Hewitt, James (EN)

Hewitt James, *4 June 1770 Dartmoor (?), †2 August 1827 Boston, American violinist, conductor, composer and music publisher of English origin, the son of a naval officer. As a young boy, he joined the navy, but soon left military service to pursue a career in music. According to family accounts, he was reportedly a pupil of G.B. Viotti and played in the court orchestra of George III. The only documented evidence is that he played in the orchestra at Astley’s Amphitheatre in London. In 1792, together with four musicians – the violinists J. Gehot and B. Bergmann, the cellist Philips and the flautist W. Young – he travelled to New York. The group soon disbanded, and James Hewitt became the conductor at the Park Street Theatre, for which he also arranged and composed music. In 1794, under the auspices of the Tammany Society, he staged his first opera, Tammany. In 1798, he bought a branch of B. Carr’s music magazine, founded a publishing house and launched his own music magazine. Between 1805 and 1809, he served as director of all the military bands in New York. He also gave open-air concerts in various summer resorts. In 1811, he moved to Boston. There, he played at the Federal Street Theatre and served as organist at Holy Trinity Church. In 1816 he returned to New York, but frequently visited Boston; he also travelled with a theatre company to the southern part of the country, including Charleston (South Carolina) and Augusta (Georgia). During the last two years of his life, he battled a serious illness, which ultimately led to his death. Six of his children and three of his grandchildren devoted themselves to music and played an active role in the musical life of various cities across the United States until the early 20th century.

James Hewitt was a leading figure in the musical life of New York and Boston in the post-Revolutionary period. He composed around 100 vocal works and around 80 instrumental works, mostly of a programmatic nature; for example, his nine-movement Overture from 1792 and the piano sonata The Battle of Trenton, dedicated to George Washington, depict a battle. He arranged around 120 vocal works by other composers. He was the creator of one of the earliest original American operas of a ballad-like nature. In his own publications, he released over 600 compositions, including works by Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and English composers such as W. Shield, M. Kelly and J. Hook, as well as around 160 of his own compositions. He contributed to the revival of musical culture in the United States by performing the music of leading European composers, including Stamic, Haydn and Mozart, at his concerts.

Literature: J.T. Howard Our American Music, New York 3rd edition 1956; J.W. Wagner James Hewitt. His Life and Works, thesis at Indiana University, 1969.