Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Bernard Haitink, Principal Guest Conductor One Hundred and Seventeenth Season, 1997-98
PRELUDE CONCERT III
Thursday, February 5, at 6, at Symphony Hall COMMUNITY CHAMBER CONCERT Sunday, February 8, at 3, at the Museum of Afro American History
LUCIA LIN, violin WENDY PUTNAM, violin RACHEL FAGERBURG, viola OWEN YOUNG, cello
HANDEL Passacaglia, arranged for violin and cello by Johan Halvorsen
Ms. LIN and Mr. YOUNG
BEETHOVEN Trio in D for violin, viola, and cello, Opus 9, No. 2
Allegretto Andante quasi Allegretto Menuetto: Allegro Rondo: Allegro
Ms. PUTNAM, Ms. FAGERBURG, and Mr. YOUNG
DVORAK String Quartet No. 12 in F, Opus 96, American Allegro ma non troppo Lento Molto vivace Finale: Vivace ma non troppo
Ms. LIN, Ms. PUTNAM, Ms. FAGERBURG, and Mr. YOUNG
Week 14 George Friderick Handel Passacaglia, arranged for violin and cello by Johan Halvorsen
Following decades of inattention and oblivion, Baroque music was rediscovered by the mid-nineteenth century romantics, who relished its energy and drive, the irreg- ularity of its phrase structures, and the passionate spirit of so much of the music. It was, of course, at precisely this time that Bach's music began to be published in the first scholarly complete edition known to European music history. One way of spreading the word about this music was for musicians to make arrangements for their own instruments of music they particularly admired, often romanticizing the work in the process, because the point was interpretation, not historical re-creation. Probably the best-known example of this approach is the so-called "Air on the G- string" created from the Aria in Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 Handel's music, too, underwent this kind of transformation. The Passacaglia to be heard here is an arrangement by Johan Halvorsen, a contemporary of Grieg's, of the finale from Handel's Keyboard Suite No. 7 in G minor. (The suite now bears the number 432 in the recently published thematic catalogue of Handel's works, which has its "HWV" numbers—for "Handel Werke Verzeichnis," or "Handel Works Index"—by analogy with the BWV numbers for Bach.) Halvorsen arranged this movement for violin with the accompaniment of either viola or cello; earlier in this
century it was a favorite piece of Jascha Heifetz, who recorded it. In more recent years the concern with "historically correct" performance has denied us the chance of hearing these romantic tributes to an older "romantic" music which brought that long-lost music to light again with deep affection.
Ludwig van Beethoven Trio in D for violin, viola, and cello, Opus 9, No. 2
Beethoven was not unfamiliar with the stringed instruments (as a teenager he made his living playing viola in the opera orchestra of his native Bonn), but his real instru- ment was the piano, and his earliest large-scale works, at the age of fifteen, were a piano quartet and a concerto. Later on, his first published compositions were a set of piano trios highlighting the keyboard; his second publication was a set of piano sonatas. By then he was living in Vienna, where Haydn was the great figure (and, for a short time, Beethoven's teacher). But Beethoven seems to have avoided direct comparison with Haydn for a time. He did not compose a symphony or string quartet—the two forms in which Haydn was preeminent—until he made his mark in other ways. And the string quartet, in particular, he approached by way of the string trio, which, unlike the quartet, lacked a tradition that might have been daunting to a diligent newcomer. There was just one undeniable string trio masterpiece from the earlier Classical period—Mozart's Divertimento in E-flat, K.563, written in 1788 and published in 1792, the year Beethoven arrived in Vienna—but Mozart, having died five years before Beethoven published his work, was no longer a rival. Beethoven began sketching his three Opus 9 string trios and the Serenade for string trio pub- lished as Opus 8 around 1795-96; through these pieces he worked out the problems of chamber music writing. All of the Opus 9 trios, with their unusual four-movement structure, can be seen as Beethoven's attempt to learn something about large-scale symphonic structure on the model of Haydn's latest symphonies without actually exposing himself to a direct comparison with his sometime master. The very opening of the D major trio sounds unusually songful, in a rather serious mode, for a sonata-form opening, but after a couple of phrases, a more playful spirit takes over and dominates the move- ment, though the melodious first gesture returns often, especially in the guise of the second theme. The slow movement unfolds its poignant 6/8 song with tenderness rising occasionally to passion. Beethoven may call the third movement a Menuetto, but it is certainly a forward-looking version of the dance, not an evocation of stodgy court formality; the Trio, filled with delicate leaps, has a charming simplicity. The
closing rondo is, like the opening movement, cast on a larger scale, though it, too, retains a lovingly songful character throughout.
