UMS Concert Program, March 15, 1959: The Robert Shaw Chorale And Orchestra --

Concert: Fifth
Complete Series: 3259
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
Fifth Concert Thirteenth Annual Extra Series Complete Series 3259
The Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra
Robert Shaw, Conductor
Sunday Afternoon, March 15, 1959, at 2:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Suite from Ads and Galatea........Handei.
Requiem Mass............Faure
INTERMISSION
Four Faces of Love:
True Love, from Five Songs on Old Texts . . . Hindemith Love Song, from Four Hungarian Folksongs .... Bartok The Lover's Wish, from Vier Stiicke, Op. 27 . . Schonberg
With Air Commanding, from The Rake's Progress . Stravinsky
Rhapsodie for Contralto Solo, Male Chorus,
and Orchestra, Op. S3.........Brahms
Florence Kopleff, Contralto
Suite from Les Brigands........Offenbach
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society
ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS
PROGRAM NOTES
Suite from Acts and Galatea .... Georg Friedrich Handel Acis, Tenor Galatea, Soprano Polypheme, Bass
In this year commemorating the 200th anniversary of Handel's death, audiences will have the opportunity to become acquainted with many of his lessperformed master?pieces. One of these is certainly Acis and Galatea, composed in 1720 when Handel was at the height of his fame as an opera composer and manager in London. In music of great charm it tells the story of the goddess Galatea, whose great beauty causes the Cyclops, Polypheme, to fall madly in love with her. He catches sight of her one day sporting with her love Acis, a Naiad. Mad with rage, he hurls a rock at them, pinning the unfortunate Acis beneath. Galatea bemoans her loss, then changes Acis to a river, which thenceforth gushes pure from the stone.
The suite is made up of the following selections from the work: Overture and Chorus: "Oh, the pleasure of the plains" Tenor Aria: "Love in her eyes sits playing" Duet and Chorus: "Happy we" Chorus: "Wretched lovers" Trio: "The flocks shall leave the motintains" Tenor Recitative: "Help, Galatea" Chorus: "Mourn, ye Muses" Soprano Aria: "Heart, the seat of soft delight" Final Chorus: "Galatea, dry thy tears"
Requiem Mass..........Gabriel Faure
for Soprano and Baritone Soli, Chorus, and Orchestra
Gabriel Faure was for many years a leading organist, composer and teacher in Paris. Appointed Director of the Conservatoire in 1905, he held this post almost to his death in 1924. The Requiem, composed in 1887, displays the special genius for atmospheric writing which characterizes his many songs: a disarming simplicity of vocal line and an instrumental background alternately rich and transparent. Its seven movements are com?posed to traditional liturgical texts. Introit and Kyrie is a sombre plea to God for the rest of departed souls. The Offertorium is a hymn to Christ asking deliverance from the perils of the hereafter, interrupted by a movingly simple solo chant requesting eternal life. The Sanctus presents the muted praise of an angelic choir. The Sequence, Pie Jesu, for soprano solo, reiterates the prayer for rest everlasting. There follows the Agnus Dei which recalls the music and mood of the first movement. The two concluding move?ments take their text from the Order of Burial. In Libera Me there is an extended bari?tone solo, followed by an exciting choral section referring to the day of judgment. The final chorus, In Paradisum, quietly depicts the arrival in paradise of the departed, in company with a chorus of angels.
Four Faces of Love:
True Love, from "Five Songs on Old Texts" . Paul Hindemith
Love Song, from "Four Hungarian Folksongs" . . Bela Bartok
The Lover's Wish, from "Vier Stu'cke," Op. 27 . Arnold Schonberg
With Air Commanding, from "The Rake's Progress" Igor Stravinsky
Love is no less fascinating a subject to composers than it is to the rest of mankind, and it is a tantalizing circumstance that these four "giants" of our century have left us these choruses, which, though they be isolated and shorter works, carry unmistakably a "face" not only of love, but one as well of their own individual style and creativity.
The Hindemith setting is immediately approachable--a soaring tenor melody, richly harmonized. Bartok's lifelong research into Slavic folksong is reflected in this piece with its syncopated rhythms and engaging text. Schonberg was one of the most controversial figures in contemporary music--here he has chosen a glowingly romantic text to set in his abstract manner. Stravinsky displays a buoyant humor in this excerpt from his opera, The Rake's Progress.
?Boosey & Hawkes, N. Y.
Rhapsodie, for Contralto Solo, Male Chorus,
and Orchestra, Op. 53.....Johannes Brahms
"Who goes there A man, embittered by love, turned to hate, wandering alone in the desert. O Father of Love, open his eyes to the myriad springs about him: reopen his heart."
Brahms set this text from Goethe's Harzreise im Winter in 1869. The romantic figure of the young man whose life is ruined by a false love is portrayed in music of brooding intensity.
