UMS Concert Program, May 5, 6, 7, 8, 1960: The Sixty-seventh Annual Ann Arbor May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Season: Eighty-first
Concert: SIXTH
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

ANN ARBOR
1960
esente
ted by
he University of Michigan
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
of The University of Michigan
iaktu-H
eaAon
Program of the Sixty-Seventh Annual
ANN ARBOR
MAY FESTIVA
Six Concerts
May 5, 6, 7, 8, 1960
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Published by the University Musical Society, Ann Arbor
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, Music Director, pictured in the Academy of .Music, Philadelphia.
The twenty-fifth annual appearance of this internationally famous orchestra in Ann Arbor occurs
this spring, culminating one hundred and fifty concerts of artistic distinction for the
.May Festival tradition.
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
Erich A. Walter, A.M...........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.
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-SEVENTH ANNUAL ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Conductors
Eugene Ormandy, Orchestral Conductor
William Smith, Assistant Orchestral Conductor
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Lester McCoy, Choirmaster
Organizations
The Philadelphia Orchestra The University Choral Union
Soloists
Lisa Della Casa.............Soprano
Leontyne Price.............Soprano
Frances Bible...........Mezzo-Soprano
Albert Da Costa..............Tenor
Kim Borg.................Bass
Rudolf Serkin..............Pianist
Andres Segovia.............Guitarist
Marilyn Costello............Harpist
William Kincaid.............Flutist
Anshel Brusilow............Violinist
Lorne Munroe............Violoncellist
4
FIRST MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 5, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
RUDOLF SERKIN, Pianist
PROGRAM Compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven
Overture to Leonore, No. 3, Op. 72
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
Poco sostenuto; vivace Allegretto
Presto; presto meno assai Finale: allegro con brio
INTERMISSION
?Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor")
Allegro
Adagio un poco moto Rondo: allegro
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 6, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOIST
ANDRES SEGOVIA, Guitarist PROGRAM
Corrido de "El Sol" for Chorus and Orchestra........Chavez
University Choral Union
Concerto in D major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99...........Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Allegretto
Andantino alia romanza Ritmico e cavalleresco
Andres Segovia
Choros No. 10--"Rasga o coracao".........Villa-Lobos
University Choral Union
INTERMISSION
Symphonie de psaumes..............Stravinsky
University Choral Union
Fantasia para un gentilhombre, for Guitar and Orchestra .... Rodrigo
Mr. Segovia
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
@@@@6
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 7, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA WILLIAM SMITH, Assistant Conductor
SOLOISTS
MARILYN COSTELLO, Harpist WILLIAM KINCAID, Flutist
PROGRAM Overture, Le Corsaire, Op. 21.............Berlioz
Concerto in C major for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra, K. 299 . . . Mozart
Allegro
Andantino Rondo
Marilyn Costello and William Kincaid
INTERMISSION
"Divertissement" Suite................Ibert
Introduction Valse
Cortege Parade
Nocturne Finale: tempo di galop
Variaciones concertantes..............Ginastera
Theme Rhythmic Variation
Interlude Perpetual Motion
Giocoso Pastorale
Scherzo Interlude
Dramatic Variation Rondo--Finale Canonic Variation
Tone Poem, "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," Op. 28 ... R. Strauss
Columbia Records
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 7, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOISTS
LORNE MUNROE, Violoncellist ANSHEL BRUSILOW, Violinist
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105..........Sibelius
Adagio; vivacissimo; adagio
Allegro molto moderato; vivace
Presto; adagio; largamento
(played without pause)
Concerto in E-flat major for Violoncello and Orchestra, Op. 107..............Shostakovich
Allegretto Moderato
Andantino; allegro (cadence) Allegro non troppo
LORNE MUNROE INTERMISSION
Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77.....Brahms
Allegro ma non troppo Adagio
Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace
Anshel Brusilow
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 8, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
LEONTYNE PRICE, Soprano
FRANCES BIBLE, Mezzo-Soprano
ALBERT DA COSTA, Tenor
KIM BORG, Bass
PROGRAM
Requiem Mass...................Verdi
Composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni For Soli, Chorus, and Orchestra
Requiem et Kyrie............Chorus and Quartet
Dies irae
Dies irae, dies ilia .................................................... Chorus
Tuba mirum ................................................ Bass and Chorus
Liber scriptus proferetur................................. Contralto and Chorus
Quid sum, miser! ........................................... Trio and Chorus
Rex tremendae majestatis.................................. Quartet and Chorus
Recordare, Jesu pie .................................... Soprano and Contralto
Ingemisco, tamquam reus ......................................... Tenor Solo
Confutatis maledictis ............................................... Bass Solo
Lacrymosa dies ilia....................................... Quartet and Chorus
INTERMISSION
Domine Jesu..................Quartet
Sanctus..................Double Chorus
Agnus Dei...........Soprano, Contralto, and Chorus
Lux aeterna............Contralto, Tenor, and Bass
Libera me...............Soprano and Chorus
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Lester Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
9
SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 8, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
LISA DELLA CASA, Soprano
PROGRAM
?Toccata and Fugue in D minor.............Bach
(Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy)
"Mi tradi" from Don Giovanni.............Mozart
"Dove sono" from Le Nozze di Figaro..........Mozart
Lisa Della Casa
Spmphony No. 2..............Ross Lee Finney
Allegro tempestoso Adagio con moto
Allegro scherzando Allegro giocando
INTERMISSION
Monologue from Capriccio.............R. Strauss
Miss Della Casa
?Suite from Der Rosenkavalier............R. Strauss
Columbia Records
The Steinway 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
The Author of the annotations expresses his appreciation to William Cole for his assistance in collecting materials; and to Ferol Brinkman and Anne Barnett of the University Press for their editorial services.
FIRST CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 5
Program of the Compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was bom in Bonn, Decem?ber 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827.
Overture to Leonore, No. 3, Op. 72
It is difficult to decide whether the man creates the age or the age the man, but in the case of Beethoven each is true. Certainly, as far as music is concerned, he created the age of Romanticism to such a degree that the new movement which began in the nineteenth century could be called "Beethovenism" as well. On the other hand, there is no more decided proof in music history that the age produces the man than the case of Beethoven. In his life and in his works, he is the embodiment of his period. Born at the end of the eighteenth century, he witnessed, in the formative period of his life, the drastic changes that were occur?ring throughout central Europe; changes which affected not only the political but the intellectual and artistic life of the world. The French Revolution, break?ing up an old civilization, announced the dawn of a new social regime. The spirit of freedom which animated the poetic thoughts of Goethe, Schiller, Wordsworth, and Byron poured into the music of Beethoven, from the creation of the Appas-sionata Sonata to the Choral Ninth Symphony.
Throughout this period of chaos and turmoil, Beethoven stood, a colossus, bridging with his mighty grasp the two centuries in which he lived. In his person were embodied the ideas of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; he became the sage and prophet of his period, the center of the classic and romantic spirit.
These two elements were mutually helpful in making him the outstanding representative of each: his romantic tendencies helped him introduce Promethean fire into the old, worn-out forms, endowing them with new passion; his respect for classic idioms aided him, the greatest of the early Romanticists, in tempering the excesses and extremes of his contemporaries. Thus, harmonious embodiment of opposing forces, controlled by an architectonic wisdom molding and fusing them together into one passionate, creative impulse, resulted in the production of epoch-making masterpieces, built upon firm foundations but emancipated from the confining elements of tradition, and set free to discover new regions of unimagined beauty.
As a master of absolute music Beethoven undeniably exerted a powerful in?fluence upon the succeeding opera composers. But Fidelio, his single attempt in that field, has had far less an emancipating force than most of his instrumental compositions, or the operas of his lesser contemporary, von Weber. The supreme
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
service of Fidelio to aesthetic history was accomplished in turning Beethoven's attention to the dramatic overture. There is more real dramatic art in the four overtures designed as preludes for Fidelio than exists in the entire bulky score of the opera.
The four overtures are known as the "Leonore" Nos. 1, 2, and 3, in C major, and the "Fidelio," in E major. We know that the overture numbered by the publishers as No. 2 was used for the premiere of the opera, November 20, 1805. The incomparable No. 3, on this evening's program, is a remodeled form written for the reconstructed version, heard March 29, 1806. For a revival of the opera in Vienna, 1814, Beethoven, obviously dissatisfied with his previous efforts, wrote an entirely new overture in E major on a much smaller scale. Why he should have rejected the supreme product of his genius, No. 3, is an enigma.
For years it was a question as to what place No. 1 really occupied in the sequence of composition. Schindler stated it had been tried before a few friends of Beethoven and discarded as inadequate for the premiere of the opera, which implies that it was the first written. Subsequent researches of Nottebohm, now proved false, declared Schindler's information incorrect, and stated the actual succession of the "Leonore" overtures to be No. 2 (1805), No. 3 (1806), No. 1 (Opus 138, written in 1807 but not published until 1832), with the "Fidelio" overture the last to be composed. This order was accepted by such authorities as Alexander Wheelock Thayer and H. E. Krehbiel, the editor of Thayer's definitive biography of Beethoven. In this work we find the following statement:
Schindler's story that it (Leonore No. 1) was tried at Prince Lichnowsky's and laid aside as inadequate to the subject, was based on misinformation; but that it was played either at Lichnowsky's or Lobkowitz's is very probable, and if so, may well have made but a feeble impression on auditors who had heard the glorious "Leonore" Overture of the year before (No. 3 in 1806) .
According to more recent research by the musicologist, Dr. Joseph Braun-stein, Nottebohm's conclusions, as restated by Thayer, also are incorrect, and the established order of composition is now considered to be the natural sequence of No. 1 before 1805, No. 2 in 1805, No. 3 in 1806, and the "Fidelio" overture in 1814. Schindler and others, such as Czerny and Schumann, who supported him against Nottebohm, were right in their contention that, as Schumann put it, "the 'Leonore' No. 1 represents the roots from which sprang the grand trunk (No. 3); No. 2, with widespreading branches to the right and left of No. 3, ended in delicate blossoms of the 'Fidelio' overture."
The action of Fidelio occurs in a fortress near Seville. Don Florestan, a Spanish nobleman, has been imprisoned for life, and to make his fate certain, his mortal enemy, Don Pizarro, governor of the prison, has announced his death, meanwhile putting the unfortunate man in the lowest dungeon, where he is expected to die by gradual starvation.
Don Florestan, however, has a devoted wife who refuses to believe the report of his death. Disguising herself as a servant, and assuming the name of Fidelio,
Alexander Wheelock Thayer, The Life of Ludwif van Beethoven, trans, and ed. by H. E. Krehbiel (New York: Novello Co. Ltd., 1921), 3 vols.
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FIRST CONCERT
she secures employment with Rocco, the head jailer. Rocco's daughter falls in love with the supposed handsome youth, who is soon in such high favor that permission to accompany Rocco on his visits to the prisoner is granted.
Hearing that the minister of the interior is coming to the prison to investi?gate the supposed death of Florestan, the governor decides to murder him, and asks Rocco's aid. Fidelio overhears the conversation and gets Rocco to allow her to assist him in digging the grave. Just as Don Pizarro is about to strike the fatal blow, Fidelio rushes forward, proclaims herself the wife of the prisoner, and shields him. The governor is about to sacrifice both when a nourish of trumpets announces the arrival of the minister just in time to prevent the murder.
Richard Wagner paid a remarkable tribute to Beethoven and to this great overture when he wrote:
Far from giving us a mere musical introduction to the drama, it [the "Leonore" No. 3] sets that drama more completely and more movingly before us than ever happens in the broken action which ensues. This work is no longer an overture, but the greatest of dramas in itself. . . .
In this mighty tone-piece, Beethoven has given us a musical drama, a drama founded on a playwright's piece, and not the mere sketch of one of its main ideas, or even a purely pre?paratory introduction to the acted play; but a drama, be it said, in the most ideal meaning of the term. . . . His object was to condense to its noblest unity the one sublime action which the dramatist had weakened and delayed by paltry details in order to spin out the tale; to give a new, an ideal motion, fed solely by its inmost springs.
This action is the deed of a staunch and loving heart, fired by the one sublime desire to descend as an angel of salvation into the very pit of death. One sole idea pervades the work: the freedom brought by a jubilant angel of light to suffering manhood. We are plunged into a gloomy dungeon; no beam of day strikes through to us; night's awful silence breaks only to the moans, the sighs, of a soul that longs from its deepest depths for freedom, freedom.
As through a cranny letting in the sun's last ray, a yearning glance peers down; 'tis the glance of an angel that feels the pure air of heavenly freedom a crushing load the while its breath cannot be shared by the one who is pent beneath the prison's walls. Then a swift resolve inspires it, to tear down all the barriers hedging the prisoner from heaven's light: higher, higher, and ever fuller swells the soul, its might redoubled by the blest resolve; 'tis the angel of redemption to the world. Yet this angel is but a loving woman, its strength the puny strength of suffering humanity itself; it battles alike with hostile hindrances and its own weakness, and threatens to succumb. But the superhuman idea, which ever lights its soul anew, lends finally the superhuman force; one last prodigious strain of every fibre, and, at the moment of supremest need, the final barrier falls.
ANALYSIS
After a long and solemn introduction, relating to Florestan's hopeless situa?tion {adagio, C major, 34 time), the main movement {allegro, 22 time) presents a short figured principal theme in the cellos and violins, which is de?veloped to unusual length in a grimly passionate manner. The second subject, entering rather abruptly in an extended upward flight in violins and flutes, con?tinues in short fragmentary phrases to a climax of vigorous syncopated string and woodwind passages. The development section continues with these short phrases, occasionally joined by the figures of the principal theme. Sudden and unexpected
Richard Wagner, "On the Overture," Gazette Musicale, January 10, 14, and 17, 1841, trans, by William Ashton Ellis, Wagner's Prose Works (London: Kegan Paul, French, Trubner & Co., 1892-99), VII.
IS
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
outbursts in the whole orchestra lend an inarticulate expressiveness to the climax of the work, dramatically interrupted by the trumpet call which, in the opera, announces the arrival of Don Fernando. A quiet and brief interlude follows, creating an air of expectancy and heightening the dramatic effect of the second and closer announcement of the trumpet call. Wagner objected to the altered, yet formal, recapitulation of the first part of the overture as undramatic, and in truth he is artistically justified in wishing that Beethoven had, after the trumpet fanfare, rushed on to the conclusion. But Beethoven paid this respect to the conventional form, and then, in a passage of syncopated octaves (presto), created an overwhelming and novel effect in this section. The coda, based on a vigorous working of the principal subject, brings this mighty overture to a thrilling finale.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
In the presence of this symphony, one realizes the inadequacy of words to explain or describe the paradox of its origin. No composer has ever equaled Beethoven's power of suggesting that which cannot be absolutely expressed, and nowhere in his compositions do we find a work in which all the noble attributes of an art so exalted as his are more happily combined. No formal analysis, deal?ing with the mere details of musical construction, can touch the real source of its power; nor can any interpretation of philosopher or poet state, with any degree of certainty, just what it was that moved the composer, though it may give us the impression the music makes. It is possible to clothe in fitting words that which is felt more or less forcibly. The philosopher, in observing the effects of environment and conditions on man in general, may point out the probable rela?tion of the outward circumstances in a composer's life at a certain period to his works; the poet, because he is peculiarly susceptible to the same influences, may give us a more sympathetic interpretation. Neither can fathom the processes by which a great genius like Beethoven can give to the world such a composition as the Seventh Symphony.
It was written in the summer of 1812, a year of momentous importance in Germany. When the whole map of Europe was being remade, when Beethoven's beloved Vienna was a part of the Napoleonic Empire, when the world was seeth?ing with hatreds and fears, this glorious music, with unbounded joy and tre?mendous vitality, came into existence, giving promise of a new and better world to come.
While Beethoven tenaciously held to the creation of this symphony in the midst of chaos, the summer campaign of 1812 was causing the final disintegra?tion of Napoleon's unwieldy empire. Between its inception and the first per?formance of the symphony in the large hall of the University of Vienna, Decem?ber 18, 1813, the decisive battle of Leipzig was fought; Napoleon went down to defeat. In his retreat, however, Napoleon gained an unimportant victory at the Battle of Hanau where the Austrian army was routed. It was at a memorial service for the soldiers who died in this battle the exuberant music of the Seventh
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FIRST CONCERT
Symphony was first given to a weary and heartsick world--music that has out?lived the renown of the craftiest statesmen and the glory of the bravest soldiers, surviving more than one remaking of the map of Europe.
The Seventh Symphony fairly pulsates with free and untrammeled melody; it has an atmosphere of its own, quite unlike that of any other. For Richard Wagner "all tumult, all yearning and storming of the heart became here the blissful insolence of joy, which snatches us away with bacchanalian might and bears us through the roomy space of nature, through all the streams and seas of life, shouting in glad self-consciousness as we tread throughout the universe the daring measures of this--the 'Apotheosis of the Dance.' " Out of grief, chaos, and confusion, Beethoven created an indestructible world of joy, order, and purpose.
At the premiere, Beethoven, himself, quite deaf, conducted. The performance suffered somewhat from the fact that he could scarcely hear the music his genius had created.
ANALYSIS
The first movement (Poco sostenuto; vivace) is introduced (poco sostenuto, A major) with an A-major chord, full orchestra, which draws attention to the themes alternating in clarinet and oboe. Ascending scale passages in the strings lead to an episode in woodwinds. The main movement {vivace) states its prin?cipal theme in flutes accompanied by other woodwinds, horns, and strings. The second subject is announced by violins and flute, much of its rhythmic character being drawn from the preceding material. The development concerns itself almost entirely with the main theme. There is the customary recapitulation, and the movement closes with a coda in which fragments of the main theme, with its characteristic rhythm, are heard.
The theme of the second movement {Allegretto) was originally intended for Beethoven's String Quartet in C, Op. 59, No. 3. After two measures in which the A-minor chord is held by woodwinds and horns, the strings enter with the main theme (note the persistent employment of their rhythmic movement throughout). There is a trio with the theme in clarinets in A major. The original subject and key return, but with different instrumentation, followed by a fugato on a figure of the main theme. The material of the trio is heard again, and a coda, making references to the main theme, brings the movement to a close on the chord with which it opened. The form of this movement is an interesting combination of two distinctly different forms--a song and trio and a theme and variations.
The third movement {Presto; assai meno presto; presto) is in reality a scherzo, though it is not so titled in the score. It begins with the subject for full orchestra. The trio opens with a clarinet figure over a long pedal point, A, in the violins. This melody is based, say some authorities, on a pilgrim song often heard in lower Austria. The material of the first part returns and there is another pre?sentation of the subject of the trio and a final reference to the principal theme. A coda concludes the whole.
