Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 64,1944-1945, Trip
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[Harvard University] as s* ^ ^ BOSTON ^mm SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 BY HENRY L. HIGGINSON SIXTY-FOURTH SEASON ^ 1944-1945 141 Wednesday Evening, January 24 at 8 o'clock Boston Symphony Orchestra [Sixty-fourth Season, 1944-1945] SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Personnel Violins BURGIN, R. ELCUS, G. LAUGA, N. KRIPS, A. RESNIKOFF, v. N. Concert-master tapley, r. KASSMAN, CHERKASSKY, , P. LEIBOVICI, J. THEODOROWICZ, J. HANSEN, E. DICKSON, H. FEDOROVSKY, P. ZAZOFSKY, G. EISLER, D. PINFIELD, C. BEALE, M. DUBBS, H. KNUDSON, C. ZUNG, M. MANUSEVITCH, V. GORODETZKY, L. MAYER, P. DIAMOND, S. HILLYER, R. DEL SORDO, R. BRYANT, M. STONESTREET, L. MESSINA, S. SAUVLET, H. MURRAY, J. ERKELENS, H. NAGY, L. Violas LEFRANC, J. FOUREL, G. VAN WYNBERGEN, C. GROVER, H. CAUHAPE, J. ARTIERES, L. BERNARD, A. WERNER, H. LEHNER, E. KORNSAND, E. GERHARDT, S. humphrey , G. Violoncellos BEDETTI, J. LANGENDOEN, J. DROEGHMANS, H. ZIMBLER, J. FABRIZIO, E. ZIGHERA, A. NIELAND, M. ZEISE, K. MARJOLLET, L. Basses MOLEUX, G. JUHT, L. GREENBERG, H. GIRARD, H. BARWICKI, J. DUFRESNE, G. FRANKEL, I. PORTNOI, H. PROSE, P. Flutes Oboes Clarinets Bassoons LAURENT, G. GILLET, F. polatschek, v. ALLARD, R. PAPPOUTSAKIS, J. DEVERGIE, J. VALERIO, M. PANENKA, E. KAPLAN, P. LUKATSKY, J. CARDILLO, p. LAUS, A. Piccolo English Horn Bass Clarinet Contra-Bassoon MADSEN, G. SPEYER, L. MAZZEO, R. PILLER, B. Horns Trumpets Trombones Timpani VALRENIER, W. mager, g. raichman, j. szulc, r. MACDONALD, w LAFOSSE, M. HANSOTTE, L. POLSTER, M. MEEK, H. VOISIN, R. COFFEY, J. GEBHARDT, W. OROSZ, J. MCCONATHY, O. Harps Percussion ZIGHERA, B. STERNBURG, S. TUBA - CAUGHEY, E. SMITH, c. ADAM, E. ARCIERI, E. Piano Librarian FOSS, L. ROGERS, L. J. S>UttbtV8 ®fj?atr£ • Harvard University • (EambniUjP SIXTY-FOURTH SEASON, 1 944-1945 Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor Concert Bulletin of the Fourth Concert WEDNESDAY EVENING, January 24 with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Jerome D. Greene . President Henry B. Sawyer . Vice-President Henry B. Cabot . Treasurer Philip R. Allen M. A. De Wolfe Howe John Nicholas Brown Jacob J. Kaplan Reginald C. Foster Roger I. Lee Alvan T. Fuller Richard C. Paine N. Penrose Hallowell Bentley W. Warren G. E. Judd, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [1] . ^ T^TT H AIR- -4 TO AMERICANS HERE AT HOME AND RE-BROADCAST TO THE ARMED FORCES OVERSEAS . THE GRLO FINEST MUSIC BY THE WORLD'S FINEST CONCERT ORCHESTRA ^ JJ A T YMPHONY SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Every Saturday Night (Over 189 Blue Network Stations-8:30 P. M., E.W.T. In Boston, over WHDH, 850 on your dial.) SPONSORED FOR THE 2nd SEASON BY ALLIS-CHALMERS Producers of the World's Largest Line of Major Industrial Equipment—Over 1G00 Products for American Industry Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin I 2] — g>atttor£ (l^atr? • Harvard University • (Cambridge Boston Symphony Orchestra SIXTY-FOURTH SEASON, 1944-1945 SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor FOURTH CONCERT WEDNESDAY EVENING, January 24 111——W— mmmmmmm ,-^_ Programme GEORGE SZELL, Conducting Schubert Symphony in B minor ("Unfinished") I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto Smetana "From Bohemia's Meadows and Forests," Symphonic Poem INTERMISSION Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso IV. Allegro energico e passionato BALDWIN PIANO m GEORGE SZELL Szell George (pronounced "Sell") was born June 7, 1897, i fi Budapest, but is of Czechoslovakian lineage. He was taken to Vienna at the age of three, studied piano with Richard Robert, and gave his first public concert as a prodigy at the age of eleven. At seven- teen he began his career as conductor when he appeared in the triple role of conductor, pianist, and composer at a concert of the Berlin Phil- harmonic. Since then conducting has been his main occupation. He worked as assistant to Richard Strauss at the Berlin Royal Opera for two years and then succeeded Otto Klemperer as conductor of the Municipal Theatre at Strassburg. He filled similar positions at Darmstadt and Diisseldorf. In 1924 he became principal conductor of the Berlin State Opera. In 1929 he went to Prague to be general music director of the Opera and the Philharmonic Concerts there. While at Prague Mr. Szell made many appearances as guest conductor of the principal orchestras of Europe and journeyed to America in 1930, conducting the St. Louis Orchestra, and returned here in 1939. He has conducted our principal orchestras as guest, including the Boston Sym- phony Orchestra January 29, 30, 1943. He is at present on the con- ducting staff of the Metropolitan Opera Company. SYMPHONY IN B MINOR, "UNFINISHED" By Franz Schubert Born at Lichtenthal, near Vienna, January 31, 1797; died at Vienna, November 19, 1828 