UMS Concert Program, April 30, May 1, 2, 3, 1959: The Sixty-sixth Annual Ann Arbor May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Season: Eightieth
Concert: SIXTH
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

ANN ARBOR M
1959
presented by
The University Musical Society
of The University of Michigan
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UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
of The University of Michigan
Ciaktletlt J
eadon
Program of the Sixty-Sixth Annual
ANN ARBOR
MAY F
H
IVAI
April 30, May 1, 2, 3,1959 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Published by the University Musical Society, Ann Arbor
CHARLES ALBERT SINK President, University Musical Society
Portrait by Wayman Adams, New York City Commissioned by The University Musical Society, 1949
Presented to The University of Michigan, and unveiled in Hill Auditorium, May 2,1957
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Board of Directors
Charles A. Sink, A.B., M.Ed., LL.D., HH.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.
Died February 15
Gail W. Rector, B.Mus., Executive Director
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY is a nonprofit organiza?tion devoted to educational purposes. For eighty years its concerts have been maintained through the sale of tickets. Each year generous culture-minded citizens make contributions to the Society. These gifts, credited to the Endowment Fund, will commensurately ensure continu?ance of the quality of concert presentation, and make possible advances in scope and activity as new opportunities arise.
THE SIXTY-SIXTH ANNUAL ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Conductors
Eugene Ormandy, Orchestral Conductor
William Smith, Assistant Orchestral Conductor
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Virgil Thomson, Guest Conductor
Lester McCoy, Choirmaster
Organizations
The Philadelphia Orchestra The University Choral Union
Soloists
Dorothy Kirsten.............Soprano
Lois Marshall..............Soprano
Ilona Kombrink.............Soprano
Howard Jarratt..............Tenor
Aurelio Estanislao............Baritone
Giorgio Tozzi...............Basso
Rudolf Serkin..............Pianist
Sidney Harth..............Violinist
Robert Courte..............Violist
William Kincaid.............Flutist
4
FIRST MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Thursday Evening, April 30, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
RUDOLF SERKIN, Pianist
PROGRAM Compositions of Johannes Brahms
Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
Allegro con brio
Andante con moto Poco allegretto Allegro
INTERMISSION
Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, for Piano and Orchestra
Maestoso Adagio
Rondo; allegro non troppo
Rudolf Serkin
? Columbia Records
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
SECOND MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 1, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
SIDNEY HARTH, Violinist ROBERT COURTE, Violist
PROGRAM
Flos Campi, Suite for Solo Viola, Chorus,
and Orchestra..............Vaughan Williams
(In memory of the composer, 1872-1958)
Robert Courte and The University Choral Union
Secheresses, for Chorus and Orchestra..........Poulenc
(United States premiere)
Les Sauterelles
Le Village abandonne
Le Faux avenir
Le Squelette de la mer
The University Choral Union intermission
Concerto No. 2 in G minor for Violin
and Orchestra, Op. 63..............Prokofiev
Allegro molto Andante assai
Allegro ben marcato
Sidney Harth
"Fete polonaise," from the opera Le Rot ntalgre lid.....Chabrier
The University Choral Union
The Sleinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 2, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
WILLIAM SMITH, Assistant Conductor
VIRGIL THOMSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOIST
WILLIAM KINCAID, Flutist
PROGRAM Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a........Brahms
The Seine at Night................Thomson
f Fugues and Cantilenas from the United
Nations film Power Among Men..........Thomson
Prelude with Fugal Exposition Fugue No. 1 Ruins and Jungles Fugue No. 2
Hymn
Fugue No. 3 Joyous Pastoral Finale
Conducted by the composer
INTERMISSION
Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion........Thomson
Rapsodico (unaccompanied) Lento
Ritmico
William Kincaid, the composer conducting
Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 60..........Dvorak
Allegro non tanto Adagio
Scherzo (furiant): presto Finale: allegro conspirito
Columbia Records t World premiere
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
FOURTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 2, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
DOROTHY KIRSTEN, Soprano
PROGRAM
Chaconne.....................Bach
(Transcribed for large orchestra by Louis Gesensway)
"Vissi d'arte" from Tosca..............Puccini
"Depuis le jour" from Louise...........Charpentier
Dorothy Ktrsten
Symphony No. 7, Op. 131.............Prokofiev
Moderato
Allegretto; allegro
Andante espressivo Vivace
INTERMISSION
"Care selve" from Atalanta..............Handel
The Nightingale and the Rose.........Rimsky-Korsakov
Southern Song...............Landon Ronald
Miss Kirsten
Bacchus et Ariane, Ballet Suite No. 2, Op. 43.......Roussel
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
8
FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 3, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
LOIS MARSHALL, Soprano
ILONA KOMBRINK, Soprano
HOWARD JARRATT, Tenor
AURELIO ESTANISLAO, Baritone
PROGRAM
SOLOMON, an Oratorio for Two Sopranos, Tenor,
Baritone, Chorus, and Orchestra...........Handel
The University Choral Union and Soloists
Marilyn Mason, Harpsichord
Mary McCall Stubbins, Organ
Cast Solomon...........Aurelio Estanislao
Nicaule, Queen of Shebal.......Lois Marshall
Second Woman
JtQZ ..........ILONA KOMBRINK
First Woman)
Zadok.............Howard Jarratt
Priests, Priestesses, and Israelites .... Choral Union
Observing the 200th anniversary of the composer's death
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 3, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
GIORGIO TOZZI, Basso
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K. 543.........Mozart
Adagio; allegro Andante
Menuetto; allegretto Finale; allegro
"Se vuol ballare" from Le Nozze di Figaro........Mozart
"Madamina" from Don Giovanni............Mozart
Giorgio Tozzi
intermission
"Paganiniana," Divertimento for Orchestra, Op. 65......Casella
Allegro agitato Polacchetta Romanza
Tarantella
"II lacerato spirito" from Simon Boccanegra.........Verdi
Pilgrim Song.................Tchaikovsky
Mr. Tozzi
Suite No. 2 from the Ballet, Daphnis et Chloe.......Ravel
Daybreak Pantomine General Dance
? Columbia Records
The Steimuay is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
10
ANNOTATIONS
by GLENN D. McGEOCH
FIRST CONCERT
Thursday Evening, April 30
Program of the Compositions of Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was bom May 7, 1833, at Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, at Vienna.
The differences that actually exist between the art of the two great con?temporaries Brahms and Wagner are slight indeed. Criticism in the past has been too insistent in symbolizing each of these masters as the epitome of opposing forces in the music of their age. It has identified their aesthetic theories and the conflict that raged around them with their art and has come to the false conclusion that no two artists reveal a greater disparity of style, expression, and technique.
In truth Wagner and Brahms were products of the same artistic soil, nur?tured by the same forces that conditioned the standards and norms of art in their time. They both lived in a spiritually poverty stricken and soul sick period, when anarchy seemed to have destroyed culture, an age which was distinctly unfavorable to genuinely great art; unfavorable because of its pre?tentiousness and exclusiveness and its hidebound worship of the conventional. Its love of luxury and its crass materialism brought in its wake disillusion?ment, weariness, and indifference to beauty; its showy exterior did not hide the inner barrenness of its culture. Brahms and Wagner, opposed in verbal theory, stand together strong in the face of opposing forces, disillusioned beyond doubt with the state of their world, but not defeated by it. Both shared in a serious purpose and noble intention and sought the expression of the sublime in their art, and each in his own way tried to strengthen the flaccid spirit of the time by sounding a note of courage and hopefulness. Brahms's First Piano Concerto, the German Requiem, the Alto Rhapsody, the Song of Destiny, and particularly the great tragic songs all speak in the somber and earnest but lofty accents of Wagner. It is no accident then that the real Brahms seems to be the serious, contemplative Brahms of these works, for here is to be found the true expression of an artist at grips with the artistic and spiritual problems of his time.
The overly introspective and supersensitive artist is apt to cut himself off from a larger arc of experience in life and is prone to exaggerate the importance of the more intimate and personal sentiments, and when, as in the age of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, such a tendency is widespread a whole school may become febrile and erotic. But Brahms, even as Beethoven before him, was essentially of a hearty and vigorous mind. Standing abreast of such vital spirits as Carlyle and Browning, he met the challenge of his age and triumphed in his art. By the exercise of a clear intelligence and a strong critical faculty, he was able to temper the tendency toward emotional excess and to
13
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
avoid the pitfalls of utter despair into which Tchaikovsky, with his persistent penchant for melancholy expression, his feverish sensibility, and his neurotic fears, was invariably led. Although Brahms experienced disillusionment no less than Wagner and Tchaikovsky, his was another kind of tragedy--the tragedy of a man born out of his time. He suffered 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 dissolve in a welter of cheap emotionalism. He saw the classic dignity of that art degraded by an infiltration of tawdry programatic effects and innocuous imitation, and witnessed finally its subjuga?tion to poetry and the dramatic play. But all of this he opposed with his own grand style--profoundly moving, noble, and dignified. With a sweep and thrust he forced music out upon her mighty pinions to soar once more. What Matthew Arnold wrote of Milton's verse might well have been written of the music of Brahms: "The fullness of thought, imagination, and knowledge make it what it is" and its mighty power lies "in the refining and elevation wrought in us by the high and rare excellence of the grand style."
In his admirable book on Brahms, Fuller-Maitland made reference to the parallelism between the composer and Robert Browning. This association, too, is a significant one. There is something similar in their artistic outlook and method of expression; for Brahms, like Browning, often disclaimed the nice selection and employment of an idiom in itself merely beautiful. As artists, nonetheless, they created in every case a style that was fitly proportioned to each chosen design, finding in this fluctuating relationship of form and expres?sion a more vital beauty and a broader sweep of feeling.
Brahms lived his creative life upon the "cold white peaks" and in his epic conception of form often verged upon the expression of the sublime. No master ever displayed a more inexorable self-discipline or held his art in higher respect. He was a master of masters, always painstaking in the devotion he put into his work and undaunted in his search for perfection. The Brahms of music is the man, in Milton's magnificent phrase, "of devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out His seraphim with the hallowed fire from His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases."
Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
If ever a piece of music stood as an eternal refutation of all that is meant by "academic," it is this "Festival Overture." The work was written in 1880, as an acknowledgment by Brahms of the doctor's degree which had been con?ferred upon him by the University of Breslau, as the Princeps musicae severioris in Germany. Shockingly enough, the rollicking "Academic Festival Overture" is anything but severely in keeping with the pedantic solemnities of academic convention. It is typical of Brahms that he should delight in thanking the pompous dignitaries of the university with such a quip, for certainly here is
J. A. Fuller-Maitland, Brahms (London: Methuen & Co., 1911), p. 165. 14
FIRST CONCERT
one of the gayest and most sparkling overtures in the orchestral repertory.
In the spirit of "He hath cast down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them that are of low degree," Brahms selected as the thematic materials for his overture a handful of student drinking songs, defying all the established conventions of serious composition. He always took an impish joy in indulging his instinct for championing underdogs of art such as music boxes, banjos, brass bands, and working men's singing societies. And here he elevated the lowly student song into the realm of legitimate art. There was never a "nobler man of the people" in the whole history of music.
The overture begins (Allegro, C minor, 2-2 time) without introduction. The principal theme is announced in the violins. Section II is a tranquil melody in the violas, which returns to the opening material. After an episode (E minor) there follows the student song, "Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus" ("We had built a stately house"), heard in three trumpets (C major). At the close of this section, the full orchestra presents another section partly sug?gested by the first theme of the overture. The key changes to E major and the second violins with cellos pizzicato announce the second student song, "Der Landesvater" ("The Father of the Country"), an old eighteenth-century tune.
The development section does not begin with the working out of the expo?sition material, but strangely enough, with the introduction of another student melody (in two bassoons) "Was kommt dort von der Hoh" ("What comes there from on high"), a freshman song. An elaborate development of the mate?rial of the exposition then follows. The recapitulation is irregular in that it merely suggests the return of the principal theme, but presents the rest of the material in more or less regular restatement. The conclusion is reached in a stirring section which presents a fourth song, "Gaudeamus igitur," in the wood?wind choir, with tumultuous scale passages against it in the higher strings, and with this emphatic and boisterous theme--the most popular of all student songs --the overture gives its final thrust at the Academicians.
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
The Brahms first two symphonies were finished in 1876 and 1877, respec?tively. The third did not follow until six years later and, unlike the others, was immediately successful. In truth Brahms was at the very zenith of his creative powers when he composed this work and with it, his reputation as a symphonist was secured.
In many ways the Third Symphony is his most typical and personal sym?phonic work. It not only made his name as a symphonist resound through?out the world with full resonance, but of the four he composed, it has remained the public favorite. Although its lyrical themes are of exceptional breadth and richness, their development is accomplished with classical directness and brevity. From the initial sounding of a germ motive (F, A-flat, F octave) at the be?ginning of the first movement, to the final return at the end of the fourth movement, a regal architecture of sound is created. Epic and virile movements
This is a vivacious and slightly grotesque version of the "Fuchslied" ("Fox Song"), "Fuchs" being equivalent to "Freshman." Max Kalbeck, an admirer of Brahms, and also his biographer, was shocked at the idea of this irreverence to the learned doctors of the University, but Brahms was unperturbed.
IS
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
are constantly relieved by those of lyrical tenderness and quiet serenity. The first movement is spirited and energetic, the second and third wistful and brooding, while the fourth, after a somber beginning, bursts forth with demoniac power, only to return at the end, with the reappearance of the germ motive of the first movement, to a resigned quietness. All these fluctuating moods are held together in a formal framework of heroic breadth and structural simplicity.
What Brahms was trying to express in this most personal and intimate of his symphonies challenged the curiosity of many of his distinguished contem?poraries. According to Clara Schumann it was a "Forest Idyl"; to Hans Richter it was another Beethoven "Eroica." Joseph Joachim, the famous violinist and intimate friend of Brahms, thought it to be a musical translation of the Greek legend of Hero and Leander! Max Kalbeck maintained that it was inspired by the statue Germania at Rudesheim, much admired by the composer. Be?cause of the passage in the first movement, reminiscent of the Venusberg scene in Wagner's Tannhauser, and no doubt because of the fact that Wagner died during its composition, Hugo Riemann believed this symphony to be a tribute to Brahms's famous contemporary.
If words could adequately describe or express the loveliness and significance of this music, there would be no need for it to exist. Let us not be concerned with what Brahms meant to express, but rather heed the admonition of Gustav Mahler that "if a composer could say what he had to say in words, he would not bother trying to say it in music."
Much of the composition of the Third Symphony was done in 1882. It was completed at Wiesbaden in the summer of 1883. Its first performance took place December 2, 1883, at a Philharmonic concert in Vienna.
Daniel Gregory Mason, in the Musical Quarterly, wrote of the Third Sym?phony:
Certainly in no other work of his is there a happier balance of freshness of inspiration with technical mastery and maturity. Nowhere has he conceived lovelier, more individual melodies than the clarinet theme of the first movement, the 'cello melody of the toco allegretto, the delightfully forthright, almost burly second theme of the finale. And yet it is in no one melody, nor in any half dozen, that the power and fascination of this work lies, but in the masterly co-ordination of all, the extraordinary diversity of the ideas that pass before us, and their perfect marshaling into final order and complete beauty. Especially remarkable is the rhythmic grasp of Brahms, always one of his greatest qualities. One can think of few works in all musical literature in which the beginning is so completely fulfilled in the end as in the wonderful return of the motto theme and first theme of the first move?ment, spiritualized as it were by all they have been through, at the end of the finale.
Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, for Piano and Orchestra
Those who know well the bold F-minor Sonata, the blustering yet soaring B-major Trio, this Cyclopean D-minor Piano Concerto, and much else of the rapturous, magnificently unrestrained music of the youthful Brahms, will recog?nize in the turgid style and the compulsion and urgency of expression, a strong affinity with the exalted utterances of Richard Wagner. Although Brahms
Daniel Gregory Mason, "Brahms's Third Symphony," Musical Quarterly, XVII, No. 3 (July, 1931), 374-75.
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FIRST CONCERT
fought all through his life against squandering himself in romantic excesses, he took inspiration here out of the fullest abundance, and created these over?powering wonders of his formative years by submitting temporarily to that same romantic cult, that same intoxicating world of dreams and visions which haunted Wagner and drove him, throughout his life, from ecstasy to despair.
The First Piano Concerto, above all the other early works, is indeed, in the words of Schumann, "the highest and most ideal expression of the tendencies of the time." Like the music of Wagner, it is at times fiercely defiant and astonishingly assertive; at others, faltering and febrile; from a rugged stony hardness, it suddenly becomes ingratiatingly tender and, at times, gently elegiac. With lightning change and sharp contrast it rises from gloomy austerity to excessive eloquence--a drama struggling with a plethora of ideas, creating tensions, crises, and reversals between dreadful expectations and ecstatic ful?fillments. Although prodigal, it, like everything Brahms wrote, is inwardly well ordered and formally convincing, creating, as it goes along, a design fittingly proportioned to its material, answering its own demands for law and order. It is not surprising, then, that this work should present us with such bewilder?ing antitheses. Brahms engaged in a titanic struggle to bring it to its final form. It first took shape as a symphony in the year 1854. In a letter to Robert Schumann in January, 1855, Brahms wrote, "I have been trying my hand at a symphony during the past summer; have even orchestrated the first move?ment, and have composed the second and third." As early as September 12, 1854, he had referred to this work in a letter to his friend, Joseph Joachim. "As usual," he wrote, "you have regarded the movement of my symphony through rose-colored glass. I must alter and improve it all through. There is a good deal wrong even in the composition, and as to the orchestration, I do not understand as much about it as appears in the movement. The best of it I owe to Grimm."
In February, 1854, Brahms had received the tragic news of Robert Schu?mann's rapidly developing insanity and of his attempt to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine. At the time Brahms was working on the first movement, and much of the struggle and conflict found there may be attributed to the emotional upset he sustained at this news. At any rate, the symphony was put aside, and the material reconditioned into a sonata for two pianos for Clara Schumann, in the spring of 1855. In her diary we read "I tried over with Brahms at Kleins, three movements of his sonata for two pianos. They appeared to me to be quite powerful, quite original, noble and clearer than anything before." But Brahms had not yet found the proper relationship between radical ideas and conventional forms. The flaming intensity of his imagination--its sinister defiance, its demonic striving--rebelled against the limited medium of two pianos, and he sought again the broader, more expres?sive potentialities of the orchestra. At the suggestion of Grimm, he determined to create a concerto for piano and orchestra.f
As late as 1858 Brahms was still revising the first movement: "I was de-
Julius Otto Grimm (1827-1903) was a pianist and musician of note. In 18S3 he became a close friend of Brahms, and exerted considerable influence over his early music.
t He retained the first and second movements of the sonata for the concerto. The third movement even?tually became the second movement ("Behold all Flesh") of the Deutsches Requiem.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
lighted with Johannes' remodeling of the first movement of the Concerto" wrote Joachim to Clara Schumann in January of the same year. "He has added many beautifully quiet connecting passages, which I am sure would please you also. The second theme, in particular, is broader and more satisfying. The whole thing seems to me to be almost too rich. But that is a good fault! All my hopes of obtaining something new and beautiful in music rest with my dear friend. The more recent artistic productions are terribly sterile." Brahms introduced the Concerto to the Leipzig public at the Gewandhaus concert January 27, 1859. It was rejected with open hostility. A letter addressed to Joachim the next day shows that Brahms endured his defeat stoically, even cheerfully:
Still quite tipsy with the uplifting delights vouchsafed to my eyes and ears by the sight and the conversation of the wiseacres of our musical city during the last few days, I con?strain this pointed steel pen ... to describe to you how it happened and how it happily came to pass that my concert here proved a brilliant and decided--failure. . . . The first and second movements were listened to without the least stir. At the close three pairs of hands made an attempt at falling slowly together, whereupon an unmistakable hissing arose on every side to forbid any such demonstration. For the rest, there is nothing more to tell you about this event. . . . This failure, I may say, made no impression whatever upon me and what little bad humor and disenchantment I may have felt was dispelled when I listened to a C-major symphony by Haydn and to "The Ruins of Athens." In spite of all, this concerto will come to please one day, when I have improved the shape of its body, and a second one will sound quite otherwise. I believe this to be the best thing that could happen to anyone. It forces one's thoughts to concentrate properly and enhances one's courage. After all, I am still trying and groping. All the same the hissing was rather too much, wasn't it
The inflammable material of the Concerto, and its unorthodox treatment were, we must remember, far more difficult to comprehend in 1859 than they are today, for audiences then were quite unfamiliar with the often austere Brahmsian idiom and the new type of concerto he had here brought into exist?ence. Unlike the earlier classical concept of the form, founded on the alterna?tion of orchestral ritornels and solo episodes, and the later display pieces of Liszt, with their magnificent tone colors, breath-taking bravuras, and ostenta?tious effects, Brahms had created a solo part that stood aside in a monologue from the rest of the instrumental body, yet was grafted on to it with an effect of complete amalgamation. Brahms allows the soloist's vanity no satisfaction in his symphonically constructed passages, where the parts are firmly molded together into a radiant unity. By imbedding the sound of the piano in that of the orchestra, and at the same time preserving its contrasting quality, by suppressing all display of technical virtuosity in the soloist, as an end in itself, by relating every theme, figure, chord passage, scale, and run organically to the whole, Brahms had indeed created a new conception of the concerto--a conception where technique, pianistic idiom, and style are inextricably bound up with one another. He had come to this new concept slowly, tortuously, from a work first intended as a symphony, then sketched out as a sonata for two pianos, and finally emerging as a grandiose dialogue between the piano and orchestra.