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The subject of the fourth movement (Allegro con brio) is taken from an Irish song "Nora Creina," which Beethoven had edited for an Edinburgh pub?lisher. The second theme appears in the first violins. The principal subjects having made their appearance, the exposition is repeated and is followed by the development in which the principal subject figures. The ideas of the exposition are heard as before, and the work concludes with a remarkable coda based on the main theme, bandied about by the strings and culminating in a forceful climax.
Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 73
This magnificent concerto, known as the "Emperor," was the last and most significant of Beethoven's five concertos for the piano. It was composed in Vienna in 1809, the year of the death of Beethoven's old teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn.
For some reason it was not presented until November 28, 1811, at Leipzig. The outstanding performance was given in Vienna, February 12, 1812, by the famous piano pedagogue and teacher of Liszt, Carl Czerny. The Vienna corre?spondent of the Allegemeine Musik Zeitung praised Czerny for his remarkable playing, but complained of the excessive length of the work. The Leipzig critic, however, recognized it as "without doubt one of the most original, imaginative, effective, but most difficult of all existing concerti."
The name "Emperor" applied to this concerto is meaningless unless it sug?gests that the work holds a commanding position in its own realm similar to that held by the Violin Concerto, Leonore Overture No. 3, and the Eroica Symphony. Wherever the name came from, it is a significantly designating title; of the five piano concertos, this is the most imposing and commanding.
The fusion of virtuosity and creative inspiration is remarkable. There are brilliant and scintillating passages, far above any suggestion of mere display, passages abounding in driving power and infectious vitality, and those marked by a delicate and infinite grace.
ANALYSIS
In Mozart's and Beethoven's day, the first movements of concertos were usually cast in modified sonata form with double exposition for orchestra and solo instrument. In this concerto Beethoven prefaces the orchestral exposition of the first movement {allegro, E-flat major, 44) by passages for the piano.
An arpeggio passage in the piano is announced by a fortissimo chord in the orchestra. There are three presentations of this dual idea. The main theme is heard in the first violins. The second subject is announced in E-flat minor, pianissimo, but passes quickly into the parallel major key, and climaxes in the horns.
The piano then presents a chordal version of the main theme, followed by passage work which leads to the second subject (B minor) still in the piano,
Mozart had done this in a piano concerto in E-flat major. Beethoven himself bad already adopted this innovation in his G-major piano concerto.
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FIRST CONCERT
accompanied by pizzicato strings. The parallel key of B major is then estab?lished in a repetition in the full orchestra. The development group concerns itself with the first subject. In the recapitulation, the full orchestra announces the main theme, jorte. The subsidiary theme, announced in the piano in C-sharp minor, modulates to E-flat major and is sounded in the full orchestra. Beethoven, against custom, allowed no place for the usual cadenza but specifically directed that the soloist should pass directly to the coda.
The theme of the second movement {adagio un poco moto, B major, 44) is announced in the muted strings and forms the basis of a series of "quasi-variations." At the close of the movement, there is an anticipation of the theme of the final movement which follows without pause. The music in this move?ment is transcendently beautiful in its purity of style and spirit of mystical ecstasy.
The piano announces the principal theme of the third movement {Rondo, allegro, E-flat major, 68) soon reannounced by the complete orchestra, jorte. The first deviation follows in the piano, still in E-flat, but modulates in a second section to B-flat major. The first subject then returns. There is a development with the customary recapitulation and a coda in which the kettledrum plays an important part. The whole movement sparkles, shouts, and capers with an hilarious abandon.
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SECOND CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 6
Corrido de "El Sol"............Chavez
Carlos Chavez was bom in Mexico City, June 13, 1899.
The emancipation of Mexican music, initiated at the beginning of this century with the immense folklore production of Manuel M. Ponce, brought to light a rich heritage of authentic Mexican folk music. After the fall of Porfirio Diaz in 1910, there was a nationalistic resurgence in all aspects of Mexican life, of which Ponce's Canciones Mexicanas and his piano compositions based upon popular tunes were early manifestations. With Ponce and his imitators, Mexican folk music asserted itself and achieved recognition both at home and abroad.
It takes time, however, to transform such an inexhaustible fund of popular melody into a more sophisticated art, and in the early stages there was produced a music that was self-conscious, false in sentiment, and mannered in style. Under strong European influence much of the native flavor was lost in the superimpo-sition of inappropriate instrumentation, regular rhythmic patterns, and chro?matic harmonies. The problem was to restore the highly varied rhythms and characteristic instrumentation of the folk-sources, to evolve a harmonic vocabu?lary appropriate to their melodic substance, and to express the essence of this primitive music in a contemporary cast.
"Mexico was not without its composer," wrote Otto Mayer-Serra, "who could understand the urgency of incorporating Mexican musical nationalism with the main trends of modern style. Before long Mexican music was to assimilate the new technical contributions of European music, from those of French impression?ism to those of the most advanced schools of Central Europe. To have grasped the need for this and to have attempted such a combination of the most recent modernism with the ancestral music values of his country are the historical merits of Carlos Chavez."
The composition of Chavez exemplifies the high results achieved with folk material when manipulated by an artist of sound purpose and proper equipment. Aaron Copland, an enthusiastic admirer of Chavez, considers him to be a thor?oughly contemporary composer, one who has faced all the major problems of modern music. He feels no composer, not even Bela Bartok or de Falla, has succeeded so well in using folk material in its pure form, while at the same time solving the problem of its complete amalgamation into an art idiom.
Chavez belongs, with Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco, to the generation that, immediately after the Mexican Revolution of 1910, vigorously expressed the renascent culture of its country. He is to Mexico what Enesco, Bartok, and Villa-Lobos are to Romania, Hungary, and Brazil. His early creative instincts, like theirs, were nurtured largely upon folklore and folk music. Throughout his
Otto Mayer-Serra, "Silvestras Revueltas and Musical Nationalism in Mexico," Musical Quarterly, XXVII (1941), 125.
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life he has delved constantly into primitive Mexican roots, revived archaic scales, instruments, and ritualistic devices, not as a pedant evolving abstruse theories, but as a curious artist forever probing into new sources for creative purposes. He is a nationalist, not with a narrow or chauvinistic intent, but with a sincere feeling for the art of his people, to which he turned, rather than to Europe, for the liberation of his own creative talents. "We do not depreciate European music," he wrote, "nor the music of any nation. We admire the genuine expres?sion of any people. Nor is our desire to recover the Mexican tradition merely for the sake of recovering it. Mexico is as rich, as personal, as strong in music as it is in painting and architecture."
Extraordinarily distinguished as an educator, conductor, and composer, Chavez alone has made the world conscious of Mexican music. His serious composition dates from his first symphony in 1918. In the next three years he wrote exten?sively for orchestra, piano ensemble, and voice in a semiclassical style, only slightly tinged by Mexican elements. In the Mexican artistic renaissance of the twenties, he was commissioned, along with Diego Rivera, who painted the famous frescoes in the Secretariat of Public Education, to write a Mexican Ballet "El Fuego Nuevo," in which the first unmistakable indication of nation?alistic influence can be detected. In 1928, he became conductor of the hetero?geneous Musician's Union Orchestra, transforming it into an integrated major symphony, which is today ranked among the finest in the world. In the same year he was appointed director of the National Conservatory of Music, little more than a school for dilettantes. By vigorously reorganizing the curriculum, he turned it into a high-ranking professional music school. In 1933 he became chief of the Department of Fine Arts in the Secretariat of Public Education. There he revivified activity by instigating research projects in native Mexican music and instruments and by training children's and workmen's choruses. Through these manifold activities he has made his countrymen and the world aware of the great musical heritage in his native land and of its artistic and creative potential.
"El Sol," an extended work for chorus and orchestra, was composed in the early months of 1934. With the exception of words taken from a popular ballad by the same name, the text is made up of a series of short poems by Carlos Gutierrez Cruz. It tells of the peon or Mexican tiller of the soil who lived for centuries under oppression, and whose liberation was one of the main objectives of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The music is completely original except for eight measures from the ballad which appear in the opening measures and reap?pear at the very end. The work is written without sentimentality, achieving a certain primitive directness with its relentless drive. It is firm in texture and workmanlike in form, fusing an archaic idiom with the dry, terse style of con?temporary music.
A literal translation of the text into English follows:
Oh, red headed Sun Peering from the Orient Arise and warm the dampened sod.
All night it rained
with fitful fury--
"Jugfuls" as people say.
The seed is numb and almost frozen.
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Oh, Sun! Warm the seed
and burst it--
Induce its flower to bloom
With all your hues and color!
Round Sun. red and hot--
The sower is at the plough
And you are in the East.
Oh Sun, while the sowers plough
You warm the earth.
And the earth warms the seed that it holds.
And now you will be my companion
For you deal with equality
Because like man
You're a toiler
Earning your daily bread.
Round and red, Oh Sun
A ring of copper--
You daily look at me
And daily find me poor.
Sometimes with the plough you'll see me,
Sometimes with the harrow,
At times you'll see me on the prairie--
At others, on the hillside.
You see me when I rope
the bulls--
You see me when I drive
the herd--
But daily you see me poor
Like all of us who are down.
Oh Sun, that spreads
Your light so evenly--
Your duty is to teach
The earthly masters
To be fair as you.
Round and red. Oh Sun
A ring of copper--
You daily look at me
And daily find me poor.
Concerto in D major for Guitar and
Orchestra, Op. 99......Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was bom in Florence, Italy, April 3, 189S.
During the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, both the lute and the guitar were favorite instruments. When we speak of the guitar we refer to the Spanish guitar, the most generally known representative of the numerous family which includes lutes and cithers. By the eighteenth century these instruments and the fine body of compositions written for them were largely forgotten. Before Andres Segovia, by his superb artistry, convinced the world that the guitar de?served a rightful place on the concert stages of the world, it had become the most abused, misunderstood, and underestimated of musical instruments; its literature, woefully scarce, had been confined largely to transcriptions. Since his phenomenal success as the world's greatest guitarist, almost every Spanish composer of the twentieth century, Falla, Albeniz, and Granados, among many others, has written exclusively for him. Segovia himself has adapted considerable sixteenth-century music for the vilhuela and works by such major composers as Bach, Handel, Schubert, and Mendelssohn. Thus, the repertory for the guitar has grown into a passably substantial one. Until the Mexican composer Manuel Ponce (1886-1948) and Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote concertos, and Joaquin Rodrigo his Fantasia especially for Segovia, no works for guitar and orchestra existed in music literature.
The challenging problem for the composer in any such combination is to bal?ance the fragile tone of the guitar with the other instruments, and still allow the solo instrument to dominate the ensemble. Rodrigo's Fantasia which closes this
The vilhuela da mano was the Spanish equivalent for the lute (a guilar for the rich). It died out, as did the lute, perhaps because of the obstacle of its double strings, while the guitar, with six single strings and rich tone, continued.
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program, and the Castelnuovo-Tedesco concerto, written for, and dedicated to Segovia in 1939, have realized all the expressive potentialities of this subtly-toned instrument, and have maintained throughout the delicate balance between the guitar and a reduced orchestra. The ear must accustom itself at first to the in?credibly modest scale of sonority, before the infinite and subtle nuances become significant. Gradually the music will insinuate itself, and an almost instantaneous transposition of tonal values will reveal a new world of bewitching beauty.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco came to America from his native Italy in 1939. Now a citizen of this country, he resides in Beverly Hills, California.
Choros No. 10, "Rasga o coragao"......Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro, March 5, 1887; died there November 17, 19S9.
Brazil can trace her notable musical heritage back to the sixteenth century. The evolution and blending of diverse trends that emanated from Portuguese, African, and Italian sources formed a music whose style during the nineteenth century was further conditioned by European idioms. In Rio under the reign of Dom Pedro II, German composers, particularly Liszt and Wagner, exerted a dominating influence. A political transformation, however, gave a new and promising direction to Brazilian music. In 1888 slavery was abolished; the next year Brazil was proclaimed a republic. The foreign arts thereby lost the support of wealthy and noble patrons, and almost immediately there burst forth a wild and unfettered expression among the freed slaves and the masses of people. It reached such an intensity that the creation of a conscious and serious art-music seemed, for the time, to be impossible. The songs and dances of the peasants joined with the more sophisticated remnants of the older music into a blend of blazing colors and riotous rhythms.
Yilla-Lobos was born in 1887, into this era of change and chaos. His remark?able musical talent had to reach its own maturity; his teachers in theory admit?ted they had actually taught him nothing. Confident of his talent, he bowed before no tradition, and sought his own level of excellence by trial and error, driven there by a sort of inner compulsion that resulted in the creation of over fourteen hundred works in every conceivable form.
Within the tremendous range and variety of his composition, it is difficult if not impossible to trace, as in other composers, any continuity of artistic growth or logical development of style. His masterworks stand as isolated examples, having little or no relation to those composed before or after them. Although he left the stamp of his unique individuality upon everything he wrote, those works which have their sources in popular and folk music remain the most dis?tinctively original. Out of Brazil's wealth of natural music, Villa-Lobos fash?ioned a unique art music, previously unknown to the country. Absorbing the
Wapner seriously considered giving the first performance of Tristan and Isolde in Rio. He had sent to Dom Pedro piano scores of The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin. The emperor, a Wagnerian enthusiast, was present at the first performance of Das Rhcingold in Bayreuth in 1876, and met Wagner per?sonally-
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melodic and rhythmic characteristics of Brazilian music, he has sublimated them into a highly individualistic and personal style.
Like Bach, Villa-Lobos' contact with the world of music during his formative period was negligible. Without first-hand knowledge of what was actually hap?pening in European music, his work remained unaffected by any outside influ?ences. He was thirty-seven years of age before he heard the impressionism of Debussy, and he had reached his forty-first year before he left Brazil for the first time to go to Paris. Of that experience he has written:
I didn't come to learn, I've come to show you what I have done . . . better bad of mine than good of others. ... I have always been, and remain, completely independent. When Paris was the crossroads of the world's music, I was there and listened attentively, but never allowed myself to be influenced by any of the novelties I heard. I claim to be all by myself and I conceive my music in complete independence and isolation. ... I use much Brazilian folk lore in my compositions, because the rhythms have an extraordinary fascination.
This confident and independent spirit conditioned everything he wrote, and it is nowhere more apparent than in his series of choros
Villa-Lobos has stated that "the choros represents a new form of musical composition in which are synthesized the different modalities of Brazilian, Indian, and popular music, having for principal elements rhythm and any typical melody of popular character." His statement here, and his insistence at other times that his choros is a newly developed musical design in direct line with the suite and symphony, can hardly be accepted because of the diversity of struc?ture and length found in the numerous works he so titled.f Written for every sort of instrumental combination, they range from a comparatively short com?position for solo guitar to a piano concerto of over an hour's duration; from a chamber ensemble to a full orchestra with chorus. To discover any structural similarity between them, or any evidence of "a new form of musical composition" common to all, defies the most astute analyist.
Throughout his works, Villa-Lobos reveals a weakness as a musical architect. Whenever he attempts to write in the larger forms of chamber music, the sym?phony, or the concerto, his inability to create dynamic structure results in a loss of individuality, characteristic intensity, and boldness. Juxtaposition of sections without fusions, appearances and disappearances of themes without further development, and avoidance of repeated sections are all evidences of his lack of concern for the details of musical structure in the larger forms, but they pass unnoticed in the smaller and less epic ones. Here abrupt changes, fecundity of ideas, and the quick tensions create rhapsodic and exhilarating effects. In the choros, Villa-Lobos is not creating a new form; he is exerting all of his rich
The word choros has no adequate English equivalent. The closest approximation to its meaning would be our word "serenade."
t Eleven were written between 1920 and 1928. Villa-Lobos has mentioned them, but they are as yet un?known to the public. Lou Harrison mentions sixteen in an article, "On the Choros of Villa-Lobos," Modern Music, January-February, 1945.
t Choros No. 10 on today's program is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, three horns, two trumpets, two trombones, tympani, snare drum, large drum without snares, bass drum, tamtam, tambourine, caxamhu (bottle filled with gravel), puita (tin cylinder about fifteen inches deep and ten inches in diameter with a drumhead on one end and a gut string rubbed with rosin which extends from the center of the drumhead through the cylinder--played by pulling the hand over the strings), nco reco (ratchet stick, large and small), xucalho (rattle, in wood and in metal), and strings.
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fantasy and ready imagination in avoiding traditional ones. Form as such be?comes merely an unavoidable ground work, harmony a mere support or an accidental outcome of fluent horizontal writing--both giving way to riotous colors, fluctuating timbres, and resilient rhythms.
Choros No. 10 on tonight's program shows greater organization than is usual, but its form is still interestingly free and elastic. The theme, sometimes errone?ously referred to as "a savage Indian chant," was the tune of a popular song picked up from Anacleto de Medeiros, a friend of Villa-Lobos' youth. It was set to the words "Rasga o corac.ao" ("Rend my heart") by Catullo Ceareuse.
Dr. Franklin M. Thompson, former Assistant Professor of Portuguese and Spanish, University of Michigan, made the following translation of the text for a performance at the 1949 May Festival:
If thou wishest to see the immensity of the sky and sea Reflecting the prismatization of the sunlight, Tear my heart open, come and bend Over the vastness of my pain.
Inhale all the fragrance which rises
Through the thorny flowering of my suffering!
See if thou canst read in its beatings the white illusions
And in its moans what it says .. . and what not . ..
It can say to you in its palpitations! Hear it gently sweetly beat, Chaste and purple, in a threnody of evening, Purer than an innocent vestal!
Rend it, for within thou shalt see sobbing pain Weeping under the weight of a cross of tears! Angels singing divine prayers, God making rhythms of its poor sighs. Tear it and thou shalt see!
Symphonie de psaumes..........Stravinsky
Igor Feodorovitch Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, June 17, 1882.
Igor Stravinsky's position as the greatest living composer in the world today is universally established and recognized. Since the deaths of Arnold Schonberg in 1951, and Bela Bartok in 1945, he is undoubtedly the most illustrious and signifi?cant figure in contemporary music, not only for his monumental works, but be?cause of the influence he has exerted upon other composers; there are few in our day who have not felt the impact of his powerful and creative art.
Unlike Arnold Schonberg, a true revolutionist who caused a decided break with conventional methods of tonal organization, Stravinsky has remained firmly rooted in tradition. In spite of the often sensational innovations he has brought to each successive work, he has always held to certain basic musical values with characteristic conviction, and practiced them with unusual fidelity. Aesthetically, technically, and stylistically, his music is a flowering of traditional thought and practice. The term neo-classic is often applied to it, and perhaps
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MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
best describes the methods he has employed with such mastery throughout a long career. As Stravinsky himself has often asserted, the classical roots of his music strike deeper than we suspect or are willing to admit. Certainly its con?structive coherence and inexorable logic, its economy of means, its avoidance of all unessentials, and the directness and clarity of its communication, attest to its rational sources. The manner in which he successfully conceals himself in his art, the complete absence of any personal commentary or preoccupation with lyrical expression without first subjecting it to rules, all identify him with a classical rather than Romantic tradition. In aesthetic theory, he is a strict autonomist, maintaining that music's main function is not merely to evoke sensations but "to bring order into things" and to help us pass "from an anarchic and individual state into a state of order." He has devoted his life to becoming a superb artisan, constantly refining his idiom and developing his technique. In the words of Andre Malroux, he has been concerned almost exclusively with "rendering forms into style."
