UMS Concert Program, May 3, 4, 5, 6, 1956: The Sixty-third Annual May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Season: Seventy-Seventh
Concert: SIXTH
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The Sixty-Third Annual
MAY FESTIVAL
1956
presented by
The University Musical Society
of the
University of Michigan
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Seventy-Seventh Season
Program of the Sixty-Third Annual
MAY FESTIVAL
May 3,4,5, 6,1956 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
Arthur D. Berg, Assistant to the President
Carole Meyers, Typist-Clerk
Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor
Harold E. Warner, Chief of Ushers
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNUAL ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
CONDUCTORS
Eugene Ormandy, Orchestral Conductor
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor Marguerite Hood, Youth Chorus Conductor
SOLOISTS
Inge Borkh...............Soprano
Hilde Gueden..............Soprano
Lois Marshall..............Soprano
Jane Hobson............Mezzo-Soprano
Martha Lipton.............Contralto
Rudolf Petrak..............Tenor
Harold Haugh..............Tenor
Lawrence Winters............Baritone
Erika von Wagner Stiedry.........Narrator
Zino Francescatti............Violinist
Byron Janis...............Pianist
Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin.....Duo-Pianists
ORGANIZATIONS
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The University Choral Union
The Festival Youth Chorus
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 Donald Engle and his administrative staff.
The Author of the annotations expresses his appreciation to Margaret Wap-pler for her assistance in collecting materials; to Ferol Brinkman for her editorial services; and to Edwin H. Schloss, 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.
FIRST MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 3, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
INGE BORKH, Soprano
PROGRAM
?Concerto for Orchestra in D major (transcribed for
large orchestra by Eugene Ormandy)........Handel
Largo; allegro ma non troppo; allegro con brio
Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105 (in one movement) . . . Sibelius Adagio; vivacissimo; adagio;
Allegro molto moderato; vivace; Presto; adagio; largamento
(Commemorating the composer's 90th birth year)
I'V
V'adoro pupille" from Julius Caesar..........Handel
"Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin" from Fidelio, Op. 72 ... Beethoven
Inge Borkh
INTERMISSION
Monologue from Elektra: "Allein, allein"......Richard Strauss
Miss Borkh
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 26........Blacher
Columbia Records.
SECOND MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 4, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
LOIS MARSHALL, Soprano
JANE HOBSON, Mezzo-Soprano
RUDOLF PETRAK, Tenor
VITYA VRONSKY and VICTOR BABIN, Pianists
PROGRAM
Compositions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
Davidde penitente, K. 469, for Chorus, Orchestra, and Soloists Chorus: "Lord, Thou who reignest on high" Chorus: "Glory to God!" Soprano: "Unto the Lord I'm raising" Chorus: "Guide us for e'er in Thy footsteps" Duet, Sopranos: "All of Thine enemies" Tenor: "From Thee, O Source of Being" Chorus: "Who can, O Lord, against Thee stand" Soprano: "Through the darkness in which we're shrouded" Trio: "Blessed are those that trust the Saviour" Chorus: "Be at rest, 0 thou my spirit"
University Choral Union and Soloists intermission
Concerto in F major for Two Pianos and Orchestra, K. 242 ("Lodron") Allegro Adagio
Rondo: tempo di menuetto
Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 5, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
THE FESTIVAL YOUTH CHORUS MARGUERITE HOOD, Conductor
SOLOIST
HILDE GUEDEN, Soprano
PROGRAM Overture to The Magic Flute, K. 620..........Mozart
Aminta's aria "L'amero, sard costante" from Re pastore . . . Mozart "Non temer amato bene" from Idomeneo.........Mozart
HlLDE GUEDEN
Songs by Robert Schumann
Edited and translated by Marcuerite Hood Orchestrated by Dorothy James
A May Song The Nut Tree
The Song of the Smith Ladybird
Birds . To the Evening Star
The Lotus Flower The First Green
Message of Spring The Tell-Tales The Sandman
Festival Youth Chorus
intermission
Zerbinetta's aria from Ariadne auf Naxos......Richard Strauss
Miss Gueden
Concerto for Orchestra..............Von Einem
Allegro
Larghetto Allegro
FOURTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 5, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
ZINO FRANCESCATTI, Violinist
PROGRAM Overture to Oberon.................Webeb
Symphony No. 1 in C major...............Bizet
Allegro vivo Adagio
Allegro vivace Allegro vivace
INTERMISSION
Concerto in D major, Op. 77, for Violin and Orchestra.....Brahms
Allegro non troppo Adagio
Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace
ZlNO FRANCESCATTI
FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 6, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
LOIS MARSHALL, Soprano..........Tove
MARTHA LIPTON, Contralto.......Waldtaube
RUDOLF PETRAK, Tenor........Waldemar
HAROLD HAUGH, Tenor........Klaus Narr
LAWRENCE WINTERS, Bass........Bauer
ERIKA von WAGNER STIEDRY......Narrator
PROGRAM
Gurre-Lieder, a Cantata..........Arnold Schoenberg
Part I. Waldemar, Tove, Waldtaube, and Orchestra Part II. Waldemar and Orchestra
INTERMISSION
Part III. Waldemar, Bauer, and Klaus Narr; Three Men's Choruses, and
Orchestra Part IV. Des Sommerwindes wilde Jagd, Narrator, Chorus, and Orchestra
SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 6, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
BYRON JANIS, Pianist
PROGRAM "Cantus animae et cordis" for String Orchestra......Yardumian
Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, for Piano and Orchestra . Rachmaninoff Allegro ma non troppo Intermezzo: adagio Finale
Byron Janis
intermission
?Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98..........Brahms
Allegro ma non troppo Andante moderato Allegro giocoso
Allegro energico e passionato
?Columbia Records
10
ANNOTATIONS
by
GLENN D. McGEOCH
FIRST CONCERT Thursday Evening, May 3
Concerto for Orchestra in D major.......Handel
(Transcribed by Eugene Ormandy)
Georg Friedrich Handel was born at Halle, Feb?ruary 23, 168S; died in London, April 14, 17S9.
From the beginning of his career, Handel was the "people's composer." No doubt this was because of the cosmopolitan training he received in Germany, Italy, and England, and to the fact that he chose as his medium opera, the most popular and spectacular form of musical entertainment in the eighteenth century. But there was also something inherent in his music that could account for the position he gained in the hearts of the public of his day; his expression was direct and simple, with no ostentatious display for its own sake. His music had little of the introspective quality that was characteristic of his greater but less popular contemporary, Bach; and it was this nonsubjective quality that made his style irresistible in its appeal to the masses.
The Concerto in D major, the Concerto in F major, and the famous "Fire?works" Suite all made use of the same thematic material, but this was not an unusual procedure for Handel, nor even for Bach, nor in any of the eighteenth-century composers for that matter.
The date of the "Fireworks" Suite is fixed; for it was on April 27. 1749, that the King celebrated with his unsuccessful fireworks display and Handel wrote his successful music. The dates of the other works, however, are not known. Handel was not considerate of future writers of program notes and failed to date his manuscripts, so whether he wrote the Concerto in D major before or after the "Fireworks" Suite will perhaps always remain a dark secret to musical scholars. Be that as it may, all these works were written during the days of Handel's greatest popularity in London and during the most prolific period of his creative life, when, at the beck and call of a noble patron, he produced operas, oratorios, and occasional music of every variety. It is little wonder that in the rush and hubbub of his daily life he often found it convenient to rewrite an older work or to find in one a set of themes he could rework.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The practice, in fact, often forced him to partake freely of the inspiration of other composers, which he seldom if ever acknowledged. The Concerto in D major may have first been used as an organ concerto, for the score has in one place an indication of Organo ad libitum and an additional bass part to guide the organist in improvising. The organ, however, does not seem to be an im?portant enough element, and in this transcription Mr. Ormandy omits it. The original instrumentation (two trumpets, four horns, two oboes, bassoon, tym-pani, and strings) he retains, however, as a nucleus, adding to it the resources of the modern orchestra to vivify the effects that would have been achieved in Handel's day.
Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105......Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was born in Tavastehus, Finland, December 8, 186S.
Until the advent of Dimitri Shostakovich, Jean Sibelius held a position of unrivaled eminence among present-day symphonists. The fact remains that in spite of the sensational rivalry offered by the young Russian composer, Sibelius is, without doubt, by virtue of the quality and quantity of his output, still the outstanding symphonist of our day; and this in spite of the fact that he has produced no new symphony since his Seventh in 1924.
Fate has been persistent in involving Jean Sibelius in great soul-stirring catastrophies. As a young musician, he was an artistic rebel determined upon Finnish freedom, politically as well as artistically, and was involved in Finland's emancipation in the 1890's. World War I found him as staunch and bravely nationalistic as ever in the face of impending doom. And during the last war, at the close of a long life full of great artistic achievements and deep concern for his native land, the old patriarch refused to leave his unfortunate country in her need and wrote on in the midst of her greatest disaster. Sibelius' faith in humanity has been subjected to the severest tests, but he has never lost that faith.
But, speaking of Sibelius purely as a historical figure, and of his position among the greatest symphonists of the past, it must be acknowledged that it was really through him that the long line of symphonic writing has survived; a line which, except for his efforts, seemed to have come to an end. Contem?porary composers of the "new school," having lost the epic sweep and sustaining power that marked such masters as Beethoven and Brahms, declared the symphony a dead form, and turned to the less architectural and more program?matic symphonic poem and a new conception of the suite in which to frame their more lyrical and less heroic expression. Sibelius alone, working against the tendency of his age and continuing in the tradition of the great masters of the past, not only saved the symphonic form from oblivion, but raised it again to a level of dignity and grandeur equaled only by Beethoven. It was Beethoven in fact who guided Sibelius through the labyrinth of his own ideas. "The com?poser for me above all others is Beethoven," he once wrote. "I am affected as
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FIRST CONCERT
powerfully by the human side of him as by his music. He is a revelation to me. He was a Titan. Everything was against him, and yet he triumphed."
A careful consideration of Sibelius' great symphonies reveals this one fact: that he has again sensed the "grand manner" in music, has sustained his inspira?tion throughout a long life, and has cast this inspiration in a monumental series of symphonies that remain a unique structure in contemporary music. In the words of his biographer, Karl Ekman--"The noble structure of his works has come forth from the grand line of his life. He has won his inner strength and harmony in a hard battle. In a disjointed time, a period of dissension, Jean Sibelius provides us with the uplifting picture of a man who dared to follow his genius, and never was subservient to other claims than those of his own artistic conscience, who dared to live his life in the grand style." Such an indomitable spirit, it seems, must ultimately triumph in art.
In his brief work on Sibelius, Cecil Grey wrote of this symphony:
Sibelius' Seventh--and up to the time of writing, last--Symphony in C major, Op. 105, is in one gigantic movement based in the main on the same structural principles as the first movement of the Sixth. That is to say, it has one chief dominating subject, a fanfarelike theme which first appears on a solo trombone near the outset and recurs twice, more or less integrally, and in addition a host of small, pregnant, fragmentary motives of which at least a dozen play a prominent part in the unfolding of the action. The resourceful way in which these are varied, developed, juxtaposed, permuted, and combined into a continuous and homogeneous texture is one of the miracles of modern music; Sibelius himself has never done anything to equal it in this respect.t
In Karl Ekman's more extended work, Sibelius himself is quoted as having said of the Seventh Symphony (upon which, apparently, he was at work simul?taneously with the Fifth and with the Sixth):
The Seventh Symphony. Joy of life, and vitality with appassionato passages. In three movements--the last, a "Hellenic rondo." If so, somewhere along the course he altered his plan. In fact, he himself conceded that he did not know, when he began, precisely how the symphonies would end. "As usual, I am a slave to my themes and submit to their de?mands.". ..
... At New Year's, 1923, I was engaged for concerts in Norway and Sweden. When I started on January 14th--I have the date ffom the notes in my diary--three sections of the seventh symphony were ready. On my return home, the whole symphony was completed; I performed it in public at a concert in Helsingfors on February 19th--the last time I con?ducted in Finland.... On March 2nd, 1924, at night, as I entered in my diary, I completed "Fantasia Sinfonica"--that was what I at first thought of calling my seventh symphony in one movements
For the program book of the Philadelphia Orchestra of April 3, 1926 (first performance under Leopold Stokowski), Lawrence Gilman supplied this clear and revealing analysis:
The symphony opens with an extended adagio section of brooding and somber intensity. Its initial subject, an ascending scale passage in A minor, 3--2 time, for the strings, furnishes
Karl Ekman, Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality (New York: Knopf, 1938). t Cecil Grey, Sibelius (London: Oxford University Press, 1931). t Ekman, op. cit.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
the underlying theme of the work. It crops out again and again, as a whole, or fragmentarily, and often inverted. In the twenty-second measure it is succeeded by a broadly lyric theme in C major, sung by the divided violas and cellos, joined later by the divided first and second violins. The scale passages return in the strings and woodwind, and then we hear from the solo trombone a chant-like melody in C, which will later assume great importance.
The tempo quickens; there are more scale passages; the pace is now vivacissimo, C minor. The strings announce a subject that recalls the mood of the Scherzo of Beethoven's Eroica. There is a rallentando, and a return to the adagio tempo of the beginning. The solo trombone repeats its chant-like phrase against figurations in the strings, and it is joined by the rest of the brass choir. Again the tempo quickens, and an allegro molto moderato is established.
The strings (poco f, C major, 6--4) give out a new melody of folklike simplicity and breadth; and this is followed by another subject, also in C major, arranged--according to a pattern of which Sibelius is fond--for woodwind doubled in pairs, playing in thirds, fifths, and sixths. This theme is developed by the strings and wind, with interjections of the familiar scale passages for the violins.
The key changes to E-flat major, the tempo becomes vivace. There are ascending and descending antiphonal passages, strings answered by woodwind.
The tempo becomes presto, the key C major. The strings, divided in eight parts, begin a mysteriously portentous passage, at first ppp, with the violas and cellos defining an urgent figure against a reiterated pedal G of the violins, basses, and tympani. A crescendo, rallentando, is accompanied by a fragment of the basic scale passage, in augmentation, for the horns.
The tempo is again adagio; and now the chant-like C major theme is heard once more from the brass choir, against mounting figurations of the strings.
There is a climax, fi, for the whole orchestra. The strings are heard alone, largamente molto, in an afiettuoso of intense expression. Flute and bassoon in octaves, supported by soft string tremolos, sing a plaint. The strings, dolce, in syncopated rhythm, modulate through seventh chords in A-flat and G to a powerful suspension, fortissimo, on the tonic chord of C major; and this brings to a close the enigmatic, puissant, and strangely moving work.
"V'adoro pupille" from Julius Caesar......Handel
Handel, known to the public today largely as the composer of Messiah and frequently performed suites such as the Water Music, was to his genera?tion the outstanding composer of Italian opera in Europe--as famous and admired in Italy itself as in his native Germany, or in England, the land of his adoption. Between 1711 and 1737 he produced some forty operas. Due no doubt to the demands of the public and to the intense rivalry of popular Italian composers jealous of his success, he wrote with great speed and with little attention to detail. Once his formulas proved successful, they were repeated without change.
Although many of his forty operas are obsolete, and only occasionally one reaches performance today, arias of rare beauty have survived on the concert stage, giving us some idea of the vocal wealth that still lies buried in his scores.
About 1720, an effort was made by the nobility of England to establish Italian opera in the Haymarket in London. Handel was appointed director of the "Academy," and for the venture he composed a series of fourteen operas. Among them was Guilio Cesare, set to a libretto by Nicolo Haym and produced in February of 1724. The work was received coolly. The failure of this opera, in contrast to the fabulous success of most of his others, was due perhaps partly to the undistinguished libretto and to a new apathy to music in general. The fickle
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FIRST CONCERT
English public, surfeited with several years of Italian operas and Italian singers, had turned temporarily to other diversions. It is more reasonable, however, to suppose that it failed because of a wave of anti-foreign feeling that was then growing in England. Everything not English was attacked, and since the Italian opera found its patrons among the German courtiers who surrounded the Han?overian king, George I, it also became a target. The anti-German element in London derided Handel as it did the king. The temporary apathy to his work was merely an adverse mood in an excitable age, for Handel was later to reach new heights of fame and to ultimately find his final resting place in Westminster Abbey among the kings and poets of his adopted country.
The aria on tonight's program comes from the opening of Act II. In it Cleo?patra expresses her love for Caesar:
I adore you who are the eye and arrow of love. Pity the heaviness of my heart which each hour sighs again for its beloved.
"Abscheulicher wo eilst du hin" from Fidelio . . Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Decem?ber 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827.
Fidelio, Beethoven's single essay in the world of opera, is often considered to be "an unsuccessful venture into an uncongenial realm." In spite of the fact that it has always enjoyed a vigorous life in Germany and Austria, it has had only a moderate success with the general public in America and has won its place in the operatic repertory slowly and with great difficulty. Today, it is performed only occasionally, and then more as a devoted gesture to a great composer than as compliance with a public demand.
In spite of the many beautiful and inspired pages in Fidelio, it is not the work of a genuine dramatic composer; there is no disagreement among scholars that Beethoven was not equipped by talent or by temperament to write opera. "This business of Opera," he once complained during the revision of Fidelio "is the most tedious in the world. I am dissatisfied with most of it, and almost every piece is patched. It is a very different matter when one can give one's self up to one's own free reflections or inspiration," and he spoke further of "winning his crown of martyrdom"f while composing it.
The plot of Fidelio is concerned with the action taken by a deeply devoted wife to liberate her husband from an unjust imprisonment and certain death. Florestan, a Spanish nobleman, has incurred the enmity of Don Pizzaro, gov?ernor of the state prison, and has been thrown into a subterranean dungeon. Leonora, his wife, disguised as the youth Fidelio, contrives to find employment as assistant to Rocco the jailor in order to secure Florestan's release. This she accomplishes by a heroic act, abetted by the timely appearance of the Minister
In its first version of three acts, Fidelio failed in Vienna in 1805. In 1806 Beethoven reduned it to two acts with little more success. Eight years later (1814), after having composed the Rasoumowsky Quartets, the Fifth and Six'h Symphonies, the music to Egmont, he revised it for the final time.
t Robert Haven Schauffler, Beethoven, the Man Who Freed Music (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1929), I, 168.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
of State. Pizzaro is undone, the prisoners released, and the chorus sings its praise to Leonora for her steadfast devotion and act of deliverance.
The libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner, which he based upon a German version of a French book by Bouilly, confines the action to a series of incidents which often strain the credulity and which grow dramatically thin when stretched out over several hours' duration. A great many pointless and unimpressive events are merely pieced together. There are flaws of characterization, some undevel?oped, several exaggerated, and some with no dramatic justification for existing. Perhaps the libretto is no worse than that of many other operas. What is missed is a Mozart's gift for transforming characters into music, and a Verdi's ease in handling dramatic situations. Beethoven, indeed, treads the boards of the opera house with uneasiness and hesitation.
Be that as it may, Fidelio contains many pages of the most inspired and diversified music to come from his pen. Once one realizes the fact that his methods are not those common to opera but only to Beethoven, one can then accept Fidelio's succession of separate scenes of individual and unrelated moods as one does the widely differing movements of the late quartets that join into diversified yet composite wholes. Beethoven does not change his methods to accommodate a form not congenial to him, rather he bends it and its conventions to his own creative will. The result is music of great strength and nobility. As a master of absolute music, Beethoven undeniably exerted a powerful influence upon suc?ceeding opera composers. But Fidelio has had far less emancipating force than most of his instrumental compositions or the operas of his lesser contemporary, von Weber. The supreme service of Fidelio to esthetic history, on the other hand, was accomplished when it turned Beethoven's attention to the dramatic overture. There is more real dramatic art in the four overtures Beethoven wrote for his Fidelio than exists in the entire bulky score of the opera, for which they were designed as preludes.
Some of the noblest and most dramatic music in existence, however, is found in Leonora's magnificent scena in which she expresses her horror at overhearing Rocco and Pizzaro plot the death of Florestan and proclaims her trust in provi?dence to rescue the doomed man. The translation which follows the German vocal line exactly as to accent, rhythm, and phrasing was made by Josef Blatt, Director of Opera Production, University of Michigan.
You horrid man what would you do Where do you go, where do you run in frantic madness Not pity's voice nor warmth or sadness can touch this tigrish heart in you. But though like waves in tempest storming, your mind is full of ire and hate. I see a-far a rainbow forming; so bright on darkest clouds 'tis laid.
As that looks down in peaceful splendour recalling olden times so tender:
My pulse again is calm and staid.
Come hope, oh let me see this star; this only star oh let my heart retain it.
Oh come, make bright, make bright my goal though it be far, so far.
Believing love will attain it, oh yes it will attain it. It will attain it.
Come, oh come, hope, my goddess. Let me see this star. Oh let me.
Oh let this heart retain it. Make bright my goal though it be far,
Though it be far. Believing, believing 111 attain it.
Believing, my love will yet attain it.
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An inner voice compells me. Faithful to you your wife will do
What true affection tells me.
In faith to you, yes in faith to you I'll ever do what true affection tells me.
Oh you for whom I suffered so; Oh could I soon address you.
Where evil keeps you chained below. With comfort I would bless you.
Oh you for whom I suffered so, oh could I soon address you
Where evil keeps you chained below, oh could I soon address you.
An inner voice compells me. Faithful to you your wife will do
What true affection tells me. An inner voice compells me
In faith to you, my love, in faith to you
Ever I'll do what true affection tells me.
Monologue, "Allein, allein," from Elektra . . . R. Strauss
Richard Strauss was born in Munich, June 11, 1864; died in Garmish-Parten-Kirchen, Germany, September 8, 1948.
