GONZÁLEZ: Hey, everybody. I’m Ana.

NUNES: I’m Alex. And you’re listening to Mosaic. All right, Ana. I’ve got a little trivia question for you.

GONZÁLEZ: Let’s hear it.

NUNES: What do Gloria Estefan, Wyclef Jean, David Byrne, Yo-yo Ma, and Eddie Van Halen have in common?

GONZÁLEZ: They’re all on your workout playlist?

NUNES: That’s a good guess, but no. They are all musicians who became famous in America after immigrating here from another country.

GONZÁLEZ: Right. And without immigration, American culture is just not the same. So many artists, writers, and musicians come here from other places and leave a big mark. 

NUNES: And in this episode of Mosaic, we tell the story of an immigrant orchestra that fled a war-torn country, came to the U.S. in the 1840s, and helped transform an emerging social scene in Newport, Rhode Island. 

GONZÁLEZ: They’re called the Germania Musical Society. 

BRIAN KNOTH: Before the Germania, music was important, but music wasn’t so much official yet. You didn’t even really know who the musicians were. So, in a lot of ways the Germania represent some of the first headliners. 

NUNES: But when people hear “summer in Newport” they think of headliners like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Wynton Marsalis, and dozens of other musicians.

GONZÁLEZ: For decades, the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, and the Newport Music Festival with classical music, have drawn thousands of people to Rhode Island’s city by the sea.

NUNES: But one thing a lot of people don’t realize is that the tradition of live music in Newport goes way back...

NUNES: I’m on Catherine Street in Newport. It’s a short walk up the hill from the downtown shops and restaurants. 

BRIAN: This is probably the location where the original Bellevue House Hotel stood.

NUNES: Brian Knoth is a professor at Rhode Island College, who’s written about the music culture in Newport during what’s called the “hotel period” of the mid-1800s.

BRIAN: We’re starting here at the Bellevue House Hotel, because it represents the first real resort hotel in Newport, which kicks off the hotel period.

NUNES: Don’t confuse the hotel era with the glitz and glamour of Newport’s Gilded Age. Bellevue House goes up decades before the Vanderbilts and Astors build mansions like Beechwood and The Breakers. At this moment in Newport’s history, the city is no longer a dominant seaport, and it’s desperately trying to build a new economic engine.

BRIAN: During the Revolutionary War, the British kind of destroyed Newport, and it kind of fumbled around since, couldn’t really find an identity. New Bedford was tops for whaling. Newport didn’t have a river, so it really couldn’t get into the manufacturing game. 

NUNES: But, Newport does have more than a few things going for it. It’s beautiful, especially in the summer, and by the mid 1800s Americans now have more money to spend on leisure. 

BRIAN: Around this same time, we have a growing middle class because of the industrial economy, and so you have more and more people from the middle class now with the ability to actually take a summer vacation, and Newport becomes one of those spots that people want to go to. 

NUNES: Newport’s timing is just right. Southerners have already been coming to the city for years to escape the heat and mosquitoes in the summer months. Now steamboats can ferry vacationers from New York in just 10 hours. 

GONZÁLEZ: Talk about convenience! So what happens now is middle-class vacationers flock to Newport from around the East Coast to dine, dance, socialize, and take in live music. 

NUNES: As Newport is reinventing itself as the resort city by the sea, a group of musicians is coming together halfway around the world. It’s safe to say they probably don’t know it at the time, but they’re going to have a big impact on Newport’s social scene.

GONZÁLEZ: And this group is an orchestra called the Germania Musical Society, formed in 1848.

BRIAN: They were a select group of musicians from Berlin.

GONZÁLEZ: The Germania orchestra consists of 23 instrumentalists and a conductor. Three first violins, two second violins, two violas, one cello, two basses, winds, brass, and percussion.

NUNES: And these guys are serious musicians who’ve been perfecting their craft for years. One member, William Schultze, is the son of a band master in the Hanoverian Army, and he begins studying under noted teachers at the age of 15. Another, Carl Zerrahn, is a student of the composer Friedrich Weber. 

GONZÁLEZ: But just as The Germania Musical Society is coming together in the late 1840s, turmoil is embroiling Central Europe. 

BRIAN: There was widespread revolutions, uprisings against aristocracies, and this was happening in the German states. 

NUNES: The Germania want to get out of Central Europe. So, at first, they go to England and tour there for three months. But ultimately they decide what they really want to do is take their talents across the Atlantic to America. 

GONZÁLEZ: America is stable. There’s opportunity there. And the country’s ideals probably appeal to the Germania musicians, who have a collectivist streak to them. 

BRIAN: I think they specifically sought the United States because it was a democratic environment, and that sort of environment aligned pretty closely with their principles as a musical group. They actually shared their profits equally. They were about the group, about the collective, much more than they were about any individual player. 

NUNES: Brian and I are standing outside the Elks Lodge in Newport. It looks like a big white Victorian mansion with a “BPOE” sign on it. We’re here because this spot was once the site of the grand Atlantic House Hotel, built in 1845. 

BRIAN: The Atlantic House kind of took the hotel period to another level.

NUNES: During its time, the hotel boasts a Greek Revival design, wrap around veranda and four stories that can house up to 250 summer guests looking to relax, dance, and listen to live music.

BRIAN: The significance of the Atlantic House to the Germania is that most likely the first notice of the Germania actually performing in Newport was at the Atlantic House. There was a report in the Newport Mercury about a grand instrumental concert that was given by the full ensemble. 

