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Boston Symphony Orchestra , Music Director

Colin Davis, Principal Guest Conductor Joseph Silverstein, Assistant Conductor

23, 25 October 1975 at 8:30 p.m. 24 October 1975 at 2:00 p.m. Symphony Hall, Boston Ninety-fifth season Program Program Notes

Seiji Ozawa conducting Krzysztof Penderecki 1933- Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, for 52 String Penderecki: Ofiarom hiroszimy — Tren Instruments (To the Victims of Hiroshima —Threnody) First performance by the BSO Some of the most advanced, yet most successful music for orchestra written in Europe within a generation after the Second World War has come from Poland in the socialist Strauss: Tod und Verklarung East, and one of the leading composers of the period is (Death and Transfiguration) Tone Poem Op. 24 Krzysztof Penderecki, whose output includes many instru- mental compositions for varied ensembles and a number of Intermission religious vocal works including the famous 'St. Luke Passion' as well as an opera based on 'The Devils of Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor Op. 23 Loudon.' 'Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima' was written in Alexis Weissenberg, piano 1%0 and quickly became one of the most frequently performed of all advanced orchestral works. Only a few pages of the score are in anything like conventional nota- Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso tion, for Penderecki had to invent new ways of writing Andante semplice down the new sounds he had conceived for production by Allegro con fuoco a body of 52 string instruments. A large number of the musical elements are left indeterminate by the composer In commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the World and are fixed in each performance by the skills and interests Premiere in Boston. of the players. The score controls tone quality and dynamic level — much more strictly than pitch levels and their dura- Alexis Weissenberg plays the Steinway Piano tion. It specifies such matters as fractional intervals (smaller than the conventional semi-tone), indefinite pitches and The concert on Friday will end about 3.40, the concerts on rhythms, unusual ways of bowing the string instruments, percussive ways of playing them, and particular kinds of Thursday and Saturday about 10.10. vibrato—new requirements that demand the development of new graphic symbols. Penderecki's new style of writing for the instruments conceals his use of a number of older, Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Record Exclusively for formal composition techniques. There is traditional coun- Deutsche Grammophon terpoint, for example, that may not be recognized immedi- Baldwin Piano Deutsche Grammophon Records ately because the sound of the musical material is unfamiliar. Penderecki composed the 'Threnody' in observance of the fifteenth anniversary of the explosion of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima in August 1945.

