PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON Chicago Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, May 5, 2016, at 8:00 Saturday, May 7, 2016, at 8:00 Tuesday, May 10, 2016, at 7:30

Donald Runnicles Conductor Britten Sinfonia da , Op. 20 Lacrymosa— — Requiem aeternam Strauss Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24

INTERMISSION

Elgar Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36 Theme (Andante) 1. C.A.E. (Andante) 2. H.D.S.-P. (Allegro) 3. R.B.T. (Allegretto) 4. W.M.B. (Allegro di molto) 5. R.P.A. (Moderato) 6. Ysobel (Andantino) 7. Troyte (Presto) 8. W.N. (Allegretto) 9. Nimrod (Adagio) 10. (Dorabella). (Allegretto) 11. G.R.S. (Allegro di molto) 12. B.G.N. (Andante) 13. *** Romanza (Moderato) 14. Finale. E.D.U. (Allegro)

CSO Tuesday series are sponsored by United Airlines. This work is part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective, which is generously sponsored by the Sargent Family Foundation. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to 93XRT, WBEZ 91.5 FM, and RedEye for their generous support as media sponsors of the Classic Encounter series. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher

Benjamin Britten Born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft, Sussex, England. Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, England. , Op. 20

Benjamin Britten and his Th at winter, Britten toured the Midwest; friend Peter Pears left he came back from Chicago in February with England for North a “vile cold & fl u” that he couldn’t shake. He America in May 1939. was further troubled by homesickness, “war or spending several no war,” and by the growing European confl ict days in Canada, they viewed from afar. Around this time, Britten crossed into this country was asked by the British Council to compose a in June, stopping fi rst in new work to celebrate “the reigning dynasty of Grand Rapids, Michigan, a foreign power.” He agreed to this enigmatic then moving on to New commission as long as “no form of musical York City and the Catskills, where they visited jingoism” was required. By the time the details Aaron Copland. Th ere Britten composed some had been worked out and Britten learned that music “inspired by such sunshine as I’ve never the score would honor the 2,600th anniversary seen before.” He wrote home to his sister Beth: “I of the Japanese Imperial dynasty, there was little am certain that N. America is the place of the time left to compose the music. On April 26, future . . . & though certainly one is worried by a 1940, he wrote to his sister, “I now fi nd myself lack of culture, there is terrifi c energy & vitality with the proposition of writing a symphony in in the place.” about three weeks!” Britten described the score Copland later recalled that Britten was deeply as “a short symphony—or ,” and worried about the prospect of war at that time, he told a reporter for the New York Sun that he and he couldn’t decide whether to return to would dedicate it to the memory of his parents England or not. After Britten left for New York (his father died in 1934, his mother in 1937) as City, Copland wrote to him: “I think you abso- an expression of his own antiwar conviction. lutely owe it to England to stay here . . . . After all anyone can shoot a gun—but how many can he Sinfonia da requiem was composed write music like you?” Britain declared war on in “a terrible hurry” and was completed September 3, and Britten settled in New York, in early June. Britten wrote a draft for struggling with antiwar sentiments that would pianoT duet so that he and Pears could try it out. eventually explode into courageous, controver- In November, however, the Japanese government sial, and unequivocal pacifi sm. reviewed the score, with its three movement

COMPOSED INSTRUMENTATION APPROXIMATE 1940 three fl utes, piccolo and alto fl ute, PERFORMANCE TIME two and english horn, three 18 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE , E-fl at and March 30, 1941, New York City clarinet, two and contra- CSO RECORDING , alto , six horns, 1983. Rafael Kubelík conducting. CSO FIRST CSO PERFORMANCE three , three and (From the Archives, vol. 16: A Tribute to February 8, 1949, Orchestra Hall. Fritz , , , , Rafael Kubelík II) Busch conducting two harps, , , , whip, , strings MOST RECENT CSO PERFORMANCES May 31 & June 3, 2014, Orchestra Hall. Jaap van Zweden conducting

