SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Branch Exchange Telephone, Ticket and Administration Offices, Com. 1492 FIFTY-SIXTH SEASON, 1936-1937 CONCERT BULLETIN of the Boston Symphony Orchestra INCORPORATED SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor RICHARD Burgin, Assistant Conductor with historical and descriptive notes By John N. Burk COPYRIGHT, 1936, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. The OFFICERS and TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Bentley W. Warren .... President Henry B. Sawyer Vice-President Ernest B. Dane Treasurer Allston Burr Roger I. Lee Henry B. Cabot Richard C. Paine Ernest B. Dane Henry B. Sawyer Alvan T. Fuller Pierpont L. Stackpole N. Penrose Hallowell Edward A. Taft M. A. De Wolfe Howe Bentley W. Warren G. E. Jui)D, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [305] . Old Colony Trust Company 17 COURT STREET, BOSTON The principal business of this company is 1 Investment of funds and management of property for living persons. 2. Carrying out the provisions of the last will and testament of deceased persons. Our officers would welcome a chance to dis- cuss with you either form of service. <tAllied with The First National Bank 0/" Boston [306] Contents Title Page page 305 Programme ......... 309 Analytical Notes: Bach: Toccata in C major for Organ . 311 (Orchestrated by Leo Weiner) Hindemith: Symphony "Mathis der Maler" . 320 Kalinnikov: Symphony No. i in G minor . 343 Entr'actes Burkhard: The Isenheim Altar of Matthias Griineivald 331 Dreyfus: Notes on Conducting. Conversations with Koussevitzky ....... 338 Announcement to the "Friends of the Boston Sym- phony Orchestra" ....... 332-333 The Next Programme . 351 A Lost Symphony Restored . 353 Concert Announcements . 354, 355, 356 The Orchestra in New York . .357, 358 Teachers' Directory ....... 358-360 Personnel . Opposite page 360 [307] !! QIljattMw & (Ha. Tremont and West Streets Black • contrasted with white • highlighted by beads $ 25 A group of those so-difficult-to- find Black Dresses, quite simple yet with definite fashion appeal Pipings in bright colors . flashes of satin cording . designs in shining bugle beads . slim, white gilets are bent upon flattery as well as chic Fourth Floor [308] FIFTY-SIXTH SEASON, NINETEEN HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX AND THIRTY-SEVEN Seventh Programme FRIDAY AFTERNOON, November 27, at 2:30 o'clock SATURDAY EVENING, November 28, at 8:15 o'clock RICHARD BURGIN, Conducting Bach Toccata in C major for Organ (Orchestrated by Leo Weiner) Hindemith Symphony, "Mathis der Maler" ("Matthias the Painter") I. Angelic Concert II. Entombment III. Temptation of Saint Anthony INTERMISSION Kalinnikov Symphony No. 1 in G minor I. Allegro moderato II. Andante commodamente III. Scherzo: Allegro non troppo IV. Finale: Allegro moderato; allegro risoluto This programme will end about 4:07 on Friday Afternoon, 9:52 o'clock on Saturday Evening Water-colors by Frederick Eldridge Lowell, together with music, autographs, and pictures of the composers whose works are in the current repertory, may be seen in the first balcony gallery. (See page 352.) [309] JORDA^lARiH COll RECORDED BY THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA UNDER THE DIRECTION OF ^-Sszqz Kouii£<jLtzku Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B Minor . "the Unfinished Symphony" double ...on three s6.50 - Victor records . MUSIC • THIRD FLOOR • ANNEX Mail or telephone orders filled (Call HUBbard 2700) [3">1 — — TOCCATA IN C MAJOR FOR ORGAN By Johann Sebastian Bach Born at Eisenach on March 21, 1685; died at Leipzig, July 28, 1750 (Orchestrated by Leo Weiner) Rorn at Budapest, Hungary, April 16, 1885 The Toccata in C, one of the five organ works of Bach in this form,* is in three sections: a prelude introduced by a bravura pas- sage for the manuals in a single part, and a displayful passage for the pedals alone; an adagio (a sustained melody with simple accompani- ment) and a lively fugue.f * The Toccata is defined as "a form of keyboard-composition in which there is usually a rapid, flowing and continuous succession of figures, passages and the like, devised so as to make a brilliant and showy effect and to give opportunity for executive display, thus justifying its name as a 'touch' piece." Albert Schweitzer also notes: "The organ toccata derives ultimately from Claudio Merulo (1532-1604), the great master of the Venetian organ school, which in turn developed out of the school of the Netherlands. The toccata was afterwards brought by Frescobaldi to the highest perfection it ever reached in Italy. In Georg Muffat's celebrated Apparatus musico-organisticus (1690) we see the art of which he is the last great representative coming to a standstill." t The Toccata entire was performed by Carl Weinrich, organist, at the Bach-Handel Festival (May 1, 1935). EDWARD MacDOWELL COMPOSITIONS