Editing Boston Symphony Orchestra (section)

===Early years===
[[File:Henry Lee Higginson by John Singer Sargent 1903.jpeg|thumb|Henry Lee Higginson, founding father of the BSO.]]
The BSO was founded in 1881 by [[Henry Lee Higginson]]. Its first conductor was [[George Henschel]], who was a noted baritone as well as conductor, and a close friend of [[Johannes Brahms]]. For the orchestra, Henschel devised innovative orchestral seating charts and sent them to Brahms, who replied approvingly and commented on the issues raised by horn and viola sections in a letter of mid-November 1881.<ref>{{cite book|last=Avins|first=Styra|title=Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-19-816234-6 |pages=587–588}}</ref> The BSO's first concert took place on October 22, 1881.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2013/10/24/throwback-thursday-boston-symphony-orchestras-first-concert/|title=Throwback Thursday: The Boston Symphony Orchestra's First Concert|magazine=Boston|date=October 24, 2013|first=Eric|last=Randall|access-date=November 14, 2020|archive-date=November 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201117022711/https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2013/10/24/throwback-thursday-boston-symphony-orchestras-first-concert/|url-status=live}}</ref> The program consisted of Beethoven's ''[[The Consecration of the House (overture)|The Consecration of the House]]'', as well as music by [[Joseph Haydn]], [[Christoph Willibald Gluck]], [[Franz Schubert]] and [[Carl Maria von Weber]].

[[File:Nathaniel Livermore Stebbins Boston Symphony Orchestra 1891.jpg|thumb|left|The BSO at [[Boston Music Hall]] in 1891.]]
The orchestra's four subsequent music directors were all trained in Austria, including the seminal and highly influential Hungarian-born conductor [[Arthur Nikisch]], in accordance with the tastes of Higginson. [[Wilhelm Gericke]] served twice, from 1884 to 1889 and again from 1898 to 1906. According to [[Joseph Horowitz]]'s review of correspondence, Higginson considered 25 candidates to replace Gericke after receiving notice in 1905. He decided not to offer the position to [[Gustav Mahler]], [[Fritz Steinbach]], and [[Willem Mengelberg]] but did not rule out the young [[Bruno Walter]] if nobody more senior were to accept. He offered the position to [[Hans Richter (conductor)|Hans Richter]] in February 1905, who declined, to [[Felix Mottl]] in November, who was previously engaged, and then to previous director Nikisch, who declined; the post was finally offered to [[Karl Muck]], who accepted and began his duties in October 1906. He was conductor until 1908 and again from 1912 to 1918.<ref>{{cite book|last=Horowitz|first=Joseph|author-link=Joseph Horowitz|title=Classical Music in America: A history of its rise and fall|publisher=W. W. Norton|year=2005|isbn=978-0-393-05717-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/classicalmusicin00jose/page/77 77–78]|url=https://archive.org/details/classicalmusicin00jose/mode/2up|via=[[Internet Archive]]|url-access=registration}}</ref>

The music director 1908–12 was [[Max Fiedler]]. He conducted the premiere of [[Ignacy Jan Paderewski]]'s [[Symphony in B minor (Paderewski)|Symphony in B minor "Polonia"]] in 1909.

Following [[American entry into World War I]], Muck (born in Germany but a Swiss citizen since childhood), was falsely accused by unscrupulous newspaper editor [[John R. Rathom]] of knowingly refusing a request to play ''[[The Star Spangled Banner]]''. Although Higginson had not told Muck of the request and the BSO always ended future concerts with the American [[national anthem]], Muck was subjected by Rathom to a [[trial by media]] anyway and was arrested by Federal agents shortly before a performance of [[Johann Sebastian Bach]]'s ''[[St Matthew Passion]]'' in March 1918. Along with 29 of the BSO best musicians, Muck was imprisoned in [[Fort Oglethorpe (prisoner-of-war camp)|Fort Oglethorpe]], a [[German-American internment]] camp in the [[State of Georgia]], without trial or appeal until the summer after the Armistice, when he and his wife agreed that be deported to neutral [[Denmark]]. Muck felt deeply insulted by the injustice of these events, vowed never to perform on American soil again, and conducted thereafter only in Europe. 

The BSO's next two titled conductors were French: [[Henri Rabaud]], who took over from Muck for a season, and then [[Pierre Monteux]] from 1919 to 1924. Monteux, because of a musician's strike, was able to replace 30 players, thus changing the orchestra's sound; the orchestra developed a reputation for a "French" sound which persists to some degree to this day.<ref name="monteux-french">{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n29DHVKhZggC&pg=PA866 |title=Pierre Monteux |encyclopedia=All Music Guide to Classical Music |page=866 |publisher=[[Hal Leonard Corporation]] |year=2005|isbn=978-0-87930-865-0 }}</ref>