Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 81, 1961-1962
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I ! w>- I A| JjL, ill ^2y „, j V - -IvV % :>-. ^"; -""~^S> r BOSTON f % SYMPHONY if ORCHESTRA ' A / FOUNDED IN 1881 BY ,<# HENRY LEE HIGGINSON jf% / \M6r \W f - • -• 4 /rsL^i/Wlllwfi'r* ' "^ ///?£? Hinull _ & ws»~^ ^W^-^x ~ :" ~ '--'' '...<- '}/ - 41^.-.. C-- y - --. f — ^ . X. «8sS> J EIGHTY-FIRST SEASON 1961-1962 '$,.*» LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS TANGLEWOOD 1962 The Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director The Berkshire Festival Twenty-fifth Season CHARLES MUNCH, Conductor 8 Weeks, Beginning July 6 The Berkshire Music Center Twentieth Season CHARLES MUNCH, Director For full information, address T. D. Perry, Jr., Manager, Symphony Hall, Boston, Mass. EIGHTY-FIRST SEASON, 1961-1962 Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor CONCERT BULLETIN with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Henry B. Cabot President Talcott M. Banks Vice-President Richard C. Paine Treasurer Theodore P. Ferris John T. Noonan Francis W. Hatch Sidney R. Rabb Harold D. Hodgkinson Charles H. Stockton C. D. Jackson John L. Thorndike E. Morton Jennings, Jr. Raymond S. Wilkins Henry A. Laughlin Oliver Wolcott TRUSTEES EMERITUS Philip R. Allen Lewis Perry Edward A. Taft Palfrey Perkins Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Manager Norman S. Shirk James J. Brosnahan Assistant Manager Business Administrator Leonard Burkat Rosario Mazzeo Music Administrator Personnel Manager SYMPHONY HALL BOSTON 15 [3] Boston Symphony Orchestra (Eighty-first Season, 1961-1962) CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director RICHARD BURGIN, Associate Conductor PERSONNEL Violins Cellos Bassoons Richard Burgin Samuel Mayes Sherman Walt Concert-master Alfred Zighera Ernst Panenka Alfred Krips Jacobus Langendoen Matthew Ruggiero George Zazofsky Mischa Nieland Rolland Tapley Karl Zeise Contra Bassoon Joseph Silverstein Martin Hoherman Richard Plaster Vladimir Resnikoff Bernard Parronchi Harry Dickson Richard Kapuscinski Horns Gottfried Wilfinger Robert Ripley James Stagliano Einar Hansen Winifred Winograd Charles Yancich Roger Shermont Louis Berger Harry Shapiro Minot Beale John Sant Ambrogio Harold Meek Herman Silberman Paul Keaney Joseph Leibovici Basses Osbourne McConathy Stanley Benson Georges Moleux Leo Panasevich Henry Freeman Trumpets Sheldon Rotenberg Irving Frankel Roger Voisin Fredy Ostrovsky Henry Portnoi Armando Ghitalla Noah Bielski Henri Girard Andre Come John Barwicki Gerard Goguen Clarence Knudson Pierre Mayer Leslie Martin Ortiz Walton Trombones Manuel Zung Samuel Diamond William Gibson William William Marshall Flutes Moyer Kauko Kahila Leonard Moss Doriot Anthony Dwyer Josef Orosz William Waterhouse James Pappoutsakis Alfred Schneider Phillip Kaplan Tuba Victor Manusevitch K. Vinal Smith Laszlo Nagy Piccolo Ayrton Pinto George Madsen Timpani Michel Sasson Everett Firth Lloyd Stonestreet Harold Farberman Julius Schulman Oboes Raymond Sird Ralph Gomberg Percussion Gerald Gelbloom Jean de Vergie Charles Smith John Holmes Harold Thompson Violas Arthur Press Joseph de Pasquale English Horn Jean Cauhape Louis Speyer Harps Eugen Lehner Bernard Zighera Albert Bernard Clarinets Olivia Luetcke George Humphrey Jerome Lipson Gino Cioffi Manuel Valerio Piano Robert Karol Reuben Green Pasquale Cardillo Bernard Zighera E\) Clarinet Bernard Kadinoff Vincent Mauricci Library Bass Clarinet Earl Hedberg Victor Alpert Joseph Pietropaolo Rosario Mazzeo William Shisler [4] EIGHTY-FIRST SEASON • NINETEEN HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE -SIXTY-TWO Hill Auditorium [ University of Michigan] Ann Arbor Second Program SUNDAY AFTERNOON, October 22, at 2:30 o'clock Copland Quiet City, for Strings, Trumpet and English Horn Trumpet: ROGER VOISIN English Horn: LOUIS SPEYER Debussy *Iberia ("Images," No. 2) I. Par les rues et par les chemins (Through the Highways and Byways) II. Les Parfums de la nuit (The Perfumes of the Night) III. Le Matin d'un jour de fete (Holiday Morning) INTERMISSION Beethoven *Symphony No. 3, in E-flat major, Op. 55, "Eroica" I. Allegro con brio II. Marcia funebre: Adagio assai III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace IV. Finale: Allegro molto BALDWIN PIANO *RCA VICTOR RECORDS [5] "QUIET CITY," for Trumpet, English Horn and String Orchestra By Aaron Copland Born in Brooklyn, New York, November 14, 1900 Composed as an orchestral piece in the autumn of 1940, "Quiet City" had its first performance by the Saidenberg Little Symphony, Daniel Saidenberg conductor, at Town Hall, New York, January 28, 1941. UTN the Spring of 1939," writes Mr. Copland, "I was asked by my -^ friend Harold Clurman, Director of the Group Theatre, to supply the incidental musical score for a new play by Irwin Shaw, author of 'Bury the Dead/ 'The Gentle People/ and other dramas. His new opus was entitled 'Quiet City/ and was a realistic fantasy concerning the night-thoughts of many different kinds of people in a great city. It called for music evocative of the nostalgia and inner distress of a society profoundly aware of its own insecurity. The author's mouthpiece was a young trumpet player called David Mellnikoff, whose trumpet play- ing helped to arouse the conscience of his fellow-players and of the audience. The play was given two 'try-out' performances in New York on successive Sunday evenings in April of 1939, and then withdrawn for revisions. "Several friends urged me to make use of some of the thematic material used in my score as the basis for an orchestral piece. This is what I did in the summer of 1940, as soon as my duties at the Berkshire Music Center were finished. I borrowed the name, the trumpet, and some themes from the original play. The addition of English horn and string orchestra (I was limited to clarinet, saxophone, and piano, plus the trumpet of course, in the stage version), and the form of the piece as a whole, was the result of work in a barn-studio two miles down the road from Tanglewood. The orchestration was completed in late September, and the score dedicated to the late Ralph Hawkes, junior member of the London firm of Boosey and Hawkes, who published the composition recently." [copyrighted] Q& "IB£RIA," "Images," for Orchestra, No. 2 By Claude Debussy Born at St. Germain (Seine-et-Oise), France, August 22, 1862; died at Paris, March 25, 1918 Debussy completed the "Rondes de Printemps" in 1909, "Iberia" in 1910, and "Gigues" in 1912. The three "Images" as published bore numbers in reverse order. "Iberia" was first performed by Gabriel Pierne at a Colonne concert in Paris, February 20, 1910. It had its first performance in America, January 3, 1911, under Gustav Mahler, at a concert of the New York Philharmonic Society. The first performance in Boston was on April 21, 1911, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Max Fiedler, conductor. The instrumentation requires 3 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes and English horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons and contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba, timpani, tambourine, castanets, military drum, cymbals, xylophone, celesta, bells, two harps and strings. Debussy wrote to Durand, his publisher, on May 16, 1905, of his plan to compose a set of "Images" (a conveniently noncommittal title) for two pianos, to be called I. "Gigues Tristes," II. "Iberia/' III. "Valses (?)" Before long the project had become an orchestral one, and the questioned "Valses" had been dropped. The two orches- tral pieces were expected for the summer of 1906. They were not forth- coming. The musician who could once linger over his scores at will, rewriting, refining, repolishing, while the world cared little, was now the famous composer of "Pelleas." Publishers, orchestras, were at his doorstep, expectant, insistent, mentioning dates. Debussy was still unhurried, reluctant to give to his publisher a score which might still be bettered. He wrote to Durand in August of 1906: "I have before me three different endings for 'Iberia'; shall I toss a coin — or seek a fourth?" To Durand, July 17, 1907: "Don't hold it against me that I am behind; I am working like a laborer — and making some progress, in spite of terrible and tiring setbacks!" Two months later he promises that "Iberia" will be ready as soon as the "Rondes de Printemps" the third of the "Images," is "right and as I wish it." By Christmas of 1908, the first full draft of "Iberia" was completed, but the composer was by that time involved in a project for an opera on Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, immediately followed by another operatic project which, like the first, came to nothing: "The Devil in the Belfry." The movements are as follows: I. "Par les rues et par les chemins" ("In the streets and byways"). Assez anime (dans un rhythme alerte mais precis). II. "Les parfums de la nuit" ("The fragrance of the night"). Lent et reveur. III. "Le matin d'un jour de fete" ("The morning of a festival day"). Dans un rhythme de marche lointaine, alerte et joyeuse. [7] There was a considerable expression of dissatisfaction with "Iberia" in Paris, when it was first heard. "Half the house applauded furiously," reported a newspaper correspondent, "whereupon hisses and cat calls came from the other half. I think the audience was about equally divided." There was also much critical disfavor, while certain indi- viduals pronounced roundly in favor of "Iberia." Manuel de Falla, a Spanish purist who might well have frowned upon a quasi Spanish product of France, smiled upon this piece in an article printed in the Chesterian: "The echoes from the villages, a kind of sevillana — the generic theme of the work — which seems to float in a clear atmosphere of scintillating light; the intoxicating spell of Andalusian nights, the festive gaiety of a people dancing to the joyous strains of a banda of guitars and bandurrias ... all this whirls in the air, approaches and recedes, and our imagination is continually kept awake and dazzled by ."* the power of an intensely expressive and richly varied music. * Falla further states that Debussy thus pointed the way to Albeniz towards the use of the fundamental elements of popular music, rather than folk-tunes as such.