Gilmore, Patrick Sarsfield

1829-1892

Popular American bandmaster of Irish birth. Went to Canada with an English band, of which he was a member, and from there to Salem, Massachusetts, where he soon became a military band leader. In 1859 he went to Boston, where he organized the celebrated Gilmore's band, which he brought to an excellent standard of playing. In 1864, during the Civil War, he gave a festival at New Orleans, where he was a bandmaster in the Federal army, utilizing a number of military bands as one, and producing the effect of gigantic drums with guns fired by electricity. This same device was later used in the National Peace Jubilee at Boston, in 1869, where he organized an orchestra of one thousand and a chorus of ten thousand; and in the World's Peace Jubilee, 1872, also in Boston, just doubling the previous number of players and singers. Cannons, a powerful organ, a drum eight feet in diameter, anvils, and chimes of bells were also added to the stupendous whole. The festival occupied five days. Patriotic airs, selections from the great works of Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Gounod, and the best opera composers were mingled in the programs, that of the fourth day being wholly classical, and including the Gloria from Mozart's Twelfth Mass and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, given by the orchestra.

On the fifth day, Saturday, a chorus of ten thousand school children gave the greater part of the program, assisted by the orchestra and the soloists. These performances, humorously characterized by Louis Elson, in his National Music of America as "art by the wholesale," nevertheless were an ultimate influence for good music throughout the United States in general, as many singers from the villages and country districts who had scarcely heard the names of Mozart and Beethoven, flocked to join the huge choruses, and received impressions that remained with them and later benefited  their home choirs and schools. Their more immediate result was to make Gilmore's reputation international. He next went to New York, and there became leader of a large military band with which he toured the United States, and, in 1878, Europe. It is said that his band was the first to play the Tannhauser overture. He had charge of bands or orchestras in various New York gardens, and at summer resorts in that vicinity. Many of his compositions, including military and dance music and songs, became very popular; he also arranged numerous works for band, and wrote a history of the Peace Jubilee of 1869, and a work on scales for the cornet.