The Hartford Symphony Orchestra (HSO) is an American orchestra based in Hartford, Connecticut.
History
1930s
The orchestra was established in 1934 as the Civic Symphony Orchestra of Hartford with support from a federal relief programme. Francis Goodwin II was involved in its establishment. The orchestra gave its first concert on November 20, 1934, at West Middle School in Hartford, conducted by music director Angelo Coniglione.
The Federal government disbanded the Federal Emergency Relief Corporation in 1935 and instead began a larger program called the Federal Music Project (FMP). This project was a subdivision of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the New Deal. Many orchestras in the United States were born out of the funding from this project. After the federal relief programme ended in 1935, the orchestra received support through the Federal Music Project, a programme of the Works Progress Administration. This enabled the orchestra to increase musicians' wages and charge admission.
Jacques Gordon succeeded Coniglione as music director in 1936, when the orchestra adopted the name Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Its schedule expanded to include performances at The Bushnell and other venues in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Changes to Federal Music Project funding subsequently required the orchestra to obtain a greater share of its funding independently.
The orchestra withdrew from the Federal Music Project in 1938 and appointed Léon Barzin as music director. The following year, the City of Hartford funded five summer concerts conducted by George Heck.
1940s
Ever since the decision was made to forgo federal funding in 1938, the Hartford Symphony had been struggling to keep its doors open. Board member Francis Goodwin, considered to be the “Father of the Hartford Symphony,” even put up $11,000 in personal collateral to finance a loan for the symphony. (The symphony was later unable to pay back the loan, and Goodwin's personal collateral was confiscated.) Despite this financial distress, the Hartford Symphony presented five concerts in the Bushnell which featured all-Beethoven programming. These concerts marked the highest attendance the orchestra had experienced in its six-year history.
The Hartford Symphony played the last of its successful Beethoven concerts on May 14, 1941. By this time, World War II had swept through Europe, and by the fall of 1941 nearly all of the Hartford Symphony's musicians had taken leave to join the armed forces. With crippled finances and no musicians, the orchestra only existed as a corporate entity and it did not seem likely that Connecticut would ever hear the Hartford Symphony again.
In a final effort to save the Hartford Symphony, Francis Goodwin pulled together a new board of directors in 1946 composed of prominent Hartford businessmen, including Willard B. Rogers, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, as president of the Hartford Symphony Board.
In an unprecedented action, Hartford's musicians’ union agreed to perform for free for one year in an effort to get the symphony up and running again. The Hartford Symphony was then free to use what little funds they had to pay for technical costs. In 1947 they hired two alternating co-conductors: George Heck, Dean of what is now the Hartford Conservatory, and Moshe Paranov, Dean of The Hartt School.
The Hartford Symphony's first concert back was held on January 25, 1948, in Mortensen Hall. For the first time, patrons could buy subscriptions ($6 for seats at four concerts in either the Orchestra or Front Balcony section) or pay $1 per concert for a seat in the rest of the house. The audiences were much larger than the symphony had seen in the past, with more than 1,000 paid admissions at every concert. After observing this heartfelt struggle to revive the Hartford Symphony, Travelers Insurance Company, in conjunction with radio station WTIC-FM, offered up a generous gift of $30,000 over the course of three years to the Hartford Symphony. After the first $10,000 installment in 1948, the HSO was finally able to open official administrative offices in the first floor of the Old State House, and, more importantly, was able to pay the musicians scale wages.
The Hartford Symphony's 1949–1950 concert season expanded to six concerts in the Bushnell instead of four. In addition, Arthur Fiedler guest conducted the first Hartford Symphony Pops! concerts at The Bushnell and the Trinity Field House, where audience members sat at cabaret-style tables and were served food and drink by white-coated Trinity Students. It was noted this year that the orchestra played better than ever before; it seemed that musicians and audience members alike had a renewed interest in keeping the Hartford Symphony in business.
1950s
After the financial growth of the 1940s, the Hartford Symphony was able to perform six traditional concerts in The Bushnell with several nationally and internationally renowned guest performers, including Walton Deckelman, piano; Bela Urban, violin; Joseph De Pasquale, viola; Seymour Benstock, cello; and Cynthia Otis, harp. Odell Shepard, a former lieutenant governor of Connecticut, was even invited to narrate Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait.
The symphony decided that Fritz Mahler would soon replace Moshe Paranov and George Heck as the new conductor of the Hartford Symphony, with a salary of $7,500 per year. At first, the public was very upset over the decision to hire Fritz Mahler; local newspapers slammed the symphony for firing the two former Hartford Symphony conductors. On October 28, 1953 Fritz Mahler conducted his first concert with the Hartford Symphony in a program that featured the Boston Symphony’s principal cellist, Samuel Mayes, premiering Kabalevsky’s Concerto for Cello. Although the concert was well attended, there was still backlash from press about new conductor.
