UMS Concert Program, May 3, 4, 5, 6, 1962: The Sixty-ninth Annual Ann Arbor May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

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

ANN ARBOR
Hi
y
rJimT' -g i S 3
presentee by
v
I 1
THE UNIVERSITY
f THE UNIVERSITY of MICHIGAN
i l 4
-
@@@@ '
@@@@ I

@@@@UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
of The University of Michigan
Cian tu-thlrd
eadon
Program of the Sixty-ninth Annual
ANN
MAY FESTIVAL
Six Concerts
May 3, 4, 5, 6, 1962 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Published by the University Musical Society, Ann Arbor
CONTENTS
Page
Thor Johnson (photograph) ........................... 4
University Musical Society, Board of Directors........ 5
Performing Artists .................................. 7
Concert Programs ................................... 8
Annotations
First Concert....................................... 17
Second Concert ..................................... 23
Third Concert ...................................... 37
Fourth Concert ..................................... 44
Fifth Concert ...................................... 56
Sixth Concert....................................... 61
Notes on the Philadelphia Orchestra and May Festival
Artists............................................ 68
Organizations--Personnel
The University Choral Union.......................... 73
The Philadelphia Orchestra........................... 75
History, Repertoire, and Resume
The University Musical Society........................ 76
The Ann Arbor May Festival.......................... 77
Choral Union Repertoire.............................. 78
Resume of 1961-62 Season............................ 80
Concerts for the 1962-63 Season...................... 87
THOR JOHNSON Guest Conductor
and
if ember, Board of Directors, University Musical Society.
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 0. Bonisteel, LL.B., LL.D., Sc.D.
Assistant Secretary-Treasurer
James R. Breakey, Jr., A.M., LL.B., LL.D.
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-three 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 continuance of the quality of concert presentation, and make possible advances in scope and activity as new opportunities arise.
THE SIXTY-NINTH 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
Phyllis Curtin ..................................Soprano
Lili Chookasian ................................Contralto
Richard Lewis.....................................Tenor
Jerome Hines.......................................Bass
Donald Gramm..............................Bass-Baritone
Byron Janis ......................................Pianist
Gyorgy Sandor....................................Pianist
John de Lancie....................................Oboist
Lorne Munroe ...............................Violoncellist
Anshel Brusilow ................................Violinist
(Biographical sketches of all performers on pages 68 to 72).
The Steinway is the official piano of the University Musical Society. The Baldwin Piano is the official piano of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
FIRST MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 3, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
BYROX JAMS, Pianist PROGRAM
Compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven Overture to Coriolanus, Op. 62
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastorale"')
Allegro ma non troppo (Awakening of Cheerful Emotions on Arriving in the Country) Andante molto moto (Scene by the Brook)
Allegro (Jolly Gathering of the Country' Folk) ; Allegro (The Storm)
Allegretto (Shepherd's Song: Happy and Thankful Feeling after the Storm)
INTERMISSION
?Concerto No. 3 in C minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 37
Allegro con brio Largo
Rondo: allegro
Byron Janis
Columbia Records
8
SECOND MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 4, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
PHYXLIS CURTIN, Soprano
RICHARD LEWIS, Tenor DONALD GRAMM, Bass-Baritone
PROGRAM
Compositions of British Composers
Partita for Orchestra..........................................Walton
Toccata
Pastorale Siciliana Giga Burlesca
Excerpts from the Opera Troilus and Cressida.....................Walton
Richard Lewis and Phyllis Curtin
INTERMISSION
Dona nobis pacem, a Cantata for Soprano,
Baritone, Chorus, and Orchestra.....................Vaughan Williams
Phyllis Curtin, Donald Gramm, and University Choral Union
THIRD MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 5, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA WILLIAM SMITH, Assistant Conductor
SOLOISTS
JOHN de LANCIE, Oboist LORNE MUNROE, Violoncellist
PROGRAM
Compositions of French Composers Overture to Cephale et Procris...........................Gretry-Mottl
Concerto in D minor for Violoncello and Orchestra....................Lalo
Prelude: Lento; allegro maestoso Intermezzo: Andante con moto
Rondo: Andante; allegro vivace
LORNE MUNROE INTERMISSION
Suite franchise...............................................Milhaud
Xormandie (Animato) Bretagne (Lento) Ile-de-France (Vivo) Alsace-Lorraine (Lento) Provence (Animato)
"L'Horloge de flore" for Solo Oboe and Orchestra................Fran9aix
Galant de jour Belle de nuit
Cupidone bleue Geranium triste
Cierge a grandes fleurs Silene noctiflore
Nyctanthe du Malabar
John de Lancie
"La Valse," a Choreographic Poem..............................Ravel
CoIumbia Records
10
FOURTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 5, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOIST
JEROME HINES, Bass PROGRAM
Compositions of Russian Composers "Fireworks," a Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 4...................Stravinsky
?"Classical" Symphony in D major, Op. 25....................Prokofiev
Allegro
Larghetto
Gavotte: Non troppo allegro Finale: Molto vivace
Excerpts from Boris Godunov..............................Moussorgsky
Coronation Scene tMonologue The Siege of Kazan tHallucination Scene tFarewell and Death of Boris
f Jerome Hines
INTERMISSION
?Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 72 ("Pathetique)...........Tchaikovsky
Adagio; allegro non troppo Allegro con grazioso
Allegro molto vivace
Adagio lamentoso; andante
Columbia Records
11
FIFTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 6, at 2:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor
SOLOISTS
PHYLLIS CURTIN, Soprano LILI CHOOKASIAN, Contralto
RICHARD LEWIS, Tenor DONALD GRAMM, Bass-Baritone
PROGRAM
Requiem Mass...........................Antonin Dvorak
Requiem aeternam Requiem aeternam Dies irae Tuba minim Quid sum miser Recordare, Jesu pie Conjutatis malcdictis Lacrymosa
Soloists and Chorus
INTERMISSION
Oficrtorium Hostias Sanctus Pie Jesu Agnus Dei
Soloists and Chorus
12
SIXTH MAY FESTIVAL CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 6, at 8:30
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor
SOLOISTS
GYORGY SAXDOR, Pianist ANSHEL BRUSILOW, Violinist
PROGRAM
Compositions of Richard Strauss Tone Poem, "Don Juan," Op. 20
"Burleske" in D minor for Piano and Orchestra
Gyorgy Sandor
intermission
Tone Poem, "Ein Heldenleben," Op. 40
The Hero
The Hero's Adversaries
The Hero's Helpmate
The Hero's Battlefield
The Hero's Works of Peace
The Hero's Release from the World and the Fulfillment of His Life
Anshel Brusilow, Solo Violin
ANNOTATIONS
by GLENN D. McGEOCH
The Author of the annotations expresses his appreciation to
Ferol Brinkman and Judith McCormick of the University Publications
Office for their editorial services.
FIRST CONCERT
Thursday Evening, May 3
Overture to Coriolanus, Op. 62.......Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Decem?ber 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827.
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 to some extent. 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 to be found in music history of the fact that the age produces the man than the case of Beethoven. Certainly in his life and in his works he is the embodiment of his period. Born at the end of the eighteenth century, he witnessed, during the formative period of his life, the drastic changes that were occurring throughout central Europe; changes which affected not only the political but the intellectual and artistic life of the world as well. The French Revolution had announced the breaking up of an old civilization and the dawn of a new social regime. The spirit of freedom that animated the poetic thought of Goethe, Schiller, Wordsworth, and Byron infused itself into the music of Beethoven, from the creation of the "Appassionata" Sonata through the "Choral" Ninth Symphony.
In this period of chaos and turmoil, Beethoven stood like a colossus, bridging with his mighty grasp the two centuries in which he lived. In his person he embodied the ideas of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became the sage and prophet of his period and 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 to infuse Promethean fire into the old, worn-out forms and to endow them with new passion. His re?spect for classic forms made him the greatest of the earliest Romanticists, for it aided him in tempering the extremes of his radical contemporaries. Thus, this harmonious embodiment of opposing forces, controlled by an architectonic intelligence that molded and fused them together into one passionate, creative impulse, resulted in the production of epoch-making masterpieces, built upon firm foundations but emancipated from all confining elements of tradition, and set free to discover new regions of unimagined beauty.
Beethoven based his overture on the drama Coriolanus by Heinrich Joseph von Collin and not, as Richard Wagner believed, upon Shakespeare's tragedy. There is no great similarity between these two works, for Shakespeare's version
Heinrich Joseph von Collin was born in 1771. He was a secretary to the war department of the Austrian government. His chief claim to fame rested upon his accomplishments as a dramatist and poet. In addition to Coriolanus he wrote two other five-act tragedies. He was also the author of an operatic libretto, "Brada-mante," considered for some time by Beethoven for musical treatment.
17
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
was derived in large part from Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, while the von Collin drama is more or less independent of that source.
The semihistorical Coriolanus, a Roman general of the early Republic, was supposed to have been given his name because of his capture of the Volscian town, Corioli. According to legend, during the severe famine of 491 B.C., he pro?posed that no grain be distributed to the plebeians unless they gave up their tribunes. He was finally impeached and exiled by them for this action and sought refuge with the Volscians, bitter enemies of his country. He then led their armies against his own people. The Romans, panic-stricken at the advance of Coriolanus and his Volscian cohorts, sent out deputations to plead with him to spare their city. The exiled leader, however, had brooded too long over vengeance and turned the deputations away. The citizens then made their final attempt for clemency. The noblest matrons of the city, headed by Ventura, the venerable mother of Coriolanus, and his wife, Volumnia (named Volumnia and Virgilia in Shakespeare's tragedy), came to his tent and en?treated him for mercy. Their tears and pleadings moved the tyrant's heart, and vengeance gave way to mercy. There are larger triumphs than those belonging to the sword, and Coriolanus finally conquered, not his enemies by force, but the warring passions of his soul, by forgiveness. He took the Volscians back to their own territory, and there, after many years, he was borne to a hero's tomb. There are other versions of his death. Some writers maintain that Corio?lanus committed suicide. According to Plutarch and Shakespeare, he died at the hands of the Volscian general, Aufidius (in Shakespeare, Attius Tollus).
It is, of course, beyond the power of music to narrate the story of Coriolanus, but the drama supplied Beethoven with the atmosphere of grandeur that per?meates the overture. Thus, he produced in this work, as he did in his "Egmont" and "Leonora III" overtures, music of such heroic delineation that it has taken its rightful place with them as an imperishable testimony of his genius for in?fusing into his music an atmosphere of nobility and magnanimity.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastorale") . . . Beethoven
Nature seems to have been created to inspire feeling. --Thomas Starr King
The first performance of this symphony took place in Vienna at the famous Theater an der Wien on December 22, 1808. It had been composed during the summer of that year in the neighboring country around Heiligenstadt. In the printed program it was listed as "a symphony entitled 'Recollections of Life in the Country.' " In giving a symphony a definite title Beethoven departed radically from his previous practice, and in prefixing a verbal description of each of its movements, he came perilously close to identifying himself with a host of indifferent composers who were creating a deluge of valueless and innocuous program music (music which deliberately seeks to represent a story or a pic?ture). When the symphony was published in 1809, it bore these legends:
IS
FIRST CONCERT
Pastorale Symphony or Recollections of Rural Life (more of feeling than tone painting).
1. Allegro ma non molto--Awakening of cheerful emotions on arriving in the country.
2. Andante con moto--Scene by the brook.
3. Allegro--Peasants merrymaking.
4. Allegro--Thunderstorm: tempest.
5. Allegretto--Shepherd's hymn; happy and thankful feeling after the storm. There is no doubt that Beethoven fashioned his program upon one published
in 1783 by Justin Heinrich Knecht (1752-1817) who described his work as "A Musical Portrait of Nature, a Grand Symphony," in which is expressed in sound:
1. A beautiful country where the sun is shining, brooks traverse the vale, the birds twitter, a waterfall tumbles from the mountain, the shepherd plays his pipe, the lambs gambol around, and then the sweet voice of the shepherdess is heard.
2. Suddenly the sky is overcast, an oppressive closeness pervades the air, black clouds pile up, the wind rises, thunder is heard from afar, and the storm approaches.
3. The tempest bursts in all its fury. The wind howls, and the rain beats down. The trees groan, and the waters of the streams rush furiously.
4. The storm gradually subsides, the clouds disperse, and the sky becomes clear.
5. Nature raises its joyful voice to heaven in song of gratitude to the Creator.
Beethoven had been familiar with this program for twenty-five years. In 1784 it had appeared in an advertisement in which was announced the publica?tion of his own sonatas. It is obvious from the close similarity of the two programs that Beethoven appropriated Knecht's for his "Pastorale" Symphony years later.
This sort of program was no novelty in Beethoven's day. In fact, the history of music has been a fluctuating struggle to outgrow the crude ideals of its pro?grammatic infancy, a slow evolution out of the confining concrete into the limitless abstract. One of the chief characteristics of Romanticism was its at?tempt to impart profundity, through specific meaning, to an art that was by nature abstract. The nineteenth century's aim to circumvent the infinite ex?pressiveness of music with verbally expressed meaning was evidence of its desire to bridge the gulf that it felt existed between music and speech. In the hands of many minor composers, this tendency finally ended in a welter of cheap and tawdry programmatic effects and puerile imitations that threatened the complete subjugation of music to the literary arts. The actual music of Knecht's "nature" symphony was, from all accounts, commonplace, entirely wanting in musical worth, and naive in its attempts to depict the actual sights and sounds of nature.
Due to Beethoven's integrity as an absolute musician, the "Pastorale" Sym-
10
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
phony emerged triumphant from its program. That it became the first really significant piece of this genre was due to Beethoven's musical genius and his wisdom in conscientiously avoiding many of the mistakes of his predecessors. He himself leaves no doubt in our minds about his attitude toward music that attempts to depict, narrate, or describe--in other words, that usurps the pre?rogative of words with their narrow definiteness and conscious mental imagery. As he approached the actual composition of his symphony, he filled his sketch books with random reflections on the problems of program music. Among them may be noted:
"Symphonia Characteristica, or a recollection of country life. The hearer should be allowed to discover the situation. . . . People will not require titles to recognize the general intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting in sounds. . . . 'Pastorale' Symphony: no picture, but something in which the emotions are expressed, which are aroused in men by the pleasures of the country: ... all painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a failure."
Thus, although the ''Pastorale" Symphony was among the first extended works to attempt so frank a depiction of nature, Beethoven warned, even as he pre?fixed a special title for each of its movements, that his music was meant to be "more expressive of feeling that tone painting." On this subject Robert Schumann has written:
In composing the Pastoral Symphony Beethoven well understood the dangers he incurred. His explanatory remark "rather expressive of feeling than tone painting" contains an entire aesthetic system for composers; and it is absurd for painters to portray him sitting beside a brook, his head in his hands, listening to babbling water--when Beethoven conceived and carried out his idea for the Pastorale Symphony, it was not a single short spring day that inspired him to utter his cry for joy, but the dark commingling of lofty songs above us (as Heine, I believe, somewhere says). The manifold voices of creation stirred within him.
Beethoven entertained no grandiose romantic concept of nature, as did Ber?lioz, for whom it was "immense, impenetrable and haughty." He enjoyed to the full all of the simple pleasures she provided--a bird call, a soft rain, a rushing brook, or a fallen tree, moss-grown. All could fill him with a state of ecstatic iden?tification with the Deity. When he talked or wrote about the country, his nor?mally awkward and halting expression was transformed into a sort of prose poetry. Some of his recorded statements are: "My bad hearing does not trouble me here. Every tree seems to talk to me, saying Holy! Holy! ... In the forest is enchantment which expresses all things. . . . O God, what glory in such a woodland place; no mortal can love nature as I do. Almighty, I am happy in the woods. . . . Every tree has a voice through Thee."
One of Beethoven's favorite books was the Lehr und Erbauung's Buck by Christian Sturm. In it he underscored passages and from it he copied out the following lines, that they might always be in his sight:
Nature can justly be called the school of the heart; it shows us beyond all doubt our duty towards God and our neighbor. I wish, therefore, to become a disciple of this school, and offer my heart to it. Desirous of self-instruction, I wish to search after the wisdom
'Robert Schumann on Music and Musicians. Trans. Paul Rosenfeld (New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1946), p. 96.
20
FIRST CONCERT
that no disillusion can reject; I wish to arrive at the knowledge of God, and in this knowledge, I shall find a foretaste of celestial joys.
Nature was a consoler for his sorrows and disenchantments; she offered him a refuge from the confusions of his daily life and a respite from the conflicts that raged within his soul. It was not unusual, therefore, that he should try to express in the "Pastorale" Symphony those feelings of peace, consolation, and joy that he experienced in her presence. But being a true artist, he subjected his personal emotions to distillation, transformed them into a marvelously evocative synthesis of sounds, and subjected them to the strictest discipline of music's strictest form, the symphony, through which he conveys them to us in the most eloquent, direct, and comprehensible way.
Concerto No. 3 in C minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 37...............Beethoven
Beethoven always approached a new form with caution, leaning heavily at first upon traditions established by his predecessors, Haydn and Mozart. Whatever the form--the symphony, the sonata, the quartet, or the concerto-he entered the untried field with deliberation. Once he found himself the master, he subjected the form to merciless scrutiny and went about deliberately to free it from the fetters of the past that were binding it.
His piano compositions were always in the vanguard of his maturing style. Whenever the piano was the medium he showed greater originality and freedom from the restrictions of tradition. Before 1800, he had composed eleven piano sonatas, among them the "Pathetique" (C minor, Op. 13), a cornerstone for nineteenth-century romantic piano music. Isolated movements from the others began to show feverish exploration, such as that detected in the slow movement of Op. 10, No. 3, one of the most powerful utterances to be found in his early music.
Although the third piano concerto, written in 1800, comes from the same period as the first symphony, the first and second piano concertos, the first six quartets for strings (Op. 18), and the Sextet for Strings and Winds in E-flat, it shows considerable advance over these conservative works, disclosing a more conscious liberation of creative energy. The occasional heroic gesture, such as the abrupt commanding opening subject of his first movement and the broad phrasing and luxurious solemnity of the largo, marks this work as the most mature and highly developed of all the compositions which Beethoven brought to fruition in the first year of the new century. It is richer in tonal texture than the first symphony, and only isolated movements of the Op. 18 quartets, such as the slow movement of No. 1 and the first movement of No. 4, are in any way comparable to it in emotional fervor. In grandeur of conception, the third piano concerto is an imposing landmark on the way to the epoch-making "Eroica" symphony, composed four years later, again proving that through the medium of the piano Beethoven first released the vast innovating force that was to recondition every musical form it touched.
21
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The first movement (Allegro con brio, C minor, 22 time) has, as was cus?tomary in the concertos of this period, a double exposition of themes. The principal subject of the first exposition is in the orchestra (strings and wood?winds). The second subject, fifty measures later, is heard in the first violins and clarinets. It is followed by a codetta based upon the principal theme. The second exposition, given over to the piano for the most part, begins with scale passages which lead into the restatement of the main theme. Episodic material leads to the second theme, briefly stated at first in the solo instrument and con?tinued into the orchestra. A tutti (whole orchestra) announces the development section which is concerned with the first four measures of the principal theme. The recapitulation of the themes of the exposition begins with a full statement in the orchestra, followed ten measures later by the piano (C major). A tutti based upon the opening theme is followed by a cadenza which leads directly into a coda.
The second movement (Largo, E major, 38 time) needs little explanation. It is lightly scored for flutes, bassoons, horns, and strings. The piano presents at once a broad lyrical theme and then engages in considerable ornamentation. After a cadenza for the piano, a short coda (sempre con gran espressione), based upon the opening theme, brings the movement to a quiet close.
The third movement--Rondo (Allegro, C minor, 24 time) begins in the piano with a theme that suggests the opening subject of Haydn's Symphony No. 48. The orchestra, to a broken chord accompaniment in the piano, continues this theme. An orchestral tutti announces a second subject (E-flat major) in the piano, lightly accompanied by the orchestra. After some passage work, the piano returns the opening theme. Another orchestral tutti, using the same material, precedes an episode for the piano. The first subject is developed in imitation, after which the second theme, now in C major, is heard in the piano. Another piano cadenza leads to the Coda (Presto, in C major) which brings the Concerto to a traditionally brilliant conclusion.
22
SECOND CONCERT
Friday Evening, May 4
Partita for Orchestra............Walton
Sir William Walton was born in Lancashire, England, March 29, 1902.
