UMS Concert Program, May 7, 1972: The Ann Arbor May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Concert: Fourth
Complete Series: 3775
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The University Musical Society
of
The University of Michigan
Presents
ANN ARBOR
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Musical Director and Conductor William Smith, Assistant Conductor
FESTIVAL CHORUS OF THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Donald Bryant, Director
THOR JOHNSON, Conducting
SOLOISTS
NOELLE ROGERS, Soprano ELIZABETH MANNION, Contralto
LESLIE GUINN, Baritone
MALCOLM FRAGER, Pianist
Sunday Afternoon, May 7, 1972, at 2:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
program
Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201.........Mozart
Allegro moderato Andante Mcnuetto
Allegro con spirito
Stabat Mater, Op. 53...........Szymanowski
Noelle Rogers, Elizabeth Mannion, Leslie Guinn, and the Festival Chorus
INTERMISSION
Concerto No. 2 in Eflat major, Op. 32, for Piano and Orchestra . . . Weber
Allegro maestoso Adagio Presto
Malcolm Frager
RCA Red Seal
Fourth Concert 79th Annual May Festival Complete Programs 3775
PROGRAM NOTES
by Glenn D. McGeoch
Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201.........Mozart
Many of Mozart's early instrumental works resist classification because the distinctions of form we make today were not known in his time. The symphony was in the process of evolving from the Italian sinjonia or opera buffa overture, which was characterized by two fast movements separated by a contrasting slow one. It presented no other problem of formal construction and had no obli?gation to the work it preceded. It was purely light, gay, ceremonial music, and thus it remained in the hands of the Italians themselves until German composers in Vienna began to expand its form, about 1760, by inserting a minuet between the slow second and final fast movements, and evolving in general a more aggressive style. Mozart's various visits to Vienna, especially during the year 1767 and again briefly in 1773, made him increasingly aware of the changes that were taking place in the Italian sinjonia at the hands of his own countrymen. A more robust romanticism had begun to flourish. The literary "Sturm and Drang" movement was getting underway and Goethe was launch?ing its first manifestation in literature. The influence of the Viennese school upon Mozart, especially that of Franz Joseph Haydn, prevailed until 1777 when he visited Mannheim and heard its famous orchestra. In the Symphony in G minor, No. 25, K. 183, of 1773, he broke away noticeably from his earlier Italian models. His themes became more significant and their treatment more logical and dramatic; there was evidence that he was moving to greater freedom and individuality in the use of his instruments and that he was becoming more aware of effective balance between movements.
The four years between Mozart's seventeenth and twentyfirst birthdays (177377) were spent in Salzburg. We know less about this period in his life than any other. Since he was at home with his family most of the time, there were few personal letters, which are the chief and most reliable sources of all biographical information concerning him. There is, however, a record of his composi?tions during these years that gives us some indication of his musical development. In the year 1774 alone, he created, besides the G minor, K. 183, three other symphonies--the C major, K. 200; the A major, K. 201, on this afternoon's program; and the D major, K. 202. Of the three, the D major was the last one composed and the only one actually dated (May 5, 1774). These symphonies are particularly significant, for they embody characteristics of his youth and promises of his maturity; they form the beginning of a transition to the monumental symphonies at the end of his life, the Eflat major, K. 543; the G minor, K. 550; and final C major, "Jupiter," K. 551. This transition is not an even one. Occasionally there are reversions to the operatic overture style, but in this sym?phony there is to be noted a spirit of romantic fervor. In spite of its modest instrumentation for strings, two oboes and two horns, it shares with the other symphonies of this group a more personal tone, a more ingenious development of thematic material, and an elasticity of structure unrevealed up to this point in his symphonic works. It rescued the symphony from the domain of the purely decorative; figuration drops everything merely conventional. Through a refinement of details found in chamber music, intensified through the device of imitation, the new spirit is detected in all move?ments. The second (Andante), has the subtle structure of a string quartet, augmented by two pairs of woodwinds; the third (Minuet), sharper contrast between its sections; and the Beethovenlike intensity of the Finale (Allegro con spirito) contains the richest and most dramatic development section written to this time.
Stabat Mater, Op. 53...........Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski was born in Timoshovka (Ukraine), October 6, 1882, and died in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 28, 1937. He came from a Polish family of gifted musicians, studied at the Warsaw Conservatory, settled temporarily in Berlin, and from 1908 lived in Russia. During the revolution, he escaped from internment and fled to Warsaw in 1920, where he was appointed director of the State Conservatory in 1926, and established himself as an outstanding composer of what was then "modern" music. His early works had been strongly influenced by Richard Strauss and other German composers, but after the Second World War there was a radical change in his composing. Turning to Debussy and French Impressionism, he arrived at a mature style marked by a synthesis of Romantic, Impressionistic, and strong Nationalistic idioms; in his last works he was tending toward Schbnbergian atonality. "He carries the death dream of romanticism," wrote Erwin Felber, "to the border of awakening."
Among his most enduring works arc three symphonies, two violin concertos, Symphonie concertante for piano and orchestra. His Stabat Mater, composed in 1928, created a profound impression and has proved to be his most successful work.
The Stabat Mater ("The Mother Was Standing"), a thirteenthcentury hymn ascribed to a Franciscan Monk Jacopo Todi (12281306), describes the grief of the mother of Christ at the Cross. Since the sixteenth century, its text, described by Heinrich Heine of "caressing tenderness," has inspired many composers, the most important being Josquin des Pres (14501521) and Giovanni Palestrina (15251594), who wrote polyphonic versions of sublime beauty. Later settings occurred in all periods; among the most notable are those of Giovanni Pergolesi (1736), Franz Joseph Haydn (1773), Franz Schubert (1815), Gioacchino Rossini (1842), Antonin Dvorak (1877), Giuseppi Verdi (1899), and Francis Poulenc (1949). The pathetic beauty of the text reflects characteristic features of the new feeling which came into Western Christianity with the transforming Franciscan move?ment. In a world filled with a sense of impending doom, fear and terror were mitigated by pity, sorrow, and love.
