St. Cecilia Society
Encyclopedia
The St. Cecilia Society of Charleston, South Carolina
, named for the traditional patron saint of music, was formed in 1766 as a private subscription concert organization. Over the next fifty-four years, its annual concert series formed the most sophisticated musical phenomenon in North America. Due to the loss of its own administrative records during the American Civil War
, however, much inaccurate information about the society has been published, and its important role in the formation of early American musical culture has been largely overlooked. Although its musical patronage ended in 1820, the St. Cecilia Society continues to flourish today as one of South Carolina’s oldest and most exclusive social institutions.
, but it would be more accurate to describe it as the earliest known private subscription concert organization in North America
. Similar subscription concert organizations, such as the Academy of Ancient Music
, abounded in mid-eighteenth-century Britain, and similar subscription series also appeared in Boston
, New York
, and Philadelphia in the mid-1760s. Unlike those northern examples that were founded as public commercial ventures run by professional musicians, however, Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society was established as a private organization that was incorporated and administered by gentlemen amateurs who contracted with professional musicians to present an annual series of private concerts. This arrangement not only endowed the society with a more secure financial base, but also ensured its survival beyond the initial generation of founders.
Since the loss of the society’s earliest records, its founding date has been the subject of a good deal of speculation and confusion. A wide range of dates, spanning from as early as 1732 to as late as 1784, has been published in various books and articles over the past century, but the year 1762 is most often cited in reference to the society’s origin. Unfortunately, this widely accepted date is grounded on inaccurate information taken from secondary sources, and the preponderance of the historical evidence, of which there is a considerable amount, clearly places the founding of Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society in the year 1766.
. As with other social organizations and political institutions formed in eighteenth-century South Carolina, the society’s early membership consisted entirely of white Protestant men, with members of the Anglican or Episcopal Church
forming a clear majority. Following the example of the numerous subscription concert organizations in late eighteenth-century Britain, the membership of the St. Cecilia Society was (and still is) open only to men. Women have formed a significant part of the audience at the society's events since 1767, but they have never been considered members of the organization.
(eight seasons, autumn 1775-spring 1783), financial complications (two seasons, autumn 1788–spring 1790), and the War of 1812
(one season, autumn 1814-spring 1815). While the date of the commencement and termination of each season varied from year to year, the concerts generally began in mid-autumn and continued fortnightly through early spring. The number of concerts each season also varied, but over the course of half a century they averaged at least eight or nine performances per season.
Elegant balls or dancing assemblies replaced the concerts after 1820, but dancing was not a new addition to the society's activities. Beginning with its inaugural season in 1766-67, each concert was followed by several hours of social dancing. Since 1820, however, dancing assemblies have been the focus of the society's annual events.
, the Long Room of McCrady's Tavern
, the South Carolina Society Hall, and the first South Carolina State House (now Charleston County Courthouse
). Between 1821 and 1861 the society held its events at St. Andrew's Hall
. After the Civil War the society briefly used the South Carolina Society Hall and the Deutsche Freundschafts Bund Hall (now the home of Charleston's Washington Light Infantry
). Since the early 1880s its events have taken place at Hibernian Hall
.
, Holland, France
, Germany
, Italy
, and the West Indies. Following several years of rebuilding its forces in the wake of the Revolution, the size of society’s orchestra was augmented in 1793 by the opening of the Charleston Theatre, with its seasonally resident orchestra, and the nearly simultaneous arrival of French musicians fleeing the Haitian Revolution
. Over the next two decades, the society enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the local theater musicians, many of whom traveled northward for the summer months and performed at other concert series.
Lady amateurs and female professional musicians also appeared occasionally at the St. Cecilia Society’s concerts as instrumental or vocal soloists. Professional singers, usually affiliated with the local theater, usually presented songs from popular English and French stage works. Young lady amateurs, generally performing on the harpsichord
, piano, or harp, occasionally played solo works or appeared in small ensembles or even as concerto soloists.