The first public performance took place at the Royal Theatre, Hanover, January 22, 1859. Brahms played the piano and the orchestra was conducted by Joachim.
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SECOND CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 1 Flos campi ("Flowers of the Field") . Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England, October 12, 1872; he died in London, August 26, 19S8.
About the man, Ralph Vaughan Williams, the world at large knows little. He dedicated himself to composing, teaching, and study. He rarely made public appearances, and only in unguarded moments did he reveal anything about his personal feelings or tastes. The world came to know him almost entirely through his music. "One might say," writes Hubert Foss, his recent biographer, "that he has a great deal of music, and very little biography."f Indeed his output was prodigious. He wrote in all forms--for theater, symphonic orches?tra, chorus, solo voice, chamber ensembles--and never did his high purpose and artistic integrity falter.
He was born the son of a clergyman and spent his youth in a tradition of comfortable living and quiet poise. He was educated in a public school, attended several large conservatories (pupil of Parry and Stanford in London, Bruch in Berlin, Ravel in Paris) and at Trinity College in Cambridge in 1901 received the Doctor of Music degree. Early in his career he became vitally interested in English folk music and by 1904, at the age of thirty-two, was an ardent and creatively active member of the English Folk Song Society. Later he broadened this interest to include old English art music, particularly that which had issued from the Tudor period, the most glorious of all eras in the history of England's music.
Vaughan Williams always had faith in the corrective and purifying effect of folk song as a guard against insincerity and oversophistication. This faith guided him through a long, creative life, and conditioned an art that is innately English, yet one that speaks to the hearts of men of other lands.
In Three Norfolk Rhapsodies for orchestra (1906-7) and the opera Hugh the Drover (1911-14), the folk music impulse was strongly evident, but in the better known Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis for strings, the broader, more artful English style that springs from the music of the Tudor period began to show its influence. Ultimately, his expression became highly personalized, often quite bold and uncompromising; but in achieving universality it never lost its truly nationalistic traits. He did much for English music by correcting the romantic excesses that were still dominating his era. His penchant for folk song expression, with its essentially modal harmony and melody, helped him escape the chromatic indulgences of his immediate predecessors. He brought a new freshness, a new gusto and humor, a challenging simplicity and honesty to his country's music.
By arrangement with the Oxford University Press.
t Hubert James Foss, Ralph Vaughan Williams; a Study (London: Harrap, 1950), p. 12.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Like Verdi, Vaughan Williams retained, over a long life, all of his intellectual and creative energies, shifting his style at will, ceaselessly experimenting with new idioms, and constantly aware of new trends. He was not only regarded as "The Grand Old Man of English Music" but the fountain-head of a generation that followed him, upon which he exerted a tremendous influence.
One of his most original and unique expressions came in 1925 with the Suite for Viola, Small Chorus and Small Orchestra--Flos Campi. It is difficult to place this most enigmatic work in any category. In form it is a suite, a concatenation of six sections played without pause, unified yet diversified in mood, employing the viola as a featured solo instrument, a small chorus that sings wordless melodies on vowel sounds, and a reduced orchestra that points up the individual color of each instrument and which contains, for special effects, the celesta, harp, triangle, cymbals, drum, and tabor--all creating a remote yet intimate and personal music, so vibrant with warmth, so delicately balanced in all its tonal variety as to emerge in spite of its programatic indi?cations as the most absolute kind of sounding arabesque.
Each of the six sections is prefaced in the score by verbal quotations both in Latin and English from the Song of Solomon in the Vulgate version. Whether Vaughan Williams considered the text as an allegory, a drama, or a collection of erotic love songs, there is no indication. The music is not pre?sented simultaneously with the words of the texts, which leaves it free to create its own indefinable impression in terms of the sheer sensuous beauty of sound that emerges from the individual instruments and a wordless chorus. Poetic imagery has thus been translated into music where it loses definition and is refracted into vague and indefinable feeling.
Flos Campi was first performed at Queens Hall, London, under the direc?tion of Sir Henry Wood, October 10, 192S.
I. As the lily among thorns so is my love among the daughters . . . Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love.t (2:2, 5)
The first section forms a short rhapsodic introduction. The viola and oboe play simultaneously melodies evolved from arbitrarily constructed scales and whose rhythms do not refer to any regular recurrence of accent. The indeter?minate polytonality that results achieves a curiously ambiguous mood, vaguely oriental in character but without any of the cliches usually employed to create this kind of effect. The section ends on an undulating figure that leads with?out pause into a pastoral second section.
II. For lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. (2:11, 12)
Accompanied by strings, female voices utter at first the sound "ur" through partially closed lips, then hum on "m" or emit an open tone on "ah," sounding
For this performance an augmented orchestra and chorus is used.
t "I faint from longing" (Amore langueo) is a more nearly correct translation than that which appears in the score.
20
SECOND CONCERT
with antiphonal (alternating) effect a musical phrase that later broadens and seeks a tonal level, but still retains the unsubstantial mood of the first section. From this soft haze of sound the viola emerges in an extended and pensive melody over a weaving background of harp and celesta. The dynamic level of this section remains low, but the music sounds with a new sense of direc?tion and warmth of expression.
III. I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I found him not . . . I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love (I faint from longing) . . . whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women Whither is thy beloved turned aside That we may seek him with thee. (3:1, 5:8, 17)
Here the viola, unaccompanied, asserts itself in an impulsive and impas?sioned statement of the oboe theme from section one. Soprano and alto voices in the background utter at first a kind of lamentation that later flows more continuously as a counterpoint to a new viola theme. Again, as in the previous section, the dynamic level rarely rises above a pianissimo.
TV. Behold this bed which is Solomon's; three score valiant men are about it ... they all hold swords, being expert in war. (3:7,8)
Suddenly a march theme progressing in parallel fourths is heard in the woodwinds accompanied by cymbals. The viola plays a resolute theme high over the martial rhythm which reaches a climax as the voices enter in the last four bars. The atmosphere of oriental splendor created by this colorful and evocative section is unmistakable.
V. Return, return, O Shulamite! Return, return that we may look upon thee . . . How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O Prince's daughter. (6:12, 7:1)
The viola continues in this section to rhapsodize with great freedom and virtuosity, playing opulent chordal passages while the drum rhythm persists in this, the most passionate section of the work. The viola acts as a kind of binding agent for a broad seven part choral theme (appassionato largamente) and an alternating thrumming figure in the strings which soon doubles in its speed while the voices utter a new agitated phrase. After a climax has been reached, this theme continues more slowly with marked changes in rhythm. At the close, after a cadenza in the viola, it dies away as the first theme of the closing section is anticipated faintly in the horns and bassoons.
VI. Set me as a seal upon thine heart. (8:6)
This, the last section, is as definite in its tonality, rhythm, and structure as the opening movement was vague and indeterminative. Various instruments course up and down a scalelike melody (the harp plays it in chords). To this, the voices sing a tranquil descending theme that broadens ecstatically into eight parts but without destroying the delicate balance of tonal values
21
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
that has been maintained so consistently throughout the score. Just before the end, there is a slight pause after which the oboe and the viola sound again the vague themes of the opening section. The tranquil descending melody heard at the beginning of the section in the voices thins out into an almost unison close, as the instruments, too, gradually disappear until only a solitary flute remains. The voices sing triple-pianissimo with closed lips, and to the viola is left the last faint echo of the opening melody.
Sicheresses...............Poulenc
Francois Poulenc was born in Paris, January 7, 1899.
In the early twenties, after the end of the First World War, a group of young avant-garde composers, rebelling against the rich and wandering chro?maticism of Cesar Franck and beginning to weary of the vagueness and evanescence of Debussy, who they declared had "drawn French music into an impasse" with his glamorous veiled dissonances, grouped themselves to?gether as the SociStS des nouveaux jeunes. It included Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francois Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, Louis Durey, and Georges Auric. They were publicly recognized in an article appearing in Comoedia, January 16, 1920, by one Henri Collet, who referred to them as Les Six, "an inseparable group who by a magnificent and voluntary return to simplicity have brought about a renaissance of French music." The only thing they really had in common as artists was the patronage of Eric Satie and Jean Cocteau and a desire to react violently against the superficial pastel music of the Impressionists and the elaborate and involved grandiose style of late Romanticism, which they opposed with a music that was direct, clean-cut, witty, and sophisticated. They were active in the day of the "futurists" and "cubists" in painting, a time of innovation, ridicule, and violent disputes in aesthetic matters. Actually they were quite independent of each other artis?tically. Of the six, only Honegger, Milhaud, and Poulenc achieved interna?tional recognition, and certainly each of these strongly individual composers has maintained a high degree of stylistic independence throughout his career.
Often drawn to preclassical sources for inspiration, Poulenc has revealed genuine sympathy for the spirit of vocal composers of the French renaissance in an a cappella work Salve Regina and four Motets pour tin temps de pini-tence. Perhaps the most imaginative example of his return to a modal neo-liturgical style is found in his cantata Sicheresses, where his use of plain chant inflections contributes powerfully to the sinister effect of the music which is set to a surrealist text by Edward James. With the exception of his remarkably effective opera Dialogues des Carmelites (1956), Sicheresses is the most substantial of Poulenc's serious works.
22
SECOND CONCERT
Text translated by Michel Benamou, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan.
I. Les Sauterelles
La poussiere regne en ce royaume,
H n'y a ni palme, ni psaume,
ni portique ni aumone.
Les vents, sans pleurs ont enlevfi
1'ombre de la palissade brulee.
Un soupir devient une chauve-souris
et tout ce terrain est a vendre.
Nous n'avons pas une larme id,
non plus de pluie, sinon une pluie
de cendre.
Pourtant on ouit des sanglots
et le son de mots sanglants, chez M?dee
chez Alceste, chez Jocaste, chez Oreste
Jamais il n'y avait la-bas, tant de
tristesse, tant de secheresse qu'ici.
Cette fois, c'est la secheresse d'hiver
quand l'eau devient du cristal
et la pluie des fleurs de gel.
Mai assise, accroupie, acariatre,
la peur est ainsi qu'une cigale.
Mai assise, accroupie, acariatre
la peur ainsi qu'une cigale
regit l'Acropole blanc.
C'est la citadelle Cicadas,
Ou les caryatides sont des sauterelles
en granit, sculpt?es, sculptees,
dans la cit6 des fourmis.
AcagnardS par le gel, tout git,
tout engourdi.
Situ6 ainsi, parmi quelques seules
cigues, siege un vieux tombeau de pierre
un vieux tombeau, enlace de cirres
de lierre.
Fendu en fissures, cicatrices, pareil
a la ddpouille d'un grand piano
calcaire, ce fossile est la depuis
longtemps.
Cette fois c'est la secheresse,
la secheresse d'hiver; quand l'eau
devient du cristal et la pluie des
fleurs de gel.
La peur est sauve et une cigale,
accroupie sur l'Acropole,
regit la citadelle.
II. Le Village abandon
Sur les pentes assoiffees qui sanglotent du depaysement des pleurs, loin de ces silences tachetes, loin des menus grelots, dans le silence lunaire
I. Locusts
Dust is king in this kingdom,
There is neither palm nor psalm,
portal nor aim.
The tearless winds have blown away
the shadow of the seared stockade.
A sigh becomes a flitting bat
and all this land is for sale.
We have not a tear,
nor any rain, except a rain
of ashes, here.
Yet sobs are heard
and the sound of gory words, from the
houses of Medea, and Alcestis, and
Jocasta, and Orestes.
Never was there so much sadness,
so much dryness, as here.
This time, it is winter drought,
when water turns to crystal
and rain to flowers of frost.
Awkwardly squatting, cantankerous,
fear is like a cricket.
Awkwardly squatting, cantankerous,
fear like a cricket
rules the white Acropolis.
It is the citadel of Cicadas,
where caryatids are locusts
sculpted from granite, sculpted
in the city of ants.
Frost has benumbed everything here,
everything lies torpid here.
On this site, enthroned among scanty
hemlocks, sits an old tombstone,
an old tomb, entwined by ivy
tendrils.
Cracked and crannied, scarred over,
like the spoils of a huge limestone
piano, this fossil has lain here
a long time.
This time it is drought,
winter drought; when water
turns to crystal and rain to
flowers of frost.
Fear still lives and a cricket,
squatting on the Acropolis,
rules the citadel.
II. The Deserted Village
On the thirsty slopes, sobbing the exile of tears, far from the dappled silences, far from the tiny bells, in the lunar quiet
23
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
d'un plateau fauve,
la noircbsent de ternes lichens
et des mousses prisonnieres sur leurs
racines de chaines.
le fer a rouille les pistes;
pas un grappillon,
pas une goutte de vent.
La lumiere est morte dans les Ikes
tombee de haut dans le tournoi.
La haut, la veuve de la lumiere,
c'est un village sans fontaines, sans
habitants, c'est un village mort.
EUe est alteree, elle est brisee.
C'est sa voilette, cette fumee et
ce sont quelques pailles qui briilent.
III. Le Faux avenir
Je suis sans vous, je suis la s?cheresse
je regarde fixement mon image dans
le passS
et c'est un jeune homme qui regardait
vers moi; toujours vers moi
et qui ne me voit pas ou a peine me voit
Je sub sans vous, je suis la secheresse
je suis sans vous, je suis sans vous.
Son espoir qui distingue nos pas,
dans son avenir ensemble,
a-t-il mal dechiffre nos ombres, qui
semblaient s'allonger pour s'embrasser
et pub ne se touchent pas.
Je sub sans vous, je sub la secheresse
je sub sans vous. Je regarde fixement
mon image dans le passe,
et c'est un jeune homme qui regardait
vers moi et qui ne me voit pas,
et c'est un jeune homme qui regardait
vers moi et k peine me voit.
C'est un jeune homme qui regardait
toujours vers moi.
IV. Le Squelette de la mer
Hauteurs, profondeurs de la mer,
immensement dessechees, sans recours
dessechee.
Bassin de l'ocean parti,
vallde, oh, vallee de l'element defunt
plus enfui que toutes les armdes d'Egypte
que toutes les armees d'Egypte,
gorges, oil les algues abandonees,
ainsi que des chevelures de mortes
puent dans le noir soleil;
crateres parmi lesquels
l'horreur de l'echo hante
les tournants
24
of a tawny upland,
there lackluster lichens blacken
with mosses chained to their roots,
captives of their roots.
Iron has rusted the mountain-tracks;
there is not the merest bunch of grapes
not a breath of wind.
Light has died in the lists,
unhorsed in the tournament.
On high, the widow of light,
is a village without fountains,
deserted, a village that has died.
She is thirsty, she is weary.
Her widow's veil is that smoke
from burning straw.
III. The Mistaken Future
I am without you, I am dryness;
I stare at my image in the
past
and it was a young man gazing
at me; still gating at me and
not seeing me or scarcely seeing me.
I am without you, I am dryness,
I am without you, I am without you.
His hope distinguishes our steps
blended in the future:
has he misread our shadows, which
seemed to lengthen to an embrace,
then do not meet
I am without you, I am dryness,
I am without you. I stare at
my image in the past,
and it was a young man gazing at me
and not seeing me,
and it was a young man gazing
and scarcely seeing me.
It is a young man still looking
at me.
IV. The Sea Skeleton
Heights and depths of the sea,
immensely dried, hopelessly
parched.
Basin of the departed ocean,
valley, oh, valley of the deceased element,
farther fled than all the hosts of Egypt
than all the hosts of Egypt,
gorges where abandoned algae,
like the hair of dead women,
reek in the dark sun;
craters
whose eddies are haunted by echoes of
horrors
SECOND CONCERT
oil les marais bouillaient
au temps des ondes, aux rimes des flots
aux rythmes des reflux,
rimes des flots,
voyez cette antenne moribonde
a 1'ombre de la falaise.
C'est la derniere chose qui vit
d'une vie trop tenace,
prison des coeurs trop cuirassee.
Grande plaine, de coquilles pleine,
fossiles des flots defaits, faux deserts
ilots changes en monts,
sables, rocs, epaves, squelettes,
pieuvres et meduses
mortes aux forets de corail,
et toi, Leviathan de cet affreux empire,
detrone et pourri,
terre acquise par la soif
ccoutez-moi
J'ai attendu trop longtemps
la vie qui ne vient pas,
la vie de l'autre que je n'ai pas trouv6,
J'ai attendu trop longtemps
ct ce seul crustace oublie par la mort,
dans 1'ombre de la falaise
qui remue de desespoir encore une antenne,
n'est pas plus dur que moi,
n'est pas plus dur que moi,
contre la fuite de tous,
n'est pas plus dur que moi,
pas plus dur que moi.
where bogs would boil in the days
of water, in the rhymes of waves,
in the rhythms of tidal streams,
wave-rhythms,
see that dying antenna
in the shadow of the cliff.
It is the last thing living
too tenacious of its life,
too bound in the heart's prison.
Vast plain, full of shells,
fossils of defeated tides, false
deserts, isles turned to mountains,
sands, rocks, wrecks, skeletons,
cuttlefish and squids
dead in coral forests,
and you dethroned, rotting Leviathan
of this frightful empire,
a thirst-ridden land,
hear me.
I have waited too long
for life that comes not,
the life of an undiscovered other,
I have waited too long
and this one shellfish, deathforsaken
in the shadow of the cliff,
who still moves a despondent frond,
is no harder than I,
is no harder than I
against the flight of all,
is no harder than I,
no harder than I.
Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63.....Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeievitch Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, Russia, April 23, 1891; died in Moscow, March 4, 19S3.
Sergei Prokofiev, a senior member of a very significant group of Soviet Republic composers, of whom Dmitri Shostakovich is perhaps the most sensa?tional member, after a few startling excursions into the grotesque and an only occasional sojourn into the cacophonous realm of musical modernism, pro?duced music that was not merely interesting and clever but brilliantly effective.