The Symphonie de psaumes is a highly characteristic work and one of the most inspired utterances of our time. Its music is incandescently clear and super?latively simple. Like Rodin figures emerging from rock and stone, it is rough-hewn, primordial, and elementary. It does not permit the delicate-tinted color schemes, the warm opulence, the improvisitory wandering of nineteenth-century music. It is astonishingly stark and direct, dependent upon no extraneous devices of literary, pictorial, or dramatic significance to convey its meaning. Stravinsky, in his customary manner, submits all of his material to a process of stylization. The Psaumes, like Le Sacre du printemps, is hieratic, but the barbaric rhythms and ferrous harmonies of that work here resolve themselves and yield to a placid, sometimes pungent counterpoint. In ritual music, there is no place for emotional persuasion or personal commentary of any kind. The unusual orchestra which calls for five flutes, four oboes, English horn, three bassoons, contrabassoon, five trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion, harp, two pianos, cellos, and basses, but no violins or violas, provides the proper medium to evoke the austerity of the ancient psalms.
The Symphonie de psaumes was written in 1930 at the request of Dr. Serge Koussevitsky. The text was drawn from the Psalms (vulgate). The first move?ment, Psalm XXXVIII, 13 and 14; second movement, XXXIX, 2, 3, and 4; third movement, CL in entirety. The score contains the following dedication (in French): This Symphony, composed jor the glory of God, is dedicated to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, upon the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its existence.
The first performance, however, took place in Brussels one week prior to the American premiere in Boston, December 19, 1930. Dr. Koussevitsky conducted the Boston Symphony and the chorus was drawn from the St. Cecelia Society in the American premiere.
The following analysis appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript on the day previous to the first performance.
?Igor Stravinsky, Autobiography (New York: M. & J. Steuer, 19S8).
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Part I
Part I is cast in an arbitrary form dictated by the text. It is a prayer and an entreaty. It begins with drab-colored arpeggio figures punctuated by sharp E-minor chords. Altos begin the words of prayer with the simplest motive that could have been devised for them, the minor second, while figures from the introduction serve as accompaniment. This most sombre music continues until Quoniam advena, when a somewhat more expansive theme enters in the cellos and basses. The music continues its almost stark, forbidding mood. There is high emphasis on Remilte mihi. The movement ends with a modal cadence.
PSALM XXXVm, VERSES 13 AND 14
Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, et de-
precationem meam: Auribus percipe lacrymas meas. Ne sileas, quoniam advena ego cum apud te, Et peregrinus, sicut omnes patres mei. Remitte mihi, ut refrigerer priusquam
abeam, Et amplius non ero.
Hear my prayer, 0 Jehovah, and give ear
unto my cry:
Hold not Thy peace at my tears. For I am a stranger with Thee, And a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Oh spare me, that I may recover strength Before I go hence, and be no more.
Part II
The second movement, a proclamation of joy over the Lord's response, is fugal--a strict exposition of an angular, chromatic subject. The voices enter with an entirely new subject, broader than the instrumental subject, but accompanied by it later. An interlude on the orchestral subject occurs between gressus meos and et immisit. With these words the thought enters upon a new phrase. The first movement had been penitence and prayer. The first half of the second, patiently waiting while God's mercies are revealed. Now, "He hath put a new song into our mouths." The chorus takes the words broadly, in full, though somewhat archaic, sonorities, while the orchestra continues with the further development of its own theme, as announced at the first of the movement.
PSALM XXXIX, VERSES 1, 2, 3, 4
Expectans, expectavi Dominum,
Et intendit mihi, et exaudivit preces meas;
Et eduxit me de lacu miseriae, et de luto
faecis,
Et statuit super petram pedes meos, Et direxit gressus meos. Et immisit in os meum canticum novum,
carmen Deo nostro. Videbunt multi et timebunt, Et sperebunt in Domino.
I waited patiently for the Lord
And He inclined unto me, and heard my
cry; He brought me up also out of an horrible
pit, out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth,
even praise unto our God. Many shall see it, and fear, And shall trust in the Lord.
Part III
Broadly speaking, the last movement is an ascent through the various stages of praise. After a dignified beginning, an orchestral prelude introduces rhythms suggestive of gaiety. With the orchestra continuing thus, the chorus mounts higher and higher with music of praise. Occasionally the voices join in the orchestral rhythms; oftenest they maintain their broad flow of tone. There is a second and still more lively interlude before Laudate eum in tympano et choro. After a magnificent climax of praise the movement ends quietly with the motive of the Alleluia and Laudate, with which it began.
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PSALM CL
Alleluia.
Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus. Laudate eum in firmamento virtutis ejus. Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus: Laudate eum secundum multitudinem
magnitudinis ejus. Laudate eum in sono tubae: Laudate eum in psalterio et cithara. Laudate eum in timpano et choro, Laudate eum in cordis et organo. Laudate eum in cymbalis bene sonantibus, Laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis. Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.
Praise ye the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary.
Praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him in his mighty acts:
Praise him according to his excellent
greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: Praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance, Praise him with stringed instruments and
organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals, Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that hath breath, praise the
Lord.
Fantasia para un gentilhombre,
for Guitar and Orchestra.........Rodrigo
Joaquin Rodrigo was born in Sagunto, Spain, in 1902.
Since the death of Manuel de Falla in 1946, Joaquin Rodrigo, blind from the age of three, has established himself as Spain's most gifted and prolific composer. The list of his compositions is too extensive to enumerate, but since he won sensational success in 1939 with his Concierto de Aranguez for guitar and orches?tra, he has made a distinguished contribution to his country's art with a tremen?dous output of superior works, both instrumental and vocal, that have their roots deep in Spanish tradition and culture. Rodrigo is not an innovator or experi?menter. His respect for conventional nationalistic idioms has resulted in an art that is prevailingly lyrical and appealing.
The Fantasia on tonight's program is based upon themes of the seventeenth-century composer of the Spanish court, Gaspar Sanz, a famous guitarist, theo?logian, philosopher, and author.
This enchanting, slightly melancholy work was written for Mr. Segovia in 1958.
Instruction de musica sobre la guitarra espagiiola (1674).
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Saturday Afternoon, May 7 Overture, Le Corsaire, Op. 21.........Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was bom in Cote-Saint-Andre, France, December 11, 1803; died in Paris, March 8, 1869.
Among the Romanticists in art, music, literature, and politics, Hector Berlioz was the most dramatic--the one who most theatrically symbolized the new move?ment of revolt, not only in his native France, but in all Europe. So intimately identified was his personality and art with the radically progressive spirit of the new literary and social movement that, like Byron, he personified it. Of each it can be said he had but one subject--himself. Possessing a personality as expan?sive and powerful as Byron's, Berlioz' aesthetic impulses were exposed with the same force and bombast; the result was a similar spectacular and exhibition-istic art.
All the complexities of the Romantic movement are mirrored in this music. Although Berlioz, like De Musset and Chopin, occasionally revealed the sensi?tive, introspective, poetic side of a suffering soul, his real creative nature was manifest in a burst of daemonic originality, in expressions of turbulent passion. He was to the music of his time what his contemporaries Gericault and Delacroix were to painting. As has been said of Delacroix' brush, Berlioz seemed to com?pose with a "drunken" pen. Like the writings of Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas, his music became a "glowing tapestry of bewitching color schemes." In his scores, bold and triumphant in their will to revolt, he displayed an immense organizing and creative power beside which the extravagances of many of the other artists of his period seemed reticent and inarticulate. His penchant for the abnormal, grim, and grotesque forced music with such suddenness into new channels of expression that he alone became the founder of modern program music and the source of an entirely new art of orchestration. Here his genius found the greatest scope. Relying upon his own empirical method of composition, he constantly revealed such an unerring sense of color values, that he became, and remains today, a model for other composers to seriously contemplate. "In the domain of fancy," wrote the Russian composer Glinka, "no one has such colossal inventions and his combinations have, besides all other merits, that of being absolutely novel. Breadth in the ensemble, abundance in details, close weaving of harmonies, powerful and hitherto unheard of instrumentation are the characteristics of Berlioz' music."
The Corsair overture was never given a definite program by Berlioz. Its title, however, immediately suggests two literary works well known and admired by him--The Corsair, a narrative poem by Byron (1814) and The Red Rover {Le Corsair rouge) by James Fenimore Cooper (1827). Nowhere in his writings has Berlioz stated that either of these works was the direct inspiration for this music. What he wrote connoted, rather, several of his associated experiences.
Nathan Haskell Dole, Famous Composers (2d ed.; New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1925).
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The idea of composing a concert overture occurred to him early in 1831, when on a sea voyage from Marseilles to Rome, he was delayed at Nice because of a storm at sea. All the passengers on the ship were Italians, one of whom declared that he had been the commander of Lord Byron's corvette during the poet's adventures in the Grecian Archipelago and Adriatic. "I was too greatly pleased," he wrote, "to find myself with a man who probably shared Childe Harold's pil?grimage to question his veracity." While delayed at Nice, he sketched a work based on his impressions of the sea voyage, but not until thirteen years later on a second trip to Nice, did he complete it. He then gave it the title La Tour de Nice (Tower of Nice), the name derived from a ruined tower high above the sea where he went to compose. The work had already, however, received its form and themes from an earlier association. This overture was performed in January of 1845, but still dissatisfied, he set it aside for further revision. This did not take place until 1851-52 in London. He then renamed the overture Le Corsaire rouge --a translation of Cooper's novel The Red Rover in which a tower on a rocky shore plays an important part. Finally, he struck out the adjective and left the title merely Le Corsaire. It was published in its present form in Paris in the spring of 1855, and dedicated to the English critic and friend James William Davidson.
Thus, Berlioz used titles of a poem and a novel, a storm at sea, a tower on a rocky shore, and a chance meeting with a corsair as purely associative, not literal material.
Concerto in C major for Flute, Harp,
and Orchestra, K. 299..........Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was bom in Salzburg, January 27, 17S6; died in Vienna, December 5, 1791.
In its diversity and scope, the music of Mozart is one of the most astonishing achievements in the history of European art. Wherever he directed his pen, to the creation of opera, serious or comic, to cantata, Mass, chamber music, sonata, or symphony, he left imperishable masterpieces. In more than six hundred works, created at a breathless speed during less than thirty-six years, Mozart revealed a universality unknown to any other composer, for his art was founded upon a thorough assimilation and sublimation of the prevailing Italian, French, and German styles of his period; he carried to perfection all instrumental and vocal forms of his day. No composer ever revealed simultaneously such creative afflu?ence and such unerring instinct for beauty. Few artists in any age have been so copious and yet so controlled, or have so consistently sustained throughout their creative lives such a high level of artistic excellence.
Mozart was born at a time when chamber music and the symphony were not as clearly differentiated as they are today. The term Sinjonia, the Italian name for symphony, in the early Baroque period, had no fixed form or style. Symphonies
Hector Berlioz, Mdmoires de Hector Berlioz, Trans. Rachel and Eleanor Holmes (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1932) p. 118.
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that stood alone, without being attached to a cantata, suite, or larger work, came to be known later as "Concert Symphonies." Just before the middle of the eighteenth century, the Sinjonia was pretty well denned by its function, and in Johann Adolph Scheibe's Der critische Musicus we read that symphonies are of three types: spiritual, theatrical, and chamber symphonies. The chamber sym?phony, Scheibe continues, was governed almost entirely by "the fire of the com?poser--thus vivacity and genius for inventing, expounding, and animating a melody are the only guides he must follow."
The term concertante was one of several eighteenth-century terms used to designate pieces in which several solo instruments participated after the manner of their forerunner, the earlier concerto grosso of Corelli and his imitators. Alfred Einstein describes the concertante more colorfully than any musical dic?tionary:
When to the competition of two or more instruments, the orchestra is added as another participant in the dazzling tournament--a participant that usually opens the occasion and retires, leaving the center of attention to the combatants, mostly accompanying or comment?ing upon their activities, and returing to the foreground only when they are tired and must rest a little--we are squarely in the concertante domain.t
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the concertante had assumed a more or less specific stylistic meaning, due in a great measure to the famous Mannheim School of Composers, of whom Johann Stamitz (1717-57) was the most promi?nent.:): He joined the Mannheim orchestra, became its conductor, and inaugu?rated a unique style of composition and performance that spread the fame of this organization throughout Europe. If the Mannheim School cannot be given full credit for having established the foundations for the symphony, as later found in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, it did codify many of the principles and for?mulas that were later to characterize the style of these great masters. Through them, Germany finally triumphed over Italy in instrumental composition.
In September of 1777, Mozart, twenty-one years of age, set out for Paris. Be?cause of the inclement weather he spent the winter in Mannheim where he often heard the famous orchestra and became intimately acquainted with its mem?bers, particularly with Christian Cannabich, its conductor, himself a distin?guished composer. In the spring of 1778, when Mozart finally arrived in Paris, he found several members of the Mannheim Orchestra vacationing there. At the suggestion of one Joseph Le Gros, director of the Concert Spirituel,? Mozart wrote a Sinjonia Concertante, in the Mannheim manner, for four of the players.
In this Sinjonia Concertante in E-flat (K. 297b), Mozart is already searching for new freedom. In true concertante tradition, it is written with zeal and anima?tion but is deeper in concept and broader in form. To quote Einstein, "It is not a symphony in which four wind instruments have prominent solo parts; nor is it
Adolph Scheibe, Der critische Musicus (Leipzig: 1745).
t Alfred Einstein, Mozart, His Character and His Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 194S).
t Other composers identified with the school were Ignaz Holzbauer, F. X. Richter, and the younger genera?tion, including Anton Filtz, Franz Beck, Christian Cannabich, and Anton and Karl Stamitz, sons of Johann.
? The Concert Spirituel was founded in Paris by Philidor and continued from 1725 to 1791. It became the model for eighteenth century concerts.
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quite a concerto for wind instruments. It is between the two. It is planned en?tirely for brilliance, breadth, and expansiveness--in all its movements. . . .
"It is one of the ironies of Mozart's creative career that immediately after this concerto for four finished artists, he should have written another Sinfonia Concertante for two high-born amateurs, "f The Concerto for Flute and Harp was composed for the Due de Guines and his daughter. In a letter to his father, May 18, 1778, Mozart writes, "I think I told you in my last letter that the Due de Guines, whose daughter is my pupil in composition, plays the flute extremely well, and that she plays the harp magnifique. She has a great deal of talent and genius, and in particular, a marvelous memory, so that she can play all her pieces, actually about two hundred, by heart."J
In spite of their acknowledged talents, Mozart wrote cautiously for these amateur performers. The work is in the easy key of C major and it demands very little in the way of virtuosity. The writing for the flute is modest indeed compared to that found in the Flute Concerto (K. 313), his finest work for the instrument written during the same period. Mozart wrote for the harp as he did for keyboard instruments, for the technique we know today was not evolved until after the invention of the double-action harp by Sebastian Erard, early in the next century. The harp, therefore, is frequently left with nothing significant to play. For these reasons, this work can bear no comparison with the more imposing Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297b, written shortly before for professional performers of the famed Mannheim orchestra.
Nevertheless, in spite of its obvious contrivances, its loosely connected themes and its undeniably weak structure, this light and ingenuous work, written in the tradition of French salon music of the eighteenth century, possesses much of the sensuous charm of a Watteau painting.
Later in his career, Mozart departed from the concertante style more and more as he matured, or perhaps it is more to the point to say with Einstein that "he separated its ingredients, developing the symphonic elements in ever purer form in the orchestral symphony, and the concertante elements in the concerto for solo instruments."?
"Divertissement" Suite............Ibert
Jacques Ibert was born in Paris, August IS, 1890.
Jacques Ibert is known to audiences in America largely through his most popular work, Escales (Ports of Call), written shortly after he had won the Prix de Rome in 1919. He studied with Andre Gedalge, Roger Ducasse, Paul Vidal, and Gabriel Faure at the Paris Conservatory. His compositions for the stage (L'Aiglon; Les Petites Cardinals, in collaboration with Arthur Honegger; Le Roi d'Yvetot; Persie et Andromede, etc.) and ballet (Les Evcntail de Jeanne; Diane de Poitiers; Gold Standard and Les Rencontres) and other important
Einstein, op. cit., p. 275.
t Ibid., p. 276.
The Letters of Mozart and His Family, ed. Anderson (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1938), II, 795.
5 Einstein, op. cit., p. 274.
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scores (a Symphonic Poem to Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol; a cello concerto and incidental works such as this delightful Divertissement) all reveal an artist of amiable quality, immaculate workmanship, and elegant style.
Aside from a natural instinct for instrumental combinations manifest in 1919, Ibert had never written for the orchestra, and had had no formal training in orchestration. He became a vivid colorist as the suite on this afternoon's program will attest.
Ibert is not an experimentalist in the sense of avidly seeking a new musical idiom. He seems content to exert all his creative ingenuity upon those that have in the past proved effective. Thus impressionism, of the Ravel rather than the Debussy variety, and neo-classicism seem to join in helping him to create works of sure effect and immediate appeal.
Variaciones concertantes..........Ginastera
Alberto Ginastera was born April 11, 1916, in Buenos Aires.
Alberto Ginastera's paternal grandfather came to Argentina from Catalonia, Spain; his maternal grandfather from Lombardy, Italy. His parents were among the many second generation Argentines who ultimately settled in Buenos Aires. Although the family was not musical, Alberto from the age of five displayed remarkable talent. When he was twelve he entered the Williams Conservatory of Buenos Aires, and in 1936 the National Conservatory of Music from which he was graduated with high honors. Three years later he returned to the Conserva?tory as professor of composition. In 1946, on a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, he came to the United States where his works were first made known through the League of Composers in New York City and the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C.
