UMS Concert Program, April 29, 30, May 1, 2, 1954: The Sixty-first Annual May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Season: Diamond Jubilee
Concert: SIXTH
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE SIXTY-FIRST ANNUAL
MAY FESTIVAL
1879
1954
Diamond Jubilee Season
of the
University Musical Society Ann Arbor, Michigan
NINETEEN HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Diamond Jubilee Season
Program of the Sixty-First Annual
MAY FESTIVAL
April 29, 30, May 1, 2,1954 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., LL.D., Sc.D.
Assistant Secretary-Treasurer
James R. Breakey, Jr., A.B., A.M., LL.B. Harlan Hatcher, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D. Harley A. Haynes, M.D. Thor Johnson, M.Mus., Mus.D. 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 Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor
[2]
THE SIXTY-FIRST ANNUAL ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
CONDUCTORS
Eugene Ormandy, Orchestral Conductor Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor Marguerite Hood, Youth Chorus Conductor
SOLOISTS
Lily Pons...........Coloratura Soprano
Zinka Milanov.............Soprano
Lois Marshall .............Soprano
Blanche Thebom............Contralto
Kurt Baum................Tenor
John McCollum..............Tenor
William Warfield............Baritone
Jacob Krachmalnick...........Violinist
Leonard Rose.............Violoncellist
Lorne Munroe............Violoncellist
Artur Rubinstein.............Pianist
ORGANIZATIONS
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The University Choral Union
The Festival Youth Chorus
[3]
Notices and Acknowledgments
The University Musical Society expresses appreciation to Thor Johnson, Lester McCoy, the members of the Choral Union, and the University Musical Society Orchestra for their effective services; to Marguerite Hood and her able associates for their valuable services in training 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. Appreciation is also expressed to the Philadelphia Orchestra, to Eugene Ormandy, its distinguished conductor, and to Manager Harl McDonald and his administrative staff.
The Author of the annotations expresses his appreciation to Donald Krummel for his assistance in collecting materials; and to Donald Engle, annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra, for his co-operation.
The Steinway is the official concert piano of the University Musical Society; and the Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Philadelphia Orchestra records for RCA Victor and Columbia.
CONCERT ENDOWMENT FUND
The University Musical Society is a nonprofit corporation devoted to educational purposes. Its concerts are maintained through the sale of tickets of admission. The prices are kept as low as possible to cover the expense of pro?duction. 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 in order 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
LILY PONS, Coloratura Soprano
PROGRAM ?Overture to Egmont, Op. 84............Beethoven
?tSymphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92.........Beethoven
Poco sostenuto; vivace Allegretto
Presto; assai meno presto; presto Finale: allegro con brio
Lo! Here the Gentle Lark...............Bishop
Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14............Rachmaninoff
Lily Pons
intermission
Chere nuit...................Bachelet
"Caro nome" from Rigoletto..............Verdi
Miss Pons
?Symphonic Poem, "The Pines of Rome".........Respighi
The Pines of the Villa Borghese The Pines near the Catacomb The Pines of the Janiculum The Pines of the Appian Way
1 Columbia records t Victor records
[S]
SECOND MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Friday Evening, April 30, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
LOIS MARSHALL, Soprano BLANCHE THEBOM, Contralto LEONARD ROSE, Violoncellist
PROGRAM
Gloria for Soloists, Chorus, and Orchestra.....Vivaldi-Casella
Gloria (Chorus)
Et in terra pax hominibus (Chorus) Laudamus te (Duet) Gratias agimus tibi (Chorus) Propter magnam gloriam (Chorus) Domine Deus (Soprano) Domine Fili Unigenite (Chorus) Domine Deus, Agnus Dei (Contralto) Qui tollis peccata mundi (Chorus) Qui sedes ad dexteram (Contralto) Quoniam tu solus sanctus (Chorus) Cum Sancto Spiritu (Chorus)
Lois Marshall, Blanche Thebom, and The University Choral Union
intermission
Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, for
Violoncello and Orchestra.............Dvorak
Allegro
Adagio ma non troppo
Finale: allegro maestoso
Leonard Rose
tCorrido de "El Sol" (Ballad of the Sun),
for Chorus and Orchestra..........Carlos Chavez
The University Choral Union
First performance at these concerts t United States premiere
[6]
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 1, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
THE FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS MARGUERITE HOOD, Conductor
SOLOISTS
JACOB KRACHMALNICK, Violinist LORNE MUNROE, Violoncellist
PROGRAM Compositions of JOHANNES BRAHMS
Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a
Andante Vivace
Poco piu animato Vivace
Piu vivace Grazioso
Con moto Presto non troppo
Andante con moto Finale: andante
Eleven Songs
The Little Drummer's Song The Hunter in the Forest
The Blacksmith Bird in the Pine Tree
The Little Sandman Pussywillow
A Warning The Lost Hen
The Wasted Serenade The Gypsy Dance Flying Birds
Festival Youth Chorus
intermission
Concerto in A minor, Op. 102, for Violin, Violoncello, and Orchestra Allegro
Andante
Vivace non troppo
Jacob Krachmalnick and Lorne Munroe "Academic Festival" Overture, Op. 80
[7]
FOURTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 1, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOISTS
ZINKA MILANOV, Soprano KURT BAUM, Tenor
PROGRAM ?Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg........Wagner
"Nessun dorma" from Turandot............Puccini
Kurt Baum
"Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly...........Puccini
ZlNKA MlLANOV
Duet, "0 terra, addio" from A'ida............Verdi
Mme Milanov and Mr. Baum
Concert Music for String Orchestra and
Brass Instruments, Op. SO...........Hindemith
Moderately quickly, with energy Lively; slowly; lively
INTERMISSION
"Voi lo sapete" from Cavalleria Rusticana........Mascagni
Mme Milanov
"Cielo e mar" from La Gioconda...........Ponchielli
Mr. Baum
Duet, "Tu qui Santuzza" from Cavalleria Rusticana.....Mascagni
Mme Milanov and Mr. Baum
tArmenian Suite.................Yardumian
Introduction Interlude--Prayer to Dawn
Song Dance
Lullaby Finale
Dance
Victor records
t First performance at these concerts
[8]
FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 2, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
LOIS MARSHALL, Soprano BLANCHE THEBOM, Contralto
JOHN McCOLLUM, Tenor WILLIAM WARFIELD, Baritone
PROGRAM
Elijah A Dramatic Oratorio for Chorus,
Soloists, and Orchestra, Op. 70.........Mendelssohn
Part I
Introduction As God the Lord Overture
Chorus Help, Lord! Duet with Chorus Lord, bow thine ear Recitative Ye people, rend your hearts Aria If with all your hearts Chorus Yet doth the Lord Recitative Elijah, get thee hence Recitative Now Cherith's brook Recitative What have I to do with thee Recitative Give me thy son Chorus Blessed are the men who fear
Him Recitative with Chorus As God the Lord
of Sabaoth
Chorus Baal, we cry to thee Recitative Call him louder! Chorus Hear our cry, 0 Baal! Recitative Call him louder! Chorus Baal! Baal! Recitative and Air Draw near, all ye
people Chorus Cast thy burden upon the Lord
(Chorale) Recitative O Thou, who makest thine
angels spirits
Chorus The fire descends Aria Is not His word like a fire Arioso Woe unto them who forsake
Him!
Recitative 0 man of God, help thy people!
Recitative with Youth and Chorus O Lord, Thou has overthrown thine enemies (Youth, Susanne Watt, so?prano)
Chorus Thanks be to God!
Part II
Aria Hear ye, Israel!
Chorus Be not afraid
Recitative The Lord hath exalted thee
Recitative and Chorus Have ye not
heard
Chorus Woe to him Recitative Man of God Aria It is enough Recitative See, now he sleepeth Trio Lift thine eyes Chorus He, watching over Israel Recitative Arise, Elijah Recitative 0 Lord I have labored in
vain
Aria O rest in the Lord Recitative Night falleth round me Recitative Arise, now! Chorus Behold, God the Lord Chorus Then did Elijah Aria Then shall the righteous shine forth Quartet O come, every one that thirsteth Chorus And then shall your light break
forth
[9]
SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 2, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
ARTUR RUBINSTEIN, Pianist
PROGRAM
?Toccata and Fugue in D minor..............Bach
(Transcribed for orchestra by Eugene Ormandy)
Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, for Piano and Orchestra......Grieg
Allegro molto moderato Adagio
Allegro moderato molto e marcato
Artur Rubinstein intermission
tSymphony No. 3 (in one movement)..........Landre
Molto adagio; allegro non troppo; vivacissimo e leggiero; molto lento; poco allegro
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, for
Piano and Orchestra............Rachmaninoff
Mr. Rubinstein
Columbia records
t First performance at these concerts
[10]
ANNOTATIONS
by GLENN D. McGEOCH
FIRST CONCERT
Thursday Evening, April 29
Overture to Egmont, Op. 84........Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Decem?ber 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827.
It is difficult to decide whether the man creates the age or the age the man, but in the case of Beethoven each is true to some extent. Certainly, as far as music is concerned, he created the age of Romanticism to such a degree that the new movement which began in the nineteenth century could be called "Bee-thovenism" as well. On the other hand, there is no more decided proof to be found in music history of the fact that the age produces the man than in the case of Beethoven. Certainly in his life and in his works he is the embodiment of his period. Born at the end of the eighteenth century, he witnessed, during the formative period of his life, the drastic changes that were occurring throughout central Europe, changes which affected not only the political but the intellectual and artistic life of the world as well. The French Revolution had announced the breaking up of an old order and the dawn of a new social regime. The spirit of freedom that animated the poetic thought of Goethe, Schiller, Wordsworth, and Byron infused itself into the music of Beethoven, from the creation of the Appassionata Sonata to the Choral Ninth Symphony.
During this period of chaos and turmoil, Beethoven stood like a colossus, bridging with his mighty grasp the two centuries in which he lived. In his person he embodied the ideas of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; he became the sage and prophet of his period and the center of the classic and romantic spirits.
These two elements were mutually helpful in making him the outstanding representative of each. His romantic tendencies helped him to infuse Promethean fire into the old, worn-out forms and to endow them with new passion. His re?spect for classic forms made him the greatest of the early Romanticists, for it aided him in tempering the fantastic extremes of his radical contemporaries. Thus, this harmonious embodiment of opposing forces, controlled by an architec?tonic intelligence that molded and fused them together into one passionate,
[in
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
creative impulse, resulted in the production of epoch-making masterpieces, built upon firm foundations but emancipated from all confining elements of tradition, and set free to discover new regions of unimagined beauty.
For a performance of Goethe's Egmont at the Hofburg Theatre, Vienna, May 24, 1810, the manager, one Mr. Hartl, commissioned Beethoven to provide incidental music for the play. So impressed was Beethoven with the nobility of this drama that he refused any remuneration for his efforts. Perhaps hero worship of Goethe led him to this generous step, or perhaps he saw in the misunderstood, self-reliant Egmont, gloriously struggling with a relentlessly persecuting fate and filled with tragic longing for a pure and ideal love, an image of himself.
At any rate, Goethe's Egmont supplied Beethoven with a basis and incentive for music of such heroic delineation, and of such dramatically moving stuff, that it can take its place with the "Eroica" Symphony, the Fifth Symphony, and the Leonore No. 3 as an imperishable testimony to the" genius which he manifested in his portrayal of the heroic, the noble, and the magnanimous.
Goethe's Egmont differs in many particulars from the Egmont of history. He is a man of most genial temper, sincerely devoted to the cause of freedom, and befriended because of his frankness, courage, and inexhaustible generosity. But he lacks the power to read the signs of hostile intention in others, and this defect, which necessarily springs from some of his best qualities, exposes him to deadly peril and leads ultimately to his ruin. Interwoven with the history of his relation to the public movements of his age is the story of his love for Clarchen, who is in every respect worthy of him, capable of heroic action as well as of the tenderest love.
The scene of the tragedy is laid in the Low Countries at the beginning of the revolt against Spain. In the fifteenth century, Philip of Burgundy had an?nexed several of the Netherland provinces to swell his own rich domains. His successor, Charles V, abolished their constitutional rights and instigated the In?quisition.
Favorite of court and people was the Flemish soldier, Count Egmont, who by his victories at Saint Quentin and Gravelines had become one of Europe's most famous military figures. When in 1559 a new Regent of the Netherlands was to be chosen, the people hoped that Egmont would be named. However, Margaret of Parma, Philip's half sister, a powerful and tyrannical woman, was chosen. She, with the ruthless Count Alva, pressed the demands of Spain still further.
This, in brief, is the historical background against which, with many factual changes, Goethe places his tragedy. The central motif is that man imagines he directs his life, when in fact his existence is irresistibly controlled by his destiny.
Egmont is the typical soldier and man of action, who expresses his philosophy in his own words. . . "Take life too seriously and see what it is worth. . . re-
Goethe began work on Egmont in 1775 when he was twenty-six years of age and completed it eleven years later, in 1786.
[12]
FIRST CONCERT
flections--we will leave them to scholars and courtiers. . ." He is beloved by Clarchen, who in turn is loved by Brackenburg, the very opposite of Egmont. In the midst of court intrigue Egmont dares to defy Alva and is arrested. Clar?chen, knowing that death must await Egmont, drinks the poison that Bracken?burg, ironically, had prepared for himself. Egmont, the idealist to the last, dies in the belief that he gave himself for the freedom of his people and that they, to avenge his death, would rise in revolution against the Spanish yoke. In referring to the Overture to Egmont, Mr. C. A. Barry wrote:
In view of Beethoven's expressed intentions regarding certain portions of his incidental music to Egmont it may be asked: Are we not justified in extending these to the Overture Is not this to be viewed as a dramatic tone-picture Though entering more into generalities than the Overture of Coriolanus, which (as Wagner has pointed out) is restricted to a single scene, it is assuredly not less profoundly dramatic, or less expressive of the feelings of the principal personages concerned, and of the circumstances surrounding them. Egmont's patriotism and determination seem to be brought before us, in turn with Clarchen's devotion to him. The prevailing key (F minor) serves as an appropriate back?ground to the general gloom of the dramatic picture, but it is occasionally relieved by its relative major (A-flat)--indicative, as it often seems, of Clarchen's loving presence. The Overture concludes with the Sieges-Symphonie (Symphony of Victory), which at the close of the drama immediately follows Egmont's last words: "Fight for your hearts and homes, and die joyfully--after my example--to save that which you hold most dear," addressed to his comrades as he is led away to execution. This music, occurring in the Overture, seems to indicate prophetically the victory of freedom to be gained by Egmont's death for his country.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92......Beethoven
In the presence of a work like this Beethoven symphony, one realizes the inadequacy of words to explain or describe the paradox of its origin. No composer has ever equaled Beethoven in his power of suggesting that which can never be expressed absolutely, and nowhere in his compositions do we find a work in which all the noble attributes of an art so exalted as his are more happily combined. No formal analysis, dealing with the mere details of musical con?struction, can touch the real source of its power; nor can any interpretation of philosopher or poet state with any degree of certainty just what it was that moved the composer, though they may give us the impression the music makes on them. They may clothe in fitting words that which we all feel more or less forcibly. The philosopher, by observing the effect of environment and conditions on man in general, may point out the probable relation of the outward circum?stances of a composer's life at a certain period to his works; the poet, because he is peculiarly susceptible to the same influences as the composer, may give us a more sympathetic interpretation. Neither can fathom the processes by which a great genius like Beethoven can give to the world, considering the conditions under which it was created, such a composition as the Seventh Symphony.
It was written in the summer of 1812, a year of momentous importance in
May Festival Program Book, 1940
[13]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Germany. When the whole map of Europe was being remade, when Beethoven's beloved Vienna was a part of the Napoleonic Empire, when the world was seeth?ing with hatreds and fears, this glorious music, with its unbounded joy and tremendous vitality, came into existence, giving promise perhaps of a new and better world to come.
While Beethoven tenaciously held to the creation of this symphony in the midst of utter chaos, Napoleon's campaign of the summer of 1812 was causing the final disintegration of his unwieldy empire. Between the inception of the work and the first performance of it in the large hall of the University of Vienna on December 18, 1813, the decisive battle of Leipzig was fought, and Napoleon went down to defeat. In his retreat, however, he gained an unimportant victory at the Battle of Hanau when the Austrian army was routed. It was at a memorial service for the soldiers who died in this battle that this exuberant music of the Seventh Symphony was first given to a weary and heartsick world--music that has outlived the renown of the craftiest statesmen and the glory of the bravest soldiers and has survived more than one remaking of the map of Europe.
The Seventh Symphony fairly pulsates with free and untrammeled melody, and has an atmosphere of its own, quite unlike that of any of the others. For Richard Wagner "all tumult, all yearning and storming of the heart became here the blissful insolence of joy, which snatches us away with bacchanalian might and bears us through the roomy space of nature, through all the streams and seas of life, shouting in glad self-consciousness as we tread throughout the universe the daring measures of this--the 'Apotheosis of the Dance.'" Out of grief, chaos, and confusion, Beethoven created his own indestructible world of joy, order, and purpose.
At the premiere, Beethoven, now quite deaf, conducted in person, and the performance suffered somewhat from the fact that he could scarcely hear the music his genius had created.
Analysis
The first movement (Poco sostenuto; vivace) is preceded by an introduction (poco sostenuto, A major) which opens with a chord of A major by full orchestra which serves to draw attention to the themes alternating in clarinet and oboe. Ascending scale passages in the strings lead to an episode in woodwinds. The main movement (vivace) states its principal theme in flutes accompanied by other woodwinds, homs, and strings. The second subject is announced by violins and flute, much of its rhythmic character being drawn from the preceding material. The development concerns itself almost entirely with the main theme. There is the customary recapitulation, and the movement closes with a coda in which fragments of the main theme, with its characteristic rhythm, are heard.
The theme of the second movement (Allegretto) was originally intended for Beethoven's String Quartet in C, Op. 59, No. 3. After two measures in which the A-minor chord is held by woodwinds and horns, the strings enter with the main theme (note the persistent employment of their rhythmic movement throughout). There is a trio with the theme in clarinets in A major. The original
[14]
FIRST CONCERT
subject and key return, but with different instrumentation, followed by a fugato on a figure of the main theme. The material of the trio is heard again; and a coda, making references to the main theme, brings the movement to a close on the chord with which it opened. The form of this movement is an interesting combination of two distinctly different forms--a song and trio and a theme and variations.
The third movement {Presto; assai meno presto; presto) is in reality a scherzo, though it is not so titled in the score. It begins with the subject for full orchestra. The trio opens with a clarinet figure over a long pedal point, A, in the violins. This melody is based, say some authorities, on a pilgrim song often heard in lower Austria. The material of the first part returns and there is another pre?sentation of the subject of the trio and a final reference to the principal theme. A coda concludes the whole.
The subject of the fourth movement (Allegro con brio) is taken from an Irish song "Nora Creina," which Beethoven had edited for an Edinburgh pub?lisher. The second theme appears in the first violins. The principal subjects having made their appearance, the exposition is repeated and is followed by the development in which the principal subject figures. The ideas of the exposition are heard as before, and the work concludes with a remarkable coda based on the main theme, bandied about by the strings and culminating in a forceful climax.
Lo! Here the Gentle Lark...........Bishop
Sir Henry Rowley Bishop was born in London, November 18, 1786; died there April 30, 1855.
Throughout his honorable career, Bishop was composer and director of Covent Garden (1810); an original member of the Philharmonic Society established in 1813; Director of Music at King's Theatre, Haymarket (1816); musical director at Vauxhall (1830); and finally in 1848, was appointed to a chair of music at Oxford.
This charming, inconsequential little song reflects not only the personal taste and refinement of its composer, but also the respectable mediocrity of his time. For his distinguished service to music just before and during the early reign of Queen Victoria (his last work, "The Fortunate Isles," was written to celebrate her wedding), he received a knighthood in 1842. If, since then, he has not received the highest award in immortality, his name at least will be kept alive through the frequent warblings by coloratura sopranos of such trifles as "Love Has Eyes," "Echo Song," "My Pretty Mocking Bird," and "Lo! Here the Gentle Lark."
Vocalise..............Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Novgorod, April 2,1873; died in Beverly Hills, California, March 28, 1943.
A "vocalise"' in its generic meaning is a wordless technical exercise for the voice. It has in our day acquired a derogatory connotation, identified as it has been with a vocal pedagogy no longer respected or with passages that in scores of
[IS]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
the "golden age of singing" quite frankly were meant to display vocal pyrotechnics for their own sake. To consider the human voice purely as an instrument, and to use it thus, has in our time fallen into disrepute. In this essentially instrumental age of ours, on the other hand, one seldom if ever meets a comparable scorn vented on the numerous cadenzas that intrude upon violin and piano concertos, where without support from an accompanying orchestra, the performer glories in the potentialities of his instrument and in his own technical mastery of it.
The fact is that the absence of words in vocal music enables the singer to use his voice in a manner not possible with the variety of word sounds, that in many instances conspire against the emission of pure vocal tone.
Throughout the history of music, composers have recognized this fact. From the time of the vocal melismas in Gregorian chant, the textless tenor parts of the thirteenth-century motets, and many of the extended passages of the ballades and madrigals of the fourteenth century, to a considerable literature of the six?teenth century, the publications of which were often inscribed with the words de cantare a sonare (to be sung or played), wordless song has soared above the mundane meaning of words. Bach and Handel scores are full of such wordless vocalizations that often take flight and thrill us with, as Richard Wagner once wrote, "the nameless joy of a paradise regained."
In recent history, composers have failed to thus utilize the human voice with any telling effect. Exceptions may be noted however in Debussy's "Sirens," Medtner's "Sonata-vocalise," Op. 41a, and "Suite-vocalise," Op. 416, Ravel's "Vocalise en forme d'habanera," and Aaron Copland's more recent "Vocalise"-all stunning revivals of an old and still effective practice.
In 1912 Rachmaninoff composed a series of fourteen songs with piano accompaniment (Opus 34). Upon the last of these, a wordless song to be sung on the vowel sound "ah," he lavished a hauntingly beautiful melody. In its expressive power it equals or surpasses anything that could be made more specific in meaning by the addition of a text. This wordless melody is at least as profound and poignant in its significance as any specific emotion that the addition of words might possibly evoke.
Chere nuit...............Bachelet
Alfred Bachelet was born in Paris, Febru?ary 26, 1864; died in Nancy, February 10, 1944.
There is very little of interest to say about Alfred Bachelet, aside from the fact that, like countless other talented composers, he won the Prix de Rome (1890), became musical director of a conservatory (Nancy), and composed operas, ballets, and miscellaneous works. Had he not created the exquisitely beautiful song on tonight's program, his name would never have emerged from the pages of biographical dictionaries of musicians.
"Chere nuit" ("Dearest Night") is a song of subtle and refined beauty that catches and sustains, through its sensitive melodic contours and rich harmonic accompaniment, the ecstatic and impassioned moods evoked by a text which
[16]
FIRST CONCERT
describes the enchantment of a summer night: the glory of the setting sun, the lengthening shadows at eventide, the gentle breezes that carry the fragrance of flowers, and the identification of the poet's mood with the transcendent beauty of nature.
"Caro nome" from Rigoletto..........Verdi
Guiseppe Verdi was born in La Roncole, October 10, 1813; died in Milan, January 27, 1901.
Rigoletto may be classified as the starting point of Verdi's second stage of development. In this work he seemed to have turned definitely away from the type of "carnival operas" of which Ernani is the best, to a more serious and substantial style exemplified in Rigoletto, II Trovatore, and La Traviata, works which gave Verdi a permanent place in the roster of composers of Italian opera. 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.
If in Rigoletto we do not hear the Verdi of A'ida or Otello we meet a greater composer than the creator of Trovatore. If on the dramatic side we discover lapses from logical development and coherent statement, on the musical side we find fully as much that is prophetic of the higher flights of later years as that which is reminiscent of points of view he had outgrown.
The aria, "Caro nome," is sung by Gilda at the end of Act I, just after the duke in the disguise of a young student has left her in the garden. With his name upon her lips, she sings of her love and swears eternal faithfulness to him. The aria is a series of vocal variations built upon a theme announced in the orchestral introduction.
Symphonic Poem: "The Pines of Rome".....Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was born in Bologna, July 9, 1879; died in Rome, April 18, 1936.
In an article in La Revue muskale for January, 1927, G. A. Luciani wrote of Respighi:
Of all the contemporary Italian musicians, Respighi has had the most ample and varied output. He has treated all genres with such technical resource that one can hardly say which best reveals the personality of the composer. ... He stands always in the first rank of those Italian musicians who have contributed to the renascence of symphonic music in Italy. In "The Fountains of Rome" he has succeeded in realizing a personal form of symphonic poem, where descriptive color blends intimately with sentiment and lyricism, where the classical line is unbroken by modern technical usage. He returns to this form in "The Pines of Rome" which culminates in a triumphal march, rich and powerful in sonority. As Alfredo Casella has aptly observed, the more recent musical output of Respighi is characterized by a new classicism which consists of a harmonious fusion of the latest musical tendencies of all countries. This tendency is nowhere better realized than with Ottorino Respighi. To the success of his work, moreover, are added two traits which are eminently Latin: a feeling for construction, and a serenity, the expression of which is rare in the music of our day.