At a period when European audiences either were being doped into a state of insensibility by the vacuity of the Post-Impressionists, incensed to riots by the shocking barbarisms of Stravinsky, or baffled into boredom by the mathematical cerebrations of Schonberg (whose music seemed, as far as emo?tional expression was concerned, to be hermetically sealed), the spectacle of a composer who was still able to create music that had a natural ease and fluidity, a freshness and spontaneity that was essentially "classical," was as surprising as it was eventful.
Prokofiev wrote two violin concertos, the first Op. 19 in 1913, the second Op. 63 in 1935. The twenty-two years that separate them saw a subtle change
25
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
in his style. The Second Concerto was composed after the Soviet had formed its own aesthetic theory based upon utility in art, in which the purely artistic value of a work was far less important than its immediate appeal to the masses, or its purpose in serving a political, social, or educational ideal--a theory that resulted in what Nicolas Nabokov referred to as "eclectic collectivistic art." This attitude placed the creative artist in a completely subservient position to the state and to society. Composers, compelled to work under these con?ditions, had no chance to exert their originality, experiment in new idioms, or adopt any of the modern experiments of Western music. If they did, and they often tried as is well-known in the cases of Shostakovich, Katchaturian, and Prokofiev, they gave up hope of any publication or performance of their work. The result was that many compositions created under the demands of "Socialistic realism" have been traditional, unoriginal, and generally lacking in deeper values.
During Prokofiev's protracted absence from his native land between 1918 and 1932, at which time he traveled in Japan and the United States and lived in Paris, he won a tremendous reputation as an international composer. Such works as the well-known Classical Symphony (1916-17), the Scythian Suite (1916), the opera The Love of Three Oranges (1921) which he composed for the Chicago Opera Association, and the ballet Chout (1921) had with their driving energy, clear designs, bright colors, and ironic overtones carried his name throughout the musical world. Upon his return to Russia in 1934, and his identification with Soviet cultural life and its rigid proscription on free expression, he steered a cautious course between his own artistic instincts and the demands of the State. Gradually, a shift from his former rather abstract and sometimes abstruse manner to one more immediate and acceptable to Russian audiences was noted. In a tempered frame of mind he wrote, among other works, Lieutenant Kije in 1934, the Second Violin Concerto on tonight's program in 1935, a Russian Overture and Peter and the Wolf, both in 1936, incidental music for the film Alexander Nevsky, and a cantata dedicated to Stalin Zdravitsa in 1939, an opera based upon Tolstoy's War and Peace in 1940, his Fifth Symphony in 1945 (his Fourth Symphony had been written seventeen years before), and the Sixth Symphony in 1947.
Aside from Russian folk-song sources to which he turned for these works, a new romantic idiom began to shape itself. Thus the Second Violin Concerto abounds in ingratiating harmonies, infectious melodies, and vivacious rhythms. In spite of his conscious attempts to abide by the dictates of the State, he, along with Shostakovich and Katchaturian, was attacked by the Communist Party's famous decree of February 11, 1948, for writing music that "smelled strongly of the spirit of modern bourgeois music of Europe and America," and again later in the year by Tikhon Khrennikov, secretary-general of the Soviet Composers' Union, for his "bourgeois formalism." In spite of these reprimands, Prokofiev, to the end of his life five years later, continued to produce works of high individuality and artistic value. He never lost entirely the clear, terse style and motoric drive he revealed in his earlier works, and
26
SECOND CONCERT
although in his compositions after 1935 there was a new emotional quality, an almost romantic richness of melody, and the fulfillment of a latent lyricism, the old style was still definite and clearly defined. This continued to give to his music the same sureness and spontaneity that has always been its chief distinction. At the time of his death he was at the very height of his creative powers as the Seventh Symphony to be heard on the program Saturday night will attest. He had become infinitely more than a clever composer who de?lighted in the grotesque; his music is, according to Leonid Sebaneyev and many other critics, the most original and valuable that Russian art of this century has produced.
The Second Violin Concerto was first performed December 1, 1935, by the Madrid Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Enrique Fernandez Arbos; Robert Soetens was soloist. The first American performance took place on December 17, 1937, at a concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Serge Koussevitzky was the conductor and Jascha Heifetz the soloist.
"Fete polonaise," from the opera Le Roi malgre lui . Chabrier
Alexis Emmanuel Chabrier was born in Ambert, Puy de Dome, January 18, 1841; died in Paris, September 13, 1894.
Emmanuel Chabrier, decorated by the French government for his leader?ship among native composers, spent only a decade of his fifty-three years in the composition of serious music. Although he displayed a precocious talent at an early age, his parents objected to music as a career and en?couraged the study of law. For fifteen years he served without distinction as a government official in the Ministry of the Interior. During these years, however, his chief enthusiasm remained music and his close association with such creative geniuses as the poet Paul Verlaine, the painter Claude Manet, and the composers Henri Duparc, Vincent D'Indy, and Gabriel Faure led him finally to make a sudden decision. In 1879, at the age of thirty-eight, he withdrew from the Ministry, determined to become a professional musician. Within the course of only a few months, he was choral director for the famous Lamoureux Orchestra.
After several years of intense study, he produced in 1881 the first of his compositions as a professional musician, Piece pittoresque for piano. His most brilliant work was the rhapsody Espana (1883) which, with its daring har?monies, exotic colors, and elastic and arbitrary form, pointed a new direction for French music.
After an unsuccessful but interesting experiment in the style of Wagner with his opera Gwendoline (1886), he produced a comic work Le Roi malgrS lui for the Opera Comique in Paris (1887). "Fete polonaise" forms the begin?ning of the second act. It is a brilliant array of waltzes and mazurkas, inferior in many ways to his masterwork, Iberia, but equally effective on the concert as well as the operatic stage.
See pages 43-44.
27
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
In French music Chabrier is a far more important figure than this work or Iberia would signify. He was the unquestioned pioneer in a progressive type of music in France just at the advent of Debussy and the Impression?istic school. Gallic to the core, he endowed French music, weighed down by ecclecticism, with a new spirit of independence and uniqueness; originality and personality exerted themselves once more, and French music began its militant revolt against stifling tradition and its fight for freedom from the bondage of classic models.
To a Parisian wit of the time, Chabrier revealed in his amateur status "exquisite bad taste." To us today he appears to have been a source of inspira?tion to a generation or more of French composers who were to continue to impress the world with their new creative vitality.
Translated by Michel Benamou, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan.
Valse endiablee, n'arrete pas.
Musique ailee, guide leurs pas.
Redouble et presse ton rythme encor
jusqu'a l'ivresse, jusqu'a la mort
Ah! Dansez, valsez toujours plus fort
Hurrah! la valse est reine
Hurrah! Qui vous entraine,
Dansez! Valsez!
Ah! Ce soir tout nous entraine,
Sans repit, sans arret,
Tournez, tourbillonnez I
Ah! la danse est reine 1 Hurrah!
Pendant la danse
Avec prudence, ecoutez-moi!
Ah! n'arretons pas la danse!
De la prudence! Ce qu'il faut faire,
C'est nous defaire de notre Roi.
On s'est joue de la noblesse
En ne prenant pas son avis,
Et voila pourquoi ce roi nous blesse
Et ne doit pas regner id.
11 est un adage qui dit
Ces Francois brutaux et sauvages,
Et n'aimant jamais.
On dit, au contraire,
Qu'ils passent leurs jours
A charmer, a plaire,
Et plaisant toujours!
Mais, coeurs infideles,
Leur volage amour
Vrai feu d'etincelles,
Ne dure qu'un jour.
Combien pour les Franc,aises
C'est inquietant
Ca les met a l'aise
Pour en faire autant.
28
Wild waltz, do not stop.
Winged music, guide their steps.
Redouble and hasten your pace
Until ecstasy, until death.
Ah! dance, waltz ever faster.
Hurrah! the waltz reigns supreme
Hurrah! carrying you away,
Dance! Waltz!
Ah! Tonight, we are carried away.
Without rest or pause,
Wheel round, whirl about!
Ah! the dance is queen! Hurrah!
While dancing goes on
Listen to me prudently
Ah! Let us not stop the dance!
Let us be prudent! What we must do,
Is to undo our King.
He has flouted the nobles
By not asking them for advice
And this is why we resent the king
And will not let him reign here.
An old saying has it
That the French are brutal and cruel
And never love.
Some others say the reverse
They spend all their time
Exerting their charm
And always succeed I
But they are faithless,
Their fickle love
Goes up in sparks
And lasts but a day.
How insecure must
Those French women feel.
No, it gives them an excuse
To do likewise.
SECOND CONCERT
(Seigneur votre fete est charmante)
Notre projet doit reussir.
(Je partage votre plaisir)
Encor quelques moments d'attente;
A nous bientot la delivrance!
Oui, mesdames, vive la dance!
A nous bientot la Iibert6.
Mais de la prudence,
Oui, de la prudence et de la patience.
Les fcmmes de France
Sont pour leurs amants
Pleines d'inconstances
Malgre leurs serments!
Est-il preferable de s'aimer toujours,
Ou de n'etre aimable
Que pour quelques jours,
Faut-il qu'un seul maitre
Soit notre ideal.
Dut-il ne connaitre
Jamais de rival
Mediocre hypothese;
Mieux vaut, pour finir,
Comme la Franqaise
Suivre son desir.
Tout frissonne, tourbillonne,
Et coeur contre coeur s'abandonne
On se livre pour micux suivre
le rythme vainqueur qui nous enivre.
Cete ivresse nous caresse
Et nous rend heurcux.
Plein de tendresse
On soupire, on desire,
On ferme les yeux et Ton delire!
Valse endiablee, n'arrete pas
Musque ailee, guide leurs pas.
Redouble et presse ton rythme encor
Ah! jusqu'i l'ivresse, jusqu'a la mort.
Ah! valsez, valsez toujours plus fort.
Hurrah! tout nous entraine!
Hurrah! La valse est reine!
Oui ce soir la danse est reine,
La danse est reine!
Ce soir tout nous entraine!
Ce soir la danse est reine!
Ce soir tout nous entraine!
Valsez! Dansez! Valsez jusqu'a la mort!
(Majesty, your party is charming)
Our scheme must succeed.
(I share in your pleasure)
Still a few moments we must wait
We shall soon be free.
Yes, my ladies, long live the dance!
We shall soon be free
But let us be prudent
Yes, prudent and patient
The women of France
Are to their lovers
Fickle and changeable
Despite sworn constancy.
Is it better to love forever
Or to be adored
Only a few days
Must one lord alone
Rule over our heart,
Is this love ideal
That brooks no rival
What a poor prospect.
We had better, I think,
Do like the French
And follow our heart's desire.
What a thrill, to whirl round,
And heart to heart to let go
To surrender to the victorious rhythm
And follow it until ecstasy.
This drunkenness is a caress
And makes us happy.
Full of tenderness,
Of sighs, of desires,
We shut our eyes from sheer delight!
Wild waltz, do not stop;
Winged music guide their steps.
Redouble and hasten your pace
Until ecstasy, until death.
Waltz, waltz ever faster!
Hurrah! we are carried away!
Hurrah! The waltz is queen!
Yes, tonight, dance reigns supreme!
The dance is queen!
Tonight we are carried away!
Tonight the dance is queen!
Tonight we are carried away!
Waltz! dance! waltz until death.
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Saturday Afternoon, May 2
Variations on a Theme by Haydn
(Chorale St. Antonii), Op. 56a.......Brahms
For Brahms, it was "no laughing matter to write a symphony after Beetho?ven." To his friend Levi, he wrote, just after the completion of the first movement of the First Symphony, "I shall never compose a symphony! You have no conception of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him [Beethoven] behind us."
Brahms was forty-four years of age before he undertook the task. His severe self-criticism and conscientiousness led him into countless experiments and trials. Before he published his first string quartets, for instance, he had com?posed over twenty works in that form; and before he ventured into the sym?phonic field, he made a most unostentatious debut with two Serenades in orchestral style at the age of twenty-six. After an interim of nearly fourteen years, he set up another signal with the Haydn Variations, written during the summer of 1873. This amply designed and captivating prelude forms an inter?mediate stage in his progress from the serenades to the first of the four great symphonies. To an infinitely greater degree than the two Serenades, it claims to be the first truly symphonic work of Brahms, and it carried his name as an instrumental composer into every country-. Although the variations created in their day a veritable sensation, the most we can say of this rather immature work with its pastel shades and delicate contrasts, is that its charm is still a constant source of delight. We cannot escape, however, an impression of experi?menting tentatively with the form chosen, and although Brahms's manner of elaborating a theme here resembles slightly his treatment in the Handel and Paganini variations, without, of course, their harmonic richness and melodic invention, there is nothing of the novelty or creative power one finds in the gigantic final Passacaglia of the Fourth Symphony, and we are led to the acknowledgment that the charm and delight of his work is derived as much from the original theme and its recurrences, as from anything Brahms did with it. In truth, Brahms was merely trying out and subjecting to his needs the medium of the full symphony orchestra.
The original theme, a delightful half hymn and half folk tune, was described in the manuscript, which was brought to his attention in 1870 by Dr. Karl Ferdinand Pohl, as "The Chorale St. Antonii." At that time there was no question as to the authenticity of the tune. It was derived from the second movement of a then unpublished divertimento ("Feld Partita") for wind instru?ments by Haydn.
There is, however, no reason to be certain that the subject of the variations
Haydn's "Partita" was not published until 1932.
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really was the original work of Haydn. Scholars have never been able to decide whether it was an old tune or one of Haydn's inventions. At any rate, Brahms entered the theme, along with other phrases of older composers, in a notebook, as was his custom. In 1873 he completed the variations in two forms, one for two pianos which came to publication first (November, 1873) and the other for full orchestra, which was not brought out until January, 1874. Walter Niemann's description of the variations follows:
The variations are eight in number and, in accordance with Haydn's manner and spirit, end, not in a fugue, but a finale. The piquant five-bar measure of the first period of the theme is preserved throughout all the variations, in homogeneous and close connection with it. The same is true of the key, B-flat major. It is only in the second, fourth, and eighth variations that it changes to the more sombre key of B-flat minor. Like the Handel "Variations" for piano, the Haydn "Variations" are also "character" variations, sharply contrasted and varied in movement, rhythm, style, colour, and atmosphere.
The first variation, pensive and softly animated (with triplets against quavers), is directly connected with the close of the theme by its soft bell-like echoes. The second, with its Brahmsian dotted progressions in sixths on the clarinets and bassoons, above the pizzicato basses and the ringing "challenge (Anruf)" of the tutti, is more animated, but still subdued, as is indicated by the key of B-flat minor. The third, pensive and full of warm inspiration in its perfectly tranquil flowing movement, introduces a melodious duet between the two oboes in its first section, accompanied an octave lower by the two bassoons, and in the second part, where it is taken up by the first violin and viola, weaves round it an enchantingly delicate and transparent lace-work in the woodwind. The fourth, with its solo on the oboes and horns in unison, steals by in semiquavers, as sad and gray as a melancholy mist, again in B-flat minor. The fifth goes tittering, laughing, and romping merrily off, in light passages in thirds in a 68 rhythm on the woodwind (with piccolo) against the 34 rhythm of the strings, which starts at the seventh bar. The sixth, with its staccato rhythm, is given a strong, confident colour by the fanfares on the horns and trum?pets. The seventh is a Siciliano, breathing a fervent and tender emotion, with the melody given to the flute and viola, in 68 time, Bach-like in character, yet every note of it pure Brahms. Here at last he speaks to our hearts as well. The eighth, in B-flat minor, hurries past, shadowy and phantom-like, with muted strings and soft woodwind, in a thoroughly ghostly and uncanny fashion--a preliminary study on a small scale for the finale in F minor of the F major Symphony. The finale opens, very calm, austere, and sustained, as a further series of variations on a basso ostinato of five bars. It is developed with extraordinary ingenuity, works up through constant repetitions of the chorale theme, each time in a clearer form and with cumulative intensity, to a brilliant close, with as it were, a dazzling apotheosis of the wind instruments, thrown into relief against rushing scale-passages, as in the con?cluding section of the Akademische Festouverture. We may, if we like, see in this basso ostinato the first germ of the mighty final chaconne on a basso ostinato of the Fourth Symphony.
These amiable variations, with their over-light orchestration in spots, their lively nervous energy, and at times their exquisitely tender movements, would perhaps seem less distant and more significant if it were not for the absolutely overpowering and tragic grandeur of the First Symphony which immediately followed them, or for the Aeschylean quality of the variation form as he used it in the last movement of the Fourth Symphony.
Walter Niemann, Brahms, trans, by C. A. Phillips (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920), pp. 326-27.
31
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM The Works of Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri, November 25, 1896.
"I was born in Kansas City, Missouri," wrote Virgil Thomson, "grew up there and went to war from there. That was the other war. Then I was edu?cated some more in Boston and Paris. In composition I was a pupil of Nadia Boulanger. While I was still young I taught music at Harvard and played the organ at King's Chapel, Boston. Then I returned to Paris and lived there for many years, till the Germans came, in fact. Now I live in New York, where I am music critic of the Herald Tribune.
"My most famous works are the operas Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All (both texts by Gertrude Stein), The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River (films by Pare Lorentz), though there are also sym?phonies and string quartets and many other works in many forms. I have made over a hundred musical portraits, too, all of them drawn from life, the sitter posing for me as he would for an artist's portrait. I have appeared as guest conductor of my own works with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, the Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Louisville orchestras.
"I am the author of three books: The State of Music (Wm. Morrow, N.Y., 1939), The Musical Scene (Knopf, N.Y., 1945), and The Art of Judging Music (Knopf, N.Y., 1948)."$
What Mr. Thomson did not include in this brief sketch of the mere events of his life is the fact that while in Paris, in addition to the stimulating asso?ciation with Gertrude Stein, he came into direct contact with that challenging group of avant garde artists among whom were Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Frangois Poulenc, and Eric Satie, and felt in the formative years of his career the emancipating influence of their un?conventional aesthetics and their daring and often irreverent works. These powerful conditioning factors in the formation of his style were tempered, however, by the strict discipline he received from Nadia Boulanger, and par?ticularly by his own strong native and regional proclivities which he never allowed to be completely redirected or submerged. In spite of the fact that Virgil Thomson is often referred to as our "most musical Francophile," these French influences were quickly assimilated and transformed into a means, rather than the end, of expression. His style is an amalgamation of French attitudes and methods, and American spirit and subject matter--a combination difficult if not impossible to classify by any ordinary standards. His meticulous craftsmanship is immediately apparent in everything he writes, but not always easy to analyze. His style is highly individual, yet impersonal and objec?tive; his methods are concise and direct, the end often poetic and illusory. Whatever he has written, however, from the highly sophisticated and stylized
P. Glanville-Hicks, "Virgil Thomson," Musical Quarterly, XXXV (1949), 210. t Mr. Thomson resigned from this position in 1954 to devote his time to composition. t Since this article was published, Mr. Thomson has written another book, Music, Right and Left (New York: H. Holt, 1951).
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idiom of Capital, Capitals (1927), Four Saints in Three Acts (1928), and The Mother of Us All (1947)--all on texts by Gertrude Stein--to the epic, highly evocative, and poetic music of the documentary films The Plow that Broke the Plains (1933), The River (1937), A Tuesday in November (1945), or the Louisiana Story (1949), is exhilarating and elegant by virtue of his fastidious taste and immaculate technique. Program notes have been provided by Mr. Thomson:
The Seine at Night............Thomson
"During my second twenty years I wrote in Paris music that was always, in one way or another, about Kansas City. I wanted Paris to know Kansas City, to understand the ways we like to think and feel on the banks of the Kaw and the Missouri. Writing for Kansas City I have no such missionary justification. I cannot teach my grandmother to suck eggs. And so I offer to the other city I love, and the only other where I have ever felt at home, a . sketch, a souvenir, a postcard of the Seine, as seen from in front of my house, a view as deeply part of my life and thought as Wabash Avenue, where I spent my first twenty years.