The Next Program Richard Strauss 1864-1949

Wednesday, October 29 at 7:30 pm Open Rehearsal Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration) Thursday, October 30 at 8:30 pm Tone Poem Op. 24 Friday, October 31 at 2:00 pm When 'Death and Transfiguration' first appeared, an Saturday, November 1 at 8:30 pm Tuesday, November 4 at 7:30 pm unrhymed poem was printed in the score giving a more explicit story than Strauss, always reticent about such Seiji Ozawa, conductor matters, usually attached to his symphonic poems. The verses were unsigned but were soon dis'covered to be from Anthony Newman, organist the pen of none other than Alexander Ritter, the militant champion of Wagner and Liszt, who had recruited the Haydn: Symphony No. 31 in D 'Hornsignal' youthful Strauss to the cause of 'program music.' The Schoenberg: Theme and Variations verses, it was discovered, were actually written after the Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 in C minor (with Organ) music had been composed and were inserted in the score as for up-to-date recorded concert information please call it went to the printer. The analysts therefore questioned the C-O-N-C-E-R -T. . . . authenticity of the words as a direct guide to the music. The work divides naturally into four parts: 1. In a dark room, silent except for the ticking of the clock, is a dying man. He has fallen asleep and is dreaming of childhood. 2. The struggle between life and death begins anew. 3. He sees his life over again. He remembers childhood, French chansonette faut s'amuser, danser, et rire.' The youth, and the strivings of manhood after ideals that are Finale is based on a rapid tune of folk-dance character with still unrealized. a contrasting second subject. 4. From heaven comes to him what he had vainly sought The most recent performances of the Concerto were by upon earth: 'World-redemption, world transfiguration.' Seiji Ozawa with Gary Graffman at the 1975 Berkshire The poem of Alexander Ritter has been paraphrased as Festival and in the 1971/72 season by Ozawa and Andre follows: A sick man lies upon his mattress in a poor and Watts. The work has been twice recorded by the BSO: Erich squalid garret, lit by the flickering glare of a candle burnt Leinsdorf with Misha Dichter (RCA LSC-2954) and Erich almost to its stump. Exhausted by a desperate fight with Leinsdorf with Artur Rubinstein (RCA LSC-2681). Mr. death, he has sunk into sleep; no sound breaks the silence Ozawa recorded the work with John Browning and the of approaching dissolution, save the low, monotonous tick- London Symphony for RCA (LSC-3069) and Alexis ing of a clock on the wall. A plaintive smile from time to Weissenberg has made a recording with Herbert von time lights up the man's wan features; at life's last limit Karajan and the Orchestre de (Angel S-36755). dreams are telling him of childhood's golden days. The work was composed in 1889 and first performed with Seiji Ozawa, Music Director the composer conducting at the Eisenach Tonkiinstlerfest on June 21, 1890. The Boston Symphony first performed Seiji Ozawa became Music Director of the Boston the work in 1897 with Emil Paur conducting and the most Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 1973 and is the thirteenth recent performances were in the 1972/73 season under conductor to head the Orchestra since its founding in 1881. William Steinberg. He was born in Hoten, Manchuria, in 1935, and graduated from the Toho School of Music in Tokyo with Excerpted from Notes by John N. Burk first prizes in composition and conducting. When he won first prize at the International Competition of Conducting at Besancon, , shortly after his graduation, one of the Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 - 1893 judges of the competition was the late Charles Munch, then Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23 Music Director of the Boston Symphony, who invited him to study at Tanglewood during the following summer. Mr. The Piano Concerto was composed in November/ Ozawa's association with the Orchestra began during that December 1874 and the orchestration was completed the session of the Berkshire Music Center as a student of following February. The premiere was given in the Music conducting in 1960. He was a guest conductor with the Hall in Boston on October 25, 1875; Hans von Billow was Orchestra first in 1964, and in 1970 became Artistic Director the soloist and B. J. Lang conducted. On November 13 of of the Berkshire Festival at Tanglewood. that year the first European performance took place at Beginning with the summer of 1964, Ozawa was for five concerts of the Russian Musical Society. seasons Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, and at the When the concerto was first performed, the program of beginning of the 1965-66 season he became Music Director the concert in the Music Hall, Boston, carried this of the Toronto Symphony, a post he relinquished after four announcement: seasons in order to devote his time to study and guest 'The above grand composition of Tchaikovsky, the most conducting. eminent Russian maestro of the present day, completed last Mr. Ozawa will resign his position as Music Director of April and dedicated by its author to Hans von Billow, has the San Francisco Symphony, which he assumed in 1970, at NEVER BEEN PERFORMED, the composer himself never the close of the 1975-76 season and will be Music Director having enjoyed an audition of his masterpiece. To Boston is only in Boston. He owns a home in the Boston area, where reserved the honor of its initial representation and the he lives with his wife, Vera, and two children, Seira and opportunity to impress the first verdict on a work of Yukiyoshi. surpassing musical interest.' Billow subsequently took the Concerto across Europe Alexis Weissenberg where it was received with acclaim in each city. Its popular- ity has never waned over the hundred years since its first Alexis Weissenberg, who has appeared with the Orches- performance. tra on many occasions in Boston, New York, Chicago and at The concerto opens with an introduction, disclosing an Tanglewood, was born in , . He studied in his extended melodic theme which is not to reappear. The native country, and in Israel where he made his profes- principal body of the first movement has as its first theme a sional debut. After a tour to South Africa he came to New striking rhythmical melody and a second theme which is York to attend the . He toured in Israel, introduced by the winds. The first of the themes is a tune Egypt, and South America and then returned to which Tchaikovsky heard sung by a blind beggar. 'It is win the Leventritt Competition. This was immediately curious,' he wrote, 'that in Little Russia every blind beggar followed by his debut and the first sings exactly the same tune with the same refrain. I have of his United States concert tours. It was at Mr. Weissen- used part of this refrain in my Concerto.' The second move- berg's own suggestion that Mr. Ozawa learned of the 100th ment brings forth another unforgettable tune. There is a Anniversary of the premiere of the Tchaikovsky Concerto second theme, and after the recurrence of the first, a pres- in Boston and determined on these commemorative tissimo, a waltz-like episode on a theme which performances. Tchaikovsky acknowledged as not his own, but was a BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SEIJI 0.1VVA

First violins Cellos Contra bassoon Joseph Silverstein Jules Eskin Richard Plaster Concertmaster Philip R. Allen chair Charles Munch chair Martin Hoherman Horns Emanuel Borok Mischa Nieland Charles Kavaloski Max Hobart Jerome Patterson Helen Sagoff Slosberg chair Rolland Tapley Robert Ripley Charles Yancich Roger Shermont Luis Leguia Max Winder Carol Procter David Ohanian Harry Dickson Ronald Feldman Richard Mackey Gottfried Wilfinger Joel Moerschel Ralph Pottle Fredy Ostrovsky Jonathan Miller Leo Panasevich Martha Babcock Trumpets Sheldon Rotenberg Armando Ghitalla Alfred Schneider Basses Andre Come Stanley Benson William Rhein Harold D. Hodgkinson chair Rolf Smedvig Gerald Gelbloom Gerard Goguen Raymond Sird Joseph Hearne Ikuko Mizuno Bela Wurtzler Trombones Cecylia Arzewski Leslie Martin Ronald Barron Amnon Levy John Salkowski William Gibson John Barwicki Gordon Hallberg Second violins Robert Olson Victor Yampolsky Lawrence Wolfe Tuba Personnel Managers Fahnestock chair Henry Portnoi Chester Schmitz William Moyer Marylou Speaker Harry Shapiro Michel Sasson Flutes Timpani Ronald Knudsen Doriot Anthony Dwyer Everett Firth Librarians Leonard Moss Walter Piston chair Sylvia Shippen Wells chair Victor Alpert Bo Youp Hwang James Pappoutsakis William Shisler Laszlo Nagy Paul Fried Percussion Michael Vitale Charles Smith Stage Manager Darlene Gray Piccolo Arthur Press Alfred Robison Ronald Wilkison Lois Schaefer Assistant timpanist Harvey Seigel Thomas Gauger Jerome Rosen Oboes Frank Epstein Program Editor Sheila Fiekowsky Ralph Gomberg Mary H. Smith Mildred B. Remis chair Harps Gerald Elias Bernard Zighera Vyacheslav Uritsky John Holmes Wayne Rapier Ann Hobson Violas Burton Fine English Horn Charles S. Dana chair Laurence Thorstenberg Reuben Green Clarinets Eugene Lehner Harold Wright George Humphrey Ann S.M. Banks chair Jerome Lipson Pasquale Cardillo Robert Karol Peter Hadcock Bernard Kadinoff E-flat clarinet Vincent Mauricci Earl Hedberg Bass Clarinet Joseph Pietropaolo Felix Viscuglia Robert Barnes Michael Zaretsky Bassoons Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sherman Walt Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts 02115. Edward A. Taft chair (617) 266-1492. Roland Small Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Executive Director Matthew Ruggiero Our appreciation of clocks is exceeded only by our satisfaction in bringing them back to good health Antique & Modern Chime Grandfather Ships Bell, Banjo Wooden Works French Repeaters French Carriage Replacements made for missing or broken parts in American, French, and German striking and chime clocks. Musicboxes and Barometers CLENDENNING SMITH VIVIesley, Massachusetts 237 4 47 3 4 4 4 07 24

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