In the second and third decades of this century a young English composer stood out hopefully in a dearth of creative talent and stimulated a great deal of active interest in the musical world. William Walton's "Faqade" for speak?ing voice and six instruments, written with the collaboration of Dame Edith Sitwell, achieved a "succes de scandale." This slick and sophisticated bit of nonsense, in the tradition of Lewis Carroll, revealed a creative artist of ingenuity and unusual skill. Although the words had little meaning, the music did. Eleven of its movements were arranged into two orchestral suites (1926 and 1938) and are often performed alone or with the popular ballet by the same name. A viola concerto in 1929 proved him to be more than an engaging and resource?ful composer. Its lyric beauty and profundity of expression placed him among the really significant English composers of his generation. His dramatic talent that was to come to such fulfillment in Troilus and Cressida was first sensed in his large-scale oratorio Belshazzar's Feast (1931). The striking originality of this score spread his name throughout the musical world. After its first per?formance, Ernest Newman wrote in the London Sunday Times:
Nothing so full-blooded as this, nothing so bursting with a very fury of exultation in the power of modern music, has been produced in this or any other country for a very long time; by the side of it, Stravinsky's Symphonie de Psalmes is very anemic stuff indeed. Mr. Walton works consistently at a voltage that takes our breath away ... it b difficult to realize that so young a man has so completely a command of his subject, of his crafts?manship, and of himself; it is all new, all individual, yet all so thoroughly competent musically. After this, I should not care to place any theoretical bonds to Mr. Walton's possible development.
His First Symphony (1935), written in the same period as Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony and the Dona, nobis pacem, and his Violin Concerto (1939), commissioned by Jascha Heifetz and still regarded as one of the most important violin works of this century, established Walton, not only as the most important English composer of his generation, but one of international stature. In spite of the fact that he has given the public a mere handful of works compared with the vast outpourings of many of his contemporaries, his name now commands respect throughout the world.
Although Walton no longer defies tradition or even discards it, and much of the novelty of his art has evaporated in the past thirty years, his individuality
Belshazsar's Feasl was performed at the May Festival in 1933 and again in 1952.
23
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
still persists. Both works on tonight's program demonstrate clearly that, al?though he concerns himself with the evolution of accepted forms rather than with the more adventurous invention of new means of expression, he has always maintained his stylistic independence. Thus he brings a fresh spirit to the old partita and a highly individual style to the opera.
The Partita for Orchestra was a commissioned work. It was written in 1957 for the fortieth anniversary of the Cleveland Orchestra, and was first performed at Severance Hall on January 30, 1958; George Szell conducted.
In Italian publications of the early seventeenth century, the word, "partita," originally meant a series of variations of a theme. Later it was used to indicate a suite, an important instrumental form of Baroque music consisting of a num?ber of movements, each in the character of a dance, and all in the same key. Walton's Partita shows an evolution of the form which he treats with great elasticity, imagination, and skill.
Toccata: The term toccata, derived from the Italian verb, "toccare" (to touch), was a composition for a keyboard instrument written to display the "touch," or technical virtuosity of the performer. Walton characteristically em?ploys this old classical form, but imbues it with modern dynamic rhythm and color values. It is a propulsive and brilliant opening to the Partita.
Pastorale Siciliano: A siciliano was a seventeenthand eighteenth-century dance supposedly of Sicilian origin. It was conventionally a flowing lyrical piece written with dotted rhythm in 68 or 128 meter, usually accompanied by broken chords, and played at a moderate tempo. The pastorale, also of Italian origin, was almost identical in character. Both were identified with idyllic rural scenes. Walton retains the flavor of the typical pastorale by announcing a theme in the oboe, serenely accompanied by a viola obbligato. Although it opens in 98 meter, it soon settles into the conventional 68. Simple solo passages for the horn and bassoon and the gentle coloring in the woodwinds all contribute to the peaceful atmosphere traditionally identified with these forms.
Giga Burlesca: The gigue or giga probably came directly from the English, Scottish, or Irish eighteenth-century jig--a lively rustic dance characterized by compound triple time (68, 64), a dotted rhythm, and wide interval jumps. The gigue is often found as the dance movement in seventeenthand eighteenth-century French and Italian suites. (Nearly all of Bach's keyboard suites end with gigues; his A-minor Partita contains a burlesca.) The term burlesca in?dicates a jesting mood, and Walton's final movement catches all the zest of the old gigue. In its final accelerated tempo and shifts of accent, that transform it into an exciting and typical Neopolitan tarantella, it lives up to its title.
Excerpts from the Opera Troilus and Cressida . . . Walton
Christopher Hassall, librettist of Troilus and Cressida, is distinguished in the fields of poetry, drama, and music. He was born March 24, 1912, and began his career as a Shakespearean actor. His reputation as a creative artist rests upon his dramas Devil's Dyke (Oxford Festival, 1937), Christ's Comet (Canterbury Festival, 1938), and The Player King (Edinburgh Festival, 1952). He is the
24
SECOND CONCERT
author of biographies, opera librettos, cantata texts, and English translations of various operas.
In Troilus and Crcssida he has produced one of the finest librettos of modern times. Structurally, it is admirably designed. It provides a series of clear-cut situations of the proper kind for presentation in music; it is not overwhelmed with minor characters who might blur the simple outline of the plot; the main characters are magnificently drawn and strikingly differentiated; it allows for moments of action and contemplation in which surging choruses, ecstatic love duets, arias of picturesque detail, and effective recitatives can alternate to pro?vide musical variety. Chief among its virtues is the avoidance of dullness and banality without sacrifice of simplicity. The poetry is never too assertive in its own right, but the words achieve an almost perfect balance between direct communicative language and poetic utterance, avoiding excessive verbiage, yet rising to lyric eloquence in moments of tension.
Of the inception and sources for his libretto, Hassall writes:
The chapter on Chaucer in The Allegory of Love, a study of medieval tradition by C. S. Lewis, provided the first hint for the subject of this opera. "Fortunately Chaucer has so emphasized the ruling passion of his heroine that we cannot mistake it," writes the author in his analysis of the character of Criseide. "It is Fear--fear of loneliness, of old age, of death, of love, and of hostility . . . And from this Fear springs the only positive passion which can be permanent in such a nature, the pitiable longing, more childlike than womanly, for protection, for some strong and stable thing that will hide her away and take the burden from her shoulder." With this one should quote Hazlitt--"a grave, sober, considerate per?sonage, who has an alternate eye to her character, her interest, and her pleasure," and add something of the ''ill-divining soul" of a Cassandra, to compose the elements of the Cressida in this libretto.
Though Troilus first appeared as the lover in a Latin work of the fourth century A.D., his story as part of a triangle with Diomede did not begin to evolve until about the year 1160, when Benoit of Sainte Maure, a troubadour who lived near Poitiers, wrote his con?tribution to the Chansons de Geste. In the middle of the fourteenth century Boccaccio borrowed and developed the story further when he invented Pandarus (then a young man, a cousin of Troilus) in his narrative poem II Filostrato. Soon after this, in the early thirteen-seventies, Chaucer came upon the Italian work and was moved to write his masterpiece Troylus and Criseide. Thus the legend as we know it in English had taken almost a thous?and years to evolve. If the opera owes the broad outline of its action to Boccaccio, its greatest debt is to Chaucer--the creator of Pandarus as a light-hearted, middle-aged schemer, of "sudden Diomede," and of the Criseide whose personality (so different from Shakespeare's heroine) first drew attention to the theme.
Despite his Homeric names the world of Chaucer's poem is medieval England with its conception of "courtly love," a code of manners between the sexes too remote from present-day customs for its followers easily to engage the sympathy and understanding of a modern audience. As I lifted the story out of the Middle Ages and retold it in a setting of legendary Troy, all that was essentially Chaucerian fell away; so that, in addition to the actual text throughout, some of the action would strike Chaucer as not only unfamiliar but foreign to the spirit of his poem . . .
Thus launched on a course of its own the libretto was developed, with the order of Chaucer's events rearranged, new details introduced, and the whole compressed within much narrower limits of time, until the latter half of Act III where the opera bears no relation to the medieval poem. There is nothing of Shakespeare in the libretto, beyond a similarity of situation here and there, inevitable in two works derived from the same source.
Press
Copyright 1954 by the Oxford University Press, London. Quoted by permission of the Oxford University ss.
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
But no matter how superior the libretto, it is upon the quality of the music that an opera succeeds or fails. Troilns and Crcssida presented the most im?pressive premiere of a contemporary opera recorded in our time. Hailed by the eminent English musical scholar Ernest Newman in the Sunday Times, De?cember 5, 1954, as "marking a significant new chapter in the development, not only of William Walton, but of English Opera," it has since won universal critical acclaim. The London Times for April 26, 1955, noted that "with every hearing Troilus and Cressida confirms itself as a great opera. All things con?spire to make it so. Its tragic theme is of passion and compassion--the movement of the drama is timed to the strokes of inevitability--Walton has fitted its grand design with music of symphonic sweep and vocal splendor--for Italian tastes it is an Italian opera; for us it is English by origin and nature; for all, it is universal in its address to the international language of dramatic music."
Troilus and Cressida indeed stands in the great tradition of opera. It is an impressive contribution to the lyric theater of our time. If the music is admit?tedly often based upon familiar operatic idioms of the past, it is upon those that have stood the test of time. The vocal writing is traditional, for the voices are never deprived of their primacy; the initiative never passes to the or?chestra. It is one of the few contemporary opera scores in which the orchestra does not nullify the voices, or where they are reduced to ragged speech-song, while the orchestra glories in its own eminence. Yet, as in the late operas of Verdi (Othello and Falstaff), the singers are always supported, not merely ac?companied, by a rich and often complex orchestral background. In this score everything sings. Voices and instruments alike share in that urgent lyric im?pulse, so essential to the life of opera. It is designed on a grand scale for superior voices and a large theater; it is unashamedly a musical drama that is musically dramatic, singable, and comprehensible. It is the work of a con?temporary composer with an astonishing grasp of tried operatic principles, and an artist who, always governed by stern self-discipline, waited until the age of fifty-three before he felt competent to give the world his first music drama.
Walton has provided the following notes on the work:
The theme of this opera commended itself to me because of the human situations which, though set in prehistoric times, are of a universal kind. The story also presents a pattern of contrasted characters such as modern audiences can believe in, which is surely an essential for a contemporary dramatist of any sort, most especially a composer working for an opera house with its demand for clearly denned musical characterization. The conflict, not only between certain of the characters themselves, but by implication between the worlds of private and public life, also lends itself to musical treatment and as a background or climate of feeling likely to engage the sympathetic interest of people today.
Though the score contains what are commonly called motifs, such as the music represent?ing Cressida's scarf (the symbol of her affections which are transferred from one man to another and back again, and which reappears in the tissue of the Interlude in Act II) and the nervous figure symbolizing her instinctive fears, the score is not conceived in the symphonic manner--in the sense that one must apply that term to the music dramas of, say, Wagner or Strauss. The voices follow the fluctuations of mood in the text with a minuteness more characteristic of the Italian than German opera. This closeness of vocal line and verbal phrase has led in many places to orchestration which is relatively light for a work on this scale. If my aim here was a close union of poetic and music drama, it was also my concern
26
SECOND CONCERT
to recreate the characters in my own idiom as an example of English bel canto, the parts carefully designed to bring out the potentialities of each voice according to its range--in the hope of adding another "singers' opera" to the repertory.
Subsequent versions of the story (Lydgate, Dryden, Henryson) have no con?nection with the opera. In all of them, except Dryden's, Cressida is pictured as false to Troilus, deserting him for the Greek warrior Diomede. Hassall s Cressida is not the shallow wanton of Shakespeare's play, described by Hazlitt as "a grave, sober, considerate person who has an alternate eye to her character, her interest and her pleasure." His Cressida is, in modern terms, a war widow de?voting herself without reward to good deeds. She is more like Chaucer's heroine, "So anngelik hir natif beaute, that like a thing immortal seemed she" and "the fearfuleste wight that might be." She is surrounded in beleaguered Troy by falsehood and treachery. Tricked by her well-meaning uncle Pandarus into accepting Troilus as her lover, she is betrayed by her maid Evadne, who de?stroys messages from Troilus, and by her father who bullies her into accepting Diomede and, when Troilus is on the verge of vanquishing his rival, stabs him in the back. Cressida's fear rises from her longing for protection, and her ac?ceptance of Diomede becomes a gesture of resignation to a cruel fate. She wins our sympathy by her defenselessness in the midst of perfidy and weakness. Hassall has raised her to the status of a tragic heroine, and by concentrating upon her character, he makes her much more fascinating than the Cressida we meet in earlier sources. With masterly skill he has molded Chaucer's story into a succinct dramatic form into which Walton has poured his powerfully evocative music.
Troilus and Cressida is in three acts, from which the following scenes be?tween Troilus and Cressida are taken. The time is the twelfth century B.C. The first act is set in the citadel of Troy, before the Temple of Pallas.
Growing desperate under the strain of a long siege, the people of Troy pray before the Temple. Calkas. high priest of Pallas, and father of Cressida, con?vinced that further resistance to the Greeks is useless, attempts to awe the people into believing that the Delphic oracle has advised surrender. The first to challenge him is Antenor, a Trojan champion and friend of Troilus. He is accusing Calkas of being in the pay of the Greeks when Troilus appears and gives assurance of the High Priest's good faith. Antenor, unconvinced, goes off on a foray against the enemy while Troilus stays behind, looking for Cressida.
ACT I
Troilus is alone on the steps of the Temple of Pallas where he had hoped to find Cressida, who has decided to dedicate herself to the religious life. He in?vokes the aid of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
Troilus--Is Cressida a slave that she must trim those guttering candles Dim, passionless, remote, insulting flames pois'd in the sickly air, pale heads that should bow down yet barely even flicker as she passes!
This and the following condensation of the plot are taken from the libretto accompanying recordings of excerpts made by Angel Records.
27
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Here on my heart's red altar burns the true flame of her kindling, here where I serve no
strict and joyless Pallas, but radiant Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. Child of the winedark wave mantled in beauty, spirit of mortal love, tall Aphrodite
thou whose warm footprints fill with flowers of spring, walk our dry desert ways, thy
fruitful pleasures bring. Girdled with foam, on the swell in majesty riding, cradled in sea blown shell come
shoreward gliding.
Here gentle love, find welcome and dwell, in my heart abiding. Queen of the winedark wave, alone I invoke thee. How can the anguish of love fail to awake thee Have pity and grant what I crave, break open the grave, give me my Cressida.
The temple doors open. Cressida appears. Her head is veiled. The only touch of color about her is the crimson scarf about her neck. She comes to the top of the steps. She carries a garland of white flowers. As she moves across to lay them on the altar Troilus appears.
Troilus--Cressida! Are there not flowers enough in the field to wither in the temple's gloom Why must you squander here your lovelier bloom You do not belong to the dark, O fairest Cressida. Cressida--Morning and evening I have felt your glance follow me out of sight here at the
gateway. Morning and evening you have watched me pass, a lighted taper in my hand for kindling
the altar fires. I'm afraid!
Troilus--You are frightened by dreams like a child. Can Spring break early in one heart alone Ah, no, for we live in a world of our own and winter is dying. Cressida--You offer me life and love. Both have I tasted. Both were bitter.
My husband by the Greeks cut down in battle; my father by the Trojans made an outcast. What friend, what hope have I but Pallas, on whose broad shield that covers me the spears
of the world fall blunted
I walk alone among the jasmine bowers, and keep her ivory shrine festoon'd with flowers. I ask no more of the sun than still to bring fresh beauties for her altar in the spring: for
mortal death her life shall be my cure, her love my peace. Her love and life endure. Troilus--I bring you life that withers like a rose, but while it blooms the glory overflows;
life like that the gods might envy, could they see, lost in their desert Immortality. Yes, they would throw their deathless age away to die like men, so they might live as
they, kiss as we kiss, and triumph for a day. Cressida--Two solitudes have hailed each other and gone by. Life offers nothing more save what is bought with anguish.
(She turns and goes up the steps.) We must not meet again. The gods are frowning.
(She enters the temple.)
Calkas, the High Priest, has just bidden his daughter farewell. She has good reason to believe that he is deserting to the Greeks. Left alone, she recalls an incident in her childhood when she was fascinated by two shadows thrown on the wall by the flickering fire. She now feels that they were an omen fore?shadowing the moment when her father would desert her, just as her lover has come into her life.
2S
SECOND CONCERT
Cressida--Slowly it all comes back out of my childhood. I was alone with the night around me. The flickering fire light ruffled my hair. I watched on roof and wall the curious shadow play; Watched how the moving smoulder formed and reformed the same familiar shadow,
shaped like a man, my father!
Again he was there, again, yet again, a towering, wavering shade! Then always the same departure, drastic as earthquake. Now, only now, can I clearly read that omen. He has deserted me, deserted us and Troy. Slowly it all comes back out of my childhood. Sometimes a different shape was forming. No, not my father. This was a warrior.
I knew him by the shadow of his spear and ponderous shield uplifted. He never turned from me.
He stayed, blotted out, blurred by disfiguring smoulder. Now, only now, do I know that this was Troilus!
0 Troilus, they will not let me love you.
Robbed of their prey, on me, on Cressid', child of Troy's most hated man, their vengeance
falls redoubled.
No, you must never never love me. They would destroy you. Have no fear.
My heart shall not betray you. Your golden words are all forgotten. You may go free.
ACT II
Cressida has been persuaded to spend the night in the house of her uncle Pandarus. Her women prepare her for sleep. When they have left and she is alone she realizes that she, who has renounced the world, can no longer hold out against her feelings of love for Troilus.
Cressida--How can I sleep
All thro' that stupid game the table swam before me.
1 could think of nothing, nothing but Troilus. Must I again endure this wild unrest
Some jealous god is watching me; I feel his frowns upon me.
Gone are my dreams of careless freedom, peace without ecstacy, peace without harrowing
pain.
I am helpless, betrayed.
Oh, bewitched was the hour I prayed never to love again. At the haunted end of the day your voice, dear love, your voice alone I hear. Thro' the silent hours of the day I see your face, a phantom, glimmering near. How can I sleep when love is waking What is the dark when dawn is breaking Troilus, why does your name enchant me Call off these visions that ravish me and haunt me!
At the spellbound end of the day love rules alone, and counts the spoils of war. I surrender, bear me away, Troilus, friend and foe, Troilus, my conqueror.
This is the big love duet in which the lovers are alone for the first time. Troilus has succeeded in overcoming Cressida's misgivings. At length they feel they have been visited by Aphrodite whom Troilus had invoked in his first aria.
20
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Troilus--If one last doubt, one lurking fear remain, banish it, Cressida. Have faith in me.
Now nothing stands between us, nothing but your fears! I cannot fight with shadows. They part, close in again, and baffle me.
They have made you their slave, they have made you afraid of life, ashamed to love! Show me these lurking terrors, fetch out these phantom tyrants, and I'll destroy them. Here is your refuge, close to my body, close to the fire in my heart, the flame that sears
the flesh and sets the spirit free, that pain which is no pain but ecstasy. O my beloved, my life, my own, here let me kneel and adore. The world may chatter and rage; be deaf to its harsh alarms; fear nothing more. Then Cressid', when the past has died, live again at my side! Come alive in my arms.
(They embrace.)
Cressida--New life, new lovel
We are reborn.
The past has died, with all its pain.
Love!
In my heart the yellow leaves are slowly turning green again. Both--Kind are the gods or our joys have silenced Olympus.
Their threats are over.
They have passed us by.
Far away on their shining journey they frown no longer.
Kind are the gods--
Why, no, we have scaled their mountain, and the snows are singing.
The world has rekindled her fires and the flowers are springing.
Kind are the gods, but one above all, proud Aphrodite.
She is here, she is here, in our blood, in the air that shimmers around us.
Aphrodite!
At her command the stars in their courses are halted, she holds the morning at bay, the
fiery horses chafe at their harness and the chariot no longer approaches.
The darkness trembles, waiting, waiting!
Aphrodite!
They have heard thy stern voice commanding.
Thou shalt feast and rejoice and be glad with us.
Thou hast answered our prayer. Cressida--Now close your arms and let me lie there curled.
Dearest, my love, surround me, hold me fast. Troilus--I close my arms, and so shut out the world. Both--There howls the wind, but here the storm is passed.
There howls the wind, but we are safe at last.
The orchestral interlude denotes the passing of the night, beginning with the storm and ending with the first light of the morning. At the end Cressida, with Troilus at her side, is standing on the balcony watching the dawn break over the roofs of Troy.
Cressida--From isle to isle chill waters whisper the hour, catching the crimson of a sky on fire.
O must I wake to find this glory gone
Be still, my heart.
If this be sleep, sleep on. Troilus--If this be sleep, sleep on.
30
SECOND CONCERT
ACT III
This scene ends the opera. Troilus has been treacherously slain by Calkas. Cressida finds the sword of Troilus lying where it fell, also the crimson scarf which had been a token of her love for him.
Cressida (Distracted)--Diomede! Father! Pandarus! Evadne! Troilus!
(She sees the sword of Troilus lying where it fell and picks it up.) At last a message!
A token out of Troy, serene in its naked brightness. Here shines his honour. One part of Troilus shall still be mine.
(She winds the scarf round the sword and clasps it to her breast.)
Turn, Troilus, turn, on that cold river's brim beyond the sun's far setting.
Look back from the silent stream of sleep and long forgetting.
Turn and consider me and all that was ours; you shall no desert see but pale unwithering
flowers.
