BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC The Little Orchestra Society THOMAS SCHERMAN, Music Director HERBERT BARRETT, Manager

SUBSCRIPTIO SERIES-SEASON 1969-70 Third Concert- Sunday January 25, 1970 at 2:30P.M. THOMAS SCHERMAN, Conductor EDWIN LEVY, Stage Director Ralph Vaughan Williams RIDERS TO THE SEA (From the play by John M. Synge) Maurya ...... Jean Sanders Nora ...... Kate Hurney Cathleen ...... Molly Stark Bartley ...... A Woman ...... Ruth Ray Villagers and off-stage : Betty Baisch, Dori Barne , Suzanne Cogan, Paula Gladwell, DeNice Jen en, Corinne Jensen, Ruth Ray and Carole Walters Intermission AT THE BOAR'S HEAD (From Henry IV by Shakespeare) Falstaff ...... Guus Hockman Doll Tearsheet ...... Jean Sanders Prince Hal ...... William Lewis Pistol ...... Emile Renan Hostess ...... Molly Stark Bardolph ...... Raymond Murcell Poins ...... J. B. Davis Peto ...... Jonathan Rigg Gadshill ...... Thomas Jamerson Pi tors Companions ...... John Ostendorf. Peter Schlosser Co tume Supervi ion: Betty Williams Costume Designs: by Fred Voelpel The alternate for Mr. Hocl-.man. Mi Sanders and Mr. Lewi are: J. B. Davis, Ruth Ray and Donald Saunders

Baldwin Piano Herbert Barrett, Manager Thomas Matthew , A sociate Manager Marks Levine. Consultant The Little Orchestra Society, 1860 Broadway, New York. N.Y. 10023 PL 7-3460

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM by THOMAS MATTHEWS Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst The Little Orchestra Society's programming of Riders to the Sea and At the Boar's Head is of special interest. Vaughan Williams' thirty-minute has, despite its few hearings, been hailed as a masterpiece and Holst's one-act setting of the tavern scenes from Shakespeare's Henry IV is recognized as a thoroughly original and uncompromising work by a first-rank English composer. Both Vaughan Williams and Holst were seriously devoted to and concerned about the often-thankless mu ical area-native opera. They were also devoted friends for almost forty years. Their mutually influential relationship established itself at their first meeting in 1895 and developed into a friendship that allowed them many occasions to constructively discuss all of their individual works. They also studied and shared composition ideas together. Vaughan Williams once said that 'Holst and I showed each other almost everything we wrote. I say almost because I could not face his absolute integrity of vision-I hid some of my worst crimes from him. I regret now that I did not face even his disapproval.' In addition to Holst, one of the composers that Vaughan Williams most admired throughout his long creative life (he completed his 9th at the age of 85) was Jean Sibelius. He dedicated his 5th Symphony to the Finnish composer. It is easy to understand the reasons for his admiration. Both musicians were proponents of a sincere nationalism that was interestingly devoid of isolationism. Ralph Vaughan William ( 1872-1958) was born in Gloucestershire, England. In 1896, after his college studies, he became the organist of South Lambeth Church in London. The position allowed him time to travel and he eventuall y worked with Max Bruch at the Akademie der Kuenst in Berlin. Later he studied with Maurice Ravel. At the time, the English composer was two years older than his celebrated teacher. The first of Vaughan Williams' work to command attention and show his particular individuality were Toward the Unknown Region (1907) and his Sea Symphony ( 191 0). Historians have grouped Vaughan Williams' composition into three periods. The most important of the first include the London Symphony, Hugh the Dro1·er, his Overture to the Wasps and his superb, often-played Academic Festiml Overture. The second produced his ballet Job and the Pastoral Symphony. Vaughan Williams' third period was the time of his stark, adventuresome F minor Symphony and Riders to the Sea. The latter was completed during the years 1925-32 and received its first performance in London, under Malcolm Sargent, in 1937. Riders to the Sea is a sensitively-accurate, word-for-word setting of John M. Synge's drama of a family who resolutely endures the bleak, monotonous Aran fogs, the stubborn island rains and the demanding call of the sea that urrounds them. For the inhabitants of these Irish islands, endurance and faith is the only way of life. They arc bound to their land by indomitable rocks and clifTs. And treacherous tides make their means of livelihood-the fishing trade-incessantly perilous. Maurya, her daughters Nora and Cathleen, and Bartley, too, arc typical of the island people. They have blended into the gray of the seasons that never change. Laughter is rarely heard in their small house. They arc rc igncd and ) ct almost eagerly inqui itivc of the unending loneliness. They have obviously learned to accept the constant struggle for survival and the insistent nearness of death. J. B. Yeats aptly described Synge's works as 'Poetry in unlimited sadness'. And ~ad ne ss hangs over Riders to the Sea like a web of fish nets caught in the pull of the sea ttdcs. Synge himself wrote of the Aran Islands: 'the sense of s?litude was i~mense. I could not see or realize my own body, and I seemed to exist merely 111 my perceptiOn of the waves and of the crying birds, and of the swell of the sea weed.' Although Synge, like Vaughan Williams. could be considered a predominantly national­ istic creator. he and all his plays adamantlv refused to ideali;:.e the Irish peasants. It was a refusal that made him m.m] enemies. the patriotic Nationalists demanded idealization of their people. C'onscqucnth. practicallv all of S> ngc's works were stormed against with violent protest. All except Riders to the Sea. Odd!] enough it is one of the most stark of his plays. And yet it alone escaped critical and public condemnation during Synge's lifetime.