[17]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
"The Pines of Rome" is the second of a cycle of three compositions dealing with the Eternal City. The first, "The Fountains of Rome," was written in 1916; eight years later, in 1924, he produced "The Pines of Rome"; and in 1928, the "Roman Festivals." Shortly after composing "The Pines of Rome," Respighi wrote to Lawrence Gilman: "The symphonic poem, 'The Pines of Rome' was com?posed in 1924 and performed for the first time at the Augusteo, Rome, in the season of 1924-25. While in the preceding work, 'The Fountains of Rome,' the composer sought to reproduce, by means of tone, an impression of nature, in 'The Pines of Rome' he uses nature as a point of departure in order to recall memories and visions. The century-old trees which dominate so characteristically the Roman landscape, become testimony of the principal events in Roman life."
When Respighi arrived in America in 1925, he was interviewed by a repre?sentative of Musical America and made the following reference to this work:
I do not believe in sensational effects for their own sake. It is true that in my new orchestral poem, "The Pines of Rome," which Toscanini will introduce to you with the New York Philharmonic, some of the instruments play B sharp, and others B flat in the same passage. But this is not obtruded upon listeners; in the general orchestral color it simply provides a note which I wanted.
Yes, there is a phonograph record of a real nightingale's song used in the third move?ment. It is a nocturne, and the dreamy, subdued air of the woodland at the evening hour is mirrored in the scoring for the orchestra. Suddenly there is silence, and the voice of the real bird arises, with its liquid notes.
Now that device has created no end of discussion in Rome, in London--wherever the work has been played. It has been styled radical, a departure from the rules. I simply realized that no combination of wind instruments could quite counterfeit the real bird's song. Not even a coloratura soprano could have produced an effect other than artificial. So I used the phonograph. The directions in the score have been followed thus wherever it has been played.
As in the case of the "Fountains," the "Pines" is written in four movements. In the program book of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Gilman added the follow?ing explanation to the printed description which formed the prpface to the score:
The Pines of The Villa Borchese (Allegretto vivace, 2-8). Children are at play in the pine-grove of the Villa Borghese, dancing the Italian equivalent of "Ring Around the Rosy"; mimicking marching soldiers and battles; twittering and shrieking like swallows at evening; and they disappear. Suddenly the scene changes to
The Pines Near a Catacomb (Lento, 4-4) beginning with muted and divided strings, muted horns, pianissimo). We see the shadows of the pines which overhang the entrance to a catacomb. From the depths rises a chant which re-echoes solemnly, sonorously, like a hymn, and is then mysteriously silenced.
The Pines or the Janiculum (Lento, 4-4, piano cadenza; clarinet solo). There is a thrill in the air. The full moon reveals the profile of the pines of Gianicolo's Hill. A nightingale sings (represented by a gramophone record of a nightingale's song heard from the orchestra).
The Pines of the Appian Way (Tempo di marcia). Misty dawn on the Appian Way. The tragic country is guarded by solitary pines. Indistinctly, incessantly, the rhythm of innumerable steps. To the poet's phantasy appears a vision of past glories; trumpets blare, and the army of the consul advances brilliantly in the grandeur of a newly risen sun toward the sacred way, mounting in triumph the Capitoline Hill.
[18]
SECOND CONCERT
Friday Evening, April 30
Gloria..............Vivaldi-Casella
Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice be?tween 1675-78; died in Vienna in 1741.
Of the details of Vivaldi's life very little is known; even the exact dates of his birth and death are still in question. He was a clerical we know, although his position in the church has never been satisfactorily revealed. He was born in Venice, the son of a violinist of the Ducal Chapel of St. Mark's and was ordained as a priest, according to the records, on March 23, 1703. Appointed Maestro di violino at the Seminario Musicale del Ospadale della Pieta, the most famous of the four Venetian conservatories,t he was later designated as its Maestro dei concerti. He toured Europe after 1725 as a virtuoso performer on the violin and as an opera composer and impressario, for a time officiated in Mantua as the Maestro di Capclle di Camera of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, resumed his position at the Seminario in 1736, and died in poverty in Vienna toward the end of July, 1741. Of these facts there is more or less certainty.
Although Vivaldi's name has long been known to musicians and historians of music, his reputation has been that of a virtuoso performer rather than that of a first-rate creator. While he lived, however, he was more famous and respected as a composer than his great German contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach. But near the end of his life his reputation had begun to wane, and shortly before his death he was totally forgotten. The bulk of his manuscripts, scattered through?out Europe, remained unknown to the world for almost two centuries; so did his position as a creative artist. In an article on Vivaldi in Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians we read, "Vivaldi mistook the facility of an expert per?former (and as such he had few rivals among contemporaries) for the creative faculty which he possessed but in a limited degree. . ."
Within the past fifteen years in Italy a vigorous campaign has been under way to restore Vivaldi to his rightful place as one of the truly great names and as one of the most prolific composers in the history of the world's music. In the thirties the National Library of Turin acquired the enormous Mauro Foa and Renzo Giordano Collection of Vivaldi's music, three fourths of which was un?published. Shortly after, in September, 1939, Alfredo Casella, who has edited
Alfredo Casella was born in Turin, July 25, 1883; died in Rome, March 5, 1947. He was distinguished as composer, critic, and scholar. In the preparation of this work he made some additions to the organ part, occasionally altered the viola parts of the Laudamus Te, and rewrote the accompaniment of the Domine Dots. Aside from other minor changes in orchestration, he did not in any way alter Vivaldi's original intentions.
t The others were the Mendieanti, the Incurabile. and the Ospodaletto di San Giovanini. These were originally homes or "hospitals" for orphans and foundlings, supported by the rich and aristocratic families of the city. The Pieta was famed for the instruction it provided in instrumental music.
t Mario Rinaldi, Antonio Vivaldi (Milano: Instituto D'Alta Cultura, 1943).
[19]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
a number of his works, besides the Gloria on tonight's program, organized a memorable Vivaldi Festival at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. At the time he wrote: "The prodigious wealth of Vivaldi's musical invention, the dramatic force which recalls imperatively the brilliance and fire of the great Venetian painters, the mastery of choral polyphony, the marvelous dynamism of the instrumental parts ... the high quality of the emotion which animates his work--all put Vivaldi in a wholly new light.t
The discovery and reconstruction of Vivaldi's music has been continuous. Barely six years ago the world really became aware of his tremendous produc?tivity. In 1948 Marc Pincherlet listed 541 known instrumental works, seventy-three of which were sonatas in two or three parts, 445 concertos, twenty-three symphonies, in addition to forty-nine operas and an immense quantity of mis?cellaneous dramatic and vocal music uncatalogued but known to exist in libraries throughout Europe and America. Each year since has brought to light more authenticated compositions Not since the recovery of the music of Bach in the middle of the nineteenth century has there been such a dramatic discovery of hitherto unknown musical treasure, and from it we can now do more than sur?mise the major role Vivaldi played in the evolution of instrumental music in general and of the classical symphony, the concerto grosso, and the solo concerto in particular.
The fact that Bach greatly admired Vivaldi's music, learned from it, and transcribed it should have alerted scholars long since to its real significance. The first arrangements or transcriptions which have any real artistic value are those of Bach. At a time when his attention was first strongly attracted to the instru?mental music of Italy by the principles of form which Italian composers had originated and developed with such skill, he arranged some of Vivaldi's violin concertos for the clavier and orchestra, II and thereby established the keyboard concerto. Without Vivaldi's concerti grossi, Bach's supreme achievement in the Brandenburg concertos might never have been possible. Not only did Bach pay Vivaldi the respect of transcribing his works, but from them he learned early in his creative life the principles of logical construction, continuity of musical thought, and the plastic handling of themes. Bach always remained a faithful follower of Vivaldi in his concertos, staying within the limits of the form es?tablished by him. But Vivaldi's influence was not confined to the pages of Bach. According to Charles Burney, the eighteenth-century English music historian, Bach was not alone in his admiration for the Italian master, his violin concertos were immensely popular and constantly studied in Germany.
From a careful examination of the music of Vivaldi, now so copiously available,
Casella has edited the Concerto in C minor for solo violin and string orchestra (Op. 9, No. 11 of "La Cetra":), the Concerto grosso in D minor (No. 11 of "L'Estro harmonico"), and twelve of Vivaldi's concerti, motets, and arias.
t Notes to Cetra-Soria Records, Collegium Musicum Italkum di Roma (Virtuosi di Roma, Vivaldi concerti).
t Marc Pincherle, Antonio Vivaldi et la musique instrumental (Paris: Fluory, 1948).
? A complete edition of Vivaldi's works is in process of being prepared under the direction of Francesco Malipiero. One hundred volumes are now available.
II Of the sixteen "Concertos after Vivaldi for clavier" published in Vol. 42 of the complete edition of Bach's works (Bach GeselUchalt), only six are actually by Vivaldi.
[20]
SECOND CONCERT
the incalculable influence of his art upon the music of generations after him becomes more apparent. A daring experimenter in structural form, he not only established the concerto grosso and solo concerto forms and style, but he antici?pated the methods and divisions of the classical symphony and hinted at the ideas of thematic contrast and elaboration that later characterized the symphonic form. His instincts led him to employ techniques in composition long before they were accepted by other composers. From Italy in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and from Vivaldi in particular, came the vocal and instru?mental forms upon which Bach and Handel, and later Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, ultimately built their enduring art.
Vivaldi's name in the field of vocal music has been virtually unknown to the world. No general dictionary or history of music elaborates upon the fact that in his day he was famous throughout Europe as an operatic composer. The state?ment in Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians that "the publications on which his fame rests are all works in which the violin takes the principal part" is typical of those found in such sources. The forty-nine operas and the im?mense quantity of as yet uncatalogued dramatic vocal music mentioned in Pincherle's catalogue should amaze, but not surprise, students of music history who know that, with the exception of Corelli, all Italian composers of the period were of course vocal composers. With further research into his vocal output, Vivaldi may emerge in opera, as he has in instrumental music, head and shoulders above the explorers and experimenters of his age. Certainly the brilliant writing one encounters in this Gloria would support such a supposition.
The Gloria Mass was recorded by Vox (PLP6610) several years ago. At the time a limited public became aware of a major choral composer. In the notes that accompanied this recording, Edward Tatnall Canby wrote of the Gloria Mass:
It is a work that has much in common with the familiar music of Bach and Handel, as do the Vivaldi concerti, but written in the Italian manner. It is outwardly more dramatic, more directly enjoyable, and far less involved than the profound works of the German masters. Vivaldi had that genius for easy and instantly pleasing effect that to this day marks Italian music as a delight to hear and to perform, even though the depth and last?ing qualities of the Northern music are seldom matched. The characteristics of harmony and melodic line already familiar in the Vivaldi concertos are found here--the brilliant allegro string writing, the rich harmonies full of sevenths, of expressively chromatic dis?sonances, the sudden and dramatic harmonic changes, the colorful "Neapolitan sixth," above all the frequent use of harmonic sequence figures--chordal patterns repeated in descending or ascending design. We think of these devices as belonging to the "Bach" style; actually, much of the outward sound of Bach's music is directly Italian in origin; it is the inner meaning, the logic and complexity of counterpoint, the tremendous strength of key (largely missing in Vivaldi) which come from Bach's German forebears. Vivaldi uses counterpoint and fugal writing in a purely dramatic manner with no attempt to probe the deepest potentialities of a pregnant subject, as does Bach. Even Handel, more Italian than Bach and with an unsurpassed eye for outward effect, wrote fully worked-out choral fugues as often as Bach, his concessions to outward show being in a simplicity of theme and a thinning out of parts to let salient ideas sound through.
The Gloria is the second of the five major divisions of the Catholic mass. The Vivaldi
The Ordinary of the Mass includes: the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.
[21]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
setting is in the manner of the largest choral masses, such as Bach's B-minor Mass, in which each phase of the text is given a separate movement. (The division of text, it will be noticed, is quite similar to Bach's.) An interesting technical feature, that adds much to the richness of texture, is the independence of the choral bass part from the harmony bass in the orchestra and similarly the use of independent upper melodic lines in the strings which, while not obbligati like Bach's solo melodies, are still distinct from the choral soprano part. (The common tendency in Bach and Handel is to double the choral parts throughout in the orchestra.)
In such an easily effective work as this, detailed analysis is unnecessary. Some points of interest along the way are as follows:
Gloria: Brilliant string writing with trumpets for color, as in corresponding passages in Bach; the chorus is entirely chordal. Et in terra pax: An expressive piece in B minor strongly reminiscent in its downward string figure of the Et incarnatus, the same key, in the Bach Mass. The fluent choral parts are an illustration of the graceful, simplified counterpoint in the Italian style. Ascending chromatics (bonae voluntatis) add poignancy. Laudamus te, a duet, is Italian vocal line at its most lyric, a quality found indirectly in Vivaldi's instru?mental works. Propter magnam: Though outwardly a formal fugue this is characteristically harmonic, its principle interest being not so much in the separate voices as in the combined-and brilliant--chordal effect of the whole. Domine Deus: A pastorale in the great tradition, for soprano, oboe solo, and strings and surely one of the finest of its type. Not unlike the slow movement of the familiar D-minor concerto. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei: An obbligato melody for solo cellos and basses suggest a Bach aria, but the subsequent choral inter?jections look towards a later style, that of Haydn's and Mozart's religious music. Cum Sancto Spirilu: As the finale of the entire Gloria these words have traditionally called for an exciting setting. The climactic fugue at this point in the Bach Mass is here matched by a loose but dramatic fugal treatment, a solid theme in longer notes against a countersubject in double time that is as near to Haydn as to Bach. The straightforward expositions of these ideas plus a rather flexible Amen figure are broken by instrumental interludes; the first is quiet, for oboe and strings, the second forte with again the trumpet, the third pianissimo, leading to the final cresendo. It is characteristic of the easy-going style of this music that there is no essential harmonic or dramatic contrast between the four choral sections other than a few pseudo-stretti. Again, the effect of the pieces is not in the climactic working out of themes but simply through a brilliant, well-sounding presentation of highly congenial and idiomatic material.
Concerto in B minor for Violoncello and Orchestra . . Dvorak
Anton Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves on Vltava near Prague, September 8, 1841; died in Prague, May 1, 1904.
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose Well, I have--for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has. Do you take it I would astonish Does the red tail, twittering through the woods
--Walt Whitman
It is as little known among performing musicians as it is among the general listening public that Anton Dvorak was one of the most prolific composers of the late nineteenth century. If we judge him only by the extent of his work, he is incontestably a phenomenon in the world of music. Without a doubt Dvorak was one of the most distinguished musical personalities of his period and should take his rightful place beside Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Franck.
[22]
SECOND CONCERT
He ranks today among the great masters in the copiousness and extraordinary variety of his expression.
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, other European countries besides Germany, Austria, Italy, and France became articulate in music. The period saw the emergence of such nationalistic composers as Grieg in Norway, Mus?sorgsky and the "Five"t in Russia, Albeniz in Spain, and Smetana and Dvorak in Bohemia. The freshness and originality of their musical styles stemmed from their conscious use of folk music sources. The result was an agreeable and popular art, essentially melodic, rhythmic, and colorful. Folk music, consciously cultivated by such artists as Dvorak and Smetana, sheds its provincialisms but retains its essential characteristics--simplicity, directness, and honesty.
As a traditionalist Dvorak accepted the forms of his art without question, but he regenerated them by injecting a strong racial feeling, which gave brilliant vitality, depth, and warmth to everything he wrote. Dvorak possessed genuinely Slavonic qualities that gave an imperishable color and lyrical character to his art. With a preponderance of temperament and emotion over reason and intellect, he seemed to be always intuitively guided to effect a proper relation?ship between what he wished to express and the manner in which he did so. In this connection he had more in common with Mozart and Schubert than he had with Beethoven. His expression is fresh and irresistibly frank, and, although it is moody at times and strangely sensitive, it is never deeply philosophical or brooding; gloom and depression are never allowed to predominate. He could turn readily from one strong emotion to another without any premeditation; he could pour out his soul as he does in the second theme of this cello concerto without reserve or affectation, and in the next moment reveal an almost com?plete lack of substance in his predilection for sheer color combinations or rhyth?mic effects for their own sake. But everything he felt and said in his music was natural and clear. There was no defiance, no mystical ecstasy in his make?up. He had the simple faith, the natural gaiety, the sane and robust qualities of Haydn. His music, therefore, lacks the breadth and the epic quality of Bee?thoven's; it posesses none of the transcendent emotional sweep of Tchaikovsky's; but for radiantly cheerful and comforting music, for good-hearted, peasant-like humor, for unburdened lyricism, Dvorak has no peer.
The violoncello concerto was one of the last works written by Dvorak while visiting America. It was begun in November, 1894, and was finished in New York, February 9, 1895. It belongs to a period in Dvorak's creative life when his ideas were co-ordinated rather than developed, but even here his style is lucid and his workmanship skillful.
No arbitrary analysis of the forms of each of the movements would reveal more beauty than is apparent in its attractive rhythms, its noble and quasi-im-provisational melodies, in the inexhaustible flow of their developments, or in the broad, richly colored symphonic scoring. The concerto ranks today as one of the finest and most attractive works in the whole literature of the violoncello.
Sec notes on GrieR, pages 55-56.
t Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Modeste MussorRsky, Nikolas Rimsky-Korsakov.
[23]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Corrido de "El Sol" ("Ballad of the Sun").....Chavez
Carlos Chavez was born in Mexico City, June 13, 1899.
The emancipation of Mexican music was initiated at the beginning of this century with the immense folklore production of one Manuel M. Ponce, when for the first time in Mexican history there came to light a rich heritage of authentic Mexican folk music. After the fall of Porfirio Diaz in 1910, there was a nationalistic resurgence in all aspects of Mexican life, and Ponce's Canciones Mexicanas and his piano compositions based upon popular tunes were early manifestations of a new nationalistic spirit at work. With Ponce and his imitators, Mexican folk music asserted itself and achieved recognition both at home and abroad.
It takes time, however, to transform such an inexhaustible fund of popular melody into a more sophisticated art music, and in the early stages of such an attempt in Mexico there was produced a music that was self-conscious, false in sentiment, and mannered in style. Under the strong influence of European idioms, much of the native flavor was lost in the superimposition of inappropriate instru?mentation, regular rhythmic patterns, and chromatic harmonies.
The problem then was to restore the highly varied rhythms and characteristic instrumentation of the folk-sources, to evolve a harmonic vocabulary appropriate to their melodic substance, and to express the essence of this primitive music in a contemporary idiom.
"Mexico was not without its composer," wrote Otto Mayer-Serra, "who could understand the urgency of incorporating Mexican musical nationalism with the main trends of modern style. Before long Mexican music was to assimilate the new technical contributions of European music, from those of French impression?ism to those of the most advanced schools of Central Europe. To have grasped the need for this and to have attempted such a combination of the most recent mod?ernism with the ancestral music values of his country are the historical merits of Carlos Chavez."
The composition of Chavez exemplifies the high results that can be achieved with folk material when manipulated by an artist of sound purpose and proper equipment. Aaron Copland, an enthusiastic admirer of Chavez' work, considers him to be a thoroughly contemporary composer, one who has faced all of the major problems of modern music. He feels that no composer, not even Bela Bartok or de Falla, has succeeded so well in using folk material in its pure form, while at the same time solving the problem of its complete amalgamation into an art idiom.
Chavez belongs, along with Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco, to the generation that, immediately after the Mexican Revolution of 1910, vigorously expressed the renascent culture of its country. He is to Mexico what Enesco, Bartok, and
Otto Mayer-Serra, "Silvestras Revueltas and Musical Nationalism in Mexico," Musical Quarterly, XXVII (1941), 125.
[24]
SECOND CONCERT
Villa-Lobos are to their respective countries--Romania, Hungary, and Brazil. His early creative instincts, like theirs, were nurtured largely upon folklore and folk-music sources. Throughout his life he has delved constantly into primitive Mexican roots, revived archaic scales, instruments, and ritualistic devices, not as a pedant evolving abstruse theories but as a curious artist forever probing into new sources for creative purposes. He is a nationalist, not with a narrow or purely chauvinistic intent, but with a sincere feeling for the art of his people, to which he turned, rather than to Europe, for the liberation of his own creative talents. "We do not depreciate European music," he wrote, "nor the music of any nation. We admire the genuine expression of any people. Nor is our desire to recover the Mexican tradition merely for the sake of recovering it. Mexico is as rich, as personal, as strong in music as it is in painting and architecture."
Extraordinarily distinguished as an educator, conductor, and composer, Chavez has alone made the world conscious of the music of Mexico. His serious compo?sition dates from his first symphony in 1918. For the next three years he wrote extensively for orchestra, piano ensemble, and voice in a semiclassical style, only slightly tinged by Mexican elements. During the period of Mexican artistic renaissance in the twenties, he was commissioned, along with Diego Rivera, who painted the famous frescoes in the Secretariat of Public Education, to write a Mexican Ballet "El Fuego Nuevo," in which the first unmistakable indication of nationalistic influence can be detected. In 1928, he became conductor of the heterogeneous Musician's Union Orchestra and transformed it into an inte?grated major symphony orchestra, which is today ranked among the finest in the world. In the same year he was appointed director of the National Conserva?tory of Music, then little more than a school for dilettantes, and, by vigorously reorganizing the existing antiquated curriculum, turned it into a high-ranking professional music school. In 1933 he became chief of the Department of Fine Arts in the Secretariat of Public Education, where he revivified its activity by instigating research projects in native Mexican music and instruments and by the training of children's and workmen's choruses. Through these manifold activi?ties he has made his countrymen and the world aware for the first time of the great musical heritage of his native land and of its artistic and creative potential.
"El Sol," an extended work for chorus and orchestra, was composed in the early months of 1934. With the exception of words taken from a popular ballad by the same name, the text is made up of a series of short poems by Carlos Gutierrez Cruz. It tells of the peon or Mexican tiller of the soil who lived for centuries under oppression, and whose liberation was one of the main objectives of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The music is completely original except for eight measures from the ballad of the same name, which appear in the opening measures and reappear at the very end. The work is written without sentimen?tality, achieving a certain primitive directness with its relentless drive. It is firm in texture and workmanlike in form, fusing an archaic idiom with the dry, terse style of contemporary music.
[25]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM A literal translation of the text into English follows:
Oh, red headed Sun
Peering from the Orient
Arise and warm
the dampened sod.
All night it rained
with fitful fury--
"Jugsful" as people say.
The seed is numb and almost frozen.
Oh, Sun! Warm the seed
and burst it--
Induce its flower to bloom
With all your hues and color!
Round Sun, red and hot--
The sower is at the plough
And you are in the East.
Oh Sun, while the sowers plough
You warm the earth.
And the earth warms the seed that it holds.
And now you will be my companion
For you deal with equality
Because like man
You're a toiler
Earning your daily bread.
[26]
Round and red, Oh Sun A ring of copper-You daily look at me And daily find me poor. Sometimes with the plough you'll see me, Sometimes with the harrow, At times you'll see me on the prairie-At others, on the hillside. You see me when I rope the bulls--
You see me when I drive the herd-But daily you see me poor Like all of us who are down. Oh Sun, that spreads Your light so evenly-Your duty is to teach The earthly masters To be fair as you. Round and red, Oh Sun A ring of copper-You daily look at me And daily find me poor.
THIRD CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 1
PROGRAM OF THE COMPOSITIONS OF JOHANNES BRAHMS
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died in Vienna, April 3, 1897.
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 exclusiveness, 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 move?ments of his symphonies. Here is to be found an expression of the true spirit of the period in which he lived. By the exertion of a clear intelligence, he tem?pered an excessively emotional nature, and thereby avoided 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 unhealthful 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 sentimentality; he saw the classic dignity of his art degraded by an infiltration of tawdry programmatic effects and innocuous imitation, and witnessed finally its complete subjugation to poetry and the dramatic play. But all of this he opposed with his own grand style, profoundly moving, noble, and dignified. With a sweep and thrust he forced music out upon her mighty pinions to soar once more. What Matthew Arnold wrote of Milton's verse might well have been written of the music of Brahms: "The fullness of thought, imagination, and knowledge make it what it is" and the mighty power of his music lies "in the refining and elevation wrought in us by the high and rare excellence of the grand style."
Fuller-Maitland, in his admirable book on Brahms, made reference to the
J. A. Fuller-Maitland, Brahms (London: Methuen & Co., 1911).
[27]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
parallelism between the composer and Robert Browning. This association too, is a significant one. There is something similar in their artistic outlook and method of expression, for Brahms, like Browning, often disclaimed the nice selection and employment of a style in itself merely beautiful. As an artist, he chose to create, in every case, a style proportioned to the design, finding in that dramatic relation of style and motive a more vital beauty and a broader sweep of feeling. In this epic conception Brahms often verged upon the sublime. He lived his creative life upon the "cold white peaks." No master ever displayed a more inexorable self-discipline, or held his art in higher respect. For Brahms was a master of masters, always painstaking in the devotion he put into his work, and undaunted in his search for perfection. The Brahms of music is the man, in Milton's magnificent phrase, "of devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out His seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases."
Variations on a Theme by Haydn (Chorale St. Antonii), Op. 56a
For Brahms, it was "no laughing matter to write a symphony after Bee?thoven." To his friend Levi, he wrote, just after the completion of the first movement of the First Symphony, "I shall never compose a symphony! You have no conception of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him [Beethoven] behind us."