With such compositions as Panambi and Argentine Dances (1937); Songs of Tucuman and Dos Canciones (1938); Three Pieces for Piano (1940); a one act ballet, Estancia (1941); Danzas Criollas, a Suite for Piano (1946); Pampeana No. 1 for viola and piano (1947); Pampeana No. 2 for cello and piano (19S0), and especially Pampeana No. 3 for orchestra (1954), Ginastera definitely estab?lished himself as the leader of thenational movement in Argentine music
In the Variaciones concertantes (1953), Ginastera is at the height of his cre?ative powers. He continues a trend noted in Twelve American Preludes for Piano (1944); the first String quartet (1948); Sonata for Piano (1952) and several other works, toward a counterbalancing of folk and nationalistic idioms with modern technical procedures of polytonality and twelve-tone writing. Of the Variaciones he has written, "These variations have a subjective Argentine char?acter. Instead of using folkloristic material, the composer achieves an Argentine atmosphere through the employment of original thematic and rhythmic ele-ments."f
Albert Williams (1862-1952) in 1890, started the trend toward a highly nationalistic movement in Argentine music. He was followed by such folkloristic composers as Julian Aguirre, Carlos Lopez Bucbardo, Luis Gianneo, and Juan Josi Castro. This movement was dominant when Ginastera came to musical maturity.
t Gilbert Chase, "Alberto Ginastera: Portrait of an Argentine Composer," Tempo, No. 44 (Summer 1957), p. 15.
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There are eleven variations based upon an original theme. Some are written in the traditional decorative and ornamental manner, while others "are written in modern form of metamorphosis, which consists in taking motives from the principal theme and constructing out of them a new one." The work is scored for flute, piccolo, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, trombone, timpani, harp, and strings.
Theme: Adagio molto espressivo; E minor, 34: A rhapsodic theme is sur.g in the cello, accom?panied by harp arpeggios and chords.
Variation 1. Adagio molto espressivo; 42: Muted strings play this interlude-like variation. The first violins sing the theme against a counterpoint in the lower strings.
Variation 2. Tempo giusto; 24: This joyous variation is largely in the flute, although the woodwinds join in a lively dialogue with the strings, and occasionally the brass.
Variation 3. Vivace; 68: The clarinet plays a syncopated version of the theme in the man?ner of a scherzo, accompanied by pizzicato strings.
Variation A. Largo; 44: The viola sings a dramatic variation of the theme against a coun?terpoint in the woodwinds, horns, harp, and strings.
Variation 5. Adagio tranquillo; 6S: A canon at the interval of a fifth is performed by oboe and bassoon.
Variation 6. Allegro; 34: Trumpet and trombone take part in a rhythmic variation marked by strong syncopation.
Variation 7. Allegro; 34: A sketchy accompaniment supports a swift moving triplet figure in the solo violin, with the flute heard briefly.
Variation 8. Largamente espressivo; 44: A quiet pastoral variation in the solo horn, is sup?ported by a harmonized accompaniment.
Variation 9. Moderato; 34: A short variation in contrary motion serves as an interlude. It is heard in the woodwind choir.
Variation 10. Adagio molto expressivo; 64: The original theme returns in the contrabass supported by the harp.
Variation 11. Allegro molto; 34: The whole orchestra returns material from earlier varia?tions in the manner of a rondo.
Tone Poem, "Till Eulenspiegel's
Merry Pranks," Op. 28.........R. Strauss
Richard Strauss was born in Munich, June 11, 1864; died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, September 8, 1949.
Criticism has always been embarrassed in its attempt to evaluate Richard Strauss. No doubt he was a most interesting and extraordinary personality in the world of music. Whatever his antagonistic critics have said of him, he re?mains one of the greatest composers of our time.
Trained in the classical tradition of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, he exerted his individuality, his independence of thought and expression with such daring and insistence that at his mature period he was considered the most mod?ern and radical of composers. Critics turned their tirades against Wagner upon him. They villified him as they had Wagner, with a persistence that seems in?credible today.
The progressive unfolding of his genius aroused much discussion, largely because it was so uneven. Hailed on his appearance as the true successor of
Ibid.
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Wagner, this Richard II became, for some years, the most commanding figure in modern music. No composer has ever suffered such a startling, such a sudden and decisive reversal of fortune. Just when his popularity seemed to be steadily growing and controversy dying down, his works began to disappear from current programs and for a period of approximately ten years became inaccessible to the public. Apart from Germany and Austria, he was almost entirely ignored by the leaders of progressive musical opinion.
Music was developing at a greater speed than at any time in history. Russia had begun to exert herself with such great force that it seemed she was about to usurp the position of Germany as the leading musical nation; France had caught the attention of the musical world with impressionistic and modern de?vices; and England had suddenly rediscovered her heritage of Elizabethan music.
With the interest of the world suddenly caught by the novelty of new styles and held by the rapid shift from one to another, attention was drawn away from Germany at the period when the works of Strauss were winning acceptance. After ten years of indifference the world again began to hear his works with different ears. Music that had been controversial seemed perfectly acceptable; what had appeared novel in harmonic device, exotic in coloration, and new in form was looked upon as commonplace. A fresh and ingenious manner of treating old material had clearly been mistaken for startling innovation and open rebel?lion against musical traditions.
Russia in particular had so extended the expressive powers of music that much of what seemed unusual and even cacophonous appeared utterly prosaic. After the performance of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (1913), Strauss's one time exceptional harmony, erratic melody, and queer instrumentation "left the itch of novelty behind."
When, however, criticism again turned to him, it observed that he had not fulfilled the great promise of his youth, and aside from not developing from strength to strength, there was a marked deterioration of talent. His later works, Ariadne auj Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919), Die Liebe dcr Danae (1938-40), bear witness to the tragic degeneration and final extinction of his creative powers.
There is much wisdom contained in an old German proverb, "Der Mensch erkennt seine Fehler ebensowenig isne einc Affe oder eine Eule die in den Spiegel schn, ihre eigene Hesslichkcit erkennen--A man is as little prone to recognize his own shortcomings as an ape, or an owl, looking into a mirror, is conscious of his own ugliness."
The name "Eulenspiegel" itself is translated "owls' glass" or "owls' mirror," and the rascal Till first came into prominence in the pages of Dr. Thomas Mur-ner's Volksbuch or book of folklore, supposed to have been widely read by the German people in the year 1500. Till's escapades, household tales in Germany, consisted of crude horseplay and jests that he, insolent, perverse, arrogant, de-
Murner slated that Till Eulenspicgel was born at Kneithlinger, Brunswick, in 1282, and that after various wanderings through Germany, Italy, and Poland, he died of the plague in 1350 or 1353 at Molln.
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fiant, practiced without any discrimination, and, in some instances, with a very studied lack of propriety.
Strauss's Tone Poem was presented without an explanatory program. In fact, Strauss demurred at the demand for such a program. "Were I to put into words," he wrote at the time of the first performance at Cologne in November, 1895, "the thoughts which the composition's several incidents suggested to me, they would seldom suffice and might even give rise to offense. Let me leave it, therefore, to my readers to crack the hard nut which the rogue has prepared for them."
Almost immediately after the first performance, a lengthy and detailed description of practically every bar in the score was made by one Wilhelm Klatte, in the Allgemeine Musik Zeitung. Paraphrased and reduced, it is some?what as follows:
Once upon a time, there was a pranking rogue, ever up to new tricks, named Till Eulen-spiegel. Now he jumps on his horse and gallops into the midst of a crowd of market women, overturning their wares with a prodigious clatter. Now he lights out with seven league boots, now conceals himself in a mousehole. Disguised as a priest "he drips with unction and morals," yet out of his toe peeps the scamp. As cavalier, he makes love, first in jest, but soon in earnest, and is properly rebuffed. He is furious and swears vengeanec on all mankind, but meeting some "Philistines," he forgets his wrath and mocks them. At length his hoaxes fail. He is tried in a court of justice, and is condemned to hang for his misdeeds; but he still whistles de?fiantly as he ascends the ladder. Even on the scaffold he jests. Now he swings; he gasps for air; a last convulsion. Till is dead.
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Saturday Evening, May 7 Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105......Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was born in Tavastehus, Finland, De?cember 8, 186S, died Jarvenpaa, September 20, 1957.
Until the advent of Dimitri Shostakovitch, Jean Sibelius held a position of unrivaled eminence among contemporary symphonists. In spite of the sensational rivalry offered by the younger Russian composer, he is still one of the outstand?ing symphonists of our day by virtue of the quality and quantity of his output.
Fate was persistent in involving Jean Sibelius in great soul-stirring catas-trophies. As a young musician, he was an artistic rebel determined upon Finnish freedom, and was involved in Finland's emancipation in the 1890's. World War I found him as staunch and bravely nationalistic as ever in the face of impending doom. And in World War II, at the close of a long life full of great artistic achievements and deep concern for his native land, the old patriarch refused to leave his unfortunate country in need, writing on in the midst of greatest disaster. Sibelius' faith in humanity has been subjected to the severest tests, but he never lost that faith.
Speaking of Sibelius purely as an historical figure, and of his position among the greatest symphonists, it must be acknowledged that through him the long line of symphonic writing seemed to survive; a line which appeared to have come to an end. Contemporary composers of the "new school," having lost the epic sweep and spstaining power that marked such masters as Beethoven and Brahms, declared the symphony a dead form, turning to the less architectural and more programmatic symphonic poem and a new conception of the suite in which to frame their more lyrical and less heroic expression. Sibelius alone, working against the tendency of his age and continuing in older traditions, not only saved the symphonic form from oblivion, but raised it again to a level of dignity and grandeur equaled only by Beethoven. It was Beethoven in fact who guided Sibelius through the labyrinth of his own ideas. "The composer for me above all others is Beethoven," he once wrote. "I am affected as powerfully by the human side of him as by his music. He is a revelation to me. He was a Titan. Every?thing was against him, and yet he triumphed."
A careful consideration of Sibelius' great symphonies reveals this one fact: he has again sensed the "grand manner" in music. He has sustained his inspira?tion throughout a long life, casting a monumental series of symphonies which remain a unique structure in contemporary music. In the words of his biographer, Karl Ekman--"The noble structure of his works has come forth from the grand line of his life. He has won his inner strength and harmony in a hard battle. In a disjointed time, a period of dissension, Jean Sibelius provides us with the up?lifting picture of a man who dared to follow his genius, and never was subser?vient to other claims than those of his own artistic conscience, who dared to live
Karl Ekman, lean Sibelius, His Life and Personality (New York: Knopf, 1938).
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his life in the grand style." Such an indomitable spirit must ultimately triumph in art.
In his brief work on Sibelius, Cecil Grey wrote of this symphony:
Sibelius' Seventh--and up to the time of writing, last--Symphony in C major, Op. 105, is in one gigantic movement based in the main on the same structural principles as the first movement of the Sixth. That is to say, it has one chief dominating subject, a fanfarelike theme which first appears on a solo trombone near the outset and recurs twice, more or less integrally, and in addition a host of small, pregnant, fragmentary motives of which at least a dozen play a prominent part in the unfolding of the action. The resourceful way in which these are varied, developed, juxtaposed, permuted, and combined into a continuous and homogeneous texture is one of the miracles of modern music; Sibelius himself has never done anything to equal it in this respect.t
In Karl Ekman's more extended work, Sibelius himself is quoted as having said of the Seventh Symphony (upon which, apparently, he was at work simul?taneously with the Fifth and with the Sixth):
The Seventh Symphony, Joy of life, and vitality with appassionato passages. In three movements--the last, a "Hellenic rondo." [If so, somewhere along the course he altered his plan. In fact, he himself conceded that he did not know, when he began, precisely how the symphonies would end.] "As usual, I am a slave to my themes and submit to their de?mands." . . .
... At New Year's, 1923, I was engaged for concerts in Norway and Sweden. When I started on January 14th--I have the date from the notes in my diary--three sections of the seventh symphony were ready. On my return home, the whole symphony was completed; I performed it in public at a concert in Helsingfors on February 19th--the last time I con?ducted in Finland. ... On March 2nd, 1924, at night, as I entered in my diary, I completed "Fantasia Sinfonica"--that was what I at first thought of calling my seventh symphony in one movement .t
For the program book of the Philadelphia Orchestra of April 3, 1926 (first performance under Leopold Stokowski), Lawrence Gilman supplied this clear and revealing analysis:
The symphony opens with an extended adagio section of brooding and somber intensity. Its initial subject, an ascending scale passage in A minor, 32 time, for the strings, furnishes the underlying theme of the work. It crops out again and again, as a whole, or fragmentary, and often inverted. In the twenty-second measure it is succeeded by a broadly lyric theme in C major, sung by the divided violas and cellos, joined later by the divided first and second violins. The scale passages return in the strings and woodwind, and then we hear from the solo trombone a chant-like melody in C, which will later assume great importance.
The tempo quickens; there are more scale passages; the pace is now vivacissimo, C minor. The strings announce a subject that recalls the mood of the Scherzo of Beethoven's Eroica. There is a rallenlando, and a return to the adagio tempo of the beginning. The solo trombone repeats its chant-like phrase against figurations in the strings, and it is joined by the rest of the brass choir. Again the tempo quickens, and an allegro mollo moderato is established.
The strings (poco f, C major, 64) give out a new melody of folklike simplicity and breadth; and this is followed by another subject, also in C major, arranged--according to a pattern of which Sibelius is fond--for woodwind doubled in pairs, playing in thirds, fifths, and sixths. This theme is developed by the strings and wind, with interjections of the familiar scale passages for the violins.
The key changes to E-flat major, the tempo becomes vivace. There are ascending and descending antiphonal passages, strings answered by woodwind.
Ibid.
t Cecil Grey, Sibelius (London: Oxford University Press, 1931).
X Ekman, op. at.
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The tempo becomes presto, the key C major. The strings, divided in eight parts, begin a mysteriously portentous passage, at first ppp, with the violas and cellos defining an urgent figure against a reiterated pedal G of the violins, basses, and tympani. A crescendo, rallentando, is accompanied by a fragment of the basic scale passage, in augmentation, for the horns.
The tempo is again adagio; and now the chant-like C major theme is heard once more from the brass choir, against mounting figurations of the strings.
There is a climax, ff, for the whole orchestra. The strings are heard alone, largamente molto, in an affettuoso of intense expression. Flute and bassoon in octaves, supported by soft string tremolos, sing a plaint. The strings, dolce, in syncopated rhythm, modulate through seventh chords in A-flat and G to a powerful suspension, jortissimo, on the tonic chord of C major; and this brings to a close the enigmatic, puissant, and strangely moving work.
Concerto in E-flat major for Violoncello and
Orchestra, Op. 107.........Shostakovich
Dimitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, September 25, 1906.
Little is known of this work outside Russia except its premiere in Moscow October 9, 1959. It was first performed in the United States, November 6, 1959, by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist. Prior to the premiere, the noted critic, Professor L. Ginsburg, wrote the following account in Sovietskaya Kultura:
". . . The first impression of this work (played by cello and pianoforte) was so vivid and exciting, that, against all tradition, I wish to share it with the public before waiting to hear the first performance with orchestra. The concerto of the distinguished Soviet composer is without doubt an event of major importance in our musical life and an important step in the development of concerto-symphonic music. Its profound content, the perfection and clarity of form, the logic of the development and emotional power, and, finally, the composer's superb skill in embodying vivid and highly varied images, insure the concerto an honorable place among his other works. We are probably not making a mistake if we place this concerto in the same class as the composer's Tenth Symphony and his Violin Concerto.
"The concerto is unsual in form. It appears to consist of two parts, but in the second part it is easy to distinguish three separate sections which merge naturally, one into the other, to form an organic whole. This impression of completeness is also helped by the fact that in the finale the main theme of the first part of the concerto (Allegretto) reappears and plays an important role, though it is given a fresh interpretation and has been slightly changed.
"This principal theme--the 'main character' of the work--begins with a question that is frequently repeated in further intonations. . . . The second theme is a new, many-sided musical image of Russian character. Against a background of continuous steady movement in the orchestra, the 'cello is given a tense melody based, essentially, on two constantly repeated sounds. ... In the development both themes receive violent symphonic treatment. . . . The dynamic reprise maintains the high dramatic atmosphere of this part. . . . But a firm will to find an answer is expressed by an unexpected fortissimo passage in the last bars of this part.
"The second part of the concerto (Moderato) is in striking contrast to the first part through its mood. After an orchestral passage of introduction the 'cello sings a lyrical theme of Rus?sian character, rather than a lullaby. . . . Lyricism and melodiousness also characterize the unusually expressive second theme which is more emotional and declamatory. ... In the process of developing this theme we hear melodic turns similar in intonation to the scherzo of the violin concerto. But how different they are here! . ..
"The first section of the second part moves to a monumental recitative-monologue by the 'cello. . . . This cadenza anticipates the finale and in its scale and important conceptual significance assumes an independent role in the artistic whole. The orchestra, appearing after the cadenza, takes us directly into the finale. Virile and positive in character it has the
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significance of a conclusion. In the culminating moment, the main theme of the first part reappears in the orchestra. . . . The conflict has been dramatically solved. ... It bears a vivid, life-asserting character and embodies the conclusion drawn from the deep dramatic content of the entire work. This conclusion is the will-to-live, victory in the struggle for happiness."
Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77 . Brahms
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died in Vienna, April 3, 1897.
Brahms, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky, all highly individual artists, were prod?ucts of the same artistic soil, nurtured by the same forces that conditioned the standards and norms of art in their time. Living in a spiritually poverty-stricken period when anarchy seemed to have destroyed culture, theirs was an age dis?tinctly unfavorable to genuinely great art; unfavorable because of its hide?bound worship of the conventional. A love of luxury and a crass materialism brought in its wake disillusionment, weariness, and indifference to beauty. The showy exterior of the age did not hide the inner barrenness of its culture. Brahms and Wagner, opposed in verbal theory, stand strong together in the face of opposing forces, disillusioned with the state of their world, but not defeated. Both shared in a serious purpose and noble intention. Both sought the expression of the sublime in art. Each in his own way tried to augment the flaccid spirit of the time by sounding a note of courage and hopefulness.
Brahms's German Requiem, Alto Rhapsody, Song of Destiny, the slow move?ments of the symphonies, and particularly the great tragic songs all speak in the somber but lofty accents of Wagner. It is no accident that the real Brahms seems to be the serious, contemplative man of these works, for here is found the true expression of an artist at grips with the artistic and spiritual problems of his time.
The overly introspective, supersensitive artist is apt to cut himself off from a larger arc of experience in life, is prone to exaggerate the importance of more intimate and personal sentiments, and when, as in the age of Brahms, Tchaikov?sky, 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 hearty and vigorous mind. Standing abreast of such vital spirits as Carlyle and Browning, he met the challenge of his age, triumphing in his art. By the exercise of clear intelligence and a strong critical faculty, he was able to temper the tend?ency toward emotional excess, avoiding the pitfalls of utter despair into which Tchaikovsky, with his persistent penchant for melancholy, his feverish sensibility, and his neurotic fears, was invariably led. Although Brahms experienced disillu?sionment 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 perception that inevitably come with the passing of time. But his disillusion?ment 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 art degraded by an infiltration of tawdry programmatic ef-
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FOURTH CONCERT
fects and innocuous imitation, finally witnessing its subjugation to poetry and the dramatic play. But all of this he opposed with his own grand style--profoundly moving, noble, and dignified. With 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."