After the advent of Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms, German music began to falter and lose its direction. By the end of the nineteenth century it was floundering in a welter of multitudinous trends, most of them conditioned by the dictates of the past. Only Richard Strauss seemed to have found a sure path into the new century with the creation of all of his great symphonic tone poems between 1887 and 1898. In writing them, he had acquired a masterful tech?nique in handling a tremendous and complicated orchestra. In the same out?burst of creative energy, he entered the field of opera with Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909).f The symphonic mastery he had revealed in his tone poems he now applied to the scores of these operas, giving to them an entirely new and enormously extended range of expression. He created for them a music of such violent intensity and breath-taking suspense as had never before been experi?enced in the opera house.J These orgiastic and cataclysmic operas are not only products of Strauss's most vigorous and sensational creative period, but they are typical of the years that preceded the outbreak of the first World War--an era that felt the strong currents of revolt and social unrest that ushered in the pro?letarian revolution. The simultaneous and rapid development of technology and science resulted in a sudden release of powerful energies and tumultuous feelings that brought with them confusion, despair, and frustration. At the very moment Strauss was composing Elektra, Sigmund Freud's Methods of Psychoanalysis was published in Vienna, the fruition of continuous experimentation in the fields of psychology, biology, psychiatry, and sociology that had furnished new material for the study of human action and motive. The early art of Strauss was addressed to a society still Romantic in its thinking, but constantly aware of the disturbing elements that reality was forcing upon it. Therefore, although much of its art quite consciously embraced the repellent and neurotic, it just as unconsciously
Macbeth (1887): Don Juan (1888); Tod und Verklarung (1889); Till Eulcnspiegcl (1895); Also sprach Zarathustra (1896); Don Quixote (1897); Ein Heldenltbtn (1898).
t His first attempt at opera, Cutram (1894), was merely an exercise in Wagnerian style and made little impression on the public. Feuersnot (1900), his second, was no more successful.
t The tendency to increase the orchestral resource in opera was already felt in Beethoven's Fidelia and in other composers of his time. Both the public and musicians at the end of the century demanded this new excitement from the orchestra.
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expressed the new realistic subject matter in traditional Romantic terms. In Elektra, Strauss dealt with ideas of nightmarish intensity and states of mind that bordered on the psychopathic and insane, yet he was able, through his Romantic turn of mind, to maintain an overpowering grandeur of effect and a kind of exalted beauty while expressing them.
In Salomd and Elektra Strauss achieved another remarkable synthesis--that of two divergent operatic idioms. At the turn of the century, opera was divided into two main currents--the German Wagnerian music-drama (Gesamtkunstwerk) and the Italian "realistic" opera (verismo). In the former, epic stories, based upon legend, were heroically presented, and the symphony orchestra, as developed by Beethoven and expanded by Wagner, took its place in the orchestra pit, de?priving the human voice of much of its expressive responsibilities. In the latter (Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, 1890, and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, 1892), the libretto, influenced by the realistic movement in literature (Zola, Flaubert, Ibsen), turned away from heroic plots to subject matter that involved the personal problems and emotions of people in everyday walks of life. Its plots were intense, its action uninterrupted, and its music realistically swift and con?tinuous, appropriately reflecting the emotional states of the characters involved. Richard Strauss stood between Wagnerism and Verism, combining the advantages of both. Elektra, with its dominant orchestra, its system of musical motives symphonically manipulated, its thick polyphonic texture and its use of declama?tory vocal line, was a continuation of the Romantic Wagnerian tradition. On the other hand, the score of Elektra, like those of the Italian verismo operas, is short, taut, and concentrated; its one continuous act lasts but an hour and a half. In such an opera there is little time for arias, duets, and ensembles, or for the development of characters in music. They become, rather, the embodiments of primitive emotions of love, hate, and fear, all focused in vehement and theatri?cally effective contrasts. The orchestra has undisputed and undisguised control, dictating the mood and the form at every turn. Elektra is, in truth, a dramatized symphonic tone poem, in which the vocal parts do not transform characters into music, as indeed they do in such composers as Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini, but merely externalize the action and protract in sound the violence, the Corybantic frenzy of these personified emotions; Elektra herself is a screaming, disheveled demon of hatred incarnate. In the classic drama she is made the tool of the gods in avenging the death of her father; in von Hofmannstahl's play and Strauss's opera, she is a fiercely revengeful daughter, eager only for the death of his mur?derers.
Hugo von Hofmannstahl wrote his play Elektra in 1904. He based it upon Sophocles, his aim being that of every other great dramatist who has attempted to revive a Greek drama--to interpret it for, and in terms of, his own generation. It had been performed with great success in numerous German and other Euro?pean theaters before Strauss approached him with the idea of using it as the libretto for an opera. It marks the beginning of a collaboration of the poet and composer that was to last for two decades and to bear fruit in five more operas.
Der Rostnkavalier (1912); Ariadne o Naxos (1912-16); Die Frau ohnc Schatten (1919); Die Aetyp-tische Helena (1928), and Arabella (1933).
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FIRST CONCERT
The story of Elektra takes place in the palace at Mycenae, shortly after the Trojan war. The King Agamemnon has been slain by his queen Klytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. They have married, and Agamemnon's daughters Chrysothemis and Elektra have been treated with scorn and cruelty. Their brother, Orestes, long believed dead, returns to avenge their father's murder. Elektra gives him the axe that was used to slay Agamemnon and with it he kills both the queen and her lover. Amid their shrieks Elektra breaks into a wild dance of triumph, whirling about madly until she falls lifeless to the ground.
As the opera opens, Elektra, haggard and in rags, creeps into the courtyard like a wounded animal to invoke the spirit of her murdered father. There is a note of heroic tragedy in this great invocation as she calls upon him for vengence and retribution:
Alone! Woe! Quite alone! My father gone To dwell affrighted in the tomb's chill darkness! Agamemnon! Agamemnon!
Where art thou, Father Hast thou not the strength To lift thy countenance to me, thy daughter The hour approacheth, sacred to us twain, The very hour, when thou wert foully slaughtered, By her, thy queen, and him who now supplants thee, And on thy royal couch doth toy with her. There in the bath they murdered thee. Thine eyes With thy red blood were deluged. From the bath The steam of blood arose. Then took he thee, The craven, by the shoulders dragging thee, Headforemost from the hall, thy feet the while Behind thee trailing on the ground, thine eyes Distended open, glaring at the house.
So thou return'st, with slow relentless step
Unlooked for, stand'st thou there, with vengeful eyes,
Wide-open: on thy royal brow a round
Of crimson gleams, that groweth aye more dark.
Agamemnon! Father
Let me behold thee, leave me not this day
Alone! But as thy wont is, like a shadow,
From the wall's recesses come to greet thy child!
Father! Agamemnon! Thy day approacheth. As the seasons all
From the stars rain down, so will an hundred throats
Of victims rain their life-blood on thy tomb.
And, as from vessels overturned, blood
Will from the fettered murderers flow
And in one wild wave, one torrent
From them will rain their very life's red life-blood,
And drench the altars.
And we slay for thee
The chargers that are housed here--We drive them
All to the tomb together, and they know,
'Tis death, and neigh in the death-laden breeze,
And perish. And we slaughter all the hounds
That once did lick thy sandals,
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That went with thee to hunt, and fawned on thee
For dainty morsels. Therefore must their blood
Descend to do thee homage meet; and we
Thy son Orestes and thy daughters twain,
We three, when all these things are done, and steam
Of blood has veiled the murky air with palls
Of crimson, which the sun sucks upwards,
Then dance we, all thy blood, around thy tomb.
And o'er the corpses piled, high will I lift,
High with each step, my limbs; and all the folk
Who see me dance--Yea all who from afar
My shadow see, will say: "For a great King
All of his flesh and blood high festival
And solemn revel hold; and blessed he
That children hath who round his holy tomb
Will dance such royal dance of Victory!"
Agamemnon! Agamemnon!
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 26 . . . . Blacher
Boris Blacher was born in China, January 6, 1903; now living in Berlin.
Two names inextricably associated with the postwar musical life in Germany are those of Boris Blacher and his pupil Gottfried von Einem whose Concerto for Orchestra will be performed on Saturday afternoon's program. Few names in German music today have claimed more than passing notice in our country. Culturally isolated for so long a period, Germany's efforts to restore her creative energies, have been scanty and spasmodic; few composers have emerged from the years of Nazi Kulturpolittk, and only a handfull have survived the final holocaust unscarred in spirit. Yet the beginnings of a movement of artistic restoration are becoming apparent today in those who, although they have often tended toward the didactic and experimental, are achieving a synthesis of the contemporary idioms that were shaped during Germany's cultural hiatus. Their music is an amalgam of Bartok metric-rhythmic innovations, Stravinsky and Hindemith sonorities, the twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg, and American jazz. Of the names associated with this movement--Carl Orff, Werner Egk, Karl Hartman, Boris Blacher, Wolfgang Fortner, Gottfried von Einem, Hans Werner Henze, and Giselher Klebe--only that of Carl Orff is well known to American audiences. Since 1953, when his spectacular choral work Carmina Burana had its premiere in San Francisco, Carl Orff has won as widespread a reputation here as he has for some years enjoyed in Europe. Boris Blacher, on the other hand, is practically unknown, although the composition on tonight's program was introduced in this country on October 8, 1953, by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of George Szell, at their home concert, and was performed in Ann Arbor, November 8, 1953. It has since appeared frequently on other symphony orchestra programs.
Boris Blacher was born in China of Russian parents, but for the past thirty
Performed at the 1955 May Festival.
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FIRST CONCERT
years or so has lived continuously in Germany. There he attended, in the early twenties, the Hochschule fur Musik, of which he is now the musical director. Blacher is a true contemporary artist in theory and practice. For him music is an absolute and intrinsic art, contingent upon nothing outside of itself for its full expression and meaning. To speak of an extramusical content, or to discuss his art in nonartistic terms is to him an act of debasement. Thus he has fought vigorously and persistently against the German Romantic tradition in music which found its excessive fulfillment in Wagner, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, and early Schoenberg (Verkldrte Nacht and Gurre-Lieder)
Although his compositions show a technical kinship to those of Hindemith so far as craftsmanship is concerned, his idiom has remained quite individual. Like Hindemith he is predominantly a composer of Gebrauchsmusik.f His works all reveal a simplicity and economy of means and a lucidity and direct?ness of expression; they are extremely disciplined, elegant, and restrained yet give the impression of abundance. His early music, strongly influenced by Stravinsky, especially by L'Histoire du soldat, was largely experimental and full of artifice (Concertante Musik for string orchestra, 1937). In his stage music for Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine, the impact of American jazz was felt, and in compositions since 1950, his experimentation has continued along lines of rhythmic and metric innovation and new uses of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. Ornaments jiir Klavier--Sieben Studicn iiber variable Metren, Op. 37 (1950) and a Sonata for Piano, Op. 39, indicate that his experiments in "variable meters" have resulted in a new creative fecundity.
Blacher's influence as an innovator and teacher has been great. At first it was limited to Berlin and its composers (von Einem, Klebe, and Henze) but since conducting composition courses in Salzburg and England, it has become widespread. Students from all parts of the world have come under his tutelage and have carried his experimental theories afar.
The Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 26, was written in 1947 before Blacher became completely absorbed in his "variable meters," and thus it does not represent the composer in his experimental and more challenging idiom. The work, however, has won him his greatest success with the public. The variations are brilliantly orchestrated, craftily devised, and directly commu?nicative, never relying on mere weight and complexity of orchestration or de?liberate dissonance to hold interest and achieve climax.
In choosing a theme of Paganini, Blacher has joined an illustrious company of composers who have shown their respect for a musician who could write a. good tune. 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 recog-
See notes, pages 47-51.
t Gebrauchsmusik is music written for practical reasons and uses, as opposed to music written from artistir necessity or creative impulse. It opposes all subjectivity and self-revelation and aims at obvious craftsmanship-and easy availability.
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nizing 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 dc 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 ( Op. 3, Studies after Paganini's Caprices; Op. 10, Six Studies on Paganini's Caprices); and Liszt produced a series of studies based on Paganini works (Six grandes itudes de Paganini). Twenty-eight Variations (Studien) for Piano Solo, Op. 35, were composed by Brahms on a theme from Paganini's twenty-fourth Caprice in A minor. It was upon this same theme that Rach?maninoff built his famous Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, and that Blacher has constructed his sixteen distinctive and culminating variations.
The Theme (quasi presto, 24) is announced as it is in the Paganini A-minor
Caprice in the solo violin. A flourish of scales and a powerful chord introduces:
Variation 1 (Un poco meno). Swift descending scales in the woodwinds, soon
inverted, run over fragments of the theme in the bass clarinet. Strings are
used sparingly.
Variation 2 (Un poco meno). The theme, more remote, is sounded in the bas?soons against a triple and syncopated figure in the solo oboe. Both these variations exceed the outline of the original theme.
Variation 3 (Feroso, 68). The theme is suggested in scalewise passages in the violins and violas against an underlying 68 rhythm. A syncopated theme is in high strings and clarinets, with staccato accents in horns and bassoons. Other instruments form a brilliant rhythmic development that ends decisively in A minor.
Variation 4 (Un poco meno, 24). This brief variation is entirely in the strings. A clear reference to the theme is heard in the cellos and basses, pizzicato, while the higher strings sound soft chords and a high harmonic E. Variation S (Piu mosso). The tempo increases. Like the preceding one, this scherzo-like variation is very brief. The woodwinds repeat a characteristic motive over a running figure in the clarinets.
Variation 6 (L'istesso tempo). Over a strong bass line are heard many unex?pected and intriguing rhythmic effects. (In some performances this variation is omitted.)
Variation 7 (L'istesso tempo). Violins and trumpet sound the theme, surrounded now by running scales. Both are then inverted. Brilliant figurations occur in the woodwinds.
Variation 8 (Vivace, 58 and 78). This variation is more typical of Blacher's idiom. It is in three parts; part one is in pizzicato strings, 58; part two shifts to 78 meter with a quiet contrast in clarinets and flutes (glissando effects); part three returns in the horns. A dramatic pause interrupts the returning part two, and indicates the half-way mark in the variations. Variation 9 (Tempo I, 24). Full orchestra. This variation is largely contra?puntal in its texture.
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FIRST CONCERT
Variation 10 (Andante, 44). Opens with a flute solo and continues with the
clarinet. It is written in a lyric mood over a pizzicato contrabass. Variation 11 (Allegretto, 24). The shifting harmonies create a shimmering
texture in this variation. There is an allusion to the theme in the strings. Variation 12. Develops a motive of the theme. Inversions and imitations build
to a climax, recede, and rise again.
Variation 13 (Un poco meno). Woodwinds engage in a canonic development. Variation 14 (Tempo I). The theme is announced in the violas, later in the
violins. Tympani and basses form a consistently recurring bass (ostinato)
on E, B-flat, E. Variation 15. Another three-part form. Part one is in full orchestra (horns
dominating) alternating in staccato chordal effects from 44 to 54 meter.
Part two is in 44 meter with clarinet cadenza. Part one returns and leads
directly into the culminating Variation 16 (Prestissimo, 24). Pizzicato bass (ostinato) in original 24 meter
underlies wild vertiginous passages in the violins. The work ends on a flourish
comparable to that heard at the introduction to Variation 1.
SECOND CONCERT Friday Evening, May 4
Compositions of WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756; died in Vienna, December 5, 1791.
"Who hath gazed full in the face of beauty
Doth himself so unto death deliver.
Now unfit for any earthly duty,
Yet at thought of death with fear shall quiver--
Who hath gazed full in the face of beauty."
--F. A. Platen, 182S
In its diversity and scope the art of Mozart is perhaps the most astonishing achievement in the history of European art. Wherever he directed his pen, to the creation of opera, serious or comic, to cantata, mass, chamber music, sonata, or symphony, he left imperishable masterpieces. In more than six hundred works, created at a breathless speed during his short span of less than thirty-six years, Mozart revealed a universality unknown to any other composer, for his style was founded upon a thorough assimilation and sublimation of the pre?vailing Italian, French, and German styles of his period; and he carried to perfection all instrumental and vocal forms of his day. Mozart was perhaps the most natural musician who ever lived; his art the most spontaneous that ever came into existence; his style the most serene, lucid, and transparent in all music. No composer ever revealed simultaneously such creative affluence and such unerring instinct for beauty; few artists in any age have been so copious and yet so controlled, or have so consistently sustained throughout their crea?tive lives such a high level of artistic excellence.
The philosopher, by observing the effect of environment and conditions on man in general, may point out the probable relation to his work of the outward circumstances of a composer's life at a certain period. The musical analyst, dealing with the details of musical construction, can touch a real source of the effectiveness of a work and reveal the composer's manner of musical thinking. The poet, being susceptible to the same influences as the composer, may give a sympathetic interpretation or a vivid impression of the effect the work has had upon him. But none can fathom the processes by which a genius like Mozart was able to transcend the mundane events of his daily life and sublimate the emotions and feelings conditioned by those events into aural forms of such eternal beauty.
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SECOND CONCERT
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
Over one hundred and seventy years ago (1785-86) Mozart composed an enchanting opera The Marriage of Figaro to a text by Lorenzo da Ponte, based upon Beaumarchais' comedy by the same name. Since its first performance in Vienna, May 1, 1786, its music has constantly enlivened and refreshed men's spirits with its sparkling, insouciant humor and spicy plot. At the period of its creation, Mozart was at the height of his powers, having already composed Die Entjuhrung aus dem Serail, the "Haffner" symphony, the six "Haydn" quartets, and many of his great piano concerti. With this work he brought to a climax the opera buffa (comic opera) which had replaced the opera seria by the end of the eighteenth century. Its merry overture puts the listener at once into a frolicsome mood. It romps, it skips, it never pauses to reflect, for motion, not emotion, is its aim. One might as well attempt to explain the charm of a thrush's song as to analyze the bewitching fascination of this music. Laughing and singing itself out in five minutes, it recaptures each time it is recreated something of universal joy and well-being.
Davidde penitente, K. 469
In March of 1785, Mozart was asked at short notice to contribute to one of the Lenten concerts of the Tonkiinstler-Societdt in Vienna. Only a short time before he had, for reasons unknown, left his great C-minor Mass (K. 427) unfinished. When this commission came to him he hurriedly, and rather inappropriately, adapted the fully completed parts of the Mass to a setting of an oratorio, Davidde penitente, by substituting an Italian for the Latin text, and by adding two new arias. The first, "A te fra tanti affanni, pieta, cercai, Signore," he wrote for the tenor Adamberger who had sung Belmont in Entjuhrung aus dem Serail; the second, "Fra 1'oscure ombre funeste," for the soprano Caterina Cavalieri, his Constanza in the same opera. Einstein considers this work to be extremely self-contradictory, maintaining that Mozart would "never have written his powerful music to these words.. .'?' Despite the similarity of meaning, there is a difference between "Gloria in excelsis Deo" and "Cantiam le lodi... del Signor amabilissimo." It is a strange David who sings "Se palpitate assai, e tempo da goder." Be that as it may, the music, except for insignificant changes of accent necessitated by the new text, is that of the great C-minor Mass. The known facts concerning this inspired work are these:
In 1782 Mozart was in Vienna, eager for an opportunity to serve his em?peror and his country. Although the emperor had named him chamber com?poser, he gave him no commissions to write for the palace chapel or St. Stephen's Cathedral. Ignored and neglected, he wrote serenades, piano concerti, sonatas, and other incidental works. Discouraged with the lack of opportunity afforded
Alfred Einstein, Mozart, His Character, His Wort, trans, by Arthur Mendel and Nathan Broder (New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1945).
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
him in his own country, and hurt by his emperor's neglect, he addressed the following letter to his father, August 17, 1782:
... In regard to Gluck, my ideas are precisely the same as yours, my dearest father. But I should like to add something. The Viennese gentry, and in particular the Emperor, must not imagine that I am on this earth solely for the sake of Vienna. There is no monarch in the world whom I should be more glad to serve than the Emperor, but I refuse to beg for any post. I believe that I am capable of doing credit to any court. If Germany, my beloved fatherland, of which, as you know, I am proud, will not accept me, then in God's name let France or England become the richer by another talented German, to the disgrace of the German nation. You know well that it is the Germans who have always excelled in almost all the arts. But where did they make their fortune and their reputation Certainly not in Germany! Take even the case of Gluck. Has Germany made him the great man he is Alas no! Countess Thun, Count Zichy, Baron von Swieten, even Prince Kaunitz, are all very much displeased with the Emperor, because he does not value men of talent more, and allows them to leave his dominions.... I cannot afford to wait indefinitely, and indeed I refuse to remain hanging on here at their mercy. . . .
In this mood of discouragement and hurt, he began the composition of the C-minor Mass, K. 427. It was not because he was commissioned to do so or that he had any official connection with a church that he turned to this work; it was the fulfillment of a vow made to his betrothed, Constanze Weber, that brought it into being. He had promised her before their marriage that, when she became his wife and they had returned to Salzburg, he would have a newly composed mass performed for her. They were married, however, before the mass was completed. The inception of the work came then, not from an outside stimulus but from an inner need and a sense of moral obligation. In a letter of January 4, 1783, he wrote to his father:
... It is quite true about my moral obligation and indeed I let the word flow from my pen and purpose. I made the promise in my heart of hearts and hope to be able to keep it. When I made it, my wife was not yet married; yet, as I was absolutely determined to marry after her recovery, it was easy for me to make it--but, as you yourself are aware, time and other circumstances made our journey impossible. The score of half a mass, which is still lying here waiting to be finished, is the best proof that I really made the promise. . . .t
When Mozart returned to Salzburg with his wife Constanze at the end of July, 1783, he brought with him, for performance, the parts he had completed. On August 25 the mass was performed in St. Peterskirche. Constanze, it is be?lieved, sang the soprano solos. It is assumed that for this occasion, Mozart borrowed the missing parts from one or more of his fifteen previously composed masses. Einstein wrote:
For its unfinished state, several reasons can be advanced. It owed its origin to a solemn vow by Mozart that he would write a mass when he had led his Constanze to the altar-and Mozart already had his Constanze. It was composed at a time when Mozart was begin-
Letters of Mozart and His Family, trans, and ed. by Emily Anderson (London: Macmillan and Co., 1938), III, 1214.
t Ibid., pp. 1243-44.
t In the original Mozart score, only the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Bcnedictus were completed; these are authentic down to the smallest detail. In the oratorio version, Daviddc penittnle, only the Kyrie and Gloria are used.
