UMS Concert Program, October 6, 1958: Chicago Symphony Orchestra --

Concert: First
Complete Series: 3242
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

1958 Eightieth Season 1959
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Charles A. Sink, President Gail W. Rector, Executive Director Lester McCoy, Conductor
First Concert Thirteenth Annual Extra Series Complete Series 3242
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
FRITZ REINER, Conductor
Monday Evening, October 6, 1958, at 8:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Overture, "The Corsair," Op. 21.......Berlioz
?Divertimento, "The Fairy's Kiss," Allegorical
Ballet............Stravinsky
Sinfonia
Danses Suisses
Scherzo
Pas de deux: adagio, variation, coda
?Interlude and Dance from La Vida breve.....Falla
INTERMISSION
Suite for Orchestra No. 1, Op. 3.......Bartok
Allegro vivace Poco adagio Presto Moderato Molto vivace
Recorded by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCAVictor. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra uses the Baldwin Piano.
Note.--The University Musicial Society has presented the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Choral Union Series on 20 previous occasions; and at the May Festivals from 1905 to 1935 inclusive, totaling 184 concert performances.
ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS
PROGRAM NOTES by Aarand Parsons
Overture, "The Corsair," Op. 21.....Hector Berlioz
The overture begins with a stormy passage for the strings, answered by chords in the wind instruments. After this has been repeated a number of times the composer leads into an Adagio, which may be interpreted as indicative of the Corsair's "tender nature." The tumultuous introduction is then repeated with modulations until a new subject appears in the brass instruments. This energetic and firm theme is then elab?orated at length. Particularly interesting is the canon in the octave which the composer has given to the basses and to the trumpets and trombones; so, too, the manner in which he completely changes the theme's decisiveness into tenderness, as if to illustrate "the strange combination of apparently contradictory feelings."
Divertimento, "The Fairy's Kiss,"
Allegorical Ballet........Igor Stravinsky
Stravinsky composed the ballet The Fairy's Kiss (Le Baiser de la fee) in 1928 at the request of the dancer, Ida Rubinstein. In his Chronicle of My Life (1936) Stra?vinsky tells the story of how he came to write this ballet based on the music of Tchaikovsky. He writes: ". . . As with my other ballets, I made an orchestral suite from the music of Le Baiser de la fie, which can be played without much difficulty by reason of the restricted size of the orchestra required. I often conduct this suite myself, and I like doing so, all the more because in it I tried a style of writing and orchestra?tion which was new to me, and was one by means of which the music could be ap?preciated at the first hearing."
Stravinsky included the following dedication to Tchaikovsky in the score of the ballet: "I dedicate this ballet to the memory of Peter Tchaikovsky, identifying his Muse with this fairy, and it is in this that the ballet becomes an allegory. This muse has similarly marked him with her fatal kiss, whose mysterious imprint made itself felt in all the work of this great artist." The ballet is in four scenes which are described in the score as follows:
I. "The Lullaby in the Storm. A mother, lulling her child, struggles through the storm. The Fairy's attendant sprites appear and pursue her. They separate her from the infant and carry him off. The Fairy herself appears. She approaches the child and enfolds him with her tenderness. Then she kisses him on the forehead and goes away. Now he is alone. Country folk, passing him, search vainly for his mother, and, deeply distressed, take him with them.
II. "A Village Fete. A peasant dance is in progress, with musicians on the stage. Among the dancers are a young man and bis fiancde. The musicians and the crowd disperse, and, his fiancee going away with them, the young man remains alone. The Fairy approaches him in the guise of a gypsy woman. She takes his hand and tells his fortune, then she dances, and, ever increasingly, subjects him to her will. She talks of his romance and promises him great happiness. Captivated by her words, he begs her to lead him to his fiancee.
III. "At the Mill. Guided by the Fairy, the young man arrives at the mill, where he finds his fiancee among her friends playing games. The Fairy disappears. They all dance; then the girl goes with her friends to put on her wedding veil. The young man is left alone.
"The Fairy appears, wearing a wedding veil. The young man takes her for his bride. He goes towards her, enraptured, and addresses her in terms of warmest passion. Sud?denly the Fairy throws off her veil. Dumbfounded, the young man realizes his mistake. He tries to free himself, but in vain; he is defenceless before the supernatural power of the Fairy. His resistance overcome, she holds him in her power. Now she will bear him away to a land beyond time and place, where she will again kiss him. . . .
IV. "The Lullaby of the Land beyond Time and Place. The Fairy's attendant sprites group themselves in slow movements of great tranquility before a wide decor representing the infinite space of the heavens. The Fairy and the young man appear on a ridge. She kisses him to the sound of her lullaby."
Interlude and Dance from La Vida breve . . Manuel de Falla
La Vida breve won first prize in a competition for a national opera sponsored by the Academy of Fine Arts at Madrid in 1904. The plot of the opera is a simple one. Jaime Pahissa, in Manuel de Falla, 1954, states the case succinctly: "Salud, a young girl of Granada, is deserted by Paco, who had sworn eternal love to her. Paco is going to marry his new sweetheart, Carmela, but in the middle of the wedding feast Salud enters, reproaches Paco and falls dead at his feet."