Great interest was aroused in the musical circles of Germany and Austria when it became known in 1878 that Brahms was at work on a violin concerto intended for the friend of his youth, Josef Joachim. The summer of 1878 the composer spent in Portschach where the first draft was finished. Writing to his friend Hanslick, the Viennese critic, from Lake Worther in Carinthia, Brahms reports that "so many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to tread on them." The peace and tranquility reflected in the first movement of the concerto is somewhat similar to that of the Second Symphony, also in D major. To many, the sentiment is maintained at a loftier height in the concerto, while the limpid grace of the melodic line has an immediate fascination for the general audience.
After studying the violin part, Joachim replied from Salzburg, "I have had a good look at what you sent me and have made a few notes and alterations, but without the full score one can't say much. I can, however, make out most of it and there is a lot of really good violin music in it, but whether it can be played with comfort in hot concert rooms remains to be seen." After considerable corre?spondence and several conferences the score was ready and the first performance scheduled for January 1, 1879, in Leipzig.
It remains to be noted that the concerto was not published immediately. Joachim kept it and played it several times in England with much success. The performer on these occasions made alterations to the score which did not always meet with Brahms's approval, evidenced by excerpts from this letter of Brahms to Joachim: "You will think twice before you ask me for another concerto! It is a good thing that your name is on the copy; you are more or less responsible for the solo violin parts." The summer of 1879 a second violin concerto was begun, but never finished.
Brahms did not write out the cadenza at the end of the first movement. Originally, Joachim wrote one himself but since that time it has been provided with cadenzas by nearly all the violin masters; at least twenty exist in published form.
The following analysis by Felix Borowski in the Program Book of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is presented here for those interested in following the technical details of the construction of the concerto:
I. {Allegro non troppo, D major, 34 time.) The plan of this movement follows the classical construction of the first movement of a concerto, as that construction was employed in the concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and of contemporaries less famous than they. The first Exposition for orchestra begins, without any introduction, with the principal subject (in D major) in the bassoons and lower strings. After a transitional passage, in which the
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material of the principal theme is worked over, fortissimo, in the full orchestra, the second subject, in the same key, enters tranquilly in the oboe, and is taken up by the first violins. Another and more marcato section of it is heard in a dotted figure, forte, in the strings. After the strings have played a vigorous passage in sixteenth notes, the solo violin enters with a lengthy section--composed principally of passage work--introductory to its presentation of the main subject. This at length arrives, the theme being accompanied by an undulating figure in the violas. The second subject appears in the flute, later continued in the first violins, passage work playing around it in the solo instrument. The second, marcato, section now is taken up by the violin. Development follows, as is customary in older concertos, being intro?duced in an orchestral tutti. The Recapitulation (principal subject) is also announced by the orchestra, ff. The second theme occurs, as before, in the orchestra, but now in D major, the solo violin playing around it with passage work, as in the Exposition. The second section of the theme is played by the violin in D minor. A short tutti precedes the cadenza for the solo instrument. The coda, which follows it, begins with the material of the principal subject.
II. (Adagio, F major, 24 time.) This movement has the orchestral accompaniment lightly scored, merely the woodwind, two horns, and the usual strings being employed. It opens with a subject in the woodwind, its melody being set forth by the oboe. The solo violin takes up a modified and ornamental version of this theme. A second subject follows, also played by the solo instrument, and the first is eventually, and in modified form, resumed.
III. (Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace, D major, 24 time.) The principal theme is announced at once by the solo violin, and it is taken up, ff, by the orchestra. A transitional passage leads to the second subject, given out, energicamente, by the violin in octaves; this is worked over and leads to a resumption of the main theme by the solo instrument. An episode (G major, 34 time) is set forth by the violin with suggestions of the opening subject occur?ring in the orchestra. The second theme is once more heard in the solo violin, and is, in its turn, succeeded by further development of the principal subject. A short cadenza for the solo instrument leads into the coda, in which the first subject is further insisted upon, now in quicker tempo and somewhat rhythmically changed.
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Sunday Afternoon, May 8 Requiem Mass...............Verdi
Composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni
(Fortunio) Giuseppe (Francesco) Verdi was born in Le Roncole, October 10, 1813; died in Milan, January 27, 1901.
The year 1813 was of tremendous importance in the political world; no less so in the domain of music, for it brought to earth two epoch-making geniuses, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. In these two masters climaxed the greatest artistic forces of the entire nineteenth century. In them, the German and Italian opera established models that seemed to exhaust all conceivable possibilities within the two cultures. Representing two great musical nations, influenced as well by strong national tendencies, each assumed, in his own way, a novel and significant artistic attitude toward the lyric theater. Wagner, the German, full of the Teutonic spirit, revolutionized musico-dramatic art by approximating it to the symphony; Verdi, the Italian, no less national in spirit and without losing either his individuality or nationality, developed a similar style in which the orchestra increased its potency of expression without sacrificing the beauty of the human voice.
Verdi was not a man of culture as was Wagner. Born a peasant, he remained rooted to the soil, and his art reflects a primitive quality. He created music astonishingly frank and fierce for his time, turning the over-sophisticated seduc?tive melodies of Donizetti and Bellini into passionate utterances of new intensity through strong contrasts of violent and tender feeling. In his characters he achieved emotional emancipation through the sweep and breadth of his musical discourse. His genius often carried him from the depths of triviality and vulgarity to majestic dignity and elegance, but it always reflected large resources of imagi?nation and amazing vitality. His vitality is in fact exceptional among composers. So enduring and resourceful was he that his greatest and most elaborate works were produced after he was fifty-seven. When verging on sixty, he composed A'ida, an opera abounding in the strength, vigor, and freedom of youth. He was sixty-one when he wrote the Requiem, and certainly in it is no hint of diminution of creative power. His last opera, Fahtaff, considered by many his masterpiece, was written when he was eighty! The consistent and continuous growth of his style over sixty years of life is evidence of an incomparable capacity for artistic development and a triumphant vitality. These he had in abundance, sustaining him through a life of sadness and misfortune. As the child of a poor innkeeper, he had few opportunities for a musical education. An unusually sensitive child by nature, he was constantly being wounded in his deepest affections. Misfortune marked him at the threshold of his career; he was refused admittance to the conservatory at Milan because of an arbitrary age limit. Married at twenty-three, he lost his wife and two children within a period of two-and-a-half years, and at the end of a long and eventful life, he experienced the bitter loneliness of old age.
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But misfortune mellowed rather than hardened him. His magnanimity, his many charitable acts, the broad humanity of his art endeared him to his people, who idolized him both as a man and as an artist. Throughout his life and his works ran a virility and a verve, a nobility and valor that challenges the greatest admiration.
The Requiem reveals Verdi at the height of his genius, profound in the ma?turity of artistic judgment that comes only with years. The whole work is majestic in melodic sweep. To the mastery of vocal resources, so characteristic of Italian composers, must be added a control of the orchestra which sets him apart. His style here approaches more closely that of the German masters. Rhythm and harmony, energized by an outstanding control of polyphony, and an attention directed to the orchestra as something more than a mere support for the voice (unusual in an Italian), give his music a Wagnerian richness and opulence. There is, however, not the slightest indication of any Wagnerian technique or influence.
A careful study of the treatment of the fugue in Section IV will clearly reveal that Verdi possessed distinguished power as a contrapuntist. The fact that his themes are so melodious has a tendency to draw attention away from the con?structive skill revealed in this fugue. The Requiem approaches the dignity of Bach and the majesty of Wagner, but is ultimately Italian in spirit. Every page reveals the imprint of genius which knows no national boundaries.
The production at Milan, May 22, 1874, signaled a controversy which has persisted to this day. The Germans, with Bach and Handel in mind, hear in this work theatricalism and overwrought sentimentality. They object to an operatic style in a religious work. In England also, the memories of Handel, Mendelssohn, and the awareness of Elgar are still conditioning factors in a judgment of what a religious work should be. The French and Italians, especially the latter, find in it a perfect expression of religious fervor. Justice requires the Requiem be criti?cized with realization of the radical differences in religious feeling and expression between people of the Latin and Teutonic backgrounds.
Verdi, like Palestrina, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, and Elgar, used the idioms of his day and generation. No one who knows the personality could accuse Verdi of a lack of sincerity or genuine religious conviction. It was Hanslick who an?swered certain German criticism of the Verdi Requiem as being too passionate, too sensuous, too violent for religious feeling, by declaring that Verdi's music simply was based on the emotional characteristics of his countrymen. "Certainly the Italian has a right," wrote Hanslick, "to ask if he may not address his God in the Italian language."
The following evaluation of the Requiem is taken from an article written by Lawrence Gilman for the New York Herald-Tribune:
Fifty-seven'years ago the Manzoni Requiem with its melodic luxuriance, its dramatic in?tensity, its vehement utterances of terror, grief, supplication, was a bitter pill for many academic musicians to swallow. They found it lacking in dignity, in austerity; music fit "for the stage and not for the sanctuary."
But why should not a musical setting of the Requiem Mass be dramatic, lurid--even theatrical, if you will Are not the words themselves dramatic, lurid, theatrical enough
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Are the basic conceptions that underlie the text: the thoughts, visions, prayers of the believer--are these reserved and sober and austere The thought of the Judgment Day when the graves shall give up their dead, when the heavens shall be rolled together like a scroll and the world become ashes; the thought of the trumpets of the Resurrection; the thought of the horror of the everlasting darkness, of the fiery lake, of the agonies of damnation; the thought of universal lamentation, supplication, dread. . . . What music could be too dramatic, lurid, vehement, theatrical, to come within speaking distance of such appalling conceptions
And what of death and lamentation and dread and anguished supplication as they persist in the experience of men--are these things undramatic, calling for reticent dignity of speech
Verdi, the Latin, the Southerner, with his bare nerves and quick responsiveness, has natur?ally reacted to the implications of his subject with the sensibility, the uninhibited emotions, of his race and his type. And thus his setting of the Requiem has validity and distinction. Who would have wished from him an imitation of Northern reticence and gravity
The music has extraordinary and multiple virtues--a mysticism essentially Latin; com?passionate tenderness; purity of feeling; and, above all, an overwhelming dramatic power. . . . Who can forget the hushed and overwhelming close which sets the crown of beauty and affectingness upon the work: that wonderful decresendo, with its prayer for security and holy rest and peace at last--as if the music, breathless with awe, remembered that ancient promise of living fountains of waters, and the end of tears, and the city that needed not the sun.
The importance of Verdi's Requiem cannot be minimized; it ranks among the great scores extant of its kind.
Shortly after Rossini's death (November 13, 1868), Verdi suggested that Italian composers should unite in writing a worthy requiem as a tribute to the memory of the "Swan of Pesaro." It was to be performed only at the cathedral of Bologne every hundredth year, on the centenary of Rossini's death, a curious proposition to submit to Italian composers who lived for the applause of their countrymen. The only bond of unity was a fixed succession of tonalities deter?mined in advance, possibly by Verdi who took the final number "Libera me."
The attempt was an absolute failure. The power and beauty of Verdi's con?tribution, however, so impressed his friends that, at the death of the great writer Alessandro Manzoni, he composed an entire requiem in his memory. The in?ception and fulfillment of his idea can be traced in the following excerpts taken from his letters:
1873. To Clarina Maffei:
I am deeply moved by what you say of Manzoni--the description you gave me moved me to tears. Yes, to tears--for hardened as I am to the ugliness of this world, I have a little heart left, and I still weep. Don't tell anyone . . . but I sometimes weep. . . .
1873. To GruLio Riccordi--May 23:
I am profoundly grieved at the death of our Great One. But I shall not come to Milan tomorrow. I could not bear to attend his funeral. However, I shall come soon, to visit the grave, alone, unseen and perhaps (after more reflection, and after I have taken stock of my strength) to propose a way to honor his memory.
1873. To Clarina Maffei--May 29: I was not at the funeral, but there were probably few people more saddened this morning,
Manzoni's novel Promcssi sposi ("The Promised Bride") made him Italy's outstanding literal}figure and secured for him an international reputation.
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more deeply moved than I, though I was far away. Now it is all over. And with him ends the purest, holiest, highest of our glories.
1873. To the Mayor of Milan--June 9:
I deserve absolutely no thanks (neither from you nor from the city authorities) for my offer to write a Requiem Mass for the anniversary of our Manzoni. It was simply an impulse, or better, a heart-felt need that impelled me to honor, to the best of my powers, a man whom I value so much as a writer and honored as a man and as a model of virtue and patriotism. When the work on the music is far enough along, I shall not fail to inform you what elements are necessary to make the performance worthy of our fatherland and of a man whose loss we all lament.
An analysis of the seven movements of the Requiem follows, with the trans?lation of the text version used by Verdi:
I. REQUIEM ET KYRIE
The Introduction (A minor) to Requiem et Kyrie ("Grant them rest"), a quiet and mournful theme, is developed entirely by the strings. The chorus is purely an accompaniment to the melody played by the violins, until at the words Te decet hymnus (There shall be singing), it is supreme. After this division (F major, sung a cappetta), the introductory theme reappears. At its conclusion the solo parts come into prominence (A major), and the rest of the number is a finely conceived and elaborately executed eight-voiced setting of the words, Kyrie eleison.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis;
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet.
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie ele-ison.
Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them.
A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Sion; and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusa?lem:
O Lord, hear my prayer; all flesh shall come to Thee; Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us.
n. DIES IRAE
Dies irae ("Day of Anger") is divided into nine parts, for solo, chorus, and orchestra. The first of these divisions, a very dramatic setting of the text, is in the key of G minor and introduces vocal and orchestral effects which are startling in their intensity. The second division, Tuba mirum ("Hark! the trumpet") (A-flat minor) is preceded by a dramatic treatment of the orchestra, in which the trumpet calls in the orchestra are answered in the distance--until a magnificent climax is reached by the fortissimo chords for full brass, leading into a fine unison passage for male voice, accompanied by the full orchestra. In quick suc?cession follows No. 3, solos for bass and mezzo soprano. The words Mors stupebit ("Death with wonder is enchained") and Liber scriptus proferetur ("Now the record shall be cited") involve a change of treatment. An abridged version of the
Verdi--The Man in His Letters, ed. Franz Werfel and Paul Stefan, trans. Edward Downes (New York: L. B. Fischer Publishing Co., 1941).
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first division follows, to be succeeded in turn by a beautiful trio for tenor, mezzo, and bass. The next division, Rex tremendae majestatis ("King of Glory"), is written for solo and chorus. The solo parts to the text, Salve me, jons pietatis ("Save me with mercy flowing"), introduce a melody entirely distinct from that of the chorus, ingenious contrasts of the two leading up to the final blending of both in Salve me, both intensely interesting and effective.
The sixth number, a duet for soprano and mezzo, is thoroughly Italian in spirit, is beautifully written for the voices, and carries out most perfectly the spirit of the word, Recordare ("Ah! remember"). The tenor and bass solos which now follow, Ingemisco ("Sadly groaning") and Conjutatis in the opinion of many critics, contain the finest music in the whole work. This part is very arrest?ing, and presents to the musician technical points of importance. Dies irae, as a whole, ends with Lacrymosa ("Ah! what weeping") a tender setting of these words. A wonderful crescendo on the word Amen is to be noted.
Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla. Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando Judex est venturus. Cuncta stride discussurus! Tuba mirum spargens sonum, Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum. Mors stupebit et natura, Cum resurget creatura, Judicanti responsura. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continctur, Unde mundus judicetur. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet, apparebit, Nil inultum remancbit. Quid sum, miser; tune dicturus, Quern patronum rogaturus, Cum vix Justus sit securus Rex tremendae majestatis! Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salve me, fons pietatis! Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viac; Ne me perdas ilia die. Quarens me, sedisti lassus; Redemisti crucem passus; Tantus labor non sit cassus. Juste Judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante Diem rationis. Ingemisco tanquam reus, Culpa rubet vultus meus: Supplicant! parce Deus.
Dreaded day, that day of ire, when the world shall melt in fire, told by Sibyl and David's lyre. Fright men's hearts shall rudely shift, as the Judge through gleaming rift comes each soul to closely sift.
Then the trumpet's shrill refrain, piercing tombs by hill and plain, Souls to judg?ment shall arraign.
Death and nature stand aghast, as the bodies rising fast, hie to hear the sentence passed.
Then before Him shall be placed that whereupon the verdict's based, book where?in each deed is traced. When the Judge His seat shall gain, all that's hidden shall be plain, nothing shall unjudged remain.
Dreaded day, that day of ire, when the world shall melt in fire, told by Sibyl and David's lyre.
Wretched man, what can I plead, whom to ask to intercede, when the just much mercy need
Thou, O awe-inspiring Lord, saving e'en when unimplorcd, save me, mercy's fount adored.
Ah! Sweet Jesus, mindful be, that Thou cam'st on earth for me, cast me not this day from Thee.
Seeking me Thy strength was spent, ran?soming Thy limbs were rent, is this toil to no intent
Thou, awarding pains, condign, Mercy's ear to be incline, ere the reckoning Thou assign.
I, felon-like, my lot bewail, suffused cheeks my shame unveil: God! O let my prayers prevail.
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Qui Mariam absolvisti, Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti. Preces meae non sunt dignae, Sed tu bonus fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne. Inter oves locum praesta, Et ab hoedis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra. Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus abdictis, Voca me cum benedictis. Oro supples et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis, Gere curam mei finis. Lacrymosa dies ilia! Qua resurget ex favilla Judicantus homo reus. Huic ergo parce Deus. Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem. Amen.
Mary's soul Thou madest white, didst to heaven the thief invite; hope in me these now excite.
Prayers o' mine in vain ascend: Thou art good and wilt forefend in quenchless fire my life to end.
When the cursed by shame opprest enter flames at Thy behest, call me then to join the blest.
Place amid Thy sheep accord, keep me from the tainted horde, set me in Thy sight, O Lord.
Prostrate, suppliant, now no more, unre-penting, as of yore, save me, dying, I im?plore.
Dreaded day, that day of ire, when the world shall melt in fire, told by Sibyl and David's lyre.
Mournful day! that day of sighs, when from dust shall man arise, stained with guilt his doom to know.
Mercy, Lord, on him bestow. Jesus kind! Thy souls release, lead them thence to realms of peace. Amen.
in. DOMINE JESU CHRISTE
As a contrast in form and style to the varied and extended Dies irae, the com?poser treats the next division of the mass, Domine Jesu Christe, in the manner of a quartet, each of the four solo voices contributing by its unique timbre to the simple beauty of the melodic and harmonic conception.
Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni et de prof undo lacu; libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, necadant in obscurum. Sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in lucem sanctam. Quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus.
Hostias et preces, Domine, laudis offeri-mus, tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus; fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam; Quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus.