Brahms was forty-four years of age before he undertook the task. His severe self-criticism and conscientiousness led him into countless experiments and trials. Before he published his first string quartets, for instance, he had com?posed over twenty works in that form; and before he ventured into the sym?phonic field, he made a most unostentatious debut with two Serenades in orchestral style at the age of twenty-six. After an interim of nearly fourteen years, he set up another signal with the Haydn Variations, written during the summer of 1873. This amply designed and captivating prelude forms an inter?mediate stage in his progress from the serenades to the first of the four great symphonies. To an infinitely greater degree than the two Serenades, they claim to be the first truly symphonic work of Brahms, and they carried his name as an instrumental composer into every country. Although the variations created in their day a veritable sensation, the most we can say of this rather immature work with its pastel shades and delicate contrasts, is that its charm is still a constant source of delight. We cannot escape, however, an impression of experi?menting tentatively with the form chosen, and although Brahms's manner of elaborating a theme here resembles slightly his treatment in the Handel and Paganini variations, without of course their harmonic richness and melodic in?vention--there is nothing of the novelty or creative power one finds in the gigantic final Passacaglia of the Fourth Symphony, and we are led to the acknowledg?ment that the charm and delight of his work is derived as much from the original theme and its recurrences, as from anything Brahms did with it. In truth,
[28]
THIRD CONCERT
Brahms was merely trying out and subjecting to his needs the medium of the full symphony orchestra.
The original theme, a delightful half hymn and half folk tune, was described in the manuscript which was brought to his attention in 1870 by Dr. Karl Ferdi?nand Pohl, as "The Chorale St. Antonii." At that time there was no question as to the authenticity of the tune. It was derived from the second movement of a then unpublished divertimento ("Feld Partita") for wind instruments by Haydn.
There is, however, no reason to be certain that the subject of the variations really was the original work of Haydn. Scholars have never been able to decide whether it was an old tune or one of Haydn's inventions. At any rate, Brahms entered the theme, along with other phrases of older composers, in a notebook, as was his custom. In 1873 he completed the variations in two forms, one for two pianos which came to publication first (November, 1873) and the other for full orchestra, which was not brought out until January, 1874.
Walter Niemann's description of the variations follows:
The variations are eight in number and, in accordance with Haydn's manner and spirit, end, not in a fugue, but a finale. The piquant five-bar measure of the first period of the theme is preserved throughout all the variations, in homogeneous and close connection with it. The same is true of the key, B-flat major. It is only in the second, fourth, and eighth variations that it changes to the more sombre key of B-flat minor. Like the Handel "Variations" for piano, the Haydn "Variations" are also "character" variations, sharply contrasted and varied in movement, rhythm, style, colour, and atmosphere.
The first variation, pensive and softly animated (with triplets against quavers), is directly connected with the close of the theme by its soft bell-like echoes. The second, with its Brahmsian dotted progressions in sixths on the clarinets and bassoons, above the pizzicato basses and the ringing "challenge (Anruf)" of the tutti, is more animated, but still subdued, as is indicated by the key of B-flat minor. The third, pensive and full of warm inspiration in its perfectly tranquil flowing movement, introduces a melodious duet between the two oboes in its first section, accompanied an octave lower by the two bassoons, and in the second part, where it is taken up by the first violin and viola, weaves round it an enchantingly delicate and transparent lace-work in the woodwind. The fourth, with its solo on the oboes and horns in unison, steals by in semiquavers, as sad and gray as a melancholy mist, again in B-flat minor. The fifth goes tittering, laughing, and romping merrily off, in light passages in thirds in a 68 rhythm on the woodwind (with piccolo) against the 34 rhythm of the strings, which starts at the seventh bar. The sixth, with its staccato rhythm, is given a strong, confident colour by the fanfares on the horns and trumpets. The seventh is a Siciliano, breathing a fervent and tender emotion, with the melody given to the flute and viola, in 68 time, Bach-like in character, yet every note of it pure Brahms. Here at last he speaks to our hearts as well. The eighth, in B-flat minor, hurries past, shadowy and phantom-like, with muted strings and soft woodwind, in a thoroughly ghostly and uncanny fashion--a preliminary study on a small scale for the finale in F minor of the F major Symphony. The finale opens, very calm, austere, and sustained, as a further series of variations on a basso ostinato of five bars. It is developed with extraordinary ingenuity, works up through constant repetitions of the chorale theme, each time in a clearer form and with cumulative intensity, to a brilliant close, with as it were, a dazzling apotheosis of the wind instruments, thrown into relief against rushing scale-passages, as in the concluding section of the Akademische Festoitver-
Haydn's "Partita" was not published until 1932.
[29]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
lure. We may, if we like, see in this basso ostinato the first germ of the mighty final chaconne on a basso ostinato of the Fourth Symphony.
These amiable variations, with their over-light orchestration in spots, their lively nervous energy, and at times their exquisitely tender movements, would perhaps seem less distant and more significant if it were not for the absolutely overpowering and tragic grandeur of the First Symphony which immediately followed them, or for the Aeschylean quality of the variation form as he used it in the last movement of the Fourth Symphony.
ELEVEN SONGS t
The Little Drummer's Song, Op. 69, No. 5
I strike my drum so bold and clear, And when I think of eyes so blue,
It shakes the earth both far and near, My drum beats softly, gently too,
Yes, far and near. So gently too.
But then I see my little love Its song is light and soft and clear
So fair, my little love. So soft, so soft and clear.
Blue-grey, blue, blue-grey, blue, Blue-grey, blue, blue-grey, blue,
Eyes bright as heav'n above, My drum sings to my dear,
Blue-grey, blue, blue-grey, blue, Blue-grey, blue, blue-grey, blue,
Eyes bright as heav'n above. My drum sings to my dear.
The Blacksmith, Op. 19, No. 4
The blacksmith I hear, How sturdy his stroke,
The clanging and clashing. His bellows he's blowing.
The blows of his hammer The soot darkened fireplace
On anvil are crashing, With flame is aglowing,
Like clanging of bells sounding loud on A Thor with his thunder he stands in the ear. the smoke.
The Little Sandman, Volks-Kinderlieder
Arranged for the children of Robert and Clara Schumann.
The flowers all sleep soundly Now see, the little sandman
Beneath the moon's bright ray; At the window shows his head,
They nod their heads together And looks for all good children
And dream the night away. Who ought to be in bed;
The budding trees wave to and fro, And as each weary one he spies,
And murmur soft and low. Throws sand into his eyes.
Sleep on! Sleep on, Sleep on! Sleep on,
Sleep on, my little one! Sleep on, my little one!
A Warning, Op. 66, No. 5
I know a maiden sweet and fair, Her eyes are brown and twinkling too,
Oh beware, yes, bewareOh beware, yes, beware-
I know a maiden sweet and fair, Her eyes are brown and twinkling too,
You think she has a friendly air! She likes to laugh at you, it's true!
If you knew what I do, If you knew what I do,
You'd trust her not, she's fooling you. You'd trust her not, she's fooling you.
Walter Niemann, Brahms (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1937). t Orchestrated by Dorothy James, Marion McArtor, and Russell Howland.
[30]
THIRD CONCERT
The Wasted Serenade, Op. 84, No. 4
He. Ah, good evening, my darling, good evening, my dear! Ah, good evening, my dear! I come to sing to you. Invite me in, pray do, Open now your door! Open now, open now, open now, my dear!
She. My door is fast and bolted, you cannot come in. You cannot come in. My mother turned this key, And she would angry be, Tis too late to call. Yes, indeed, yes, indeed, she would angry be.
He. The night is cold, so icy the wind! So icy the wind! My heart is freezing now, My love will die, I vow, If you will not hear! Open now, open now, open now, my dear!
SJte. When love can cool fast, ah, then, let it go! Ah, then let it go! Now run on home to bed, Far too much has been said! So goodnight, my friend, So goodnight, so goodnight, so goodnight, my friend!
Flying Birds, Liebeslieder, Op. 52, No. 13
As through air the birds do fly, do fly through air, When they seek a nest. So a heart, a heart desires, Loving peace and rest.
The Hunter in the Forest, Volks-Kinderlieder, No. 9
A hunter in the evening Traveled homeward thro' the woods
On his way.
With dog and spear, afar and near, With dog and spear, afar and near, But not a thing, but not a thing, But nothing had he found All the day.
"My little dog runs by my side And roams the forest thro' In his play.
He searches here, he searches there,
His bright eyes searching ev'rywhere:
My dog and I My dog and I are happy And our hearts are gay."
Bird in the Pine Tree, Volks-Kinderlieder, No. 2
What bird is that in the pine tree there, Singing and trilling away Surely it must be a nightingale! Tell me, now what do you say
Ah, my dear, that is no nightingale! No, my dear, that could not be. Nightingales don't like the pine tree-They sing in the hazel-nut tree.
[31]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Pussywillow, Op. 107, No. 4
Pussywillow, fuzzy cat,
I pluck you off and pin you on
My very oldest hat.
Pussywillow, fuzzy cat,
Sign of spring--
Once long ago I pinned you on
The hat of one I love;
Once long ago I pinned you on
The hat of one I love.
Die Henne (The Lost Hen), Volks-Kinderlieder, No. 3
Sung in German (South German dialect)
Ach, mein Hennlein, bi, bi, bi! Meld du di!
Ach, mein Hennlein, bi, bi, bi! Saht ihr nit mein Hennlein laufen MScht mir gleich die Haar ausrafen! Ach, mein Hennlein, bi, bi, bi!
Was wird de die Mutter sagen
Sie wird mich zum Tor 'naus jagen!
Ach, mein Hennlein, bi, bi, bi!
Geh die Gasse auf und nieder, Fin de grad mein Hennlein wieder! Ach, mein Hennlein, bi, bi, bi!
Ah, my little hen, bi, bi, bil
Come to me!
Ah, my little hen, bi, bi, bi!
Have you seen her anywhere around,
I'll just tear my hair until she's found!
Ah, my little hen, bi, bi, bi!
When my mother learns about it, She'll be angry, I don't doubt it! Ah, my little hen, bi, bi, bil
Up and down the street again, 'Til I find my little hen! Ah, my little hen, bi, bi, bi!
The Gypsy Dance, Zigeunerlieder, Op. 103, No. 5
Brown-eyed lad is gaily dancing, With a pretty, blue-eyed lass; Clash of spurs with clang and ringing, As across the floor they pass.
See them whirling, twirling, laughing, Spinning, breathless, as they swing! Now he throws bright coins of silver On the cymbals--hear them ring!
Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102, for Violin, Violoncello, and Orchestra
In a letter to Clara Schumann, Brahms wrote concerning his concerto for violin and cello: "Indeed it is not at all the same thing to write for instruments whose nature and timbre one has in one's head, as it were, only from time to time, and hears only with one's intelligence, as it is to write for an instrument which one knows through and through, as I do the piano, in which case I know thoroughly what I am writing, and why I write in this way or that."
It is obvious that Brahms did not feel quite at ease with this work, as to either form or feeling, and there is no doubt that this awkward embarrassment reflected itself in his music. Hanslick detected it when he said that this concerto was the product of a great constructive mind, rather than an irresistible inspira-
[32]
THIRD CONCERT
tion of creative imagination and invention. Even those who admired Brahms unconditionally, as Hanslick certainly did, were often aware of calculation and of workmanship due merely to an astonishing artistic understanding, which Brahms evidently applied in the conviction that he was employing his genius. The great violinist and personal friend of Brahms, Joachim, once actually warned him not to let himself be "disturbingly or forcibly urged by his will power," and the beloved Elizabeth von Herzogenberg reluctantly ventured at one time to express the same opinion. "Here I can no longer follow, no echo is awakened in me. And because I am so anxious to be enthusiastic, not to say warmly prejudiced in favor of Brahms, I ask myself, ever so softly, but still I ask myself, whether he does not give us many things in the birth of which his heart's blood had no share, but only his sagacity, his refinement, his craft, and his mastery. One misses the need that lets the best in an artist appear like something conditioned by nature, something created out of eternity for all eternity."
It must be admitted that the Double Concerto on this afternoon's program has been received with no more than cool admiration and that it is one of the most unapproachable and joyless compositions of Brahms. This curiously somber and contemplative work, with its rigid themes, its almost repellent introspectiveness, its mechanical and almost obstinate movement, its equation-like development, seems "congealed into a kind of strange frosty greatness."
Perhaps the deliberate choice of an old classical form (the concerto grosso) and the endeavor to make the most out of as little material as possible led Brahms to mistake the means for the end. In spite of its pleasing effect upon a wide public, the Double Concerto is considered by many to be a work elaborated by strictly mechanical method rather than an expression of an intense inner experience.
This, the last of the Brahms concertos, was an experiment in the revival of the old Italian form of the orchestral concerto or "concerto grosso" of the seven?teenth century, in which the orchestral "tutti" of the concerto grosso contrasted with a "concertino" for several soloists. Obviously Brahms has adopted the mod?ern version of this form, as developed in Beethoven's C-major Triple Concerto (Op. 56) for piano, violin, violoncello, and orchestra. The results are, in?terestingly enough, very much the same: both are forms without spirit, where inspiration seems replaced by mathematical construction. In the second move?ment, however, there is a rich mysterious quality that makes its appeal for the movement, but soon leaves us again on the barren plains. This concerto is seldom heard in public largely because it demands two players of consummate technique and sure mastery, and above all with an almost unbelievable conception of en?semble. What the heart does not say is left to the head, and the beauty of state?ment, in this particular case, has a validity above the expression of the "things of the spirit." These purely abstract elements can in themselves be a source of a kind of beauty, but a beauty that depends almost entirely upon the absolute tech?nical perfection of the execution. The Double Concerto, unlike most of the great works of Brahms, succeeds or fails with an audience on the basis of the quality and distinction of the performance.
[33]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
"Academic Festival" Overture, Op. 80
If ever a piece of music stood as an eternal refutation of all that is meant by "academic," it is this "Festival Overture." The work was written in 1880 as an acknowledgment by Brahms of the doctor's degree which had been conferred upon him by the University of Breslau, as the "Princeps musicae severioris" in Germany. But shockingly enough, the rollicking "Academic Festival" Overture is anything but severely in keeping with the pedantic solemnities of academic convention. It is typical of Brahms that he should delight in thanking the pomp?ous dignitaries of the university with such a quip, for certainly here is one of the gayest and most sparkling overtures in the orchestral repertory.
In the spirit of "He hath cast down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them that are of low degree," Brahms selected as the thematic materials for his overture a handful of student drinking songs, which he championed against all the established conventions of serious composition. Brahms always took impish joy in indulging his instinct for thus championing underdogs of art such as music boxes, banjos, brass bands, and working men's singing societies. And here he elevated the lowly student song into the realm of legitimate art. There was never a "nobler man of the people" in the whole history of music.
The overture begins (Allegro, C minor, 2-2 time) without an introduction. The principal theme is announced in the violins. The second section is a tranquil melody in the violas, which returns to the opening material. After an episode (E minor) there follows the student song, "Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus" ("We had built a stately house"), heard in three trumpets (C major). At the close of this section, the full orchestra presents another section partly suggested by the first theme of the overture. The key changes to E major, and the second violins with cellos pizzicato announce the second student song, "Der Landesvater" ("The Father of the Country"), an old eighteenth-century tune.
The development section does not begin with the working out of the expo?sition material, but rather, and strangely enough, with the introduction of another student melody (in two bassoons), "Was kommt dort von der Hoh" t ("What comes there from on high"), a freshman song. An elaborate development of the material of the exposition then follows. The recapitulation is irregular in that it merely suggests the return of the principal theme; but then it presents the rest of the material in more or less regular restatement. The conclusion is reached in a stirring section which presents a fourth song, "Gaudeamus igitur," in the wood?wind choir, with tumultuous scale passages against it in the higher strings, and with this emphatic and boisterous theme--the most popular of all student songs-the overture gives its final thrust at the academicians.
A tune associated with the words: "Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus, darin auf Gott vertrauet, durch Wetter, Sturm, und Graus" ("We had built a stately house, wherein we gave our trust to God, through bad weather, storm, and dread"). The melody is by Friedrich Silcher--author of the better-known tune which he wrote to Heine's "Die Lorelei."
t This is a vivacious and slightly grotesque version of the "Fuchslied" ("Fox Song"), "Fuchs" being
Xvalent to "Freshman." Max Kalbeck, an admirer of Brahms, and also his biographer, was shocked at the of this irreverence to the learned doctors of the University, but Brahms was unperturbed.
[34]
FOURTH CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 1
Overture to Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg .... Wagner
Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, May 22, 1813; died in Venice, February 13, 1883.
In Nazi Germany, Wagner's ideas, like a hundred aspects of German history during the last century and a half, were perverted to evil ends. Hitler's diabolical genius seized upon them for a purpose never intended, nor even dreamed of by their creator, and interpreted them as the embodiment of a political philosophy of force and Teutonic superiority. In his hands they became a postulation of both aristocratic racialism and plebeian socialism. In the minds of many, even today Wagner is still the symbol of these ideas.
Program notes are not the medium for discussions of this nature; but it will not be amiss in our time to emphasize the true and moving spirit of humanity that is to be found in Wagner's art--a spirit that must not be overshadowed or lost by the superimposition of false doctrines of power, brute force, and hate. Wagner's art is still accepted and reverently attended to by what still remains of the civilized world, as one of the most profound and searching expressions of the deepest sources of the human spirit. For Wagner, racial and national-socialist goals were to be achieved through art and music, and the invisible Fo-soul--not by means of any material institutions or through coercion.
In the words of the great contemporary German humanitarian, Thomas Mann, Wagner's aim was:
To purify art and hold it sacred for the sake of a corrupt society ... He was all for catharsis and purification and dreamed of consecrating society by means of aesthetic elevation and cleansing it from its greed for gold, luxury, and all unloveliness ... it is thoroughly inadmissible to ascribe to Wagner's nationalistic attitudes and speeches the meaning they would have today. That would be to falsify and misuse them, to besmirch their romantic purity.
The national idea, when Wagner introduced it as a familiar and workable theme into his works--that is to say, before it was realized--was in its historically legitimate heroic epoch. It had its good, living, and genuine period; it was poetry and intellect--a future value. But when the basses thunder out at the stalls the verse about the "German Sword," or that kernel and finale of the "Meistersinger": "Though Holy Roman Empire sink to dust, There still survives our sacred German art," in order to arouse an ulterior patriotic emotion--that is demagogy. It is precisely these lines . . . that attest the intellectuality of Wagner's national?ism and its remoteness from the political sphere; they betray a complete anarchistic indiffer?ence to the state, so long as the spiritually German, the "Deutsche Kunst," survives.
Not since Bach has a composer so overwhelmingly dominated his period, so completely overtopped his contemporaries and followers with a sovereignty
Thomas Mann, Freud, Goethe and Wagner (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1933).
[35]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
of imagination and potency of expression. But Bach and Wagner share little else, actually, aesthetically, or spiritually. Bach's music is transcendent, abstract, absolute, impersonal, and detached; that of Wagner is most individual, emanat?ing directly and unmistakably from his personality; it is movingly sensuous, excitingly emotional, and highly descriptive. His life, unlike that of Bach, was thrilling, superbly vital, brilliant, and colorful. While Bach worked oblivious of posterity, Wagner, sustained by a prophetic vision and knowledge that he was writing for distant generations, worked consciously for fame. It gave to his music a self-consciousness, and excessiveness, and at times an overeffectiveness. Bach died in obscurity, while Wagner lived to see every one of his major works performed on the stages of the world. He died with universal recognition and the realization that in the short space of his life he had changed the whole current of the tonal art, and that his mind and will had influenced the entire music of his age.
The synthetic and constructive power of Wagner's mind enabled him to assimilate the varied tendencies of his period to such a degree that he became the fulfillment of nineteenth-century romanticism in music. He conditioned the future style of opera, infusing into it a new dramatic truth and significance; he emphasized the marvelous emotional possibilities that lay in the orchestra, thereby realizing the expressive potentialities of instrumentation. He created not a "school" of music, as many lesser minds than his have done, but a school of thought. His grandiose ideas, sweeping years away as though they were minutes, have ever since found fertilization in the imaginations of those creators of music who have felt that their world has become too small. He sensed Beethoven's striving for new spheres of emotional experience; and in a music that was new and glamorous, incandescent, unfettered, and charged with passion, he entered a world of strange ecstasies to which music had never before had wings to soar.
To the opera-going public, particularly in Germany, Wagner's single comedy Die Meistersinger is the most beloved of all his works. The gaiety and charming tunefulness of the score, and the intermingling of humor, satire, and romance in the text, are reasons enough for its universal popularity.
As a reconstruction of the social life in the quaint medieval city of Niirn-berg, its truthfulness and vividness are beyond all praise. In its harmless satire, aimed in kindly humor at the manners, vices, and follies of the "tradesmen-musicians" and their attempt to keep the spirit of minstrelsy alive by dint of pedantic formulas, the plot is worthy to stand beside the best comedies of the world. Certainly it has no equal in operatic literature.
Among the great instrumental works whose fundamental principle is that of polyphony (plural melody), the Prelude to Die Meistersinger stands alone. Polyphonic music, formerly the expression of corporate religious worship, now becomes the medium for the expression of the many-sidedness of individual character and the complexity of modern life. What a triumph for the man who was derided for his lack of scholarship because he had no desire to bury himself alive in dust, but who constructed, with a surety of control of all the resources of the most abstruse counterpoint, a monument of polyphonic writing such as
[36]
FOU RTH CONCERT
had not seen the light since the days of Palestrina and Bach, yet with no sacrifice of naturalness, simplicity, and truthfulness.
Like Beethoven in the "Leonore" overtures written for his opera Fidelio, Wagner constructed the symphonic introduction to his comedy so as to indicate the elements of the dramatic story, their progress in the development of the play, and finally the outcome.
The overture begins with the theme of the Meistersingers in heavy pompous chords which carry with them all the nobility and dignity indicative of the char?acter of the members of the guild, with their steadfast convictions and adherence to traditional rules. The theme is an embodiment of all that was sturdy, upright, and kindly in the medieval burgher.
The second theme, only fourteen measures in length, heard alternating in flute, oboe, and clarinet, expresses the tender love of Eva and Walther. With a flourish in the violins flaunted by brass, another characteristic meistersinger theme appears in the woodwinds, indicating the pompous corporate consciousness of the guild, symbolized in their banner whereon is emblazoned King David playing his harp.
In an interlude the violins sing the famous "prize song" in which, in the last act, the whole work finds its highest expression. This section is abruptly ended with a restatement of the meistersinger theme, now in the form of a short scherzo in humorous staccati notes. A stirring climax is reached with the simultaneous sounding of the three main themes: the "prize song" in the first violins and first horns and cellos; the banner theme in woodwinds, lower horns, and second vio?lins; the meistersinger theme in basses of all choirs. There is little music so intricate, yet so human. In the words of Lawrence Gilman, it is "a wondrous score, with its Shakespearean abundance, its Shakespearean blend of humor and loveliness, the warmth and depth of its humanity, the sweet mellowness of its spirit, its incredible recapturing of the hue and fragrance of a vanished day, its perfect veracity and its transcendent art."
"Nessun dorma" from Turandot........Puccini
Giacomo Puccini was born in Luca, Italy, Decem?ber 22, 1858; died in Brussels, November 29, 1924.
Giacomo Puccini, referred to by Verdi as the most promising of his successors, may be said to dominate modern operatic composers even today, a quarter of a century after his death. He justified his master's prophecy by a career of unin?terrupted success from the date of his first dramatic venture, Le Villi, Milan, 1884, to the last, unfinished work, Turandot, 1924. While there are numerous men such as Mascagni and Leoncavallo who have won fame through a single work, Puccini achieved high esteem both by the quantity and quality of his operatic creations.
The libretto of the opera was written by Giuseppi Adami and Renato Simoni, after a tale by Carlo Gozzi. Puccini died before completing the work, and the
[37]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
score was finished by Franco Alfano. The premiere took place at La Scala, Milan, on April 25, 1926, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.
The story of Turandot takes place in the Imperial city of Peking, in legendary times. The princess Turandot has offered herself as the bride of any prince who can answer three riddles. The penalty for failure to answer the riddles, however, is death, and three suitors have already paid with their lives. The riddles are successfully solved at last by one who identifies himself only as the Unknown Prince. Seeing that Turandot does not love him, he offers to release the Princess from her bargain if she can discover his name.
The present aria takes place at the beginning of the third act. The Unknown Prince, standing alone at twilight, listens to heralds in the distance proclaiming the Princess' edict that the name of the Prince must be found before morning upon penalty of death. The Prince sings of his love for Turandot in this exquisite aria:
No one sleeps; not even thou, dearest princess. In your lonely chamber as you watch the stars, my secret remains my own. My name no one shall know! When the dawn again appears and my kiss removes the silence which will make you mine, it shall be heard upon your lips. Away, oh night; be dimmed ye stars; with the dawn she will be mine I
"Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly.......Puccini
For his operas, Manon Lescaut (1893) and La Bohbtne (1896), Puccini re?ceived extravagant praise from the press and the public and was established in the front rank of the younger Italian operatic composers. His next opera, Tosca (1900), was received coldly, and Madama Butterfly at its premiere at La Scala on February 17, 1904, was hissed. The reason for the sudden and temporary antagonism to this score is difficult to find, for in a slightly revised version (division into three acts and addition of a tenor aria in the last scene) performed in Brescia on May 28 of the same year, the opera was received with frenzied applause and critical approbation. With this success, Puccini became the ac?knowledged ruler of the Italian operatic world and the recognized successor to the great Verdi.
