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BAm BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC THE BROOKLYN PHILHARMONIA ~)~,,·c rt u rc ~J.~.._\0 a•• \~ r""l ,. " ¥"" .. "'" ..\1 YOUR MONEY GROWS LIKE MAGIC AT THE THE DIME SAVINGS BANK OF NEW YORK Wll4fl l()tC MANHATTAN • DOWNTOWN BROO!<LYN • BENSONHURST • FLATBUSH CONEY ISLAND • KINGS PLAZA • . VALLEY STREAM • MASSAPEQUA HUNTINGTON STATION BAM BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC Opera House Friday, April 3, 1981 , 8:00pm Saturday, April 4, 1981 , 8:00pm Sunday, April 5, 1981 , 3:00pm THE BROOKLYN PHILHARMONIA LUKAS FOSS, MUSIC DIRECTOR Twenty-seventh Season 1980/81 LUKAS FOSS Conductor JANOS STARKER Cello BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6 in F Major ("Pastoral"), Op. 68 (1808) Allegro rna non troppo ("Cheerful impressions awakened by arrival in the country") Andante molto moto ("Scene by the Brook") Allegro ("Merry gathering of Country-folk") Allegro ("Thunderstorm, tempset ") Allegretto (Shepherd's Hymn. Glad and grateful feelings after the storm") {Intermission} STRAUSS "Don Quixote" (Introduction, Theme with Variations, and Finale): Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character, Op. 35 {1897) Janos Starker, Cello The Baldwin is the official piano of the Brooklyn Philharmonia This concert was made possible in pari with public funds from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs Administration the New Yo rk State Council on the Arts. and the National Endowment for the Arts Slowly it's beginning to dawn on between business and the local people are returning to the city. people that the city just may be a sane community. Property values are on the rise. Neigh alternative to gasoline shortages, Creating affordable housing by borhoods are on the upswing. And the out-of-sight property taxes and encouraging private investment in outlook for business is definitely weekend marriages. neighborhoods is the key to Brooklyn's improving. 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The new land of opportunity. THE PROGRAM LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN To us mus1c1ans the work of Beethoven second category. In all his immense pianistic (Born Bonn, Dec. 17, 1770; parallels the pillars of smoke and fire which led d. Vienna, March 26, 1827) work, it is the "instrumental" side which is the Israelites through the desert, a pillar of char~cteris tic of him and makes him infmitely Beethoven was a German composer whose smoke to lead us by day, and a pillar of fire to prec1ous to me. It is the giant instrumentalist nine symphonies and numerous piano and light the night, so that we may march ahead that predominates in him, and it is thanks to that chamber compositions mark him as one of the both by day and night. His darkness and his 9uality that he .cannot fail to reach any ear that outstanding composers of Western music. light equally trace for us the road we must IS Open to mUSIC. Beethoven's father was a musician, as was one follow; both the one and the other are a It 1s time that this was recognized, and of his grandfathers, and he studied the piano, perpetual commandment, an infallible revela Beethoven was rescued from the unjustifiable violin, harpsichord and organ. He was playing tion. If it were up to me to categorize the diverse monopoly of the "intellectuals" and left to those in the court orchestra in his native city of Bonn states of thought of the great master as who seek nothing in music by music. It is, by the time he was thirteen. He then studied in manifested in his sonatas, symphonies, quartets, however, also time-and this is perhaps even Vienna with Haydn and with Johann I should hardly stop at the division into three more urgent- to protect him from the stupid Albrechtsberger (1736-1809). giving his first styles generally adopted today, and which you drival of fools who think it up-to-date to giggle as public concert there in 1795. Beethoven re have followed, but. ..would frankly weigh the they amuse themselves by running him down. mained in Vienna for the rest of his life. When big question which is the crux of criticism and Let them beware; dates pass quickly. he was about thirty years old he began to lose musical aesthetics to the point where Beethoven Just as in his pianistic work Beethoven lives his hearing. Gradually forced to give up his has led us: that is how much traditional, conven on the piano, so in his symphonies, overtures career as a pianist, he devoted himself more tional form necessarily determines organization and chamber music, he draws from his in and more to composing. Although he was total of thought. strumental ensemble. With him the instrument ly deaf by about 1824, this handicap did not The solution of this question, as it is derived ation is never apparel, and that is why it never prevent him from composing some of his from Beethoven's works, would lead me to strikes one. The profound wisdom with which greatest works during the remaining three divide his works, not into three styles or periods he distributes parts to separate instruments or to years of his life. Unlike many composers, (style and period being here only corollary, whole groups, the carefulness of his instrumen Beethoven was almost as highly regarded dur subordinate terms, of vague and equivocal tal writing, and the precision with which he in ing his lifetime as he was after his death. significance), but very logically into two dicates his wishes-all these testify to the fact Beethoven's work- a large body of composi categories: one in which the traditional and con that we are in the presence of a tremendous con tions in virtually every form- bridges the ventional form contains and rules thought, and structive force. classical and romantic periods of music the other in which thought recreates and I do not think I am mistaken in asserting that history. His work is often divided into three fashions a form and style appropriate to its need it was precisely his marmer of moulding his periods. To the first period, in which and inspiration. Undoubtedly, in proceeding musical material that led logically to the erection Beethoven largely followed the classical thus, we shall encounter head-on those peren of those monumental structures which are his models of Mozart and Haydn, belong the com nial problems of authority and freedom. But why supreme glory. positions written up to about 1800, which in should that frighten us? In the liberal arts, for There a re those who contend that cludes his first two symphonies, the first three tunately, they entail none of the dangers and Beethoven's instrumentation was bad and his of his five piano concertos, twelve of his thirty disasters which their flu ctuations occasion in tone color poor. Others altogether ignore that two piano sonatas, six of his sixteen string the political and social world for, in the realm of side of his art, holding that instrumentation is a quartets and the Kreutzer Sonata for violin. In the Beautiful, genius alone is the authority, secondary matter and that only "ideas" are his second period (c. 1800-c. 1815) Beethoven dualism disappears, and the concepts of authori worthy of consideration. pushed the classical forms to their furthest ex ty and liberty are restored to their original iden The former demonstrate their lack of taste, treme, especially in his methods of develop tity. Manzoni, in defining genius as "a greater their complete incompetence in this respect, and ment of themes. To this period belong his Sym borrowing from God," has eloquently expressed their narrow and mischievous mentality. In con phonies Nos. 3 through 8, the opera Fidelia, the this truth. trast with the florid orchestration of a Wagner, four Lenore Overtures, incidental music for the -Franz Liszt with its lavish coloring, Beethoven's instrument play Egmont, Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5, his - from a letter to Wilhelm von Lenz ation will appear to lack luster. It might produce Violin Concerto, fifteen piano sonatas and five [author of Beethoven et ses trois styles, 1852], a similar impression if compared with the string quartets. The last period (c. 1815-1827) Weimar, December 2, 1852 vivacious radiance of Mozart. But Beethoven's saw the composition of his Symphony No. 9 music is intimately linked with his instrumental (called the Choral Symphony, because of its language, and fmds its most exact and perfect choral finale). the Missa Solemnis (Mass) , fiv e expression in the sobriety of that language. To piano sonatas and the last five string quartets. regard it as poverty-stricken would merely show lack of perception. True sobriety is a great rarity, " Keep your eyes on that fellow; one day he'll ....Be ethoven is not a man, but a god!-like and most difficult of attainment.