SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Telephone, Commonwealth 1492 SIXTY-FIRST SEASON, 1941-1942 CONCERT BULLETIN of the Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Assistant Conductor with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, ltlC. The OFFICERS and TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Ernest B. Dane President Henry B. Sawyer Vice-President Ernest B. Dane Treasurer Henry B. Cabot N. Penrose Hallowell Ernest B. Dane M. A. De Wolfe Howe Reginald C. Foster Roger I. Lee Alvan T. Fuller Richard C. Paine Jerome D. Greene Henry B. Sawyer Bentley W. Warren G. E. Judd, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [481] In all the world i^afyekarl has 710 equal A refreshingly new adventure in music awaits you when listening to your favorite compositions re- produced on the new Capehart. You will be en- tranced to discover new expressions, tonal colorings that have been denied you before. Capehart full range perfect reproductions catch the extreme vel- vety "lows" and the golden threadlike "highs" as well as every intermediate overtone so vital to the correct interpretation of great music. No other instrument can compare with the Cape- hart. Let us reproduce your favorite music for you on one of the new Capeharts we have on display. CHAS. W. HOMEYER CO., Inc. BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON <0&&l HALL-MARK OF RACIOUS LIVING [482! SYMPHONIANA Exhibitions Thoroughbreds EXHIBITIONS In the First Balcony Gallery are to be seen paintings by Miss Pat Eriokson, Cambridge artist. In the small gallery off the west cor- ridor of the First Balcony is to be seen a collection of South American art fur- nished through the courtesy of the Grace Lines. year-round topcoats with extra "zip-in 9 Benjamin Britten Sketch by Josef Scharl winter linings THOROUGHBREDS $30 By Ernest Newman Misses 9 and women's {From the "Sunday Times", London) sizes. Sixth floor. A few weeks ago I used the word thoroughbred in connection with Benja- Stearns min Britten's new violin concerto; and ever since then I have been fighting [483] single-handed the battle of Britten. to take a piece of ruled paper out of a Various correspondents have been at no drawer, look at it sternly and tell it it pains to conceal from me that they think had better mind what it was about, and less highly of this young composer than at once it sprouted canons and fugues I do. Whatever else they have done, they and double counterpoints that were not have at least thrown a little fresh light only first-rate technique but first-rate for me on the eternally interesting prob- music. Slickness in and by itself, then, lem of aesthetic criteria. is not necessarily a bad mark for an One or two of them speak patron- artist. izingly of what they describe as the More should not be read into the slickness of Mr. Britten's technique. term thoroughbred than I intended it to But is slickness per se a defect? If so, convey. I did not mean to lay it down then, I feel bound to ask, what about that Mr. Britten is certain to turn out such artists as Mozart, Bach, Palestrina a world-beater. He may or may not: I and Shakespeare? Has anyone ever am the last man in the world to plunge poured out the stuff in such quantities into prophecy of that sort where young with such seemingly unreflecting ease composers are concerned. By thorough- as they? The story of Shakespeare bred I mean simply that combination "scarce blotting a line" is known to of good pedigree, good build, and clean everyone. Mozart's facility was amaz- running and jumping that is the mark ing: he could write, and generally write of the finely bred horse. But it no more extremely well, without, apparently, ever necessarily follows, of course, that the having to pause to think. Bach had only thoroughbred composer will produce [484] even one world-beating masterpiece than that the thoroughbred horse will ever finish first in a "classic" race. Ravel I would call a French thorough- bred, while Humperdinck was no more brt than a good honest German cart-horse: yet "Hansel and Gretel" is a winner in W»tV) the Operatic Stakes and "L'Heure espagnole" is not. Being a thoroughbred, indeed, is ac- clothe complished in some cases only at a cer- tain sacrifice. Chopin, for instance, was a pure thoroughbred, and Berlioz was not; but Berlioz has a wider range of action than Chopin. A thoroughbred, as I have suggested, may appear at all kinds of meetings year after year with- clogs out winning a single big race. Here again Ravel may serve as an illustra- tion: it was because he was a shade too finely bred, perhaps, that he could never be sent over a long and hard course for fear of his breaking a blood-vessel. (PPM There are other ways also in