Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2009
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
Music
Advisor
John Graziano
Committee Members
Stephen Blum
Bruce Saylor
Ora Frishberg Saloman
Subject Categories
Music
Abstract
Not long after construction began for an athletic field at City College of New York, school officials conceived the idea of that same field serving as an outdoor concert hall during the summer months. The result, Lewisohn Stadium, named after its principal benefactor, Adolph Lewisohn, and modeled much along the lines of an ancient Roman coliseum, became that and much more. Lewisohn Stadium was for over forty years the summer home of America's oldest symphony orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. More importantly, the Lewisohn concerts witnessed a particularly impressive and innovative array of talent, creative as well as interpretive. For nearly fifty years, audiences of all social and ethnic backgrounds attended concerts that, together, summed up much of the course of twentieth century American serious music at minimal cost for admittance.
This dissertation discusses the music concerts that made up the bulk of the shows put on at Lewisohn Stadium throughout its existence as the summer home of the New York Philharmonic. In particular, this dissertation seeks to answer several questions: To what extent was the performed music representative of the canon as it developed over time? And what can be learned from the myriad attempts made during the Lewisohn concerts at forming a distinctly American, as opposed to a European or Euro-American, musical identity?
Recommended Citation
Stern, Jonathan, "Music for the (American) People: The Concerts at Lewisohn Stadium, 1922–1964" (2009). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2239
Comments
Digital reproduction from the UMI microform.
Note: Readers may also be interested in the book that came out of this dissertation, Music for the American People, which is freely available online at https://archive.org/details/music-for-the-american-people-the-lewisohn-stadium-concerts
The dissertation contains brief biographical sketches on most of the conductors who led the New York Philharmonic/Stadium Symphony Orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium as well as an Appendix listing the programs of every concert given at the Stadium from 1922 to 1964. It does not discuss the formation and first four seasons of the Stadium Concerts.
The book discusses the beginnings of Lewisohn Stadium, goes into greater detail about some of major figures involved with the festival (Stadium Concerts Chairwoman Minnie Guggenheimer among them), and concludes with brief discussions about four major summer orchestra festivals that came into being after the first Stadium Concerts season of 1918. It does not contain the above-mentioned dissertation Appendix nor does it contain as many biographical sketches on conductors.