"The Seine at Night is a landscape piece, a memory of Paris and its river, as viewed nocturnally from one of the bridges to the Louvre--the Pont des Saints-Peres, the Pont des Arts or the Pont Royal. The stream is so deep and its face so quiet that it scarcely seems to flow. Unexpectedly, inexplicably, a ripple will lap the masonry of its banks. In the distance, over Notre Dame or from the top of faraway Montmartre, fireworks, casual rockets, flare and expire. Later in the night, between a furry sky and the Seine's watery surface, fine rain hangs in the air.
"The form of the piece is a simple AABA. The melody that represents the river is heard in three different orchestra colorations. Between the second and third hearings there are surface ripples and distant fireworks. At the very end there is a beginning of quiet rain. If my picture is resembling, it will need no further explanation, and if it is not, no amount of harmonic or other analysis will make it so. Let us admit, however, for the sake of the record, that the melodic contours are deliberately archaic, with memories of Gregorian chant in them; that the harmony, for purposes of perspective, is bitonal and by moments poly tonal; that the rocket effects involve invented scales and different sets of four mutually exclusive triads, as well as four sets of three mutually exclusive four-note chords, and that there are several references to organ sonorities."
Fugues and Cantilenas from the United
Nations Film Power Among Men......Thomson
"This suite in eight movements has been extracted with only minor musical changes from the music composed for a film of ninety minutes visual duration by Thorold Dickinson and J. Sheers.
"The music was composed during November, 1958, and recorded for use
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with the film on December 19, 1958, by the New York Philharmonic, the composer conducting.
"The movements of the suite, to be played without pause, are:
I. Prelude with Fugal Exposition
II. Fugue No. 1
III. Ruins and Jungles
IV. Fugue No. 2 V. Hymn
VI. Fugue No. 3 VII. Joyous Pastoral VIII. Finale
"The film, Power Among Men, is concerned with human survival. Its four sections are framed by views of the ruined cities of ancient Ceylon, ancient Mexico, and modern Japan. In the main episodes we witness the reconstruction of an Italian village destroyed in World War II, a scattering of impoverished Haitian mountaineers building themselves through improved agricultural meth?ods into a thriving community, a new town rising in the Canadian Rockies around a gigantic hydroelectric project, and a nuclear reactor station in Norway where the scientist in charge evokes the blessings and the horrors of nuclear fission.
"Its motto is 'Men build. Men destroy. Surviving men build again. Some?times there is no survival.'
"Since the film takes place in many times and places, showing ruins of ancient Ceylon and Mexico, contemporary soil tillings in Italy and Haiti, industrial developments in the Canadian Rockies, the explosion of an H-bomb with attendant destructions, a nuclear reactor station in Norway, and much of the already achieved blessings of nuclear power as visible in Russia, France, England, and the United States, a unity of musical style was considered needful. The presence, moreover, of real folk music in the Italian and Haitian episodes made it inadvisable to use folklore evocation in the composed music. The music was, therefore, conceived as a unit frame; and the idiom chosen to dominate the score is the only Western idiom that has both structural strength and expressive power, namely the Handelian. Once this choice was made, the use of fugal textures and of integrated thematic construction were inevitable. Actually the whole work is elaborated from two musical themes. Both these themes are treated fugally with counter subjects and variants. Their heads, which is to say the Gregorian beginnings of the first subject and the octave skip of the second one, along with their scalewise and arpeg-giated figurations, are the motivic generators of the cantilenas that frame the fugues.
"The two themes represent on the one hand joy and energy and on the other desolation and despair, and these roles are preserved throughout. It is for this reason, no doubt, that they never appear together, that is to say, in counterpoint.
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"It is curious and surprising to note that a score so tightly woven musically should underline so flexibly as it does the visual continuity of the picture. This combination of strong musical construction with a highly detailed audio?visual integration gives an unusual vivacity to the film itself; and it is also responsible, I think, for the particular energy that the music takes on in concert performance. For all its formality, this music is clearly of the theater.
"The instruments employed are two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (one doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, harp, percussion, and the usual body of strings. The suite's duration is about eighteen minutes."
Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion . . . Thomson
Mr. Thomson admits that this work is numbered among his "over a hundred portraits" mentioned above. Whose "portrait" it is remains unknown. It was sketched in June, 1933, at Acapulco, Mexico, orchestrated the following year at Chexbres, Switzerland, and performed for the first time in September, 1954, at the Venice Festival.
In conversation, according to Irving Kolodin, Thomson revealed that he had always thought of it as a bird piece. "The bird, naturally, is expressed through the flute. Sometimes it is a tender and meditative bird, sometimes an exceedingly agitated and angry one. But in no case is it a lady or gentle?man flute player. I once thought of calling it a Meditation for Nightingale and Orchestra. There is a good deal of hopping around, bird-like calls, swoops and ascents." Formally, he has described it as follows:
"The concerto is in three movements, the first of which is an unaccompanied solo for flute, marked Rapsodico. The second, marked Lento, is a study in dual chromatic harmonies, each of which is acoustically complete and wholly inde?pendent of the other. The flute solo constitutes a third chromatic element, no tone of which is ever heard at the same time in either of the accompanying harmonies. Since each of these harmonies is in four parts, the full texture is that of nine voices, no note of which doubles any other. In the two harmonies, moreover, there are no suspensions, all the voices in each four-part chord moving simultaneously to notes not included in that chord. The purpose of the dual chromatics is to produce a mood of disembodiment, unreal, non-substantial, insaissable. The purpose of the constantly simultaneous part-move?ment in each of the constituent harmonic elements is to enable the ear to perceive these constantly as two elements only, each one compact, complete, and entirely harmonious, and containing within itself no tensions.
"The third movement, marked Ritmico, is also based on double harmonies; but in this case the contrast is between chromatic chords and diatonic chords --or, if you prefer, between chords that contain the augmented fourth or fifth and the major second (chords classically known as 'dissonant') and those con?taining only thirds and perfect fifths, the so-called 'consonant,' or 'perfect'
Program notes of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, April 19, 1956 (114th Season).
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chords. As before, there is no doubling of notes between the two harmonic elements; and the flute part is generally independent of both. The character of the harmonic contrasts in this movement is aimed to accentuate, to dram?atize the rhythmic animation that is characteristic of the expressive content." The scoring of the concerto is for string orchestra, two harps, celesta, and one percussion player.
Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 60......Dvorak
Anton Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves on Vltava near Prague, September 8, 1841; died in Prague, May 1, 1904.
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose Well, I have--for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has. Do you take it I would astonish Does the red tail, twittering through the woods
--Walt Whitman
It is as little known among performing musicians as it is among the general listening public that Anton Dvorak was one of the most prolific composers of the late nineteenth century. If we judge him only by the extent of his work, he is incontestably a phenomenon in the world of music. Without a doubt Dvorak was one of the most distinguished musical personalities of his period and should take his rightful place beside Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Franck. He ranks today among the great masters in the copiousness and extraordinary variety of his expression.
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, other European countries besides Germany, Austria, Italy, and France became articulate in music. The period saw the emergence of such nationalistic composers as Grieg in Norway, Mus?sorgsky and the "Five" in Russia, Albeniz in Spain, and Smetana and Dvorak in Bohemia. The freshness and originality of their musical styles stemmed from their conscious use of folk music sources. The result was an agreeable and popular art, essentially melodic, rhythmic, and colorful. Folk music, consciously cultivated by such artists as Dvorak and Smetana, sheds its provincialisms but retains its essential characteristics--simplicity, directness, and honesty.
As a traditionalist Dvorak accepted the forms of his art without question, but he regenerated them by injecting a strong racial feeling, which gave brilliant vitality, depth, and warmth to everything he wrote. Dvorak possessed genuinely Slavonic qualities that gave an imperishable color and lyrical character to his art. With a preponderance of temperament and emotion over reason and intel?lect, he seemed always to be intuitively guided to effect a proper relationship between what he wished to express and the manner of expression. In this con?nection he had more in common with Mozart and Schubert than he had with Beethoven. His expression is fresh and irresistibly frank, and, although it is moody at times and strangely sensitive, it is never deeply philosophical or brooding; gloom and depression are never allowed to predominate. He could turn readily from one strong emotion to another without any premeditation; he could pour out his soul as he does in the second theme of the cello concerto without reserve or affectation, and in the next moment reveal an almost com-
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plete lack of substance in his predilection for sheer color combinations or rhythmic effects for their own sake. But everything he felt and said in his music was natural and clear. There was no defiance, no mystical ecstasy in his makeup. He had the simple faith, the natural gaiety, the sane and robust qualities of Haydn. His music, therefore, lacks the breadth and the epic quality of Beethoven's; it possesses none of the transcendent emotional sweep of Tchai?kovsky's; but for radiantly cheerful and comforting music, for good-hearted, peasant-like humor, for unburdened lyricism, Dvorak has no peer.
No work better displays these qualities than his first symphony. To Donald Francis Tovey, it is superior in many ways to the famous "New World." He speaks of its childlike sublimity "which trails clouds of glory not only with the outlook of the child but with the solemnity of the kitten running after its tail." On the other hand no work has suffered such totally and undeserved neglect. Perhaps the long-standing popularity of the "New World" Symphony has been a conditioning factor for, with the exception of only occasional per?formances of the G major (No. 4) and the D minor (No. 2), all of the rest of Dvorak's nine symphonies have suffered a similar fate.
The order in which he composed the symphonies, and the numbers and opus indications are confusing. The symphony on this afternoon's program, for instance, is listed as No. 1 because it was the first to be published; however in order of composition it was actually No. 6. The following table will indicate the correct order of composition, the accepted numbering and the opus indi?cations of the nine symphonies:
186S Symphony in C minor (The Bells of Zlonice), Op. 3. Unpublished.
186S Symphony in B-flat major, Op. 4. Unpublished.
1873 Symphony in E-flat major (orig. Op. 10). Published posthumously in 1912.
1874 Symphony in D minor (orig. Op. 12). Published posthumously in 1912.
1875 Symphony in F major, "No. 3" (orig. Op. 24). Op. 76, revised in 1887. 1880 Symphony in D major, "No. 1," Op. 60.
188S Symphony in D minor, "No. 2," Op. 70. 1889 Symphony in G major, "No. 4," Op. 88. 1893 Symphony in E minor, "No. 5," (From the New World). Op. 95.
Professor Tovey gives the following discussion of the symphony in his Essays in Musical Analysis:
Dvorak's First Symphony shows him at the height of his power. It is by no means the work of a young man; its opus number is true to the facts, and shows that Dvorak, like Brahms, had waited long and experienced much before venturing on the publication of a symphony. Yet the very first line presents us with those intimations of immortality that make the child sublime. No man of the world would take this theme so seriously as to make a symphony of it, or, taking it seriously, would get so excited over it as to swell out from pianissimo to a forte at the first top note. But Dvorak knows what he is talking about, and the world has not yet made him self-conscious. To the child, the silver-paper stars of the Christmas tree are really sublime; that is to say, no poet can fill his own mind more entirely with the sublimity of the real starry heavens. All depends on the singleness, the fullness, and the purity of the emotion; and in works of art, also on the skill to convey it truly. In this symphony Dvorak moves with great mastery and freedom;
Donald Frances Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), II, 89.
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the scale and proportions are throughout noble, and if the procedure is often, like Schu?bert's, unorthodox and risky, it is in this case remarkably successful.
No one can wish to disillusionize Dvorak when his first theme, after the intervention of an energetic auxiliary, comes out grandioso on the full orchestra. There is no illusion about it; the grandeur is not that of particular styles or particular themes, it is that of life itself; and when that grandeur is present art has little leisure for even the most solemn questions of taste, except in so far as the power to appreciate life is itself the one genuine matter of taste.
Dvorak's second subject is reached, as usual with him, by a curiously long and discursive transition. The second subject itself contains two great themes of which the second is very prominent in later developments.
The exposition is repeated, the return being brought about by a characteristically long passage, which accordingly makes it out of the question to 'cut the repeat.' Fortunately there is no temptation to do so, as the movement is by no means of unwieldy length.
The development begins with one of the most imaginative passages Dvorak ever wrote. No listener can fail to be impressed with its long-sustained chords, from the depths of which fragments of the first theme arise until the basses put them together in a dramatically mysterious sequence, which suddenly breaks off with a masterly and terse working up of the energetic auxiliary themes. The whole development has all the ease and clearness of Dvorak's methods, with none of the flat reiterations that disfigure his weaker works: and I need not further describe its course, beyond calling attention to the dramatic stroke which leads to the return of the first subject. This stroke is easily recognized by the way in which at the climax of a full orchestral storm the strings are suddenly left alone, and after coming to an abrupt stop, proceed to stalk in stiff indignant crotchets to a remote chord, from whence the full orchestra plunges grandly into the main key.
The recapitulation of both first and second subjects is regular, including all the accessories and the elaborate transition-passages. The climax of the second subject, however, is not allowed to subside as before, but leads immediately to a brilliant coda.
It is a sad mystery how the man who had once written so highly organized a movement could ever have lost the power.
The slow movement is not difficult to follow, but I know few pieces that improve more upon acquaintance. It has in perfection an artistic quality which Dvorak elsewhere unfor?tunately allowed to degenerate into a defect, the quality of a meandering improvisation on a recurring theme, the episodes being of the nature of ruminating digressions rather than of contrasts. This is a subtle achievement, and if Dvorak could have either left the slow movement of his First Symphony as his one example, or produced several others as perfect, we should be in no danger of missing the point of a design as peculiar as that of the slow movement of Beethoven's C-minor Symphony, or as many designs of Haydn's which elude classification. At all events this movement will not fail to make its point if we dismiss from our minds any preconception that its ruminating modulations are intended to lead to something new, or that its one dramatic storm (at the beginning of the second episode) is an incident of more than fairy-tale solidity. That storm leads back to the main theme in one of Dvorak's most imaginative passages; and the whole function of all the episodes and developments in the movement is to present the most interesting possible appearance of leading back to a melody which we have never really left. There is some?thing very touching in the way the coda seems to pay homage to that supreme utterance, the end of the slow movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; before which Dvorak's innocent drum figure seems to dance as the clown in the legend danced his devotions before the altar of the Virgin, to the scandal of the monks who surprised him there.
The scherzo or Furiant needs no quotation; nor is much wisdom to be gained from the information that the Furiant is a Bohemian dance. I yield to no one in my respect for folk-music and for the experts who have the tact and sympathy which alone can collect and appreciate it; but it has been noticed that the people who are loudest in saying that the Dunsky and the Furiant are new and national art-forms are very apt to collect the Hunting-chorus in Der Freischutz as a folk-song from the whistling of a country milkboy. Dvorak writes a lively scherzo with a picturesque trio in perfectly normal form; and some
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listeners may be chiefly amused by the village merry-go-round humours of the piccolo in the trio, while others may be more impressed by the poetic quality of the long-drawn phrases of the rest of the trio (very characteristic of Dvorak and exceedingly unlike any possible folk-music) with its fine contrast to the high spirits of the scherzo.
Altogether the finale, far from being, as too often with Dvorak, the weak point, is a magnificent crown to this noble work, and is admirably endowed with that quality that is rarest of all in post-classical finales, the power of movement. Rapid tempo and accelera?tion of pace can do nothing if the phrases themselves lack variety and energy in their proportions. It is pitiful to see the sempre piu presto of many ambitious finales (including some of Dvorak's) struggling vainly to make headway against the growing sluggishness of their phrases. In his first symphony, however, as in a considerable volume of other neglected works, Dvorak had the classical secret of movement, which is not a power that can be obtained at the expense of higher qualities, for it is one of the highest.
Ibid., pp. 90-94.
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Saturday Evening, May 2 Chaconne...............J. S. Bach
Transcribed for Orchestra by Louis Gesensway
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, March 21, 1685; died in Leipzig, July 28, 17S0.
In Johann Sebastian Bach, the musical development of two centuries reached its climax. Coming from a family of distinguished musicians famous in Ger?many for one hundred and fifty years, he entered into the full heritage of his predecessors and used, with incomparable effect, all of the musical learning of his day.
Born in the very heart of medieval Germany, in the remote little town of Eisenach under the tree-clad summits of the Thuringian Wald, Bach lived in an atmosphere that was charged with poetry, romance, and music. Tower?ing precipitously over the little village stood the stately Wartburg, which once sheltered Luther and where, in one of the chambers, the German Bible came into being. Here also in 1207 the famous Tourney of Song was held, and German minstrelsy flowered.
In these surroundings Bach's early youth was spent, and his musical foun?dation formed under the careful guidance of his father. The subsequent events of his life were less propitious. Orphaned at the age of ten, he pursued his studies by himself, turning to the works of Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and other predecessors and contemporaries as models.
Singing in a church choir to gain free tuition at school, traveling by foot to neighboring towns to hear visiting organists who brought him occasional touches with the outside world, securing menial positions as organist in Arn-stadt and Miihlhausen filled the monotonous years of this great master's youth.
Although he gained some fame as the foremost organist of his day, he was ignored and neglected as a composer. Of all his church music, parts of only one cantata were printed during his life, not because it was esteemed, but because it was written for an annual burgomeister election 1 References by contemporaries are scanty; they had no insight into the value of his art. Fifty years after his death his music was practically unknown, most of the manu?scripts having been lost or mislaid.
The neglect, discovery, and final triumph of Bach's music are without parallel in the history of music. His triumphant progress from utter obscurity to a place of unrivalled and unprecedented brilliance is a phenomenon the equal of which has not been recorded. Today his position is extraordinary. Never was there a period when there were more diverse ideals, new methods, confusion of aims and styles; yet Bach has never been so universally acknowl?edged as the supreme master of music.
Certainly masterpieces were never so naively conceived. Treated with con?tempt by his associates in Leipzig, where he spent the last years of his life,
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and restrained by the narrow ideals and numbing pedantry of his superiors, he went on creating a world of beauty, without the slightest thought of pos?terity. The quiet old cantor, patiently teaching his pupils Latin and music, supervising all of the choral and occasional music in the two principal churches of Leipzig, gradually losing his sight, until in his last years he was hopelessly blind, never for a moment dreamed of immortality. He continued, year after year, to fulfill his laborious duties, and in so doing created the great works that have brought him eternal fame. His ambitions never passed beyond his city, church, and family.
Disregarding the dialectical discussions of musical scholars as to the deriva?tions of, and what constitutes the difference between, the two closely related forms of Baroque music--the passacaglia and the chaconne--one can simply say that the chaconne was a continuous set of variations in triple meter in which a succession of chords served as a harmonic basis for each variation.
Bach wrote this monumental chaconne between the years 1717 and 1720. It was part of a Partita in D minor for unaccompanied violin. In it he ex?ploited the instrument to the ultimate limits of its technical possibilities. Not even Bach himself ever surpassed the astonishing inventiveness, imagination, and inner logic of this work. To hear it performed on a single instrument, even by the greatest virtuosos of today, leaves one not only astounded at the almost superhuman technical prowess involved, but also questioning why so vast a musical structure, so prodigious an utterance should have been confined by Bach to the "small sweet voice" of an unaccompanied violin. Perhaps the answer is that in his day, the violin was the most flexible, expressive, and responsive instrument known, and the one that could best clearly outline the many independent melodic lines involved. The fact remains, however, that this chaconne finds an appropriate medium in the modern orchestra, where the variety of individual instruments colors the lines and clarifies the infinitely complex inner voices and gives massiveness of sound commensurate with the magnitude of the total structure.
The arguments for and against transcriptions need not concern us here. It is more important to note that Bach gave to his day creations in all media beyond the scope of their available means of expression. His art is elastic; it grows, deepens, and flows on into the advancing years. The changed media of expression, the increased expressive qualities of the modern pianoforte, organ, and complex orchestra have brought to the world a realization of the great dormant and potential beauties that lay in his work. "What a magnifi?cent world did the mighty Sebastian evolve from the dry, stiff, pedantic forms of his time!" wrote Wagner. "No words can give a conception of its richness, its sublimity, its all-comprehensiveness."
