THE PHIIHARMONIC- SOCIETY 1842 OF NEW YORK CONSOLIDATED 1928

1952 ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH SEASON 1953

Musical Director: Guest Conductors: , , Associate Conductor: FRANCO AUTORI For Young People’s Concerts: IGOR BUKETOFF

CARNEGIE HALL

5176th Concert

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 19, 1953, at 2:30

Under the Direction of DIMITRI MITROPOULOS

Assisting Artist: ARTUR RUBINSTEIN, Pianist

FRANCK-PIERNE Prelude, Chorale and Fugue SCRIABIN The Poem of Ecstasy, Opus 54

Intermission SAINT-SAËNS Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 2, G minor, Opus 22 I. Andante sostenuto II. Allegretto scherzando III. Presto Artur Rubinstein FRANCK Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra Artur Rubinstein (Mr. Rubinstein plays the Steinway Piano)

ARTHUR JUDSON, BRUNO ZIRATO, Managers THE STEINWAY is the Official Piano of The Philharmonic-Symphony Society COLUMBIA AND VICTOR RECORDS THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

BOARD OF DIRECTORS •Floyd G. Blair...... President •Mrs. Lytle Hull... Vice-President •Mrs. John T. Pratt Vice-President ♦Ralph F. Colin Vice-President •Paul G. Pennoyer Vice-President ♦David M. Keiser Treasurer •William Rosenwald Assistant Treasurer •Parker McCollester Secretary • Executive Secretary Arthur A. Ballantine Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. Mrs. William C. Breed Mrs. Arthur Lehman Chester Burden Mrs. Henry R. Luce •Mrs. Elbridge Gerry Chadwick David H. McAlpin Henry E. Coe Richard E. Myers Pierpont V. Davis William S. Paley Maitland A. Edey •Francis T. P. Plimpton Nevil Ford Mrs. David Rockefeller Mr. J. Peter Grace, Jr. Mrs. George H. Shaw G. Lauder Greenway Spyros P. Skouras •Mrs. Charles S. Guggenheimer •Mrs. Frederick T. Steinway •William R. Herod Robert H. Thayer Mrs. Robert L. Hoguet, Jr. John A. Warner Medley G. B. Whelpley • Members of Executive Committee TRUSTEES Floyd G. Blair David M. Keiser Ralph F. Colin David H. McAlpin Paul G. Pennoyer

THE AUXILIARY BOARD OF THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mrs. Lytle Hull...... Chairman Mrs. Charles S. Guggenheimer ...... First Vice-Chairman Mrs. Elbridge G. Chadwick ...... Second Vice-Chairman Mrs. Frederick T. Steinway ...... Secretary Mrs. George H. Shaw ...... Treasurer Mrs. Edward R. Wardwell .Chairman, Young People's Concerts Committee Mrs. Bartlett Arkell . Chairman, Committee for Public Schools and Colleges Mrs. William C. Breed ...... Chairman, Subscription Committee Mrs. John T. Pratt ...... Chairman, Membership Committee of The Philharmonic-Symphony Society Miss Frances Flack ...... Chairman, Junior Committee Mrs. Barrett Andrews Mrs. Edgar M. Leventritt Mrs. J. Myer Schine Mrs. Walter S. Fischer Mrs. William Maguire Mrs. Hokan B. Steffanson Mrs. Elizabeth N. Graham Mrs. Ira Nelson Morris Miss Jean Tennyson Mrs. Robert L. Hoguet, Jr. Mrs. Joseph Neff Mrs. Edwin C. Vogel Mrs. Walter Cowen Korn Mrs. I. Masters Rogers Mrs. George K. Weeks Mrs. Peter I. B. Lavan Mrs. William Rosenwald Mrs. Sumner Welles Mrs. Arthur Lehman Mrs. Melvin E. Sawin PENSION FUND — It is requested that subscribers who are unable to use their tickets kindly return them to the Philharmonic-Symphony Offices, (Monday through Friday) 113 West 57th Street, or to the Box Office, , for resale for the benefit of the Society’s Pension Fund. All tickets received will be acknowledged. Such donations of tickets constitute income tax deductions, as provided by law.

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NOTES ON THIS PROGRAM may not be reprinted in their entirety without the written consent of the Society. Excerpts from the notes may be quoted if due acknowledgment is given to the author and to the Society.