O never with scorn, nor with hate, shall death receive me. He will purge all blemish away, and you, even you, of all men under his sway, you may
forgive me.
(She seems to hear approaching footsteps, and recoils, then rushes to the edge of the parapet. Standing at her full height she pulls the sword free of the scarf.)
Open the gates.
We are riding together into Troy.
And by this sign, I am still your Cressida.
(She turns and stabs herself with the sword.)
Dona nobis pacent, a Cantata for Soprano, Baritone,
Chorus, and Orchestra......Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England, October 12, 1872; died in London, August 26, 19S8.
About the man, Ralph Vaughan Williams, the world at large knows little. He dedicated himself to composition, teaching, and study. He rarely made public appearances, and only in unguarded moments did he reveal anything about his personal feelings or tastes. The world came to know him almost entirely through his music. "One might say," writes Hubert Foss, his recent biographer, "that he has a great deal of music, and very little biography." Indeed his output was prodigious. He wrote in all forms--for theater, symphonic orches?tra, chorus, solo voice, chamber ensembles--and never did his high purpose and artistic integrity falter.
He was born the son of a clergyman and spent his youth in an atmosphere of quiet and comfortable living. He was educated in a public school, attended several large conservatories (pupil of Parry and Stanford in London, Bruch in Berlin, Ravel in Paris), and at Trinity College in Cambridge in 1901
Herbert James Foss, Ralph Vaughan Williams, a Study (London: Harrap, 1950), p. 12.
31
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
received the Doctor of Music degree. Early in his career he became vitally interested in English folk music and by 1904, at the age of thirty-two, was an ardent and creatively active member of the English Folk Song Society. Later he broadened this interest to include old English art music, particularly that which had issued from the Tudor period, the most glorious of all eras in the his?tory of England's music.
Vaughan Williams always had faith in the corrective and purifying effect of folk song as a guard against insincerity and oversophistication. This faith guided him through a long creative life and conditioned an art that is innately English, yet one that speaks to the hearts of men of other lands.
In "Three Norfolk Rhapsodies" for orchestra (1906-7) and the opera Hugh the Drover (1911-14), the folk music impulse was strongly evident, but in the better known "Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis" for strings, the broader, more artful English style that springs from the music of the Tudor period began to show its influence. Ultimately, his expression became highly personalized, often quite bold and uncompromising; but in achieving universality it never lost its truly nationalistic traits. He did much for English music by correcting the romantic excesses that were still dominating his era. His penchant for folk song expression, with its essential modal harmony and melody, helped him escape the chromatic indulgences of his immediate predecessors. He brought a new freshness, a new gusto and humor, a challenging simplicity and honesty to his country's music.
Like Verdi. Vaughan Williams retained, over a long life, all of his intellectual and creative energies, shifting his style at will, ceaselessly experimenting with new idioms, and constantly aware of new trends. He was not only regarded as "the grand old man of English music" but the fountain-head for a generation that followed him, upon which he exerted a tremendous influence.
Dona nobis paccm was first performed October 2. 1936. by the Huddersfield Choral Society, on the occasion of the centenary of the choir. It was not written in an atmosphere of tranquillity. It was the product of a period of distraction and political chaos, overshadowed by fear of the impending war. If the creative impulse is intense and strong enough, however, as it is in this work, it can sub?limate such temporal and negative forces into positive and universal feeling. Dona nobis paccm goes beyond its time and place and stretches out to all men who dread the ravages of war, who mourn for things irrevocably lost, and find tranquillity of spirit in reconciliation.
Part 1. "Dona nobis pacem" (Lento) for Soprano and Orchestra.
The soprano voice sings a freely contrived melody that has the aloof serenity and detachment of a plain song, to the old liturgical words Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi dona nobis pacem ("Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world; grant us Thy peace"). This theme, both textually and musically, unifies the entire work. There is a latent feeling of poignancy, and a suggestion of emotional stress, created by the relationship of the vocal line to the chromatically progressing chords in the accompaniment. This is more than a tranquil prayer for peace; it is an urgent plea for help to meet an imminent
32
SECOND CONCERT
danger, which is realized when the chorus flares, without break, into its dis?cordant appeal.
Part II. "Beat, Beat Drums" (Allegro moderato) for Chorus.
The text for Part II is the third section of Walt Whitman's poem, "Drum Taps," which bears witness to the effect the Civil War had upon him. In it he embodied the very spirit of civil conflict, picturing with poignant realism the shock of the first alarm of war as drums and bugles sound. In this section he describes its ruthless onslaught, impervious to all human feeling and aspira?tion. Nothing withstands the clarion call to war. Over drum beats the words are reiterated by voices, often in intervals of bare fourths or doubled at the octave, while the orchestra, now in jabbing syncopation, now in restless repetition of short figures, often in imitation of blatant trumpet calls, underlines the relent?less implications of the text. The clamor subsides and the drum beats soften to a whisper.
Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows--through the doors--burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying:
Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field, or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for the sleepers at night in the houses
No sleepers must sleep in those beds, No bargainers' bargains by day--would they continue Would the talkers be talking would the singer attempt to sing Then rattle quicker, heavier drums--you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley--stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties.
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.
Part III. "Reconciliation" (Andatititio) for Baritone Solo and Chorus.
The text of this movement is Walt Whitman's short and poignant poem, "Reconciliation." The baritone sings the opening lines:
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly wash again and ever again in this soiled world.
These words and their music are repeated and expanded by the chorus. The solo voice continues with:
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin--I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
The soldier and his dead enemy are thus reconciled in spirit as the chorus in eight-part harmony returns to: "Word over all, beautiful as the sky," etc., and as it whispers the last words, "This soiled world," the soprano voice is heard again quietly pleading for peace, "Dona nobis pacem." At the very end occurs a transition into the next movement.
Part IV. "Dirge for Two Veterans" (Moderato alia marcia) for Chorus.
A funeral march precedes the first voice of Whitman's sonorous rhapsody to two veterans, father and son, who fell together in battle. Without disturbing the steady forward progress of the march, the chorus expands this theme ("The last sunbeam lightly falls"). The soprano voices create a new mood at the beginning of the second verse ("To the moon ascending"). In verse six, at the words "and the strong dead march enwraps me," the voices break off, and the orchestra protracts the militant mood in a broad theme. The orchestral figura?tion of the second verse with its attendant mood are returned when the voices resume in verse seven ("In the eastern sky"). Finally, in the last verse, the poet offers his gift--"my heart gives you love"--along with that of the moon and its light, and the bugles and their music. A simple cadence, reminiscent of that in section three ("this soiled world") brings the movement to a poignant end. The funeral march is recalled and dies away in the sound of the trombone.
The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finished Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking
Down a new-made double grave.
Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.
I see a sad procession.
And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As with voices and with tears.
I hear the great drums pounding. And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father. In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell, Two veterans, son and father, dropped together, And the double grave awaits them.
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o'er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
34
SECOND CONCERT
In the eastern sky, up-buoying, The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined, 'Tis some mother's large transparent face, In heaven brighter growing.
0 strong dead-march you please me! O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me! O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial! What I have I also give you.
The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.
Part V. The Angel of Death (L'istesso tempo--the same rate of motion) for
Baritone, Soprano, and Chorus.
Here Vaughan Williams abandons Whitman and turns to the words of John Bright's historical "Angel of Death" speech. The baritone sings in parlante (half-spoken) style, over the barest accompaniment figure, the awesome words:
The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may also hear the beating of his wings. There is no one as of old ... to sprinkle with blood, the lintel and the two side-posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on.
whereupon the chorus and soprano break in with the short frantic prayer for peace, "Dona nobis pacem." The chorus continues with an urgent plea for help:
We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble! The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land trembled at the sound
of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the
land ... and those that dwell therein . . .
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved . . . Is there no balm in Gilead Is there no physican there Why then is the health of the daughter of my people recovered
--Jeremiah 8:15-22.
The baritone delivers a message of comfort and reassurance:
O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong.
--Daniel 10:19.
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former . . . and in this place will I give peace.
--Haggai 2:9.
Part VI.
After a short cantabile orchestral interlude {andante), the character of the music changes as the text turns from thoughts of war and death to those of peace. The rest of the text is set to words taken from Holy Scripture (adapted from Micah 4:3, Leviticus 26:6, Psalms 85:10 and 118:19, Isaiah 43:9 and 46:18-22, and Luke 2:14). An exultant movement begins when the bass chorus enters with the words, "Nation shall not lift up a sword." The music soars into a paean of triumph, as bells and percussion instruments accompany the text
35
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
with increasing exuberance. As the movement draws to its close, the music changes from double to triple rhythm to provide a new animation for the text "Glory to God in the highest." It ends softly, as the repeated prayer, "Dona nobis pacem," over low-pitched, divided chords, dies away in the soprano voice and chorus.
Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. And none shall make them afraid, neither shall the sword go through their land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Open to me the gates of righteousness, I will go into them. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled; and let them
hear, and say, it is the truth.
And it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and they
shall declare my glory among the nations. For as the new nations and the new earth, which I shall make, shall remain before
me, so shall your seed and your name remain forever.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will toward men.
?,(,
THIRD CONCERT
Saturday Afternoon, May 5
Overture to Ciphale et Procris......Gretry-Mottl
Andre Ernest Modeste Gretry was born in Liege, February 8, 1741; died in Montraorency, September 24, 1813.
Gretry was the last great master of the classic Opera Comique and one of the early prophets of the new romanticism that was to reach its fruition shortly after his death. His early enthusiasm for opera, in which he was later to excel, was gained from a youthful contact with the dramatic works of such composers as Pergolesi, Galuppi, and Jommelli, performed by the famous Italian singers of his time. Intoxicated by the ingratiating melodies of these great masters of the Italian lyric theater, he resisted the disciplines of harmony and counterpoint and avoided the more scholarly aspects of his art. His consuming desire was to write operas and to bring new meaning to words by heightening their effect with his music. In this he remained true to the French opinion that dramatic music is merely enhanced declamation. A disciple of the famed Encyclopedists (Diderot, d'Alambert, Rousseau, etc.), he believed that music receives its full expression only when allied with words. The superiority of dramatic music over any other was a doctrine accepted in France until the second half of the nineteenth century, so Gretry's enthusiastic support of this philosophy was quite typical of his time.
In his own works he often carried his theories to extremes, sometimes de?priving his musical phrases of the ease and charm so apparent in his Italian models. In his time, however, he enlivened the French Opera Comique with a pro?digious number of works for the lyric theater from his marvelously fertile and inventive mind. He provided over fifty operas of varying quality for the Opera Comique, the Comedie Italienne, the Academie de Musique, and the Theatre Favart in Paris, as well as the court theaters at Fountainebleau and Versailles.
Broad and vigorous conceptions were not in his range. Not possessing a mastery of harmony or instrumentation, his scores lacked musical interest and sustaining power. He scarcely wrote for more than two voices at a time. "You might drive a coach-and-four between the bass and the first fiddle," was said of his harmonies. It is necessary, therefore, to reinforce his meager instrumen?tation as Mr. Mottl has done in the arrangement used on this program. In fact, what is heard is more Mottl than Gretry. He has added the tambourine and triangle, changed string figures to the woodwinds, interpolated passages for trumpets and drums, added counter melodies, and even recomposed several sections and added codas to each movement. Only a slight resemblance to the original remains, particularly in the gigue, which is practically re-written. The
In his Mtmoires, Gretry counsels Haydn to stop the composition of instrumental music and turn his talents to the creation of more important works, that is, opera. On another occasion he attempted to write words for Haydn's symphonies!
37
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
result, however, is justified, for Mr. Mottl has added a charming and effective work to the orchestral repertory.
Let it be further said of Gretry that in spite of his inadequacy in writing in-strumentally, he was, in truth, a master when it came to creating for the stage. He possessed an uncanny instinct for effective stage business, dramatic timing, and vivid characterization. For these talents he was highly respected, and he won the appellation of the "Moliere of music." He had many distinguished friends among the literary men of his day, possessed powerful patrons at court, and was the recipient of pensions and honors. Napoleon made him "Chevalier of the Legion of Honor" on the institution of that order in 1802. He further compen?sated him for his private losses in the Revolution. Gretry died in full honor at "L'Ermitage" near Montmorency, the former residence of Rousseau.
The opera Cephale et Procris was first produced at Versailles, December 30, 1773.
Concerto in D minor for Violoncello and Orchestra . . . Lalo
fidouard Lalo was born in Lille, January 27, 1823; died in Paris, April 22, 1892.
Coming from a family of Spanish origin, fidouard Lalo inherited a native talent for the colorful, vivacious, and piquant which he infused into his music with fanciful charm.
His first musical studies were with a German musician named Baumann who did much to temper his excesses and to discipline him in the rigors of compo?sition. Upon Baumann's advice, Lalo decided upon a musical career. His first compositions date from 1845, but are not significant works. In 1847 he won the Prix de Rome, but it was not until 1872 that he secured recognition as a com?poser of note. During this period, in great discouragement, he gave up com?posing for several years. He achieved his first decided success with the "Diver?tissement" at the Concerts Populaire (December 8, 1872), and after a perform?ance of his Violin Concerto, Op. 20, by the famous violin virtuoso Sarasate in
1874, his genius was generally acknowledged. His fame spread further with the premiere of the Symphonie espagnole for Violin and Orchestra on February 7,
1875. Although Lalo wrote three symphonies (two unpublished), a violin and piano concerto, a very impressive opera, Le Rot d'Ys, and many other successful works, it is the ever-popular Symphonie espagnole that has brought him the greatest recognition.
Lalo was conspicuous among the French composers of his day, and the distinc?tive and elegant style that marked his works won for him, in 1888, the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
The cello concerto on this afternoon's program was presented for the first time at the Cirque d'Hiver, Paris, December 9, 1877. Stylistically, it bears a close relationship to the Symphonie espagnole for Violin, which had its premiere only two years earlier. Lalo was a distinguished violist and a student of violin and cello. These two works reveal his intimate knowledge of the solo instruments involved and his consummate skill in composing effectively for them.
38
THIRD CONCERT Suite frangaise..............Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, September 4, 1892.
After the end of the First World War, a group of young avant-garde com?posers, rebelling against the rich and wandering chromaticism of Cesar Franck and wearying of the vagueness and evanescence of Debussy (who they declared had "drawn French music into an impasse" with his glamorous veiled dis?sonances), grouped themselves together as the Societi des nouveaux jeunes. It included Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Franqois Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, Louis Durey, and Georges Auric. They were publicly recognized in an article appearing in Comoedia, January 16, 1920, by Henry Collet, who referred to them as "Les Six." "an inseparable group who by a magnificent and voluntary return to simplicity have brought about a renaissance of French music." The only thing they really had in common as artists was the patronage of Eric Satie and Jean Cocteau and a desire to react violently against the pastel music of the Impressionists and the elaborate and involved grandiose style of late Romanticism, which they opposed with a music that was direct, clean-cut, witty, and for its time sophisticated. They were active in the day of the "fu?turists" and "cubists" in painting, a time of innovation, ridicule, and violent disputes in aesthetic matters. Actually they were quite independent of each other artistically. Of the six, only Honegger, Milhaud, and Poulenc achieved international recognition, and certainly each of these strongly individual com?posers maintained a high degree of stylistic independence throughout his career, a time when young composers found themselves in an artistic vacuum. The long steady tradition of Romanticism had spent its strength, but no new impulse had taken its place. In France, Claude Debussy had both opposed and, in a way, brought it to fruition, but by 1915 his impressive work was finished. He died in 1918. "Les Six" blithely ignored the problems of composition inherited from him and the late Romanticists. In their gay, trivial, and often impertinent music they scorned all tradition. Behind their disrespect for the "presumptuous com?poser" of the past and his musical conventions was no doubt a fear that emanated from the fact that they found themselves lost and wandering in an artistic wasteland. "Atonality," "twelve-tone technique," "quarter-tone technique," "barbarism," "brutism," "futurism,"."machine music," and "Gebrauchtsmusik" were some of the signposts that led nowhere. After so varied and futile an attempt to find a new path to the future, the name J. S. Bach finally pointed the way. It dispelled fear, curtailed sensationalism, and began a trend toward serious endeavor and constructive thought. In turning back before advancing, in the music of the pre-Bach and Bach periods, composers found direction again. Neo-classicism was anticipated by Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) and finally estab?lished by Igor Stravinsky (Octet for Wind Instruments, 1923; Piano Concerto, 1924; opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex, 1927: and ballet Appolon Musagetes. 1928). Paul Hindemith, Alfred Casella, Francesco Malipiero, and Walter Piston are some of the other composers identified with this movement. Directives of the
39
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
period are reflected in a letter of Albert Roussel. "The tendencies of con?temporary music," he wrote in 1926, "indicate a return to clearer, sharper lines, more precise rhythms, a style more horizontal than vertical; to a certain brutality, at times, in the means of expression--in contrast with the subtle elegance and vaporous atmosphere of the preceding period [Debussy and Impressionism]; to a more attentive and sympathetic attitude toward the robust frankness of Bach or Handel; in short a return, in spite of appearances, and with a freer though still somewhat hesitating language, to the traditions of the classics."
French music between the two world wars, in spite of its conscious attempt to advance the cause of the new in music, labored to no avail against the firm purposefulness of Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Its pickings among eighteenth-century dance forms, nineteenth-century theater music, and twentieth-century popular music were slim indeed.
Potentially, Milhaud was one of the most gifted composers of his generation; he possessed individuality, imagination, and creative fertility, producing an exceptionally large quantity of music. But he was, in a way, a victim of his times; he never quite survived its modish superficiality and fashion consciousness as did Honegger and Poulenc. He answered too readily the demands of the "art fanciers" and followed too closely Cocteau's famous dictum that "there is some?thing wrong with music that has to be listened to with the head between the hands." He seldom met the structural demands of his materials and as a result created works that evidenced more pseudo-cerebration than intellectual honesty. He is at his best in short, interpretive compositions such as the Suite francaise on this afternoon's program, where the texture is simple and clear and the form uncomplicated. Milhaud's career, wrote David Drew, "is nothing more than the tragedy of a composer with a huge surplus energy that he is unable to direct."f
During the Nazi occupation of France, Milhaud and his family came to America. Shortly after this, he became a member of the music faculty of Mills College at Oakland, California. In 1947 he was appointed Professor of Composi?tion at the Paris Conservatoire and he now divides his time between both institutions.
Suite franchise originally was written for band. It had its premiere under the direction of Edwin Frank Goldman in the summer of 1945 on the mall of Cen?tral Park, New York City. Later it was arranged for orchestra and performed by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra at a Lewisohn Stadium con?cert. Its origin as a practical piece for high school and college bands is reflected in its technical simplicity and its liberal use of woodwind instruments.
Of his Suite, Milhaud writes, "the five parts of the Suite are named after French provinces, the very ones in which the American and allied armies fought together with the French Underground for the liberation of my country: Nor?mandy, Brittany, Il-de-France, Alsace-Lorraine, and Provence. I used some folk tunes of these provinces. I wanted the young Americans to hear the popular
Nadia Boulanger, "Modern French Music." Rice Institute Pamphlet (Vol. 13, April, 1926), p. 51-52. tDavid Drew, "Modern French Music," European Music in the Twentieth Century, Ed. Howard Hartog. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1957), p. 260.
40
THIRD CONCERT
melodies of those parts of France where their fathers and brothers fought to defend the country from the German invaders."
The images and emotions that might possibly be evoked by each are suggested by Edwin H. Schloss in the program notes of the Philadelphia Orchestra for November 18-19, in the 1955-56 season:
Normandy--The mood here is gay with suggestions of peasant merrymaking, in all like?lihood not unstimulated by the calvados for which the province is famous.
Brittany--The music is nostalgic. One is reminded of the colors of the seas and dunes of this maritime scene.
Ile-dc-France--The brisk, bustling rhythms and eupeptic high spirits of the music more than hint that Paris is the heart of this province.
Provence--The composer grows beautifully nostalgic over the province of his birth--one of the most storied parts of France. The music suggests the romantic past of the troubadors and the Courts of Love that flourished here "when knighthood was in flower."
Alsace-Lorraine--There is a special place in the hearts of Frenchmen for the "lost" provinces whose monument on the Place de la Concord stood draped in black for almost fifty years after the war of 1870. Milhaud's salute to Alsace-Lorraine is in a happy vein, with interludes of rustic dances to the accompaniment of pipes and tambour.
Milhaud provided no descriptive program aside from the titles of each section.
L'Horloge de flore ("The Flower Clock") for
Solo Oboe and Orchestra.........Francaix
Jean Francaix was bom in Le Mans, France, May 23, 1912.
Jean Franqaix is the son of a former director of the Conservatoire at Le Mans, where he received his early musical training. He studied composition mainly with Nadia Boulanger in Paris: he was, in fact, her only French composer-pupil to win international standing. FranqaLx is also a noted pianist. In 1930 he was awarded the Premier Prix de Piano at the Paris Conservatory and has appeared as piano soloist in his own and other works with the leading orchestras in Europe and America. It was his spirited Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, among his earliest published compositions, that won for him immediate recognition in 1932. Distinguished works followed, which marked him as one of the most prolific and brilliant composers of the contemporary French school.