ARRANGED FOR FULL ORCHESTRA AND SMALLER INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLES From SEA PIECES, Op. 55 Net Full Orchestra $1.50 A. D. 1620, Small Orchestra 1.00 TO THE SEA and NAUTILUS Full Orchestra 1.75 Small Orchestra 1.25 WOODLAND SKETCHES, Op. 51 Book I : Containing To a Wild Rose — Will o' the Wisp — ) Full Orchestra 2.25 At an Old Trysting Place [• Small Orchestra 1.50 In Autumn — From an Indian Lodge ; Book II : Containing To a Water Lily From Uncle Remus ) — — Full Orches-tra 2.25 A Deserted Farm > Small Orchestra 1.50 By a Meadow Brook — Told at Sunset ) (The above can he played by any combination which includes piano and first violin) Two Pieces for String Orchestra (From Woodland Sketches, Op. 51) AT AN OLD TRYSTING PLACE Score and Parts 1.00 FROM UNCLE REMUS Score and Parts 1.25 THE ARTHUR P. SCHMIDT CO. 120 Boylston St. [311] With nothing more precise than its form and "influences" to help them, the experts of Bach agree in identifying the organ Toccata in C major with the Weimar period, when Bach the organist first found his full expression. Albert Schweitzer places it among the organ works where Bach was freeing himself of the rigid formal prescriptions of Buxtehude and succumbing to the Italianate directness and charm of Legrenzi, Corelli, and Vivaldi — composers under whose spell he found a new liberation, "a clearness and plasticity of musical structure. Thus did Bach win his freedom from Buxtehude by means of the Italians, and was enabled to bring to glorious reality the ideals that for two generations had agitated German organ music." The Alsatian scholar, contemplating, no doubt, the affecting adagio of this Toccata, finds in it "a wonderful pathos," which is part of the "spontaneous freshness of invention" in the works of this period. "They affect the hearer almost more powerfully than any other of Bach's organ works, and to play them is always to experience something of what the master himself must have felt when, for the first time, he exploited the full possibilities of the organ with regard to wealth of tone and variety of combination." The long and elaborate pedal passage in the introduction, one of the most famous in all organ music, has led Andre Pirro to hazard leatim TO ORDER Order your new beauty today. Begin with a series of face treatments. Give your complexion the smooth freshness required by subtle costume colors. Get to work on your figure too. Have it Shad-O-Graphed. Then with a concrete picture to show you just what you need, start a course of exercise and have Ardena Baths to mold you into slim young curves. 24 NEWBURY STREET, BOSTON KENMORE 4783 m [312] that the Toccata "dates perhaps from the journey whicli Bach made to Cassel in 1714 to examine a recently restored organ. At least the pedal passage in the prelude reminds us of that pedal solo executed during this tour before the hereditary Prince of Hasse with such vir- tuosity that the latter drew from his finger a valuable ring and pre- sented it to Bach. "One might have believed that his feet were winged," wrote Adlung in his "Anleitung an der Musikgelahrtkeit/' "with such agility did they move over the keys which caused the powerful basses to respond. If the dexterity of his feet drew from the Prince so rich a present, what should he have given him in recogni- tion of the genius of his hands?" The florid opening pages of the Toccata are singled out by Harvey Grace in his "Organ Works of Bach" as among the finest which the composer has left. Mr. Grace considers the opening manual flourish as "far more significant than the average contemporary writing of the type. We do little more than tolerate such flights today, but we can easily imagine that by their freedom and originality, and by their success in implying fine harmonic background, the best of Bach's examples were extremely popular when new. The pedal solo is one of the finest ever written — perhaps the finest. Such things are not often perpetrated today — fortunately — and perhaps the only modern examples worthy of a place beside this of Bach are the sweeping tune "BLACK" — IS THE IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EVENING — IT WILL PROBABLY BE A DINNER DRESS THAT JUST COVERS YOUR SHOULDERS OR HAS VERY SHORT SLEEVES — ITS UTTER SIMPLICITY WILL BREATHE SOPHISTICATION — IT WILL NOT BE DEVOID OF COLOR AS IT WILL HAVE A TOUCH OF EMBROIDERY— HurMtch Bros. isfiMsaaffJOMMti [313] with which Franck opens his Final in B-flat, and the more obviously attractive example in Guilmant's D minor Symphony." The writer further advises his fellow organists that such passages must be played on a big scale or lose their effect. "A pedal solo that does not set loose window-panes rattling is a thing of naught." Leo Weiner has transcribed the manual and pedal passages alike for the string and wood-wind choir's in alternation, reinforcing the closes with brass chords.