UMS Concert Program, May 1, 1981: May Festival -- The Philadelphia Orchestra

Season: 102nd
Concert: Fifty-ninth
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

lnteifLatipnal resentation
THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA
Riccardo Muti, Music Director
Eugene Ormandy, Conductor Laureate
William Smith, Associate Conductor
THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Donald Bryant, Director
ALDO CECCATO, Conducting
FA YE ROBINSON, Soprano JOHN GILMORE, Tenor
KATHERINE CIESINSKI, Mezzo-soprano JOHN CHEEK, Bass-baritone
Friday Evening, May 1, 1981, at 8:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
?Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 ("Jupiter")
Allegro
Andante cantabile Menuetto
Finale: allegro molto
INTERMISSION
Mozart
Stabat Mater ....
Introduction: Stabat Mater
Aria: Cujus animam
Duet: Quis est homo
Aria: Pro peccatis
Chorus and Recitative: Eja Mater
Rossini
Quartet: Sancta Mater Cavatina: Fac ut portem Aria: Inflammatus et accensus Chorus: Quando corpus Finale: Amen
The University Choral Union
Faye Robinson John Gilmore
katherine clesinski john cheek
Angel, RCA Red Seal, Telarc, and Columbia Records.
102nd Season--Fifty-ninth Concert
Eighty-eighth Annual May Festival
PROGRAM NOTES by Richard Freed
Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 ("Jupiter") Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
The last and most majestic of Mozart's symphonies was completed on August 10, 1788, just 16 days after its immediate predecessor, the G-minor, K. 550. The miracle of the creation of the final three symphonies in the space of eight weeks in that Viennese summer has come to be accepted, together with the numerous other miracles of Mozart's creativity, and is perhaps no longer astounding. What must continue to astound us, however, is the knowledge that, although Mozart lived nearly three-and-a-half years after completing these masterworks, it is virtually certain that none of them was performed during his lifetime. The sobriquet, "Jupiter," was affixed to the work when it came to light some years after Mozart's death, by Johann Peter Salomon, Haydn's London impresario, whom posterity can only congratulate for having so aptly characterized the lofty proportions of this music, its truly Jovian commingling of dignity, thrust and compassion.
The Olympian character of the Symphony is suggested in the commanding vigor of its terse opening strokes, softened almost at once by a tender figure in the strings, but then proceeding briskly on its course. Among the themes in the first movement is one Mozart had used the previous May in the arietta for basso. Un bacio di mano (K. 541), whose jovial but virile quality is superbly suited to this symphonic context. Olympian, too, is the very shape of the broad melody of the Andante canlabile, and how effective the use of the winds--most notably the bassoons--in this movement. The Minuet restores the mood of the first movement, as if by way of prelude to the grandest of all Mozart's symphonic finales.
The theme which opens the Jupiter's final movement is one Mozart had used in no fewer than four of his earlier works--two very early symphonies, the first movement of the Symphony No. 33 in B-flat (K. 319), and in the Credo of the Mass in F major, K. 192; the theme appears also in the finale of Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 13 in D major, composed in 1763, but there is no evidence that Mozart was even acquainted with that work--known as the Jupiter itself now because of its resemblance to the more familiar symphony of Mozart. Four additional themes are heard in this movement, which is in sonata form, and all five motifs are combined in the fugal coda. The end is a C major blaze of trumpets and drums.
Stabat Mater..........Gioacchino Rossini
(1792-1868)
The sacred poem Stabat Mater ilolorosa did not originate in the liturgy, but is thought to have been composed for the observance of Good Friday toward the end of the 13th century by a monk known as Jacopone da Todi (his actual name was Jacopo de Benedetti). Touching and direct in its language, infectious in its cadences, this text became widely venerated, and by 1727, when it was incorporated into the Roman Missal, it had been set to music dozens of times. By now it is surely hundreds, some of the most notable settings--in various styles, scorings, and lengths--being those of Palestrina, Josquin, Pergolesi, Haydn, Verdi, Dvorak, Szymanowski, and Penderecki. By all odds the most attractive setting, in terms of sheer color, variety and animation, is this one by Rossini. The creation of this work spanned a full decade, and its history is rather complex.
In 1832, three years after the completion of his last opera, GuiUaume Tell, Rossini was persuaded to undertake the composition of a Stabat Mater for Don Francisco Fernandez Varela, the Spanish minister to Paris, whose request, it appears, may have been prompted as much by his desire to have a Rossini manuscript in his possession as to enrich the repertory. In any event, the specific nature of the work was decreed by him, and when Rossini delivered the score in March 1832 it was tendered as a gift, with the understanding that it was to remain in Varela's keeping and was under no circumstances to be published. What Rossini did not tell him was that he had written only about half the work himself and had allowed his boyhood friend Giovanni Tadolini to write four of the ten sections. This composite work, performed under Rossini's name in Madrid early in 1833, turned up in a French publisher's office after Varela's death in 1837, and it was that circumstance that eventually led to Rossini's revision and publication of the score.
