Ave Maria Op. 46

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BANDS AT THE ST. LOUIS WORLD’S FAIR OF 1904: Information, Photographs, and Database (Part 1), published by the authors Richard and Iris Schwartz, Colonial Heights, Virginia, 2003.
p30, used with permission, courtesy of Richard & Iris Schwartz

 This entry begins with a quote from a concert program entitled Grand Concert by Conterno’s Famous Concert Band of New York as they appeared at World’s Fair, St. Louis, Mo. ([Concourse Park Hotel] July 1904].

“Among the many bands that have so far been heard at the World’s Fair none, it may be safely said, has a more definite art history than the organization over which Luciano Conterno swings the baton. Conterno has for years played in the East, has traveled extensively and makes programs that rival those of the most famous of his competitors in point of musical combination.

His work took on an even more distinctive feature when he started the famous Brighton Beach concerts which first induced the people of New York in large numbers to make those pilgrimages to the seashore that have since become so marked a feature of the summer life of the metropolis.

Luciano Conterno’s band during its World’s Fair engagement numbered fifty-five men. The personnel is not alone numerically adequate, but instrumentally select. Many of the men are soloists of recognized talent, and the band also carries a complement of heavy strings (conra [sic] bassi) to give its tone almost an orchestral quality. The reed section is noteworthy for great precision and clarity of attack, reminding the trained listener of the wondrous strains that preceded from the clarinets, piccoli, saxophones and flutes in the days and night of the unapproachable Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore.

The colaborer of the organization is Dr. G. E. Conterno, son of the leader. Dr. Conterno was up to recent date professor of music in the United States Military Academy at West Point. He received his degree of doctor from the University of the State of New York. For years he has been his father’s right hand man in the projection of the big musical festivals which Conterno’s band has presented in various parts of the country.”

Born in Italy, Luciano Conterno was bandmaster in the United States Navy in the Civil War and in 1887, director of the Ninth Regiment Band, and later of the Fourteenth Regiment Band of the New York State National Guard. Luciano died in 1910 in New York City (from Rehrig, The Heritage Encyclopeadia of Band Music, Integrity Press,Westerville, Ohio, 1996, page 181).

Dr. Giovanni E. Conterno, son of Luciano, was born in New York City on June 15, 1866. After having played in his father’s band at age thirteen, timpani with the English Opera Company in 1886, piano with his father’s orchestra in 1883, clarinet in his father’s band in 1883, he became Deputy Bandmaster of his father’s band in 1884. He finally received a Doctorate of Music from New York State University in 1893. After touring Europe with his own productions of his Opera Columbus, he became the Band Director at West Point in March 1895. Leaving West Point in September 1895, Conterno performed in several bands. He then became the Bandmaster of the Thirteenth Regiment Band of New York City in 1900. It is interesting that Conterno’s band was billed at the 1904 Fair as Conterno’s Concert Band of New York and not the Thirteenth Regiment Band of New York City. Musical Directors of the group were both Luciano Conterno and his son, Dr. G.E. Conterno. After the Fair G.E Conterno played with a band at Manhattan Beach in 1911, and in 1917 directed a band at Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York (Rehrig 1996 page 181).