Madama Butterfly was based on a magazine story by John Luther Long, dram?atized by the author and David Belasco, and turned into a libretto by Illica and Giocosa. The tragic story of the little Japanese maiden Cio-Cio-San, forsaken by her American husband, and the warm passionate music of Puccini's score will always make their poignant appeal as long as audiences respond to basic emo?tions of love, hate, and pity in the theater, and to the power of music to evoke in us these emotional states.
This most popular of all operatic arias climaxes a scene in Act II in which Cio-Cio-San has been discussing the return of her husband with her maid Suzuki. In it she reassures herself and Suzuki that some fine day a great ship will appear far on the horizon and the boom of the cannon will announce its arrival in the
Alfano's work begins with the duet between Turandot and the Unknown Prince in Act III and continues lo the end of the opera.
[38]
FOURTH CONCERT
harbor. They will see him coming from a distance, climbing a hill. Cio-Cio-San will hide for a moment, then she will hear him call her his "Butterfly." So let all fears be banished, he will return!
"O terra, addio" from A'ida...........Verdi
A'ida was written for the Khedive of Egypt and was first performed in Cairo, December 24, 1871. Since that time it has exerted its perennial appeal wherever opera is performed. For A'ida has no rivals in the field for the dramatic power of its music and the living intensity of its plot.
Stirring choruses and magnificent orchestration--myriads of vibrant colors, abundance of pure Italian melody against richly-moving harmonies--sound throughout a story of intrigue, love, hate, jealousy, and sacrifice. All this is acted, with attending pomp and spectacular pageantry, against the background of an Egyptian and Ethiopian war in the time of the Pharaohs.
Aida, daughter of Amonasro, King of Ethiopia, has been captured by the Egyptians and is a slave at the Court of Memphis, where she and the young soldier, Radames, have fallen in love. The Ethiopians, under the command of Amonasro, have invaded Egypt to rescue Aida, and Radames is named to lead the Egyptian army against them.
Successful and victorious, he returns with Aida's father, as hostage. Ai'da ob?tains from Radames the war plans of the Egyptians and persuades him to escape with her. Amneris, the daughter of the King of the Egyptians, in love with Radames, learns of their plans and in a rage of jealousy, denounces them. Amonasro and Ai'da escape, and Radames is tried for treason and condemned to be buried alive.
In the last scene, Radames, locked in the tomb awaiting death, discovers Ai'da in the shadows. In the oppressive darkness they sing their farewell to earth. The broad calm melody is sung in unison, a symbol of the absorption of the lovers into an unending union in eternity.
Concert Music for String Orchestra and
Brass Instruments, Op. 50........Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was born in Hanau, Germany, Novem?ber 16, 1895; now residing in Zurich, Switzerland.
Prior to the advent of Paul Hindemith, German music seemed indecisive as to what course it was to follow. After Wagner and Brahms, some composers seemed intent upon perpetuating the principles of their glorious art, failing to see that these principles grew out of and were associated with an era that was past. Wagner and Brahms had brought German Romanticism and its concept of music as the "soul expression" of the individual to a complete fruition. After a century of personal and private musical expression and one in which music was called upon to paint pictures, comment upon "programs," and abet the drama and ballet, it had lost much of its inherent dignity. Its intrinsic principles had
[39]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
gone into decay and its superficial powers had been exalted and enthroned in their place. A return to some kind of a classic conception of form, simplicity, and the absolute was inevitable. When music began to exaggerate Romanticism and to force the continuance of a spirit that had already passed out of art, the reaction set in. Composers like Mahler, Bruckner, and Richard Strauss illustrate a final attempt to administer artificial respiration to the dying Romanticism of the nineteenth century. These post-Romanticists were not only writing its last chap?ter, they were inscribing its epitaph. Schoenberg, in his early career, pursued a similar course with Verklarte Nacht in 1899, and until 1912 his scores grew in size and complexity, becoming intricate and unwieldy (Gurre-Lieder, 1901-1910; Pierrot Lunaire, 1912). Exactly parallel with Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky was creating the involved score of Sacre du printemps. It is interesting to note that both these composers reacted rather suddenly in favor of simplicity directly after writing these complicated scores. Schoenberg became increasingly concise, logical, and sparing of decorative complexity and evolved a system that was more intellectual than emotional in its appeal. Another interesting observation, prov?ing the leaven of classicism at work, is that between 1915 and 1929 neither of these composers wrote for full orchestra but composed for smaller chamber music combinations. This tendency toward simplification in composition became known as neoclassicism. At the time, writers on music, sensing the "new" style, attempted to explain it by pointing out that it was as much a progression as a revival; that in its new rationality it revealed more variety in its treatment of form; that in its harmony there was an underlying direction toward free horizontal movement. (Debussy's revolutionary dissonances had passed their aggressive stage and were now accepted as consonances and points of rest, and had already taken their place alongside the accepted progressions of the past.) They pointed out the pre?eminently horizontal texture of the new music, the sparseness of its style, and its general anti-romantic and anti-idealistic intentions. They noted its self-contained quality and that it eschewed for the most part descriptive programs, expression?ism, or any implication of "inner meaning."
The outspoken propagandist for this movement was Paul Hindemith. At the age of thirty-six he had become the unrivaled leader of that section of his generation that believed music should be adapted to the demands of its time and no longer re-echo an age that was in every sense remote. What he said and wrote about his art was diametrically opposed to the traditional German idealistic and philosophical conception of music. He spoke of it as being human, but not super?human; useful, practical, and purposeful, not inspirational; it was absolute expression with no descriptive intention, no program, no sentimentalism. The composer's responsibility, he further maintained, was not to express individual emotion or to reflect personal moods and feelings but to create directly out of musical substance. There was no mystery about it--music spoke the same access?ible language to everyone. The audience was in no way required to react to or "interpret" it according to any preconceived notions of its meaning. Music should be written not upon impulse but only when demanded. By 1927 Hindemith had formulated this tenet: "It is to be regretted that in general so little relation-
[40]
FOURTH CONCERT
ship exists today between the producers and consumers of music. A composer should write today only if he knows for what purpose he is writing. The days of composing for the sake of composing are perhaps gone forever. On the other hand the demand for music is so great that composer and consumer ought most emphatically to come at last to an understanding."
These realistic ideas about the source and purpose of music gave rise to the popular conception of Gebrauckmusik ("practical" or "utilitarian music"). In reality this represented no movement in any consciously organized sense. The term in fact was little used in Germany itself. "Only," as Hindemith remarked, "as a name for a tendency to avoid the highly individualistic super-expressive kind of writing we were so much acquainted with." Gebrauchsmusik was a reflection of a state of mind rather than a definite movement. It grew out of a desire to be practical and rational. At first the idea was no doubt associated with the need for economy during the war and postwar periods. The reappearance of the less expensive, more available chamber orchestra at the time was more a matter of economic necessity than mere choice or chance. Before long, however, this useful?ness was identified with the end of music, rather than with the means; this, according to Hindemith, was very realistic--to satisfy public demand.
Many of Hindemith's ideas are sound theoretically, many are practically un?tenable; some are downright naive. As a critic of and a propagandist for con?temporary music and a progenitor of new musical doctrines, however, he won universal recognition early in his career. As a composer, his music was born out of the order of his ideas and was called into being by historical necessity. But beyond this fact it reveals a strong and consistent individuality, endowed with a masterful command of the technical aspects of his art--which embraces all branches of musical creativeness. At the age of fifty-nine he has already produced a tremendous amount of the most varied kinds of music. With his spontaneous and genuine gift he has helped to break down our prejudices against what is new, offering an easy transition from known to unknown idioms by giving us a music that is interesting and agreeable but one that presents new and challenging problems in listening and execution. His unique vitality and technical dexterity delete all superfluous elements, creating in a distinctly modern and contemporary idiom a music that is concise, clear, and economical in its means. "There is nothing academic about Hindemith," wrote Alfred Einstein, "he is simply a musician who produces music as a tree bears fruit, without further philosophical purpose."
The Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass Instruments, Op. 50, was composed in December, 1930, and performed April 3, 1931, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is written in two movements. Unison trumpets and trombones, accompanied by a strong rhythmic figure in the strings, state the opening theme. The second is answered in the brass section alone, and the third in the strings resembles closely the accompaniment figure heard in the accompaniment of the first theme. The second theme is now treated by the combined choirs. A sonorous coda sounds the original brass theme, now in the strings. The second movement is a lively fugue, interrupted by a con?trasting slow section that brings the work to an opulent close.
[41]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
"Voi lo sapete" from Cavalleria Rusticana .... Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni was born in Leghorn, Decem?ber 7, 1863; died in Rome, August 2, 1945.
In 1889 Mascagni was lifted from utter obscurity to the pinnacle of fame when he won a prize offered by the music publisher, Sonzogno, for the best one-act opera. Using the libretto by G. Targioni-Tozzetti and G. Menasci, which was adapted from a simple Sicilian tale by Giovanni Verga, Mascagni com?posed his opera in eight days. Its success was immediate, and wild enthusiasm and excitement swept over the audience at its first performance at the Costanzi Theater in Rome, May 17, 1890. Medals were struck in his honor, and the King of Italy conferred upon him the Order of the Crown of Italy; and since its first sensational production, Cavalleria Rusticana has held its place for over half a century as one of the most genuinely dramatic operas in existence. Mascagni was never able, in his many attempts, to duplicate its success. His shallow vein of musical invention ran dry and he descended into oblivion as a composer as suddenly as he arose to fame. But as long as opera exerts its power upon us, his name will be kept alive by this momentary but superb manifestation of his genius.
Turiddu, a young Sicilian peasant, returns from the war to find his sweet?heart, Lola, wedded to Alfio. For consolation he courts Santuzza, who loves him desperately. Soon tiring of her, he turns again to Lola, who encourages him. Santuzza, in despair, informs Alfio of Lola's faithlessness. In fury Alfio challenges Turiddu and kills him.
Stung by the great wrong done her, Santuzza pours out her heart's grief and anguish to Lucia, the mother of Turiddu:
Well you know, Mother Lucia, how Turiddu plighted his troth to Lola before he left for the war, and how he turned to me for love. Now Turiddu and Lola love again, and I can only weep and weep and weep!
"Cielo e mar," from La Gioconda.......Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli was born September 1, 1834, near Cremona; died in Milan, January 16, 1886.
Amilcare Ponchielli is a brilliant name in the history of Italian opera. Aside from the fact that he was the teacher of Pietro Mascagni and Giacomo Puccini and a fountainhead of inspiration and instruction for the generation of composers that followed him, he was a leader in the movement that consciously attempted to revivify the Italian lyric stage concurrently with the achievements of his countryman Verdi and Richard Wkgner in Germany.
As a composer, his fame rests upon the world-wide popularity of one work, La Gioconda. The opera was written to a libretto of "Tobia Gorrio," better known
Giovanni Verga later constructed a play on this simple story in which Eleanora Duse, celebrated Italian tragedienne, won great distinction.
[42]
FOURTH CONCERT
as Arrigo Boito, famous librettist of Verdi's Otello and Falstaff, and himself the distinguished composer of the opera Mefistojele. Boito adapted "La Gioconda" from Victor Hugo's play "Angelo, the Tyrant of Padua" (1835). The first performance was given at La Scala in Milan, April 8, 1876. In spite of its immediate success with the public, Ponchielli worked over the score for three years, expanding the finale of the third act. This version was performed in Genoa in 1879. Its popularity swept not only through Italy but throughout Europe and America, where it had its first performance in the opening year of the Metropolitan, December 20, 1883. The memorable performance, however, took place here in the 1909-10 season, with Toscanini conducting a brilliant cast made up of Caruso, Destinn, Homer, and Amato. For three quarters of a century it has held its place in the repertoire in spite of the melodramatic and gruesome plot. As long as there are heroic voices and a traditional school of great singing, it will continue to thrill audiences with its epic arias, stirring duets, huge chor?uses, and the popular ballet, "The Dance of the Hours."
The story is so involved with intrigues, conflicting passions, and unrequited affections, shared equally between its five protagonists--Barnaba, an Inquisition spy, in love with La Gioconda (ironically, "The Joyous Girl") who is in love with Enzo Grimaldo, a Genoese gentleman enamoured of Laura who is the wife of Alvise, another leader of the Inquisition,--that any attempt to guide the uninitiated through the labyrinth of its plot, for the sake of one aria, seems prodigal of time and effort. Nothing is left out of this opera, which takes place in Venice in the seventeenth century; love vies with revenge, arson, witchcraft, seduction, poison, and suicide. As Anna Russell has so aptly put it, "Anything can happen in opera, provided you sing it."
It seems sufficient, therefore, to say that the tenor aria on tonight's program is one of the most beautiful and famous in the whole range of opera. It is sung by Enzo as he keeps nocturnal watch on his ship and awaits the arrival of his beloved Laura. The stars and the rising moon are reflected in the limpid waters of the lagoon as he apostrophizes the beauty of the heavens and the sea and rapturously declares his love for her for whom he waits.
"Tu qui Santuzza" from Cavalleria Rusticana . . . Mascagni
This duet between Turiddu and Santuzza follows immediately upon the aria "Voi lo sapete." Here Santuzza violently upbraids her faithless lover for desert?ing her to return to his former sweetheart Lola. Turiddu attempts to evade the question and declares he will not be a slave to her jealousy. They are interrupted by Lola who speaks briefly to Turiddu as she enters the church to attend mass (omitted in this concert performance). The duet is then resumed with growing intensity, Santuzza increasing her accusations, now mixed with violent threats and passionate pleadings. Turiddu full of rage and scorn, throws her to the
See page 42.
[43]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
ground. Santuzza, in desperation and anguish, hurls a curse upon him as he rushes into the church.
Armenian Suite............Yardumian
Richard Yardumian was born in Philadelphia, April 5, 1917; now living in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.
Richard Yardumian, one of Philadelphia's most promising composers, received no early formal training in music. Through constant contact, however, with his brother Elijah, an accomplished pianist, he acquired a profound knowledge of music literature at an early age. He was, in fact, twenty-one before he seriously began to study piano and theory. For the past two years he has studied compo?sition intermittently with Virgil Thomson. Other than being encouraged by such distinguished musicians as Jose Iturbi and Eugene Ormandy, he is not the product of any particular teacher or "school" of composition.
In his home, Armenian folk songs and music had always played an important role. "As is often the case," the composer writes, "the words of the poems did not make the definite impression that the spirit of the music did. Thus it is that the Introduction to this suite, which is a harvest song, evidently became in my mind a music associated with the calling together of people, such as church bells call the village people together to worship. It is the curtain raiser to many stories which are to be told, stories and dances of tragedy, sorrow, love, hope, worship-all of an individual race of people whose Christian history is so full of struggles and frustrations, but not without promise of inner peace and hope."
Mr. Yardumian has furnished the following comments on the score:
The harvest theme is stated by trumpets, then harmonized by open fifths, closing in canonic settings in two, three, and four parts successively. The Song, in common song form, is scored for two flutes, two clarinets, English horn, bassoon, trumpet, two horns, tympani, and violins. The Lullaby, following the preceding movement without pause, is scored for woodwinds, two horns, and strings. The Dance opens with a rhythmic drone bass for bassoon, continuing throughout with the melody repeating as more and more instruments are added. The movement comes to a presto climax for full orchestra.
The Interlude is in simple tripartite form, A-B-A, with a short coda. It is envisioned by the composer as a prayer at sunrise. The Dance follows the form A-A-B-B; a brief develop?ment of thematic units A and B is interrupted by the plowing song mentioned above, and a short transition leads back to the original material. The Finale is built chiefly on folk-song themes, although the closing portion is a rhythmically varied form of the first dance. There are reminiscences of themes from the other movements also. The finale is the most inde?pendently treated part of the suite.
Philadelphia Orchestra Program Notes, March S-6, 1953-54, p. 541.
[44]
FIFTH CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 2
Elijah...............Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born in Hamburg, February 3, 1809; died in Leipzig, November 4, 1847.
Consecration is going out with the word where God Almighty is, and using every power for his glory.
--Henry Ward Beecher
It is well in these chaotic days to turn to a perfectly balanced nature such as Mendelssohn, in whose life and art all was order and refinement. There are few instances in the history of art of a man so abundantly gifted with the good qualities of mind and spirit. He had the love as well as the respect of his con?temporaries, for aside from his outstanding musical and intellectual gifts, he possessed a genial--even gay--yet pious nature. Moses Mendelssohn, the famous philosopher, was his grandfather and, in an atmosphere of culture and learning, every educational advantage was his. In fact, one might almost say that he was too highly educated for a musician. Throughout his life he was spared the economic insecurity felt so keenly by many composers; he never knew poverty nor privation, never experienced any great soul-stirring disappointments, never suffered neglect nor any of the other ill fortunes that seemed to beset Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, or Verdi. His essentially happy spirit and healthy mind were never clouded by melancholy; no morbidity ever colored his thinking. His genius was of the highest order, but it was never tried and tempered in fire, nor strengthened by forces of opposition. It produced, therefore, an art that was, like his life, cultured, well-ordered, and serene.
Mendelssohn's music, like that of its period in Germany, for all its finesse and high perfection, has something decidedly "dated" about it. Full of priggish formulas, it was the delight of Queen Victoria and her England--thoroughly conventional, polite, "spick-and-span," "stylish" music--as rear guard as Fred?erick IV, who admired and promoted it. Influenced by the oratorios of Handel and Haydn, the Waldlieder of Weber, and the piano music of Schubert, Mendel?ssohn's art was eclectic in details, but in general it bore no relation whatever to the contemporary music in France, nor to the overpowering romanticism of his own country. His habitual forms were those of the classical school, yet his idiom was often fresh and ingenious. In the minds of some, grief might have lent a deeper undertone to his art, or daring innovation have given it a vitality and virility. But innovation was foreign to Mendelssohn's habit of mind and he rarely attempted it. He must be thought of as a preserver of continuity with the past, rather than as a breaker of new paths. His instinctively clear and normal mind, however, produced a music that should refresh us today with its inner logic, its order, and its tranquillity.
[45]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Few today would place Mendelssohn's Elijah in the same class with Handel's Messiah, or Bach's Mass in B minor, yet it remains a classic of its kind. Its fine style and consummate good taste have endeared it to a great public.
Mendelssohn's particular genius was lyrical and not epic, so that some of the more dramatic moments in the text may seem to be unrealized or under?written. Today we might wish for a more dramatic treatment in the music of Elijah taunting the prophets of Baal, invoking the storm, receiving the vision on Horeb, and being swept up to heaven in a whirlwind. But in the more quiet moments in which Elijah heals the son of the widow, pathetically declares his failure in "It is enough," and receives comfort from an angel in "O rest in the Lord," Mendelssohn is at his lyrical best, and writes music that is moving in its simple beauty. Dr. Ernest Walker, in his article on "Oratorio" in Grove's Diction?ary of Music and Musicians, states that "his religious music gives the impression that he lived in untroubled unconsciousness of anything outside mid-nineteenth century Protestantism." Yet his particular form of religious sentiment, which had such a tremendous appeal to Victoria's England, is sincerely and deeply, if not too intensely, felt.
The following analysis by Dr. Albert Stanley was published in the Official Program Book, May Festival 1920-21:
The work opens with sombre chords by the trombones, which introduce a recitative in which Elijah proclaims There sltall be neither dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Then begins the overture with a most suggestive phrase given out by the 'celli, pianissimo, which is developed with the admirable clearness so characteristic of the com?poser. His significant grasp of the technique of polyphonic writing and his mastery of the orchestra, coupled with the reserve always evident in the work of a master, are displayed long before the magnificent crescendo leading into the opening chorus, Help Lord, in which his power as a choral writer is no less in evidence. This chorus leads through choral reci?tatives to a duet, for soprano and contralto, with chorus, Lord, bow Thine ear. This is founded on an old traditional Hebrew melody. It will be noticed that the music has proceeded without any interruption up to this point. The unity thus secured is most admirable and establishes a mood that heightens the effect of the following recitative and aria, with all your hearts, and gives added force to the succeeding '"Chorus of the People," which, beginning with cries of despair, He mocketh at us, ends with a solemn choral, For He, the Lord our Cod, is a jealous God. The closing measure, His mercies on thousands fall, are so permeated with the spirit of the recitative and double chorus, For He shall give His angels charge over thee, which follow, that the effect of unity is not lost but rather strengthened.
All this, as well as the inspiring scene in which Elijah brings comfort to the sorrowing widow by the restoration of her son to life, and the chorus, Blessed are the men who Jear Him--full of musical beauty and dramatic fervor as they are--is but preliminary to the wonderful episodes beginning with the recitative and chorus, As God the Lord of Sabaoth liveth, and ending with the chorus, Thanks be to God. This whole section is so instinct with life, so full of dramatic intensity, that were it necessary to substantiate Mendelssohn's claim to greatness, no other proof were needed. A composer of less power, or lacking in discrimination, would have so exhausted his resources earlier in this episode that an anti?climax would have been inevitable. Not so Mendelssohn. By happy contrasts the interest is maintained, and the hearer is led on gradually but surely by the force of the ever-expanding dramatic suggestion.
After the Priests of Baal have failed; when, in response to the appeals of the worshippers,
[46]
FIFTH CONCERT
Hear and answer, Baal, no answer comes; when Elijah, after that sublime prayer, Lord God of Abraham, and the chorus, Cast thy burden upon the Lord, calls aloud on the Almighty, Thou who makesl Thine angels spirits, Thou, whose ministers are flaming fires, Let them now descend! what could be more intense than the chorus, The fire descends from heav'n; the flames consume his off'ring Note the effect of the choral which, beginning pianissimo, gradually gains in fervor until, at the words, And we will have no other gods before the Lord, nothing could be more convincing. Where in the whole literature of the oratorio is there a more beautiful effect than that produced by the dominant seventh (on A) at the word gods We have no space to comment on the solos leading up to the prayer of the people, when, kneeling, they ask the Lord to Open the heavens and send us relief, for now comes the real climax. The Youth, who has been sent to look toward the sea, after gazing long in vain, finally cries, Behold, a little cloud ariseth from the waters; it is like a man's handt The heav'ns are black with clouds and with wind. The storm rusheth louder and louderl Then comes the final chorus, Thanks be to God, a paean of thanksgiving than which no greater has ever been written, with the possible exception of the Hallelujah. [Omitted in this performance.]
In Part II the composer moves on to the second great climax, the "Whirlwind Chorus." This part begins with a noble soprano solo, Hear ye, Israel, the concluding sentence of which, Be not afraid, forms the basis of the strong and dignified chorus into which the solo merges. When the people, forgetting all they owe to the prophet, turn again to the worship of Baal, and, stirred up by the Queen, seek his life, comes that pathetic aria, It is enough, from a purely musical point of view the most beautiful in the whole oratorio. Then, as he sleeps under the juniper tree, the "Angels' Trio," Lift thine eyes, and the chorus, He watch?ing over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps, speak assurances of comfort; as waking, he cries, O that I might die, the angel sings, 0 rest in the Lord. The prevailing sentiment is not dis?turbed by the succeeding chorus, Behold, God the Lord passed by, for, after the exhibition of power--the wind--the earthquake--the fire--comes a "still, small voice," and "in that still, small voice onward came the Lord." Now comes the real climax of the work, the "Whirlwind Chorus," to the text: Then did Elijah the prophet break forth like a fire; his words appeared like burning torches. Mighty kings were by him overthrown (note the imposing theme first stated by the basses!) he stood on the mount of Sinai, and heard the judgments of the future, and in Horeb its vengeance"--"And when the Lord would take him away to heaven, Lol there came a fiery chariot, with fiery horses; and he went by a whirl?wind to Heaven." Here the work ends, were we to consider it from the point of view of dramatic fitness alone.
All that follows is reflective. The tenor solo, Then shall the righteous shine; the quartet, O come, every one that thirsteth, and the concluding chorus, And then shall your light break forth, combine in the establishment of a mood so at variance with the feelings underlying the expressions given voice in the beginning of the First Part that thereby a contrast is secured, such as must exist in a great unified work.
PART I
INTRODUCTION
Recitative
Elijah--As God the Lord of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but ac?cording to my word. Kings 17:1.
OVERTURE
Chorus
The People--Help, Lord! Wilt Thou quite destroy us
The harvest now is over, the summer days are gone, and yet no power cometh to help us; Will then the Lord be no more God in Zion Jeremiah 18:21.
Recitative Chorus
The deep affords no water; and the rivers are exhausted! The suckling's tongue now cleaveth for thirst to his mouth; the infant children ask for bread, and there is no one breaketh it to feed them I Lament. 4:4.
[47]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Duet and Chorus
The People--Lord! bow Thine ear to our prayer I
Duet--Zion spreadeth her hands for aid; and there is neither help nor com?fort. Lament. 1:17.
Recitative
Obadiah--Ye people, rend your hearts, and not your garments, for your trans?gressions the Prophet Elijah hath sealed the heavens through the word of God. I therefore say to ye, Forsake your idols, return to God; for He is slow to anger, and merciful, and kind and gracious, and repenteth Him of the evil. Joel 2:12-13.
Air
If with all your hearts ye truly seek me, ye shall ever surely find me. Thus saith our God.
Oh! that I knew where I might find Him, that I might even come before His presence. Deut. 4:29; Job 23:3.
