UMS Concert Program, May 2, 3, 4, And 5, 1946: The Fifty-third Annual May Festival -- Glenn D. Mcgeoch

Season: 1945-1946
Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor, Michigan

UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Official Program of the Fifty-Third Annual
MAY FESTIVAL
May 2, 3, 4, and 5, 1946 Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor, Michigan
Published by The University Musical Society, Ann Arbor
NINETEEN HUNDRED FORTY-SIX
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Charles A. Sink, A.B., M.Ed., LL.D President
Alexander G. Ruthven, Ph.D., LL.D., Sc.D. . Vice-President
Shirley W. Smith, A.M Secretary
Oscar A. Eberbach, A.B Treasurer
Roscoe O. Bonisteel, LL.B. . . Assistant Secretary-Treasurer Thor Johnson, M.Mus Conductor
James R. Breakey, Jr., A.B., A.M., LL.B.
Harley A. Haynes, M.D.
James Inglis
E. Blythe Stason, A.B., B.S., J.D.
Henry F. Vaughan, M.S., Dr. P.H.
Merlin Wiley, A.B., LL.B.
OTHER MEMBERS
Hardin Van Deursen, M.Mus., Conductor David Mattern, B.Mus., M.Ed.
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Charles A. Sink, President Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor Mary K. Farkas, Secretary to the President Gail W. Rector, Assistant to the President Gertrude M. Wurster, Bookkeeper Deanne Smith, Assistant Bookkeeper
In service.
THE FIFTY-THIRD ANNUAL MAY FESTIVAL
CONDUCTORS
Eugene Ormandy, Orchestral Conductor Alexander Hilsberg, Associate Orchestral Conductor Hardin Van Deursen, Choral Conductor Marguerite Hood, Youth Chorus Conductor
SOLOISTS
Sopranos
Bidu Sayao Anne Brown
Ruth Diehl
Contraltos Jean Watson Rosalind Nadell
Tenors Jussi Bjoerlino William Hain
Basses Salvatore Baccaloni Nicola Moscona
Violinist Nathan Milstein
Pianist William Kapell
organizations
The Philadelphia Orchestra The University Choral Union The Festival Youth Chorus
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Notices and Acknowledgments
The University Musical Society desires to express appreciation to Hardin Van Deursen and the members of the Choral Union for their effective services; to Miss Marguerite Hood and her able associates for their valuable services in preparation of the Festival Youth Chorus; to the several members of the staff for their efficient assistance; and to the teachers in the various schools from which the young people have been drawn for their co-operation.
The Writer of the analyses hereby expresses his deep obligation to Margaret Pyle for her aid in collecting materials; to Louise Beck, annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra; and to the late Lawrence Gilman, whose scholarly analyses are authoritative contributions to contemporary criticism.
The Steinway is the official concert piano of the University Musi­cal Society and of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In accordance with previous announcements all concerts will begin on Eastern Standard Time--evenings at 8:30 and afternoons at 2:30.
Concert Endowment Fund
The University Musical Society is a nonprofit corporation de­voted to educational purposes. During its existence its concerts have been maintained through the sale of tickets of admission. The prices have been kept as low as possible to cover the expense of production. Obviously, the problem is becoming increasingly difficult. The Society has confidence that there are those who would like to contribute to an endowment fund, to ensure continuance, particularly during lean years, of the high quality of the concerts. All contributions will be utilized in maintaining the ideals of the Society by providing the best possible pro­grams.
The United States Department of Internal Revenue has ruled that gifts or bequests made to the Society are deductible for in­come and estate tax purposes.
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FIRST MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 2, at 8:30 Soloist
JUSSI BjOERLING, TetlOT
The Philadelphia Orchestra Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82 Sibelius
Tempo molto moderato; allegro moderato ma poco a poco
strettoj presto} piu presto Andante mosso quasi allegretto
Allegro molto 5 un pochettino largamente
"Ah! fuyez douce image" from "Manon" Massenet
"H fior che avevi a me tu dato" from "Carmen" Bizet
JUSSI BjOERLING INTERMISSION
Ballet Music from "The Perfect Fool" Holst
"Che gelida manina" from "La Boheme" Puccini
"E lucevan le stelle" from "Tosca" Puccini
Mr. Bjoerling
"Daphnis et Chloe"--Second Suite Ravel
Lever du jour Pantomime Danse generale
Victor records.
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SECOND MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 3, at 8:30
Soloists
Ruth Diehl, Soprano William Hain, Tenor
Jean Watson, Contralto Nicola Moscona, Bass
Nathan Milstein, Violinist
The University Choral Union The Philadelphia Orchestra
Alexander Hilsberg and Hardin Van Deursen, Conductors
PROGRAM
?Requiem Mass Mozart
The University Choral Union and Soloists Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor
INTERMISSION
Concerto in D major, Op. 35, for Violin and Orchestra . . Tchaikovsky
Allegro moderate) Canzonetta
Allegro vivacissimo
Nathan Milstein
Victor records.
[6]
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 4, at 2130
Soloist Anne Brown, Soprano
The Festival Youth Chorus The Philadelphia Orchestra
Alexander Hilsberg and Marguerite Hood, Conductors
PROGRAM Overture to "The Bartered Bride" Smetana
American Folk Songs
Edited by Marguerite Hood and orchestrated by Dorothy James Blow the Man Down Ef I Had a Ribbon Bow
De Boatman Somebody's Knocking at Your Door
Lonesome Valley Adelita
Down the Stream Pat on the Railway
Green Grow the Lilac When Your Potato's Done
The Bold Soldier Rosa-Beck-a-Lina
The Festival Youth Chorus Marguerite Hood, Conductor
"Ritorna vincitor" from "ATda" Verdi
"Voi lo sapete" from "Cavalleria Rusticana" Mascagni
Anne Brown
Tone Poem: "Finlandia," Op. 26 Sibelius
INTERMISSION
Excerpts from "Porgy and Bess" Gershwin
"Summertime"
"My Man's Gone Now"
Miss Brown
Scherzo and Nocturne from "A Midsummer
Night's Dream" Mendelssohn
Tone Poem: "Till EulenspiegeFs Merry Pranks," Op. 28 ... Strauss
Victor records.
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FOURTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 4, at 8130
Soloist Bidu Sayao, Soprano
The Philadelphia Orchestra Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K. 550) Mozart
Allegro molto Andante
Menuettoj trio
Finale: allegro assai
"Batti, batti, O bel Masetto" from "Don Giovanni" Mozart
"Ah, non credea mirarti" from "La Sonnambula" Bellini
Bidu Sayao
intermission
Soliloquy for Flute and String Orchestra Rogers
William Kincaid, Flutist
Dos cantares populares Obradors
Lundu da Marchese de Santos Villa-Lobos
"H faut partir" from "La Fille du Regiment" Donizetti
Mme Sayao
?Symphonic Poem: "The Pines of Rome" Respighi
The Pines of the Villa Borghese The Pines near a Catacomb The Pines of the Janiculum The Pines of the Appian Way
?Columbia records.
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FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 5, at 2:30
Soloist William Kapell, Pianist
The Philadelphia Orchestra Alexander Hilsberg, Conductor
ALL-BRAHMS PROGRAM Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, for Piano and Orchestra Maestoso Adagio
Rondo: allegro non troppo
William Kapell
INTERMISSION
?Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
Allegro non troppo Andante moderate Allegro giocoso
Allegro energico e passionato
The fiano used is a Steiniuay. ?Columbia records.
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SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 5, at 8 .-30
Soloist
Rosalind Nadell, Contralto Salvatore Baccaloni, Bass
The University Choral Union
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
PROGRAM
Overture and Venusberg Music from "Tannhauser" Wagner
Assisted by Women's Voices of the Choral Union
"Son imbrogliato" from "La Serva padrona" Pergolesi
"Le Ragazze che son" from "Le Astuzie femminili" .... Cimarosa "Udite, tutti, udite" from "II Matrimonio segreto" .... Cimarosa
"Madamina" from "Don Giovanni" Mozart
Salvatore Baccaloni
INTERMISSION
f" Alexander Nevsky," Cantata for Chorus,
Contralto Solo, and Orchestra, Op. 78 Prokofieff
The University Choral Union and Rosalind Nadell
? Victor records. ¦(¦Columbia records.
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DESCRIPTIVE PROGRAMS
FIRST CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 2
Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82 Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was born in Tava-stehus, Finland, December 8, 1865.
Until the recent advent of Dmitri Shostakovich, Jean Sibelius held a posi­tion of unrivalled eminence among present-day symphonists. His symphonies crowded the air waves, conductors built their programs around them, and record shops dispersed them in albums to an avid public. Our current magazines and papers, year after year, noted every anniversary of his birth, and continuously carried "human interest" stories of his personal fortitude and spiritual strength in the face of disaster. He had become a symbol of his country's courage, and his music sounded the proud defiance of a great people and the sure confidence in their ultimate victory over the ruthless Russian aggressor.
But by virtue of a sudden turn in international affairs, in what might be termed a historical accident, Finland found herself allied with our foe; and as a result, Sibelius disappeared from our concert halls--even the German Wagner, hero of our Nazi enemies, was heard with greater frequency. A new sensation then arrested our attention--the spectacle of a heroic Russian youth, who, in the midst of his country's frightful struggle for survival, created a music that epi­tomized heroism and dauntless courage, but this time of the Russian people. Music that not so long before was considered dangerous to the best interests of our society, was now receiving the same approbation we had so generously heaped upon that of Sibelius. The false values, which the changing events of history can give or take away from an artist, make it exceedingly difficult, but all the more necessary, for criticism to make an objective analysis of genuine and permanent values, which alone can ultimately bring either distinction or oblivion to an artist.
There is no intention here of comparing the relative virtues or shortcomings of Shostakovich and Sibelius. The fact remains that in spite of the sensational rivalry offered by the younger Russian composer, Sibelius remains, without doubt, by virtue of the quality and quantity of his output, the outstanding sym-phonist of our day.
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Before the war, however, his position in the history of music was still unsettled. The public was curious, rather than genuinely interested in his output, suspicious without dislike, aware of a new music, but without any great enthu­siasm or open hostility.
One reason for the growing approval of his works today, aside from their intrinsic and appealing beauty, is that in this age of conflicting opinions and ideals, and styles of "isms" and "ologies," he is a haven for the most divergent and contrary forces. His idiom makes it impossible to classify him either as a modernist or a traditionalist; he is neither consciously modern nor deliberately archaic. He is just enough of each to offer a refuge to the "modern conserva­tives," who hear in his music an echo of Brahms in his graver and more austere moments, or of Tchaikovsky in his more melancholy vein. On the other hand, he is modern enough in his disrespect for established precedent to interest the "conservative moderns." Sibelius is, in fact, an almost isolated phenomenon. He seems to belong to a different race, a different age, whether to the past or to the future it is still difficult to say.
But this much must be said of his music. It bears the imprint of a powerful and independent personality, evincing a comprehensive mentality unrestrained by historical precedent and uncomplicated by aesthetic preconceptions. His style is proudly restrained for the most part, and in general, cursory, compact, and pithy, although often relieved by genuinely tender moments, without the slightest presence of sentimental ostentation.
Much of the music of Sibelius has been considered drab and cold. Epithets such as "dour," "harsh," "gray," "austere," "ungenial," and "severe" have been hurled at him, as they were at Brahms, by unsympathetic critics; but with more familiarity, the former unrelieved melancholy and bleak character of his music has been transformed into something more sensuous and pleasing, although it is still pervadingly somber.
Much has been said of the nationalistic nature of Sibelius' music. It is true that he is the first composer to attract the attention of the world to his native Finland as a musical nation. His relation to his native land expresses itself in that "intangible something" which is evident in every phrase he wrote. Mr. Watson Lyle in an article in the Musical Quarterly for October, 1927, de­scribes this ephemeral quality which one senses in his music:
.... a composer of nationalistic expression, an ideal that concurs with its abiding love for lakes, canals, islands, and mists, and miles upon miles of forests alternating with stretches of marsh, and flat wastes of the country that is homeland to him. He
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has an unusual ability for translating into terms of music these natural features of the countryside--the shimmering waters, the strange echoes in the forests, the bird calls, and the depressions emotionally conjured by the desolation of areas of wasteland, and the ghostly veiling of objects by mist and fog. In fact it is by emotional suggestion quite as much as by musical realism, that his art becomes an expression of his country, and the psychology, the prevailing sadness that is a legacy of hundreds of years of oppression of his country by more powerful nations.
But really his art transcends the limitations of nationality. He is national, racial, and universal at the same time; and his universality is being sensed slowly. His way to popularity is steadily but surely clearing, but like Brahms he will find general acceptance only with time. The seriousness and sobriety of his art, the solidity of its content, the absence of externals, make no bid for immediate popularity. His music stands or falls entirely on the enduring qual­ities of its expression. Only future years will determine how enduring that expression will be.
Fate has been persistent in involving Jean Sibelius in great soul-stirring catastrophies. As a young musician, he was an artistic rebel determined upon Finnish freedom, politically as well as artistically, and was involved in Finland's emancipation in the 1890's. World War I found him as staunch and bravely chauvinistic as ever in the face of impending doom. And during World War II, at the close of a long life full of great artistic achievements and deep concern for his native land, the old patriarch refused to leave his unfortunate country in her need and wrote on in the midst of her greatest disaster. Sibelius' faith in hu­manity has been subjected to the severest test, but he has never lost that faith. In these disjointed times full of disillusion and cynicism, Sibelius offers us the rare but thrilling spectacle of a man who has created a noble structure in his art--a structure that has come from the grand line of his long life. His music is triumphant; and the harmony he has won in the hard battle of life he transmits to his art, wherein he has given to the world a much-needed state of spiritual serenity, optimism, and repose.
The late Mr. Lawrence Gilman wrote the following analysis of the Symphony for the program book of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony:
The Symphony is divided into three parts; but the first comprises two well-defined movements: an opening molto moderate), which is joined without pause to what is actually the scherzo of the symphony; for Sibelius, like Beethoven in his Ninth, puts his scherzo before his slow movement.
These first two movements, though they are distinct in mood and character, are integrated by community of theme, after the fashion established by Schumann and popularized by Cesar Franck.
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
The subject which binds them together is a motto-theme of concise and simple outline: the bucolic phrase proclaimed by the horn in the opening measures over a roll of the timpani (motto moderate, E-flat, 128). Its first four notes (B-flat, E-flat, F, B-flat, ascending) constitute the thematic seed from which is developed a good part of the substance of the two connected movements. The motto-theme, four times repeated by the three trumpets in unison, introduces the scherzo section of the first part (Allegro moderate, ma foco a foco stretto, B major, 34), with a curiously Beethoven-ish theme in a dance rhythm for the woodwind in thirds, the sixth and seventh meas­ures of which outline the motto-theme of the opening. At the end, there is a return to the key of E-flat.
In the slow movement (Andante mosso, quasi allegretto, G major, 32) the theme is developed with much resourcefulness of variation. From a simple and rather naive subject, foreshadowed by the violas and cellos pizzicato against sustained harmonies in the clarinets, bassoons, and horns, and afterward more clearly defined by a pair of flutes playing in thirds and sixths, the composer evolves a movement of singularly rich expres­siveness (an odd detail is the elaborate use of an appoggiatura effect in the flutes and bassoons, as a background against which the strings develop the theme).
The Finale is the crown of the work, and is in many ways the most nobly imag­ined and nobly eloquent page that Sibelius has given us. The violas announce the first subject (Allegro molto, E-flat, 24) under an agitated figure for the second violins divisi, and the first violins continue it. Woodwind and cellos sing a more impassioned theme against chords of the other strings and horns. A passage in G-flat major, misterioso, for the muted and divided strings alone (violins in eight parts), leads to the superb coda un fochettino largamente in which the music achieves a gradual amplifica­tion and heroic emphasis, with the brass chanting a strangely intervalled figure against a syncopated accompaniment figure of the strings. The end is triumphant.
"II fior che avevi a me tu dato" from "Carmen" .... Bizet
Georges Bizet was born in Paris, October 25, 1838; died at Bougival, near Paris, June 3, 1875
Very few biographers of Bizet represent him as he really was, a gifted man with many shortcomings, a composer of undeniable talent, whose Carmen stands in strong and strange contrast to all his other works and also to his per­sonality, as revealed by his letters and the judgments expressed by those who knew him well. That the composer of such a trifle as La Jolie fille de Perth within a few years could create a Carmen is as strange and inexplicable as that Emily Bronte could have written Wuthering Heights after a few insignificant poems. Of Bizet's artistic personality, which began to assert itself in Carmen, we know absolutely nothing. He was always essentially a "bourgeois"--practi[16]
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cal, humdrum, and colorless. He did not live long enough for us to have any clew as to the change that took place within him. During the early part of his career, he had no sense of, and no liking for, dramatic music, to which he pre­ferred music of a light facile order. His teacher, Carafa, once wrote to Mer-chandante, "Monsieur Bizet will never be a dramatic composer, he is utterly lacking in the needful enthusiasm." Was it Wagner who aroused this in him Or perhaps the rays of truth emanating from Merimee's story and reflected in Bizet's mirrorlike soul were so intensified that they kindled the flame of inspira­tion. It was indeed Bizet's misfortune never to happen upon an author who fully appreciated his ideas and had the talent for writing a libretto in accordance with them. When at last Meilhac and Halevy provided him with a libretto, of which Nietzsche said, "It is a dramatic masterpiece to study for climax, contrast and logic," Bizet responded by revealing a hitherto entirely unknown artistic per­sonality, and real inspiration burst into an incandescent flame.
This famous and popular aria occurs in Act II. Failing to induce Jose to leave his regiment and follow her, Carmen dismisses him in indignant rage.
Desperate at the thought of losing her forever, he draws from his breast a flower which she had thrown to him at their first meeting, and pleads for the return of her love.
"Ah! fuyez douce image" from "Manon" Massenet
Jules fimil Frederic Massenet was born at Montaud, near St. litienne, France, May 12, 1842; died at Paris, August 13, 1912.
Massenet's facile and melodious style was evident in his earlier works, and remained, without much development through his long career, the chief source of his popularity. This gift he applied with consummate tact so as to win and retain popular interest. Although his genius did not rise to exalted heights or exhibit any marked vitality or profound inspiration, in points of technical presen­tation, instrumentation, fine workmanship, and versatility of subject, he won a secure place in the world of music.
So eminently typical of its composer is his unquestioned masterpiece, Manon, that to have heard it is to have heard all of his works, for here is to be found the essence of his art--suave, sensuous melody, piquant orchestration, and a gen­erous supply of what Vincent d'Indy called a "discreet and semireligious eroti[17]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
The libretto for Manon was based upon Abbe Prevost's romance of Manon Lescaut, a work that has inspired several composers. Massenet's setting in 1884, however, has won the greatest acclaim, and remains the most popular version in the current operatic repertoire.
The aria on tonight's program is from Act III. The Chevalier des Grieux, disillusioned by the fickle love of Manon, has determined to enter the priesthood. After a scene in which his father has unsuccessfully attempted to persuade his son to abandon his rash resolve, des Grieux sings his song of renunciation and prays for the surcease of his anguish:
I am alone in this fateful moment. Give me refuge in faith, and courage to leave the world behind me. Depart, oh fair image, from my despairing heart; the pomp and glory of life are but shadows to me now--banished from my memory, but thy name torments me still. God, burn this torment from my soul, dispel the gloom from the depths of my spirit. Depart, fair image, depart forever.
Ballet Suite, "The Perfect Fool" Holst
Gustav Hoist was born September 21, 1874, at Chel­tenham, England; died May 25, 1934, at London.
Gustav Hoist was one of the most prominent composers of the last genera­tion to bring distinction to England. Although his family was originally of Swedish descent (the name until 1918, was von Hoist) the grandfather of the composer had come to Britain early in the nineteenth century. His son, Adolph, Gustav's father, settled at Cheltenham, where he gained some recognition as a pianist and organist.
Hoist's early musical training, in addition to that which he received from his father, was gained at the Royal College of Music, London, where he was a student of Sir Charles Stanford. He later became musical director at Morley College and taught music at St. Paul's Girls School, London. As a teacher he won a creditable reputation, not only for his profound musical knowledge, but for his unique gift of transmitting his enthusiasm to all those who came into con­tact with him.
Ann Arbor has shared in this distinction, for in 1923, at the Thirteenth Annual May Festival, one of Mr. Hoist's most significant works, "The Hymn of Jesus," had its American premiere, under the direction of the composer. Again in 1932, he served in the same capac­ity at the American premiere of his "Choral Fantasia."
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As a composer, his output was varied and copious, and in everything he wrote he was an artist of force, originality, and integrity. In a sense, he was never a really successful composer, in spite of the popularity of such works as The Planets and the Hymn of Jesus. His almost passionate sincerity and honesty of purpose led him to eschew anything that did not satisfy his own high convictions, and these were often not those of the public. But his name will always appear on the small list of really great English composers, for he, with such men of his generation as Vaughan Williams, helped English music to break away finally from a long German domination. He was a leader too, in the re­action against the lush sentimentality of the late Romantic era, and, in a style that was clean and economical, he created a beauty that was nonetheless real for having been severely restrained.
Although in such transitional works as The Planets and The Perfect Fool we observe a traditional nineteenth century harmonic background, we are also aware of the irregular and abrupt prose rhythms--those insistent uneven time measures--that finally became so much a part of his style and gave to his music its modern freedom and flexibility.
The opera, The Perfect Fool, was written in 1918, and produced by the British Opera Company at Covent Garden, London, May 13, 1923. "I first conceived the idea and wrote the scenario for the opera as far back as August, 1908," wrote Hoist, "but a technical difficulty in a matter of production, which I did not solve until ten years later, delayed the completion of the work." In 1918 he re-wrote the story and the scenario.
At the beginning of the first performance no one knew anything about the story of the opera, and at the end they were none the wiser. All that could be gathered, wrote Hoist's daughter, Imogen, was that "the story seemed to be Some sort of fairy tale, where a princess was wooed by a tenor who had strayed from Verdi; and a bass who had wandered from Wagner. When the wanderer was turned down with the tune of Siegfried's horn call to the words, 'But, sir, I think we have heard this before,' there was a polite titter from the critics in the stalls.... But the rest of it seemed dreadfully puzzling."
It is with no attempt to clarify the plot of this opera that the following story by W. H. Haddon (Christian Science Monitor, May 29, 1923), is related. Perhaps it will explain, however, the confusion and sensation of utter loss sus­tained by the first night audience:
As the curtain goes up a well is shown, over which towers a Stonehenge trilithon or stone arch. On the well is a silver chalice--reminiscent at once, of course, to the parody
Imogen Hoist, Gustav Hoist (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 86.
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
seeker, of the Grail Cup and Parsifal, whose very name in its Gallic form signifies Companion of the Cup or Vase. Standing by is a maleficent Wizard performing a magic rite. He calls on fire, water, and earth to aid in compounding a love potion which will make him irresistible to the Princess, who is about to choose a husband. After the elements have "obliged" with a short and effective ballet, there enters a Mother dragging her son, the Fool, of whom it has been predicted: "He wins a bride with a glance of his eye; with a look he kills a foe; he achieves where others fail--with one word." A true mother, she looks past his somewhat severe moral and intellectual limi­tations, for, as an exponent of the art of slumber, he could give the fat boy in "Pick­wick" a start and be asleep first every time.
The hitherto preoccupied Wizard now catches sight of the Mother. In his best professional manner he begins a horrific curse: "Cursed be the man who hears my voice or sees me. . . . The Mother, however, covers the Wizard with confusion by pointing out that she is not a man. Failing to perceive the presence of the Fool, who, mean­while, has gone to sleep, the embarrassed Wizard unbends in conversation. Thaumatur-gus' pride outruns discretion and he explains the wonders of the potion which he has just brewed. As conversation flags, the Wizard grows drowsy, and the Mother, forcing the potion down the throat of her son, refills the cup with water.
The Princess now appears and the Wizard hastily drinks what he believes is the potion. Water, he discovers, has its own magic; for instead of a Prince Charming, the Princess sees him for what he really is--an elderly and ridiculous wizard. Among the titters and sneers of her courtiers she pokes fun at him and the unwary necromancer departs, using what is known in less exalted circles as "language."
The Princess is then wooed by two escaped operatic characters. The first, a Troubadour, warbles in the best Donizetti or early Verdi manner, "She shall be mine," to a tonic-dominant repeated-chord accompaniment, while the retainers reiterate, "She shall be thine." But, alas, the Troubadour's voice cracks on a top note, and the Princess, who is a much better singer herself, dismisses him. The second wooer has, in spite of the high rate of exchange, brought over from Bayreuth a choice stock of Wagnerian alliterations, including "Hail thee, Highborn! Holiest happiness, wholesomest health dwell with Thee daily," with leit-motijen to match.
At this point, the Fool, awakened by the Wagnerian din, looks at the Princess, who thereupon loses both her head and her heart. The Wizard returns to destroy them with fire, but the sleepy Fool, with his head forcibly held in the right direction by his Mother, kills him with a look. The enraptured Princess asks the Fool if he loves her, and the Fool, after an emphatic "No," his first and only word throughout the opera, promptly goes to sleep again. Priests enter to crown the "Perfect Fool," and the cur­tain drops.
Obviously, with a little ingenuity all sorts of interpretations may be extracted from this story. One critic claims that for the first time in operatic history a composer sings
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the praises of water. Another surmises that the bewitched Princess is the public and "The Fool" may represent the Cinema, which is dumb and blind, and perhaps utterly silly. Another wrote: "The spirit of burlesque in the story is reproduced in the music. The Traveller and the Troubadour are imported bodily from Wagnerian and Verdian opera, with orchestration complete--a clever piece of satire. The other music is completely original and distinguished by a style that is unmistakably English in its affinity with folk-song, its tunefulness and individuality. It is not all parody. Mr. Hoist can charm, as in the ballets, and he can strike a dramatic note with conviction, as in the scene of the fire and the fleeing refugees, and in all can and does provide much that is new."
"A good way to deal with the humor of Hoist's 'The Perfect Fool' " wrote Tovey, "might be to classify the people whom it annoys or puzzles." To Alfred Ein­stein it was "a parody--light, amusing, and devoid of all bitterness, with an absence not merely of sentimentality, but also of feeling."
Ernest Newman wrote to the Manchester Guardian of July 6, 1923: "The par­ody of the Italian style, in the person of The Troubadour, is good, but not dazzling. The parody of Wagner, in The Traveller (got up, of course, as our old friend, The Wanderer, in the 'Ring'), is, however, in the language of the day, perfectly priceless. This is by far the best imitation of another composer's style that I have ever come across. I would wager that nine Wagner-lovers out of ten, walking into Covent Garden when this scene was in progress, and not knowing what opera was being played, would believe they had struck the middle of 'Siegfried.' The whole bag of tricks is there-the 'Wanderer' modulations, the typical Wagner crescendo, the bass clarinet theme, the Wagner turn, and all the rest of it; and, as with The Wanderer, we feel that the Traveller is just keeping his end up in the maelstrom of tone--but only just. And at no point can we say that any actual phrase of Wagner is being definitely guyed: it is simply that the general cast of Wagner's mind is infallibly seized upon and reproduced in music of Hoist's own."
"Che gelida manina" from "La Boheme" Puccini
Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, in 1858; died in Brussels, November 29, 1924.
Giacomo Puccini, referred to by Verdi as the most promising of his suc­cessors, may be said to dominate modern operatic composers even today, a quar­ter of a century after his death. He justified his master's prophecy by a career of uninterrupted success from the date of his first dramatic venture (Le Ville} Milan, 1884) to his very last unfinished work, Turandot, 1924.
If a Frenchman was able to express most adequately the life and spirit of Spain (Bizet in Carmen), it remained for an Italian to interpret and fix in an
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
seekerj of the Grail Cup and Parsifal, whose very name in its Gallic form signifies Companion of the Cup or Vase. Standing by is a maleficent Wizard performing a magic rite. He calls on fire, water, and earth to aid in compounding a love potion which will make him irresistible to the Princess, who is about to choose a husband. After the elements have "obliged" with a short and effective ballet, there enters a Mother dragging her son, the Fool, of whom it has been predicted: "He wins a bride with a glance of his eye; with a look he kills a foe; he achieves where others fail--with one word." A true mother, she looks past his somewhat severe moral and intellectual limi­tations, for, as an exponent of the art of slumber, he could give the fat boy in "Pick­wick" a start and be asleep first every time.
The hitherto preoccupied Wizard now catches sight of the Mother. In his best professional manner he begins a horrific curse: "Cursed be the man who hears my voice or sees me. . . . The Mother, however, covers the Wizard with confusion by pointing out that she is not a man. Failing to perceive the presence of the Fool, who, mean­while, has gone to sleep, the embarrassed Wizard unbends in conversation. Thaumatur-gus' pride outruns discretion and he explains the wonders of the potion which he has just brewed. As conversation flags, the Wizard grows drowsy, and the Mother, forcing the potion down the throat of her son, refills the cup with water.
The Princess now appears and the Wizard hastily drinks what he believes is the potion. Water, he discovers, has its own magic; for instead of a Prince Charming, the Princess sees him for what he really is--an elderly and ridiculous wizard. Among the titters and sneers of her courtiers she pokes fun at him and the unwary necromancer departs, using what is known in less exalted circles as "language."
The Princess is then wooed by two escaped operatic characters. The first, a Troubadour, warbles in the best Donizetti or early Verdi manner, "She shall be mine," to a tonic-dominant repeated-chord accompaniment, while the retainers reiterate, "She shall be thine." But, alas, the Troubadour's voice cracks on a top note, and the Princess, who is a much better singer herself, dismisses him. The second wooer has, in spite of the high rate of exchange, brought over from Bayreuth a choice stock of Wagnerian alliterations, including "Hail thee, Highborn! Holiest happiness, wholesomest health dwell with Thee daily," with leit-motijen to match.
At this point, the Fool, awakened by the Wagnerian din, looks at the Princess, who thereupon loses both her head and her heart. The Wizard returns to destroy them with fire, but the sleepy Fool, with his head forcibly held in the right direction by his Mother, kills him with a look. The enraptured Princess asks the Fool if he loves her, and the Fool, after an emphatic "No," his first and only word throughout the opera, promptly goes to sleep again. Priests enter to crown the "Perfect Fool," and the cur­tain drops.
Obviously, with a little ingenuity all sorts of interpretations may be extracted from this story. One critic claims that for the first time in operatic history a composer sings
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FIRST CONCERT
the praises of water. Another surmises that the bewitched Princess is the public and "The Fool" may represent the Cinema, which is dumb and blind, and perhaps utterly silly. Another wrote: "The spirit of burlesque in the story is reproduced in the music. The Traveller and the Troubadour are imported bodily from Wagnerian and Verdian opera, with orchestration complete--a clever piece of satire. The other music is completely original and distinguished by a style that is unmistakably English in its affinity with folk-song, its tunefulness and individuality. It is not all parody. Mr. Hoist can charm, as in the ballets, and he can strike a dramatic note with conviction, as in the scene of the fire and the fleeing refugees, and in all can and does provide much that is new."
"A good way to deal with the humor of Hoist's 'The Perfect Fool'" wrote Tovey, "might be to classify the people whom it annoys or puzzles." To Alfred Ein­stein it was "a parody--light, amusing, and devoid of all bitterness, with an absence not merely of sentimentality, but also of feeling."
Ernest Newman wrote to the Manchester Guardian of July 6, 1923: "The par­ody of the Italian style, in the person of The Troubadour, is good, but not dazzling. The parody of Wagner, in The Traveller (got up, of course, as our old friend, The Wanderer, in the 'Ring'), is, however, in the language of the day, perfectly priceless. This is by far the best imitation of another composer's style that I have ever come across. I would wager that nine Wagner-lovers out of ten, walking into Covent Garden when this scene was in progress, and not knowing what opera was being played, would believe they had struck the middle of 'Siegfried.' The whole bag of tricks is there-the 'Wanderer modulations, the typical Wagner crescendo, the bass clarinet theme, the Wagner turn, and all the rest of it; and, as with The Wanderer, we feel that the Traveller is just keeping his end up in the maelstrom of tone--but only just. And at no point can we say that any actual phrase of Wagner is being definitely guyed: it is simply that the general cast of Wagner's mind is infallibly seized upon and reproduced in music of Hoist's own."
"Che gelida manina" from "La Boheme" Puccini
Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, in 1858; died in Brussels, November 29, 1924.
Giacomo Puccini, referred to by Verdi as the most promising of his suc­cessors, may be said to dominate modern operatic composers even today, a quar­ter of a century after his death. He justified his master's prophecy by a career of uninterrupted success from the date of his first dramatic venture {Le Ville, Milan, 1884) t0 h]S very ¦ast unfinished work, Turandot, 1924.
If a Frenchman was able to express most adequately the life and spirit of Spain (Bizet in Carmen), it remained for an Italian to interpret and fix in an
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
opera the student and artist life of Paris (Puccini in La Bohente). There is a vigor, and a lifelike realism, a delicately drawn pathos in this work that raises it to high position in the field of lyric drama.
The aria on this evening's program is sung by Rodolfo in the first act, shortly after his first meeting with Mimi, a neighbor in the student quarter. She has come, in search of matches or candle light, to the apartment where several of Rodolfo's companions are making merry. As she leaves, the closing of the door extinguishes her candle and she returns for another light. This time Rodolfo blows out the candle in the room, and in the darkness they search for a flint. Their hands touch, and Rodolfo sings:
Your tiny hand is frozen!
Let me warm it into life.
Our search, is useless;
In darkness all is hidden.
Ere long the light of the moon shall aid
us, Yes, in the moonlight our search let us
resume, dear.
One moment, pretty maiden, while I tell
you in a trice Who I am,
What I do, and how I live. Shall I I am a poet.
What's my employment Writing!
Is that a living
Hardly!
I've wit tho' wealth be wanting;
Ladies of rank and fashion all inspire me
with passion, In dreams and fond illusions or castles in
the air-Richer is none on earth than I! Bright eyes as yours, believe me, Steal my priceless jewels In Fancy's storehouse cherish'd.
Your roguish eyes have robb'd me,
Of all my dreams bereft me--dreams that
are fair yet fleeting-Fled are my truant fancies, Regrets I do not cherish. For now life's rosy morn is breaking, now
golden love is waking. Now that I've told my story, pray tell me
yours, too, tell me frankly, Who are you Say will you tell
"E lucevan le stelle," from "Tosca" Puccini
In the work from which this evening's aria is taken, Puccini exhibits his genius in adjusting both instrumental and vocal effects to the implications of the text without sacrificing the inherent capacities of either mode of expression. At the same time he draws his characters with a sure hand and interprets brilliantly the compelling situations of the dramatic action. The plot is gloomy and intensely
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tragic, but is occasionally relieved by such lyric scenes as the "E lucevan le stelle," which occurs in Act III. Cavaradossi, with his death warrant before him, recalls the happy meetings of other days with his beloved Tosca, whom he never expects to see again.
Orchestral Fragments from the Ballet, "Daphnis
et Chloe" (Second Suite) Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel was born at Ciboure, Basses-Pyrenees, March 7, 1875; he died in Paris, December 28, 1937.
The term "impressionism" passed from a general term to a specialized usage about 1863, when a sunset by Monet was shown in Paris at the Salon des Refuses, entitled "Impression." The name was then adopted for a whole group of painters, of which Monet, Manet, and Degas were the leaders, and later by a similar group of composers, of whom Debussy was the most important figure, and Maurice Ravel, a more recent member. Impressionism came to reject all tradi­tions and devote itself to the sensuous side of art to the exclusion of the intel­lectual. It subordinated the subject for the most part to the interest of the execu­tion, and it interpreted isolated momentary sensations, not thoughts or concrete things. In the words of Walter Pater, impressionism is "a vivid personal impres­sion of a fugitive effect." Debussy used his art as a plastic medium for recording such fleeting impressions and fugitive glimpses. His style and technique, like that of Monet, Renoir, and early Pissarro, rendered a music that was intimate though evasive, a music with a twilight beauty and glamor, revealing a world of sense, flavor, color, and mystery. And so Debussy, working to the same end as the French impressionists in art, through the subtle and ephemeral medium of sound created an evasive world of vague feelings and subtle emotions--a world of old brocades, the glimmer of moonlight, morning mists, shadowy pools, sunlight on waves, faint odor of dying flowers, the flickering effect of inverted images in a pool or the more vigorous and sparkling effects of an Iberian fete day.
In contrast to the ecstatic impressionism of Debussy, which fails to merge emotion into an objective lyricism, but merely allows it to spread and dissolve into vague colored patterns, the art of Maurice Ravel appears more concrete. Although he was at home among the colored vapors of the Debussyan harmonic system, Ravel expressed himself in a more tangible form and fashioned the same materials into set designs. His art, in this connection, stands in much the same relationship to musical impressionism as the art of Renoir does to the same style in painting; it restores formal values. In this structural sense lies the true secret of his dissimilarity from Debussy. But, like Debussy, he reveals the typical
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French genius, an exquisite refinement, unerring sense of form, purest crafts­manship, attention to minute details, impeccable taste, and a finesse and lucidity in execution.
The ballet, "Daphnis et Chloe" was composed for the Russian Ballet in 1910, at the request of Serge de Diaghilev. It was first performed in June, 1912, at Paris, with Nijinsky as Daphnis and Monteux conducting.
In the score is to be found the following descriptive note:
No sound but the murmur of rivulets fed by the dew that trickles from the rocks. Daphnis lies stretched before the grotto of the nymphs. Little by little the day dawns. The songs of birds are heard. Afar off a shepherd leads his flock. Another shepherd crosses the back of the stage. Herdsmen enter, seeking Daphnis and Chloe. They find Daphnis and awaken him. In anguish he looks about for Chloe. She at last appears encircled by shepherdesses. The two rush into each other's arms. Daphnis observes Chloe's crown. His dream was a prophetic vision; the intervention of Pan is manifest. The old shepherd Lammon explains that Pan saved Chloe, in remembrance of the nymph Syrinx, whom the god loved.
Daphnis and Chloe mime the story of Pan and Syrinx. Chloe impersonates the young nymph wandering over the meadow, Daphnis, as Pan, appears and declares his love for her. The nymph repulses him; the god becomes more insistent. She disap­pears among the reeds. In desperation he plucks some stalks, fashions a flute, and on it plays a melancholy tune. Chloe comes out and imitates by her dance the accents of the flute.
The dance grows more and more animated. In mad whirlings, Chloe falls into the arms of Daphnis. Before the altar of the nymphs he swears his fidelity. Young girls enter; they are dressed as Bacchantes and shake their tambourines. Daphnis and Chloe embrace tenderly. A group of young men come on the stage.
Joyous tumult. A general dance.
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Friday Evening, May 3
Requiem Mass in D minor Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at Salzburg, Jan­uary 27, 1756; died at Vienna, December 5, 1791.
"Who hath gazed full in the face of beauty Doth himself so unto death deliver. Now unfit for any earthly duty, Yet at thought of death with fear shall quiver-Who hath gazed full in the face of beauty." --F. A. Platen, 1825
In its diversity and scope the art of Mozart is perhaps the most astonishing achievement in the history of European art. Wherever he directed his pen, to the creation of opera, serious or comic, to cantata, mass, chamber music, sonata, or symphony, he left imperishable masterpieces. In more than six hundred works, created at a breathless speed during his short span of less than thirty-six years, Mozart revealed a universality unknown to any other composer, for his style was founded upon a thorough assimilation and sublimation of the prevailing Italian, French, and German styles of his period; and he carried to perfection all instrumental and vocal forms of his day. No composer ever revealed simul­taneously such creative affluence and such unerring instinct for beauty; few ar­tists in any age have been so copious and yet so controlled, or have so consistently sustained throughout their creative lives such a high level of artistic excellence.
As the end of his tragically short life drew near, the creative force that had sustained him without interruption from his earliest years, seemed to gain a terrifying momentum, as if determined to expend itself in the quick fulfillment of a whole life's destiny. In the last four years of his life he poured forth in feverish haste his great operas--Don Giovanni (1788) and Die Zauberflote (1791); his three master symphonies in E-flat major, G minor, and C major (Jupiter) (1788); the incomparable G-minor Quintet; the exquisite Ein Kleine Nacht Musik, and a host of minor works.
Like Schiller and Nietszche, who worked at such extreme pressure to ful­fill their last potentialities, leaving in turn their unfinished Demetrius and Anti­christ fragments; and like the frenzied young Raphael who painted day and night in an attempt to accomplish the whole span of his life in half the normal period, Mozart left this world writing, but never finishing, what proved to be his own requiem.
? See notes on the G-minor Symphony, page 43.
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
A large part of the fame of the work rests upon the romantic and fan­tastic legend that has grown up about its inception. "A strange, a tall, thin, grave-looking man," wrote Jahn, "dressed from head to foot in grey, and cal­culated from his very appearance to make a striking and weird impression pre­sented Mozart with an anonymous letter, begging him, with many flattering allusions to his accomplishments as an artist, to name his price for composing a requiem, and the shortest time in which he could undertake to complete it. He was allowed to compose the requiem according to his own ideas and was subject to no restrictions, save that he must not seek to discover the identity of his mysterious patron. To Mozart, already overwrought mentally and physically, this was a visitation from another world come to summon him--an obsession he could not banish from his mind, a conviction that he was composing his own requiem." t
The facts are these. In July of 1791, Count Walsegg zu Stuppach sent his steward, Leutgeb, to Mozart to commission him to write a "Mass for the Dead," which he intended to have performed as his own. Mozart died before the work was finished, and his wife, Constanze, prompted by financial necessity, and fear­ing that she would receive no pay for an incompleted work, asked one of Mo­zart's pupils, Joseph Eybler, to finish it. But Eybler grew discouraged, and Constanze turned over the job to Siissmayer, another pupil, who carried the work to completion in a handwriting that was remarkably like his master's. The "Requiem" and "Kyrie" in Mozart's autograph and the rest in Sussmayer's hand was received by Walsseg. It was not until 1799 that the truth became known that Mozart had not completed the work. In 1800 Siissmayer declared to the publishers, Breitkopf and Hartel, who had heard rumors of the deception, that he had done the instrumentation for the first movements according to Mozart's direction, that he finished the Lacrimose and himself composed the last three movements (Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei), repeating the fugue of the Kyrie with the new text Cum Sanctus. Since then scholars have delighted in disproving each other's contentions as to what was and what was not original in the score. Some maintain that the whole work was Mozart's and that Siiss­mayer only filled in the indicated parts (Kochel); others have, like Gottfried Weber and Adolf Bernhard Marx, completely confused the issue by one ac­crediting Mozart and the other Siissmayer, with the same parts. No one to this day has answered with any certainty such questions as "Did Siissmayer obtain sketches from Mozart on this or that portion of the mass" "Did Mozart play portions for him before he could get them on paper" "Was Siissmayer, perhaps,
Otto Jahn, Life of Mozart, trans, from German by Pauline D. Townsend (London: Novello Ewer & Co., 1882).
f A letter dated September 7, 1791, in which Mozart is supposed to have written, "I cannot exclude his image from my mind" has been proved to be spurious.
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a greater composer than we have imagined, as evidenced by the superb beauty of the sections accredited to him "
The real secret of the "Requiem" may never be discovered, and certainly the last word concerning it has not yet been written. Until that time, the aura of mystery and romance will continue to envelope it, and Clio will frown upon Euterpe.
But all of this seems very trivial in the actual presence of the work itself, for the "Requiem," in the words of Marcia Davenport:
.... is one of the eternal epics of man. It is so much a mass for the dead that it transcends life, for there can be no death that has not cooled the fervor called living. Like life and its inseparable death, the Requiem is universal. It is one of those things that comes out of space and stays with us. It has no temporal beginning or end, unless it can be said to have begun when the feeble child first wailed in Salzburg, and ended when the weary man last sighed in Vienna. Even then, it does not stay within the bounds of thirty-five little years. It goes back to the source of experience and it comes down to strike to the heart of reality.
Requiem and Kyrie Eleison
Requiem
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion, et
tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem:
exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis
caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison
Kyrie eleison
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord: and let perpetual light shine upon them. A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Zion; and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem. O hear my prayer, all flesh shall come to Thee. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord: and let perpetual light shine upon them. Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy
Dies Irae
Dies Irae
Dies irae, dies ilia
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibylla.
Quantus tremor est futurus,
Quando Judex est venturus,
Cuncta stricte discussurus!
O day of anger, that day the world shall turn to ashes, as David and the Sibyl have foretold.
How great trembling shall there be, when the Judge shall appear to examine closely every deed!
?Marcia Davenport, Mozart (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1932), pp. 372-73.
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
3. Tuba mirum
Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum. More stupebit et natura, Cum resurget creatura, Judicanti responsura. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet apparebit: Nil inultum remanebit.
Quid sum, miser! tune dicturus Quern patronum rogaturus, Cum vix Justus sit securus
Rex tremendae majestatis Rex tremendae majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis.
Recordare Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viae: Ne me perdas ilia die. Quaerens me, sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus, Tantus labor non sit cassus. Juste judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis. Ingemisco tamquam reus: Culpa rubet vultus meus: Supplicanti parce, Deus. Qui Mariam absolvisti,
Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti. Preces meae non sunt dignae: Sed tu, bonus, fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne. Inter oves locum praesta, Et ab hoedis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra.
The trumpet, blasting its wondrous
sound throughout the tombs of the world, shall gather all before the throne. Death and nature shall be astonished when the creature shall rise again to an­swer before Him who judges. Then the written book shall be brought forth, in which everything is found whence the world shall be judged. Therefore when the Judge shall take his place, whatever is hidden shall be made manifest: nothing shall remain un­punished.
What shall a wretch like I then say Of what patron shall 1 ask help When even the just does not feel quite sure.
King of exceeding majesty, Who savest freely those who are to be saved. Source of pity, save Thou me.
Remember, sweet Jesus, that I am the cause of Thy stay on earth; let me not be lost on that day.
Seeking me, Thou didst sit weary; Thou ¦ didst redeem me suffering on the Cross; may so much labor not prove in vain. Judge of justice, hear my prayer; Spare me, Lord, in mercy spare, Ere the reck­oning-day appear.
Lo, thy gracious face I seek; Shame and grief are on my cheek; Sighs and tears my sorrow speak.
Thou didst Mary's guilt forgive; Didst the dying thief receive; Hence doth hope within me live. Worthless are my prayers I know; yet, oh, cause me not to go into everlasting woe.
Severed from the guilty band, Make me with Thy sheep to stand, Placing me on Thy right hand.
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6. Conjutatis Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis: Voca me cum benedictus.
Oro supplex et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis, Gere curam mei finis.
7. Lacrymosa Lacrymosa dies ilia, Qua resurget ex favilla Judicandus homo reus: Huic ergo parce Deus,
Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.
When the cursed in anguish flee
Into flames of misery,
With the blest then call Thou me.
I pray, imploring on bended knees--my heart, burnt dry like ashes--take care of me in death.
Mournful shall be that day on which
from ashes rises
guilty man, to be judged;
hence spare him, O God.
Kind Jesu, Lord, grant them rest.
@@@@Offertory
8. Domine Jesu Christe
Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae! Libera animas omnium fidelium de-functorum de poenis inferni, et de profundo lacu. Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas Tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum: sed signifer sanc-tus Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam.
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti, et semini ejus.
9. Hostias
Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus, Tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam faci-mus: fac eas, Domine, de morte tran-sire ad vitam.
Quam olim Abrahae promisisti, et semini ejus.
O Lord Jesus Christ, King of Glory, de­liver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the deep pit: deliver them from the mouth of the lion, that hell may not engulf them, that they may not fall into dark­ness: but let the holy standard-bearer Michael lead them into the holy light.
Which Thou of old didst promise to Abraham and his seed.
Sacrifices and prayers to Thee, O Lord, do we offer: do Thou receive them in behalf of those souls, whom we recall to mind this day. Grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to life.
Which Thou of old didst promise to Abraham and his seed.
Sanctus
10. Sanctus
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Domine Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni mint coeli et terra gloria tua. Osanna in excelsis.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest.
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
11. Benedictus
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Blessed is He that cometh in the name
Domini. Osanna in excelsis. of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
Agnus Dei
12. Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins
mundi: dona eis requiem. of the world: grant them rest.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins
mundi: dona eis requiem. of the world: grant them rest.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins
mundi: dona eis requiem sem- of the world: grant them everlasting rest, piternam.
Lux Aeterna
13. Lux aeterna
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine: May light eternal shine upon them, O
Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, Lord, with Thy saints forever, because
quia pius es. Thou art merciful.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia With Thy saints forever, because Thou
pius es. art merciful.
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, D major, Op. 35 . Tchaikovsky
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky was born May 7, 1840, at Kamsko-Votinsk; died November 6, 1893, at St. Petersburg.
A Russian to the core, Tchaikovsky was nevertheless criticized severely by those self-styled "nationalists," "The Five," for being too strongly influenced by German and French methods and styles to be a true exponent of Russian music. He, on the other hand, found much to admire in their art, and was very enthusi­astic in his praise of Rimski-Korsakov in particular. Nevertheless, he resented the assumption of superiority and the canons of judgment laid down by this coterie. He turned rather to Beethoven and to the scholarly technique exhibited in the construction of his symphonies and concerti. At the same time he was not im­mune to the charm of Italian music, and although he deprecated its superficial
The Small Missal (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1942); Gregorian Requiem Mass by the Benedictine Monks Choir (Saint-Benoit-du-Lac, Canada, n.d.).
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use of the orchestra, he did sense in the music of Italy the eternal value of pure melody, which he brought to fullest beauty through his superb and unequaled knowledge of instrumental effects. From Beethoven, Tchaikovsky no doubt gained his superior sense of architectural design and unity of style, but so intent was he on the fascination and charm of the single episode, and so aware of the spell of the immediate melodic beauty and the particular suggestive power of the orchestral coloring, that he never gained the superb structural heights or the com­pletely epic conception found in Beethoven. The constant oscillation between sudden exaltation, violent passion, and unresisted submission in his temperament excluded the sustaining and impersonal elements necessary to the true epic. He gave himself up, as Sibelius noted when speaking of his music, to every situation without looking beyond the moment, and in spite of the fact that his symphonies and concerti rank among the finest examples of musical architecture, their spirit, like those of Schubert, is not symphonic. But such is the beauty and power of his themes, so fine is their general architectural construction, and above all so master­ful and effective is the use he makes of the orchestral palette that we do not consider it a discrepancy to find so thoroughly a lyric conception encased in such epic forms.
As in the case of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, a single concerto for violin is Tchaikovsky's contribution to the literature for violin virtuosi. Al­though completed in the spring of 1878 with the assistance of Kotek, a violinist who was visiting the composer at Clarens, almost four years elapsed before the work was given a public performance. Tchaikovsky had dedicated the concerto to Leopold Auer--the celebrated teacher of the performer of the composition on this occasion--who was then the principal teacher of violin at the Petrograd Conservatory. Because of the difficulties of the solo part, the famous virtuoso could not bring himself to undertake a presentation of the work.
Brodsky, a concert artist of considerable reputation and a teacher of violin at the Moscow Conservatory with which Tchaikovsky also was connected as instructor in composition, produced the concerto for the first time in Vienna at a concert of the Philharmonic Society, Hans Richter conducting. The result of the performance was indecisive, since there had been only one rehearsal and the orchestra accompanied fianissimo throughout, so that if anything went wrong the effect would be less displeasing. The reviewers of the work were almost unanimous in its condemnation, though there had been much applause at the concert. The criticism which hurt the composer most, when in Italy he chanced on reviews of the performance of which he had been totally unaware, was written by Hanslick and published in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna. It would seem from the following that Hanslick had neither sympathy for Russian music in general, nor respect for Tchaikovsky:
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The violin is no longer played, it is yanked about, it is torn asunder, beaten black and blue. I do not know whether it is possible for any one to conquer these harassing difficulties, but I do know that Mr. Brodsky martyrized his hearers as well as himself.
For several paragraphs the reviewer continued in this vein, seeming to go out of his way to discover phrases of opprobrium to cast at the work.
The fact that the concerto has since made a "triumphal progress" through the concert halls of Europe and America and has been interpreted by the greatest virtuosi (only those of supreme technical powers can essay it) is significant proof that the initial verdict of the Vienna critics was neither final nor just.
Analysis
In the first movement {Allegro moderate, D major, 4-4), the opening theme heard in the first violins is not the principal subject; this is announced later by the solo instrument. After some brilliant passages, the second theme is also announced by the solo instrument. Following a short episode, the development section manip­ulates the first theme. The solo instrument is heard interpolating a great amount of complicated passage work, and after further treatment of the first theme in the orchestra, a long and rather elaborate cadenza is played by the solo violin. The recapitulation of the first section follows, and the movement ends with a brilliant coda.
The violins announce the first theme of the second movement (Canzonetta --Andante, G minor, 3-4), after a twelve-measure introduction in the wood­winds. The solo instrument presents the second theme, which is marked by a triplet figure. This finally leads to a return of the first theme still in the solo instrument, with an accompanying arpeggio figure in the clarinet. The intro­duction to the movement returns and then leads without pause into the finale.
After a sixteen-measure introduction and cadenza for the solo violin, the principal theme of the third movement {Allegro vivacissimo, D major, 2-4) 19 announced in the solo violin. It is in reality a Russian dance known as the "Trepak." In a more tranquil section, the second theme is heard in the violin over a drone bass. After a return of the "Trepak" theme there is some develop­ment of it. The second theme reappears and the movement ends with an ex­tended and extremely brilliant coda built upon material from the opening theme.
THIRD CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 4 Overture to "The Bartered Bride" Smetana
Friedrich Smetana was born in Leitomischl, Bohemia, March 2, 1824; died in Prague, May 12, 1884.
Smetana's position in his own country is unique among musicians. Neither Chopin nor Grieg have quite the same powerful national significance. His works are permeated with the spirit of national life in its widest sense. By his deter­mined optimism and farsightedness, he made his art a wonderful stimulus to a rebirth of national feeling. Through his music, Smetana made himself a national hero. He revealed through it a stimulating optimism and made his people aware of their great spirit. Art can never live merely by pessimism, skepticism, and sadness. For that reason mankind has always considered its special benefac­tion to be artists who have been able to infuse human souls with gladness, and life with joy. In this respect the nineteenth century never saw a greater genius than Smetana. Since Mozart's time there has not been a composer who, with such refined art, and such alluring freshness, could delight the world with such warm, frank, and genial art as Smetana. His life, unfortunately, gave to him few of the gifts he bestowed upon his countrymen and upon all humanity. Rivaling Mozart as a child prodigy, his early youth gave promise of a brilliant and happy future. But in later years his life was full of tragic experiences. At the age of fifty, he, like Beethoven, became totally deaf. He bore this blow with patient courage, but his health began to fail. Depression settled deeply in his soul, and soon he disclosed symptoms of mental collapse. Attacked now by hideous delusions, his memory gave way, and he died in an asylum for the insane at Prague, in utter eclipse of mind. And on the shores of the mighty Moldau, which he immortalized in his music, he lies buried.
The gay and sparkling music of The Bartered Bride, however, reflects nothing of the deep tragedy that coursed through Smetana's life. The melodic charm, the vivacious and sprightly tempo, and the infectious rhythm of this delightful music have made it in recent years one of the most popular overtures on current programs.
"The Moldau," a symphonic poem (written between 1874 and 1879), belongs to a cycle of symphonic works, under the general title of "Ma Vlast" ("My Country"), which, founded on national subjects, have served to carry his fame farther afield than any other examples of his art.
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AMERICAN FOLK SONGS
1. Blow the Man Down Sailor Chantey
Come, all ye young fellows that follow the sea, With a yeo ho! we'll blow the man down! And please pay attention and listen to me, Give us some time to blow the man down! As I was a-walking down Paradise Street, With a yeo ho! we'll blow the man down! A pretty young damsel I chanced for to meet, Give us some time to blow the man down! Says she to me, "Will you stand a treat," With a yeo ho! we'll blow the'man down! "Delighted," says I, "for a charmer so sweet," Give us some time to blow the man down!
2. De Boatman Old River Boat Song
O de boatman dance, de boatman sing,
De boatman up to ebry ting.
When de boatman come on shore,
He spend his money and he wuk fo' mo'.
Hi O, de boatman row,
Up an' down de ribber in his ol' bateau.
Did you ebber see where de boatman live
His house in de holler wid a roof like a sieve!
Boatman say he got one wish,
Ef it gets much wetter he's a gonter be a fish.
Hi O, de boatman row,
Up an' down de ribber of de Ohio.
3. Lonesome Valley .... White Spiritual from the South Highlands
Jesus walked this lonesome valley, He had to walk it by Himself, Oh nobody else could walk it for Him, He had to walk it by Himself. We must walk this lonesome valley, We have to walk it by ourselves, Oh, nobody else can walk it for us, We have to walk it by ourselves.
4. Down the Stream Miwok Indian Song
This is a song of healing and is sung over and over by the medicine man.
Down the stream, Down the stream,
All the leaves go; All my days go;
Who can say, who can know, Who can say, who can know,
Where the leaves go Where my days go
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5. Green Grow the Lilacs
The story is familiar of the early cowboys in Texas singing "Green Grow the Lilacs" so constantly that the Spanish-speaking Texans called them "gringoes" (green grows). Whether this be true or not, there is little doubt that the song was carried into the frontiers by early settlers and cattlemen.
Then green grow the lilacs and so does the rue, How sad's been the day since I parted from you, But at our next meeting, our love we'll renew. We'll change the green lilac for the Oregon blue.
On top of yon mountain where green lilacs grow And over the valley where the still waters flow I met my true love and he proWd to be true; We chang'd the green lilac for the Oregon blue.
6. The Bold Soldier . . Early Vermont Folksong
Soldier, O soldier that comes from the plain, Courted a lady to honor and to fame. Her beauty shone so bright that it never could be told. She always loved a soldier because he was so bold. Fa la la la, la la la la la.
Soldier, O soldier I would be your bride.
But for fear of my father some danger might betide,
Then he pulled out sword and pistol and hung them by his side,
He swore he would be married no matter what betide.
Fa la la la, la la la la la.
7. Ef I Had a Ribbon Bow
Ef I had a ribbon bow to bind my hair,
Ef I had a fancy sash my own true love would think me fair,
And when he goes to Frankfort, loggin on the rise,
He'd bring me back with his own hands
A very pretty prize.
Ef I had a ribbon bow to bind my hair,
Ef I had a fancy sash my own true love would think me fair,
Ef I was like the city brung and fair with smart,
Ne'er a lad in all them parts would know my heart.
Then I'd live in Frankfort, where all the lawin' goes,
I'd lark about the settlements
And wear the furrin cloths.
Ef I was like the city brung and fair with smart,
Ne'er a lad in all them parts would know my heart.
From "Seven Kentucky Mountain Songs," collected and arranged by John J. Niles. Copyright, 1929, by G. Schirmer, Inc.
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8. Somebody's Knocking at Your Door Negro Spiritual
Somebody's knocking at your door, Sounds like Jesus. Can't you hear Him
Somebody's knocking at your door. Somebody's knocking at your door.
O sinner, why don't you answer Sounds like Jesus. Can't you hear Him
Somebody's knocking at your door. Somebody's knocking at your door.
9. Adelita Early Spanish--California
Adelita's the name of my lady. If perhaps I should die in the battle
She's my darling, my lovely, my dear. And be left on the field so drear.
Never think I shall ever forget her, Adelita, I pray you'll remember
Or desert her for anyone here. And shed for your lover a tear.
Ay, ay, ay. Ay, ay, Ay, ay, ay. Ay, ay,
Ay, ay, ay, Adelita. Ay, ay, ay, Adelita.
10. Pat on the Railway American Traditional
In the early days of railroad building crews of Irish pick and shovel men had an important share. The great Irish emigration to America took place in the 1840's. Judging from the words, these men began to work almost as soon as they arrived on these shores. This song is one of the best of Irish railroad-building songs and has been very popular ever since it was published about 1850.
In eighteen hundred and forty-wan It's "Pat, do this," and it's "Pat do that"
I put me cord-roy breeches on, Without a stocking or cravat,
I put me cord-roy breeches on And nothing but an old straw hat
To work upon the railway. To work upon the railway.
Fil-i-me-oo-re-i-re-ay, Fil-i-me-oo-re-i-re-ay,
To work upon the railway. To work upon the railway.
In eighteen hundred and forty-three,
'Twas then I met sweet Biddy Magee,
An ilegant wife she's been to me
While workin' on the railway.
Fil-i-me-oo-re-i-re-ay,
To work upon the railway.
11. When Your Potato's Done Creole
When your potato's done, you should eat it, Cooked to a turn, not a burn, . When your potato's done, you should eat it. You should eat it hot. Tra la la la la la.
When my potato's done, I shall eat it, Frizzled or charred, soft or hard. When my potato's done, I shall eat it If it's good or not!
From "Americans and Their Songs" by Frank Luther. Reprinted by permission of Frank Luther and Harper & Bros., publishers.
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12. Rosa-Becka-Lina Play Party Game
Lead her up and down Rosa-becka-lina. Hit that back step, Rosa-becka-lina.
I want you to be my darling. I want you to be my darling.
Swing that girl, Rosa-becka-lina. Swing that girl, Rosa-becka-lina.
I want you to be my darling. I want you to be my darling.
"Ritorna vincitor" from "Aida" Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi was born in La Roncole, Octo­ber 9, 1813; died in Milan, January 17, 1901.
.Aida was written for the Khedive of Egypt and was first performed in Cairo, December 24, 1871, and since that time has exerted its perennial appeal wherever in the world opera is performed. For Aida has no rivals in the field for the dramatic power of its music and the living intensity of its plot.
Stirring choruses and magnificent orchestration--myriads of vibrant colors, abundance of pure Italian melody against richly-moving harmonies--sound throughout a story of intrigue, love, hate, jealousy, and sacrifice. All this is acted, with attending pomp and spectacular pageantry, against the background of an Egyptian and Ethiopian war in the time of the Pharaoh.
Ai'da, daughter of Amonasro, King of Ethiopia, has been captured by the Egyptians and is a slave at the Court of Memphis, where she and the young soldier, Rhadames, have fallen in love. The Ethiopians, under the command of Amonasro, have invaded Egypt to rescue Aida, and Rhadames is named to lead the Egyptian army against them. Aida, forgetting temporarily her native land, and under the spell of her love for Rhadames, joins the frenzied crowd in their cry, "Return victorious." Left alone, after their departure, Aida expresses the conflict in her heart between her duty to her father and her love for Rhadames:
Return victorious! From my lips went forth these blasphemous words for the enemy of my father who now takes arms to save me. Recall them, O gods; return me to my father; destroy the armies of our oppressors. But shall I call death upon Rhadames Love, break thou my heart and let me die! Hear me, you gods on high.
"Voi lo sapete" from "Cavalleria Rusticana" . . . . Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni was born at Leghorn, Decem­ber 7, 1863; died August 2, 1945, at Rome.
In 1889 Mascagni was lifted from utter obscurity to the pinnacle of fame when he won a prize offered by the music publisher, Sonzogno, for the best
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one-act opera. Using the libretto of "Cavalleria Rusticana" by G. Targioni-Tozzetti and G. Menasci, which was adapted from a simple Sicilian tale by Giovanni Verga, Mascagni composed his opera in eight days. Its success was immediate, and wild enthusiasm and excitement swept over the audience at its first performance at the Costanzi Theater in Rome, May 17, 1890. Medals were struck in his honor, and the King of Italy conferred upon him the Order of the Crown of Italy; and since its first sensational production, Cavalleria Rusticana has held its place for over a half a century as one of the most genuinely dramatic operas in existence. Mascagni was never able in his many attempts to duplicate its success. His shallow vein of musical invention ran dry and he de­scended into oblivion as a composer as suddenly as he arose to fame. But as long as opera exerts its power upon us, his name will be kept alive by this momentary but superb manifestation of his genius.
Turiddu, a young Sicilian peasant, returns from the war to find his sweet­heart, Lola, wedded to Alfio. For consolation he courts Santuzza, who loves him desperately. Soon tiring of her, he turns again to Lola, who encourages him. Santuzza, in despair, informs Alfio of Lola's faithlessness. In fury Alfio challenges Turiddu and kills him.
Stung by the great wrong done her, Santuzza pours out her heart's grief and anguish to Lucia, the mother of Turiddu:
Well you know, Mother Lucia, how Turiddu plighted his troth to Lola before he left for the war, and how he turned to me for love. Now Turiddu and Lola love again, and I can only weep and weep and weep!
Tone Poem: "Finlandia," Op. 26 Sibelius
During the summer and fall of 1899,tne indignation of the Finnish people was aroused by the oppression of the Russian invader who curtailed their freedom of speech, and suppressed their newspapers. They revolted openly by forming patriotic demonstrations in the guise of festivals and entertainments, from which they collected funds to aid the press. These "Press Celebrations" proved not only a financial success, but a great boon to moral regeneration. The climax of these celebrations took place in the Swedish Theater at Helsingfors on the evening of November 4. The feature of the performance was a series of "Tableaux from the Past," for which Sibelius provided the musical settings--an overture, an in­troduction to each tableau, and a concluding tone poem. This incidental music did not make a particular impression until it was performed in the concert hall in a revised form known as "Scenes Historiques I" (1900), consisting of the numbers "All' overtura," "Scena," and "Festive" The most stirring music composed for the "Press Celebration" was not included in the "Scenes Histo[38] '
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riques," however, but was saved by Sibelius for a thorough revision. This was the Finale, and it was now given the name "Finlandia." From that moment it be­came the symbol of Finland's struggle for existence, and as such it won its place in the heart of the world. In Finland it aroused a tremendous response--far greater than all the political pamphlets, newspaper articles, and national cele­brations could incite. It became a direct contribution to the work of political re-sistence in Finland at the end of the last century. "It was actually rather late," wrote Sibelius, "that 'Finlandia' was performed under its final title. At the farewell concert of the Philharmonic Orchestra before leaving for Paris, when the tone poem was played for the first time in its revised form, it was called "Suomi." It was introduced by the same name in Scandinavia; in German towns it was called "Vaterland"; and in Paris, "La Patrie." In Finland its performance was forbidden during the years of unrest, and in other parts of the empire it was not allowed to be played under any name which in any way indi­cated its patriotic character. When I conducted in Reval and Rega by invitation of 1904, I had to call it 'Impromptu'."
"Finlandia" was one of the first works to establish Sibelius' reputation in this and other countries outside of Finland. Its purely external, frankly popular, and patriotic qualities won it a place in practically every orchestra and band repertory, and for years the name of Sibelius was, unfortunately, identified with it. Today, however, although "Finlandia" can still move us with its sincerity and patriotic fervor, we have learned that, to take a just measure of Sibelius' stature as a truly great creative artist, we must turn rather to his epic symphonies.
Excerpts from "Porgy and Bess" Gershwin
"Summertime"
"My Man's Gone Now"
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York, September 28, 1898; died in Hollywood, July 11, 1937.
Gershwin's Negro folk opera Porgy and Bess, based upon Du Bois and Dorothy Heyward's novel, Porgy, is too well-known to American audiences to warrant much further comment. It was first produced by the New York Theater Guild on October 10, 1935. Being Gershwin's last major work, it is interesting as the final revelation of his strength and weakness as a serious com­poser. Here, as in everything he wrote, there is the same abundant lyricism, the same indefatigable melodic gift displayed. In such songs as are heard on this afternoon's programs--in these lyrical inspirations of short duration--he is at his very best. Looked upon as an opera, however, Porgy and Bess, in the
Karl Ekman, Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf; 1938), pp. 15+-55[39]
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opinion of many critics, is unable to create simultaneously sufficient dramatic and musical intensity and continuity, for Gershwin never learned to sustain and de­velop his musical ideas beyond the moment of their presentation. Like Franz Schubert, who had a similar spontaneous melodic gift, he seemed baffled by the more epic forms. But in the narrower limits of the song Gershwin was supreme. In spite of this, however, the fact remains that of all the operas produced by American composers, Porgy and Bess alone seems to have the necessary vitality to survive. "The more conventionally educated composers," wrote Virgil Thomson in 1935, "have been writing operas and getting them produced at the Metropolitan for twenty or thirty years .... and yet nothing ever really happens in them .... Gershwin does not even know what an opera is, and yet Porgy and Bess is an opera, and it has power and vigor. Hence, it is a more important event in America's artistic life than anything American the Metropolitan has ever done."
Scherzo and Nocturne from Music to Shakespeare's
"Midsummer Night's Dream" Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born February 3, 1809, at Hamburg; died November 4, 1847, at Leipzig.
It is well in these chaotic days to turn to a perfectly balanced nature such as Mendelssohn, in whose life and art all was order and refinement. There are few instances in the history of art of a man so abundantly gifted with the good quali­ties of mind and spirit. He had the love as well as the respect of his contempo­raries, for aside from his outstanding musical and intellectual gifts, he possessed a genial--even gay--yet pious nature. Moses Mendelssohn, the famous philoso­pher, was his grandfather; and, in an atmosphere of culture and learning, every educational advantage was his. In fact, one might almost say that he was too highly educated for a musician. Throughout his life he was spared the economic insecurity felt so keenly by many composers; he never knew poverty or priva­tion, never experienced any great soul-stirring disappointments, suffered neglect, nor any of the other ill fortunes that seemed to beset Beethoven, Mozart, Schu­bert, or Verdi. His essentially happy spirit and healthy mind were never clouded by melancholy; no morbidity ever colored his thinking. His genius was of the highest order, but it was never tried and tempered in fire, nor strengthened by forces of opposition. It produced, therefore, an art that was, like his life, de­lightful, well-ordered, and serene.
Mendelssohn was seventeen years of age when, in 1826, he and his sister, Fanny, read Shakespeare for the first time in a German translation by Schlegel
? Virgil Thomson, "George Gershwin," Modern Music, XIII, No. 1 (November-December, 1935).
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and Tieck. Midsummer Night's Dream particularly engaged his fancy, and in July and August of that year, he wrote his famous "Overture." "We were mentioning yesterday," wrote Fanny Mendelssohn on October 18, 1843, "what an important part the "Midsummer Night's Dream" has played in our house, and how we had all at different ages gone through the whole of the parts from Peaseblossom to Hermia and Helena--Felix especially had made it his own, almost re-creating the characters which had sprung from Shakespeare's exhaust-less genius."
The "Overture" was originally written as a piano duet, but had its first public performance as an orchestral piece at Stetin in February, 1827. It was not until 1843, however, that Mendelssohn wrote the Incidental Music. King Frederick William IV of Prussia commissioned him to compose it for a special performance of the play in that year, and he wrote twelve additional numbers for the occasion. The performance, which was conducted by Mendelssohn, took place at the Royal Theater in the New Palace at Potsdam, October 14, 1843, on the eve of the King's birthday.
The Nocturne is heard at the end of Act III. The impish Puck has just led the bewildered pairs of lovers "over hill and over dale" and they lie exhausted, as the mists of night descend upon them. The dreamy music of the Nocturne is heard after Puck has squeezed the juice of the magic herb into their eyes, and they sink into sleep.
The Scherzo is played between Acts I and II. Fairy horns awaken the sprites of the forest to their mischief.
Rondo: "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," Op. 28 . . Strauss
Richard Strauss was born in Munich, July 11, 1864.
One of the most interesting and extraordinary personalities in the world of music today is Richard Strauss. Whatever his antagonistic critics say of him, he remains one of the greatest living composers. Trained during his formative years in the classical musical traditions of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, he exerted his individuality and independence of thought and expression with such daring and insistence that at his mature period, he was considered the most modern and most radical of composers. Critics turned from their tirades against Wagner to vent their invectives upon him. They vilified him as they had Wagner, with a fury and persistence that seems incredible today. Although time has not caused this radicalism to disappear completely, Strauss is today slipping comfortably into the ranks of the conservatives. The progressive unfolding of his genius has aroused much discussion, largely because it has had so many sud[41]
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den shifts. From the first his extraordinary mastery of technical procedure has been manifest. He has again and again shown his power to create beauty of rare freshness, and then has dropped to the commonplace of the merely sensa­tional. This lack of consistency and earnestness still keeps him from taking his place as the true successor of Wagner, to which his skill seems to entitle him.
There is much wisdom contained in an old German proverb, "Der Mensch erkennt seine Fehler ebensowenig wie eine Affe oder eine Eule die in den Spiegel sehn, ihre eigene Hesslichkeit erkennen." And this translates: "Man is as little prone to recognize his own shortcomings as an ape, or an owl, looking into a mirror, is conscious of his own ugliness."
The name "Eulenspiegel" itself is translated "owls'glass" or "owls'mirror," and the rascal Till first came into prominence within the pages of Dr. Thomas Murner's Volksbuch or book of folklore, supposed to have been widely read by the German people in the year 1500 or thereabouts. Till's escapades, the stories of which are household tales in Germany, consisted of crude horseplay and jests that he, an insolent, perverse, arrogant, and defiant rascal, practiced without any discrimination, and, in some instances, with a very studied lack of seemliness.
Strauss's Tone Poem was presented without a strict explanatory program. In fact, Strauss demurred at the demand for such a program. "Were I to put into words," he wrote at the time of the first performance at Cologne in November, 1895, "the thoughts which the composition's several incidents suggested to me, they would seldom suffice and might even give rise to offense. Let me leave it therefore to my readers to crack the hard nut which the rogue has prepared for them."
William Mauke, an analyst, has himself supplied an exhaustive program. Paraphrased and reduced, it is somewhat as follows:
Once upon a time, there was a pranking rogue, ever up to new tricks, named Till Eulenspiegel. Now he jumps on his horse and gallops into the midst of a crowd of market women, overturning their wares with a prodigious clatter. Now he lights out with seven league boots, now conceals himself in a mousehole. Disguised as a priest "he drips with unction and morals," yet out of his toe peeps the scamp. As cavalier, he makes love, first in jest, but soon in earnest, and is properly rebuffed. He is furious and swears vengeance on all mankind, but meeting some "Philistines," he forgets his wrath and mocks them. At length his hoaxes fail. He is tried in a court of justice, and is condemned to hang for his misdeeds; but he still whistles defiantly as he ascends the ladder. Even on the scaffold he jests. Now he swings; he gasps for air; a last convulsion. Till is dead.
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FOURTH CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 4
Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K. 550) Mozart
"I could not love, except where Death was mingling his with Beauty's breath . . . ."
--E. A. Poe
During the summer of 1788, three years before his untimely death, Mozart was in dire mental distress. Ignored as a composer by musicians, slighted by his Emperor, Joseph II, without the security of a patron, and with his beloved Constanze ill and his finances at their lowest ebb, Mozart turned to his trusted, faithful friend and brother Mason, Michael Puchberg, for help. In a letter to him, dated June 27, 1788, we learn of Mozart's unhappy situation:
Dearest, Most Beloved Friend!
I have been expecting to go to town myself one of these days and to be able to thank you in person for the kindness you have shown me. But now I should not even have the courage to appear before you, as I am obliged to tell you frankly that it is im­possible for me to pay back so soon the money you have lent me and that I must beg you to be patient with me! I am very much distressed that your circumstances at the mo­ment prevent you from assisting me as much as I could wish, for my position is so serious that I am unavoidably obliged to raise money somehow. But, good God, in whom can I confide In no one but you, my best friend! If you would only be so kind as to get the money for me through some other channel! I shall willingly pay the interest and whoever lends it to me will, I believe, have sufficient security in my character and my income. I am only too grieved to be in such an extremity; but that is the very reason why I should like a fairly substantial sum for a somewhat longer feriod, I mean, in order to be able to prevent a recurrence of this state of affairs. If you, my most worthy brother, do not help me in this predicament, I shall lose my honour and my credit, which of all things I wish to preserve. I rely entirely on your genuine friendship and brotherly love and confidently expect that you will stand by me in word and deed. If my wish is fulfilled, I can breathe freely again, because I shall then be able to put my affairs in order and keef them so. Do come and see me. I am always at home. During the ten days since I have come to live here I have done more work than in two months in my former quarters, and if such black thoughts did not come to me so often, thoughts which I banish by a tremendous effort, things would be even better, for my
The Emperor appointed Mozart later to the post of Court Composer, left vacant by Gluck, at the extremely low salary of 800 florin a year (Gluck had received 2000). He had to write nothing better than court dances on commission. "Too much for what I do, too little for what I could do," Mozart is supposed to have written on one of his tax returns.
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rooms are pleasant, comfortable, and chea-p. I shall not detain you any longer with my drivel but shall stof talking--and tope.
One day before the date of this letter, Mozart completed the E-flat Sym­phony (K. 543), the first of his three last and greatest symphonies. Within less than two months he finished the other two, the G minor (K. 550) on June 25, which he wrote in the short span of ten days; and the C major (Jupiter), on August 10. From then on, music surged from him with increasing momentum until death finally stayed his hand. The actual circumstances of their creation are unknown, and the chances are he never conducted, or even heard them performed.f
Here is a story dear to the heart of the romantic sentimentalist who, unable to identify success with romance, takes perverse satisfaction from the thought that the true artist is always misunderstood and unappreciated by his age. Thus it was quite natural for a tradition to grow up around the G-minor Symphony in particular, as "Mozart's Pathetique." Nicholas von Nisson, the husband of Mozart's widow, and his first biographer i wrote of the work, "It is the ex­pression of a moving and restless passion, a struggle, a combat against a powerful penetrating agitation." Fetis, writing in La Revue Musicale for May n of the same year (1828), referred to "the invention which flames" in this symphony, to the "accents of passion" and the "melancholy color that dominates." And to Mozart's later and greatest biographer, Jahn, § the work was "full of pain and lamentation" where "sorrow rises in a continuous climax to wild merriment, as if to stifle care" and where the "soft plaint of the opening theme" grows into "a piercing cry of anguish."
It is difficult for us today with a century of Romanticism and its "soaring flight in grief" behind us, to hear in Mozart's reserved style, "relentless pas­sion" or "a piercing cry of anguish." Against the defiant and epic struggles of Beethoven, the overwrought intensity of Wagner, and the depressing melancholy or hysterical outbursts of self-pity in Tchaikovsky, the music of Mozart's G minor appeals to us rather as reflective, or wistful expression, perhaps; or as it did to Berlioz, as "grace, delicacy, melodic charm and finesse of workmanship." We are apt to miss "the melancholy color that dominates," and "the pain and lamentation" that so impressed those of another century.
If we listen to the G minor, however, not in terms of the nineteenth cen­tury, but in comparison with other symphonies of the eighteenth century, or hear
The Letters of Mozart and his Family, ed. Anderson (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1938), III: 1363.
t See notes on the Requiem, p. 25.
$Von Nisson, Biografhie W. A. Mozart (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1828).
§ Otto Jahn, Life of Mozart, trans, by Pauline D. Townsend (London: Novello Ewer & Co., 1882).
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it in relation to Mozart's E-flat major and C major of the same period, it is not difficult to imagine how intense it must have seemed to listeners of 1790; for in matters of formal sequence, modulation, and instrumental writing, it offered a radical departure in emotional expression. The opening theme of the first movement for instance, with its falling semitone figure (the "soft plaint" of Jahn) accompanied by the dark hues of the divided viols, the descending chro­matic melodic line supported by chromatic harmonies and the persisting chro­matic nature of the second theme, must have had a peculiarly haunting effect upon an age that listened diatonically. How sharp and abrupt must have seemed the arbitrary chords in remote keys and the quick shifts and contrasts of key levels to ears accustomed to smooth transitions and prepared modulations. The sound of the horns pitched in different keys, B flat and G, and treated as separate and individual instruments, thus doubling the normal number of horn notes, must have added a unique kind of sonority to an age that used its brass merely to sup­port the harmony. And how tempestuous must the minuet have seemed, with its complex polyphonic writing and sharp dissonances.
But whether this symphony is "tragic," "melancholy," "full of restless pas­sion," or merely "grace, delicacy, and melodic charm" is all quite incidental to the eternal values, in terms of the beauty it possesses. The "passion," and "an­guish," after all, is in the ears of the listener, not in the music, for patterns of sound arouse; they do not contain emotions within them. This emotional quality varies with the individual or changes with the ages. But the value of Mozart's music is quite beyond that which any individual or period chooses to give to it. "Under the form of beauty" it leads us rather "to the comprehension of the whole universe," and there its true meaning is eternal and changeless.
"Batti, batti, bel Masetto" from "Don Giovanni" . . . Mozart
In the Wiener Zeitung (No. 91), 1878, after the first performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Prague there appeared the following criticism:
On Monday, October 29th, Kapellmeister Mozart's long expected opera "Don Giovanni" was performed by the Italian opera company of Prague. Musicians and con­noisseurs are agreed in declaring that such a performance has never before been wit­nessed in Prague. Here Mozart himself conducted and his appearance in the orchestra was a signal for cheers which were renewed at his exit. The opera is exceedingly difficult of execution and the excellence of the representation, in spite of the short time allowed for studying the work, was the subject of general remark. The whole powers of both action and orchestra were put forward to do honor to Mozart. Considerable ex­pense was incurred for additional chorus and scenery. The enormous audience was a sufficient guarantee of the public favor.
Mozart used no trumpets or tympani in this symphony, and in the original version, did without clarinets. Later lie rewrote the oboe parts and gave some of them to the clarinet.
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The work was then given in Vienna, May 7, 1788, by command of Em­peror Joseph II. It was a failure, however, in spite of the fact that it was given fifteen performances that year. A contemporary writer, Schink, indignant at the cold reception given the work in Vienna, wrote, "How can this music, so full of force, majesty, and grandeur be expected to please the lovers of ordinary opera The grand and noble qualities of the music in 'Don Giovanni' will appeal only to the small minority of the elect. It is not such as to tickle the ear of the crowd and leave the heart unsatisfied. Mozart is no ordinary composer."
Goethe, after a performance in Weimar in 1797, writes to Schiller, "Your hopes for opera are richly fulfilled in 'Don Giovanni' but the work stands absolutely alone and Mozart's death prevents any prospect of its example being Mowed."
In the opera, the scene immediately preceding the finale of the first act presents Zerlina, the peasant girl, and Masetto, to whom she is betrothed. In this scene she is endeavoring to make her peace with Masetto, who remains indif­ferent because of her apparent flirtation with Don Giovanni. She pleads that the flattery of the stranger was but a passing fancy and that on the eve of their wed­ding day Masetto should forgive her.
The text in a translation follows:
Canst thou see me unforgiven, Here in sorrow stand and languish Oh Masetto, end my anguish, Come, and let's be friends again.
(Masetto comes nearer)
Oh believe, I sore repent it, But I did not understand, Come, no longer then resent it Give me kindly thy dear hand.
{Masetto goes away again, but not so
crossly; he even steals a jetv glances
back at Zerlina.)
Canst thou see me unforgiven,
Here in sorrow stand and languish etc.,
Peace and joy once more shall bless us,
Not 3. frown shall e'er distress us,
While united and delighted,
All our days shall sweetly glide.
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"Ah, non credea mirarti" from
"La Sonnambula" Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini was born at Catania in Sicily, No­vember i, 1801; died at Paris, September 24, 1835.
The fame of Vincenzo Bellini was carried throughout Europe in 1831, when he was but twenty-nine years of age, with the performance of his opera, "I Capuletti ed i montacchi" {Romeo and Juliet). At a time when the florid music of Rossini was all the fashion, the elegiac charm of Bellini's art, with its simple and idyllic melody, made a profound impression.
Like his fellow countrymen, Rossini and Donizetti, Bellini considered the human voice the chief medium through which emotion and sentiment could be expressed best in opera. His orchestration, therefore, remained, for the most part, weak and colorless; the woodwind section became practically superfluous. Only the strings were necessary to give the proper support to the all-important vocal melody. But for the complete realization of all the subtle nuance that lies within the power of the human voice, for an infinitely expressive vocal style, Bellini has had few peers in the realm of opera.
Although Norma is Bellini's most familiar work today, La Sonnambula is still considered to be his masterpiece. In the 1830's it was looked upon as a novelty by a sensational young composer; by 1852 it was included in every operatic repertory in Europe and translated into German, French, Polish, Czechoslovakian, Finnish, Danish, Swedish, and Croatian. In the "golden age" of singing, it became a favorite vehicle for such famous singers as Malibran, Patti, Lind, Campanini, and Grisi. The succeeding era of Wagnerianism, with its desire for the grandiose and overly-complex, found the thin orchestration, the delicate melodies, and the vocal frills of Bellini inexpressive and even stupid, and the opera disappeared from the boards for a time. Around 1905, revivals with Caruso, Sembrich, Plangon, and Tetrazzini, revealed again the charm of this score, which lay in its very simplicity. But for some reason it has never won the lasting esteem that has been granted the composer's more heroic work, Norma.
The aria, "Ah, non credea mirarti," opens with a beautiful cantabile in A minor. Its pathos is fully in keeping with the plight of the heroine, Amina, who, discarded by her lover and forsaken by her friends, weeps over the loss of her brief happiness. Regarding the flowers which her lover has given her, she cries:
Ah, must you fade, sweet flowers, forsaken by sun and rain You are as transient as love that lives and,withers in one short day. May my tears restore you, although they are powerless to revive the devotion of a lost love.
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Soliloquy for Flute and String Orchestra Rogers
Bernard Rogers was born in New York City, February 4, 1893.
This short but eloquent work is by an American composer whose idiom is modern, but not in the least radical. Written in 1922, "Soliloquy" sounds a few overtones of French Impressionism that were heard in much of the music America was producing at that period. It is written in a free, fantasia-like style, unrestricted by any specific or conventional form, and achieves throughout its short span a translucency that never dissolves into vagueness or mere suggestion. Written with strength and sureness, there is neither mere cerebral working out, nor oversimplification of its material. The free cadenza-like theme announced in the flute, wanders at will at the beginning, and is finally supported by the strings in a richly moving background in which echoes of the flute theme are occasionally heard. After a glowing climax, the flute resumes the first theme, and, against a high string tone, comes to a quiet close.