This Symphony, sometimes listed as No. 8, was composed in 1822, and first performed thirty-eight years after the composer's death. It was conducted by Herbeck at a concert of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, December 17, 1865. The orchestration follows: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. rpHE world, discovering some forty-three years post facto a "master- -*- piece," which, for all its qualities, is but half a symphony, has in- dulged in much conjecture. Did Schubert break off after the second movement on account of sudden failure of inspiration, or because he was careless of the work and did not realize the degree of lyric rapture which he had captured in those two movements? Or perhaps it was because he realized after a listless attempt at a third movement that what he had written was no typical symphonic opening movement and contrasting slow movement, calling for the relief of a lively close, but [4] rather the rounding out of a particular mood into its full-moulded ex- pression — a thing of beauty and completeness in itself. The Schubert that wrote the "Unfinished" Symphony was in no condition of obedi- ence to precept. He found his own law of balance by the inner need of his subject. Professor Tovey finds the theme projected for the scherzo "magnificent," but is distrustful of what the finale might have been, for Schubert's existing finales, with the possible exception of three, he considers entirely unworthy of such a premise. There are others who can imagine no scherzo and finale whatever as properly be- longing to the symphony in the state in which Schubert seems de- liberately to have left it. However, these futile speculations may be left to those who have tried to uncover in Schubert's uneventful life some unexpected source of inspiration for the symphony. Was Schubert under the spell of a visit to his idol, Beethoven, which he may (or may not) have made in that very year? Or was there some secret love affair? These questions may remain with the romancers, literary and dra- matic, who, with little historical data to embarrass them, have been able to give their imagination the fullest play. The bare facts of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony are soon told. He wrote it in 1822, and two years later presented the score to the THIS WINTER an the, WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BEACH TWO luxurious resort hotels bid you to relax in Florida sunshine and seashore aironDAYTONA'Sfamous beach. Plan your winter vacation now—at one of these modern hotels. SHERATON PLAZA DIRECTLY ON THE BEACH sgm ana, :.' ? PRINCESS ISSENA . '! BOSTON BOOKING OFFICE I" 10 Post Office Square LAFayette 0680 NEW YORK BOOKING OFFICE Miss Mullin—Hotel Russell CAledonia 5-7674 The SHERATON PLAZA Other SHERATON Hotels located in: BOSTON •PROVIDENCE • NEW YORK •NEWARK 'PHILADELPHIA WASHINGTON' 'WORCESTER • SPRINGFIELD • PITTSFIELD • ROCHESTER •BUFFALO • DETROIT [5] Steiermarkischer Musikverein at Gratz, in acknowledgment of his elec- tion to that Society. He gave the manuscript to Anselm Huttenbrenner, its director, and, so far as records show, neither spoke nor thought about it again. Anselm who, like his brother Joseph, had done much to promote a recognition of Schubert, and attempted (unsuccessfully) to produce his friend's latest opera "Alfonso and Estrella" at Gratz in this year, seems to have done nothing at all about the symphony. It lay stuffed away and unregarded among his papers for many years, whence it might well have been lost and never known to the world. In 1865, in his old age, and thirty-seven years after Schubert's death, he delivered it to Johann Herbeck for performance by the "Friends of Music Society" in Vienna, December 17, 1865. "The autograph manuscript, now in the possession of the Gesell- schaft der Musikfreunde , Vienna," wrote Sir George Grove in 1907, "is on oblong paper, freely but very neatly written, with great grace in the writing, and with but rare corrections. The first page is dated 'Vienna, October 30, 1822.' This was no doubt the day on which Schubert began to write, and judging from the dates marked on his other symphonies, the two movements probably occupied him no more than a week or ten days to put on paper. For the Scherzo he made considerable sketches, which are also preserved in the library of the Gesellschaft, but they do not seem to have satisfied the composer and were never completed." Schubert composed symphonies fluently from his schooldays until the age of twenty-one, when (in 1818) he wrote his Sixth. Like those which preceded it, the Sixth was on the whole complacent and conven- tional in pattern. Like the Fifth, it was designed for the none too illus- trious Amateur Society.* In the ten years that remained of his life he wrote two symphonies in full scoring, so far as is known, f They were this Symphony in B minor, of 1822, and the great C major Symphony which he wrote a few months before his death.