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SECOND CONCERT
ning to take an interest in Freemasonry; and at a time of crisis in Mozart's creative activity --the years between 1782 and 1784. At no other time did fragments accumulate to such an extent--beginnings of fugues and fugati, and of other contrapuntal experiments.
This "time of crisis" was brought about when Mozart, under the influence of Baron von Swieten,f began to study the scores of Bach and Handel and to experiment in contrapuntal and fugal writing. In a letter to his father, April 10, 1782, he writes:
I have said nothing to you about the rumour you mention of my being certainly taken into the Emperor's service, because I myself know nothing about it. It is true that here too the whole town is ringing with it and that a number of people have already congratulated me. I am quite ready to believe that it has been discussed with the Emperor and that perhaps he is contemplating it. But up to this moment I have no definite information.... Apropos, I have been intending to ask you when you return the rondo, to enclose with it Handel's six fugues and Eberlin's toccatas and fugues. I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock to Baron von Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach. I am collecting at the moment the fugues of Bach--not only of Sebastian, but also of Emanuel and Friedemann. I am also collecting Handel's and should like to have the six I mentioned.!
The music of Bach absorbed Mozart's interest throughout 1782, and in the unfinished C-minor Mass, the first major work written as a direct result of his studies, is to be found the most eloquent traces of its influence. Mozart's sudden discovery and intense interest in the polyphonic heritage of Baroque Germany caused him great mental and spiritual concern. He had by tempera?ment, taste, and training followed the rococo "galant" manner of his great Italian predecessors, Alessandro Scarlatti, Caldara, Porpora, Durante, and others. Now aware of the superhuman grandeur of the contrapuntal Baroque master and shaken by his contact with him, he had temporary misgivings about his own style. Out of this conflict, however, came a synthesis in which he more or less reconciled the stylistic dualism of his period. Just as he had harmonized in Don Giovanni the opera seria and opera buffa, so in the C-minor Mass he recon?ciled the conflicting idioms and transformed the musical language of his century. In the Kyrie, Gratias, and especially in the incredibly beautiful Qui tollis, with its eight-part double chorus, in theextended fugue of the Cum sanctu spiritu, in the vast form of the Sanctus, and in the ecstatic double fugue of the Osanna, Bach's spirit is felt. But behind them all is the transparence and charm of the Italian style. The brilliant Gloria contains a reference to Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus on the words in excelsis, and is, in general, written in the broad Handelian idiom. The very essence of the Neopolitan operatic aria, however, is to be heard in the mezzo-soprano solo Laudamus te, with its long ornate vocal runs, and in the soprano aria Et incarnatus est with its siciliano rhythm and extreme bravura vocal cadenza.?
Einstein, op. cit., p. 30.
t To this director of the Imperial Court Library in Vienna we owe Haydn's Creation and Seasons. It was through him also that Beethoven became familiar with the oratorios of Handel. Beethoven dedicated his Fifth Symphony to von Swieten.
t Anderson, op. cit.. Ill, 1191-92.
5 Since only the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass are used by Mozart, the Sanctus, Osanna, and Et incarnatus est referred to above do not appear in Daviddc penitcnte.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
To the purist, these passages indicate a lack of religious sincerity in Mozart degradation of ecclesiastical composition and a vulgar mixture of styles. A large part of the church music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was thus censured and condemned by nineteenth century critics. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, the masses, litanies, and motets of the Italians, as well as the religious works of Haydn and Mozart, were considered to be inappropriate and unliturgi-cal. Absence of austerity was taken for lack of respect by these critics who, in their incredible seriousness, failed to sense the childlike piety, the humanity, and directness of these works, or to realize that these artists were writing in the style and reflecting the taste of their period. They failed to recognize that in such artists, religious feeling and artistic impulse were one and the same thing. If music like Mozart's C-minor Mass, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, and Haydn's Creation are to be excluded from the church, then, as Einstein points out, so should the circular panels of Botticelli, depicting the Infant Christ sur?rounded by Florentine angels:
This work is his entirely personal coming to terms with God and with his art, with what he conceived to be true church music. It has rightly been said that this torso is the only work that stands between the B-minor Mass of Bach and the D-major Mass of Beethoven. The name of Bach is not used here thoughtlessly for if it had not been for the crisis that the acquaintance with Bach caused in Mozart's creative career, and the surmounting of this crisis, the C-minor Mass would never have taken the shape it did... .t
It would be a great error to consider Davidde penitente in any way a more definitive work than the C-minor Mass. "It is to be hoped," writes Einstein, "that no one will have the notion of reviving Davidde penitente in place of the Mass, simply because it is a final version by Mozart himself. Let us be content with the Kyrie and Gloria. Why patch up the noble torso Even a Michelangelo did not venture to add a head and limbs to the Greek torso in the Belvedere.":):
The oratorio will be sung in English, therefore no text is offered. The fol?lowing sections are listed, however, to indicate the comparable ones in the C-minor Mass and the inserted arias in the Davidde penitente:
DAVIDDE PENITENTE C-MINOR MASS
No. 1 Chorus: Lord, Thou who reignest on high above Kyrie eleison
Alzai le fiebili the skies, Give ear to my song of sorrow,
voce al Signor
No. 2 Chorus: Glory to God! Magnify His greatness and Gloria
Cantiam le with hearts rejoicing let, yes, let us praise Him.
glorie e le lodi
No. 3 Aria (Soprano II): Unto the Lord I'm raising Laudamus le
Lungi le curre Eyes now heavenward gazing.
in grate
No. 4 Chorus: Guide us for e'er in Thy footsteps, God Gratias agimus tibi
Sit pur sempre of mercy I Lord, let compassion upon us shine.
benigno
The mixture of the "galant" and "learned" styles, as evidenced in such works as Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, remained a guiding principle for the entire eighteenth century, especially in church music, t Einstein, op. cit., p. 30. Ibid., p. 3 SO.
28
No. 5 Sorgi, 0 Signore
No. 6 A te, fra tanti affani
No. 7 Se vuoi puniscimi
No. 8 Fra I'oscure ombre funesto
No. 9
Tulle, le mie speranza
No. 10 Chi in Dio sol spera
SECOND CONCERT
Duet (Soprano I and II): All of Thine enemies, that against Thee have spoken, Let O let them, Lord, before Thy might be broken!
Aria (Tenor): From Thee, O Source of Being, What consolation floweth
Chorus: Who can, 0 Lord, against Thee stand In sore tribulation, 0 grant me salvation, O let me never feel Thy wrath!
Aria (Soprano I): Through the darkness in which we're shrouded, Rays of starlight often have found us.
Trio (Sopranos I and II, Tenor): Blessed are those that trust the Saviour
Chorus: Be at rest, O thou my spirit! Be happy in the Lord, the God of Might!
Domine Deus
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Quoniam tu solus sanctus
Cum sancto spiritu
Concerto in F major for Two Pianos and Orchestra, K. 242
With the piano concerto, Mozart reached the pinnacle of his instrumental writing in the orchestral medium. It engaged his interest from earliest youth (at the age of 9 he converted three sonatas of Johann Christian Bach into con?certos [K. 107]) to the end of his life and ultimately became his most character?istic creation. As in the case of every other musical form he touched, he brought the concerto to a state of perfection. "It was in the piano concerto," wrote Ein?stein, "that Mozart said the last word in respect to the fusion of the concertante and symphonic elements--a fusion resulting in a higher unity beyond which no progress was possible, because perfection is inperfectable." It was, in fact, in Mozart's piano concertos, not in Beethoven, as is often believed, that the eman?cipation of the orchestra was finally and completely accomplished, and the ideal balance between solo instrument and orchestral body realized.
The very early works from the year 1767 (K. 37, 39, 40, 41) were merely arrangements from sonatas by other composers (Raupach, Honauer, Schobert, Eckhardt, and C. P. E. Bach). It was not until the end of 1773, when he was seventeen years of age, that he composed his first original piano concerto (K. 175 in D major). In the so-called "Salzburg group" (K. 175, 238, 242 for three pianos, 246, 27, 365) that ranged from 1773 to 1780 and from which the work on tonight's program comes, he followed the modest and graceful tradition of the rococo style, but indicated that he was already aware of the artistic prob?lems presented in the contending elements of the solo instrument and the orchestra. In K. 271 in E-flat major, he produced, at the age of twenty-one, a surprisingly mature work, unique because nothing else he had composed showed such boldness and freedom. (The concerto was written for the famous French
Einstein, op. cil., p. 288.
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pianist Mile Jennehomme, whose widely recognized stature as an artist no doubt challenged him to greater effort.) It is in this concerto that one senses for the first time the conscious effort to create broad contrasts and to give to the orches?tral body a new symphonic independence without sacrificing an underlying unity of effect.
In 1781, Mozart, then twenty-five, left Salzburg and established himself in Vienna, where he ultimately brought the concerto style to a point of perfection that has seldom been equaled and never surpassed. The fruition came in the monumental series with which the public today is more familiar.
The number of great works in the true concerto form is surprisingly small, but of this small number a good two-thirds have been contributed by Mozart. Disregarding the five youthful attempts, he produced twenty-six concertos. The majority of them were written for himself as a performing artist; only six were dedicated to others. The desire on the part of the Viennese public to hear him perform his own works provided the direct incentive to produce the number he did between 1782 and 1791, the last year of his life. Mozart seemed incapable of composing without such a stimulus; he did not possess the cocoethes scribcndi which urges some artists to create with or without a demanding audience. But his desire to satisfy a patron or an eager public was always accompanied by an artistic impulse to bring to perfection whatever form he touched. He made no conscious attempt to be an innovator; representing the end of a development and the complete fulfillment of his age, he was in no sense a revolutionist. Occasionally, however, the voice of the prophet was heard, as in the passionate and dramatic Concerto in D minor (K. 466), perhaps the only piano concerto of Mozart known to the nineteenth-century public. In this prophetically romantic work, for which Beethoven later wrote cadenzas, he entered the culminating period of composition in this form.
Today, most unfortunately, we hear only a handful of these late works; we seldom if ever encounter any of those from the earlier periods. This evening, however, we are to have this opportunity. The Concerto in F major (K. 242) was written in 1776 when Mozart was twenty, and when a subtle change of his style in the direction of greater refinement is to be noted. He was entering more and more into the society of the nobility and taking pupils occasionally from their ranks. Among them were the two daughters of the Countess Lodron. He com?posed for and dedicated to them a concerto in F major for three pianos. Although it was obviously written for amateur performers, this charming work displays clearly an increase in the range of the solo parts. There is no mistaking the cleverness, the effectiveness achieved in the instrumental combinations and alter?ations, in the doubling of the parts, and in the strengthening of the melody in the bass. In the first movement, equal yet individual effects are given to each of the three pianos, although the third is obviously not on a level with the others. In the last two movements the third piano is relegated to the back?ground and chiefly confined to the accompaniment, written as it obviously was
Einstein lists twenty-three. He omits the five early arrangements, K. 242 for three pianos, K. 365 for two pianos, and a concert rondo, K. 386.
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for a young lady with little skill as a pianist. It was, therefore, a very simple matter for Mozart later to arrange the concerto for two pianos as we hear it this evening. The solo parts, so altered, are preserved in Mozart's hand.
The charm of this miniature concerto quite outweighs its invention and pro?fundity, yet its pages provide us with a precious document of the kind of demands Mozart made upon amateur performers. It also implies what his prin?ciples of performance were, namely: a smooth, flexible execution; clearness and precision in embellishments, runs, and trills; and a quiet, steady hand that could negotiate a simple and singing delivery of the melody, which as Mozart was fond of remarking, "should flow like oil." In spite of the fact that Einstein dismisses this concerto as "below the highest level," it does restore us momen?tarily to the dying tradition of the rococo world and to a period when Mozart was about to enter an era of new artistic discovery, challenge, and triumph.
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THIRD CONCERT Saturday Afternoon, May 5
Overture to the Magic Flute, K. 620......Mozart
On the seventh of March, 1791, Emanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812), a brother Freemason, brought to Mozart his libretto of a fairy opera in which were incor?porated many of the mysteries of Freemasonry. As Schikaneder was in financial distress, Mozart, always too generous for his own good, gladly undertook its composition. The work was performed on September 30, 1791, in Vienna, three months before Mozart's death. The house program of that date shows the name of Emanuel Schikaneder in capitals at the top, while the name of Mozart as the composer of the music and conductor occurs in fine print at the bottom. It was a great success. The first twenty-four performances brought Schikaneder over eight thousand guldens, and Mozart nothing. Subsequent years, however, have brought Schikaneder a few lines in musical dictionaries and Mozart im?mortality!
In the whole field of opera there is not a more incomprehensible libretto than that of The Magic Flute; yet the score is Mozart's masterpiece, it is the quin?tessence of his genius. Over a ludicrous and fantastic plot and a combination of preposterous characters, some half bird, half human, suddenly appearing and disappearing without provocation, against a constant change of scene, with lightning, thunder, flames, and smoke; waterfalls, epic ceremonies, and pageantry thrown in for good measure, Mozart poured his marvelous music and trans?formed this singular dramatic phantasmagoria into a human document that sounds the depths of universal feeling and emotion. Out of a hodgepodge of simple German folksongs, popular airs, operatic arias, ensembles, buffa finales, religious Bach-like choruses, and spoken dialogue, Mozart evolved a score which remains a miracle of perfection and beauty unequaled in the world's music.
The Magic Flute is more than "ein grosse oper" as Mozart called it. It is, in the words of Einstein, "a work of rebellion, consolation, and hope," all iden?tified with the history of Freemasonry. In an allegorical representation it shows the struggle of Freemasonry to gain recognition in Austria where the order was interdicted by Maria Theresa, who used force to stamp it out. Mozart and Schikaneder wished to describe the Masonic ideals and to predict their ultimate victory. This they did in symbolic terms which the Viennese public well under?stood. The Masonic order had no pre-established ritual, musically speaking, which left Mozart free to create his own symbols in music. The three opening chords of the slow introduction to the overture, which reappear at crucial moments in the score, symbolize, for instance, the neophyte knocking thrice upon the door during initiation into the order. The excessive use of woodwinds, favorite instruments of the lodges in Vienna, and the Allegro written in strict canon, signifying in the equalization of the voices the ideas of brotherhood, are further indications of Mozart's musical "language." "Into the overture," wrote
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Einstein, "he compressed the struggle and victory of mankind, using symbolic means of polyphony; working out, laboriously working out, in the development section, struggle and triumph."
"L'amero, saro costante," from II Re pastore . . . Mozart
In April, 1775, the Archduke Maximilian, youngest son of Maria Theresa, and afterwards Archbishop of Cologne, having just left his sister, Marie An?toinette in Paris, paid a visit to Salzburg. In honor of his arrival, the Arch?bishop of Salzburg arranged musical festivities, and Mozart, who was then in his employ, hurriedly composed a festival opera, Re pastore, for the occasion.
At the time, Mozart was only nineteen years of age, and the work, which in reality is more of a pastoral serenade than an opera, is a good example of his exquisite craftsmanship at this period without having any greater significance. The arias are well written for the voice, and the instrumentation is clear, easy, and always exquisite. Although there are none of those later dramatic ventures one finds in Don Giovanni, the extreme simplicity and purity of the melody, the charming use of the woodwind instruments, and the general poetic concep?tion of the whole mark it as one of Mozart's most ravishing works.
The libretto was by the famous eighteenth-century poet and opera librettist, Metastasio and had already been used by Bonno, Sarti, Hasse, Jomelli, and Gluck.
The plot concerns the conquest of Sidon by Alexander the Great and the elevation to the throne of Andalonymus, called Aminta by Metastasio. He has been reared by a poor shepherd, unaware that he is the son of the rightful king. Alexander has ordered him to marry Tamiri, the daughter of the tyrant king, Strabo, although Aminta really loves Elisa. Aminta returns the crown rather than renounce his love. This fidelity so moves Alexander that he permits the lovers to marry, and Aminta regains his throne.
The aria "L'amero, saro costante," sung by Aminta, occurs in the second act. The part, it may be added, was written for the male soprano, Consoli. The orchestral accompaniment includes a violin solo, which is later used with beau?tiful effect as an obbligato to the vocal line.
Following is a free translation from Metastasio's text:
I will love her as a husband and as a lover forever. My heart beats for her alone. In such a treasure, I will find joy and peace without measure.
"Non temer amato bene," from Idomenco .... Mozart
Mozart was often called upon to compose single arias for concert perform?ances, or for insertion in operas of his own or those of others. Singers, who had their heyday in Mozart's time, were often tyrannical in their demands upon the opera composer, being, as they were, the pampered darlings of a society that made the opera its favorite form of entertainment. If they found an aria not to their taste, or either too difficult or not spectacular enough to display their
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talents, they would often demand insertions, deletions, rewritings, or substitu?tions. Mozart throughout his career, was at their mercy to no less a degree than any other composer of opera. On the other hand, he had such a passionate love for the human voice that he enthusiastically embraced all opportunities to write for it. Invariably he attempted to make his music a portrait, as it were, of a particular singer's voice and quality as an artist, and at the same time to achieve a dramatic fulfillment of the text involved.
From his earliest youth to the end of his career, Mozart wrote for various and sundry purposes approximately fifty-six independent arias; some were re?quested by singers, others were simply exercises in vocal writing. But the most effective ones were for singers, the beauty of whose voices moved him to the creation of some of the most exquisite vocal literature in existence. No com?poser has ever treated the human instrument with more respect, affection, and knowledge of the nature of its unique powers of expression, or created for it such a treasury of melodic riches. In the concert aria he revealed the epitome of vocal invention coupled with consummate orchestral skill--both brought into perfect balance with each other.
Such an independent concert aria appears on this afternoon's program. "Non temer amato bene" (K. 490) was written for his opera Idomeneo.
Although Mozart reached the pinnacle of his fame as a composer of opera buff a (comic opera) in Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Cosi jan tutti (1790), and the Singspiel operas Die Entjiihrung aus dem Serail (1781) and Die Zauberflote (1791), he wrote a number of opera seria none of which is known to the general opera-going public today. His first, Mitridate, was composed in 1770 when he was fourteen years of age; his last, La Clemenza di Tito, in 1791, the year of his death. Idomeneo was composed in 1780, and in spite of its antiquated form, it contains many pages of magnificent music which in fact quite overpowers the rather pompous and undramatic libretto by one Abbate Gianbatista Varesco. The plot is based upon the Biblical story of Jeptha. In the opera the scene is transferred to ancient Greece, where Idomeneo, King of Crete, returning from war, makes a vow to Poseidon that for his safe return home, he will sacrifice to the god the first human being he encounters. Whereupon he meets his own son Idamante. The opera is epic in its sweep, con?taining large choral ensembles, extended and independent instrumental pieces, heroic recitative, brilliant arias, and dramatic scenes that combine both, antici?pating the Wagnerian music drama of the next century.
The aria "Non temer amato bene" (K. 490) was composed in March, 1786, as a substitution for Scene 1 of Act II of Idomeneo, which had been written six years before. In it, Idamante sings of his love to Ilia, daughter of King Priam of Troy, who is held captive by his father. A solo violin plays a concertante duet with the voice.
The opera seria has long been defunct as an art form. It had, in fact, spent its effectiveness by 1780 when Mozart wrote Idomeneo, the opera buga having almost completely supplanted it.
t In December of the same year, he again set the text with a new recitative and piano obbligato for the singer Signore Storace (K. S05). In March, for a private performance of the opera, he omitted the aria and in its place wrote a duet (K. 489) for two singers, Von Papendorf and Baron Prelini.
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SONGS BY ROBERT SCHUMANN
Edited and translated by Marguerite V. Hood Orchestrated by Dorothy James
A May Song, Op. 104, No. 4
Come boys and girls, it's May time, Ah come out here and see!
For this is holiday time, Come sing a song with me.
Now, no more school today, Come out here and sing and play,
So I can join the chorus. We'll sing a song so gay,
We'll sing a song so gay!
The Song of the Smith, Op. 90, No. 1
Good little horse, I've made your shoe And help your master find the path
All bright and new. By that bright star
Come back soon, pray do! That shines there afar.
Come back soon, pray do! That shines there afar.
Birds, from Lieder Album fur die Jugend, Op. 79, No. 15
(The translation is an adaptation from the German)
Birds on the wing
Merrily flying Birds in the trees
Branches are sighing.
Wings flashing high, Fluttering, darting,
Songs ringing clear, Choruses starting.
Birds on the wing, Why do you tease me
If you would light How that would please me!
Some day I'll capture you Birds, as you're winging!
Some day you'll light 111 hear you singing
Then off you'll fly, For I won't harm you,
And from the sky I'll hear your songs ringing ever!
The Lotus Flower, from Myrthen, Op. 25, No. 7
The lotus flow'r doth languish Under the sun's bright light;
And with her head low bended, She dreamily waits for the night.
The moon he is her lover; He wakes her with soft embrace;
She welcomes him and unveileth Her snow-white, flow'ring face,
She blooms and glows and brightens, And gazes mutely on high--
She weeps and she sighs and she trembles For love and the sorrows of love,
For love and the sorrows of love.
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM Friihlingsbotschaft, Message of Spring, Op. 79, No. 3
Sung in German
Kuckuk, Kuckuk ruft aus dem Wald:
Lasset uns singen, lasset uns springen, Lasset uns singen und springen!
Friihling wird es nun bald.
Kuckuk, Kuckuk trefflicher Held!
Was du gesungen, ist dir gelungen, 1st dir gelungen, gelungen:
Winter rauraet das Feld.
English translation
Cuckoo, cuckoo
From out of the woods comes a call:
"Let's dance and sing, one and all!
Spring is here."
Cuckoo, cuckoo You are a wonderful bird-Whenever your song is heard, Winter will disappear!
The Sandman, Op. 79, No. 12
Two tiny little boots I wear, With soles as soft and light as air.
I have a little sack with me; Now, hush! I'm tripping up the stairs, you see!
I tiptoe to the bedroom where Each child now says his evening pray'r.
