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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. Unique Orchestra and its activities. Join the Friends. Your active in structure, the pillars of the Ninth Symphony are slow support of the Orchestra will help assure its future. Call the outer movements that enfold excited inner ones. Time Friends Office: 266-1492. almost ceases to exist in the finale, its momentum zuriickhal- tend —holding back, as if to detain the inevitable. Violins Radio Broadcasts. Concerts of the Boston Symphony are initiate the broadly flowing theme, joined by the string heard in many parts of the United States and Canada by choir in the elegiac strain. The mood is one of consolation, delayed broadcast. In addition, Friday afternoon concerts transcending the anxieties of what has come before. Its are broadcast live by WGBH-FM (Boston 89.7) WMEH-FM tonal imagery is sometimes velvety, clustering alto voices of (Bangor 90.9) WHEA-FM (Portland 90.1) WAMC-FM winds and low strings, only to shift to the ethereal range of (Albany 90.3) and WFCR-FM (Amherst 88.5). Saturday flutes and violins. At the climax, horns and cellos intone evening concerts are also broadcast live by WGBH-FM, the main theme, after which the poignant music dissolves WMEH-FM, WHEA-FM, WCRB-AM & FM (Boston 102.5 in unearthly quietude, violins dying away. Like the end of FM: 1330 AM) WFCR-FM and WPIB-FM (Providence Das Lied von der Erde, the music seems to melt 105.1). The majority of the Tuesday evening concerts are "Everywhere and always, the horizon glimmers blue . . . broadcast live by WGBH-FM, WAMC-FM and WFCR-FM. forever."

Notes by Mary Ann Feldtnan for performances of October 30131, Cabot-Cahners and Hatch Rooms. The Cabot-Cahners November 1, 1974; reprinted by permission of the Minnesota Room on the second floor of Symphony Hall, and the Orchestra. Hatch Room in the Huntington Avenue Lobby on the main floor are open for refreshments one hour before the start of each concert, and remain open for a reasonable time after the concert ends. BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SEIJ1 OZAWA AlmIg Ormre,

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 Rolf Smedvig Gerald Gelbloom Harold D. Hodgkinson chair 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 Norman Bolter Second violins Robert Olson Gordon Hallberg Victor Yampolsky Lawrence Wolfe Personnel Managers Fahnestock chair Henry Portnoi Tuba William Moyer Marylou Speaker Chester Schmitz Harry Shapiro Michel Sasson Flutes Ronald Knudsen Doriot Anthony Dwyer Timpani Librarians Leonard Moss Walter Piston chair Everett Firth Victor Alpert Bo Youp Hwang James Pappoutsakis Sylvia Shippen Wells chair William Shisler Laszlo Nagy Paul Fried Michael Vitale Percussion Stage Manager Darlene Gray Piccolo Charles Smith Alfred Robison Lois Schaefer Arthur Press Ronald Wilkison Assistant timpanist Harvey Seigel Jerome Rosen Oboes Thomas Gauger Program Editor Sheila Fiekowsky Ralph Gomberg Frank Epstein Mary H. Smith Mildred B. Remis chair Gerald Elias Harps Vyacheslav Uritsky John Holmes Wayne Rapier Bernard Zighera 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 Boston Symphony Orchestra, Robert Barnes Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts 02115. Michael Zaretsky Bassoons (617) 266-1492. Sherman Walt Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Executive Director Edward A. Taft chair Roland Small Thomas W. Morris, Manager Matthew Ruggiero Arthur Fiedler Michael Tilson Thomas

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