2 titles derived from of the composition or its antiwar theme. He Christian liturgy, described the first movement as “a slow marching and rejected it lament.” The title Lacrymosa comes from the outright as “purely closing section of the Dies irae, the medieval a religious music of sequence describing the Day of Judgment: Christian nature” that didn’t “express Full of tears and full of dread felicitations” for that Is that day that wakes the dead, country’s anniver- Calling all, with solemn blast, sary. The government To be judged for all their past. had already paid Britten his fee, but The movement begins with fierce timpani at the Tokyo con- blows; a solemn funeral march builds, in a long cert the only music arch, against a steady drumbeat. A wavering performed was by Britten with Aaron Copland saxophone rises above the dark, inexorable music. and (center) and Peter Pears, in Britten described the Dies irae, the second Jacques Ibert, the upstate New York in 1939 movement, as a kind of “Dance of Death, with two other composers occasional moments of quiet marching rhythm.” who submitted works for that occasion. It symbolizes the full outbreak of war, in music of undisguised anger and grim intensity. The he premiere of the Sinfonia da scene dissolves, leaving only a fragile melodic requiem was given by the New York thread of hope in the harp and . The Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall on third movement, Requiem aeternam (Eternal March 30, 1941. Britten provided a program rest), builds slowly toward consolation and a T note that made no mention of the circumstances peace that, in 1940, was far from certain.

Richard Strauss Born June 11, 1864, , . Died September 8, 1949, Garmisch, Germany. Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24

Shortly before he died at summing up his life’s work, he wove it into the the age of eighty-five, closing pages of his Eichendorff setting, now Richard Strauss told his known as the last of the . daughter-in-law that he It’s the Marschallin, in Strauss’s Der wasn’t afraid of death: it Rosenkavalier, who says, “To be afraid of time was just as he had is useless, for God, mindful of all his children, composed it in Death and in his own wisdom created it.” But like the Transfiguration. Only a Marschallin, Strauss always heard the ticking of few months before, the clock, and he couldn’t help thinking about Strauss had read Joseph death. He claimed that from an early age he Eichendorff’s poem “Im Abendrot” (At sunset). had wanted to compose music that followed the When he came to the lines “How tired we are of dying hours of a man who had reached toward wandering—could this perhaps be death?,” he the “highest ideal goals,” and who, in dying, sees took his pencil and jotted down the magnificent his life passing before him. theme from Death and Transfiguration that he In 1888, without a gray hair on his head and had written nearly sixty years earlier. And then, with another sixty years of life and music ahead

3 of him, Strauss wrote knowingly of a man’s last art, but which he has been unable to perfect, days on earth. It’s a young man’s view of death because it was not for any human being to and a romantic vision of old age, scarcely touched perfect it. by the chilling truths of infirmity and hopeless- ness, but it apparently still satisfied Strauss at the The hour of death approaches, and the soul end of his own life. The first edition of the score, leaves the body, in order to find perfected in as well as the earliest printed programs, included the most glorious form in the eternal cosmos a poem by Alexander Ritter (a fervent Wagnerian that which he could not fulfill here on earth. who had married Wagner’s niece Julie) that was written after Strauss had finished the music and born composer, Strauss begins with was offered as a literary guide to the piece. At the a deathbed scene, dark and uncertain, time, Strauss thought Ritter’s scenario indispens- and filled only with the sounds of the able to an understanding of the score, but the sickA man’s faltering heartbeat. A sudden, convul- best guide is really the one the composer himself sive passage, depicting the struggle with death, wrote in a letter to a friend in 1894: ultimately gives way to the work’s central theme, an impressive six-note motif characterized by an It was about six years ago when the idea octave leap, which represents the artist’s ideals. occurred to me to represent the death of The flood of memories begins pointedly with his a person who had striven for the highest storybook-like infancy. (“Childhood is the king- ideal goals, therefore possibly an artist, in a dom where nobody dies,” wrote Edna St. Vincent tone poem. The sick man lies in bed asleep, Millay, the once-popular poet who died the year breathing heavily and irregularly; agreeable after Strauss.) Strauss then moves on through dreams charm a smile on his features in spite youth, marvelously evoked by the self-confident of his suffering; his sleep becomes lighter; he swagger of the horns, to romances of such passion wakens; once again he is racked by terrible that their recollection brings on a spell of heart pain, his limbs shake with fever—as the palpitations (rendered by the low brass and attack draws to a close and the pain subsides timpani). The hero revels in remembrance before he reflects on his past life, his childhood there is one final, defiant moment of struggle. passes before him, his youth with its striv- Death itself arrives accompanied by the solemn ing, its passions, and then, while the pain striking of the tam-tam. The transfiguration is like resumes, the fruit of his path through life one of Strauss’s own great opera finales, weaving appears to him, the ideal, the ideal which the work’s main themes together, through a series he has tried to realize, to represent in his of moving climaxes, in music of radiant beauty.

