mentions this in his diaries when he came for a rehearsal, and there was a lot of banging and pounding. But there were recitals happening in that recital hall on the lower level. It was a 1200-seat recital hall, and there's actually a notice in one of the programs where the management begs the indulgence of the audience to please forgive the noises as they finished building the hall upstairs. So they dove right in.
Speaker 1:
[20:34] So let's go through the history here. Let's start at the beginning with the first concert. Let's go through some of the most notable moments, but why don't we actually get up and do it by looking at some of these beautiful artifacts that you've pointed out for us.
Speaker 3:
[20:49] Okay, great.
Speaker 2:
[20:49] We'll go through those great nights at Carnegie Hall right after this.
Speaker 1:
[20:55] This episode of The Bowery Boys is sponsored by Carnegie Hall. Now, you may know Carnegie Hall for its world-class performances across many musical genres, but did you know that that's just one part of what they do?
Speaker 2:
[21:10] Beyond its own stage, Carnegie Hall brings free concerts to neighborhoods and venues across the five boroughs. It supports educators, public schools and gifted young musicians through programs like its world-renowned National Youth Orchestra and music educators' workshops.
Speaker 1:
[21:28] It also invites the public to take guided tours through its historic landmark building and to dine at its very own cafe. Find your Carnegie Hall experience at carnegiehall.org. So we're still in the archives room, but we are standing over this extraordinary long table filled with some of the most unique treasures and secrets and all these little fascinating curiosities related to Carnegie Hall. So we're going to walk through some of these to tell the whole story. But can we please start with this really old book like Merlin? The Magician would have owned this book, something super old. What's the story behind this?
Speaker 3:
[22:13] So this is one of the minute books of the Oratorial Society of New York. Remember we said Andrew was on the board of the Oratorial Society. He eventually became president of the Oratorial Society. Tudhill, the architect is the secretary of the Oratorial Society. So these books which we have been gifted, we're going to manage and make available all the archives of the Oratorial Society. This book has some interesting early Carnegie history in it.
Speaker 1:
[22:43] By the way, based on what you've already told us, it seems like a lot of famous people were part of the Oratorial Society. So there's a lot of history in this that even extends beyond music.
Speaker 2:
[22:52] You say this is written in Tudhill's hand.
Speaker 4:
[22:56] You can actually read it. He had very nice handwriting.
Speaker 2:
[22:58] Gorgeous.
Speaker 3:
[22:59] Yeah, he had great.
Speaker 1:
[23:00] Oh, the art of handwriting.
Speaker 3:
[23:02] So this page is really, so you can see here, he's William B. Tudhill's secretary. This is May 13th. This is the cornerstone laying. This is the invitation. He even gives you the weather report. 1890, May 13th. May 13th, 1890. There's a photo there of the cornerstone laying. Louise Carnegie laid the cornerstone of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[23:25] I should hope so.
Speaker 3:
[23:26] I'm lucky enough to have on loan the trowel from the Carnegie Birthplace Museum.
Speaker 2:
[23:34] It's engraved.
Speaker 3:
[23:35] It's engraved. It's a Tiffany trowel. It says, with this trowel, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie laid the cornerstone of the new music hall building Southeast Corner, 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, New York.
Speaker 1:
[23:46] People may know what a trowel looks like. This is a very large trowel. It's beautiful and it's adorned with writing. So this really began the journey of Carnegie Hall, this object.
Speaker 3:
[23:59] So Louise Carnegie had laid the cornerstone for many buildings that Carnegie funded, but this trowel she kept on her mantle her entire life.
Speaker 2:
[24:08] She was especially proud of this one. Of this trowel.
Speaker 1:
[24:11] It's beautiful.
Speaker 3:
[24:12] Yes. You can see this is normally on display in our Rose Museum.
Speaker 2:
[24:17] So the cornerstone is laid in 1890. How did the construction go?
Speaker 4:
[24:23] Well, so you can kind of see we have a photograph on the wall over there. So that's May 13th, 1890. In this photo, you can see there's like cranes and things around, but then there's a cornerstone block in the middle. In the minutes actually, Tuthill talks about the items that they placed in the cornerstone. It's kind of the Times capsule. There's a description of those. But later on, your listeners can see this photo. You'll be able to see Andrew Carnegie kind of standing in the background with his little beard. But then Louise is there and she's got the trowel and she's laying the cornerstone. So this is May 13th. And you can see there's a few columns starting to rise. So they've been building for a bit, right? We said they had started blasting the summer before, probably laying the building up from the bottom. So this is May 13th, 1890. But the photograph above it, we can see the workers on the roof of Carnegie Hall. And I love this photograph because you can see the Carnegie Steel. We actually have a piece of the Carnegie Steel on our mantel piece here. And if you look really closely, you can see the word Carnegie on it.
Speaker 2:
[25:29] Wow. And so that's what we also saw as we walked here from the elevator, we saw these beams.
Speaker 4:
[25:34] You saw these exact beams.
Speaker 2:
[25:37] And this is an amazing photograph because it looks just like a web of wood and steel holding together the skeleton that this whole building would be.
Speaker 4:
[25:45] And where you were walking is about where those planks are located. You were walking on a floor that's above the auditorium, so that's what this shows. But this is also a wonderful photograph because you can see in the upper left corner is the Osborne Apartments, which is still here, that was built in 1885.
Speaker 2:
[26:01] And if we turn around and look out these gorgeous windows behind us, we can still see it over there.
Speaker 4:
[26:06] It's still there.
Speaker 2:
[26:07] At the northwest corner of 57th.
Speaker 4:
[26:09] Yes, the northwest corner and then in the distance, of course, is Central Park. And then you can also see right in the center is the building that's no longer there, it was called the Navarro Flats. That was another early apartment building. So anyway, this is, I'm guessing probably maybe early 1891. And so by the time we get to the opening week music festival in May, which starts on May 5th, 1891, they're mostly done with the hall, although as we find they're still kind of working on some software paintings. But it still is kind of a fascinating thing to think that by less than a year after that cornerstone laying ceremony, we've got Tchaikovsky standing on this stage conducting his music.
Speaker 1:
[26:48] So let's go to some of these earliest performances. Here on the table, we have some photographs, we have some programs, and we're opening an old folder.
Speaker 4:
[26:59] Before I open it, I want to lay the background for this. So we've talked about Tchaikovsky being a guest, and Tchaikovsky kept wonderful diaries, and you can find these online. They're great. I think they're actually really entertaining. He was a very inner-directed person, suffered from a lot of melancholy, but he was really incredibly thoughtful. So his descriptions of New York City and being here are great. He came in, I think it was April 27th, 1891. He was here for about two weeks. And so a couple of days after he got here, he describes a day where they come and meet him at his hotel. He was staying at the Hotel Normandy, which is down near where the Metropolitan Opera was. I think it was around 39th and Broadway.
Speaker 1:
[27:44] Hell Square area.
