UMS Concert Program, April 23, 1980: The Ann Arbor May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Season: 101st
Concert: Sixty-second
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

itetSati Pre?entatit
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ANN ARBOR
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director
Riccardo Muti, Principal Guest Conductor
William Smith, Associate Conductor
EUGENE ORMANDY, Conducting ISAAC STERN, Violinist
Wednesday Evening, April 23, 1980, at 8:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72a.....
Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 61
Beethoven Beethoven
Allegro ma non troppo Larghetto
Rondo allegro
?Pictures at an Exhibition
Promenade The Gnome Promenade The Old Castle Promenade Tuileries Bydlo Promenade
Isaac Stern
INTERMISSION
.....Mussorgsky-Ravel
Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle The Market Place in Limoges The Catacombs: Sepulcrum Romanum
Con mortuis in lingua mortua The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba Yaga) The Great Gate at Kiev
Available on Angel, RCA Red Seal, and Columbia Records. Isaac Stern: Columbia Records.
Tonight's concert is performed in honor of Harold T. Shapiro who, on April 14, was invested as the 10th President of The University of Michigan during inaugural ceremonies on this stage.
101st Season -Sixty-second Concert
Eighty-seventh Annual May Festival
PROGRAM NOTES by Richard Freed
Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72a .... Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
While a Rossini or a Donizetti might compose as many as four operas in a single year, Beethoven spent more than a decade creating his single work for the lyric stage and revising it into the form in which we know it today. In the matter of the overture, he turned the tables on Rossini, who sometimes used the same overture for as many as three different operas, by com?posing no fewer than four overtures for his Fidelio.
Beethoven originally titled his opera Leonore (as Pierre Gaveaux and Ferdinando Paer had called their earlier operatic treatments of the same story). When the original three-act version was produced on November 20, 1805, he had already discarded his first attempt at an overture (the Leonore No. 1, which may not have been finished by then and was not heard until nine years after his death) and substituted one nearly twice as long, known now as Leonore No. 2. This was also to be set aside. When the first revision of the opera was presented, only four months after the original premiere (but now in two acts instead of three), the overture had been trimmed and tightened into the Leonore No. 3. When the third and final version was presented under the title Fidelio, on May 23, 1814, Beethoven was not ready with a new over?ture and so used the one from his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus; three days later the production was repeated with the overture in E major known ever since simply as the Fidelio Overture, and the three Leonore overtures (all in C major) have taken their places in the concert repertory.
The Leonore Overture No. 3, by all odds the most frequently heard, is a concise tone poem far in advance of the genre "invented" by Liszt, and well in advance, too, of the descriptive overtures of Mendelssohn. The prisoner's song, Florestan"s air ("In des Lebens Fruhlingstagen"), is indeed the only material quoted from the opera itself, except the dramatic trumpet calls-first far-off, then nearer--announcing the arrival of the Minister of Justice, which here lead to the triumphant coda.
Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 61 . . . Beethoven
Beethoven did not compose a full-scale concerto for the violin until he had completed all the concertos he wrote for his own use (the first four of his five piano concertos) and the Triple Concerto, Op. 56, which he styled a "Concertino" and in which the violin shared solo honors with the cello and piano. It would appear that he worked up to his solitary violin concerto by way of a series of other concerted works for the instrument. In 1800 he began sketching a violin concerto in C major, but he never completed even the single movement he laid out. In 1802 and 1803 there came the two Romances for violin and orchestra which may be considered "studies" for the slow movement of a concerto, and in 1805 Beethoven produced the afore?mentioned Triple Concerto. When the Violin Concerto in D materialized, the following year, it stood as a work of unprecedented proportions and depth in its category. While all of Beet?hoven's piano concertos, to some degree, can trace their ancestry to Mozart's, the Violin Concerto has no ancestors. This exalted and eminently lovable work sprang from Beethoven's genius like Athena from the head of Zeus, fully formed, and as near as any product of man's imagination is likely to come to the elusive goal of perfection.
The first performance, on December 23, 1806, was entrusted to Franz Clement, a dis?tinguished musician who was associated with Beethoven in several important performances in his capacity as concertmaster of the orchestra of the Theater an der Wien. But the Concerto did not catch on at once, and a few months after the premiere Beethoven allowed Muzio Clementi to persuade him to adapt the work as a piano concerto; for this version, which is rarely performed, he wrote cadenzas, which happened to be the first he composed for any of his own concertos. He never wrote any for the violin version, but proceeded thereafter to supply his earlier piano concertos with cadenzas, and when he wrote the last (the so-called Emperor, in E-flat) he provided it at the outset with cadenzas so integrated that they were not to be replaced.