Chorus
The People--Yet doth the Lord see it not; He mocketh at us; His curse hath fallen down upon us; His wrath will pursue us, till He destroys us!
For He, the Lord our God, He is a jealous God; and He visiteth all the fathers' sins on the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him. His mercies on thousands fall--fall on all them that love Him and keep His commandments. Deut. 28:22; Exodus 20:5, 6.
Recitative
An Angel--Elijah! get thee hence; depart, and turn thee eastward; thither hide thee by Cherith's brook. There shalt thou drink its waters; and the Lord thy God hath commanded the ravens to feed thee there; so do according unto His word. Kings 17:3.
Recitative
An Angel--Now Cherith's brook is dried up, Elijah, arise and depart, and get thee to Zarephath; thither abide, for the Lord hath commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. And the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of
[48]
oil fail, until the day that the Lord send-eth rain upon the earth. Kings 17:7, 9, 14.
Recitative and Air
The Widow--What have I to do with thee, O man of God art thou come to me, to call my sin unto remembrance to slay my son art thou come hither Help me, man of God! my son is sick! and his sickness is so sore that there is no breath left in him! I go mourning all the day long; I lie down and weep at night. See mine affliction. Be thou the orphan's helper.
Elijah--Give me thy son. Turn unto her, O Lord my God; in mercy help this widow's son! For Thou art gracious, and full of compassion, and plenteous in mercy and truth. Lord, my God, 0 let the spirit of this child return, that he again may live!
The Widow--Wilt thou show wonders to the dead Shall the dead arise and praise thee
Elijah--Lord, my God, O let the spirit of this child return, that he again may live!
The Widow--The Lord hath heard thy prayer; the soul of my son reviveth!
Elijah--Now behold, thy son liveth!
The Widow--Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that His word in thy mouth is the truth. What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me
Both--Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
O blessed are they who fear him! Kings 17:17, 18, 21-24; Job 10:15; Psalm 38:6, 6:7, 10:14, 86:15, 16, 88:10, 127:1.
Chorus
Blessed are the men who fear Him: they ever walk in the ways of peace. Through darkness riseth light to the up?right. He is gracious, compassionate; He is righteous. Psalm 128:1, 112:1, 4.
Recitative
Elijah--As God the Lord of Sabaoth liveth, before whom I stand, three years this day fulfilled, I will show myself unto Ahab; and the Lord will then send rain again upon the earth.
FIFTH CONCERT
Ahab--Art thou Elijah art thou he that troubleth Israel
Chorus--Thou art Elijah, he that troubleth Israel!
Elijah--I never troubled Israel's peace; it is thou, Ahab, and all thy father's house. Ye have forsaken God's commands; and thou hast followed Baalim!
Now send and gather to me the whole of Israel unto Mount Carmel: there sum?mon the prophets of Baal, and also the prophets of the groves, who are feasted at Jezebel's table. Then we shall see whose god is the Lord.
Chorus--And then we shall see whose god is God the Lord.
Elijah--Rise then, ye priests of Baal: select and slay a bullock, and put no fire under it; uplift your voices, and call the god ye worship; and I then will call on the Lord Jehovah; and the God who shall by fire answer, let him be God.
Chorus--Yea; and the God who by fire shall answer, let him be God.
Elijah--Call first upon your god; your numbers are many: I, even I, only remain, one prophet of the Lord! Invoke your forest-gods and mountain-deities. Kings 17:17, 18:1, IS, 18, 19, 23-25.
Chorus
Priests of Baal--Baal, we cry to thee! hear and answer us! Heed the sacrifice we offer! hear us! O hear us, Baal!
Hear, mighty god! Baal, O answer us! Let thy flames fall and extirpate the foe! 0 hear us, Baal!
Recitative
Elijah--Call him louder, for he is a god! He talketh; or he is pursuing; or he is on a journey; or, peradventure, he sleepeth; so awaken him; call him louder!
Chorus
Priests of Baal--Hear our cry, O Baal! now arise! wherefore slumber
Recitative
Elijah--Call him louder! he heareth not. With knives and lancets cut yourselves after your manner; leap upon the altar ye have made: call him, and prophesy! Not a
voice will answer you; none will listen, none heed you.
Chorus
Priests op Baal--Hear and answer, Baal! Mark! how the scorner derideth us! Hear and answer! Kings 18:1,15, 17, 18, 19, 23-29.
Recitative and Air
Elijah--Draw near, all ye people: come to me!
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel! this day let it be known that Thou art God; and I am Thy servant! 0 show to all this people that I have done these things according to Thy word! 0 hear me, Lord, and answer me; and show this people that Thou art Lord God; and let their hearts again be turned! Kings 18:20, 36, 37.
Chorus
Angels--Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. He never will suffer the righteous to fall; He is at thy right hand.
Thy mercy, Lord, is great; and far above the heavens. Let none be made ashamed that wait upon Thee. Psalm 55:22, 16:8, 108:5, 25:3.
Recitative
Elijah--O Thou who makest Thine angels spirits, Thou whose ministers are flaming fires, let them now descend! Psalm 104:4.
Chorus
The People--The fire descends from heaven; the flames consume his offering!
Before him upon your faces fall! The Lord is God; and we will have no other gods before the Lord! I Kings 18:38, 39.
Recitative
Elijah--Take all the prophets of Baal; and let not one of them escape you: bring them down to Kishon's brook, and there let them be slain.
Chorus
The People--Take all the prophets of Baal; and let not one of them escape us: bring all, and slay them! Kings 18:40.
[49]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Air
Elijah--Is not His word like a fire: and like a hammer that breaketh the rock into pieces
For God is angry with the wicked every day: and if the wicked turn not, the Lord will whet His sword; and He hath bent His bow, and made it ready. Jer. 23:29; Psalm 7:11, 12.
Air
Woe unto them who forsake Him! de?struction shall fall upon them, for they have transgressed against Him. Though they are by Him redeemed, yet they have spoken falsely against Him. Hosea 7:13.
Recitative and Chorus
Obadiah--0 man of God, help Thy people! Among the idols of the Gentiles, are there any that can command the rain, or cause the heavens to give their showers The Lord our God alone can do these things.
Elijah--0 Lord, Thou has overthrown thine enemies and destroyed them. Look down upon us from heaven, 0 Lord; re?gard the distress of Thy people: open the heavens and send us relief: help, help Thy servant now, O God!
The People--Open the heavens and send us relief: help, help Thy servant now, O God!
Elijah--Go up now, child, and look to?ward the sea. Hath thy prayer been heard by the Lord
The Youth--There is nothing. The heavens are as brass above me.
Elijah--When the heavens are closed up because they have sinned against Thee, yet if they pray and confess Thy name, and turn from their sin when Thou dost afflict them: then hear from heaven, and forgive the sin! Help! send Thy servant help, O God!
The People--Then hear from heaven and forgive the sin! Help! send Thy Ser?vant help, O God!
Elijah--Go up again, and still look to?ward the sea.
The Youth--There is nothing. The earth is as iron under me!
[SO]
Elijah--Hearest thou no sound of rain Seest thou nothing arise from the deep
The Youth--No; there is nothing.
Elijah--Have respect to the prayer of Thy servant, O Lord, my God! Unto Thee will I cry, Lord, my rock; be not silent to men; and Thy great mercies re?member, Lord!
The Youth--Behold, a little cloud ariseth now from the waters; it is like a man's hand! The heavens are black with clouds and with wind; the storm rusheth louder and louder!
The People--Thanks be to God for all His mercies!
Elijah--Thanks be to God for He is gracious, and His mercy endureth for evermore!
Chorus
Thanks be to God! He laveth the thirsty land! The waters gather; they rush along; they are lifting their voices!
The stormy billows are high; their fury is mighty. But the Lord is above them, and Almighty. Psalm 93:3, 4; Jer. 14:22; 11 Chron. 6:19, 26, 27; Deut. 28:23; Psalm 28:1, 106:1; I Kings 18:43, 45.
PART n
Air
Hear ye, Israel; hear what the Lord speaketh: "Oh, hadst thou heeded my com?mandments!"
Who hath believed our report; to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed
Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to Him op?pressed by tyrants: thus saith the Lord: "I am He that comforteth; be not afraid, for I am thy God, I will strengthen thee. Say, who art thou, that thou art afraid of a man that shall die; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, who hath stretched for thee the heavens, and laid the earth's foun?dations Be not afraid, for I, thy God, will strengthen thee." Isaiah 48:1, 18, 53:1, 44:7, 41:10, 51:12, 13.
Chorus
Be not afraid, saith God the Lord. Be not afraid; thy help is near. God, the
FIFTH CONCERT
Lord thy God, saith unto thee, "Be not afraid!" Isaiah 41:10.
Recitative
Elijah--The Lord hath exalted thee from among the people, and o'er his people Israel hath made thee King. But thou, Ahab, has done evil to provoke him to anger above all that were before thee: As if it had been a light thing for thee to walk in the sins of Jeroboam. Thou hast made a grove and an altar to Baal, and served him and worshipped him; Thou hast killed the righteous, and also taken possession. And the Lord shall smite all Israel as a reed is shaken in the water; and He shall give Israel up, And thou shalt know He is the Lord. Kings 14:7, 9, ?15; 16:30-33.
Recitative and Chorus
The Queen--Have ye not heard, heard he hath prophesied against Israel Hath he not prophesied also against the king of Israel And why hath he spoken in the Name of the Lord Doth Ahab govern the kingdom of Israel, while Elijah's power is greater than the King's The gods do so to me, and more, if by tomorrow about this time, I make not his life as the life of one of them whom he hath sacrificed at the brook of Kishin!
Hath he not destroyed Baal's prophets Yea, by sword he destroyed them all. He also closed the heavens. And called down a famine upon the land. So go ye forth and seize Elijah, for he is worthy to die; slaughter him! do unto him as he hath done.
Chorus
Woe to him! He shall perish, he closed the heavens, And why hath he spoken in the name of the Lord
Let the guilty prophet perish! Woe to him; He shall perish! He hath spoken falsely against our land, and us, as we have heard it with our ears! Let the guilty prophet perish! So go ye forth: seize on him! He shall die. Jeremiah 26:9, 11; I Kings 18:10, 19:2, 27:7; Ecclesiastes 48:2, 3.
Recitative
Obadiah--Man of God, now let my words be precious in thy sight. Thus saith Jezebel: "Elijah is worthy to die." So the mighty gather against thee, and they have prepared a net for thy steps; that they may seize thee, that they may slay thee. Arise, then, and hasten for thy life; to the wilderness journey. The Lord thy God doth go with thee: He will not fail thee. He will not forsake thee. Now be?gone, and bless me also.
Elijah--Though stricken, they have not grieved! Tarry here, my servant: the Lord be with thee. I journey hence to the wilder?ness. Kings 1:13; Jer. 5:3, 26:11; Psalm 59:3; I Kings 19:4; Deut. 31:6; Exodus 12:32; 1 Samuel 17:37.
Air
Elijah--It is enough, 0 Lord; now take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers! I desire to live no longer; now let me die, for my days are but vanity!
I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts! for the children of Israel have broken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I, only am left; and they seek my life to take it away. Job 7:16; 1 Kings 19:10.
Obadiah--See now he sleepeth beneath a juniper tree in the wilderness: and there the angels of the Lord encamp round about all them that fear Him. Kings 19:5; Psalm 34:7.
Trio
Angels--Lift thine eyes to the moun?tains, whence cometh help. Thy help cometh from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He hath said, thy foot shall not be moved; thy Keeper will never slumber. Psalm 121:1, 3.
Chorus
Angels--He, watching over Israel slum?bers not nor sleeps. Shouldst thou, walking in grief, languish, He will quicken thee. Psalm 121:4, 138:7.
[51]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Recitative
An Angel--Arise, Elijah, for thou hast a long journey before thee. Forty days and forty nights shalt thou go; to Horeb, the mount of God.
Elijah--O Lord, I have labored in vain; yea, I have spent my strength for naught!
O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down; that the mountains would flow down at Thy pres?ence, to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, through the wonders of Thy works!
O Lord, why hast Thou made them to err from Thy ways, and hardened their hearts that they do not fear Thee O that I now might die! Kings 19:8; Isaiah 44:4, 64:1, 2, 63:7.
Air
An Angel--0 rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee thy heart's desires. Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him, and fret not thy?self because of evil-doers. Psalm 37:1, 7.
Recitative
Elijah--Night falleth round me, O Lord! Be Thou not far from me! Hide not Thy face, O Lord, from me; my soul is thirsting for Thee, as a thirsty land.
An Angel--Arise now! get thee without, stand on the mount before the Lord; for there His glory will appear and shine on thee! Thy face must be veiled, for He draweth nigh. Psalm 143:6, 7; 1 Kings 19:11.
Chorus
Behold! God the Lord passed by! And a mighty wind rent the mountains around, brake in pieces the rocks, brake them before the Lord: but yet the Lord was not in the tempest.
Behold! God the Lord passed by! And the sea was upheaved, and the earth was shaken: but yet the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake there came a fire; but yet the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire there came a still, small voice; and in that still, small voice onward came the Lord. Kings 19:11, 12.
[52]
Recitative
Elijah--I go on my way in the strength of the Lord.
For thou art my Lord; and I will suffer for thy sake.
My heart is therefore glad, my glory rejoiceth and my flesh shall also rest in hope! Kings 19:15, 18; Psalm 71:16; 16:2, 9.
Air
Elijah--For the mountains shall de?part, and the hills be removed; but Thy kindness shall not depart from me, neither shall the covenant of Thy peace be re?moved. Isaiah 54:10.
Chorus
Then did Elijah the prophet break forth like a fire; his words appeared like burn?ing torches. Mighty kings by him were overthrown. He stood on the mount of Sinai, and heard the judgments of the future; and in Horeb, its vengeance.
And when the Lord would take him away to heaven, lo! there came a fiery chariot, with fiery horses; and he went by a whirlwind to heaven. Ecclesiastes 48:1, 6, 7; II Kings 2:1, 11.
Air
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in their Heavenly Father's realm. Joy on their head shall be for everlasting, and all sorrow and mourning shall flee away for ever. Matthew 13:43; Isaiah 51:11.
Quartet
0! come every one that thirsteth, O come to the waters: come unto Him. O hear, and your soul shall live for ever! Isaiah 55:1, 3.
Chorus
And then shall your light break forth as the light of morning breaketh; and your health shall speedily spring forth then; and the glory of the Lord ever shall reward you.
Lord, our Creator, how excellent Thy name is in all the nations. Thou fillest heaven with Thy glory. Amen! Isaiah 58:8; Psalm 8:1.
SIXTH CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 2
Toccata and Fugue in D minor........J. S. Bach
Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, March 21, 1685; died in Leipzig, July 28,17S0.
In Johann Sebastian Bach, the musical development of two centuries reached its climax. Coming from a family of distinguished musicians famous in Ger?many 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 foun?dation 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 be?cause it was written for an annual burgomeister election! References by con?temporaries are scanty; they had no insight into the value of his art. Fifty years 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,
[53]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
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 elas?tic; 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 sub?limity, 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.
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 funda?mental 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.
[54]
SIXTH CONCERT
Concerto for Pianoforte in A minor, Op. 16......Grieg
Edward Grieg was born June IS, 1843, in Ber?gen, Norway; died September 4, 1907, in Bergen.
He had brought it about that Norwegian moods and Norwegian life have entered into every music-room in the whole world.
--Bjornson
Edward Grieg was born into a peaceful world, in a city far off the beaten path and remote from the great cosmopolitan centers of the world. The events of his life provided little excitement and glamour. He received his first musical instruction from his mother and began composing at the age of nine. Upon recom?mendation of the eminent Norwegian violinist, Ole Bull, he was sent to the Leipzig Conservatory where he remained from 1858 to 1862 studying the tech?niques of his art. After leaving Leipzig he studied further in Copenhagen. It was not until his return to Norway, however, that he identified himself with a dis?tinctly national movement and devoted himself to the creation of a character?istically Norwegian music. In 1867 he founded a musical organization in Christi-ania and remained its conductor until 1880. In 1865 and again in 1870 he visited Italy where, in Rome, he met Franz Liszt. He performed his own piano concerto at a Gewandhaus Concert in Leipzig in 1879 and at the Philharmonic Concert in London in 1888. In 1894 the honorary degree of Music Doctor was conferred upon him at Cambridge. This in brief is the prosaic story of his life. Other than a few brief journeys, he lived, after 1880, a quiet and secluded life in his country home and died suddenly in 1907 in a Bergen hospital.
Although Grieg's name is a household word throughout the world, the works that have made him universally loved as a composer are few. From his hand came immortal melodies that have spoken directly to the heart of the world, yet more than half of his music is today completely unknown. Aside from his Piano Concerto, which more than any other work established his fame, there are only the first Peer Gynt Suite ("Morning," "Ase's Death," "Anitra's Dance," the "Hall of the Mountain King"); selections from the famed Lyrical Pieces ("To Spring," "Album Leaf"), and the second Peer Gynt Suite ("Solvejg's Song"), and a handful of his one hundred and fifty songs ("A Dream," "To a Waterlily," "I Love You," "A Swan") that have remained before the public and retained their popularity.
Seldom, if ever, does the public today hear his one string quartet, his sonata for violoncello and piano, and only rarely any of his three violin and piano sonatas. His larger works based upon the Norwegian sagas (Four Psalms for a cappella choir, the cantata "Bewitched in the Mountain") are heard only in their native country. He wrote no operas, no symphonies, no chamber music in the grand style.
The part of his work that has remained popular and universal sounds the overtones of his Norwegian heritage, music that combined a strange melancholy, quiet jubilation, and gentleness that remind us of Tennyson's line, "Dark and
[55]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
true, and tender in the North." This music he cast into lyric rather than epic molds--into works of unsurpassed sensitivity and haunting beauty, which he caught directly from the folk music of his beloved Norway. Although he wrote a few works in the formal and expansive forms, it was in the smaller, more inti?mate, and lesser works that he grasped the essence of the idyllic Norwegian life, and made his limited yet potent appeal.
Grieg's best and most characteristic works were written between the ages of twenty and thirty. The mannerisms of his later years supplanted the true and unaffected expression of his youth. From those early years dates the pianoforte concerto. It was written at the age of twenty-five during the summer of 1868 in the Danish village of Sollerod, and though it was frequently revised by the composer the work never lost its pristine beauty. It is now a universally recog?nized classic, replete with haunting melody, engaging rhythms, and unique har?monies--all elements echoing Norwegian folk music and reflecting Grieg's con?stant preoccupation with his homeland.
A verbal analysis of the forms of the movements of this concerto could do little more than reveal the obvious. Grieg was not a "formalist" in the sense of Beethoven or Brahms, and for this "weakness" he has been severely criticized, especially by German critics in the past. In estimating the rank of a composer, professional critics usually attach altogether too much importance to questions of form and duration. Form can be taught and learned, the creating of fresh and novel ideas cannot--it is that which distinguishes genius from talent. "Genius creates, talent constructs," is the way Robert Schumann stated it, and if Edward Grieg failed to accept the dictates of traditional form, it was because he chose to be free, not because he lacked skill in the art of development. He never con?sciously attempted to expand or deepen the significance of musical form; he, like Franz Schubert, was intent only on voicing his own poetic feeling which was constantly aroused by the exotic quality of Norwegian music. The charm, the supple, spontaneous, and unaffected expression of this totally unsophisticated artist, render all detailed analysis not only superfluous, but undesirable.
Symphony No. 3..............Landre
Guillaume Landre was born in The Hague, Febru?ary 24, 1905; now living in Amstelvecn, Holland.
Mr. Donald Engle, program annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra, has supplied the following information for this composer, who is almost totally unknown in America:
Guillaume Landre is a prominent figure in Dutch musical circles, but his music has not found its way into this country to any extent. He received his early training from his
At his death, he was in the midst of changes in the orchestration for a performance at the Festival at Leeds, England, in October, 1907. Grieg died in September. The concerto was performed by Percy Grainger.
[56]
SIXTH CONCERT
father, the composer Willem Landre, and from Henri Zagwijn .... For a time he studied composition with one of Holland's most noted composers, Willem Pijper. After taking his law degree in 1929, Landre settled in Amsterdam. He is presently president of the League of Dutch Composers, president of the Dutch Performing Rights Society (BUMA), and since 1952, artistic manager of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
The Symphony No. 3, which brought its composer a prize from the Dutch government, was written during the last months of 1950 and the beginning of 1951. It was given its first performance by the Concertgebouw at the opening concert of the Holland Festival in 1951, and during the past year was played by the Swedish and French radio orchestras, as well as possibly others in Europe not mentioned in Landre's letter to the present writer. Rafael Kubelik, a guest conductor with the Concertgebouw in recent weeks, gave the first American performances with the Chicago Symphony on March 13-14, 1952.
The composer states that while he was at work on the score, one of his best friends with whom he had co-operated in the organizing of artistic life in Holland, lay slowly wasting away from an incurable disease. The Symphony then bears the features of an In memoriam. "Thus in the two slow movements, at the beginning and at the end," Landre writes, "the music has a strongly elegiac character, whereas in the second movement an undertone of gravity is often heard." The movements of which he speaks are in reality sections in a one-movement work, and are played without pause. His terminology is how?ever retained in the following brief analysis, supplied by the composer:
"The first movement, Molto adagio, starts with a 'cello melody which may be considered as the principal thematic idea of the whole symphony. From this idea, as well as from the harmonies that support it at its first appearance, arise several new themes that are involved in a kind of struggle for power with the central idea. This occurs both in the Adagio molto and in the two following movements, Allegro non troppo and Vivacissimo e leggiero. Again and again the main idea recurs in almost the same form; sometimes this central idea dominates, sometimes the main theme of the movement in question triumphantly appears.
"In the finale, Molto lento, the struggle comes to an end. This movement has no theme of its own, but the themes of the preceding movements are now combined and set against the central idea. The latter asserts itself with more and more power, and at last it reappears in an apotheosis, this time only in a slightly modified form.
"The score calls for two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, tympani, bass drum, cymbals, tenor drum, tambourine, xylophone, gong and strings."
Landre has an impressive list of music in various forms to his credit. Among his early orchestral works which have been performed many times are the Suite for Strings and Piano (1936) and the Four Pieces for Orchestra (1937). The three symphonies have come at about ten-year intervals: the First was composed in 1932, the Second in 1942, and the Third of course in 1951. Other symphonic works include a 'Cello Concerto (1940), Sinfonietta for Violin and Orchestra (1941), Symphonic Music for Flute and Orchestra (1947-48), Sinfonia Sacra in Memoriam Patris (1948), in which the composer uses themes from the Requiem which his father wrote in 1929 in memory of his wife, and the Four Symphonic Move?ments (1949).
Landre's chamber music includes a woodwind quintet, a piano trio, a sonata for violin and piano, and three string quartets. He has also composed a hymn for baritone and orchestra, Grbet der Marlelaren, and a comic opera, De Snoek.
[57]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.....Rachmaninoff
In the days of ancient Greece, a rhapsodist was a professional reciter of epic poetry, and a rhapsody was his song. An epic poem was a sequence of such rhapsodies sung in succession or written down so as to form a series; when a long poem such as the Iliad was chanted in sections at different times and by different singers, it was said to be rhapsodized.
The term rhapsody has been used by composers, past and present, with little specific meaning as to musical form. Today by definition it is "a string of melo?dies arranged with a view of effective performance in public, but without regular dependence of one part upon another," or "a composition in an indefinite form, usually based upon popular melodies," or again "a piece loosely constructed, improvisatory, and distinct from all architecturally constructed music."
The musical meaning today is identified largely with such composers as Liszt, Brahms, Dvorak, Lalo, Gershwin, and Bartok and signifies an instrumental com?position, irregular in form, improvisatory in style, with a somewhat heroic or national character.
In the hands of Liszt, the term acquired its present meaning. His Rhapsodies hongroises and Reminiscences d'Espagne, which he later published as Rhapsodie espagnole, were in reality short transcriptions of Hungarian gypsy tunes--free fantasies with a strong nationalistic flavor. Brahms too, often used the term in this sense, but his strong instinct for structure gave to his compositions in this genre a more epic and formal quality. His Rhapsodien, Op. 79, for piano, are impassioned aphoristic pieces of simple but obvious form, solidly constructed. The Alto Rhapsody, for contralto, male chorus, and orchestra, is indeed a rhapsody in the Greek sense of the term, in that it is a "recitation" of a part of Goethe's poem Harzreise itn Winter--a compact, carefully constructed work. His Klavierstucke, Op. 119, is a series of intermezzi and rhapsodies written more in the free, improvisatory manner of Liszt.
Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on tonight's program is, in the popular sense of the term, not a rhapsody at all, but a formal set of twenty-four variations on a theme written by the great violin virtuoso of the past century, Niccolo Paganini. Today there is little respect left for Paganini as a composer; the tendency is to accuse him rather of trickery and bad taste, and to feel that, except for a few technical effects and indications as to the lengths to which instrumental virtuosity might be developed, the world has not profited by his advent. In his day, however, the greatest composers of the times, beside recognizing that Paganini was endowed with a mechanical perfection that surpassed belief, paid their tribute to his creative talent as well. One of Chopin's earliest compositions was Souvenir de Paganini; Berlioz composed Harold in Italy for him, as a violist; Schumann dedicated a movement in his Carnaval (section IS, Intermezzo, "Paganini") and also transcribed several of his violin caprices for the piano (Sechs Concert-etudien componiert nach Capricen von Paganini, Op. 3); Liszt produced a series of studies based on Paganini works (Six grandes etudes, de Paganini); and two
[58]
SIXTH CONCE RT
sets of variations. Twenty-eight Variations ("Studien") for Piano Solo were com?posed by Brahms on a theme from Paganini's twenty-fourth Caprice in A minor. It is upon this same theme that Rachmaninoff has built his variations for orchestra and piano, joining an illustrious company of composers who have shown their respect for a musician who could write a good tune.