Two grains of sand of smallest size I drop in all the sleepy eyes;
They slumber then the whole night through With God and angels watching too.
The Nut Tree, Op. 25, No. 3
There once was a nut tree by a door,
Lightly, brightly swaying Its branches sweet blossoms wore.
Such beautiful flow'rs grew on that tree;
Flowing, blowing Breezes were sighing tenderly.
The blossoms were whisp'ring two by two;
Slowly, lowly bending, To kiss in the morning dew.
They whispered about a maid's plight,
She wonders, she ponders, All day, all night:
Ah, will her fortune be bright They whispered, they whispered,
So soft and gentle we scarce could hear, Saying "A young man will come next year,
Will come next year." The maiden lists to each rustling bough;
Beaming, dreaming, drowsy. Smiling she slumbers now.
Ladybird, Op. 79, No. 13
Sweet ladybird, come rest a while Upon my hand, upon my hand,
Be sure I will not harm thee, No, I'll not harm thee.
I only wish thy wings to see, Pretty little wings that make thee free,
'Tis thy pretty wings that charm me.
Oh ladybird, fly quickly home,
Thy house is down Thy young ones cry so sorely,
Ah! so sorely, cry-The hungry spider waits for thee,
So thou must hasten warily To thy children crying sorely.
To the Evening Star, from Madchenlieder, Op. 103
Floating high above us Near you are, now far off,
Lovely evening star! Round and round the sky.
Like a gem so brilliant in the heav'ns you are. Other stars can never shine like you on high. Floating high above us Lovely evening star! Like a gem so brilliant in the heav'ns you are.
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The First Green, Op. 35, No. 4
Oh lovely green in grassy field!
Unhappy hearts by you are healed; When we are chilled by winter's snow,
Oh, how our thoughts to you do go!
I long to be far, far away
To leave the cares that fill each day. No word of man can ever bring
Comfort and joy like early Spring.
You sleep in winter through the gloom, Then suddenly I see you bloom.
Here in the quiet of the wood Hearts are serene and life is good.
The Tell Tales, Op. 40, No. 5
One night a young lad
Kissed a maiden; They thought then that all was well.
The stars shone so bright in the heaven, And stars surely never would tell!
But then a little star fell, It told the sea of those two!
And then the sea told the story to the oar, And the sailor heard too.
The sailor sang to his sweetheart, And now in market and square,
The boys and the girls all are laughing And singing it everywhere!
Zerbinetta's Aria from Ariadne auf Naxos . . . R. Strauss
The genesis of Ariadne auf Naxos is slightly involved. On October 25, 1912, a performance of Hugo von Hofmannstahl's Der Burger als Edelmann was per?formed with incidental music by Strauss. The play was an adaptation of Der adelige Burger which was in turn a German translation by one Bierlung, of Moliere's famous Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. To replace the "Turkish Cere?mony" near the end of Moliere's play, Hofmannstahl and Strauss inserted a miniature opera, Ariadne, some of whose characters, taken from the old Corn-media dell arte, formed, with those of the Greek story of the yearning Ariadne, an ingenious theatrical "pastische'." Strauss completed the incidental music for Der Burger als Edelmann on April 12, 1912. The performance six months later was a failure, no doubt due to the fact that, as Strauss wrote, "the playgoing public had no wish to listen to opera and visa versa."f Four years later the little opera was separated from the play and a new prologue composed. This second and final version of Ariadne was presented in Vienna, October 4, 1916.
The fact that the score was originally intended as an incidental part of a play to be produced in a comparatively small theater, led Strauss, for the first time in his career, to use a small orchestra and to attempt to restore the proper balance between it and the human voice. This resulted, by chance, in the crea-
The "pastisch," an artistic medley imitating and caricaturing previous writings, was extremely popular in Germany at the time.
t Richard Strauss, Recollections and Reflections, ed. Willi Schuh, Eng. trans. L. J. Laurence (New York: Boosey and Hawkes, Ltd.), p. 163.
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tion of the first "chamber opera"--a form of small dimensions that has found great favor among composers and the public today, because of its intimate char?acter and the economy of its production.
From the correspondence between Strauss and Hofmannstahl we learn that the character that most attracted Strauss was the coquettish Zerbinetta, whom he conceived as a "high, florid soprano" and whose aria he anticipated as "a theme and variations and every sort of vocal fireworks with flute obbligato."
In Scene II of the revised opera, Zerbinetta directly addresses Ariadne, aban?doned by Theseus. She attempts to convince the desolate princess that all men are alike and that none is worth grieving about. In this brilliant aria she details her own amorous adventures.
The following English translation was made by Josef Blatt:
ZERBIXETTA (with a deep bow to Ariadne): Most venerable princess. There is not a doubt that when so highborn, so exalted, noble souls arc suffering we must regard it with quite a different approach from that to common mortal pain. And yet are we not women, you and I, and is there not in each of us a heart that no one, that no one understands. To speak about our weakness, to confess it to ourselves, is it not painful sweet and don't our senses itch for it You do not want to hear me. Fair and proud and motionless you stand there like a monument which should adorn your tomb.... You do not want another one to speak to besides the rocks, besides the waves around you. Oh princess, listen to my word: Not only you ... we others, all we others; what so pains your heart; no woman lives who did not go through this experience. Deserted, all forsaken, desperate! Ah such deserted islands are quite numerous amidst the crowded cities. I--believe me--I used to live on several of them. And yet I have not learned that men are so atrocious. Faithless they are. Oh it's mon?strous, without limits. By a passing night, a day flying by, a wave of the air, a fluttering glance their hearts can be changed. ... But are women quite immune Do all these cruelties, these ecstasies, these mysteries find us unchangeable
I think oft to one I'm wholly belonging
I am oh so sure of myself as can be;
And yet in my heart I softly feel thronging
Thoughts of a freedom never yet tasted
Hints of a love that is new and still timid:
Impudent, fresh is this feeling in me.
Still I am true and yet there is deception
I'm faithful I think and yet I'm bad.
Whatever I say has a diff'rent inflection
And then half knowing and half delirious
At last I betray him, at last I betray him
While loving him yet.
I am oh so sure of myself as can be.
And yet in my heart I softly feel thronging
Hints of a love that is new and still timid ... It was so with Pagliazzo and Mezzetin Then there was Cavicchio, then Buratin Then Pasquariello; and oh, at some times Well I remember that there were two ... But I'd not want it, always I had to. Always anew I was stunned and astounded ...
Correspondence Between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hojjmannstahl, 1907-1918, trans. Paul England (New York: Knopf, 1927).
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Ah, it seems a heart can never know itself, Ah--'twill nev----er know itself ...
Like a god each came when he found me
And his footstep rendered me mute
With his arms gently around me
Quickly then the god had bound me
And, transformed me from head to foot,
I surrendered meek and mute.
As a god each came when he found me
Each transformed me head to foot
With his gentle arms around me
Quickly then the god had bound me,
I surrendered meek and mute.
I surrendered ... ah ...
When again a god had found me
I surrendered meekly, mute, mute ...
Concerto for Orchestra..........Von Einem
Gottfried von Einem was born in Berne, Switzer?land, January 14, 1918; now living in Vienna.
The name of Von Einem was brought to the attention of the musical world in 1947, when in Salzburg, on August 6th, his opera Danton's Tod had its premiere. It received the general condemnation of the press for its cacophony and "modernism" and created heated controversies throughout European musical circles. This was not Von Einem's first or last public conflict. During the Third Reich he was in constant trouble with the propaganda minister, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, and on one occasion was arrested for subversion and suspected treason. Another attempt at opera in 1953 met with more success but with mixed critical verdicts. Der Prozess {The Trial) based upon a play by Franz Kafka, with a libretto by Boris Blacher and Henry Cramer, had its premiere in Salzburg and was performed a few months later (October 22, 1953) in New York City by the City Center Opera Company, with considerable success.
Like his teacher Boris Blacher, Von Einem was not German born. His birthplace was Berne, Switzerland, but his schooling was received and he has spent the major part of his life in Germany. He belongs to that group of con?temporary composers whose recent efforts are drawing attention to Germany's emergence into the world of creative music after her long period of cultural dissolution. As a member of the Board of Directors of the Salzburg Festival and of the Vienna Opera, he has been instrumental in bringing to the attention of the public many contemporary dramatic works by living German composers.
The following analysis by Edwin H. Schloss in the Philadelphia Orchestra program of September 30, 1955, may aid those who desire guidance through an unknown score:
The libretto was based on a play by Georg Biichner, whose Wozzeck was made into an opera by Alban Berg. It was written in collaboration with his teacher Boris Blacher, whose Variations on a Theme of Paganini was heard on Thursday night's program.
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The Concerto for Orchestra opens with an energetic and exciting Allegro which develops two rhythmical main motifs in contrapuntal contrast. The principal theme is proclaimed forte by strings, woodwinds, and horns in octaves. After the first climax, the bassoon and oboe enter in solo roles. Then the trombones take up the main rhythm of the opening in an exclamatory outburst. The movement concludes with the three-note figure of the begin?ning. The Larghetto, which some commentators have found reminiscent of Mahler, introduces a songful subject in the clarinet and muted violins, answered by the flute. In its later develop?ment, the music's broadly lyrical flow is transformed into carefully wrought smaller figures. The movement ends on a low C-sharp in the contrabasses. The final Allegro a la breve is witty, exuberant, and employs rhythmic suggestions of jazz which bespeak von Einem's known interest in American music, including that of George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. It is said that the parodistic character of this movement especially provoked the unfriendly re?actions of Goebbels and Co. The Coda which begins softly, builds up to a climactic conclusion. The eclectic character of this score, as well as others by von Einem, is probably what prompted a punning Austrian wit to say that this music was "nicht von Einem sondern von Vielen" ("Not by one but by many"). The Concerto for Orchestra is scored for three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, tympani, and strings.
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FOURTH CONCERT Saturday Evening, May 5
Overture to Oberon.............Weber
Carl Maria von Weber was born in Eutin, De?cember 18, 1786; died in London, June 5, 1826.
"Finished April 9th, 1826, in the morning, at a quarter to twelve, and with it the whole opera 'Oberon.' Soli Deo Gloria!!! CM. v. Weber" is the entry made by Weber in the autograph score of Oberon which was completed in the city of London.
Because of the great vogue for his music in England, Weber had been asked by Charles Kemble, in 1824, to write an opera for the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and in spite of a serious illness of long duration, he undertook the task on January 23, 1825. Fearing that death would overtake him before he had completed it, Weber worked with feverish energy upon the score. During the rehearsals he was so ill he could scarcely stand, but he carried through the premiere at Covent Garden, April 12, 1826. "By God's Grace," he wrote his wife, after the performance, "I have had tonight such a perfect success as never before." Two months later he died, having been unable to reach his native land and to see his wife and children again.
Seventeen years after Weber's burial in London, his body was removed and interred in his native German soil. On that occasion, Richard Wagner, giving the valedictory address over the grave, voiced the deepest feelings of his coun?trymen:
Never was there a more German composer than thou; to whatever distant fathomless realms of fancy thy genius bore thee, it remained bound by a thousand tender links to the heart of thy German people; with them it wept or smiled like a believing child, listening to the legends and tales of its country. It was thy childlike simplicity which guided thy manly spirit like a guardian angel, keeping it pure and chaste; and that purity was thy chief quality. Behold, the Briton does thee justice. The Frenchman admires thee, but only the German can love thee! Thou art his own, a bright day in his life, a drop of blood, a part of his heart.
Thus was the first of the great romanticists in German music venerated by the man who was to fulfill his artistic revelation!
Weber's music pulsed strongly in sympathy with the romantic revolt in litera?ture. He was one with that movement which produced Victor Hugo, Scott, Byron, Goethe, Schiller, and Rousseau. With his music he awoke the dormant soul of Germany to the true German spirit, full of heroism, mystery, and love for nature.
The libretto of Oberon, or the Ell-King's Oath was written by James Robinson Planche and was founded on Villeneuve's story "Huron de Bordeaux" and Sotheby's English translation of Wieland's poem, "Oberon."
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ANALYSIS
The overture is descriptive of the main elements in the drama. It is written in the sonata form, its material derived from the music in the opera. After a slow introduction (adagio sostenuto, D major, 4-4 time) in which a theme representing the magic horn of Oberon is heard, the main movement (allegro con juoco, D major, 4-4 time) is introduced by a brilliant theme taken from a quartet in the opera. The subsidiary subject in A major, heard in the clarinet, is taken from an important aria. After the customary development section and recapitulation of themes, the work closes with a brilliant coda.
Symphony No. 1 in C major..........Bizet
Georges Bizet was born in Paris, October 25, 1838; died at Bougival, near Paris, June 3, 1875.
Bizet has never been considered a composer of symphonies, although his brilliant and experimental handling of the orchestra in Carmen and in his inci?dental music to Dandet's play L'Arlesienne, later arranged into two famous orchestral suites, proved him to be an unquestioned master in the instrumental medium. The miniature symphony on this evening's program will never alter Bizet's position as primarily a composer of dramatic works, or offer any com?petition to established symphonists. Yet this early work, written when he was but seventeen, has achieved astonishing success in recent years, not only finding its way into concert repertories throughout the world, but also serving as the score for three contemporary ballets. It did not, in fact, reach the public until eighty years after its creation, when on February 26, 1935, it was per?formed for the first time at Basle under the direction of Felix Weingartner.
Bizet composed the symphony in less than a month, in November of 1855, while a student at the Paris Conservatory. Neither he nor his teacher con?sidered it more than an academic exercise, and throughout his lifetime he forbade its publication. After his death, his widow respected his wishes and for three quarters of a century the manuscript remained undisturbed among his papers until they were later removed to the library of the Paris Conservatory. Not one of his biographers seems to have had the slightest idea of its existence. Although there were several references to "my symphony" in his voluminous correspondence, these referred to an entirely different work, the "Roma Suite," which today is often designated as his Second Symphony. It was not until 1933 that the eminent French music critic Jean Chantavoine, by a mere stroke of luck, discovered the manuscript. A casual reference to it was made in an article he wrote for the August issue of Le Menestrel, but there was not the slightest implication that he had discovered anything unusual. It was entirely due to the efforts of the British critic Mr. D. C. Parker that the charming
Assembly Ball was introduced by the Sadler's Wells Ballet in London in 1946; Le Palais de Cristal, with choreography by George Balanchine was produced in Paris, and a revised version Symphony in C, presented in this country in 1948 by the New York City Center Ballet Society.
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little symphony was finally rescued from oblivion and brought to the attention of Felix Weingartner.
Critics have been patronizing in estimating the value of the work, affirming that it is more of a suite than a symphony, and that it is full of what they indulgently call "youthful defects." If by youthful defects they mean that it contains many eclectic moments they are indeed correct, for one is reminded persistently of Haydn, Mozart, and Mendelssohn, while Beethoven-like scherzo figures and melodic fragments of Schubert, Schumann, and Rossini dart out from its pages. On the other hand, embryonic ideas, that later find such brilliant and glamorous fulfillment in Bizet's more mature works, sound momentarily throughout this symphony. The most original movement is perhaps the second --an adagio of lyrical charm and melancholy beauty which strikingly reveals an early manifestation of a personal idiom that was later to clarify itself in La jolie fille de Perth and Les Pecheurs de perles.
In spite of the moments that probe the memory for their sources rather than engage the ear by their originality, this modest little symphony is much more than a scholastic exercise--it is a technically expert work, demonstrating a sure-ness of touch and an impeccable sense of style unusual in a youth of seventeen.
Concerto in D major, Op. 77, for Violin and Orchestra . Brahms
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died in Vienna, April 3, 1897.
Brahms, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky, although all highly individual artists, were products of the same artistic soil, nurtured by the same forces that con?ditioned the standards and norms of art in their 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 movements of his symphonies. In an age turbulent with morbid emotionalism, Brahms, alone among composers, stood abreast with such spirits as Carlyle and Browning to oppose the forced impoverishment of life and the decadent 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 per?ception that inevitably come with the passing of time. But his particular dis?illusionment 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 sentimen?tality; 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
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opposed with his own grand style, profoundly moving, noble, and dignified. By the exertion of a clear intelligence, he tempered his own emotional nature, and thereby avoided the extreme despair of Tchaikovsky and the excessive over?statement of Wagner. 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. 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, imagina?tion, and knowledge make it what it is," and its mighty power 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 parallel 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 a style that was in itself merely beautiful. As an artist, he chose to create, in every case, one that was proportioned to the design he chose, finding in the close relation of style and motive a more vital beauty and broader sweep of feeling. In his epic con?ceptions 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 un?daunted 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."
Great interest was aroused in the musical circles of Germany and Austria when it became noised abroad in the year 1878 that Brahms was at work upon a violin concerto, and that it was intended for the friend of his youth, the great violinist, Josef Joachim. The summer of 1878 the composer spent in Portschach where the first draft of the work was finished. Writing to his friend Hanslick, the Viennese critic, from this beautiful summer place on Lake Worther in Carinthia, Brahms reports that "so many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to tread on them." The peace and tranquility of these summer weeks is no doubt reflected in the first movement of the concerto which has a mood somewhat similar to that of the Second Symphony, likewise in D major. To many, the sentiment is maintained at a loftier height in the concerto, and the limpid grace of the melodic line has an immediate fascination for a general audience.
After studying the violin part of the concerto which the composer sent him, Joachim replied from Salzburg, "I have had a good look at what you sent me and have made a few notes and alterations, but without the full score one can't say much. I can, however, make out most of it and there is a lot of
J. A. Fuller-Maitland, Brahms (London: Melhuen and Co., 1911).
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really good violin music in it, but whether it can be played with comfort in hot concert rooms remains to be seen." After considerable correspondence and several conferences the score and parts were ready and the first performance scheduled for January 1, 1879, in Leipzig. Joachim, naturally, was the soloist on this occasion. In his sympathetic review of the first performance of the new work, Dorffel, in the Lcipziger Nachrichten, says:
No less a task confronted Brahms, if his salutation to his friend were to be one suitable to Joachim's eminence, than the production of a work that should reach the two greatest, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. We confess to have awaited the solution with some heart pal?pitation, though we firmly maintained our standard. But what joy we experienced! Brahms has brought such a third work to the partnership. The originality of the spirit which inspires the whole, the firm organic structure which is displayed, the warmth which streams from it, animating the work with joy and life--it cannot be otherwise--the concerto must be the fruit of the composer's latest and happiest experiences.
It remains to be noted that the concerto was not published immediately. Joachim kept it for a while and played it several times in England with much success. The performer on several of these occasions made alterations to the score which did not always meet with the approval of the composer as is evi?denced by excerpts from a letter from Brahms to Joachim: "You will think twice before you ask me for another concerto! It is a good thing that your name is on the copy; you are more or less responsible for the solo violin parts." During the summer of 1879 a second violin concerto was begun but was never finished.
Brahms did not write out the cadenza at the end of the first movement. Originally, Joachim wrote one for himself but since that time it has been provided with cadenzas by nearly all of the great violin masters; at least twenty published cadenzas exist.
The following analysis by Felix Borowski in the Program Book of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is presented here for those interested in following the technical details of the construction of the concerto:
I. {Allegro non troppo, D major, 374 time.) The plan of this movement follows the classical construction of the first movement of a concerto, as that construction was employed in the concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and of contemporaries less famous than they. The first Exposition for orchestra begins, without any introduction, with the principal subject (in D major) in the bassoons and lower strings. After a transitional passage, in which the material of the principal theme is worked over, fortissimo, in the full orchestra, the second subject, in the same key, enters tranquilly in the oboe, and is taken up by the first violins. Another and more marcato section of it is heard in a dotted figure, forte, in the strings. After the strings have played a vigorous passage in sixteenth notes, the solo violin enters with a lengthy section--composed principally of passage work--introductory to its presentation of the main subject. This at length arrives, the theme being accompanied by an undulating figure in the violas. The second subject appears in the flute, later continued in the first violins, passage work playing around it in the solo instrument. The second, marcato, section now i taken up by the violin. Development follows, as is customary in older concertos, being intro?duced in an orchestral tutti. The Recapitulation (principal subject) is also announced by the orchestra, ff. The second theme occurs, as before, in the orchestra, but now in D major, the solo violin playing around it with passage work, as in the Exposition. The second section
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of the theme is played by the violin in D minor. A short tutti precedes the cadenza for the solo instrument. The coda, which follows it, begins with the material of the principal subject.
II. (Adagio, F major, 24 time.) This movement has the orchestral accompaniment lightly scored, merely the woodwind, two horns, and the usual strings being employed. It opens with a subject in the woodwind, its melody being set forth by the oboe. The solo violin takes up a modified and ornamental version of this theme. A second subject follows, also played by the solo instrument, and the first is eventually, and in modified form, resumed.
III. (Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace, D major, 24 time.) The principal theme is announced at once by the solo violin, and it is taken up, ff, by the orchestra. A transitional passage leads to the second subject, given out, energicamente, by the violin in octaves; this is worked over and leads to a resumption of the main theme by the solo instrument. An episode (G major, 34 time) is set forth by the violin suggestions of the opening subject occurring in the orchestra. The second theme is once more heard in the solo violin, and is, in its turn, succeeded by further development of the principal subject. A short cadenza for the solo instrument leads into the coda, in which the first subject is further insisted upon, now in quicker tempo and somewhat rhythmically changed.
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Sunday Afternoon, May 6
Gurre-Lieder--a Cantata.........Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was born in Vienna, September 13, 1874; died at West Los Angeles (Brentwood), July 13, 1951.
"I am a conservative who was forced to become a radical."
--Schoenberg.
Five years after his death, Arnold Schoenberg is still the most challenging name in contemporary music. Dismissed by many as a "heretical monomaniac," the reaction of most audiences to his cacophonies has been an atavistic one. In the concert hall, as history has often proved, hissing is the most effective weapon of self-preservation, and no composer was ever more successful in put?ting and keeping audiences on the defensive than he.