Louis Gesensway, whose transcription is heard on tonight's program, was born in Dvinsk, Latvia, February 19, 1906, but he moved to Canada as a child. In 1926, he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as a violinist and is still a member of that group.
Two orchestrations of the Chaconne were made previously--a scholarly one by Jano Hubay, the eminent Hungarian musician, and one by Leopold Stokowski, at that time conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
41
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca..........Puccini
Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, Decem?ber 22, 1858; died in Brussels, November 29, 1924.
Called by Verdi the most promising of his successors, Puccini, who even today may be said to dominate modern opera composers, justified his master's prophecy by a career of uninterrupted success from the date of his first dra?matic venture Le Villi, 1884, to his very last unfinished work. Turandot, 1924. Tosca, Puccini's fifth opera, ranks among the three most popular of his works, along with La Boheme and Madama Butterfly.
In the work from which this evening's aria is taken, Puccini exhibits his genius in adjusting both instrumental and vocal effects to the implications of the text without sacrificing the inherent capacities of either mode of expression. At the same time he drew his characters with a sure hand and interpreted brilliantly the compelling situations of the dramatic action. The plot, based upon a drama written by Victor Sardou as a vehicle for the great Bernhardt, is gloomy and intensely tragic, but is occasionally relieved by such lyrical scenes as the popular aria on tonight's program.
The opera takes place in Rome during the Napoleonic wars and revolves around the opposing political factions of the time. Scarpia, the villainous chief of police, has arrested the painter Mario Cavaradossi ostensibly for his political views. Actually, he desires to possess the famous opera singer, Tosca, who is in love with Mario. In Act II, Scarpia summons her to appear before him and presents her with the choice between certain death for her lover or submitting to his demands. Pleading with him, Tosca asks why such misery has fallen to her when she has devoted her life only to art and love and charity.
"Depuis le jour" from Louise.......Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier was born at Dieuze, June 2S, 1860; died in Paris, February 18, 19S6.
Charpentier's opera Louise was produced for the first time, February 2, 1900, at the Opera Comique, Paris. The composer wrote the text, many of its situations having been derived from his own experiences when he lived in an attic in Montmartre.
The story concerns itself with Louise, the daughter of a French working man, who loves and is loved by Julien, a young poet. The parents do not regard him favorably, and they refuse their consent to a marriage. In spite of this obstacle, Julien continues his pursuit of Louise, who, intoxicated partly by love and partly by the vista of the joy and the gay bohemianism of the city that the companionship with Julien will bring her, leaves the drab life of her parents' home and casts her lot with the poet.
"Depuis le jour" is sung by Louise at the opening of the third act of the opera as she stands with her lover, Julien, in the garden of the little house
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on the Butte de Montmartre. It is the expression of a single exalted mood, at once delicate and impassioned. The text, freely translated from the French, is as follows:
From the day I gave myself to love my destiny has been fluorescent. I seem to be dreaming under a magic sky. My soul still thrills to your first kiss. Life has become a thing of beauty and I am happy as love covers me protectingly with his wings. Joy sings in the garden of my heart. All around me is laughter, light, and happiness. I still tremble with ecstasy at the memory of that first day of love.
Symphony No. 7, Op. 131.........Prokofiev
Prokofiev's Seventh Symphony was given its first American performances by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra at their regular concerts on April 10 and 11, 1953, and was repeated in New York on April 21 of that year. The next performance in this country was given April 30, 1953, at the Ann Arbor May Festival. We are indebted to Donald Engle, then pro?gram annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra, for the following information concerning the Seventh Symphony, which he provided for the May Festival program book at that time:
Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 7 is his most recent major work to have been announced to the Western world, and it may be the last large composition he completed before his untimely death on March 4. It bears no opus number, nor does the score indicate the date of completion.!
According to the rather scanty information available from the Leeds Music Corporation, American representatives for Prokofiev's music, the Seventh Symphony was composed in 19S2, and given its first performance October 11 in Moscow under the direction of Samuel Samosud. It was repeated there, probably in January or early February of this year [19S3], for the Composers' Union.
The symphony first came to Mr. Ormandy's attention when he read a New York Times account of its first performance in Moscow, and he has since been given the honor of con?ducting its first American performances. The communique, dated February 6 of this year, quoted Pravda as putting the authoritative stamp of approval on the long-awaited score, following its hearing in a recital of new works before the Composers' Union. The official Communist newspaper stated that the Seventh Symphony revealed that Prokofiev had "taken to heart" criticism that has for several years been directed at his work and had "succeeded in overcoming in his creative work the fatal influence of formalism."
The reference to formalism, a term which seems to have a portentous connotation to Russian officialdom though vague to Western minds, recalls those incidents during the past several years when Prokofiev and several other leading Soviet composers were publicly reprimanded for artistic misdemeanors which we interpret as simply straying from the prescribed party line, and for which they had to offer public apology as the price of having their works played.
Pravda further explained that in this symphony, Prokofiev sought "to create in music a picture of bright youth in answer to the call of the party of composers--to create beautiful, delicate music able to satisfy the esthetic demands and artistic tastes of the Soviet People."
The work is in four movements. The first, according to Pravda, ranges from a children's fairy tale through romantic dreams "to the first active aspirations of youth." The second is a symphonic waltz; the third is a brief but deeply lyric and expressive movement. The
See page 25.
t Since these notes were written, the Seventh Symphony has been designated as Op. 131. Two other works, a Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 132, and a Concerto (or Two Pianos and String Orchestra, Op. 133 (incomplete), were composed in 1953, the year of Prokofiev's death.
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fourth combines the moods of a gay dance and an energetic march, spiced with the sparkling humor and droll wit which appear so frequently in Prokofiev's music.
The scoring of this new symphony is clear, concise, and telling in effect; the themes are straightforward and engaging, the harmonies, marked by the abrupt and frequent shifting of key centers typical of Prokofiev's style, are always clearly defined. The work as a whole is a surprisingly direct and uncomplicated structure, whether to meet the requirements of the cultural authorities or because Prokofiev's natural tendency has been toward greater simplicity in recent years, and audiences will find this new symphony quite enjoyable.
"Cara Selve" from Atalanta.........Handel
Georg Friedrich Handel was born in Halle, Feb?ruary 23, 168S; died in London, April 14, 17S9.
The opera Atalanta from which this aria comes was written in 1736 to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Saxe-Gotha, and was produced on the twentieth of May with the utmost splendor a fort?night after the royal wedding took place.
Disastrous as the ceremony turned out to be (the marriage was a mere passing scheme in the ordering of kings), Handel's music filled the air with its amorous and tender strains. The profligate Prince of Wales, at the sug?gestion of George II, consented to marry the young seventeen-year-old German princess, sight unseen. Arriving in London on the 25th of April, she remained in her chamber unattended and unacknowledged by the royal family until the 27th, when she was rushed to the palace on her wedding day. Half crazed with fright she tripped and fell prone on the floor before the king and queen, her future fatherand mother-in-law. Practically dragged to the altar, she was married at 9 o'clock that night while strains of Handel's "Wedding An?them," we hope, brought temporary solace to her troubled spirit.
Handel then produced his opera, Atalanta, to celebrate further the occasion. It was an Arcadian, pastoral type of thing (the librettist is unknown) pat?terned upon Guardini's II Pastor fido and filled with nymphs and shepherds who sang "delicious airs" and choruses that rendered "tender cadences"--music that indeed belied the farrago of disaster that surrounded it.
English translations of the brief original Italian text that forms the basis of this aria are by necessity always expanded to avoid the monotony of word repetition to which Handel and his audiences found no objection. Handel was sublimely indifferent to the brevity of any text as long as its imagery inspired him to musical invention and its words offered him enough pegs to which he could attach his incredibly beautiful melodic lines. Those familiar with Messiah recall the long melismas on the single words, brutally dismembered, "stretched upon the rack of many bars" until the direct intellectual and emotional appeal of the text is drowned in the flood of pleasure which the music directly and overwhelmingly bestows.
Upon "Cara selve, ombre beate, vengo in traccia del mio cor," the complete text of the aria, Handel has imposed one of his most disarmingly simple melodies. These few words translated mean nothing more than "Dear woods, blessed shades, may I follow the dictates of my heart"; but as they repeat
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and repeat, Handel's beautiful vocal line unfolds before us, creating and protracting beyond the power of words a mood of serenity and quiet melan?choly.
The Nightingale and the Rose.....Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevitch Rimsky-Korsakov was born at Tichvin, Novgorod, March 18, 1844; died at Liubensk, June 21, 1908.
Unlike his countryman Tchaikovsky, whose contribution to the art of song was voluminous but undistinguished, Rimsky-Korsakov ranks high in a Rus?sian school of composers that was pre-eminent in this brand of composition (Dargomyzhsky, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Gretchaninov, Gliere, Borodin, Rach?maninoff, and others). He composed over eighty songs, the majority of which are distinguished for their fastidious craftsmanship and particularly for their unique melodic grace. Although he was inclined to adopt a lyrical rather than a dramatic or declamatory style, so subtly contrived and varied are his vocal melodies, so rich and picturesque his accompaniments, that his songs never tend toward monotony of expression as do those of Tchaikovsky.
"The Nightingale and the Rose" is typical of his exquisite taste and refine?ment of style. It is among the first set of his songs to be published as Op. 2, No. 2, in 1866.
Southern Song..............Ronald
Landon Ronald was bom in London, June 7, 1873; he died there, April 14, 1938.
Although Landon Ronald was knighted in 1922 for his distinguished service to music, his name has remained practically unknown in this country. In 1894, he toured America as accompanist to the celebrated soprano Nellie Melba, but his activity as a conductor, pianist, and composer was confined to Europe where he became well known as an interpreter of the symphonic works of his famous contemporary and fellow countryman, Sir Edward Elgar.
He was a fluent and prolific composer of undistinguished music. A genera?tion or so ago, however, his songs were immensely popular with singers and public alike. He wrote over three hundred of them and many appeared with monotonous regularity on vocal programs. Today they are seldom, if ever, heard.
Bacchus et Ariane, Ballet Suite No. 2, Op. 43 ... Roussel
Albert Roussel was born at Tourcoing, April 5, 1869; died at Royan, August 23, 1937.
In 1894 at the age of twenty-five, Albert Roussel turned from a well-estab?lished career in the French navy to that of a professional musician. From
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1896 on, his works appeared with greater frequency in the concert salons of Paris, bringing to him immediate and continuing success.
Although Roussel failed to achieve a position of any eminence in the annals of early twentieth-century French music, his fastidious and distinctive talent won for him the highest respect and acclaim from connoisseurs. His musical gifts eminated from a profoundly artistic temperament that found in nature and in all of the arts a sustaining inspiration. His limited ability to build up musical continuity in the larger forms was richly compensated by a wealth of finesse and subtlety in expression, a vivacious style, and a constant inven?tiveness that sustained him throughout his career. His music was, in the words of Jean Aubry, a reflection of his "love of life without loudness, his restrained but lively ardor, his exquisite sense of pleasure, a thousand refinements with?out affectation, and, beneath this delicacy and his smiling nature, a gentle and firm power with occasional melancholy."
Roussel derived his Second Suite from Act II of the ballet Bacchus et Ariane, choreography by Abel Hermant. It was published in 1932 and per?formed by the Soci6t6 Philharmonique de Paris, November 26, 1936, Charles Munch conducting.
The following directions are printed in the score:
Introduction {Andante)--Awakening of Ariane--She looks around her surprised--She rises, runs about looking for Thesee and his companions--She realizes that she has been abandoned--She climbs with difficulty to the top of a rock--She is about to throw herself into the stream--She falls in the arms of Bacchus, who has appeared from behind a boulder--Bacchus resumes with the awakened Ariane the dance of her dreaming--Bacchus dances alone (Allegro-Andante-Andanlino)--The Dionysiac spell--A group marches past {Allegro dedso)--A faun and a Bacchante present Ariane the golden cup, into which a cluster of grapes has been pressed--Dance of Ariane (Andante)--Dance of Ariane and Bacchus (Moderato e pesante)--Bacchanale {Allegro brillante).
G. Jean Aubry, French Music of Today (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1919), p. 111.
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Sunday Afternoon, May 3
This year marks the bicentennial of the death of Georg Friedrich Handel, one of the titans of music, yet one of the most shamefully neglected of com?posers. Although Messiah is known throughout the civilized world and is per?haps the most beloved of all choral works, we must agree with Bukofzer that "its immense public knows it more for its religious appeal than for its musical excellence." It must be admitted that Messiah has won its place in our affections largely by habit, custom, and association. A large part of its faithful public is unaware of the fact that Handel wrote thirty-one other oratorios, to say nothing of forty-six operas and a staggering amount of instrumental music. Fortunately this generation will not have to wait for the tricentennial of his birth, which will not occur until 1985, to be made more aware of the magnitude and glory of his art.
Handel is a perfect subject for an extended and worldwide celebration for several reasons. Three countries have a national justification for honoring him at this time: Germany, the land of his birth; Italy, where he received his early training and experience; and England, the land of his adoption, where he created most of his music over a period of a half century and where he lies buried in the poets corner of Westminster Abbey among the immortals of English letters.
Furthermore, he composed in every form known to his age. Besides the incredible number of operas and oratorios, he produced Passion music, anthems, Te Deums, cantatas, duets, trios, songs, pasticcios, incidental music for the stage, serenades, and odes. His output of instrumental music was equally fabulous. Numbered among his complete worksf are sonatas, trios, organ con?certos, suites, concerti grossi, overtures, and music for the harpsichord, harp, and ballet. Thus there is available for opera houses, choral societies, individual singers, and instrumentalists throughout the world for this bicentennial year an almost inexhaustible wealth and variety of practically unknown music by this, the last great master of the Baroque era.
Solomon................Handel
Solomon, like so many of Handel's occasional compositions, was a topical work. It was written in May and June of the year 1748 when England was emerging victorious from an era of war and rebellion. Handel, alert to the changing tastes and shifting moods of his London public, ever aware of his own advantage and always the propagandist for the House of Hanover, conscien-
Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1947), p 337.
t Georg Friedrich Handel Werke (Leipzig: Breitkopf and HSrtel, 94 volumes, 18S8; 6 supplemental volumes, 1888-1902).
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tiously attempted to please his audience, look after his own best interests financially, and take every opportunity to glorify his king and exalt the con?ception of monarchy. Early in his career in England at the end of the war of Spanish succession, he produced the Utrecht Te Deum (1713), thus ingratiating himself with the English and securing a pension from Queen Anne. Swift upon the battle of Dettingen (1743) in which George II led forth his own troops to victory came the Dettingen Te Deum amid general rejoicing. The Occasional Oratorio and Judas Maccabeus were designed as a "copious national gratias agimus" to God and the Duke of Cumberland who had defeated Prince Charles, the young pretender, at Culloden, April 16, 1746, and had ended the Jacobean rebellion that had so long threatened the Hanover line. Now at the conclusion of the war of the Austrian succession (the Peace of Aix la Cha-pelle was finally signed in October 1748) when England was on the verge of entering an era of great imperial strength and commercial expansion, came the epic paean Solomon. The London public, quite accustomed to Handel's veiled symbolism, readily saw in the mighty Solomon the image of George II, the hero of Dettingen, the generous patron of the Foundling Hospital (one of Handel's favorite charities), and the symbol of the victory of constitutional government over the forces of rebellion. In its double choruses that cry "Your harps and cymbals sound to great Jehovah's praise" and that shout "Shake the dome and pierce the sky, rouse us next to martial deeds" or admonish "With pious hearts" to "Praise the Lord with harp and tongue" and let "the censer curling rise grateful incense to the skies," Handel gave clarion voice to the public's gratitude and renewed confidence in a promising future. "Handel glorifies the rise of the free people of England in his oratorios," wrote Paul Lang. "The people of Israel became the prototype of the English nation, the chosen people of God reincarnate in Christendom, and magnificent psalms of thanksgiving and marches of victory in imperial baroque splendour proclaimed the grandiose conscience of England's world conquering power."
Solomon, in its three sections based upon the Book of Kings and Chronicles, sets forth aspects of the ancient monarch's greatness, his piety, his conjugal happiness, his wisdom, and the majestic splendour of his court. Handel makes no attempt to present a plot or weld the parts together in one continuous narrative. Rather, he unfolds before us a panorama of wealth, material pos?session, and cultural ostentation in a world ruled by reason and wisdom. Like a gigantic triptych Solomon presents a panoply of colors, now brilliant and exhilarating in scenes of pageantry and praise, delicately sensuous when concerned with marital bliss, dramatically sharp and contrasted in the scene between the two litigant women or richly impressionistic amid pastoral scenes of rustic retreat. In no other of his sacred oratorios has Handel pro?vided such an array of rich orchestral textures, more impressive choruses, noble recitatives, or beautifully contrived arias. The variety of musical fare one finds in the work is due in part to the fact that again in no other sacred
Paul Henry Lang, Music in Western Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1941), p. 522.
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oratorio has Handel included so many nonliturgical, purely secular scenes. Irrelevant as these are, they do provide infinite variety of mood. Unfortunately, they also extend the work to an inordinate length. Seldom is it performed in its entirety. No matter how judiciously omissions and rearrangements are made, something of the total grandeur, fabulous proportion, and epic scope of this mighty work is bound to be lost.
Handel had reached his sixty-third year when he composed Solomon in the summer of 1748 in the short period of less than six weeks. His librettist is unknown, although the name of Morell has often been mentioned.
PART I
Part I tells of the greatness, piety, and domestic happiness of Solomon in magnificent choruses and stately recitatives. It is cast into two contrasting sec?tions. Numbers 1 through 7 (numbers 3 and 8 are omitted and numbers 4 and 5 are transposed in this performance) glorify the dignity and majesty of Solomon in two of the most elaborately wrought choruses ever created by Handel. The opening one, No. 2, "Your harps and cymbals sound," is written with great contrapuntal skill and an impressive working out of orchestral and vocal parts. The second chorus, No. 4, "With pious heart," with its bold har?monic beginning and dramatic fugal section, is, like the first, composed for a double chorus. The accompanied recitatives of Solomon (No. 5, "Almighty Power") and Zadok (No. 6, "Imperial Solomon") sustain the laudatory mood that marks this section.
With Solomon's recitative, No. 9, "Blest be the Lord," and the following aria, "What though I trace," the second section of Part I begins (Nos. IS, 16, 18, 19, and 20 are omitted in this performance). A pastoral mood now prevails as Solomon and his queen rejoice in their love and the final small chorus sings No. 22, "May no rash intruder." The voices, perfectly blended with accompanying instruments, create a crepuscular mood with reference to quiet bowers and gentle sleep, soft breathing zephyrs, and the lulling song of nightingales.
The numbering indicates the numerical order of composition rather than the order in which the pieces are being performed this afternoon.
1. Overture.
2. Double Chorus: "Your harps and cymbals sound to great Jehovah's praise!"
5. Recitative: Solomon--"Almighty power, who rulest the earth and skies .... with thy presence grace, and shed thy heavenly glories o'er this place."
4. Double chorus: "With pious heart and holy tongue resound your Maker's name."
6. Recitative: Zadok--"Imperial Solomon, thy prayers are heard."
7. Air: Zadok--"Sacred raptures cheer my breast, rushing tides of hallowed zeal, joys too fierce to be expressed."
9. Recitative: Solomon--"Blest be the Lord, who looked with gracious eyes upon his vassal's humble sacrifice."
Thomas Morell (1703-84) was a clergyman and classic scholar who had compiled the texts for Handel's Occasional Oratorio (1746), Judas Maccabeus (1747), Alexander Balus (1748), Theodora (17S0), Jeptha (1752), and his last oratorio The Triumph of Time and Truth (1757).