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1888–November 18, 1889 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME July 3, 1996, Ravinia Festival. Hermann 24 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Michael conducting June 24, 1890; Eisenach, Germany. CSO RECORDINGS May 5, 6, 7 & 10, 2011, Orchestra Hall. The composer conducting 1947. Désiré Defauw conducting. CSO Riccardo Muti conducting (Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The First FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES January 16, 2014; Philharmonie, , 100 Years) February 22 & 23, 1895, Germany. Riccardo Muti conducting 1977. Sir conducting. CSO Auditorium Theatre. Theodore (From the Archives, vol. 4: A Tribute Thomas conducting INSTRUMENTATION to Solti) three , two oboes and english July 29, 1938, Ravinia Festival. Eugene horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, 1977. Sir Georg Solti conducting. Ormandy conducting two bassoons and , (video) four horns, three trumpets, three CSO PERFORMANCES, trombones and tuba, timpani, THE COMPOSER CONDUCTING tam-tam, two harps, strings April 1 and 2, 1904, Auditorium Theatre December 18, 1921, Auditorium Theatre

4 Composers in Chicago

On March 31, 1904, first music director Theodore Following the Friday matinee performance on Thomas introduced his friend Richard Strauss to April 1, Hubbard wrote: the Chicago Orchestra at the Auditorium Theatre. That master musician of modern music, that Strauss went straight to work, rehearsing his Also wonderful combination of poet, painter, sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, and composer, the man to whom pictures and Death and Transfiguration. According to William are audible and tones visible—Richard Lines Hubbard’s account in the Chicago Tribune, Strauss—appeared at the Auditorium halfway through the rehearsal he paused to say: yesterday afternoon, and for over two hours Gentlemen, it is my pleasure and my pride to some 3,700 persons sat beneath the spell his be able to direct today so faultless an orchestra great gifts weave and listened to the tonal and to hear my music played in a manner so tales they enable him to tell. . . . The Orchestra completely in accordance with my every wish. was on its mettle, and a more superb technical Your organization is a model in all ways, and I presentment of the intensely difficult scores feel proud to be associated with an orchestra than it gave could not be desired. Every wish of which has been brought to such perfection by the conductor was instantly responded to, and a man whom I have honored and wished to Dr. Strauss’s pleasure in the work done by the know for full twenty years—Mr. Thomas. men was unmistakable.

Strauss’s wife Pauline also appeared on the program as soloist in several of his songs, and for her first entrance, she was escorted both by her husband and Thomas. Hubbard was kind in his critique of her performance:

Her singing proved interesting and satisfactory from an interpretive viewpoint. The voice has lost its richness in the upper middle register and in the high tones, but it is of no inconsiderable beauty in the lower half, and it is used throughout with so much of discretion and understanding that it seems adequate for all that is undertaken. The seven songs heard yesterday were beautifully interpreted, and the exquisite accompaniments played as they were in finest style by the Orchestra, made the performance of them in high measure gratifying.

Strauss returned to Chicago to lead a special at the Auditorium Theatre on December 18, 1921. He again conducted the Orchestra in his , Death and Transfiguration, and the love scene from his opera , along with several songs—“Morgen!,” “Wiegenlied,” “,” and “Ständchen”—with soprano Claire Dux.