Speaker 4:
[27:46] Yeah. And so they take him to a dinner that's being hosted by Morris Reno, again, who's the president of the Oratorio Society, but then is also president of the New Music Hall Company of New York, which is a stock company that is running the hall. And this is kind of the first like welcoming dinner for him. But in his diaries, he describes this dinner and he talks about how at the place setting for each of the ladies, there was a small photograph of himself in a little round frame. And so that's, I wanted to explain that.
Speaker 1:
[28:17] Okay.
Speaker 4:
[28:17] You'll see that here we've got this.
Speaker 2:
[28:19] Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:
[28:20] All right. It's a little piece of paper.
Speaker 4:
[28:24] And so it's a musical autograph. And you can see P. Tchaikovsky and he dates at 29 April, 91, New York. So this places him right here. We know it from his diaries. This is a little quote from the piece that he was going to conduct on the, he conducted three concerts in our opening week music festival. This was from the second concert and this is his suite number three for orchestra. But notice the shape. It's a little oval, right? So if we turn this over, we're going to see the little picture of him. As he describes in his diaries, the ladies all had a little photograph of him in an oval frame. So we know that this came from that dinner, which I think is wonderful.
Speaker 1:
[29:01] There's notes. It's not just an autograph, but it's a section of notes.
Speaker 4:
[29:06] It's like a musical autograph, which lots of musicians would sign autographs that way, like in his case, a piece that he wrote or things like that.
Speaker 2:
[29:16] Rob, can you sing that for us?
Speaker 4:
[29:17] I can.
Speaker 2:
[29:19] It's a couple little stanzas.
Speaker 1:
[29:20] Are you a member of the Oratorical Society?
Speaker 4:
[29:22] No. See, I'm a trombone player because I can't sing.
Speaker 2:
[29:25] Oh, and it's in the wrong key.
Speaker 4:
[29:27] Yeah, it's not my key. It really lay well for me.
Speaker 2:
[29:29] Okay, we'll give you a pass on that one. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:
[29:32] Now, this is a venue that's, of course, incredibly important to American musical history. But in those early days, it brought in a lot more than just music, right? It actually made history through those, through lectures and through special visits, right?
Speaker 4:
[29:46] Yeah. Well, Kathleen, what's the famous quote from Andrew Carnegie at the Cornerstone Laying Ceremony?
Speaker 3:
[29:52] All good causes may here find a platform. He also said, this hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country. From the beginning, he envisioned it not just for music, but for any kind of performance, which included lots of lectures, political events, dance, you name it. It happened.
Speaker 2:
[30:13] Was Carnegie Hall producing its own production, or it was a place where outside groups could come and rent one of these three halls?
Speaker 4:
[30:22] It was Carnegie, I mean, he was a businessman. Right. So he did have the intention that this would support itself. Of course, this was not really a point of contention with Walter Damrush, but he had a hard time convincing Carnegie that didn't really work that way in the arts. Carnegie wanted it to be self-supporting, which is a big part of the reason initially it was not. Carnegie was making up these deficits, which is what led to the creation of the studio towers that were built, as Kathleen explained, to add extra income. But so no, Carnegie Hall was not really producing events under its, with a few minor exceptions in the early days, it was a rental hall. So you did see it becoming almost fulfilling a town hall function.
Speaker 1:
[31:07] Yeah. So again, we have some photos arrayed in front of us. Who are some of the people that we see here?
Speaker 4:
[31:14] This is a book called The Portrait of Carnegie Hall. This was published in 1966, I believe. But this is a photograph from 1906, and it shows the great civil rights leader, orator, educator, Booker T. Washington. He's speaking at an event that was a benefit for his Tuskegee Institute. What I love about this is in the photograph, you can look really closely, seated just behind him on the stage. You can see this man with a big shock of white hair, and that is Samuel Clumman, otherwise known as Mark Twain.
Speaker 2:
[31:45] Wow. These notable New Yorkers are up on the stage, right behind Booker T. Washington, and there's also a full house.
Speaker 4:
[31:52] Yes. Those events like that were a pretty common occurrence here. You would see lectures. Also in this book, there's the first time that Winston Churchill visited the hall. This was, I believe, in 1901, and he's actually lecturing on the Bower War. There's that, but then some of the other photographs we brought out, we have a picture of Teddy. Here you go.
Speaker 1:
[32:14] Is that Teddy Roosevelt? Yes.
Speaker 4:
[32:16] This is in 1912 when he was attempting to run again for the presidency under his Bull Moose party. I'm imagining him to have been a very dynamic speaker.
Speaker 2:
[32:26] This is Theodore Roosevelt standing on the stage.
Speaker 4:
[32:29] This is on the stage of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 1:
[32:31] He looks like he's bellowing. Your voice has to really carry, but these acoustics of course really help the batters.
Speaker 3:
[32:37] Acoustics help me remember he didn't have a microphone. But everyone would have been able to hear him even in the very last row in the balcony.
Speaker 2:
[32:47] In an event like this, this is a political event. Would his party or his campaign have paid to rent out the hall?
Speaker 4:
[32:56] Yeah. You saw a lot of that. There were state and local political conventions that happened. They would launch their campaigns here.
Speaker 2:
[33:04] Like Madison Square Garden, they could have also done it there, for example.
Speaker 4:
[33:08] Yeah. They probably were. You saw a lot of that going back and forth between these two places. It's fascinating. There's another thing we can show you here. We brought out this wonderful little autograph book. This is a book that belonged to a man named Louis Salter. Louis Salter was what was then called the superintendent of Carnegie Hall. He started here in 1893, I think, as an assistant electrician. Yeah. He eventually became superintendent, which the closest corollary we would have to it in modern times would be our house manager, kind of overseeing the day-to-day activities. But he would have the people that came to the hall, artists, lectures, and so on and so forth, sign autographs. So we can see right here on this first page, he's got this beautiful signature from Ignacyan Paderewski, famous Polish pianist who actually later on became the prime minister of Poland. Really interesting figure. He was here quite a bit. But one that I wanted to show you since we're talking about lectures. But I'm going to turn back.
Speaker 2:
[34:08] Wow. There's some big names you're flipping past that you can return.
Speaker 4:
[34:12] Okay. So this page I wanted to bring up because here we can see, well, a couple of interesting things. First of all, we've got the great progressive politician, William Jennings Bryan. He spoke here quite a few times. So we also have Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, and he spoke here many times. He actually spoke here in 1913 after he was the first to reach the South Pole.
Speaker 2:
[34:34] Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4:
[34:35] So a lot of polar explorers we had here. But this was in 1925 when he had made, I think it was his second attempt to fly over the North Pole. So right beneath him is the name Lincoln Ellsworth. Lincoln Ellsworth's father had paid for that expedition. Ellsworth was a civil engineer and he went with Amundsen on that trip. They actually didn't make it. One of their planes lost power and they had to go down on the ice and it took them forever to get off. They were lucky to be alive. But they lectured about that trip here.
