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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Sir Colin Davis, Principal Guest Conductor Joseph Silverstein, Assistant Conductor Hundredth Birthday Season, 1981-82 PRE-SYMPHONY CHAMBER CONCERTS Thursday, 25 February at 6 Saturday, 27 February at 6 Tuesday; 2 March at 6 CECYLIA ARZEWSKI, violin RONALD FELDMAN, cello ANDREW WOLF, piano KODALY Duo for violin and cello, Opus 7 Allegro serioso, non troppo Adagio Maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento— Presto BRAHMS Trio No. 2 in C for piano, violin, and cello, Opus 87 Allegro Andante con moto Scherzo : Presto Finale: Allegro giocoso Baldwin piano Please exit to your left for supper following the concert. The performers appreciate your not smoking during the concert. Week 14 Zoltan Kodaly Duo for violin and cello, Opus 7 Kodaly's music grows, heart and soul, from the experiences of his extended folksong researches undertaken over a period of years with his friend Bartok. When he began working the melodies and rhythms from the folk songs he had collected into his own works, critics were scandalized, since the results had little in common with the com- fortably homey romantic Volkslieder with which they were acquainted. Truly a prophet without honor in his own land, Kodaly suffered years of misunderstanding and outright antagonism at home, while his works were being received elsewhere with great success. He composed the Duo, Opus 7, in 1914, but the work waited until 7 May 1918 for a performance on an all-Kodaly program, following which one critic claimed that the entire evening had revealed no more than "the eccentric, almost perverted, manifestation of a great and muscular, though misguided, talent." Such responses failed to daunt the composer, however. He spent almost seven decades of his long life actively pursuing his vision, which was not simply a matter of abstract composition in vacuo but rather an attempt to express the spirit of his country's music for the widest public, while at the same time developing the public's taste. (Quite aside from his compositional activity, Kodaly's untiring devotion to music education makes him one of the most important figures of our century in that field; to this day the Hungarian school system — still pursuing Kodaly's aim of general musical literacy — is one of the marvels of world education.) The Duo, which plays off the technical capabilities of its participants with superb elan, grows from thematic ideas that are related to the melodic style of Hungarian folk music—especially the modal themes (evident from the opening bars), a kind of rhythmic flexibility usually described as "rabato," and the tendency for melodies to unfold by means of rich decoration in a passionate display of temperament that during the nineteenth century had been considered typical of "gypsy music," though it was really a corruption of the genuine Hungarian folk style. Kodaly tends to use the traditional classical forms in his folk-oriented compositions, especially in the sonata-form first movement and the fantasy of the Adagio that becomes, finally, a double fugue. Only in the last movement, after a wonderfully brash improvisatory beginning, does he introduce a children's folk song in a steady ostinato rhythm that controls the movement from that point on. Johannes Brahms Trio No. 2 in C for piano, violin, and cello, Opus 87 Brahms enjoyed spending his summers in some locale of physical beauty which might inspire him to musical creation. During the early 1880s his favorite resort was Bad Ischl amid the breathtaking mountain scenery of the Salzkammergut, renowned especially as the summer residence of Emperor Franz Joseph. Brahms's friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg was appalled that he should choose such an "in" location to spend the summer ("Doesn't half of Vienna stay there?" she asked). The composer replied that half of Leipzig or Berlin might drive him away, but "half of Vienna is quite pretty and need not be ashamed of itself." There he enjoyed the companionship of several musicians, among them the once-famous Ignaz Brull and the still-famous "Waltz King" Johann Strauss, whom Brahms sincerely admired. It was in Ischl in 1882 that Brahms completed two major chamber compositions—the magisterial C major trio and the joyous string quintet in F. Actually, he had written the expansive first movement of the trio in March 1880, just before his first summer in Ischl. 