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

By Herbert F. Peyser

Prelude, Chorale and Fugue CÉSAR Franck (Born in Liège, December 10, 1822; died in Paris, November 8, 1890) (Arranged for orchestra by Gabriel Pierné) The first New York hearing of Pierné’s orchestral version of Franck’s piano composition took place at a concert of the Symphony Society under in Aeolian Hall, January 16, 1914. Gabriel Pierné was not only a pupil of César Franck but his master’s successor as organist of St. Clothilde, in Paris; and the conductor of the Colonne Orchestra upon the death of its director. A prolific composer his works included nine operas, nine ballets, a number of choral works (including The Children’s Crusade') and at least four orchestral suites in addition to pieces smaller in scale. Franck composed the Prelude, Chorale and Tugue for piano solo in 1884. Its first performance was on a program of the Société Nationale, Janu­ ary 24, 1885, when the pianist was a Mme. Poitevin, to whom the piece is dedicated. Franck’s original intention was simply to write a prelude and fugue in the style of Bach, which might form a sort of becoming counter­ part to one of the forty-eight in the Well-Tempered Clavier. According to Vincent d’Indy in his study of Franck, the master "soon took up the idea of linking these two movements together by a chorale, the melodic spirit of which should brood over the whole work. Thus it came about that he pro­ duced a work which was purely personal, but of which none of the con­ structive details was left to chance or improvisation; on the contrary, the materials all serve, without exception, to contribute to the beauty and the figure and rhythm of the complementary phrase of the Prelude return solidity of the structure. "The Prelude is modelled in the same form as the prelude of the classi­ cal suite. Its sole theme is first stated in the tonic, then in the dominant, and ends in the spirit of Beethoven with a phrase which gives to the theme a still more complete significance. The Chorale, in three parts, oscillating be­ tween E flat minor and C minor, displays two distinct elements: a superb and expressive phrase which foreshadows and prepares the way for the sub­ ject of the Fugue, and the Chorale proper, of which the three prophetic words roll forth in sonorous volutions, in a serene, religious majesty. . . . The Fugue presents its successive expositions, after the development of which once more. The rhythm alone persists, and is used to accompany a strenu­ ous restatement of the theme of the Chorale. Shortly afterwards the subject of the Fugue itself enters in the tonic, so that the three chief elements of the work are combined in a superb peroration.” Saint-Saëns criticized the Fugue when he first heard it, remarking that "it soon ceased being a fugue.” What he meant, remarks Norman Demuth in the César Franck, "was that the writing is not consistently contrapuntal. On the second page for example, the subject appears underneath ’chop-stick’ chords and later there is some arpeggio writing which in academic groves is not considered good fugal technique. . . . The purist likes to regard it as a 'Prelude, Chorale, and Fugato’ because the fugue does not conform to the basic textbook idea of what such a thing should be. Apart from the semi- tonal left-hand octaves in the Prelude, it is singularly free from Franck’s chromaticism. The one element it avoids is the cantabile melody. The themes do not sing as much as they progress, for their basis is mainly chordal.”