First of all. Rossini prohibited one publisher. Aulagnier, from printing the Slahal Mater, and assigned the rights to another firm. Troupenas: but before allowing Troupenas to publish, he reconsidered the work and composed replacements for the sections originally left to Tadolini. He may have been moved to do this by the death of his father, in April 1839, for it was only after that, in 1841, that the entire work was revised and rescored. The first six sections were performed at the Salle Herz on October 31 of that year, and the first complete performance was given at the Salle Ventadour the following January 7. Shortly after that Gaetano Donizetti conducted the first performance in Italy, and by the end of 1842 the Stabat Mater was established throughout southern Europe as one of the most successful works of its kind.
The very attractiveness of this music, however--its opulence, vigor, and ingratiating melodic line--inhibited the enthusiasm of northern audiences, who tended to feel its bright?ness was out of keeping with the solemnity of the religious subject. Later, of course, there would be those who would feel that Verdi's monumental Requiem was too "operatic"; objec?tions to both works have long since been swept aside, and the Stabat Mater is Rossini's only major work outside the realm of opera to have taken a permanent place in the international repertory. (Indeed, the tenor aria "Cujus animam" has achieved a popularity on its own com?parable to that of the best-known arias from favorite operas.)
The ten sections of the work fall into two larger divisions, each begun with a section in which all four soloists take part. The opening section is the longest portion of the work and the only one in which the entire vocal complement is heard, the chorus's subsequent appearances being limited to No. 5 (recitative with bass). No. 8 (aria with soprano) and the two concluding numbers. It is only in the Finale, in fact, that the chorus comes into its own: its participation is little more than ornamental in the earlier sections, but at the end Rossini provides a brilliant fugal display.
Each of the soloists is given an aria, and the soprano and alto are assigned a duet which is probably the most strikingly "operatic" number in the entire sequence. Rossini's inspiration was especially happy in this duet (No. 3), in the glorious quartet which opens the second half, and in the numbers in which the bass and soprano are joined by the chorus; aside from the element of sheer inspiration, what he achieved here would have been possible only to a composer of his skill and experience in writing for the theatre. What this remarkable work may lack in the way of conventional "devotional" feeling is more than compensated for by its enlivenment and drama: it is on these levels that Rossini communicates most characteristi?cally and most effectively, whatever his subject.
No. I--Introduction, Stabat Mater (chorus and quartet): At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, where he hung, her dying Son. No. 2--Aria, Cujus animam (tenor): Through her soul of joy bereaved, torn with anguish, deeply grieved, lo! the piercing sword hath run. O, how sad and sore dis?tressed then was she, that Mother blessed of the sole-begotten One! Torn with grief and desolation, Mother meek, the bitter Passion saw she of her glorious Son. No. 3--Duet, Quis e.st homo (soprano and mezzo-soprano): Who, on Christ's dear Mother gazing, bowed with sorrow so amazing, born of woman, would not weep Who, on Christ's dear Mother thinking, with her Son in sorrow sinking, would not share her sadness deep
No. 4--Aria, Pro peccatis (bass): For his people's sins chastised, she her Jesus saw despised, saw him by the scourges rent. Saw her own sweet Offspring taken, and in death by all forsaken, while his spirit forth he sent.
No. 5--Recitative, Eja Mater (bass and chorus): Mother, fount of love o'erflowing, ah. that I, thy sorrow knowing, in thy grief may mourn with thee. That my heart, fresh ardour gaining, love of Christ my God attaining, unto him may pleasing be. No. 6--Quartet, Sanaa Mater (all soloists): Holy Mother, be there written every wound of Jesus smitten in my heart, and there remain. As thy Son through tribulation deigned to purchase my salvation, let me share with thee the pain. Let me weep with thee beside him, for the sins which crucified him. while my life remains to me. Take beneath the Cross my station, share with thee thy desolation, humbly this I ask of thee. Virgin, virgins all excelling, spurn me not, my prayer repelling, make me weep and mourn with thee.
No. 7---Cavatina, Fac ut portent (mezzo-soprano): So Christ's death within me bearing, let me, in his Passion sharing, keep his wounds in memory. Let thy Son's wounds penetrate me, let the Cross inebriate me and his own most precious blood. No. 8--Aria, Inflammatus et accensus (soprano and chorus): Lest in flames I burn and perish, on the judgment day O cherish and defend me. Virgin good. Christ, whene'er this world shall leave me, through thy Mother then receive me to the palm of victory.
No. 9--Quartet, Quando corpus (chorus): When the bonds of flesh are riven, glory to my soul be given in thy Paradise with thee. No. 10--Finale, Amen, in sempiterna saecula (chorus): Amen, for ever and ever.
UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION
Donald Bryant, Conductor
Leif Bjaland, Assistant Conductor
Nancy Hodge, Accompanist Stephen Bates, Manager
First Sopranos Susan Anderson Patsy Auiler Lola Bradstreet Carol Brechemin Kimberly Jo Buechner Letitia J. Byrd Kathryn Foster Elliott Lisa Fishbaugh Carol Gagliardi Carole Gallas Julie Giuliani Gladys Hanson Sylvia Jenkins Zella Kent Jean M. Lambert Carolyn Leyh Kathleen Lin Doris Luecke Lois Ann Malthaner Charlene Mclntire Loretla Meissner Cheryl A. Murphy Anne Nisch Jennifer Parrin Alice Schneider Theresa Smith Caryn Spielman Charlotte Stanek Cassie St. Clair Lynn Tarrant Heidi Unger Joanne Westman Frances Zapella
Second Sopranos Christine Arnison Judy Barber Virginia Burr Marilyn Buss Pamela Jean Carter Anne B. Chamberlin Young Cho Claire E. Conrad Jane Covent Kristina Dclmer Ann Dills Chris Dindoffer Deborah Forbes Melissa Forbes Anita Goldstein Ann Holt Alice R. Horning Susan Kaczmarek Kami Helen Krohn Judith Lehmann Beth Lipson Mary Loewen Melissa McBrian
Charlotte Nametz Sara Peth
Stephanie Rosenbaum Ann Schcbor Suzanne Schluederberg Marie Schneider Kathleen Sheehy Elizabeth Stewart-Robinson Ann Stout Patricia Tompkins Barbara Van Woerkom Christine Wendt Kathleen Young
First Altos Margo Angelini Wendy Lyn Baker Susan Bcrman Phyllis Bogarin Kay Bohn Kathlyn Boyer Lisa Bramble Ella Brown Marion Brown Lael Cappaert Rosalyn Chrcnka Mary Crichton Christine Dailey Arlene Dobberstein Jeanne Erickson Daisy Evans Marilyn Finkbeiner Suzanne Fox Merian Frederick Ruth Gewanter Kay Hannah Georgia Hartman Virginia Hmay Margaret Hostetler Nancy Houk Carol Hurwitz Marta Johnson Olga Johnson Nancy Karp Kristine Langabeer Rosemary Lewis Bernice McCoy Marian Miner Jean Morgan Linda Mucssen Lois Nelson Glenda Revelle Kalhi Roscnzweig Laurence Ruth Lillianne Ruwart Cathy Selvius-DeRoo Linda Siebcrt Deborah Slee
Georgiana Swinford Deborah Syring Helen Thornton Jane Van Bolt Betsey vanHamersveld Joanne VerofT Charlotte Wolfe
Second Altos Sandra Anderson Marjorie Baird Eleanor Beam Joyce Delamarter Alice Galbraith Danielle Galbraith Lois Guebert Mary Haab Katherine Klykylo Kristen Kochenderfer Elsie Lovelace Barbara Maes Sarah Matthews Barbara McCann Anna Millard Mary Price Mary Quade Sue Ribaudo Beverly Roeger Carol Spencer Kathryn Stebbins Margaret Thompson Rosemary Walker Alice Warsinski Kathleen Weber Helen Welford
First Tenors Hugh Baker Hugh Brown Kenneth Burdette Bruce Carter Marshall Franke Roy Glover Paul Lowry Robert MacGregor Robert Miller Duane Novelly Bernard Patterson Lawrence Reemmer Frederick Schebor
Second Tenors Dick Bohlander William Bronson Brian Buggy Mark Chancey Harold Clark
Merle G. Galbraith Peter Gaudet Donald Haworth Theodore Hefley Thomas Hmay Jay Harris Klein Philip Melcher Kenneth Nisch Richard Olson John Rocus Carl Smith
William Wayt Thomas Nicolas Williams
First Basses
Kevin Anderson Mark H. Avenmarg Richard Bachmann Marion L. Beam Robert Betka John Brueger Jeffrey C. Burke Robert Byrne Richard A. Dargis Peter DeHart Robert E. Dills, Jr. Phillip R. Dinehart Steven Domino Thomas Hagerty Mark W. Johnson Klair Kissel Charles Liang William Liefert Lawrence Lohr John MacKrell Sol Metz
Francisco Montero Charles Morgan James Schneider Joseph E. Shacter Richard Stock Wade Sutton David M. Varner Rob Vonderhaar Steven White
Second Basses
Jorg Becker Harry Bowen Bruce B. Dicey Lowell Fisher Thomas Fuhrman James P. Leege Charles F. Lehmann Alfred G. Meyer Robert Strozier Terril Tompkins John Van Bolt
A Free Choral Concert--Sunday, May 10, at 3:30
In this auditorium, the Festival Chorus of the Choral Union will perform the concluding concert of Cross Currents--a festival sponsored by the U-M's Center for Russian and East Euro?pean Studies. Under Donald Bryant, the Chorus will sin); works of Koddly, Schubert, Smetana, Bartok, and three new pieces by Dr. Bryant set to translations of East European poetry. All are invited to attend.