The Pierian Sodality of Harvard

 

Antique photographs of musical groups

often have musicians arranged

in almost random disorder.

Tympani might be at the front,

cellos and violins at the back,

cornets next to flutes,

so the placement of players looks nothing like

how a band or orchestra is typically seated in concert.

Instead the photographer reorganized everyone

to fit inside the camera's frame.

And unlike modern photos where everyone in a group

is told to smile and look directly at the camera,
in antique photos people are usually gazing in different directions
with only a few eyes turned towards the lens and scarcely anyone smiling.
It's a perplexing viewpoint that is not how a conductor
expects to see musicians on stage.

As I've written about before,
taking a good photograph of
a class of schoolchildren is perhaps
the most challenging undertaking for any photographer.
Everything must be carefully planned,
choosing a setting with ample, but not harsh, light,
and hopefully finding the subjects well dressed and alert.

All this leads to a final split second decision
to click the camera shutter.

Today I present two impressive, if slightly quirky,
school photos of a musical ensemble.
However these students are not
in an elementary band or a high school orchestra.

 

They are young men from Harvard College,

and members of one
of the oldest musical ensembles in America —

The Pierian Sodality.  

 

The first photo is a large albumen print, about 10 x 8 inches, of 25 young men and a dog arranged on the entrance steps to a brick building. Almost all are holding a musical instrument and since more than half are string players it's a decent size orchestra. On the bass drum are stenciled letters and a heraldic shield identifying them as from Harvard College. A framed testimonial letter has a title that reads: Members Pierian Sodality. A large greyhound-type dog is lying down in front, unconcerned but maybe with one ear cocked to listen. 

The second photo shows a different set of young men placed in a slightly more uniform grouping. Here there are only 29 musicians and no dog. The bass drum is missing but the same framed document of the Pierian Sodality, a charter perhaps, is at the feet of one man in center who is presumably the conductor. As best as I can tell, there are no musicians who appear in both photos. And unfortunately neither photo has any annotation for a date or names of the orchestra's members. Though there are some similarities in the styles of hair and suits, I think this photo is younger than the first photo, possibly taken a few years later. It is the same size print but has suffered some abuse and has a lot of foxing, the scattered grey fuzzy dots on darker areas.

Both photographs were produced by the Pach Brothers studio of New York City, though the actual photographer was likely an associate working in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Pach brothers, Gustavus (1848-1904), Gotthelf (1852-1925), and Morris (1837-?) came to New York from Berlin as children and in the 1860s developed an interest in the new art/technology of photography. Gustavus established the first Pach studio in 1867 at the Atlantic resort town of Long Branch, New Jersey and in 1872 relocated to Manhattan in New York City. By the 1880s the Pach Brothers' studio was considered one of the most diversified photography companies in America producing  hundreds of thousands of photos for many elite academic institutions like West Point, Yale, Princeton, and Harvard, as well as fine portraits of high society people, government officials, and later theatrical celebrities.

1890 Harvard Lampoon

The Pach Brothers studio regularly advertised in college magazines and newspapers and in 1890 they ran an ad in the Harvard Lampoon. A Mr. H. Wm. Tupper was the local manager and photographer in Cambridge. This was probably a seasonal operation as the ad promoted being at Harvard in '78, '79, '82, '83, '84, '86, '87,, /88, /89, '90, and '91. It's also interesting to see other businesses that marketed to Harvard's students like the Daylight Lamp Co. and the English Waukenphast Shoes.

1887 Harvard Advocate

In 1887 the Pach Brothers advertised in the Harvard Advocate along with a local brewery special, Musty, the Queen of Ales. By coincidence it was on the same page as a calendar of January events at the college which included two concerts of the Pierian Sodality. There were also concerts by the Harvard Glee Club and Banjo Club.

