Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 75, 1955-1956, Trip
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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN I88I BY HENRY LEE HIGGINSON SEASON Palmer Auditorium, New London CONNECTICUT COLLEGE CONCERT Boston Symphony Orchestra (Seventy-fifth Season, 1955-1956) CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director RICHARD BURGIN, Associate Conductor PERSONNEL Violins Violas Bassoons Richard Burgin Joseph de Pasquale Sherman Walt Concert-master Jean Cauhape Ernst Panenka Alfred Krips Eugen Lehner Theodore Brewster George Zazofsky Albert Bernard Contra-Bassoon Roll and Tapley George Humphrey Richard Plaster Norbert Lauga Jerome Lipson ResnikofiE Robert Karol Vladimir Horns Harry Dickson Reuben Green James Stagliano Gottfried Wilfinger Bernard Kadinoff Charles Yancich Einar Hansen Vincent Mauricci Harry Shapiro Joseph Leibovici John Fiasca Harold Meek Emil Kornsand Violoncellos Paul Keaney Roger Shermont Osbourne McConathy Samuel Mayes Minot Beale Alfred Zighera Herman Silberman Trumpets Jacobus Langendoen Roger \^oisin Stanley Benson Mischa Nieland Leo Panasevich Marcel Lafosse Karl Zeise Armando Ghitalla Sheldon Rotenberg Josef Zimbler Gerard Goguen Fredy Ostrovsky Bernard Parronchi Clarence Knudson Leon Marjollet Trombones Pierre Mayer Martin Hoherman William Gibson Manuel Zung Louis Berger William Moyer Samuel Diamond Richard Kapuscinski Kauko Kabila Josef Orosz Victor Manusevitch Robert Ripley James Nagy Flutes Tuba Melvin Bryant Doriot Anthony Dwyer K. Vinal Smith Lloyd Stonestreet James Pappoutsakis Saverio Messina Phillip Kaplan Harps William Waterhouse Bernard Zighera Piccolo William Marshall Olivia Luetcke Leonard Moss George Madsen Jesse Ceci Oboes Timpani Noah Bielski Ralph Gomberg Roman Szulc Alfred Schneider Jean Devergie Everett Firth Joseph Silverstein John Holmes Percussion Basses English Horn Charles Smith Georges Moleux Louis Speyer Harold Farberman Gaston Dufresne Clarinets Harold Thompson Luclwig Juht Gino CioflB Piano Irving Frankel Manuel Valerio Henry Freeman Pasquale Cardillo Bernard Zighera Henry Portnoi E\) Clarinet Librarians Henri Girard Bass Clarinet Leslie Rogers John Barwicki Rosario Mazzeo Victor Alpert, Ass't Palmer Auditorium [Connecticut Col/ege] New London SEVENTY-FIFTH SEASON, i955-i95^ Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor Concert Bulletin TUESDAY EVENING, February 7 with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The trustees of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Henry B. Cabot . President . Vice-President Jacob J. Kaplan Richard C. Paine . Treasurer Talcott M. Banks, Jr. C. D. Jackson John Nicholas Brown Michael T. Kelleher Theodore P. Ferris Palfrey Perkins Alvan T. Fuller Charles H. Stockton Francis W. Hatch Edward A. Taft Harold D. Hodgkinson Raymond S. Wilkins Oliver Wolcott TRUSTEES EMERITUS Philip R. Allen M. A. DeWolfe Howe N. Penrose Hallowell Lewis Perry Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Manager G. W. Rector / Assistant J. J. Brosnahan, Assistant Treasurer N. S. Shirk \ Managers Rosario Mazzeo, Personnel Manager [>) TANGLEWOOD 1956 The Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director The Berkshire Festival Nineteenth Season CHARLES MUNCH, Conductor The Berkshire Music Center Fourteenth Season CHARLES MUNCH, Director To tereive further announcements, write to Festival Office, Symphony Hall, Boston [«1 SEVENTY-FIFTH SEASON • NINETEEN HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE AND FIFTY-SIX Palmer Auditorium ^Connecticut College^ New London TUESDAY EVENING, February ^, at 8:30 o'clock Program Beethoven Overture, Leonore No. 2 Sibelius Syniphony No. 7, in One Movement, Op. 105 Copland Symphonic Ode, 1955 {Composed for the y^th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) INTERMISSION Debussy. "Prelude a I'apres-midi d'un Faune," Eclogue after the Poem by Stephane Mallarme Strauss. ."Don Juan," Tone Poem (after Nikolaus Lenau) , Op. 20 Performances in Boston by the orchestra are broadcast each week on Monday evenings from 8:15 to 9:00 P.M. on the NBC Network. BALDWIN PIANO RCA VICTOR RECORDS [Si OVERTURE, LEONORE NO. 2 By LuDwiG VAN Beethoven Born at Bonn, December 16 (?) , 1770; died at Vienna, March 26, 1827 The Overture "Leonore" No. 2 was last performed in this series on October 8-9, 1954. The orchestra for this (and the Overture No. 3 as well) consists of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, horns, 2 trumpets (and trumpet off-stage) 4 , 5 trombones, timpani, and strings. THE Overture Leonore No. 5 retains all of the essentials of its predecessor, Leonore No. 2.