Composers Datebook

Today’s date marks an important anniversary in the history of the American symphony. On January 26, 1876, the Symphony No. 1 in c minor of John Knowles Paine was premiered in Boston. This was the first American symphony to be generally acknowledged by the musical community here and abroad as being on a par with the symphonies of the great European composers. American musical life in the 19th century was heavily influenced by German models—and Paine’s Symphony No. 1 takes its key and much of its musical style from Beethoven’s Fifth. The contemporary American composer and conductor Gunther Schuller once quipped that Paine’s First was “the best Beethoven symphony that Beethoven didn’t write himself.” Even so, Paine’s 1876 Symphony is a landmark in American musical history, as was one of Paine’s earlier works—a grandiose Mass in D Major for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, which was premiered in Berlin in 1867, and successfully revived by Gunther Schuller in Boston in 1972. Paine is remembered for other reasons as well: He founded the music department at Harvard and became the mentor for a new generation of native composers. He was also one of the founders of the American Guild of Organists, and wrote an influential textbook titled, “The History of Music to the Death of Schubert,” which was published one year after Paine’s death in 1906.