In Music and Letters for October, 1951, shortly after his death, twenty-five eminent musicians and critics gave their opinions of his work. As can be ex?pected, opinions varied; not many expressed admiration. There were divided attitudes toward the value of his early works, but all agreed in finding no artistic merit in his compositions since the first World War. Some believed that he had negated basic principles of sound and that he had rejected tradition in the interest of inventing a purely intellectual but artistically invalid system that merely re?vealed a complete lack of real creative ability. Hostile personal criticism, how?ever, be it of professional musicians, critics, or laymen, has failed to affect the universal acceptance and acknowledgment of Schoenberg as one of the most remarkable musical minds and original creative geniuses of our time. Music history has provided few such innovators, seldom such challengers to tradition and convention. The world has only occasionally witnessed such a tormented and tormenting spirit in art.
To enter into the still raging controversy at this time is particularly out of point, as the work we are to hear this afternoon is from an early period and, if compared with his later and more characteristic compositions, is not at all representative of the composer we know today as the great iconoclast and ruthless destroyer of tradition. It is sufficient to say, in brief, that no modern composer of eminence has encountered such opposition and critical contumely, and at the same time wielded such a far-reaching influence upon contemporary musical thinking. No major distinguished composer of our time is so well known by name, yet has received so few public performances; there is no comparable phenomenon in our day of an artist's ideas persisting, independent of the suc?cessful realization of his work. The disparity between his fame and the public's familiarity and knowledge of his music has had few parallels in music history. It is typical, for instance, that in this century of fast development and
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vigorous activity in creative music, Ann Arbor waited until 1956 to hear a major work by a composer who has excited, astonished, and infuriated the world for more than a decade.
The events in Schoenberg's life are far less sensational than the influence of his theories and the effect of his later music. In the following pages are repro?duced two short essays on varying aspects of his art. They appeared in the New York Times and New York Herald-Tribune, and are by Noel Straus and Virgil Thomson, respectively, both written September 10, 1944, in commemoration of Schoenberg's seventieth birthday and nearly a decade before his death. Avoiding all controversy, together they give an excellent account of his position in the world of music today:
VIRGIL THOMSON ON SCHOENBERG
On September 13 Arnold Schoenberg, the dean of the modernists, will be seventy years old. And yet his music for all of its author's love of traditional sonorous materials and all the charm of late nineteenth-century Vienna that envelops its expression, is still the modernest modern music that exists. No other Western music sounds so strange, so consistently different from the music of the immediately preceding centuries. And none, save that of Erik Satie, has proved so tough a nut for the public to crack. Only the early "Verklaerte Nacht" has attained to currency in our concerts. The rest remains to this day musicians' music.
Musicians do not always know what they think of Schoenberg's music, but they often like to listen to it. And they invariably respect it. Whether one likes it or not is, indeed, rather a foolish question to raise in the fact of its monumental logic. To share or to reject the sentiments that it expresses seems, somehow, a minor consideration compared with following the amplitude of the reasoning that underlies their exposition. As in much of modern philo?sophical writing, the conclusions reached are not the meat of the matter; it is the methods by which these are arrived at.
This preponderance of methodology over objective is what gives to Schoenberg's work, in fact, its irreducible modernity. It is the orientation, also, that permits us to qualify it as, in the good sense of the word, academic. For it is a model of procedure. And if the consistency of the procedure seems often closer to the composer's mind than the expressive aim, that fact allows us to describe the work further as academic in an unfavorable sense. It means that the emotional nourishment in the music is not quite worth the trouble it takes to extract it. This is a legitimate and not uncommon layman's opinion. But if one admits, as I think one is obliged to do with regard to Schoenberg, that the vigor and thoroughness of the procedure are, in very fact, the music's chief objective, then no musician can deny that it presents a very high degree of musical interest.
This is not to say that Schoenberg's music is without feeling expressed. Quite to the con?trary, it positively drips with emotivity. But still the approach is, in both senses of the word, academic. Emotions are examined rather than declared. As in the workings of his distinguished fellow citizen, Dr. Sigmund Freud, though the subject matter is touching, even lurid, the author's detachment about it is complete. Sentiments are considered as case histories meriting extended analysis rather than as pretexts for personal poetry or subjects for show?manship. "Die Glueckliche Hand," "Die Gurre-Liedcr" and "Pierrot Lunaire," as well as the string sextet, "Verklaerte Nacht" have deeply sentimental subjects; but their treatment is always by detailed exposition, never by sermonizing. Pierrot's little feelings, therefore, though they seem enormous and are unquestionably fascinating when studied through the Schoen?berg microscope for forty-five minutes of concert time, often appear in retrospect as less interesting than the mechanism by which they were viewed.
In 1926, his Verklirte Nacht, Op. 4, a highly romantic and conventional work, was performed on a May Festival program, and in 1949 there was a performance of his Theme and Variations lor Orchestra, Op. 434.
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The designing and perfecting of this mechanism, rather than the creation of unique works, would seem to have been the guiding preoccupation of Schoenberg's career; certainly it is the chief source of his enormous prestige among musicians. The works themselves, charming as they are and frequently impressive, are never quite as fascinating when considered sepa?rately, as they are when viewed as comments on a method of composition or as illustrations of its expressive possibilities. They are all secondary to a theory; they do not lead independent lives. The theory, however, leads a very independent life. It is taught and practiced all over the world. It is the lingua franca of contemporary modernism. It is even used expertly by composers who have never heard any of the works by Schoenberg, by Webern, and by Alban Berg that constitute its major literature.
If that major literature is wholly Viennese by birth and its sentimental preoccupations largely Germanic, the syntax of its expression embodies also both the strongest and the weakest elements of the German musical tradition. Its strong element is its simplification of tonal relations; its weak element is its chaotic rhythm. The apparent complexity of the whole literature and the certain obscurity of much of it is due, in the present writer's opinion, to the lack of a rhythmic organization comparable in comprehensiveness and in simplicity to the tonal one.
It is probably the insufficiencies of Schoenberg's own rhythmic theory that prevent his music from crystallizing into great hard beautiful indissoluble works. Instrumentally they are delicious. Tonally they are the most exciting, the most original, the most modern-sounding music there is. What limits their intelligibility, hamstrings their expressive power, makes them often literally halt in their tracks is the naive organization of their pulses, taps and quantities. Until a rhythmic syntax comparable in sophistication to Schoenberg's tonal one shall have been added to this, his whole method of composition, for all the high intellection and sheer musical genius that went into its making, will probably remain a fecund but insup?portable heresy, a strict counterpoint valuable to pedagogy but stiff, opaque, unmalleable and inexpressive for free composition.
There is no satisfactory name for the thing Schoenberg has made. The twelve-tone tech?nique, though its commonest denomination, does not cover all of it. But he has made a thing, a new thing, a thing to be used and to be improved. Its novelty in 1944 is still fresh; and that means it has strength, not merely charm. Its usage by composers of all nations means that it is no instrument of local or limited applicability. Such limitations as it has are due, I believe, to the fact that it is not yet a complete system. So far as it goes it is admirable; and it can go far, as the operas of Alban Berg show. It is to the highest credit of Schoenberg as a creator that his method of creation should be so valuable a thing as to merit still, even to require, the collaboration of those who shall come after him. (New York Herald-Tribune, September 10, 1944.)
NOEL STRAUS ON SCHOENBERG
Arnold Schoenberg, who celebrates his seventieth birthday next Wednesday, reaches the proverbial three-score and ten never more fully possessed of the attributes that have made him one of the most dynamic and important contributors to the musical progress of the time. At his age, and with his high reputation, he might easily be pardoned were he content to rest on his laurels. But quite to the contrary, the eminent Austrian composer, who has made his home in this country for the last decade, remains as active as ever, having been enthusiastically engaged of late in the completion of new works.
Undaunted by violent opposition, Schoenberg has fought unrelentingly for the right of the creative musician to throw off the shackles of outworn convention. His road as pioneer has been no easy one to tread. But neither contumely nor the loneliness of the spirit, that is the inevitable lot of those who open up new paths in any field of endeavor, has shaken in the slightest his determined stand for the musical principles he has advocated with such uncommon courage, conviction and consistency.
It was as an ultra-romanticist under the spell of Wagner that, just at the turn of the cen?tury, Schoenberg wrote the twelve songs and the famous string sextet, Verklaerte Nacht, which were the earliest of his works to reach publication. In these compositions and still more
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in the works that followed in rapid succession from the Gurre-Lieder and PelUas et Milisande to the First string quartet and the Chamber symphony in E, there is as yet no definite break with the accepted tenets of tonality, though more and more this tendency becomes marked.
But with the finale of the Second string quartet of 1907 and the Three Pieces for Piano, Op. 11, of the next year, the composer finally reaches the goal for which he had been aiming. He abandons the concept of tonality and instead habitually uses the twelve-tone system in which every degree of the scale is of equal importance.
From now on he becomes the banner-bearer of "atonality," its chief and most notable exponent. He writes his most admired songs, the George set, in this idiom, and follows them up with one of his finest achievements, Pierrot Lunaire, of 1912.
There was a long gap from the time this masterpiece appeared until 1924, when the long silence was broken with the epoch-making Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, Piano Suite, Op. 26, written in compliance with the new regulations adhered to in all of his later works.
This revolutionary type of formal structure, known as the twelve-tone technic, which Schoenberg himself devised in answer to his needs, consists primarily in the use of a "basic series," comprised of all or most of the tones of the twelve-tone scale with none repeated. The tones may be placed in order and at any intervals desired, and from this series all of the themes are derived. Regular recourse to the contrapuntal devices of inversion, reversal (crab) and others, are essential features of the polyphonic structure, and symmetrical pat?terning is banned.
At first the limitations imposed may strike one as artificial and cramping. But the whole process was necessitated by the twelve-tone scale, and as Schoenberg employs this technic its wide possibilities for self-expression become increasingly evident.
... Before jumping to any conclusions, it should be kept in mind that Schoenberg has never called his music "atonal," a word coined in a derogatory sense by one of his critics. He has, in fact, definitely maintained that none of his works are really at variance with the principles taught by the old masters, and that ultimately it will be their music which will prove how right his path has been. This path, as he long ago foretold, would doubtless lead him to a return to tonality, but with expanded regulations....
Schoenberg already displayed extraordinary imaginative powers, absolute clarity of pat?terning, rich rhythmic invention, and strong individuality in his earliest works. All of his music exhibits his lofty ideals and unquestioned sincerity. His influence on other composers has been responsible for many new practices. His chamber symphony, for instance, was the original source from which emanated the resultant trend of present-day composers to write for small ensembles. His expressionistic music of later days with its avoidance of sensuous sound has had its effect on the works of many other musical creators, as have its purely functional intentions.
... Schoenberg, whose genius was recognized at once by Mahler and Zemlinsky, has writ?ten in every musical category. A born teacher, he has numbered among his pupils such composers as Berg, von Webern, and Wellesz. He is the author of valuable theoretical works, has proved himself a splendid conductor, and also has disclosed marked talents for painting. A great personality, as well as one of the leading figures of his epoch, he has inspired the love of his disciples and the profound respect of the whole musical world. (New York Times, September 10, 1944.)
The early works composed before the revolutionary change in his style that made him the most controversial figure in music in this century were the String Sextet Verkldrte Nacht (1899); Gurre-Lieder (1900-1911); and the sym?phonic tone poem, Pelleas und Milisande (1902-3). They were written in the free symphonic idiom and style of Wagner. All suffered from the megalomania that affected so much of the hyperbolic and congested music of the late nineteenth century. Germany at this period seemed to be the only musical nation that had lost its direction. Her composers floundered in the lavish chromatic jungle of
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Wagnerism and wandered aimlessly, beguiled yet misled by the dark shifting shadows of romanticism. The Romantic movement in fact had persisted longer in music than in any of the other arts, still making, in the early years of the twentieth century as Emest Newman so colorfully writes, "an occasional in?effectual effort to raise its old head, ludicrous now under its faded garlands of flowers overhanging the wrinkled cheeks." It had long since outlived itself, yet for composers like Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the youthful Schoenberg, its fascination proved too strong to be completely resisted. Mahler and Rachmaninoff defended it with an im?passioned eloquence. Bruckner prolonged its verbose and swollen plenitude, and although Strauss, in his early sojourn into the dying world seemed at first "to behave like a graceless irreverent urchin in a cathedral,"f he too fell under its spell. Arnold Schoenberg alone, after proving his complete mastery over it in Verkldrte Nacht, Gurre-Lieder, and Pelleas und Melisande turned coura?geously to the future and with uncompromising determination never again glanced backward.
But this product of his youth (he was but twenty-six when he began Gurre-Lieder in 1900-1901 and thirty-seven when he completed it in 1911) recalls, in the grandeur of its conception, in its rapturous, sonorous style and sumptuous color, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. In it he carried the romantic chromaticism of Tristan to the limit without becoming a slavish imitator. The sweep, the surge, and the opulence of Wagner are here, but the texture of the music is unique. His treatment of the late nineteenth-century German idiom was sure, bold, and imaginative, and although its cliches perpetually invade the work there are flashes of genuine independence and prophetic utterances of what was to come.J The vocal parts abound in extended and difficult intervals, and there is an under?current of hostility to old scales and harmonies. For all its youthful presumption and inherent weakness, Gurre-Lieder is a brilliant achievement for a young musician who had not yet found himself.
The following section is taken from the program notes of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Second Biennial Concert, Fifty-sixth season, 1950-51). It contains interesting material obtained by Thor Johnson on a visit to Den?mark in the summer of 1949 when he was shown the ruins of Gurre and given a booklet about the castle by the Danish archeologist, C. M. Smidt. It was translated by Dr. Bodil and Kunt Schmidt Nielsen, of the University of Cin?cinnati College of Medicine. Other pertinent information was provided by the Danish Information Office of New York City. The writer of these notes is in?debted to Mr. John Rhodes, program annotator for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, for his excellent condensation of material from these sources:
The Gurre-Lieder are based on the legendary love of King Valdemar IV of Denmark for a beautiful Danish maiden, called Tove Lille by the poets who have recounted the story --Oehlenschlager in 183S, Heiberg in 1840, Hauch in 1861, and finally Jens Peter Jacobsen
Ernest Newman, Musical Studies (3rd ed.; New York: John Lane Co., 1913). t Ibid.
t It was not until two decades later, in 1921-23 with the Serenade, Op. 24, that Schoenberg first used his "twelve tone" technique in a consistent manner.
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and Holger Drachman who conceived a Gurredrama toward the end of the 19th century Hans Christian Andersen even wrote a Gurre song. The first historical reference to the love affair dates back to a chronicle of Arild Hvitfeldts in 1601, and the story has been found among the folk legends, alike, of the Danes, the Swedish, the Icelanders and the people of the Faroe Islands. These sources differ on the point whether the king of the legend was Valdemar I, known as the Great (1157-1182) or Valdemar IV, known as "Atterdag" from his frequent saying that "Tomorrow will be a new day" (1340-1375).
The scene of the legend is fairly certain, though the early Danes used to tell of the King's night rides from "Borre to Gurre," and the ruins of Gurre Castle are some distance from the medieval town of Vordingbord in the southern reaches of the island of Zealand. The castle stands in low meadows beside Lake Gurre, no more than six kilometers west of the better known castle at Elsinore, scene of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The ruins, hidden among bushes and beech trees, may be overlooked by the unsuspecting traveler riding the highway north from the Danish capital of Copenhagen. The main square tower of rough fieldstone, dating from the 12th century, faces the Ore Sound, across which lies the Swedish port of Helsingborg. A motor ferry today connects the ports of Elsinore and Helsingborg, once a part of Denmark. In the middle ages Danish barons could collect duties from ships passing through the narrow sound from the Straits of Kattegat to the Baltic Sea.
Surrounding the ruined stone tower are the towered walls of an outer fortification, prob?ably built by Valdemar IV, himself, in the 14th century. The over-all structure is hardly larger than the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, but it served the purposes of an impregnable strong?hold for the Danish King. The debris on the site includes a quantity of handmade clay bricks, suggesting there were several upper stories--to which led two brick stairways. Archeologists believed that, in times past, the fortress was completely surrounded by Lake Gurre; there are mooring rings to which vessels might be secured on a sort of boat landing. The appoint?ments of Gurre Castle may have been meager, even for a Viking empire-builder such as Valdemar--who, during his reign, united the islands of Zealand, Laaland, Scania, Falster and Moen with the peninsula of Jutland.
Gurre Castle was first mentioned in a chronicle of the year 1361. The King established a castle chapel to Saint Jacob there in 1364, to receive relics sent to him by Pope Urban V. Valdemar received a deputation of Hanseatic messengers at the castle from Helsingborg in 1375, and history tells that he died there probably on October 24, the same year. Affairs of the castle were left in the hands of royal headmen until 1534, when the fortress was turned over to Joachim Ronnow, Bishop of Roskilde. Late in the 14th century Gurre served as a mint, the only Danish castle where royal money ever was minted, except Copenhagen and Malmo. Two centuries later, the castle is said to have deteriorated and fallen on evil days. Finally the crown gave permission for burgomasters of neighboring towns to use bricks from the falling walls to build chimneys elsewhere.
The comforts of the castle must have been modest for the entertainment of Tove Lille, the King's mistress, who caused great jealousy on the part of his Queen Helvig--daughter of the Duke of Schleswig, whom Valdemar married for political reasons. That Valdemar had time for a courtship with even so lovely a girl as Tove, defeats the imagination of modern historians--though they may recognize his need for love. His title of "Atterdag" indicates his hopes for the glory of Denmark, which he painstakingly and with many battles united after defeating the Viking barons of the period. Throughout his reign he was at war with the famous seaports of the Hanseatic League--the Baltic cities, notably Lubeck, which opposed his unification of the country. Valdemar defeated all shipborn adversaries who fought him with "shooting engines" (cannon), and finally cemented victory by the marriage of his daughter Margrethe to King Haakon VI of Norway; she later became Queen Regent of Sweden--thus forming the Kingdom of the Three Crowns.
Legend tells that the jealous Queen Helvig built a mass of heated stones under the tower at Gurre in which Tove awaited her lover, then poured over them enough cold water to form huge clouds of steam--thus suffocating her rival. There is another version of Tove's death--a more symbolic one--in the long poem of nineteen stanzas which the Danish poet
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Jens Peter Jacobsen wrote in the 1870s. (Jacobsen, a poet and botanist, who was born in 1847 at Thisted in Jutland and died there in 1885, translated many of Darwin's most famous works on evolution, also wrote a well known novel called Niels Lyhne.) The poet, in his version of the Gurre-Lieder, described Tove's murder by a wild falcon trained by the jealous Queen Helvig. He told of the grief-stricken Valdemar, riding by night with phantom warriors through the sky until his own death and the rising of a golden sun. It was this version of the poem which Schbnberg used in his cantata, after it was translated in the 1890s by Robert Franz Arnold, a professor of literature at the University of Vienna. (The English translation was made by D. Millar Craig.)
Much of the poem suggests, through legend, King Valdemar's devotion to Denmark (Tove), the rival schemes of the Hansa (represented by Helvig), and his continual raids by land and sea until another sun and "a new day" should arise over the united kingdom. Schbnberg took Wagner as his model in the orchestration of the Gurre-Lieder. Like Tristan meeting with Isolde, the Danish Valdemar is given a long and impassioned duet with Tove in the first part of the cantata. Again, as in the case of the Wagnerian hero and heroine, there is a sense of foreboding and warning. The messenger who announces Tove's death is a Wood-Dove, and there is a grief-stricken monologue for Valdemar, as for Tristan in the last act of the Wagnerian opera. At this point, however, begins the wild night ride of the King, companioned by his faithful huntsmen, to the awe of the terror-stricken Danish peasants-and Klaus, a fool, who gibbers incoherently and symbolically of the King's madness. Finally comes the closing narrative of the Sprecher (speaker), and the chorus--in which a new day smiles on Denmark with life and laughter, with sunlight and crickets playing over the meadows and flowers shaking dew from their shining petals.
Gurre-Lieder is difficult to classify. It is a purely lyrical work without any dramatic action except that inferred from the text and protracted in the music. Perhaps it is best described as a monumental song cycle or a cantata in which the accompanying orchestral body exceeds in size anything previously known. Each of the nineteen songs is constructed on the simple or double Lied form, musically based on its own melodic motive that is organically related to the rest of the cycle. The complexity of thematic manipulation precludes any de?tailed musical analysis of this labyrinthian score.
Gurre-Lieder is divided into four large parts. Part I includes the songs of Valdemar and Tova, expressing their love for each other, the joy of their re?union, and their premonitions of death. After an orchestral interlude that ex?tends the ecstatic mood of their dialogue, the Song of the Wood Dove laments the death of Tova at the hands of the jealous Queen. In Part II, Valdemar denounces God for his loss of Tova. Part III depicts the nocturnal hunt to which Valdemar and his henchmen have been condemned. It is a chorus of men interspersed by the song of a frightened peasant and the soliloquy of Klaus, the King's Fool. Valdemar senses the presence of the dead Tova in the voice of the woods, in the lake, and in the stars. In The Summer Wind's Wild Chase, Part IV, the lovers are reincarnated in nature.
The following description which may aid the listener is based upon sugges-
It is rivalled in dimensions only by the gigantic 17th century Festival Mass by Orazio Benevoli. Gurrc-Licder was originally scored for 8 flutes (4 piccolos, 4 flutes); 5 oboes (3 oboes, 2 English horns); 7 clarinets (2 in E-flat, 3 in A or B-flat, 2 bass in B-flat); 3 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons: 10 horns in F (4 Wagner tubas), 6 trumpets in F, B-flat, C, 1 bass trumpet in E-flat, 1 contrabass trombone, I contrabass tuba; 6 tim?pani; a vast mass of percussion including several large iron chains, and so many strings (84) that both 1st and 2d violins can be divided into 10 parts, and violas and cellos each into 8. In addition there are three 4-part male choruses, and an 8-part mixed choir. As in Mahler, this huge orchestra is used not so much for volume, as for extraordinary and subtle color effects. For this perfoimance, a reduced orchestra is useu.
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tions made by Schoenberg's pupil Egon Wellesz. Lines referred to will be numbered and italicized in the text.