Attracted early to the theater, he has written eight ballets, an opera, "La Main de gloire" (unpublished), a musical comedy, L'Apostrophe (Balzac), and a chamber opera, Le Diable boiteux (Le Sage). A symphony for string orchestra and an imposing choral work for solo voices, chorus, and two orchestras, L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean, are his major works to date.
Franqaix's music is rarely profound or searching. His style is typically Gallic in spirit, often witty and charming, always clear and well-ordered. All of his outstanding characteristics are apparent in this engaging and transparent work.
"L'Horloge de flore" was completed in the summer of 1959, and was dedi?cated to John de Lancie, first oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, who com?missioned it and who will perform it on this occasion.
41
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Mr. de Lancie has given the following account of the work's inception:
The first idea of commissioning Jean Franc.aix to write an oboe concerto came to my mind during a rehearsal with the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintette. At that time, we were playing some chamber music by M. Franc,aix--music which impressed me a great deal. Other chamber and orchestral works of M. Francaix had also impressed me and I then decided to ask him to write for a category which has been sadly neglected, namely, concertos for woodwind instruments and orchestra. It was my desire to have something worthwhile musically, at the same time conforming to my own ideas of what is best for the oboe.
At this time, Mile Nadia Boulanger, M. Francois's teacher, was lecturing in Philadelphia. I contacted Mile Boulanger and told her of my plans. She was very kind and assisted me in presenting my request to M. Francaix who accepted the commission. M. Francaix and I ex?changed letters in which I attempted to give him my thoughts about the limitations of the oboe and the type of thing the oboe is best suited to do. In the early summer of 1959 I re?ceived a note from M. Fran;aix saying, "Last night at 11:00 I completed L'Horloge de flore for solo oboe, two flutes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, and a small string section.1 "
Mr. de Lancie further writes, "I believe this work will be a very welcome addition to the repertory because it was written with the thought that the oboe is primarily a lyric instru?ment and the work admirably supports this concept."
The work is built upon a series of seven short movements played without pause. An in?scription on the title page of the score notes that Carl von Linne, better known as Linneaus, was a famous Swedish botanist who lived from 1707 to 1778. He gave the name Horloge de flore to a series of flowers which can be classified according to the hour of the day at which each bloomed.
The following is a synopsis of the movements: 3 A.M. --Galant de jour (known in English as Poisonberry) 5 a.m. --Cupidone bleue (Blue Catanache, native of Southern France) 10 A.M. --Cierge a grandes fleurs (Torch Thistle) 12 noon--Nyctanthe du Malabar (Malabar Jasmine) S p.m. --Belle de nuit (Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade) 7 p.m. --Geranium triste (Mourning Geranium) 9 p.m. --Silene noctiflore (Night Flowering Catch-fly)
"La Valse," a Choreographic Poem........Ravel
Maurice Ravel was bom in Ciboure, March 7, 187S; died in Paris, December 28, 1937.
In contrast to the ecstatic impressionism of Debussy, which often fails to merge emotion into an objective lyricism but merely allows it to spread and dissolve into vague colored patterns, the art of Maurice Ravel appears more concrete. Although he was at home among the colored vapors of the Debussian harmonic system, Ravel expressed himself in a more tangible form and fashioned the same materials into set designs. In this structural sense lies the true secret of the difference between him and Debussy.
About 1805, Dr. Charles Burney spoke of the waltz as "a riotous German dance of modern invention. . . . The verb waltzen, whence this word is derived, implies a roll, wallow, welter, tumble down, or roll in the dirt and mire. What analogy there may be between these acceptations and the dance, we pretend not to say; but having seen it performed by a select party of foreigners, we could not help reflecting how uneasy an English mother would be to see her daughter
42
THIRD CONCERT
so familiarly treated and still more to witness the obliging manner in which the freedom is returned by the females."
The waltz flourished, however, in spite of nice old Dr. Burney, and during the middle of the nineteenth century, under the refining influences of the Strausses, father and son, it reached its graceful and melodious perfection.
On the authority of Alfredo Casella, who, with the composer, played a two-piano arrangement of "The Waltz" in Vienna (1920), the composition had been sketched during the war and was completed in 1920; the themes are of Viennese character, and though Ravel had no exact idea of choreographic pro?duction, he conceived it with the idea of its realization in a dance representation. Casella further describes the composition: "The Poem is a sort of triptych: (a) The Birth of the Waltz. The Poem begins with dull rumors as in Rheingold, and from this chaos gradually develops (b) The Waltz, (c) The Apotheosis of the Waltz."
The following "program" of "La Valse" is printed in the score:
Whirling clouds give glimpses, through rifts, of couples waltzing. The clouds scatter, little by little. One sees an immense hall peopled with a twirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The lights of the chandeliers burst forth, fortissivw. An Imperial Court about 1855.
The first performance of "La Valse" in the United States was at a concert of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Hertz, director, October 28, 1921. When the work was played at Boston the following year (January 13-14), Mr. Hale wrote that the music suggested to the critic, Raymond Schwab, who heard it at the first performance in Paris:
The atmosphere of a court ball of the Second Empire, at first a frenzy indistinctly sketched by the pizzicati of double-basses, then transports sounding forth the full hysteria of an epoch. To the graces and languors of Carpeaux is opposed an implied anguish with some Prud'homme exclaiming: "We dance on a volcano." There is a certain threatening in this bacchanale, a drunkenness, as it were, warning itself of its decay, perhaps by the dissonances and shock of timbres, especially the repeated combinations in which the strings grate against the brass.
FOURTH CONCERT
Saturday Evening, May 5 "Fireworks," a Fantasy for Orchestra, Op. 4 ... 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 Bela Bartok in 1945, and Arnold Schoenberg in 1951, 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 Schoenberg, 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 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 and the complete absence of any personal commentary or preoccupation with lyrical expression without first subjecting it to rules identify him with 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."
As a young student, Stravinsky wavered between law and music as a career. In 1902, at a crucial time of indecision, he met Rimsky-Korsakov, whose encour?agement determined his choice. After two fruitful years of study with this great master of orchestration, Stravinsky launched upon his brilliant career.
It was in the summer of 1908 that a grateful young composer sketched out a daring and unprecedented score as a wedding gift to Rimsky-Korsakov's daugh-
Igor Stravinsky, Autobiography (New York: M & J Steuer, 1958).
44
FOURTH CONCERT
ter. It was to depict in tone the exciting and dazzling effects of a fireworks dis?play. It was also intended as a tribute to his aging master, a testimony of the artistic achievements he had attained under his tutelage. The score was com?pleted in six weeks and sent to Rimsky's summer residence. It was returned un?opened with the words "not delivered on account of the death of addressee." Rimsky-Korsakov had died four days after the wedding of his daughter. Stunned by the tragic news, he put aside the jubilant and festive score and wrote "Chant funebre."
Shortly afterward, the conductor, Alexander Siloti, performed Fireworks at a concert in St. Petersburg. Present at this occasion was Sergei Diaghilev, impres-sario of the Russian Ballet, who was so impressed by this vividly descriptive music and its dazzling orchestration that he asked the young composer to or?chestrate some Chopin pieces for a ballet to be called Les Sylphides. Thus, Rimsky-Korsakov's gift became the means of opening the way to the creation of Stravinsky's most brilliant compositions: the Firebird, which showed an un?mistakable indebtedness to his master; Petrouchka, which completely unfolded his unique and individual genius; and The Rite of Spring, which established him as the most epoch-making composer of his time.
While Fireworks shows the influence of Debussy and Ravel and a few rather direct borrowings from Paul Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice, it gives indications of the strongly individualistic idiom that was to emerge shortly in the Firebird and Petrouchka--an idiom marked by incisive rhythm, frequent displacements of accents, stringent themes, dynamic drive, and sharp, sudden contrasts of color.
"Classical" Symphony in D major, Op. 25 . . . . Prokofiev
Sergey Sergeyevitch Prokofiev was born in Sontsovska, Russia, April 23, 1891; died in Moscow, March 5, 1953.
Sergey Prokofiev, a senior member of a very significant group of Soviet Republic composers of whom Dmitri Shostakovich is perhaps the most sensa?tional member, after a few startling excursions into the grotesque and only an occasional sojourn into the cacophonous realm of the musical modernism of his day, produced music that was not merely interesting and clever but brilliantly effective.
At a period when European audiences either were being doped into a state of insensibility by the vacuity of the Post-Impressionists, incensed to riots by the shocking barbarisms of Stravinsky, or baffled into boredom by the mathematical cerebration of Schoenberg (whose music seemed, as far as emotional expression was concerned, to be hermetically sealed), the spectacle of a composer who was still able to create music that had natural ease and fluidity, and a freshness and spontaneity that was essentially "classical," was as surprising as it was eventful. During a protracted absence from his native land between 1918 and 1932, at which time he traveled in Japan and the United States and lived in Paris, Prokofiev won a tremendous reputation as an international composer. Such works
45
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
as the Classical Symphony (1916-17), the Scythian Suite (1916), the opera Love of Three Oranges (1921), which he composed for the Chicago Opera Asso?ciation, and the ballet Chout (1921) had, with their driving energy, clear de?signs, bright colors, and ironic overtones, carried his name throughout the musi?cal world. Upon his return to Russia in 1934, and his identification with Soviet cultural life and its rigid proscription on free expression, he steered a cautious course between his own artistic instincts and the demands of the State. Gradually, a shift from his former rather abstract and sometimes abstruse manner to one more immediate and acceptable to Russian audiences was noted. In a tempered frame of mind he wrote, among other works, Lieutenant Kije in 1934, the Second Violin Concerto in 1935, a Russian Overture and Peter and the Wolf, both in 1936, incidental music for the film Alexander Nevsky, and a cantata dedicated to Stalin, Zdravitsa, in 1939, an opera based upon Tolstoy's War and Peace in 1940, his Fifth Symphony in 1945 (his Fourth Symphony had been written seventeen years before), and the Sixth Symphony in 1947.
Aside from Russian folk-song sources to which he turned for these works, a new romantic idiom began to shape itself. In spite of his conscious attempts to abide by the dictates of the State, he, along with Shostakovich and Khatcha-turian, was attacked by the Communist Party's famous decree of February 11, 1948, for writing music that "smelled strongly of the spirit of modern bourgeois music of Europe and America," and again later in the year by Tikhon Khren-nikov, secretary-general of the Soviet Composers' Union, for his "bourgeois formalism." In spite of these reprimands, Prokofiev, to the end of his life five years later, continued to produce works of high individuality and artistic value. He never lost entirely the clear, terse style and motoric drive he revealed in his earlier works, and although in his compositions after 1935 there was a new emotional quality, an almost romantic richness of melody, and the fulfillment of a latent lyricism, the old style was still definite and clearly defined. This con?tinued to give to his music the same sureness and spontaneity that has always been its chief distinction. At the time of his death he was at the very height of his creative powers. He had become infinitely more than a clever composer who delighted in the grotesque; his music is, according to Leonid Sebaneyev and many other critics, the most original and valuable that Russian art of this century has produced.
It was not without a provoking wit, and just a little satire, perhaps, that Pro?kofiev ever so politely thumbed his nose at the young radical "moderns" for a moment, and with his tongue in his cheek deluded the staid traditionalists by creating the impression that the "good old classicism" of the past was as alive as ever. The "Classical" Symphony, produced in 1917, has all the polished crafts?manship and mannered elegance of a true eighteenth-century composition.
Employing an orchestra typical of Haydn or Mozart, and adhering religiously to the formal symphonic traditions of their time, Prokofiev has almost outdone his models in charm, elegance, and nice proportion. Throughout the work, how?ever, there are, here and there, sly intrusions of daring harmonic progressions, and pointed misshapings of phrases that would certainly have taken the curl
46
FOURTH CONCERT
out of the periwigs of an eighteenth-century audience. These moments, however, provide delightful zest, engaging interest, and no little humor to those who know well their classic composers.
Excerpts from Boris Godunov.......Moussorgsky
Modeste Petrovich Moussorgsky was born in Karevo, March 21, 1839; died in Saint Petersburg, March 28, 1881.
For Moussorgsky, art was so valuable a means of effecting human understand?ing that to treat it merely as a vehicle for the glorification of the beautiful would be to pervert its purpose and to dissipate its power. For him art was no autonomous segregated phenomenon, but rather the direct expression of humanity, and like it, art is in a constant state of flux and evolution. There should be, therefore, no arbitrary formulistic boundaries imposed upon it. As the expression of humanity is an office which ought to be carried out with a full sense of responsibility attached to those entrusted with it, the artist is called upon to be sincere and truthful in any work he undertakes. For Moussorgsky, "art for art's sake" became "art for life's sake."
Hard things have been said of him as an artist. He has been accused of crude realism, of a lack of any sense of real beauty, of creating clumsily, laboriously, and imperfectly. It is true that he was a thoroughgoing realist in music, but for him realism was not only an essential and indispensible quality in art; it also rendered to art an instrument through which the masses could be brought to a realization of their social and moral duties. This attitude, contrary to the conception of art as appealing primarily to the cultivated, is comparable to that of Tolstoy.
The music of Moussorgsky brings varying and confused impressions to the mind. Considering his work as a whole, there is at times imperfection, incom?pleteness, and carelessness. It is marked by a rugged crudeness and by unprece?dented and quite intuitive audacities with their constant adaption to the special needs of his own creative temperament. And yet, we must acknowledge a genius of colossal inspiration and awful power. To his more conservative contempo?raries, Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein, Moussorgsky was a musical nihilist, and his music filled them with misgivings. In a letter written by Tchaikovsky to Mme von Meek, November 27, 1878, we meet with an interesting charac?terization:
As far as talent goes, he is perhaps the most important of all, only his is a nature in which there is no desire for self-improvement--a nature too absorbed with the absurd theories around him. Moreover, his is a rather low nature, that loves the uncouth, coarse and ugly. He prides himself on his ignorance, and writes down what comes to his head, believing blindly in the infallibility of his genius.
The reference to the "absurd theories around him" points to the group of young Russian contemporary composers who had banded themselves together
Modeste Tchaikovsky, The Life and Letters of Peter Hick Tchaikovsky, translated and edited by Rosa Newmarch (New York: John Lane Company, 1906), p. 252.
47
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
in opposition to Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein, who, they thought, were more Teutonic than Russian. Other members of this chauvinistic coterie were Cesar Cui, Borodin, Balakirev, and Rimsky-Korsakov. This group, known as "The Five," were the young radicals in their day, looking with scorn upon the whole musical world. None looked with more contempt than Moussorgsky, who was "always ready to sacrifice poetry and musical charm to realism, and never recoiled from shocking rudeness."
His obvious incorrectness at times, his ultracrude realism, and his insistence upon preserving his orginality at the cost of discipline do not destroy in any way his position as perhaps the most gifted of the Neo-Russian School, over?flowing with vitality and reckless in his daring. His powerfully spontaneous and startlingly free and unfettered music submerges all weaknesses of detail. Claude Debussy has exactly defined his music in these terms: "It resembles the art of the inquiring primitive man, who discovers music step by step, guided only by his feelings."f He is in truth the Dostoevsky of music, and his music is a poetic evocation to nationalism.
In Boris Godunov, Moussorgsky achieved the highest level in his creative career. The works prior to the years 1868-74 were a preparation for his masterpiece, and the efforts of the later years were those of a spent genius. For a more or less untrained composer to create the most national and most Russian of operas, and to reach a power of sustained expression which places the work among the great operas of all periods and all "schools," is a tribute to the intensity of the inner flame which glowed, sometimes at white heat, during the years of creating this unique music drama. Written in the period when Verdi in Italy was winning acclaim for the sheer beauty of vocal melody, and Wagner, with his symphonic operas, was all-powerful in western Europe, Boris Godunov bows to neither of these operatic ideals, but marches steadily, gloomily forward, creating a new expression. It is in the primal power of the music and in sharply defined characterization that Boris is outstanding. The music here moves in massive blocks, following the plan of semidetached tableaux, rather than that of a continuous drama. Nothing could be less Verdian or Wagnerian. Boldness, audacity, and sincerity lift Boris Godunov above the level of routine opera writing and overshadow its undeniable weaknesses.
These weaknesses have to do with the dramatic structure. A clearly defined integrated plot in the usual sense is absent here. Yet, in spite of this weakness of plot construction, Boris Godunov possesses an almost Aeschylean grandeur in the handling of dramatic forces. Moussorgsky's drama presents in several episodes the climaxing moments in the life of Boris, and some of the events which brought on his mortal fear, the gradual weakening of his spirit and power, and the consequent disintegration of his nature. In his version of the story, however, which is based on Pushkin's poetic play, Moussorgsky cen?tered his interest upon elevating to a dramatic level, higher than that of any individual character, the surging, groaning, and agitating populace. Born among
lbid.
tOscar Thompson, Debussy, Man and Artist (New York: Tudor Publishing Company, 1940), p. 195.
48
FOURTH CONCERT
the country folk, ever sympathetic to their position with respect to imperialism, he pictures at first their blind obedience, their humble obeisance, and then their muttering discontent, awesome power, and terrifying strength, which, finally unleashed, wreaks destruction on a whole social order. With inexorable forces acting upon him and beyond his control, Boris becomes a passive and gauntly tragic victim of circumstances. Perhaps all this was a prophecy of the events of 1918, in which case there is an explanation for the removal of the opera from the repertoire in Russia under the Czar, and for the great popularity of the work in recent times.
The historical facts behind the story of Boris Godunov are as follows: Czar Ivan the Terrible had two sons: Feodor, who ascended the throne, and his brother Dimitri, in exile at Uglitch. Dimitri was found foully mur?dered near the end of the reign of Feodor, and when Boris ascended the throne at his death, it was rumored that he (Boris) had been responsible for the death of Dimitri. The reign of Boris was short and troubled. Led by a pretender, who posed as the murdered Dimitri who had been brought back to life by a miracle, the people revolted against Boris at the time of his death. This is the skeleton of the plot, drawn from history and elaborated into dramatic proportions by the poet-dramatist Pushkin, and readapted by the composer when he utilized these incidents for his opera.
Coronation Scene
The scene is a square in the Kremlin. Some people are kneeling in the space between the Cathedral of the Assumption and the Cathedral of the Archangels. As Boyars and others assemble, loud peals of bells announce the beginning of the pageant of the Coronation of Czar Boris. The procession, in gorgeous panoply of religious and military array, wends its way through the throng toward the Cathedral of the Assumption. An old folk-song chant serves as the basis of the Coronation Hymn; it is as rich in harmonic texture as it is solid and severe in rhythm. As the music mounts to a climax, Boris appears on the cathedral porch, surrounded by his children and the officers of the court.
Monologue
In the "Monologue" Boris reflects that though he is now an all-powerful ruler, neither the crown and its.glory nor the plaudits of his people are able to bring him any happiness; and though he has hoped to find comfort in the well-being of his children, he now stands accused of murdering his daughter's betrothed and poisoning his sister:
I stand supreme in power. Five years and more my reign has been untroubled. Yet happiness eludes my sad, my tormented soul! In vain I hear astrologers foretell long years of life and power and peace and glory. Nor life, nor power, nor transient lure of glory, nor praise from the crowds rejoice my aching heart. I hoped amid my children to find comfort, and soon to see a splendid marriage-feast prepared for my Tsarevna, my well-beloved. But cruel death has struck the one she loved. How heavy is the hand of God in his wrath, how merciless a doom awaits the sinner! In gloom I tread, for darkness surrounds me, no single ray of light brings solace. My heart is torn with anguish, is hopeless and weary.
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
A secret terror haunts me. ... I wait, I tremble. With all my heart I implore saints and angels, and God, I beseech to grant me mercy. And I, I wish with all my power, Tsar of Russia, I, feared and envied, in tears I vainly beg for mercy. Now dangers loom: Boyars rebelling, intrigues and plots all over Lithuania, pestilence, disloyalty, starvation. Like beasts of prey hungry peasants are prowling. The land is bare. Russia weeps tears of blood. And groaning under the weight of the burden on all, for a great sin inflicted, all throw the blame on me. They denounce me, they hate my very name, openly curse me. And even sleep has fled. Each night I see visions. A blood-bespattered child appears to me, sobbing in anguish, writhing, lamenting, praying for mercy, and mercy was denied him I Blood from his wounds is pouring; loudly he cries, with death he struggles. . . . O merciful Lord, my God!
Siege of Kazan
The famous Ballad is taken from the final episode of Act I. The scene is an inn by the Lithuanian border. Messail and Varlaam, two bibulous monks, arrive with Gregory, pretender to the throne of Russia, but now disguised as a beggar. His escape from a monastery and his attempt to reach the Polish border is known to the police. While officers search the inn, Gregory escapes. At the height of a drinking party, Varlaam is induced to sing an old folk song "By the Walls of Kazan, the Mighty Stronghold," which tells of the fall of this city at the hands of the crafty Ivan the Terrible. The boldness and audacity of its rhythm and harmony create the wildness and fury of a Tartar song. Musically, the orchestra presents a set of variations on the melody, which is repeated again and again by Varlaam. For tonight's performance, only the orchestral transcriptions will be heard.