8* ,. : '. «r After that the work seems to have been dormant for nearly two years, or perhaps to have percolated subconsciously in the composer's imagination, so that when he arrived at Ischl in June 1882 he quickly finished the remaining three movements. The work is conceived on a large scale of epic grandeur. Throughout much of the piece the piano part is cast in such a heroic mold as to force the two string instruments to band together against it —safety in numbers— playing in octaves or at least in the same rhythm against the keyboard. Yet the main theme of the first movement is so perfectly conceived for the strings that they play it at each of the major formal statements in the sonata-form movement. The piano begins as if rather hesitantly accompanying but soon begins to sing in exuberant rapture. The strings alone wind down gently before the piano brings in the lush second theme, which is a marvel of imaginative and unexpected phrases. A climactic arrival back in the home key suggests a repeat of the exposition, but, as often happens, this moves instead into the expansive development. The slow movement, in A minor, is a classical variation set in which Brahms, as usual, strictly retains the shape of the theme for each of the variations. After three variations in A minor, developed from the melody originally presented by the strings, the fourth turns to the major and develops the accompaniment figure from the piano in rich harmonic elaboration. The last variation returns to the minor mode but converts the original theme into the 6/8 meter of the preceding section before expanding into the quiet afterthought of the coda. The scherzo is a dark and shadowy C minor—anything but the joke that the word "scherzo" would lead us to expect. Thus, when the music of the Trio moves into the sunshine of C major, the effect is all the stronger. Brahms doesn't often use the word "Finale" in his scores,- when he chooses to, it means, as one commentator has put it, that he is "stripped for action." The muscular energy of the finale, with its humor and its mystery, brings the trio to a splendidly sonorous conclusion. —Notes by Steven Ledbetter Cecylia Arzewski Violinist Cecylia Arzewski joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1970. She has been soloist with the Boston Pops, appears regularly in chamber music concerts throughout New England, and recently made her New York debut in solo recital at Carnegie Recital Hall. Born in Krakow, Poland, Ms. Arzewski began violin lessons when she was five. A few years later her family moved to Israel, where she studied with Oedon Partos, and she became a pupil of Ivan Galamian when the family set- tled in New York three years after that. Fol- lowing graduation from high school, Ms. Arzewski attended the New England Conser- vatory of Music, where she studied with BSO concertmaster Joseph Silverstein. She became principal second violinist of the Buffalo Phil- harmonic in 1969, joining the BSO's second violins in 1970 and moving to the orchestra's first violins a year later. Ronald Feldman Born in Brooklyn, New York, and a graduate of Boston University, cellist Ronald Feldman joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1967. His teachers have included Claus Adam, Harvey Shapiro, and Leslie Parnas. Mr. Feldman has taught at Brown University and at the Boston University Tanglewood Insti- tute, and he is currently on the faculties of Brandeis University and the New England Conservatory of Music. Active in many ensembles and an enthusiastic promoter and performer of new music, he was a member of the contemporary chamber group Collage and is now a member of the Greylock Trio for flute, cello, and harp. Andrew Wolf Pianist Andrew Wolf is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he was a student of Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski,- he has also studied with Eleanor Sokoloff and the late Miklos Schwalb. Acclaimed by critics in Europe and America, Mr. Wolf has performed extensively both here and abroad, and he has been a soloist with orchestras including the Boston Pops and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition to his recital and orchestral appearances, he has per- formed in chamber music concerts with violinists Joseph Silverstein and Emanuel Bor- ok, the BSO's concertmaster and assistant con- certmaster with violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi, ; cellist Leslie Parnas, violinist Arnold Steinhardt, the Vermeer Quartet, and many others. In the fall of 1980, Mr. Wolf began a series of performances with Isaac Stern, with whom he has traveled to Japan, Europe, and throughout the United States,- he also per- forms frequently with cellist Leonard Rose. Since 1965, Mr. Wolf has been artistic director of Bay Chamber Concerts, a summer and win- ter series of chamber music concerts based in Rockport, Maine, and for his extensive work for music in Maine he was awarded the 1972 Maine State Award. In September 1977, Mr. Wolf was appointed director of the All Newton Music School, a community music school in Newton, Massachusetts..

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