Determined to see the Hartford Symphony expand and flourish, Mahler developed educational and outreach programs. He began his series of “Young People’s Concerts” at The Bushnell, and appointed Mrs. Rena Oppenheimer as Educational Director. She traveled to local grade schools to present instrument demonstrations and promote the “Young People’s Concerts.” Mahler also started the “Hartford Little Symphony”- a reduced orchestra that would play run-out concerts at Avon Old Farms School, Miss Porter’s School, the Duffy School, and the Verplank School.
Mahler infused a sense of variety into the symphony's programming with performances of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, J. Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, an all-Tchaikovsky program, a performance of “Show Boat,” two Pops! concerts, and a program entitled “Theater in the Dance,” featuring the José Limón Dancers with Pauline Koner (Mrs. Fritz Mahler) as a soloist. In 1954, the orchestra performed the American premiere of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. It recorded the work for Vanguard Records in 1957.
On March 27, 1957, the symphony recorded Carmina Burana on the Vanguard record label. Fritz Mahler continued the Hartford Symphony's recording project with the Vanguard label, recording three new albums: Berlioz's Requiem, Gustav Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied, and Bloch’s Three Jewish Poems for Orchestra and Copland’s Variations for Orchestra & Fanfare for the Common Man.
1960s
The sixties opened with a general sense of uneasiness amongst the Hartford Symphony administration over the symphony’s lack of growth in the past few years. Newly elected Hartford Symphony President Francis Goodwin, who is considered to be the “Father of the Hartford Symphony,” was determined to make the Hartford Symphony the “really great orchestra” he had always dreamed it could be. Although the symphony had received local accolades for its recent accomplishments, it had not yet reached the status Goodwin felt it could achieve.
The Hartford Times and Hartford Courant gave mediocre reviews to the symphony's opening concerts of the 1961–62 season; more people began to subscribe to the Bushnell's concert series instead of the symphony's because they believed the Hartford Symphony's performances were mediocre in comparison. Insisting that they would be able to provide better programming if more funds were available, Goodwin initiated a new fundraising campaign, headed by former symphony president Albert Holland. The campaign was a great success: the orchestra raised $100,000 in one year.
Although the public was enamored with everything Music Director Fritz Mahler had done for the symphony, the general consensus within the administration and musicians was that Mahler was no longer a good fit for the HSO. Mahler was constantly traveling overseas to conduct foreign orchestras and seemed no longer committed to the growth of the symphony. When it became apparent that the board wanted to hire a new conductor, the public was outraged. Despite growing controversy over removing Mahler, Goodwin and the board announced that they wanted to hire a new music director – someone who played an instrument, who would hire local players, and, most importantly, who would commit themselves to the nitty-gritty business details of the orchestra. After conducting a wide-sweeping national search, they picked Arthur Winograd, the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet, to be the symphony's new music director. The symphony rose to a new level under Winograd. Concerts for the 1965–66 season were packed and the symphony saw a 15% increase in subscriptions, surpassing the Bushnell's subscription sales.
In 1966, the orchestra received a $1.35 million grant through the Ford Foundation's programme for performing arts organisations.
In 1967, the orchestra performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York City....
1970s
Despite the fantastic successes of the 1960s, the Hartford Symphony was listed by the New York Times as one of 12 American orchestras in serious financial “danger.” The HSO had experienced great ticket sales and generous donations during the 1960s, but operating costs were high and financial failure was imminent once again. The Ford Challenge Grant which had been awarded to the HSO ten years prior stipulated that the HSO needed to raise one million dollars on their own in order for Ford to donate the $1,350,000 award. At the end of 1971, the symphony was $140,000 short of the one million dollar requirement, even though Ford's award money had been built into future budgets. At the last minute, Symphony supporters Francis Goodwin and Harry Robinson each donated $70,000 to the HSO, allowing the orchestra to meet its goal and continue to provide classical music to the City of Hartford.
Financially steady for the first time, the Hartford Symphony expanded their educational series to include four “Young People’s Concerts” in the Bushnell, a “Junior Symphony Series” for junior high students, and a concert series at Connecticut College. These years also brought in the world's most celebrated soloists, including Benny Goodman, Mitch Miller, Isaac Stern, Leon Fleisher, a young André Watts, Itzhak Perlman, Van Cliburn, Ella Fitzgerald, and a 19-year-old Yo-Yo Ma.
In 1976, the symphony presented a special Bicentennial series, featuring popular and brand-new American music on every program. This year also marked the passing of Francis Goodwin, who truly had devoted his life to creating and sustaining the Hartford Symphony.
In October 1978, the musicians went on strike, protesting the reductions of concerts and rehearsal hours. The strike lasted ten days, and ended in late October.
In 1979, the symphony hired Richard Hayman to conduct the Pops! Series at the Jai-alai Fronton in Hartford. With Hayman's appointment came new, innovative Pops! programming, including the incorporation of rock ‘n roll, modern jazz, and international music into the series.
1980s