Libera animas omnium fidelium defunc?torum de poenis inferni, fac eas de morte transire ad vitam.
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O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, de?liver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the deep pit;
Deliver them from the lion's mouth, that hell engulf them not, nor they fall into darkness;
But that Michael, the holy standard-bearer, bring them into the holy light.
Which Thou once didst promise to Abra?ham and his seed.
We offer Thee, O Lord, sacrifices and prayers of praise; do Thou accept them for those souls whom we this day com?memorate; grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to the life which Thou once didst promise to Abraham and his seed.
Deliver, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from every bond of sin. And by the help of Thy grace let them be found worthy to escape the sentence of vengeance. And to enjoy the full beatitude of the light eternal.
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TV. SANCTUS ET BENEDICTUS
Sanctus is an exalted inspiration of genius. With its glorious double fugue, its triumphal antiphonal effects at the close leading into a soul-uplifting climax, it would, of itself, make the reputation of a lesser composer.
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Domine Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloriae tuae. Osanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Osanna in excelsis.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. The heavens and the earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is He Who cometh in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
V. AGNUS DEI
If Sanctus is sublime in its grandeur, no less so in its pathos is Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God") written for solo voices (soprano and mezzo) and chorus. A simple melody with three different settings is the basis of this important number, and in originality and effectiveness it is not at all inferior to the inspired Sanctus which precedes it.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempi?ternam. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: give unto them rest. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: give unto them eternal rest. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: give unto them eternal rest.
VI. LUX AETERNA
Lux aeterna ("Light eternal") calls for no extended notice. It is written for three solo voices in the style which we find in Verdi's later works.
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum Sanctis tuis in aeternam, quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
May light eternal shine upon them O Lord, with Thy saints forever, for Thou art kind.
Grant them everlasting rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them, with Thy saints.
VII. LIBERA ME DOMINE
The closing number, Libera me, begins with a recitative (soprano), Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna ("Lord, deliver my soul from eternal death"), in?terrupted by the chorus, which chants these words, and, introducing a fugue of stupendous difficulty, gives us a repetition of the beautiful introduction to the whole work. There follows a repetition of the recitative, while the chorus holds a sustained chord pianissimo. In the repetition of the introduction to the chorus just alluded to, the solo voice (soprano) takes the melody originally played by the violins, with a cappella chorus accompaniment. The ending of the work is
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very dramatic. Everything seems hushed while the awful significance of the words is impressed upon the mind with irresistible force.
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die ilia tremenda, quando cocli movendi sunt et terra. Dum veneris judicare saecu-lum per ignem.
Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira, quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.
Dies irae, dies ilia, calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde. Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die ilia tremenda; quando coeli movendi sunt et terra, dum veneris judicare saecu?lum per ignem.
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna in die ilia tremenda. Libera me.
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Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death on that dreadful day when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. I am seized with fear and trembling when I re?flect upon the judgment and the wrath to come. When the heavens and the earth shall be moved. That day, a day of wrath, of wasting and of misery, a dreadful and exceeding bitter day. When Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death, on that dreadful day.
Deliver me, when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
Deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death, on that dreadful day.
Deliver me!
SIXTH CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 8
Toccata and Fugue in D minor.........Bach
Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, March 21, 168S; died in Leipzig, July 28, 1750.
In Johann Sebastian Bach, the musical development of two centuries reached its climax. From a family of distinguished musicians famous in Germany for one hundred fifty years, he gathered the full heritage of his predecessors and used, with incomparable effect, all the musical learning of his day.
Born in the heart of medieval Germany, in the remote town of Eisenach under the tree-clad summits of the Thuringian Wald, Bach lived in an atmosphere charged with poetry, romance, and music. The stately Wartburg, where the German Bible came into being, and which once sheltered Luther, towered pre?cipitously over the village. Here, in 1207, the famous Tourney of Song was held, and German minstrelsy flowered.
In these surroundings Bach spent his youth, and his musical foundation was formed under the careful guidance of his father. Subsequent events in his life were less propitious. Orphaned at ten, he pursued his studies alone, 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 on foot to neighboring towns where he heard the visiting organists who brought him occa?sional touches with the outside world, securing menial positions as organist in Arnstadt and Miihlhausen filled the monotonous years of this great master's youth.
Although he gained some fame as the foremost organist of his day, he was ignored and neglected as a composer. 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 manuscripts having been lost or mislaid.
The neglect, discovery, and final triumph of Bach's music are without parallel in history. His triumphant progress from utter obscurity to a place of unrivaled and unprecedented brilliance is a unique phenomenon. Today his position is extraordinary. Never was there a period when there were more diverse ideals, new methods, confusion of aims and styles, yet never has Bach been so uni?versally acknowledged 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, and restrained by the narrow ideals and numbing pedantry of his superiors, he went on creating a world of beauty, without the slightest thought of posterity. The quiet old cantor, patiently teaching his pupils Latin and music, supervising all the choral and occasional music in the two principal churches of Leipzig, gradu-
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ally losing his sight, never for a moment dreamed of immortality. He continued, year after year, to fulfill his laborious duties, and in doing so created the great works that have brought him eternal fame.
Although his ambitions never passed beyond his city, church, and family, 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.
Mr. Ormandy's transcription, done with great respect and feeling for the old master, reveals this hidden beauty. What a magnificent world Sebastian evolved from the dry, stiff, pedantic forms of his time! As Wagner put it, "No words can give a conception of its richness, its sublimity, its all-comprehensiveness."
Bach lived in Weimar from 1708 to 1717 where he held the position of court organist. There he wrote his finest organ works, using the current French and Italian styles with great independence. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor dates from the early part of that residence.
The Toccata (from the Italian word toccare, to touch), a conventional and familiar form in Bach's day, was a kind of prelude which offered an opportunity to display the "touch" or execution of the performer. As a form it lacked defini?tion, but like a fantasia, it was improvisatory in its style and often very showy in character.
There is something Gothic about Bach's great Toccata and Fugue in D minor. It is a tonal cathedral towering from tremendous masses into tenuous spires; it rises from the reality of earth to the ephemeral clouds. While it is beyond the power of music to represent the world of reality, it can present the fundamental qualities which lie behind reality; and Bach's music conveys, through the subtle medium of ordered sound, the abstract qualities which the Gothic cathedral possesses--solidity, endurance, strength--and above all, aspiration.
"Mi tradi" from Don Giovanni........Mozart
In the Wiener Zeitung (No. 91) 1787, 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 enor?mous audience was a sufficient guarantee of the 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,
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SIXTH CONCERT
majesty and grandeur be expected to please the lovers of ordinary opera The grand and noble qualities of the music in Don Giovanm 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, writes to Schiller, "Your hopes for opera are richly fulfilled in Don Giovanni but the work stands abso?lutely alone and Mozart's death prevents any prospect of its example being followed."
"Mi tradi," with its introductory recitative, "In quali eccessi, o Numi," is sung by Donna Elvira near the end of Act II. Forsaken by the Don, she sings of her concern for his fate and of her conflicting emotions of love and a desire for vengeance.
Recitative: In what an abyss of error, with what dangers have guilt and folly brought you! The wrath of heaven will surely overwhelm you--it is swift to destroy. The lightning flash of retribution impends. Eternal ruin at last will be your doom. Wretched Elvira, what a tempest within you divides your heart.
Aria: Cruel heart, you have betrayed me. Unending grief he has cast upon me. Yet pity for him remains. I'll not upbraid him, yet I cannot forget the past. When I remember the wrongs done to me, I think of vengeance. But the love he first bore me binds my heart to him to the last.
"Dove sono" from Le Nozze di Figaro......Mozart
Over 150 years ago, Mozart composed a thoroughly exquisite and charming opera The Marriage of Figaro. 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.
The Count Almaviva has transferred his affection from his wife to her maid, Susanna. Longing for peace of mind and the return of domestic tranquility, the Countess Almaviva, although she suffers from her husband's infidelities, does little more than hope for their termination. In her lovely aria, "Dove sono," the Countess reflects sorrowfully and regretfully upon her unhappy situation. The following is a condensation by William Cole.
Recitative: My lord is always so impulsive and jealous. Oh, heavens, what humiliation I suffer! Oh. cruel husband, to reduce me to this! Did ever a woman have to bear such a life of neglect and desertion, such jealous fun7, such insults Once he loved me, now he deserts me, and even betrays me. Ah! must I now beg for my maid's assistance
Aria: I remember days long departed, days when love knew no end. I remember fond and fervent vows; all were broken long ago. Oh, why, if I was fated to fall from the heights of happiness, must I still recall those joyful moments in my hour of pain. Must I languish all in vain or will I be rewarded Some day, surely, my devotion might regain his heart.
Symphony No. 2..........Ross Lee Finney
Ross Lee Finney was born in Wells, Minnesota, December 23, 1906.
Since 1948, Mr. Finney has been chairman of the composition department at The University of Michigan to which he has brought distinction both as a com-
53
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
poser and teacher. He studied in this country with S. B. Hill, Donald Ferguson, and Roger Sessions, and in Europe with Nadia Boulanger and Alban Berg. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships (1937, 1947) and a Pulitzer Prize (1937). In 1955 he was granted the Boston Symphony award.
Among his most important compositions are: orchestral works--Symphonies No. 1 (1942) and No. 2, commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation in 1959, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1937-7), Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1948); piano works--four piano sonatas and incidental pieces, chamber music with piano--two sonatas for violin and piano, two sonatas for cello and piano, a piano quartet; a piano quintet; chamber music without piano --seven string quartets, a Fantasy in two movements for violin alone, commis?sioned by Yehudi Menuhin and first performed at the International Exposition in Brussels (1958), a Fantasy for cello alone; a string quintet, commissioned by the Coolidge Foundation); and several song cycles--five songs, poems by Archi?bald MacLeish, Poor Richard, seven songs to words by Benjamin Franklin, Three Love Songs to poems by John Donne, Chamber Music, thirty-six songs to poems by James Joyce).
While not a prolific composer, Mr. Finney brings to what he writes strong artistic conviction and superb craftsmanship. He has successfully amalgamated a variety of contemporary musical influences into an extremely effective and highly individual style. In his last string quartets and in the symphony on tonight's program in particular, he has achieved a remarkable synthesis of con?scious technical device and spontaneous expression, combining the basic serial principle of Schonberg's twelve-tone system with rhythmic elasticity and struc?tural inventiveness. His music reveals a strict economy of means that produces an inner energy and directness that communicates itself without subterfuge; it is honest, uncluttered, and vigorous music that leaves the impression of artistic purposefulness and integrity.
Speaking of the symphony, Mr. Finney writes, "This work has a simple sur?face organization and a more complex inner organization. The surface is one of contrasting moods, of traditional movements and of sections within movements, of sonorities and textures. Less even rhythms give way in the end to more even, and, likewise emotional tension gives way to an affirmative and optimistic state?ment. These changes arise from the personal motivation of the music and carry, perhaps, a symbolic meaning.
"Beneath the surface is a complex fabric that seeks integration by the use of a chromatic order. This twelve-tone structure, however, is used as a companion to a tonal structure and the work might be called 'Symphony in A.' Every effort has been made to use this material to express a lyric and even joyous mood rather than an introspective and depressed one."
Allegro tempestoso: This movement starts with a sweeping downward gesture and the main theme is stated on three levels: A, A-flat, and G-flat. A second idea, more rhythmic than the first, is stated on F. This theme leads to a third section marked Andante teneramente which is on C and E. The fast tempo returns in a capricious mood (where the development would normally be) and this section
54
SIXTH CONCERT
utilizes E-flat, G, and D. The second idea returns on C-sharp and B. The third theme (originally tender) returns in a rhythmic character and completes the rotation leading back to the first theme. The downward gesture of this theme gradually loses its energy and the movement ends softly on the tonal level of F-sharp.
Adagio con moto: The slow movement is based on the scale-wise variant of the row and uses the numerical proportions melodically. It moves to a middle section constructed upon an F organ point. The first section returns and the movement ends (after a short C organ point) on the tonality of A.
Allegro scherzando: The scherzo is based on the same scale-wise variant of the row as the slow movement, and its uneven rhythmic contour is the result of the same numerical proportions. It, too, is a simple three-part structure, though the middle part is considerably extended. It ends softly on G in the low register of the orchestra.
Allegro giocando: The last movement bursts in abruptly after the scherzo and changes the mood to a more affirmative character. The theme is a new statement of the original row of the first movement, this time played by the brass instru?ments and imbued with an irrepressible boisterousness. The movement is in two sections divided by a very short slow interruption. At the very end the scale-wise variant of the row appears first in the violins and then, in inversion, in the bass instruments dominated by the tuba. This crescendo leads to the ending on A.
Monologue from Capriccio.........R. Strauss
When, in early 1934, the libretto of an old Italian opera parody, Prima la musica e pot le parole (First the music and then the words), by Abbate Giovanni Battista Casti (1724-1803), was mentioned to Strauss he was busy composing the scores Daphne, Friedenstag, and Die Liebe der Dana'e. Late in 1939, while finishing Dana'e, Strauss reverted to Casti's comedy. He wrote his old friend Clemens Krauss, director of the Munich State Opera, he would like to do some?thing unusual with the Casti libretto, perhaps a treatise on dramaturgy. The treatise would deal with the problem of words and music, a problem as old as the sung word itself. Should music, so strong in its emotional effect, so vague in its concrete meaning, overpower words Was it an equal partnership, or was one the tyrant of the other This would be the subject of the treatise, and the task would be to adapt Casti's superficial parody to the controversial topic.
Scenario and text grew out of discussions and correspondence. In 1941, Capriccio was finished, a year later first performed in Munich under the direc?tion of Krauss.
A sonnet written by a poet (Olivier), and set to music by a composer (Flamand) for a Countess (Madeleine), with whom both are in love, is the center piece for the opera. Flamand insists that music reaches regions where words cannot penetrate--but for Olivier words express thoughts more clearly. The Countess' brother suggests the two write an opera on the events of the quarrel. The suggestion accepted, poet and composer set to work. The ending
55
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
of the opera will be decided by the Countess. More than merely an academic question, it poses her heart's dilemma as well.
In the final monologue, the Countess addresses her image in the mirror: "I must determine it--I must choose. ... Is it the words that move my heart, or is it the music that speaks more strongly Fruitless effort to separate the two. Words and music are fused into one--bound in a new synthesis. . . . One art redeemed by the other! What does your heart say, Madeleine I want your answer! You don't reply" The Countess steps nearer to the mirror: "Can you help me to find an ending" The Countess smiles at her image--there is no end?ing. With a curtsy to the mirror she turns away. A soft horn call ends Capriccio, Strauss's last work for the stage.
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier........R. Strauss
"If it's Richard, we'll take Wagner; if it's Strauss, we'll take Johann," wrote a Berlin critic after hearing the first performance of Der Rosenkavalier in 1911. But this is not the critical opinion today.
No other of Strauss's scores has endeared him to so large a public, for no other abounds in such geniality, tenderness, and charm. Nor are there many of his pages that reveal such a wealth of mellifluous and engaging melody or such opulent, and at the same time, transparent orchestration.
To a public shocked and antagonized by the consuming lust and appalling frankness of Salome (1902) or by the repellent decadence and crushing disson?ance of Electra (1903), the warm humanity and gentility of this comedy of man?ners with its engaging intrigue and its appealing blend of wit and pathos, buffoonery and nostalgic charm came as a great relief that restored to the late Victorians their faith in decency and good taste.
Der Rosenkavalier is a comedy of eighteenth-century Vienna, written by von Hofmannsthal. It tells the story of a charming woman's reconciliation to her advancing years, and her noble renunciation of a love that has turned from her to a younger woman. The story, relieved by scenes of humor that verge on the bawdy, is so permeated with the spirit of human understanding, humility, and wisdom that it never fails to leave the spectator with a renewed faith in the goodness of living.
The present Suite was compiled for Fiirstner, Strauss's publisher. It begins with the orchestral introduction to the opera, and includes the outstanding en?semble music as well as that associated with the entrance of the Rosebearer. It ends with the waltzes that occur throughout the opera, particularly at the end of Act II, which are mostly associated with the capers of the fat and lecherous, but impoverished, Baron von Lerchenau as he dances around the room delighted with the outcome of his immediate amorous plans.
56
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
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
Ross Spence (Secretary) 1893-1896 Thomas C. Colburn (Secretary) 1897-1902 Charles K. Perrine (Secretary) 1903-1904
Charles A. Sink (Executive Secretary, 1904-1927); President, 1927-Gail W. Rector (Assistant to the President, 1945-1954); Executive Director, 1957-
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY, which this year observes its eighty-first season, was organized during the winter of 1879-80, and was incor?porated in 1881. Its purpose was to maintain a choral society and an orchestra, to provide public concerts, and to organize and maintain a school of music which would offer instruction comparable to that of the University in its schools and colleges. Ars longa vita brevis was adopted as its motto.
The University Choral Union was an outgrowth of a "Messiah Club," made up of singers from several local churches. For a decade and a half, assisted by distinguished professional artists and organizations, it participated in numerous Choral Union concerts. In 1894, as a climax to its offerings, the "First Annual May Festival" was inaugurated. Gradually the number of concerts in the Choral Union Series was increased to ten; and the May Festival, from three to six con?certs. In 1946, with the development of musical interest, a supplementary series of concerts was added--the Extra Concert Series. Handel's Messiah, which had been performed at intervals through the years, became an annual production; and since 1946 has been heard in two performances each season. In 1941 and annual Chamber Music Festival of three concerts was inaugurated. Thus, at the time of its eighty-first year, the Musical Society has presented throughout the season, twenty-nine major concerts presented by distinguished artists and organ?izations, both American and foreign.
The "Ann Arbor School of Music" was organized in 1879, and in 1892 was reorganised as the "Univer?sity School of Music." In 1929 the University provided partial support, and students and faculty were given University status. In 1940 the University Musical Society relinquished full control and responsibility for the School to The University of Michigan.
57
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
Percy Grainger (Australia), 1928 Jose Iturbi (Philadelphia), 1937 Georges Enesco (Paris), 1939 Harl McDonald (Philadelphia),
1939, 1940, 1944 Virgil Thomson (New York), 1959
ORGANIZATIONS
The Boston Festival Orchestra, Emil Mollenhauer, Conductor, 1894-1904.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, Conductor, 1905-1935; Eric De Lamarter, Associate Conductor, 1918-1935.
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, Conductor, Saul Caston and Charles O'Connell, Associate Conductors, 1936; Eugene Ormandy, Con?ductor, 1937, 1938; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Saul Caston, Associate Conductor, 1939-1945; Eugene Ormandy, Conductor, Alexander Hilsberg, 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; Har-din Van Deursen, Conductor, 1943-1947; Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, 1947-; Lester McCoy, Associate 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.
