Press release submitted by New England Symphony Orchestra
The New England Symphony Orchestra will present a concert featuring its “European Salon Orchestra” Saturday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 pm in the Stratos Dukakis Performing Arts Center at Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School, 1050 Westminster Street in Fitchburg. Tickets can be purchased through the NESO’s Web site at newenglandsymphony.org or (978)466-1800. Tickets are $35 general admission, discounted to $32 for seniors and $12 for students. Bring your family, friends, or significant other to a memorable concert you won’t want to miss.
The NESO’s Music Director Roderick MacDonald has personally selected a program of diverse musical treats representing a range of countries, and also assembled an ensemble of top musicians from the ranks of the New England Symphony and guest artists. How did fashionable hotels provide musical entertainment for their salon guests in a mid-19th century world where all music was live music? Enter the European Salon Orchestra (ESO). Often comprised of the soloists from the respective sections of a local full-sized orchestra, these pocket symphonies featured a violin, viola, cello, bass, piano, flute, clarinet, trumpet and percussion, as well as a vocalist. Musical fare included excerpts from light classics, well-known theatrical tunes, and arrangements of many of the popular songs usually performed in parlor settings at social events among polite company. As the accompaniment to many a lunchtime conversation, one imagines there were few cymbal crashes!
The budding musical format received its greatest celebrity boost when word got out around 1870 that none other than Queen Victoria especially enjoyed the addition of the new musical format at tea-time. The ESO became all the rage in salons across still-aristocratic England and Europe. The palm trees often used as an exotic decorative touch in many of these salons lent their name to the trend as ESO’s came to be known as Palm Court Orchestras, and reminded diners in England and the Continent of the far-reaching colonial ambitions of their respective nations.
As economical as the full-sized Palm Court Orchestras were, salon managers could further pinch pennies by condensing the format down to a pianist, violinist, bassist and singer, with the pianist often doubling up on vocals, allowing even smaller venues to emulate their larger, tonier counterparts. Hello, Bobby Short!
The Great War, and the social and technological changes it ushered in, sounded the knell for the ubiquity of the ESO. However, the stage was set for the live musical formats of the coming Jazz Age in America, and their influence in spreading the expectation and enjoyment of live music in public venues is still with us today!
Our vision is “Connecting New England with Great Music.” For more information about the orchestra please visit:
NewEnglandSymphony.org.