The Interlude and Dance are taken from the second act of the opera. The Interlude separates the two scenes of the act; the Dance provides a festive opening for the second scene with the wedding feast of Carmela and Paco.
Suite for Orchestra, No. 1, Op. 3......Bela Bartok
In his The Life and Music of Bila Bartok, Halsey Stevens writes as follows:
"The First Suite, opus 3, is the first of Bartok's orchestral works available in score. In spite of the fact that it is dated 1905, the musicoethnological work which had already begun to occupy him has left no imprint upon it; it is, on the other hand, conditioned throughout by German and neoHungarian influences. The themes them?selves are such as Liszt might have considered autochthonously Hungarian. It is rather curious to find presentday Hungarian writers so considering them, and crediting their character to the simultaneous welling of Bartok's interest in the music of the Hungarian peasant. Certainly the desire was present in the Bartok of 1905 to arrive at an authen?tically Hungarian style in his original music, but it was several years before perceptible traces of such a style began to appear. There are few enough in the First Quartet of 1908; to find them in the First Suite is to mistake the intention for the deed.
"Nevertheless the Suite is not without its significance. It shows the composer already well equipped technically to cope with composition in the large forms, provided with an adequate knowledge of the orchestral instruments in combination, and with some idea of structural relationship between separate movements, a problem that was increasingly to occupy his intention for most of his life. The . . . movements of the Suite are joined by a primitive sort of thematic interreference, not in the Franckian manner but somewhat less obviously and, it must be admitted, less efficiently. The principal thematic resemblance is a characteristic dip of a fourth, which returns to its original note and is followed by an ascending third. It is this motive which begins the work and forms a part of numerous themes which follow, in particular those of the Presto.
"The forms of the Suite are lucid, depending largely upon repetition and develop?ment, with some variational procedures, chiefly ornamental, in the fourth movement. The Adagio is rather loosely organized, with a recurrent rubato theme which serves as point of reference. The Scherzo is a very fast waltzlike movement not too far in mood from the second of the Two Portraits; in the finale various materials from preceding movements are cited and combined.
"The orchestration of the First Suite is hybrid. Much of it is rather thick, with many doublings; other parts are conceived in soloistic terms. The contrast in this regard between the two themes of the first movement is especially pronounced; the first theme is presented in strings, horns, clarinets, and bassoons, while the second is given to a solo oboe with very slight support. But the most striking thing about the scoring is the division of the strings, testifying to the lesson Bartok had learned from Strauss: in one long section of the Adagio there are as many as nineteen different string parts, the doublebasses 'divisi a tre,' the other strings 'a quattro.' "
1958 -UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY CONCERTS -1959 Eightieth Annual Choral Union Series
Boston Symphony Orchestra.....Saturday, October 18
Charles Munch, Conductor
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 35, "Haffner" .................................................................... Mozart
Symphony No. S ........................................................................................ Honegger
Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" ................................................................ Beethoven
Gina Bachauer, Pianist......Monday, October 27
PROGRAM
Sonata in A major, Op. 2, No. 2 ............................................................ Beethoven
Sonata in F minor, Op. 5 ............................................................................ Brahms
Three Preludes................................................................................................ Debussy
Fantasy in F minor ........................................................................................ Chopin
Three Etudes from Op. 25 ............................................................................ CHOPrN
National Orchestra of Mexico .... Tuesday, November 11 Luis Herrera de la Fuente, Conductor
Jerome Hines, Bass.......Monday, November 24
Nathan Milstein, Violinist......Monday, January 5
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra . . . Thursday, February 26
William Steinberg, Conductor
National Symphony Orchestra .... Wednesday, March 4 Howard Mitchell, Conductor
Cescire Valletti, Tenor......Wednesday, March 11
Andre Tchaikowsky, Pianist.....Monday, March 23
Single Concerts: $3.50--$3.00--$2.50--2.00--$1.50
Thirteenth Annual Extra Concert Series
Isaac Stern, Violinist......Wednesday, November S
PROGRAM
Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 12............................................................Beethoven
Concerto in G minor, Op. 26, No. 1 ............................................................ Bruch
Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100................................................................Brahms
Siciliano and Rigaudon ................................................................................ Kreisler
Chant du Roxane ................................................................................ Szymanowski
Scherzo tarantelle .................................................................................... Wiekiawski
Boston Pops Tour Orchestra.....Tuesday, January 13
Arthur Fiedler, Conductor
Renata Tebaldi, Soprano......Tuesday, February 10
Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra . . (2:30) Sunday, March IS
Robert Shaw, Conductor
Single Concerts: $3.50--$3.00--$2.50--$2.00--$1.50
Annual Christmas Concerts
Messiah (Handel)......December 6 and 7, 1958
Tickets: 75c and 50c (either concert). On sale beginning October 15.
Nineteenth Annual Chamber Music Festival
Societa Corelli......February 13, 14, IS, 1959
Three Concerts in Rackham Auditorium Series Tickets: $4.00 and $3.00. On sale beginning October 15.
For tickets or information, address: University Musical Society, Burton Memorial Tower.