Carnegie Hall Rental

Sunday Afternoon, April 19, 2015, at 2:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Stage Conductor’s Notes Q&A With Leon Botstein at 1:00 presents Music U. LEON BOTSTEIN, Conductor RANDALL THOMPSON Alleluia ROBERT ISAACS, Conductor HORATIO PARKER Dream-King and his Love, Op. 31 PHILLIP FARGO, Tenor GEORGE ROCHBERG Symphony No. 2 Intermission LEON KIRCHNER Music for Cello and Orchestra NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, Cello ROBERTO SIERRA Cantares (World Premiere) Hanacpachap cussicuinin Canto Lucumí Interludio Suerte lamentosa With CORNELL UNIVERSITY CHORUS CORNELL UNIVERSITY GLEE CLUB ROBERT ISAACS, Director This afternoon’s concert Will run approXimatelY tWo hours and ten minutes including one 20-minute intermission. American Symphony Orchestra Welcomes the many organiZations Who participate in our Community Access Program, Which provides free and loW-cost tickets to underserved groups in NeW York’s five boroughs. For information on hoW you can support this program, please call (212) 868-9276. PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. FROM THE Music Director Music and the University music (and an ardent critic of Wagner) by Leon Botstein Was its first occupant. He taught more than music appreciation. Horatio Parker Music has long held a particular pride taught at Yale and EdWard MacDoWell of place as a subject of formal educa- at Columbia. They too Were composers tion in the Western tradition. Part of and major figures in American musical the “quadrivium” of the seven liberal life. Although learning to plaY an instru- arts, alongside arithmetic, astronomY, ment Was looked doWn upon (Harvard and geometrY, already from medieval until recently did not give credit for times music Was part of the indispens- instruction in instruments or perfor- able training in thinking, and therefore mance), composing neW music Was not. a core constituent of true philosophical As the late Milton Babbitt (the distin- education. KnoWledge of music Was guished and eXacting modernist composer vieWed as essential to the eXamined and Who serVed on the Princeton facultY) is just life. It, as an art, demanded that supposed to have replied When asked one command knoWledge of logic, Why no credit Was given toWards a grammar, and rhetoric, the “trivium” degree in music at Princeton for studY- that prepared one to master music, ing an instrument: “does the English mathematics, and science represented department give credit for typing?” by the remaining four liberal arts. The proper subjects of study in music In comparison to the visual arts—with Within the university therefore included the possible eXception of architecture historY, theorY, and composition. But (Which is often compared to music)— from the very start of the career of music has therefore been held in high music departments in our leading uni- esteem in the universitY, the academy of versities, particularly the Ivy League, higher learning. In the United States it music appreciation for the non major, Was the first of the arts to become a and the support of voluntary amateur permanent faculty in the universitY. But performance organiZations, from choral Within the arts and sciences universitY societies and singing clubs, to orches- the teaching of music took on a qualitY tras and musical theater organiZations quite distinct from the Way music Was designed to offer public opportunities taught in conservatories, music’s insti- to students to perform, Were at the tutional equivalent of an arts academY, heart of the place music assumed at a place Where one trained in a practical Yale, Columbia, HarVard, Cornell, manner to become an artist. In the uni- Prince ton, Dartmouth, Penn, and BroWn. versity music Was considered a core constituent of the humanities. When We lament the decline of audi- ences, We often neglect to cite as a cause The Way music became defined in the the sustained failure of music depart- American university Was nonetheless ments in these elite universities to main- not analogous to the Way art historY tain, after the 1960s, a once honored noW has a place in the curriculum. The tradition of music appreciation. In part first professorship in music Within the as a consequence of a desire to profes- IVY League Was at HarVard. John KnoWles sionaliZe music historY, the kind of sWeep- Paine, a fine composer of orchestral ing and often “easy” general surveY course once associated With Harvard’s pejorative When speaking about art, G. Wallace WoodWorth, Cornell’s Donald including music. In Europe institutional- J. Grout, and Columbia’s Paul HenrY iZed teaching gained an unequal reputa- Lang has vanished, and With it the tion, mostlY as a barrier to innoVation. chance to nurture interest among In France, BerlioZ ran afoul of institu- unWitting undergraduates in the joy of tions of formal instruction and the con- music. It is interesting to note that Cor- servatism and moribund character of nell Was the first American university to the Paris Conservatoire at mid centurY hire a professional musicologist (Otto led to the establishment of rival institu- Kinkeldey) and the first to grant a doc- tions. In the Vienna ConserVatorY, torate in composition. Bruckner taught counterpoint, not composition; Mahler as a student failed The IVY League has had its generous to Win the coveted Beethoven PriZe for share of distinguished musicians from its composition. HistorY (and eVen the undergraduate alumni, including Charles ASO) has long forgotten a long list of IVes from Yale, and Leonard Bernstein Winners. Perhaps the most successful and Yo Yo Ma, both HarVard alumni (as record in terms of conservatories With is ASO’s longtime composer-in-residence, respect to nurturing composers can be Richard Wilson). But each of these found in Eastern Europe from Warsaw, institutions noW boasts impressiVe Budapest, and Prague to MoscoW and departments that give Ph.Ds in musicol- St. Petersburg. ogy, music theorY, and composition. They have taken on an indispensable In America, hoWever, the eXistence of role in the preservation and furtherance neW concert and so-called “art” music of musical culture. in the 20th centurY, particularly after World War II, oWes a special debt not GiVen that an alternatiVe model of only to the nation’s conservatories but institutionaliZing the teaching of music also to the comprehensive universitY. also thriVes in the United States—the Aaron Copland may have gone to Juil- conserVatorY—as a free standing institu- liard, but Bernstein, Adams, Babbitt, tion (e.g. Juilliard, Curtis, the Manhattan Carter, Glass, Crumb, Husa, Krenek, School, the NeW England ConserVatorY), Schoenberg, Sessions, Luening, Mason, or a unit of a large state uniVersitY (e.g. Moore, Wuorinen, Hindemith, ShapeY, at Indiana and Michigan), or a separate BlackWood, Wernick, Piston, Milhaud, school Within a private university (e.g. Richard Wilson (and all the composers Eastman at the University of Rochester, on this program) as Well as doZens of Peabody at Johns Hopkins, and for that other major composers of the 20th cen- matter, the graduate Yale School of tury (including Druckman, ToWer, and Music), the question might be posed: Tsontakis at Bard) have oWed either What has been the impact of the teach- their education or a significant part of ing of composition Within the univer- their livelihood to the faculties of arts sitY, and outside of What by comparison and sciences at colleges and universi- some might deem a “trade” school, the ties, not conservatories. music conservatorY. The inclusion of composition in the It should be remembered that Within undergraduate and graduate curricu- the history of music, the institutional- lum of these non-conservatory institu- iZed teaching has not alWaYs been tions of higher education has fostered a vieWed With approbation. The Word closer link betWeen neW music and “academic” is frequentlY used as a other disciplines, from mathematics to literature. It has helped sustain WhateVer ever-increasing obligation to nurture, broader consciousness and appreciation protect, and preserve a sophisticated (in of music still persists in the educated the best sense) musical culture that is public. In that regard from the ear of not commercially viable and not even Parker and Ives to today the presence of popular. That protection Will involve composers on the faculty has provided the research in and teaching of music’s the amateur music groups Within the past and theoretical underpinnings. It university a contemporary repertoire, Will involve also the education of future much in the spirit of Thompson’s generations of composers. And it Will “Alleluia.” Furthermore the universitY require the support of the public per- has protected and nurtured a spirit of formance of classical music, neW and eXperimentation and the avant-garde in old, bY amateurs and professionals alike. contemporary music. In the best sense it has acted as a bulWark against crass A liVing and Vibrant culture of classi- commercialism. This last achievement cal music Will increasinglY be depen- has been accomplished in a manner dent on the uniVersitY. The halls of complementary to a respect for music’s academe Will emerge as a refuge, a historical legacY, the great tradition of shield against a societY increasinglY Western classical music. goVerned bY the rules and mores of “business.” Let us hope that those So much for the past! Classical music, Who goVern our uniVersities and those neW and old, has never thrived as a Who support it Will embrace that task business. It has been dependent on and Will proVe equal to it. As the ASO patronage from the 17th century on. It joins With Cornell UniVersitY to cele- cannot compete as a dimension of the brate the founding of that great insti- contemporarY marketplace of enter- tution, We hope that the neXt 150 tainment that earns profits. In the Years Will proVe to be as fruitful and decades ahead the universitY, especiallY productiVe at Cornell With respect to the Well-endoWed private universities— music as the centurY and a half that notably the Ivy League—will face the preceded the Year 2015 haVe been.

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