Evidently the Violin Concerto was not performed again after the premiere until I.uigi Tomasini (Haydn's former concertmaster at Eszterhaza, and himself a composer) played it in 1812. Few other violinists gave the work a nod--Baillot in 1828, Vieuxtemps, ten years after that. It was not until the 13-year-old Joseph Joachim played the Concerto in his London debut on May 27, 1844, that the work took hold. (The conductor on that occasion was Felix Mendelssohn, who composed his own Violin Concerto in E minor in the same year.) Even after that, though, Joachim was for several years virtually the only violinist to perform the Beethoven Concerto with any frequency. He became the most illustrious violinist of his time, and an eminent conductor, composer and pedagogue as well; he also composed cadenzas for the Concerto, as have Fritz Kreisler and Nathan Milstein.
Detailed comment or analysis is hardly called for in the case of a work so familiar and beloved. In sum, there is no work in which Beethoven is more sure of himself, none in which intimacy, grandeur, and all-embracing warmth of heart are more effectively combined.
Pictures at an Exhibition .... Modest Petrovitch Mussorgsky
(1839-1881)
Mussorgsky had been dead forty-one years when his most popular orchestral work was produced, when, in 1922, Maurice Ravel received a commission from Serge Koussevitzky to orchestrate a suite of piano pieces by Mussorgsky for performance at the conductor's Paris concerts. Ravel was neither the first nor the last to produce an orchestral version of Pictures at an Exhibition. Rimsky-Korsakov's pupil Mikhail Tushmalov orchestrated portions of it only a few years after the posthumous publication of the piano original; the English conductor Sir Henry Wood had a stab at it; and in the late 1930s The Philadelphia Orchestra introduced and recorded the transcriptions of Lucien Cailliet and the late Leopold Stokowski. It is Ravel's version alone, though, that has taken its place in the repertory, and one might suggest that "realization" is a better term than "transcription" in this case, for what Ravel achieved is a consummate realization of the orchestral possibilities inherent in Mussorgsky's piano score.
This composite work, then, which one might say required nearly fifty years for completion in its ideal form, was begun about a year before Ravel's birth. Mussorgsky's friend Viktor Hartmann, a prominent architect, artist, and designer, died in 1873 at the age of thirty-nine and a memorial exhibition of his works was presented in St. Petersburg the following year. Mussorgsky was deeply moved by it, and set about creating a musical memorial to his friend, based on his impressions of ten of the pictures: a design for a nutcracker in the form of a malevolent dwarf (Gnomus); a water-color of a medieval troubadour serenading outside an Italian castle (The Old Castle); a sketch of children at play in the Tuilleries Gardens in Paris; a Polish oxcart (Bydlo--the Polish word for "cattle"); a costume design for a ballet sequence on unhatched chicks dancing with their legs protruding from their shells; drawings of "Two Polish Jews, One Rich, the Other Poor" (Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle); lively French housewives at the marketplace in Limoges; a painting of Hartmann himself exploring the catacombs under Paris; a design for a clock-face representing the bizarre abode of Baba Yaga, the famous witch of Russian folklore (The Hut on Fowl's Legs), and finally Hartmann's proposed reconstruction of the ancient Gate of the Bogatyrs at Kiev, in the massive traditional style, with the central section topped by a cupola in the shape of a Slavonic warrior's helmet (a most fitting finale, since the Great Gate was itself to be a memorial project).
Mussorgsky incorporated his own personality in the work, in the form of the Promenade which introduces the suite and links several of its sections together. Following its energetic statement as prelude to the entire work, the Promenade returns five times in various guises, each reflecting the character of an individual picture. Its final appearance forms part of the jubilant coda of The Great Gate at Kiev, in which one can almost hear a phantom chorus in an exultant hymn of praise.