. Among the composers whose works were heard in Charleston between 1766 and 1820 are Carl Friedrich Abel, Johann Christian Bach
, Ludwig van Beethoven
, George Frideric Handel
, Joseph Haydn
, Leopold Kozeluch
, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
, Josef Mysliveček
, Ignaz Pleyel
, Johann Stamitz
, and many others.
London musical fashions did not completely monopolize the concert repertoire heard in Charleston during this period, however. Thanks to the influx of French musicians in the 1790s in the wake of the French Revolution
and the Haitian Revolution
, the works of composers such as François Adrien Boieldieu, Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac, André Ernest Modeste Grétry
, Étienne Méhul
, and others were also heard in Charleston.
Although several of the musicians residing in Charleston during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are known to have composed some music, the St. Cecilia Society made no effort to encourage the creation of a local musical style. Since the society measured its musical success by its ability to replicate contemporary European practices, the cultivation of a “native” musical language would have seemed too provincial for an organization that strove to appear as cosmopolitan as possible.
In keeping with British practices of the day, each of the St. Cecilia Society’s concerts included a mix of musical genres. Orchestral works opened and closed each of the “acts” or “parts” of the concert, while a varied succession of concertos, pieces for small instrumental ensembles, and vocal selections filled the rest of the bill.
, was in decline. In 1817 the Charleston Theatre company initiated a touring circuit that disrupted the society’s long-standing practice of sharing musicians with the local theater. On a number of occasions in the ensuing seasons, the St. Cecilia Society’s offered balls as last-minute substitutes for concerts when a sufficient number of musicians could not be procured. Finally, the Panic of 1819
unraveled the local economy and induced the society to curtail its activities. After three increasingly meager seasons, the society held its last regular concert in the spring of 1820 and in subsequent years presented a greatly reduced number of balls.
in 1842.
Memories of the society’s musical heritage soon faded after its records were lost during the Civil War, however, and subsequent writers have since focused on the Society’s social activities and the glamour of its annual debutante ball. At the end of the nineteenth century, many Charlestonians began to view the St. Cecilia Society as a valuable link to their city’s "golden age" of prosperity in the preceding century. To many observers, however, it also stood as a symbol of Charleston’s rigid insularity and its resistance to a broader democratic philosophy. Despite such friction, inclusion in the society’s activities is still widely believed to represent the achievement of the ultimate insider status in Charleston.
's Reminiscences of Charleston (first published in 1854), which contains a brief but highly influential synopsis of the history of the society. Although Fraser (1782–1860) had been admitted to the society in 1803, and his father, Alexander Fraser, had been among its founding members, his brief 1854 account of the society's concert activity is vague and contains several factual errors that may be attributed to the fading memories of events that transpired some three or four decades earlier. Despite these shortcomings, Fraser's flawed description of the St. Cecilia Society's concert era has been cited and repeated by numerous authors since 1854 as the definitive (and only) published first-person account of this musical phenomenon.
Oscar Sonneck's influential text, Early Concert-Life in America (1907), was the first scholarly publication to acknowledge the musical prominence of Charleston's St. Cecilia Society, but Sonneck also lamented that the early history of this organization appeared to have been lost. Subsequent twentieth-century musicologists merely repeated Sonneck's assessment of the society without adding further insight or detail.
Outside of musicological circles, Harriott Horry Rutledge Ravenel's Charleston: The Place and the People (1906) was the first local history text to offer a brief glimpse into the history of the St. Cecilia Society, based largely on her own first-hand experiences. Despite having attended the society's balls since the early 1850s, Mrs. Ravenel's brief assessment of the St. Cecilia Society's concert era is based entirely on Charles Fraser's 1854 synopsis. In the course of the twentieth century, scores of books and articles about Charleston and its cultural heritage have included some mention of the St. Cecilia Society. With very little variation, such works routinely echo the words of Fraser, Sonneck, and/or Ravenel, and offer no new factual information. Nicholas Butler's recently-published monograph Votaries of Apollo: The St. Cecilia Society and the Patronage of Concert Music in Charleston, South Carolina, 1766–1820 (2007), represents the first scholarly effort to reconstruct the details of the St. Cecilia Society's fifty-four years of concert activity, and is based entirely on extant archival materials from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
in the 1930s, the St. Cecilia Society continued its activities by presenting an annual series of three or four elegant balls. The economic downturn of the 1930s induced the society to limit its activities to a single ball, however, and this pattern continues to the present day.