The Rhapsody was composed by Rachmaninoff between July 3 and August 24, 1934, while he was living at Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. It was given its first performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Sto-kowski in Baltimore, November 7, of the same year, with the composer as soloist.
A nine-measure prelude, in which fragments of the Paganini theme are heard, introduces a series of twenty-four rather brief, but brilliantly ornamented and orchestrated variations. The Paganini theme is not fully stated until the first variation, where it initially appears in the violins and later in the piano. In addi?tion to this recurring theme, structural unity is achieved by the recurrence of the old medieval melody Dies irae, from the Catholic mass for the dead. It occurs first in the piano in the seventh variation, and recurs in the tenth variation in the strings, concurrently with the solo instrument playing a highly elaborated version of the Paganini theme. In the final variation it reaches a torrential climax in the full orchestra.
Initial phrases of this old melody are used, among other composers, by Berlioz, in his Fantastic Symphony and in his Grand Mass for the Dead; by Liszt in his Symphonic Poem, Dante, and by Saint-Saens in his Dansc macabre.
[59]
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Organized in 1879. Incorporated in 1881.
PRESIDENTS
Henry Simmons Frieze, 1879-1881 and 1883-1889
Alexander Winchell, 1881-1883 and 1889-1891
Francis W. Kelsey, 1891-1927
Charles A. Sink (Executive Secretary, 1904-1927) 1927-
MUSICAL DIRECTORS CONDUCTORS
Calvin B. Cady, 1879-1888 Thor Johnson, 1939-1942
Albert A. Stanley, 1888-1921 Hardin Van Deursen, 1942-1947 Earl V. Moore, 1922-1939 Thor Johnson (Guest), 1947-
Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor, 1947-
THE ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Maintained by the University Musical Society and founded by Albert A Stanley and his associates in the Board of Directors in 1894
MUSICAL DIRECTORS CONDUCTORS
Albert A. Stanley, 1894-1921 Thor Johnson, 1940-1942
Earl V. Moore, 1922-1939 Hardin Van Deursen, 1943-1946
Thor Johnson (Guest), 1947-
ORGANIZATIONS
The Boston Festival Orchestra, Emil Mollenhauer, Conductor, 1894-1904
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, Conductor, 1905-1935; Eric DeLamar-ter, Associate Conductor, 1918-1935
The Philadelphia Orchestra. Leopold Stokowski, Conductor, Saul Caston and Charles O'Connell, Associate Conductors, 1936; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, 1937, 1938; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Saul Caston, Associate Conductor, 1939-1945; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Alexander Hilsberg, Associate Conductor, 1946-1952, Guest Conductor, 1953
The University Choral Union, Albert A. Stanley, Conductor, 1894-1921; Earl V. Moore, Conductor, 1922-1939; Thor Johnson, Conductor, 1940-1942; Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor, 1943-1947; Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, 1947-; Lester McCoy, Asso?ciate Conductor, 1947-
The Festival Youth Chorus, trained by Florence B. Potter, and conducted by Albert A. Stanley, 1913-1918. Conductors: Russell Carter, 1920; George Oscar Bowen, 1921-1924; Joseph E. Maddy, 1925-1927; Juva N. Higbee, 1928-1936; Roxy Cowin, 1937; Juva N. Higbee, 1938; Roxy Cowin, 1939, Juva N. Higbee, 1940-1942; Mar?guerite Hood, 1943-
[60]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The Stanley Chorus (now the Women's Glee Club), trained by Marguerite Martindale,
1934; trained by Wilson Sawyer, 1944 The University Glee Club, trained by David Mattern, 1937 The Lyra Chorus, trained by Reuben H. Kempf, 1937
GUEST CONDUCTORS
Gustav Hoist (London, England), 1923, 1932 Jose Iturbi (Philadelphia), 1937
Howard Hanson (Rochester), 1926, 1927 Georges Enesco (Paris), 1939
1933, 193S Harl McDonald (Philadelphia), 1939, Felix Borowski (Chicago), 1927 1940, 1944
Percy Grainger (New York), 1928
DIAMOND JUBILEE SEASON
Summary of Artists and Organizations
The following organizations, conductors, and soloists have appeared in the several concert series maintained by the University Musical Society from 1879-1880 through 1953-1954. The figures in parentheses indicate the number of appearances.
Orchestras
Boston Festival Orchestra (SI) Boston Symphony Orchestra (32) Boston "Pops" Tour Orchestra (2) Chequamegon Orchestra (5) Chicago Festival Orchestra (2) Chicago Symphony Orchestra (184) Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (8) Cleveland Orchestra (16) Danish National Orchestra of the
State Radio
Detroit Symphony Orchestra (43) Gershwin Concert Orchestra Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Metropolitan Orchestra (2)
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (4) New York Symphony Orchestra (3) Orchestre National de France Philadelphia Orchestra (116) Philharmonic Society of New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society of
New York (2)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (8) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of
London, England St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Toronto Symphony Orchestra University Musical Society Orchestra (19) University Symphony Orchestra (IS) Vienna Orchestra
Conductors
Nicolas Afonsky
Max Bachert
John Barbarolli (2)
Carolyn Beebe (2)
Sir Thomas Beecham
Ragnvale Bjarne
Felix Borowski
George Oscar Bowen (4)
Capt. Franc.ois-Julien Brun
Richard Burgin (2)
Fritz Bum h
Calvin B. Cady (20)
Orin B. Cady (7)
Alfred Calzin
Saul Caston (11)
Russell Carter
F. Melius Christiansen (2)
Rossiter G. Cole
Rosy Cowin (2)
Walter Damrosch (3)
Desire Defauw (3)
Eric De Lamarter (8)
Leonard dePaur (2) Metod Dolezil Antal Dorati Ossi Elokas Georges Enesco Henri Ern Renato Fasano Arthur Fiedler (2) Ossip Gabrilowitsch (26) Vladimir Golschmann Eugene Goossens
In compiling this summary from old records and programs, every effort has been made on behalf of accuracy.
[61]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Percy Grainger Howard Hanson (4) Harald Hedding (2) Victor Herbert (4) Alfred Hertz Juva Higbee (12) Alexander Hilsberg (12) Gustav Hoist (4) Marguerite V. Hood (12) Jose Iturbi Serge Jaroff (10) Thor Johnson (30) Basile Kibalchich Franz Kneisel Ernest Knoch Victor Kolar (11) Alexander Koshetz Serge Koussevitzky (16) Karl Krueger (3) Rafael Kubelik (2) Ernst Kunwald Erich Leinsdorf (2) Samuel P. Lockwood Chev. Lo Verde
Lorin Maazel Sir Ernest MacMillan Joseph E. Maddy (3) Lester McCoy (14) Harl McDonald (3) Dimitri Mitropoulos (3) Emil Mollenhauer (23) Bernardino Molinari (3) Pierre Monteux Earl Vincent Moore (45) Carl Muck Charles Munch (8) Arthur Nikisch (3) Charles O'Connell Eugene Ormandy (65) Paul Paray Gabriel Pares Emil Paur (3) Frederick H. Pease (2) Fritz Reiner Artur Rodzinski (6) Adolf Rosenbecker William H. Santelmann (2) Anton Seidl (2)
Willard Sektberg Fabien Sevitzky Robert Shaw Rudolf Siegel Sergei Socoloff John Philip Sousa (2) Albert A. Stanley (89) Frederick A. Stock (117) Leopold Stokowski (4) Josef Stransky Eduard Strauss George Szell (9) Achilles Taliaferro Theodore Thomas (7) Sigurdur Thordarson Martti Turunen Erik Tuxen Otto Urack Hans v. Urbanek Hardin Van Deursen (10) Frank Van der Stucken John Finley Williamson (2) Hermann A. Zeitz
Instrumental Ensembles
Adamowsky Trio
Beethoven Club of Detroit (3)
Bernhard Listemann Concert Company
of Boston
Detroit Philharmonic Club (13) The French Army Band (The Blue Devils) Guard Republican Band of Paris Hinshaw Opera Company (3) Hungarian Gypsy Band (Archduke Joseph's
National Orchestra) Mendelssohn Quintette Club (2) Milwaukee Trio
Mockridge Concert Company
Ovide Musin Concert Company
New York Chamber Music Society, Inc. (2)
New York Philharmonic Club
The Redpath Lyceum Grand Concert
Company
Reginald Kell Players Sousa's Band (2) Trio de Lutece
United States Marine Band (2) Virtuosi di Roma (Collegium Musicum
Italicum di Roma)
String Quartets
Budapest Quartet (16) Chicago Quartette Elsa Fisher Quartet Flonzaley Quartet (9) Gordon Quartet
Griller Quartet (2) Kneisel Quartette (4) Kolisch Quartet Lener Quartet London Quartet
Musical Art Quartet of
New York (3) Paganini Quartet (6) Roth Quartet (11) Spiering Quartette
Choruses
dePaur Infantry Chorus (2) Don Cossack Chorus (10) Festival Youth Chorus
Organized in 1913 (43) Helsinki University Chorus Icelandic Singers
[62]
Moscow Cathedral Choir Polytech Chorus of Finland Prague Teachers Chorus Robert Shaw Chorale Russian Cossack Chorus Russian Symphonic Choir
St. Olaf Lutheran Choir (2) Singing Boys of Norway Ukrainian National Chorus University Choral Union
Organized in 1879 (226) Vienna Choir Boys (3) Westminster Choir (2)
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Choral Ensembles
Amphion Club (13) Andre's Alpine Choir and
Tyrolese Company The Cecilia Quartette Congregational Church Choir English Singers (2) High School Glee Clubs Ladies Chorus (2)
Lyra Male Chorus Metropolitan Opera Quartette Metropolitan Opera Sextette Redpath Lyceum Grand Con?cert Company Chorus The Revelers
St. Andrew's Church Choir Sappho Club of Ypsilanti
Scalchi Opera Company Schubert Quartette Stanley Women's Chorus (2) University Glee Club (12) University Girls Glee Club University Male Chorus (5) Ypsilanti Choral Society (3)
Sopranos
Frances Alda
Camilla Allardt
E. Allen (2)
Leonora Allen
Perceval Allen (4)
Selma Amansky
Adele Anderson
Sara Anderson (S)
Alice Andrus (3)
Lois T. Angell (3)
Florence Austral
Alice Bailey (2)
Caroline F. Ball (4)
Rose Bampton (4)
Inez Barbour (2)
Tryphosa Batcheller
Lillian Berger (2)
Flora Bertelle
Lillian Blauvelt (2)
Alice Bliton
Anne Bollinger
Lucrezia Bori (2)
Ina Bourskaya
Eleanor Brock
Anne Brown
Master Leslie Brown (2)
Edith Browning
Hilda Burke (3)
Anna Burmeister
Clara Henley Bussing
Emma Calv6
Nancy Carr (6)
Nellie Carson (2)
Anna Case
Frances Caspari (4)
Gina Cigna
Clare Clairbert
E. Louise Clark (2)
Anna Clifford
Leonora Corona (2)
Shanna Cumming
Elsa Clark Cushing
Agnes Davis (3)
Eugenie de Combe
Victoria de los Angeles
Bernice de Pasquali (3)
Clementine De-Vere Sapio
Ruth Diehl
Rose Dirman
Elizabeth A. Doolittle
Doris Doree (2)
Claire Dux (3)
Florence Easton
Edith Edwards
Amanda Fabris
Geraldine Farrar
Eileen Farrell (3)
Nora Fauchald (2)
Maude Fay
Anna Fitziu
Kirsten Flagstad (3)
Editha Fleischer
Mrs. Seabury C. Ford (2)
May Forrest
Olive Fremstad (2)
Johanna Gadski (4)
Amelita Galli-Curci (3)
Mary Garden
Mabel Garrison (2)
Lucy Gates
Dusolina Giannini (2)
Rose Giddings
Cora Giese
Alma Gluck
Nellie A. Goodwin
Nanette C-uilford
Emily Stokes Hagar
Desi Halban
Marguerite Hall
E. M. Hascall
Mrs. George Hastreiter (2)
Mrs. George R. Haviland (9)
Ethyl Hayden (2)
Emma Heckle
Mrs. Max Heinrich
Judith Hellwig (2)
Frieda Hempel (4)
Mrs. George Henschel
Norma Heyde
Grace Hiltz-Gleason (4)
Clytie Hine
Florence Hinkle (7)
Beal Hober
Lottice Howell
Fredericka S. Hull Genevieve Hunt (2) Agnes B. Huntington Hazel Huntington (2) Kate E. Jacobs (2) Helen Jepson (2) Maria Jeritza Ada Grace Johnson-
Konold (6) Lois Marjorie Johnston-
Gilchrist (6) Ginevra Johnstone-
Bishop (7)
Emma Juch-Wellman (4) Felicia Kaschoska Suzanne Keener Dell Martin Kendall Evta Kileski (2) Olive Kline (2) Nina Koshetz Marie Simmelink Kraft Emmy Krueger Leone Kruse Sarah Lavin Marjorie Lawrence (2) Lotte Lehmann (2) Thelma Lewis (5) Estelle Liebling Ragna Linne Juliette Lippe Laura Littlefield (2) Goeta Ljungberg Anna Lohbiller Kathrina Lohse-Klafsky Carolyn Long Mrs. William Luderer Florence Macbeth Amanda Mack (3) Charlotte Maconda (2) Flora Mann (2) Queena Mario Lois Marshall (2) Doris Marvin Edith Mason Dorothy Maynor (4) Marjorie McClung (3) Ruth McCormick (2)
[63]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Sopranos (Continued)
Virginia McWatters
Zinka Milanov (3)
Josephine Mitts
Marie Montana (2)
Master Arthur D. Moore, Jr.
Grace Moore
Mary Moore
Nina Morgana (3)
Mrs. George S. Morris
Patrice Munsel (2)
Claudia Muzio (2)
Patricia Neway
Mrs. Arthur Nikisch
Lillian Nordica (2)
Elizabeth Northrop
Maud Nosier (2)
Jarmila Novotna (2)
Mildred Olson
Odina Olson
Lucy Osborne
Jane Osborne-Hannah (2)
Chloe Owen (2)
Dorothy Park (2)
Adele Parkhurst (2)
Mrs. F. H. Pease
Frances Peralta
Roberta Peters
Gwendolyn Pike
Lily Pons (6)
Rosa Ponselle (6)
Florence Potter
Rosa Raisa
Marie Rappold (3)
Lillian French Read (2)
Regina Resnik
Elisabeth Rethberg (3) Corinne Rider-Reed-
Kelsey (6) Carola Riegg Anita Rio (6) Mrs. Fred A. Robinson Ruth Rodgers Stella Roman Ellen Rumsey Shirley Russell (2) Sibyl Sammis-MacDermid
(2)
Bidu Sayao (5) Geraldine Schlemmer Mrs. Fred C. Schultz Jean Seeley Marcella Sembrich (2) Mary Shafter Myrna Sharlow (2) Betsy Lane Shepard Clara E. Shilton Lura Simpson Carolyn Slepicka Oda Slobodskaja Lenora Sparkes (2) Mrs. W. E. Spitzkey Burnette Bradley Staebler
(2)
Eleanor Steber (2) Mme. Steinbach-Jahns Rise Stevens (3) Lucille Stevenson Rose Stewart (6) Lura Stover (2)
Grete Stueckgold
Marie Sundelius
Marion Talley
Annie Louise Tanner-Musin
Pia Tassinari
Rosa Tentoni
Emma Thurston
Helen Traubel (4)
Mrs. M. H. Tyler
Jeannette van der Vepen-Raume
Helen Van Loon
Astrid Varnay (2)
Maud Kleyn Vivian (3)
Thelma von Eisenhauer (4)
Emma Von Eisner
Jeanette Vreeland (6)
Elizabeth Walker
Jennie Patrick Walker (2)
Minnie Walsh
Louise Walsworth
Dorothy Warenskjold
Susanne Watt
Ljuba Welitch
May Whedon (8)
Marie Wilkins
Irene Williams
Genevieve Clark Wilson
M. Wilson
Ida Belle Winchell (13)
Frances Dunton Wood
Frances Yeend (2)
Marie Kunkel Zimmer?man (2)
Contraltos
Mabelle Addison
Eunice Alberts (6)
Merle Alcock (4)
Doris Ambos
Marian Anderson (?)
Elsie Baker
Adele Laeis Baldwin
Rose Bampton (4)
Katherine Bloodgood (3)
Isabelle Bouton (S)
Florence Boycheff
Karin Branzell
Sophie Braslau (4)
Nellie Brush
Mary Buckley (2)
Margaret Calvert
May Phoenix Cameron
Bruna Castagna
Mrs. Charles H. Clements (2)
Mabelle Crawford
[64]
Loretta Degnan Doris Doe
Mme. Clyde Drummond Hope Bauer Eddy (4) Cloe Elmo Edwina Eustis Anna Fields Muriel Foster Ruth Gasman Emily Gilmore Coe Glade (2) Hertha Glaz Hope Glenn Jeanne Gordon Mina Hager (2) Alice May Hurrah Julia Heinrich Gertrude Hicks Mrs. N. S. Hoff Louise Homer (10)
Doris Howe Nora Crane Hunt (4) Clara J. Jacobs Kate E. Jacobs (3) Josephine Jacoby (2) Ella Joslyn (3) Anna Kaskas (3) Margaret Keyes (8) Lillian Knowles Minerva Komenarski Eleanor LaMance Jeanne Laval Eileen Law (3) Carolina Lazzari Augusta Lenska (2) Myrtle Leonard (2) Helena Marsh Margarete Matzenauer (7) Marie Maurer Helen McClaflin (2)
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Contraltos (Continued)
Kathryn Meisle (5) Nan Merriman (3) Christine Miller Janice Moudry Florence Mulford (3) Grace Munson (2) Rosalind Nadell (2) Elena Nikolaidi Eunice Northrup Margarete Ober Maria Olszewska Siprid Onegin Lillian Palmer Inez Parmeter Maurine Parzybok Mrs. Marshall Pease ('? Joan Peebles (2) Eleanor Reynolds (2) Emma Roberts
Jane Ellen Rogers Fielding Roselle (2) Sofia Scalchi Anna Schram-Imig Ernestine Schumann-Heink
(12)
Daisy Force Scott Bessie Sickles Carol Smith (2) Jennie Mae Spencer (13) Gertrude May Stein-Bailey
(ID
Suzanne Sten (2) Jennie L. Stoddard Jessie Strickland (2) Gladys Swarthout (4) Enid Szantho (4) Nell Tangeman
Frances S. Taylor (2) Marion Telva (2) Blanche Thebom (4) Kerstin Thorborg (3) Mary Tilden Jennie Tourel Blanche Towle Celia Turrill
Nevada Vander Veer (3) Cyrena Van Gordon (4) Mary Van Kirk (3) Mrs. Anna E. Warden Jean Watson Marion S. Weed Tann Williams Rosalie Wirthlin Mrs. Charles Wright Elizabeth Wysor
Tenors
Paul Althouse (10) Jacques Bars Samuel Battel Kurt Bauni Daniel Beddoe (5) Joseph T. Berry Barron Berthald (S) Jussi Bjoerling (2) Alessandro Bond (2) George Oscar Bowen
A. A. Boyer Ralph Brainard
B. C. Burt Mr. Buzzell Fernando Carpi Arthur Carron Enrico Caruso Guiseppe Cavadore W. B. Chamberlain Mario Chamlee (2) Giuseppe Corallo Holmes Cowper (2) Richard Crooks (4) Eleazor Darrow Ben Davies
Tudor Davies Horace L. Davis Edmond De Celle M. De Pasquali Coloman de Pataky Paul R. De Pont Andreas Dippel (2) Roger Dupuy Shirley Field Warren Foster Walter Fredericks (2) Maurice Gerow (2) Beniamino Gigli (4)
Jules F. Gingras Mackenzie Gordon Dan Gridley Arthur Granville-Hackett
(14)
William Hain (3) Glenn P. Hall (6) George J. Hamlin (4) James Hamilton (S) Mr. Hannam Orville Harrold Harold Haugh (6) Roland Hayes (2) G. W. Home Judson House Frederick Jagel (10) Lewis James Edward Johnson (S) Hardesty Johnson Jules Jordan (2) Fred Killeen (3) Morgan Kingston (2) Felix Knight Charles A. Knorr (3) Arthur Kraft (2) Charles Kullman (3) Forrest Lamont William H. Lavin (2) Hipolito Lazaro Ralph Lear (2) Emmett Leib Albert Lindqucst Thomas Littlehales David Lloyd (10) Charles Marshall (2) Riccardo Martin (2) Giovanni Martinelli (13] Nino Martini
Ernest McChesney John McCollum John McCormack (4) Thomas McGranahan (2) J. H. McKinley (2) Lauritz Melchior (2) James Melton (2) Harry G. Mershon Reed Miller (4) Robert Miller William Miller Whitney Mockridge (2) G. Leon Moore (2) James Moore Rhys Morgan Lambert Murphy (6) Clyde Nichols George J. Parker Odra Ottis Patton (6) Marshall Pease (2) Jan Peerce (3) William H. Rieger (4) Frank Ryan, Jr. (3) Tito Schipa Alfred D. Shaw (2) Clarence Shirley C. V. Slocum (7) William Stephens Charles B. Stevens (4) Homer F. Stone Norman Stone (2) Sidney Straight Charles Stratton Royden Susumago (2) Set Svanholm (4) Ferruccio Tagliavini Rechab Tandy Walter L. Taylor
[65]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Tenors (Continued)
Martin Edward Thompson Armand Tokatyan Edward C. Towne (4) Richard Tucker Alfredo Valenti
W. Roy Alvord Pasquale Amato (4) Salvatore Baccaloni (4) Joseph Baernstein Vicente Ballester (2) John Barclay Chase Baromeo (16) Mario Basiola Douglas Beattie Ara Berberian Arthur Beresford (3) Joseph T. Berry Sidney Biden (2) Mark Bills (2) David Bispham (6) Richard Bonelli (6) John Brownlee Orin B. Cady (3) Giuseppi Campanari (9) Francis Campbell (2) Lewis Campion Feodor Chaliapin (2) Thomas Chalmers Charles W. Clark William H. Clarke (2) Louis Cogswell Horatio Connell (2) Norman Cordon (4) Edwin C. Crane (2) Philip Culkin (2) Claude Cunningham Royal Dadmun Fred Daley Guiseppe Danise Frederic Dansingberg Vernon D'Arnalle Emilio de Gogorza (7) Leo de Hierapolis (2) Giuseppe del Puente (2) Stanley de Pree Robert Richard Dieterle (7) Allen A. Dudley (2) Philip Duey (2) A. D. Eddy (2) Nelson Eddy (5) Nelson Eddy (of Ann Arbor) Alden Edkins (2) Wilbur Evans Wellington Ezekiel Keith Falkner (2) Cecil Fanning Bernard Ferguson
[66]
Ellison Van Hoose (4) Theodore Van Yorx Homer Warren (3) William Wegener
Basses
A. Franceschetti
George Galvani
Herman Gelhausen
Wilfred Glenn
Louis Graveure
Marion Green (2)
Plunket Greene (2)
Gean Greenwell
William Gustafson
John Gurney (3)
Richard Hale
Mack Harrell (4)
Theodore Harrison (5)
Max Heinrich (11)
Percy Hemus
George Henschel
Barre Hill (4)
William Wade Hinshaw (2)
George Ellsworth Holmes
Gustaf Holmquist (S)
William A. Howland (IS)
Julius Huehn
George Iott
Harry Joy
Maurice Judd
King Kellogg
Cuthbert Kelly (2)
Earle G. Killeen (4)
W. Kimball
Alexander Kipnis (3)
Otto Koch
Raymund Koch
Gardner S. Lamson (7)
Vergilio Lazzari
Carl Lindegren
George London (2)
Mark Love (3)
Giuseppe de Luca (2)
Pavel Ludikar
John MacDonald
Frederic Martin (7)
George Matthews
Robert J. McCandliss (3)
Heinrich Meyn (S)
Arthur Middleton (3)
Gwilym Miles (6)
Silas R. Mills (6)
Carlo Morelli
Nicola Moscona (3)
Frederick A. Munson
David Nash
Oscar Natzka (6)
William Wheeler Walter Widdop William Wilcox Evan Williams (5)
Frederick L. Newhham Norman Notley (2) Maxim Panteleieff Fred Patton (2) James Pease (6) Rollin Pease Ezio Pinza (7) S. K. Pittman (2) Pierre Remington Franz Remmertz (2) Paul Robeson (2) G. B. Ronconi Leon Rothier Titta Ruffo Adolf Sailer Emil Sanger Carl Schlegel Henri Scott (6) Norman Scott (2) Andres de Segurola Emil Senger Frederic Shaffmaster Cesare Siepi William Simmons Martial Singher (2) Herman Skoog Kenneth Smith Edward B. Spalding Riccardo Stracciari Italo Tajo
John Charles Thomas (3) Lawrence Tibbett (7) Charles Tittmann Theodore Trost Francis Tyler (2) John Tyley Theodor Uppman Hardin Van Deursen (5)
E. L. Walter (2) William Warfield Leonard Warren Theodore Webb (3) Robert Weede (2) Reinald Werrenrath (S) John White (2) Clarence E. Whitehill (5) Myron W. Whitney, Jr. (2) Herbert Witherspoon (13) James Wolfe (2)