Speaker 2:
[35:04] So they would have rented it out to lecturer and the public could pay to buy tickets.
Speaker 1:
[35:09] Well, they had these thrilling adventures.
Speaker 4:
[35:10] A lot of these, like the polar explorers, it might be a geographical society or something that would pay for it.
Speaker 2:
[35:16] It was kind of like PBS programming before television.
Speaker 3:
[35:19] Yeah. You'll see there were lots of explorers who talked here. There were the Burton Homes travel logs were here for a long time. It just shows you the eclectic history of everything at Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 1:
[35:33] It speaks to its immediate importance on the New York landscape. It just started and they kept getting these important figures.
Speaker 4:
[35:41] Well, Anna, one of those polar lectures, I love it because we actually had both poles represented. Because I believe that on stage, it might have been when Amundsen was here, but Cern of Shackleton, who of course has got some amazing polar exploration stories was present. So was Robert Peary, who he actually had the claim to be the first to reach the North Pole, which was later called into question. But we have both poles represented here, which I thought was great. Very global. This page I wanted to bring up because you can see here the signature in the middle, Arthur Conan Doyle. So of course, we all know Arthur Conan Doyle as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1:
[36:21] But he wasn't here to read Sherlock Holmes, was he?
Speaker 4:
[36:24] He was not here to read Sherlock Holmes. What's fascinating about this is Conan Doyle had taken a huge interest in spiritualism, which was quite in vogue at the time. So this is 1922. But he had been interested in this for quite a while, which might seem at odds for the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the character best known for this kind of analytical process, and just the facts and everything. But be it as it may, Doyle was very interested in it. It actually was a point of contention with one of his best friends who is Harry Houdini. Of course, Houdini was always trying to convince Doyle that, no, Doyle thought that Houdini had spiritual and metaphysical powers, and Houdini could not convince him otherwise. Eventually, it became a point that they had a rift.
Speaker 1:
[37:12] They came through here then, this rift.
Speaker 4:
[37:14] He came through here, he delivered a whole series of lectures in 1922.
Speaker 2:
[37:18] Houdini, of course, would also give lectures in Stand On Stage and debunk spiritualism.
Speaker 4:
[37:24] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[37:24] They were lecturing-
Speaker 4:
[37:25] Much to my chagrin, Houdini never did speak here, but so this is Conan Doyle. He delivered a whole series of lectures here on spiritualism. You can see in this particular program, his lecture subject is called The New Revelation, The Scientific Side.
Speaker 1:
[37:40] Would this involve mediums and seances on the stage or things like that, or was it more just like him speaking about these particular things?
Speaker 4:
[37:48] I think these he was just speaking about.
Speaker 1:
[37:49] He used to speak, yeah, although he did extort seances apparently. He did. No, he did.
Speaker 4:
[37:54] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[37:54] Were there any seances on the stage?
Speaker 4:
[37:56] I don't think we ever had any seances.
Speaker 3:
[37:58] But we never say never here because we always eventually find out something did happen.
Speaker 4:
[38:03] There were psychic demonstrations of various types. We like to say when people ask us, will I be the first to do this at Carnegie Hall? You have to work pretty hard. I mean, we even had a fencing match downstairs in the old Residual Hall space. So lots of different things. Someday we might find there actually was a seance.
Speaker 1:
[38:24] Well, speaking of spirited productions here at Carnegie Hall, let's move on to, I mean, my eyes are really being captured by these two programs in particular. One of them is Bright Colors, but this one says Woman's Suffrage Party. What's the story behind this?
Speaker 3:
[38:41] So Carnegie Hall, with all the speaking engagements here, there were over two dozen suffrage meetings, rallies here at the hall throughout the year. So it was a great place for spreading the word. And this is one of the pamphlets for the Woman's Suffrage Party. And this pin is off now, but it was on the program.
Speaker 2:
[39:03] It's a small pin that says-
Speaker 3:
[39:04] The small pin says, Votes for Women and The Stars represented the states that had passed woman's suffrage. At this time, there were four of them.
Speaker 2:
[39:13] This is in 1910?
Speaker 3:
[39:14] In 1910. But this is just an interesting part of the history that included sort of the mainstream suffrage movement with Carrie Chapman Catt, a more progressive movement. Emeline Pankhurst, the British suffragette, spoke here. And then, of course, the men had to come and say, they didn't want women's suffrage.
Speaker 1:
[39:34] The anti-suffrage movement was also here.
Speaker 3:
[39:36] But it just shows that the doors were open to everyone.
Speaker 4:
[39:39] I think there wasn't there a suffrage event one night, and then maybe the next night was the anti-suffrage.
Speaker 3:
[39:44] It was like in a two-week period, you had the progressive suffrages, the mainstream, and then the men.
Speaker 2:
[39:49] Do you know where Louise Carnegie fell on the pro-suffrage?
Speaker 3:
[39:54] Gosh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[39:56] It wasn't like there was not a heavy hand in terms of programming coming from the Carnegie family.
Speaker 3:
[40:02] No, not at all.
Speaker 2:
[40:02] Because 1910, so the Carnegie family is still in control of the music hall here. How long would they stay in control?
Speaker 3:
[40:09] I mean, so he's the main stockholder of the music hall company and he owns the hall, but he's not influencing what goes on the stage. I mean, I suppose when he did have the Peace Conference here, I'm sure he got first dibs on the best states, but he wasn't programming. And like we said, it was a rental hall, so people were coming to the rental office and booking the hall.
Speaker 4:
[40:36] But I think this is a great transition to one of these other great objects we want to show you here, because you mentioned how long was Carnegie in the picture. And so when Andrew dies in 1919, of course, this is passing on to Louise. And so part of the property that was owned with all of this was a carriage house that Carnegie had for his horses, right? A lot of the Gilded Age tycoons would have their horse and carriage that they could go riding in Central Park.
Speaker 2:
[41:03] And where was the carriage house?
Speaker 4:
[41:04] The carriage house was located on 56th Street, just next door to Carnegie Hall. Today, if you were to walk on 56th Street, if you walk past the back of Carnegie Hall, it will be right where you see. It's very unromantic now. It's the loading dock for the Carnegie Hall Tower, which is not to us. But so this carriage house, Louise has got it, but she's kind of leasing it out to other people. So, a man signs a lease with this and tells her that he wants to put an automotive business in there. So, this is the early 1920s. So, we're going to say this is about 1924. So, she went back to Scotland for the summer. They had this castle, Scebo Castle, and she came back and she finds that not only is it not an automotive business, it's a nightclub. A speakeasy? It was a speakeasy.
Speaker 1:
[41:49] So, this is from the speakeasy?
Speaker 3:
[41:53] Yes, this is from the speakeasy.
Speaker 1:
[41:54] This is the lock.
Speaker 2:
[41:55] Rob is picking up what looks like a lock.
Speaker 4:
[41:58] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[41:58] There are two keys and there's a device here for the door. It's a Yale lock.
