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II. 1 P - 1•11M•P" MEW' • • ••• •1 NUN= M •, /NNW ....g.=.....= •!•••••■•■•••18...•• • • • II •••••IN•1•1■11 Vic. 7' Boston Symphony Orchestra Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Colin Davis, Principal Guest Conductor Joseph Silverstein, Assistant Conductor Friday, January 2, 1976 at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, January 3, 1976 at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 6, 1976 at 8:30 p.m. Symphony Hall, Boston Ninety-fifth Season Baldwin Piano Deutsche Grammophon Records Program Program Notes Michael Tilson Thomas conducting Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911) Sketches for the Ninth Symphony were made in 1909 Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D and the work was completed on April 1, 1910. Bruno Walter conducted the first performance in Vienna on June 26, 1912 Andante comodo and Serge Koussevitzky conducted the first American per- formance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October Im Tempo eines gemachlichen Landlers: 16, 1931 in Symphony Hall. The most recent performances etwas tappisch and sehr derb by the Boston Symphony were conducted by Michael Til- (In tempo of a gentle Landler: in a son Thomas on April 24/25, 1970. somewhat heavy and very uncouth manner) The instrumentation is: 4 flutes, piccolo, 4 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, contra bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, Rondo-Burlesque: Allegro assai, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tam tam, chimes, sehr trotzig (very boldly) glockenspiel, snare drum, 2 harps & strings. Adagio "Once again I have played through the score of Mahler's Ninth Symphony: the first movement is the most heavenly thing Mahler The Friday program will end about 3:40 p.m. and the Saturday and ever wrote. It is the expression of an exceptional fondness for this Tuesday programs at about 10:10 p.m. earth, the longing to live in peace on it, to enjoy nature to its depths —before death comes." Next Week's Program (Alban Berg, 1910) Neither Beethoven nor Bruckner lived to complete a 16 January 1976 at 2:00 p.m. tenth symphony after their great Ninths. Though Mahler 15, 17 and 20 January 1976 at 8:30 p.m. was not a superstitious man, he had every reason for dread Andrew Davis conducting after his Symphony No. 8. That year, 1907, doctors warned Tippett Ritual Dances from 'The Midsummer Marriage' him of a serious heart condition. His days—like his con- Elgar Symphony No. 2 in E flat cluding trilogy of works —bore the imprint of death. As if to cheat fate, Mahler crossed the number nine off This program will end at about 3:55 p.m. on Friday, 10:25 p.m. on the sketch of Das Lied von der Erde and spoke of the cycle as Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday. "a symphony in songs." But when he was composing his next work, he called it the Ninth, rationalizing in a com- Call C-O-N-C-E-R-T for up-to-date program information ment to his wife: "Actually, of course, it's the Tenth because Das Lied von der Erde was really the Ninth." Danger Sunday, January 18, 1976 4:00 p.m. had passed, he may have hoped when beginning the Tenth Boston Symphony Chamber Players Symphony, but Mahler did not elude destiny. He died with Sanders Theatre, Cambridge only one movement finished. Mahler spent the last three summers of his life writing his Works of Mozart, Griffes, Musgrave and Dvorak valedictory works. Each has a sense of awe, a bittersweet yearning for life that yields to the inevitability of death. Tickets at Symphony Hall Box Office and Out-of-Town Ticket Agency, Harvard Square. Though Mahler resigned from his demanding post as direc- tor of the Vienna State Opera in 1907, he could not resist the lure of America and crossed the Atlantic several times to conduct the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. It was in New York in April 1910 that he completed the Ninth Symphony. Always self-critical, he hesitated to publish his last works, and he never heard them performed. I. Andante comodo. Studying the score the summer before Mahler died, Alban Berg grasped that the opening move- ment was permeated by premonitions of death: "Again and again it crops up, all the elements of terrestrial dreaming culminate in it . " An autumnal mood prevails from the outset; first the deathly pulse struck by harp, then, in the second violins, the melancholy theme of leavetaking that Michael Tilson Thomas generates the substance of the movement. The wistful Michael Tilson Thomas has been Conductor and Music theme recurs in countless transformations. The movement Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra since the dispenses with structural conventions; there are no sonata 1971-72 season. He is also Director and Conductor of the forms to be outlined here. Lean, sinewy textures allow the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts. Mr. full orchestral climaxes to seem all the more ecstatic and Thomas is also Visiting Adjunct Professor in the Music awesome by contrast. Twice there are struggles with death Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo images: first Mit Wu t— with courage—a resolute, faster epi- where he teaches a course entitled "Different Ways of sode announced by a typically Mahlerian trumpet fanfare; Hearing." Michael Thomas was a student at the Berkshire later marching Wie ein schwerer Kondukt —like a funeral cor- Music Center at Tanglewood in 1968 and 1969 and received tege, a ponderous transfiguration of the movement's begin- the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize. He became Assistant ning. The final bars present the solo violin in the sighing Conductor of the Boston Symphony in the 1969/70 season interval of the second as the movement fades. and in that year he conducted 37 concerts in Boston, at II. Im tempo eines gemachtlichen Landlers, Etwas tappisch und Tanglewood and on tour. In 1970/71 and 1971/72, Mr. sehr derb. ("In the tempo of a slow Landler somewhat clumsy Thomas was Associate Conductor and during these years and coarse"). Here Mahler reverts to sturdy peasant dance he founded and conducted his innovative "Spectrum" in which he, like Bruckner, celebrated his Austrian origins. series. In 1972/73 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Clarinets and bassoons introduce the robust tune, set in the Orchestra, leaving that post due to pressing commitments key of C major. This is a double dance movement, com- in Buffalo and at the New York Philharmonic. He is now a prised of alternating Landler and waltz, speeding up, only regular guest conductor in Boston. Michael Tilson Thomas to lose momentum. has made several recordings with the Boston Symphony for The latter begins almost as a caricature of itself, its rough Deutsche Grammophon including Tchaikovsky Symphony accents gradually smoothed by the contours of the dance. No. 1; Ives Three Places in New England; Ruggles Like the first movement, it dwindles to almost nothing as Sun-Treader; Piston Symphony No. 2; Schuman Violin Con- the desperate merriment palls; a fragment of the Landler certo; Debussy Images and Stravinsky Sacre du Printemps. passes among the woodwinds before a fleshless cadence. Death has been the fiddler for this dance. Ticket Resale. If for some reason you are not able to attend III. Rondo-Burlesque: Allegro assai. Sehr trotzig. The rondo a Boston Symphony concert for which you already hold is a garish mockery unleashed by a menacing tune. The tickets call Symphony Hall at 266-1492 and offer your seat sketch bears the dedication, "To my brothers in Apollo." for resale. This helps bring needed revenue to the Orches- Typical of Mahler's late works, the procedure is contrapun- tra, makes your seat available to someone who wants to tal, phrases wrangling with each other in fugato style. A attend the concert, and guarantees you a tax deductible broad theme sounds at the climax, in radiant contrast to the receipt. obsessively morbid idea that has prevailed. Here, as else- where in the work, Mahler fans may glimpse ghosts from Boston Symphony Monthly Publication. If you are a cur- his other scores. The turbulent movement is quickly spent rent Friend or Subscriber you will already have received in a wry coda that abandons the duple pulse for a three- your copy of our new monthly publication "B. S. 0." If you beat Presto. Shrill and defiant, the rondo is a bitter comment are not on our lists, a contribution to the Friends of as little on death. as $15 will guarantee your having every month news of the IV. Adagio. Sehr Langsam und noch zuriickhaltend. 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