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10. Air: Solomon--"What though I trace each herb and flower that drink the morning dew, did I not own Jehovah's power, how vain were all I knew."
11. Recitative: Solomon--"And see, my queen, my wedded love, you soon my tender?ness will prove."
12. Air: Queen--"Blessed the day when first my eyes saw the wisest of the wise!"
13. Recitative: Solomon and Queen--"Thou fair inhabitant of Nile rejoice thy lover with a smile."
14. Duet: Queen and Solomon--"Welcome as the dawn of day to the pilgrim on his way, whom the darkness caused to stray, is my lovely king to me."
17. Recitative: Solomon--"My blooming fair, come, come away, my love admits of no delay."
21. Recitative: Zadok--"Search round the world, there never yet was seen so wise a monarch or so chaste a queen."
22. Chorus: "May no rash intruder disturb their soft hours."
PART II
Part II brings before us the wisdom of Solomon in the famous judgment scene between the two contending mothers for the possession of the child. (In this performance numbers 24 through 27 and numbers 35 and 36 are omitted.) It begins with No. 28, "My Sovereign Liege," sung by an attendant who announces the arrival of the women seeking Solomon's judgment. The drama inherent in this scene stimulated Handel to his best efforts in character delineation. The two women are unerringly brought before us as the true mother sings in sustained and dignified phrases, the false one in excited, vin?dictive tones, while Solomon interposes with the magisterial phrase "Justice holds the lifted scale." In the recitative "Israel, attend" (No. 34) Solomon restores the child to its rightful mother, after which Zadok, in a short dignified recitative "From morn to eve" (No. 37), extols his noble king. The last chorus (No. 23, transferred from the beginning of this part) is a grand paean of rejoicing. Trumpets, horns, timpani, and divided violas create an heroic frame?work for a double chorus which praises Solomon and wishes for him eternal life.
28. Recitative: Attendant, Solomon, First Woman--"My sovereign liege, two women stand, and both beseech the king's command to enter here."
29. Air and Trio: First and Second Women, Solomon--"Words are weak to paint my fears; heartfelt anguish, starting tears, best shall plead a mother's cause."
30. Recitative: Solomon and Second Woman--"What says the other to the imputed charge"
31. Air: Second Woman--"Thy sentence, great king, is prudent and wise."
32. Recitative: First Woman--"Withhold, withhold thy executing hand! reverse, oh king, thy stern command."
33. Air: First Woman--"Can I see my infant gored with the fierce relentless sword"
34. Recitative: Solomon--"Israel, attend to what your king shall say, think not I meant the innocent to slay."
37. Recitative: Zadok--"From morn to eve I could enraptured sing the various virtues of our happy king."
38. Air: Zadok--"See the tall palm that lifts its head on Jordan's sedgy side."
23. Double chorus: "From the censer curling rise grateful incense to the skies."
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PART III
Nicaule, Queen of Sheba, visits Solomon. Part III is entirely taken up with this event. After an opening Sinjonia, which sets the festive mood of this sec?tion, the Queen is welcomed by Solomon. In a recitative "From Arabia's spicy shores" (No. 43) she greets her host. The Queen then tells of her delight at everything she sees in a gavotte-like aria "Every sight these eyes behold" (No. 44). Solomon with the chorus calls for music to entertain his guest. "Music spread thy voice around" is set to the rhythm of a minuet. A spirited change in the music's tempo and mood is heard when Solomon calls for music to celebrate his military might. "Now a different measure try" (No. 47), fol?lowed by a double chorus that in a vigorous and martial manner proclaims heroic deeds in battle. "Shake the dome" is a powerful antiphonal chorus with insistent rhythm in the orchestra which provides a necessary contrast and climax. The rest of the section glorifies the riches and splendour of Solomon's court (Nos. 53, 57-58 are omitted in this performance). The work ends with an elaborately scored double chorus (No. 56, transferred to the end) which exhorts all to "Praise the Lord with harp and tongue."
42. Sinjonia.
43. Recitative: Queen of Sheba and Solomon--"From Arabia's spicy shores, bounded by the hoary main, Sheba's queen these seats explores, to be taught thy heavenly strain."
44. Air: Queen of Sheba--"Every sight these eyes behold does a different charm unfold."
45. Recitative: Solomon--"Sweep, sweep the string, to sooth the royal fair."
46. Air and Chorus: Solomon and Chorus--"Music spread thy voice around, sweetly flow the lulling sound."
f Air: Solomon--"Now a different measure try, shake the dome and pierce the sky." ' (Double chorus: "Shake the dome and pierce the sky, rouse us next to martial deeds."
48. Recitative: Solomon--"Then at once from rage remove; draw the tear from hope?less love."
49. Chorus: "Draw the tear from hopeless love, lengthen out the solemn air."
50. Recitative: Solomon--"Next the tortured soul release and the mind restore to peace."
51. Chorus: "Thus rolling surges rise, and plough the troubled main, but soon the tempest dies, all is calm."
52. Recitative: Queen of Sheba--"Thy harmony's divine, great king, all obeys the artist's string."
54. Recitative: Zadok--"Thrice happy king, to have achieved what scarce will hence?forth be believed."
55. Air: Zadok--"Golden columns, fair and bright, catch the mortal's ravished sight."
59. Recitative: Queen of Sheba--"May peace in Salem ever dwell."
60. Air: Queen of Sheba--"Will the sun forget to streak eastern skies with amber ray"
61. RecitativeSolomon--"Adieu, fair queen, and in thy breast may peace and virtue ever rest."
62. Duet: Queen of Sheba and Solomon--"Every joy that wisdom knows, mayest thou, pious monarch, share."
56. Double chorus: "Praise the Lord with harp and tongue, Praise Him all ye old and young!"
A display of early editions of Handel's music and the instruments of his time, provided by the School of Music, the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, and the University Library, will be displayed in exhibit case No. X, located at the west end of the second floor foyer.
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Sunday Evening, May 3 Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K. 543 .... Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at Salzburg, Jan?uary 27, 1756; died at Vienna, December 5, 1791.
I could not love, except where Death was mingling his with Beauty's breath . . .
--E. A. Poe
During the summer of 1788, three years before his untimely death, Mozart was in dire mental distress. Ignored as a composer by musicians, slighted by his Emperor Joseph II, without the security of a patron, and with his beloved Constanze ill and his finances at their lowest ebb, Mozart turned to his trusted, faithful friend and brother Mason, Michael Puchberg, for help. In a letter to him, dated June 27, 1788, we learn of Mozart's unhappy situation:
Dearest, Most Beloved Friend 1
I have been expecting to go to town myself one of these days and to be able to thank you in person for the kindness you have shown me. But now I should not even have the courage to appear before you, as I am obliged to tell you frankly that it is impossible for me to pay back so soon the money you have lent me and that I must beg you to be patient with me! I am very much distressed that your circumstances at the moment prevent you from assisting me as much as I could wish, for my position is so serious that I am unavoid?ably obliged to raise money somehow. But, good God, in whom can I confide In no one but you, my best friend! If you would only be so kind as to get the money for me through some other channel! I shall willingly pay the interest and whoever lends it to me will, I believe, have sufficient security in my character and my income. I am only too grieved to be in such an extremity; but that is the very reason why I should like a fairly substantial sum for a somewhat longer period, I mean, in order to be able to prevent a recurrence of this state of affairs. If you, my most worthy brother, do not help me in this predicament, I shall lose my honour and my credit, which of all things I wish to preserve. I rely entirely on your genuine friendship and brotherly love and confidently expect that you will stand by me in word and deed. If my wish is fulfilled, I can breathe freely again, because I shall then be able to put my affairs in order and keep them so. Do come and see me. I am always at home. During the ten days since I have come to live here I have done more work than in two months in my former quarters, and if such black thoughts did not come to me so often, thoughts which I banish by a tremendous effort, things would be even better, for my rooms are pleasant, comfortable, and cheap. I shall not detain you any longer with my drivel but shall stop talking--and hope.t
One day before the date of this letter, Mozart completed the E-flat Sym?phony (K. 543), the first of his three last and greatest symphonies. Within less than two months he finished the other two, the G minor (K. 550) on June 25, which he wrote in the short span of ten days; and the C major (Jupiter), on August 10. From then on, music surged from him with increasing momentum
The Emperor appointed Mozart later to the post of Court Composer, left vacant by Cluck, at the extremely low salary of 800 florin a year (Gluck had received 2,000). He had to write nothing better than court dances on commission. "Too much for what I do, too little for what I could do," Mozart is supposed to have written on one of his tax returns.
t The Letters of Mozart and his Family, ed. Anderson (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1938), III, 1363.
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until death finally stayed his hand. The actual circumstances of their creation are unknown, and the chances are he never conducted, or even heard them performed.
"Se vuol ballare" from Le Nozze de Figaro .... Mozart
Over ISO years ago, Mozart composed a thoroughly exquisite and charming opera The Marriage of Figaro, and since its first performance on May 1, 1786, its music has constantly enlivened and refreshed men's spirits with its sparkling, insouciant humor and its spicy plot.
Figaro is quite aware that the Count Almaviva proposes to use his "droit de seigneur" on Susanna, Figaro's chosen bride. Alone in the room, he addresses this little speech to his absent master. There is in every bar of Mozart's music, an expression of Figaro's confidence in his own wits, and his contempt for the Count. But there is bitterness and more than a hint of the cruel anticipatory glee at the thought of outwitting his frivolous master:
Figaro: If you want to dance, my little count, I'll play the guitar for you. Come to my school, and I'll teach you to cut capers--but 111 outwit you at your own game.
"Madamina" from Don Giovanni........Mozart
In the Wiener Zeitung (No. 91), 1778, after the first performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni in Prague there appeared the following criticism:
On Monday, October 29th, Kapellmeister Mozart's long expected opera "Don Giovanni" was performed by the Italian opera company of Prague. Musicians and connoisseurs are agreed in declaring that such a performance has never before been witnessed in Prague. Here Mozart himself conducted and his appearance in the orchestra was a signal for cheers which were renewed at his exit. The opera is exceedingly difficult of execution and the excellence of the representation, in spite of the short time allowed for studying the work, was the subject of general remark. The whole powers of both action and orchestra were put forward to do honor to Mozart. Considerable expense was incurred for additional chorus and scenery. The enormous audience was a sufficient guarantee of public favor.
The work was then given in Vienna, May 7, 1788, by command of Emperor Joseph II. It was a failure, however, in spite of the fact that it was given fifteen performances that year. A contemporary writer, Schink, indignant at the cold reception given the work in Vienna, wrote, "How can this music, so full of force, majesty, and grandeur, be expected to please the lovers of ordi?nary opera The grand and noble qualities of the music in 'Don Giovanni' will appeal only to the small minority of the elect. It is not such as to tickle the ear of the crowd and leave the heart unsatisfied. Mozart is no ordinary composer."
Goethe, after a performance in Weimar in 1797, wrote to Schiller, "Your hopes for opera are richly fulfilled in 'Don Giovanni' but the work stands absolutely alone and Mozart's death prevents any prospect of its example being followed."!
W. J. Turner, Mozart the Man and Bis Works (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938), p. 349. t6W.
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In this aria, Leporello, Don Giovanni's lackey, is maliciously reading a list of his master's feminine conquests to Donna Elvira, whom the Don has re?cently abandoned. He purports to give comfort, but he mercilessly probes at Donna Elvira's unhealed wound--her love for Don Giovanni in spite of his deceitfulness. His final thrust comes at the end of the aria, where he repeti-tiously insists that no woman is able to resist his master, ending with the cynical and cruel admonition, Voi sapetef (You ought to know that):
Every country and township has contributed to my master's pleasure. Dear lady, this catalogue numbers them all. I have myself compiled it, and if it please you, peruse it with me (he turns the pages of the catalogue). In Italy, six hundred and forty; in Germany, ten score and twenty; as for France, oh, say a hundred; but ah! in Spain--in Spain--a thousand and three. Some you see, are country maids, ladies in waiting, others are from the city--countesses, duchesses, baronesses--every kind of "esses"--women of all conditions. If they are haughty, they do not frighten him; if they are tiny, no less, he likes them. He is kind to the dark ones, beseeching to the blue-eyed; in the winter he prefers them portly, in the summer, slender. Women can't resist my master, you ought to know that.
"Paganiniana," Divertimento for
Orchestra, Op. 65........Alfredo Casella
Alfredo Casella was born in Turin, Italy, July 25, 1883; died in Rome, March S, 1947.
The themes that form the musical material for this work belong to the great violin virtuoso of the past century, Niccolo Paganini. Today there is little respect left for Paganini as a composer; the tendency is to accuse him rather of trickery and bad taste, and to feel that, except for a few technical effects and indications as to the lengths to which instrumental virtuosity might be developed, the world has not profited by his advent. In his day, however, the greatest composers of the times, besides recognizing that Paganini was endowed with a mechanical perfection that surpassed belief, paid tribute to his creative talent as well. One of Chopin's earliest compositions was Souvenir de Paganini; Berlioz composed Harold in Italy for him, as a violist; Schu?mann dedicated a movement of his Carnaval (section 15, Intermezzo, "Paga?nini") and also transcribed several of his violin caprices for the piano (Seeks Concertetudien componiert nach Capricen von Paganini, Op. 3); Liszt pro?duced a series of studies based on Paganini works (Six grandes etudes de Paganini); and two sets of variations. Twenty-eight variations (Studien) for piano solo were composed by Brahms on a theme from Paganini's twenty-fourth Caprice in A minor.
Alfredo Casella, composer, critic, scholar, pianist, and teacher, was a leading figure in the contemporary musical scene of his day. He gave to the younger generation of Italian composers a fresh impetus by infusing into the lagging artistic life of his country a new creative energy. Although he spent a great deal of his early life in Paris in direct contact with the great impressionists Debussy and Ravel, they had little if any influence upon his art, which re?mained indigenously Italian. He did form a new and fresh nationalistic style,
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however, which he based on the instrumental masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but treated with many of the melodic and harmonic devices current in contemporary music.
"Paganiniana" was composed for the centenary of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Casella conceived this brilliant work not only to display the tech?nical prowess of this celebrated orchestra, but also to extol the virtuosity of the fabulous Paganini.
The printed study score of "Paganiniana" published by the Vienna Edition Philharmonia lists the sources of Casella's thematic material as follows: the first movement (allegro agitato) is based upon four themes from Paganini's Violin Capriccios, nos. S, 12, 16, and 19. The second movement (polacketta) turned to the Quartet, Op. 4, for violin, viola, cello, and guitar. The third movement (romanza) is from an unpublished composition entitled "The Spring." The finale (tarantella) is based upon a theme from Paganini's music that bears the same title.
"II lacerato spirito" from Simon Boccanegra .... Verdi
(Fortunio) Giuseppe (Francesco) Verdi was born in Le Ron-cole, October 10, 1813; he died in Milan, January 27, 1901.
Verdi had been commissioned to write an opera for the Fenice Theater in Venice in 1856. The result was Simon Boccanegra, founded on an earlier play of Gutierrez. Little is known of the details surrounding its composition. The libretto was adapted by Piave, librettist for Rigoletto, La Traviata, and La Forza del Destino, among others. Its first production was a failure, al?though leading press notices were favorable. The Gazzetta di Venezia de?scribed the music as "decidedly elaborate, worked with the most exquisite detail" and the Gazette Musicale declared the opera to be the most inspired of Verdi's works, surpassing all in dramatic interpretation. The public, how?ever, thought the work cold, monotonous, and gloomy. Twenty years later Verdi decided to rewrite the whole opera and asked Boito to work over the libretto. The revised production was a decided success at La Scala, March 24, 1881. This version is the only extant score.
The story is laid in Venice, during the Guelph and Ghibelline War. In the prologue the young sea captain, Simon Boccanegra, has been made Doge through the efforts of Paolo and Pietro, leaders of the popular party. Simon loves Maria, daughter of the patrician Fiesco, who has refused him marriage because of his lowly birth. Maria dies, leaving a child. The first act concerns the child of Maria and Simon, who has been adopted by another family, Grimaldi, and given the name Amelia. The Grimaldi and Amelia's betrothed, Gabrieli, are plotting against the Doge. Simon, unaware of Amelia's love for Gabrieli, has promised her hand to his minister, Paolo. When he learns of her betrothal and is shown a locket of Maria's, he knows that she is his child
Arrigo Boito was born at Padua in 1842, and died in 1918. He was both a poet and composer. His fame as a composer rests upon his opera Mefistojele, and his poetic works include the libretti of Otello and Falstag written for Verdi.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
and refuses Paolo permission to marry her. Angered at this, Paolo revolts against him but fails, and is condemned to death, but not before he has poisoned Simon, who dies in the arms of his daughter. lacerato spirito (The Tormented Soul) is sung by the patriarch Fiesco, at the death of his daughter Maria:
Farewell to thee forever. Pity a father's wounded heart torn by the pangs of madness, for it has borne a woeful part in sorest shame and sadness! For all the pain thy life has known, may Heaven be kind to thee.
Pilgrim Song.............Tchaikovsky
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky was bom May 7, 1840, at Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia; died November 6, 1893, at St. Petersburg.
Compared with Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf, or even with his own countrymen, Dargomyzhsky, Mussorgsky, or Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky cannot be placed in the front rank of song writers. Although he composed over a hundred songs, the majority of them tend toward a monotony of senti?mental and melancholy expression.
He was, of course, a gifted melodist and some of his songs are remarkable for their sensitivity and affecting beauty. Such a one is the Pilgrim Song, the text by Tolstoy, perhaps the best known of the relatively few that have re?mained in the singers' repertory.
Suite No. 2 from the Ballet Daphnis et Chloe . . . Ravel
Maurice Ravel was born at Ciboure, Basses-Pyr6n?es, March 7, 187S; he died in Paris, December 28, 1937.
The term "impressionism" passed from a general term to a specialized usage about 1863, when a sunset by Monet was shown in Paris at the Salon des Rejusis, entitled "Impression." The name was then adopted for a whole group of painters, of which Monet, Manet, and Degas were the leaders, and later by a similar group of composers, of whom Debussy was the most important figure and Maurice Ravel, a more recent member. Impressionism came to reject all traditions and devote itself largely to the sensuous side of art. It subordinated the subject for the most part to the interest of the execution, and it interpreted isolated momentary sensations, not thoughts or concrete things. In the words of Walter Pater, impressionism is "a vivid personal im?pression of a fugitive effect." Debussy used his art as a plastic medium for recording such fleeting impressions and fugitive glimpses. His style and tech?nique, like that of Monet, Renoir, and early Pissarro, render a music that is intimate though evasive, a music with a twilight beauty and glamor, revealing a world of sense, flavor, color, and mystery. And so Debussy, working to the same end as the French impressionists in art, through the subtle and ephemeral medium of sound created an evasive world of vague feelings and subtle emo?tions--a world of old brocades, the glimmer of moonlight, morning mists,
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shadowy pools, sunlight on waves, faint odor of dying flowers, the flickering effect of inverted images in a pool, or the more vigorous and sparkling effects of an Iberian fete day.
In contrast to the ecstatic impressionism of Debussy, the art of Maurice Ravel appears more concrete. Although he was at home among the colored vapors of the Debussyan harmonic system, Ravel expressed himself in a more tangible form and fashioned the same materials into set designs. His art, in this connection, stands in much the same relationship to musical impressionism as the art of Renoir does to the same style in painting; it restores formal values. In this structural sense he differs from Debussy. But, like Debussy, he reveals the typical French genius, an exquisite refinement, unerring sense of form, purest craftsmanship, attention to minute details, impeccable taste, and a finessee and lucidity in execution.