Part I
The orchestral prelude depicts the coming of darkness. The shimmering effect in the flutes and violins over somber harmonies creates a mood of peace and quiet melancholy as night descends over the earth. This mood is sustained in Valde-mar's first song:
Valdemar
Now stills the twilight ev'ry sound on land and sea,
The far-sailing clouds are anchor'd now in harbour by Heaven's lee.
Silently, Peace hath closed the woodland portals at Night's behest.
And the Sea's long rolling waves have cradled themselves to their rest.
The westward skies are golden, Day sheds his dying beams,
The morrow's radiant glory, on ocean's bed he dreams.
No sigh is borne from out the forest, and silent stand leaf and bough,
Nor falls the faintest sound on the ear;
Rest now, my soul, rest thou.
All pow'r is lost in the magic of the dreams that float o'er me,
Ev'ry thought within my heart is still,
All peaceful, sorrow-free.
From the distance, Tova's answer is a song of tender emotion that is pro?tracted in a long span of melody with winsome figures, heard in the solo violin and cello in imitation, while the muted strings play as solo instruments (divided into twenty-four parts). Only a few woodwinds support the melody:
Tova
Now, where the moon-beams' tender light is glowing,
And quiet peace o'er all the world is flowing,
No more like waves I see the ocean lie,
No more like foliage stands the forest high,
No clouds are they that float in splendour o'er me,
Nor crag nor vale that lie outspread before me.
And all the majesty of Earth's fair seeming,
And all its glory, all are God's own dreaming.
Tova's song dies gently away. A restless and impetuous episode depicts the impatience of Valdemar to greet Tova. The orchestra delineates the ride and the speed with which he flies to her. It grows in intensity and climaxes as they meet. 'aVolmer hat Tove gesehen":
Valdemar
Steed, my steed! why lagging so slow!
Nay I see; the road doth go swiftly under thy hoof beats flying.
Faster and faster still must bear me, see the wood yet round us lying,
I had thought, did I not tarry, now would I in Gurra be.
The wood grows light, now I behold the tower,
That Tova doth enfold,
Egon Wellesz, "Schoenberg and Beyond," trans, by Olto Kinkeldey, Musical Quarterly, II (January, 1916), 76.
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And see behind our feet the wood into one gloomy barrier roll'd. But ever faster hasten thou on!
See! the forest shadows wider spreading over moor and lea! Ere to Gurra's land they reach forth, Tova's portal I must see. Ere that call that now is sounding, dies, and never more to waken, By thy ringing hoofs, my Charger, Gurra's arches must be shaken; Ere that wither'd leaf,--dost see it,--falls into the stream to vanish, Shall in Gurra's court thy neighing loud, the silence banish. The shadows lengthen, the sound is hush'd. So fall thou leaf and die alone, 'Volmer hath Tova beheld!
An impassioned dialogue follows. In Tova's greeting to Valdemar, the agi?tated mood of his song is continued. The themes of Valdemar's ride are still used but with most ingenious manipulation. Little by little the dialogue assumes a more sensuous character as Tova speaks of premonitions of death. In a solemn, pulsating song, which often reappears and generates the mood of the whole work, she tells Valdemar of her love, "2Nun sag ich dir zum ersten Mai, Konig Volmer." Valdemar's song "3Es ist Mitternachtszeit und unselge Geschlechter, steh'n auf aus vergess'nen, eingesunknen Grabern" creates in muted strings and trumpets a foreboding mood of impending disaster. Tova welcomes Death as their deliverer. "4Den wir gehn zu Grab, wie ein Lacheln, ersterbend im seligen Kuss." The widely extended intervals foreshadow the melodic conception of Schoenberg's later works:
Tova
Stars are singing, the sea is shining,
Waves are caressing the shore's open breast.
Hear the leaves murmur, the dew shines upon them,
Sea-wind enfolds me in rude laughing jest!
Weathercock sings, in the tow'r a light dances;
Lads go awooing with fire in their glances,
Maidenly hearts with longing are beating;
Life is too brief, and our youth all too fleeting.
Roses awaken, their loveliness showing,
Torches alight through the darkness and glowing;
Wide the portals of wood and park,--
Lo, in the town I hear a dog bark.
And the waves of the stairway that soar aloft, to the harbour shall carry my King,
Till on the summit, here on the height, my hero at last to my arms they bring.
Valdemar
So danc'd never Angels before the Great Throne,
As the spheres now dance 'fore me.
So glad was never their golden Harp-tone
As Valdemar's soul for thee.
Not so proudly our Lord took His place on high,
When His sacrifice here was over,
As Valdemar proud can the heavens outvie
As Tovalilla's lover.
No weary soul has ever sought life immortal,
So longingly, pining for rest,
As I longed for thee, when I saw thy portal
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From Oresund's noble crest. I'd not change a stone of thy ramparts strong, Nor the gem that safe they are holding, For joys of hereafter, their glory of song, In splendour of Heaven unfolding.
Tova
2Now this first time, I say to thee, "Royal Volmer, I love but thee." Now this first time I kiss thee too, and fold loving arms round thee. And say'st thou, oh had I but told thee ere now And long ago yielded my lips So sing I, "The King is but a fool Who recks not of why nor of how." And say'st thou: "True, I am such a fool," Then say I: "The King hath said truth." But say'st thou: "Nay, so am I not," Then say I: "The King says not sooth." For all my fair roses kissed I to death, The while I thought on my King.
Valdemar 3'7" the hour of midnight when unholy spirits do arise from their old-forgotten resting
places; they are gazing with longing on the lamps of the Hall and the arbour-light. And the wind scatters, mocking, downward to them, harper's tones, a song of wine, and
lovers' music. And they vanish in sighing,--"All our day is o'er." My head rests up on waves, rising, falling. Mine own hand may know thy heart doth
beat; life and rapture flow o'er my spirit, rapt in the glow of royal kisses. And mine
own lips crying, "Life is come to me!" Brief if my life's day. And I must perish at midnight's coming, and then, as dead, shall draw o'er me my
shroud of linen white, fearing the cold wind's anger; and on my way I go by night,
by moonlight, of grief a captive; with sorrow's emblem thy beloved name, when in
the Earth I've graven, I sink then, a-sighing, "Now our day is gone."
Tova
Thine eyes meet mine in a lover's glance, then close their eyelids, and thy hand was press'd in mine, with that glance, now thy clasp is faint, but like a love-awakening kiss, thou layest again my hand-clasp on mine own lips. And thou canst yet sigh as thou wert Death foreboding, though a glance shines in thine eyes, like a bright flaming kiss The light of the stars in the heavens yonder, pales before the dawn, but ever anew when the night is at hand, they shine still as bright. So brief is our death, like calm breathed slumber, from twilight to twilight; and when thou awak'st, thine eyes will behold me, in new-won beauty rob'd, and glowing, thy fair young bride. Then pour out the gold-foaming wine and quaff to him, the mighty, the brave smiling Death; 4to the grave we go brave ey'd, smiling; our dying is a rapture, --a kiss.
Valdemar
Thou'rt wonderful, my Tova! So rich, so proud hast made me, nought in the world do I prize beside thee. So light is my heart, my spirit so free, a new-born peace within my soul is reigning. My thought is all at rest, so strangely quiet, to my lips there come words that almost break forth, yet sink again into silence. 'Tis as though there beat within my breast, only thy dear heart,--as were mine the breath, breathing in, Tova, to thy bosom. And thy thought and mine, I see them arise and together
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journey, as clouds that meet and merge themselves, and unite, moulding visions of wonder and beauty. And all my spirit is still, I gaze in thine eyes, and speak not, thou wonder-maiden Tova.
A long orchestral postlude continues the love scene utilizing the principal themes until it is harshly interrupted by the arrival of a messenger of disaster. A Wood Dove from the forest brings the news of Tova's death at the hands of the jealous queen, "5Helwig's Falke wars der grausam Gurres Taube zerriss." With this song of sadness, a masterful portrayal of overwhelming sorrow--the first part of the work is brought to a close:
Voice op the Wood Dove
Wood doves of Gurra! Woeful tidings I bear over the bland sea! Come then! Lbten! Dead b Tova! Night hath closed her eyelids, that was day for Tova's King! Still is her heart, but the King's own heart is strong, dead and yet strong! Strangely, like unto a boat on the water, that comes in to the shore and hands reach out to welcome it there,--no boatman steers, he lies dead, and seaweed hath bound him fast. No man may bring him greeting, lonely lies he there. Like two water-brooks their thought flow'd together, streams that glided side by side then. Where flow they now, fair thoughts of Tova And the King's thought wanders alone on its way, seeking to twine with Tova's, finding it not. Far flew I, sorrow sought I, grief I found. The bier saw I on Kingly shoulders, Henning stayed it; gloomy was the night. Only one lifted torch-flame shone by their way; the Queen herself held it, high on the rampart, vengeance aflame in her heart. Tears she strove to hold back from falling, shone bright on her eyelids. Far flew I, sorrow sought I, grief I found! The King did I see, with the bier beside him in peasant smock. Hb war-horse that often battle had borne him, drew the bier. Wild flashing the King's bright eye did seek the beloved glance. Strangely spoke and falter'd, striving to find a word and a kindly glance. The King then opened Tova's bier, stared and lbten'd, trembling and silent,--Tova b mute! Far flew I, sorrow sought I, grief I found. Evensong the monk would ring, held in hand the bellrope; then he heard the mournful tidings; sank the sun, the bell rang out in solemn tone of mourning.
Far flew I, sorrow sought I, and found Death!
Helvig's jalcon 'twas, Oh, cruel, Gurra's dove that hath slain I
Part II
The second part is very short. It contains but one song--that of Valdemar and his complaint and rebellion against the will of God. This section is marked by rich and heroic accents and massive power. Musically it is constructed on the heavy chords that ended Part I, and the theme from The Song of the Wood Dove which lead to Valdemar's opening line:
Valdemar
Know'st Thou, God, how Thou didst wound me,
When fair Tova pined and died
From the last stronghold dost drive me,
Where I hope and joy descried!
Lord, a shameful wound Thou markest,
Poor man's one ewe-lamb Thou takest!
Lord God, I too rule my people.
Never yet for mine own pleasure,
From a servant did I take away hb last remaining treasure.
False Thy way, and false Thy heart;
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Thine a tyrant sway, no Lord art Thou.
Lord God, all the hosts of Thy bright angels, singing, praise Thy name,
Thou hast rather need of one before Thy face, to tell Thy shame.
And who so bold as dare it
Give me, Lord, Thy Fool's cap, 'fore Thy Throne I'll wear it!
The Wild Chase: For his railing against God, Valdemar is cursed to ride in a wild chase by night. Deep gloom marks the beginning of this section, with the sombre theme that accompanied the opening line of Valdemar's midnight song,3 Wagnerian tubas in muted chords sustain the mood. Valdemar's hench?men awake from the sleep of Death. He prepares them for the chase. ""Erwacht Konig Waldemar's Mannen wert." After the dramatic outburst on the line "7Heute ist Ausfahrt der Toten," the orchestra depicts the ghostly chase. A peasant hears the wild horsemen approaching and utters a hurried prayer. Ever wilder the storm of the riders draws near and we hear a twelve part chorus of male voices, a conception of inexpressible grandeur and power, complex and involved with vocal canonic imitation supported by the full brass choir. At the end of this impressive section Valdemar sings of rediscovering Tova in nature, "8Mit Tove's Stimme fliistert der Wald." The yearning Tova theme is heard. A grotesque and piercing cry from the orchestra introduces the song of Klaus, the King's Jester. So free from blame in the tragedy, he bemoans his lot. As the strings play col legno (striking the strings with wood of the bow) he begins his lament "9Ein seltsamer Vogel ist son Aal." Here again Schoenberg forecasts clearly his future style. The complex orchestral interlude that follows is written with extreme brilliance and novel effect.
Dawn breaks the spell of the nocturnal ride as the chorus sings softly "10Der Hahn erhebt den Kopf zur Kraht," and the grave summons the weary riders. The scene dissolves in the deep tones of the double bassoons and double bass tubas.
Part III Valdemar
0Arouse ye, hear Valdemar's royal word! Gird now on your loins, the rusty-red sword; Take from their holy place, shields all batter'd Fly on your standard, colours all tatter'd. Wake from the tomb your mouldering horses, Spur them with gold to new living courses. To Gurra town ride thro' the valley, ''There today shall dead men rally1.
Peasant
Hark to the rattling coffin, oh hark. Slow on its way, and the night is dark. Down from hillsides, great rocks are roll'd, Over the valley they ring like gold. Clatters and rattles the arsenal, Lances and cannon in warring heaps fall; Stones of the grave o'er the churchyard fly, Howling hawks on the spire to cry, To and fro the church door flies.
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Chorus or Men Holla!
Peasant
It passes by! Stop the ears and close the eyes!
I draw threefold sign of the cross on my breast
For home and kin, that they be blest;
Thrice be Aves now recited,
That so the harvest be not blighted.
I cross my hands, my feet, my head,
Where the holiest wounds of our Saviour bled.
So am I defended from ghosts of the night,
From elfin darts and goblins' might...
Then bolted and barr'd be door and gate,
So am I protected from evil fate.
Valdemar's Vassals
O King, we greet thee, by Gurra's seastrand!
Now hunt we all, over the sea-girt land. Holla!
Unstrung are our bows, our arrows unfeather'd,
Our eyes are sightless and bones our fingers.
Our quarry the stag's intangible shade, Holla!
Let dew flow out from the wound we've made.
The warring raven, his aid hath given,
Over highest tree-tops our steeds have striven
So hunt we now in our olden way,
All and ev'ry night till the Judgment Day.
Holla, hie on Hound, hie on Steed.
Our time is brief, so make good speed!
As long ago, here stands the castle!
Holla! Loki's oats shall feed our horses.
Still as of old shall we ride our courses.
Valdemar
&Tis Tova's voice I hear through the woods, With Tova's bright eyes shines the lake, 'Tis Tova's smiling laughs in the starlight, The clouds from her all their whiteness take. My spirit is weary for her dear image, But my Tova is there, and Tova is here, Tova is far and Tova is near. Thou my Tova, dost hold me fast By thy magic pow'r though life is past; Though dead my heart, it glows and calls thee, Tova, Tova, Valdemar longs yet for thee.
Klaus, the Fool
"9How strange is the bird we call an eel,
'Tis water he likes best,
Yet now and then when moons are bright,
He comes to land to rest."
That sang I oft while the guests were drinking,
Now, of myself, when I sing it, I'm thinking.
(With droll humility) I have no house or hall, and live as best I may,
No guest may I invite about my board to stay,
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Yet shameless wights there be, would take my crust away;
So have I nought to offer, would I yea, would I nay.
Yet I would give away (Jestingly) my night's repose, to any man who tells me.
(Complaining) What is't that ev'ry midnight round this pool to roam, compels me.
That Palla Glov, and Erie Paa must wander, that I understand;
They were never counted as holy; they'll throw dice, still as of old, for the coolest place,
far from the crowd, when they go down to Hela. And the King there, he was always mad, Whene'er the owls were crying, For aye would call one maiden's name, Who long ago lay dying.
He too has earned his lot, his never ending nightly hunting, For he was always harsh, unfair, And we, his people, did beware, Of blows had each man had his share; He was himself the Court Fool there, To yonder noble Lordship in the Heavens. But that I, Klaus Fool of Farum, I, who sought my grave believing There would be an end of grieving, That my soul would be at rest there, Still as birds within their nest there, Calm, preparing for the last great Court Feast, Where, as Brother Knut tells, Are noble trumpets blaring, Where we watch the bad men roasting The while we're nobly faring, Ah--still I ride, never ending, Face to my horse's tail I'm bending, Deathly sweat upon my brow, Wer't not too late, I'd hang myself now. But oh, how sweet to know this all past, When I may find heav'nly home at last! Great sinner tho' I be, yet have I Ofttimes escaped through some ready lie! Who gave the naked truth its clothing Who'll suffer punishment and loathing Ah, Right will yet prevail at the last, And I shall go home to Heaven's garden, Then,--and then may Heav'n not I, seek pardon!
Valdemar
Thou Judge enthron'd in harshness, Thou laughst o'er my sorrow,
But that day, when we shall rise from the tomb, do Thou beware that morrow,
I and Tova, we are one;
If our soul should e'er divided be,
And I to Hell, to Heaven she,--
Then shall I rise in might,
Destroy Thy heav'nly angels bright,
And break through, with my unearthly horde,
Thy Paradise gate.
Valdemar's Vassels 10Now Chanticleer hath rais'd his voice, And the day is proclaiming.
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From our weary sword-blades drips
Rust encarmin'd the morning dew.
Now sink we!
For life is full of shining pow'r
Of great deeds, of hearts that beat loudly.
And we are but shadows of death and bitter sorrow.
Of death and bitter grieving.
O grave! thy rest is full of dreams.
Part IV
Melodrama: The Summer Wind's Wild Chase. The orchestra with soft effect throughout, begins this section with four piccolos, three flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. The drama is brought to a close by the Summer Wind's Wild Chase in which all the crushing accents, the sinister shadows, and the gloomy colors of the fierce nocturnal ride are dissipated. The instrumentation is thin, almost like chamber music. This closing section was scored by Schoenberg late, and it shows a radical change in his art of orchestration. The melodrama (music accompanying a spoken text) is Schoenberg's first attempt at a vocal idiom that so attracts and inspires him in later works (Pierrot Lunaire and GliickUche Hand). The orchestra is treated as a body of solo instruments allowing the words of the speaker to be distinctly heard. At the words "nStill! was mag' der wind nur wollen" the solo violins, solo viola, and clarinet sound contin?uously Tova's love theme. The final chorus brings all to a glorious fulfillment, as it sings of the ever-returning sun, "12Seht, die Sonne," and the ever-awakening from death to life. Heard at the end are the somber chords that opened the work.
Sir Ganderfoot, dear Mother Goose, now hide you, quickly hide,
Now th' unruly summer wind sets out upon his ride.
The crickets flee in terror from the meadow newly mown,
And the wind on the water his silvern threads hath sewn.
More woeful doom is nigh than any man conceives;
Hark! that shudder in the trembling forest leaves!
That was Saint John's dragon, see how his fiery tongue is red;
And the meadow mists low-lying, are shadows pale and dead!
What waving and swinging!
In the oak trees hear the wind go by like a rider,
Till the cornfield, sighing, bends.
With her slender legs now fiddles the spider,
And the web she was weaving, she rends.
Dew drips loud to the vale below,
Stars shoot downward, and silently go.
Water birds affrighted break the tall sedges,
Startling the frogs to their watery ledges.
(With anxiously strained look; in accord with the music inclining slowly to friendly astonishment.)
USOll What may the wind be seeking As the wither'd bough be bended,
Earlier examples of this style are to be found in the grave digging scene of Beethoven's Fidelio and the Incantation scene in Weber's Der Freischiitz.
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Sought he, what too soon hath ended;
Springtide's blossoming flow'rs a-gleaming,
The dear Earth's fugitive summer-dreaming,--
Long ago, dust!
But look above, see the wind flying,
Over the tree-tops, heavenward hieing.
Surely, as in a dream he knows
Always there a new fragrance blows!
And with strange music ringing,
He hears the blossoms singing,
Greets them tenderly, swaying, swinging,
See, now has he pass'd them by;
On wide spreading wings he hies him to smooth
The white mirror of the lake,
And there, in the laughing waves' unending dance,
In paling stars' be-mirror'd glance,
Cradles himself to sleep.
How still were all things there!--
Ah, how clear was the air!
Oh ladybird, come hie thee forth from out thy flow'ry nest,
And ask of the dear lady, life and laughter, and sunlight blest!
White horses all over the lake are prancing,
And through the meadow are crickets dancing;
The woodland singers all arise,
And from their shining locks the flow'rs shake the dew,
And raise to the sun their eyes.
Awake, awake, ye blossoms, to gladness!
Chorus
125ee the sun rise, Goldenhued in Heav'n he gleams,
Lights the East with morning dreams.
Smiling climbs he high and higher o'er the waters of night.
Decks his shining brow with flying golden locks of light.
62
SIXTH CONCERT Sunday Evening, May 6
"Cantus animae et cordis,"
for String Orchestra......Richard 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, re?ceived no early formal training in music. Through constant contact, however, with his brother Elijah, an accomplished pianist, he acquired a profound knowl?edge of music literature at an early age. He was, in fact, twenty-one before he seriously began to study piano and theory. He has studied composition inter?mittently with Virgil Thomson. Other than being encouraged by such distin?guished musicians as Jose Iturbi and Eugene Ormandy, he is not the product of any particular teacher or "school" of composition.
His Armenian Suite, performed on the 1954 May Festival program, has met with enthusiastic reception both in this country and abroad within the past year. At present Mr. Yardumian is writing a piano concerto for Rudolph Fir-kusny, and a Second Symphony is in the process of composition.
The writer of these notes owes the following information concerning the work on tonight's program to Mr. Edwin H. Schloss (Philadelphia Orchestra Program Notes, 56th Season, 1955-56):
"Cantus animae et cordis" was written in the summer of 1954 as a string quartet for the Stringart group of this city [Philadelphia] and was first played by that ensemble in its original form early in the following year. The present version for string orchestra was sug?gested by Eugene Ormandy.
According to the composer, in the title "Song of the Soul and Heart," the Latin animae is used to denote the innermost life or soul rather than the faculty of thinking--animus. Mr. Yardumian says that, in substance, this work has been influenced and inspired by certain passages in the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, having to do with the spiritual conflict of good and evil and the regeneration of man.
There are two themes based on the last words of Jesus Christ on the Cross, Eli, Eli lama sabachthani. The first theme is stated by a solo cello for four bars at the opening; the second follows in the violas. Throughout the first and third major sections of this work, these themes are developed in a modified fugue form. The music is in three major sections. "The first," the composer says, "might be described as an invocation on the part of man." The second part is based on new thematic material which has been woven into the texture of the immediately preceding measures. This appears as a fortissimo climax of the nrst Dart. In general the spirit is that of a song of love and acknowledgment. The third part, a recapitu?lation of the first, expresses man's response, interrupted by a violin and a cello solo expressing resolution. The coda or climax is a choral, expressive of submission and peace.