Hallucination Scene
Alone with his memories and his conscience, Boris unveils his innermost feelings in this scene of great power and intensity. As a clock ticks and a grisly accompaniment is heard in the orchestra, he thinks aloud of his past and of the evils which are piling upon one another. Breathing with difficulty, he cries out for mercy and forgiveness:
Ah, I can scarcely breathe! I suffocate! All my blood seems to have run to my head and feels like a great weight. How my conscience does remind me of my deeds. One sin in my past, caused only by chance, and my heart and soul are burning as though poisoned. My senses are unbalanced! What is it that I see Can it be the blood-stained body of the child Ah, no! Stand back! Don't come near me! It was not I who killed you! Back! Oh, God, have mercy on the sinful soul of Boris!
Farewell and Death of Boris
The death of Boris is one of the most poignant scenes in operatic literature. Whether viewed as drama or music, it is matchless. The tender human traits exhibited in his final address to his son, his warnings to beware of disloyal Boyars, his adjuration to uphold the Holy Faith, his plea for the protection of "your sister Xenia, so pure and gentle," and his prayer to God for the gift of grace to the innocent children--these and other sentiments reveal the nature of Boris as a father which can scarcely be reconciled with his crafty
50
FOURTH CONCERT
methods of achieving power. Bells toll as he embraces his son, Feodor. A choir of monks sounds in the distance, coming nearer and nearer, and Boris intuitively recognizes the approach of his doom. As they enter to the words, "for him is no salvation," Boris dramatically rises, and with a last show of power in "Await my orders, your Czar commands," the climax of the opera is reached. In the next measure, the same words are repeated almost in a whisper--but the ring of supreme power is replaced by a dull murmur from a crushed soul. The Czar of Russia is now the humble penitent before the Throne of Grace. The Boyars are motionless, awed by the passing of Boris. Out of the depths of the orchestra ascends a melodic phrase, symbolic of the upward flight of his soul and of its release from human frailties. The curtain slowly falls:
Leave me with my son. Farewell, my son. I die now. You will be the Tsar. Do not question how the throne came to me; it is yours by right. Beware of those about you who plot against you. Do not spare your enemies. Prove yourself just and worthy of the people. Guard the Holy Faith. Protect your sister. She has only you. Oh, God, see my tears, those of a sinful father! I do not ask for myself, but for my guiltless children. Preserve them.
Listen! The funeral bell is tolling! Bring me the holy shroud. Oh, God--how my sins weigh upon me. Is there no mercy for me
I am still the Tsar! I am still the Tsar! God--forgive me! Forgive!
Symphony No. 6 in B minor,
Op. 72 ("Pathetique").........Tchaikovsky
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky was born in Wotkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840; died in Petrograd, November 6, 1893.
What helps it now, that Byron bore, With haughty scorn that mocked the smart, Through Europe to the Aetolian shore The pageant of his bleeding heart That thousands counted every groan And Europe made his woes her own --Arnold
"No, that is nothing like me, I am far unhappier than that," cried Byron when he beheld in Rome the bust made of him by the sculptor Thorwaldsen. Goethe described Byron in the fine phrase, "His being consists in rich despair," and, in fact, fame, love, wealth, and beauty left him sick with satiety--a despiser of the world. The soul-life of the age bore the stamp of this man for whom "sorrow was knowledge"; he was, in truth, the eponymous hero of an epoch.
The age was literally infected by Byronism. Under one form or another the wave of influence emanating from him was mingled with the current of French, German, and Slavonic Romanticism; his own soul was incarnate in his Manfred who reflected an increasing egoism in the expression of melancholy. Chateau?briand, in France, who gave such fluent and beautiful expression to the emotional ideas originated by Rousseau, created the type of the esprit romanesque in his Rene. At odds with himself and the world, sensitive and disillusioned, full of yearning for love and faith without the strength for either, he felt nothing but bitter emptiness. "All," says Rene, "preaches to one of dissolution--everything
51
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
wearies me, painfully I drag my boredom about with me, and so my whole life is a yawn." Lamartine, in his Meditations poctique carried emotionalism to the extreme of poetic sensibility. De Musset sang in his self-conscious poetry the pain of a wounded heart; in the art of these poets lyricism embraced eccentricity. Although Goethe's Sorrows of Wcrther was written as early as 1774, it had a hero with the same romantic desire to feel and to suffer uniquely from an un-happiness caused by hidden, indefinable longing. Slavonic literature, too, stated the "superfluous" theme. Pushkin, the "Russian Byron," in his Eugen Onegin, and Lermantov in The Hero of Our Time created dramatic young men who wrapped themselves in Byron's dark mantle and stalked from one anguish to another.
This mixture of egoism and sensibility is found as basic stuff in the heroes of the literature of the time. Their philosophy was that of another spokesman of their age, Leopardi, who reflected that "sorrow and ennui is our being and dung the earth--nothing more; wherever one looks, no meaning, no fruit." Literature had become a "splendid greeny-gold growth, glittering and seductive, but filled with intoxicating saps that corrode."
The sources for this world sickness can be found in a measure in the effects the Industrial Revolution had upon the lives of men. As a result of this tremen?dous reorganizing force with its consequent power and wealth, a new attitude toward life was created. The growth of a rationalistic materialism gave rise to a period of doubt and disillusionment; it seemed as though the old culture was disappearing completely and that anarchy was taking its place. Strong spirits like Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, and Ruskin fought valiantly for the "revenge in?stinct," and composers like Wagner and Brahms tried to strengthen the flaccid spirit of their time by sounding a note of courage and hopefulness, but for the most part, the contagion of frustration and disbelief was widespread.
From the same over-fertilized emotional soil grew a prolific school of com?position. The supersensitive Chopin cried out his longing in the languorous noc?turnes, Berlioz in his Symphonic fantastique pictured the narcotic dreams of a young artist who, because of unrequited love, had attempted suicide by taking opium. Wagner, expressing one side of the Industrial Revolution in the imperious force and merciless drive of his music, nevertheless allowed his desire-sick soul to long for death as the only release from the world. The "renunciation" motive is the basis of his great dramas. Senta renounces life for the salvation of the Dutchman, Elizabeth dies for Tannhauser, Briinnhilde throws herself upon the funeral pyre of Siegfried to redeem the race, and Tristan and Isolde live only for the night and long for death to unite them forever. Heine had earlier character?ized this feeling in Germany. "People," he said, "practiced renunciation and modesty, bowed before the invisible, snatched at shadow kisses and blue-flowered scents." This unnatural and unhealthy mental attitude led to a great deal of self-contemplation and introspection which tended to substitute futile or morbid imaginings for solid realities of life. The over-introspective and supersensitive artist cuts himself off from the larger arc of experience and is prone to exaggerate
The Meditations poctique became the inspiration for Liszt's Les Preludes in 1848.
52
FOURTH CONCERT
the importance of the more important sentiments, and when, as in the nineteenth century, such a tendency is widespread, a whole school may become febrile and erotic.
Tchaikovsky, like Byron, was a child of his age, another victim of "the grief that saps the mind." It is truly said of Byron that he had but one subject-himself--and that saying is equally true of Tchaikovsky. If his personality was less puissant and terrible than that of Byron, his artistic instincts were reflected none the less forcibly in his self-cultivated and exhibitionistic art. His personal unassuageable grief, the tragedies and frustration of his own life, all he knew of anguished apprehension and despair he poured out in his music. His persistent penchant for melancholy expression, his feverish sensibility, his revulsions of artistic feeling, and his fitful emotions which sank him into morbid pessimism, deadening depression, and neurotic fears on the one hand, or raised him to wild hysteria on the other, picture him in the framework of his age. "And if bereft of speech, man bears his pain, a god gave me the gift to tell my sorrow," wrote Tasso. With this gift, Tchaikovsky was magnificently endowed.
A Russian to the core, Tchaikovsky was nevertheless criticized severely by those self-styled nationalists, "The Five," for being too strongly influenced by German and French methods and styles to be a true exponent of Russian music. Tchaikovsky, on the other hand, found much to admire in their art, and was very enthusiastic in his praise of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular. Nevertheless, he resented the assumption of superiority and the canons of judgment laid down by this coterie. He turned rather to Beethoven and to the scholarly technique ex?hibited in the construction of his symphonies; at the same time he was not im?mune to the charm of Italian music. Although he deprecated its superficial treatment of the orchestra, he did sense in the music of Italy the eternal value of pure melody, which he brought to full beauty through his superior and un-equaled knowledge of instrumental effects. From Beethoven, Tchaikovsky no doubt gained what sense of architectural design and unity of style he had, but so intent was he on the fascination and charm of the single episode, and so aware of the spell of the immediate melodic beauty and the particular suggestive power of the orchestral coloring, that he never gained the superb structural heights or the completely epic conception found in Beethoven.
The constant oscillation between sudden exultation, violent passion, and un-resisted submission in his temperament excluded the sustaining and impersonal elements necessary to the true epic. He gave himself up, as Sibelius noted when speaking of his music, to every situation without looking beyond the moment. But such is the beauty and power of his themes and so masterful and effective is the use he makes of the orchestral palette that we cannot consider it a dis?crepancy to find so lyric an expression in so epic a form or a weakness that his compositions, in his own words, often "show at the seams and reveal no organic union between the separate episodes." In fact, Tchaikovsky's faults embrace his virtues, and this is the enigma of his genius.
In a letter to his nephew, Vladimir Davidov, whom he loved with devotion
Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Moussorgsky, Balakirev, and Borodin.
S3
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
and to whom he dedicated the "Pathetic" Symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote in February, 1893:
I must tell you how happy I am about my work. As you know, I destroyed a symphony which I had partly composed and orchestrated in the autumn. I did wisely, for it contained little that was really fine--an empty pattern of sounds without any inspiration. Just as I was starting on my journey (a visit to Paris in December, 1892) the idea came to me for a new symphony, this time with a program; but a program of a kind that remains an enigma to all, let them guess it who can. The work will be entitled "A Program Symphony" (No. 6). The program is penetrated by subjective sentiment. During my journey, while composing it in my mind, I frequently shed tears. Now I am home again, I have settled down to sketch out the work, and it goes with such ardor that in less than four days I have completed the first movement, while the remainder of the symphony is clearly outlined in my head. There will be much that is novel as regards form in this work. For instance, the Finale will not be a great allegro, but an adagio of considerable dimensions. You can imagine what joy I feel in the conviction that my day is not yet over, and that I may still accomplish much. Perhaps I may be mistaken, but it does not seem likely. Do not speak of this to anyone but Modeste.
The Symphony was first heard at a concert of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, October 28, 1893. The next day Tchaikovsky decided to send the score to his publisher. The title, "A Program Symphony," which he had suggested in his letter to Davidov, no longer pleased him, however, and it was at the suggestion of his brother, Modeste, that he retitled it "Pathetic." "I remember as though it were yesterday," wrote Modeste of Tchaikovsky's reaction to his suggestion, "how my brother exclaimed 'Bravo, Modeste, splendid! Pathetic!' Then and there he added to the score the title by which the Symphony always has been known."
Fearing that his story might be questioned, Modeste added this footnote: "There is no witness of this incident other than myself, but it is clear from the program of the concert of October 28 that this title had not been given to the work. Moreover, anyone can see at a glance at the title page that this name was written later than the rest."
The first movement has an eighteen-measure Introduction (Allegro, E minor, 44 time) which foreshadows in the bassoon the motive of the principal subject and creates a melancholy aura which hangs over the whole work. It is an original feature that the movement opens, not in the key of the symphony, but in the shadowy peripheral region of the subdominant. This motive forms itself into the principal subject of the allegro, now in B minor, the key of the symphony. There is a considerable development of this and subsidiary material. A crescendo leads to a telling climax, which dwindles away in the cellos, against somber chords sounded by the tuba and trombones. The second theme, in violins and cellos, is extremely cantabile and expressive. Another section of this theme follows in the flute, imitated by the bassoon, after which the first section of the theme returns with richer orchestration. The clarinet is heard at the end, softly reminiscent of the principal subject. With dramatic suddenness the development section
It was recently discovered that thirty-three pages of full score had been preserved. Semyon Bogatyryvev, Soviet composer and teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, reconstructed the score into what is now the Symphony No. 7 in E-flat. It was performed February 16, 1961, in Philadelphia by Mr. Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.
54
FOURTH CONCERT
is announced, with fortissimo passages in the strings. This section is given over entirely to treatment of the first theme. The recapitulation is regular and brings back the first subject, worked up in a slow crescendo starting in the extremely re?mote key of B-flat minor and rising step by step until, in the tonic (B minor), the complete melody is given fortissimo in a dialogue between strings and winds. The second theme is now in B major. A severely simple coda, consisting of a solemn cadence for trumpets and trombones over a pizzicato descending scale, brings the movement to a somber and melancholy close.
The second movement (Allegro con grazia, D major, 54 time) is a very simple kind of scherzo, cast into the conventional da capo form. The theme, an?nounced immediately in the cellos, forms the principal song which is contrasted by a trio section in which a new and wistful theme in the first violins and cellos is heard over an obstinate pedal point in the drums, bassoons, and basses. After several attempts in the woodwinds to bring back the subject of the principal song, it is finally restated in the violins and cellos. A coda, based on a reiterated note, as in the trio, ends the movement.
The third movement (Allegro molto vivace, G major, 128 [44] time) is a gigantic march. The strings and woodwinds alternate an airy figure which re?ceives considerable treatment and development. With this, a march-like figure in various woodwind instruments is heard. Finally it appears as an independent theme in the clarinet, with the triplet figure supporting it in the lower strings. After development of this material the first section returns, continuously sug?gesting the march theme. Growing in intensity, the march is vigorously sounded in the full orchestra over furious scale passages, thrown against each other by the strings and woodwinds. This is employed with persistence to the end of the movement.
The fourth movement (Adagio lamentoso, B minor, 34 time) is a unique form created by two themes. The desperate first subject is immediately an?nounced in the strings; the consolatory second, in the violins and violas, is heard over a syncopated figure in the horns. This theme is worked up to a tremendous climax, which leads, after several dramatic pauses, but without development, to the recapitulation in which the first theme reaches an even greater climax. It then dies down until a distant and ominous stroke of a gong brings back the second theme, now in B minor. The symphony descends to the depths in which it began and leaves us in a mood of utter despair.
55
FIFTH CONCERT
Sunday Afternoon, May 6
Requiem Mass..............Dvorak
Antonin Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves on Vltava near Prague, September 8, 1841; died in Prague, May 1, 1904.
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose Well, I have--for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of the rock has. Do you take it I would astonish Does the red tail, twittering through the woods
--Walt Whitman
It is as little known among performing musicians as it is among the general listening public that Antonin Dvorak was one of the most prolific composers of the late nineteenth century. If we judge him only by the extent of his work, he is incontestably a phenomenon in the world of music. Without a doubt Dvorak was one of the most distinguished musical personalities of his period and should take his rightful place beside Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Franck. He ranks today among the great masters in the copiousness and extraordinary variety of his expression.
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, other European countries besides Germany, Austria, Italy, and France became articulate in music. The period saw the emergence of such nationalistic composers as Grieg in Norway, Mous-sorgsky and the "Five" in Russia, Albeniz in Spain, and Smetana and Dvorak in Bohemia. The freshness and originality of their musical styles stemmed from their conscious use of folk music sources. The result was an agreeable and popular art, essentially melodic, rhythmic, and colorful. Folk music, consciously cultivated by such artists as Dvorak and Smetana, sheds its provincialism but retains its essential characteristics--simplicity, directness, and honesty. It breathed an entirely new spirit into the gloomy romantic period.
As a traditionalist Dvorak accepted the forms of his art without question, but he regenerated them by injecting a strong racial feeling, which gave brilliant vitality, depth, and warmth to everything he wrote. Dvorak possessed genuinely Slavonic qualities that gave an imperishable color and lyrical character to his music. With a preponderance of temperament and emotion over reason and intellect, he always seemed to be intuitively guided to effect a proper relation?ship between what he wished to express and the manner of expressing it. In this connection he had more in common with Mozart and Schubert than he had with Beethoven. Like them he was one of those rare, natural musicians who produced continuously, spontaneously, and abundantly. His expression is fresh and irresistibly frank, and, although it is moody at times and strangely sensitive, it is never deeply philosophical or brooding; gloom and depression are never allowed to predominate. He could turn readily from one strong emotion to another without predetermination; he could pour out his soul without reserve
56
FIFTH CONCERT
or affectation, and in the next moment reveal an almost complete lack of sub?stance in his predilection for sheer color combinations or rhythmic effects for their own sake. But everything he felt and said in his music was natural and clear. There was no defiance, no mystical ecstacy in his makeup. He had the simple faith, the natural gaiety, and the sane and robust qualities of Haydn. His music, therefore, lacks the breadth and the epic quality of Beethoven's; it possesses none of the transcendent emotional sweep of Tchaikovsky's; but for radiantly cheerful and comforting music, for good-hearted, peasant-like humor, for unburdened lyricism, Dvorak has no peer.
In 1891 the committee of the Birmingham Festival commissioned Dvorak to write a work and suggested a setting of parts of Cardinal Newman's Dream oj Gerontius. He accepted the commission, but refused the text. Instead he wrote a Requiem. The work was sketched out between January and June, worked over in August and September, and performed for the first time on October 9 at the Birmingham Festival under his direction. It was an immediate success.
No external occasion required Dvorak to write a Mass for the Dead, and with his particularly optimistic temperament, it seems peculiar that he did so from choice alone. This beautiful and highly subjective work belongs to his final period and, although he was only forty-nine years of age and at the height of his fame, his advancing years had begun to weigh heavily upon him. For all its oppressive and gloomy thoughts, Dvorak could not, like Brahms, look upon the Requiem text with deep penetration or profound introspection, nor could he, like Verdi, seize upon the dramatic and the theatrical suggestions it so amply provides. He could not cry out that all was vanity and death a grim finality; nor had he any gift for expressing the horrors and terror of the Judg?ment Day. Compared with Verdi's vivid and dramatic setting of the Dies irae, Dvorak's march theme may seem slightly naive. He found in the text more an expression of sublimity than of fear, a source for sorrowful meditation and devout supplication rather than anguish. His Requiem speaks to us of the unity of God and spirit, which is as genuine as his affirmation of life and the world. It is in the sweetness and elegance of the Jcsn pie quartet, in the moving pathos of the Lacrymosa that ends Part I, and in the Offertory, as he turns from the horror of death to hopes of salvation, that he is the most expressive.
A detailed analysis of this work would contribute little to our understanding of its meaning. It should be noted, however, that the various sections of each of its two parts are linked together without pause, and that in the alternation of solos and chorus there is little occasion for big solo arias such as are found in Verdi's Requiem. Attention should also be called to the opening theme given out by the cellos at the very beginning of the work. This theme, often referred to as the "Motive of Death," is repeated throughout. Note it particularly as it recurs in the voices near the conclusion of the Kyrie and again in the orchestra at the very end of this section; in the soprano solo voice as it enters at the beginning of the second Requiem acternam (in augmented form); in the trumpet at the beginning of the Tuba mirum and again at the very end; in the basses, sopranos, and orchestra in the Quid sum miser; at the end of the
57
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Lacrymosa as it triumphs over the prayer for peace; in the Pie Jesu in which unaccompanied voices are answered antiphonally by an orchestral version; and most effectively of all, as it finally reappears at the very end of the work, where, after the music has reached a bright climax, it is quietly intoned in the soprano voice to the words Requiem aeternam (as it was at the beginning). The work ends softly, revealing Dvorak's diffident contemplation of death and the recon?ciling certainty of his unshaken faith.
PART I
1. Requiem aeternam (Soli and chorus)
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux per pet ua 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.
2. Requiem aeternam (Solo and chorus)
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis;
In memoria aeterna erit Justus: ab auditione mala non timebit.
3. Dies irae (Chorus)
Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla. Quantus tremor est juturus, Quando Judex est venturus. Cuncta stride discussurus!
4. Tuba minim (Soli and chorus)
Tuba mirum spargens sonum, Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum. Alors slupebit et natura, Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet, apparebit, Nil inullum remanebit.
5. Quid sum, miser (Soli and chorus)
Quid sum, miser; tune dicturus, Quern palronum rogaturus, Cum vix Justus sit securus
58
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.
Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them.
He shall be just for evermore: He will not fear from evil hearing.
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.
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
FIFTH CONCERT
Rex Iremendae majestatisl Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salve me, forts pietat is I
6. Rccordare (Chorus)
Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viae; Ne me perdas ilia die. Quarens me, sedisti lassus; Redemisti crucem passus; Tanlus labor non sit cassus. Juste Judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante Diem rationis. Ingemisco tanquam reus, Culpa rubct vultus meus: Supplicanti parce Dens. 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.
