UMS Concert Program, April 29, 30 And May 1, 2, 1948: The Fifty-fifth Annual May Festival -- Glenn D. Mcgeoch

Concert: SIXTH
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE FIFTY-FIFTH ANNUAL
MAY FESTIVAL
NINETEEN HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Official Program of the Fifty-Fifth Annual
MAY FESTIVAL
April 29, 30 and May 1, 2, 1948 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
@@@@Published by The University Musical Society, Ann Arbor
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., LL.D Secretary
Oscar A. Eberbach, A.B Treasurer
Roscoe O. Bonisteel, LL.B. . . . Assistant Secretary-Treasurer Thor Johnson, M.Mus., Mus.D Guest 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.
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Charles A. Sink, President Mary K. Farkas, Secretary to the President Deanne Smith, Bookkeeper and Cashier Gail W. Rector, Assistant to the President
THE FIFTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MAY FESTIVAL
CONDUCTORS
Eugene Ormandy, Orchestral Conductor Alexander Hilsberg, Associate Orchestral Conductor Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor Marguerite Hood, Youth Chorus Conductor
SOLOISTS
Bidu Sayao Soprano
Virginia MacWatters Soprano
Anne Bollinger Soprano
Nell Tangeman Mezzo-Soprano
Cloe Elmo Contralto
i
David Lloyd Tenor
Leonard Warren Baritone
James Pease Baritone
William Kincaid Flutist
Mischa Elman Violinist
Leon Fleisher Pianist
ORGANIZATIONS
Philadelphia Orchestra University Choral Union Festival Youth Chorus
[3]
Notices and Acknowledgments
The University Musical Society desires to express appreciation to Thor Johnson and Lester McCoy, and to 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 Author of the analyses hereby expresses his deep obligation to Jean Athay for her aid in collecting materials; to R,L. F. McCombs, 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.
Concerts will begin on time and doors will be closed during numbers.
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 a Concert Endowment Fund, to ensure continuance 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.
[4]
FIRST MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Thursday Evening, April 29, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
Soloist BIDU SAYAO, Sop-ano
PROGRAM
Toccata and Fugue in D minor Bach
Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy
Non so piu cosa son" from "Marriage of Figaro" Mozart
"Voi che sapete" from "Marriage of Figaro" Mozart
Recitative, King of Thule aria, and "Jewel Song," from "Faust" . Gounod
Bidu Sayao
?Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 Brahms
Allegro
Andante
Poco allegretto Allegro
INTERMISSION
Nhapope (Negro Song) Villa-lobos
Folk Songs of Brazil Arr. Braga
O Kinimba Engenho Novo
Miss Sayao
Choreographic Poem--"La Valse" Ravel
?Columbia records
[5]
i
SECOND MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Friday Evening, April 30, at 8130
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
ALEXANDER HILSBERG and THOR JOHNSON, Conductors
Soloists
VIRGINIA MacWATTERS, Soprano NELL TANGEMAN, Mezzo-Soprano
DAVID LLOYD, Tenor JAMES PEASE, Baritone
WILLIAM KINCAID, Flutist
PROGRAM COMPOSITIONS OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Overture to "Don Giovanni"
Concerto in G major, for Flute and Orchestra, K. 313
Allegro maestoso
Adagio non troppo
Rondo: tempo di menuetto
William Kincaid intermission
Great Mass in C minor, K. 427
University Choral Union and Soloists Frieda Op't Holt Vogan, Organist
[6]
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May i, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA ALEXANDER HILSBERG, Conductor
THE FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS MARGUERITE HOOD, Conductor
Soloist MISCHA ELMAN, Violinist
PROGRAM
Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C major Bach
Transcribed for orchestra by Leo Weiner
Songs of the Americas
Edited by Marguerite Hood and orchestrated by Eric DeLamarter
Laughing Lisa (French-Canadian folk song)
Night Herding Song (American cowboy song)
Buy My Tortillas (Folk song from Chile)
Lord, I Want to be a Christian (Negro spiritual)
Arrurru--Cradle Song (Folk song from Colombia)
My Pretty Caboda (Folk song from Brazil)
The Indian Flute (Peruvian Indian song)
Uy! Tara La La (Folk song from Mexico)
Sourwood Mountain (Appalachian Mountain folk song)
Westward (Chippewa Indian song)
Ay, Ay, Ay (Creole folk song)
The Erie Canal (American river ballad)
Festival Youth Chorus intermission
Concerto in D major, Op. 61, for Violin and Orchestra . . . Beethoven Allegro ma non troppo
Larghetto ,
Rondo: allegro
MlSCHA Elman
Four Dances from the Ballet, "Gayne" Khachaturian
Saber Dance Lullaby
Dance of the Rose Maidens Lezgenka
[7]
FOURTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May i, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
Soloist LEONARD WARREN, Baritom
PROGRAM
?Overture, "Der Freischiitz" Weber
Iago's Credo from "Otello" Verdi
Prologue from "Pagliacci" Leoncavallo
Leonard Warren
intermission
"Cortigiani, vil razza dannata" from "Rigoletto" Verdi
"Pari siamo" from "Rigoletto" Verdi
Mr. Warren
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 Sibelius
Allegretto
Tempo andante ma rubato
Vivacissimo, lento e suave
Finale: allegro moderato
Columbia records
[8]
FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 2, at i 130
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Conductor
Soloists
ANNE BOLLINGER, Sofrcmo JAMES PEASE, Baritone
DAVID LLOYD, Tenor LEON FLEISHER, Pianist
PROGRAM COMPOSITIONS OF SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
!The Bells"--Symphony for Orchestra, Chorus, and Solo Voices
Silver Sleigh Bells--Allegro, ma non tantoj largo un poco; maestoso (Tenor solo and chorus)
Mellow Wedding Bells--Lento (Soprano solo and chorus)
Loud Alarum Bells--Presto (Chorus)
Mournful Iron Bells--Lento lugubre (Baritone solo and chorus)
INTERMISSION
Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, for Piano and Orchestra
Moderato
Adagio sostenuto
Allegro scherzando
Leon Fleisher
The -piano used is a Steinway
[9]
SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 2, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
Soloist
CLOE ELMO, Contralto
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 101 in D major ("The Clock") Haydn
Adagio, presto Andante
Menuetto: allegretto Finale: vivace
"Divinita infernal" from "Alceste" Gluck
"O mio Fernando" from "La Favorita" , . Donizetti
Cloe Elmo
INTERMISSION
"The Swan of Tuonela," Legend from the "Kalevala,"
Op. 22, No. 3 Sibelius
John Minsker, English Horn
"Letter" Aria from "Werther" Massenet
Azucena's Aria, "Condotta ell'era in ceppi" from "II Trovatore" . . Verdi Miss Elmo
?Symphonic Poem, "Feste Romane" .....,,.. Respighi
?Columbia record [10]
DESCRIPTIVE PROGRAMS
BY
GLENN D. McGEOCH
FIRST CONCERT
Thursday Evening, April 29
Toccata and Fugue in D minor J. S. Bach
Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy
Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach, March 21, 1685; died at Leipzig, July 28, 1750.
In Johann Sebastian Bach, the musical development of two centuries reached its climax. Coming from a family of distinguished musicians famous in Ger­many for one hundred and fifty years, he entered into the full heritage of his predecessors and used, with incomparable effect, all of the musical learning of his day.
Born in the very heart of medieval Germany, in the remote little town of Eisenach under the tree-clad summits of the Thuringian Wald, Bach lived in an atmosphere that was charged with poetry, romance, and music. Tower­ing precipitously over the little village stood the stately Wartburg, which once sheltered Luther and where, in one of the chambers, the German Bible came into being. Here also in 1207, the famous Tourney of Song was held, and German minstrelsy flowered.
In these surroundings Bach's early youth was spent, and his musical foun­dation formed under the careful guidance of his father. The subsequent events of his life were less propitious. Orphaned at the age of ten, he pursued his studies by himself, turning to the works of Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and other predecessors and contemporaries as models.
Singing in a church choir to gain free tuition at school, traveling by foot to neighboring towns to hear visiting organists who brought him occasional touches with the outside world, securing menial positions as organist in Arnstadt and Miihlhausen, filled the monotonous years of this great master's youth.
Although he gained some fame as the foremost organist of his day, he was ignored and neglected as a composer. Of all his church music, parts of only one cantata were printed during his life, not because it was esteemed, but be­cause it was written for an annual burgomeister election! References by con­temporaries are scanty; they had no insight into the value of his art. Fifty years
[13]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
after his death, his music was practically unknown, most of the manuscripts having been lost or mislaid.
The neglect, discovery, and final triumph of Bach's music are without parallel in the history of music. His triumphant progress from utter obscurity to a place of unrivaled and unprecedented brilliance is a phenomenon, the equal of which has not been recorded. Today his position is extraordinary. Never was there a period when there were more diverse ideals, new methods, confusion of aims and styles, yet never has Bach been so universally acknowl­edged as the supreme master of music. Modern critics and composers speak of "going back to Bach." The statement is inconsistent; they have not yet come to him.
Certainly masterpieces were never so naively conceived. Treated with contempt by his associates in Leipzig, where he spent the last years of his life, and restrained by the narrow ideals and numbing pedantry of his superiors, he went on creating a world of beauty, without the slightest thought of posterity. The quiet old cantor, patiently teaching his pupils Latin and music, supervising all the choral and occasional music in the two principal churches of Leipzig, gradually losing his sight until in his last years he was hopelessly blind, never for a moment dreamed of immortality. He continued, year after year, to fulfill his laborious duties, and in doing so created the great works that have brought him eternal fame. His ambitions never passed beyond his city, church, and family.
Born into a day of small things, he helped the day to expand by giving it creations beyond the scope of its available means of expression. His art is elas­tic; it grows, deepens, and flows on into the advancing years. The changed media of expression, the increased expressive qualities of the modern pianoforte, organ, and complex orchestra have brought to the world a realization of the great dormant and potential beauties that lay in his work.
Mr. Ormandy's transcription, done with great respect and feeling for the old master, reveals these marvels of hidden beauty. What a magnificent world did the mighty Sebastian evolve from the dry, stiff, pedantic forms of his time! As Wagner put it, "No words can give a conception of its richness, its sub­limity, its all-comprehensiveness."
Bach lived in Weimar from 1708 to 1717 where he held the position of court organist. Here he wrote his finest organ works, using the current French and Italian styles with great independence. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor dates from the early part of Bach's residence there.
[H]
FIRST CONCERT
The Toccata (from the Italian word "toccare," to touch), a conventional and familiar form in Bach's day, was a kind of prelude which offered an opportunity to display the "touch" or execution of the performer. As a form it lacked definition, but like a fantasia, it was improvisatory in its style and often very showy in character.
There is something Gothic about Bach's great Toccata and Fugue in D minor. It is a tonal cathedral towering from tremendous masses into tenuous spires; it lifts from the reality of earth to the ephemeralness of clouds. While it is beyond the power of music to represent the world of reality, it can present the fundamental qualities which lie behind reality; and Bach's music conveys, through the subtle medium of ordered sound, the abstract qualities which the Gothic cathedral possesses--solidity, endurance, strength--and above all, as­piration.
"VoTche spete" } from "The MarriaSe of Figar°" Mozart
Wolfang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Jan­uary 27, 1756; died in Vienna, December 5, 1791.
Over one hundred and sixty years ago (1785--86) Mozart composed an exquisite and charming opera, The Marriage of Figaro, to a text by Lorenzo da Ponte, based upon Beaumarchais' comedy by the same name. Since its first performance in Vienna, May 1, 1786, its music has constantly enlivened and refreshed men's spirits with its sparkling, insouciant humor and spicy plot. At the period of its creation, Mozart was at the heighth of his powers, having al­ready composed Die Entfiihrung aus dem Serail, the "Haffner" symphony, the six "Haydn" quartets, and many of his great piano concerti. With this work he brought to a climax the opera buff a (comic opera) which had replaced the opera seria at the end of the eighteenth century.
Mozart's manifold genius is more fully exploited in opera than in any other form and in The Marriage of Figaro, he reveals a vividness of characteriza­tion unequaled by any other opera composer. His amazing sense of dramatic veracity, his uncanny insight into the psychological aspects of character and the unbelievable aptness with which he established these in his music, not only proved his unerring instinct for the theater, but established him as one of the foremost composers of opera in the world.
Both arias on tonight's program are sung by the adolescent, lovesick page, Cherubino (always sung by a soprano voice). Excessively susceptible to femi[15]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
nine charms, he is at the moment languishing for the love of his mistress, the Countess Almaviva. In the first aria ("Non so piu") from Act i, he breath­lessly confesses to Susanna, her maid, the incomprehensible emotions he feels when in the presence of lovely ladies.
I don't know what I'm saying, what I'm doing;
First I'm glowing, then I'm freezing;
Every woman makes me flutter.
The mention of love or delight disturbs my heart.
I speak of love while dreaming
To the waters, to the shadows, to the mountains, to the flowers, to the grass, to the fountain,
To the echo, to the air, to the winds which carry away the sound of my vain accents . . .
The second aria ("Voi che sapete") comes from Act II. Cherubino, ac­companied on the guitar by Susanna, sings a song he has written for the Countess. Stammering and blushing at first, he confesses again his emotional confusion. The song is in ballad form, to suit the situation, the voice executing the clear, lovely melody, while the string instruments carry on a simple pizzi­cato accompaniment to imitate the guitar. This delicate outline is, however, shaded and animated with the utmost subtlety by solo wind instruments. With­out being absolutely necessary for the progress of the melodies and the com­pleteness of the harmonies, they supply those delicate touches of detail that dis­tinguish the music of Mozart.
Fair ladies who know what love is
See in my heart if it abides,
The feeling I have to me is unknown
At times it is joy--at times it is woe
I shiver and yet feel all in a glow
Who holds such magic and what may it be ...
Recitative; King of Thule aria;
and "Jewel Song" from "Faust" Gounod
Charles Franjois Gounod was born in Paris, June 17, 1818; died at Saint-Cloud, October 17, 1893.
After several unsuccessful attempts at opera (Sapho, 1851; Nonne Sang-lente, 1854; Le Medegm Malgre Lui, 1858), Gounod produced Faust at the Theatre Lyrique, Paris, March 19, 1859, and was placed at once in the first rank of composers. Although it did not enjoy any real success at first, after it was revised for a performance at the Grande Opera, March 3, 1869, it
[16]
FIRST CONCERT
had over one thousand performances within the next eight years in that theater alone. For years it remained the typical and ideal opera. During the last half of the nineteenth century it represented the very ultimate in erotic experience. But time has not been as kind to Faust as to other works of this period. Today it is definitely an antique among operas. Its eroticism has paled before that of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Debussy's Pelleas and Melisande, and several decades of Freudian ideas and influences. Marguerite's salvation is of less in­terest today than her misdemeanor; Faust, less fascinating than the sardonic suavely elegant Mephistophles, who, among so many static and typed charac­ters, creates at least a semblance of dramatic vitality. Gounod had none of Mozart's or Verdi's ability to humanize or personalize his characters. His facile and melodious style, which, throughout his long career remained the chief source of his popularity, lacked the emotional intensity and dramatic impact necessary to revitalize Goethe's characters when they appeared considerably altered in an operatic libretto. It is rather difficult for modern audiences to respond with any degree of rapture, as they did in the '70's, to Marguerite's "he loves me, he loves me not," accompanied by the plucking of daisy petals; or to feel the pangs of unrequited love when Siebel (sung by a woman) addresses a bouquet "he" has gathered for Marguerite, saying "Gently whisper to her of my love, dear flowers."
In spite of its antiquated style, however, Faust seems to still possess enough enduring qualities to save it from complete oblivion. The garden scene at the beginning of Act III, from which the section on tonight's program is taken, is remarkably sustained in mood, and incidentally gives the hitherto slighted soprano plenty of vocal compensation.
Mephistophles has placed a casket of jewels in Marguerite's garden. She has just returned from the Kermesse where she has met and fallen in love with Faust.
Marguerite: (alone)
Fain would I know the name Of the fair youth I met Fain would I his birth And station also know
(To quiet her emotions she seats herself at her spinning wheel, arranges the flax upon the spindle, and recalling the old legend of the faithful King of Thule and his golden goblet, she sings, as she spins--)
?See notes on Verdi's treatment of Shakespeare's Othello, page 49.
[17]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
Once there was a king in Thule,
Who was until death always faithful,
And in memory of his loved one
Caused a cup of gold to be made. (Breaking off as she recalls Faust)
His manner was so gentle. 'Twas true politeness.
(Then she resumes the song--)
Never treasure prized he so dearly, Naught else would use on festive days, And always when he drank from it His eyes with tears were o'erflowing.
(She rises and takes a few steps--)
When he knew that death was near, As he lay on his cold couch smiling, Once more he raised with greatest effort To his lips the golden vase. (Breaking off)
I knew not what to say, my face red with blushes!
(Resuming the song--)
And when he, to honor his lady,
Drank from the cup the last, last time,
Soon falling from his trembling grasp,
Then gently passed his soul away.
Nobles alone can bear them with so bold a mien,
So tender, too, withal! (She goes toward the pavilion--)
I'll think of him no more! Good Valentine! If heav'n heeds my prayer we shall meet again. Meanwhile I am alone!
(Suddenly perceiving the bouquet left by Siebel attached to the door of the pa­vilion--)
Flowers! (She unfastens the bouquet.)
They are Siebel's, surely!
Poor faithful boy! (She perceives the caskets of jewels.)
But what is this
From whom did this splendid casket come
I dare not touch it-Yet see, here is the key! I'll take one look!
How I tremble--yet why--can it be
Much harm just to look in a casket!
[18]
FIRST CONCERT
(She opens the casket and lets the bouquet fall--)
Oh, heaven! what jewels!
Can I be dreaming
Or am I really awake
Ne'er have I seen such costly things before!
(She puts down the casket on a rustic seat, and kneels down in order to adorn herself with the jewels--)
I should just like to see
How they'd look upon me
Those brightly sparkling ear-drops! (Taking out the ear-rings--)
Ah! at the bottom of the casket is a glass: I there can see myself-But am I not becoming vain
(She puts on the ear-rings and looks at herself in the glass. Everything else is for­gotten; in child-like ecstasy, she adorns herself with the gems and in swift flying scales, and dazzling trills, expresses the exultation in her heart.)
Aria--Jewel. Song
Ah! I laugh, as I pass, to look into a glass;
Is it truly Marguerite, then
Is it you
Tell me true!
No, no, no, 'tis not you!
No, no, that bright face there reflected
Must belong to a queen!
It reflects some fair queen, whom I greet
as I pass her. Ah! could he see me now, Here, deck'd like this, I vow, He surely would mistake me, And for noble lady take me! I'll try on the rest. The necklace and the bracelets I fain would try!
(She adorns herself with the bracelets and necklace, then rises-Heavens! 'Tis like a hand
That on mine arm doth rest!
Ah! I laugh, as I pass, to look into a glass;
Is it truly Marguerite, then
Is it you
Tell me true!
No, no, no, 'tis not you!
No, no, that bright face there reflected
Must belong to a queen!
It reflects some fair queen, whom I greet
as I pass her.
Oh! could he see me now, Here, deck'd like this, I vow, He surely would mistake me, And for noble lady take me!
f
OFFICIAL PROGRAM Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 Brahms
Johannes Brahms was born May 7, 1833, at Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, at Vienna.