Pierian Sodality logo
Source: Wikipedia

The Pierian Sodality was founded in 1808 as a musical social club for Harvard students, which in that era meant it was only for men. The word "pierian" refers to the Pierian Spring of Macedonia  in Greek mythology, which was sacred to the Pierides who worshiped the Muses, the goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. It was used as a metaphor for the source of knowledge in art and science in a popular couplet from Alexander Pope's poem "An Essay on Criticism" from 1711: "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."  The word "sodality" is defined as an organized fellowship, brotherhood, or society. 

In its first charter the Pierian Sodality stated that its purpose was to "perform music for the enjoyment of others as well as serenade young women in the square". Though it has been sometimes described as the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, the club's informal music making with often a very mixed instrumentation meant it was never a proper orchestra suited for the standard repertoire of symphonic music.

Pierian Sodality Orchestra, 1908
Source: The Harvard Illustrated Magazine, vol IX, 1907-08

Here is a picture of the Pierian Sodality orchestra taken in 1908 that shows 39 young men in formal dress arranged more orderly in a photography studio or maybe on a stage. As in the other photos, the framed charter with the club's name is placed in front. The ensemble's concerts were regularly reported on in Harvard publications but in the early decades the few programs that were listed were largely of lighter popular music and not works of great composers. 

Jacobs' Orchestra Monthly
October 1924

In October 1924, Lloyd G. del Castillo, a former member of the Pierian Sodality, wrote a short remembrance of his time in Harvard playing with the group for Jacobs' Orchestra Monthly. The magazine also printed a photo of the Pierian Sodality that Del Castillo described as being from 1888. It is identical to my first photo or the orchestra. The article is entitled: 

                            A Jazz Orchestra of the Nineteenth Century 

                                             by Lloyd G del Castillo 

    Into the seething maelstrom of words which of late is attempting to suck the good ship Jazz down into its invidious depths, I aim to inject a few soothing ripples explanatory of the medium jazz employs—the Fount it uses to spray its cult to the True Believer.  I don't pretend that the foregoing sentence means anything, but such an introductory wealth of mixed metaphor adds dignity to an article, and jazz certainly needs all the dignity it can get.  In other words in this Vulgarian Atmosphere of jazz I am the Spirit of Culture, and to prove it I am going to take you into the classic confines of Harvard and show you an association, which if not an exemplification of jazz is at least its prototype.

    ............

    Most important of all, in this picture can be seen the original jazz-hound—not the one at the right end of the top row, but the one in front of the bass drum.  And if I am not mistaken the earnest young man in the front row holding the diploma is Nicholas Longworth, president of the Sodality in that year (1888), and since become nationally famous.  The conductor seated next to him should be Louis A. Coerne who afterward became well known as critic and composer, although I cannot vouch for the identification other than by the chronological records of the society.  The rest have all gone their separate ways, adopted modern garb and removed the hirsute adornments, unwept, unhonored, and unsung, so far as my humble researches are concerned, although to follow their individual destinies would no doubt be productive of entertaining results.

    But my present purpose is more to indicate the influences of this musical organization on contemporary jazz. In the first place modern jazz is inextricably linked with dancing, social diversion and liquid refreshment, and I will show that the development of the Pierian Sodality was along similar lines.  Their principal activity for the first forty years of their existence was to set out with their instruments in the evening and go serenading from house to house, at each of which they would be treated to cake and wine to cake and wine—probably in a good deal the same fashion as more modern housewives throw a few pennies to the organ grinder to induce him to distribute his musical tid-bits more impartially through other and more distant parts of the neighborhood.  Evidently inherited the stern rock bound constitution their Puritan forbears, for they take no shame in recording that often they would visit a score or more of houses and not return home the dawn was breaking, and sometimes the ringing for morning chapel.

    ...........     

    The second point of similarity with modern jazz is in a more musical aspect: the instrumentation.  I venture to say that in no up-to-the-minute jazz band of today can there be found more fantastic cacophony of instruments the following combination of 1842:  flutes, ophicleide, bass viol, E-flat clarinet, post horn, violoncello, and two trombones. Ten years earlier uncovers a more modest assembly, but still unique with flutes, two French horns, bass horn, trombone, and double-base (invariably spelled so in these records).  In 1839 , we even find mention of a guitar.  It is of interest that throughout these early days it always the flutes that predominate, and not until 1870 is the string quintet found to gained a firm ascendency over them.  In the early music books of 1820 or so, the fullest arrangements are:  first, second, and third flutes, first and second violins, horns, tenor bassoon.  

    But it can hardly be said that there was consistent scheme about the orchestra's instrumentation.  The ups and downs of life are clearly reflected in the Society's history, and the year following the ambitious display of 1842 mentioned above, finds the Sodality in doldrums with a discouraging handful of five members.  "So gloomy were the members that after listening to a doleful duet Messrs. Greenwood and Curtis on the ophicleide and trombone, they adjourned without playing a note."  Probably the duet would have made anybody gloomy! 

    This was not the worst, however.  In 1832 the orchestra dwindled to one man, who was forced to rehearse with himself for a month or two until he was able to elect two new members by unanimous vote.  Contrasted with this is the later prosperity in 1889, which shows a respectable symphony orchestra of a goodly number of strings, 3 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba, and 5 percussion—a complete symphony instrumentation with the exception of the oboes.  Any aspiring leader of amateur orchestras can well appreciate what good fortune is there indicated.

    The last point of analogy with modern jazz is more visionary.  It is that jazz is the spirit of youth.  Through all the records of this college undergraduate society, there runs the youthful exuberance that is the very essence of jazz, a spirit more sophisticated today than in the 19th century, but at bottom the same priceless heritage that we gray-beards look back upon with an uneasy yet envious eye.  Throughout all the turgid, blundering attempts to uncover the source of jazz, we inevitably find the same comment recurring because of its fresh spontaneous effervescence. 

    In a final word, to conclude the aimless debate, it is my privilege to unfold to its purveyors the real meaning of this observation—that if I am the Spirit of Culture, Jazz is the Spirit of Youth, and all this unnecessary alarm and pother is nothing but another form of ubiquitous sentiment expressed by the older generation that the younger is displaying wild and unnatural tendencies, and is probably going straight to the jazz hounds. 

    Note:  To quell any possible doubts as to the authenticity this article, it should be stated that Mr. del Castillo was a member of the Pierian Sodality not so terribly many years after the type of whiskers pictured above went out of style.  We have the author's own statement that he was a tympani virtuoso there in 1911, and in 1912 and 1913 was conductor of the Sodality.  In 1914 he forsook the paths of glory for the more lucrative fields of professional music, his first experience being with dance orchestras.  For a number of years Mr. del Castillo has been the photoplay houses popular organist at the Fenway Theatre one of Boston's leading photoplay houses.

I've included most of Lloyd G del Castillo's account because he was drawing a connection between the old traditions of the Pierian Sodality and jazz music, the new craze of the 1920s. What he did not know then was that his work as a theater organist accompanying silent films was about to be made redundant with the introduction of "Talkies"—movies with recorded soundtracks.  

Using Castillo's identification of my first photograph, I found a list of all the 1888 members of the Pierian Sodality published in the Harvard Index.   

1888 Harvard Index

1888 Harvard Index

There are 48 names so the photograph shows only a small portion of the Pierian Sodality that school year. Inevitably the nature of student turnover each semester led to a very changeable roster for the ensemble. In December 1888 the Boston Globe published a brief review of a benefit concert presented jointly by Harvard's Glee Club, Banjo Club, and Pierian Sodality. 

Boston Globe
21 December 1888

They performed "before a highly-appreciative audience that completely filled the theatre. The concert was one of merit." The report included the "programme" which carefully outlined the music, composers, and performers. The banjo club had the fewest pieces with just three tunes, while the glee club had thirteen "college songs". The orchestra of the Pierian Sodality opened the concert with a march by Mendelssohn and then returned with a set of short classical works that featured Mr. Longworth, '91, playing a violin solo. If Mr. Castillo, the writer for Jacobs' Orchestra Monthly. was correct, the young man seated center and holding the Pierian Sodality charter was Nicolas Longworth, the club's president and one of the orchestra's first violins. 

Felix Mendelssohn's March in D Major, Op. 108
played by the George Cathie Orchestra
from a 1920s recording provided by 

NAXOS of America.

However the 1888 roster for the Pierian Sodality named J. M. Hallowell, '88, as president and F. H. Whipple, '88, as the conductor.

comparison of Nicholas Longworth III (1869-1931)

Nicholas Longworth III (1869–1931) was an American lawyer and politician from Ohio who became 38th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 1925. He was an alumni of Harvard College, Class of 1891 where he also played violin in the Pierian Sodality. In 1906 Longworth married Alice Lee Roosevelt, the eldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee. According to her: "In Washington, Nick never had much time to play his violin, and in those days there were very few people to play with him. In Cincinnati there were the orchestra, the College of Music, and the Conservatory to draw on, and soon we were having musical parties, at least once, and often two or three times a week. ... We would all have dinner first, the musicians and a few others who cared for music, and afterwards lose no time getting started, by about nine at the latest. From then on music and yet more music until midnight and usually long after.". 

But comparing a 1903 photo of Nicholas Longworth III to the young man holding the Pierian Sodality charter, I don't see any resemblance. I think Castillo is mistaken and that it is Mr. J. M. Hallowell, '88 who is in the photo. Also there are three other violinists with features that seem a better match to Longworth. 

comparison with Louis Adolphe Coerne (1870–1922)

Castillo identified the conductor as Louis A. Coerne. Born in Newark, New Jersey Coerne studied music composition at Harvard under American composer, John Knowles Paine, and later at the Stuttgart Conservatory in Germany. He wrote some pedagogical studies for piano, several larger works for orchestra, and five operas. His cantata, Hiawatha, Op. 18 premiered in Munich in 1893 and was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1894. Louis A. Coerne died in Boston in 1922. 

While there is perhaps some resemblance between Coerne's circa 1906 photo and the young man holding a baton in my photo of the Pierian Sodality, I think once again, Castillo is mistaken. The hair color, even in sepia tone, looks too blonde to be Coerne and the neck length is different as Coerne seems more slender. So I think the conductor is Mr. F. H. Whipple. 

I was unable to trace records on Hallowell or Whipple, so I have no later images of those men for a proper comparison. But I could not let Castillo's 1924 identification pass without checking his names against the faces in my photo. If anyone reading this story has more information on either photograph, please contact me. My email is on the sidebar. 

Harvard is now a very large modern university with 21,613 students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, having merged in 1999 with Radcliffe College, a formerly all-female college also located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not surprising for an institution founded in 1636, Harvard has preserved countless traditions and physical structures from its history. And that includes the noble wooden doors with wrought iron hinges that are the backdrop to the two photos of the Pierian Sodality.

Harvard University, Sever Hall, east facade
Source: Wikipedia

The doors are located on the east side of Sever Hall, next to Quincy St. and now opposite of the Harvard Art Museums. The building was designed by American architect H. H. Richardson and constructed in 1878-1880. It was named for James Warren Sever (1797-1871) who was an 1817 alumni of the college. Considered one of the most beautiful academic buildings n America, it is made of 1.3 million red bricks in 60 different varieties, following an interpretation of the Romanesque style. 

The entrance appears unchanged from when the Pierian Sodality posed on its steps in the 1880s. 

Harvard University, Sever Hall
Source: Wikipedia

Today the Pierian Sodality has evolved into
the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. 
Here is a short video released in January 2021 
of a "virtual concert" produced
by the musicians of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra
during the Covid-19 pandemic. 
It is the Masks movement from the ballet suite
Romeo and Juliet, by Sergei Prokofiev.  

I think the members of the Pierian Sodality
from the classes of 1880s - 1890s
would applaud this effort to share a love of making music.
It's a tradition that has a long and venerable history.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where summer is just beginning
to warm up.