Mr. Yardumian describes the Cantus as "a polyphonic composition throughout, inherently fugal. If each line were to be played separately, each would be found to be predominantly modal, the prevailing modes being Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian." Yardumian
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seems to be partial to the mystical spaciousness of modal music. His Psalm 130 for Tenor and Orchestra, given its first performance in Philadelphia last year, is pervasively in the Dorian mode.
Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30,
for Piano and Orchestra......Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born April 1, 1873, in Novgorod; died March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills.
The somber beauty and brooding melancholy that courses through Rach?maninoff's art marks him, as it did Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, as another, perhaps the last, of the Titans of musical romanticism, who lived beyond the fulfillment of an era. He not only carried to an epic climax the soul life of his country, but also that of an epoch, with its gloom and the despair of man's struggle against a relentless destiny. Like these great romanticists, he clung tenaciously to a dying tradition, regretful at its passing, and nostalgic with its memories.
Virgil Thomson, writing in the New York Herald-Tribune for Sunday, Feb?ruary 26, 1950, has summed up his position thus:
The career of Sergei Rachmaninoff was that of a major talent. His natural gifts of ear and hand were impeccable; his training was nowhere short of completeness; recognition in professional life came early. The only kind of success he never enjoyed was that of intellectual distinction. He would have liked being a popular musician, a conservative musician and an advanced one all at the same time. But as a young modernist he suffered defeat at the hands of his contemporary, Alexander Scriabine, and there is reason to believe that later he enter?tained some bitterness about the impregnable position occupied in the intellectual world of music by his junior compatriot, Igor Stravinsky.
There is no question, however, about Rachmaninoff's mastery. He composed, as he played the piano, in complete fullness and control. The nature of his expression--his passionless melancholy, his almost too easy flow of melody, his conventional but highly personal har?mony, the loose but thoroughly coherent structure of his musical discourse--is often dis?tasteful to musicians. They tend to find it a retreat from battle, an avoidance of the con?temporary problem. But it is not possible, I think, to withhold admiration for the sincerity of the sentiments expressed or for the solid honesty of its workmanship. Rachmaninoff was a musician and an artist, and his expression through the divers musical techniques of which he was master, seems to have been complete.
Whether success in the world was a deep desire of Sergei Rachmaninoff I do not know, but success was his in a way that musicians seldom experience it. It came to him in his own lifetime, moreover, and through the practice of three separate musical branches. As a com?poser, as a conductor and as a touring virtuoso of the pianoforte he received worldwide acceptance and acclaim. His domestic life, too, seems to have been remarkably satisfactory. A more optimistic temperament than his would probably have glowed with happiness.
Actually, his letters and recorded conversations are consistently gloomy. Like Tchaikovsky, whom he adored, and who usually wept a little on almost any day, he seemed to find his best working conditions a dispirited state. Indeed, even more than in the case of Tchaikovsky, his depressive mentality has come to represent to the Western world a musical expression both specifically Russian and specifically attractive through the appeal of sadness. Whether this opulence of discontent is found equally pleasant in the Soviet Union I do not know; but Rachmaninoff, in spite of his conservative political opinions, has been adopted since his death as a Russian classic master in Russia. This success is another that would have pleased
64
SIXTH CONCERT
him profoundly, I am sure, though he would no doubt have acknowledged it with a mask of woe.
There is probably some resemblance between contemporary Russia and the United States underlying Rachmaninoff's great glory in both countries. The official mood of cheerfulness is in both cases a thin surface through which wells of rich blackness gush forth constantly, relieving the emotional poverty of sustained optimism and providing for accepted states of mind both a holiday and a corrective. Rachmaninoff's music is no toner-up of depressed nations. It is most heartily enjoyed in those countries where the national energies are strong enough to need a sedative.
Rachmaninoff wrote the Third Concerto for his American tour in 1909. It had its premiere under the direction of Walter Damrosch, November 28, the same year. The second performance was conducted by Gustav Mahler. It was published in 1910 with a dedication to Josef Hofmann.
A brief analysis of the main features of the concerto follows: The first movement (Allegro ma non tanto, D minor, 44 time) begins with a brief two measure introduction in the orchestra, after which the piano an?nounces the main theme of the movement, thinly accompanied by strings and bassoon. The horn and viola then present the theme accompanied by long flight passage work in the piano. The second theme (already anticipated in the clarinet and horn, and the oboe and trumpet) enters in the strings pianissimo, immediately answered by the piano. In an increasingly expressive section this theme is treated rhapsodically; it grows in emotional power and dynamic inten?sity to a great climax. At the end of the section a diminuendo leads to the de?velopment which begins with the opening theme of the movement now reaching its ultimate treatment and climax with the full orchestra. A long and elaborate cadenza for the piano follows, and near the middle, suggestions of the first theme are heard successively in the flute, oboe, clarinet, and horn, while the piano finally suggests moments from the second theme. After this brilliant dis?play of pianistic pyrotechnics, the piano announces the recapitulation of the main theme, again accompanied by the strings, as at the beginning of the move?ment. Only a suggestion of the second subject is heard as the movement reaches a comparatively tranquil close.
The second movement--Intermezzo (Adagio, A major, 34 time) opens with a quiet woodwind theme, answered and extended in the strings. The piano finally treats the subject in A-flat major, developing it considerably with the aid of the orchestra. A new section is introduced in the clarinet and bassoon, faintly reminiscent of the thematic material of the first movement. It is accompanied by a waltzlike rhythm in the strings, while the piano engages in intricate accom?panying passage work. Without pause, the piano, in vigorous octaves and chordal passages, leads directly into the Finale (D minor, 22 time) with an energetic triplet figure which climaxes in clangorous chords in the orchestra. The solo instrument announces the second subject in C major, soon heard again in the strings with a lyric piano passage above it. After some development a new section (Scherzando, AA time) in strings, brings back the second theme of the first movement, the piano engaging in scherzando passages. In the violas and
65
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cellos there is later heard suggestions of the opening theme of the first move?ment. A lento section follows in which the piano treats again the material from the first movement. After a pianissimo and ritardando phrase in the piano, the original tempo with the triplet figure is again heard, the second theme now repeated in B-flat major. The concerto is concluded with a brilliant and sonorous coda.
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98......Brahms
While the Third Symphony at once took hold of the musical world, the Fourth remained misunderstood, and down to the present day has never been truly loved, perhaps for the reason that it is the most personal and profound of all, and, next to the First, the mightiest. Incomprehensible though it seems today, even the sworn followers of Brahms had difficulty in understanding it. Max Kalbeck positively entreated Brahms to withhold the work from the public and so save himself an inevitable and conspicuous failure. Edward Hanslick, after a first hearing of it in a performance for two pianos in the company of Max Kalbeck, Hans Richter, Dr. Billroth, and others, declared with a heavy sigh, when the first movement was over and everyone remained silent, "You know, I had the feeling that two enormously clever people were arguing with each other." To Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, Brahms's close friend and sincere critic, there were certain pages she "could hardly make out at all," and con?cerning them she wrote to Brahms, "You have had to have recourse for the first time to certain secret chambers of your soul."
It is hard to understand such criticism today as we hear the pale autumnal elegiac first movement with its gentle, almost hesitant theme. Still less would it apply to the quiet andante with its firm and exalted rhythm, and its dark-hued romantic melancholy. The misgivings of his friends, however, transmitted themselves to Brahms, for again he wrote to Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, "If persons like Hanslick and you do not like my music, whom will it please" So uncertain was he finally of the success of the work, that he threatened to recall it after a rehearsal. The first public performance, however, took place at Mei-ningen, October 25, 1885, with Brahms himself conducting. Frederick Lamond, the pianist, was present at the performance, and fifty years later published an article in the Vassische Zeitung (October 5, 1933), an excerpt from which follows:
At the end of September, 1885, there came to Meiningen the manuscript of the Fourth Symphony, and a few days later the master himself arrived. I remember how Biilow re?proached Brahms about it, protesting that so valuable a manuscript as the Symphony had been sent to Meiningen by simple post without registration!
"What could have happened if the package had been lost " asked Biilow.
"Well, I would have had to compose the symphony again," was Brahms's gruff answer. Brahms, leading the rehearsals himself, said repeatedly to the orchestra, "Only wait, gentle?men, until Biilow conducts it, then you will hear something!"
Never shall I forget the notable Sunday in October, 188S, when the Fourth Symphony had its first public performance. The concert began at five o'clock in the afternoon. First the
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SIXTH CONCERT
Academic Overture was played, then Adolf Brodsky played the Violin Concerto; and the Fourth Symphony closed the programme. After the Symphony, which brought little applause, the theatre emptied itself; I went to my dressing room behind the stage and was about to go home. The members of the orchestra were putting their instruments away and some had already left when the young Richard Strauss, the second Kapellmeister in Meiningen, came running up and called to me: "Lamond, help me bring the orchestra players together; the Duke wishes to have the symphony played again for himself alone." I got hold of the second horn player, while Strauss mustered one player after another. The theatre was dimly lighted and no one had permission to enter the auditorium. I slipped out on the stage. Through the peek-hole in the curtain, I could see the silhouette of Brahms at the conductor's desk, and about him the intent, deeply absorbed faces of the orchestra players, who looked ghostly in the dim light. The loge in which the Duke sat was also in semi-darkness; and now there began for the second time a performance of the Fourth Symphony!
The performance stays vividly in my mind. I have heard consummate performances in later years, but never has the overpowering and masterly finale sounded with such conviction as in the darkened empty theatre where Brahms, like a mighty conjuror, played with the assembled group of musicians for the listening Duke of Meiningen.
When the last notes had sounded, I left the theatre with a sense of having undergone the highest experience which life had ever bestowed upon me!
The Fourth Symphony was the last of his orchestral compositions that Brahms was permitted to hear. After his return to Vienna from Carlsbad where he had received treatment for an incurable disease, he attended his last concert in March, 1897, at which time his Fourth Symphony was performed. Miss Florence May described the dramatic occasion of his last performance in public:
The fourth symphony had never become a favorite work in Vienna. Received with reserve on its first performance, it had not since gained much more from the general public of the city than the respect sure to be accorded there to an important work by Brahms. Today, however, a storm of applause broke out at the end of the first movement, not to be quieted until the composer, coming to the front of the "artist's" box in which he was seated, showed himself to the audience. The demonstration was renewed after the second and third movements, and an extraordinary scene followed the conclusion of the work. The applauding, shouting house, its gaze riveted on the figure standing in the balcony, so familiar, and yet in present aspect so strange, seemed unable to let him go. Tears ran down his cheeks as he stood there, shrunken in form, with lined countenance, strained expression, white hair hanging lank, and through the audience there was a feeling as of a stifled sob, for each knew that they were saying farewell. Another outburst of applause, and yet another; one more acknowledgment from the master, and Brahms and his Vienna had parted forever.
The following analysis is taken from Karl Geiringer's excellent work on Brahms:
This last symphonic work of the master is more stringent and more compact than the previous three. More than ever before was Brahms's mind directed towards the past. He found a wealth of inspiration in pre-classical music, which revealed peculiar possibilities of enriching his musical language. The principal theme of the first movement is largely char?acteristic of the whole work. Distinctive of the "later Brahms" is the art with which an ample far-flung theme is developed from a motive of only two notes; and no less so is the assurance with which the imitation of the theme in the woodwind is employed as an accom?paniment to the theme itself. Again, the clear and passionless tranquility of this idea, equally remote from pain and joy, is characteristic of this period of his work. The movement has
Florence May, Life of Johannes Brahms (London: Edward Arnold, 1905).
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
no motto, like those of the first three Symphonies. On the one hand the logical progression of ideas in this piece is so compelling that there is no need of a closer linking of the different sections by a special expedient; on the other hand, the Symphony possesses, in the Finale, a movement of such iron resolution and concentration that a similar formation in the first movement had to be avoided. The Andante moderato with its four monumental introductory bars, allotted to the horns and woodwind, leads off in the ancient Phrygian mode. Slowly the warm and fragrant E major makes itself heard. Notwithstanding its wonderfully tender song-theme introduced by the cellos, this whole movement seems to lie, as it were, under the shadow of an inevitable fate. A sturdy, high-spirited Allegro giocoso follows. If the first two movements and the Finale seem inspired by Sophocles' tragedies which Brahms had read about this time in his friend Professor Wendt's translation, this movement seems to be spon?sored by Breughel. A sturdy gaiety reigns supreme, and the orchestration is broader and more plastic, more calculated to secure massive effects. The master supplemented the scoring of both the preceding movements by the addition of piccolo flute, counter-bassoon, and a third kettle-drum. The Finale is the crowning glory of the whole work. Just as Brahms took leave of his chamber music, so, too, he bade farewell to his symphonic creations with a movement in variations. These are of the type which he employed in the Finale of his Haydn "Variations, i.e., the Chaconne or Passacaglia. A simple theme of eight bars which is repeated thirty-one times, in the lower, middle, and upper voices, without a single modulation or transitional passage, provides the framework of this movement.
?Karl Geiringer, Brahms--His Life and Work, trans, by H. B. Weiner and Bernard Maill (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1936).
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
Calvin B. Cady, 1879-1888 Albert A. Stanley, 1888-1921 Earl V. Moore, 1922-1939
CONDUCTORS
Thor Johnson, 1939-1942
Hardin Van Deursen, 1942-1947
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
Albert A. Stanley, 1894-1921 Earl V. Moore, 1922-1939
CONDUCTORS
Thor Johnson, 1940-1942 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 De Lamar-ter, Associate Conductor, 1918-1935
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, Conductor, Saul Caston and Charles O'Con-nell, Associate Conductors, 1936; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, 1937, 1938; Eugene Or-mandy, Conductor, Saul Caston, Associate Conductor, 1939-1945; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Alexander Hilsberg, Associate Conductor, 1946-1952, and Guest Conductor, 1953; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, 1954-
The University Choral Union, Albert A. Stanley, Conductor, 1894-1921; Earl V. Moore, Conductor, 1922-1939; Thor Johnson, Conductor, 1940-1942 ; Hardin Van Deursen, Con?ductor, 1943-1947; Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, 1947-; Lester McCoy, Associate 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, 192S-1936; Roxy Cowin, 1937; Juva N. Higbee, 1938; Roxy Cowin, 1939; Juva N. Higbee, 1940-1942; M'arguerite Hood, 1943-
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The Stanley Chorus (now the Women's Glee Club), trained by Margaret 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 Howard Hanson (Rochester), 1926, 1927, 1933,
1935
Felix Borowski (Chicago), 1927 Percy Grainger (New York), 1928
Jose Iturbi (Philadelphia), 1937 Georges Enesco (Paris), 1939 Harl McDonald (Philadelphia), 1939, 1940, 1944
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--1927,1947,1955
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"--19S4J Delius: Sea Drift--1924 Dvorak: Stabat Mater, Op. 58--1906 Elgar: Caractacus--1903, 1914, 1936
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38--1904, 1912, 1917 Fogg: The Seasons--1937 Franck: The Beatitudes--1918 Gluck: Orpheus--1902
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"--1935
Heroic Elegy--1927
The Lament for Beowulf--1926
Merry Mount--1933 Haydn: The Creation--1908, 1932
The Seasons--1909, 1934
World premiere
t United States premiere
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
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 Honecger, 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 Moussorcsky: Boris Godounov--1931, 1935 Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, K. 427--1948
Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626--1946
"Davidde penitente"--1956 Orff, Carl: Carmina Burana--1955 Parker: Hora Novissima, Op. 30--1900 Pierne: The Children's Crusade--1915
Saint Francis of Assisi--1928, 1931 Ponchtelli: La Gioconda--1925 Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78--1946 Rachmaninoff: The Bells--1925, 1938,1948 Respichi: La Primavera--1924t Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of Kitesh--1931t Rossini: Stabat Mater--1897
Saint-Saens: Samson and Delilah--1896,1899,1907, 1912, 1916, 1923, 1929, 1940 Schonberc: Gurre-Lieder--1956
ScnuMAN, William:A Free Song (Cantata No. 2)--194S Sibelius: Onward Ye Peoples--1939,1945 Smith, J. S.: Star Spangled Banner--1919,1920 Stanley: Chorus Triumphalis, Op. 14--1897, 1912, 1921
Fair 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?wgen Onegin--1911,1941 Thompson, Randall: Alleluia--1941
Vardell, CnARLEs: Cantata, "The Inimitable Lovers"--1940 Verdi: Aida--1903, 1906,1917, 1921, 1924 (excerpts), 1928, 1937
La Forza del Destino (Finale, Act II)--1924
Otello--1939
Requiem Mass--1894, 1898, 1913, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1943, 1951
Stabat Mater--1899
Te Deum--1947 Vivaldi-Casella: Gloria--1954
Villa-Lobos, Heiter: Choros No. 10, "Rasga o coragao"--1949 W acker: Die fliegcnde Hollander--1918
Lohengrin--1926; Act 1--1896, 1913
Die Meistersinger, Finale to Act III--1903, 1913 ; Choral, "Awake," and Chorale Finale to Act III--1923
Scenes from Parsifal--1937
Tannhauser--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
World premiere t American premiere
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
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-19S4
Britten, Benjamin: Suite of Sengs--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 English, Granvhae: Cantata, "The Ugly Duckling"--1934 Far well: 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 Ghxett: Songs--1941 Gounod: "Waltz Song" from Faust--1924 Graincer, Percy: Country Gardens--1933 Gretchaninoff: The Snow Drop--1938 Handel: "He Shall Feed His Flock," from Messiah--1929 Howland, Russell (orchestrator): Song Cycle from the Masters--1947, 1952 Humperdinck: Selection from Hansel and Gretel--1923 Hyde: Cantata, "The Quest of the Queer Prince"--1928 d'Indy: Saint Mary Magdalene--1941 James, Dorothy: Cantata, "Jumblies"--1935
Cantata, "Paul Bunyan"--1938
American Folk Songs (orchestration)--1946, 1951
Lieder Cycle (orchestration)--1949
Songs by Robert Schumann (orchestration)--1956 Kelly: Suite, "Alice in Wonderland"--1925 Kjerulfs: Barcarolle--1920 Madsen: Shepherd on the Hills--1920, 1922 McArtor, Marion (orchestrator): Songs--1940
Folk Song Fantasy--1943
Suite of Songs (Britten)--1953
Viennese Folk and Art Songs--1955 Mendelssohn: On Wings of Song--1934
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
World premiire
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Mozart: Cradle Song--1930
The Minuet--1922 Myrberg: Fisherman's Prayer--1922 Pierne: The Children at Bethlehem--1916,1936
The Children's Crusade--191S
Saint Francis of Assisi--1928,1931
Planquette: Invitation of the Bells from Chimes of Normandy--1924 Protheroe: Cantata, The Spider and the Fly--1932 Purceix: In the Delightful Pleasant Grove--1938 Reger: The Virgin's Slumber Song--1938 Reinecke, 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--193S Schubert: Cradle Song--1924, 1939
Hark, Hark the Lark--1930
Hedge Roses--1934, 1939
Linden Tree--1923, 1935
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
Songs--1956
Scott: The Lullaby--1937 Strauss, Johann: Blue Danube Waltz--1934 Strong: Cantata, "A Symphony of Song"--1930 Suixtvan: 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 Wabxstedt: Gay Liesel--1922 Weber: "Prayer" from Der Freischiitz--1920
The Voice of Evening--1924
World premiire.
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor
Olga B. Johnson, Pianist
Arthur Berg, Manager
FIRST SOPRANOS
Bennett, Virginia C. Bouws, Marjorie J. Bradstreet, Lola Mae Burr, Virginia A. Burroughs, Elizabeth Criswell, Phyllis Curtis, Valerie C. Davis, Patricia Ann Farris, Diana Mae Folsom, Barbara A. French, Gayle E. Geller, Lorraine D. Getty, Betty Jean Gilbert, Margaret G. Glenn, Rosemary K. Hagen, Ruth S. Hanson, Gladys M. Huber, Sally A. Ireland, Jane R. Ivanoff, Jacqueline B. Lo, Jui-Fong Lock, Inez J. Loewen, Mary E. Long, Ardis R. MacLaren, Helen L. Malan, Fannie Belle McDonald, Ruth M. Melling, Erina M. Miller, Veronica Muir, Novia Padilla, Leila M. Peters, Lynette Ann Pickett, Jean Ann Pott, Margaret F. Robinson, Anne V. Rosenberry, Marylin A. Schrock, Charlene Sidky, Jane W. Stevens, Ethel C. Tarboux, Isabelle N. Taylor, Merle Tjotis, Ralian J. Tsuboi, Yo Varley, Elizabeth V. Warren, Eleanor Weisenreder, Amanda Witham, Pearl M. Zwagerman, Marcia
74
SECOND SOPRANOS
Ahbe, Marcia Lee Andrews, Joyce M. Barnes, Judy E. Berger, Beatrice D. Branson, Allegra Brater, Betsy B. Byron, Rachel Ann Campbell, Anne K. Campbell, Colleen S. Cargill, Carla A. Cohen, Judith N. Dafoe, Emma Tate Datsko, Doris M. Dodge, Thelma I. Dolby, Freida Fredrichs, Romance L. Green, Mary E. Greenberger, Judy Groves, Kathryn M. Hahn, Ruth Marie Heft, Priscilla Ann Jaeger, Carol D. Kellogg, Merlyn L. Lederer, Judy Mae Maedler, Maxine M. Maynard, M. Elaine McCann, Mary F. Miller, Nandeen L. Nutley, Jean M. Overall, Eleanor C . Puglisi, Elizabeth A. Rakvica, Carol J. Riise, Ellen
Romberger, Margery D. Schor, Fida Selby, Ruth M. Semmler, Ruth H. Skaff, Diana May Sleet, Audrey M. Snyder, Karen V. Stuart, Linda L. Sutter, Elaine M. S win ford, Georgiana Thomas, Grace J. Torrey, Gloria J. Vlisides, Elena C. Winney, Patricia A. Witwer, Clarissa Yokes, Jean Ann
FIRST ALTOS
Andersen, Jeanne M. Antoniades, Julia Birch, Dorothy T. Bowler, Joan K. Brehm, Beverly J. Brimmer, Brenda L. Crump, Judith D. Dames, Katherine M. Darling, Persis Ann Davidson, Constance M. Eiteman, Sylvia C. Elliott, Ruth D. Falcone, Mary L. Fell, Patricia French, Alice E. Griffith, Erma R. Harcum, Phoebe M. Hardie, Margaret A. Hill, Sue Ann Hodgman, Dorothy B. Johnstone, Patricia R. Kirchman, Margaret M. Lane, Rosemarie Lester, Betty B. Lockard, Mary G. Marsh, Martha M. McAvity, Amy A. McPherson, Mary A. Odgers, Barbara E. Palmer, Anna W. Potter, Marijane F. Reck, Linda M. Sakofsky, Edith R. Schnettler, Marilyn V. Steenhusen, Sally Suits, Ruth C. Tomasek, Ruth V. VandeKieft, Ruth M. Walton, Louise VV. Weaver, Beverly Wiedmann, Louise P. Winchell, Janet G. Winney, Dolores R. Wittenberg, Yvonne L. Witteveen, Marilyn J. Woof, Margaret V. Zeeb, Helen R.