Bernard Rogers was trained at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City, and later was a pupil of Ernst Bloch in Cleveland and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He was a Pulitzer prize winner in 1918, and held a Guggenheim Fel­lowship from 1927 to 1929. For nine years he was on the staff of Musical America, and at present is teaching composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.
In March of this year he and his librettist, Norman Corwin, won the $1,500 prize offered by the Alice M. Ditson Fund in collaboration with Co­lumbia University, for their one-act opera "The Warrior." The Metropolitan Opera Company has a one-year option on the first performance.
Dos cantares populares Obradors
Little can be found in this country concerning Fernando Obradors. His name appeared at the end of an introduction to a collection of seven songs for voice and piano, entitled Canciones Clasicas Esfanolas, published by the Union Musical Espanola in Madrid. According to Obradors, the texts of the songs were taken from various collections of old Castilian poetry found in the State Library in Madrid. The sixth song in this collection is titled "Dos Cantares populares."
A translation follows:
Of the finest hair in your plaits I want to make a chain to bind you to me. A jug in your home, little one, I should like to be, So that I might kiss your lips each time you take a drink.
The writer is indebted for this information to Mr. William Lichtenwanger, Acting Reference Librarian of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
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Lundu da Marchesa de Santos (Lament of the
Marquise de Santos) Villa-Lobos
Hector Villa-Lobos was born at Rio de Janeiro, March 5, 1884.
Brazil can trace her notable musical heritage back to the sixteenth cen­tury. The evolution and blending of diverse trends that emanated from Portu­guese, African, and Italian sources formed a music whose style during the nine­teenth century was further conditioned by European idioms. In Rio, under the reign of Dom Pedro II, German composers, particularly Liszt and Wagner, were in the process of exerting a dominating influence when a political trans­formation gave a new and promising direction to Brazilian music. In 1888 slavery was abolished, and the next year Brazil was proclaimed a republic. The foreign arts thereby lost the support of wealthy and noble patrons, and almost immediately there burst forth a wild and unfettered expression among the freed slaves and the masses of the people, which reached such an intensity that the creation of a conscious and serious art-music seemed, for the time, to be im­possible. The songs and dances of the peasants joined with the more sophisticated remnants of the older music into a blend of blazing colors and riotous rhythms.
Villa-Lobos was born in 1884, and matured in an era of change and chaos. His remarkable musical talent had to reach its own maturity with little or no formal guidance; his teachers in theory admitted that they had actually taught him nothing. Confident of his talent, he bowed before no tradition, and sought his own level of excellence by trial and error, driven there by a sort of inner compulsion that resulted in the creation of over fourteen hundred works in every conceivable form.
Like Bach, Villa-Lobos' contact with the world of music during his formative period was negligible. Without firsthand knowledge of what was actually happening in European music, his idiom of expression remained un­affected by any outside influences. He was thirty-seven years of age before he heard the impressionism of Debussy, and he had reached his forty-first year before he left Brazil for the first time to go to Paris. Of that experience he has written: "I didn't come to learn, I've come to show you what I have done .... better bad of mine than good of others .... I have always been, and remain, completely independent. When Paris was the crossroads of the world's music, I was there and listened attentively, but never allowed myself to be influenced by any of the novelties I heard. I claim to be all by myself and I
Wagner seriously considered giving the first performance of Tristan and Isolde in Rio. He had sent to Dom Pedro piano scores of Tie Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin. The Emperor, a Wagnerian enthusiast, was present at the first performance of Das Rheingold in Bayreuth in 1876, and met Wagner personally.
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conceive my music in complete independence and isolation. ... I use much Brazilian folk-lore in my compositions, because the rhythms have an extra­ordinary fascination."
The translation of this lovely Lament follows:
My beloved, the world is dark and sad; my soul is plunged into despair. O Titilia, this horrible punishment oppresses me because you have gone away, and I die little by little.
"II faut partir" from "La Fille du regiment" .... Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti was born March 29, 1797, in Berganio; died there April 8, 1849.
Including four posthumously performed operas, the number of such works accredited to Donizetti is sixty-seven, but of them only four or five are now recognized as of enduring quality. Among this group must be included The Daughter of the Regiment, which, after disappearing from the repertory of the Metropolitan for twenty-two years, was revived in 1940 with sensational suc­cess. This success does not rest entirely on its real musical or dramatic merit, but more particularly upon its rollicking songs, its beating drums, and its ear-tickling arias for the coloratura soprano. Unlike the heroines of many Italian operas, who go mad, are stabbed, poisoned, or die of unrequited love or consumption before the final curtain, this frolicksome little opera provides a vivacious heroine and a slight but entertaining plot which tells of a Tyrolese peasant, Tony, who joins a regiment to win the heart of its adopted daughter, Marie. A Marquise, however, claims Marie as her daughter, and separates her from the regiment and her lover, providing a noble suitor for her hand. When the wedding ceremony is about to take place, Tony, now a captain, arrives on the scene with a band of soldiers, ready to rescue her. The Marquise, deeply touched at Marie's willingness to carry out her wishes, relents and gives her blessing to the persistent lover. The aria on tonight's program is from the end of Act II and is sung by Marie as she bids farewell to Tony and her be­loved regiment:
I must go now: Farewell, dear friends, whom I have loved, and whose joys and Bufferings I have shared, my heart is yours forever, farewell!
Symphonic Poem: "The Pines of Rome" Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was born in Bologna, July 9, 1879; died in Rome, April 18, 193 6.
In an article in La Revue Musicale for January, 1927, G. A. Luciani wrote of Respighi:
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Of all the contemporary Italian musicians, Respighi has had the most ample and varied output. He has treated all genres with such technical resource that one can hardly say which best reveals the personality of the composer. . . . He stands always in the first rank of those Italian musicians who have contributed to the renascence of symphonic music in Italy. In the "Fountains of Rome" he has succeeded in realizing a personal form of symphonic poem, where descriptive color blends intimately with sen­timent and lyricism, where the classical line is unbroken by modern technical usage. He returns to this form in the "Pines of Rome" which culminates ia1 a triumphal march, rich and powerful in sonority.
As Alfredo Casella has aptly observed, the more recent musical output of Respighi is characterized by a new classicism which consists of a harmonious fusion of the latest musical tendencies of all countries. This tendency is nowhere better realized than with Ottorino Respighi. To the success of his work, moreover, are added two traits which are eminently Latin: a feeling for construction, and a serenity, the expression of which is rare in the music of our day.
"The Pines of Rome" is the second of a cycle of three compositions dealing with the Eternal City. The first, "The Fountains of Rome" was written in 1916; eight years later, in 1924, he produced the "Pines of Rome"; and in 1928, the "Roman Festivals." Shortly after composing "Pines of Rome," Respighi wrote to Lawrence Gilman: "The symphonic poem, 'The Pines of Rome' was composed in 1924 and performed for the first time at the Augusteo, Rome, in the season of 1924-25. While in the preceding work, 'The Fountains of Rome,' the composer sought to reproduce, by means of tone, an impression of nature; in the 'Pines of Rome' he uses nature as a point of departure in order to recall memories and visions. The century-old trees which dominate so charac­teristically the Roman landscape, become testimony for the principal events in Roman life."
When Respighi arrived in America in 1925, he was interviewed by a rep­resentative of Musical America and made the following reference to this work:
1 do not believe in sensational effects for their own sake. It is true that in my new orchestral poem, "The Pines of Rome," which Toscanini will introduce to yon with the New York Philharmonic, some of the instruments play B sharp, and others B flat in the same passage. But this is not obtruded upon listeners; in the general or­chestral color it simply provides a note which I wanted.
Yes, there is a phonograph record of a real nightingale's song used in the third movement. It is a nocturne and the dreamy, subdued air of the woodland at the eve­ning hour is mirrored in the scoring for the orchestra. Suddenly there is silence, and the voice of the real bird rises, with its liquid notes.
Now that device has created no end of discussion in Rome, in London--wher­ever the work has been played. It has been styled radical, a departure from the rules.
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I simply realized that no combination of wind instruments could quite counterfeit the real bird's song. Not even a coloratura soprano could have produced an effect other than artificial. So I used the phonograph. The directions in the score have been fol­lowed thus wherever it has been played.
As in the case of the "Fountains," the "Pines" is written in four move­ments. In the program book of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Gilman added the following explanation to the printed description which formed the preface to the score:
The Pines of Villa Borghese (Allegretto vivace, 2-8). Children are at play in the pine-grove of the Villa Borghese, dancing the Italian equivalent of "Ring Around the Rosy"; mimicking marching soldiers and battles; twittering and shrieking like swal­lows at evening; and they disappear. Suddenly the scene changes to
The Pines Near a Catacomb {Lento, 4-4; beginning with muted and divided strings, muted horns, fianissimo). We see the shadows of the pines which overhang the entrance to a catacomb. From the depths rises a chant which re-echoes solemnly, sonorously, like a hymn, and is then mysteriously silenced.
The Pines of the Janiculum (Lento, 4-4, piano cadenza; clarinet solo). There is a thrill in the air. The full moon reveals the profile of the pines of Gianicolo's Hill. A nightingale sings (represented by a gramophone record of a nightingale's song heard from the orchestra).
The Pines of the Appian Way (Tempo di marcia). Misty dawn on the Appian Way. The tragic country is guarded by solitary pines. Indistinctly, incessantly, the rhythm of innumerable steps. To the poet's phantasy appears a vision of past glories; trumpets blare, and the army of the consul advances brilliantly in the grandeur of a newly risen sun toward the sacred way, mounting in triumph the Capitoline Hill.
The unique feature of this section of the score is the first instance in symphonic music of the use of a record. The "nightingale" is indicated in the score as record No. R-6105, of the Concert Record Gramophone. Accompanyingthe bird's song are trills in muted violins, ffp, a chord in the cellos and violas, and some notes from the harp.
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Sunday Afternoon, May 5
PROGRAM OF THE COMPOSITIONS OF JOHANNES BRAHMS
Johannes Brahms was born May 7, 1833, at Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, at Vienna.
"It seemed to me .... that a musician would inevitably appear to whom it was vouchsafed to give the highest and most ideal expression to the tendencies of the time .... one who would .... like Athena, spring fully armed from the head of Zeus. And he has come, a young man over whose cradle Graces and Heroes stood watch. His name is Johannes Brahms .... If he will touch with his magic wand those massed forces of chorus and orchestra and compel them to lend him their powers, we may expect still more wonderous glimpses of the spirit world."
--Robert Schumann
The differences that actually exist between the art of Brahms and that of Wagner are slight indeed. Criticism in the past has been too insistent in symbol­izing each of these masters as the epitome of opposing forces in the music of their age. It has identified their aesthetic theories and the conflicts that raged around them with their art and has come to the false conclusion that no two artists reveal a greater disparity of style, expression, and technique. In actual life they did stand apart. The Wagner enthusiasts regarded Brahms as a musi­cal antipode, and Wagner took this attitude so seriously that he wrote some of the most malicious things about Brahms that he ever wrote about any con­temporary. If Brahms seems to lack the sensuous quality so marked in Wagner, if he appears to be less ostentatious, less concerned with the burning splendor and bewitching blends of sound color, it is in these and these alone, that the real differences between the great contemporaries lie.
In truth, both Wagner and Brahms are products of the same artistic soil, nurtured by the same forces that conditioned the standards and norms of art in their period. Both shared in a lofty purpose and noble intention. Brahms's First Piano Concerto, the German Requiem, the C-minor Symphony, the Alto Rhapsody, the Song of Destiny, and, particularly, the great tragic songs, all speak in the somber and serious accents of Wagner. Both sought the expression of the sublime in their art, and each in his own way tried to strengthen the flaccid spirit of his time by sounding a note of courage and hopefulness. They both lived in a poverty-stricken and soul-sick period, when anarchy seemed to have destroyed culture, an age which was distinctly unfavorable to genuinely great art--unfavorable because of its pretentiousness and exclusiveness, its crass
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materialism, its hidebound worship of the conventional. Its luxury and ex-clusiveness brought disillusionment, weariness, and an indifference to beauty; its showy exterior did not hide the inner barrenness of its culture.
The sources of this world illness can be found in a measure in the effects of the Industrial Revolution. As a result of this tremendous reorganizing force, with its consequent power and wealth, a new attitude toward life was created. The growth of a rationalistic materialism destroyed suddenly the comforting old beliefs in the Bible. It gave rise to a period of doubt and disillusionment, and it seemed as though the old culture were to disappear completely. Strong spirits like Carlyle, John Stewart Mill, and Ruskin fought valiantly for the "revenge of instinct."
Less fortified minds, however, fell before the onslaught of industrialism and its materialism, sank into mental and spiritual apathy, and decayed. With decay came disease, and with disease, contagion wormed its way into the souls of men. From an overfertilized soil grew a decadent kind of art. Chopin's super-sensitive soul cried out its longing in languorous nocturnes. Berlioz in his "Fantastic Symphony" pictured the narcotic dreams of a young artist, who, because of an unrequited love, had attempted suicide by an overdose of opium. Tchaikovsky's penchant for melancholy expression, his feverish sensibility, his revulsions of artistic feeling, and his erratic emotions, which sink him into mor­bid pessimism, deadening depression, and neurotic fears on the one hand, or raise him to wild hysteria on the other, picture him in the framework of his age. Byron, "whose being," said Goethe, "consists in rich despair," was another eponymous hero of the time. Fame, love, wealth, and beauty turned him into a despiser of the world. He was the true inventor of "Weltschmerz," the sorrow that suffers from the world and is therefore incurable. The soul life of the whole epoch bore the stamp of this man for whom "sorrow was knowledge." Literature abounded in heroes who were all strange mixtures of egoism and sensibility. Their philosophy was the Leopardian "Sorrow and ennui is our being, and dung the earth--nothing more. Wherever one looks, no meaning and no fruit." Chateaubriand, who gave such fluent and beautiful expression to the emotional ideas originated by Rousseau, had his Rene say, "Everything wearies me. Painfully I drag my boredom about with me, and so my whole life is a yawn." Byron's Manfred, too, had this romantic desire to feel and suffer uniquely. Goethe's Werther, like Manfred and Rene, suffered from an unhappiness caused by hidden, undefinable longings. In Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Lermantov's Hero of Our Time, the heroes play the parts of disillusioned young men, who, tired of life, wrap themselves in a mantle of grief. The whole world was in the grip of the maladie du siecle. It was, as Immerman said, "as though humanity, tossed about in its little bark by an overwhelming ocean, is suffering from a moral seasickness of which the outcome is hardly to be seen."
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Wagner and Brahms, opposed in verbal theory, stand together strong in the face of opposing forces, disillusioned beyond doubt with the state of the world, but not defeated by it.
It is no accident then that the real Brahms seems to us to be the pessimistic Brahms of his great tragic songs and the quiet resignation of the slow move­ments of his symphonies. Here is to be found an expression of the true spirit of the age in which he lived. But by the exercise of a clear intelligence, he tem­pered an excessively emotional nature, and thereby dispersed the vapors of mere sentimentalism. Unlike Tchaikovsky and other "heroes of the age," Brahms, even as Beethoven, was essentially of a healthy mind, and, with a spirit strong and virile, he met the challenge of his age and was in his art triumphant. In a period turbulent with morbid emotionalism, he stood abreast with such spirits as Carlyle and Browning to oppose the unhealthy tendencies of his period. Although he suffered disillusionment no less than Wagner, his was another kind of tragedy, the tragedy of a musician born out of his time. In fact, he suffered more than Wagner from the changes in taste and perception that inevitably come with the passing of time. But his particular disillusionment did not affect the power and sureness of his artistic impulse. With grief he saw the ideals of Beethoven dissolve in a welter of cheap emotionalism; he saw the classic dignity of his art degraded by an infiltration of tawdry programmatic effects and innocuous imita­tion, and witnessed finally its complete subjugation to poetry and the dramatic play. But all of this he opposed with his own grand style--profoundly moving, noble, and dignified. With a sweep and thrust he forced music out upon her mighty pinions to soar once more. What Matthew Arnold wrote of Milton's verse might well have been written of Brahms's music: "The fullness of thought, imagination, and knowledge make it what it is" and the mighty power of his music lies "in the refining and elevation wrought in us by the high and rare excellence of the grand style."
Fuller Maitland, in his admirable book on Brahms, made reference to the parallelism between the composer and Robert Browning. This association too, is a significant one. There is something similar in their artistic outlook and method of expression, for Brahms, like Browning, often disclaimed the nice selection and employment of a style in itself merely beautiful. As an artist, none the less, he chose to create, in every case, a style fitly proportioned to the design, finding in that dramatic relation of style and motive a more vital beauty and a broader sweep of feeling. In this epic conception Brahms often verged upon the sublime. He lived his creative life upon the "cold white peaks." No master ever displayed a more inexorable self-discipline, or held his art in higher respect. For Brahms was a master of masters, always painstaking in the devo­tion he put into his work, and undaunted in his search for perfection. The
Fuller Maitland, Brahms (London: Methuen & Co., 1911).
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Brahms of music is the man, in Milton's magnificent phrase, "of devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases."
Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 Brahms
If ever a piece of music stood as an eternal refutation of all that is meant by "academic," it is this "Festival Overture." The work was written in 1880, as an acknowledgement by Brahms of the doctor's degree which had been conferred upon him by the University of Breslau, as the "Princeps musicae severioris" in Germany. But shockingly enough, the rollicking "Academic Festival Overture" is anything but severely in keeping with the pedantic solemnities of academic convention. It is typical of Brahms that he should delight in thanking the pomp­ous dignitaries of the university with such a quip, for certainly here is one of the gayest and most sparkling overtures in the orchestral repertory.
In the spirit of "He hath cast down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them that are of low degree," Brahms selected as the thematic materials for his overture a handful of student drinking songs, which he championed against all the established conventions of serious composition. We may be fairly certain that if the doctor's diploma had descended from its academic perch, and set forth the master's blithe and genial humanity as a composer, instead of designating him with the high sounding "Princeps musicae severioris" he might have brought forth the austere "Tragic Overture" instead.
Brahms always took impish joy in indulging his instinct for championing underdogs of art such as music boxes, banjos, brass bands, and working men's singing societies. And here he elevated the lowly student song into the realm of legitimate art. There was never a "nobler man of the people" in the whole history of music.
Analysis
The overture begins {Allegro, C minor, 2-2 time) without an introduc­tion. The principal theme is announced in the violins. Section II is a tranquil melody in the violas, which returns to the opening material. After an episode (E minor) there follows the student song "Wir hatten gebaut ein stattliches Haus" (We had built a stately house) heard in three trumpets (C major). At
? A tune associated with the words
Wir hatten gebaut
Ein stattliches Haus
Darin auf Gott vertrauet
Durch Wetter Sturm und Graus
("We built a stately house, wherein we gave our trust to God, through bad weather, storm and dread.") The melody is by Friedrich Silcher--author of the better-known tune which he wrote to Heine's "Die Lorelei."
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the close of this section, the full orchestra presents another section partly sug­gested by the first theme of the overture. The key changes to E major and the second violins with celli -pizzicato announce the second student song, "Der Landesvater" ("The Father of his Country"), an old eighteenth-century tune.
The development section does not begin with the working out of the expo­sition material, but rather, and strangely enough, with the introduction of another student melody (in two bassoons) "Was kommt dort von der Hoh," a fresh­man song. An elaborate development of the material of the exposition then follows. The recapitulation is irregular in that it merely suggests the return of the principal theme; but then it presents the rest of the material in more or less regular restatement. The conclusion is reached in a stirring section which pre­sents a fourth song "Gaudeamus igitur" in the woodwind choir, with tu­multuous scale passages against it in the higher strings, and with this emphatic and boisterous theme--the most popular of all student songs--the overture gives its final thrust at the Academicians.
Concerto No. I in D minor, Op 15,
for Piano and Orchestra Brahms
Those who know well the bold F-minor Sonata, the blustering yet soaring B-major Trio, this cyclopean D-minor Piano Concerto and much else of the rapturous, magnificently unrestrained music of the youthful Brahms, will recog­nize in the turgid style, the compulsion and urgency of expression, a strong affinity with the exalted utterances of Richard Wagner. Although Brahms fought all through his life against squandering himself in romantic excesses, he took inspiration here out of the fullest abundance, and created these overpower­ing wonders of his formative years by submitting temporarily to the same ro­mantic cult, the same intoxicating world of dreams and visions that haunted Wagner, and drove him, throughout his life, from ecstasy to despair.
The First Piano Concerto, above all the other early works, is indeed, in the words of Schumann "the highest and most ideal expression of the tendencies of the time." Like the music of Wagner, it is at times fiercely defiant and astonishingly assertive; at others, faltering and febrile; from a rugged stony hardness, it suddenly becomes ingratiatingly tender and, at times, gently elegiac. With lightning change and sharp contrast it rises from gloomy austerity to ex This is a vivacious and slightly grotesque version of the "Fuchslied," "Fox Song"-"Fuchs" being equivalent to "Freshman." Max Kalbeck, Brahms's admirer and biographer, was shocked at the idea of this irreverence to the learned doctors of the University, but Brahms was unperturbed.
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cessive eloquence--a drama struggling with a plethora of ideas, creating tensions, crises, and reversals between dreadful expectations and ecstatic fulfillments. Prodigal though it be, like everything Brahms wrote, it, too, is inwardly well ordered and formally convincing, creating, as it goes along, a design fitly pro­portioned to its material, answering its own demands for law and order.