Suite from Lcs Brigands......Jacques Offenbach
Characters in order of appearance: Barbavano, a Brigand Bass Pietra, Lieutenant of the Brigands Baritone Falsacappa, Chief of the Brigands Tenor Fiorclla, Daughter of Falsacappa Soprano Fragoletto, a Young Farmer Tenor (originally sung by mezzosoprano)
Offenbach is best known to today's audiences for his opera The Tales of Hoffman and the ballet score drawn from La Vie Parisienne. He wrote, however, no less than ninety operettas in twentyfive years, giving him the edge in productivity over both Gilbert and Sullivan, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. The infectious rhythms, whistleable tunes and delightfully zany plots of these works demand immediate resurrection from the temporary oblivion into which they have sunk.
In Les Brigands, Falsacappa, the chief of a group of bandits, has captured a young farmer, Fragoletto, who, however, had not put up much resistance because he had caught sight of the chief's daughter, Fiorella. Fragoletto decides to join the group, and on his trial adventure captures a courier of the cabinet. At the close of Act I, the brigands are about to induct Fragoletto into their band. They are briefly interrupted by the arrival of their traditional enemies, the Premiers Carabiniers, but since these latter are singularly ineffective soldiers, their revels are scarcely disturbed, and continue unabated through the night.
SOLOISTS WITH THE ROBERT SHAW CHORALE:
Sopranos: Tenors:
Barbara Freeman Michael Carolan
Carolyn Friday Gerald Carpenter
June Magruder Phillip Olson
Joan Mey Robert Richards
MezzoSopranos: Baritones:
Jane Craner John Dietz
Shirley Abrams Raymond Murcell
Thomas Pyle Contraltos:
Shirley Delp Bass:
Florence Kopleff Paul Westbrook
RCA Victor Red Seal Records Steinway Piano
The organ is made by C. G. Conn, Ltd.
ANDRE TCHAIKOWSKY, Polish pianist, will be heard in the final con?cert in the Choral Union Series, Monday evening, March 23. The program: Fantasia and Sonata in C minor (Mozart); and TwentyFour Preludes, Op. 28 (Chopin).
MAY FESTIVAL
1, 2, 3,
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA AT ALL CONCERTS
PROGRAMS
THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 8:30 P.M.
EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor RUDOLF SERKIN, Pianist
Compositions of Johannes Brahms "Academic Festival" Overture, Op. 80
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, for Piano and Orchestra
Rudolf Serkin
FRIDAY, MAY 1, 8:30 P.M.
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
SIDNEY HARTH, Violinist
ROBERT COURTS, Violist
"Flos Campi".....Vaughan Witliams
(in memory of the composer, 18721958) Robekt Courte and University Choral Union
Poulenc
"Secheresses" (United States premiere) . University Cuoral Union
Concerto No. 2 in G minor . . . Sidney Harth
"FSte polonaise" from the opera,
Le Rot malgri lui.......Chabsizr
University Choral Union
SATURDAY, MAY 2, 8:30 P.M.
EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor DOROTHY KIRSTEN, Soprano
Chaconne........BachGesensway
"Visi d'arte" from Tosca.....Puccini
"Depuis le jour" from Louise . . Charpentier Dorothy Kirsten
Symphony No. 7, Op. 131 .
PROKOrlKJF
"Care selve" from Atlanta.....Handel
The Nightingale and the Rose RimskyKorsakoff
Southern Song......Landon Ronald
Miss Kirsten
"Bacchus et Ariane".......Roussel
SUNDAY, MAY 3, 2:30 P.M.
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
LOIS MARSHALL, Soprano
ILONA KOMBRINK, Soprano
HOWARD JARRATT, Tenor
AURELIO ESTANISLAO, Baritone
Solomon, an oratorio for two sopranos,
tenor baritone, chorus, and orchestra . Handel (Observing the 200th anniversary of the
death of the composer) University Choral Union and Soloists
Marilyn Mason, Harpsichord Mary McCall Stubbins, Organ
SATURDAY, MAY 2, 2:30 P.M.
WILLIAM SMITH, Conductor
VIRGIL THOMSON, Guest Conductor
WILLIAM KINCAID, Flutist
Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56A Brahmb
"The Seine at Night"......Thomson
"Power Among Men"......Thomson
Conducted by the Composer
Concerto for Flute, Strings,
and Percussion........Thomson
William Kincaid and Mr. Thomson
Symphony No. 1 in D major .
SUNDAY, MAY 3, 8:30 P.M.
EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor GIORGIO TOZZI, Basso
Symphony No. 39 in Bfiat major . . . Mozart
"Se vuol ballare" from Marriage of Figaro Mozart
"Madamina," from Don Giovanni . . Mozart
Giorgio Tozzi
Paganiniana, Op. 65.......Casella
"II lacerato spirito" from Simon Boccanegra Verdi
Pilgrim's SonR.......Tchaikovsky
Mr. Tozzi
Dvorak Suite No. 2 from "Daphnis and ChJoe"
Ravel
SEASON TICKETS: $13.00--$10.00--$9.00--$8.00 SINGLE CONCERTS: $3.50--$3.00--$2.50--$2.00--$1.50
195960 CHORAL UNION SERIES and EXTRA CONCERT SERIES-Orders for season tickets accepted beginning May 4. List of concerts will be announced next month.
For tickets or information address: University Musical Society, Burton Memorial Tower.