Brahms, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky were products of the same artistic soil, nurtured by the same forces that conditioned the standards and norms of art in their period. They 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 exclusive-ness, its crass materialism, its hidebound worship of the conventional. The showy exterior of the period did not hide the inner barrenness of its culture.
It is no accident that the real Brahms seems to us to be the serious Brahms of the great tragic songs and of the quiet resignation expressed in the slow move­ments of his symphonies. Here is to be found an expression of the true spirit of the period in which he lived. But by the exertion 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 triumphant in his art. In a period turbulent with morbid emotionalism, he stood abreast with such spirits as Carlyle and Browning, to oppose the forced impoverishment of life and the un-healthful tendencies of his period. Although he suffered disillusionment no less than Tchaikovsky, his was another kind of tragedy, the tragedy of a musician born out of his time. In fact, he suffered more than Tchaikovsky 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 dissolved 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 Brahms 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 makes 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." If the "grand style" referred to "can only be spiritually ascer­tained," then certainly his symphonies are an imposing manifestation of its ex­istence.
[2O]
FIRST CONCERT
Brahms's first two symphonies were completed in the years 1876 and 1877, respectively. The Third did not follow until six years later and, unlike the others, was immediately successful. After its first performance, December 2, 1883, at a Philharmonic concert in Vienna, Max Kalbeck wrote, "The per­formance was a veritable triumph for the composer, various daily papers and periodicals asserting that not only did it outshine its predecessors, but also that it was the best thing Brahms had ever produced. Brahms was exceedingly annoyed by this extravagant and unjust praise, especially as it raised expecta­tions which he thought he could not fulfill." In truth Brahms was at the very zenith of his creative powers when he composed this work and with it, his reputation as a symphonist was secured.
Daniel Gregory Mason, in an article in the Musical Quarterly, wrote of the Third Symphony:
Certainly in no other work of his is there a happier balance of freshness of inspiration with technical mastery and maturity. Nowhere has he conceived lovelier, more indi­vidual melodies than the clarinet theme of the first movement, the 'cello melody of the Poco allegretto, the delightfully forthright, almost burly second theme of the finale. And yet it is in no one melody, nor in any half dozen, that the power and fascination of this work lies, but in the masterly coordination of all, the extraordinary diversity of the ideas that pass before us, and their perfect marshalling into final order and complete beauty. Especially remarkable is the rhythmic grasp of Brahms, always one of his greatest qualities. One can think of few works in all musical literature in which the beginning is so completely fulfilled in the end as in the wonderful return of the motto theme and first theme of the first movement, spiritualized as it were by all they have been through, at the end of the finale.
Nhapope (Negro Song) 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,f
Daniel Gregory Mason, "Brahms's Third Symphony," Musical Quarterly, XVII, No. 3 (July I93i)t Wagner seriously considered giving the first performance of Tristan and Isolde in Rio. He had sent to Dom Pedro piano scores of The 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.
[21]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
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 experienced 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 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 Negro song follows:
I have heard people say that on certain nights, when the patio is flooded with moon­light, the Negro girl, Nhapope, feeling a wound in her heart, goes begging for crumbs of life, so that her heart might live again.
[22]
FIRST CONCERT Folk Songs of Brazil Arranged by Ernani Braga
"O Kinimba"--O Kinimba means Earth. This is a Spiritual from the Province of Pernambuco, sung in African dialect. A woman prays to leave the earth and go to heaven.
"Engenho Novo"--The new sugar machine. Another work-song from Rio Grande do Norte. The words and setting try to imitate the sounds made by the whirling machinery.
La Valse: A Choreographic Poem Ravel
Maurice Ravel was born March 7, 1875, at Cibourne; died December 28, 1937, in Paris.
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. In this structural sense lies the true secret of his difference from Debussy.
About 1805 Dr. Charles Burney spoke of the waltz as "a riotous German dance of modern invention. . . . The verb waltzen, whence this word is derived, implies to roll, wallow, welter, tumble down, or roll in the dirt and mire. What analogy there may be between these acceptations and the dance, we pretend not to say; but having seen it performed by a select party of foreigners, we could not help reflecting how uneasy an English mother would be to see her daughter so familiarly treated and still more to witness the obliging manner in which the freedom is returned by the females."
The waltz flourished, however, in spite of nice old Dr. Burney, and during the middle of the nineteenth century, under the refining influences of the Strausses, father and son, it reached its graceful and melodious perfection.
On the authority of Alfredo Casella, who, with the composer, played a two-piano arrangement of "The Waltz" in Vienna (1920), the composition had been sketched during the war and was completed in 1920; the themes are of Viennese character, and though Ravel had no exact idea of choreographic production, he conceived it with the idea of its realization in a dance representa­tion. Casella further describes the composition:
[23]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
The Poem is a sort of triptych:
The Birth of the Waltz. The poem begins with dull rumors as in Rheingold, and from this chaos gradually develops
The Waltz
The Apotheosis of the Waltz
The following "program" of "La Valse" is printed in the score:
Whirling clouds give glimpses, through rifts, of couples waltzing. The clouds scatter, little by little. One sees an immense hall peopled with a twirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The lights of the chandeliers burst forth, fortissimo. An Imperial Court about 1855.
The first performance of "La Valse" in the United States was at a concert of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Hertz, director, October 28, 1921. When the work was played at Boston the following year (January 13--14), Mr. Hale wrote that the music suggested to the critic, Raymond Schwab, who heard it at the first performance in Paris:
The atmosphere of a court ball of the Second Empire, at first a frenzy indistinctly sketched by the pizzicati of double-basses, then transports sounding forth the full hys­teria of an epoch. To the graces and languors of Carpeaux is opposed an implied anguish with some Prod'homme exclaiming: "We dance on a volcano." There is a certain threatening in this bacchanale, a drunkenness, as it were, warning itself of its decay, perhaps by the dissonances and shock of timbres, especially the repeated combinations in which the strings grate against the brass.
d
SECOND CONCERT
Friday Evening, April 30
Program of the Compositions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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 art 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.
The philosopher, by observing the effect of environment and conditions on man in general, may point out the probable relation of the outward circum­stances of a composer's life at a certain period to his work. The musical analyst, dealing with the details of musical construction, can touch a real source of the effectiveness of a work and reveal the composer's manner of musical thinking. The poet, being susceptible to the same influences as the composer, may give a sympathetic interpretation or a vivid impression of the effect the work has had upon him. But none can fathom the processes by which a genius like Mozart was able to transcend the events of his daily life, and sublimate the emotions and feelings conditioned by those events into sound forms of such eternal beauty. There is no reasonable explanation of how he could write so persuasive and high-spirited a work as the G-major flute concerto, during a period of physical privation and worry, for a commission he did not wish to fulfill, and for an instrument he did not admire. It would not be easy to explain how, during a period of creative uncertainty and crisis, in a mood of disappointment and chagrin, he could produce the C-minor Mass as the mere fulfillment of a promised vow. The mystery of artistic creation can never be satisfactorily ex­plained. The notes which follow can merely recount the established facts.
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
Overture from "Don Giovanni" Mozart
In the Wiener Zeitung (No. 91), 1787 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.
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 followed."
It is clear from Mozart's letters to Gottfried von Jacquin that Don Gio­vanni was ready some time before the first performance. Rumor has it, how­ever, that the overture was written on the previous night and that the or­chestra had to play it at sight. In Mozart's catalogue, the whole opera, in­cluding the overture, is entered as finished on October 28. It is probable that the overture was written on the night of October 27, before the second re­hearsal. At any rate it is generally agreed that it was written very late. In it Mozart brought the operatic overture, like everything else he touched, to a climax. Employing significant musical ideas associated in the score with par­ticular dramatic scenes such as the opening chords with the murdered Com­mandant and the allegro with the spirit of the comic episodes, he not only
? Gottfried von Jacquin (1763-92) was the son of the famous botanist, Professor . Nicolaus Josef, Baron von Jacquin. He and his sister Franziska were pupils of Mozart.
[26]
SECOND CONCERT
fused the overture to the dramatic action of the opera itself, but more par­ticularly he effected a musical unity between them.
The following short survey of the operatic overture, and Mozart's relation to it was written by Richard Wagner:
In earlier days a prologue preceded the play: it would appear that one had not the hardihood to snatch the spectator from his daily life and set him at one blow in the presence of an ideal world; it seemed more prudent to pave the way by an introduc­tion whose character already belonged to the sphere of art he was to enter. This Prologue addressed itself to the spectator's imagination, invoked its aid in compassing the proposed illusion, and supplied a brief account of events supposed to have taken place before, with a summary of the action about to be represented. When the whole play was set to music, as happened in Opera, it would have been more consistent to get this prologue sung as well; instead thereof one opened the performance with a mere orchestral prelude, which in those days could not fully answer the original pur­pose of the prologue, since purely instrumental music was not sufficiently matured as yet to give due character to such a task. These pieces of music appear to have had no other object than to tell the audience that singing was the order of the day. Were the weakness of the instrumental music of that epoch not in itself abundant explana­tion of the nature of these early overtures, one perhaps might suppose a deliberate ob­jection to imitate the older prologue, as its sobering and undramatic tendency had been recognized; whichever way, one thing is certain--the Overture was employed as a mere conventional bridge, not viewed as a really characteristic prelude to the drama.
A step in advance was taken when the general character of the piece itself, whether sad or merry, was hinted in its overture. But how little these musical introductions could be regarded as real preparers of the needful frame of mind, we may see by Handel's overture to his Messiah, whose author we should have to consider most in­competent, had we to assume that he actually meant this tone-piece as an Introduction in the newer sense. In fact, the free development of the Overture, as a specifically characteristic piece of music, was still gainsaid to those composers whose means of lengthening a purely instrumental movement were confined to the resources of the art of counterpoint . . .
The great inelasticity of this form appears to have suggested the need of em­ploying and developing the so-called "symphony," a conglomerate of diverse types. Here two sections in quicker time were severed by another of slower motion and soft expression, whereby the main opposing characters of the drama might at least be broadly indicated. It only needed the genius of a Mozart, to create at once a master-model in this form, such as we possess in his symphony to the "Seraglio"; it is im­possible to hear this piece performed with spirit in the theatre, without obtaining a very definite notion of the character of the drama which it introduces. However,
[27]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
there was still a certain helplessness in this division into three sections, with a separate tempo and character for each; and the question arose, how to weld the isolated frac­tions to a single undivided whole, whose movement should be sustained by just the contrast of those differing characteristic motives.
The creators of this perfect form of overture were Gluck and Mozart.
Even Gluck still contented himself at times with the mere introductory piece of older form, simply conducting to the first scene of the opera--as in IpAigenia in Tauris--with which this musical prelude at any rate stood mostly in a very apt re. lation. Though even in his best of overtures the master retained this character of an introduction to the first scene, and therefore gave no independent close, he succeeded at last in stamping on this instrumental number itself the character of the whole succeeding drama. Gluck's most perfect masterpiece of this description is the overture to Ifhigenia in Aulis. Here the master draws the main ideas of the drama in power­ful outline, and with an almost visual distinctness. We shall return to this glorious work, by it to demonstrate that form of overture which should rank as the most ex­cellent.
After Gluck, it was Mozart that gave the Overture its true significance. Without toiling to express what music neither can nor should express, the details and entangle­ments of the plot itself--which the earlier Prologue had endeavoured to set forth-with the eye of a veritable poet he grasped the drama's leading thought, stripped it of all material episodes and accidentiae, and reproduced it in the transfiguring light of music as a passion personified in tones, a counterpart both warranting that thought itself and explaining the whole dramatic action to the hearer's feeling. On the other hand, there arose an entirely independent tone-piece, no matter whether its outward structure was attached to the first scene of the opera or not. To most of his over­ture, however, Mozart also gave the perfect musical close, for instance, those to the Magic Flute, to Figaro and Tito; so that it might surprise us to find him denying it to the most important of them all, the overture to Don Giovanni, were we not obliged to recognize in the marvellously thrilling passage of the last bars of this overture into the first scene a peculiarly pregnant termination to the introductory tone-piece of a Don Giovanni.
Concerto in G major for Flute and Orchestra (K. 313) f . Mozart
In the summer of 1777, Mozart, accompanied by his ailing mother, de­parted from Salzburg to visit the various musical centers of Europe. He had just passed his twenty-first birthday and was eager to obtain a permanent court
? Richard Wagner, Prose Works, trans, by William A. Ellis (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1898), Vol. 7.
fThe cadenzas which Mr. Kincaid plays were composed by the Belgian musician, Francois Auguste Gevaert (1828-1908).
[28]
SECOND CONCERT
position. But the journey proved fruitless and tragic. The courts of Europe which had enthusiastically received the child prodigy, when he was exhibited before them by an ambitious father, found nothing sensational in the return of a highly gifted but unknown young composer. Furthermore, the courts throughout Europe were ringing with the music of Italy; in this musically Italianized Europe, Mozart failed to make any impression, and met only in­difference and antagonism wherever he went. He returned to Salzburg in 1779, discouraged by his reception and failure to obtain a position anywhere, and heartsick at the loss of his mother who died while they were in Paris.
In October of 1777, Mozart and his mother arrived in Mannheim on their way to Paris. He was forced to delay his journey, however, because of his mother's illness and to remain there during the midwinter months. Their stay was pleasant enough, for Mozart had identified himself with the court of the Elector Palatine, Carl Theodor, where he heard the famous Mannheim orches­tra. But no position was forthcoming from this contact. Furthermore, to main­tain themselves, Mozart gave lessons to the daughter of the Court Councillor Serrarins in return for lodgings and taught composition to the son of Christian Danner, for one meal a day for his mother.
In these depressing and discouraging circumstances, Mozart produced this exquisitely gay and charming concerto. He composed it upon a commission from another of his pupils-a Dutchman named De Jean.
Alfred Einstein, in his comprehensive work on Mozart writes:
Mozart's concertos for wind instruments are for the most part occasional works in the narrower sense, intended to make a pleasant impression, and since it is in the very nature of wind instruments that their players must be treated with consideration, all these works are simple in structure, and the character of their melodic invention is determined by the limitations of the instruments. Not that Mozart himself felt in any way cramped. He always moved comfortably and freely within any limita­tions, and turned them into positive advantages. . . . All these concertos have some­thing special and personal about them, and when one hears them in a concert hall, which is seldom enough, one has the feeling that the windows have been opened and a breath of fresh air has been let in.
We know that Mozart approached the task of writing the G-major Concerto for Flute without pleasure, since he did not like the flute. But the longer one knows
Other compositions for the flute supposed to have been written for De Jean were another Concerto in D minor (K. 314), the Andante in C (K. 315), and the quartets for flute and strings (K. 285, 298).
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
the work, the less trace one can find of his dislike. The slow movement (in D major) is, in fact, so personal, one might even say so fantastic, so completely individual in character, that the man who commissioned the work evidently did not know what to do with it. Mozart then presumably had to replace it with a simpler, more pasto­ral or idyllic Andante in C (K. 315). . . . The Rondo of this G-major Concerto, a temfo di menuetto, is a veritable fountain of good spirits and fresh invention.
The following description of the concerto is from Sir Donald Tovey:
Mozart had a gentle vein of irony which often goes with a long range of pro­phetic vision, and we may take it that when he inscribes the first movement of this Concerto allegro maestoso he writes the inscription with his tongue in his cheek. He is in fact doing very much what Mendelssohn did in the Midsummer Night's Dream music, when Peaseblossom, Cobweb, and Mustard-seed make their bows to Bottom the Weaver to the accompaniment of a flourish of trumpets on two oboes, while two flutes execute a roll of drums. . . .
The slow movement is the richest and most beautiful movement in these [flute] concertos. Here Mozart has boldly substituted two flutes for the oboes which con­stitute with the horns the usual wind band in his smallest concertos. Thus the solo flute is now standing out against a background largely of the same color. But the strings are muted; and the horns, in a lower key than in the first and last movements, provide a darker tone. The solemn opening figure, in which the flute has no share, intervenes with dramatic weight at the turning points of the structure. The move­ment is in the usual arioso sonata form.
The finale is one of those graceful temfo di menuetto rondos which Mozart seems to have given up writing in his later works. In spite of its leisurely tempo it gives the flute more scope for its characteristic fantastic agility than the rest of the work. It is broadly designed without any unusual features, and ends quitely, like almost all Mozart's examples in this tempo.f
Mass in C minor (K. 427)
In 1782 Mozart was in Vienna, eager for an opportunity to serve his Em­peror and country. Ignored and neglected by both,t he wrote serenades, piano concerti, sonatas, and other incidental works. Discouraged with the lack of opportunity afforded him in his own country, and hurt by his Emperor's neg­lect, he addressed the following letter to his father, August 17, 1782:
?Alfred Einstein, Mozart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945).
t Donald Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysts (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), Vol. 3.
X Although the Emperor had named him chamber composer, he gave him no com­missions to write either for the palace chapel or St. Stephen's Cathedral.
[30]
SECOND CONCERT
... In regard to Gluck, my ideas are precisely the same as yours, my dearest father. But I should like to add something. The Viennese gentry, and in particular the Emperor, must not imagine that I am on this earth solely for the sake of Vienna. There is no monarch in the world whom I should be more glad to serve than the Emperor, but I refuse to beg for any post. 1 believe that I am capable of doing credit to any court. If Germany, my beloved fatherland, of which, as you know, I am proud, will not accept me, then in God's name let France or England become the richer by another talented German, to the disgrace of the German nation. You know well that it is the Germans who have always excelled in almost all the arts. But where did they make their fortune and their reputation Certainly not in Germany! Take even the case of Gluck. Has Germany made him the great man he is Alas no! Countess Thun, Count Zichy, Baron von Swieten, even Prince Kaunitz, are all very much displeased with the Emperor, because he does not value men of talent more, and allows them to leave his dominions. ... I cannot afford to wait indefi­nitely, and indeed I refuse to remain hanging on here at their mercy. . . .
In this mood of discouragement and hurt, he began the composition of the C-minor Mass. It was not because he was commissioned to do so, or that he had any official connection with a church that he turned to this work; it was the fulfillment of a vow made to his betrothed, Constanze Weber, that brought it into being. He had promised her before their marriage, that when she became his wife and they had returned to Salzburg, he would have a newly composed Mass performed for her. They were married, however, before the Mass was completed. The inception of the work came then not from an out­side stimulus, but from an inner need and a sense of moral obligation. In a letter of January 4, 1783, he wrote to his father:
... It is quite true about my moral obligation and indeed I let the word flow from my pen on purpose. I made the promise in my heart of hearts and hope to be able to keep it. When I made it, my wife was not yet married; yet, as I was abso­lutely determined to marry her after her recovery, it was easy for me to make it-but, as you yourself are aware, time and other circumstances made our journey im­possible. The score of half a mass, which is still lying here waiting to be finished, is the best proof that I really made the promise. . . .
When Mozart returned to Salzburg with his new wife at the end of July, 1783, he brought with him for performance, the parts he had com­pleted. On August 25, the Mass was performed in St. Peterskirche. Con­stanze, it is believed, sang the soprano solos. It is assumed that for this occasion, Mozart borrowed the missing parts from one or more of his fifteen previously composed masses. Einstein wrote:
In the original Mozart score, only the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus were completed; these are authentic down to the smallest detail. Only two parts of the Credo
[31]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
For its unfinished state, several reasons can be advanced. It owed its origin to a solemn vow by Mozart that he would write a mass when he had led his Constanze to the altar--and Mozart already had his Constanze. It was composed at a time when Mozart was beginning to take an interest in Freemasonry; and at a time of crisis in Mozart's creative activity--the years between 1782 and 1784. At no other time did fragments accumulate to such an extent--beginnings of fugues and fugati, and of other contrapuntal experiments.
