Toccata Festiva, Op. 36, for Organ and Orchestra Composed in 1960

TOCCATA FESTIVA, OP. 36, FOR ORGAN AND ORCHESTRA COMPOSED IN 1960 SAMUEL BARBER BORN IN WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA, MARCH 9, 1910 DIED IN NEW YORK, JANUARY 23, 1981 The Barber of the 1950s and ’60s was a thoughtful fellow, wise and pensive in a way that belied the tendencies of the brash youth who had burst onto the American scene in the early 1930s with such works as the School for Scandal Overture, the Music for a Scene from Shelly, and the Adagio for Strings. He was also an artist experiencing the full flowering of his craft. Rarely wanting for commissions, during the two decades after World War II he composed a string of powerfully crafted pieces that we now see as staunchly durable masterworks—including the Cello Concerto, the ballet Medea, the Prayers of Kierkegaard, the Piano Sonata, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, the Piano Concerto, and the opera Vanessa. With these works he not only asserted his central position in American music, but he also affirmed the essential Romanticism of America’s overall artistic outlook—at a time when this homespun simplicity was being challenged by complexities of serialism, atonality, and aleatory. A PHILADELPHIA COMMISSION “Eugene, are you standing?,” Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist reportedly asked Eugene Ormandy on a long-distance phone call during The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 1960 tour of the U.S. “Please sit down. I’m giving you that pipe organ you’ve been longing for.” Assuring the conductor that cost was no obstacle, Mrs. Zimbalist proceeded to donate a huge Aeolian-Skinner organ to the Academy of Music. When it was installed, the Cyrus H.K. Curtis Memorial Organ, as it was called, was said to be the largest movable pipe organ in the world—with three manuals and 4,102 pipes. It could be moved onstage during performance and disassembled for storage afterward. The cost was $150,000. The instrument was inaugurated in September and October 1960, with recitals in the Academy and with The Philadelphia Orchestra’s performances of a work that Mrs. Zimbalist commissioned from composer Samuel Barber. One of the most prominent graduates of the Curtis Institute, Barber was a native son of Philadelphia who had maintained friendly ties with the woman who figured so prominently in the city’s music life. (The Institute, like the organ, was named for Mrs. Zimbalist’s father.) She had offered Barber $2,000 for the composition of the 13-minute piece, which the composer reportedly refused. He preferred to donate it to the Orchestra and, indirectly, to his alma mater. Barber sketched out the Toccata festiva during the spring of 1960, mostly at Capricorn, his summer home near Mt. Kisco, N.Y. The piece was first performed on September 30, 1960, at the Academy of Music, with Eugene Ormandy conducting The Philadelphia Orchestra. The soloist was Paul Callaway, the organist and choir director at Washington’s National Cathedral. This concert had a special significance for Ormandy as well, as it opened his 25th season as music director of the Orchestra. The audience of excited and appreciative Philadelphians received the new composition with “tumultuous applause.” A CLOSER LOOK Both words of this piece’s title are significant. It is a toccata (i.e., “touch-piece”) in the truest sense, with sparkling and rapid fingerwork for the soloist, and it has been imbued with a “festive” nature designed expressly to show off the brilliance and virtuosity of The Philadelphia Orchestra. The Toccata’s striking 5/8 motive generates much of its propulsive musical material. Critics proclaimed the work’s expert craftsmanship. Indeed, from the opening fanfare to the pedal solo, the Toccata festiva is more than a light concert-opener; it contains the lyricism and depth of Barber’s best scores. —Paul J. Horsley Program note © 2006. All rights reserved. Program note may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association. .

Load more