Riden is a perfect example of his ability to protray the Irish peasant vividly and plainly. Maurya and her family arc drawn with an honesty that allows no bias. In setting the play to music, Vaughan Williams has done a remarkable and unselfish job. He allows the characters to declaim in a st> lc that is comparable-in the finest sense of the word­ to Moussorgsky. In several passages the vocal line comes close to the starkness of Schocn­ bcrgian sprcchstimmc. More accurately, Riders glows among the half dozen greatest achievements of the English composer. Some have called it the I nglish Pelleas et A1eliwnde. It is. in fact. based on the Debussyian principle (although on a necessarily lesser scale) that music must be subordinated to the inflection and rhythms of the characters' speech. Riders also resembles Pel/ea.\ in another way; the music slowly and carefully takes control in such a way that the listener feels, when the performance is over, that he has been absorbed in one long, beautiful, unending melody. The orchestra which consists of strings, 2 , , English horn, bass , , 2 horns, trumpet, tympani and , is delicate and extremely subtle. It reacts as a kind of emotional dimension to the character's actions and as a reminder of the never-silent sea that hovers in the background.

Much of the music for Riders to the Sea is built on close-knit themcc; derived from the short orchestral prelude to the oper.1 that immediately establishes the atmosphere of the sea and the might of the clements which shape the lives of the characters in Synge's pl.1y. 1 he natural speech of the singing-actor-. is occasion.tll] given support by a chord or fragments of woodvvind phrases. And the mu-.ic takes full command only at strong reference-. to God and the sea. Mauna io; comparable to a figure from CJreek tr.1gcd>. She is a woman of strength who has lost her husband and four -.ons to the sea. She alone dominates the action. Vaughan Williams' empathy for the woman allow-. her music to expand ao, her strength and her role grows.