Speaker 4:
[42:02] Yeah. So, the man that ran it was kind of a Broadway performer, an impresario named Harry Richmond. He installed this speakeasy down there and it was known to have been frequented by people like the mobster Lucky Luciano, Jimmy Walker, the Bon vivant mayor, of course. And actually, a young Broadway dancer by the name of Lucille Lasseur, who people got to know better later on as Joan Crawford. And so, she would dance there. They were known to have gotten raided several times. So, it existed until about 1929 when there was a fire. I think the fire might have been a little mysterious because when you read about this, the manager of the club who lived upstairs complained that he had been mobbed of like $10,000 worth of liquor. So, you know.
Speaker 2:
[42:51] Oh, okay. There could be some funny business.
Speaker 4:
[42:52] You can draw your own conclusions. But so, this lock, what I love about this, this came to us through a dealer in locks, oddly enough, right? Because people like to collect these things. But if you look on each key, what I like about it, as you can see, there's a little CR on the key, which stands for Club Richmond.
Speaker 2:
[43:11] CR, and then it says 137 West 56th Street.
Speaker 4:
[43:14] Yes. And so the reason that there's two locks is because the club member would have one key, and the doorman would have another key. I don't know if I can get that one out. But the purpose here is that if you don't have both keys, the other one doesn't do anything, it'll just spin. So you needed two keys. But you had to have both keys. So they were keeping their secrecy.
Speaker 1:
[43:38] So jazz age.
Speaker 4:
[43:39] Yes. And supposedly, when they would get raided, the lore was that the club members could escape through a door into the basement of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[43:48] But you just said that this was around until the very end of the 20s. So that's like five years that this was in operation. When did Lucille find out about this? Was this a known speakeasy to her, do you think?
Speaker 4:
[44:01] She tried to get them out.
Speaker 3:
[44:02] Louise, she tried to get them out. Yeah. She wanted him out. She didn't like it when she came back.
Speaker 2:
[44:07] But she let it stay.
Speaker 3:
[44:08] I mean, she wanted it back. Well, she sold the hall in 1925.
Speaker 2:
[44:12] So let's talk about that. So it leaves the Carnegie family in 1925.
Speaker 3:
[44:15] Yes. In 1925, she sells the hall to a real estate developer named Robert E. Simon. He owns some properties on 57th Street and he purchases Carnegie Hall with the proviso that he won't tear it down or do anything for five years. We don't think he ever had any intention of tearing down Carnegie Hall. But when he died, his son took it over, Robert Simon Jr. and the Carnegie Hall Inc, which was the name of that entity that ran the hall from 1925 to 1960. Some great concerts happened during that time period.
Speaker 2:
[44:49] When Simon and son were running Carnegie Hall, this was a for-profit enterprise at this point, right? I mean, we're so used to thinking of these performing art spaces in New York, so many of them as non-profits, but this is before non-profits.
Speaker 3:
[45:05] Oh, yeah. This is well before non-profits. It's a house of one night, there's one orchestra, or there could be three events at one time, and then the next day, there's a recital or a speaking lecture. The goal was to rent the hall to make money.
Speaker 2:
[45:23] For 35 years, the Simon family had it, and those are very important in terms of popular culture and people.
Speaker 3:
[45:28] Of course.
Speaker 2:
[45:29] That whole time from 25 to 1960, the Philharmonic Society is still based here, they're still giving concerts here?
Speaker 4:
[45:36] Yes. They came in 1892. They had been performing at the Metropolitan Opera, but there was a huge fire at the Met that year, almost destroyed it, and they decided to move to Carnegie Hall. They were here from 1892 until 1962, when they moved up to Lincoln Center.
Speaker 2:
[45:51] This was their home, but they were not a production of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 4:
[45:54] No. They were their own production, they were a renter like anybody else.
Speaker 2:
[45:59] There's some great moments in Philharmonic history, obviously, that took place here at Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 4:
[46:03] Sure. Both the Philharmonic and then their competitor, the New York Symphony Society, but they actually merged in 1928, so they inherited some of this history. But I did want to bring out one from the early years.
Speaker 1:
[46:18] You've opened a book and we're looking at a piece of old sheet music.
Speaker 4:
[46:21] Yeah. What this is, one of the most famous premieres in Carnegie Hall history was, as you can see on here, it says Auster, Neue, and Welt, but this was New World Symphony of Dvorak. This was December 15th, 1893. What this is, is actually a viola part for the performance. This was given to us by the New York Philharmonic. This was when they would have retired this part. This would have been the part that would have been sitting on the music stands in 1893 for the violists. They used it for probably a couple of decades, and then it would have been retired. So in honor, I think it was of our centennial, this was given to us.
Speaker 2:
[47:03] DeVos Jacques was in New York. He composed this in the US, right?
Speaker 4:
[47:06] He composed it in the US. He was living here. He had been brought over to run something called the National Conservatory of Music.
Speaker 3:
[47:12] He was at the premiere.
Speaker 4:
[47:14] He was at the premiere. I can't remember his box number off the top of my head, but he would have been there listening as the violist was down there playing off of this piece of music.
Speaker 2:
[47:22] That's incredible. Opening up an old program here.
Speaker 4:
[47:27] The one that I like about this is, this is actually Symphony Society, but we can see in here it says, December 8th, 1908, here Gustav Mahler conducting. This was his Carnegie Hall debut, so Gustav Mahler occurs to great Austrian composer, known at that time more as a conductor, and he had been brought to the US, I think it was the year before to be the director of the Metropolitan Opera. But he then in 1909, he actually also became the conductor of the New York Philharmonic. So he conducted over 70 concerts here. As a matter of fact, the very last concert of his life was conducted here in February of 1911. This ties him to Leopold Damrauch. Leopold Damrauch, who died very young, he got a cold and never recovered. Gustav Mahler got influenza. They said, don't conduct the concert, but he went and conducted it anyway, didn't even finish, he didn't conduct the second half. He never recovered, he died a few months later.
Speaker 2:
[48:21] In 1908. There would be decades of philharmonic history that was made on this stage, including one we just did a show a couple of years ago about Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 4:
[48:33] Yes. We can touch on that in a moment when we work our way around to the other side of the table.
Speaker 1:
[48:39] We're jumping ahead of ourselves because we need to introduce jazz at Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[48:42] All right.
Speaker 1:
[48:43] Jazz happens. When does jazz first come to the hall?
Speaker 4:
[48:46] Well, we can see here, we've got a program here. This is 1912. There's a little flyer and then a program. This is May 2nd, 1912, and you can see here it says, Unique Concert of Negro Music. This was put on by a group called The Clef Club. The Clef Club was actually, this was started by a man named James Reese Europe. James Reese Europe was a conductor and a composer. The Clef Club was a combination booking agency, but also musician's union of sorts for black musicians. He wanted to put on this concert that was, as it says, composed and rendered exclusively as the term would have been then by colored musicians. This was a huge group. I think it might have been as many as 120 pieces, very a polyglot group. You had all these guitars and banjos and strange plucked instruments. But what this probably would have sounded like if we could hear it now, it would be more like orchestrated ragtime. But it was a really important precursor to jazz, and you can hear a lot of musicians talk from that time about how James Rees-Sirup laid the groundwork for what they would later do.