Theme from Death and Transfiguration in Strauss’s hand with the inscription “to beloved friends Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Frank Villella is the director of the Rosenthal Thomas with constant gratitude and respect,” the April 3, Archives. For more information regarding the 1904, entry from Rose Fay Thomas’s guest book (Theodore Thomas Papers, The Newberry Library, Chicago) Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s anniversary season, please visit cso.org/125moments.

5 Born June 2, 1857, Broadheath, near Worcester, England. Died February 23, 1934, Broadheath, England. Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36 Performed as part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective

The temptation to soon “continued in deep seriousness,” as Elgar improvise at the piano later recalled of the music that would make after a hard day’s work him famous, along with Powell, Nevinson, and surely never produced a number of the composer’s other friends. On greater results than on an October 24 he wrote to , the closest October evening in the of all those friends, Worcestershire country- side in 1898. Tired out . . . I have sketched a set of Variations from hours of teaching (“orkestra”) on an original theme: the violin and writing music Variations have amused me because I’ve that would never make him famous, Edward labeled ’em with the nicknames of my Elgar began to play a tune that caught his wife’s particular friends—you are Nimrod. That is ear. Alice asked what it was. “Nothing,” he to say, I’ve written the variations each one to replied, “but something might be made of it.” And represent the mood of the “party”—I’ve liked then, to prove—or perhaps, test—his point, he to imagine the “party” writing the var: him began to play with it. “Powell would have done (or her) self and have written what I think this, or Nevinson would have looked at it like they wd. have written—if they were asses this,” he commented as he went, drawing on the enough to compose—it’s a quaint idea & the names of their friends. Alice said, “Surely you are result is amusing to those behind the scenes doing something that has never been done before!” & won’t affect the hearer who “nose nuffin.” Alice wasn’t quite right, in terms of historical fact—Schumann’s Carnaval, for example, depicts The work went well. On November 1, Elgar a number of characters, real and imagined—but played at least six variations for Dora Penny, she obviously sensed that her husband had hit now known as Dorabella, or variation 10. On upon something important—not only to his January 5, Elgar wrote to Jaeger: “I say—those own faltering career, but for music itself. And variations—I like ’em.” By February 22 he told so what was begun “in a spirit of humor” was Dorabella that the variations were done, “and

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE October 1898–February 19, 1899 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME July 18, 1981, Ravinia Festival. Neville 29 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Marriner conducting June 19, 1899; London, England. Hans CSO RECORDINGS March 17, 19 & 22, 2011, Orchestra Hall. Richter conducting 1974. Sir Georg Solti conducting. Charles Dutoit conducting London FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES March 18 & 20, 2011, Orchestra Hall. 1986. Sir Georg Solti conducting. CSO January 3 & 4, 1902, Auditorium Charles Dutoit conducting (Beyond (From the Archives, vol. 21: Soloists of Theatre. Theodore Thomas conduct- the Score) the Orchestra III) (Nimrod) ing (U.S. premiere) INSTRUMENTATION June 30, 1939, Ravinia Festival. Adrian two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, Boult conducting two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three CSO PERFORMANCES, trumpets, three trombones and tuba, THE COMPOSER CONDUCTING timpani, side drum, triangle, bass April 5 & 6, 1907, Orchestra Hall drum, cymbals, organ, strings