Antonin Dvorak
String Quartet No. 12 in F, Opus 96, American
When Mrs. Jeannette Thurber persuaded Antonin Dvorak to come to America as the director of her National Conservatory in New York, she expected great things of him. The Bohemian composer, at the height of his popularity, brought a cheer- ful, friendly personality and a musical openness that made him popular wherever he went. His works were featured on concert programs in New York and Boston, often with Dvorak himself conducting. His responsibilities at the Conservatory were designed so as to allow him time to compose, in the evident hope that he would show American composers how they ought to proceed. Quite early in his stay Dvorak was asked by reporters what advice he would offer to American com- posers. His response—that they should draw upon their own native musical her- itage in seeking materials for their art—reflected Dvorak's own procedure with the melodic styles and dance forms of his native Bohemia. What Dvorak meant here was especially the music of black Americans, which, if he knew it at all, came from concert performances of spirituals and from the popular entertainment of the min- strel show (where the music was often written by white musicians in supposed imitation of vanished "plantation life"). The view of so distinguished a composer was widely—and heatedly—discussed. When Dvorak made these remarks, he knew scarcely any American music, either art or folk music. And he was not yet familiar with the substantial number of talented American composers who had been anticipating his approach years before his music was known here. To Dvorak's credit, he was open-minded enough to recognize the talent of American musicians. Victor Herbert's Second Cello Concerto, for example, inspired Dvorak's own contribution to the genre, and George Chadwick's Third Symphony was picked by Dvorak to receive a national award. Dvorak's first substantial work of his American years was the Symphony From the New World, completed in May 1893. During that summer he spent his holiday with his family at Spillville, a Czech community in Iowa. He felt at home immediately upon his arrival there and quickly composed two substantial chamber works—the string quartet in F (composed between June 8 and 23) and the string quintet in E-flat
(between June 26 and August 1); both were to be nicknamed "American." The quartet was premiered in Boston on January 1, 1894, by the Kneisel Quartet, the most distin- guished string quartet in America at the time (the ensemble consisted of first-chair players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by concertmaster Franz Kneisel).
From the outset, Dvorak's American Quartet has enjoyed lasting popularity for its tunefulness, its rhythmic verve, and its happy interplay of the four instruments. Given all the publicity afforded Dvorak's ideas on American music, one might rea-
sonably ask just how "American" Opus 96 really is. A theme Dvorak worked into the third movement qualifies as coming from an American: "a damned bird (red, only with black wings) " that kept singing where he was working. Beyond that we are on less firm ground. Many of the themes are entirely or nearly pentatonic, and some have wanted to see in this the influence of the black spiritual. But in fact Bohemian folk music is every bit as likely to be pentatonic, and similar themes can be found in Dvorak's music long before he came to America. The work's opening was based on Smetana's First Quartet, though Dvorak's mood is entirely different—lighter and livelier throughout, with the poignant exception of the lyrical second movement, the plaintive melody of which—echoed between violin and cello—is a wonderful foil to the high spirits of the remaining three movements.
—Notes by Steven Ledbetter
Violinist Lucia Lin made her debut as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at eleven. A prizewinner in the 1990 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Ms. Lin has been soloist with the Boston Pops, the St. Louis Symphony, the Oklahoma Symphony, and the Festivalorchester in Graz, Austria. A native of Champaign, Illinois, she received her bache- lor's degree at the University of Illinois and her master of music at Rice University in Hous- ton, Texas. Important musical influences included Sergiu Luca, Paul Rolland, Josef Gingold, and Louis Krasner. Ms. Lin made her New York debut at Weill Recital Hall in March 1991; she has recorded for Nonesuch with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and for New World Records on a disc featuring music of Bright Sheng. A member of the Boston Symphony since 1985, she was the BSO's assistant concertmaster from 1988 to 1991 and joint concertmaster of the London Symphony while on leave of absence from the BSO for the 1995-96 season.
Violinist Wendy Putnam joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in December 1996. A Fel- low at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1990 and 1991, she has been concertmaster of the New World Symphony and the Louisiana Philharmonic. Ms. Putnam holds a bachelor's degree in violin performance from Louisiana State University. After further study at Indiana State University, she received her master's degree in violin performance from Louisiana State University in 1993. Ms. Putnam's teachers included Fredell Lack, Sally O'Reilly, Josef Gingold, and former BSO concertmaster Joseph Silverstein.
Rachel Fagerburg joined the viola section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in December 1989. Ms. Fagerburg can be heard frequently in Prelude Concerts at Symphony Hall and in chamber music concerts in the Boston and Berkshire areas. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, she was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 1980. Ms. Fagerburg's teachers included Heidi Castleman and Eugene Lehner at the New England Conservatory, and Abraham Skernick at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Before joining the Boston Sym- phony she was a member of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Opera Company of Boston, Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra.
Cellist Owen Young joined the Boston Symphony during the BSO's 1991 Tanglewood sea- son. Mr. Young's many appearances as soloist have included the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Boston Pops; he also performs chamber music and recitals frequently both at home and abroad. Besides teaching cello privately, Mr. Young coaches and teaches at the Boston Con- servatory, the New England Conservatory Extension Division, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and Project Step (String Training and Education Program for Students of Color). From 1991 to 1996 he was resident tutor of music and director of concerts in Dunster House at Harvard University. A cum laude graduate of Yale University with bachelor's and master's degrees from that institu- tion, Mr. Young was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1986 and 1987. He played as an Orchestra Fellow with the Atlanta Symphony in 1988 and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra during the 1988-89 season. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1989 until he joined the Boston Symphony in 1991.