Scott Gac

Singing for Freedom, a book by Scott Gac

Asa called them “one of the most enthusiastic audience ever I saw.” About 150 swarmed the singers after the show, and the next day the Public Ledger reported that “their performances are something in the style of the Rainers; but the Hutchinsons have greater versatility of talent.”

The musical New Hampshirites dared bring their entertainment south from New York in 1844 and, in this vein, they opened the year in the City of Brotherly Love. On 5 January the Christian Observer—a Philadelphia paper run by a New Hampshire native, Reverend Amasa Converse, with whom the Hutchinsons had tea the day before—said that concerts of the Hutchinson Family Singers were “a place where a Christian may be, and not feel that he is doing wrong; for while all their songs are chaste, some are entirely addressed to the pious feelings of the heart.” The city’s elite Philharmonic Society apparently agreed, asking the group to perform along with them on 9 January and offering the Hutchinsons free and exclusive use of Musical Fund Hall on the 11th.

On the 9th, the Hutchinson Family Singers arrived at 7 o’clock for the concert with the Philharmonic Society. They then waited for about forty-five minutes as the orchestra tuned their instruments and warmed up (“which, by the way,” Asa remembered, “was very annoying”). The evening began as the orchestra lit into a “grand overture” while the Hutchinsons sat out of sight from the audience. Then, with the listeners “waiting in breathless silence to see and hear those characters of whom they had heard so much,” came what Asa called the “Tug of War.” Presumably this was some kind of back and forth between the Hutchinsons and the instrumentalists, a call and response pattern, perhaps, during which the two ensembles interacted. The New Hampshire musicians soon took over the show with some of their solo selections. “Such applause,” said the Hutchinsons, “Oh! ’twas deafening.”

A trumpeter from the Philharmonic played after the Family Singers, and Mrs. Edward E. Loder—wife of the noted English opera composer—followed him with several songs. (Asa thought Loder displayed “good tones” but “no soul.”)

Back on stage again, the Hutchinsons offered several more selections and topped off their night with “The Old Granite State.” The Saturday Courier declared “the Hutchinson family” winners of the Tuesday night happening and added: “Their performances being both vocal and instrumental, are entirely novel, and so popular and effective, that the audience seemed to loth to part with them even after the third encore!” The event, a surprising presage of twentieth-century collaborations between popular musicians and orchestras, attests to the Hutchinson Family Singers’ resourcefulness and their multifaceted talent as instrumentalists and vocalists.

A few days after the concert, members of the Philharmonic Society tried to book the Hutchinsons for another joint project. “But it’s no go!” said Asa. By 1844 the Hutchinsons had tired of friends and strangers who invited them to events where, without any advance arrangement, they would be asked to sing. Playing at these gatherings was not remunerated, and sometimes the extra singing led to vocal distress for one or more members of the quartet. The Hutchinsons’ “well-known liberality”—a term the poet Nathaniel P. Willis used when asking the group to donate its act for a concert in New York—almost always extended to reform associations, friends, and to family. But the Philharmonic Society was none of these. The Hutchinsons made no record of payment for their first shared concert with the orchestra, and, being in such high demand, they said, “We must draw a line somewhere.”

A constant negotiation of personal and work boundaries was one of the costs of fame. Asa lamented that “wealth maketh many friends.” Their vigilance in this matter, though, had its limits. Like many gifted entertainers, the Hutchinson Family Singers shared a heartfelt connection with their fans. One of their concerts inspired a supporter to dash off a poem to the Sun:

They hail from the lofty granite hills, From a free and northern home: ’Tis a band of our own loved land, Of “the land of Washington.”

Such mutual closeness made letdowns inevitable. Before leaving Philadelphia in 1844, the musicians were deeply distressed by news that a young man who killed himself had attended one of their recent concerts … (chapter continues)

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