By KATI AGOCS

The contributions of Leopold Damrosch's two sons, Frank and Walter, to American musical life are much celebrated. They include the foundation of the Institute of Musical Art by Frank Damrosch, with the entrepreneur James Loeb, a century ago this fall. But the pioneering work of their father, who immigrated to New York in 1871, is a story that few know. On December 3, Juilliard's Pre-College Orchestra will premiere Leopold Damrosch's Symphony in A Major (1878). Premieres generally evoke intrigue, but a first performance of a work written 127 years ago also invites the question, what took so long? As his symphony emerges in a new critical edition and is heard for the first time, it provides a valuable musical window into the inheritance that Leopold Damrosch—who died suddenly in 1885 at the age of 52—left to our country's musical life.

Photograph of Leopold Damrosch, Damrosch-Blaine Collection, box 13, folder 27, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As is typical of the period, the Symphony is cast in four movements: a sonata-form first movement, a lively scherzo, a festive march, and a finale. Yet in significant ways, it is advanced for its time: it combines a leitmotif technique akin to Wagner's with a cyclical character influenced by Liszt's tone poems, by which themes recur in all four movements. Its harmonic language includes a very surprising approach to the recapitulation of the first theme in the final movement. Rhythmic irregularities also distinguish the work. As Damrosch was primarily a song composer, the symphony—an abstract work—occupies a special place in his output.

A modernist with an unassailable musical pedigree, Leopold Damrosch was a close friend of Liszt and Wagner. In his native Germany, he established himself as a musician of the highest echelon primarily through his work as a violinist and a conductor. Liszt invited him to play violin in the Grand Ducal Orchestra at Weimar when he was 25, and as a composer, Damrosch was greatly influenced by the new music that he encountered there. Liszt dedicated a work to him, and became godfather to his first son, Frank (who was also named after Liszt). Wagner was godfather to another Damrosch child, Richard, who died in infancy. Leopold Damrosch proselytized new music in Germany, conducting numerous premieres. Despite his illustrious connections, it was impossible to make a living there, so he migrated to New York at the age of 39. Damrosch continued his pioneering work on American soil, founding the New York Oratorio and Symphony Societies, introducing many new works to American audiences, bringing German opera to the Metropolitan Opera House, and writing such works as the Symphony. To his sons, he passed on strong discipline and a sense of musical vocation, along with his own mission to make classical music—played at the highest possible level—universally accessible. He quite literally worked himself to death in 1885, during the first German season at the Met, which he organized, managed, and conducted while also planning extensive national tours with his orchestra. I'm quite certain that, if Damrosch had lived longer, he would have heard the Symphony realized in performance.

Leopold Damrosch, Symphony in A Major (1878), page 1 of manuscript full score, first movement, measures 1-8, from the Lila Acheson Wallace Library of The Juilliard School, New York.

I first learned about the Damrosch Symphony in the spring of 2003, my first year in Juilliard's doctoral program, when Jane Gottlieb suggested that I create a critical edition for A-R Editions' Recent Research in American Music series. The manuscript for the Symphony had resided, unperformed, in the Juilliard library ever since Walter Damrosch donated the manuscript sometime in the 1960s. My work as editor of the edition consisted of transcribing the work, dealing with editorial issues so as to render it performable, and writing an introductory essay relying upon original research in the Damrosch collections at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Eventually the project came to serve as my doctoral document.

It was exhilarating to travel to the Library of Congress; poring through the papers of the Damrosch family for anything that would illuminate the Symphony, there never seemed to be enough time. The research was everything I had hoped to achieve with the tools from the doctoral bibliography course—only applied much sooner than I expected. Generally, doctoral candidates sweat over a document topic for months, even years. I had a publication contract and looming deadlines before the beginning of my second year of the program. For me, the most fascinating part was developing a picture of what musical life was like in New York a century before I was born, in order to understand the events that led up to, and set the stage for, our school's existence. At the Library of Congress, I even discovered sketches for a second Damrosch symphony, never finished.

The editorial work brought considerable challenges, since Damrosch had made changes to the manuscript after its final copying. The criteria by which I decided which emendations would be maintained in the edition, and which would be left out, needed to be determined. Graduate faculty member Robert Bailey was my advisor; in addition, I worked with other members of the doctoral committee and with the editorial staff at A-R Editions. The resulting edition is due to be published this month, and will have a place in the reference section of music libraries everywhere. The most valuable outcome is that the Symphony is available for performance for the first time.

Pre-College Orchestra Adam Glaser, Conductor Peter Jay Sharp Theater Saturday, Dec. 3, 8 p.m. Free event; no tickets required.

It is not surprising that there is a degree of excitement in the scholarly community about finally getting to hear the Damrosch Symphony on December 3. As a composer, I can empathize with what Damrosch might have felt as his work finally gets played. In 1878, when it was finished, a symphony was the ultimate statement that a composer could make. We also forget what an incalculable influence Damrosch had on New York's musical life. Things that we take for granted today—attending school at Lincoln Center, going to hear operas at the Met—had to be built up from scratch. Preparing the Damrosch edition gave me a kind of barometer to measure how much our cultural life, and our lives as musicians, have grown and changed. Now, in the New York of 135 years later, we may face a whole other set of issues, but some of the challenges that Damrosch faced and his pioneering spirit are lessons that deserve to be remembered. What better way to remember them during this centennial year than to hear this work for the very first time? What would the Damrosch family have thought if they could be here to witness Juilliard's 100th birthday? What if Leopold Damrosch could react to our interpretation of his music, and work directly with the orchestra and bring his vision to life? If only he could be present at the premiere on December 3 to hear his Symphony for the first time, so that we could see his face.

Kati Agocs earned her D.M.A. in composition from Juilliard last May and is currently on a Fulbright fellowship in Budapest, Hungary.