While musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony tuned their instruments on the stage of the Syria Mosque, uniformed motorcycle policemen guarded the entrances of the Oakland landmark.

Police were there in force on April 24, 1927, to head off protests as the newly reformed orchestra began its first Sunday concert.

By performing on Sunday, the musicians were about to run afoul of Pennsylvania's "Blue Laws" and of the Sabbath Association of Allegheny County, which sought to enforce them.

The Blue Laws were passed more than a century earlier in Pennsylvania and several other states. Designed to keep Sunday as a day for worship and rest, they forbad most commercial activities, professional sports and non-charity concerts.

Thirty-five hundred people showed up for the symphony's inaugural Sunday concert and "with thunderous applause for every number on the program, declared that if this be Sabbath desecration, make the most of it," the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times reported the next day.

"Uniformed motorcycle police held sway outside the Mosque in deference to the ruling of the City Law Department that the Symphony Society's membership plan of admission ... was legal in every way," the newspaper said. "There were no interruptions and no attempts at interruptions."

"There was a spirit of amiable defiance in that crowd at Syria Mosque last night," music critic J. Fred Lissfelt wrote in his review. "They all seemed a little worried ..."

The program included Weber's "Euryanthe" overture, Beethoven's 7th Symphony and two works by Tchaikovsky -- "Capriccio Italien" and his Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor. Eugene Goossens was the conductor and Josef Lhevinne the soloist.

The concert opened with a prayer from an Episcopal priest, the Rev. Dr. H. Boyd Edwards. His invocation was "a plea for tolerance and forbearance, among the creeds. It called to mind the inspirational value of good music and it asked the blessing of God upon [the Sunday concert] movement.

Critic Lissfelt was complimentary about the performance, although he described his shock after the soloist "defied a good concert rule when he played an encore."

"If a debutante had been called to break a bottle of champagne over the conductor's stand, the [event] would have been complete."

Facing operating deficits, the orchestra had disbanded in 1910 for what supporters hoped would be a year. The year stretched into 16 seasons. When the Symphony Society reformed in 1926, its board announced plans for Sunday concerts. "The musicians had to work at other jobs during the week," Frederick Dorian and Judith Meibach wrote in their 1986 history of the orchestra. "And, as a large segment of the audience came from the suburbs, Sunday afternoon was the most convenient time for them to attend concerts."

While Pittsburgh officials had allowed the concert to take place, the legal hammer fell the next day. The Sabbath Association filed complaints before an alderman -- the equivalent of a magisterial district judge -- against orchestra manager Edward Specter, concertmaster Elias Breeskin and eight others.

"The society directors accepted full responsibility for the concert and showed irritation that 10 of 27 officers and directors should be 'singled out' for prosecution," the Gazette Times reported on April 26.

The "Symphony 10" appealed their $25 fines and both the court case and Sunday concerts continued for the next year. In July 1928, state Superior Court "quashed" the case on what the newspaper called technical grounds, and the $25 fines were overturned.

The Sabbath Association, however, pledged to keep up its battle against both secular music and sporting events.

"We will not tolerate Sunday concerts and the very next breach of the law of 1794 will results in arrests and another case similar to this one," the association's lawyer, William H. Pratt, told a reporter for what had become the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That story appeared July 13, 1928.

The "Blue Law" battle continued in the courts and in Harrisburg for the next several years. In 1933, supporters of professional sports were able to persuade the state Legislature to adopt a local option measure, allowing communities to vote on what leisure activities to allow on Sunday. After city voters passed the measure, both the Pittsburgh Pirates football team and the symphony could perform without fear of arrest.