58
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION REPERTOIRE
Bach: Mass in B minor (excerpts)--1923, 1924, 192S (complete), 19S3
Magnificat in D major--1930, 19S0 Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123--1927, 1947, 19SS
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125--1934, 1942, 194S Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust--1895, 1909, 1920, 19S2 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 Bruch: Arminius-1897, 1905
Fair Ellen, Op. 24--1904, 1910
Odysseus--1910
Bruckner: Te Deum laudamus--1945 Carey: "America"--1915
Chabrier: Fete Polonaise from Le Rot malgri lui--1959 Chadwick: The Lily Nymph--1900 Chavez, Carlos: Corrido de "El Sol"--1954, 1960 Delius: Sea Drift--1924 DvorAk: Stabat Mater, Op. 58--1906 Elgar: Caractacus--1903, 1914, 1936
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38--1904, 1912, 1917 Fogg: The Seasons--1937 France: The Beatitudes--1918 Gabrhxi: In Ecclesiis benedicto domino--1958 Giannlni: Canticle of the Martyrs--1958 Gluck: Orpheus--1902
Goldmark: The Queen of Sheba (March)--1923 Gomer Llywelyn: Gloria in Excelsis--1949 Gounod: Faust--1902, 1908, 1919
Gallia--1899
Grainger, Percy: Marching Song of Democracy--1928 Hadley: "Music," An Ode, Op. 75--1919 Handel: Judas Maccabeus--1911
Messiah--1907, 1914
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 Holst: A Choral Fantasia--1932t
A Dirge for Two Veterans--1923
The Hymn of Jesus--1923t
First Choral Symphony (excerpts)--1927t Honegger, Arthur: King David--1930, 1935, 1942 KodAly: Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13--1939 Lambert, Constant: Summer's Last Will and Testament--1951t Lockwood, Normand: Prairie--1953 McDonald, Harl: Symphony No. 3 ("Lamentations of Fu Hsuan")--1939
World premiere t American premiere United States premiere
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION REPERTOIRE
Mendelssohn: Elijah--1901, 1921, 1926, 1944, 19S4
St. Paul--190S
Mennin, Peter: Symphony No. 4, "The Cycle"--19S0 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 Ponchielli: La Gioconda--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 Stock: A Psalmodic Rhapsody--1922, 1943 Stravinsky: Symphonie de psaumes--1932, 1960 Sullivan: The Golden Legend--1901 Tchaikovsky: Episodes from Eugen Onegin--1911, 1941 Thompson, Randall: Alleluia--1941
Vardell, Charles: Cantata, "The Inimitable Lovers"--1940 Vaugran'Williams, Ralph: Five Tudor Portraits--1957
"Flos Campi"--1959 Verdi: Aida--1903, 1906, 1917, 1921, 1924 (excerpts), 1928, 1937, 1957
La Forza del Destino (Finale, Act II)--1924
Otello--1939
Requiem Mass--1894, 1898, 1913, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1943, 1951, 1960
Stabat Mater--1899
Te Deum--1947
Villa-Lobos, Heitor: Choros No. 10, "Rasga o coracao"--1949, 1960 Vtvaldi-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
Tannhauser--1902, 1922; March and Chorus--1896; "Venusberg" Music--1946 Walton, William: Belshazzar's Feast--1933, 1952 Wolf-Ferrari: The New Life, Op. 9--1910, 1915, 1922, 1929
t American premiire
60
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
Lester McCoy, Conductor Judith Warnke and James Frazier, Pianists
FIRST SOPRANOS
Albright, Joyce Eileen Alt, Lois Wilma Arment, Julia Marie Atkinson, Jeanne Olivia Bennett, Virginia C. Bilotti, Antoinette M. Bird, Ellen Anne Bradstreet, Lola Mae Burr, Virginia A. Cordero, Sonia Dierking, Sharon Lee Evatt, Margaret Kathryn French, Nancy Alice Green, Gail Lynne Hanson, Gladys M. Huber, Sally Anne Hutch, Lois Ann Jensen, Karen Fay Jerome, Ruth O. Jones, Russelle L. Keck, Nancy Joan Lock, Inez Jeanette Lowe, Emily B. Luecke, Doris Loretta Louch, June D. Malan, Fannie Bell Marsh, Jean A. McDonald, Ruth M. Pearson, Agnes Pratt, Alice Onnette Quayle, Joy Elaine Ragan, Sally Robinson, K. Lisa Sevilla, Josefina Z. Skinner, Elizabeth B. Smith, Judith Jean Spaulding, Patricia Ann Stevens, Ethel Crozer Titterton, Mary Edith Whitbeck, Miriam L. Winn, Elinor Joyce Wright, Jean Elizabeth
SECOND SOPRANOS
Altmiller, Jane C. Blashfield, Jean Floy
Carland, Grace Frances Carlberg, Jean Rae Curtis, Margaret L. Dumler, Carole Helen Dykhouse, Delphine Ann Fenwick, Ruth G. Friedrick, Lynne Green, Etta Miniva Heemstra, Lois Sue Jones, Marion A. Jordan, Phyllis Anne Katchmark, Helen Eleanor Keller, Suellen Kellogg, Merlyn L. Klopfer, Ulrike Knollmueller, Elizabeth C. Knowlton, Suzzanne Kay Kramer, Chris Marilyn Lira, Katherine Linstead, Anne Marjorie McAdoo, Mary J. Merrill, Marine Joan Miller, Nandeen Love Myers, Sandra Fay Nobilette. Dorothy Overll, Eleanor C. Peterson, Jo Helen Pott, Margaret F. Shedd, Betty J. Skaff, Carolyn Anne Sleet,Audrey M. Spoor, Lorelie Holly Thomms, Carole L. Trautwein, Janet L. " VUsides, Elena C. Waterhouse, Hattie R. Webb, Cheryl Marie Wolfe, Charlotte Ann Wylie, Winifred Jane
FIRST ALTO
Anderson, Selma Eve Andrews, Joyce M. Adams, Karen Sue Axenfleld, Ellen Kay Baker, Janet Kay Beam, Eleanor P.
Birch, Dorothy T.
Blanchard, Lauralyn W.
Bross, Joan Allison
Carpenter, Barbara E.
Darling, Persis Ann
Evans, Daisy L.
Ewing, Judith
Falcone, Mary L.
Fulk, Mary Barbara
Greene, Carol P.
Gross, Ruth Atherton
Hakken, Jane
Hangas, Nancy D.
Herrick, Sonnie Jo
Hodgman, Dorothy B.
Irwin, Nancy Kay
Jennings, Kathleen Elaine
Jones, Mary M.
Joslyn, Carol Sue
Kerr, Sondra Jean
Kilgour, Katherine J. Kirchman, Margaret Mary Lane, Rose Marie Lehiste, Ilse Marsh, Martha M. McCoy, Bernice McNaughton, Lucille F. Mehler, Hallie Jane Nelson, Sally Jo Olmstead, Kathr'n Dene Parshall, Persis Anne Reck, Sarah Dickson Robertson, Susan Weston Saphire, Marilyn Susan Sawyer, Sally Jo Sayre, B. Jean Schuurmans. Marilyn Joy Spurrier, Laura Jean Starsky, Hinda Stroh, Miriam Louise Swenson, Judith Ann Townsend, Mary E. Weggel, Wilma Emma Wentworth, Elizabeth B. Westerman, Carol F. Whitaker, Margaret Clare Wiedmann, Louise P. Zeeb, Helen R.
61
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
SECOND ALTOS
Abaecherli, Carol French Adams, Sharon Carole Arnold, Helen Marcella Bakker, Jo
Beardsley, Grace Comog Beauchamp, Diane Loretta Bishop, Mary Rachel Bogart, Gertrude J. Burge, Susan Cicchinelli, Helen G. Crossley, Winnifred M. Cummings, Ann Deane, Judy Carol Dykhouse, Thelma F. Enkemann, Gladys C. Famsworth, Martha S. Gault, Gertrude Winifred George, Betty Rose Goodchild, Ellen Frances Groff, Linda J. Haeger, Ellen D. Hecklinger, Ellen L. Hoyt, Mary P. Huey, Geraldine E. Jenkins, Bernice M. Johnston, Theolia C. Katona, Marianna V. Katz, Jeanette B. Keeler, Sue S. Knight, Mona Jeanette Levine, Judith Ann Liebscher, Erika Lovelace, Elsie W. Meyerson, Linda Evelyn Minton, Barbara Joyce Oppenheim, Myrna Jean Peterson, Carol Gwen Pfeffer, Jean Adele Phillips, Priscilla Faith Pickard, Marilyn Ann Ruby, Jean Kemp Rummel, Sally Lynne Schoon, Carol J. Schwartz, Sue Stringer, Ruth M. Sweeney, Ellen Thomas, Nancy Elsie Thompson, Allyn Jean Thompson, Carol June Toles, Alberta C. Williams, Nancy P.
FIRST TENORS
Baker, Hugh E. Beck, David Read Bennett, Gene Lake
62
Clark, Kenn Edward Cicchinelli, Alexander L. Cooley, David Bruce Crawford, Franklin A. Ebner, Jerome M. Edmiston, James Gaffney, James B. Greenberger, Allen J. Haering, Emil E. Hammer, Richard Edward Hobbs, Arthur M. Johnston, Glen Richard Lowry, Paul T. Matthews, Donald Edward McElfresh, John Horace McGlaughlin, Patrick S. Mustazza, Antonio Porter, Sam Tamura, Hirokuni Thompson, Frazier
SECOND TENORS
Beaman, William Scott Carpenter, Gerald R. Clements, Peter John Dejong, Garrett Edward Dennison. Terry K. Flintoft, Peter Carl Folsom, George B. Frazier, James GaskeU, Jerry T. Gerrard, Allen George Herbert, Frederick A. Humphrey, Richard McCullough, Alexander P. Noparstak, Invin H. Pearson, J. Raymond Petersen, Bernard Carl Raub, James Ray Reinke, David Lee Robbins, Delmar Hurley Spooner, Thomas E. E. Thomson, James William Tibbitts, John A. Toles, Harvey J. Jr. Warthman, Forrest Duvall
FIRST BASSES
Bates, Herman Dean Beam, Marion L. Beauchamp, Robert H. Berg, James William Blanchard, Dr. Bradford M. Bower, Bruce Chapman Brueger, John Cathey, Owen Chase, John P.
Clemens, Earl Colburn, Russell James Collins, Marcus H. Crane, Bradford Harman Damouth, David Earl Deyoung, James C. Dwyer, Donald Harris Farley, Alan Edward Farrer, J. Craig Garrels, Robert F. Hartwig, C. Dean Johnson, Harvey Clifford Kays, J. Warren Kissel, Klair Kochanowski, Alfred S. Lipkea, William Long, jerry Roger Mauch, Robert Kurt Millard, Wayne Arthur Pullen, Franklin D. Quayle, Robert G. Schteingart, Dr. David Shaw, Steven Trow, William Herbert
SECOND BASSES
Beardsley, Richard King Baker, Alan Drew Bird, Richard Nixon Blackwell, Walter H. Brown, James W. Campbell, Thomas A. Church, Thomas C. Cook, Stephen Arthur Craig, James Crosman, A. Hurford Dykhouse, David Jay Geisendorfer, Henry A. George, Thomas Lawler Halonen, Wayne Matthew Hedlund, Douglas Alan Headings, Verle Emery Huber, Franz E. Ingersoll, Royal E. McAddo, William P. Milne, W. Arthur Jr. Natanson, Leo Nauman, John D. Parlette, Alan Shingledecker, Richard A. Sorensen, Nels Pete Steinmetz, George Paul Totten, Charles F. Travis, Howard Paul Vandeveer, James F. Walker, Ben Wanstall, George Elmer
MUSICAL SOCIETY ORCHESTRA
Lester McCoy, Conductor Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor
FIRST VIOLINS
Green, Elizabeth Concertmasler Dunne, Kathleen Jones, Roland Joseph, Alice Merte, Herman Perejda, Cynthia Rupert, Jeanne Thompson, Donna
SECOND VIOLINS
Tirrell, Louise
Principal Elicker, Joan Jaress, Virginia Pannitch, Ellen Parsinnen, Suzanne Rainaldi, Mary Tate, Barbara Weise, Carolyn Zentmeyer, Carol
VIOLAS
Wilson, George
Principal Fenn, Tom Lillya, Ann Mueller, Blanche Pappalardi, Felix, Jr. Ungar, Edward
CELLOS
Grove, Jean Principal Allen, Ann Amos, Cornelia Dunne, Thomas Goldberg, Carl Kessler, Linda Merrill, Elizabeth
STRING BASSES
Wolff, Roberta
Principal Blubaugh, Sally McCullough, Diane Spring, Peter
FLUTES
Jones, Nathan Durbin, Jane Martin, Patricia Rearick, Martha
OBOES
Camp, Alice Eitel, Eleanor Minor, Janice Moyer, Mark Parker, Patricia
CLARINETS
Powell, Ross Lewis, N. Delight Shaw, Lawrence Over, Kenneth
BASSOONS
Mattison, Mary Quayle, Robert Scribner, William Smith, Daniel
HORNS
Brisbin, John Drew, Donald Dunn, George McDonald, Gerald Morse, John
TROMBONES
Grove, Gayle Parrish, Donald Waldo, Gary York, Richard
TRUMPETS
?Stollsteimer, Gary
?Tison, Donald
?Timmerman, Wayne
Wolter, David Carlson, Dale Mogelnicki, Stanley McKimmy, Jack Pearson, W. Byron
TUBA
Laws, Stanley
SAXOPHONE Sinta, Donald
PERCUSSION
Jones, Harold Clay, Omar Olmstead, Gary
HARP
Schnell, Marjory
PIANO Frazier, James
MANAGER AND LIBRARIAN
York, Richard
Participating with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Verdi's Requiem Mass at the Sunday afternoon concert.
65
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director and Conductor William Smith, Assistant Conductor
Roger G. Hall, Manager Joseph H. Santarlasci, Assistant Manager
VIOLINS Brusilow, Anshel
Concertmaster Madison, David
Associate Concertmaster Shulik, Morris Reynolds, Veda Ruden, Sol Lusak, Owen Costanzo, Frank Saam, Frank E. Grunschlag, David Simkins. Jasha Stahl, Jacob Putlitz, Lois Goldstein, Ernest L. Weinberg, Herman Tung, Ling Simkin, Meyer Gesensway, Louis Schmidt, Henry W.
Rosen, Irvin Schwartz, Isadore Wigler, Jerome Di Camillo, Armand Eisenberg, Irwin I. Arben, David Sharlip, Benjamin Black, Norman Ludwig, Irving Dreyfus, George Miller, Charles S. Roth, Manuel Lanza, Joseph Brodo. Joseph Gorodetzky, Aaron Kaufman, Schiraa
VIOLAS
Cooley, Carlton Mogill, Leonard Braverman, Gabriel Ferguson, Paul Frantz, Leonard Primavera, Joseph P., Jr. Kaplow, Maurice Bogdanoff, Leonard Granat, Wolfgang Kahn, Gordon Epstein, Leonard Greenberg, William S.
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VIOLONCELLOS Munroe, Lome Hilger, Elsa Gorodetzer, Harry de Pasquale, Francis Druian, Joseph Belenko, Samuel Brennand, Charles Saputelli, William Tung, Yuan Farago, Marcel Caserta, Santo Phillips, Bert
BASSES Scott, Roger M. Torello, Carl Arian, Edward Maresh, Ferdinand Eney, F. Gilbert Lazzaro, Vincent Strassenberger, Mai Batchelder, Wilfred Gorodetzer, Samuel
FLUTES Kincaid, W. M. Cole, Robert F. Terry, Kenton F. Krell, John C. Piccolo
OBOES
de Lancie, John Morris, Charles M. Rosenblatt. Louis English Horn
CLARINETS Gigliotti, Anthony M. Montanaro, Donald Serpentini, Jules J. Lester, Leon Bass Clarinet
SAXOPHONE Montanaro, Donald
BASSOONS Garfield, Bernard H. Shamlian, John Angelucci, A. L. Del Negro, F. Contra Bassoon
HORNS
Jones, Mason Hale, Leonard Fearn, Ward O. Mayer, Clarence Lannutti, Charles Pierson, Herbert
TRUMPETS Johnson, Gilbert Krauss, Samuel Rosenfeld, Seymour Rehrig, Harold W. Hering, Sigmund
TROMBONES Smith, Henry C. Ill Brown, Keith Cole, Howard Harper, Robert S. Bass Trombone
TUBA
Torchinsky, Abe Batchelder, Wilfred
TIMPANI Hinger, Fred D. Bookspan, Michael
BATTERY Owen, Charles E. Bookspan, Michael Abel, Alan Roth, Manuel
CELESTA, PIANO, AND ORGAN
Smith. William
Putlitz, Lois HARPS
Costello, Marilyn
DeCray, Marcella LIBRARIAN
Taynton, Jesse C. PERSONNEL MANAGER
Schmidt, Henry W. STAGE PERSONNEL
Barnes, Edward Manager
Hauptle, Theodore E.
Sweeney, James PHOTO PUBLICITY
Siegel, Adrian
1959 UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY-1960
Resume of Concerts and Music Performed
Concerts.--Five series, and three inidivdual concerts, totaling twenty-nine 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.
Eighty-First Annual Choral Union Series
Glenn Gould, Pianist (2)...................................................October 12
Boston Symphony Orchestra (40); Charles Munch, conductor (16)............October 24
Irmpard Seefried, Soprano; Paul Ulanowsky, accompanist (3).................October 29
Richard Tucker, Tenor (2); Alexander Alexay, accompanist (2).............November 6
Pamplona Choir from Spain; Luis Morondo, conductor......................November IS
Jan Smeterlin, Pianist....................................................November 24
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (5); Antal Dorati, conductor (2)...........February 8
Bach Aria Group; William H. Scheide, director..............................February 16
Giulietta Simionato, Mezzo-soprano; John Wustman, accompanist...............March 13
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (187); Fritz Reiner, conductor (5).................April 4
Fourteenth Annual Extra Concert Series
Boston Symphony Orchestra (40); Charles Munch, conductor (16).............October 25
David Oistrakh, Violinist; Vladimir Yampolsky, accompanist................December 8
Witold Malcuzynski, Pianist................................................January IS
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (10); William Steinberg, conductor (2).......February 29
Lamoureux Orchestra; Igor Markevitch, conductor.............................March 24
Christmas Concerts Handel's Messiah....................................................December S and 6
Saramae Endich, soprano Gladys Kriese, contralto Charles O'Neill, tenor
Yi-Kwei Sze, bass (2)
Mary McCall Stubbins, organist (28)
Lester McCoy, conductor (26)
University Choral Union Musical Society Orchestra
Twentieth Annual Chamber Music Festival The Festival Quartet...............................................February 12, 13, 14
Victor Babin, pianist (4) Szymon Goldberg, violinist
William Primrose, violist (2) Nikolai Graudin, cellist
Special Concerts
Michigan Chorale, Lester McCoy, conductor...............................September 13
New York Pro Musica; Noah Greenberg, director..........................November 11
Andres Segovia, guitarist.....................................................March 7
Seventieth Annual May Festival
Six concerts--May 5, 6, 7, 8,
The Philadelphia Orchestra (152); conductors: Eugene Ormandy (85); Thor Johnson (43); William Smith (4); University Choral Union (232); and soloists-
Lisa Delia Casa, soprano Leontyne Price, soprano (2) Frances Bible, mezzo-soprano Albert Da Costa, tenor Kim Borg. bass Rudolf Serkin, pianist (9)
Andres Segovia, guitarist (2) Marilyn Costello, harpist William Kincaid, flutist (7) Anshel Brusilow, violinist Lome Munroe, cellist (2)
MUSIC PERFORMED
The complete repertoire of the concerts this season includes music which rep?resents 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 per?formed are denoted by asterisks.