Soprano solo; chorus: Stabat Mater dolorosa ("The grieving Mother") Baritone solo; chorus: Quis est homo ("What man would not weep")
Soprano and alto solo; chorus: O, Eia, Mater, jotis amoris ("Let me, Mother, feel with thee thy
grief")
Soprano and alto solo; chorus (a capella): Fac me tecutn pie fiere ("Let me weep beside thee") Baritone solo; chorus: Virgo virginum praedara ("Virgin, famed of all virgins") Soprano, alto, baritone solo; chorus: Christe, cum sit hinc exire ("Christ, when my time is finished")
Concerto No. 2 in Eflat major, Op. 32, for Piano and Orchestra . . . Weber
Carl Maria von Weber was born in 1786, and at his death in 1S26, at the age of forty, he bequeathed to German composers (Robert Schumann, 181056; Felix Mendelssohn, 180947; Franz Liszt, 181186; and Richard Wagner, 181383) a heritage that ensured the creation of a new roman?tic style which ultimately placed Germany in the front rank of musical nations. Born a decade before Franz Schubert (17971828), and living to the advent of Liszt and Wagner, Weber's ideas, strongly sympathetic to the romantic revolt in literature, awoke the dormant soul of the true German spirit full of heroism, mystery and an innate love for nature. He cultivated a style that could be used in,
and reconciled to the theatre. His preeminence, therefore, stems from his operas. In Der Freischiitz he clearly stated, with an astonishing realism, the atmosphere of the German forest, and the ceriness and the fantastic power of nature. He never achieved the climactic power of Wagner, who ulti?mately overshadowed him, for fulfillment of his ideal was not his destiny. "He died," wrote the composer Cornelius, "of the longing to become Wagner."
In his operas, Weber revolutionized classical orchestration, and his innovations were apparent in his instrumental works which include two symphonies, six varied concertos (several for clarinet, one for bassoon, and one for horn), and particularly in his two piano concertos, Op. 11 in C (1810) and the Op. 32 in Eflat (1811) heard this afternoon. It was written thirty years before the Schu?mann Concerto on Friday night's program. His piano works are unjustifiably neglected today, with the possible exception of the Concertstiick in F minor, the most frequently performed.
Weber was a pianist of prodigious talent. His inordinately large hands (he could stretch an interval of a twelfth), gave him complete mastery of the keyboard. As a performer, he sought to widen the expressive scope of his instrument, especially with the orchestra, thus he foreshadowed the later orchestral school of Liszt and Brahms in achieving a new concept of the piano concerto, not only in terms of ensemble, but in the creation of brilliant and striking effects, particularly in chordal and passage work, in bold jumps from one end of the keyboard to the other, and rapid passages of thirds in one hand, so evident in this concerto.
THE FESTIVAL CHORUS
Donald Bryant, Conductor Nancy Hodge, Accompanist
First Sopranos Ann Barden Lela Bryant Elaine Cox Linda Fenelon Cynthia Goodyear Darlene Gray Susan Haines Gladys Hanson Susan Hesselbart Leslie Horst Betsy Johnsrailler Mary Lage Carolyn Leyh Beth Pack Margaret Phillips Edith Robsky Carol Schlarman
First Tenors Kenneth Aptekar Owen Cathcy Timothy Dombrowski Marshall Franke Marshall Grimm Carl Jcch Michael Kaplan Paul Lowry Frederick Merchant David Reynolds Jess Wright
Mary Ann Sincock Karen Smith
Second Sopranos Margaret Babineau Lael Cappaert Doris Datsko Donna Folk Nancy Grascr Alice Horning Frances Lyman Cindy Maher Laurel Beth Ronis Jo Ann Staebler Patricia Tompkins Sandra Winzenz Kathy Wirstrom
Second Tenors Martin Barrett John Burgess Michael Chateau Alan Cochrane Donald Coucke Merle Galbraith Donald Haworth Thomas Hmay Robert MacGregor Jonathan Miller Michael Snabes Alan Weamer William Webb
First Altos Judith Adams Marion Brown Sally Carpenter Beth Dover Nancy Karp Andrea Kelly Lois Nelson Lydia Polacek Mary Reid Christine Swartz Carol Wargelin Charlotte Wolfe Linda Wolpert
First Basses Thomas Folk David Gitterman Thomas Hagerty Edgar Hamilton Jeffrey Haynes Thomas Hochstettler Orville Kimball Klair Kissel James McDonald William Magretta Michael Xowak Terril Tompkins Donald Williams
Second Altos Elaine Adler Sandra Anderson Marjorie Baird Mary Davidson Mary Haab Joan Hagerty Jayne Hannigan Elsie Lovelace Judith McKnight Beverly Roeger Kathryn Stebbins Barbara Tuss Nancy Williams Johanna Wilson
Second Basses Neville Allen W. Howard Bond Gabriel Chin Oliver Holmes Gregg Powell George Rosenwald Helmut Schick Wallace Schonschack Thomas Sommerfeld Robert Strozier
Available for purchase in the lobby--a recording featuring the Festival Chorus in Smetana's "Czech Song," Dvorak's Symphony No. S in F major, and three of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, as performed in the Prague Symphony concert in the Choral Union Series this season.