UMS Concert Program, April 28, 1976: The Ann Arbor May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Concert: First
Complete Series: 4000
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The University Musical Society
of
The University of Michigan
Presents
ANN ARBOR
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director and Conductor William Smith, Assistant Conductor
EUGENE ORMANDY, Conducting
Wednesday Evening, April 28, 1976, at 8:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 31 in D major, "Hornsignal"........Haydn
Allegro Adagio
Menuet
Finale: moderato molto
"Echoes from an Invisible World,"
Three Movements for Orchestra........Leslie Bassett
Commissioned by Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra as part of the National Endowment lor the Arts' commissioning project in commemoration of the United States Bicentennial.
INTERMISSION
"Invitation to the Dance," Op. 65..........Weber
(Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy)
tSuite from the Ballet, "Billy the Kid".........Copland
The Open Prairie Gun Battle
Street in a Frontier Town Celebration after Billy's Capture
Card Game at Xight The Open Prairie Again
(Played without pause)
"La Valse"...............Ravel
The Philadelphia Orchestra records exclusively for RCA Red Seal Available on Columbia Records t Available on RCA Red Seal
First Concert Eightythird Annual May Festival Complete Programs 4000
PROGRAM NOTES
by Richard Freed
Symphony No. 31 in D major, "Hornsignal"......Joseph Haydn
(17321809)
The Symphony, whose full subtitle is Auf dem Ansland--tnit dem Hornsignal ("On the Lookout--With the Horn Signal"), was composed and performed at Esztcrhaza in 1765. The horn signal which opens the first movement is an actual hunting motif in use for years before Haydn's time, to which he attached a prefatory fanfare of his own invention; the hunting figure recurs within the movement (alternating with display passages for the flute), and the fanfare figure returns at the end.
The two pairs of horns are the only winds used in the slow movement. Here they drop their "hunting" character and are given solo prominence, together with solo violin and cello, in an elegant concerto grosso setting. The ensuing minuet is vigorous and ingratiating, exuding the character of a rustic dance; the oboes and horns get the spotlight in the Trio.
The finale is not the expected bubbly rondo, but a leisurely set of seven variations, almost a miniature "concerto lor orchestra" in the sense that different instruments or sections are featured from one variation to the next. After the final variation there is another unexpected touch: a cheery presto coda, totally unrelated to the variation material and capped by a reprise of the horn signal that introduced and sealed the first movement.
"Echoes from an Invisible World,1'
Three Movements for Orchestra........Leslie Bassett
(1923 )
Among the several commissioning programs funded by the Xational Endowment for the Arts in celebration of the United States Bicentennial is one for new orchestral works from six American composers, each to be introduced by a different orchestra among six of the country's leading symphonic ensembles and then performed in turn by each of the other five in that group. Under this program John Cage has been commissioned for a work to be introduced by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, David Del Tredici has written one for the Chicago Symphony, Jacob Druckman for the Cleveland Orchestra, Morton Subotnick for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Elliott Carter for the New York Philharmonic, and Leslie Bassett has composed the work Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia are performing in tonight's concert. Mr. Bassett's Echoes from an Invisible World will be performed by the other five orchestras during the Bicentennial period.
Leslie Bassett's first professional experience was as a trombonist in jazz combos in California; during World War II he played the trombone in the 13th Armored Division Band. His orchestral Suite in G was performed in December 1946, a few months before his graduation from Fresno State College. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Ross Lee Finncy, Mr. Bassett went to Paris on a Fulbright grant, and took further work with Xadia Boulanger, Arthur Honegger, and Roberto Gerhard; he also studied electronic music with Mario Davidovsky in this country. In 1952 he returned to the University of Michigan as a faculty member, and is now Professor of Music and chairman of the Composition department here. Since the Fulbright award in 1950, Mr. Bassett has won a Prix de Rome and numerous other grants and awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for his Variations for Orchestra, a work given its premiere by Mr. Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra in October 1965.