The Poem of Ecstasy, Opus 54 Alexander Nicolaevich Scriabin (Born in Moscow, January 6, 1872; died there, April 27, 1915) Scriabin completed The Poem of Ecstasy at the house of his father in Lausanne, January, 1908. Directly on the heels of this work he wrote in the space of four days his Fifth Piano . These two compositions, according to A. Eaglefield Hull, are "closely related in conception and in style.” They represent, according to that writer, "perhaps even better than any other the boundary line between his older style and his new.” The Poem of Ecstasy was first performed by the Russian Symphony, New York, December 10, 1908, Modest Altschuler . Belaieff had pub­ lished the score the same year. About that time Leon Conus arranged it as a piano duet. On the occasion of the first performance in Moscow the critic of the Russkoye Slovo, who had attacked Scriabin’s mystic titles of certain of his compositions comparing them to “beer-bottle labels” charged the com­ poser with deliberately "ignoring all that nationally Russian undying art created by Glinka, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakoff” besides describing Scria­ bin’s music as "the outcome of all that was worst in Wagner and Strauss.” To this reviewer’s mind Scriabin was "a Germanophile in the worst sense of the term and a wilful scorner of Russian culture.” The prize Belaieff granted the composer for the score amounted to 700 roubles. The other winners of awards from the publisher were Rachmaninoff, Spendiaroff and Taneieff. When The Poem of Ecstasy was performed by the Boston Symphony in Boston, November 9, 1928, Philip Hale wrote in the program book that Mr. Altschuler had in 1910 supplied him with the following information about the work: "While I was in Switzerland during the summer of 1907 at Scriabin’s villa, he was all taken up with the work, and I watched its progress with keen interest. The composer of the Poeme de I’Extase has sought to express therein something of the emotional (and therefore musically communicable) side of his philosophy of life. Scriabin is neither a pantheist nor a theoso- phist, yet his creed includes ideas somewhat related to each of these schools of thought. There are three divisions in his Poem: 1. His soul in the orgy of love; 2. The realization of a fantastical dream; 3. The glory of his own art.” "Scriabin’s closest mood-affinity is undoubtedly with Chopin” claimed Eaglefield Hull. And in the preface he wrote for the Eulenburg edition of the present score Dr. Adolf Aber speaks of the impressionistic qualities of the music, the "uncommonly short-breathed thematic elements, and the mosaic-like conglomerate of bits, a technic known in the art of painting as pointillism.” With this technic Scriabin achieves in The Poem of Ecstasy color effects of remarkable originality and diversity. Yet the impression of true ecstasy is hardly achieved in such compelling measure as the means em­ ployed might lead one to expect. Even the passages of greatest dynamic power, with the organ added to a big orchestral apparatus stun rather than really transport.” The Poem of Ecstasy, beginning Andante languido, 2-4, and closing Maestoso {avec une volupte de plus en plus extatique—with a mote and more ecstatic voluptuousness} calls for three and piccolo, three , English horn, three , bass-, three , double , eight horns, five , three , , celesta, , two harps, , , cymbals, tamtam, triangle, celesta, organ and strings.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 2, G minor, Opus 22 Camille Saint-Saëns (Born in Paris, October 9, 1835; died in Algiers, December 16, 1921) This work, a relatively early one, was composed in 1868, and quickly took and maintained its place as one of Saint-Saëns’ most popular contribu­ tions to the literature of the piano concerto. It gained the admiration of Liszt and contributed unquestionably to its composer’s unadventurous con­ servatism which, in later years, none less than Claude Debussy regarded as the older master’s evidence of artistic "clairvoyance.” As a pianist, Saint-Saëns belonged, as Jean Chantavoine said, to that school for which the technical handling of the piano, clearness, precision are an ideal; and when power of arm is brought into play as a last resort only when digital resources are really exhausted. "To this tradition Saint-Saëns further brings his personal ideas, always inspired by respect for the printed page and a dislike for the abuse of a legato style.” The work opens with a fantasia for the solo piano. A brief and rather dramatic phrase is announced by the orchestra, later utilized for the conclu­ sion of the movement. The solo instrument brings at first an Andante sostenuto, followed by a series of brilliant virtuoso passages. There is a re­ turn to the opening theme by the orchestra, the piano remaining in the fore­ ground. After a solo cadenza the climax of the movement is reached with the restatement by the orchestra of the earlier dramatic motive. The second movement {Allegro scherzando} opens with a kettledrum rhythm, the piano skimming dexterously through this scherzo. The third movement {Presto} drives forward impulsively, skimming over the surface, now gay, now more forceful, but always aiming at sparkling diversion rather than profundity. Symphonie Variations for Piano and Orchestra César Franck César Franck (Born in Liège, December 10, 1822; died in Paris, November 8, 1890) Franck composed the Variations Symphoniques in 1885. The work was first performed in Paris at a concert of the Société Nationale de la Musique, on May 1, 1885, with Louis Diémer as pianist. M. Diémer played it again, and under rather more spectacular conditions, at a "Franck Festival,” organized by friends and pupils of the composer indignant that the French government, in a decree dated August 4, 1885, had mentioned him only as "Professor of Organ.” This "festival” took place on January 30, 1887, at the Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, under the leadership of Jules Pasdeloup, with Franck himself conducting numbers from his opera, Huida, and some extracts from Les Beatitudes. Vincent D’Indy called the concert "a deplorable af­ fair.” When disciples of Franck tried to commiserate with him on the muti­ lation of his music he answered "smilingly and shaking back his thick mane of hair: 'No, no, you are really too exacting, dear boys; for my own part, I was quite satisfied!’ ” D’Indy tells that Pasdeloup "went entirely wrong in the tempo of the finale of the Variations Symphoniques, which ended in a breakdown.” The composer made an arrangement of the Variations for two pianos. He was to play the second piano part with his pupil, Paul Brand, to whose home he was going when he was accidentally struck by an omnibus. In spite of a fainting spell on his arrival at Brand’s house he went through the work twice, then dragged himself home utterly exhausted. Donald Francis Tovey, in Essays in Musical Analysis describes the Symphonic Variations as "a single flowing series of tone pictures forming little more than an episode placed between an introduction about half as long and a finale more than twice as long. The introduction and finale are on a totally different theme from that of the variations, this variation theme being only hinted at in the introduction and being only brought in as a bass counterpoint in two passages in the finale. "Of regular variations there are only six, all flowing without change of tempo out of their theme, which is not a long one. In fact the work is a finely and freely organized fantasia with an important episode in variation form. "Of regular variations there are only six, all flowing without change of tempo out of their theme, which is not a long one. In fact the work is a finely and freely organized fantasia with an important episode in variation form. All the habits of César Franck’s style contribute here to the happiest results. He is before all things a master of the extempore manner. This is a very different thing from being a composer who extemporizes on paper .. . The improvisational manner of Franck is ... a genuine love of portraying the growth of ideas. The ideas themselves are epigrammatic, like most good things in the French language; and there is no danger of their being lost in the ruminating profundities which surround them. As for the moods and contrasts, with all their subtlety nothing can be clearer. The manner is always openly dramatic without ever descending to theatrical makeshifts. Franck has been compared to Bruckner. . . . The two certainly have in common the completest unworldliness, combined with a style which is dra­ matic in gesture and range, but constitutionally incapable of adapting itself to the theatre. ... "The first variation is in dialogue between piano and orchestra. In the second variation the cellos have the theme. The third is in flowing move­ ment for the piano accompanied by pizzicato chords for strings, the winds gradually joining in melodically. The fourth variation takes the theme fortissimo, passing through various keys. It expands dramatically and leads to a softer but not less lively variation in the same rhythm, with an easily galloping piano accompaniment. . . . The sixth variation sails in slowly, a beautiful meandering counterpoint ripples throughout the piano part while the theme, in the cellos, forms the bass for the first eight bars. . . . Then the mode changes to minor, and slowly, below the flowing arpeggios of the piano, the cellos spell out a wonderful dream on the theme. The dreaming passage which leads to the finale is obviously the most poetic part of this very poetic work. . . . There is one hint of dramatic darkness . . . but soon a lively tempo returns and the work dances cheerfully away to its happy end.”