One of the many compelling moments in the opera occurs a<, Maurya describes the vision she has just had. She has <,een Bartley ridin6 toward-. the sea. She .already knows that her last two sons arc dead. Another memorable musico-dramatic utterance is heard in the plaintive passage of plainsong with which the old woman blesses the departed. Here the music bursts radiantly into E major as she prays for God's blessing on the lil·ing. It is an example of Vaughan William\ uncanny understanding of the people and the play. The truth of the drama is described in a wonderful switch from minor to major. It is also a noble musical and spiritual affirmation of the triumph of life over death. Maurya's words: 'No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied' arc the closing words of Riders to the Sea. Synge's play was first produced in January of 1903; the same year that Miss A. E. F. Hornimann of London gave a sizeable sum of money to establish the now legendary Abbey Theatre. As an opera it received its first professional performance in C leveland in 1950. Gustav H olst ( 1874-1934) was born in Cheltenham, England. Despite the Swedish and Russian ancestry of his family he is distinctly an English com poser. His father had wanted him to be a concert pianist but from the earliest days of his music studies he showed a strong preference for composition. D uring his years at the Royal College of Music a case of neuritis in his hand curtailed his piano and organ classes and even made it necessary for him to employ a musical amanuensis. Perhaps it was an unexpected blessing; the situation appears to have developed his unusual understanding of orchestral and choral techniques. It also confirmed his basic ideals of directness of expression in composition. Holst was against subterfuge of any kind and could not tolerate vagueness which passed itself off as musical atmosphere. Thi directnes , which Vaughan Williams so admired, is apparent in a ll of Holst's mu ic despite the mystical inclinations uggested by many of the titles of his works. He wrote the texts for several of the and choral pieces that stem from his so-called Sanskrit period, including Sita, Savatri and a large work for chorus and orchestra, The Cloud Mess·enger. His setting of the texts developed his unique feeling for the elasticity of English prose accents and his strong preference for rhythmic rather than metric accentuation. This sensitive feeling for words is quite evident in At the Boar's Head. His reputation for Oriental as ociations (a part of his San krit period) was one he had to live down all his life. Actually it was not even dispelled by his Suite of even astrological tone , The Planets ( 1915), which made him a musical celebrity or hi Hymn to Jesus (1917), but both did add to his stature as a composer of importance. Like Vaughan Williams, Holst visited the United States several times to conduct his own works and to lecture. I n 1924 he retired to the English countryside and resigned from all teaching and lecturing. At the Boar's Head was completed in 1924. Holst subtitled it a musical interlude. The libretto i taken from parts I and II of Henry IV and the words are lovingly and amu ingly fitted to traditional Morris and Country dance and folk-songs. The composer's daughter, Imogen, has called the opera a 'brilliant failure'. She al o recounts that 'her father actuL11ly revelled in solving its intricate problems.' Of which, he suggests, there were many. 'The main being that the words already conveyed everything that was needed in the Shakespeare comedy and the unaccompanied tunes were already complete in themselves.' Nevertheless, study of the score proves that every syllable of the dialogue is handled with utmost fidelity. There is no sign of effort in H olst's counterpoint and he creates delightful details of character and authentic atmosphere from the barest hints which the short bars of folk-songs disclose. Holst has utilized some 39 old English melodies throughout At the Boar's Head. There are also three original tunes, which the composer says-in the score-'are, I hope, my own.' He has, in addition, supplied ome word not in the Shakespeare play. An old Drinking Song sung by Bardolph as the curtain rises, Two Sonnets sung by Hal (when he is disgui ed), the complete When Arthur fir t, sung by Doll and Falstaff, and the ballad Lord Willoughby. Holst"s mu ical directness and feel for words is strikingly disclosed at the opening of the comedy when Falstaff demand a cup of sack. The section is spontaneously brightened by a violent change of key at the moment the old knight discovers that lime has been put in his cup. Later on staccato quavers on celli and double bass bounce back and forth between dominant and mediant to depict Falstaff's comic absurdity as he bellows 'I am 8 times thrust through the doublet.' Doll Tearsheet's entrance is beautifull y handled. Before she enters we are positive that the wench will be somewhat worse for wear. There is a subtle suggestion of hiccups in the tune that announces her arrival on the scene. When Doll tipsily sings 'Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack', Holst sets her lines to the well known folk-song, Heartsease. The muted string accompaniment is ideal. The witty ensemble for Falstaff. Doll, the Prince, Poins and the Hostess (Dame Quickly) is a highly amusing blending of several Country dances like The Queen's Birthday and Jenny come tie. Holsfc; musical interlude itself bounces to its conclusion with a fast and intentional Holstian ant1climax. Imogen Holst has stated that 'the Boar's· Head'<; fir t-night audience was in a state of bewilderment. The~ appeared unable to recover from the effects of so many excitements at once It was because the libretto. ~ithout any mus1c. was too concentrated. The Falstaff scenes were never intended to be picked out like plums and packed together And in the music there was little relief from the brilliant counterpomt.' Perhaps At the Boar'<; Head is not the failure the composer's daughter

