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AMERICAN BAYREUTH: The 1914 Peterborough Festival

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The following is a guest post from Senior Music Reference Specialist Robin Rausch.

Program cover for the 1914 Peterborough Festival. Edward and Marian MacDowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.
Program cover for the 1914 Peterborough Festival. Edward and Marian MacDowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.

For five days in August in 1914, thousands of people descended on the tiny village of Peterborough, New Hampshire to attend the fifth summer festival of music and drama produced by the Edward MacDowell Memorial Association.  Inaugurated in 1910, these annual festivals were the brainchild of Marian MacDowell, the widow of composer Edward MacDowell, whose premature death from a crippling nervous disease in 1908 stirred the sympathy of the nation.  Marian MacDowell had promised her late husband that she would carry out their plan to turn their New Hampshire farm into an artists’ colony–today’s prestigious MacDowell Colony–and her summer festivals helped to spread the word and draw new talent to the creative community.  Critics praised the productions from the beginning, and speculated that Peterborough might become the “Bayreuth of America.”  But unlike the famous Bayreuth Festival, with its exclusive Wagnerian repertoire, the Peterborough festivals were more than a paean to Edward MacDowell.  They were designed to promote new talent, especially the works of living American composers.  The 1914 festival was the most ambitious yet.

Between Wednesday, August 19th and Sunday, August 23rd, six different programs showcased the works of composers Edward Ballantine, Gena Branscombe, Chalmers Clifton, Rossetter G. Cole, Mabel Daniels, Henry Gilbert, Edward Burlingame Hill, William Henry Humiston, Lewis Isaacs, Arthur Nevin, and Deems Taylor.  Many of them took to the podium to conduct the premieres of their works.  Marian MacDowell spared no expense to assemble a first-rate orchestra.  Billed as the Boston Festival Orchestra, the ensemble included several members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  The musicians arrived days in advance to allow ample rehearsal time.  At a time when American composers struggled to get their works performed, it was for them a dream gig.

Participants in the 1914 Peterborough Festival (l. to r.):  Henry Gilbert, Gena Branscombe, Lewis Isaacs, unidentified, Rossetter Cole, Edward Ballantine?, Edward Burlingame Hill?, Chalmers Clifton?, Mabel Daniels, Arthur Nevin. MacDowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.
Participants in the 1914 Peterborough Festival (l. to r.): Henry Gilbert, Gena Branscombe, Lewis Isaacs, unidentified, Rossetter Cole, Edward Ballantine?, Edward Burlingame Hill?, Chalmers Clifton?, Mabel Daniels, Arthur Nevin. MacDowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.

 

Holograph manuscript of Edward Burlingame Hill's Pan and the Star.  Gift of the composer, 1917. Call number ML96.H5, Music Division, Library of Congress.
Holograph manuscript of Edward Burlingame Hill’s Pan and the Star. Gift of the composer, 1917. Call number ML96.H5, Music Division, Library of Congress.

 

Critics singled out for praise Deems Taylor’s cantata The Highwayman, written for baritone Reinald Werrenrath and premiered at the festival.  Henry Gilbert’s Riders to the Sea, a symphonic prologue to the play by J. M. Synge, also garnered good notices, as did Edward Ballantine’s The Delectable Forest, a prelude to the play by Hermann Hagedorn.   Festival-goers eagerly anticipated the performance of Pan and the Star, featuring music by Edward Burlingame Hill.  The one-act pantomime, with a scenario by Joseph Lindon Smith, depicted the demise of the Greek gods at the time of Christ’s birth, and the ultimate triumph of the spirit of Pan in the arts of the Renaissance centuries later.  It was performed outdoors on the Pageant Stage, a clearing cut deep in the woods on the grounds of the MacDowell Colony with a magnificent view of Mount Monadnock in the distance.  Electric lights strung through the trees glowed like fireflies and illuminated the venue and the paths leading to it, making possible the first evening performance ever to take place on the Pageant Stage.

Promotional Flyer for the 1914 Peterborough Festival. MacDowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.
Promotional Flyer for the 1914 Peterborough Festival. MacDowell Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.

 

 

 

Other festival performances featured the artistry of solo danseuse Emily Schupp, who performed under her stage name “Lada,” and Ferdinand Reyher’s one-act play, Youth Will Dance, with its series of Morris dances directed by English dancing master Claude Wright.  Doris Humphrey, future pioneer of American modern dance, was teaching dance at a nearby summer camp and volunteered to be an extra in the production.   The 75-voice MacDowell Choral Club of Peterborough, a core performing force in all the Peterborough festivals, shone in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Death of Minnehaha.  They were joined by the 100 voices of the MacDowell Choir of Nashua, New Hampshire in the final program for a rousing rendition of Haydn’s Creation.

No one knew it at the time, but the 1914 festival would be the last of the Peterborough festivals.  World War I brought an end to them.  By the time the war ended, the lavish summer productions seemed disruptive and increasingly at odds with the purpose of the MacDowell Colony–to provide artists a quiet place where they could work undisturbed.   But short-lived as they were, the festivals had succeeded admirably.  They offered a much needed venue for the performance of new American music, they put the MacDowell Colony on the map, and for a brief, exhilarating moment, they transformed Peterborough, New Hampshire into the Bayreuth of America.

Comments (2)

  1. What a fascinating post! The next best thing to a time machine to travel back there for the festival. Thanks for sharing this.

  2. Lovely post – that helped me picture the whole scene in a small New England town with lights sparkling in the trees, Mount Monadnock in the distance, and lots of music!. Yeah Marian – you were ahead of your time! Today, everyone would be taking selfies of themselves among the celebrities and NE landscape and posting them on Twitter!

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