The ballet, Daphnis et Chloe, was composed for the Russian Ballet in 1910, at the request of Sergei Diaghilev. It was first performed in June, 1912, at Paris, with Nijinsky as Daphnis, and Monteux conducting.
In the score is to be found the following descriptive note:
No sound but the murmur of rivulets fed by the dew that trickles from the rocks. Daphnis lies stretched before the grotto of the nymphs. Little by little the day dawns. The songs of birds are heard. Afar off a shepherd leads his flock. Another shepherd crosses the back of the stage. Herdsmen enter, seeking Daphnis and Chloe. They find Daphnis and awaken him. In anguish he looks about for Chloe. She at last appears encircled by shepherdesses. The two rush into each other's arms. Daphnis observes Chloe's crown. His dream was a prophetic vision; the intervention of Pan is manifest. The old shepherd Lammon explains that Pan saved Chloe, in remembrance of the nymph Syrinx, whom the god loved.
Daphnis and Chloe mime the story of Pan and Syrinx. Chloe impersonates the young nymph wandering over the meadow; Daphnis, as Pan, appears and declares his love for her. The nymph repulses him; the god becomes more insistent. She disappears among the reeds. In desperation he plucks some stalks, fashions a flute, and on it plays a melancholy tune. Chloe comes out and imitates by her dance the accents of the flute.
The dance grows more and more animated. In mad whirlings, Chloe falls into the arms of Daphnis. Before the altar of the nymphs he swears his fidelity. Young girls enter; they are dressed as Bacchantes and shake their tambourines. Daphnis and Chloe embrace tenderly. A group of young men comes on the stage.
Joyous tumult. A general dance.
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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, 1943-1947 Thor Johnson, (Guest), 1947-Lester McCoy, Associate Conductor, 1947-1956; Conductor, 1956-
ADMINISTRATORS
Charles A. Sink (Executive Secretary, 1904-1927); President, 1927--
Gail W. Rector (Assistant to the President, 1945-1954); Executive Director,
1957-
Ross Spence (Secretary) 1893-1896 Thomas C. Colburn (Secretary) 1897-1902 Charles K. Perrine (Secretary) 1903-1904
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-
GUEST CONDUCTORS
Gustav Hoist (London, England),
1923, 1932 Howard Hanson (Rochester), 1926,
1927, 1933, 1935 Felix Borowski (Chicago), 1927
58
Percy Grainger (Australia), 1928 Jose Iturbi (Philadelphia), 1937 Georges Enesco (Paris), 1939 Harl McDonald (Philadelphia),
1939, 1940, 1944 Virgil Thomson (New York), 1959
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
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 Onnandy, Conductor, 1937, 1938; Eugene Or-mandy, Conductor, Saul Caston, Associate Conductor, 1939-1945; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Alexander Hilsben;, Associate Conductor, 1946-1953, and Guest Conductor, 1953; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, 1954-; William Smith, Assistant Conductor, 1957-.
The University Choral Union, Albert A. Stanley, Conductor, 1894-1921; Earl V. Moore, Conductor, 1922-1939; Thor Johnson, Conductor, 1940-1942; Hardin Van Deursen, Conductor, 1943-1947; Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, 1947-; Lester McCoy, Asso?ciate Conductor, 1947-1956, and Conductor, 1957-.
The Festival Youth Chorus, trained by Florence B. Potter, and conducted by Albert A. Stanley, 1913-1918. Conductors: Russell Carter, 1920; George Oscar Bowen, 1921-1924; Joseph E. Maddy, 1925-1927; Juva N. Higbee, 1928-1936; Roxy Cowin, 1937; Juva N. Higbee, 1938; Roxy Cowin, 1939; Juva N. Higbee, 1940-1942; Marguerite Hood, 1943-1956; Geneva Nelson, 1957; Marguerite Hood, 1958.
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION REPERTOIRE
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
Sacred Service (Parts 1, 2, 3)--1958 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 Brtjch: Arminius-1897, 1905
Fair Ellen, Op. 24--1904, 1910
Odysseus--1910
Bruckner: Te Deum laudamus--1945 Carey: "America"--1915
Chabrier: Fete Polonaise from Le Roi malgrS lui--1959 Chad wick: The Lily Nymph--1900 ChAvez, Carlos: Corrido de "El Sol"--1954 Deltos: 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 Gabrieli: In Ecclesiis benedicto domino--1958 Giannini: Canticle of the Martyrs--1958 Gluck: Orpheus--1902 Goldmark: The Queen of Sheba (March)--1923
World premiere
t United States premiere
59
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
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
Solomon--1959 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 Heger: Ein Friedenslied, Op. 19--1934t Hoist: A Choral Fantasia--1932f
A Dirge for Two Veterans--1923
The Hymn of Jesus--1923t
First Choral Symphony (excerpts)--1927t Honegger, Arthur: King David--1930, 1935, 1942 Kodaly: Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13--1939 Lambert, Constant: Summer's Last Will and Testament--1951t Lockwood, Normand: Prairie--1953
McDonald, Harl: Symphony No. 3 ("Lamentations of Fu Hsuan")--1939 Mendelssohn: Elijah--1901, 1921, 1926, 1944, 1954
St. Paul--1905
Menntn, Peter: Symphony No. 4, "The Cycle"--1950 Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov--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 Ponchtfxli: La Cioconda--1925 Poulenc: Secheresses--1959 Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Op. 78--1946 Rachmaninoff: The Bells--1925, 1938, 1948 Respighi: La Primavera--1924t Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of Kitesh--1932t Rossini: Stabat Mater--1897
Saint-Saens: Samson and Delilah--1896, 1899, 1907, 1912, 1916, 1923, 1929, 1940, 1958 Schonberg: Gurre-Lieder--1956
Schuman, William: A Free Song (Cantata No. 2)--1945 Sibelius: Onward Ye Peoples--1939, 1945 Smith, J. S.: Star Spangled Banner--1919, 1920 Stanley: Chorus Triumphalis, Op. 14--1897, 1912, 1921
Fair Land of Freedom--1919
Hymn of Consecration--1918
"Laus Deo," Choral Ode--1913, 1943
A Psalm of Victory, Op. 8--1906
World premiere t American premiere
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Stock: A Psalmodic Rhapsody--1922, 1943
Stravinsky: Symphonie de Psaumes--1932
Sullivan: The Golden Legend--1901
Tchaikovsky: Episodes from Eugen Onegin--1911, 1941
Thompson, Randall: Alleluia--1941
Vardell, Charles: Cantata, "The Inimitable Lovers"--1940
Vaughan Williams, Ralph: Five Tudor Portraits--1957
"FJos Campi"--19S9 Verdi: Aida--1903, 1906, 1917, 1921, 1924 (excerpts), 1928, 1937, 19S7
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
Villa-Lobos, Heiter: Choros No. 10, "Rasga o coragao"--1949 Vivaldi-Casella: Gloria--1954 Wagner: Die fliegende 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
Tannhduser--1902, 1922; March and Chorus--1896; "Venusberg" Music--1946 Walton, William: Belshazzar's Feast--1933, 19S2 Wolf-Ferrari: The New Life, Op. 9--1910, 1915, 1922, 1929
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THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor Lester McCoy, Conductor William Osborne, Pianist
FIRST SOPRANOS
Adler, Maryann L. Anderson, Cynthia J. Arentz, Joan Carol Atkinson, Jeanne O. Bergeret, Eleanor N. Bowman, Elizabeth Ann Bradstreet, Lola Mae Brophy, Lucretia A. Burr, Virginia A. Cole, Judith Lynne Curtiss, Shirley Elliott, Roberta D. Evans, Mary Jo French, Nancy Alice Hanson, Gladys Harris, Margaret L. Hiraga, Mary E. Huber, Sally S. Jerome, Ruth O. Keck, Nancy Joan Keefer, Mary J. Krause, Laurel L. Lock, Inez J. Louch, June Lowe, Emily Boyd Luecke, Doris L. Lukas, Joan Lutz, Amanda MacLaren, Helen L. Malan, Fannie Belle McDonald, Ruth M. Medina, Delia P. Patton, Beatrice Pearson, Agnes I. Pearson, Mary King Pott, Margaret F. Robinson, K. Lisa Schreiber, Sylvia I. Shapiro, Janet S. Skinner, Elizabeth B. Stevens, Ethel Crozer Tarboux, Isabelle N. Titterton, Mary E. Ward, Mary C. Warren, Eleanor Wright, Jean E. Yokes, Jean Ann Youkilis, Elaine R.
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SECOND SOPRANOS
Bahnmiller, Martha L. Barr, Evelyn Jean Boice, Mary Carolyn Brady, Joyce Williams Brater, Betsy Breese Chase, Geraldine Mae Cobb, Carole Lee Corsaut, Pat L. Cromwell, Ann Putnam Curtis, Margaret L. Datsko, Doris Mae Dietz, Leslie Ann Dowsett, Susanne Dykhouse, Delphine Ann Esquivel, Leonarda L. Fenwick, Ruth A. Green, Etta Miniva Groves, Kathryn M. Guenther, Kay Austin Hahn, Ruth Marie Hakken, Jane Irwin, Alice Jeannette Isbell, Melinda O. Jones, Marion A. Keller, Suellen Kellogg, Merlyn L. Knollmueller, Elizabeth Knowlton, Suzzanne Kay Kozachik, Marian Leone Kramer, Christine M. Landess, Sara Jane May, Barbara McAdoo, Mary J. Miller, Nandeen L. Olmstead, Kathryn I. Over'U, Eleanor C. Pike, Judith Lee Pilot, Nancy Louise Selby, Ruth M. Shagrin, Lana Sue Siegel, Loretta E. Sleet, Audrey M. Striker, Donna Hewitt Swinford, Georgiana Thomas, Carole L. Thoren, Ellen Leontina Trautwein, Janet L. Traweek, Sarah W.
VerSchure, Arlene J. Vlisides, Elena C. Warren, Delores C.
FIRST ALTOS
Abraham, Nadia Andrews, Joyce M. Angevine, Joan Arnstine, Lillian Kay Beam, Eleanor P. Birch, Dorothy T. Bross, Joan Allison Clapp, Joanne E. Clark, Elizabeth Lee Cole, A. Christine Conn, Eleanor Lee Eiteman, Sylvia C. Evans, Daisy E. Fell, Patricia Fillmore, Lucille R. Fulk, Mary Barbara Gross, Ruth Atherton Hafner, Carolyn H. Haley, Elizabeth W. Hodgman, Dorothy B. James, Innez Lucille Jones, Mary M. Joslyn, Carol Sue Kallock, Carolyn E. Lane, Rosemarie Marsh, Martha M. Matar, Jean Louile McCoy, Bemice T. Mehler, Hallie Jane Nelson, Sally Jo Nichols, Elizabeth A. Putnam, Judith Marian Sayre, B. Jean Stroh, Miriam Louise Taylor, Patricia R. Tinker, Mary Ann Walter, Nessena Lee Wentworth, Elizabeth B. Westerman, Carol F. Wiedmann, Louise P. Zeeb, Helen R.
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
SECOND ALTOS
Adams, Sharon Carole Arnold, Helen M. Bell, Marilyn Jane Bishop, Mary Rachel Bogart, Gertrude J. Bolt, Phyllis Crossley, Winnifred Cummings, Ann Dykhouse, Thelma I. Enkemann, Gladys C. Gault, Ann W. Gault, Gertrude W. Groff, Linda Jane Huey, Geraldine E. Jenkins, Bernice Johnston, Theolia C. Kamper, Jo Katona, Marianna V. Kieft, Mary Lou Knight, Mona Lahde, Judith E. Levine, Judith Ann Liebscher, Erika Limberg, Aline Lovelace, Elsie W. Marcy, Anne Louise Meyerson, Linda Evelyn Nelson, Beverly J. Phillips, Priscilla F. Pickard, Marilyn A. Price, Susan L. Ramsey, Marjorie C. Roeger, Beverly B. Ross, Frances Ruby, Jean Kemp Schneider, Jean L. Schoon, Carol Jane Schwartz, Susan Schweitzer, Marjorie Shetler, Norma Ruth Stringer, Ruth Miriam Strumia, Lucia Joan Toles, Alberta C. Walker, Sue Ann Williams, Nancy P. Yanke, Louise Ann
FIRST TENORS
Babcock, George R. Baker, Henry Robert Baker, Hugh E. Beck, David Read Bennett, Gene L., Jr. Bowen, Emmett Leslie
Chesnut, Walter Monroe Cicchinelli, Alexander Cooley, David Bruce Crane, Bradford H. Ebner, Jerome Morton Edmiston, James Greenberger, Allen Jay Hobbs, Arthur M. Humm, William R. Kuhlman, James Melvin Lowry, Paul T. Matthews, Donald Edward Mclnnis, Douglas Dayton Miller, Charles Stuart O'Shea, Francis Bernard Snortum, Neil K. Strote, Joel Thompson, Frazier
SECOND TENORS
Bailey, Walter O., Jr. Brady, David Sargent Edlund, John Hubert Frazier, James Fuller, Robert Bruce Gaskell, Jerry T. Gerrard, Allen G. Hartz, Theodore M. Humphrey, Richard Johnson, Harvey C. Kragl, Dieter Kroth, James Robert Lillie, Roger W. Manning, Gerald R. Marks, Robert H., Jr. Noparstak, Irwin H. Pearson, John R. Pelcman, Jean Jacques Politoske, Daniel T. Pratt, Richard E. Smith, Donald Lewis Sterrett, David R. Sublette, Warren J. Tibbits, John Allen Warthman, Forrest D. Wolverton, Franklin B. Yonkers, Anthony J. Timmennan, Wayne C.
FIRST BASSES
Arentz, Richard E. Bates, Herman Dean Beam, Marion L. Beck, Charles B. Borne, Gerhardt
Bower, Bruce Chapman Brown, Stephen Burke, Michael A. Burr, Charles F. Cathey, Arthur Cathey, Owen B. Church, Thomas Clemens, Earl Cook, Gerald Eugene Damouth, David Earl Dwyer, Donald Harris Hall, Lawrence Ellis Hamacher, Kenneth Hartwig, C. Dean Hill, Richard Charles Hughes, David Allan Irwin, Thomas C. Kays, J. Warren Kissel, Klair Morgan, Douglass H. Parker, G. Brian Pontious, Henry Allen Schultz, Samuel R. Wagner, Richard V. Williams, Richard C.
SECOND BASSES
Bay, John Paul Beam, Joel Ferris Becker, Wayne M. Collinson, L. Kenneth Dykhouse, David Jay Elliott, Paul Russel Evans, P. David Fantle, Sam Farrand, William R. Hall, Donald James Hecht, Dwight Walter Hofmann, John T. Huber, Franz Johnson, Robert J. Kincaid, William H. Klevgard, Charles N. McAdoo, William P. Miki, Eiji
Muir, William K., Jr. Natanson, Leo Nauman, John D. Pauli, George Henry Rathbun, Roger C. Robbins, Donald C. Rosemergy, S. Daniel Shingledecker. Richard Steinmetz, George P. Stone. Karl Johnson Vandeveer, James F.
63
MUSICAL SOCIETY ORCHESTRA51
Lester McCoy, Conductor
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
John Christie, Manager
FIRST VIOLINS
Green, Elizabeth Concertmaster
Bloom, Lynn Z. Crampton, Elinore Croteau, Dorothy Dunne, Kathleen Haughn, Elizabeth Kelley, Mary Merte, Herman Meyer, Judith Ann Perrow, Edith Rupert, Jeanne Thompson, Donna Tirrell, Louise C.
SECOND VIOLINS
Adler, Maryann Carter, Mary Ellen Gretzler, Belle Joseph, Alice Mansfield, Judy Mulligan, Aileen Rainaldi, Mary Schenk, Helen Slawson, Nancy Villa, Ella
VIOLAS
Baay, Muriel Hayes, Alice Hughes, Byron Karapetian, Karl Lillya, Ann Mueller, Blanche Wilson, George
CELLOS
Allen, Anne Amos, Connie Dunne, Tom Grove, Jean Harper, Janet Merrill, Elizabeth Shetler, Donald
BASSES
Blubaugh, Sally Hammel, Virginia McCullough, Diane Spring, Peter Wolff, Roberta
FLUTES
Lewis, Dr. Louis Martin, Pat Rcarick, Martha
OBOES
Lynch, Raymond Ruffner, Janet
ENGLISH HORN Camp, Alice
CLARINETS
Skei, Allen Wibon, J. Richard
BASSOONS
Benson, Richard Scribner, William
HORNS
Whitwell, David Wickham, David
TRUMPETS
Stollstcimer, Gary Tison, Donald
TROMBONES
Christie, John Hause, Robert Wirt, Karl
TUBA Laws, Stanley
PERCUSSION
Curtin, William Jones, Harold Salmon, James
CELESTE Biggerstaff, Ruth
HARP Schnell, Margery
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.
64
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director and Conductor William Smith, Assistant Conductor
Donald L. Engle, Manager Joseph H. Santaelasci, Assistant Manager
VIOLINS Madison, David
Acting Concertmaster Reynolds, Veda
Assistant Concertmaster Lusak, Owen Shulik, Morris Costanzo, Frank Simkins, Jasha Ruden, Sol Saam, Frank E. Stahl, Jacob Putlitz, Lois Weinberg, Herman Goldstein, Ernest L. Gesensway, Louis Simkin, Meyer Aleinikoff, Harry Tung, Ling Schmidt, Henry W. Rosen, Irvin Schwartz, Isadore Ludwig, Irving Wigler, Jerome Black, Norman Di Camillo, Armand Sharlip, Benjamin Eisenberg, Irwin I. Dreyfus, George Gorodetzky, Aaron Miller, Charles S. Roth, Manuel Lanza, Joseph Brodo, Joseph Kaufman, Schima
VIOLAS
Cooley, Carlton Mogill, Leonard Braverman, Gabriel Ferguson, Paul Frantz, Leonard Primavera, Joseph P., Jr. Kahn, Gordon Bogdanoff, Leonard Granat, Wolfgang Kaplow, Maurice Epstein, Leonard Greenberg, William S.
HARPS
Costello, Marilyn DeCray, Marcella
VIOLONCELLOS Munroe, Lome Hilger, Elsa Gorodetzer, Harry de Pasquale, Francis Druian, Joseph Belenko, Samuel Siegel, Adrian Saputelli, William Brennand, Charles Farago, Marcel Caserta, Santo Gray, John
BASSES Scott. Roger M. Torello, Carl Arian, Edward Maresh, Ferdinand Eney, F. Gilbert Lazzaro, Vincent Strassenberger, Max Batchelder, Wilfred Gorodetzer, Samuel
FLUTES Kincaid, W. M. Cole, Robert F. Terry. Kenton F. Krell, John C, Piccolo
OBOES
de Lancie, John Wells, Norman C, Jr. Morris, Charles M. Minsker. John, English Horn
CLARINETS
Gigliotti, Anthony M. Montanaro, Donald Serpentini. Jules J. Lester, Leon, Bass Clarinet
SAXOPHONE
Montanaro, Donald HORNS
Jones, Mason
Hale, Leonard
Fearn, Ward O.
Mayer, Clarence
Lannutti, Charles
Pierson, Herbert
TUBA
Torchinsky, Abe Batchelder, Wilfred
BASSOONS
Garfield, Bernard H. Shamlian, John Angelucci, A. L. Del Negro, F., Contra Bassoon
TRUMPETS Krauss, Samuel ) c , Johnson, Gilbert iol? Rosenfeld, Seymour Rehrig, Harold W. Hering, Sigmund
TROMBONES
Smith, Henry C, III Gusikoff, Charles Cole, Howard Harper, Robert S., Bass Trombone
TIMPANI Hinger, Fred D. Bookspan, Michael
BATTERY
Owen, Charles E. Bookspan, Michael Valerio, James Roth, Manuel
CELESTA, PIANO & ORGAN Smith, William Putlitz, Lois
LIBRARIAN Taynton, Jesse C.