6 yours is the most cheerful. . . . I of the slightest texture; have orchestrated you well.” The further, through and over orchestration of the piece took the whole set another and the two weeks from February 5 larger theme “goes,” but is to 19, 1899. Elgar then sent not played—so the principal the score off to Hans Richter, Theme never appears, even the great German conductor as in some late dramas—e.g., known for championing both Maeterlinck’s L’ intruse Wagner and Brahms. Elgar and Les sept princesses—the waited a long, nervous month chief character is never on for a response, but Richter the stage. recognized the quality of this music and agreed to give the Those are words Elgar later premiere in London. For Elgar, came to regret, for the public’s already in his forties and not curiosity often overshadowed yet a household name, even in the music. Elgar himself England, Richter’s advocacy only made matters worse by was decisive. Edward and divulging that the “larger The first performance was a just after their marriage theme” fit in counterpoint with great success for both Elgar and his original theme, by telling for British music. The critics Arthur Troyte Griffith (vari- recognized the work as a land- ation 7) that the theme “is so mark, and although one was aggravated that the well known that it is extraordinary that no one dedication “To my friends pictured within” didn’t has spotted it,” and by admonishing Dorabella name names, he was at least honest enough to that she, of all people, had not guessed it. admit that the music stood handsomely on its Several melodies have been favored over the own. The friends have long ago been identified, years, including “God Save the King,” “Rule, but a greater question still remains. At the time Britannia!,” and, most often, “Auld Lang Syne,” of the premiere, Elgar wrote: but to date the Enigma still maintains its place in Elgar’s title. (Dorabella and her husband Richard The enigma I will not explain—its “dark Powell once asked Elgar outright about “Auld saying” must be left unguessed, and I warn Lang Syne” and he denied it, but by then he was you that the apparent connection between so tired of the whole mystery that many doubted the Variations and the Theme is often the sincerity of his answer.)

Hew David Steuart- Richard Baxter William Meath Baker, Richard Penrose Arnold, Powell, Variation 2 Townshend, Variation 3 Variation 4 Variation 5

7 or full descriptions of the “friends pictured within,” we are indebted to the inven- tion of the piano roll; when the Aeolian FCompany later issued the in this newfangled format, Elgar contributed his own comments on this circle of men and women in his life. Here, then, follows the portrait gallery, with some of Elgar’s remarks. Theme. This is an original melody, as Elgar’s title boasts, born that October night in 1898 and without connections to anyone in the composer’s life. (It has been suggested that those important Isabel Fitton, Variation 6 Arthur Troyte Griffith, first four notes perfectly set the composer’s own Variation 7 name, but, as we shall see, Elgar saves himself for last.) It’s worth remembering, however, that when he wrote (an autobi- ographical, –kind of work) in 1912, he recalled this theme to represent the loneliness of the creative artist. 1. (C.A.E.) Caroline Alice Elgar was the composer’s wife. “The variation,” Elgar writes, “is really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions; those who knew C.A.E. will understand this reference to one whose life was a romantic and delicate inspiration.” She was his muse; after Winifred Norbury, Alfred Jaeger, Variation 9 Alice died in 1920, Elgar never really worked Variation 8 again. The little triplet figure in the and the bassoon at the very beginning mimics the whistle with which Elgar signaled Alice whenever he difficult than in these days of petrol to arrange came home. the carriages for the day to suit a large number of 2. (H.D.S.-P.) Hew David Steuart-Powell guests. This variation was written after the host played chamber music with Elgar. “His char- had, with a slip of paper in his hand, forcibly read acteristic diatonic run over the keys before out the arrangements for the day and hurriedly beginning to play is here humorously travestied left the music room with an inadvertent bang of in the semiquaver [sixteenth note] passages; these the door.” should suggest a toccata, but chromatic beyond 5. (R.P.A.) Richard Penrose Arnold was a H.D.S.-P.’s liking.” (Their frequent partner was son of Matthew Arnold and “a great lover of Basil Nevinson, variation 12.) music which he played (on the pianoforte) in 3. (R.B.T.) Richard Baxter Townshend, who a self-taught manner, evading difficulties but regularly rode through the streets of Oxford suggesting in a mysterious way the real feeling.” on his bicycle with the bell constantly ringing, In the middle section we learn that “his serious is here remembered for his “presentation of an conversation was continually broken up by whim- old man in some amateur theatricals—the low sical and witty remarks.” voice flying off occasionally in ‘soprano’ timbre.” 6. (Ysobel) Isabel Fitton was an amateur (Dorabella also recognized the bicycle bell in the violist. “The opening bar, a phrase made use pizzicato strings.) of throughout the variation, is an ‘exercise’ for 4. (W.M.B.) William Meath Baker was “a crossing strings—a difficulty for beginners; country squire, gentleman, and scholar. In on this is built a pensive, and for a moment, the days of horses and carriages, it was more romantic movement.”