ARTUR RUBINSTEIN Born in Lodz, Poland, Artur Rubinstein revealed musical talent at a very early age. His sister took him to Berlin where he became a protege of the violinist Joseph Joachim and studied piano with Eugène d’Albert and Theodor Leschetizky. He made his debut in Berlin at the age of eleven. In 1906 he paid his first visit to the United States and made his debut first in Philadelphia and later in New York with the . On his next visit to this country, in 1919, he appeared with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch; in 1922 with the under Josef Stransky. He did not appear with the orchestra again until fifteen years later, in 1937. Mr. Rubinstein makes his home in Southern California.

COMING PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY CONCERTS Last Week of Season Under the Direction of DIMITRI MITROPOULOS

THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 23, 1953, at 8:45 FRIDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 24, 1953, at 2:30 Assisting Artist: NATHAN MILSTEIN, Violinist BACH-RESPIGHI Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor PROKOFIEFF Violin Concerto No. 1, D major (In memory of the composer) ROCHBERG "Night Music” {First performances) Winner of the 8th Annual George Gershwin Memorial Contest BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5, C minor SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 25, 1953, at 8:45 BERLIOZ Overture, "Benvenuto Cellini’’ BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5, C minor CHAUSSON Symphony in B-flat RAVEL "La Valse” SUNDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 26, 1953, at 2:30 Assisting Artist: NATHAN MILSTEIN, Violinist BERLIOZ Overture, "Benvenuto Cellini” MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto, E minor CHAUSSON Symphony in B-flat RAVEL "La Valse” THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 1953 — 112th Season — 1954 Preliminary Announcement SUNDAY AFTERNOON CONCERTS Two Series — Fourteen Concerts in Each Series — at 2:30 P.M. Musical Director DIMITRI MITROPOULOS Guest Conductors BRUNO WALTER GEORGE SZELL GUIDO CANTELLI Soloists Include: Pianists Violinists Alfredo Campoli Rudolf Firkusny Leon Fleischer Nicole Henriot Heifetz Myra Hess Byron Janis Erica Morini William Kapell Isaac Stern Leon Kirchner Duo-Pianists Soriano Whittemore and Lowe Daniel Wayenberg Special Work BEETHOVEN’S "MISSA SOLEMNIS” with , Nell Tangeman, Harvey Smith-Spencer, Jerome Hines Westminster Choir Programs Subject to Change Subscription Prices One Series of Fourteen Concerts Lower Box (seating 8) ...... $290.00 Lower Box Seat...... 39.00 Upper Box (seating 8) ...... 245.00 Upper Box (seating 6) ...... 185.00 Upper Box Seat...... 32.00 Parquet* ...... 39.00 Parquet*, rows C and D center...... 32.00 Dress Circle, first two rows of five center sections...... 32.00 Dress Circle, balance...... 27.00 Balcony Four center front sections...... 23.00 Four side front sections...... 20.00 Five rear sections...... 16.00 50$ should be added to remittance if tickets are mailed. ♦ Parquet, rows A, B center and A through G sides not available by subscription. TO RENEW SUBSCRIPTIONS patrons are requested to sign the renewal stub attached to each subscription and forward to the offices of the Society not later than APRIL 30, 1953. The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York 113 West 57th Street New York 19, New York Office Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:30 to 5:00