which it is not entirely an advantage to be a thoroughbred. A thoroughbred composer 5H0P may be just not good enough to come in first in a field of his own class, while pride or prudence, or a lack of knowl- edge of the course, or an aristocratic sea suits disdain for it and its frequenters, may prevent him from competing with a field robes of a lower class: he has no chance of you finishing first in the Derby, let us say, suits and yet would disdain to run in the play Milkmen's Derby. I could name many an excellent composer of to-day who is in that unfortunate position. Hoist's "At the Boar's Head," for instance, is as much superior, in every respect but one, to "I Pagliacci" as a winner at one of the Epsom spring meetings is superior to the coster's moke. What that one re- spect is the intelligent reader will not need to be told. 3<fo 'poyljton Jtittf [485] Old Colony Trust Company ONE FEDERAL STREET, BOSTON T. Jefferson Coolidge Channing H. Cox Chairman President Investment and Management of Property Custodian * Trustee * Guardian * Executor ^Allied with The First National Bank of Boston [486] SIXTY-FIRST SEASON NINETEEN HUNDRED FORTY-ONE AND FORTY-TWO Eleventh Programme FRIDAY AFTERNOON, January 2, at 2:30 o'clock SATURDAY EVENING, January 3, at 8:15 o'clock Britten Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 I. Lacrymosa II. Dies Irae III. Requiem Aeternam Played without pause (First performance at these concerts) Martinu Concerto Grosso for Chamber Orchestra I. Allegro non troppo II. Lento III. Allegretto INTERMISSION Tchaikovsky Concerto for Pianoforte, No. 1, in B-flat minor, Op. 23 I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso. Allegro con spirito II. Andantino semplice. Allegro vivace assai III. Allegro con fuoco Tchaikovsky Ouverture Solennelle, "1812," Op. 49 SOLOIST ALEXANDER BOROVSKY BALDWIN PIANOS Mr. Borovsky uses the STEINWAY PIANO This programme will end about 4:30 on Friday Afternoon, 10:15 o'clock on Saturday Evening [487] JORDA CO HURRY IN YOUR ORDER FOR THIS OBJECT ALL SUBLIME ana Sullivan/' Three hundred and fifty pages of the words and music of over a hundred songs from eleven operettas . with wildly wonderful illustra- tions . with introductions and stories of the operettas that become in themselves a biogra- phy of Gilbert and Sullivan . with hours of reading, playing, humming, singing and inno- cent merriment of which there is no manner of doubt. No probable, possible shadow of doubt, no possible doubt whatever! $5 BOOKS — STREET FLOOR — ANNEX ALL-STAR CAST . EDITOR, DEEMS TAYLOR ILLUSTRATOR, LUCILLE CORCOS . PLAYABLE PIANO ARRANGEMENTS BY DR. ALBERT SIRMAY [488] SINFONIA DA REQUIEM, Op. 20 By Benjamin Britten Born at Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, November 22, 1913 Benjamin Britten composed his "Sinfonia da Requiem" in the summer of 1940 at Amityville, Long Island. It was first performed by the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, March 29, 1941, under the direction of John Barbirolli. The orchestration calls for three flutes, piccolo and bass flute, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contra-bassoon, saxophone in E-flat, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, two harps, xylophone, snare drum, tam- bourine, whip, piano, and strings. rpHE "Sinfonia da Requiem" was intended by its composer as an X act of devotion to the memory of his father and mother.* The Latin titles, according to information given by Mr. Britten to Louis Biancolli, programme annotator of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, are an indication of the mood and scheme *It was chosen through the British Council as representing his country when the Japanese Government asked for works of composers of various nationalities in celebration of the Japanese Imperial Dynasty, which had been in existence 2,500 years. The intended per- formance in Tokio did not take place. TWO IMPORTANT BOOKS ON MUSIC CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS by EDWARD MacDOWELL One of the outstanding books on the history and development of the art of music. It contains the substance of lectures delivered by the composer at Columbia Univer- MUSIC: sity, outlining somewhat the technical side of music and AN ART giving a general idea and of the history and aesthetics of A LANGUAGE the art. By Walter R. Spalding Price $2.50 net. Lectures delivered by the author at Harvard University "The best book on music that has yet come from America." — Musical Opinion, London. Price $2.50 net THE ARTHUR P. SCHMIDT CO., 120 Boylston Street [489] of the work, deriving "from the Catholic Requiem Mass, though the relation of the Sinfonia to the Catholic ceremony, avowedly, is emotional rather than liturgical." Mr.