8 7. (Troyte) Arthur Troyte Griffith, an archi- tect, was one of Elgar’s closest friends. “The uncouth rhythm of the drums and lower strings was really suggested by some maladroit essays to play the pianoforte; later the strong rhythm suggests the attempts of the instructor (E.E.) to make something like order out of chaos, and the final despairing ‘slam’ records that the effort proved to be in vain.” 8. (W.N.) Winifred Norbury lived at Sherridge, a country house, with her sister Florence. The music was “really suggested by an Dora Penny, Variation 10 Dr. George R. Sinclair and eighteenth-century house. The gracious personal- his dog Dan, Variation 11 ities of the ladies are sedately shown”—especially Winifred’s characteristic laugh. 9. (Nimrod) Nimrod is the “mighty hunter” named in Genesis 10; Alfred Jaeger (“Jaeger” is German for “hunter”) was Elgar’s greatest and dearest friend. That is apparent from this extraordinary music, which is about the strength of ties and the depth of human feelings. These forty-three bars of music have come to mean a great deal to many people; they are, for that reason, often played in memoriam, when common words fail and virtually all other music falls short. The variation records “a long summer Basil G. Nevinson, Lady Mary Lygon, evening talk, when my friend discoursed elo- Variation 12 Variation 13 quently on the slow movements of Beethoven.” The music hints at the slow movement of the Pathétique Sonata, though it reaches the more of the hardships Beethoven endured, and he rarefied heights of Beethoven’s last works. urged Elgar not to give up. Elgar later wrote to Dorabella remembered that Jaeger also spoke him: “I have omitted your outside manner and

TRACKING DOWN THE ENIGMA

In 1953, the Saturday Review spon- obvious to Dora Penny, “of all people,” Enigma Variations. The two passages sored a contest for the best solution as Elgar remarked, because the British aren’t identical rhythmically— to the identity of Elgar’s “enigma.” penny was engraved with the figure moreover, Mozart is in G major, Elgar The top prizes (the composer’s of Britannia. In 1984, Derek Hudson in G minor—but they are strikingly daughter Carice Elgar Blake was showed even more persuasively how a similar. There are other connections: one of the judges) were awarded to phrase of “Auld Lang Syne” fits Elgar’s two weeks before Elgar invented his the Agnus Dei from Bach’s B minor theme and many of the variations. theme at the piano, he had heard the mass, the trio “Una bella serenata” In 1991, Joseph Cooper, a British Prague Symphony. Mozart’s symphony from Mozart’s Così fan tutte, the pianist, proposed a new solution. also was the closing work on the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s He claimed he had stumbled upon concert of June 19, 1899, when the Pathétique Symphony, and “God Save the answer thirty years earlier at Enigma Variations were given their first the Queen.” None, however, seemed a performance of Mozart’s Prague performance. Although Elgar authority particularly convincing, and the Symphony in Royal Festival Hall in Jerrold Northrop Moore hailed search continued. In 1976, Theodore London, but chose to keep it a secret. Cooper’s solution, other scholars, Van Houten proposed “Rule, As he followed a score during that Elgar lovers, and puzzle fanatics Britannia!” which includes a phrase long-ago concert, Mr. Cooper noticed, remain unconvinced. that’s nearly identical to the opening midway through the slow movement, of the Enigma and should have been echoes of the opening of Elgar’s —P.H.