During its first century, the St. Cecilia Society's membership included the gentlemen of Charleston's socio-economic elite---a group that included representatives of a broad range of professions and backgrounds. As the city's population expanded and more men sought to be included in this prestigious organization, however, the society established new restrictions on membership in an effort to prevent its events from swelling to an unmanageable size. For more than a century now, the society has limited its membership to the male descendants of earlier members---a move that has effectively closed the organization to anyone without deep roots in Charleston. The St. Cecilia Society continues to flourish in the twenty-first century, but two hundred years of social changes have sapped much of its original vitality. Due to its popular reputation as an ancient, hyper-exclusive organization, the society is frequently portrayed in the media as an exaggerated romantic synecdoche for the historic "charm" of the city of Charleston. The modern St. Cecilia Society of Charleston strives to eschew public notice, however, as it attempts to preserve its narrowly-defined, time-honored cultural traditions.
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, named for the traditional patron saint of music, was formed in 1766 as a private subscription concert organization. Over the next fifty-four years, its annual concert series formed the most sophisticated musical phenomenon in North America. Due to the loss of its own administrative records during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, however, much inaccurate information about the society has been published, and its important role in the formation of early American musical culture has been largely overlooked. Although its musical patronage ended in 1820, the St. Cecilia Society continues to flourish today as one of South Carolina’s oldest and most exclusive social institutions.
Origin
Many writers have labeled Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society the first musical society in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, but it would be more accurate to describe it as the earliest known private subscription concert organization in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Similar subscription concert organizations, such as the Academy of Ancient Music
Academy of Ancient Music
The Academy of Ancient Music is a period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after a previous organisation of the same name of the 18th century. The musicians play on either original instruments or modern copies of...
, abounded in mid-eighteenth-century Britain, and similar subscription series also appeared in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and Philadelphia in the mid-1760s. Unlike those northern examples that were founded as public commercial ventures run by professional musicians, however, Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society was established as a private organization that was incorporated and administered by gentlemen amateurs who contracted with professional musicians to present an annual series of private concerts. This arrangement not only endowed the society with a more secure financial base, but also ensured its survival beyond the initial generation of founders.
Since the loss of the society’s earliest records, its founding date has been the subject of a good deal of speculation and confusion. A wide range of dates, spanning from as early as 1732 to as late as 1784, has been published in various books and articles over the past century, but the year 1762 is most often cited in reference to the society’s origin. Unfortunately, this widely accepted date is grounded on inaccurate information taken from secondary sources, and the preponderance of the historical evidence, of which there is a considerable amount, clearly places the founding of Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society in the year 1766.
Early Membership
The full list of the early members of Charleston's St. Cecilia Society perished with the rest of its records during the Civil War. Recent efforts to reconstruct the early membership from archival sources have yielded more than two hundred names, which, while representing only a fraction of the membership, allow some general conclusions to be drawn. From the beginning, the St. Cecilia Society's membership included the most prosperous planters, politicians, lawyers, physicians, and merchants in the South Carolina LowcountrySouth Carolina Lowcountry
The Lowcountry is a geographic and cultural region located along South Carolina's coast. The region includes the South Carolina Sea Islands...
. As with other social organizations and political institutions formed in eighteenth-century South Carolina, the society’s early membership consisted entirely of white Protestant men, with members of the Anglican or Episcopal Church
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
forming a clear majority. Following the example of the numerous subscription concert organizations in late eighteenth-century Britain, the membership of the St. Cecilia Society was (and still is) open only to men. Women have formed a significant part of the audience at the society's events since 1767, but they have never been considered members of the organization.
Concert Series
Over the span of fifty-four years of concert activity, 1766–1820, the St. Cecilia Society presented forty-three seasons of regular concerts. The eleven years of apparent inactivity were the result of the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
(eight seasons, autumn 1775-spring 1783), financial complications (two seasons, autumn 1788–spring 1790), and the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
(one season, autumn 1814-spring 1815). While the date of the commencement and termination of each season varied from year to year, the concerts generally began in mid-autumn and continued fortnightly through early spring. The number of concerts each season also varied, but over the course of half a century they averaged at least eight or nine performances per season.