About the Artists
Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra celebrate joint 80th anniversaries during the current 1979-1980 season: Mr. Ormandy who marked his 80th birthday on November 18, and the Orchestra which gave its first concert on November 16, 1900. For 44 of those 80 years, the Orchestra has been under the brilliant leadership of Maestro Ormandy, a record unequaled by any conductor of any other major orchestra. Now nearing the end of his final season as Music Director of one of the greatest orchestras of all time, Mr. Ormandy will become the Orchestra's Conductor Laureate and continue his participation in future seasons. Among the countless tributes and honors bestowed upon him is the highest civilian award of the United States Government, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and he holds many honorary doctorate degrees from major universities and schools of music, including the University of Michigan. The Philadelphia Orchestra's first participation in the May Festival was in 1936 under Leopold Stokowski, and in 1937 began Mr. Ormandy's annual visits to Ann Arbor with the Philadelphians.
Isaac Stern, who is making his eighth Ann Arbor appearance this evening, is known on every continent as one of the greatest musicians of all time. Born in Kriminiesz, Russia, in 1920, he came to San Francisco with his parents when less than a year old. His recital debut was in 1934, and by the time he made his New York debut in 1937 he was already a highly regarded violinist. His 1943 Carnegie Hall debut helped focus the attention which subsequently brought him invitations to perform annually with every major orchestra and at every major festival throughout the world. Mr. Stern has premiered many works by contemporary composers, recorded virtually all the significant violin literature, and performed in films. He is also known as a champion for cultural preservation in America, his leadership a determining factor in the fight to save Carnegie Hall from demolition and becoming a National Historic Landmark. In addition to other honors, Isaac Stern was the first recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Music Award for a life dedicated to music and devoted to humanity.
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Eugene Ormandy, Music Director and Conductor
Riccardo Muti, Principal Guest Conductor
William Smith, Associate Conductor
Seymour L. Rosen, Executive Director
Joseph H. Santarlasci, Manager
Violins
Norman Carol Concertmaster
William de Pasquale Associate Concertmaster
David Arben
Associate Concertmaster
Morris Shulik Owen Lusak David Grunschlag Frank E. Saam Frank Costanzo Barbara Sorlien Herbert Light Charles Rex Luis Biava Larry Grika Cathleen Dalschaert Herold Klein Julia Janson Vladimir Shapiro
Irvin Rosen Robert de Pasquale Armand Di Camillo Joseph Lanza Irving Ludwig Jerome Wigler Virginia Halfmann Arnold Grossi George Dreyfus Louis Lanza Stephane Dalschaert Booker Rowe Davyd Booth Jonathan Beiler Isadore Schwartz Cynthia Williams
Violas
Joseph de Pasquale James Fawcett Leonard Mogiil Sidney Curtiss Gaetano Molieri Irving Segall Leonard Bogdanoff Charles Griffin Wolfgang Granat Donald R. Clauser Albert Filosa Renard Edwards
Violoncellos William Stokking George Harpham Harry Gorodetzer Lloyd Smith Joseph Druian Bert Phillips Richard Harlow Gloria Johns William Saputelli Patricia Weimer Marcel Farago Kathryn Picht
Basses
Roger M. Scott
Michael Shahan
Neil Courtney
Ferdinand Maresh
Carl Torello
Samuel Gorodetzer
Emilio Gravagno
Henry G. Scott
Peter Lloyd
Some members of the string
sections voluntarily rotate
seating on a periodic basis.
Flutes
Murray W. Panitz Kenneth E. Scutt Loren N. Lind John C. Krell Piccolo
Oboes
Richard Woodhams 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
Nolan Miller David Wetherill
Associate Randy Gardner Martha Glaze Howard Wall Daniel Williams
Trumpets Frank Kaderabek Donald E. McComas Seymour Rosenfeld Roger Blackburn
Trombones Glenn Dodson Tyrone Breuninger M. Dee Stewart
Bass TrumpetTenor Tuba Robert S. Harper
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Paul Krzywicki
Timpani Gerald Carlyss Michael Bookspan
Battery
Michael Bookspan Alan Abel Anthony Orlando William Saputelli
Celesta, Piano and Organ William Smith Marcel Farago Davyd Booth
Harps
Marilyn Costello
Margarita Csonka
Librarians Clint Nieweg Robert M. Grossman
Personnel Manager Mason Jones
Stage Personnel Edward Barnes, Manager Theodore Hauptle James Sweeney
Broadcast Recording
Director
Albert L. Borkow, Jr.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Phone: 665-3717, 764-2538