SYMPHONIC
Bach
?Brandenburg Concerto No. 6......Boston
(Ormandy) Toccata and Fugue in D minor...............Philadelphia
Beethoven Overture to "Leonore,"
Op. 72, No. 3.............Philadelphia
Overture to "Prometheus,"
Op. 43 ...................Minneapolis
Symphony No. 2 in D major,
Op. 36 ....................Pittsburgh
Symphony No. 5 in C minor,
Op. 67 .......................Boston
Symphony No. 7 in A major,
Op. 92 ..................Philadelphia
Berlioz
Overture to Benvenuto Cellini, Op. 23 ......................Chicago
"Rakoczy" March from The Dam?nation of Faust (encore).. .Minneapolis
Symphonie fantastique .......Lamoureux
BtocH, Ernest "Schelomo," for Cello and
Orchestra .....................Boston
Brahms
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 .......................Boston
Copland, Aaron ?Suite from "The Tender Land"___Boston
Falla, Manuel de Suite from "The Three-Cornered Hat" ....................Minneapolis
Finney, Ross Lee
?Symphony No. 2............Philadelphia
Gabrieli
?Sonata pian e forte...........Pittsburgh
Gdjastera ?Variaciones concertantes.....Philadelphia
Gounod ?Symphony No. 2.............Lamoureux
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Haydn
Symphony No. 101 in D major...............Minneapolis
HlNDEllITH
?Pittsburgh Symphony.........Pittsburgh
Ibert
?Divertissement .............Philadelphia
Kodaly
?Peacock Variations .............Chicago
Messiaen
?Hymne .....................Lamoureux
Mozart Overture to Don Giovanni,
K. 527 ....................Pittsburgh
?Overture to Le Corsaire.....Philadelphia
Symphony No. 38 in D major,
K. S04 .......................Boston
Ravel "Daphnis et Chloe,"
Suite No. 2................Lamoureux
"La Valse," A Choreographic Poem........................Chicago
SCHUIXER, GUNTHER
?Seven Studies on Themes of
Paul Klee ................Minneapolis
Sessions, Roger ?Symphony No. 4............Minneapolis
Sibelius Symphony No. 7 in C major,
Op. 105 ..................Philadelphia
Strauss, Richard Suite from Der
Rosenkavalier ............Philadelphia
Tone Poem, "Don Juan," Op. 20..Chicago Tone Poem, "Till Eulenspiegel's
Merry Pranks," Op. 28.....Philadelphia
Wagner Prelude to Act III from
Lohengrin (encore) .......Minneapolis
Prelude to Die Meislersinger
von Nurnberg ............Philadelphia
MUSIC PERFORMED INSTRUMENTAL
Anonymous
The Witches' Dance..........Pro Musica
Albeniz
Sevilla .........................Segovia
Coperario, John
Two Masque Dances.........Pro Musica
Bach
?Chacona .......................Segovia
Goldberg Variations ..............Gould
?Sarabande from Partita No. 1
in B-flat (encore)...............Gould
Sarabande and Courante from Partita No. 2 in C minor
(encore) ......................Gould
Beethoven Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major,
Op. 73 ..........Serkin & Philadelphia
Piano Quartet in E-flat major,
Op. 16................Festival Quartet
?Variations in F major, Op. 34.. .Wustman Brahms Capriccio in C major,
Op. 76, No. 8................Wustman
?(Joachim) Four Hungarian
Dances ......................Oistrakh
?Intermezzo in E major,
Op. 116, No. 4...............Wustman
Intermezzo in E-flat minor,
Op. 118, No. 6...............Wustman
?Piano Quartet in G minor,
Op. 25, No. 1..........Festival Quartet
?Piano Quartet in A major,
Op. 26, No. 2..........Festival Quartet
?Piano Quartet in C minor,
Op. 60, No. 3..........Festival Quartet
Variations on a Theme by
Paganini, Op. 35, Book I......Smeterlin
Violin Concerto in D major,
Op. 77........Brusilow & Philadelphia
Byrd, William
?A Fancie ...................Pro Musica
Castelnuovo-Tedesco ?Concerto in D
major..........Segovia & Philadelphia
Chtlesotti
?Six Little Pieces.................Segovia
Chopin Berceuse in D-flat major,
Op. 57 .....................Smeterlin
Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 10,
No. 4 (encore)............Malcuzynski
Etude in G-flat major, Op. 10, No. 5 (encore)..............Smeterlin
Etude in C minor, Op. 10,
No. 12 (encore)...........Malcuzynski
Fantasie in F minor,
Op. 49...................Malcuzynski
?Ma2urka, No. 5 (encore).......Smeterlin
Mazurka in B-flat minor,
Op. 24, No. 4................Smeterlin
?Mazurka in D-flat major,
Op. 30, No. 3................Smeterlin
Mazurka in D major,
Op. 33, No. 2................Smeterlin
Mazurka in B minor,
Op. 33, No. 4.............Malcuzynski
?Mazurka in C-sharp minor,
Op. SO, No. 3.............Malcuzynski
?Mazurka in A minor,
Op. 59, No. 1 (encore).....Malcuzynski
Mazurka in A minor,
Op. 67, No. 4.............Malcuzynski
Nocturne (without
identification) ............Malcuzynski
?Polonaise in C minor,
No. 4....................Malcuzynski
Scherzo in B-flat minor,
Op. 31, No. 2.............Malcuzynski
Scherzo in C-sharp minor,
Op. 39, No. 3................Smeterlin
Sonata in B-flat minor,
Op. 35, No. 2.............Malcuzynski
Waltz in E-flat major,
Op. 18, No. 1.............Malcuzynski
Waltz in D-flat major,
Op. 64, No. 1 (encore)... .Malcuzynski Waltz in A-flat major,
Op. 64, No. 3.............Malcuzynski
?Waltz in D-flat major,
Op. 70, No. 3.............Malcuzynski
Dowland, John ?Lachrimae antiquae..........Pro Musica
Faure ?Piano Quartet in G minor,
Op. 45................Festival Quartet
Franck
Sonata in A major for Piano and Violin. .Oistrakh; Yampolsky
Hdtdoiith ?Sonata in E-flat major,
Op. 11, No. 1................Oistrakh
Hume, Tobias
?Tickle, Tickle................Pro Musica
?Touch Me Lightly...........Pro Musica
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MUSIC PERFORMED
Mendelssohn, Alfred ?Prelude and Fugue for Solo Violin,
on a Theme by Bach.........Oistrakh
Mozart ?Concerto for Flute and Harp, K.
299..Kincaid, Costello and Philadelphia ?Piano Quartet in G minor,
K. 478................Festival Quartet
?Piano Quartet in E-flat major,
K. 493................Festival Quartet
?Sonata in C major, K. 330.........Gould
Sonata in F major, K. 332......Smeterlin
Narvaez
?Song of the Emperor............Segovia
Prokofiev
?Five Melodies, Op. 3S...........Oistrakh
Rf.ger, Max ?Piano Quartet in D minor,
Op. 113...............Festival Quartet
RODRIGO
?Fantasia for Guitar and
Orchestra.........Segovia, Philadelphia
Sanz ?Gallarda, Pavana, Espagnoleta,
and Canarios .................Segovia
ScHOENBERG
?Suite, Opus 25....................Gould
Shostakovich Concerto for Cello,
Op. 107..........Munroe, Philadelphia
Schubert
?Sonata in A minor, Op. 143.....Smeterlin
Schumann ?Piano Quartet in E-flat major,
Op. 47................Festival Quartet
SwEELINCK
?Fantasia for Organ................Gould
Tansman, Alexandra
?For Segovia ....................Segovia
Vitali, Tomaso
Chaconne......................Oistrakh
Weiss
?Prelude and Giga................Segovia
VOCAL
Beethoven "Die Trommel geruhret"
from Egmont ................Seefried
"Freudvoll und leidvoll"
from Egmont ................Seefried
Beiltni ?"Dolente immagine di fille
mia" ......................Simionato
?"Fenesta che lucivi"...........Simionato
Bizet "Je crois entendre encore" from
The Pearl Fishers..............Tucker
Brahms
"Wie bist Du, meine, Kbnigen"___Tucker
"Wie fruh und frisch"............Tucker
Carpenter ?"When I bring to you colour'd
toys".........................Tucker
Donizetti "O mio Fernando" from
La Favorita ................Simionato
"Te voglio bene assaje"........Simionato
Duparc
"Le Manoir de Rosemonde".......Tucker
Falvo
"DicitenceIlo vuie" ..............Tucker
Favara
"A la barcillunisa"..............Simionato
Gran ados "El Majo discreto"............Simionato
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Handel "Lascia ch'io pianga" from
Rinaldo ....................Simionato
Lippe
?"How do I love thee"...........Tucker
Mascacni ?Turiddu's Farewell from
Cavalleria Rusticana...........Tucker
"Voi lo sapete" from
Cavalleria Rusticana ........Simionato
Mehttl
?Recitative and Aria from Joseph... Tucker Mozart "Mi tradi" from Don
Giovanni..Delia Casa and Philadelphia "Dove sono" from The Marriage of
Figaro.....Delia Casa and Philadelphia
Das Veilchen ...................Seefried
"Voi che sapete" from The Marriage of Figaro (encore)..........Simionato
NUTILE
?"Mamma mia che vo'sape........Tucker
Rabey, Rene
Tes yeux! ......................Tucker
Rossini "Una voce poco fa" from
The Barber of Seville........Simionato
Schubert ?Ach, um deine feuchten
Schwingen ...................Seef ried
MUSIC PERFORMED
An die Musik....................Tucker
Der Konig in Thule.............Seefried
?Ganymcd ......................Seefried
Gretchen am Spinnrad...........Seefried
Haiden Roslein .................Seefried
?Liebhaber in alien Gestalten
(encore) .....................Seefried
?Lied der Grunen (encore)........Seefried
Rastlose Liebe ..................Tucker
Was bcdeutet die Bewegung......Seefried
Schumann
Der Nussbaum (encore)..........Seefried
?Wie mit innigstem Behagen......Seefried
Spontini Les Riens d'amour.............Simionato
Strauss, Richard ?Monologue from
Capriccio.. Delia Casa and Philadelphia
TOMASI
O ciucciarella.................Simionato
Verdi ?"O don fatale" from Don Carlo
(encore) ...................Simionato
"StomeIlo"...................Simionato
Weaver ?The Abbot of Derry.............Tucker
Wolf, Hugo
?Anakreons Grab ................Seefried
?Blumengruss ...................Seefried
?Die Bekebrte...................Seefried
?Fruhling ubers Jahr.............Seefried
?Heiss mich nicht reden...........Seefried
Kennst du das Land.............Seefried
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt.....Seefried
So lasst mich scheinen...........Seefried
Worth ?Midsummer.....................Tucker
CHORAL
Bach
Aria from Cantata 14.........Bach Aria
?Recitative and arioso from
Cantata No. 60.............Bach Aria
?Duet from Cantata 63.........Bach Aria
?Aria from Cantata 68..........Bach Aria
?Chorale from Cantata 70......Bach Aria
?Aria from Cantata 94..........Bach Aria
?Two Arias from Cantata 97___Bach Aria
?Aria from Cantata 113.........Bach Aria
?Opening of Cantata 115........Bach Aria
?Aria from Cantata 157.........Bach Aria
?Christmas Oratorio, Part VI...Bach Aria ?Selections from Der
Zufriedengestellte Aeolus.....Bach Aria
?Aria from Mass in F major___Bach Aria
?Aria from Secular Wedding
Cantata 202 ...............Bach Aria
Barthelson ?Rock-A-My-Soul ......Michigan Chorale
Bartlett, John ?"When From My Love"......Pro Musica
Cabezon, Antonio de ?Fantasia ...............Pamplona Choir
Chavez, Carlos Corrido de "El Sol"....Choral Union, Philadelphia
Corsi ?Adoramus Te...........Michigan Chorale
Dowland, John
?Lady if You so Spite Me.....Pro Musica
?Toss Not My Soul............Pro Musica
Engelhard Myron-Ades ?Geronimo .............Michigan Chorale
Faixa, Manuel de
?Five Spanish Songs......Pamplona Choir
Finney, Ross Lee
Four Pilgrim Psalms___Michigan Chorale
Folk Songs
Ancient Basque Songs___Pamplona Choir
?Little Wheel a-Turnin'. .Michigan Chorale ?Oh, Won't You Sit
Down .............Michigan Chorale
(Dawson) ?Jesus Walked This Lonesome
Valley ..............Michigan Chorale
?Rici-Rici (Spanish) .........Pro Musica
Foster-Maryott
?Oh! Susanna...........Michigan Chorale
Foster-Shaw-Parker
?I Dream of Jeannie___Michigan Chorale
Gershwin-Warnick ?Selections from
Porgy and Bess......Michigan Chorale
Guerrero, Francisco
?Villanesca..............Pamplona Choir
Handel ?Hallelujah, Amen,
Judas Maccabeus.....Michigan Chorale
Messiah.......Saramae Endich, Soprano;
Gladys Kriese, Contralto; Charles O'Neill, Tenor; Yi-Kwei Sze, Bass; Choral Union and Musical Society Or?chestra
Harrstox (Arr.) ?Sometimes I Feel Like a
Motherless Child.....Michigan Chorale
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MUSIC PERFORMED
Hassler, Hans Leo Ach Lieb, hier ist das Herze___Pro Musica
AIP Lust und Freud..........Pro Musica
?Nun fanget an...............Pro Musica
?Tanzen und springen.........Pro Musica
Hume, Tobias
?Tobacco (Elizabethan Ayres). .Pro Musica Johnson (Arr.)
?Everytime I Feel the
Spirit...............Michigan Chorale
Laso
Eco (encore) ...........Pamplona Choir
Lassus, Orlandus
?"Salve Regina"..............Pro Musica
Massa
?Viladita (encore) .......Pamplona Choir
Morales, Cristobal de
?Sanctus ................Pamplona Choir
Morgan, Haydn
?An Instrument of Thy
Peace...............Michigan Chorale
Morley, Thomas About the Maypole (encore).. Pro Musica
?Now Is the Gentle Season___Pro Musica
?Thyrsis and Milla............Pro Musica
MORONDO
Ayur Jaunac (encore)... .Pamplona Choir Orpf, Carl
?Catulli Carmina.........Pamplona Choir
Praetortus, Michael
?In dulci jubilo ..............Pro Musica
?Psallite .....................Pro Musica
Schubert
?Mass in G major.......Michigan Chorale
Schutz, Heinrich
?Furchte dich nicht...........Pro Musica
?Iss dein Brot mit
Freuden ..................Pro Musica
O licber Herre Gott..........Pro Musica
A susser, O frucndlicher......Pro Musica
Stravinsky, Igor
Symphonie de psaumes................
.. Choral Union, Philadelphia Orchestra Thompson, Randall The Last Words of
David ..............Michigan Chorale
Verdi
"Manzoni" Requiem Mass............
.. Choral Union, Philadelphia Orchestra Victoria, Tomas Luis de ?Responsorium V.........Pamplona Choir
VlLLA-LoBOS, HEITOR
Choros No. 10--"Rasga o Coracoa"___
.. Choral Union, Philadelphia Orchestra
Weelkes, Thomas Why Are You Ladies
Staying .................Pro Musica
VVilbye, John ?Flora Gave Me Fairest
Flowers ..................Pro Musica
Sweet Honeysucking Bees.....Pro Musica
York If Any Man Will Come
After Me............Michigan Chorale
Zangius, Nicolaus ?Congratulamini nunc omnes.. .Pro Musica
SUMMARY
Classification Number of Compositions First Performances at these concerts Composers Represented
Symphonic ........................ Instrumental ...................... 36 69 14 44 23 29
Vocal............................. S3 36 27
Choral............................ 69 59 41
Totals ........................ 227 153 120
Less duplications -20
100
70
1960-UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY-1961
CONCERTS
Eighty-second Season
CHORAL UNION SERIES
Hilde Gueden, Soprano..........Thursday, October 6
Boston Symphony Orchestra........Saturday, October 29
Charles Munch, Conductor
Van Cliburn, Pianist..........Wednesday, November 2
Branko Krsmanovich Chorus of Yugoslavia . 2:30, Sunday, November 6
Artur Rubinstein, Pianist.........Monday, November 14
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.....Wednesday, January 18
Witold Rowicki, Music Director
Henryk Szeryng, Violinist.........Tuesday, February 14
Jussi Bjoerling, Tenor..........Tuesday, February 28
Dallas Symphony Orchestra.........Friday, March 10
Paul Kletzki, Music Director
Toronto Symphony Orchestra.......Wednesday, March IS
Walter Susskind, Music Director Monday, October 17
EXTRA CONCERT SERIES
Jerome Hines, Bass............Monday, October 17
Van Cliburn, Pianist...........Monday, October 31
Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra .... Thursday, January 12
Robert Shaw, Conductor
Zino Francescatti, Violinist.........Tuesday, March 21
Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam . . . 2:30, Sunday, April 23
Eugen Jochum, Conductor
SPECIAL CONCERTS
I Soloisti Di Zagreb (Rackham Auditorium) . . Monday, November 7 Messiah (2 concerts in Hill Auditorium).....December 3 and 4
Phyllis Curtin, Soprano Evelyn Beal, Contralto Walter Carringer, Tenor
Donald Bell, tfass
Mary McCall Stubbixs, Organist
Lester McCoy, Conductor
Choral Union and Musical Society Orchestra Budapest Quartet (Rackham Auditorium) . . . 2:30, Sunday, March 26
CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
Vienna Octet (3 concerts).........February 17, 18, 19
ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Philadelphia Orchestra............May 4, 5, 6, 7
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director; William Smith, Assistant Conductor. University Choral Union, Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor, and Lester McCoy, Conductor. Soloists and programs to be announced.
71
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY