On Finding Bristow’s Voice

That cultural tension — between admiration for European tradition and the struggle to forge a national voice.

As we begin the creative journey of making a documentary on George Frederick Bristow, I’d like to open a window into the process — not just the research and the music, but the deeper questions that animate the story.

Bristow remains, even today, a remarkably unrecognized figure. What we do know comes primarily through the scholarship of Katherine Preston, whose biography offers a rare and compelling portrait of a composer devoted to elevating American music at a time when audiences, just as in the fine arts and to a lesser degree in literature favored European authors. This bias wasn’t unique to the United States; throughout the Americas, it took generations for homegrown composers to receive a well deserved attention.

That cultural tension — between admiration for European tradition and the struggle to forge a national voice — will be part an important part of the film. But today, what’s prompted this reflection is not Bristow’s historical challenge, but rather… his voice. Literally.

If I would chose Bristow to narrate part of his own story as in the trailer shared on this notes, what would that sound like?

The placeholder alternative in the trailer included on this post doesn’t quite land. It veers unintentionally toward a Southern twang. For now, it holds the space and remind us of the need to find a proper sounding voice, closer to what Bristow might have sounded like — a well-educated New Yorker of the 1840s and 50s.

This by far not the first time that we’re confronted with the challenge. I clearly remember our discussions related to how the founders might have sound like and if James Monroe might have sounded more Scottish than Jefferson due to the prevalent tone of the discussions at the dining table growing up. The latter came during the production of the film Monroe Hill when we needed Monroe to speak for himself. With Bristow we can infer that both of his parents and a English accent from Kent, in the south of England, and that he lived among a cultured crowd of musicians in a multilayered social fabric integrated by a large colony of dScandinavians, Italians, and  Eastern Europeans from which we could deduct a few things: That he likely spoke in a non-rhotic accent, dropping his r’s: “fathah,” not “father.” That his elocution may have been deliberately Anglicized, shaped by the cultural prestige of British English. That there might have been subtle echoes of the city’s Dutch past, overlaid with the clipped consonants of Northern “Yankee” speech. And, most of all, Bristow’s voice — like his music — would have reflected a deep desire to be taken seriously as an American.

Soon, we’ll begin training an Ai model with those characteristics in mind. In the meantime, I’m absorbing Bristow’s music, reading the scores, and listening with care — trying to get under the skin of a man who dared to compose in an era that didn’t yet know how to listen. And above all, hearing from you, the reader who will comment on this post with opinions and ideas as to How did Mr. Bristow may have sounded like?

American Orchestra Music in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York

George Frederick Bristow (1825–1898), a pillar of the New York musical community for most of

the nineteenth century, was a composer, performer, conductor, educator, and a strong advocate

for American music. Bristow’s father was a musician, and the young man’s given names suggest

that his parents (who immigrated from England in the 1820s) expected him to follow in his

father’s footsteps. His musical training (violin, piano, composition, orchestration) took place

entirely in New York, where he studied with his father and several prominent members of the

Philharmonic Society, now the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

New York Philharmonic Group

Bristow’s first public appearance (on keyboard) was at the age of nine, and shortly thereafter he

began to play professionally in a theater orchestra. When he was twelve he joined the orchestra

of the Olympic Theatre, where the increased technical demands and a more-varied repertory

(burlesques, extravaganzas, operas) resulted in a marked improvement in his performance skills

and an expansion of his musical horizons. He later wrote that because of the challenges and

encouragement at the Olympic, he “began to think it was possible . . . to do something in music,

to play well, to even compose.” At seventeen he joined the first violin section of the

Philharmonic Society orchestra, then in its second season (1843–44). He would remain a

member of that ensemble (with one brief hiatus) until his retirement some thirty-six years later.

Throughout most of his career, Bristow was an accomplished freelance performer in New York.

He accompanied singers and choral ensembles on keyboard, played in chamber groups, was a

violin or piano soloist with the Philharmonic Society, and performed in other large ensembles.

The latter included the orchestra that accompanied the phenomenally popular “Swedish

Nightingale” Jenny Lind in her New York concerts (1850–51) and the Jullien Orchestra, which

was organized by the French virtuoso conductor Louis Antoine Jullien (1812–1860) and toured

the United States in 1853–4. Bristow began to conduct professionally when he was sixteen and

continued to do so for most of his life, directing both church choirs and important choral

ensembles, such as the Harmonic Society, the Mendelssohn Union, and the Harlem

Mendelssohn Union. He was also active as a music educator, teaching privately, writing

pedagogical compositions, and serving as a music teacher in the New York public school system

for over forty years. To a certain extent Bristow was a typical, but more than usually

accomplished, nineteenth-century urban musician, who regularly and ably participated in many

of the musical activities that were a normal part of urban cultural life during the period.

In addition to all of his performance and pedagogical activities, Bristow also composed music

from the time he was a teenager until shortly before his death at the age of seventy-two. He wrote

in all genres, including works for organ and piano, chamber ensemble, and solo voice.