* There is in both the introduction, grave and songful, based upon the air of Florestan: "In des Lehens Fruhlingstagen/* in which the prisoner sings sorrowfully of the darkness to which he is condemned, and dreams hopefully of the fair world out- side. The main body of the Overture, which begins with the same theme (allegro) in both cases, rises from a whispering pianissimo to a full proclamation. This section of working out, or dramatic struggle, attains its climax with the trumpet call (taken directly from the opera, where the signal heard off stage, and repeated, as if closer, makes known the approach of the governor, whereby the unjustly imprisoned Florestan will be saved from death). In the **No. 2," the coda of jubi- lation, introduced by the famous string scales of gathering tension for the outburst, follows almost immediately the trumpet calls of de- liverance — surely the inevitable dramatic logic, even though it went directly against the formal convention which required a reprise at this point. Beethoven, more closely occupied in the "No. 2" with the events of the opera itself, omitted the reprise, following the trumpet fanfare with a soft intonation of Florcstan's air, a sort of hymn of thanksgiving, as if the joy of the freed prisoner must be hushed and holy in its first moments. The melody is suspended on its final cadence, and the last three unresolved notes, hovering mysteriously, become the motto of the famous string passage in which the emotion is released. Beethoven sacrificed this direct transition in the "No. 3" Overture. He evidently felt the need of a symphonic rounding out, and ac- cordingly inserted a full reprise,f delaying the entrance of the coda of jubilation which dramatic sequence would demand closely to fol- low the trumpet fanfare. But the subject had developed in Bee- thoven's imagination to a new and electrifying potency. The "third Leonore Overture" shows in general a symphonic "tightening" and * A rariant upon the "No. 2" Orerture, with alterations apparently in BcethoTe^^'s own hand, was discovered in 1926, in the files of Breitkopf and Hartel at Leipzig. t Wagrner reproached Beethoven for not omitting the conventional but undramatic reprise in his Orerture Leonort No. 8 ("U^her Frang Liaxts tifmphoniaeka Diektwng0n," lt€7). f4] an added forcefulness. The introduction eliminates a few measures, the development many measures, in which music of the greatest beauty i$ discarded. Beethoven, having thus shortened his development, evens the total length by adding the reprise and enlarging the coda. Romain Rolland (in his invaluable study of "Leonora" in Bee- thoven the Creator) weighs the points of the two overtures, and, seeking a preference, decides: "Let us prefer them both I" He considers the possibility of finding a place for the "third" overture in per- formances of the opera, and admits his conversion to the practice of playing it between the prison scene and the finale of the opera. He had inclined to the opinion of many that it would overshadow its surroundings and "sate the ear with a banquet of C major before the C major orgy of the finale." Having heard it thus played, however, at the centennial performances in Vienna, he "realized the tremen- dous effect of the symphonic No. 3 spreading itself out like a triumphal arch between the love-duet in the prison and the final choral and popular apotheosis in the broad daylight. Placed there, the over- ture reveals the veritable drama that Beethoven wished to write, and in spite of his epoch, has written." "Neither the first nor the second," he finds, "is suitable as an in- troduction to the opera. They are both too gigantic: they crush the earlier scenes; how can we descend from these epics to the babblings of the gaoler's family? The No. 4, in E major, is more complaisant; it introduces us into Florestan's prison by the service stairs. It is in- tended for the bourgeois first act, but without contradicting the gen- eral sense of the opera; Beethoven the lion has donned the skin of the Singspiel. As regards the No. 2, I fear we must resign our- selves to this; it is too complete a drama in itself; it would only be a duplication of the other drama; it suffices by and for itself. "But the No. 3 is another matter. This is not, like the No. 2, a summary of the action: it is its lyrical efflorescence, its transposition to an inward stage; or, to employ a metaphor that is the antithesis of this and is perhaps more exact, it is the roots of the drama in the universal soul. To fill this rdle the ancients had the tragic Chorus; but they lacked the superhuman means of the modern symphony — those Choruses without words, those Oceanides of the orchestra that send their waves beating upon Prometheus' rock." [copyrighted] iS^ [5] SYMPHONY NO. 7, Op. 105 By Jean Sibelius Born December 8, 1865, at Tavastehus, Finland The symphony was first performed by the orchestra in Stockholm, Sibelius con- ducting, March 24, 1924, within the month of its completion. The first Helsingfors performance took place on April 25 of the same year, Kajanus conducting. The first performance in this country was by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conductor, on April 3, 1926. Dr. Koussevitzky introduced the symphony to Boston on December 13 of the same year, and repeated it January 30, 1931, April 21, 1933, March 8, 1935, March 19, 1937, January 27, 1939, December 6, 1941, April 18, 1946, and December 17, 1948. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 piccolos, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.