Echoes from an Invisible World was written during a sabbatical leave in 1974, when Mr. Bassett held a Guggenheim Fellowship; he began the work at the Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, California, continued his writing in Italy at the Rockefeller Foundation Center on Lake Como, and completed it in Ann Arbor. The score, inscribed "For The Philadelphia Orchestra and its esteemed Music Director, Eugene Ormandy," calls for a large orchestra, with an especially full percussion section. The work's title is a quotation from Giuseppe Mazzini (180572), the Italian patriot and associate of Garibaldi: "Music, the echo from an invisible world." Mr. Bassett expands on this in the notes he has kindly provided for this performance:
"I have long been attracted to Giuseppe Mazzini's remarkable definition of music as 'the echo from an invisible world.' In one sense, of course, we could say that any piece would fit the definition, yet I sought here to come closer to what I believe to be his intention, striving to evoke something of the mystery of music and inviting possible reflections by the listener (perhaps after hearing the work) upon the remarkable force and eloquence of an art which, in spite of many illuminating studies of its physical properties and hundreds of scholarly analyses, remains elusive.
"The title is suggestive, not descriptive. Only a few sounds could, by any stretch of the imagination, be called echoes: quiet tones that remain after a sharp attack in another instrument, repeating sounds that diminish in intensity following a sharp attack, etc. Much of the music
springs, instead, from sources that are implanted within the score, yet arc comparatively insignifi?cant. One of the more obvious of these is the opening threechord piano figure whose 12 tones recur in many guises throughout the work and contribute to the formation of other sounds and phrases. The principle of unfolding and growth from small elements is basic to the work, as is the principle of return to them. The musical material came about by very personal means, often prompted by the many exciting possibilities of orchestral texture and gesture. The three move?ments are similar to the extent that they end quietly, have intense passages as well as quiet ones, fluctuate between metered and unmetered music, and require extensive dividing of the strings. The outer two movements are essentially fast, the middle one slow.
"While the relationship of the score to the spirit of the Bicentennial may seem tenuous, I believe it to be fully in sympathy with that spirit by celebrating the incredible, wonderful, un?knowable source, not only of music, but of all of man's noblest qualities."
Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65......Carl Maria von Weber
(17861826) (Transcribed for Orchestra by Eugene Ormandy)
The "Invitation to the Dance" is an invitation in more than just a programmatic sense; for it ushered in the era of "serious" dance music. Music of this kind is meant for imaginary rather than actual dancers, is often symphonic in scope and may tell a story with the help of a written program.
Weber's Invitation has the simplest "plot." At a ball a gentleman approaches a lady and in courtly terms requests the pleasure of the next dance (solo cello at outset). The lady replies demurely in the affirmative (woodwinds). While waiting for the dance to begin they converse, the gentleman offering observations, the lady politely agreeing with him. Suddenly a bold allegro vivace alters the atmosphere: the dance has begun, conventional politeness gives place to the excitement of uninhibited physical motion as the partners whirl across the ballroom with the other dancers. Whenever the pace of the music abates they converse gaily, only to give themselves more vigorously to the intoxicating rhythm as the waltz wells up again. The dance comes to an end. There is a pause. The gentleman, assuming his former manner, escorts the oncemore demure lady to her seat, bows, and withdraws.
Suite from the Ballet, Billy the Kid.......Aaron Copland
(1900 )
"Because we live here and work here," Aaron Copland wrote in 1941, "we can be certain that when our music is mature it will also be American in quality. American individuals will produce an American music." More than any other composer except Charles Ives--and long before Ives was belatedly "discovered"--Copland himself created a solid, viable, and internationally recognized American musical tradition. This he accomplished most strikingly in the three ballet scores he composed between 1938 and 1944: Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring.