Elegant balls or dancing assemblies replaced the concerts after 1820, but dancing was not a new addition to the society's activities. Beginning with its inaugural season in 1766-67, each concert was followed by several hours of social dancing. Since 1820, however, dancing assemblies have been the focus of the society's annual events.
Audience
A number of music historians have described the St. Cecilia Society’s performances as among the earliest public concerts in the United States. This statement is misleading, however, as the society's concerts were never "public" events in the modern American sense of the word. From the beginning, the St. Cecilia Concerts were open only to members of the society and their guests, including the ladies of the members' families and invited gentlemen. The early success of its concerts soon prompted the society to enact measures to control access to its events. Many of its early rules articulate the eligibility requirements for male guests, and also expressly prohibit the admission of "boys."Performance Venues
In its long history the St. Cecilia Society has never owned or built its own performance space. During its concert era the society hired eight different venues in Charleston, ranging in size from approximately 1,000 to nearly 3600 square feet (334.5 m²). Four of these structures still survive: the Great Room in the Exchange BuildingExchange Building
Exchange Building may refer to:* Exchange Building * Exchange Building * Exchange Building , listed on the NRHP in Jackson County, Missouri* Exchange Building , Texas...
, the Long Room of McCrady's Tavern
McCrady's Tavern and Long Room
McCrady's Tavern and Long Room is a historic tavern complex located in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Constructed in several phases in the second half of the 18th century, the tavern was a hub of social life in Charleston in the years following the American Revolution...
, the South Carolina Society Hall, and the first South Carolina State House (now Charleston County Courthouse
Charleston County Courthouse
Charleston County Courthouse is a Neoclassical building in Charleston, South Carolina designed by Irish-born American architect James Hoban...
). Between 1821 and 1861 the society held its events at St. Andrew's Hall
St. Andrew's Hall
St. Andrew's Hall, was a public building in Charleston, South Carolina, on Broad Street. The hall served as headquarters for the St. Andrew's Society of Charleston, South Carolina. It was also an important part of the social life of upper-class Charlestonians. It was used for balls, banquets,...
. After the Civil War the society briefly used the South Carolina Society Hall and the Deutsche Freundschafts Bund Hall (now the home of Charleston's Washington Light Infantry
Washington Light Infantry
The Washington Light Infantry is a military and social organization located in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1807, it is one of the oldest of these militia groups still active in the United States....
). Since the early 1880s its events have taken place at Hibernian Hall
Hibernian Hall
Hibernian Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, is located at 105 Meeting Street, just north of the intersection of Meeting and Broad Street, more commonly referred to as the "Four Corners of the Law". The building was constructed in 1840 by Thomas U. Walter of Philadelphia in the...
.
Performers
The music at the St. Cecilia Society’s concerts was performed by a combination of amateurs and hired professionals. Like the British subscription concert organizations it emulated, the core of the society’s early orchestra was drawn from its membership, and seasoned professional were hired as its treasury grew. Professional musicians were usually drawn from the local population or recruited through private channels, but in 1771 the society advertised throughout the American colonies and in London to fill several positions, offering contracts for one to three years. On the eve of the American Revolution, the orchestra of the St. Cecilia Society included at least twenty musicians, including gentlemen amateurs and professionals from EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Holland, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and the West Indies. Following several years of rebuilding its forces in the wake of the Revolution, the size of society’s orchestra was augmented in 1793 by the opening of the Charleston Theatre, with its seasonally resident orchestra, and the nearly simultaneous arrival of French musicians fleeing the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
. Over the next two decades, the society enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the local theater musicians, many of whom traveled northward for the summer months and performed at other concert series.
Lady amateurs and female professional musicians also appeared occasionally at the St. Cecilia Society’s concerts as instrumental or vocal soloists. Professional singers, usually affiliated with the local theater, usually presented songs from popular English and French stage works. Young lady amateurs, generally performing on the harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, piano, or harp, occasionally played solo works or appeared in small ensembles or even as concerto soloists.