This "time of crisis" was brought about when Mozart under the influence of Baron von Swieten f began to study the scores of Bach and Handel and to experiment in contrapuntal and fugal writing. In a letter to his father, April 1 o, 1782, he writes:
I have said nothing to you about the rumour you mention of my being certainly taken into the Emperor's service, because I myself know nothing about it. It is true that here too the whole town is ringing with it and that a number of people have already congratulated me. I am quite ready to believe that it has been discussed with the Emperor and that perhaps he is contemplating it. But up to this moment I have no definite information. ... A propos, I have been intending to ask you, when you return the rondo, to enclose with it Handel's six fugues and Eberlin's toccatas and fugues. I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock to Baron von Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach. I am collecting at the moment the fugues of Bach--not only of Sebastian, but also of Emanuel and Friedemann. I am also collecting Handel's and should like to have the six I mentioned.
The music of Bach absorbed Mozart's interest throughout 1782, and in the unfinished C-minor Mass, the first major work written as a direct result of his studies, is to be found the most eloquent traces of its influence.:!: Mozart's sudden discovery and intense interest in the polyphonic heritage of Baroque Germany caused him great mental and spiritual concern. He had by temperawere sketched out--the first section ending with the words descendit de coelis and the Et incarnatus est. In 1840, J. A. Andre prepared an edition in which he remained close to the original work. In 1901, Alois Schmitt published another which he had reconstructed for the Mozartverein of Dresden. He filled in the gaps of the Credo from other Mozart masses, and for the Agnus Dei (omitted by Mozart) he brought back the music of the opening Kyrie. For tonight's performance, Dr. Johnson is following the Andre edition. In addition he has filled in the orchestral parts of the sections of the Credo sketched out by Mozart, and included the Schmitt version of the Agnus Dei. Einstein, of. cit., p. 30.
fTo this Director of the Imperial Court Library in Vienna we owe Haydn's Creation and Seasons. It was through him also that Beethoven became familiar with the oratorios of Handel. Beethoven dedicated the Fifth Symphony to Von Swieten.
X Mozart had previously made attempts at writing in the so-called "strict" or "learned" style: 1765, a short four-part chorus (K. 20); 1766, the final figure of the Galimathius Musicum (K. 32) ; 1767, fugues for clavier (lost) ; 1769, Cassation in G major (K. 63) ; 1776, studies with Padre Martini in Bologna.
SECOND CONCERT
ment, taste, and training followed the rococo "galant" manner of his great Italian predecessors, Alessandro Scarlatti, Caldara, Porpora, Durante, and others. Now aware of the superhuman grandeur of the contrapuntal Baroque masters, and shaken by his contact with Bach, he had temporary misgivings about his own style. Out of this conflict, however, came a synthesis in which he more or less reconciled the stylistic dualism of his period. Just as he had harmonized in Don Giovanni the "opera seria" and "opera buffa," so in the C-minor Mass he reconciled the conflicting idioms and transformed the musical language of his century. In the Kyrie, Gratias, and especially in the incredibly beautiful Qui tollis with its eight-part double chorus, in the extended fugue of the Cum sanctu sfiritu, in the vast form of the Sanctus and in the ecstatic double fugue of the Osanna, Bach's spirit is felt. But behind them all is the transparence and charm of the Italian style. The brilliant Gloria contains a reference to Handel's Hallelujah chorus on the words in excelsis, and is, in general, written in the broad Handelian idiom. The very essence of the Neo-politan operatic aria, however, is to be heard in the mezzo-soprano solo Lauda mus te, with its long ornate vocal runs, and in the soprano aria Et incamatus est with its siciliano rhythm and extreme bravura vocal cadenza.
To the purist, these passages indicate a lack of religious sincerity in Mozart -a degradation of ecclesiastical composition and a vulgar mixture of styles. A large part of the church music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was thus censured and condemned by nineteenth century critics. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, the masses, litanies, and motets of the Italians, as well as the religious works of Haydn and Mozart, were considered to be inappropriate and unliturgical.f Absence of austerity was taken for lack of respect, by these critics who in their incredible seriousness failed to sense the childlike piety, the humanity and directness of these works, or to realize that these artists were writing in the style and reflecting the taste of their period. They failed to recognize that in such artists, religious feeling and artistic impulse were one and the same thing. If music like Mozart's C minor Mass, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Haydn's Creation are to be excluded from the church, then, as Einstein points out, so should the circular panels of Botticelli depicting the In­fant Christ surrounded by Florentine angels:
? A seventeenth and eighteenth century dance type of Sicilian origin in moderate 68 or 128 meter, with a flowing dotted rhythm melody. It is often found in the slow instrumental movements of Corelli, Bach, and Padre Martini (Mozart's teacher) and in the pastorale scenes from operas of the time.
t The mixture of the "galant" and "learned" styles, as evidenced in such works as Pergolesi's Stabat Mater remained a guiding principle for the entire eighteenth century, especially in church music.
[33]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
This work is his entirely personal coming to terms with God and with his art, with what he conceived to be true church music. It has rightly been said that this torso is the only work that stands between the B minor Mass of Bach and the D Tnajor Mass of Beethoven. The name of Bach is not used here thoughtlessly for if it had not been for the crisis that the acquaintance with Bach caused in Mozart's creative career, and the surmounting of this crisis, the C minor Mass would never have taken the shape it did.
KYRIE
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.
Lord, have mercy upon us, Christ, have mercy upon us, Lord, have mercy upon us.
GLORIA
Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
Laudamus .te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus, rex coelestis Deus, pater omnipotens, Domine, fili unigenite, Jesu Christe Domine Deus agnus dei, filius patris.
Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, suscipe deprecationem nostram, qui sedes ad dextram patris, miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus altissimus.
Jesu Christe
Cum sanctu spiritu in gloria Dei patris. Amen.
Einstein, of. cit., p. 30.
Glory be to God on high,
and on earth peace to men of good will.
We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we wor­ship Thee, we glorify Thee.
We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory.
O Lord God, heavenly King,
God the Father Almighty,
O Lord, the only begotten Son,
Jesus Christ, Lord God,
Lamb of God, Son of the Father.
Thou takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us, receive our prayer, Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us.
For Thou only are holy, Thou only art the Lord, Thou only art most high.
Jesus Christ,
With the Holy Ghost in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
[34]
SECOND CONCERT
CREDO
(Scoring incomplete; missing parts supplied by Dr. Johnson)
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Factorem coeli et terrae,
visibilium omnium
et invisibilium
et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, filium Dei unigentum, et ex patre
natum ante omnia saecula, Deum deo Deo, lumen de lumine Deum verum de Deo vero,
genitum non factum
consubstantialem patri
per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines
et propter nostram salutem
descendit de coelis.
Et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto, ex Maria virgine et homo factus est.
I believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible
and invisible,
and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten
Son of God, begotten of his
Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light,
very God of God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with, the Father
by whom all things were made. Who for us men and
for our salvation
came down from heaven.
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
SANCTUS
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Domine Deus Sabaoth! Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Osanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Osanna in excelsis.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he, who cometh in th name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
AGNUS DEI
(Omitted by Mozart; music of the Kyrie adapted to new text by Schmitt)
Agnus Dei, qui tollis
peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Dona nobis pacem.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Grant us peace.
[35]
THIRD CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 1
Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C major Bach
Transcribed for orchestra by Leo Weiner
"There is no musical field in which Bach is not dominant and indispensable," wrote Charles Sanford Terry. "Music emanated from him with apparent equal ease in all its forms, but not, one is sure, with equal satisfaction. Inadequate material, vocal and instrumental, too often alloyed his pleasure, particularly in the rendering of his larger concerted works. On that account, if for no other, he was happiest at the organ, on which his supreme virtuosity completely ex­pressed his design. Of all others it was the medium most responsive to the emotion that swayed him. In its company he soared in free communion with the high intelligences that inspired him. To it he confided his most intimate thoughts, and could he have foreseen the immortality that posterity bestowed on him, he would undoubtedly have associated it with his favorite instrument."
The Toccata and Fugue in C major dates from the same period (1708--17) as the Toccata and Fugue in D minor heard on the first program,f when Bach was employed as court organist to the Duke of Weimar. During these happy years, the young composer, then in his early twenties, acquired all of the de­tails and subtleties of the organ idiom, in which he soon surpassed all of his predecessors and contemporaries.
As in the case of every other form Bach touched, he likewise transformed the Toccata into a medium of profound expression. In his hands it took on a musical value and architectural firmness quite foreign to it. From an impro­visatory, rhapsodic introduction, he gave this Toccata a fullnes and completeness of form by passing into a second section, serene and contemplative by contrasts through a transitional passage of great harmonic suspensions, to a telling climax in a highly developed Fugue, where all the brilliant technical devices that can be, imagined retain the spirit of the old Toccata.
Mr. Weiner's transcription has, with telling effect, made full use of the color possibilities of the modern orchestra.
Charles Sanford Terry, Bach, The Historical Affroach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930).
fSee page 13.
[36]
THIRD CONCERT SONGS OF THE AMERICAS
Edited by Marguerite V. Hood and Orchestrated by Eric Delamarter i. Laughing Lisa French-Canadian Folk Song
Upon the flow'ry meadow
Pretty Lisa goes, A twinkle in her laughter,
Twinkles in her toes.
Amid the waving grasses,
Blooming all apart, She picks a snow-white daisy,
With a yellow heart.
"Sweet daisy, if he loves me, Answer me and tell!"
She pulls the daisy petals; Yes, he loves he well!
2. Night Herding Song ....... American Cowboy Song
Montana version: a lullaby for the cattle
Go slow, little dogies, stop milling around, For I'm tired of your roving all over
the ground, There's grass where you're standin', so
feed kind o' slow; And you don't have forever to be on
the go.