9 have only seen the good lovable honest SOUL in who supposedly was crossing the sea to Australia the middle of you. The music’s not good enough: as Elgar wrote this music (she wasn’t). “The nevertheless it was an attempt of your E.E.” drums suggest the distant throb of a liner,” Elgar Jaeger died young, in 1909. Twenty years later writes. Although Elgar eventually confirmed Elgar wrote: “His place has been occupied but the attribution, it has never entirely satisfied a never filled.” suspicious public. Dorabella claimed that in the 10. (Dorabella) Dora Penny, later Mrs. composer’s mind, the asterisks stood for “My Richard Powell, and to the Elgars, always sweet Mary.” Dorabella, from Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Her 14. (E.D.U.) Edu was Alice’s nickname for variation, titled Intermezzo, is shaded through- her husband. This is his self-portrait, written “at out by “a dancelike lightness,” and delicately a time when friends were dubious and gener- suggests the stammer with which she spoke in ally discouraging as to the composer’s musical her youth. future.” Alice and Jaeger, two who never lost 11. (G.R.S.) Dr. George R. Sinclair was the their faith in him, make brief appearances. The organist of Herford Cathedral, though it’s his music is forceful, even bold. It’s delivered with beloved bulldog Dan who carries the music, an unusual strength known best to late bloomers, first falling down a steep bank into the River the defiance of an outsider intent on finding an Wye, then paddling up stream to a safe landing. audience, and the confidence of a man who has Anticipating the skeptics, Elgar writes “Dan” always wished to be more than another variation in bar 5 of the manuscript, where Dr. Sinclair’s on a theme. dog barks reassuringly (low strings and winds, A parting word about the title. The work fortissimo). wasn’t at first called Enigma. Elgar used the word 12. (B.G.N.) Basil G. Nevinson was a fine for the first time in a letter to Jaeger written at cellist who regularly joined Elgar and Hew the end of May 1899, three months after the David Steuart-Powell (variation 2) in chamber score was finished. Enigma is written on the title music. The soaring cello melody is “a tribute to page of the autograph manuscript, but it’s written a very dear friend whose scientific and artistic in pencil and not by Elgar. When the Chicago attainments, and the whole-hearted way they Symphony introduced this music to the United were put at the disposal of his friends, particu- States in 1902, the program page listed it only larly endeared him to the writer.” as “Variations, op. 36.” 13. (***) The only enigma among the portraits: just asterisks in place of initials, and “Romanza” at the top of the page. The clarinet quoting from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Phillip Huscher has been the Chicago Symphony midway through points to Lady Mary Lygon, Orchestra program annotator since 1987.

10 Composers in Chicago

On April 5 and 6, 1907, second music director Frederick Stock programmed a concert of “compositions by living writers,” including music from five countries. The first half opened with Vincent d’Indy’s Wallenstein’s Camp (France), Alexander Glazunov’s Spring (Russia), Frederick Converse’s The Mystic Trumpeter (), and the love scene from Richard Strauss’s opera Feuersnot (Germany). The second half of the concert was dedicated to England, with Sir Edward Elgar on the podium leading his overture (Alassio), Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), and the first Pomp and Circumstance March.

“The patrons of the Thomas Orchestra paid willing and hearty tribute to Sir Edward Elgar yesterday afternoon in Orchestra Hall,” wrote William Lines Hubbard in the Chicago Daily Tribune.

The men of the Orchestra gave him their closest attention and heartiest sympathy yesterday, and the result was a performance of the three compositions which was technically and tonally of highest worth. Sir Edward himself seemed genuinely pleased and his assertion after the concert that the “work of the Orchestra surpassed all his fondest expectations” evidently was the expression of his true feeling.

Chicago audiences were well versed in Elgar’s catalog, as by Advance program book notice of Sir Edward Elgar’s then the Orchestra had given the U.S. premieres of several April 1907 guest conducting appearance with the of his works: the Cockaigne Overture, Enigma Variations, the Orchestra (above); and (below) the opening from his first two Pomp and Circumstance marches, Incidental Music Enigma Variations along with his entry in Rose Fay and Funeral March from Grania and Diarmid, and In the Thomas’s guest book: “To Mrs. Theodore Thomas South under Theodore Thomas; the Froissart Overture and with greatest esteem” (Theodore Thomas Papers, (with Albert Spalding) under Stock; and The The Newberry Library, Chicago) Dream of Gerontius under Harrison M. Wild, then director of the Apollo Musical Club.

In 1911, England’s Sheffield Choir embarked on a six-month world tour, and Elgar joined them for several performances in the United States and Canada. Their tour included three concerts in Chicago collaborating with the Orchestra, the second of which featured Elgar on the podium leading .

Frank Villella is the director of the Rosenthal Archives. For more information regarding the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s anniversary season, please visit cso.org/125moments.

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