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Photo by Phillip Groshong |
Early in 2003, the Society for the Preservation of Music Hall established a committee to research and catalog the history and archives of this venerable building. Robert Howes, a violist for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was named chairman for this effort. Together with an assembled committee, significant progress has been made. The Cincinnati Museum Center's Historical Society Library has agreed to store and catalog the materials that are discovered and identified by the SPMH committee.
In early October, 2003 a display of some of the material assembled opened in display cases on loan from
the Historical Society. It was located in the southeast corner of the second-floor balcony overlooking the foyer. Currently plans are underway for acquisition or construction of a permanent display case for rotating historic displays of Music Hall memorabilia and artifacts.
Most recently, materials acquired by SPMH's Archive Committee were used in the documentary Music Hall: Cincinnati Finds Its Voice.
If you have Music Hall historic materials, photographs or memorabilia and would like to donate it to SPMH, please contact SPMH at (513) 621-1919 or write to SPMH, 1241 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45202.
The links below are to articles from the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Post on the archive program.
Historical exhibit: Cues concerts
Few buildings in Cincinnati have hosted as much local
history as Music Hall, yet it took 125 years for some of
that beloved hall's own history to be put on display
there. This weekend, in this 125th anniversary year of
the grand opening and Ohio's Bicentennial year, an
inaugural selection from Music Hall's archives will go on
exhibit just in time for weekend Bicentennial concerts by
Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.
Among the historic photographs and exhibit documents
from Music Hall's earliest days under construction is a
recent discovery - a brief, hand-written note dated Jan.
27, 1876 from Ohio state Sen. Joshua H. Bates to an
official of the newly formed Cincinnati Music Hall
Association:
"The House has just passed the Springer Hall bill," Bates
wrote.
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violist Robert Howes
found the note in some cardboard boxes at the Society
for the Preservation of Music Hall's offices. Howes, who
has made an avocation of researching the history of
concert halls, believes Music Hall's great benefactor
Reuben Springer and other contributors must have
discovered in the course of trying to incorporate that
Ohio law had not provided for a non-profit corporation
devoted to music. Thus the need to pass a "Springer Hall
bill," which not only put all Ohio concert halls that
followed on a sound legal basis but also authorized
incorporating symphony orchestras and other arts
groups throughout the state. It was surely one of the
earliest statutes of its kind in the United States.
The Springer Hall bill amended Ohio's law to include
corporations for such additional purposes as "the
preservation and exhibition of works of art" and
"encouraging and cultivating a taste for music."
The amendment was enacted April 11, 1876, and two
years later, in May 1878, Music Hall opened with a
dazzling May Festival. As exhibit documents show, Music
Hall founders "fast-tracked" construction.
The Society for the Preservation of Music Hall is
partnering with Cincinnati Historical Society at the
Museum Center to prepare the Music Hall exhibits and
keep them fresh and changing every few months. Howes
has agreed to serve as archivist documenting the
selections. The exhibit space will be located on the
southeast corner of the second-floor balcony overlooking
the foyer.
The inaugural exhibit, starting this weekend, also
includes records of that construction-era dilemma - Music
Hall's bones. The concert hall was built on the site of
Cincinnati's common burial grounds. Construction
unearthed human remains, and heated squabbles
ensued with the city and Health Department before the
bones were finally and properly hauled away and
construction could proceed. Some things never change.
The memorabilia are a fascinating addition to Music Hall's
attractions, and a timely roll-out for the Bicentennial.
But it is slowly giving them up.
The grand dame of Elm Street, 125 years old this year, is the subject of
an exhibit in the gallery overlooking the Music Hall foyer.
The inaugural display, continuing through January, is about the building
of Music Hall.
"It was logical for the first exhibit to be connected with the 125th
anniversary," said Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violist Robert Howes,
chairman of archives for the Society for the Preservation of Music Hall
and prime mover of the project.
"We set up a partnership with the (Cincinnati) Historical Society this
past summer and we've been working very closely with them."
In charge for the CHS is archives manager Anne Kling of the CHS
Library at the Museum Center at Union Terminal.
The exhibit is located in the southeast corner of the gallery in three
display cases on loan from the Museum Center.
With track lighting installed by the SPMH, the space will become a
permanent feature of the hall.
The inaugural exhibit contains:
• Historic photographs, including one of the original interior of the
Music Hall auditorium.
• Architecture books with design sketches for Music Hall (on loan from
architectural historian Walter Langsam).
• A journal of correspondence and a cash book kept during the
construction of the main hall.
• Documents regarding the disposition of human remains found at the
site (Music Hall was built over a 19th-century potter's field).
• The program of the 1878 May Festival, inaugural event in the new
the hall.
• A 19th-century flute and two piccolos on loan from the CSO.
The selection was made by a committee headed by Howes, with "heavy hitters" Langsam, Mac Justice and Louis Thomas (ex officio).
Justice is a retired teacher of English at Western Hills High School and "an excellent person for doing research," said Howes.
Thomas, retired professor of history at Northern Kentucky University, is
author of a history of the CSO from its founding until 1931.
"Most of the documents in this exhibit I found in a couple of cardboard
boxes in the SPMH offices," said Howes, a student of the history of
American concert halls who is writing a book on the subject.
"I got word around to the staff and they started telling me about other
places where there were historical materials, such as old scrapbooks,
file drawers full of office correspondence going back to 1905, that kind
of thing. We just started snooped around and accumulating things."
One of things Howes turned up, a hand-written note on a little slip of
paper dating from 1876, clinched a piece of Music Hall history. "It has
been fairly well known that Reuben Springer (primary benefactor of
Music Hall) may have developed the modern concept of the matching
fund. He came up with a certain amount of money ($125,000) and said
the public had to meet it dollar for dollar or he was going to pull out."
It appears that he also brought about tax exemption for non-profit
organizations, at least in Ohio, said Howes.
"Springer's other stipulation was that Music Hall had be tax exempt,
but to do that, they had to incorporate. Then they discovered that
there was nothing in state law that allowed an organization like the
Music Hall Association to incorporate. They had to pass legislation."
On that little slip of paper -- "which could have ended up in a waste
basket at some point during the past 125 years" -- was a note from a
state senator to Julius Dexter of the MHA saying 'The House has just
passed the Springer Hall bill.'"
Everything of historical significance found in connection with the Music
Hall exhibits is being transferred to the CHS "and becomes their
property," Howes said.
"We decided to do that instead of setting up our own archives."
The next exhibit, planned for February, will be on the founding of the
College of Music of Cincinnati in 1878. Initially housed in Dexter Hall at
Music Hall (now Corbett Tower), the College of Music later moved to its
own building on Central Parkway. (It merged with the Cincinnati
Conservatory in 1955, becoming the University of Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music in 1961.)
The turnover period will be every two to three months. There will be
future exhibits on Music Hall tenants such as the Cincinnati Opera and
May Festival.
Ideas are no problem, said Howes. "They keep popping out of our
heads like popcorn."