Move slow, little dogies, move slow. Hio, hio, hio ....
Lay down, little dogies, and when you've
laid down, You can stretch yourselves out, for there's
plenty of ground.
Stay put, little dogies, for I'm awful tired, And if you get away, I am sure to be
fired.
Lay down, little dogies, lay down. Hio, hioj hio ....
3. Buy My Tortillas Folk Song from Chile
{El Tortillero is a street vendor who sings this song as he
calls his wares, the crisp little pancakes, tortillas, which are
kept hot over glowing coals and sold on the streets)
In the darkness I see nothing, By my feeble lantern light;
I am passing by your window, With a merry song tonight.
Louder I'll sing, dear,
Making my call clear; Who'll come and buy crispy little pancakes,
Tortillas buenos.
With my basket full of pancakes I have nearly passed from sight,
Vainly waiting for a message For your vendor boy tonight.
[37]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM 4. Lord I Want to be a Christian Negro Spiritual
Lord, I want to be a Christian In-a my heart, in-a my heart.
Lord, I want to be a Christian In-a my heart.
Lord, I want to be more loving In-a my heart, in-a my heart.
Lord, I want to be more loving In-a my heart.
5. Arrurru-Cradle song Colombian Folk Song
Arranged by Jose Ignacio Perdomo--sung in Spanish.
Duermete nino Duermete en paz
Las maripositas No se ven volar.
Las aves cesaron Su duke cantar
Y con sus hijuelos Durmiendo estaran.
Sleep, my baby,
Sleep in peace. The little butterflies
Are flying no more.
The birdies have ceased Their sweet singing;
And with their little ones Are slumbering already.
6. My Pretty Cabocla Folk Song from Brazil
When you are dancing the samba, my
love,
A humming bird seems a-flying, Seeking a place for nesting, you rove,
Ne'er a moment for resting; Ah, pretty Cabocla, for you I am sighing, Ah, pretty Cabocla, for you I am sigh­ing!
7 The Indian Flute .... Folk Song of the Quechua Indians
in the Peruvian Highlands
Lonely calls the Indian flute,
Like the wood-dove's coo. Lonely on the mountain,
Down the valleys, deep and blue. "I am waiting," calls the Indian flute.
Hear the plaintive music, High upon the Andes mountains,
Floating down the Andes valleys.
Now the daughter at her door
Hears the shepherd's "hoo," Where the sunshine burns all day
On the sages, crisp and blue. "Come, ye daughter," calls the Indian flute.
"I have waited long for you, High upon the Andes mountains,
Deep within the Andes valleys." i
[38]
THIRD CONCERT
8. Uy! Tara La La . . . Folk Song from Mexico, sung in Spanish English translation by Augustus D. Zanzig
Uy, Tara la la, Uy! Tara la la, Ea, ea, ea, ea, ea ....
De miedo a ese coyote, no baja mi chivo
al agua. Ayer tarde que bajaba, pobre chivo ya
le andaba.
Tira me una lima, tira me un limon, Tira me las llaves chiquita de tu corazon.
Si quiere vamos al mar; A ver al navio venir, Que bonitos ojos tienes, Que los quisiera pedir.
For fear of a ling'ing coyote, my young
kid won't go to the water. For yesterday when he went there, the
coyote was in that quarter. Throw to me a lemon, throw to me a lime, Throw to me the keys to your heart,
my dearest little maid. Will you to the ocean go, A beautiful ship to see, Your eyes are very lovely,
Won't you lend them now to me
a.. Sourwood Mountain . . . Appalachian Mountain Folk Song
Chicken crowin' on Sourwood mountain,
Hey de ing dang, diddle ally day. So many pretty girls I can't count 'em,
Hey de ing dang, diddle ally day. My true love she lives in Letcher,
Hey de ing dang, diddle ally day. She won't come and I won't fetch her,
Hey de ing dang, diddle ally day.
My true love's blue-eyed daisy . . . If I don't get her I'll go crazy,...
Big dog'll bark and little one'll bite
you, ... Big girl'll court and little one'll slight
you, . . .
My true love lives up the river, . . .
A few more jumps and I'll be with
her, . . . My true love lives in the hollow, . . .
She won't come and I won't follow . . .
[39]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
10. Westward Chippewa Indian Air
From the Derrick Norman Lehmer collection
Ever westward, ever westward,
Far beyond the rolling prairies, Sinks the sun behind the mountains
To his crimson lodge of evening. Who knows his pathway
His lodge of evening All the old men have not seen it.
All the wise men know nothing of it.
Ever westward, ever westward,
To the silent land of darkness, Drift the souls of the departed
To the kingdom of the West Wind. Who knows their pathway
All the wise men know nothing of it. Their lodge of evening
All the old men have not seen it.
ii. Ay, Ay, Ay Creole Folk Song
Below hanging moss I push my canoe,
Where marshes are blossoming blue. Oh, come, flower maiden, ay, ay, ay, ay,
My garden is waiting for you. I buy your jessamine buds white,
Camellias glowing with red light; What hope you would give, dear, what joy it would be,
If each had a message for me!
I leave as a gift this murmuring shell,
Oh, please hold it close to your ear! It speaks for my heart, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay,
If you are but willing to hear. You sell your blossoms all day,
But throw our happiness away, While down in my garden beside our bayou,
Bright roses are growing for you.
12. The Erie Canal American River Ballad
I've got a mule, her name is Sal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal. She's a good old worker and a good old pal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal . We've hauled some barges in our day,
Filled with lumber, coal and hay, And ev'ry inch of the way we know,
From Albany to Buffalo.
And you'll always know your neighbor,
You'll always know your pal, If you ever navigated on the Erie Canal.
We'd better get along, old Gal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal. You can bet your life I'd never part with Sal.
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal. Git up there, mule, here comes a lock;
We'll make Rome 'bout six o'clock. Just one more trip and then back we'll go,
Right back home to Buffalo.
Chorus
Low bridge, ev'rybody down!
Low bridge, for we're going through a town.
[40]
THIRD CONCERT
Concerto in D major, for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 61 . Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Decem­ber 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827.
In the literature of the violin concerto the great master of the symphony is represented by a single contribution. For the violin as a solo instrument in other combinations and relations, Beethoven created much, but in the most pretentious and expansive form of virtuoso demonstration, the Concerto on this afternoon's program is his single adventure. It was written late in the year 1806, just after the Rasoumoffsky Quartet and the Fourth Symphony, Op. 60. It is reported that the work was not finished in time for rehearsal, and that the soloist of the occasion, Franz Clement, played it at sight at his concert in the Theater an der Wien on December 23, 1806. On the page of the manuscript score, which differs in many details from the work as performed this after­noon, there stands in the composer's handwriting the punning title as follows: "Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement, primo Violino e direttore al Theatre de Vienne." The soloist of that first performance was a violinist of remarkable attainment in his day and at the time of the performance was the conductor of the orchestra at the theater in which the concert took place.
Johann Nepomuk Moser, writing a review of the performance in the Theaterzeitung, stated solemnly that "it is to be feared that if Beethoven continues upon this path, he and the public will fare badly." He continued by offering the composer a friendly bit of advice to employ "his indubitable talents" to better advantage.
Some two years after the Concerto was completed, Beethoven brought out the work arranged by himself as a concerto for piano; for this he composed a cadenza for the first movement with an obbligato part for the kettledrums and a shorter cadenza for the last movement. The orchestral score of the Con­certo was published in l8bg, and, as indicated above, shows the result of that familiar process of revision which Beethoven employed with most of his work.
For those who may be interested in following the rather lengthy work in a more detailed fashion, the appended analysis of material is given:
I. (Allegro ma non troffo, D major, 4-4 time.) This movement is constructed in the sonata form with the double exposition peculiar to nearly all concertos of the earlier masters. Note the important part played by the opening notes of the kettledrum. This rhythmical figure runs throughout the entire movement.
[41]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
The principal theme opens in the woodwind. The transitional passage leading to the second theme begins with new material--and ascending scale--also in the wood­wind. After an outburst in the full orchestra, fortissimo, the second theme appears in the woodwind in D major, later to be continued in the strings in D minor. The or­chestral exposition does not end with a complete close, as was often customary, but leads at once into the second exposition--for the solo instrument, which enters with an ascending octave figure, introductory to its presentation of the principal theme. The transitional passage begins in the orchestra (scale passage in woodwind), and is con­tinued in octaves by the solo violin. The second theme--now in A--is given out by the clarinets and bassoons, the solo instrument playing a trill. The strings continue this theme, passagework in triplets accompanying it in the solo.
The Development portion of the movement is ushered in by a fortissimo tutti. The second theme is given further and lengthy presentation. The real working out of the subject matter begins with the entrance of the solo violin, the rhythmical "motto" of the movement being continually in evidence. Following two trills in the violin solo there appears a tranquil episode for the principal instrument.
The Recapitulation enters, fortissimo, in the full orchestra. The principal themes are presented much as before, the second theme being in D major instead of A. A so­norous tutti leads into the cadenza for the solo, at the conclusion of which a remi­niscence of the second theme brings the movement to a close.
II. (Larghetto, G major, 4-4 time.) In the scoring of this movement, in addition to the strings only two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns are used. The muted strings bring forward a subject--ten measures long--which is repeated three times by the clarinet, bassoon, and strings, respectively, with graceful embroidery in the solo instrument. Following this a new theme appears in G major in the violin, leading to a repetition (fizzicato in the strings) of the first subject, and a further embroidered presentation of the second theme in the solo violin. A modulation in the strings, fortissimo, prepares the way for the rondo.
III. {Rondo--Allegro, D major, 6-8 time). The solo instrument announces the principal theme (on the G string), the violoncellos providing a light accompaniment. The subject is repeated by the violin two octaves higher, and taken up, fortisimo, by the full orchestra. A transitional passage--in the nature of a hunting call--appears in the horns, with ornamental work in the violin. The second theme--in A major--is given out, fortissimo, for two measures by the full orchestra, these being answered by the solo violin. There follows rapid passage work for the solo instrument. Reminiscences of the opening theme in the accompaniment lead to its repetition by the violin. The second part of the movement opens with a fortissimo tutti, after which the violin brings forward an episode in G minor, the theme of which is repeated by the bassoon with figuration in the solo instrument.
The Recapitulation announces the principal subject in the solo, with violoncello accompaniment, as at the beginning of the movement. The transitional passage (hunting ¦
[42]
THIRD CONCERT
call in the horns) and the second theme are presented as before, the latter being now in the key of the piece. A fortissimo tutti leads to a cadenza, less elaborate than that of the first movement, and the close of the movement is occupied with further develop­ment of the principal theme.
Four Dances from the Ballet "Gayne" .... Khachaturian
Aram Khachaturian was born in Tiflis, June 6, 1904; now living in Moscow.
In 1940, the name Khachaturian was unknown to American audiences and comparatively unfamiliar to even those who had been particularly inter­ested in Soviet music and musicians. His name first appeared in the United States in 1942 when his Piano Concerto was performed at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, by the Armenian-American pianist, Maro Ajemian.
Khachaturian is an Armenian by birth, the youngest son of a poor book­binder. While in his early teens, Armenia, under Soviet influence became a member of the new Union of Republics, and Khachaturian became a typical product of Soviet state-fostered education. The town of his birth, Tiflis (the ancient city of Tbilesi) had long been a center of artistic activity, to which poets and singers from Gruzia, Armenia, and Azerbai had gravitated. His early con­tact with this environment no doubt influenced the formation of his art, which is based fundamentally upon Armenian melody with its Oriental ornamentation and exotic coloring.
Until he was nineteen years of age, Khachaturian showed no particular aptitude for music; he had no theoretical knowledge of it, or background in its literature. Convinced, however, that he possessed innate musical talent, in 1923 he entered the music school of M. F. Gnessin, a pupil of Rimsky-Kor-sakoff. Here he studied cello for two years. In 1925 he was accepted as a composition student and applied himself with such amazing industry that in the period of one year he had produced music significant enough to be pub­lished by the Armenian State publishing department. In these early works, he revealed the virtues and defects that have marked his work since: a desire for rich, exotic, and warm colors, a fresh and spontaneous melody inspired by Caucasian folk music, a genuinely symphonic, if loose, rhapsodic form, and an intense vitality of rhythm, marred often by a dull, trivial, or melodramatic treat­ment of his materials.
Dances for violin and piano in B-flat, Op. i, 1925; Poem in C-sharp minor, Op. 3, for piano, 1927.
[43]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
Gerald Abraham writes:
The Khachaturian of this period was in the position of an eager, intelligent child who has just been given the run of a toyshop. It is really very difficult to imagine oneself in the place of this young man in his early twenties, intensely musical, very gifted, yet who was belatedly making the acquaintance of the great composers all more or less at the same time. And as was quite natural, it was the newest and gaudiest toys in the shop that caught his fancy first; like many other young musicians with fuller cultural backgrounds, Khachaturian discovered music through contemporary music and only later developed a love of the classics. At that time, the late nineteen-twenties, the younger Russian musicians had not yet been isolated from their Western contemporaries by the Chinese Wall erected to shut out foreign formalism, intellectualism and pessi­mism; there was free and healthy intercourse between Russia and her not-yet-Nazified Western neighbors. The young Khachaturian was particularly attracted by Ravel and the Central European "expressionists" and their influence is said to be very strongly marked in some unpublished pieces written at this period; it is still evident, in fairly mild forms in the Clarinet Trio and in still more mature works. But although ortho­dox Soviet critics shake their heads sorrowfully over these modest little crops produced by the wild-oats sowing of 1928-29, it must be said emphatically that the real Khacha­turian is far from being an "advanced" composer as we understand "advanced modern­ism" in Western Europe.
The reasons for this retreat from modernity are probably complex. No doubt the fundamental reason was Khachaturian's discovery of his true creative self, which is essentially lyrical. He is intensely interested in folk-music, not only the music of his own Armenian race but that of the neighboring peoples--not as a student of musical ethnography, but as a creative artist; even as a student he is said to have written some remarkable songs in the Turkoman, Armenian and Turkish idioms; and, despite the example of Bartok, love of folk-music is not easily reconciled with advanced modern­ism. But it is not improbable that this natural tendency was strengthened first by the later phase of Khachaturian's musical education and then by official frowns on modern­ism in music
In 1929 he was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory where he became the pupil of the Dean of Soviet composers and teachers, Nicolai Miaskovsky. In 1934 he was graduated with the production of his first symphony, which celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the joining of Armenia with the Soviet Union. He never failed, however, to keep close contact with his native heritage. Working at the Moscow House of Culture of Soviet Armenia, he identified him­self vigorously with the movement of music for the masses, writing dances, popu­lar songs, marches, and pieces for the balalaika. This music became immensely popular with the Red Army and endeared him to the State. He was the re­cipient of countless Soviet awards for carrying out "democratic" aims in his
Gerald Abraham, Eight Soviet Composers (London: Oxford University Press, 1943). [44] '
THIRD CONCERT
art. The government held his work in such esteem that his name was en­graved in marble in the conservatory hall along with the other Soviet im­mortals.
His place in Soviet music, before his recent castigation by the State, is best reflected in an article by Dimitri Kabalevsky, written for the Voks, the organ of the USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. In it he writes:
Wherein lies the force of Khachaturian's music which, in such a comparatively short time, has won such attention of listeners and executants, placing him in the fore­front ranks of modern composers It is art, replete with life, born of love for country, for its remarkable people, its rich nature.
The especially attractive features of Khachaturian's music are in its rootings in national, folk fountheads. Captivating rhythmic diversity of dances of the peoples of Trans-Caucasia and inspired improvisations of ashugs--bards--such are the roots from which have sprung the composer's creative endeavours. In the interlinking of these two principles there grew Khachaturian's symphonism--vivid and dynamic, with keen contrasts, now enchanting in their mellow lyricism, now stirring in their tensity of dramatism.
For this composer folk music forms the initial creative impulse. Taking the seed of folk music, he develops it, resting on the principles of European--in the first in­stant, Russian--classic symphonism. With its markedly expressed national character, the composer's creations constitute a most interesting page in the history and develop­ment of Russian musical art.
Maturing naturally as any artist, his harmonies grew more dissonant and complicated as he attempted, no doubt, to realize more fully the modal peculiari­ties of his folk melodies. The more he developed as an individual composer, the further he drew away from the "ideals" of the Soviet. Along with Russia's other world-famous composers, Shostakovitch and ProkofiefF, he was only a few months ago admonished by the Central Committee of the Communist party for "formalistic" tendencies, for being influenced by the "decadent" West, for "smelling strongly of the spirit of current modernistic bourgeois music of Europe and America," for neglecting Russia's "classical" tradition and failing to main­tain the ideas of "socialistic realism." According to Soviet doctrine, an artist should create only for Russia and by art "elevate, edify, explain and instruct the masses." Perhaps Khachaturian's return to trivial songs, noisy marches, and "pieces" for the balalaika--music that "inspires people to work and effort" will
?Philadelphia Program Notes for February 22, 1946.
[45]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
restore him to favor, qualify him for immortality, and justify the inscription of his name in marble!
The Ballet "Gayne" (rhymes with Dinah) was first performed at the Kirov Theatre for Opera and Ballet of the Leningrad State Academy in Molotov on December 9, 1942. With it he won, in 1943, a First Degree Stalin prize. The pianist, Maro Ajemian, who introduced his Piano Concerto to America, commented on the score as follows:
It is distinctly Armenian in character with strong Russian overtones. I find it fascinating, colorful, and thrilling music. The Sabre Dance is overwhelmingly ex­citing in both rhythm and tone color. The Lullaby has a particularly wonderful East­ern flavor. There is no question whatever of the composer's remarkable mastery of his musical material, which stands halfway between the East and the West. No less convincing is his imagination in the use of the resources of the orchestra. The source of his inspiration is richly fertile and from it he has drawn with consummate skill.
The following description of the ballet was written by John Ball, Jr. for the Columbia recording of the suite (Set 664):
The action of the ballet takes place among the cotton pickers on a collective farm near Kolkhoz, Soviet Armenia. Gayne, the lovely Armenian heroine, is married to Giko, a villainous worker given to drinking and dealings with outlaws. When Gayne discovers her husband's infidelity to the rest of the community, she accuses him, with the result that he becomes enraged and ignites the stored bales of cotton in the vil­lage. As Gayne denounces him for his dishonesty before the rest of the workers, Giko seizes their child, Ripsik, as a hostage. The situation is saved by the timely arrival of Kazakov, commander of a Red Army border patrol, who rushes to the rescue. In the ensuing confusion, Giko succeeds in stabbing Gayne, but not fatally, before making his escape.
In the final act, Giko has been banished, and Gayne has recovered to discover that she and Kazakov are now in love. At the engagement party, which follows, a number of Soviet peoples are saluted by the composer in a series of vigorous dances performed by the guests--an Armenian Shelakho, a Kurdish Sabre Dance, an Uzundor Woman's Dance, a Georgian Lezghinka, and a Ukranian Hofak among them. Here the com­poser has given full sway to his remarkable ability to score the authentic cadences of these different peoples and to capture the controlled fury of their dancing. The music rises to a pitch of great physical and emotional tension as the celebration reaches its climax and the curtain falls.
[46]
FOURTH CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 1
Overture to "Der Freischiitz" Weber
Carl Maria von Weber was born at Eutin, No­vember 18, 1786; died at London, July 5, 1826.
Seventeen years after Weber's burial in London, his body was removed and interred in his native German soil. On that occasion, Richard Wagner, giv­ing the valedictory address over Weber's German grave, voiced the deepest feelings of his countrymen:
Never was there a more German composer than thou; to whatever distant fathomless realms of fancy thy genius bore thee it remained bound by a thousand tender links to the heart of thy German people; with them it wept or smiled like a believing child, listening to the legends and tales of its country. It was thy child­like simplicity which guided thy manly spirit like a guardian angel, keeping it pure and chaste; and that purity was thy chief quality. Behold, the Briton does thee justice. The Frenchman admires thee, but only the German can love thee! Thou art his own, a bright day in his life, a drop of blood, a part of his heart.
Thus was the first of the great romanticists in music venerated by the man who was to fulfill his artistic revelation!
In Weber's day, the protest against the eighteenth century, politically, morally, socially, and artistically, was universal. This protest was two-fold. On the one hand it was negative, against all established authority; on the other, positive, in favor of a return to nature. In Germany, Goethe, Kant, and Herder, the criticism of Lessing, the return to an enthusiasm for Shakespeare, the mania for Ossian and northern mythology, the revival of ballad literature, all expressed one universal cry for a return to the natural.
Music was rather late in responding to the violent note of revolt against tradition for the sake of emotion, chiefly because music in the eighteenth century was in a transition state of technical development and was attempting to gain articulation and freedom through the cultivation of forms and designs that were unique to it. The opposition between classic and romantic principles in the second half of the eighteenth century, for this reason, was not as clearly defined in music as in literature. But with Weber and his Der Freischutz, this definition
[47]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
of romanticism in German opera was clearly stated. Here at last was a music that presented, with astonishing realism for the time, the atmosphere of the German forest and the eeriness of the fantastic powers of nature.
Weber's ideas were in strong sympathy with the romantic revolt in litera­ture. With his music he awoke the dormant soul of Germany to the true German spirit full of heroism and mystery, and a love for nature. Although Weber's romanticism did not spring from the innermost depths of feeling and contemplation, as it did from Schubert and Schumann or any of the earlier members of that school, Weber cultivated a romanticism that could be used in and reconciled to the theater. Here he was at times dynamic and pictur­esque, but he lacked the magic of his contemporaries. Reaching his artistic maturity just as the eighteenth century merged into the nineteenth, he did not seem to possess the genius either to bring to a climax the ideals of the one era or to fulfill the hopes of the other. He was no longer of the rank of the truly great Romantic composers, of whom Schubert was the last; he was already of a subsequent line in which Wagner was ultimately to overshadow him. His conscious effort to find a new equilibrium betwen the various arts antidated Wagner's idea of the music drama by half a century. But the fulfillment of this ideal was not his destiny. "He died," wrote Cornelius, "of the longing to become Wagner."
Weber was one of the first composers after Mozart to establish a definite connection between the overture and the opera, by selecting its themes from the body of the work. The overture then became a kind of brief summary of the drama, rather than a mere and unrelated instrumental introduction to it. In truth, three-fourths of this overture was drawn by Weber from material in different parts of the work. To be exact, of the total 342 measures, 219 of them belong to the opera. And yet this is no heterogeneous mass, no patchwork of unrelated themes. The overture is a perfectly unified and strongly knit com­position revealing not only a perfect balance of formal elements and a just pro­portion of parts, but a dramatically moving and a graphically descriptive tabloid of the whole opera.
ANALYSIS
In a mood of mystery, the overture begins {Adagio, C major, 4-4 time) in unharmonized octaves and unison. A quiet melody in the horns, with a tranquil accompaniment in the strings, is interrupted by a sinister tremolo in the violins-the "leading motive" associated with the demon Zamiel and the Wolf's Glen.
The main movement of the overture (Molto vivace, C minor, 2-2 time)
[48]
FOURTH CONCERT
opens with a syncopated and agitated theme, which is derived from the end of Maxe's aria "Durch die Walder, durch die Auen" ("Through the forests, through the meadows"). After a crescendo in the strings, an energetic passage in the full orchestra {fortissimo) is brought forth. The climax is from the scene in the Wolf's Glen. The second subject, divided into two parts,is made up of a passionate phrase in the clarinet related to Maxe's outburst "Ha! Fearful yawns the dark abyss" in Act II; and the joyous conclusion of Agatha's aria "Leise, leise." A conventional development section follows and there is an abbreviated recapitulation. Practically the whole of the coda is derived from the orchestral finale of the opera.
Iago's "Credo" from "Otello" Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi was born in La Roncole, Octo­ber 9, 1813; died in Milan, January 17, 1901.
Verdi's greatest and most elaborate works were produced after he was fifty-seven years of age; and his last opera, Falstaff (by many considered his masterpiece), was written when he was eighty! He was seventy-three when he wrote Otello, and in it there is no hint of any diminution of his creative powers. The consistent and continuous growth of his style over sixty years of his life displays an incomparable capacity for artistic development and proves a triumphant vitality and a thrilling fortitude of spirit. These he had in abun­dance, and they sustained him through a life of sadness and misfortune. From the date of the first performance of Rigoletto (1851) until his death, his career was one of cumulative triumph, both in popular favor and in recognition of artistic merit.
The whole conception in Otello is always that of the theater. There has seldom been, if ever, in the history of opera another such welding and adjust­ment of movement, incident, speech, and sublimation of all these elements into inspired song as in Otello. With its marvelous dramatic and musical unity, its impressive synthesis, its intensity and passion, and its essential simplicity and maturity of style, it comes close to being the ideally balanced and integrated music drama.
Here the voice is restored to its proper position in the lyric drama, after Wagner had sacrificed it to a vast and endless orchestral stream, and once more the stage takes precedence over the orchestra pit. The burden of expression is returned to the singer, who, throughout the history of Italian opera, has always had that responsibility. Although Otello still retains some old operatic devices, they all attest a new potency, in arising in each instance as the inevitable result
[49]
OFFICIAL PROGRAM
of the situations of the drama. As opposed to Wagner, Verdi relies instinctively and implicitly upon the sovereign and irresistible power of the pure melodic line for the intensification of mood and the achievement of climax. His treat­ment of and respect for the human voice and his innate knowledge of its ex­pressive possibilities resulted in the creation of vocal passages, such as the one on tonight's program, that are unequaled in the entire history of opera. The propulsive dramatic treatment and wonderful character delineation achieved in such passages as Iago's Credo, almost entirely through the vocal line, es­tablish credence in the Italian point of view that through the voice alone, un­hampered by a ponderous orchestra, can the highest and truest dramatic veracity be attained.
The Credo is taken from Act II. Iago is determined to wreak vengeance upon Cassio and Othello and plots, by means of Desdemona, to weave his web of deceit. His philosophy is expressed in the soliloquy wherein he mocks a cruel god who has made man in his own image:
Go then, well thy fate I descry
Thy demon drives thee onward,
That demon, lo! am I;
E'en as mine own impels me, on whose
Command I wait, relentless Fate.
Cruel is he, the God who in his image Has fashioned me and whom in wrath
I worship. From some vile germ of nature, some
paltry atom, I took mine issue. Vile is my tissue, For I am human.
I feel the primal mudflow of my breed. Yea! This is all my creed, Firmly I do believe as e'er did woman
Who prays before the altar,
Of ev'ry ill, whether I think or do it.
'Tis Fate that drives me to it.
Thou, honest man, art but a wretched
player,
And thy life but a past; A lie each word thou sayest, Tear-drops, kisses, prayers, Are as false as thou art, Man's fortune's fool, e'en from his earliest
breath
The germ of life is fashioned To feed the worm of death! Yea, after all this folly all must die, And then And then there's nothing, And heav'n an ancient lie.
Prologue from "I Pagliacci" Leoncavallo
Ruggiero Leoncavallo was born at Naples, Marcli 8, 1858; died at Montecatini, near Florence, August 9, 1919.
Leoncavallo's fame rests entirely upon the terse and tragic opera Par-gliacci. The continued popularity of this work has failed to lessen the appeal of the primitive passion of its drama with the swift climactic succession of its realistic scenes, or dim the intensity of its music which flames at times at white heat. In
[50]
FOURTH CONCERT
spite of its stock characters, its unabashed melodrama, its often crude orchestra­tion, Pagliacci always thrills an audience with its intense realism and deeply con­vincing emotion. But in this solitary work, Leoncavallo seems to have ex­hausted his creative capacity, for he never again reached its level of excellence.
Leoncavallo, who wrote his own text, voices his intentions and purpose in a novel prologue. It takes place concurrently with the orchestral introduction. The first part is a miniature overture containing three themes associated with the main events of the drama to be unfolded. The gay exuberance of the first is identified with the players (Pagliacci). The somber second theme expresses Canio's jealously for his wife, Nedda; and the third, Nedda's guilty love for Silvio. After the presentation of these three themes, Tonio, the clown, peeps through the curtain and addresses the audience.
"May I" (Si puo). He then steps forward and, bowing, continues, "Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, if I appear to be alone--I am the prologue." He then explains the intention of the author to present a play from real life:
"Our author likes a prologue and as he would revive this ancient custom, he sends me to speak before you, but not to repeat as in the olden days, that the actors are unreal and their emotions false. No, our author has borrowed di­rectly from life, and brings before you all of its joy, sorrow and anguish. Do not believe that these emotions you behold are invented. An actor too laughs and weeps--he has a heart like you. It is for men that our author has written and the story he tells you is true." After the introduction of a tender melody he continues. "Memories deep in his heart were awakened, until with trem­bling hand and tears, he wrote them down. Come then, behold us on the stage as human beings, and witness the fruits of love and passion and hear our weeping, our rage and our bitter laughter." The music mounts to a terrific climax and is followed by a broad melody. The prologue concludes with Tonio saying, "Look upon us then with all our powder and paint, as human beings and hear now the story as it unfolds before you. Come then the cur­tain.!"
"Cortigiani, vil razza dannata"! c UT), .. Â