Speaker 2:
[49:56] We talked about him in our show about the Harlem Hellfighters.
Speaker 1:
[50:00] Yes, he was a member of that group.
Speaker 2:
[50:02] They would head off to fight in World War I.
Speaker 4:
[50:05] Yes, and the Harlem Hellfighters actually performed here. Europe came back several times as part of that.
Speaker 1:
[50:12] Now, my eyes are being drawn, of course. We have an instrument and some white gloves sitting right next to it.
Speaker 2:
[50:19] And a case.
Speaker 1:
[50:20] And a case. Can you tell us a little bit about this?
Speaker 3:
[50:24] Sure. This is one of the most important concerts in the history of Carnegie Hall. This is Benny Goodman, January 16th, 1938, where people come to listen to jazz, swing music, sit down and listen to it. We have some photos of Goodman on stage on that night with Lionel Hampton playing the vibraphones and Gene Krupa, this is his trio, playing the drums. There were lots of other musicians on the performance. And this is one of Benny Goodman's clarinets. And this has a tie into our museum because in 1988, which was the 50th anniversary of this concert, his daughters donated the clarinet with the understanding that we would build a museum and put it on display, which we did.
Speaker 1:
[51:12] It's one of the reasons, it's one of the impetus.
Speaker 3:
[51:14] The biggest reasons why we have the museum today.
Speaker 2:
[51:18] Amazing to people. I'm sure the clarinetists and fans of Benny Goodman come, I mean, it's like a pilgrimage.
Speaker 3:
[51:24] Oh, yeah, exactly. We also have this is also on display in our museum, which along with a pair of Gene Krupa's drumsticks and a pair of Lionel Hampton's mallets, so you get the whole trio. It's a nice display and a wonderful part of the history.
Speaker 2:
[51:41] While we're on jazz, I recently did a show on George Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue. Rhapsody in Blue premiered at Aeolian Hall, which is down on 43rd Street, right? But was later performed here and recorded here, and Gershwin would premiere other works of his here.
Speaker 4:
[51:59] Yes. He premiered his piano concerto and F in 1925. He was playing, and then I think it was 1928, was an American in Paris was premiered here. Of course, he was involved very much in all those. But the Rhapsody in Blue was in April of 1924, and it had been premiered at Aeolian Hall I think in February, something a few months earlier.
Speaker 2:
[52:22] But it was a time when America was being introduced to the idea of jazz, so Carnegie Hall was playing a part in that too.
Speaker 4:
[52:29] People like Gershwin, he had assimilated this into his musical style, but then of course you had the classical critics that didn't quite know what to make of it and they would complain. I mean, that's very similar to just very quickly we can touch upon.
Speaker 1:
[52:41] Another file opening to reveal a Duke Ellington beautiful breadbright program.
Speaker 4:
[52:48] Yeah, so this is his debut at Carnegie Hall, January 23rd, 1943, and this was a big deal for Ellington. And so in the same theme of running to like write concert music, you know, jazz concert music. So, you know, of course, for Gershwin, this was maybe a little bit more sort of received. You know, he comes out of Tin Pan Alley and that tradition. But of course, Ellington is, you know, born and bred, very much influenced by the blues. And so, one feature of his concerts, he would come here, as a matter of fact, he did an annual series of concerts in the 1940s, and he would always want to write an extended concert work for each of these. And so in 1943, as a matter of fact, there's a different version of this flyer here. You can see that they're billing it as Duke Ellington's First Symphony. It was his ace. It's called Black, Brown and Beige. And so he premiered that here. But then each year on one of these concerts, he would write another long-form concert work to be premiered.
Speaker 2:
[53:48] And by the way, I have to note that it says here that you can get seats for 55 cents.
Speaker 4:
[53:53] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[53:54] It also says on the other one, because this is 1943, right?
Speaker 4:
[53:57] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[53:57] It says, Net proceeds to Russian war relief.
Speaker 2:
[54:01] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[54:02] I mean, see that on a lot of concerts here from the 40s.
Speaker 1:
[54:05] Interesting.
Speaker 2:
[54:06] And Ellington was in 1943. Well, a lot more happens after the war and into the 1950s and the 1960s as things get a bit poppier and rockier. And we're going to go into all of that right after this. We are so proud to be sponsored today by Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 1:
[54:26] With Carnegie Hall's Create Your Own Series, you can pick any four or more performances across the season, mixing genres, artists, and dates across three iconic stages to build your perfect concert lineup.
Speaker 2:
[54:42] So, maybe it's jazz one night, pops the next, and something totally new and different the week after. It's totally up to you.
Speaker 1:
[54:50] And when you bundle your tickets, you'll automatically unlock savings, added flexibility, and subscriber benefits like free unlimited ticket exchanges. Visit carnegiehall.org/cyo to get started today. Now, we're back on the other side of the table, other stuff, but Tom has already kind of given a sneak preview, but one of our favorite moments of Carnegie Hall history, which we've talked about in the podcast. No, we were not there. We would have been, is of course, this gentleman right here, Bernstein.
Speaker 3:
[55:23] Leonard Bernstein, who in 1943, the beginning of 1943, he's a assistant conductor for the New York Philharmonic. He's living in a studio on the eighth floor of Carnegie Hall, cause the Philharmonic, this was their office. Was it this room? It wasn't this room. He lived here. He lived here, and this is a picture of him in his Carnegie Hall studio. He's next to a window.
Speaker 2:
[55:46] He's looking very contemplative in a smart jacket.
Speaker 3:
[55:49] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[55:49] His chin is on his hand.
Speaker 3:
[55:51] His job would have been, yes, theoretically to jump in for the conductor if anything happened. Bruno Walter, who was the music director of the Philharmonic was supposed to conduct, but he got sick and Bernstein had been out the night before. His parents were in town to see him do a show with Jenny Terrell. He gets the call in the morning that he's going on. And luckily, he's at Carnegie Hall and luckily his parents are already here. So they get to come and see him and we're looking at the program, which somebody who went to the show took.
Speaker 2:
[56:30] This is of this night.
Speaker 3:
[56:31] This is of this night, November 14th, 1943. They crossed out Bruno Walter's name, put Leonard Bernstein and they underlined Bernstein. And then there are newspaper clippings from the reviews, the picture. This was such a big thing that the front page of the New York Times had a photo of Bernstein backstage with the musicians.
Speaker 1:
[56:54] He looks so young.
Speaker 3:
[56:56] 25? 25 at the time. So this was a huge, huge deal.
Speaker 2:
[57:01] It gives you chills to actually see this, and to think that this marks the occasion of his launching.