PERSONNEL MANAGER Schmidt, Henry W.
STAGE PERSONNEL Barnes, Edward, Manager Hauptle, Theodore E. Sweeney, James
PHOTO PUBLICITY Siegel, Adrian
65
1958 UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY-1959
Resume of Concerts and Music Performed
Concerts.--Five series or groups of concerts, totaling twenty-six events, were presented as listed below. The total number of appearances of the respective artists and organizations, under the auspices of the University Musical Society, is denoted in parentheses; first appearances are indicated by asterisks.
Eightieth Annual Choral Union Series (ten concerts):
Roberta Peters, Soprano (3); George Trovillo, accompanist.................October 1
Boston Symphony Orchestra (38); Charles Munch, conductor (14)...........October 18
Gina Bachauer, pianist (2).................................................October 27
The National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico;
Luis Herrera de la Fuenta, conductor................................November 11
Jerome Hines, bass; Alexander Alexay, accompanist......................November 24
Nathan Milstein, violinist (9); Leon Pommers, accompanist (3)...............January S
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (9); William Steinberg, conductor..........February 26
National Symphony Orchestra; Howard Mitchell, conductor.................March 4
Cesare Valletti, tenor; Leo Taubman, accompanist (3)........................March 11
Andr6 Tchaikowsky, pianist................................................March 23
Thirteenth Annual Extra Concert Series (5 concerts):
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (186); Fritz Reiner, conductor (4)..............October 6
Isaac Stern, violinist (3); Alexander Zakin, accompanist (2).................November S
Boston Pops Tour Orchestra (5); Arthur Fiedler, conductor (5)..............January 13
Renata Tebaldi, soprano; Giorgio Favaretto, accompanist..................February 10
Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra (4); Robert Shaw, conductor (4)..........March IS
Christmas Concerts (two concerts):
Messiah, by Georg Friedrich Handel..................................December 6 and 7
Nancy Carr, soprano (8) Florence Kopleff, contralto (2) John McCollum, tenor (3) Kenneth Smith, bass (5)
Mary McCall Stubbins, organist (2S) Lester McCoy, conductor (24) University Choral Union Musical Society Orchestra
Nineteenth Annual Chamber Music Festival (three concerts):
Societa Corelll (4)..............................................February 13, 14 and IS
Sixty-sixth Annual May Festival (six concerts):.....................April 30, May 1, 2, 3
The Philadelphia Orchestra (146); conductors: Eugene Ormandy (82); Thor Johnson (41); Virgil Thomson; William Smith (3); University Choral Union (230); and soloists:-
Dorothy Kirsten, soprano Lois Marshall, soprano (7) Ilona Kombrink, soprano Howard Jarratt, tenor (5) Aurelio Estanislao, baritone Rudolph Serkin, pianist (8)
Sidney Harth, violinist Robert Courte, violist (4) William Kincaid, flutist (6) Marilyn Mason, harpsichord Mary McCall Stubbins, organ (26)
Mitsic performed.--The complete repertoire of the concerts this season includes music which represents a wide range of musical forms and periods. The compositions, classified into categories of (1) symphonic, (2) instrumental (by virtuoso artists), (3) vocal (solo), and (4) choral, with orchestra, are listed below. Works first performed at these concerts are denoted by asterisks.
66
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM SYMPHONIC
Bach
(Cailliet) Little Fugue......Boston Pops
?(Gesensway) Chaconne......Philadelphia
Bart6k
Suite for Orchestra, Op. 3, No. 1. .Chicago Beethoven Overture to Goethe's "Egmont,"
Op. 84 ....................Pittsburgh
Overture to "Leonore,"
Op. 72, No. 3................National
Symphony No. 6 in F major,
Op. 68 .......................Boston
Berlioz
?Overture, "The Corsair," Op. 21..Chicago "Rakoczy" March from
The Damnation of Faust. .Boston Pops Brahms "Academic Festival" Overture,
Op. 80 ..................Philadelphia
Symphony No. 3 in F major,
Op. 90 ..................Philadelphia
Variations on a Theme by
Haydn, Op. 56a..........Philadelphia
Bruckner
?Symphony No. 6 in A major. .Pittsburgh Caseixa, Alfredo
"Paganiniana," Op. 65.......Philadelphia
Chavez, Carlos
?Sinfonia India .................Mexican
Debussy
"La Mer" .....................National
Dvorak
?Symphony No. 1 in D major. .Philadelphia Falla, Manuel de Interlude and Dance from
"La Vida Breve"..............Chicago
Hayman ?Dancing Through the Years
(arrangement) ...........Boston Pops
Honecger
Symphony No. 5................Boston
Idert
?Divertissement .............Boston Pops
Kern, Jerome ?Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,
from Roberta............Boston Pops
INSTRUMENTAL
Albinoni AHegro from Concerto in D minor
(encore) ...............Sodeta Corelli
Bach
Chaconne for unaccompanied violin .......................Milstein
Moncayo, Jose Pablo
?Huapango ............Mexican National
Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,
K. 525 ....................Pittsburgh
Symphony No. 35 in D major,
K. 385 .......................Boston
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major,
K. 543 ..................Philadelphia
Prokofiev, Sergei
Symphony No. 7............Philadelphia
Ravel Suite No. 2 from the Ballet,
Daphnis et Chloe.........Philadelphia
Revueltas, Silvestre
Sensemaya ............Mexican National
Rimsky-Korsakov Overture, The Russian Easter,
Op. 36 ..................Boston Pops
Rossini ?Overture to "The Voyage
to Rheims"...............Boston Pops
Roussel, Albert
"Bacchus et Ariane," Op. 43.. Philadelphia Shostakovich Symphony No. 5,
Op. 47 .............Mexican National
Sibelius Symphony No. 1 in E minor,
Op. 39 ......................National
Sousa "Stars and Stripes Forever"
(encore) ................Boston Pops
Strauss, Richard Tone Poem, "Don Juan,"
Op. 20 ....................Pittsburgh
Stravinsky ?Divertimento, "The Fairy's Kiss". .Chicago
Suite from "The Fire-Bird".....National
Thomson, Virgil
?"Power Among Men".......Philadelphia
?"The Seine at Night".......Philadelphia
Willson, Meredith ?"76 Trombones" from
The Music Man..........Boston Pops
?Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp
major, Book I (encore).. .Tchaikowsky Sonata in G minor, No. 1
for unaccompanied violin........Stern
Bartok Roumanian Dances (encore).......Stem
67
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Beethoven
?Sonata in A major, Op. 2, No. 2.Bachauer ?Sonata in A major, Op. 12, No. 2...Stern Bloch
Nigun from Baal Shem Suite.......Stern
Boccherini ?Concerto in B-flat major for
Cello and Strings.......Societa Corelli
?Concerto in D major for
Cello and Strings.......Societa Corelli
Menuett No. 2 in A major Societa Corelli
Brahms Concerto No. 1 in D minor,
Op. 13.........Serkin and Philadelphia
Sonata in D minor, Op. 108,
No. 3 .......................Milstein
Sonata in F minor, Op. S.......Bachauer
Britten Simple Symphony
for Strings..............Societa Corelli
Chopin Etude in E minor,
Op. 2S, No. S...............Bachauer
Etude in A minor,
Op. 25, No. 11..............Bachauer
Etude in C minor,
Op. 25, No. 12..............Bachauer
Fantasia in F minor, Op. 49___Bachauer
Nocturne in C-sharp minor
(encore) .....................Milstein
Les Preludes, Op. 28,
No. 1-24................Tchaikowsky
Corelli Concerto Grosso,
Op. 6, No. 1............Societa Corelli
?Concerto Grosso,
Op. 6, No. 3............Societa Corelli
?Concerto Grosso,
Op. 6, No. 8............Societa Corelli
Sarabanda, Giga and
Badinerie (encore)......Societa Corelli
Debussy Toccata in C-sharp minor from
Pour le piano (encore).......Bachauer
?Prelude, "Le Vent dans
la plaine"...................Bachauer
Prelude, "Ce qu'a vu le
vent d'ouest"................Bachauer
Prelude, "Ondine"..............Bachauer
Dinicu Hora Staccato (encore)............Stern
Donizetti ?Canzone e minuetto.......Societa Corelli
68
Geminiani
?Andante .................Societa Corelli
Handel ?Concerto Grosso, Op. 6,
No. 6, in G minor.......Societa Corelli
Sonata No. 4 in D major........Milstein
Kreisler
?Siciliano and Rigaudon............Stern
Liszt ?Totentanz, for Piano and
Orchestra......Marsh and Boston Pops
Marceixo Introduction, Aria and
Presto .................Societa Corelli
Milaud, Darius
Brazilian Dance (encore)..........Stern
Mompou, Federico
Jeunes filles au jardin (encore).. Bachauer Mussorgsky "The Great Gate of Kiev" from
Pictures at an Exhibition.....Bachauer
Mozart ?Fantasia and Sonata
in C minor..............Tchaikowsky
Paradis, Maria-Thereis
?Sicilienne (encore) .............Milstein
Pizzeti ?"Canto" .......................Milstein
PORPORA
?Aria for Cello and
Strings___Zuccarini and Societa Corelli
Prokofiev ?Concerto No. 2 in
G minor.......Harth and Philadelphia
?Sonata in F minor, Op. 80.........Stern
Sonata No. 7, Op. 83.......Tchaikowsky
?Visions Fugitive (encore).. .Tchaikowsky Ries
Perpetuum Mobile (encore).....Milstein
Sarasate
Caprice Basque ...................Stern
Scarlatti
?Pastorale e molto allegro.. Societa Corelli ?Sonata in D minor (encore).Tchaikowsky Smetaxa
From My Homeland............Milstein
Stravinsky
?Concerto in D............Societa Corelli
Russian Maiden Song...........Milstein
Suk, Josef
Burlesque .....................Milstein
Symanowski Notturno et tarentelle.............Stern
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Thomson ?Concerto for Flute, Strings, and
Percussion___Kincaid and Philadelphia
Vivaldi
Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op. 3, No. 11..........Sodeta Corelli
VOCAL
Alabieff
The Russian Nightingale (encore). .Peters Bach ?"I Follow with Gladness"
from the St. John Passion.......Peters
Balfe
"I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" from The Bohemian Girl
(encore) ......................Peters
Bantock
?Feast of Lanterns...............Valletti
Bax, Arnold
"I Heard a Piper Piping"..........Peters
Bellini
"Per pieta bell' idol mio"........Tebaldi
"Vaga luna che inargenti".......Tebaldi
Boito
"Ecco il mondo" from Mefistojele. .Hines Charpentier Aria, "Depuis le jour,"
from ionise... Kirsten and Philadelphia CniA ?Lamento di Federico
from "L'Arlesiana"............Valletti
Davico
"O luna che fa' lume"...........Tebaldi
Debussy
?"Apparition" ....................Peters
"Fleurs des bles" ................Peters
?"Mandoline" ...................Valletti
Dello Joio
?There is a Lady Sweet and Kind. .Valletti Duparc, Henry
?"L'Invitation au voyage"..........Hines
Faure
?"Automne" ......................Hines
?Dans les Ruines D'Une Abbaye.. .Valletti Folk Songs ?(MacGimsey, R.)
"Down to the River"............Hines
(Forrest, H.) "He's Got the
Whole World in His Hands".....Hines
?(MacGimsey, R.)
"Jonah and the Whale".........Hines
?(Goldman, M.)
"Let Us Break Bread Together". .Hines
Concerto in A major for Strings,
Allegro (encore)........Societa Corelli
Sinfonia No. 1 in C major. .Societa Corelli ?Sinfonia No. 2 in G major. .Societa Corelli Wieniawski ?Scherzo tarantelle ..............Milstein
Galuppi
?Una ragazza che non e pazza.....Tebaldi
Gounod "Vous qui faites l'endormie"
from Faust ....................Hines
Granadinas
?Barrera y Calleja (encore).......Valletti
Grlttes, Charles
?Symphony in Yellow.............Peters
Hageman, Richard "Music I Heard with You"
...................Peters and Valletti
Handel
"Ah spietato" from Amadigi......Tebaldi
Bird Song, from Allegro of
"II Pensieroso" ................Peters
Care Selve......Kirsten and Philadelphia
"Where'er You Walk,"
from Semele .................Valletti
Ibert
?Chanson de Sancho...............Hines
Kern, Jerome
Old Man River (encore)..........Hines
Mallot
?My Friend (encore)..............Hines
Mascagni
?M'ama, non m'ama..............Tebaldi
Meyerbeer
"Ombre legere" from Dinorah.....Peters
Mussorgsky
Chanson de la Puce (encore)......Hines
Mozart ?"All You Lovely Women"
from Cost fan tutte.............Hines
"II mio tesoro intanto"
from Don Giovanni (encore).. .Valletti "Madamina" from Don Giovanni.. .Tozzi and Philadelphia
?Ridente la calma................Tebaldi
"Qui sdegno non s'accende"
from The Magic Flute...........Hines
?Un Moto di gioia...............Tebaldi
"Non piu andrai" from
The Marriage of Figaro..........Hines
"Se vuol ballare" from The Marriage of Figaro ...............Tozzi and Philadelphia
69
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Nordoff, Paul
?"There Shall Be More Joy"........Peters
Obradors
"Del Cabello Mas Sutil" (encore) .Valletti
PlZZETTI
"Ninna nanna di Uliva".........Tebaldi
POULENC
?Air Champetre .................Valletti
Les Ponts De C................Valletti
Puccini "O mio babbino caro" from
Gianni-Schicchi (encore) ......Tebaldi
"Un bel di vedremo" from
Madama Butterfly (encore)___Tebaldi
"Vissi d'arte" from Tosca
..............Kirsten and Philadelphia
Ravel "Air de Feu" from
L'Enfant et Us sortileges........Peters
"D'Anne jouant de I'espinette".....Peters
Respighi ?"Notte" ........................Tebaldi
RlMSKY-KoRSAKOV
The Rose and the Nightingale
..............Kirsten and Philadelphia
Ronald, Landon
?Southern Song.. .Kirsten and Philadelphia Rossini "La Calumnia" from
The Barber of Seville...........Hines
"Una voce poco fa," from
The Barber of Seville...........Peters
"La Regata Veneziana"..........Tebaldi
Sarti
"Lungi Dal Caro Bene"..........Valletti
Scarlatti
"Caldo Sangue" ................Tebaldi
?"Canzonetta" ...................Tebaldi
CHORAL
Bart6k ?Love Song from "Four Hungarian
Folksongs"..............Shaw Chorale
Brahms
Rhapsodie for Contralto Solo, Male Chorus and Orchestra,
Op. S3......Kopleff and Shaw Chorale
Chabrier ?"Fete Polonaise" from Le Roi malgrt lui
........Choral Union and Philadelphia
Faure
?Requiem Mass............Shaw Chorale
Folk Songs ?(Miller) Didn't My Lord
Deliver Daniel (encore). .Shaw Chorale
70
"Che Vuole Innamorarsi"........Valletti
"Le Violette"...................Valletti
Schubert
"An Schwager Kronos"............Hines
"Der Doppelganger"...............Hines
Schumann
?An Den Sonnenschein...........Valletti
?Dein Angesicht..................Valletti
?Der Hidalgo....................Valletti
Friihlingsnacht ...................Peters
Mondnacht ..........Peters and Valletti
Roslein, Roslein .................Peters
Strauss, Johann Adele's Laughing Song, from
Die Fledermaus (encore)........Peters
Strauss, Richard
Amor ...........................Peters
Morgen .........................Peters
?Zueignung .......................Hines
Tchaikovsky
Pilgrim Song-----Tozzi and Philadelphia
Thomas Air du Tambour-Major,
from Le Caid..................Hines
Tosti
?"A vucchella"...................Tebaldi
Verdi "Ella giammai m'amo"
from Don Carlos...............Hines
"II lacerto spirito" from Simon
Boccanegra.....Tozzi and Philadelphia
?Alfredo's Aria from La Traviata. .Valletti "Sake, Sake" and
"Ave Maria" from Otello......Tebaldi
Weaver, Powell
?Moon Marketing.................Peters
Yeomans Without A Song (encore)..........Hines
(Shaw, R.) Lord, If I Got
My Ticket (encore).....Shaw Chorale
(Shaw, R.) Sit down Sinner
(encore) ...............Shaw Chorale
(Kubik, Gail) Oh Dear What Can
the Matter Be (encore). .Shaw Chorale (Kubik, Gail) Polly Wolly
Doodle (encore).........Shaw Chorale
Handel
"Messiah".........Nancy Carr, Soprano;
Florence Kopleff, Contralto; John Mc-Collum, Tenor; Kenneth Smith, Bass; Choral Union and Musical Society Orchestra
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
?"Solomon"......Lois Marshall, Soprano;
Ilona Kombrink, Soprano; Howard Jar-ratt, Tenor; Aurelio Estanislao, Bari?tone; Choral Union, and Philadelphia Orchestra Suite from
"Ads and Galatea"......Shaw Chorale
Hindemith ?True Love, from "Five Songs
on Old Texts"..........Shaw Chorale
Offenbach ?Suite from "Les Brigands". .Shaw Chorale
POULENC
"Secheresses"
........Choral Union and Philadelphia
SCHOENBERG
The Lover's Wish, from
"Vier Stiicke," Op. 27....Shaw Chorale Stravinsky ?With Air Commanding, from
"The Rake's Progress".. .Shaw Chorale Vauchan Williams
"Flos Campi"......Robert Courte, viola,
Choral Union, and Philadelphia
SUMMARY
Qassification Number of Compositions First Performances at these concerts Composers Represented
Symphonic ........................ 40 63 87 18 17 28 50 13 30 36 52 14

Vocal......
Choral............................
Totals . 208 108 132
Less duplications --27
105
71
1959 UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY-1960
CONCERTS
Eighty-first Season
CHORAL UNION SERIES
Glenn Gould, Pianist...........Monday, October 12
Boston Symphony Orchestra........Saturday, October 24
Charles Munch, Conductor
Irmgard Seefried, Soprano.........Thursday, October 29
Richard Tucker, Tenor..........Friday, November 6
Pamplona Choir from Spain.....(2:30) Sunday, November 15
Luis Morondo, Conductor
Jan Smeterlin, Pianist..........Tuesday, November 24
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra......Monday, February 8
Antal Dorati, Conductor Bach Aria Group (with Eileen Farrell and
Jan Peerce)............Tuesday, February 16
Giulietta Simionato, Mezzo-soprano .... (2:30) Sunday, March 13 Chicago Symphony Orchestra.........Monday, April 4
Fritz Reiner, Conductor
EXTRA CONCERT SERIES Boston Symphony Orchestra......(2:30) Sunday, October 25
Charles Munch, Conductor Note: Second attraction in this series to be announced.
Witold Malcuzynski, Pianist.........Friday, January 15
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra......Monday, February 29
William Steinberg, Conductor Lamoureux Orchestra from Paris.......Thursday, March 24
Igor Markevitch, Conductor
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERTS Messiah (Handel).............December 5 and 6
Saramae Endich, Soprano Gladys Kriese, Contralto Charles O'Neill, Tenor
yi-Kwei iszE, Bass
Choral Union and Orchestra
Lester McCoy, Conductor
CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL Festival Quartet (three concerts).......February 12, 13, 14
Victor Babin, Piano Szymon Goldberg, Violin
William Primrose, Viola Nikolai Graudan, Cello
ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Philadelphia Orchestra............May 5, 6, 7, 8
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director; William Smith, Assistant Con?ductor. University Choral Union, Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, and Lester McCoy, Conductor. Soloists and programs to be announced.
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UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY