Besides the important Philharmonic Society, founded in 1813, and the educational centre in the Royal Academy of Music, founded in 1822, both of which have been previously mentioned (see sec. 186), the middle period saw the establishment of the significant Sacred Harmonic Society, founded in 1832, and led till 1848 by Joseph Surman (d. 1871) and later by Costa, and of the Society of British Musicians, founded in 1834 to encourage composition by Englishmen, which disbanded in 1865. The now influential Musical Association, founded in 1874, and the Incorporated Society of Musicians, founded in 1882, belong to the next period.
224. Music in America.—The cultivation of musical art in
the United States along lines connected with what was being
done in Europe made but slight progress before 1840, though
performances of opera and oratorio music were not uncommon
in a few leading cities. An educational influence of value was
exerted by the many leaders in the improvement of New England
psalmody, of whom Lowell Mason was the chief. Gradually
immigration brought in many trained musicians from
across the ocean, especially under the stress of the political
disturbances that culminated in the revolutions of 1848. More
and more students sought instruction in England or Germany.
Standards of artistic judgment and action steadily rose in a few
metropolitan centres, and some gifted artists began to appear.
Thus the way was prepared for the immense advances that
followed in the period after the Civil War. Though nearly all
that is significant as a part of the general history of music belongs
to that later period, yet the worthy efforts of many pioneers
deserve recognition, even though what they actually did
is not absolutely remarkable (see sec. 233).
Conspicuous instances of those whose work centred chiefly in the old-fashioned
psalmody were Thomas Hastings (d. 1872), living at Utica from
1823 and at New York from 1832; Lowell Mason (d. 1872), who was
immensely influential at Boston from 1827; the Englishman George James Webb (d. 1887), from 1830 in Boston; George Frederick Root (d. 1895),
from 1844 in New York and from 1859 in Chicago; besides many more,
mostly associated with Boston.
Pioneers of broader interests were Ureli C. Hill (d. 1875), a pupil of Spohr and in 1842 the founder of the New York Philharmonic Society; John Sullivan Dwight (d. 1893), in 1852 the founder of the first important American musical periodical and a careful critic; George Frederick Bristow (d. 1898), violinist, organist, conductor and fertile composer in New York; William Henry Walter, from 1842 a leading organist in New York; John Henry Cornell (d. 1894), from 1848 an able organist and theorist in New York; James Cutler Dunn Parker, since 1854 similarly known in Boston;