It is not surprising, however, that this work should present us with such bewildering antitheses, for it caused Brahms titanic struggle to bring it to its final form. It first took shape as a symphony in the year 1854. In a letter to Robert Schumann in January, 1855, Brahms wrote, "I have been trying my hand at a symphony during the past summer; have even orchestrated the first movement, and have composed the second and third." As early as September 12, 1854, he had referred to this work in a letter to his friend, Joseph Joachim. "As usual," he wrote, "you have regarded the movement of my symphony through rose-colored glass. I must alter and improve it all through. There is a good deal wrong even in the composition, and as to the orchestration, I do not understand as much about it as appears in the movement. The best of it I owe to Grimm."
In February, 1854, Brahms had received the tragic news of Robert Schu­mann's rapidly developing insanity and of his attempt to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine. At the time Brahms was working on the first movement, and much of the struggle and conflict found there may be attributed to the emotional upset he sustained at this news. At any rate, the symphony was put aside, and the material reconditioned into a sonata for two pianos for Clara Schumann, in the spring of 1854. In her diary we read "I tried over with Brahms at Kleins, three movements of his sonata for two pianos. They appeared to me to be quite powerful, quite original, noble and clearer than anything before." But Brahms had not yet found the proper relationship be­tween radical ideas and conventional forms. The flaming intensity of his imagin­ation--its sinister defiance, its daemonic striving--rebelled against the limited medium of two pianos, and he sought again the broader, more expressive poten­tialities of the orchestra. At the suggestion of Grimm, he determined to create a concerto for piano and orchestra.t
As late as 1858 Brahms was still revising the first movement: "I was de­lighted with Johannes' remodeling of the first movement of the Concerto" wrote Joachim to Clara Schumann in January of the same year. "He has
?Julius Otto Grimm (1827-1903) was a pianist and musician of note. In 1853 he became a close friend of Brahms, and exerted considerable influence over his early music.
t He retained the first and second movement of the sonata for the concerto. The third movement eventually became the second movement ("Behold all Flesh") of the Deutschet Requiem.
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added many beautifully quiet connecting passages, which I am sure would please you also. The second theme, in particular, is broader and more satisfying. The whole thing seems to me to be almost too rich. But that is a good fault! All my hopes of obtaining something new and beautiful in music rest with my dear friend. The more recent artistic productions are terribly sterile." Brahms in­troduced the Concerto to the Leipzig public at the Gewandhaus concert Janu­ary 27, 1859. It was rejected with open hostility. A letter addressed to Joachim the next day shows that Brahms endured his defeat stoically, even cheerfully:
Still quite tipsy with the uplifting delights vouchsafed to my eyes and ears by the sight and the conversation of the wiseacres of our musical city during the last few days, I constrain this pointed steel pen .... to describe to you how it happened and how it happily came to pass that my concert here proved a brilliant and decided--failure. . . . The first and second movements were listened to without the least stir. At the close three pairs of hands made an attempt at falling slowly together, whereupon an un­mistakable hissing arose on every side to forbid any such demonstration. For the rest, there is nothing more to tell you about this event. . . . This failure, I may say, made no impression whatever upon me and what little bad humor and disenchantment I may have felt was dispelled when I listened to a C-major symphony by Haydn and to "The Ruins of Athens." In spite of all, this concerto will come to please one day, when I have improved the shape of its body, and a second one will sound quite otherwise. I believe this to be the best thing that could happen to anyone. It forces one's thoughts to concentrate properly and enhances one's courage. After all, I am still trying and groping. AH the same the hissing was rather too much, wasn't it
The inflammable material of the Concerto, and its unorthodox treatment were, we must remember, far more difficult to comprehend in 1859 than they are today, for audiences then were quite unfamiliar with the often austere Brahmsian idiom and the new type of concerto he had here brought into exis­tence. Unlike the earlier classical concept of the form, founded on the alterna­tion of orchestral ritornels and solo episodes, and the later display pieces of Liszt, with their magnificent tone colors, breath-taking bravuras, and ostentatious effects, Brahms had created a solo part that stood aside in a monologue from the rest of the instrumental body, yet was grafted on to it with an effect of complete amalgamation. Brahms allows the soloist's vanity no satisfaction in his symphonically constructed passages, where the parts are firmly molded to­gether into a radiant unity. By imbedding the sound of the piano in that of the orchestra, and at the same time preserving its contrasting quality, by suppress­ing all display of technical virtuosity in the soloist, as an end in itself, by re The first public performance took place at the Royal Theatre, Hanover, January 22, 1859. Brahms played the piano and the orchestra was conducted by Joachim. ¦ ¦ '
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lating every theme, figure, chord passage, scale, and run organically to the whole, Brahms had indeed created a new conception of the concerto--a con­ception where technique, pianistic idiom, and style are inextricably bound up with one another. He had come to this new concept slowly, tortuously, from a work first intended as a symphony, then sketched out as a sonata for two pianos, and finally emerging as a grandiose dialogue between the piano and orchestra.
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 Brahms
While the Third Symphony at once took hold of the musical world, the Fourth remained misunderstood, and down to the present day has never been truly loved, perhaps for the reason that it is the most personal and profound of all, and, next to the First, the mightiest. Incomprehensible though it seems today, even the sworn followers of Brahms had difficulty in understanding it. Max Kalbeck positively entreated Brahms to withhold the work from the public and so save himself an inevitable and conspicuous failure. Edward Hanslick, after a first hearing of it in a performance for two pianos in the company of Max Kalbeck, Hans Richter, Dr. Billroth, and others, declared with a heavy sigh, when the first movement was over and everyone remained silent, "You know, I had the feeling that two enormously clever people were arguing with each other." To Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, Brahms's close friend and sincere critic, there were certain pages she "could hardly make out at all," and con­cerning them she wrote to Brahms, "You have had to have recourse for the first time to certain secret chambers of your soul."
It is hard to understand such criticism today as we hear the pale autumnal elegiac first movement with its gentle, almost hesitant theme. Still less would it apply to the quiet andante with its firm and exalted rhythm, and its dark-hued romantic melancholy. The misgivings of his friends, however, trans­mitted themselves to Brahms, for again he wrote to Elizabeth von Herzogen­berg, "If persons like Hanslick and you do not like my music, whom will it please" So uncertain was he finally of the success of the work, that he threat­ened to recall it after a rehearsal. The first public performance, however, took place at Meiningen, October 25, 1885, with Brahms himself conducting. Frederick Lamond, the pianist, was present at the performance, and fifty years later published an article in the Vasshche Zeitung (October 5, 1933), an excerpt from which follows:
At the end of September, 1885, there came to Meiningen the manuscript of the Fourth Symphony, and a few days later the master himself arrived. I remember how BQlow reproached Brahms about it, protesting that so valuable a manuscript as the Symphony had been sent to Meiningen by simple post without registration!
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"What could have happened if the package had been lost" asked Biilow.
"Well, I would have had to compose the symphony again," was Brahms's gruff answer. Brahms, leading the rehearsals himself, said repeatedly to the orchestra, "Only wait, gentlemen, until Bulow conducts it, then you will hear something!"
Never shall I forget the notable Sunday in October, 1885, when the Fourth Symphony had its first public performance. The concert began at five o'clock in the afternoon. First the Academic Overture was played, then Adolf Brodsky played the Violin Concerto; and the Fourth Symphony closed the programme. After the Sym­phony, which brought little applause, the theatre emptied itself; I went to my dress­ing room behind the stage and was about to go home. The members of the orchestra were putting their instruments away and some had already left when the young Richard Strauss, the second Kapellmeister in Meiningen, came running up and called to me: "Lamond, help me bring the orchestra players together; the Duke-wishes to have the symphony played again for himself alone." I got hold of the second horn player, while Strauss mustered one player after another. The theatre was dimly lighted and no one had permission to enter the auditorium. I slipped out on the stage. Through the peek-hole in the curtain, I could see the silhouette of Brahms at the conductor's desk, and about him the intent, deeply absorbed faces of the orchestra players, who looked ghostly in the dim light. The loge in which the Duke sat was also in semi-darkness; and now there began for the second time a performance of the Fourth Symphony!
The performance stays vividly in my mind. I have heard consummate perform­ances in later years, but never has the overpowering and masterly finale sounded with such conviction as in the darkened empty theatre where Brahms, like a mighty conjuror, played with the assembled group of musicians for the listening Duke of Meiningen.
When the last notes had sounded, I left the theatre with a sense of having under­gone the highest experience which life had ever bestowed upon me!
The fourth symphony was the last of his orchestral compositions that Brahms was permitted to hear. After his return to Vienna from Carlsbad where he had received treatment for an incurable disease, he attended his last concert in March, 1897, at which time his Fourth Symphony was performed. Miss Florence May described the dramatic occasion of his last performance in public:
The fourth symphony had never become a favorite work In Vienna. Received with reserve on its first performance, it had not since gained much more from the general public of the city than the respect sure to be accorded there to an important work by Brahms. Today, however, a storm of applause broke out at the end of the first movement, not to be quieted until the composer, coming to the front of the
? Florence May, Life of Johannes Brahms (London: Edward Arnold, 1905).
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"artist's" box in which he was seated, showed himself to the audience. The demon­stration was renewed after the second and third movements, and an extraordinary scene followed the conclusion of the work. The applauding, shouting house, its gaze riveted on the figure standing in the balcony, so familiar, and yet in present aspect so strange, seemed unable to let him go. Tears ran down his cheeks as he stood there, shrunken in form, with lined countenance, strained expression, white hair hanging lank, and through the audience there was a feeling as of a stifled sob, for each knew that they were saying farewell. Another outburst of applause, and yet another; one more ac­knowledgment from the master, and Brahms and his Vienna had parted forever.
The following analysis is taken from Brahms--His Life and Work, by Karl Geiringer:
This last symphonic work of the master it more stringent and more compact than the previous three. More than ever before was Brahms' mind directed towards the past. He found a wealth of inspiration in pre-classical music, which revealed peculiar possibilities of enriching his musical language. The principal theme of the first move­ment is largely characteristic of the whole work. Distinctive of the "later Brahms" is the art with which an ample far-flung theme is developed from a motive of only two notes; and no less so is the assurance with which the imitation of the theme in the woodwind is employed as an accompaniment to the theme itself. Again, the clear and passionless tranquillity of this idea, equally remote from pain and joy, is characteristic of this period of his work. The movement has no motto, like those of the first three Symphonies. On the one hand the logical progression of ideas in this piece is so com­pelling that there is no need of a closer linking of the different sections by a special expedient; on the other hand, the Symphony possesses, in the Finale, a movement of such iron resolution and concentration that a similar formation in the first movement had to be avoided. The Andante moderate) with its four monumental introductory bars, allotted to the horns and woodwind, leads off in the ancient Phrygian mode. Slowly the warm and fragrant E major makes itself heard. Notwithstanding its wonderfully tender song-theme introduced by the 'cellos, this whole movement seems to lie, as it were, under the shadow of an inevitable fate. A sturdy, high-spirited Allegro giocoso follows. If the first two movements and the Finale seem inspired by Sophocles' trage­dies which Brahms had read about this time in his friend Professor Wendt's translation, this movement seems to be sponsored by Breughel. A sturdy gaiety reigns supreme, and the orchestration is broader and more plastic, more calculated to secure massive effects. The master supplemented the scoring of both the preceding movements by the addition of piccolo flute, counter-bassoon, and a third kettle-drum. The Finale is the crowning glory of the whole work. Just as Brahms took leave of his chamber music, so, too, he bade farewell to his symphonic creations with a movement in variations. These are of the type which he employed in the Finale of his Haydn Variations, i.e., the Chaconne or Passacaglia. A simple theme of eight bars which is repeated thirty-one times, in the lower, middle, and upper voices, without a single modulation or transi­tional passage, provides the framework of this movement.
Karl Geiringer, Brahms--His Life and Work, trans, by H. B. Weiner and Bernard Maill (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1936).
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Sunday Evening, May 5
Overture and Venusberg Music from "Tannhauser" Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner was born May 22, 1813, at Leipzig; died February 13, 1883, at Venice.
"Into this work," wrote Wagner, "I precipitated myself with my whole soul, and with such consuming ardor that, the nearer I approached its end, the more I was haunted with the notion that perhaps a sudden death would prevent me from bringing it to completion; so that when the last note was written I experienced a feeling of joyful elation, as if I had escaped a mortal danger." But Wagner gave even further testimony to the flame of enthusiasm which burned within his soul when Tannhauser was in process of creation. "This opera," he wrote, "must be good, or else I never shall be able to do anything that is good. It acted upon me like real magic; whenever and wherever I took up the work I was all aglow and trembling with excitement. After the various long interruptions from labor, the first breath always transported me back into the fragrant atmosphere that had intoxicated me at its first conception."
Wagner has, himself, left an explanation of the overture to Tannhauser, of which the following is a translation:
At the commencement the orchestra represents the song of the pilgrims, which, as it approaches, grows louder and louder, but at length recedes. It is twilight; the last strain of the pilgrims' song is heard. As night comes on, magical phenomena present themselves; a roseate-hued and fragrant mist arises, wafting the voluptuous shouts of joy to our ear; we are aware of the dizzy motion of a horribly wanton dance.
These are the seductive magic spells of the "Venusberg" which at the hour of night reveal themselves to those whose breath is inflamed with unholy desire. At­tracted by these enticing phenomena, a tall, manly figure approaches; it is Tannhauser, the Minnesinger. Proudly exulting, he trolls forth his jubilant love song as if to challenge the wanton magic crew to turn their attention to himself. Wild shouts respond to his call; the roseate cloud surrounds him more closely; its enrapturing fragrance overwhelms him and intoxicates his brain. Endowed now with supernatural vision, he perceives in the dim, seductive light spread out before him, an unspeakably lovely-female figure; he hears a voice which, with its tremulous sweetness, sounds like the call of sirens, promising to the brave the fulfillment of their wildest wishes.
It is Venus herself whom he sees before him; heart and soul, he burns with de­sire; hot consuming longing inflames the blood in his veins; by an irresistible power he is drawn into the presence of the goddess, and with the highest rapture raises his song in her praise. As if in response to his magic call, the wonder of "Venusberg" is revealed to him in its fullest brightness; boisterous shouts of wild laughter re-echo on every side; Bacchantes rush hither and thither in their drunken revels; and, dragging Tannhauser
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into their giddy dance, deliver him over to the ]ove-warm arms of the goddess, who, passionately embracing him, carries him off, drunken with joy, to the unapproachable depths of the invisible kingdom. The wild throng then disperses, and their com­motion ceases; a voluptuous plaintive whirring alone now stirs the air, and a horrible murmur pervades the spot where the enrapturing magic spell had Bhown itself, and which now again is overshadowed by darkness.
Day at length begins to dawn, and the song of the returning pilgrims is heard in the distance. As their songs draw nearer, and the day succeeds to night, that whirring and murmuring in the air, which but just now sounded to us like the horrible wail of the damned, gives way to more joyful strains; till at last, when the sun has risen in all its splendor and the pilgrims' song with mighty inspiration proclaims to the world, and to all that is and lives, salvation won; its surging sound swells into a rapturous tor­rent of sublime ecstasy. This divine song represents to us the shout of joy at his release from the curse of the unholiness of the "Venusberg." Thus all the pulses of life palpi­tate and leap for joy in this song of deliverance; and the two divided elements, spirit and mind, God and nature, embrace each other in the holy uniting kiss of love.
"Son imbrogliato io gia" from "La Serva padrona" . . Pergolesi
Giovanni Pergolesi was born near Ancona, January 3, 1710; died at Pozzuoli, March 17, 1736.
The Italian ofera seria which prevailed the first half of the eighteenth century is so remote from any kind of opera on the contemporary stage, that it is difficult for us to account for the tremendous popularity it enjoyed in its day. The stilted forms, the mock heroic texts, the unreality of the dramatic situations, the vulgar display of vocal pyrotechnics for their own sake, would all be utterly intolerable to us today. The plots, although complicated, were dull, and the regularity with which the stock scenes appeared only accentuated the monotony of the action. The complicity of the plots, which were perfect labyrinths of intrigue, was due to the exaggerated chivalry of the noble hero, the stoicism of a long-suffering heroine torn between love, duty, and desire, and the unmitigated treachery of the usurping villain. All this demanded a formality of language, in which the whole gamut of the emotions had in some way to be expressed.
Musically, a continuous train of dull dramatic recitation, feebly supported by chords struck on the harpsichord, was relieved frequently by expressive solo arias cast into set forms and distributed equally among the chief singers in each scene. This so-called aria da cafo repeated an opening section, after a short digression, no matter what result the musical repetition might have upon the veracity of the dramatic situation. Although this stereotyped aria form re­mained adamantly the same, its expression varied. Emotions were classified and then expressed through specific aria types: tender and pathetic feelings, for in­stance, sought the simple, accompanied aria cantabile; dignified, but not passion­ate, emotions found their medium in the aria di portamento; the aria di mezzo corettera expressed a variety of associated moods, and the ever popular and in[64]
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dispensable aria d'agilata exploited the technical powers of the singer, wherein, as Pope wrote in the Dunciad, one trill would "harmonize joy, grief, and rage." Occasionally there was a duet, but any larger form of ensemble was con­spicuously absent.
This condition of opera is unintelligible except in the light of the system of patronage that reigned so tyrannically in the early part of the century. Only a very rigid social formality could have bred such a strict convention of operatic Structure. The relationship between historical forces and musical forms is illus­trated about the middle of the century when new social ideas began to translate themselves into freedom of action, and the older society, based upon rights and privileges, began to give way to a new social order, in which, at a time sick with affectation, false sentiments, and cultural restraints, all that was simple and natural, or critical and satirical, sought refuge in the of era buff a or comic opera.
Between the acts of the of era serta there appeared now and then little diversions called intermezzi--a madrigal perhaps or a solo song. These were, at first, meant only to divert, but they steadily continued to advance in im­portance and interest until they became carefully elaborated and continuous little dramas. It was not long before the intermezzi began not only to undermine the dignity of the ofera seria, but with their vivacity, natural action, and witty parlance, to offer a formidable rivalry to it. The ofera bujfa was the natural outgrowth of the intermezzi, and in it the spirit of parody and satirical humor was embodied. All the arias on tonight's program are selected from famous works of the "Buffa" genre.
The performance of ofera buffa demands artists of unusual and special­ized talents. Its swift and riant music, so full of innuendo and humor, requires not only a singer but a supreme vocalist who can cope technically with the often tricky and difficult scores; not only a master of broad comedy, but an actor who can project the subtlest implications of the text, for the charm of this art is quickly dispelled when it is degraded by cheap burlesque or grotesque exaggera­tion.
In Mr. Baccaloni are superbly blended those talents which make him the outstanding basso buffo of our time. He has brought to our generation in America the touch of authority in an old, delightful musical and dramatic tradition.
Pergolesi's claim to everlasting fame rests upon a charming little inter­mezzo, La Serva Padrona. Historically, this delightful work marks the period at which the intermezzo merged permanently into the opera buffa, its heir.
Its history is curious and complicated. First produced in Naples in 1733, it
This unique art is practically unknown to modern audiences except through the operas of Mozart, Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale.
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did not win immediate success. It met no better fate at its first performance in Paris, October 4, 1746. On August 1, 1752, however, a company of Italian comedians, the "Buffons Italian" produced it again as an intermezzo between the acts of Lully's Acts et Galathee, and it not only scored a triumph, but in­stigated a civil war in the world of music. The guerre des buffons (War of the Buffoons) was begun, with the supporters of Lully defending the classical dignity of the French opera against the unwelcomed intrusion of the frivolous but intriguing style of the Italian buffoons. National pride resented its presence but good taste forbade its rejection, and Rousseau, among others, defended it.
This innocent little piece of Italian froth did more than begin a heated controversy--it exercised a wholesome and lasting effect not only upon French dramatic music, but upon dramatic music everywhere, by arousing national con­sciousness, and inspiring composers of other countries to similar effort.
Its success has been lasting and brilliant, since those colorful days when a piece of music could cause as much excitement as only a political campaign can today. In 1754, it was translated into French, and enjoyed one hundred and fifty performances in Paris, and after appearing in the usual operatic centers of Dresden, Hamburg, Leipzig, Vienna, Prague, Copenhagen, and London (1750), it arrived in America, where in 1790, at Baltimore, Maryland, it won the distinction of being the first opera sung in French in this country. It has since been sung in Spanish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Croatian, Dutch, and Hebrew.
Lively in its music, amusing in its characterizations, and full of jest and humor in its action, La Serva Padrona has maintained a place in the operatic repertory longer than any other opera in existence.
The plot is naively simple and uninvolved:
A maid servant, Serpina, in order to trick her master, Uberto, into marriage, notifies him of her intention to leave his employ; whereupon the master, foreseeing all kinds of inconveniences and pressed by the intrigues of his comely young servant, finally resolves to marry her. This rash solution to the servant problem has dire consequences as soon as the maid finds herself the mistress of his house. Uberto finds himself in a state of uncertainty, as he sings:
What confusion--I'm all perplexed! Something has happened to my heart, but whether it is love, or pity, I don't know. Something says: "Uberto, think of your­self." I hesitate 'twixt wanting and not wanting. More and more I grow perplexed. Oh, unhappy wretch, what will become of me
La Serva Padrona was revived at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, January 14, 1943, with Mr. Baccaloni and Mme Sayao singing the leading roles.
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"Le Ragazze che son di vent' anni" from
"Le Astuzie femminili" Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was born at Aversa, Naples, De­cember 17, 1749; died at Venice, January 11, 1801.
One of the most famous of Italian composers during the latter part of the eighteenth century was Domenico Cimarosa. He wrote serious operas, oratorios, cantatas, and masses, which were all very popular in his day, but his real talent lay in opera buffa. Here his scores show a superb vocal style, a gift for lively ensemble, and a delicate and sparkling orchestration. Like many Italian com­posers active after the advent of Mozart, Cimarosa revealed, in some instances, the debt he owed to the Austrian master who rivalled him and all his fellow countrymen in writing the greatest opera buffa of the period. In Cimarosa, however, all that was genuine and natural in the Italian opera reached its cul­mination. He composed over sixty-six operas which were performed in London, Paris, Dresden, and Vienna, and were tremendously popular throughout Europe. In 1787, he was invited to go to St. Petersburg as chamber composer to Cathe­rine II. At the invitation of Leopold II some years later, he returned to Vienna, where he succeeded Salieri as court Kapellmeister. His last years were troubled. At the outbreak of the Revolution, the French Republican Army marched into Naples (1797) and Cimarosa, expressing his enthusiasm, was imprisoned and condemned to die by the guillotine. His life was spared finally, but he was exiled from Italy. He died in Venice on his flight to Russia.
The little opera from which tonight's aria is taken was produced in 1794 in Milan. Its text was by Giovanni Palomba, not Metastasio as named by Rie-mann, and Clement and Larousse. Diaghilev produced he Astuzie jem-minili in the form of a ballet, at Paris and London in 1920. In 1929, Ottorino Respighi, then Italy's foremost composer, revived it as an opera in a production at the Teatro Communali Victor Emmanuel at Florence. On this occasion Mr. Baccaloni re-created the role of Gian Paulo. "Young maidens of twenty years are not so easy to handle" is the advice Gian Paulo gives his old friend Dr. Romualdo, when the latter tells of his intention to marry a woman half his age.
"Udite, tutti, udite," from
"II Matrimonio segreto" Cimarosa
The text of Matrimonio segreto was by Giovanni Bertati, and was founded on The Clandestine Marriage written by George Colman and David Garrick in 1766. Apart from the operas of Mozart, 77 Matrimonio segreto is the only Italian opera buffa between Pergolesi and Rossini which still holds ?Alfred Lowenberg, Annals of Of era (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Limited, 19+3)[671
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
its place in the operatic repertory today. It was the first work written by Cima-rosa for Vienna, after his return from Russia, and is his most celebrated work-the only one, in fact, by which he is known today. It met with astounding success, and immediately after the premiere performance, it was repeated at the request of Leopold II.
Paolino, a poor lawyer, is secretly married to Carolina, the younger daugh­ter of the very rich but dull Count Geronimo. He introduces a rich friend, Count Robinson, to Carolina's sister, Elisetta, hoping to make a match. The Count, however, falls in love with Carolina instead, but finds, before it is too late, that it is Elisetta he really loves, and all ends well.
In the following aria, Geronimo is hysterical with joy at the prospects of his daughter marrying a count. He sings:
Attention, pray, attention! Prick up your ears and listen! Here's noble condescension To cause your eyes to glisten. Here tidings thrice entrancing To set your heart a-dancing To set your feet a-prancing.
(To Elisetta)
You shall espouse a nobleman, Shine as a social star. Yes, truly! "My Lady Elisetta" In prospect now you are. It's yours for worse or better, So kiss your dear papa!
Let money flow like water
To honor such a daughter!
And summon friends and neighbors
To swell the loud hurrah!
Invite them one, invite them all!
What say you to it, sister
What say you, Elisetta
(To Carolina) Why standing in a pet, eh What reason should you pout Well, well, miss, inform me, What reason should you pout For never think one moment To find your rights neglected. A groom shall be selected As high in rank as he. Yet still you scorn in silence The match so advantageous Outrageous, miss, outrageous! Such want of sympathy. Tis envy that possesses you, Full clearly I can see.
Then summon friends and neighbors, Yet, go summon friends and neighbors To swell the loud hurrah. The daughter! the husband! the wed­ding! "His Lordship"! Delightful! "Your Ladyship," the Countess, Countess
Elisetta!
As good as made you are! He's yours for worse or better, So kiss your dear papa!
A recent revival, under the direction of the late Albert Stoessel, was given at the Juilliard School of Music, New York City, on April 25, 1933. It was performed again on December 8, 1943.
[68]
SIXTH CONCERT
"Madamina" from "Don Giovanni" Mozart
In this scene, Leporello, Don Giovanni's lackey, is maliciously reading a list of his master's feminine conquests to Donna Elvira, whom the Don has recently abandoned. He purports to give comfort, but he mercilessly probes at Donna Elvira's unhealed wound--her love for Don Giovanni in spite of his deceitful-ness. His final thrust comes at the end of the aria, where he repetitiously insists that no woman is able to resist his master, ending with the cynical and cruel admonition: "You ought to know that:"
Every country and township has contributed to my master's pleasure. Dear lady, this catalogue numbers them all. I have myself compiled it, and if it please you, peruse it with me (he turns the pages of the catalogue). In Italy, six hundred and forty; in Germany, ten score and twenty; as for France, oh, say a hundred; but ah! in Spain--in Spain--a thousand and three. Some you see, are country maids, ladies in waiting, others are from the city--countesses, duchesses, baronesses--every kind of "esses"--women of all conditions. If they are haughty, they do not frighten him; if they are tiny, no less, he likes them. He is kind to the dark ones, beseeching to the blue-eyed; in the winter he prefers them portly, in the summer, slender. Women can't resist my master, you ought to know that.
"Alexander Nevsky," Cantata for Chorus, Contralto
Solo, and Orchestra, Op. 78 Prokofieff
Sergei Sergievich Prokofieff was born in Sontsovka, Russia, April 24, 1891.
Sergei Prokofieff, a senior member of a very significant group of young Soviet Republic composers, of whom Dimitri Shostakovitch is perhaps the most sensational member, has, after a few early startling excursions into the grotesque, and only an occasional sojourn into the cacophonous realm of musical modernism, produced music that is not merely interesting and clever, but brilliantly effective.
At a period when European audiences either were being doped into a state of insensibility by the vacuity of the Post-Impressionists, or incensed to riots by the shocking barbarism of Stravinski, or baffled into boredom by the mathemati­cal cerebrations of Schonberg, whose music seemed, as far as emotional expres­sion was concerned, to be hermetically sealed, the spectacle of a composer who was still able to create music that had a natural ease and fluidity, a freshness and spontaneity that was essentially "classical," was as surprising as it was event­ful. In this idiom he attained, around 1918, an enviable reputation as a com­poser, with the orchestral work, Scythian Suite, the ballet Chottt, and the ever-popular Classical Symphony. These works, with their driving energy, clear designs, bright colors, and ironic overtones, won him a position of first im­portance among Russian composers.
? See notes on Don Giovanni, page 45.
[69]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
During 1918-32 he traveled in Japan, the United States, and lived for some time in Paris. In America he composed the opera, hove for Three Oranges (1921), for the Chicago Opera Company.
Since returning to Russia in 1933, Prokofieff has taken an active part in shaping Soviet musical culture. The first works to identify him with Soviet music were, Symphonic Song for Orchestra, Op. 57 (1933); Partisan Zhelez-mak; Antiutak; the music he composed for children, Peter and the Wolf (1936); Romeo and Juliet (1935); the incidental music to the Russian film, Alexander Nevsky (1939); in the same year, a cantata which he dedicated to Stalin, Zdravitsa; the Sixth Piano Sonata in 1940; and his opera based upon Tolstoy's War and Peace (1940). Prokofieff has never lost entirely the clear terse style he revealed in his earlier work, and although in his recent composition there is a new emotional value, an almost romantic richness of melody, and the fulfillment of a latent lyricism to be noted, the style is still definite and clearly defined. This continues to give to his music the same sureness and spontaneity that has always been its chief distinction. Today, in every respect Prokofieff is at the very height of his creative powers. He is now more than a clever com­poser who delights in the grotesque; his recent music is, according to Leonid Sabaneyev and many other critics, the most original and valuable which the Russian art of this century has produced.
During the recent invasion of the Germans, Alexander Nevsky, always a national hero to the Russian people, became a ready symbol of resistance and in­domitable courage to the Soviet fighters defending their country. In 1938 Sergei Eisenstein, Russia's outstanding movie director, produced an epic picture which related the historical incidents of how the Knights of the Teutonic Order, originally crusaders, on the pretense of bringing Christianity to East Prussia and parts of Russia, turned militaristic and overran these countries. On April 5, 1242, the people of Novgorod, led by their Prince Alexander Yaroslavich Nev­sky, met the Germans on the ice of Lake Chud, near Pskov, and defeated them in a bloody battle.
Prokofieff wrote some stirring incidental music for this picture, but later recast it into a cantata, for which, with the collaboration of V. Lugovskoi, he also provided a text. The work was completed on February 7, 1939, and Prokofieff conducted its first performance in Moscow on May 17.
The cantata is composed of seven musical pictures, each of which presents a phase of this famous national epic:
Translation and notes by Paul Affelder, through the courtesy of Leeds Music Cor­poration (Am-Rus edition).
[70]
SIXTH CONCERT
Russia Under the Mongolian Yoke. In the middle of the thirteenth century, the Tartars invaded Russia, and a pall of stillness and desolation de­scended upon the land. This period of oppression is expressed in a sombre move­ment for orchestra alone. There is a persistent repetition of two notes in the bass, while a plaintive shepherd's melody is heard in the distance. The music sounds a note of heaviness and despair.
Song About Alexander Nevsky. The chorus sings in noble tones about the heroic deeds of Alexander and how he defeated the Swedes on the River Neva. This section is in the style of the old Russian epic poems by Linas. The middle section, in faster tempo, has an impelling forward motion, as if the people were anxious to move against the foe:
Yes, 'twas on the River Neva it occurred,
On the Neva's stream, on the waters deep.
There we slew our foes' pick of fighting men,
Pick of fighting men, army of the Swedes.
Ah! How we did fight, how we routed them!
Yes, we smashed their ships of war to kindling wood.
In the fight our red blood was freely shed
For our great land, our native Russian land. Hey!
Where the broadaxe swung was an open street.
Through their ranks ran a lane where the spear was thrust.
We mowed down the Swedes, the invading troops,
Just like feather-grass, grown on desert soil.
We shall never yield native Russian land.
They who march on Russia shall be put to death.
Rise against the foe, Russian land, arise!
Rise to arms, arise, great town Novgorod!
The Crusaders in Pskov. To the accompaniment of heavy, almost cruel-sounding chords in the orchestra, the chorus sings an ecclesiastical theme to a Latin text: Peregrinus, exfectavi, fedes meos, in cymbalis. By the clever combination of Gregorian cadences, crushing modern harmonies, and fanfares for the brasses, ProkofiefF paints a musical picture of the grim, fanatical Teutonic Knights, still posing as crusaders, but imbued with the spirit of conquest. An orchestral interlude in the middle of this movement depicts the mourning of the Russian people for those who were slain in battle by the attacking Germans. .
Arise, Ye Russian People. In fervent, dynamic tones, the people of Russia are exhorted to rise up in battle and drive the foe from their land. In the middle portion, the women appeal to the men to rally around Alexander and drive the enemy out:
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
Arise to arms, ye Russian folk, in battle just, in fight to death.
Arise, ye people free and brave, defend our fair, our native land.
To living warriors high esteem, immortal fame to warriors slain.
For native home, for Russian soil, arise, ye people, Russian folk,
Arise to arms, ye Russian folk, in battle just, in fight to death.
Arise, ye people free and brave, defend our fair, our native land.
In our Russia great, in our native Russia no foe shall live.
Rise to arms, arise, native mother Russia!
In our Russia great, in our native Russia no foe shall live.
Rise to arms, arise, native mother Russia!
Arise to arms, ye Russian folk, in battle just, in fight to death.
Arise, ye people free and brave, defend our fair, our native land.
No foe shall march 'cross Russian land, no foreign troops shall Russia raid.
Unseen the ways to Russia are.
No foe shall ravage Russian fields.
Arise to arms, ye Russian folk, in battle just, in fight to death.
Arise, ye people free and brave, defend our fair, our native land.
The Battle on the Ice. This, the most exciting and realistic of the seven pictures, depicts the battle between the Teutonic Knights and the Rus­sians on the ice of Lake Chud. The distant stamping of horses' hoofs comes nearer and nearer, and the trot accelerates into a gallop. The hated Latin theme of the crusaders is heard as the knights shout their defiance and sound a battle call on their trumpets. But the Russians are ready and waiting; a sturdy, heroic, folklike theme of the volunteer, Dimka, personifies the young offensive strength of the Russians. The Russian and Teutonic themes intermingle as the two armies are locked in combat, the Russian theme becoming more and more pre­dominant as Alexander's army gains the upper hand. Finally, the Germans sink beneath the ice, and the movement ends with the quiet that follows a stormy battle:
Peregrinus, feregrinus, exfectavi, fedes meos, in cymbalis.
Vincant arma crucijera! Hostis ftreat!
Peregrinus, feregrinus, exfectavi, fedes meos, in cymbalis.
Field of the Dead. A Russian girl mourns the dead who have fallen in battle, but transcending her grief is a feeling of patriotism. This movement is a solo for mezzo-soprano and orchestra:
I shall go across the snow-clad field.
I shall fly above the field of death.
I shall search for valiant warriors there,
Those to me betrothed, stalwart men and staunch.
Here lies one who was felled by a sabre wild.
[72]
SIXTH CONCERT
There lies one impaled by an arrow shaft.
From their wounds warm, red blood like the rain
Was shed on our native soil,
On our Russian fields.
He who fell for Russia in noble death
Shall be blest by my kiss on his dead eyes.
And to him, brave lad, who remained alive
I shall be a true wife and a loving friend.
I'll not be wed to a handsome man:
Earthly charm and beauty fast fade and die.
I'll be wed to the man who's brave.
Hark ye, warriors brave, lionhearted men!
Alexander's Entry into Pskov. In a powerful, triumphant finale, the chorus and orchestra merge in a mighty hymn of victory, not only celebrating the victory of Alexander Nevsky but also the future triumphs over any foe who shall invade Russia:
In a great campaign Russia went to war.
Russia put down the hostile troops.
In our native land no foe shall live.
Foes who come shall be put to death.
Celebrate and sing, native mother Russia!
In our native land foemen shall not live.
Foes shall never see Russian towns and fields.
They who march on Russia shall be put to death.
In our Russia great, in our native Russia
No foe shall live.
Foes who come shall be put to death.
Celebrate and sing, native mother Russia!
To a fete in triumph all of Russia came.
Celebrate, rejoice,
Celebrate and sing, our mother land.
[73]
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Founded in 1879
Sixty-Seventh Season, 1945-1946
Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor
Lennis Britton, Accomfanist
Gail Rector, Librarian Marjorie Hollis, Assistant Librarian
FIRST SOPRANO
Atwood, Harriet Bonesteel, Beverly Bernice Boos, Jean Elizabeth Bradstreet, Lola Mae Britton, Lennis Grace Corbin, Horatia J. Curtiss, Ardis R. Daley, Carolyn Dunlap, Bessie Roberta Feenberg, Marilyn G. Gale, Doris A. Gale, Shirley M. Grider, Mary E. Hanson, Gladys M. Hecker, Jean Hogue, Virginia Humphrey, Emily Hyman, Rita Marion
Adams, Jean Beerup, Ruth Bleekman, Bette Jane Booth, Lynette Bubb, Margaret J. Buchanan, Marian L. Chilman, Suzanne Clark, Charlotte Coleman, Janet Patricia Davidson, Jean Lamont Davidter, Hazel E.
[74]
Ivanoff, Jacqueline Bear Kays, Doris Ruth Lewis, Ernestine W. Lock, Inez Lofgren, Ruth Lyman, Jean MacLaren, Helen L. Malan, Fannie Belle Martin, Elizabeth Findlay McDonald, Ruth M. Mitchell, Alice Lee Neel, Margaret A. Newell, Dorothy Ono, Masako Patterson, Mary Catherine Perry, Ruthann Puglisi, Elizabeth A. Rector, Kathryn Swain
SECOND SOPRANO
Derderian, Rose Suzanne Dyess, Lenrose Fairman, Barbara Wright Farrar, Frances Fryman, Shirley F. Gaines, Edith Ann Grauerholz, Selda Hooker, Ruth E. Juengel, Lois M. Katz, Sybil C. Kimel, Jean Kinoshita, Esther M.
Schubring, M. Ann Simpson, Faith Warner , Smith, Dorothy Jean Smith, Ruth D. Smith, Virginia Ruth Sternberg, Doris Jean Stimson, Miriam M. Stockwell, Priscilla Storgaard, Barbara Summers, Edith R. Swinney, Norma Lee Van Manen, Lucille Warren, L. Eleanor Weisman, Bernice H. Williams, Helen Elizabeth Wohlgemuth, Evelyn Young, Rosemarie
McMillin, Johanne Nichol, Margaret Jean Penix, Kathryn Powell, Delva D. Schwind, Colette A. Shanklin, Genevieve Smith, Elizabeth A. Stimson, Sally Ann Vandenberg, Phyllis Vlisides, Elena C. Wendling, Phyllis L.
OFFICIAL PROGRAM FIRST ALTO
Ahrens, Jessie May Anez, Helen Boden, Harriet A. Boehm, Charlotte Kathryn Boice, Irene A. Buttery, Audrey F. Crossley, Anne Eager, Grace Erickson, Frances A. Falcone, Mary L. Fowler, Beulah Frederick, Merian B. Gonan, Gloria J. Gordon, Gloria Gould, Marjorie Griffith, Erma Reany
Ball, Genevieve S. Batchelor, Marion Page Beyer, Marian A. Cordice, Victoria Olive Davidson, Jean Duncan, Dorothy Fitzpatrick, Gloria Forburger, Lois Gillis, Diana Harper, Lois V. Heininger, Jeanne Matson Henry, Joyce Holtman, Estella
Austin, C. Grey Barber, Joseph W. Converso, William Paul Geisert, William R. Haswell, Max V. Helfert, Peter A. Henry, Edwin E. Hobus, Carl A.
Hainsworth, Annie Marie Hildebrandt, Lisbeth L. Hodges, Priscilla Hollis, Marjorie James, Innez L. Jordan, Ruth. B. Kaufman, Renee Kloeppel, Marguerite E. Kritchman, Lois Lindemann, Bette Markus, Dorothea Mattern, Shirley McCabe, Maxine E. Miesen, Neva Hope Miller, Virginia G. Peugeot, Arlene D'Nelle
SECOND ALTO
Huey, Geraldine Keller, Jane Killham, Ethel Lee, Doris M. Marx, Phyllis Jane Modlin, Jane Lee Ream, Barbara Jo Robertson, Patricia Robin, Shirley R. Rohns, Elizabeth Simonetta, Margaret Smith, Barbara C. Smith, Marguerite Staubach, Joan M.
FIRST TENOR
James, William S. Marple, Homer L. Mathison, Charles D. Miner, William R. Patton, Francis M. Rieckhoff, Eugene Scherdt, Erwin E. Sloan, Paul G.
Ramsay, Rose A. Seiffert, Ardis Ann Shawley, Mary E. Smith, Barbara Lee Spillman, Betty Ann Spore, Ruth Ellen Stahmer, Walda Storgaard, Loma Street, Carolyn Trumpeter, Doris Eloise Vetter, Antonia M. Wiedman, Anna O. Wiedmann, Louise P. Wright, Jean F. Zeeuw, Lorraine
Stevens, Adelaide I. Stevens, Esther Anne Thalner, Jean E. Tulecke, Hazel B. Vandenberg, Lela M. Wheeler, Carolyn Wienert, Catherine C. Wilkie, Helen Kring Williams, Mildred W. Woodworth, Alta Worsley, Evelyn Wright, Erma A. Zumstein, Marguerite R.
Taylor, Charles L. Tonneberger, Thomas Jack Wagner, Herbert P. Waltz, Robert G. Wenberg, Walter E. Wiele, Kenneth W. Wynn, John G.
[75]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM SECOND TENOR
Allard, Virgil
Bain, D. F.
Behnke, Wallace Reynold
Berry, Roger B.
Connor, George Peter
Ellis, Howard E.
Engelder, Theodore Carl
Ablin, George Anderson, John H. Armstrong, William Walter Blue, John T. Bruner, Henry C. Chapman, James G. Cortright, Richard W. Dakin, Gerald F. DeGraaf, Donald E. Eoyang, John Farrar, Howard B. Frederick, Julian R. Fries, Charles
Allen, Stanley W. Anderson, Carl A. Bauer, Melvin Boice, Harmon E. Cathey, Arthur J. Coons, John D. Davidter, Royal C. Dreifus, John Foster, Russell Franklin, Charles
[76]
Fishman, Harold Glass, David R. Gligoroff, Thomas Goodwin, F. Walter Hall, Arch H. Hauenstein, Roger A. Keating, William J. Lee, Joseph W.
FIRST BASS
Galloway, Richard F. Gould, Stuart M. Harrison, Russell M. Jahnke, Arthur W. Jones, Thomas Hugh Kays, J. Warren Kinnear, Carlisle W. Kitchen, Kenneth Loessel, Earl Oliver MacGowan, William B. Malitz, Eugene McKeachie, Duane D. Morrison, Patton North Quetsch, Richard Morgan
SECOND BASS
Goldman, Hubert M. Hogue, David Burns Hopper, Francis H. Ivanoff, J. C. Jenkins, Ivor N. Kuiper, Klaas C. Malpas, Philip McGinnis, James Henry Nuechterlein, Herbert Orlebeke, Clifton J.
Marple, Hugo D. Mathis, William S. Neuderfer, John N. Story, Christopher Taylor, Jay C. Vandenberg, Edward L. Wuerth, Howard James
Rosenow, Kenneth Ryan, Jerry W. Schneider, Curt Richard Schulte, Paul H. Straka, Donald Sugiyama, James Ver Schure, Harris Weber, Milton F. Wheeler, John L. Wigfall, Switzon Samuel Wilder, Rex C. Woodward, Robert D. Wright, Harold L.
Ormond, Edward Pemberton, Donald Eugene Petach, Alexander Milton Pool, Frank Kenneth Saulson, Stanley Harlan Schaible, Theodor E. Schultz, Stanley Ted Sleeper, Frank M. Snyder, Carl Whittier, Victor E.
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
Alexander Hilsberg, Associate Conductor
Harl McDonald, Manager Norman S. Shirk, Assistant Manager
VIOLINS Hilsberg, Alexander,
Concertmaster Madison, David,
Assistant ConcertmasUr
Zenker, Alexander Aleinikoff, Harry Henry, Dayton M. Simkins, Jasha Kayaloff, Yasha Coleman, David Lipkin, Arthur B. Gesensway, Louis Zungolo, Antony Costanzo, Frank Lusak, Owen Reynolds, Veda Schmidt, Henry Putlitz, Lois Vogelgesang, Frederick Farnham, Allan
BASSES Torello, Anton Lazzaro, Vincent Torello, Carl Strassenberger, Max Benfield, Warren A. Eney, F. Gilbert Siani, S. -r
Wiemann, Heinrich Hase, A. Torello, William
HARPS Phillips, Edna Costello, Marilyn Ruden, Sol
In service.
Rosen, Irvin Bove, D. Shure, Paul C. Gorodetzky, A. Simkin, M. Dabrowski, S. Sharp, Sidney Sharlip, Benjamin Molloy, John W. Roth, Manuel Kaufman, Schima Brodo, Joseph Miller, Charles S. Mueller, Matthew J. Schwartz, Isadore
VIOLAS
Lifschey, Samuel Roens, Samuel Mogill, Leonard Braverman, Gabriel FLUTES Kincaid, W. M. Tipton, Albert Terry, Kenton F. Atkinson, Burnett F. Fischer, John A.
OBOES
Tabuteau, Marcel Di Fulvio, Louis Minsker, John Siegel, Adrian
ENGLISH HORNS Minsker, John Ferguson, Paul Greenberg, Wm. S. Bauer, J. K.
Kahn, Gordon Loeben, Gustave A. Frantz, Leonard Gray, Alexander Epstein, Leonard
VIOLONCELLOS Mayes, Samuel H. Hilger, Elsa Gusikoff, B. Schmidt, William A. Belenko, Samuel Siegel, Adrian Gorodetzer, Harry Lewin, Morris Sterin, J. Gray, John de Pasquale, Francis Druian, Joseph
CLARINETS MacLean, Ralph Serpentini, Jules J. Rowe, George D. Lester, Leon Guerra, Selma
BASS CLARINET Lester, Leon
SAXOPHONES Lester, Leon Guerra, Selma
BASSOONS Goslee, George F. Fisnar, John Gruner, William Del Negro, F. Schoenbach, Sol
[77]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
HORNS
Chambers, James Tomei, A. A. Fearn, Ward O. Mayer, Clarence Lannutti, Charles Homer, Anton Pierson, Herbert Jones, Mason
TRUMPETS Krauss, Samuel Hering, Sigmund Rehrig, Harold W. Fisher, Philip
BASS TRUMPET Gusikoff, Charles
TROMBONES Gusikoff, Charles
In service.
Pulis, Gordon M. Leavitt, Earl Gerhard, C. E. Stall, Fred C.
TUBA Donatelli, Philip A.
TYMPANI Schwar, Oscar Schulman, Leonard
BATTERY Podemski, Benjamin Valerio, James Sinatra, Frank Schulman, Leonard
CELESTA AND PIANO Loeben, Gustave A. Putlitz, Lois
ORGAN
Elmore, Robert
EUPHONIUM Gusikoff, Charles
LIBRARIAN Betz, Marshall
ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN Braverman, Gabriel
PHOTOGRAPHIC PUBLICITY
Siegel, Adrian
PERSONNEL MANAGER
Schmidt, Heniy
[78]
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Organized in 1879. Incorporated in i881.
PRESIDENTS
Henry Simmons Frieze, 1879--1881 and 1883-1889 Alexander Winchell, 1881-1883 and 1889-1891 Francis W. Kelsey, 1891--1927 Charles A. Sink (Executive Secretary, 1904-1927) 1927MUSICAL DIRECTORS
Calvin B. Cady, 1879-1888 Albert A. Stanley, 1888-1921 Earl V. Moore, 1922-1939
CONDUCTORS
Thor Johnson, 1939-1942 Hardin Van Deursen, 1942-THE ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Maintained by the University Musical Society
Founded by Albert A. Stanley and his associates in the Board of Directors in 1894.
MUSICAL DIRECTORS
Albert A. Stanley, 1894-1921 Earl V. Moore, 1922-1939
CONDUCTORS
Thor Johnson, 1940-1942 Hardin Van Deursen, 1943ORGANIZATIONS
The Boston Festival Orchestra, Emil Mollenhauer, Conductor, 1894-1904 The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, Conductor, 1905-1935; Eric DeLamarter, Associate Conductor, 1918-1935
In service.
[791
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, Conductor, Saul Caston and Charles O'Connell, Associate Conductors, 1936; Eugene Ormandy, Con­ductor, 1937, 1938; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Saul Caston, Associate Conductor, 1939-1945; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Alexander Hils-berg, Associate Conductor
The University Choral Union, Albert A. Stanley, Conductor, 1894-1921; Earl V. Moore, Conductor, 1922-1939; Thor Johnson, Conductor, 1940-1942; Hardin Van Deursen, 1943The Young People's Festival Chorus (now the Festival Youth Chorus), trained by Florence B. Potter, and conducted by Albert A. Stanley, 1913-1918. Conductors: Russell Carter, 1920; George Oscar Bowen, 1921-1924; Joseph E. Maddy, 1925-1927; Juva N. Higbee, 1928-1936; Roxy Cowin, 1937; Juva N. Higbee, 1938; Roxy Cowin, 1939; Juva N. Higbee, 1940-1942; Marguerite Hood, 1943The Stanley Chorus (now the Women's Glee Club), trained by Marguerite Martindale, 1934; trained by Wilson Sawyer, 1944
The University Glee Club, trained by David Mattern, 1937
The Lyra Male Chorus, trained by Reuben H. Kempf, 1937
GUEST CONDUCTORS
Gustav Hoist (London, England), 1923, 1932
Howard Hanson (Rochester), 1926, 1927, 1933, 1935
Felix Borowski (Chicago), 1927
Percy Grainger (New York), 1928
Jose Iturbi (Philadelphia), 1937
Georges Enesco (Paris), 1939
Harl McDonald (Philadelphia), 1939, 1940, 1944
CHORAL WORKS
Manzoni Requiem, Verdi
Damnation of Faust, Berlioz
Lohengrin, Act I, Finale from Die Meistersinger, Wagner
Arminius, Bruch; Stabat Mater, Rossini
Manzoni Requiem, Verdi
German Requiem, Brahms; Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens
Lily Nymph, Chadwick; Hora Novissima, Parker
Elijah, Mendelssohn; Golden Legend, Sullivan
190s Orpheus, Gluck; Faust, Gounod; Tannhauser, Wagner
1903 Caractacus, Elgar; Alda, Verdi
Fair Ellen, Brtich; Dream of Gerontius, Elgar; Carmen, Bizet
St. Paul, Mendelssohn; Arminius, Bruch
Stabat Mater, Dvorak; A Psalm of Victory, Stanley; Alda, Verdi
Messiah, Handel; Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens
Creation, Haydn; Faust, Gounod
? World premiere at the May Festival Concert [80]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
Seasons, Haydn; Damnation of Faust, Berlioz
Fair Ellen, Bruch; Odysseus, Bruch; New Life, Wolf-Ferrari
Judas Maccabeus, Handel; Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky
Dream of Gerontius, Elgar; Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens; Chorus Triomphalis,
Stanley
1913 Laus Deo, Stanley; Manzoni Requiem, Verdi; Lohengrin, Act I and Finale from
Die Meistersinger, Wagner; The Walrus and the Carpenter (Children), Fletcher
1914 Caractacus, Elgar; Messiah, Handel; Into the World (Children), Benoit 191J New Life, Wolf-Ferrari; Children's Crusade, Pierne
1916 Paradise Lost, Bossi; Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens; Children at Bethlehem
(Children), Pierne
1917 Dream of Gerontius, Elgar; Aida, Verdi; The Walrus and the Carpenter (Children), Fletcher
The Beatitudes, Franck; Carmen, Bizet; Into the World (Children), Benoit
Ode to Music, Hadley; Faust, Gounod; Fair Land of Freedom, Stanley
Manzoni Requiem, Verdi; Damnation of Faust, Berlioz
Elijah, Mendelssohn; Aida, Verdi; Voyage of Arion (Children), Moore
New Life, Wolf-Ferrari; A Psalmodic Rhapsody, Stock; Tannhauser (Paris version), Wagner; A Song of Spring (Children), Busch
1923 B-minor Mass (excerpts), Bach; f Hymn of Jesus, Hoist; Dirge for Two Veterans,
Hoist; Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens
1924. B-minor Mass (excerpts), Bach; fLa Primavera (Spring), Respighi; fSea Drift, Delius; Excerpts from Aida and La Forza del Destino, Verdi
1925 The Bells, Rachmaninoff; B-minor Mass (excerpts), Bach; La Gioconda, Ponchielli; Alice in Wonderland (Children), Kelley
1926 Elijah, Mendelssohn; Lohengrin, Wagner; The Lament of Beowulf, Hanson; The
Walrus and the Carpenter (Children), Fletcher
1927 Missa Solemnis, Beethoven; f Choral Symphony, 2d and 3d movements, Hoist;
Carmen, Bizet; Heroic Elegy, Hanson; Voyage of Arion (Children), Moore
1928 St. Francis of Assisi, Pierne; Marching Song of Democracy, Grainger; Aida, Verdi;
Quest of the Queer Prince (Children), Hyde
1929 German Requiem, Brahms; New Life, Wolf-Ferrari; Samson and Delilah, SaintSaens ; Hunting of the Snark (Children), Boyd.
1930 Magnificat, Bach; King David, Honegger; Manzoni Requiem, Verdi; A Symphony of Song (Children), Strong
1931 St. Francis of Assisi, Pierne; Boris Godounov (original version), Moussorgsky; Old
Johnny Appleseed (Children), Gaul
1932 Creation, Haydn; Symphony of Psalms, Stravinski; f Choral Fantasia, Hoist;
fLegend of Kitesh, Rimsky-Korsakoff; The Spider and the Fly (Children), Protheroe
1933 Belshazzar's Feast, Walton; Merry Mount, Hanson; Spring Rapture (Children),
Gaul
1934. The Seasons, Haydn; f Ein Friedenslied,1 Heger; By the Rivers of Babylon, Loeffler; The Ugly Duckling (Children), English
1935 Songs from "Drum Taps," Hanson; King David, Honegger; Boris Godounov
(original version), Moussorgsky; Jumblies (Children), James
1936 Manzoni Requiem, Verdi; Caractacus, Elgar; Children at Bethlehem (Children),
Pierne
1937 Aida, Verdi; +The Seasons, Fogg; Spring Rapture (Children), Gaul; Excerpts
from Parsifal, Wagner
World premiere at the May Festival Concerts
t American premiere at the May Festival Concerts
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
1938 The Bells, Rachmaninoff; ? Cantata, Paul Bunyan (Children), James; Carmen,
Bizet
1939 Otello, Verdi; Choral Symphony, McDonald; Psalmus Hungaricus, Kodaly; Onward, Ye Peoples, Sibelius; Alto Rhapsody, Brahms
1940 Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saens; Cantata, The Inimitable Lovers, Charles
Vardell, Jr.
1941 Alleluia, Randall Thompson; Requiem, Brahms; Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky}
Saint Mary Magdalene, d'Indy; Songs, M. E. Gillett
1942 King David, Honegger; Ninth Symphony, Beethoven; The Walrus and the Carpenter (Children), Fletcher
1943 Laus Deo, Stanley; A Psalmodic Rhapsody, Stock; Manzoni Requiem, Verdi; A Folk
Song Fantasy, orchestrated by Marion E. McArtor
1944 Elijah, Mendelssohn; Songs of the Two Americas (Children), orchestrated by Eric
DeLamarter
1945 Ninth Symphony, Beethoven; Te Deum laudamus, Bruckner; Blessed Damozel, Debussy; A Free Song, Schuman; Fun of the Fair (Children), Rowley, orchestrated by Dorothy James
1946 Requiem, Mozart; Alexander Nevsky, ProkofiefF; American Folk Songs (Children),
arranged by Marguerite Hood, and orchestrated by Dorothy James
World premiere at the May Festival Concerts
[82]
ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS OF THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY, 1945-46
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY, in addition to the annual May Festival, maintains other concert series. The programs provided in these concerts during the season of 1945-46 were as follows:
THE SIXTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CHORAL UNION CONCERT SERIES
FIRST CONCERT
Saturday Evening, November 3, 1945
Paul Robeson, Bass
Assisted by William Schatzkamer, Pianist Lawrence Brown, Accompanist
PROGRAM
O Isis and Osiris MOZART
When Dull Care Arr. by Lane Wilson
Lasciatemi morire Monteverde
Three Poor Mariners Arr. by Roger Quilter
Organ Fugue in G minor Bach
Intermezzo in E-flat minor Brahms
Polonaise in A-flat major Chopin
William Schatzkamer
Silent Room Moussorcsky
Excerpt from "Boris Godounofi" Moussorgsky
Two Shakespeare Songs Quilter
Four Russian Folk Songs Liadoff-Siloti
Reflets dans l'eau Debussy
Ritual Fire Dance deFalla
Mr. Schatzkamer
John Henry Arr. by Hall Johnson
Hammer Song Arr. by Lawrence Brown
Deep River Arr. by H. T. Burleigh
Great Gittin' Up Mornin' Arr. by Lawrence Brown
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
SECOND CONCERT Sunday Evening, November ii, 1945
The Cleveland Orchestra Erich Leinsdorf, Conductor
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 7 in E major Bruckner
Suite from "Appalachian Spring" Copland
Bolero Ravel
THIRD CONCERT
Monday Evening, November 19, 1945
Alexander Uninsky, Pianist
PROGRAM
Three Sonatas Scarlatti
Sonata, E-flat, Op. 31, No. 3 Beethovbn
Sonata No. 7, Op. 83 Prokofieff
Three Etudes Chopin
Nocturne in D-flat major Chopin
Waltz in G flat Chopin
Feuilles mortes Debussy
Ondine Debussy
General Lavine-eccentric Debussy
Spanish Rhapsody Liszt
FOURTH CONCERT
Tuesday Evening, November 27, 1945
Jennie Tourel, Mezzo-Soprano Erich Itor Kahn at the Piano
PROGRAM
Per pieta STRADELLA
Se tu m'arni PERCOLESI
Chi vuol la zingarella Paisiello
Rondo from JCLa Cenerentola" Rossini
Trois chansons de Bilitis Debussy
Romance de 1'etoile Chabrier
Toujours Faure
0 Cease Thy Singing Maiden Fair Rachmaninoff
Hopak Moussorgsky
Lullaby Gretchaninoff
Pano murciano NlN
El Vito NlN
Air de Lia from "L'enfant prodigue" Debussy
1 Wonder as I Wander American White Spiritual
The Doves Theodore Chanler
I Hate Music (Five kid songs) Leonard Bernstein
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM
FIFTH CONCERT Monday Evening, December 3, 1945
Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff, Conductor
PROGRAM
The Credo A. Gretchaninoff
Cherubim Hymn Arr. by A. Kastalsky
First Psalm of David (fourteenth century church song) . Kievo-Pechersky MONASTERY
Last Prayer in the Liturgy A. Tchesnokoff
Recollections of Tchaikovsky Arr. by C. Shvedoff
Who Knows Zakharoff-Shvedoff
Christmas Song N. Gogotsky
Camp on the Volga I. Dobrovein
Lezginka Arr. by C. Shvedoff
Partisans' Songs Zakharoff
Kama Song Arr. by N. Gogotsky
The Blue Flute Folk Song
Parting Arr. by C. Shvedoff
Cossack Song of 1812 Arr. by S. Jaroff
SIXTH CONCERT Monday Evening, December 10, 1945
Boston Symphony Orchestra Serge Koussevitzky, Conductor
PROGRAM
"Classical" Symphony, Op. 25 Prokofieff
Symphony No. 5, Op. 100 Prokofieff
Symphony No. 2, D major, Op. 43 Sibelius
SEVENTH CONCERT Friday Evening, January 18, 1946
Jascha Heifetz, Violinist Emanuel Bay at the Piano
PROGRAM
Allegro; Minuetto; Non presto Scarlatti
Sonata in A major Brahms
Concerto in A minor GLAZOUNOFF
Adagio and Fuga from Sonata in G minor Bach
Impromptu Schubert
Scherzo (from Trio) Mendelssohn
Folk Dance Beethoven
Figaro, from "The Barber of Seville" .... Rossini-Castelnuovo-Tedesco
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OF FICIAL PROGRAM
EIGHTH CONCERT
Thursday Evening, January 31, 1946
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Desire Defauw, Conductor
PROGRAM
Concerto Grosser, No. 10 in D minor Handel
Suite from "Pelleas et Melisande, Op. 80 FaurS
"Thus Spake Zarathustra," Op. 30 Strauss
Symphony in D minor .... . . . Franck
NINTH CONCERT
Wednesday Evening, February 13, 1946
Artur Schnabel, Pianist
PROGRAM
Toccata in D major (Fantasia and Fugue) Bach
Rondo in A minor Mozart
Sonata in E major, Op. 109 Beethoven
Sonata in C minor (K. 457) Mozart
Sonata in D major, Op. 53 Schubert
TENTH CONCERT Monday Evening, March ii, 1946 p Detroit Symphony Orchestra Karl Krueger, Conductor
PROGRAM
Symphony in C major, No. 41 (K. 551) Mozart
"La Mer"5 Three Orchestral Sketches . Debussy
Overture, "Fingal's Cave," Op. 26 Mendelssohn
Five Excerpts from the Incidental Music for "The. Tempest" .... Sibelius "Death and Transfiguration" Strauss
SIXTH ANNUAL CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL Lecture Hall, Rackham Building
Budapest String Quartet
Josef Roismann, Violin Boris Kroyt, Viola
Edgar Ortenberg, Violin Mischa Schneider, Violoncello
FIRST CONCERT Friday Evening, January 25, 1946
PROGRAM
Quartet in D minor, Op. 76, No. 2 Haydn
Quartet in E-flat major (1943) Hindemith
Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 74 Beethoven
[86]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
SECOND CONCERT Saturday Afternoon, January 26, .1946
PROGRAM
Quartet in F major, K. 590 . Mozart
Quartet No. iz . Milhaud
Quartet in G major, Op. 161 Schubert
THIRD CONCERT Saturday Evening, January 26, 1946
PROGRAM
Quartet in A major, Op. 18, No. 5 . . . . . . . . . . Beethoven
Quartet Piston
Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 51 DVORAK
SPECIAL CONCERTS
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, December 16, 1945
"M E S S I A H" Georg Friedrich Handel
Soloists:
Rose Dirman, Sofrano Kathryn Meisle, Contralto
Arthur Kraft, Tenor Mark Love, Bass
Hugh Norton, Narrator Frieda Vogan, Organist
University Choral Union Special "Messiah" Orchestra
Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor
ALEC TEMPLETON, Pianist Friday Evening, March 29, 1946
PROGRAM
Choral Prelude, "Jesus Christ, Son of God" Bach-Rummel
Pavanne to Earl of Salisbury and Galliard William Byrd
Le Coucou (The Cuckoo) Daquin
Sonata in F minor, Op. 57 Beethoven
Intermezzo in A major Brahms
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum from "Children's Corner" Suite .... Debussy Romance 1 _
Minuet in Style of Ravel _ [ TEMPLETON
Fantasia on Themes from "Boris GodounofP'J Minuet in G Reharmonized
William de Tell TEMPLETON
Improvisations, Styles of Composers
Siciliana
Improvisations--Four-in-one
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CONCERTS FOR THE SEASON OF 1946-47
Sixty-Eighth Annual Choral Union Series
October 10 October 30 November 10 November 19 November 25 December 9
January 17 February 17
February 16 March 16
August 8
James Melton, Tenor
Egon Petri, Pianist
Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, Conductor
Yehudi Menuhin, Violinist
Icelandic Singers, Sigurd Thordarson, Conductor
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge
Koussevitzky, Conductor Vladimir Horowitz, Pianist Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Karl Krueger,
Conductor
Lotte Lehman, Soprano Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Desire
Defauw, Conductor
Special Summer Concert Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin, Pianists In Recital of Music for Two Pianos
Annual Christmas Concert
December 15-"Messiah" by Handel. Soloists: Lura Stover, So­prano; Ellen Repp, Contralto; Ralph Lear, Tenor; Alden Edkins, Bass; University Choral Union; Special "Messiah" Orchestra; Frieda Op't Holt Vogan, Organist; Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor.
Seventh Annual Chamber Music Festival
January 24 and 25, 1947--The Budapest String Quartet in three con­certs; Josef Roismann and Edgar Ortenberg, Violins; Boris Kroyt, Viola; and Mischa Schneider, Violoncello.
Fifty-Fourth Annual May Festival
May 8,9,10,11,1947. Six concerts. Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, and Alexander Hilsberg, Associate Con­ductor; University Choral Union, Hardin Van Deursen, Con­ductor; Festival Youth Chorus, Marguerite Hood, Conduc­tor; distinguished soloists, both vocal and instrumental.
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