7. Confutatis (Chorus)
Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus abdictis, Voca me cum benedictis. Oro supplex et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis, Gere curam mei finis.
8. Lacrymosa (Soli and chorus)
Lacrymosa dies ilia I Qua resurget ex favilla Judicanlus homo reus. Huic ergo parce Deus. Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem. Amen.
Thou, O awe-inspiring Lord, saving e'en when unimplored, 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.
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, strained with guilt his doom to know.
Mercy, Lord, on him bestow. Jesus kind! Thy souls release, lead them thence to realms of peace. Amen.
PART II
9. Domine Jesu Christe (Soli and chorus)
Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium dejunctorum de
O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, de?liver the souls of all the faithful departed
50
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
poenis inferni et de profundo lacu; libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, necadant in obscurum. Sed signijer sanctus Michael repraesenlet eas in lucem sanc-tam. Quam olim Abrahae promisisti el scmini eius.
10. Hostias (Soli and chorus)
Solo Bass repeats "Domine Jesu Christe"
Hostias et preces, Domine, laudis offeri-tnus, tu suscipe pro animabas illis, quorum 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 morle transire ad vitam.
11. Sanctus (Soli and chorus)
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.
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, 0 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, 0 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.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. Thy 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.
12. Pie Jesu (Soli and chorus)
This is an inserted section, in which the words from No. 8 (Lacrymosa) return to form a transition to the Agnus Dei.
13. Agnus Dei (Soli and chorus)
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.
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum Sanctis tuis in aeternam, quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
60
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 them eternal rest.
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 Thv saints.
SIXTH CONCERT
Sunday Evening, May 6
Tone Poem, "Don Juan," Op. 20........Strauss
Richard Strauss was born in Munich, June 11, 1864; died in Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany, September 8, 1949.
Criticism has always been embarrassed in its attempt to evaluate Richard Strauss. There is no doubt that he was one of the most interesting and extra?ordinary personalities in the world of music. Whatever his antagonistic critics have said of him, he remains, in the light of his early works at least, one of the greatest composers of our time.
Trained during his formative years in the classical musical tradition of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, he exerted his individuality and independence of thought and expression with such daring and insistence that at his mature period he was considered the most modern and most radical of composers. Critics turned from their tirades against Wagner to vent their invectives upon him; they vilified him as they had Wagner, with a persistence that seems incredible to us today.
The progressive unfolding of his genius aroused much discussion, largely because it was so uneven and erratic. Hailed on his appearance as the true successor to Richard Wagner, this "Richard II" became, for some years, the most commanding figure in modern music. Forty years ago, except in Germany and Austria, he was almost entirely ignored by the leaders of progressive musical opinion. No composer has ever suffered such a sudden and decisive reversal of fortune. Just when his popularity seemed to be steadily growing and con?troversy dying down, his works began to disappear from current programs and for a period of approximately ten years became almost inaccessible to the public.
During this period, music was developing at a greater rate of speed than at any time in its history. Russia had begun to exert herself in the field 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 late impressionistic and modern devices, and England had suddenly revived interest in native art by rediscovering her heritage of Elizabethan music, and by attending to a contemporary output.
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 just at that period when Strauss was winning acceptance. When, after ten years of indifference to his output, the world again began to hear his works, it was with different ears. Music that had been controversial now seemed perfectly acceptable; what at first appeared to be novel in har?monic device, exotic in coloration, and new in conception of form was now looked upon as commonplace. Strauss's fresh and ingenious manner of treating
61
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
old material had been mistaken for startling innovation and open rebellion against musical traditions.
Russia in particular had so extended the expressive powers of music that much that had seemed unusual and even cacophonous now appeared to be utterly prosaic. After the performance of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (1914), the one-time exceptional harmony, erratic melody, and queer instru?mentation of Strauss "left the itch of novelty behind."
When, therefore, criticism again turned to him, it observed that he had not continued to fulfill the great promise of his youth, and that aside from his failure to develop from strength to greater strength, there was a marked decline of his talents. His later works, Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919), Die Liebe der Dana'e (1943), bore witness to the gradual degeneration and final extinction of his creative powers. The world had beheld the tragic spectacle of the deterioration of a genius.
Romain Rolland. in his essay on Strauss, sensed this depletion when he wrote: "The frenzied laugh of Zarathustra ends in an avowal of discouraged impotence. The delirious passion of Don Juan dies away into nothingness. Don Quixote, in dying, foreswears his illusions. Even the Hero himself (Helden-leben) admits the futility of his work, and seeks oblivion in an indifferent nature."
Strauss had expressed momentarily in his early masterpieces--the great tone poems and the operas Elektra and Salome--the modern psychological point of view; yet he was too strongly marked by the nineteenth-century romanticism to venture far into the new and challenging world. The Romantic movement had persisted longer in music than in any of the other arts, still making in the early years of the twentieth century, as Ernest Newman so colorfully writes, "an occasional effectual effort to raise its old head, ludicrous now with its faded garlands of flowers overhanging the wrinkled cheeks, "f Roman?ticism had long since outlived itself, yet for composers like Strauss, Mahler, and Rachmaninoff, its fascination proved too strong to be completely resisted. Mahler defended it with a kind of impassioned eloquence; Rachmaninoff em?braced it to the end of his life with filial affection; and, although Strauss, in his early sojourn in this dying world, seemed at first to "behave toward it like a graceless, irreverent urchin in a cathedral," he soon fell under its spell. The undercurrent of weariness and disgust, of satiety and disillusion, that runs through his work links him today spiritually, mentally, and psychologi?cally with Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and the great romantics of the past, rather than with the modernists. He, like them, had his roots in the same soil that nurtured Wagner, Byron, Goethe, Leopardi, and Tchaikovsky, and the tragic spectacle of his gradual but perceptible deterioration is a reflection of the dis?enchantment with life that had caught the Romantic artists in its merciless grip.i More than a quarter of a century ago Cecil Gray wrote of Strauss:
His whole career is symbolically mirrored in his own Don Juan, in the splendid vitality
Romain Rolland, Musicians of Today (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1915), p. 166.
t Ernest Newman, Musical Studies (3rd ed.; New York: John Lane Co., 1913), p. 274.
t See notes on Tchaikovsky, pages 51 to 53.
62
SIXTH CONCERT
and high promise of his beginning, the subsequent period of cold and reckless perversity, the gradual oncoming of the inevitable nemesis of weariness and disillusion, until at last, in the words of Lenau, on whose poem the work is ostensibly based, ergreift ihn der Ekel, und der ist der Teufel der ihn halt, and the theme of disgust that is blared out triumph?antly in Don Juan reappears in Zarathustra. In place of the arrogant, triumphant figure conceived and portrayed in Nietzche, we are shown a man tormented by doubt and dis?illusion, desperately seeking relief in religon, passion, science, and intellectual ecstasy and finally ending up where he began, in doubt and disillusion.
In the light of today, therefore, Strauss is no longer considered an innovator of any true significance. But let it be said that, from the first, he has mani?fested an extraordinary mastery of technical procedure; that he is one of the few composers of our century who has shown himself capable of constructing work on a monumental scale and of approaching the epic conception. His work as a whole is greater than any of its constituent parts, and, in this sense, he possesses an architectonic quality of mind that is impressive. There are in his greatest works a nervous energy and exuberance, a vitality and fertility of invention, and a technique of handling the orchestra that are admittedly un?surpassed. He has again and again shown this power to create beauty of rare freshness, although he most tragically failed in the complete realization of his highest achievement. For this, the present generation will never forgive him. His unpardonable sin was that he promised nothing for the future; he offered no challenge, as did Stravinsky and Schoenberg, to the composers of our day.
A contemporary and highly individual evaluation of the art of Strauss today appeared in High Fidelity magazine for March, 1962. It was written by the pianist, Glenn Gould. He wrote in part:
. . . The great thing about the music of Richard Strauss is that it presents and substan?tiates an argument which transcends all the dogmatisms of art--all questions of style and taste and idiom--all the frivolous, effete preoccupation of the chronologist. It presents to us an example of the man who makes richer his own time by not being of it; who speaks for all generations by being of none. It is an ultimate argument of individuality--an argu?ment that man can create his own synthesis of time without being bound by the conformities that time imposes.
Nikolas Lenau, a pseudonym for the Austrian poet Nikolaus Franz Niembsch von Strehlenau, author of the poem "Don Juan," himself expounded the philosophy of his poem. "My Don Juan," he said, "is no hot-blooded man eternally pursuing women. It is the longing in him to find a woman who is to him incarnate womanhood, and to enjoy in the one, all the women on earth, whom he cannot as individuals possess. Because he does not find her, although he reels from one to another, at last Disgust seizes hold of him, and this Dis?gust is the Devil that fetches him."f
Lawrence Gilman in his program notes for this work points out the kinship that exists between Lenau's and Strauss's Don Juan and Theodore Dreiser's Eugene Witla and the Michael Robartes of William Butler Yeats. Like Michael, he loved a woman, not really for herself, but rather as an immortal and tran?scendent incarnation of beauty. This passion for the "ideal beauty" of Plato--
Cecil Gray, A Survey of Contemporary Music (London: Oxfor t Chicago Symphony Orchestra Programs, December 26, 1934.
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
"pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colors and vanities of human life," leads the Don from incandescent ardor and impassioned impulse at the beginning of his search to bitterness and despair at the realization that beauty and love are but fleeting illusions, and unattainable.
"Don Juan" is not program music, strictly speaking; it tells no definite story or series of connected incidents; it is an exercise in musical psychology, a field in which Beethoven gave us Coriolanus, and Liszt essayed a portrait of Faust. In this work, Strauss is a student of human nature and life, no less than an accomplished musician. With all the colors of the modern orchestra on his palette, he paints the youthful hero, in search of what the poem calls a "... magic realm, illimited, eternal. Of gloried woman, loveliness supernal!"
Ernest Newman, speaking of Strauss's music itself, noted that in "Don Juan" we get some of the finest development that is to be found in the history of symphonic music; "the music unfolds itself, bar by bar, with as perfect continuity and consistency as if it had nothing but itself to consider, while at the same time it adds fresh points to our knowledge of the psychology of the character it is portraying. No other composer equals Strauss in the power of writing long stretches of music that interests us in and for itself, at the same time that every line and color in it seem to express some new trait in the character that is being sketched." The various love episodes may be filled with special characters without great harm, save that the mind is diverted from a higher poetic view to a mere concrete play of events. The very quality of the pure musical treatment, referred to by Mr. Newman, thus loses nobility and significance.
"Don Juan" was the second tone poem of Strauss.j It was composed in 1887-88, when he was but twenty-four years of age, and was published in 1890. The first performance was at Weimar in 1889, at which time Strauss himself con?ducted from manuscript.
To the score, he prefixed the following stanzas from Lenau's poem:
0 magic realm, Ulimited, eternal
Of gloried woman--loveliness supernal! Fain would I, in the storm of stressful bliss, Expire upon the last one's lingering kiss! Through every realm, O friend, would wing my flight, Wherever Beauty blooms, kneel down to each, And, if for one brief moment, win delight!
1 flee from surfeit and from rapture's cloy, Keep fresh for Beauty service and employ, Grieving the One, that All I may enjoy.
The fragrance from one lip today is breath of spring:
The dungeon's gloom perchance tomorrow's luck may bring.
When with the new love won I sweetly wander,
No bliss is ours upfurbish'd and regilded;
A different love has This to That one yonder,
Newman, of. cil., p. 272.
t "Macbeth," Op. 23, published a year after "Don Juan," was really his first.
64
SIXTH CONCERT
Not up from ruins be my temples builded. Yea, Love life is, and ever must be new, Cannot be changed or turned in new direction; It cannot but there expire--here resurrection; And, if 'tis real, it nothing knows of rue! Each beauty in the world is sole, unique: So must the Love be that would Beauty seek! So long as Youth lives on with pulse afire, Out to the chase! To victories new aspire!

It was a wond'rous lovely storm that drove me; Now it is o'er; and calm all 'round, above me; Sheer dead is every wish; all hopes o'ershrouded-'Twas p'r'aps a flash from heaven that so descended, Whose deadly stroke left me with powers ended, And all the world, so bright before, o'erclouded; And p'r'aps not! Exhausted is the fuel; And on the hearth the cold is fiercely cruel.
--English version by John P. Jackson
"Burleske" in D minor for Piano and Orchestra . . . Strauss
This piece, which was designated by Strauss himself as "sheer nonsense," sur?vived in spite of the fact that its creator publicly disinherited it. It was written by a young Strauss of twenty-one years of age, at a time when he was an appren?tice to Hans von Biilow, Conductor of the Meiningen Orchestra. In 1886 "Burleske" was brought to von Biilow for criticism and it was immediately rejected as unplayable. Whereupon Strauss, after a few futile rehearsals, and with increasing misgivings, discarded but did not destroy it. Four years later, in 1890, he dedicated it to the pianist Eugen d'Albert, who performed it under his direction at the Twenty-seventh Musical Festival of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in Eisenach on June 21, with great success. The concert was attended by the publisher. Hainauer. who showed his enthusiasm by offering to publish it. To his friend, Alexander Ritter, Strauss wrote, "I really need the money. What shall I do It goes against me to merit publication of a work which I have left far behind, and to which I cannot give my approval." But published it was, in 1894, eight years after its creation. At last, the outcast was reclaimed by pianists the world over who delight in its technical display, and by audiences who respond to its rollicking good humor and wit. The implication in its title, a composition in a jesting mood, is only partially true. The work has several serious moments in which we have presaged the more mature works that were soon to come from his pen.
Tone Poem, "Ein Heldenleben," Op. 40.....Strauss
Strauss began the composition of "Ein Heldenleben" at Munich, August 2, 1898, and finished it at Berlin, December 27 of the same year. Its first perform?ance, under his direction, took place at Frankfort-on-the-Main, March 3, 1899.
65
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The work was dedicated to Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.
Strauss has stated that "A Hero's Life" was written as a kind of sequel to "Don Quixote" composed one year before. Having in the latter work sketched the tragicomic figure of the Spanish knight whose vain search after heroism leads to insanity, he presented in "A Hero's Life" not a single poetical or histori?cal figure, but rather a more general and free ideal of great and manly heroism to which one can apply an everyday standard of valor; a heroism which describes the universal battle of life and aspires, through effort and renunciation, towards the evolution of the Soul.
Much has been written concerning the "program" of "A Hero's Life." It was the general conviction that Strauss was describing the events and experiences of his own life, but nowhere did he officially admit this. In his Musicicns d'Aujourd'hui (Paris, 1908), Romain Rolland wrote:
Without doubt Strauss had a program in his mind, but he said to me himself: "You have no need to read it. It is enough to know that the hero is there fighting against his enemies." I do not know how far that is true, or if parts of the symphonic poem would not be somewhat obscure to anyone who followed it without text; but this speech seems to prove that he has understood the dangers of the literary symphony, and that he is striving for pure music. ... At its first performance in Germany I saw people tremble as they listened to it [the tone-poem], and some rose up suddenly and made violent gestures quite un?consciously. I myself had a strange feeling of giddiness, as if an ocean had been upheaved, and I thought that for the first time in thirty years Germany had found a poet of victory.
When the work was published in March, 1899, however, a pamphlet of themes and motives compiled by Friedrich Rosch, a personal friend, and a descriptive poem by Eberhard Konig accompanied the score. Later a pupil of Strauss, one Wilhelm Klatte, published a similar pamphlet. In it he summarized "Ein Heldenleben" as follows:
The score embraces six principal divisions. In the first, after the motive of the hero has been established, the more important thematic materials, characteristic of the different sides of his nature and bearing, are forthwith given out; wherewith the hero is brought into rela?tion with the world about him. Next comes the contrast between the hero and mankind in general, men of mean and envious nature--a picture full of severe and glaring color contrasts, to which, as a reconciling counterpart, immediately succeeds a charming scene, wherein the hero is revealed under the "ban" of love. A call to arms marks the ending of this situation, and forthwith the hero appears on the battlefield. The combat concluded, through a gloriously gained victory, there follows a period of proof by deed of intellectual prowess--a ripening and blossoming of noble thoughts and grander plans, a peaceful and steady development of the inner nature. From the world, full of hatred and sensuality, the hero, enlightened and resigned, finally withdraws himself into the solitude of Nature. Recol?lections of war and combat, of love and life's joys, are interwoven with the dreams of his last days.
The following are six connected sections of the tone-poem:
The Hero
The music here suggests the character of the hero, courageous, sensitive, intelligent, and full of an all-embracing enthusiasm for life.
66
'? SIXTH CONCERT
The Hero's Adversaries
The piercing, penetrating, and snarling phrases of the woodwind section signify the criticism and mockery of the world. The hero theme is heard, gently protesting at first, but soon asserting itself with strength into opposition.
The Hero's Companion
This section is introduced by the solo violin. It pictures the coy, demure, petulant, tender, and coquettish "loved one," and the hero's sincere, at first inarticulate, but quietly passionate pleading.
The Hero's Battlefield
The calm serenity of love is disturbed by the hero's adversaries. The mockery of the world intrudes upon his peace. Inspired by love, he enters the battle with Olympian rage. (Fanfare of trumpets.)
The Hero's Mission of Peace
This section describes the growth and ripening of the hero's soul and his intellectual and spiritual accomplishments. It is this section that gives rise to the belief that Strauss is him?self the hero. He has made use of thematic material from his earlier works. Fragments from "Don Juan," "Also Sprach Zarathustra," "Tod und Verklarung," "Till Eulenspiegel," and the song, Traum durch die Dammerung, are woven into this section with aptness, subtlety, and coherence.
The Hero's Escape from the World--Conclusion
The hero is resigned to the indifference of the world. With his memories he builds up a world within himself which protects him from all harm, and with this "Ein Heldenleben" comes to a majestic and serene end.
In "Ein Heldenleben" the true powers of Strauss are displayed. In the greatness of its general conception, in the fine sense of form that controls the vast design, and in the skill with which the themes are made, in this or that metamorphosis, to play organic parts in the development of the work, it stands at the head of all the symphonic poems we know. Its exciting episodes, the rich?ness of its instrumentation, its high peaks of emotional intensity, and its infinite contrasts satisfy completely the demands of the modern ear for color, movement, and strength.
t,7
NOTES ON THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA AND MAY FESTIVAL ARTISTS
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA is performing the six concerts of the 1962 May Festival for the twenty-seventh consecutive year. Organized in 1900 under Fritz Scheel, it followed for a dozen years under the strong leadership of Carl Pohlig, who was succeeded by the strikingly effective Leopold Stokowski. In 1940 Eugene Ormandy became the fourth Musical Director. The Orchestra was the first symphonic organization to make a recording under its own name with its own conductor (1917), the first to broadcast over a radio network for a commercial sponsor (1929), the first to be featured in films (1937), and the first to be televised nationally (1948). It has made three tours to Europe, one including Russia, and several transcontinental tours. They will begin their tour to the west coast this year immediately following these May Festival concerts.
EUGENE ORMANDY, Musical Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, began his prominent conducting career with sudden impetus in 1931 when he substituted for Toscanini conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. On that oc?casion a representati-e of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra who was in the audience immediately signed Ormandy as guest conductor, which won for him the permanent post, and where he continued until 1936. Ormandy's early musical training began at the age of five at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. At nine he became the pupil of the great violinist Jeno Hubay, after whom he was named. He received his professor's diploma at seven?teen and was given degrees in violin playing, composing, and counterpoint. He concertized, then taught, at the State Conservatory in Budapest before coming to the United States to seek his fame and fortune. He has been praised and honored the world over, receiving several honorary degrees, one of which was presented to him by The University of Michigan at the May Festival of 1952.
WILLIAM SMITH is the Assistant Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also serves as conductor of choirs and orchestra at the University of Pennsyl?vania. He founded the Philadelphia Orchestra Chorus a few years ago. Born in New Jersey, Smith came to his present post in 1953. A versatile musician, he understudies Mr. Ormandy in preparation of all concerts, conducts reading rehearsals of new works, assists in the preparation of all choral groups and vocal soloists, and is the official pianist and organist of the orchestra.
THOR JOHNSON, Guest Conductor of the May Festival, has conducted the University Choral Union performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1940, except for four years when he was serving with the United States Army. Johnson lived most of his early life in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina and later received a
68
NOTES ON FESTIVAL ARTISTS
master's degree in music at The University of Michigan. In 1935, under a Beebe Foundation Scholarship, he studied in Europe with conductors Weingartner, Abendroth, Malko, and Bruno Walter. Upon his return he became conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra, organized and conducted the University Little Symphony which toured throughout the country, founded the Mozart Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and also served as conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony. During World War II as Warrant Officer in the United States Army, Johnson conducted the first Army Symphony Band, and taught for the Armed Forces at Shrivenham, England. Upon discharge he conducted the Juilliard Orchestra for one year before accepting the directorship of the Cin?cinnati Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for eleven years. During that period he made special guest conductor appearances with the Symphony of the Air, including its Far Eastern tour. Since 1959 he has been head of orchestral activities at Northwestern University as well as a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts, which sent him to Iceland, Czechoslovakia, Korea, the Philippines, and Japan for guest conducting and surveys. He is also Director of the Peninsula Music Festival in Wisconsin, the Moravian Music Festivals, and the Chicago Little Symphony, which in two seasons has given concerts from Mexico to Canada, and south to Mississippi.
