UMS Concert Program, October 9, 1966: Chicago Symphony Orchestra -- Jean Martinon

Season: Eighty-eighth
Concert: First
Complete Series: 3525
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

1966 Eighty-eighth Season 1967
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Charles A. Sink, President Gail W. Rector, Executive Director Lester McCoy, Conductor
First Program Twenty-first Annual Extra Series Complete Series 3525
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
JEAN MARTINON, Conductor
Soloists
Victor Aitay, Violin Frank Miller, Violoncello
Sunday Afternoon, October 9, 1966, at 2:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16.......Schonberg
Premonitions
Yesteryears
Summer Morning by a Lake
Peripetia
The Obligatory Recitative
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Violoncello, and Orchestra,
Op. 29............Rozsa
Allegro non troppo
Andante; tema con variazione Allegro vigoroso
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61......Schumann
Sostenuto assai, allegro ma non troppo Scherzo
Adagio espressivo
Allegro molto vivace
ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATIONS
All presentations are at 8:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Toronto Symphony (Choral Union Series) . . . Thursday, November 3
Program: Overture, "I Vespri siciliani"--Verdi; Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste --Bartok; Symphonic fantastique--Berlioz.
"THE PLAY OF DANIEL"
Performed by the New York Pro Musica
in the Sanctuary of the First Methodist Church Thursday, Friday, Saturday, December 8, 9 and 10
Tickets: $5.00--$4.00--($3.00 seats Thursday only)
George Frederick Handel December 2 and 3, 8:30; December 4, 2:30
Joan Moynagh, Soprano Loren Driscoll, Tenor
Carol Smith, Mezzo-Soprano Thomas Paul, Bass
University Choral Union with Orchestra
Mary McCall Stubbins, Organist; Lester McCoy, Conductor
Tickets: $2.50--$2.00--$1.50--$1.00
THE FIFTH ANNUAL
Dance Festival
Three performances in Hill Auditorium
Hosho Noh Troupe........Monday, October 24
From Suidobashi Noh Theatre, Tokyo. Presented in collaboration with the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. The program: "Sumidagawa," and "A Han-Noh."
Robert Joffrey Ballet.......Wednesday, October 26
Program: Donizetti Variations; Sea Shadow; Pas des Deesses; Viva Vivaldi! Choreogra?phy by George Balanchine, Gerald Arpino, and Robert Joffrey.
Fiesta Mexicana.........Saturday, October 29
From Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, in its first United States tour. Program includes "Deer Dance"; Dances from the Mayans and the Aztecs; Songs and Dances of Vera Cruz; with native orchestra.
Series Tickets: $8.00--$6.00--$5.00 Single Concerts: $4.00--$3.00--$2.00
"Music of the Japanese Noh Drama"--Lecture-demonstration Tuesday evening, October 18, 8:30 p.m., at School of Music Recital Hall. Professor William P. Malm (Open to the public without charge).
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY, Burton Tower
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Violoncello,
and Orchestra, Op. 29.......Miklos Rozsa
The score of the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and violoncello was begun in Rapallo, Italy, in 1958 and was completed in Hollywood in 1963. In the three move?ments, the two solo instruments are treated primarily as a unit--they are combined in various ways, both harmonically and contrapuntally, and are contrasted with the sonorous sound of the orchestra. The two solo instruments are given imitative, or canonic, passages. The orchestra serves as an accompanying group, as the constrasting body of sound, and at times it becomes an equal partner in working out the musical material. The orchestra calls for pairs of woodwinds, four horns, three trumpets and trombones, timpani and a battery of percussion, and a quintet of strings.
The first movement, allegro non troppo, is based on the sonata plan with two contrasting themes, a development of the themes, an extensive cadenza for the solo instruments, and a return in which the second theme comes first. The second movement, andante, consists of a theme, started first by the cello, and a series of seven variations. Canonic writing is utilized in the first three variations; antiphonal treatment dominates the fourth and fifth; sustained motion characterizes the sixth; the violin restates the theme in the seventh, and a coda completes the movement.
The fourth movement, allegro vigoroso, follows the sonata idea again, and an extensive orchestra passage opens the work with first theme ideas. The second theme is slower and is heard first in the cello, and is then imitated by the violin. In the recapitulation, the second theme returns first. Brilliance characterizes the ending of the movement.
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61 . . . . Robert Schumann
The first sketches for the Second Symphony were made in 1845. The symptoms of Schumann's declining mental condition, present since 1843, had reached a crisis near the end of 1844. Schumann moved with his family to Dresden hoping the change might help. Improvement was slow. In a letter to Dr. G. D. Otten, founder and conductor of the Hamburg Musical Society, Schumann wrote: "I might indeed say it was the resistance of the spirit that was here at work and helped me to combat my condition. The first movement is full of struggle and in its character it is capricious and refrac?tory." Even as late as April 1849 Schumann recalled, again to Dr. Otten, the terrible encounter with mental illness: "I wrote my symphony in December 1845 and I some?times fear my semi-invalid state can be divined from the music. I began to feel more myself when I wrote the last movement, and was certainly much better when I finished the whole work. All the same, it reminds me of dark days. Your interest in a work so stamped with melancholy proves your real sympathy."
Schumann shows both classical and romantic traits in this symphony. He bases his formal designs on classical patterns, yet he is not constrained to a literal application of these forms. His harmony, melody, and the general expressive character are definitely of his time. And his use of a motto theme as a means of giving unity to the movements of a large-scale work is, again, a characteristic of his own time. The motto theme begins the introduction to the first movement and reappears in the first and last move?ments. It is possible that the motto theme has programmatic meaning and represents the "resistance of the spirit" to which Schumann referred in his letter to Otten. Like?wise, the moving line of melody given to the strings which accompany the first state?ment of the motto theme in the introduction might well refer to the "dark days" of 1844-45.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATIONS
All presentations are at 8:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
Guiomae Novaes, Pianist (Choral Union Series) . Wednesday, October 12 Program: Bach Toccata in D minor; Beethoven Sonata Op. 31, No. 2; Chopin Preludes
"THE PLAY OF DANIEL"
Performed by the New York Pro Musica
in the Sanctuary of the First Methodist Church
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, December 8, 9 and 10
Tickets: $5.00--$4.00--$3.00
George Frederick Handel
In Hill Auditorium December 2 and 3, 8:30; December 4, 2:30
Joan Moynagh, Soprano Loren Driscoll, Tenor
Carol Smith, Mezzo-Soprano Thomas Paul, Bass
University Choral Union with Orchestra
Mary McCall Stubbins, Organist; Lester McCoy, Conductor
Tickets: $2.50--$2.00--$1.50--$1.00
THE FIFTH ANNUAL
Dance Festival
Three performances in Hill Auditorium
?Hosho Noh Troupe........Monday, October 24
From Suidobashi Noh Theatre, Tokyo. Presented in collaboration with the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies. The program: "Sumidagawa," and "A Han-Noh."
Robert Joffrey Ballet.......Wednesday, October 26
Young American "classic" company, with orchestra, specializing in both classic and modern choreography.
Fiesta Mexicana.........Saturday, October 29
From Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, in its first United States tour. Program includes "Deer Dance"; Dances from the Mayans and the Aztecs; Songs and Dances of Vera Cruz; with native orchestra.
Series Tickets: $8.00--$6.00--$5.00 Single Concerts: $4.00--$3.00--$2.00
"Music of the Japanese Noh Drama"--Lecture-demonstration Tuesday evening, October 18, 8:30 p.m., at School of Music Recital Hall. Professor William P. Malm (Open to the public without charge).
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY, Burton Tower