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
SECOND ALTOS
Bailey, Marian K. Bayar, Zeporah C. Beaudoin, Rita Benson, Karen A. Blalock, Ann Bogart, Gertrude J. Branson, Anita C. Brown, Mary Katherine Calhoun, Wanda J. Clark, Helen Crossley, Sarah-Lou Crossley, Winnifred M. Deuvall, Jane A. Eismann, Nancy V. Enkemann, Gladys C. Fowler, Gloria J. Francis, Marilyn J. Galbraith, Alice E. Gamble, Judith A. Haffner, Edith A. Haswell, Judith Ann Herzog, Lois Huber, Judith Ann Huey, Geraldine E. Ironside, Ellen L. Jones, Catharine B. King, Jean L. Leacock, Ann L. Lovewell, Mary V. Lundin, Diantha C. Machol, Florence L. Magnotta, Joanna M. McKinzie, Ann L. Okey, Ruth Anne Papo, Martha O. Pusev, Martha G. Rice,' Betty L. Roegcr, Beverly B. Sanders, Judith L. Simer, Sandra L. Smith, Mildred E. Spencer, Sonya M. Stewart, Lenoir B. Tolman, Ruth S. Wykes, Barbara E.
FIRST TENORS
Baker, Henry R. Becker, Allen Carpenter, Nicholas E. Caswell, James O. Chesnut, Walter M. Edmiston, James C. Forman, Sidney H. Franke, George M. Greenberger, Allen
Halley, Roger L. Halpern, Marvin N. Hartman, Richard E. Hendershott, Marcus Kadian, George Lester, Thomas Lowry, Paul T. Nickles, John E. Oerther, Frederick J. Power, Roger C. Senter, Albert W. Shea, Edward E. Skye, Robert P. Snortum, Niel K. Symons, James S., Ill Thompson, Frazier VanderVen, Tom R. Zakariasen, William
SECOND TENORS
Ball, Robert S. Crawford, Richard A. Farrell, John M. Galbraith, D. James Gerrard, Allen G. Haswell, Max V. Ilgenfritz, Robert H. Ironside, Roderick A. Kahn, Richard A. Kemph, John P. Kormondy, Edward J. Kuhlman, James M. Kuisel, Richard F. Lederer, Walter C. Marks, Robert H., Jr. McCormick, John P. Poux, Pierre D. Rizzo, Frank A. Stokes, William H. Stranahan, Brainerd P. Williams, Frederick C. Wood, Terry A.
FIRST BASSES
Allen, Kenneth M. Beach, Neil W. Bryan, Fred A., Jr. Burr, Charles F. Cathey, Arthur Clemens, Earl Dalton, Roger K. Davis, Don A. Davis, Larry S. Eisman, Michael M. Friedman, James P. Haddow, Thomas M. Haggerty, Alvin W. Henley, Harold Ernest
Hollingsworth, Jerome L. Kays, J. Warren Keller, Anthony S. LeBlond, Richard E., Jr. Manci, Orlando, J., Jr. Marsh, Donald R. McArdle, Michael R. Padwe, Gerald W. Pappas, H. Paul Peters, William E. Quayle, Robert G. Relyea, Bruce J. Rice, Wilbur Sanders, David L. Stason, Edwin B., Jr. Stempin, Carl M. Sue, Wallace Watt, Richard A. Weaver, Robert B.
SECOND BASSES
Antoniades, Emilios P. Bailey, Douglas B., Jr. Bassett, Clark L., Jr. Berg, Arthur Berman, Gerald S. Buchman, Martin H. Clugston, George A. Corcoran, John F., Jr. Fuller, George T. Gozesky, Max Grauer, Richard D. Hantula, James N. Harary, Frank HoltRrieve, Martin L. Huber, Franz E. Tohnson, Paul G. Klamp, Walter K. Klingensmith, Merle J. Koski, Arthur E. Kritzer, Patrick N. Xelson, Ronald R. Ormand, E. Fred Patterson. Robert W. Pusey, Richard D. Rivkin, Charles T. Schroeder, John S. Scott, Peter L. Smith, David M. Stegenga, Frederick L. Ste:nmet7, George P. Stone, Karl T. Strauss. Paul U. Thomas, John T. Van Krimpen. Carl E. W'atterworth, Loyal S. Wilhelm, James K., Jr. Wolfstein, Ralph S.
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MUSICAL SOCIETY ORCHESTRA
Lester McCoy, Conductor
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Arthur Berg, Manager
FIRST VIOLINS
Green, Elizabeth A. H.
Concertmaster Merte, Herman Streicher, Janet B. Needham, Sally J. McKenzie, Sheila A. Blumenthal, Janet H. Breen, Seely E. Haughn, Elizabeth C. Wise, Carolyn Freyer, Robert E. Beebe, Elizabeth J. Perlman, Marilyn F.
SECOND VIOLINS
Kronick, David A.
Principal
West, Margaret L. Mulligan, Aileen Kelly, Mary J. Hagopian, John V. Hiten, Edith A. Bredendieck, Dina A. Kennedy, LaDonna Springett, Marlita Carter, Mary E. Whitmire, Rene D. Alkema, Henry D. Knaggs, Marilyn J. Zimmerman, Lynn M. Shaler, Dorothy
VIOLAS
Cool, Grace L.
Principal Smalla, Joanne L. Commons, Barbara A. Mason, Stephen C. Hughes, Byron 0. Dutcher, Alice M. Van Citters, Mary Karapetian, Carl Mueller, Blanche Papich, George Fenn, Thomas
VIOLONCELLOS
Dalley, Gretchen
Principal
Streicher, Velma R. Dalley, Melinda Allen, Anne W. Wales, Beverly Ann Zimmerman, Gilbert Becker, Eleanor A. Gray, Susan L. Kren, Cynthia Breitmayer, Helen G.
BASSES
Patterson, Benjamin
Principal Hall, Reginald H. Hammel, Virginia Hurst, Lawrence P. Williams, James J. Patrick, Chester F. Hamilton, Ralph E.
FLUTES
Hauenstein, Nelson Hauenstein, Louise Watson, Frances B. Martin, Patricia J. Baird, Sarah J.
OBOES
Heger, Theodore E. Gassaway, Joan Badger, Rebecca S. Curtis, John H.
CLARINETS
Bauer, John H., Jr. Prince, Warren F. Manning, Sara A. Lawless, Jerrold A. Course, Thomas V.
BASSOONS
Weichlein, William J.
Mason, Janet B. Keivit, Marilyn R. Becker, Eleanor A.
HORNS
Howard, Howard T. Karapetian, Carl Holtgren, Ann E. Mindlin, Jackie E. Dalley, Nielsen S. Whitwell, David E.
TRUMPETS
Head, Emerson W. Stollsteimer, Gary K. Chesnut, Walter M. Alexander, John L.
TROMBONES
Moore, Joseph R. Hause, Robert L. Groner, Earl F. Christie, John M.
TUBA
Heier, James O. TIMPANI
Roberts, Ralph L. Moore, James L.
PERCUSSION
Salmon, James D. Pullin, James R. Ekstrom, Peter Marco, Alfred J. Seidler, Jack W.
CELESTA-HARMONIUM
Rice, Betty L. Linton, Doris Y.
HARPS
Mueller, Therese M. Milks, Margery J.
Combined list of personnel who participated with the Choral Union in the two Messiah performances and in preparation of the May Festival choral works this season.
76
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor
Donald L. Engle, Manager
Joseph H. Santarlasci, Assistant Manager
William R. Smith, Assistant to the Conductor
FIRST VIOLINS Krachmalnick, Jacob
Concertmasler Madison, David
Assistant Concertmaster Reynolds, Veda Shulik, Morris Lusak, Owen Simkins, Jasha Zenker, Alexander Alcinikoff, Harry Costanzo, Frank Henry, Dayton M. Simkin, Meyer Weinberg, Herman Gesensway, Louis Goldstein, Ernest L. Stahl, Jacob Putlitz, Lois Schmidt, Henry W. Rosen, Irvin
SECOND VIOLINS Eisenbcrg, Irwin I. Wigler, Jerome Brodo, Joseph Di Camillo, A. Black, Norman Gorodetzky, A. Miller, Charles S. Schwartz, Isadore Dreyfus, George Sharlip, Benjamin Dabrowski, S. Bove, D. Roth, Manuel Kaufman, Schima Ludwig, Irving
VIOLAS
Zaratzian, Harry Cooley, Carlton Mogill, Leonard Braverman, Gabriel Ferguson, Paul Frantz, Leonard Primavera, Joseph P., Jr. Kahn, Gordon Bauer, J. K. Epstein, Leonard Greenberg, William S. Bogdanoff, Leonard
VIOLONCELLOS
Munroe, Lome
Hilger, Elsa
Gorodetzer, Harry
Druian, Joseph
Belenko, Samuel
de Pasquale, Francis
Gorodetzky, Hershel
Siegel, Adrian
Saputelli, William
Sterin, J.
Gray, John BASSES
Scott, Roger M.
Torello, Carl
Arian, Edward
Maresh, Ferdinand
Eney, F. Gilbert
Lazzaro, Vincent
Strassenberger, Max
Batchelder, Wilfred
Gorodetzer, Samuel
HARPS
Costello, Marilyn
de Cray, Marcella FLUTES
Kincaid, W. M.
Cole, Robert
Terry, Kenton F.
Krell", John C, Piccolo OBOES
de Lancie, John
Morris, Charles M.
Di Fulvio, Louis
Minsker, John, English Horn CLARINETS
Gigliotti, Anthony M.
Rowe, George D.
Serpentini, Jules J.
Lester, Leon, Bass Clarinet BASSOONS
Schoenbach, Sol
Shamlian, John
Angelucci, A. L.
Del Negro, F.,
Contrabassoon SAXOPHONE
Waxman, Carl
HORNS Jones, Mason Hale, Leonard Fearn, Ward O. Mayer, Clarence Lannutti, Charles Pierson, Herbert
TRUMPETS Krauss, Samuel Rosenfeld, Seymour Rehrig, Harold W. Hering, Sigmund Gusikoff, Charles, Bass Trumpet
TROMBONES Gusikoff, Charles Smith, Henry C, III Cole, Howard Harper, Robert S., Bass Trombone Gusikoff, Charles, Euphonium
TUBA
Torchinsky, Abe TIMPANI Hinger, Fred D. Bookspan, Michael
BATTERY
Owen, Charles E. Bookspan, Michael Valerio, James Roth, Manuel
CELESTA, PIANO, ORGAN Smith, William R. Putlitz, Lois
LIBRARIAN
Taynton, Jesse C. PERSONNEL MANAGER
Schmidt, Henry W. STAGE PERSONNEL
Hauptle, Theodore H., Mgr.
Hauptle, Frank
Betz, Marshall
Hauptle, Theodore E.
PHOTO PUBLICITY Siegel, Adrian
77
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY PROGRAMS 1955-1956
The University Musical Society, in addition to the annual May Festival, provided the following concerts during the season of 1955-56.
77TH ANNUAL CHORAL UNION SERIES
ZINKA MILANOV, Soprano
Bozidar Kunc at the Piano
October 11, 1955
Ah, Perfido!, Op. 46.....Beethoven
AHerseelen
Traum durch die Dammerung Richard Strauss
Zueicnune
La Cathedral engloutiel
Feux d'artifke ......
Marietta's Aria from The Dead City . Korngold Rusalka's Aria from Rusalka .... Dvorak
The World Is Empty.......Kunc
Do Not Go, My Love......Hageman
Ceznia (Loneini;)........Pavcic
Pastirica (The Shepherdess) 1 r,,Mr
Toccata in G minor, Op. 53 J.....vUNC
"Vissi d'arie" from Tosca.....Puccini
"Voi lo sapete" from
Cavallcria Rusticana.....Mascagni
Little Jack Horner.....Handel-Diak
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Charles Munch, Conductor
October 24, 1955
Fantastic Symphony, Op. 14a .... Berlioz Symphony in B-flat, No. 102 .... Haydn "Daphnis et Chloe," Ballet--Orchestral
excerpts from Second Suite .... Ravel
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA George Szell, Conductor
November 6, 1955
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro 1 Symphony in G minor, No. 40 (K. 550) J ?
"Don Juan," Op. 20......R. Strauss
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 . Schumann
NATHAN MILSTEIN, Violinist
Artur Balsam at the Piano
November 14, 1955
Sonata in G minor........Tartini
Partita in D minor........Bach
Sonata in F major. Op. 24 ... Beethoven Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 6 . . Paganini
THE ROBERT SHAW CHORALE
CONCERT ORCHESTRA Robert Shaw, Conductor
November 22, 1955 Magnificat in D major 1
Dona nobis pacem J ......
"He Watching over Israel" from
Elijah........Mendelssohn
King David.........Honeccer
Liebcslieder Waltzes, No. 13-16, Op. 52 . Brahms Oh Dear. What Can the Matter Be . Folksong Yellow Rope of Texas.....Don George
7S
VIENNA CHOIR BOYS Heluuth Froschauer, Musical Director
January IS, 1956
Compositions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sancta Maria Mater Dei Sub tuum praesidium Ave verum Laudate Dominum Alleluja
Bastien and Bastienne (operetta) Fruhling (Spring) Trio from The Magic Flute The Farmer's Wife Has Lost Her Cat ABC
Sleep, My Little Prince Tales from the Vienna Woods .... Strauss
Resensburger Schneider......Folksong
Kinderwacht.........Schumann
Aba Heidschi bum Beidschi .... Folksong
TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Sir Ernest MacMjllan, Conductor
February 22, 19S6
Overture to ldomento.......Mozart
Symphony No. 29 (K. 201).....Mozart
"New York Profiles," Suite .... Dello Joio Symphony No. 2, Op. 43.....Sibelius
ARTUR RUBINSTEIN, Pianist March 1, 1956
Chaconne . ........Bach-Busoni
Sonata in E-flat major,
Op. 31, No. 3.......Beethoven
Intermezzo in B-fjat minor, Op. 117 1
Capriccio in B minor, Op. 76 . Bkahiis
Rhapsody in E-flat major, Op. 119 J
Barcarolle, Op. 60 -.
Pi'lonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53 1
Valse in A minor, Op. 34 r Chopin
Nocturne in F-sharp Major,
Op. 15, No. 2 ? O Polichinelo........Villa-Lobos
VIRTUOSI DI ROMA Renato Fasano, Conductor
March 13, 1956
Compositions of Antonio Vivaldi Concerto in C minor for Strings Concerto in D minor for Oboe and Strings Concerto in B-flat for Violin, Cello and Strings The Concerti of Tie Seasons, Op. 8 for
Solo Violin and Strings "The Spring," E major "The Summer," B minor "The Autumn," F major "The Winter," F minor
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
WALTER GIESEKING, Pianist May 16, 1956
Sonata in D major (K. 576).....Mozart
Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110 . . Beethoven Intermezzo in B-flat minor, Op. 117, No. 2 1 Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118, No. 2 [ Brahms Romance in F major, Op. 118, No. 5 J
Rondo capriccioso......Mendelssohn
Barcarolle, Op. 60........Chopin
Suite bergamasque 1
Pagodes .......Debussy
Reflets dans l'eau J
Ondine............Ravel
TENTH ANNUAL EXTRA CONCERT SERIES
OBERNKIRCHEN CHILDREN'S CHOIR
Edith Moeller, Conductor
October 17, 1955
Amor im Nachen........Gastoldi
In stiller Nacht.........Brahms
Die Rose stand im Tau.....Schumann
I Left My Darling Lying There . . . Folksong
Landsknechlsstandchcn......Di Lasso
Ein Hennlein wiess'......Scandello
Echo Lied..........Di Lasso
Der Wirbelwind......F. W. Moeller
Lowenzahn.........Armin Knab
Der Kiebitz........Joseph Hass
Miidchen am Brunnen......Folksong
Battle Hymn of the Republic . Arr. by W. Stepfe
PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF LONDON Herdert von Karajan, Conductor
November 9, 1955 Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major
(K. 543)..........Mozart
Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56 . Brahms Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82 ) ,..?-. ,?. Finlandia, Op. 26 J Sibelius
THE BOSTON POPS TOUR ORCHESTRA Arthur Fiedler, Conductor
January 8, 1956
Polonaise from Eugene Onegin . . Tchaikovsky Overture to The Barber of Seville . . . Rossini Fantasia on "Greenslceves" . Vaughan Williams Suite from
"Graduation Ball" . . . Johann Strauss, Jr. Rhapsody on a Theme of
Paganini.......Rachmaninoff
The Sorcerer's Apprentice......Dukas
Popsorama......Arr. by Jack Mason
On the Trail, from "Grand Canyon Suite" . Grofe Look Sharp, Be Sharp . . . Merrick-Bennett Surry with the Fringe on Top
from Oklahoma . . . Rogers-Hammerstein
Bugler's Holiday......Leroy Anderson
Let 'er Go Lover .... Arr. by Jack Mason Star and Stripes Forever.......Sousa
MYRA HESS, Pianist
February 15, 1956 Adagio in G major ) R
Toccata in D major f........
Sonata in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 . . Beethoven
Sonata in F minor, Op. 5......Brahms
Two Songs Without Words
A major, A minor.....Mendelssohn
Two Sonatas in G major.....Scarlatti
Prelude to Cantata No. 106 . . . Bach-Friskin
TERESA STICH-RANDALL, Soprano Assisted by Arpad Sandor, Pianist
March 9, 1956 Misera, dove son, K. 369 1
Abendempnndung .....Mozart
Oiseaux, si tous les ans j
Der Jungling und der Tod
Heimliches Lieben I c .
Nacht und Traume ????? Schubert
Seliekeit J
"Ah, fors e lui" from La Traviata . . . Verdi
"So anch'io la virtu magica" from
Don Pasquale.......Donizetti
An die Nachtigall
Wenn du nur zuweilen liichelst
Mondnacht
So willst du dcs Armen J
"Mi chiamano Mimi" from La Bohetne]
"Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly j
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERTS
HANDEL'S MESSIAH
December 3 and 4, 1955
Ellen Faull, Soprano
Lillian Chookasian, Contralto
Howard Jarratt, Tenor
Donald Gramm, Bass
University Choral Union
Musical Society Orchestra
Mary McCall Stubbins, Organist
Lester McCoy, Conductor
16TH ANNUAL CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
BUDAPEST STRING QUARTET
Joseph Roisman, First Violin Alexander Schneider, Second Violin
Boris Kroyt, Viola
Mischa Schneider, Violoncello
Robert Courte, Guest Violist
Friday, February 17, 19S6
Quartet in F major, Op. 18, No. 1 . Beethoven
Quarict, Op. 10, No. 2......Kodaly
Quintet in C major, K. 515 .... Mozart
Saturday, February 18, 1956
Quartet in G major, Op. 18, No. 2 . Beethoven Quartet in E minor, Op. 116, No. 1 . Smetana Quintet in G minor, K. 516 . . . . Mozart
Sunday, February 19, 1956 Quartet in D major, Op. IS, No. 3 . Beethoven
Quartet in F major, Op. 96.....Dvorak
Quintet in D major, K. 593 .... Mozart
79
CONCERTS FOR 1956-1957
SEVENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL CHORAL UNION SERIES
Kurt Baum, Tenor and Herva Nelli, Soprano . . Thursday, October 4 Boston Symphony Orchestra........Monday, October IS
Charles Munch, Conductor Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.......Sunday, October 21
Herbert von Karajan, Conductor
Robert Casadesus, Pianist.........Monday, November 5
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra......Tuesday, November 20
Andre Cluytens, Conductor
Artur Rubinstein, Pianist.........Monday, January 14
Vienna Choir Boys............Sunday, January 20
Solomon, Pianist............Thursday, February 21
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra......Thursday, February 26
Thor Johnson, Conductor The Cleveland Orchestra..........Sunday, March 10
George Szell, Conductor
ELEVENTH ANNUAL EXTRA CONCERT SERIES
Mantovani and His New Music.......Thursday, October 11
Boston Symphony Orchestra.......Wednesday, October 17
Charles Munch, Conductor
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano.....Wednesday, November 14
dePaur Opera Gala...........Thursday, January 10
Leonard dePaur, Conductor Boston Pops Orchestra...........Sunday, March 3
Arthur Fiedler, Conductor
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERTS
Messiah (Handel)..........December 1 and 2, 19S6
Adele Addison, Soprano Kenneth Smith, Bass
Eunice Alberts, Contralto Choral Union and Orchestra
Howard Jarratt, Tenor Lester McCoy, Conductor
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
Quartetto Italiano..........February IS, 16, 17, 1957
Paolo Borciani, Violin Piero Farulli, Viola
Elisa Pegreffi, Violin Franco Rossi, Cello
SIXTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MAY FESTIVAL
Six Concerts..............May 2, 3, 4, 5, 1957
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.
80
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY