BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Bernard Haitink, Principal Guest Conductor One Hundred and Eighteenth Season, 1998-99

PRELUDE CONCERT III ^ Thursday, January 21, at 6

COMMUNITY CHAMBER CONCERT II Sunday, January 24, at 3, at the Museum of Afro American History, Boston The Community Chamber Concerts are supported by State Street Bank.

CHAMBER MUSIC TEA III Friday, January 29, at 2:30

LUCY SHELTON, soprano NANCY BRACKEN, violin FENWICK SMITH, flute EDWARD GAZOULEAS, viola FRANK EPSTEIN, percussion CAROL PROCTER, cello ANN HOBSON PILOT, harp

ANDERSON Vocalise for violin and harp (1980)

THOMSON Five Phrases from Song of Solomon, for soprano and percussion

Thou that dwellest in the gardens Return, O, Shulamite! O, my dove I am my beloved's By night on my bed LUCY SHELTON, soprano

WILLIAMS "Adolescence/' for soprano, flute, and cello, from Seven for Luck (1998) Ms. SHELTON

ROUSSEL Serenade, Opus 30, for flute, harp, violin, viola, and cello Allegro Andante Presto

GINASTERA Cantos del Tucuman (1938), for soprano, flute, violin, harp, and percussion

Yo naci en el valle Solita su alma Vida, vidita, vidala, vidalita Algarrobo, algarrobal Ms SHELTON HM Weeks 13/14

TNf mm NOTES

Thomas Jefferson Anderson was born August 17, 1928, in Coatesville, Pennsylva- nia. He was the first black composer-in-residence at the Atlanta Symphony Orches- tra, holding that post from 1969 to 1971. He then served as chairman of the music department at Tufts University in Somerville, MA, from 1972 to 1980. As with many American composers of his generation, jazz was a big influence, and Anderson toured with a jazz band in his youth. He went on to earn degrees from West Virginia State College, Perm State, and the University of Iowa, where he received a Ph.D. The combined influence of jazz and popular music with the musical language of the classical avant-garde can be heard in much of his work, resulting in very colorful, often improvisatory use of instruments and beautifully lyrical, expressive melody. Vocalise was commissioned by sculptor Richard Hunt for Jacques and Gail Israe- livitch, who premiered the work in 1980 in St. Louis. Ann Hobson Pilot and Joel Smirnoff gave the Boston premiere in 1982 with Collage New Music. In Vocalise, we can hear the influence of blues and jazz as well as music of other cultures. These are evoked by way of Anderson's rhythmic language and his use of melodic elements such as quarter-tones (intervals smaller than the traditional Western half- step and common in Asian, African, and Middle Eastern music). The title refers to the melodic style throughout the piece, which is close to that of vocal writing. The composer and music critic Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City, Mis- souri, in 1896 and, like his near-contemporary Hemingway, became famously expa- triot in Paris, first in 1921-22 and later from 1925 to 1940. The artistic scene in 1920s Paris was a hotbed of "exotic" influence: jazz imported by American soldiers after

World War I, an influx (at least partly due to European imperialism) of anthropologi- cal artifacts from Africa and Asia, and at least a handful of Russians, including Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Chagall, exiled from a homeland in turmoil. The young Thomson, having studied with Boulanger and become exposed to the Parisian avant- garde, adopted a compositional style that is a kind of "sophisticated primitivism." His harmonic and rhythmic materials are similar to, though for the most part much simpler than, the Stravinsky of L'Histoire du soldat, yet, like the music of Copland, Thomson's music seems the very embodiment of Americana. In Five Phrases from Song of Solomon, Thomson's music reaches an extreme of refinement, pared down as it is to pure melody and rhythm. The vocal part within each song remains almost entirely in a single mode (that is, with very little chromaticism) and achieves a char- acter of improvisation through its rhythm. The very simple percussion accompani- ment (entirely absent in the second song) reflects the timeless nature of the texts. John Williams, for many years conductor of the Boston Pops and now Conduc- tor Laureate of that orchestra, is probably best-known for his movie scores, includ- ing the Star Wars trilogy, Saving Private Ryan, and Schindler's List. Many of his fans may not realize that he's also a prolific composer for the concert hall. His Cello Concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and premiered on July 7, 1994, by the BSO, with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist and John Williams conducting, for the inauguration of Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. Other works include a Violin Concerto and Five Sacred Trees for bassoon and orchestra. A new orchestral work by John Williams will receive its world premiere performance in April with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Williams's orchestral song cycle Seven for Luck sets seven poems of former Poet Laureate Rita Dove. Such is the breadth of color and orchestration Williams uses that one of the songs, "Ado- lescence," requires only flute and cello in accompaniment to the voice. Thus what —

we hear in these performances of "Adolescence" isn't a reinstrumentation for cham- ber ensemble, but the original scoring. Dove's poetry, like the other pieces on this concert, joins the apparently skew lines of the vernacular language of American and black popular culture with the "high" art of modernism. The Frenchman Albert Roussel was born in 1869, seven years after Debussy and six before Ravel; he died a few months before Ravel in 1937. Like his slightly more well-known compatriots, Roussel wrote in an idiom that, in spite of wide-ranging influences, is immediately identifiable as French. Roussel, in the footsteps of Gau- guin and Rimbaud, absorbed the world's culture through travel, for many years as a commissioned naval officer (like his younger contemporary, the composer Jean Cras). He resigned his commission in 1894 to study music in Paris; later he became a professor of counterpoint, with both Satie and Varese as pupils. His travel in the navy, and an extended tour of India and southeast Asia in 1909, strongly affected Roussel's music; along with Debussy (and Ravel less so) he was to heighten the interest in world culture that would culminate in the excitement of 1920s Paris. The Opus 30 Serenade was written in 1925. It can nearly be called a concertante for flute, since that instrument presents the lion's share of the melodic material (there is an extended viola melody in the second movement). Roussel's use of modal melody and harmony, as well as the gamelan-like rhythms of the accompaniment, provide the exotic coloring that characterizes much French music of the era. Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) almost single-handedly brought Argentina into the cosmopolitan mainstream of modern classical music. Like the American T.J. Anderson, Ginastera was strongly influenced by the folk and popular traditions of his native country. Though he first worked in a nationalistic idiom influenced by Argentina's "gauchesco tradition," Ginastera's music in the 1950s used twelve-tone techniques (already hinted at in his folk-influenced earlier music) and a more objec- tive stance influenced by Stravinsky's neoclassicism. The combination of Argentine sensibilities and this mastery of the Modernist musical languages led to a couple of wild and wildly popular operas Don Rodrigo (1964) and Bomarzo (1967), which one critic referred to as "porno in bel canto." Ginastera had, since the 1940s, devel- oped strong ties to the United States, both as a musician and as a kind of diplomat for South American culture. Among many other performances, his opera Beatrix Cenci (1971) was premiered at the inaugural concerts of the Kennedy Center in

Washington, D.C. Among later works, his Cello Concerto No. 2, written for his sec- ond wife, cellist Aurora Natola, was premiered by Natola in Buenos Aires in 1981. Cantos del Tucuman (1938) is one of Ginastera's earliest acknowledged works, and in it we can readily hear the influence of Argentine folk music. The title refers to a remote mountainous region in northern Argentina. Ginastera's settings of the poetry of Rafael Jijena Sanchez evoke the traditions of the area without direct quotation of folk sources—an approach already common with Stravinsky. The music's beautiful, almost naive surface is achieved by the intricate interplay of long-breathed melodies in each part. The yearning melancholy of the voice and the spaciousness of the set- tings begin almost to paint that landscape in our mind's eye.

—Notes by Robert Kirzinger

Jul m TEXTS

VIRGIL THOMSON Five Phrases from Song of Solomon

I Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions harken to thy voice, thy voice, cause me to hear it.

II Return, O, Shulamite! Return that we may gaze upon thee.

Ill O, my dove, that art in the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stars, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice.

IV I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. V By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth

I sought him but I found him not.

I will arise /and go about the city in the streets and in the broad ways will I seek him whom my soul loveth.

JOHN WILLIAMS "Adolescence" from Seven for Luck (poem by Rita Dove)

In water-heavy nights behind grandmother's porch We knelt in the tickling grasses and whispered: Linda's face hung before us, pale as a pecan,

And it grew wise as she said: "A boy's lips are soft, As soft as baby's skin." The air closed over her words. A firefly whirred near my ear, and in the distance I could hear streetlamps ping Into miniature suns Against a feathery sky. —

ALBERTO GINASTERA Cantos del Tucuman (texts by Rafael Jijenez Sanchez; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Raines)

I Yo naci en el valle, I was born in the valley, agua y arena, Water and sand. Yo naci en el valle, I was born in the valley, lo deje por ella I left it for her.

Caminito andando Walking along the road veinticinco leguas Twenty-five leagues arribita abajo, High and low, por entre las penas. Between the peaks.

Carinito tuyo, Little love, jay, lo que me cuesta! How much pain you have cost me! jOjos de la cara, Eyes of my face, sangre de mis venas! Blood of my veins.

Dijecito de oro, Bangle of gold, agua y arena, Water and sand, por quererte tuve In order to love you que olvidar mi tierra. I had to leave my homeland.

Yo naci en el valle, I was born in the valley, agua y arena, Water and sand. Yo naci en el valle, I was born in the valley, lo deje por ella I left it for her.

II Solita su alma Alone in her soul la chinitilla The little Chinese girl, ique pensara What is she thinking que a cada rato mira al camino As she gazes from time to time del Tucuman? Down the road to Tucuman!

El que se ha ido, He who has left her jpenca de su alma! Pain of her soul! ^Si volvera? Will he return? ^De su chinita florcita'el aire Will he remember the grace se acordara? Of his little Chinese flower? jAy, Catamarca Ah! Catamarca where I was born donde hi nacio To my woe! para mi mal! The little Chinese girl, La Chinitilla pena, penando, Suffers, suffering se echa a llorar. She throws herself down to weep.

La Mama Virgen, The Virgin Mother, Virgen del Valle Virgin of the valley, la'hi consolar. Will console her. Ill

Vida, vidita, vidala, vidalita Life, my life, dear life, sweet life, andando me hais de querer You will come to love me si es que no me quierfs ya. If you do not love me now.

Vida, vidita, vidala, vidalita Life, my life, dear life, sweet life, jun panuelito de seda A handkerchief of silk y un amor por estrenar! And a love for one far away.

Vida, vidita, vidala, vidalita Life, my life, dear life, sweet life, querime con un carifio Love me with a love que no se pueda acabar: That cannot end:

Desde la tierra a los cielos From the earth to the sky, desde los cielos al mar, From the sky to the sea, vida, vidita, vidala, vidalita. Life, my life, dear life, sweet life.

IV Algarrobo, algarrobal Carob tree, carob tree, para quererte que lindo, To love you, how beautiful, echaditos a la sombra Lying in the shade ya las orillas del rio. And on the banks of the river.

Decime si me queris Tell me if you love me decime pa no morir. Tell me, lest I should die!

Chinitilla I Santa Cruz, Little China girl of Santa Cruz, bonitilla y vivaracha: So pretty and gay, ya se nos acerca el tiempo The time is coming de la aloja y de la anapa. To press the carob bean liquor.

Decime si me queris Tell me if you love me decime pa no morir. Tell me, lest I should die!

Los coyuyos, los coyuyos The cuckoos, the cuckoos, jcomo cantan el amor! How they sing of love; Un coyuyo que no canta A cuckoo that does not sing en el pecho tengo yo. I carry in my breast.

Algarrobo, algarrobal, Carob tree, carob tree, que ganitas de besar. What a yearning to kiss you. Decime si me queris, Tell me if you love me aunque me muera, deci. Even if I die, tell me! ARTISTS

Lucy Shelton has established an international reputation as one of the preeminent Ameri- can concert singers of our day. Her consummate musicianship and enthusiasm for explor- ing uncharted musical territories—developed in her years studying piano and flute, and later nurtured by her mentor Jan DeGaetarii—have brought her special recognition as a leading exponent of twentieth-century repertoire. Highlights of her career have included performances of Boulez's he Visage Nuptial with the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Phil- harmonic, and London Symphony Orchestras all conducted by the composer, her BBC

Proms debut in Dallapiccola's II Prigioniero, the role of Jenifer in Tippetfs The Midsummer

Marriage for Thames TV, her debut at the Aldeburgh Festival in the premiere of Goehr 's Sing, Ariel, and her New York Philharmonic debut in Knussen's Whitman Settings with the composer conducting. Many composers have written works for her, including Stephen Albert, David del Tredici, Joseph Schwantner, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen, Poul Rud- ers, and Elliott Carter. At the 1995 Aldeburgh Festival, she and pianist John Constable gave the world premiere of Carter's song cycle Of Challenge and ofLove, his first composition for voice and piano since 1943. Lucy Shelton has performed in Holland with the Schoenberg Ensemble, in New York with the Guarneri Quartet, and in recital for the Naumberg Foun- dation. She has the distinction of being the only artist to have received two Naumberg

Awards, for chamber music and solo singing. Ms. Shelton is on the vocal faculty of the Tan- glewood Music Center and joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory this past fall. She has also taught at the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute.

A member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1978, flutist Fenwick Smith has also performed on Baroque flute with Boston's leading early music ensembles and was for thirteen years a member of the contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva. He is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and the Melisande Trio. His annual Jor- dan Hall recitals have become a regular feature of Boston's concert calendar. A number of compact discs reflect his work as soloist and chamber musician, the latest being "Mira- cles," an album of music by Daniel Pinkham on Koch International. Other recent discs include an album of Ned Rorem's "Chamber Music with Flute" on Etcetera and "The Boston Collection," an album of music by John Harbison on Archetype Records. A native of Medford, Mr. Smith graduated from the Eastman School of Music and spent three years in West Berlin, studying with James Galway and playing in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. He now teaches at the New England Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center, of which he is an alumnus.

A native of Amsterdam, Holland, percussionist Frank Epstein came to the United States in 1952, settling in Hollywood, California. A graduate of the University of Southern Cal- ifornia and the New England Conservatory, and an alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, he has been a member of the Boston Symphony since 1968. Mr. Epstein is a fac- ulty member at the Tanglewood Music Center and at the New England Conservatory, where he chairs the Brass and Percussion Department and directs the NEC Percussion Ensemble. He has made recordings with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Boston Pops, as well as with Collage New Music, which he founded in 1972, and of which he was music director for twenty years. For his work with Collage he received a Presidential Commendation from the New England Conservatory of Music. A frequent clinician in the United States and Europe, he is also a consultant on new product development for the Avedis Zildjian Company. Mr. Epstein holds a bache- lor of music degree from the University of Southern California and a master of music degree from New England Conservatory.

Ann Hobson Pilot was named principal harpist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops Orchestra in September 1980. She joined the BSO in 1969, after one sea-

s#v.: SbP K3S&I jfHi son as second harpist with the Pittsburgh Symphony and three years as principal harpist with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. Ms. Hobson Pilot began studying the piano at age six with her mother, a former concert pianist and teacher in the Philadelphia Public Schools, and switched to harp while she was in high school. She continued her training at the Philadelphia Musical Academy with Marilyn Costello, and with Alice Chalifoux at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In addition to solo appearances with the BSO and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Ms. Hobson Pilot has also appeared as guest soloist with numerous American orchestras, and with the St. Trinity Orchestra of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. An enthusiastic performer of chamber music, and founder of the New England Harp Trio, she has also performed extensively in Europe and Japan. A dedicated teacher, Ms. Hobson Pilot is currently on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Violinist Nancy Bracken studied with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music and later with Donald Weilerstein of the Cleveland Quartet at the Eastman School of

Music, where she received a master of music degree in 1977. Originally from St. Louis, she was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra for two years before joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1979. A winner of the St. Louis Symphony Young Artists Com- petition at age sixteen, Ms. Bracken has appeared as soloist with the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Louis Philharmonic, and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. She has received awards from the National Society of Arts and Letters and the Artist Presentation Society of St. Louis and was the first-prize winner in the Music Teachers National Association string competition in 1975. She has participated in summer music festivals in Aspen and the Grand Tetons and was concertmaster and a frequent violin soloist with the Colorado Philharmonic for two summers.

Violist Edward Gazouleas joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 1990-91 season. After viola studies with Raphael Hillyer and Steven Ansell at Yale University, he received his bachelor's degree in 1984 from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied viola with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. Before joining the Boston Symphony he was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's viola section from 1985 to 1990. Prior to that he performed with the Concerto Soloists of Philadel- phia, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of New England, and as first-desk player with the New York String Orchestra under Alexander Schnei- der. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Gazouleas was winner of the Eighth International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France, as a member of the Nisaika Quartet in 1984 and made his Carnegie Hall recital debut as a member of the Cezanne Quartet in 1982. Mr. Gazouleas has taught viola as an instructor at Temple University and pri- vately at Swarthmore College. Locally he has performed with the Boston Artists Ensemble and Collage New Music.

Cellist Carol Procter joined the BSO in 1965, turning down a Fulbright Scholarship in order to do so. Before joining the Boston Symphony she was a member of the Spring- field Symphony Orchestra and Cambridge Festival Orchestra, and principal cellist of the New England Conservatory Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. Born in Okla- homa City and raised in Dedham, Massachusetts, Ms. Procter studied at the Eastman School of Music and at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees. She received a Fromm Fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center and was a participant during the 1969-70 season in the Boston Symphony Orchestra's cultural exchange program with the Japan Philhar- monic. Ms. Procter was a member of the New England Harp Trio from 1971 to 1987 and played viola da gamba with the Curtisville Consortium from 1972 to 1981. She performs chamber music frequently and has been soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra on several occasions.