Speaker 3:
[57:08] Yes. And he was able to go talk to Bruno Walter before the concert, but he had no rehearsal with the orchestra.
Speaker 1:
[57:14] This place jump-started his whole career.
Speaker 3:
[57:17] Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4:
[57:18] And think about the difficulty, the first piece, they played the national anthem because it was World War II. But then the first piece he had to conduct was something called the Manfred Overture by Robert Truman. And this one is notorious among conductors because it doesn't start right on a beat. On a down. It's an upbeat. And so you go like this and nothing happens. You have to hope that you give it and they react in the right way. And the concert master, John Crigliano, who is in the photo backstage with them, he said basically like, don't worry kid, we'll be with you. And so he did it. And as Kathleen mentioned, he didn't remember conducting the rest of the concert, but it was a huge hit. And to be on the front page in the midst of all of this war news that's coming out in November of 43, they're probably going into Sicily or something.
Speaker 2:
[58:05] I think New York needed this story.
Speaker 3:
[58:07] Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:
[58:08] And to underscore this was 43. And the Philharmonic would stay here until 60.
Speaker 3:
[58:13] 62.
Speaker 2:
[58:14] 62. And he would stay here with the Philharmonic.
Speaker 3:
[58:17] Yeah. He eventually becomes music director of the Philharmonic.
Speaker 1:
[58:21] So before we proceed, we should actually speak about the kind of problems that Carnegie Hall was having here in the 50s. And there was a very real chance that it might be demolished, right?
Speaker 3:
[58:32] Yes. In the late 50s, the Blinken Center project is being created. And the Philharmonic was here for years, but they never had enough backstage space. And Blinken Center, there was going to be a hall built just for them. So as we talked earlier, Robert Simon, he's got to rent the hall. They rent the most nights at the hall. So he's afraid, how am I going to rent these spaces? People thought, well, New York doesn't need two big concert halls. So they're going to leave. So Robert Simon sells Carnegie Hall to a real estate developer who's going to replace it with a red tower.
Speaker 1:
[59:11] We have no land marking at this time. There are really very few protections for a building of this age.
Speaker 3:
[59:15] Right. But then we luckily had Isaac Stern.
Speaker 2:
[59:19] So tell us about Isaac Stern. Isaac Stern enters the story here.
Speaker 3:
[59:22] Isaac Stern enters the story. He's a violinist. He also made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1943, the same year as Leonard Bernstein. But he's performing in early 1960, and he thinks, is this the last time I'm going to perform at Carnegie Hall? So he not only is a wonderful musician, but he knows lots of people, politicians and the mayor. Fast forward, he's able to coalesce people to save the hall. There's a New York state law that you can purchase a building for historic preservation. So the city of New York buys Carnegie Hall, still owns Carnegie Hall today, and the non-profit Carnegie Hall Corporation is founded, and Isaac Stern becomes the president of Carnegie Hall Corporation. And that's the real beginnings of our Carnegie Hall beginning to present its own concerts.
Speaker 2:
[60:19] And that's also the beginning of the Carnegie Hall non-profit.
Speaker 3:
[60:22] Yes. It's the beginning of the Carnegie Hall non-profit, where we're also going to try to raise money, but we're still renting out the hall too to generate income.
Speaker 2:
[60:33] And Isaac Stern is still performing at the same time that he's the president of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 3:
[60:38] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[60:38] And how long would he be doing that?
Speaker 3:
[60:40] Wow, he performed up to, I mean, he was on the Centennial in 1991. He kept performing until the late 90s. He kept performing through the late 90s, and Rob and I have both worked here a long time. He was a presence in the offices. He was around. Yeah. I mean, he loved Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 4:
[60:59] Andy, he and his wife at the time, Vera Stern, they were kind of like, Vera was basically the development department. She was the one raising money. It was really a mom and pop operation. And you had mentioned earlier, Tom, about non-profit and the idea of that. There was no model for this in 1960. This didn't exist. And so they were figuring it out as they went along. And they had to worry about like, oh, we got a leak on the roof and all this other things. So the presenting of concerts, it took them a couple of years to work up to that because they just had to worry about a lot more basic problems.
Speaker 1:
[61:34] I find it really interesting that this is 1960. Stern comes along, the city comes along. But it's almost like then there's a different kind of performance that enters Carnegie Hall as well.
Speaker 2:
[61:46] New York had changed too. It was a taste change.
Speaker 1:
[61:49] And we start seeing very different kinds of artists and very different kind of musical genres.
Speaker 3:
[61:54] Yeah, I think I'll start with, so here's Bob.
Speaker 2:
[61:57] There's a boy with the harmonica.
Speaker 3:
[61:59] This is a flyer for his first concert outside of the coffee houses in Greenwich Village. November 4th, 1961, and you see it says Carnegie Chapter Hall. So that was on the fifth floor, a small space. I think it could seat around 150, but all reports were like maybe 50 plus people were at this first concert.
Speaker 1:
[62:23] He basically just came to New York.
Speaker 3:
[62:25] Yes, he was very soon.
Speaker 1:
[62:27] So it's kind of extraordinary.
Speaker 2:
[62:29] And produced by the Folklore Center.
Speaker 3:
[62:31] Yes, and he's mostly performing other people's songs, Woody Guthrie and that kind of thing. But it's recorded, so you can get it.
Speaker 4:
[62:41] Some of our most famous bootleg recordings in our history. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[62:44] Yeah, exactly. And it's so cool. We also have a show on Bob Dylan in New York.
Speaker 1:
[62:48] November 4th, 1961. I mean, that is like at the inception of Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2:
[62:53] And we've seen this so many times, this poster. It's interesting to actually see this in real life.
Speaker 3:
[62:58] Yeah, yeah. Do you have this on display sometimes? This is on display, permanent display in the museum so people can see that. And then I'll turn the page, Rob, and you can talk about it.
Speaker 2:
[63:06] Oh boy, there's a big binder here.
Speaker 1:
[63:07] So this is a big binder, like ledger pages or calendar pages, I guess.
Speaker 4:
[63:11] Yeah, this is what was called our booking ledger. And so the booking manager of Carnegie Hall had this big ledger. You can see these holes on the side. It used to be bound inside these big heavy covers. And this is where they would write all the bookings, right? So somebody might call up and say, I need a date for a recital or rehearsal. And you can see they would write this in here. They would put the date, which you would put this little L and circle it in red. That meant that they had signed the license agreement to rent the hall and how much they paid.
Speaker 2:
[63:40] And this is divided by main hall, recital hall and chapter hall.
Speaker 4:
[63:44] Yes. So at that time, the chapter hall, you can see, this is when it ended up happening. The chapter hall wasn't used. They didn't get as much use out of it. And so it kind of drops out of the picture after this. As a matter of fact, over here, you can see, you see Loyal 10 Lodge, Lost in Cerate. These were fraternal orders that would hold their meetings. They were regulars.
Speaker 1:
[64:03] So not really for the music. The other two are much more used by this time. So you're flipping us through. This is 1963.