F. Howland Woodward Renato Zanelli
Otto Z. Zelner
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Narrators
Barnett R. Brickner Lucy Cole Richard Hale (2) William P. Halstead
Claudio Arrau (2)
Adele Aus der Ohe (4)
Victor Babin (2)
William Bachaus
Paul Badura-Skoda
Simon Barere
Ethel Bartlett (2)
Harold Bauer (6)
Ida Blakeslee
Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler
(4)
Jorge Bolet
Alexander Brailowsky (5) Joseph Brinkman (2) Mrs. F. S. Buckley Ferruccio Busoni Orin B. Cady Teresa Carreno (3) Julia Caruthers (12) Robert Casadesus (2) Alfred Cortot (2) Clifford Curzon Eugen D'Albert Elizabeth Davies (2) Vladimir de Pachmann (2) Erno Dohnanyi (2) Maurice Dumesnil Jeanette Durno-Collins Daniel Ericourt John Erskine Katherine Falconer (2) Rudolf Firkusny Leon Fleisher Dalies Frantz (2) Arthur Friedheim (2) Ignaz Friedman Ossip Gabrilowitsch (7)
Isidor Achron (2) Frederick C. Alexander (2) Herman Allison Gino Aubert Pierre Augierias Emanuel Balaban Adolph Bailer (2) Erno Balogh Artur Balsam (6) Giuseppe Bamboschek (3) Warner Bass
Richard D. T. Hollister Paul Leyssac (3) Hugh Norton (2)
Pianists
Rudolf Ganz Walter Gieseking Gitta Gradova Percy Grainger (4) Fannie Gwinner Mark Hambourg Ethel Hauser (2) Julian Heinze Myra Hess (5) Josef Hofmann (6) Vladimir Horowitz (9) Louise Huggins (4) Ernest Hutcheson (2) Eugene Istomin Jose Iturbi (4) Alberto Jonas (5) Maryla Jonas Rafael Joseffy (2) William Kapell (3) Ethel Leginska Tina Lerner (2) Oscar Levant (2) Mischa Levitzki (3) Josef Lhevinne (4) Rosina Lhevinne Eugene List (2) Albert Lockwood (3) Chev. Lo Verde Pierre Luboshutz Louis Maas (3) Guy Maier (7) Jeanie May (4) Yolanda Mero Poldi Mildner Benno Moiseiwitsch Genia Nemenoff Bendetson Netzorg
Pianists--Assisting
Emanuel Bay (7) Carolyn Beebe (2) Leon Benditzky (2) Andre Benoist (5) Ludwig Bergmann Paul Berle Frank Bibb Frank Black Josef Blatt Helen Blume Miss F. Bogardus
Edith Rhetts (4) M. Louise Taylor Thomas C. Trueblood
Guiomar Novaes (2) Erwin Nyiregyhazi Ignace Jan Paderewski (6) Lee Pattison (6) Jessie Pease Serge Prokofleff Raoul Pugno Sergei Rachmaninoff (8) Rac Robertson (2) Miss Rogers Moriz Rosenthal Artur Rubinstein (7) Franz Rummel Olga Samaroff (2) Jesus Maria Sanroma Mrs. Schaeberle Eduard Scharf Ernest Schelling Artur Schnabel (5) Rudolf Serkin (S) Julius V. Seyler (3) Arthur Shattuck (2) Jan Sickesz Martinus Sieveking Ruth Slenczynska (2) Solomon Hilde Somer Gertrude Sunderland Alec Templeton (4) Alexander Uninsky Brahm van den Berg Elsa von Grave (2) Vitya Vronsky (2) Ida Belle WincheU James Wolfe Mary L. Wood (8) Max Zinkeisen
Josef Bonime
Coenraad V. Bos (2)
Victoria Boshko
Eugene Bossart
Francis de Bourguignon
Anna Broene
Lawrence Brown
Carlo Bussoti
Orin B. Cady
Vito Carnevali
Ava Comin Case (4)
[67]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Walter G. Charmbury Milne Charnley Samuel Chotzinoff Edward Collins Donald Comrie Gladys Craven Minnie M. Davis-Sherrill
(8)
E. William Doty Jeanette Durno-Collins Kate Eadie Harry Ebert Louis Elbel Hendrik Endt Mabel Rhead Field (29) Irene Finlay Amy Corey Fischer Emma Fischer-Cross Andor Foldes Marcel Frank Paul Frankel Henry Simmons Frieze Salvatore Fucito Emily Gilmore (4) Walter H. Golde Claude Gotthelf Lucille Graham Ina Grange Rudolph Gruen L. T. Grunberg Richard Hagemann Frances Louise Hamilton (4) Peter Hansen Max Herzberg Bertha Hill (2) M. Hewitt Miss B. Hill Albert Hirsh Lester Hodges Katherine Hoffman (2) Carroll Hollister Katharine Homer Louise Huggins (2) Effie M. Huntington Charlotte Jaffe Israel Joseph Erich Itor Kahn
Fred C. Alexander Orla D. Allen Frederic Archer Richard Keys Biggs M. Joseph Bonnet (2) Robert Grant Campbell (2) Palmer Christian (47) Henry W. Church Charles M. Courboin Eric DeLamarter (4) E. William Doty (3)
[68]
Edith M. Kelley Gibner King Fritz Kitzinger (3) Feodor Kocnemann Harry Kondaks Aimee Lachaume (2) Frank LaForge (2) Carl Lamson (10) Mrs. Edwin N. Lapham William Lawrence Georgiella Lay Waldemar Liachowsky Louise Linder Fritz Listemann Albert Lockwood (2) Pierre Luboshutz Isidore Luckstone Charles Lurvey Gordon Manley Umberto Martucci Edwin McArthur (2) Florence McMillan Hattie Mockridge Leopold Mittman Nils Nelson Jean Neveu Maud Okkelberg (2) Percival Parhan Valentin Pavlovsky (2) Theodore Paxson (2) Howard F. Peirce Edward Baxter Perry Viola Peters Emil Polak (3) Leon Pommers (2) Grace Povey (3) Adella Prentiss Nathan Price Ruth Putnam Max Rabinowitch Wolfgang Rebner Dorothy Wines Reed Rosita Renard Hermann Reutter Merriam A. Reynolds Joel Rosen
Organists
Clarence Eddy (2)
M. Alexandre Guilmant
Reuben H. Kempf
Ralph Kinder
Tom Kinkead
Edwin Arthur Kraft
Philip LaRowe
John J. McClellan (2)
Wilhelm Middelschulte
Earl Vincent Moore (IS)
Kenneth Osborne (2)
Stuart Ross (7) George Roth Emilio Roxas Franz Rupp (4) Theodore Saidenberg Homer Samuels Arpad Sandor Maria Schade William Schatzkamer Helen Schaul
Frederick Schauwecker (2) Eleanor Scheib George Schick (2) Sanford Schlussel (3) J. Erich Schmaal (9) Edwin Schneider (6) Wilma Seedorf Brooks Smith (2) Harold Osborn Smith (2) Marian Smith Mr. Soberbehr Gugliemo Somma Charles Gilbert Spross Albert A. Stanley (4) M. Nicholas Stember Constantine Sternberg Emma Gilmore Stevens (2) Fanny Strang Antoinette Szumowska Leo Taubman (2) Robert Turner H. B. Turpin Paul Ulanowsky Isaac Van Grove (4) Kosti Vehanen Josefin Hartman Vollmer Rudolf Von Scarpa (2) Aldred S. Warthin Fritz Weissappel Roy Dickinson Welch Jules Wertheim Stewart Wille (3) Ernst Victor Wolff Frances L. York (3) Boris Zakharoff Rainaldo Zamboni Herman Zeitz
Llewellyn L. Renwick (25)
August Schmidt (3)
Marian Smith (2)
Albert A. Stanley (6)
Leopold Stokowski
Mary McCall Stubbins (IS)
Frank A. Taber
Charles B. Vogan
Frieda Op'Holt Vogan (6)
Francis L. York (3)
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Violinists
Timothee Adamowsky (2) Jeno Antal (2) Mischa d'Arangi Yelly d'Aranyi Richard Arnold S. Barozzi Paul Bernard Adolfo Betti (9) Edward Bilbie (S) Belle Warner Botsford Elias Brecskin Marie Bremer Ruth Breton Herman Bruckner Willy Burmester Guila Bustabo John Corigliano Mischa Elman (5) Georges Enesco (3) Henri Ern Benjamin Faeder Carl Flesch Zino Francescatti (3) Nahan Franko (2) Marian Struble Freeman Carroll Glenn (3) Jacques Gordon jac Gorodetzky (12) Sidney Griller (2) Arthur Grumiaux Carl Halir Betty-Jean Hagen Cecilia Hansen Florence Hardeman Hugo Heermann Jascha Heifetz (11) Pierre Henrotte (2) Bronislaw Huberman Sascha Jacobsen Felix Khuner Max Klein (2) Franz Kneisel (4) Joseph Knitzer
Julius Akeroid Herman Allen Ugo Ara (6) Louis Bailly Philip Burton (2) Robert Courte (6) Joseph de Pasquale G. P. Habenicht (2) Friedhold Hemmann William Hymanson Stephan Ipolyi
Rudolph Kolisch Paul Kochanski Leopold Kramer (2) Jacob Krachmalnick Fritz Kreisler (13) Jan Kubelik Michael Kuttner (3) Sebastian Laendner Jeno Lener Sylvia Lent James Levy Felix Lichtenberg Bernard Listemann Fritz Listemann Samuel Pierson Lockwood Charles Martin Loeffler Lea Luboshutz (2) William Luderer (14) David McCallum Francis MacMillen Miss J. C. Mahon Donald McBeath Yehudi Menuhin (S) Frederick Mills (4) Nathan Milstein (7) Mischa Mischakoff Erica Morini (4) Ovide Musin Ginette Neveu Sylvain Noack Willis Nowell Jack O'Brien (2) Edgar Ortenberg (9) Charles Palm Thomas Petre Michael Piastro Alfred Pochon (9) Rudolph Polk Ruth Posselt Maud Powell (2) Michael Press Benno Rabinof Edouard Remenyi
Violists
Boris Kroyt (22) Z. Kurthy Eugene Lehner Paul Lemay Samuel Lifschey Carl Meisel Nicolas Moldavan (2) Ferenc Molnar (2) William Primrose Frank Reschke Paul Robyn
Ruggiero Ricci Thaddeus Rich Melvin Ritter Achille Rivarde Otto Roehrborn (2) Julius Roentgen Josef Roisman (23) Maximilian Rose Max Rosen Adolph Rosenbecker Gustav Rosseels (6) Feri Roth (11) Erna Rubinstein David Sackson Ilya Schkolnik (2) Clifford Schmidt Alexander Schneider (2) Louis F. Schultz (8) Toscha Seidel Rachel Senior Samuel Siegel (3) Joseph Smilovits Herman Soman Albert Spalding (6) Theodore Spiering Tossy Spivakovsky (2) Isaac Stern Bernard Sturm (3) Joseph Szigeti (5) Henri Temianka (6) J. von Theodorowicz (3) Albert Ulrich Raoul Vidas Robert Virovai Rachmael Weinstock (3) Anthony Whitmire F. Wiley Felix Winternitz Eugene Ysaye (2) Wilhelm Yunck (16) Herman Zeitz (10) Efrem Zimbalist (4)
Sandor Roth Thomas Ryan William Schade Julius Shaier (9) Mr. E. Speil Richard Stoelzer Louis Svencenski (4) Walter Voigtlander (9) H. Waldo Warner Adolph Weidig
[69]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM Violoncellists
Philipp Abbas Frederick A. Abel, Jr. (7; Mr. J. Adamowsky Iwan d'Archambeau (9) Naoum Benditzky Ernest Beyer Louis Blumenberg Henry Bramson Anatole Bronstein Pablo Casals Hermann Diestel Oliver Edel (9) Meinhard Eichheim C. Warwick Evans Emanuel Feuermann (3) Adolphe Frezin (3) Max Gegna Jean Gerardy Fritz Giese (2)
Arthur K. Hadley Colin Hampton (2) Imre Hartman Herman Heberlein Benar Heifetz Alex Heindl Anton Hekking Charles Hemmann Victor Herbert Charles Heydler Alfred Hoffmann (5) Paul Kefer Lauri Kennedy Hans Kindler Livio Mannucci Arthur Metzdorff (3) Georges Miquelle Fritz Mueller Lome Munroe
Aurora Natola
Gregor Piatigorsky (6)
Gabor Rejto (3)
Maria Roemaet-Rosanoff (3)
Philipp Roth
Elsa Ruegger (2)
Adolf Sailer
Emil Schippe (3)
Lusien Schmitt
Mischa Schneider (23)
Janos Scholz (2)
Gerald Schon
Alwin Schroeder (4)
J. Schuster
Mr. Speil
Bruno Steindel (3)
Carl Webster
Willem Willeke
Harold B. Wilson (2)
Flutists
George Barrere Manuel Berenguer (2) Adolph Burose Ewald Haun (2) William M. Kincaid (5) Ernest Liegl (2)
Eugene Lion Charles K. North H. Ostranger Samuel Pratt G. B. Ronconi
William Schade Frank Versaci Eugene Weiner August Witteborg Betty Wood
Other Instrumentalists
W. C. Ball--French Horn
Alfred Barthel--Oboe (2)
Josef Beckel--String Bass
George Carey--Xylophone (2)
John Cheshire--Harp
Robert E. Clark--Trombone
Rene Corne--Oboe
Henri de Basscher--Oboe
John Dolan--Cornet (2)
Arnold Dolmetsch--Harpsichord and Viola
Mabel Dolmetsch--Viola da Gamba
H. A. Drake--French Horn
Joseph Franzl--French Horn (2)
Robert Gooding--Saxophone
Georges Grisez--Clarinet
Nettie Jacobson--Harp
August Kalkhof--String Bass
Reginald Kell--Clarinet
Gustave Langenus--Clarinet
[70]
Mr. Locy--Clarinet (2)
Alice Lungershausen--Harpsichord (2)
Leopold de Mare--French Horn
A. B. Martin--French Horn
Mr. A. Mirsch--String Bass
Emil Mix--String Bass (2)
Ben Reissing--String Bass
Van Veachton Rogers--Harp (2)
Thomas Ryan--Clarinet and Viola
Kathleen Salmon--Harp
Alberto Salyi--Harp
Carlos Salzedo--Harp
Ugo Savolini--Bassoon (2)
G. Sommerfeld--String Bass
J. A. Stein--String Bass
S. L. Van Demark--Cornet
Leonard Weitzel--Cornet
Arthur S. Whitcomb--Cornet
John P. White--Cornet
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Tabulation
Orchestras .............................................. 26
Conductors ............................................. 104
Instrumental ensembles .................................. 20
String quartets.......................................... 14
Choruses ............................................... 17
Choral ensembles ....................................... 21
Sopranos ............................................... 236
Contraltos .............................................. 113
Tenors ................................................. 126
Basses ................................................. 156
Narrators .............................................. 10
Pianists ................................................ 110
Pianists--assisting ....................................... 172
Organists ............................................... 32
Violinists ............................................... 128
Violists ................................................. 32
Violoncellists ........................................... 57
Flutists ................................................ 16
Other Instrumentalists ................................... 38
Grand Total ........................................1,428
FESTIVAL CHORAL REPERTOIRE University Choral Union
Bach: Mass in B minor (excerpts)--1923, 1924, 1925, (complete) 1953
Magnificat in D major--1930, 1950 Beethoven : Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123--1927, 1947
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125--1934, 1942, 1945 Berlioz : The Damnation of Faust--1895, 1909, 1920, 1952 Bizet: Carmen--1904, 1918, 1927, 1938 Bloch: "America," An Epic Rhapsody--1929 Bossi: Paradise Lost--1916 Brahms: Requiem, Op. 45--1899 (excerpts), 1929, 1941, 1949
Alto Rhapsodie, Op. 53--1939
Song of Destiny, Op. 54--1950
Song of Triumph, Op. 55--1953 Bruch : Arminius--1897, 1905
Fair Ellen, Op. 24--1904, 1910
Odysseus--1910
Bruckner: Te Deum laudamus, 1945 Carey : "America"--1915 Chadwick : The Lily Nymph--1900 ChAvez, Carlos: Corrido de "El Sol"--1954$ Delius: Sea Drift--1924 Dvorak : Stabat Mater, Op. 58--1906 Ei.car: Caractacus--1903, 1914, 1936-
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38--1904, 1912, 1917 Fogg: The Seasons--1937 Franck: The Beatitudes--1918 Gluck: Orpheus--1902
World premiere
t United States premiere
[71]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Goldmark: The Queen of Sheba (March)--1923 Gomer, Llywelyn : Gloria in Excelsis--1949 Gounod: Faust--1902, 1908, 1919
Gallia--1899
Grainger, Percy : Marching Song of Democracy--1928 Hadley: "Music," An Ode, Op. 75--1919 Handel: Judas Maccabeus--1911
Messiah------1907, 1914
Hanson, Howard: Songs from "Drum Taps"--193S
Heroic Elegy--1927
The Lament for Beowulf--1926
Merry Mount--1933 Haydn : The Creation--1908, 1932
The Seasons--1909, 1934 -Heger : Ein Friedenslied, Op. 19--1934t Holst: A Choral Fantasia--1932t
A Dirge for Two Veterans--1923
The Hymn of Jesus--1923t
First Choral Symphony (excerpts)--1927t Honegger, Arthur: King David--1930, 1935, 1942 Kodaly: Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13--1939 Lambert, Constant: Summer's Last Will and Testament--1951t Lockwood, Normand : Prairie--1953
McDonald, Harl: Symphony No. 3 ("Lamentations of Fu Hsuan")--1939 Mendelssohn : Elijah--1901, 1921, 1926, 1944, 1954
St. Paul--1905
Mennin, Peter: Symphony No. 4, "The Cycle"--1950 Moussorgsky: Boris Godounov--1931,1935 Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, K. 427--1948
Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626--1946 Parker : Hora Novissima, Op. 30--1900 Pierne: The Children's Crusade--1915
Saint Francis of Assisi--1928, 1931 Ponchielli: La Gioconda--1925 Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78--1946 Rachmaninoff: The Bells--1925, 1938, 1948 Respighi: La Primavera--1924t Rlmsky-Korsakoff : The Legend of Kitesh--1931 Rossini: Stabat Mater--1897
Saint-Saens: Samson and Delilah--1896, 1899, 1907, 1912, 1916, 1923, 1929, 1910 Schuman, William : A Free Song (Cantata No. 2)--1945 Sibelius: Onward Ye Peoples--1939, 1945 Smith, J. S.: Star Spangled Banner--1919, 1920 Stanley: Chorus Triumphalis, Op. 14--1897, 1912, 1921
Far Land of Freedom--1919
Hymn of Consecration--1918
"Laus Deo," Choral Ode--1913, 1943
A Psalm of Victory, Op. 8--1906 Stock: A Psalmodic Rhapsody--1922, 1943 Stravinsky : Symphonie de Psaumes--1932 Sullivan : The Golden Legend--1901 Tchaikovsky: Episodes from Eugen Onegin--1911, 1941 Thompson, Randall: Alleluia--1941
Vardell, Charles: Cantata, "The Inimitable Lovers"--1940 Verdi: Aida--1903, 1906, 1917, 1921, 1924 (excerpts), 1928, 1937
La Forza del Destino (Finale, Act II)--1924
OteZo--1939
World premiere t American premiere
[72]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Requiem Mass--1894, 1898, 1913, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1943, 1951
Stabat Mater--1899
Te Deum--1947 Vivaldi-Casella : Gloria--1954
Villa-Lobos, Heitor : Choros No. 10, "Rasga o corac.ao"--1949 Wacner : Die fliegende Hollander--1918
Lohengrin--1926; Act 1--1896, 1913
Die Meistersinger, Finale to Act IIII--1903, 1913; Choral, "Awake," and Choral Finale to Act III--1923
Scenes from Parsifal--1937
Tannhduser--1902, 1922; March and Chorus--1896; "Venusberg" Music--1946 Walton, William : Belshazzar's Feast--1933,1952 Wolf-Ferrari : The New Life, Op. 9--1910, 1915, 1922, 1929
Festival Youth Chorus
Abt: Evening Bells--1922 Anonymous: Birds in the Grove--1921 Arne: Ariel's Song--1920
The Lass with the Delicate Air--1937 Barratt: Philomel with Melody--1924 Beethoven: A Prayer--1923 Benedict: Sweet Repose is Reigning Now--1921 Benoit: Into the World--1914, 1918 Boyd, Jean: The Hunting of the Snark--1929 Brahms: The Little Dust Man--1933
Lullaby--1931
Eleven songs--1954
Britten, Benjamin: Suite of Songs (Orchestrated by Marion E. McArtor)--1953 Bruch: April Folk--1922 Busch: The Song of Spring--1922 Caraciolo: Nearest and Dearest--1923
A Streamlet Full of Flowers--1923 Careys: "America"--1913, 1917, 1918, 1920 Chopin : The Maiden's Wish--1931 Coleridge-Taylor : Viking Song--1924
DeLamarter, Eric (orchestrator): Songs of the Americas--1944, 1948 Enclish, Granvtlle : Cantata, "The Ugly Duckling"--1934 Farwell : Morning--1924
Fletcher: The Walrus and the Carpenter--1913, 1917, 1926, 1942, 1950 Folk Songs--Italian: The Blackbirds, Sleep Little Child--1921
Scotch: "Caller Herrin"--1920
Welsh: Dear Harp of My Country--1920
Zuni Indian: The Sun Worshippers--1924 Gaul: Cantata, "Old Johnny Appleseed"--1931
Cantata, "Spring Rapture"--1933, 1937 Gillett: Songs--1941 Gounod : "Walz Song" from Faust--1924 Gratnger, Percy : Country Gardens--1933 Gretchaninoff : The Snow Drop--1938 Handel: "He Shall Feed His Flock," from Messiahs-1929 Howland, Russell (orchestrator): Song Cycle from the Masters--1947, 1952 Humperdinck: Selections from Hansel and Gretel--1923 Hyde : Cantata, "The Quest of the Queer Prince"--1928 d'Indy : Saint Mary Magdalene--1941
[73]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
James, Dorothy: Cantata, "Jumblies"--1935
Cantata, "Paul Bunyan"--1938
American Folk Songs (orchestration)--1946, 1951
Lieder Cycle (orchestration)--1949 Kelly: Suite, "Alice in Wonderland"--1925 Kjerulf : Barcarolle--1920 Madsen : Shepherd on the Hills--1920, 1922 McArtor, Marion (orchestrator): Songs--1940
Folk Song Fantasy--1943
Suite of Songs (Britten)--1953 Mendelssohn: On Wings of Song--3934
Spring Song--1924
Mohr-Gruber: Christmas Hymn, "Silent Night"--1916 Moore, E. V.: "The Voyage of Arion"--1921, 1927 Morley: It Was a Lover and His Lass--1921, 1938
Now is the Month of Maying--1935 Mozart: Cradle Song--1930
The Minuet--1922
Myrberg: Fisherman's Prayer--1922 Pierne: The Children at Bethlehem--1916, 1936
The Children's Crusade--1915
Saint Francis of Assisi--1928, 1931
Planquette: Invitation of the Bells from Chimes of Normandy--1924 Protheroe: Cantata, The Spider and the Fly--1932 Purcell : In the Delightful Pleasant Grove--1938 Reger: The Virgin's Slumber Song--1938 Reincke, Carl: "In Life If Love We Know Not"--1921
O Beautiful Violet--1924
Rowley-James: Cantata, Fun of the Fair--1945 Rubinstein : Thou'rt Like Unto a Flower--1931
Wanderer's Night Song--1923 Sadero : Fa la nana bambin--1935 Schubert: Cradle Song--1924, 1939
Hark, Hark the Lark--1930
Hedge Roses--1934, 1939
Linden Tree--1923, 1933
Serenade in D minor--1939
The Trout--1937
Whither--1939
Who Is Sylvia--1920
Schumann, Georg: Good Night, Pretty Stars--1924 Schumann, Robert: Lotus Flower--1930
Spring's Messenger--1929
The Nut Tree--1939 Scott: The Lullaby--1937 Strauss, Johann : Blue Danube Waltz--1934 Strong: Cantata, "A Symphony of Song"--1930 Sullivan : Selection from Operas--1932 Thomas : Night Hymn at Sea--1924 Tosti: Serenade--1933 Van der Stucken : At the Window--1920 Wagner: "Whirl and Twirl" from The Flying Dutchman--1924 Wahlstedt: Gay Liesel--1922 Weber: "Prayer" from Dcr Freischiitz--1920
The Voice of Evening--1924
" World premiere
[74]
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor
Jane Decker, Pianist
Gail Rector, Manager
FIRST SOPRANOS Adler, Janet Louise Aprill, Virginia A. Avsharian, Margaret Bengtsson, Doris Elvira Bennett, Virginia Bleil, Opal Louise Bradstreet, Lola Mae
?Branson, Allegra Britton, Veronica Castagno, Geraldine R. Clark, Maury W. Davis, Patricia Ann Duchesneau, Theresa E. Edwards, Lynne Eileen Ekwall, Janet Marjorie Gebhard, Ruth Ursula Gibson, Barbara Lee Hanson, Gladys M. Huber, Sally .