THOMAS SCHERMAN Imagmation in programming. introduction of both established and new artists to the "\cv. York mus1cal scene plus rc\ ivals of rare!) hc"trd oper,ttlc .tnd s~ mphonic master­ pieces have pl.tced The L1ttle Orchestra Soc1ety and 1ts \1u ic Director. Thomas Scherman. in the foreground of mus1cal activities m this country. !',1tionwide and overseas tours by the ensemble have also brought criti..:al acclaim and opportunities for the public to cxpenence exc1t1ng li"e performances pre\ iousl~ a'vatl.tble on!) hy v.ay of recordings. The Little Orchestr.t Soc1ct~ 1s cclebrattng its twcnt) -second se,1son m ew York and in add1t1on to 1ts scnes of orchestral, oratono and operatic concerts m Phtlharmonic Hall, the Soc1ety will be among the major musi:;al organizations which will be a part of the !969-70 season m the magnificent new Altce Tully Hall. Both governments of Italy and France have JOtned in recogn17ing Maestro Scherm,tn's man~ contributions to the musical scene by hononng h1m w1th the titles of C ;naliere OfTic1ale dell'Ordine and Chevalier de I'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, respective!). The Society's evcr-popul,1r Concerts for Young People w1ll again he presented m Philharmonic Hall, highlighted by the appear­ ance of the unique Shin1chi Suzuki Violinists and the inimitable drawings of Lis! Weil.

GUUS HOEKMAN Tonight's Falstaff is recognized as one of the finest dramatic bassos before the public toda). The Dutch artist sang his first unportant operatic roles at the Royal Opera in Antwerp. The) mcluded Ow1in in The Abduction from the Scragl1o, Arkel in Pellcas ct Meltsande and Don Pasquale in Don11ctt1's opcr,t of the s"tmc name. Mr. Hockman lists Jaap Stroomenhcrgh, Lothar Wallerstein and Fcl•x Hupka among his teachers and he was one of several artists who performed at clandestinely held "house concerts" during the enemy occupation of h1s nat1ve land during World War 11 He has sung in the major opera theatres of Europe ,md at the festl'vc.tls of Salzburg and (,)]ndcbournc. He has also concertiZed throughout the united States and he has been he..trd with the , the Boston Opera and The Little Orchestra Society. Mr. Hockman made his debut with the Society in its Amencan premiere performance of Busoni's . JEAN SANDERS Miss Sanders, who is singing two roles tonight, is one of the most beautiful mezzos singing in oper.1 and concert. She made her profession.tl debut with a highly acclaimed recital in Town Hall. She has sung with the New York City Opera In Butterfly, Faust, Trouble in Tahitt anu the title role in . Miss Sanders has also sung with the opera comp.mies of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Los Angeles. She is equall) at home with the music of Ravel, Straus , Bach and Purcell. Her recent work at the Ann Arbor festiv

WILLIAM LEWIS

Tenor William Lewis IS Prince Hal in At the Boar's Head. Immediately following tonight's performance he leave to make his debut with the opera company of Ghent, BelgiUm. The \\Ork will be Korngold's rarely heard Das Wunder der Heliane. Mr. Lewis has sung with the Association in a diversity of operas including . La Boheme. Wo~~ek and Vanessa. He made his New York City Opera debut! as Alfred in Die Fledermaus. His performances with The Little Orche tra Society include Die Frau ohne Schatten, Pique Dame, Antigonae and Prometheus. He has sung with all the major orchestras and conductors including Bernstein, Adler, Beecham, Cleva, Mitropoulos and Boehm. Last cason he wa a member of the birthday party cast for the special performance of Bernstein's Candide. Mr. Lewis has recorded for RCA, Vanguard and Columbia.

