Wednesday Evening, October 11, 2017, at 8:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage Conductor’s Notes Q&A with Leon Botstein at 7:00 presents The Sounds of Democracy LEON BOTSTEIN, Conductor AARON COPLAND Canticle of Freedom ROGER SESSIONS Symphony No. 2 Molto agitato—Tranquilo e misterioso Allegretto capriccioso Adagio tranquillo ed espressivo Allegramente Intermission LEONARD BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 3 (“Kaddish”) Invocation: Adagio Kaddish 1: L’istesso tempo—Allegro molto Din-Torah Kaddish 2: Andante con tenerezza Scherzo: Presto scherzando, sempre pianissimo Kaddish 3: Adagio come nel Din-Torah Finale: Allegro vivo, con gioia PAMELA ARMSTRONG, Soprano THOMAS Q. FULTON, JR., Speaker BARD FESTIVAL CHORALE JAMES BAGWELL, Director MANHATTAN GIRLS CHORUS MICHELLE OESTERLE, Director This evening’s concert will run approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes including one 20-minute intermission. American Symphony Orchestra welcomes the many organizations who participate in our Community Access Program, which provides free and low-cost tickets to underserved groups in New York’s five boroughs. For information on how you can support this program, please call (212) 868-9276. PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. FROM THE Music Director Music and Democracy Its leading post-civil war distinguish- by Leon Botstein ing symbols, particularly during the decades of mass immigration, were its During the past century—the 100 founding documents, the Declaration years since America entered World of Independence and the United States War I—what has been (and still might Constitution. America was a land of be) the connection between the essen- laws, rights, and a government that tially European traditions of orches- imagined an equality of citizenship tral and symphonic music and the between those who were born on its ideals, demands, and predicaments of land and those that acquired it later in American democracy? The historical life (with the exception of the right to precedents of form and expression that become president). The legal rhetoric of preoccupied the American composers the nation’s founding was a vision of an on today’s program emerged from a egalitarian democracy that offered to political world quite different from the all the right to political participation, American experience. Classical and economic opportunity, and protection Romantic concert music witnessed its from tyranny, the fact and legacy of significant development in a condition slavery notwithstanding. of un-freedom—a century of reaction and failed revolution—during which Indeed, the career and biographies of Europe remained largely dominated by the three composers on this program— monarchies that severely restricted a all of whom knew one another—suggest citizen’s political participation. this point. Sessions was the quintessen- tial Anglo-American aristocrat, a scion The impressive and predominant link of founders of the nation. Copland forged between large-scale musical descended from a relatively early cohort forms and politics during the second of Eastern European Jewish immigrants half of the 19th century in the Euro- to America who pursued a rapid and pean context concerned nationalism— successful path to acculturation. Leonard the use of music to define and assert Bernstein was a first generation Ameri- nascent and emerging modern national can Jew of Eastern European origins identities. Wagner and Sibelius are two whose parents negotiated the language obvious examples of this. American and customs of their newfound national composers, however, faced barriers to home with charming eccentricity and any simple emulation of the European who remained (in contrast to Copland’s rhetorical manner of connecting musi- parents) evidently tied, in manners and cal expression and the articulation of mores, to the old country. modern nationalism. America, by 1900, was an unusual amalgam of immi- What kind of music fits the celebration grants, descendants of slaves, and sur- of equal citizenship and love of free- viving native populations. Not only dom, extols the promises of democracy was America a relatively young politi- and the rule of law, and is distinctly cal construction, without a shared lan- American all without striking an exclu- guage or religion, but it was also made sionary or nativist note? Copland’s up of distinct regions and lacked per- 1942 Fanfare for the Common Man, suasive, quasi-religious, unifying myths. which became central to his 1946 Third Symphony, was used during the bicen- 1963, the symphony, owing to its theme tennial celebrations of 1976 to express and date of completion and first perfor- America’s spirit. But as Byron Adams mance, was received as a musical evo- reminds us, during the 1950s that cation of a national tragedy, in which unique Copland sound—found in the violence marred law and civility. Its powerful Lincoln Portrait, also from emotions are raw and its musical fabric 1942—was under suspicion, and not theatrical and direct in a manner remi- only for biographical reasons (e.g. niscent of Copland. Copland’s liberal political sympathies). Perhaps its theatrical solemnity and If Copland and Bernstein represent a restrained modernism made it too similar populist modernism that maintained a to certain types of “left-wing” musical distance from more radical musical inno- aesthetics—even those of Shostakovich. vations, Roger Sessions was America’s Copland, like his (and Bernstein’s) foremost proponent of an aggressive friend Marc Blitzstein and contempo- modernism. He was a lifelong proponent raries Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, had of the ethical necessity of maintaining a become skeptical during the 1930s of parallel between progressive politics radical musical modernism. It was too and progressive aesthetics. The Second remote and too hard for listeners. Mod- Symphony was written during the end ernism, despite its overt embrace of an of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, over inherent parallelism between radical two years spanning the president’s progressive change in art and politics, death and the beginning of the Truman actually created an intolerable distance era, and therefore the end of World War between the masses and the artist. II and the start of the Cold War. The work is a tribute to FDR (a sentiment Copland’s populism succeeded; works evident in the third movement) and the like Billy the Kid (1938) and Appalachian dedication came at a time when the con- Spring (1944) made him the iconic voice sequences of FDR’s death were becoming of America at mid-century. And Copland’s visible: a shift away from the ideals of the populist brand of modern music never New Deal, growing anti-communism, quite lost its association with a liberal and a resurgent conservatism. expansive view of the nation—one associated with Lincoln and Roosevelt. For Sessions, a celebration of the legacy Copland’s most famous and devoted of FDR required the same forward- protégé was Leonard Bernstein, whose looking approach to musical composi- music owes a singular debt to Copland. tion as FDR had brought to politics. Sessions regarded his commitment to But Bernstein, a committed and politi- the complex craft of the development of cally engaged liberal, was also deeply musical ideas and the extension of influenced by the confessional aesthet- musical language away from the prac- ics of Gustav Mahler, a composer with tices of late romanticism as consistent whom he closely identified. For Mahler, with a progressive and liberal agenda, the symphonic form was an essay in just as Copland and Bernstein regarded self-revelation; it became a chronicle of the embrace of accessibility and tonal- a psychological journey, both real and ity as essential to a democratic musical imagined. The aesthetics of Copland art. In the modernism of Sessions’ Sec- and Mahler meet in Bernstein’s Third ond Symphony one finds a powerful Symphony. Although conceived and evocation of American intensity and largely completed before the assassination vitality. The first two movements are of John F. Kennedy on November 22, filled with humor, grace, and brilliance. The orchestration and rhythm are no hint of flattery or currying favor unmistakably both American and mod- with power. And the substance of the ern. The symphony’s uncompromising admiration was for the ideals these formal sophistication lends the work its presidents stood for, and for their hopes magnetism, allure, and power. Even an for a more just and free country. Consider eloquence similar to that of Copland FDR’s Four Freedoms and JFK’s creation can be heard in the Adagio, reminding of the Peace Corps. And Copland’s work the listeners of the sense of loss at is not dedicated to any individual. It FDR’s death that Copland and Sessions— was written for the opening of an audi- contemporaries and friends—shared. torium on the campus of MIT, and sig- But the last movement of the symphony nals the enduring link between freedom returns, the grief at the loss of a great and education, between democracy and president notwithstanding, to the opti- the search for truth and the respect for mism, innovation, and brash ebullience the advancement of knowledge. of the American spirit audible at the start of the work. As we listen to these three works we need to recall that we now live in an era From the vantage point of 2017, these when the cult of personality around the three works point to the special chal- holder of the same office as FDR and lenge composers now face in the task of JFK overwhelms our respect for law writing music that celebrates democracy and deliberation, challenges the ideals in America. One of the central differ- of tolerance, and contests the very ences between autocracy and democracy premises of the conduct of science and is the way in which political leadership is advancement of knowledge. The three construed. Democracy seeks to place composers on this program each sought law and the deliberative process (trial to celebrate their patriotism and alle- by jury, legislatures, town hall meet- giance to America by evoking, through ings, open hearings) above personality.