?Kraushaar, Doris
Kriram, Marilyn M. Lock, Inez J. Long, Ardis R. MacLaren, Helen L. Malan, FannieBelle McFarlane, Jean L. Newell, Dorothy Post Nyberg, Ida May Otto, Erlene Rae Patton, Beatrice M. Pearson, Lily-Ann Peters, Lynette Ann Pierce, Shirley R.
?Robinson, Anne V. Russell, JoAnn Scott, Harriet W. Sherman, Constance M. Smith, Peggy Joan Stapler, Catherine H. Tarboux, Isabelle N. Thomas, Joyce Elaine Tjotis, Ralian Jeanne Van Manen, Lucille L. Wales, Beverly Ann Warren, Eleanor Watt, Susanne Jane
SECOND SOPRANOS Benowitz, Zelda Anne Berberian, Balig Berger, Beatrice Delores Brater, Betsy B. Brouwer, Winifred M. Church, Ellen W. Cooley, Anne Elizabeth Dabringhaus, Jenny Dodge, Thelma I. Fineman, Arlene Ruth Fisher, Nancy McCoy Fisher, Winifred Franzblau, Beverly M. Godschalk, Donna P. Groves, Kathryn M. Haas, Sally Lee Hahn, Ruth Marie Hakken, Jane Hoffman Hedrick, Norma Voigt Heft, Priscilla Ann Kellogg, Merlyn L. Kuhl, Elise A. McLaughlin, Georgia May Melling, Megan Trina Merrill, Barbara B. Miller, Nandeen L. Nutley, Jean Margaretta Puglisi, Elizabeth A. Rourke, Audrey May Sauer, Mary Ann Schonfeld, Eleanore 0. Schrag, Marjorie L. Selby, Ruth M. Skaff, Diana May Skaff, Frances Mary Skoman, Lucia Swinford, Hazel G. Tate, Emma Louise Thomas, Grace Jean Vlisides, Elena C. Waltz, Ingrid Peterson Wells, Jeanne Livingston Westbrook, Alice Fay Williams, Lydia Mary Wolf, Beverly Miriam Wollam, Betty June
FIRST ALTOS
Abrams, Mary Elizabeth Bailit, Irma R. Barth, Dolores Ruth Bartholomew, Nancy Bates, Mary Elizabeth
?Bevis, Linn Alice Bilakos, Christena Brehm, Beverly J. Buckwalter, Edith Claire Campbell, Colleen Cohen, Judith Naomi Cooley, Joyce Jean Coyne, Pat Ann Darling, Persis Ann Eiteman, Sylvia C. Falcone, Mary Louise Fell, Patricia Franch, Alice Elizabeth Griffith, Erma R.
Harcum, Phoebe Martin Hardie, Margaret Alison Hardy, Emily Herrick, Roxanne Howe, Nancy Jean Jacobson, Barbara Karen James, Innez Lucille Johnson, Barbara K. Johnson, Diane Millicent Kime, Frances A. Kingland, Marjorie Alyce Kirchman, Margaret Mary Lane, Rosemarie
LedBetter, Gwenda Loeweke, Eunice Lillian Mastin, Neva M. Meiss, Harriet Rachel Nelson, Marcia Elizabeth Nonhof, Patricia Yvette Palmer, Anna W. Potter, Marijane Frances Reck, Linda Mering Rouillard, Elizabeth L. Soule, Doris Ann
?Steenhusen, Sally Tucker, Phyllis M. Vukmirovich, Nevenka
Participating in "Lift Thine Eyes," Elijah.
[75]
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Weaver, Beverly Ann Wiedmann, Louise P. Zeeb, Helen R.
SECOND ALTOS Ames, Julaine Alice Beaudoin, Rita M. Bergen, Marion T. Birk, Allene A. Bogart, Gertrude J. Bolt, Phyllis Mae Boughton, Helen Ann Brown, Mary Katherine Byler, Miriam K. Cohen, Karen Louise Crossley, Sarah-Lou L. Crossley, Winnifred M. Cyms, Mary Margaret Davis, Marilyn Verna Decker, Jane H. Deauvall, Jane Andrews Enkemann, Gladys C. Flanders, Ruth Carol Fowler, Gloria Joan Granger, Beverly Jean Haffner, Edith Adelaide Haswell, Judith Ann Huber, Judith Ann Huey, Geraldine Ison, Jo Bowles Johnson, Olga Ball Keith, Virginia Marie Kempe, Ann Louise King, Jean L. Ladd, Anne P. Long, Marguerite Irene Machol, Florence G. McBride, Sara Alyce McKinzie, Ann Louise McMurray, Nancy Newell, Patricia A. Okey, Ruth Anne Rice, Betty Lorraine Roeger, Beverly B. Schwartz, Virginia May Soto, Maria Eugenia Stevens, Wynne Claire Stienon, Maureen Strom, Sonja Sweet, Elizabeth O. Taylor, Elaine Rhoda Tolman, Ruth Stevens Van Dyck, Jane Edith Volkmann, Lois Jean Wright, Erma Ardell Watson, Frances Brown Yeoham, Velma Hanes
[76]
Zumstein, Marguerite R.
FIRST TENORS Ambs, Bruce John Anderson, John H. Anderson, Waldie A. Byler, Lowell J. Chao, James C. H. Edmiston, James Coleman George, Emery Edward Hartman, Richard E. Hulse, James Adison James, William S. Jennings, Ernest William Liefer, Gerald Henry Lowry, Paul T. Morillo, Marvin Pierce, Richard Allen Pressley, Dan Nelson Price, William S. Rizzo, Frank Albert Senter, Albert Wilson, Jr. Thompson, Frazier Tomion, Jack Walter Walton, Charles William Wingert, Charles
SECOND TENORS Aikin, Richard Barnum, Thomas G. Beals, Theodore F. Byer, Irving Daly, Patrick Lindsay DeHaan, James Exo, Warren Dale Follin, Weldon Lee Hague, Bart Haswell, Max Vivian Ilgenfritz, Robert H. Ironside, Roderick A. Miller, Lloyd Moon, Robert Lee Robinson, Donald Carl Shaw, James D. Smith, Jerry Jackson Sterrett, David R. Stringer, Lyle Hugh Thompson, James, Jr. Vandenberg, Edward L. Jr. Victor, Karl Norvin, Jr. Vis, Vincent Almon Young, Neil V.
FIRST BASSES Allen, Kenneth M. Bassett, Clark Lodge, Jr.
Beach, Neil W. Berner, Robert A. Burke, Denzer Burr, Charles F. Cathey, Arthur James Clemens, Earl Daley, John Grannis Fitch, Robert M. Foster, Emerson Clair Friedman, James Philip Hamilton, Ralph Edwin, Jr. Hines, Edwin Glenn Hooke, Richard Harris Huber, Franz Kays, J. Warren Keith, Robert Eugene King, John C. Loring, Eugene C. McCaughey, Richard J. Myers, Kurt Sheridan Osborn, Joseph C. Schreiber, Lawrence J. Trow, William H. Van Antwerp, Malin Weaver, Robert Bradley Zook, John Marian
SECOND BASSES
Abbott, Leslie Patterson Allyn, Donald William Antoniades, Emilios P. Beach, Philip Watson Beatty, James Calhoun Berberian, Ara Berg, Arthur David Berman, Gerald Samuel Holmberg, Edwin Holman Holtgrieve, Martin L. Hunter, William Stuart Jahsman, David P. Jobson, Philip R. Johnson, Paul Gordon Lehman, Richard Joseph Mastin, Glenn G. McClintock, James I. McDonald, Roger Weston Michaud, Ted Corneille Murray, Leonard Earley Plumer, David Walker Postma, Howard F. Praschan, Eugene Allan Rex, Harley Edwin Rice, Wilbur Z. Steinmetz, George Paul Strauss, Paul Ulrich Upton, John Holme Wolfstein, Ralph Samuel
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY ORCHESTRA
Lester McCoy, Conductor
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Gail Rector, Manager
VIOLINS
Sanford, Kenneth V.,
Concertmaster Dale, Nathalie Schilla, Yvonne Streicher, Janet Williams, Carl Udvarnoky, Charles Sims, Diana Breen, Seeley E. Jones, Roland Ketcham, Warren Fisher, John Long, Ardis Shaler, Dorothy Pfeiffer, Betty Kemp, Clarence S., Jr. Wise, Carolyn Beebe, Elizabeth Whitmire, Rene Krencicki, Carole Dixon, Dorothy Takalo, Donald Alkema, Dale Reed, William Turner, Leon H. Cartsonis, Emanuel Zimmerman, Lynn
VIOLAS
Papich, George Jao, Michael Y. T. Hayes, Alice Cable Hayes, Samuel P., Jr. White, Anderson Honl, Jean Kordas, Paul Baay, Muriel Kranold, Johanna Mihalyi, William Lentz, Carolyn
VIOLONCELLOS Lewis, Joan Turner, Charles B. Jorstad, Judith A. Streicher, Velma Klingbeil, Bruce Becker, Eleanor Rode, Phyllis Trow, William Clark Shetler, Donald
BASSES
Patterson, Benjamin Hammel, Virginia Hall, Reginald Haugh, Helen Jenkins, P. E.
FLUTES
Hauenstein, Nelson Hauenstein, Louise Watson, Frances Rentschler, Sally J. Radant, Jacqueline
OBOES
Heger, Theodore E. Sherman, Sylvia Shelly, Ann
ENGLISH HORN Stenberg, Patricia Boyer, William
CLARINETS
Radant, William Koester, Robert Berg, Arthur Legband, Rolf
BASS CLARINET Mauch, Robert
HORNS
Stillings, Frank Mumma, Gordon Dow, David Knob, Nancy J. Dalley, Nielsen Bailet, Irma Ban, Patricia
TRUMPETS
McComas, Donald Head, Emerson Straub, Jack Taylor, David W.
TROMBONES Whitener, Bruce Moore, Joseph Harrington, James
TUBA
Anstendig, Mark B.
TIMPANI
Thurston, Richard
PERCUSSION
Fremlin, Ronald Pullin, James Miller, Paul
ORGAN
tStubbins, Mary McCall
Combined list of personnel who participated with the Choral Union in the two Messiah performances and in preparation of May Festival choral works this season.
t Participating with The Philadelphia Orchestra in the Vivaldi-Casella Gloria and Mendelssohn's Elijah.
[77]
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor Harl McDonald, Manager
FIRST VIOLINS
Krachmalnick, Jacob
Concerlmaster Madison, David
Assistant concertmasler Reynolds, Veda Weinberg, Herman Henry, Dayton M. Simkins, Jasha Zenker, Alexander Aleinikoff, Harry Costanzo, Frank Lusak, Owen Gesensway, Louis Sharlip, Benjamin Simkin, Meyer Goldstein, Ernest L. Silverstein, Joseph Putlitz, Lois Schmidt, Henry
SECOND VIOLINS
Shulik, Morris Rosen, Irvin Eisenberg, Irwin I. Brodo, Joseph Wigler, Jerome Di Camillo, A. Gorodetzky, A. Miller, Charles S. Schwartz, Isadore Stahl, Jacob Dabrowski, S. Kaufman, Schima Bove, D. Roth, Manuel Black, Norman Dreyfus, George
VIOLAS
Lifschey, Samuel Mogill, Leonard Braverman, Gabriel Ferguson, Paul Frantz, Leonard Kahn, Gordon Roens, Samuel
[78]
Bauer, J. K. Epstein, Leonard Greenberg, Wm. S. Loeben, Gustave A. Primavera, Joseph P., Jr.
VIOLONCELLOS Munroe, Lome Hilger, Elsa Gorodetzer, Harry Gusikoff, B. Druian, Joseph Belenko, Samuel dePasquale, Francis Gorodetzky, Hershel Siegel, Adrian Sterin, J. Gray, John Saputelli, William
BASSES
Scott, Roger M. Torello, Carl Lazzaro, Vincent Strassenberger, Max Eney, F. Gilbert Arian, Edward Batchelder, Wilfred Torello, William Maresh, Ferdinand
HARPS
Costello, Marilyn de Cray, Marcella
FLUTES
Kincaid, W. M. Cole, Robert Terry, Kenton F. Krell, John C.
PICCOLO
Krell, John C.
OBOES
Tabuteau, Marcel
de Lancie, John Di Fulvio, Louis Minsker, John
ENGLISH HORNS Minsker, John
CLARINETS
Gigliotti, Anthony M. Serpentini, Jules J. Rowe, George D. Lester, Leon
BASS CLARINET Lester, Leon
SAXOPHONE Waxman, Carl
BASSOONS
Schoenbach, Sol Angelucci, A. L. Shamlian, John Del Negro, F.
CONTRABASSOON Del Negro, F.
HORNS
Jones, Mason Tomei, A. A. Fearn, Ward 0. Mayer, Clarence Lannuti, Charles Pierson, Herbert
TRUMPETS
Krauss, Samuel Rosenfeld, Seymour Rehrig, Harold W. Hering, Sigmund
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
BASS TRUMPET Gusikoff, Charles
TROMBONES
Gusikoff, Charles Lambert, Robert W. Cole, Howard Harper, Robert S.
EUPHONIUM
Gusikoff, Charles
BASS TROMBONE Harper, Robert S.
TUBA
Torchinsky, Abe
TIMPANI
Hinger, Fred D. Bookspan, Michael
BATTERY
Podemski, Benjamin Bookspan, Michael Valerio, James Roth, Manuel
CELESTA AND PIANO
Smith, William R. Putlitz, Lois
ORGAN
Smith, William R.
LIBRARIAN
Taynton, Jesse C.
PHOTOGRAPHIC PUBLICITY
Siegel, Adrian
ASSISTANT TO CONDUCTOR
Smith, William R.
PERSONNEL MANAGER
Schmidt, Henry W.
[79]
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY PROGRAMS 1953-1954
The University Musical Society, in addition to the annual May Festival, provided the following concerts during the season of 1953-54.
75TH ANNUAL CHORAL UNION SERIES
ROBERTA PETERS, Coloratura Soprano Samuel Pratt, Flutist Warner Bass, Pianist
October 7, 19S3 Qual farfallctta amante .... Scarlatti
Aniarilli, mia bella.....Caccini
Der Holle Rache, from
The Magic Flute.....Mozart
"Batti, batti" from Don Giovanni . . Mozart Sweet Bird, from Pensieroso . . Handel Dites, que faute-il faire . . Arr. by Viardot Lo, Here the Gentle Lark .... Bishop
Bravura Variations.....A. Adams
Der Hirt auf dem Felsen . . . Schubert
Romance........Debussy
Nelumbo........Moret
Air vif........Poulenc
The Songs of Grusia . . . Rachmaninoff
Blackbird's Song......Scott
Little Shepherd's Song.....Watts
Quietly, Night, from
Tie Rake s Progress . . . Stravinsky Grossmachtige Prinzessin, from
Ariadne auf Naxos R. Strauss
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Charles Munch, Conductor
October 22, 1953
Symphony No. 2 in D major. Op. 73 . Brahms Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra . Honeocer "Le Tombeau de Couperjn" Suite . . Ravel Excerpts from Act III, Die Meistersinger . Waoner
VIRTUOSI DI ROMA Renato Fasano, Director
November 2, 1953 Concerto Grosso in D major,
Op. 6, No. 4.....Corelli
Concerto in C minor for Oboe
and Strings.....Anonymous
Concerto in D minor for Viola d'amore
and Strings......Vivaldi
Concerto in A minor for Two Violins
and Strings......Vivaldi
Concerto in B-flat for Oboe, Violin,
and Strings......Vivaldi
Recitative frpm Concerto in F
for Violin and Strings . . . Bonporti Concerto in G for Cello and Strings . Vivaldi Concerto in A major for Strings . . Vivaldi
dePAUR'S INFANTRY CHORUS Leonard dePaur, Conductor
November 24, 1953 Four Melodies of the Middle Ages . Langstroth
Wiegenlied.......Brahms
Ich liebe dich.......Grieg
Triumvirate: Suite for Male Voices . Ulysses Kay
Ave Verum, K. 618.....Mozart
Jesus, Dearest Treasure . Bach-Langstroth
[80]
Ave Maria......Bach-Gounod
God Is with Us ... Kastalsky-Norden
Psalm 150.....Lawrence Morion
Folksongs from Latin America:
Folga Nego . . Collected by Gao Gurgel
Good Evening,
Mrs. Flanagan . . . Vivian Meade Swing Low,
Sweet Chariot . . Arr. Leonard dePaur In Dat Great Gittin'-up
Mornin' . . . Arr. Jester Hairston Song of the French Partisan . . Anne Marly Rodger Young.....Frank Loesser
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Fritz Reiner, Conductor Nan Merriuan, Contralto
December 13, 1953 Concerto for String Orchestra
in G major, No. 3.....Bach
"Iberia": Images No. 2 .... Debussy "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" . Strauss Suite from El Amor Brujo .... Falla Overture to Tannhduser .... Wagner
TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Sir Ernest MacMillan, Conductor
Betty-Jean Hagen, Violinist
February 10, 1954
Overture to Euryantkc.....Weber
Two Sketches for String Orchestra on
French-Canadian Airs . . MacMillan Symphony in B-flat major. Op. 20 . Cbausson "Symphonic espagnole," Op. 21 . . . Lalo Soirees musicales--Five Movements
from Rossini......Britten
PAUL BADURA-SKODA, Pianist
February 17, 1954
Partita No. 2 in C minor .... Bach Sonata in C minor, Op. 13 . . Beethoven
Suite, Op. 14.......Bartok
Sonata in F minor, Op. 5 ... Brahms
GEORGE LONDON, Bass-Baritone Leo Taubman at the Piano
February 28, 1954
Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo .... Mozart Dein blaues Auge 1
r ?_ -j_i i._i ___t_________] r ' BRAHMS
Mein Made] hat einen Rosenmund Von ewiger Liebe J
Credo, from Othello.....Verdi
La Procession......Franck
Paysage ........Hahn
Mandoline.......Debussy
Fleur jete'e........Faure
Wailie, Wailie .... Arr. Tom Scott Gambler's Song of the
Big Sandy River . . John Jacob Niles Lord Randal .... Arr. Cyril Scott Blow the Man Down . . . Arr. Tom Scott
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
ELENA NIK0LA1DI, Contralto Stuart Ross at the Piano
March 12, 1954 "Parto, parto" from
Clemenza di Tito.....Mozart
Die Seejungfcr.......Haydn
Schiiferlied........Haydn
Nacht und Traume
Auf dem Wasser zu sinsen [ Schubert
Die junge Nonne
Ungeduld J
"Bel raggio lusinfihier"
from Semiramide.....Rossini
Habanera........Ravel
Au bord de l'eau......Faure
Voyage a Paris......Poulenc
Nebbie........Respighi
Fiocca la neve.......Cimara
Girometta........Sibella
"O mio Fernando" from
l.ii Favorita.....Donizetti
MYRA HESS, Pianist March 17, 1954
Fantasia in C minor......Bach
French Suite, No. 5, in G major . . Bach
Sonata, Op. Ill.....Beethoven
Sonata, No. 7, in D major .... Haydn Etudes symphoniques, Op. 13 . . Schumann
EIGHTH ANNUAL EXTRA SERIES
ERICA MORINI, Violinist
Leon Pommers at the Piano
October 12, 1953
Larghetto . .....Handel
Praeludium and Allegro . Pucnam-Kreisler Concerto in G minor, Op. 26 ... Bruch Sonata in D minor. Op. 108 . . . Brahms
Canzonetta.......Godard
Valsc caprice......Wieniawski
caprice . Waltz .
Faust Waltz.......Sarasate
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA George Szell, Conductor
November 8. 1953 Overture, "The Roman Carnival,"
Op. 9.......Berlioz
"Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune" . Debussy Variations for Orchestra on a Theme by
Paganini, Op. 26 .... Blacher Symphony No. 7 in C major . . Schubert
GUARD REPUBLICAN BAND OF PARIS Captain Francois-Julien Brun, Conductor
November 30, 1953
Overture, "Roman Carnival," Op. 9 . Berlioz Recitative and Polonaise .... Weber
Soloist: Henri Druart, Clarinetist
"L'Arlesienne" Suite, No. 2 .... Bizet
Second Hungarian Rhapsody .... Liszt
"Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune" . Debussy
"Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" . Strauss
Martial Music from the Revolution to the Present:
Chant de departure .... Mehul
Marchc consulaire .... Traditional
Sambre-et-Meuse . On a theme by Planquette
Pcre la victoire.....Ganne
Rhine et Danube.....Brun
Marche americaine.....Sousa
MARIAN ANDERSON, Contralto Franz Rupp at the Piano
January 10, 1954 All is Fulfilled My Heart Ever Faithful ( BACH
Come, Sweet Death ftepare Thyself, Zion
}?
Dcr Wanderer
Erstarrung [..... Schubert
Nacht und Traume
Der Erlkonig
"Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix"
from Samson et Dalila . . Saint-Saens None But the Lonely Heart . . Tchaikovsky Songs My Mother Taught Me . . . Dvorak
Sally Gardens.....Arr. Britten
The Ploughboy.....Arr. Britten
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind . Quilter
Done Foun' My Los Sheep . Arr. H. Johnson Glory in'a Mah Soul . . . Arr. McFeeters He's Got the Whole World
in His Hand .... Arr. H. Forrest Honor, Honor .... Arr. H. Johnson
ARTHUR FIEDLER
and the
BOSTON POPS TOUR ORCHESTRA Ruth Slenczynska, Pianist
March 4, 1954 Entrance of the Guests,
from Tannhauser.....Wagner
Overture to Oberon.....Weber
Largo, from Xerxes.....Handel
Suite from "Gaite Parisienne" . . Offenbach Concerto No. 1 in E-flat for
Piano and Orchestra .... Liszt Ouverture solennelle, "1812" . . Tchaikovsky Selections from Kiss Me Kale . Cole Porter Gypsy Tango, "Jalousie" . . . Jacob Gade March, "Pomp and Circumstance" . . Elcar
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERTS HANDEL'S MESSIAH December 5 and 6, 1953 Maud Nosler, Soprano Carol Smith, Contralto Walter Fredericks, Tenor
Norman Scott, Bass
University Choral Union
University Musical Society Orchestra
Mary McCall Stubbins, Organist
Lester McCoy, Conductor
I4TH ANNUAL CHAMBER MUSIC
FESTIVAL
GRILLER STRING QUARTET Sidney Griller, First Violin Jack O'Brien, Second Violin Philip Burton, Viola Colin Hampton, Cello
Friday, February 19, 1954 Quartet in G, Op. 33, No. 5 . . . Haydn
Quartet No. 3.......Bloch
Quartet in B-flat, K. 458 . . . . Mozart
Sunday, February 21, 1954
Five Fugues.....Bach-Mozart
Quartet No. 2 .... Edmund Rubbra Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127 . . . Beethoven
and the REGINALD KELL PLAYERS
Reginald Kell, Clarinet Joel Rosen, Piano Melvin Ritter, Violin Aurora Natola, Cello
Saturday, Febuary 20, 1954 Trio in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3 . . Beethoven
Contrasts........Bartok
Trio in A minor, Op. 114 . . . . Brahms Suite (1937)......Milhaud
[81]
CONCERTS FOR 1954-1955
SEVENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL CHORAL UNION SERIES
Roberta Peters, Soprano..........Monday, October 4
The Societa Corelli............Friday, October IS
Boston Symphony Orchestra.......Wednesday, October 20
Charles Munch, Conductor The Cleveland Orchestra.........Sunday, November 7
George Szell, Conductor
Jorge Bolet, Pianist...........Monday, November 15
Leonard Warren, Baritone.........Sunday, November 21
Vienna Choir Boys............Sunday, January 16
Zino Francescatti, Violinist.........Monday, March 7
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.......Tuesday, March IS
WlLHELM FURTWANGLER, Conductor
New York Philharmonic Orchestra.......Sunday, May 22
Dimitri Mitropoulos, Conductor
NINTH ANNUAL EXTRA CONCERT SERIES
Eleanor Steber, Soprano...........Sunday, October 10
Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam . . . Wednesday, October 2 7 Eduard Van Beinum, Conductor
Robert Shaw Chorale..........Monday, December 6
Isaac Stern, Violinist...........Thursday, February 10
Walter Gieseking, Pianist.........Tuesday, March 22
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERTS
Messiah (Handel)...........December 4 and 5, 1954
Lucine Amara, Soprano Donald Gramm, Bass
Lillian Chookasian, Contralto Choral Union and Orchestra Charles Curtis, Tenor Lester McCoy, Conductor
FIFTEENTH ANNUAL CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
Budapest String Quartet........February 18, 19, 20, 1955
SIXTY-SECOND ANNUAL MAY FESTIVAL
Six Concerts..............May 5, 6, 7, 8, 1955
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, Conductor; Univer?sity Choral Union, Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, and Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor; Festival Youth Chorus, Marguerite Hood, Conductor. Soloists to be announced.
The right is reserved to make such changes in dates and
personnel as necessity may require.
[82]