Boston Music Hall

The Boston Music Hall was built in 1852, thanks to a donation of $100,000, made by the Harvard Musical Association, for its construction. George Snell, assisted by Alpheus C. Morse, was the architect."The Boston Music Hall—Its Favorable Site—Execution of the Design," Dwight's Journal of Music 2, no. 7 (November 20 1852): 53-54. The Handel and Haydn Society performed at the hall's inaugural concert. The world premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 1, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky took place here. The hall was the first home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1881 and was also the birthplace of the New England Conservatory of Music. After being threatened by road building and subway construction, the Music Hall was replaced as the home of the Boston Symphony in 1900, by Symphony Hall.

In addition to concerts, the hall presented important speakers of the time. Theodore Parker preached here, and his congregation, the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, worshiped here from 1852 to 1863.“The Parker Memorial Exercises at the Transfer of the Building,” Boston Post, February 4, 1889, 8; King’s Handbook of Boston (Cambridge, MA: Moses King, 4th ed., 1881), 174 Methodist minister Henry Morgan lectured in the hall {{circa|1859}}.Samuel Austin Allibonert. A critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors, v.2. J. B. Lippincott company, 1899 On December 31, 1862, the eve of the day the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Northern abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall to celebrate as the clock struck midnight. Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Tubman attended. Oscar Wilde lectured here in 1882.{{cite web | url=http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/january/0131-boston.html | title=Oscar Wilde at the Boston Music Hall}}

Image:MusicHallOrgan.jpg

File:New organ in music hall, Boston, Mass, by Bierstadt Brothers 2.png image by Bierstadt Brothers]]

The Boston Music Hall Organ, installed in 1862, was the first concert pipe organ installed in the United States. It was commissioned in 1857 and built in Germany by E.F. Walcker and Company of Ludwigsburg. It was the largest in the US at the time, containing 5,474 pipes and 84 registers.

The organ was removed from the Music Hall in 1884 to provide more performing space for the Boston Symphony. Initially put into storage, the organ was rebuilt and installed by the Methuen Organ Company in the Serlo Organ Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts, which was built to house the organ. The organ was later rebuilt again and augmented by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. Today Serlo Organ Hall is known as the Methuen Memorial Music Hall and concerts are regularly presented on the organ, still considered one of the leading instruments in the US.{{cite web|url=http://mmmh.org/|title=Methuen Memorial Music Hall History|publisher=Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Inc. |access-date=2009-06-09}}

{{main|Orpheum Theatre (Boston, Massachusetts)}}

When the Boston Symphony moved to Symphony Hall in 1900, the Boston Music Hall closed. It was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900 and operated under a number of different names, including the Music Hall and the Empire Theatre. In 1906, it was renamed the Orpheum Theatre. In 1915, the theater was acquired by the Loew's Theatres chain and reopened again in 1916, rebuilt with a completely new interior, designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb.

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• Photos of the Boston Music Hall and Orpheum Theatre at The Boston Historical Society:[https://web.archive.org/web/20110718134951/http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/000694.jpg][https://web.archive.org/web/20110718135000/http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/002260.jpg][https://web.archive.org/web/20110718135011/http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/004811.jpg][https://web.archive.org/web/20110718135052/http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/001795.jpg][https://web.archive.org/web/20110718135103/http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/003457.jpg]

Image:1869 Kellogg Nov BostonMusicHall.png|Clara Louise Kellogg concerts, 1869

Image:JohnRarey HorseTaming ca1865 BostonMusicHall.png|John S. Rarey's lectures and exhibitions of horse taming, {{circa|1865}}

Image:1861 PrinceNapoleon MusicHall Boston.png|Musical festival, to be given by the pupils of the Public Schools, in honor of H.I.H., the Prince Napoleon, and the Princess Clothilde, 1861

Image:1864 NationalSailorsFair BostonMusicHall.png|National Sailors Fair benefit, 1864

Image:1869 MusicHall Nanitz map Boston detail BPL10490.png|1869

Image:1874 RedpathsLyceum emotion BostonMusicHall.png|Redpath's Lyceum. Boston Music Hall, Tuesday evening, Oct. 20, 1874. The mystery of emotion, an illustrated lecture by James Steele MacKaye.

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{{Boston theatres}}

Category:Commercial buildings completed in 1852

Category:1852 establishments in Massachusetts

Category:1900 disestablishments in Massachusetts

Category:Concert halls in Massachusetts

Category:Music venues in Boston

Category:Theatres in Boston

Category:19th century in Boston

Category:Boston Symphony Orchestra