George Frederick Bristow

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George Frederick Bristow (1825 - 1898) was an American composer.

He advocated American classical music, rather than favoring European pieces. He was famously involved in a related controversy involving William Henry Fry and the New York Philharmonic Society.

Musical Career

Bristow was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 19, 1825, into a musical family. His father, William, was a well-respected conductor, pianist, and clarinetist, and he gave his son lessons in piano, harmony, counterpoint, orchestration and violin. George joined the first violin section of the New York Philharmonic Society orchestra in 1843 at the age of seventeen, and remained there until 1879. The New York Philharmonic’s records indicate that he was concertmaster between 1850 and 1853. In the 1850s Bristow became conductor of two choral organizations, the New York Harmonic Society and the Mendelssohn Union (and later several church choirs). In 1854 he began his long career as a music educator in the public schools of New York. Throughout his life Bristow was a champion of American music and a nationalist in his choice of texts. The amount and quality of his choral music, although mostly ignored by Grove’s, makes Bristow a historically important choral composer.

Bristow’s Choral Music

Bristow’s compositional output is divided in three periods: his early years, during which most of the compositions are instrumental; the middle period beginning in 1852, during which he wrote more than forty works, several of them lengthy and imposing; and the late period, beginning in 1879 with Bristow’s resignation from the New York Philharmonic. Of the 135 compositions listed in Rogers’ dissertation on Bristow’s music, one-third are choral or vocal. Seven of his choral works are choral/orchestral pieces, and twenty-seven compositions are smaller pieces, most of which were composed for church choirs that he Both the short sacred works and the large choral/orchestral compositions are evenly divided between the middle and late periods.

CHORAL/ORCHESTRAL WORKS:

Middle Period

Symphony in F-sharp minor, op. 26

Ode, op. 29, first performed 1856 (soprano solo, women’s voices, and orchestra).

Praise to God, op. 31/33, 1860.

The Oratorio of Daniel, op. 42, 1866.

The Pioneer, A Grand Cantata, op. 49, 1872.

Late Period

The Great Republic, op. 47, 1880.

Mass in C Major, op. 57, 1885.

Niagara Symphony. Op. 62, 1893.

from: George Frederick Bristow’s The Oratorio of Daniel

by David Griggs-Janower

The Choral Journal, 1998

As the handiwork of an American composer, The Oratorio of Daniel reflects the highest credit to our country in the realms of art, and there are few, if any, composers in Europe at the present day who are capable of writing anything equal to it. [The New York Herald, January 31, 1868.]

Contemporary accounts of the first and second performances of George Frederick Bristow’s (1825-1898) The Oratorio of Daniel in late 1867 and 1868 raved about the work’s importance:

[Daniel] is by far the most masterly work that an American composer has yet produced, and we judge it will rapidly make its way into the accepted repertory.... That it is a remarkable opus and destined to bring the author’s name prominently into the list of those whom we delight to term ‘great living composers’ seems clear enough. [The World, December 30, 1867]

Several reviewers compared the work favorably to Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Thirty years later the American Art Journal summed up opinion of this work in Bristow’s obituary:

Bristow’s oratorio of Daniel is unquestionably one of the most important compositions in this form yet produced by an American composer... From the production of this great work dates a new era in our musical history. [American Art Journal, December 17, 1898, p. 162]

This evaluation gains added significance in light of the large number of popular, well-written works that were produced by Americans during the latter half of the nineteenth century: Horatio Parker’s Hora novissima (1892) and Legend of St. Christopher (1897), John Knowles Paine’s St. Peter (1872) as well as his Mass in D (1867-68), and Amy Beach’s Mass in E-flat (1891). During this year marking the centenary of Bristow’s death, choral historians might ask if the work deserves those accolades and, if so, why has it received so little notice in this century.

Complete article available at http://www.albany.edu/music/docs.music/materials/Bristow1.pdf

Bristow's The Oratorio of Daniel has been published in full score form by A-R Editions in its "Recent Researches in American Music" series

[edit] Discography

His Symphony in F-sharp minor was recorded by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Neeme Jarvi on a disc together with Samuel Barber's Symphony No. 2 and his famous Adagio for Strings.

His The Oratorio of Daniel was recorded live by Albany Pro Musica, Albany NY www.albanypromusica.org.

[edit] Reference

• Struble, John Warthen (1995). The History of American Classical Music. Facts on File, Inc. ISBN 081602927.

Delmer Dalzell Rogers, Nineteenth Century Music in New York City as Reflected in the Career of George Frederick Bristow, (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1967)

Thurston Dox "George Frederick Bristow and the New York Public Schools" American Music, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter, 1991), pp. 339-352 doi:10.2307/3051685

Jstor link: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0734-4392(199124)9%3A4%3C339%3AGFBATN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

"David Griggs-Janower - “From the Fiery Furnace: Bristow’s The Oratorio of Daniel.” The Choral Journal, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 9, April 1998.

Carol Elaine (Smith) Gohari: "George Frederick Bristow: Incidental Gleanings" Society for American Music Bulletin, Volume XXV, no. 2 (Summer 1999) http://www.american-music.org/publications/bullarchive/gohari.html

from the INTERNET BROADWAY DATABASE, http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=412424

George F. Bristow - Male - Musical Director, Composer

Productions Dates of Production

Rip Van Winkle [Original, Musical, Comedy, Opera] Music by George F. Bristow; Musical Director: George F. Bristow Sep 27, 1855 - Oct 23, 1855

The Beggar's Opera [Revival, Musical, Drama, Opera] Musical Director: George F. Bristow Sep 14, 1855 - Nov 3, 1855

The Daughter of St. Mark [Original, Musical, Operetta] Musical Director: George F. Bristow Jun 18, 1855 - Jun 28, 1855

The Bohemian Girl [Revival, Musical, Comedy, Opera] Musical Director: George F. Bristow Jun 2, 1855 - Nov 3, 1855

A Queen of a Day [Original, Musical, Comedy, Opera] Musical Director: George F. Bristow Jun 2, 1855 - Nov 3, 1855

MUSIC

"Benedicite," Editor: Douglas Walczak http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Benedicite_(George_F._Bristow) Title: Benedicite Composer: George F. Bristow Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB Genre: Sacred, Anthems Language: English

Recent Researches in American Music George F. Bristow - The Oratorio of Daniel - Edited by David Griggs-Janower A 34 ISBN 0-89579-443-8 (1999) xviii+444 pp.