NUNES: By the time the Germania arrive in Newport, they’ve already made a name for themselves performing in New York, Boston and other East Coast cities. Hotel owners know they have an attraction on their hands, so they start marketing the Germania as a draw for vacationers.

BRIAN: Previously before the Germania, music was important, but music wasn’t so much official yet. You didn’t even know who the musicians were. The significance here with this first public notice for the Atlantic House concert is that the Germania are actually mentioned in the advertisement. So, in a lot of ways the Germania represent some of the first headliners. 

GONZÁLEZ: By the 1850s, the hotel scene in Newport is reaching unprecedented levels, drawing in tourists from up and down the East Coast. The city’s wealth is expanding by millions of dollars. And the Germania are at the center of Newport’s summer social scene.

NUNES: Germania music provides the backdrop for popular dances like the polka, redowa, and cotillion.

GONZÁLEZ: The Germania musicians split their time between different hotels in Newport and perform literally morning, noon, and night. When they’re not playing to the resort crowd, they’re staging large public performances. 

NUNES: It’s a grueling schedule, but the Germania are in demand. They have a cohesive sound and American musicians can’t match their skill level. One writer comments that hearing the Germania play brings “to the fore the reality of the words that ‘Music is the language of the heart’”...

NUNES: Brian and I are in a parking lot on Bellevue Avenue looking at a run-of-the-mill Stop and Shop. You probably wouldn’t guess it now, but back in the 1850s, this spot is home to the famed Ocean House Hotel. 

BRIAN: The Ocean House Hotel was, I think, the most luxurious hotel that Newport had to offer.

NUNES: At its height, the Ocean House rivals the accommodations of the great hotels in Europe. It’s a grandiose Gothic Revival style building with a picturesque veranda and views of the harbor and ocean, and it can house up to 600 guests. It’s the ultimate resort of the Newport hotel era.

BRIAN: The Ocean House represents the peak of the hotel period in Newport.  

GONZÁLEZ: The Ocean House is also where the Germania play some of their most memorable performances at the height of their fame in Newport. Conductor Carl Bergman writes numerous original compositions, including “Love Polka” and “Fancy Ball Polka Redowa,” and hotel guests are encouraged to take home Bergmann’s sheet music as souvenirs. In 1851, the Germania even entertain the family of President Millard Fillmore. 

NUNES: It’s a pretty quick rise for a group of musicians that left their home country only a few years earlier. Newport is a premiere vacation destination, music is integral to the summer experience, and the Germania are arguably the best of the best. 

GONZÁLEZ: Right. And, if you step back for a second, you can see how the Germania’s story really says something about immigration more broadly. People come here with these talents--whether they be musical, artistic, or literary--and then they influence the direction of American culture.

NUNES: Exactly. And because the Germania become an integral part of the summertime in Newport, they also get to evolve with the city... 

NUNES: Brian and I are at Chateau-sur-Mer on Newport’s famed Bellevue Avenue. Today, this mansion is owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County. But in 1857, it belongs to William Shepard Wetmore. He’s a wealthy China trade magnate  who famously holds an epic garden party here for more than 25-hundred people to celebrate his good friend, the financier George Peabody. 

BRIAN: Guests drank like hundreds of magnums of champagne. They ate, danced, and the Germania performed music. And according to the Newport Mercury, at that time, they would say that it was unquestionably the event of the summer.

NUNES: The summer of 1857 is also a turning point for the Germania, who aren’t officially the Germania anymore. They’ve split up. Conductor Carl Bergmann is moving on to bigger stages in cities like Chicago and New York. The other musicians are getting older now, probably starting families, and getting tired of the grueling touring schedule. And the scene in Newport is also changing. The hotel period that propelled the Germania is coming to a close, and it’s being replaced by the era of private mansions.

BRIAN: As you transition from the hotel period into the Gilded Age, music, like anything else, becomes a lot more exclusive. More and more of the folks who come to Newport to enjoy the summer are now your really wealthy people. Instead of staying in hotels, they want to stay in their own private residences. Everything about that experience becomes more exclusive. 

NUNES: But in 1857, some of the Germania musicians get one last summer to perform to public crowds in Newport... 

NUNES: Alright, Brian. So where are we now?

BRIAN: So, we’re at Fort Adams. In what we think is that last year of really any of them performing in any sort of official way, they did performances at Fort Adams throughout the summer of 1857. And this is probably the last public mention of the Germania in any formal way performing as a group.

NUNES: Brian and I are on a wide open lawn, looking out at Narragansett Bay and the Claiborne Pell Bridge. Downtown Newport is just across the water. This spot is important for another reason. Fort Adams, of course, is where the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals are held today. So, in a sense, our story has come full circle.

BRIAN: You had world class music in the form of the Germania Musical Society performing in the 1850s at Fort Adams, and now you still have world class music during the summer in Newport, at Fort Adams, in the form of the Jazz Festival and the Folk Festival. 

NUNES: It’s a reminder that history runs deep in Newport, and that at one time an immigrant musical group came here and made a mark. So the next time you’re in Newport for a summer festival and someone says, “Hey, remember Dylan in ‘64?” tell them, “Yeah, but don’t forget the Germania in 1857.”

GONZÁLEZ: Mosaic is a production of The Public’s Radio, edited by Sally Eisele. This episode was produced by Brian Knoth with help from James Baumgartner. Our original music is by Bryn Bliska. A special thanks to the Newport String Project for their performances of the Germania and Mendelssohn compositions heard in this episode. Torey Malatia is the general manager of The Public’s Radio. I’m Ana Gonzalez.

NUNES: And I’m Alex Nunes. Thanks for listening.