Musical Repertoire
Despite the long distance between Charleston and London, the repertoire of the St. Cecilia Concerts (as the society’s performances were known) generally kept pace with the musical fashions of contemporary Britain. The constant commercial trade between the two cities, augmented by Charleston's fervent desire to follow English fashions, encouraged the importation of musical works by the most "modern" and "fashionable" European composers, or at least the works of composers then favored in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Among the composers whose works were heard in Charleston between 1766 and 1820 are Carl Friedrich Abel, Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
, Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Leopold Kozeluch
Leopold Kozeluch
Leopold Kozeluch was a Czech composer and teacher of classical music. He was born in the town of Velvary, in Bohemia .-Life:...
, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Josef Mysliveček
Josef Myslivecek
Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...
, Ignaz Pleyel
Ignaz Pleyel
Ignace Joseph Pleyel , ; was an Austrian-born French composer and piano builder of the Classical period.-Early years:...
, Johann Stamitz
Johann Stamitz
Jan Václav Antonín Stamic was a Czech composer and violinist. Johann was the father of Carl Stamitz and Anton Stamitz, also composers...
, and many others.
London musical fashions did not completely monopolize the concert repertoire heard in Charleston during this period, however. Thanks to the influx of French musicians in the 1790s in the wake of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and the Haitian Revolution
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
, the works of composers such as François Adrien Boieldieu, Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac, André Ernest Modeste Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry
André Ernest Modeste Grétry was acomposer from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège , who worked from 1767 onwards in France and took French nationality. He is most famous for his opéras comiques....
, Étienne Méhul
Étienne Méhul
Etienne Nicolas Méhul was a French composer, "the most important opera composer in France during the Revolution." He was also the first composer to be called a "Romantic".-Life:...
, and others were also heard in Charleston.
Although several of the musicians residing in Charleston during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are known to have composed some music, the St. Cecilia Society made no effort to encourage the creation of a local musical style. Since the society measured its musical success by its ability to replicate contemporary European practices, the cultivation of a “native” musical language would have seemed too provincial for an organization that strove to appear as cosmopolitan as possible.
In keeping with British practices of the day, each of the St. Cecilia Society’s concerts included a mix of musical genres. Orchestral works opened and closed each of the “acts” or “parts” of the concert, while a varied succession of concertos, pieces for small instrumental ensembles, and vocal selections filled the rest of the bill.
Cessation of the Concerts
The termination of the society’s concert series in 1820 was motivated by several factors. By 1815 musical fashions in Charleston were changing and enthusiasm for the society’s concerts, a conspicuous vestige of the Age of EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, was in decline. In 1817 the Charleston Theatre company initiated a touring circuit that disrupted the society’s long-standing practice of sharing musicians with the local theater. On a number of occasions in the ensuing seasons, the St. Cecilia Society’s offered balls as last-minute substitutes for concerts when a sufficient number of musicians could not be procured. Finally, the Panic of 1819
Panic of 1819
The Panic of 1819 was the first major financial crisis in the United States, and had occurred during the political calm of the Era of Good Feelings. The new nation previously had faced a depression following the war of independence in the late 1780s and led directly to the establishment of the...
unraveled the local economy and induced the society to curtail its activities. After three increasingly meager seasons, the society held its last regular concert in the spring of 1820 and in subsequent years presented a greatly reduced number of balls.
Historical significance
The St. Cecilia Society’s importance as a musical institution is considerable, though this aspect of the society’s heritage it is often overlooked in favor of its relatively more recent fame as an elite social organization. While the society’s existence is not unknown to music historians, few details of its concert activity have heretofore been available to facilitate comparisons with European or other early American musical phenomena. For more than a century, musicologists have been inclined to characterize eighteenth-century American concert life in general as a "feeble imitation" of European practices. In contrast to this conclusion, however, Nicholas Butler’s recent reconstruction of the St. Cecilia Society’s concert era demonstrates the existence of a robust and long-term effort in Charleston to replicate Old World models, and portrays the society as the most significant example of concert patronage in the United States before the advent of the New York PhilharmonicNew York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
in 1842.