Wilfrid Mellers, in his book Music in a eui Found Land (which he dedicated to Copland), offers this provocative analysis of Billy the Kid:
"It is significant that the first of Copland's 'Wild West' ballets, Billy the Kid (1938), has for theme the conflict between Society and the Outlaw. Billy was a historical figure who, at the age of eleven, stabbed a man who shot his mother in a brawl. Later he shoots a man who accuses him of cheating at cards; there is a gun battle between Billy's gang and the Sheriffs representatives in the course of which Billy is captured. ... He escapes from prison, however, and joins his Mexican sweetheart in the solitude of the desert. He is betrayed to the Sheriff by an Indian guide; the Law closes in on him in the silence of the night, and he is shot by the Sheriff as he lights a cigarette. The ballet concludes as it began with a march of the pioneers, moving westward with the Sheriff at their head."
"La Valse": A Choreographic Poem..........Ravel
(18751937)
Ravel described the work as "a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, with which is mingled in my mind the idea of the fantastic whirl of destiny."
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 whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The lights of the chandeliers burst forth, fortissimo. An Imperial Court about 1855.
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director and Conductor William Smith, Assistant Conductor
Boris Sokoloff, Manager Joseph H. Santarlasci, Assistant Manager
Violins
Norman Carol Concertmaster
William de Pasquale Associate Concertmaster
David Arben Assistant Concertmaster
Morris Shulik Owen Lusak David Grunschlag Frank E. Saam Frank Costanzo Barbara de Pasquale Herbert Light Max Miller Ernest L. Goldstein Luis Biava Vera Tarnowsky Larry Grika Cathleen Dalschaert Herold Klein
Irvin Rosen Robert de Pasquale Armand Di Camillo Joseph Lanza Julia Janson Irving Ludwig Jerome Wigler Virginia Hallmann George Dreyfus Arnold Grossi Louis Lanza Stephane Dalschaert Isadorc Schwartz Booker Rowc Charles Rex Davyd Booth
I 'tolas
Joseph de Pasquale James Fawcett Leonard Mogill Sidney Curtiss Gaetano Molieri Irving Segall Leonard Bogdanoff Charles Griffin Wolfgang Granat Donald R. Clauser Albert Filosa Renard Edwards
Violoncellos William Stokking Winifred Mayes Harry Gorodctzer Lloyd Smith Joseph Druian Bert Phillips Deborah Reeder Christopher Rex George Harpham William Saputelli Marcel Farago Santo Caserta
Basses
Roger M. Scott Michael Shahan Xeil Courtney Ferdinand Maresh Carl Torello Samuel Gorodetzer Emilio Gravagno Curtis Burris Henry G. Scott
Flutes
Murray W. Panitz Kenneth E. Scutt Loren N. Lind John C. Krell Piccolo
Oboes
John de Lancie Stevens Hewitt Charles M. Morris Louis Rosenblatt English Horn
Clarinets
Anthony M. Gigliotti Donald Montanaro Raoul Querze Ronald Reuben Bass Clarinet
Bassoons Bernard Garfield John Shamlian Adelchi Louis Angelucci Robert J. Pfeuffer Contra Bassoon
Horns
Mason Jones Nolan Miller Randy Gardner Martha Glaze Howard Wall Daniel Williams
Trumpets Frank Kaderabck Donald E. McComas Seymour Rosenfeld Roger Blackburn
Trombones Glenn Dodson Tyrone Breuninger M. Dee Stewart Robert S. Harper Bass Trombone
Tuba
Paul Krzywicki
Timpani Gerald Carlyss Michael Bookspan
Battery
Michael Bookspan Alen Abel Anthony Orlando William Saputelli
Celesta, Piano and Organ William Smith Marcel Farago
Harps
Marilyn Costello
Margarita Csonka
Librarians Jesse C. Taynton Clint Xieweg
Personnel Manager Mason Jones
Stage Personnel Edward Barnes, Manager Theodore Hauptle James Sweeney
Photo Publicity Adrian Siegcl
Broadcast Recording Direct or
Albert L. Borkow, Jr.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
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