LESTER McCOY, Conductor of the University Choral Union since 1947, prepares the chorus in the works performed in the May Festival and each Advent season conducts the Choral Union, the University Symphony Orchestra, and guest solo artists in the traditional Messiah concerts. He received his Master of Music degree from The University of Michigan in 1938. Before coming to Ann Arbor he trained and taught at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. He serves as Minister of Music of the First Methodist Church in Ann Arbor, and for the past four years has conducted the Michigan Chorale, a group of Michigan high school seniors, which has toured in Europe and South America during the summer as part of the Youth for Understanding Student Exchange Program, sponsored by the Washtenaw Council of Churches.
PHYLLIS CURTIN, American soprano, of the Metropolitan Opera Company, was first catapulted into fame with a performance of Salome during her debut season with the New York City Opera in 1954. From there she has distinguished herself throughout America in leading roles, creating several premieres, including the role she sings at the May Festival-in Walton's Troilus and Cressida. Her European debut took place in 195S at the Brussell's World Fair, followed shortly by her South American opera debut in Buenos Aires, and her success at the Vienna State Opera and the Stuttgart and Munich Opera companies. Born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, she first studied violin. Later, at Wellesley College, she began her vocal studies, but majored in political science. Her opera study began at the New England Conservatory of Music and at Tanglewood.
LILI CHOOKASIAN made her Metropolitan Opera debut on March 9, 1962, with outstanding success. She makes her Ann Arbor May Festival debut
no
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
this year, but has appeared on the Hill Auditorium stage previously singing the Messiah. Well-known for her oratorio performances, she has become one of the country's leading Bach specialists, singing in Bach festivals from coast to coast in presentations encompassing all of the oratorios and cantatas. Last year she sang four performances with the New York Philharmonic, followed in the sum?mer with performances at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. She has frequently sung with leading orchestras with conductors Rafael Kubelik, Thor Johnson, Sir Ernest MacMillan, Pierre Monteux, and Bruno Walter. Miss Chookasian is a member of the faculty at Northwestern University School of Music.
RICHARD LEWIS, born in Manchester, England, descends from Welsh parents from Llansantffraid, in Montgomeryshire. War interrupted his studies at the Royal Manchester College of Music, and he served in the Royal Signal Corps. Stationed at Brussells, he came to the attention of Queen Elizabeth, and was engaged at her request to sing the Belgian premiere of Benjamin Britten's Illuminations. It was soon after demobilization that leading roles at Glynde-bourne and Covent Garden launched him into a successful career throughout the British Isles and virtually every music center in Europe. In 1955 Lewis made his American debut with the San Francisco Opera Company singing the title role in Walton's Troilus and Cressida which he sings this May Festival. He has since appeared annually with the San Francisco Opera Company, with major symphony orchestras, and has recorded extensively.
JEROME HINES was born in Hollywood, California. Attending the Univer?sity of California in Los Angeles, he planned to become a chemist, but a leading role in an operetta performance brought him to the attention of the San Fran?cisco Opera Company, and thereafter singing was his career. This is his sixteenth season at the Metropolitan Opera Company, having sung over thirty major roles. He has won wide acclaim as the first American artist to portray Boris Godunov. This May Festival performance marks the first time he has sung the role in Russian, prompted by his forthcoming appearance at the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow. In the last four seasons Hines has been a regular member of the casts of Wagner operas at the Bayreuth Festivals. He has starred also at La Scala, Milan, Buenos Aires. Glyndebourne, and Edinburgh Festivals, and the Munich State Opera. Though his career frequently takes him from his home in New Jersey, he spends as much time as possible with his family--his wife, the soprano Lucia Evangelista, and their three sons, David, Andrew, and John.
DONALD GRAMM was born in Milwaukee where he began piano studies at the age of eight, the pipe organ at thirteen, and voice at sixteen. When twenty-three years of age he made his New York debut as a concert singer with the Little Orchestra Society. He has been soloist with the University Choral Union on three previous occasions. In the past seven years he has sung forty-four times with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including recordings. His reper?toire is extensive, and his alliance with musical organizations is numerous--
70
NOTES ON FESTIVAL ARTISTS
participating with the New York City Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Washington Opera Society, American Opera Society, the New Orleans Opera, and at festivals in Aspen, the Berkshires, Bethlehem, Boston Arts, Brevard, Caramoor, Cin?cinnati, Grant Park, Hollywood Bowl, Moravian, Peninsula, and others.
BYRON JANIS was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, thirty-four years ago and was educated in Pittsburgh, beginning his concert appearances at the age of five. In New York he studied with Adele Marcus and Vladimir Horowitz. In 1948 he made his Carnegie Hall debut, and four years later made his first appearances in Europe, performing five times with the Concertgebouw Orches?tra in Amsterdam. In the ten years following, he has concertized widely and recorded extensively. He has previously appeared in Ann Arbor at the 1956 May Festival and in recital the following year. Last season he was acclaimed in Moscow, Leningrad, London, and Paris. He comes to the May Festival just after a series of concerts in Mexico, and from here departs for the Soviet Union where he has been invited for a return concert tour by the Ministry of Culture. He is married to the daughter of one of England's leading surgeons. The Janises have one son, Stefan, and make their home in New York and London.
GYORGY SANDOR is Hungarian by birth, an American by choice, a citizen of the world by his piano playing, and, since this year, when he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Music, a resident of Ann Arbor. His wife and two children came to Ann Arbor last fall while Mr. Sandor fulfilled concert engagements in Budapest at the Liszt-Bartok Memorial Festival, performing with the Moscow Radio Orchestra under Rozdestvenski. This was followed by concerts in Paris with the Orchestre Nationale, and in Frankfort with the Radio Orchestra. He also completed a recording series of all of Bartok's piano works. Sandor previously appeared at the Ann Arbor May Festival in 1958, performing the Bartok Second Concerto.
LORNE MUNROE was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1924, and has been the principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra for the past eleven years. When he was ten, he toured Europe with British composer-pianist Arthur Benjamin, and later studied at the Royal College of Music in London. He re?ceived training at Curtis Institute under Felix Salmond and Gregor Piatigorsky, and while an undergraduate, won one of the Philadelphia Orchestra student concert auditions. In 1949 he won the coveted Naumberg Award, making his Town Hall debut the same year. Prior to coming to the Philadelphia Orchestra, he was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra and principal cellist with the Minneapolis Symphony. Mr. Munroe possesses one of the most valuable instru?ments in the orchestra--a Gofriller, made in Venice in 1707.
ANSHEL BRUSILOW, Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, is a native of Philadelphia, thirty-two years old, and a graduate of the Curtis Insti?tute of Music. He entered the Institute at the age of eleven, where he studied with the famous violinist and Director of the School, Efrem Zimbalist. Later he
71
MAY FESTIVAL PROGRAM
continued under Dr. Jani Szanto at the Philadelphia Musical Academy, where he was a scholarship student, and was graduated from that institution. Engaged as concertmaster beginning the 1959-60 season, he has since frequently appeared as soloist. He is a member of the faculty of Temple University Department of Music and conductor of the Temple Symphony Orchestra.
JOHN DE LANCIE has been principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1954, when he succeeded his teacher, Marcel Tabuteau. He had played with the orchestra eight years prior to assuming this post. Upon graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony, playing in the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra in the summers. De Lancie has been re?sponsible for composers Richard Strauss and Franqaix composing works to feature solo oboe.
72
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Thor Johnson, Guest Conductor Lester McCoy, Conductor
Ann Staniski, Pianist
FIRST SOPRANOS
Abel, Mary L. Ackerman, Tamara L. Arcntz, Joan C. Bird, Ellen A. Bradstreet, Lola M. Brenner, Helene S. Burr, Virginia A. Collie, Marilyn Dinneen, K. Elizabeth Dorstewitz, Ellen M. Eriksson. Sandy E. Evatt, Margaret K. Fike, Lynda L. Furihata, Michiko Hanson, Gladys M. Hardenbergh, Gretchen Harrington, Rachel I. Hawk, Gloria L. Houser, Beatrice K. Huber, Sally A. Hutch, Lois A. Jerome, Ruth O. Kalteis, Colleen E. Katterjohn, Rosemary Leggett, Iris M. Linstead, Anne M. Luecke, Doris L. McDonald, Ruth M. Newcomb, Alice R. Patton, Beatrice Pearson, Agnes Peck, Laurel E. Ramee, Dorothy Ramee, Ellen K. Retzler, Ralian Ribbens, Millicent C. Robinson, K. Lisa Robinson, Susan A. Rulfs, Mary K. Sevilla, Josefina Z. Stevens, Ethel C. Waters, Deborah A. Wright. Jean E. Yoon, Soon Young S.
SECOND SOPRANOS Amrhein, Dorothy M. Antdiffe, Carol E. Brown, Susannah E. Buchanan, Gale F. Carruth. Margo Dafoe, E. Louise
Datsko, Doris M. Douglas, R. Marie Dowsett, Susanne Dumler, Carole H. Friedrich, L. Garner, Andree L. Guarniere, Joan E. Hall, Sara J. Hapala, Adelaide H. Heavner, Nancy S. Hendrickson, Marianne Hinton, Linda L. Hunter, Patricia L. Iafolla, Hazel M. Jensen, Judyan Jones, Marion A. Karapostoles, LaVaughn Knighton, Daphne M. Knudson, Judy K. Landman, Marguerite J. Lyman, Frances McAdoo, Mary J. Papke, Bonnie J. Radocy, Kathryn O. Siff, Judith E. Simpson, Joan E. Sleet, Audrey M. Smith, Barbara M. Smith, Iva A. Smith, Nancy L. Snyder, Martha D. Steen, Sonja C. I. Svenson, Ingrid M. Swecker, Zoe A. Misides, Elena C. Wagner, Rebecca R. Waterhouse, H. Rosemary Wolfe, Charlotte A. Wylie, Winifred J.
FIRST ALTOS
Andrews, Joyce M. Ashby, Lynne A. Bronstein. Nancy E. Buchele, Joan B. Duckwitz, Dorothy J. Eisler, Betty N. Eiteman, Sylvia C. Evans, Daisy L. Ferguson, Barbara L. Fulk, Mary B. Hahn, Cristel R. Halevi, Marilyn
Haney, Barbara A. Hangas, Nancy D. Hogman, Dorothy B. Holmes, Ann M. Jones, Mary M. Kempf, Julie A. Kister, Susan S. Klee, Margaret A. Kravt, Florence R. Lane, Rosemarie Levenbach, Roberta H. Manson, Hinda Markeson, Carole J. Marsh, Martha M. McCoy, Bernice I. Mehler, Hallie J. Murtaugh, Iris H. O'Neal, Lucy J. Rockey, Susan E. Rosenbaura, Stephanie L. Rubinstein, Sallie Sawyer, Sally J. Scheibel, Carolyn A. Schuurmans, Marilyn J. Schwartz, Carla R. Smalley, Joan VV. Smith, Marguerite M. Spurrier, Laura J. Staniski, Ann M. Street, Jane M. Sverdlove, Laurie Swenson, Judith A. Townsend, Mary E. Vandeveer, Patricia B. Wargelin, Carol G. Went worth, Elizabeth B. Westerman, Carol F. Wiedmann, Louise P. Zeeb, Helen R.
SECOND ALTOS
Arnold, Helen M. Bacon, Meredith E. Balman, Carolyn S. Barnett, Elizabeth G. Bishop, Mary R. Blake, Susan J. Bogart, Gertrude Clayton, Caroline S. Crossley, Winnifred M. Cummings, Ann Damouth, Helen L. Deming, Caren J.
73
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Eisenhardt, Elizabeth R. Enkemann, Gladys C. Foster, Vera L. Gault, Ann VV. Gault, Gertude W. Griffin, Barbara J. Grzesiek, Judith A. Hodges, Ann S. Huggard, Susan M. E. Invin, Christine M. Jenkins, Bernice M. Johnson, Grayce E. Johnson, Jean C. Johnston, Theolia C. Kemp, Katherine L. Knight, Mona J. Langley, Linda L. Liebscher, Erika M. Lovelace, Elsie VV. Lutz, Elizabeth A. Patton. Nancy J. Poland, Sydney Z. Reynolds, Judith L. Robertson. Susan W. Roeger, Beverly B. Schoon, Carol J. Sellner, Marjorie L. Slater, Beverly N. Sorenson, Cynthia J. Suess, Irene C. Swithinbank, Mary S. Teaboldt, Julie A. Wilbur, Althea L. Williams, Nancy P. Williams, Wine'fred L.
FIRST TENORS Baker. Hugh E. Benoliel, Bernard J. Berlin, Lee P. Conley, John Walter Crandall, John E. Edmiston, James Greenberger. Allen J. Hendershott, Marcus D. Horton, Joseph William Klosterhaus, Edwin G.
74
Lowry, Paul T. Parsley, Bruce Leroy Ramee, Allan L. Roberts, Donald L. Seim, Laurence A. Shovan, Timothy J. Stevens, Denis R.
SECOND TENORS
Aneff, James S. Barone, Robert Q. Bassett, Benton Cathey, Owen B. Christian, Charles L. Cote, Paul Thompson Elledge, Robert M. Fidler, William F., Jr. Hammer, Richard E. Humphrey, Richard Krawczyk, 'ictor R. Petersen, Bernard C. Petrides, George H. Pflieger, Ronald E. Raub, James Ray Sain, Robert Leonard Shillingford, George M. Thomas, Howard Paul Thomson. James W. Tibbits, John Allen Vaughan, John W.
FIRST BASSES
Bowen, Max E. Brueger, John M. Burian, Peter Hart Burr, Charles F. Clayton, Joseph F. Damouth. David Earl Dwyer, Donald H. Eisenhardt, George H. Hartwig, C. Dean Howell, James Peter Johnson, Harvey C. Katterjohn, Arthur D. Kays. J. Warren Kissel, Klair Henry
Kochanowski, Alfred S. Landgren, Robert C. Liang, Alexander C. Long, Jerry R. Luttman, Dale R. Mallen, Robert G. McVVilliams, Leslie G. Pearson, J. Raymond Pickut, Guenther Slater, Thomas H. Spearing, Darwin R. Tazelaar, Willem H. Troutman, Thomas B. Werder, Larry F. Utsumi, Ko Garrels, Dennis Earl Garrels, Robert F.
SECOND BASSES Baker, Alan Drew Baker, George H. Barton, Ben F. Bauman, James K. Blackwell, Walter H. Ebert, David A. Eichenbaum, Daniel M. Herrmann, Lothar Huber, Franz E. Kincaid, William H. Lipkea, William H. McAdoo, William P. Missiras, Fr. Andrew Move, Alfred Leon Nuttin, Jozef Patterson, Bobby Lee Peterson, Robert R. Schaeffer, John G. Steinmetz, George P. Travis, Howard Paul Vandeveer, James F. Walker, George L. Werner, Peter C. West, Erick E. Williams, David G. Williams, Jeffrey P. Wyche, Donald W. Zendt, Stephen H.
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Oemandy, 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 Arben, David Simkins, Jasha Stahl, Jacob Putlitz, Lois Goldstein, Ernest L. Simkin, Meyer Gesensway, Louis Steck, William Schmidt, Henry W.
Rosen, Irvin Schwartz, Isadore Wigler, Jerome Di Camillo, Armand Eisenberg, Invin I. Tung, Ling Sharlip, Benjamin Black, Norman Ludwig, Irving Dreyfus, George Roth, Manuel Miller, Charles S. Lanza, Joseph Gorodetzky, Aaron Light, Herbert Kaufman, Schima
VIOLAS
Cooley, Carlton Mogill, Leonard Braverman, Gabriel Ferguson, Paul Primavera, Joseph P., Jr. Iglitzin, Alan Kaplow, Maurice Curtiss, Sidney Bogdanoff, Leonard Granat, Wolfgang Kahn, Gordon Greenberg, William S.
VIOLONCELLOS Munroe, Lome Hilger, Elsa Gorodetzer, Harry de Pasquale, Francis Druian, Joseph Belenko, Samuel Brennand, Charles Saputelli, William Farago, Marcel Caserta, Santo Phillips, Bert Stokking, William, Jr.
BASSES Scott, Roger M. Torello, Carl Arian, Edward Maresh, Ferdinand Eney, F. Gilbert Lazzaro, Vincent Strassenberger, Max Batchelder, Wilfred Gorodetzer, Samuel
FLUTES
Panitz, Murray W. Scutt, Kenneth E. Terry, Kenton F. Krell, John C. Piccolo
OBOES
de Lancie, John Raper, Wayne 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 Anpelucci, 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
75
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, 19S6-
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-third 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. 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 concerts. 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 in?tervals through the years, became an annual production and since 1946 has been heard in two performances each season. In 1941 an annual Chamber Music Festival of three concerts was inaugurated. Thus, at the time of its eighty-third year, the Musical Society has presented, throughout the season, thirty major concerts performed by distinguished artists and organizations.
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 partici?pated in numerous Choral Union concerts. In addition to its Messiah concerts, since 1894, it has performed at the annual May Festivals, offering a wide range of choral literature over the years (see pages 78 and 79). The chorus membership numbers about three hundred singers, including both townspeople and students.
The "Ann Arbor School of Music" was organized in 1879, and in 1892 was reorganized 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.
76
THE ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
Maintained by the University Musical Society and founded by Albert A. Stanley and his associates on 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 Aaron Copland (New York), 1961
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.
77
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, 1955
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125--1934, 1942, 1945 Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust--1895, 1909, 1920, 1952 Bizet: Carmen--1904, 1918, 1927, 1938 Bloch: "America," An Epic Rhapsody--1929
Sacred Service (Parts 1, 2, 3)--1958 Bossi: Paradise Lost--1916 Brahms: Requiem, Op. 45--1899 (excerpts), 1929, 1941, 1949
Alto Rhapsodie, Op. 53--1939
Song of Destiny, Op. 54--1950
Song of Triumph, Op. 55--1953 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 Roi malgri lui--1959 Chadwick: The Lily Nymph--1900 Chavez, Carlos: Corrido de "El Sol"--19541, 1960 Delius: Sea Drift--1924 Dvorak: Stabat Mater, Op. 58, 1906
Requiem Mass, Op. 89--1962 Elgar: Caractacus--1903, 1914, 1936
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38--1904, 1912, 1917 Fogg: The Seasons--1937 Franck: The Beatitudes--1918 Gabrieli: In Ecclesiis benedicto domino--1958 Giannini: Canticle of the Martyrs--1958 Gluck: Orpheus--1902
Goldmark: The Queen of Sheba (March)--1923 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 Honegcer, Arthur: King David--1930, 1935, 1942
"Jeanne d'Arc au bucher"--1961 Kodaly: Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13--1939 Lambert, Constant: Summer's Last Will and Testament--1951t Lock wood, Normand: Prairie--1953
World premiere t American premiere t United Stales premiere
78
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION REPERTOIRE
McDonald, Harl: Symphony No. 3 ("Lamentations of Fu Hsuan")--1939 Mendelssohn: Elijah--1901, 1921, 1926, 1944, 1954, 1961
St. Paul--190S
Mennin, Peter: Symphony No 4, "The Cycle"--1950 Moussorcsky: Boris Godunov--1931, 1935 Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, K. 427--1948
Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626--1946
"Davidde penitente"--1956 Orpf, 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 Schoenberg: 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 Vauchan Williams, Ralph: Five Tudor Portraits--1957
"Flos Campi"--1959
Dona nobis pacem--1962 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
Viixa-Lobos, Heitor: Choros No. 10, "Rasga o corac,ao"--1949, 1960 Vivaldi-Casella: Gloria--1954 Wagner: Die fliegende Hollander--1918
Lohengrin--1926; Act 1--1896, 1913
Die Meistersinger, Finale to Act III--1903, 1913; Choral, "Awake," and Chorale Finale to Act 111--1923
Scenes from Parsifal--1937
Tannhduser--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 premiere
70
1961 UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY 1962
Resume of Concerts and Music Performed
Concerts--Thirty 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 given in parentheses.