Speaker 4:
[64:09] Heading to here is... We get up to Lincoln's birthday, February 12th, 1964. And if we look down here...
Speaker 2:
[64:17] Ash Wednesday.
Speaker 1:
[64:18] Ash Wednesday.
Speaker 4:
[64:20] On the afternoon, there's a WNYC, American Music Festival. And then there's two concerts at night, 7 and 9.30, and we see... The Beatles.
Speaker 2:
[64:29] Wait, look at how it's spelled.
Speaker 4:
[64:30] Misspelled with two E's.
Speaker 1:
[64:32] Like the bug.
Speaker 2:
[64:33] Right.
Speaker 4:
[64:33] Like the bug, not like, you know, Beatnik, Beatles.
Speaker 2:
[64:35] What does it say? Presented by?
Speaker 4:
[64:37] So, they say Walter Hyman. So, the real presenter of this was a young guy by the name of Sid Bernstein, who was really interested in these things. But Sid didn't, he was just out of college and he didn't have any money. So, the money behind this was Walter Hyman, who I think was in the textile business. And so, presented by Walter Hyman. And so, clearly, our booking manager, who was relatively young, but we have to remember February of 1964, at least in the US, if you weren't a teenager, you had no idea who the Beatles were. Right. And so, she didn't know. Sure. But, and we can see here how late this, they booked it. It was January 22nd. I mean, that's like not even a couple of weeks before the concert. So, it was very last minute, ended up being extremely popular. They put seats on the stage.
Speaker 1:
[65:21] Well, they did a barnstorm through New York that particular week.
Speaker 4:
[65:24] This was in between their two appearances on the adsolvent show.
Speaker 2:
[65:27] The $1,750 there?
Speaker 3:
[65:29] That's the rental for two performances.
Speaker 2:
[65:31] So, they paid $1,750.
Speaker 3:
[65:33] Yeah. There may have been a little more. There's sometimes there's other costs, but that was for two shows.
Speaker 2:
[65:38] All in.
Speaker 3:
[65:39] All in.
Speaker 1:
[65:39] So, that's a deal. This calendar is a document of history in itself.
Speaker 4:
[65:44] And if you want to see these, you can actually go on our website. We have our digital collections. It's just collections.carnegahall.org. And these are all digitized and on there. So, you can kind of flip through. And they're very inside baseball, but you find out some fascinating things about concerts that maybe never happened. Or concerts that were recorded, but maybe it was never released. So, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:
[66:04] There are so many more concerts that we could talk about, but another one that happened in the early 1960s is also one of the big nights of live entertainment in New York City, and it happened downstairs.
Speaker 3:
[66:16] Yes. Judy Garland's Carnegie Hall debut, April 23rd, 1961. It was a comeback, so to say, because she had been quite ill at the end of 1959, and was told she probably would never perform again, but she had the showbiz spirit, and she got better, and she went on a big tour, and one of the last stops on the tour was Carnegie Hall. The concert was recorded, it won five Grammy Awards, and it was a magical night.
Speaker 2:
[66:49] This is the LP that would be Judy, Judy, Judy, right? This is the Judy Live.
Speaker 3:
[66:53] The Judy Live.
Speaker 2:
[66:55] It's an extraordinary thing to listen to, because when you hear that album, you hear the applause and the opening track that gives you a sense of the room, the sense of what this meant to the people who were in it.
Speaker 4:
[67:06] Why they call it the greatest night in showbiz.
Speaker 3:
[67:08] She says at one point, I'll stay all night and I'll play them all, because she was feeling the love from the audience.
Speaker 2:
[67:16] Was there just one performance?
Speaker 3:
[67:18] There was the first, April 23rd, and then she came back later in May, and performed again in May, 1961.
Speaker 2:
[67:24] That album that we all have heard.
Speaker 3:
[67:26] Yes, was the first one, and by far, you can listen to it today still, and it still gives you chills.
Speaker 2:
[67:33] You can tell during the first track when she actually comes out on the Carnegie Hall stage.
Speaker 3:
[67:37] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[67:38] People lose it. It's like The Beatles.
Speaker 3:
[67:40] Yeah. It was a magical night in music history.
Speaker 1:
[67:44] Do you have any artifacts from that concert that we could see?
Speaker 3:
[67:47] So, would you like to see the jacket Judy wore?
Speaker 2:
[67:50] But the jacket she wore. The actual jacket that she wore. It's here.
Speaker 3:
[67:56] It's here.
Speaker 1:
[67:57] Okay. Yes, we want to see it.
Speaker 3:
[67:58] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[67:59] The answer is yes.
Speaker 2:
[68:00] Did she just leave it in the dressing room? I mean, how did you wind up with it?
Speaker 3:
[68:03] So, we wound up with it. Her stuff was auctioned off in 1978 by her husband, her ex-husband, Sid Luft. And it got its way here, it made its way here through various collectors. And we are lucky enough to have it here now. And it's going to be on permanent display in our museum mid-April.
Speaker 2:
[68:26] And Carnegie Hall had to purchase this back.
Speaker 3:
[68:28] Yes. We fundraised for it. And we're so excited that we're able to bring Judy's jacket back to Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[68:36] And what kind of condition was Judy's jacket?
Speaker 3:
[68:38] It wasn't in terrible condition, but we have a conservator here who can tell us all about it.
Speaker 1:
[68:43] Oh, let's go check it out.
Speaker 2:
[68:46] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[68:48] All right. So the granddaddy of artifacts is right in front of here. The Grand Dam. The Grand Dam, sorry. And we're with Nicole Bloomfield, who you're currently conserving and restoring the garment. Thank you for just letting us peek at it. Tell us what you're doing and how you're protecting and improving it.
Speaker 5:
[69:08] Hi. So there wasn't significant damage to this jacket, but there was an area of loss up here along the top of the interior of the lining, which you can imagine like shoulder area exposed to skin. She wore it repeatedly. It was her lucky jacket. So this area got damaged. And what I'm trying to do is consolidate this top area here with silk underlays and like very delicate stitching on top so that when we dress it and it's on display, it stays in perfect condition for, I don't know, perpetuity, essentially, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[69:40] And so this is the lining.
Speaker 5:
[69:42] So this is the lining. And I'm sure you'd like to see the exterior.
Speaker 2:
[69:44] Do you think you could maybe flip it over?
Speaker 5:
[69:46] I sure can. Hold on. I'm just going to.
Speaker 2:
[69:49] Okay. So Nicole is removing some needles. And she... Okay. Oh.
Speaker 1:
[69:59] So, Tom, you do the honors here.
Speaker 2:
[70:01] So let me just take this in. We are seeing beads, sequins. It's a floral pattern. Red flowers with pink on a black beaded background. What are the beads and what's the material we're looking at here?
Speaker 5:
[70:20] So this jacket was designed by Norman Norrell. And he is known for his sequins. And there are plenty of them on here. So we have, so we have bugle beads is the whole entire ground of it. The black bugle beads make up the entire ground of the jacket. And then there are all of these red and pink and like peach and colored petals and green leaves of the flowers. And then the center of the flowers have rhinestones, glass rhinestones all, you know, just like sparkle everywhere basically. And then there's a bugle bead fringe all along the bottom and the cuffs of the sleeves.
Speaker 2:
[70:57] And the effect then on the stage was just to bedazzle.
Speaker 5:
[71:00] Yes, sparkle plenty.
Speaker 2:
[71:02] With all of the lights, when she stepped out, do we know what the audience's reaction was to seeing this?
Speaker 5:
[71:08] It must have been.
Speaker 2:
[71:09] Gasps.
Speaker 5:
[71:10] Yes, of course. And then plus with the fringe, like having beaded fringe and that adds like movement every time she moved her arm or her body around or reached up like this would have been very exciting. Very dynamic to see.
Speaker 2:
[71:21] This is small.
Speaker 5:
[71:22] Yes, she's petite. Yes, yes. I mean, it's typical mid-century kind of design of like a little cropped jacket and, you know, three-quarter sleeves. But yes, she was definitely petite.
Speaker 2:
[71:33] What kind of state was this in when Carnegie Hall acquired the jacket?
Speaker 5:
[71:38] So, unfortunately, which is typical of sequins and beaded garments, is that the beads in the sequins are falling off. And then of course the lining itself was damaged. So those are the two main structural integrity problems. Another component that I'm thinking about while conserving this is the actual sequins themselves, which are made out of cellulose acetate, which was a typical material of that time period. But the problem with cellulose acetate is as it ages, it leaches off acetic acid. And so if you ever come across things in your home that are old that smell like vinegar, that's the acetic acid that's leaching off. Exactly. And that's problematic because we're going to be displaying this in a case and it'll be a closed environment.
Speaker 2:
[72:25] So you're thinking through all of that while you're repairing any kind of damage, but you're thinking of the preservation of this.
Speaker 5:
[72:32] Definitely. Long-term. We want people to be able to see this forever. That's the goal is I don't want to do anything that would rob future audiences from viewing this jacket the way we're looking at it today.
Speaker 1:
[72:43] All right. So we're going to leave you to your work now because it looks like you've got a full day ahead of you. And thank you so much for even just letting us get a little glimpse. I feel like my life's a little bit better now. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
[72:54] Can I ask, do you ever listen to the Judy Judy Judy album?
Speaker 5:
[72:58] Of course.
Speaker 3:
[72:59] While you're working on this?
Speaker 5:
[73:02] I grew up watching Judy Garland films. I have a small army of gay uncles that practically raised me. So yes, I am well-versed in Judy and extremely, extremely happy and feel like it's an honor to work on this.
Speaker 1:
[73:15] Look, a few thousand drag queens would be very jealous of us right now at this very moment. So we really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5:
[73:21] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[73:21] I'm glad for her. Then bedazzled by Judy's story and the thoughts of all the other fabulous treasures of Carnegie Hall, Kathleen and Rob led us downstairs.
Speaker 1:
[73:32] Through hallways and backstage corridors and then through the main stage door of Isaac Stern Auditorium and out onto the stage itself.
Speaker 2:
[73:43] We stood and stared at that iconic site. More than 2000 plush red chairs facing us on five levels from the ground floor up to the top balcony.
Speaker 1:
[73:55] Well, Tom, we finally made it.
Speaker 2:
[73:57] Practice, practice, practice.
Speaker 1:
[73:58] We've made it to the stage of Carnegie Hall. I'm looking out. This is what all these iconic performers would have seen. Well, they would have had full crowds. We have an empty auditorium, thankfully. Can you tell us a little bit about where we're at?
Speaker 3:
[74:12] Sure. We're standing on the stage, Isaac Stern Auditorium. This is the main concert hall. It seats just under 2,800, and you really can get a feel for what it must have been like in 1891 or for any performer to stand here and look out into the hall.
Speaker 2:
[74:29] It's really moving to stand here.
Speaker 3:
[74:31] It is.
Speaker 2:
[74:31] Just imagine the great performances that took place right here where we're standing.
Speaker 1:
[74:36] And are continuing to perform because of course with the United in Sound program that's happening this year, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:
[74:43] Sure. So, I mean, American music has been a part of Carnegie Hall since the beginning, so it only makes sense that we'd celebrate it during the 250th anniversary of the United States, and you can come in here. We're having over 25 composers compose music for the festival. We'll have John Monski's Moon Landing show, the Grand Ole Opry is coming back, so there's a variety of things you'll be able to see.
Speaker 1:
[75:09] All different kinds of genres here.
Speaker 3:
[75:10] All different kinds of genres.
Speaker 1:
[75:10] American music.
Speaker 3:
[75:11] Jazz, pop, everything. Classical.
Speaker 2:
[75:14] And that is running from, we're now in April of 2026, but this continues for a few more months.
Speaker 3:
[75:20] Yeah, through June.
Speaker 2:
[75:22] So people can find out more by going to Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 3:
[75:24] carnegiehall.org. And there's the museum. United in Sound.
Speaker 1:
[75:28] And there's the museum.
Speaker 3:
[75:29] And there's our Rose Museum, open to the public, free, and if you're going to a show in Stern, you can also come to the Rose Museum. And then there are public tours led by our highly skilled and dedicated docents. Shout out to them because they make it all work. Go to the website, the tour section, to get the latest schedule.
Speaker 1:
[75:48] And there's a lot to see.
Speaker 2:
[75:49] There is so much to see. And the museum is free. Do you need to reserve or you can just head right in?
Speaker 3:
[75:54] No, you can just head right in.
Speaker 2:
[75:56] Fabulous.
Speaker 1:
[75:56] Well, we want to just thank you so much for inviting us into this wonderful place. We've had a marvelous time. I'll never think about music again because, right, because most of the great performers have come through here in one fashion or another. So thank you both for joining us on The Bowery Boys and for inviting us in to Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[76:15] Kathleen and Rob, it has been a great pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 3:
[76:18] Thank you.
Speaker 1:
[76:21] And thank you, listeners and viewers, for joining us today as we explore the treasures of Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 2:
[76:27] We'd like to thank Carnegie Hall for sponsoring today's show, both the audio podcast and also the new video podcast, which is available on our brand new YouTube channel. Just head to YouTube and search for The Bowery Boys podcast. A big thanks to our guests, Kathleen Sabogal and Rob Hudson from Carnegie Hall's Rosa Archives and Museum.
Speaker 1:
[76:49] And thanks to Tim Washington and the whole team over at Carnegie Hall for helping us put this all together. And of course thanks to our team over here at The Bowery Boys, producer Kieran Gannon, as well as Kreek Radaglian and Craig Nelson on video.
Speaker 2:
[77:06] So thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:
[77:08] Have a great New York week, whether you live here or not.
Speaker 2:
[77:11] See you real soon.