Apollo Club (Boston, Mass.) Records 1871-2009; bulk: 1890-1980 Offsite Storage Inventory The Apollo Club (Boston, Mass.) records are stored offsite and must be requested at least one business day in advance. Contact the Library at library@masshist.org or (617) 536-1608 to request materials. Please discuss your request with the reading room staff before requesting cartons by barcode.

Table of Contents Collection Summary Historical Sketch Collection Description Acquisition Information Restrictions on Access Organization of the Collection Detailed Description of the Collection Preferred Citation Access Terms Materials Removed from the Collection

Collection Summary

Historical Sketch

The Apollo Club of Boston, founded in 1871 and incorporated in 1873, is the city's oldest active male chorus and the second oldest continuously active male singing group in the country. The origins of the club go back to 1866, when James Cutler Dunn Parker (1828-1916), an organist at Trinity Church in Boston, gathered together 12 men who enjoyed singing. These 12 men called themselves the Chickering Club, after founding member George Harvey Chickering (1830-1899) of the famous family of piano manufacturers. The other 11 members were: Allen Augustus Brown, Dr. Samuel W. Langmaid, David W. Loring, William B. Merrill, Henry Pazolt, P. H. Powers, Charles James Sprague, John H. Stickney, Myron W. Whitney, John F. Winch, and William J. Winch.

In 1871, the club expanded and was renamed the Apollo Club. The Apollo Club's original 52 singers included the 12 members of the Chickering Club, as well as Henry M. Aiken, Henry Clay Barnabee, Loring B. Barnes, Edward Bowditch, J. Lewis Brackett, Abel Parker Browne, Cornelius Chenery, Nathaniel Childs, Henry A. Cook, John B. Coyle, Jr., John N. Danforth, Warren Davenport, W. W. Davis, G. W. Dudley, Clement K. Fay, William H. Fessenden, Daniel F. Fitz, B. F. Gilbert, Gardner Gove, A. P. Howard, Charles T. Howard, J. J. Kimball, Francis W. Lawrence, Arthur Lincoln, John A. Lowell, Alexander A. McFarlane, F. C. Packard, C. E. Pickett, Arthur Reed, T. Frank Reed, John Rogers, A. C. Ryder, William H. Wadleigh, Charles C. Wentworth, J. Q. Wetherbee, N. O. Whitcomb, H. L. Whitney, Hiram Wilde, Joseph R. Winch, and George C. Wiswell. Many of these were professional singers. Well-known musician Benjamin Johnson Lang (1837-1909) served as the first conductor, and the club's first informal concert was performed on 5 Sep. 1871.

The Apollo Club consists of three types of members: active (singing), associate (subscribing), and honorary members. Most concerts are open only to members and their guests, but the club has performed at some public functions throughout the years, including the funeral of Charles Sumner, 29 Apr. 1874; the centennial celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill, 17 June 1875; a visit by President Rutherford B. Hayes to Boston, 26 June 1877; and the memorial service for President William McKinley at Faneuil Hall, 26 Nov. 1901. Among the outside soloists who have performed with the club are: Richard Arnold, Adele aus der Ohe, David Scull Bispham, Lillian Blauvelt, Giuseppe Campanari, Gustav Danreuther, Carl Faelten, Geraldine Farrar, Johanna Gadski, Fritz Giese, Max Heinrich, Anton Hekking, Josef Hofmann, Franz Kneisel, Leopold Lichtenberg, Edward A. MacDowell, Henri Marteau, Ovide Musin, Marie Nichols, Ernst Perabo, Pol Plançon, Maud Powell, Xavier Reiter, Thomas Ryan, Alwin Schröder, Antoinette Antonina Szumowska, and Camilla Urso.

The Apollo Club has premiered the work of many renowned composers, performing specific pieces for the first time in the United States or the world. Composers whose work has been premiered by the club include Hector Berlioz, Frank H. Brackett, Johannes Brahms, Carl Joseph Brambach, Max Bruch, Dudley Buck, George Whitefield Chadwick, Frederic Hymen Cowen, E. S. Engelsberg, Heinrich Esser, Arthur Foote, Henry Kimball Hadley, Ferdinand Hiller, Benjamin J. Lang, Margaret Ruthven Lang, Charles Martin Loeffler, Felix Mendelssohn, Jean Louis Nicodé, George Laurie Osgood, John Knowles Paine, James Cutler Dunn Parker, Ebenezer Prout, Joachim Raff, Alberto Randegger, Camille Saint-Saëns, George Templeton Strong, Gustav Strube, Arthur Wilder Thayer, and George Elbridge Whiting. Many pieces were specifically composed for and dedicated to the club.

The Apollo Club continues to perform at patriotic and charitable events, as well as professionally, in and around the Boston area and the northeastern United States. The club has also served as a model for musical groups across the country and around the world.

Conductors of the Apollo Club

Presidents of the Apollo Club

Ludvig Sandöe Ipsen (1840-1920)

Ludvig S. Ipsen was a Danish-American architect and designer living in Boston who designed book covers, posters, and book plates. He worked as a staff illustrator for James R. Osgood's publishing firms and illustrated The Skeleton in Armor by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1877), The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl by Robert Grant (1880), The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain (1882), The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott (1883), Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1886), and Log of the "Ariel" in the Gulf of Maine (1886). He also designed the crematorium at Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston. Ipsen was commissioned by Arthur Reed, the secretary of the Apollo Club, to illustrate the club's publications, and he designed 130 program covers over the course of 23 years, as well as the club's seal in 1876.

Collection Description

This collection documents over 130 years of concert performances, administrative and financial activities, and prominent members and officers of the Apollo Club of Boston. Included are secretarial and financial records, concert programs (loose and bound), pamphlets of sheet music, scrapbooks, clippings, ephemera, exhibition planning materials, and miscellaneous other papers. Materials used to organize the 2009 exhibition entitled Ecce Quam Bonum: Boston Public Library Exhibition of the Musical History and Artifacts of the Apollo Club of Boston were compiled by the exhibition planning group, in particular curators Herb Zeller (Apollo Club) and Diane Ota (Boston Public Library). These records document the history of the club, its prominent members, performances, and its organizational and financial activities. The collection also contains 51 original illustrations by Ludvig Sandöe Ipsen (1840-1920), created for Apollo Club concert programs.

Acquisition Information

On deposit from the Apollo Club of Boston, Jan. 2012.

Restrictions on Access

The Apollo Club (Boston, Mass.) records are stored offsite and must be requested at least one business day in advance. Contact the Library at library@masshist.org or (617) 536-1608 to request materials. Please discuss your request with the reading room staff before requesting cartons by barcode.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Apollo Club (Boston, Mass.) records, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.

Materials Removed from the Collection

Photographs

Portraits of members, in groups and individually, including George H. Chickering and the Chickering Club, ca. 1870-1992 (3 folders)
Group portrait and testimonial to Arthur Reed, 9 Nov. 1878 (1 folder)
Miscellaneous concerts and other events, 1958-2002 (5 folders)
Members singing the National Anthem at Fenway Park, 9 Sep. 1998 (3 folders)
50th anniversary dinner celebration of Florence "Flossie" Dunn's service to the Apollo Club, 7 Feb. 2006 (14 folders)
Oversize group portrait, ca. 1870, and Apollo Club rooms at the Chickering Building, ca. 1900 (1 oversize folder)

Artifacts

7 metal music printing plates for printing sheet music