Memories of the society’s musical heritage soon faded after its records were lost during the Civil War, however, and subsequent writers have since focused on the Society’s social activities and the glamour of its annual debutante ball. At the end of the nineteenth century, many Charlestonians began to view the St. Cecilia Society as a valuable link to their city’s "golden age" of prosperity in the preceding century. To many observers, however, it also stood as a symbol of Charleston’s rigid insularity and its resistance to a broader democratic philosophy. Despite such friction, inclusion in the society’s activities is still widely believed to represent the achievement of the ultimate insider status in Charleston.
Historiography
The earliest known published description of Charleston's St. Cecilia Society and its legacy of musical patronage is found in Charles FraserCharles Fraser
Charles Fraser may refer to:* Charles Fraser , botanist and explorer of Australia* Charles Fraser , ice hockey player* Charles Fraser , missionary with the Scottish Missionary Society to Russian Tatary...
's Reminiscences of Charleston (first published in 1854), which contains a brief but highly influential synopsis of the history of the society. Although Fraser (1782–1860) had been admitted to the society in 1803, and his father, Alexander Fraser, had been among its founding members, his brief 1854 account of the society's concert activity is vague and contains several factual errors that may be attributed to the fading memories of events that transpired some three or four decades earlier. Despite these shortcomings, Fraser's flawed description of the St. Cecilia Society's concert era has been cited and repeated by numerous authors since 1854 as the definitive (and only) published first-person account of this musical phenomenon.
Oscar Sonneck's influential text, Early Concert-Life in America (1907), was the first scholarly publication to acknowledge the musical prominence of Charleston's St. Cecilia Society, but Sonneck also lamented that the early history of this organization appeared to have been lost. Subsequent twentieth-century musicologists merely repeated Sonneck's assessment of the society without adding further insight or detail.
Outside of musicological circles, Harriott Horry Rutledge Ravenel's Charleston: The Place and the People (1906) was the first local history text to offer a brief glimpse into the history of the St. Cecilia Society, based largely on her own first-hand experiences. Despite having attended the society's balls since the early 1850s, Mrs. Ravenel's brief assessment of the St. Cecilia Society's concert era is based entirely on Charles Fraser's 1854 synopsis. In the course of the twentieth century, scores of books and articles about Charleston and its cultural heritage have included some mention of the St. Cecilia Society. With very little variation, such works routinely echo the words of Fraser, Sonneck, and/or Ravenel, and offer no new factual information. Nicholas Butler's recently-published monograph Votaries of Apollo: The St. Cecilia Society and the Patronage of Concert Music in Charleston, South Carolina, 1766–1820 (2007), represents the first scholarly effort to reconstruct the details of the St. Cecilia Society's fifty-four years of concert activity, and is based entirely on extant archival materials from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Current Activity
Between the cessation of its concert patronage in 1820 and the onset of the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
in the 1930s, the St. Cecilia Society continued its activities by presenting an annual series of three or four elegant balls. The economic downturn of the 1930s induced the society to limit its activities to a single ball, however, and this pattern continues to the present day.
During its first century, the St. Cecilia Society's membership included the gentlemen of Charleston's socio-economic elite---a group that included representatives of a broad range of professions and backgrounds. As the city's population expanded and more men sought to be included in this prestigious organization, however, the society established new restrictions on membership in an effort to prevent its events from swelling to an unmanageable size. For more than a century now, the society has limited its membership to the male descendants of earlier members---a move that has effectively closed the organization to anyone without deep roots in Charleston. The St. Cecilia Society continues to flourish in the twenty-first century, but two hundred years of social changes have sapped much of its original vitality. Due to its popular reputation as an ancient, hyper-exclusive organization, the society is frequently portrayed in the media as an exaggerated romantic synecdoche for the historic "charm" of the city of Charleston. The modern St. Cecilia Society of Charleston strives to eschew public notice, however, as it attempts to preserve its narrowly-defined, time-honored cultural traditions.