Eighty-third Annual Choral Union Series
George London, Bass (4) ..................................................October 4
The Roger Wagner Chorale; Roger Wagner. Conductor .......................October 19
Boston Symphony Orchestra (43); Charles Munch, Conductor (19) ...........October 22
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (3) ; Herbert von Karajan, Conductor (4) .....November 3
Bayanihan (Philippine Songs and Dances) ................................November 6
Yehudi Menuhin, Violinist (7) ...........................................November 12
Galina Vishnevskaya, Soprano ...........................................November 21
Emil Gilels, Pianist ......................................................February 13
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (6); Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Conductor.....March 4
American Ballet Theatre ....................................................March 24
Sixteenth Annual Extra Concert Series
Mazowsze (Polish Songs and Dances) .....................................October 24
The Cleveland Orchestra (21); George Szell, Conductor (14) .............November 16
Rudolf Serkin, Pianist (10) ..............................................November 27
Boston Pops Tour Orchestra (6); Arthur Fiedler, Conductor (6) .............February 18
Eleanor Steber, Soprano (4) ...............................................March 9
Christmas Concerts Handel's Messiah ..................................................December 2 and 3
Ilona Kombrink, Soprano (4) Elaine Bonazzi, Contralto (2) Richard Miller, Tenor (2)
Ara Berbenan, Hass (3)
Mary McCall Stubbins, Organist (31)
Lester McCoy, Conductor (27)
University Choral Union University Symphony Orchestra
Twenty-second Annual Chamber Music Festival
Juilliard Quartet .........................................................February 23
Eger Players ............................................................February 24
Beaux Arts Trio .........................................................February 25
Special Concerts
Michigan Chorale (3); Lester McCoy, Conductor (3) ......................September 10
Boston Symphony Orchestra (42); Charles Munch, Conductor (18) ............October 21
New York Pro Musica (2) .................................................October 29
Richard Dyer-Bennett, Folk Singer .........................................January 13
Sixty-ninth Annual May Festival
The Philadelphia Orchestra (164); Conductors: Eugene Ormandy (91); Thor Johnson (47); William Smith (6); University Choral Union (240); and soloists-
Phyllis Curtin, Soprano (3) Lili Chookasian. Contralto (5) Richard Lewis, Tenor Jerome Hines, Bass (3) Donald Gramm, Bass (6)
Byron Janis. Pianist (3) Gyorgy Sandor, Pianist (2) John de Lancie, Oboist Lorne Munroe, Violoncellist (4) Anshel Brusilow, Violinist (2)
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Repertoire--The complete repertoire of the concerts this season includes music which represents a wide range of musical forms and periods. The com?positions, classified into categories of (1) symphonic; (2) instrumental (by chamber music groups and virtuoso artists); (3) vocal (solo); (4) choral; (5) ballet; and (6) ethnic dance groups are listed below. Works first performed here are denoted by asterisks.
SYMPHONIC
Bach
Air on the G String ........Boston Pops
Beethoven Overture to Coriolanus,
Op. 62 ...................Philadelphia
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major,
Op. 55 .......................Boston
Symphony No. 6 in F major,
Op. 68 ...................Philadelphia
Bernstein ?Selections from West Side
Story ...................Boston Pops
Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor,
Op. 68 .......................Boston
Symphony No. 2 in D major,
Op. 73 .....................Cleveland
Symphony No. 4 in E minor,
Op. 98 ........................Berlin
Copland "Quiet City" for Trumpet,
English Hom, and Strings .....Boston
Debussy "Iberia," Images for Orchestra,
No. 2 ........................Boston
Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune. .Berlin Gretry Ballet Suite from Ciphale ..
el Procris ................Philadelphia
Hanson ?Elegy in Memory of Serge
Koussevitzky..................Boston
Haydn
Symphony in G major,
No. 92 .....................Cleveland
Hayman (Ait.) Kid Stuff..................Boston Pops
HlNDEMITH
Concert Music for String Orchestra and
Brass Instruments, Op. 50 ... Cleveland Khatchaturian
Dances from the Ballet, Gayne...................Boston Pops
Liszt
Symphonic Poem No. 3, "Les Preludes" ..........Boston Pops
LUTOSLAWSKI
?Concerto for Orchestra .....Minneapolis
Milhaud ?Suite franc,aise..............Philadelphia
Mozart Symphony No. 35 in D major,
K. 385 ("Haffner") .......Minneapolis
Prokofiev
"Classical" Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 .........Philadelphia
Ravel "La Valse" ................Philadelphia
Rossini Overture to La Cazza ladra . .Boston Pops
Sadjt-Saens ?French Military March.....Boston Pops
Schumann
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61 ..................Minneapolis
Strauss Tone Poem, "Death and
Transfiguration," Op. 24 ........Berlin
Tone Poem, "Don Juan,"
Op. 20 ..................Philadelphia
Tone Poem, "Ein Heldenleben,"
Op. 40...................Philadelphia
Stravinski
?"Fireworks" ...............Philadelphia
Berceuse from "The Firebird" (encore) .................Minneapolis
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74...................Philadelphia
Walton ?Partita for Orchestra .......Philadelphia
Weill ?"Mack the Knife," from the
Three Penny Opera.......Boston Pops
SI
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
INSTRUMENTAL
Bartok
?Quartet No. 5 .................Juilliard
Roumanian Dances ............Menuhin
Beethoven
Concerto No. 3 in C minor,
Op. 37 .........Janis and Philadelphia
Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 31 . .Serkin Sonata quasi fantasia No. 2
in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 .......Serkin
Sonata No. 23 in F minor
("Appassionata") (encore) .....Serkin
Sonata in F major, Op. 24
("Spring") ..................Menuhin
Sonata in B-flat major
("Hammerklavier"), Op. 106 ...Serkin Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello in
E-flat major, Op. 1, No. 1 . .Beaux Arts ?Variations on "Ich bin der
Schneider Kakadu," Op. 121a.....Eger
Bernstein
?Elegy for Mippy I ................Eger
Brahms ?Horn Trio in E-flat major,
Op. 40 .........................Eger
?Trio in C major, Op. 87......Beaux Arts
Debussy
Girl with the Flaxen Hair
(encore) ....................Menuhin
?Sonata in G minor.............Menuhin
Dvorak
?Dumky Trio (encore) ........Beaux Arts
Ftaraxx
?Fantasy for Solo Violin ........Menuhin
Franc; aix
?"L'Horloge de flore" ("The Flower Clock") for Oboe and Orchestra ... de Lancie and Philadelphia
Haydn ?Quartet in B-flat major,
Op. 103 .....................Juilliard
Kabalevsky ?Piano Concerto No. 2,
Op. 23 ......Marsh and Boston Pops
Lalo
?Concerto in D minor for Violoncello and Orchestra ....Munroe and Philadelphia
Mendelssohn ?Scherzo (encore) ............Beaux Arts
Mozart
?Sonata in B-flat major, K. 281 ___Gilels
Paganini
La Campanella ................Menuhin
Poulenc
?Elegy ............................Eger
Prokofiev
?Overture on Hebrew Themes .......Eger
?Sonata No. 8 in B-flat major,
Op. 84 .........................Gilels
Ravel
?Trio in A minor.............Beaux Arts
Schubert Quartet in D minor, Op. Posth.
("Death and the Maiden") ... .Juilliard
Sonata in D major, Op. S3 ........Gilels
Saint-Saens
Concerto for Violoncello No. 1, in A minor.........Mayes and Boston
Strauss, R.
?"Burleske" in D minor, for Piano and Orchestra.....Sandor and Philadelphia
VOCAL
Bach ?Cantata No. 21, "Seufzer, Tranen,
Kummer, Not" ..........Vishnevskaya
?Mein glaubiges Herze......Vishnevskaya
Bacon
?It's All I Have to Bring..........Steber
To Make a Prairie...............Steber
Beethoven
"Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin"
from Fidelio, Op. 27.....Vishnevskaya
Berg In dem Zimmer..................Steber
82
?Liebesode .......................Steber
Nacht ..........................Steber
?Nachtigall ......................Steber
Schilflied .......................Steber
Sommertag ......................Steber
Traum gekronnt .................Steber
Carpenter When I bring you colored toys .... Steber
Clarke ?Spanish Is the
Loving Tongue..........Dyer-Bennett
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Debussy ?Chevaux de bois, from
"Ariettes oublife" .............Steber
Green, from "Ariettes oubliSes"___Steber
?La chevelure from "Chanson de
Bilitis" ........................Steber
Le Balcon, from "Cinq poemes de
Baudelaire" ...................Steber
Recueillement from "Cinq poemes
de Baudelaire" .................Steber
Dougherty ?Primavera .......................Steber
Du Parc Phidyl6 ........................London
Faure "Automne" .....................London
Folk Songs
?Alleluia (English) ...............London
?The Ballad of the Ghost of Basle
(Swiss-German) .........Dyer-Bennett
?The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee
(Scottish) ..............Dyer-Bennett
?The Cruelties of Barbara-Allen
(English and Scottish) ...Dyer-Bennett ?Green Corn, Come Along Charlie
(American) .............Dyer-Bennett
?Have You Seen But a White Lily Grow
(Arr. Ben Johnson) .....Dyer-Bennett
?Hunting Adventure
(German) ..............Dyer-Bennett
?The Kerry Recruit (Irish) .Dyer-Bennett ?The Lincolnshire Poacher
(English) ...............Dyer-Bennett
Lord Randal (Scottish) .........London
?Molly Carr (English) ...........London
?My Lagen Love (Irish) .........London
?No Hiding Place
(American) ............Dyer-Bennett
?Pull Off Your Old Coat
(American) .............Dyer-Bennett
?Rackets 'Round Blue Mountain Lake
(American) .............Dyer-Bennett
?The Road to Ballymoor
(Irish) .................Dyer-Bennett
?The Seven Little Pigs
(Irish) .................Dyer-Bennett
?The Shepherdess Persuaded
(German) ..............Dyer-Bennett
?Song of Reproach
(Rugelied) ..............Dyer-Bennett
?There Was a Lady Who Loved
a Swine () ............Dyer-Bennett
?The Three Jolly Rogues of Lynn
(American) ............Dyer-Bennett
Viens dans ce beau
(French) ...............Dyer-Bennett
?Wi' a hundred Pipers
(Scottish) ....................London
Woman, Go Home to Your Man
(Austrian) .............Dyer-Bennett
?The Willow Tree
(American) .............Dyer-Bennett
Fourdratn
Promenade a Mule .............London
Hageman
?Christ Went Up Into the Hills___Steber
Handel Aria, "Si, tra, i ceppi" from
Berenice .....................London
"Dank sei Dir, Herr" from Interpolation
to Israel in Egypt ............London
?"DalT ondoso periglio" from
Julius Caesar.................London
Holmes
Au pays .......................London
Hughes
?Because I Were Shy ............London
La Montadte
?On Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening .......................Steber
Levitcn ?A Maiden Sang in a Church
Choir ..................Vishnevskaya
?What Fun! The Trumpets are
Blowing ................Vishnevskaya
Martini
Plaisirs d'amour ...........Dyer-Bennett
Miaskovsky ?Romance .................Vishnevskaya
Moussorcsky Excerpts from
Boris Godunov . .Hines and Philadelphia ?Four Songs and Dances
of Death ...............Vishnevskaya
Mozart Alleluia, from the motet,
"Exsultate Jubilate" ...........Steber
"Zeffiretti lusinghieri" from
Idomeneo .....................Steber
Aria, "Dove sono" from
The Marriage of Figaro.........Steber
NlLES
Go 'Way from My
Window" ...............Dyer-Bennett
Porter ?Where Is the Life that Late
I Led .......................London
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Puccini
Aria "Vissi d'arte," from Tosca (encore) ................Steber
Rachmaninoff
?A Melody ................Vishnevskaya
I Wait for Thee ..........Vishnevskaya
RlMSKY-KORSAKOV
Aria, "Tu vois la-bas" from The
Czar's Bride (encore) ___Vishnevskaya
Schubert
Dem Unendlichen ..............London
?Fischerweise ...................London
Florio .........................London
CHO
Antes Shout ye Heavens.....Michigan Chorale
Bach, J. M. ?Now All My Woes
Are Over ...........Michigan Chorale
Bach, J. S. ?Alleluia, from the
Motet VI ..........Michigan Chorale
Bercer ?Thank Ye the Lord ... .Michigan Chorale
Berlioz
?Recitative and Scherzetto "Queen Mab" {Romeo and Juliet) ...Michigan Chorale
Christiansen ?Lost in the Night.....Michigan Chorale
Debussy ?Dieu! Qu'il la fait bon regarder la
gracieuse bonne
et belle...............Wagner Chorale
?Hiver, vous n'etes qu'un
villain ...............Wagner Chorale
?Quand j'ai oui le tambourin
sonner ...............Wagner Chorale
Dvorak
?Requiem Mass for Soli, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 89 .. Choral Union and Philadelphia
Folk Songs ?Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head
(English) ............Wagner Chorale
?O No John (English and
American) ...........Wagner Chorale
?Shenandoah (English and
American) ...........Wagner Chorale
?Au clair de la lune
(French) ............Wagner Chorale
84
?Ganymed ......................London
Gruppe aus dem Tartarus........London
Verdi
Aria, "Ella giammai m'amo" from Don Carlos...................London
Aria, "Ritorna vincitor"
from Aida ..............Vishnevskaya
Aria, "Pace, pace, mio Dio"
from La Forza del Destino .....Steber
Walton
?Excerpts from the Opera, Troilus and Cressida. Lewis, Curtin, and Philadelphia
AL
En passant pour la Lorraine
(French) ............Wagner Chorale
?Alouette
(French-Canadian) ...Wagner Chorale ?Certn'y, Lord
(Negro) ............Michigan Chorale
De 01' Ark's A-moverin'
(Negro) ............Michigan Chorale
Go Down Moses
(Negro) .............Wagner Chorale
?He Never Said a Mumblin' Word
(Negro) .............Wagner Chorale
If I Got My Ticket, Can I Ride
(Negro) .............Wagner Chorale
?John The Baptist......Michigan Chorale
Li'l Liza Jane
(Negro) ............Michigan Chorale
Grever ?Lamento Gitano.......Michigan Chorale
Handel "Messiah" ............Michigan Chorale
Haydn
?Eloquence .............Wagner Chorale
?Evensong ..............Wagner Chorale
Hovhaness ?O For a Shout of Sacred
Joy ................Michigan Chorale
Hunkdjs ?Shenandoah, from folk opera
"Young Lincoln" ....Michigan Chorale
Isaac
?Donna di dentro ...........Pro Musica
?En l'ombre .................Pro Musica
?In meinem Sinn ............Pro Musica
?J'ay pris amours ............Pro Musica
?La mi la sol ................Pro Musica
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Missa de Martyribus, Kyrie, Agnus
Dei ......................Pro Musica
?Quis dabit capiti meo
aquam .................Pro Musica
Zwischen Berg und tiefem
Tal ......................Pro Musica
Jannequin Chanson (Au joly jeu du pousse
avant) ...............Wagner Chorale
Kyes
?Crucifixion ...........Michigan Chorale
Lassus Suzanne un jour ............Pro Musica
LlEDERBUCH
Else, el se mundo ...........Pro Musica
Ich bins erfreut.............Pro Musica
?Elslein, liebstes Elselein ......Pro Musica
?Salve Virgo ................Pro Musica
Mejia ?Ave Maria ............Michigan Chorale
Sandoval ?Eres tu ...............Michigan Chorale
Schutz ?Ehre sei dir, Christe ...Michigan Chorale
So-human, William ?Secular Cantata No. 1, "This Is
Our Time" .........Michigan Chorale
Sentl
?Gross Weh ich leid' .........Pro Musica
?Ich weiss nit ...............Pro Musica
Missa Paschalis .............Pro Musica
Sweelinck ?Hodie Christus natus est..Wagner Chorale
Thompson
The Last Words of David ..............Michigan Chorale
Vaughan Williams "Dona nobis pacem"
.........Choral Union and Philadelphia
Vittoria
Ave Maria .............Wagner Chorale
?Vere languores .........Wagner Chorale
Walton ?Belshazzar's Feast ......Wagner Chorale
York ?Prayer ...............Michigan Chorale
BALLET
Chopin ?"Les Sylphides" .........American Ballet
Copland ?Billy the Kid ...........American Ballet
Meyerbeer (arr. Lambert)
Les Patineurs ...........American Ballet
Mes-kus
?Pas de deux from
Don Quixote..........American Ballet
ETHNIC GROUPS
Folk Songs and Dances
?Asik ........................Bayanihan
?Bagobo and Mandayan
Festival Dances ............Bayanihan
?Bandoska ....................Mazowsze
Bangibang Funeral Dance ....Bayanihan ?Benguet Bendean Victory
Dance ....................Bayanihan
?Dances from Biskupizna
VVielkopolska ..............Mazowsze
?Binanog and Binaylan ........Bayanihan
?Bontoc War Dance ..........Bayanihan
?Chodzony: Round and Round . .Mazowsze
?Cieszyn Songs ...............Mazowsze
?The Coachman ..............Mazowsze
?Cracow Dances and Songs.....Mazowsze
?The Cuckoo .................Mazowsze
?Dugso ......................Bayanihan
?Habanera Botolena ..........Bavanihan
Harana......................Bayanihan
?Here Come the Guests........Mazowsze
Hush, Hush ..................Mazowsze
?Ifugao Festival Dance ........Bayanihan
Itik Itik ....................Bayanihan
?Jota Moncadena ............Bayanihan
Kalinga Wedding Dance ......Bayanihan
?Kaszuby Dances and Songs ... .Mazowsze
?Krakowiak ..................Mazowsze
?Kujawiak ....................Mazowsze
?Laura and Filon .............Mazowsze
?The Lowicz Maiden ..........Mazowsze
?Dances, from Lublin ..........Mazowsze
?Maglalatik ..................Bayanihan
?Mazur ......................Mazowsze
?Mazur from the Opera,
Straszny Dwor .............Mazowsze
?Mazurka Boholana ..........Bayanihan
S5
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
?Oberek ......................Mazowsze
Oberek, from Opoczno ........Mazowsze
?Pandanggo sa Ilaw ..........Bayanihan
?Jokes and Dances, from
Podegrodzia ...............Mazowsze
?Polkabal ....................Bayanihan
?Polonaise from Zywiec ........Mazowsze
?Rural Philippines Suite ......Bayanihan
?Rzeszow Dances and Songs___Mazowsze
?Sagayan-sa Kuong ..........Bayanihan
?Sakuting ....................Bayanihan
?Singkil .....................Bayanihan
?"Spindle," Polka from Sieradz . .Mazowsze
?Sultana .....................Bayanihan
?Tahing Baila ................Bayanihan
?Dances and Songs
from the Tatras ............Mazowsze
?"Trembling" Polka,
from Opoczno .............Mazowsze
?Dances and Songs
from Warmia and Mazury ..Mazowsze
?"What I Think" .............Mazowsze
?Dances and Songs
from Wielkopolska .........Mazowsze
The Ukranian Dance Company (May 30) will be added.
SUMMARY
Classification Number of Compositions First Performances at these Concerts Composers Represented
34 31 77 58 4 51 9 21 63 55 4 51 26 20 24 29 4 7
Instrumental .....................
Vocal .............................
Choral............................
Ballet
Ethnic Dance Groups ..............
Totals . 255 203 Less duplicati 110 Dns -23

,S7
S6
Concerts for the 1962-1963 Season
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Eighty-fourth Season
CHORAL UNION SERIES
Robert Merrill, Baritone........Thursday, September 27
Detroit Symphony Orchestra......(2:30) Sunday, October 7
Paul Paray, Conductor "La Traviata" (Verdi)...........Friday, October 10
Goldovsky Grand Opera Theater French National Orchestra.......Wednesday, October 24
Charles Munch, Conductor Uday Shankar Hindu Dance Company .... Tuesday, November 6
Leningrad Philharmonic.........Monday, November 12
"Marriage of Figaro" (Mozart).......Saturday, November 17
New York City Opera Company Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.....Wednesday, February 4
William Steinberg, Conductor
Tokyo Classical Ballet, "Komaki" .... (2:30) Sunday, March 3 Toronto Symphony Orchestra........Tuesday, March 12
Walter Susskind, Conductor; Annie Fischer, Piano Soloist
EXTRA SERIES
"Carmen" (Bizet)--Wagner Opera Company production of
New York Opera Festival........Saturday, October 20
National Ballet of Canada.........Friday, November 9
"Rigoletto" (Verdi)........(2:30) Sunday, November 18
New York City Opera Company
NDR Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg . . . Wednesday, January 16 Hans Schmidt-Issertedt, Conductor
Birgit Nilsson, Soprano...........Monday, March 18
SPECIAL CONCERTS
Messiah (Handel)--two performances.....Saturday, December 1
Sunday, December 2
University Choral Union and University Symphony Orchestra
Soloists: Saramae Endich Rolf Bjoerling
Louise Parker Norman Farrow
Organist: Mary McCall Stubbins
Conductor: Lester McCoy
CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERTS
Chicago Little Symphony......(2:30) Sunday, December 9
Thor Johnson, Conductor Chamber Music Festival (S concerts) . . February 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
Budapest Quartet--complete Beethoven cycle Julian Bream, Guitarist and Lutist . . . . (2:30) Sunday, March 31
ANN ARBOR MAY FESTIVAL
The Philadelphia Orchestra.........May 9, 10, 11, 12
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor; guest conductors and soloists.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
1879