MOLLY STARK Soprano Molly Stark is also singing two roles tonight. Her operatic repertoire includes Traviata, Turandot, Carmen, Pag/iacci, Fidelio and Goyescas. She was acclaimed by the New York pres for her burning performance in the musical play, Sacco-Vanzetti, last season. She was the recipient of the Geraldine Farrar Fellowship at the Tanglewood Fe tival and performed Berlioz' Les Nuit~ d'ete with the orchestra there. Miss Stark has sung in recital and oratorio. as well as opera, throughout the United States. She was elected by Rosalyn Tureck to sing in her Bach series at Lincoln Center and in addition to engagement in Symphony Hall, Bo ton, Carnegie Hall and Town Hall she has recently ung with the Clarion Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. Tonight's two English operas mark the young soprano's debut with The Little Orchestra Society.

EMILE RENAN Mr. Renan·s performance of Pistol in tonight' Holst opera brings to 301 the number of roles which this ver atile artist has performed. He has also staged many operatic productions including L'Heure Espagno/ (which he also translated), Carmen, La Boheme and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Next April he will direct a new production of Boris Godounov in which he will appear as Varlaam. He is a featured artist in the RCA recording of The Good Soldier Schweik and he was a recent nominee for a Grammy Award. This time for his performance of Songs from Disney's Jungle Book. His cogent operatic direction has been a part of productions in Dallas, Kansas City, Washington and the Lake George Opera Festival. He has sung with the opera theatres of New York City, San Antonio Houston and St. Louis. Mr. Renan fir t appeared with The Little Orchestra Society in its' New York City premiere of Janacek's The Makropulos Case. KATE HURNEY ; Until recently Kate H urney was a leading soprano with the opera companies of Zurich, Karlsruhe, Freiburg and the Theatre 1onnaie in Brussels. A pupil at the New England Consenatory, she later studied in Siena and Zurich. H er teachers include D usolina Giannini, Gina Cigna, Uta Graf and the late Paul Ulanowsky. Her repertoire includes more than forty roles in four languages. Miss H urney sings Gilda, Lucia, Liu, Nannetta, Adele and European audiences have heard her in Jenu/a, Tie/land and Siegfried. She -was a brilliant 24 hour replacement (as Naiade) in the Society's production last season of the ori~inal Strauss-Hofmannstahl Ariadne auf Va;·ws. H er concert repertoire ranges from Bach and Handel to Bernier's Le Cafe and Zilcher's Marienlieder.

THOMAS JAMERSON Thomas Jamerson began his career with the Metropolitan Opera National Company performing the F1garo Count A lmavit·a and Marquis D'Obigny in La Traviata. H is per­ formances -with the company in New York Cit; resulted in his being invited to Rome to record La Tra\Jata with the famous Spanish soprano, Monserrat Caballe, for RCA. Later Mr. Jamerson joined Sarah CaldweJrs American National Opera and toured with that company for two seasons. In 1968 he made his debut with the Sante Fe Opera in two U.S. prem1eres: Schoenberg's Jakohsleiter and Henze's . He made his debut with the New York City Opera in 1969 singing Silvio, Marcello and Valentin. H e has also sung with the as Nevers in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. FORTHCOMING C·ONCERTS IN THIS SERIES

Tuesday Evening, March 24, 8:00 p.m. L'ENFANCE DU CHRIST with Josephine Veasey, and Adair McGowan

ALVARO CASSUTO, Assistant Conductor WILLARD STRAIGHT, Vocal preparation PETER DIMITRIADES, Concert Master GEORGE KOU1ZEN, Personnel BERNARD JOY, Stage Manager RICHARD CASLER, Lighting HERBERT BARRETT, Manager THOMAS MATTHEWS, Associate Manager MARKs LEVINE, Consultant The Little Orchestra Society 1860 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10023 PL 7-3460