FESTIVAL Directed by SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY
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'VE 7, A R FESTIVAL Directed by SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE PRINCIPALS AND OTHER MEMBERS of the I; oston Symp Tony Orchestra AT TANGLEWOOD July 29, 3o, August 5, 6, 194+ ROGRAMMES Saturday Evening, July 29, 1944, at 8:3o SYMPHONY IN A MAJOR, (No. 29, K. 201) I. Allegro moderato III. Menuetto II. Andante IV. Allegro con spirito DIVERTIMENTO IN B-FLAT MAJOR, FOR STRINGS WITH TWO HORNS, K. 287 Allegro Adagio Andante grazioso Menuetto (Theme with variations) Andante; Molto allegro Menuetto INTERMISSION ARIA " L'AMERO, SARO COSTANTE," FROM " IL RE PASTORE (K. 208) (Violin Obbligato: RICHARD BURGIN) RECITATIVE AND ARIA OF PAMINA FROM "THE MAGIC FLUTE" (K. 620) " Ah, ich fiihr s, es ist verschwunden" RECITATIVE," CH'IO MI SCORDI DI TE," AND RONDO, " NON TEMER, AMATO BENE" (K. 505) (Piano Obbligato: BERNARD ZIGHERA) Soloist: DOROTHY MAYNOR, Soprano SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR, (No. 34, K. No. 338) I. Allegro vivace III. Finale II. Andante di molto BALDWIN PIANO II Sunday Afternoon, July 3o, at 3:30 SYMPHONY IN D MAJOR ("Haffner"), (No. 35, K. 385) I. Allegro con spirito III. Menuetto II. Andante IV. Finale: Presto CONCERTO IN E-FLAT MAJOR FOR TWO PIANOS AND ORCHESTRA, K. 365 I. Allegro III. Rondo: Allegro II. Andante Soloists: PIERRE LUBOSHUTZ, GENIA NEMENOFF INTERMISSION OVERTURE TO " LA CLEMENZA DI TITO," K. 621 SYMPHONY IN G MINOR, (No. 40, K. 550) I. Molto allegro III. Menuetto: Allegretto II. Andante IV. Allegro assai BALDWIN PIANOS III Saturday Evening, August 5, at 8:30 SYMPHONY IN G MINOR, (No. 25, K. 183) I. Allegro con brio III. Menuetto II. Andante IV. Allegro CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA IN D MAJOR, (NO. 4, K. 218) I. Allegro III. Rondo: Andante grazioso II. Andante cantabile Soloist: RUTH POSSELT INTERMISSION OVERTURE TO " IDOMENEO, RE DI CRETA", K. 366 SYMPHONY IN E-FLAT MAJOR, (No. 39, K. 543) I. Adagio: Allegro III. Menuetto: Allegretto II. Andante con moto IV. Finale: Allegro IV Sunday Afternoon, August 6, at 3:3o SERENADE ("Nacht Musique") IN C MINOR, FOR Two OBOES, Two CLARINETS, Two HORNS AND Two BASSOONS, K. 388 Allegro Menuetto in Canone Andante Allegro CONCERTO IN D MAJOR FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA ("Coronation Concerto"), (No. 26, K. 537) I. Allegro III. Allegretto II. Larghetto Soloist: ROBERT CASADESUS INTERMISSION "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (SERENADE FOR STRINGS), IN G MAJOR, K. 525 I. Allegro III. Menuetto: Allegretto II. Romanze: Andante IV. Rondo: Allegro SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR ("Jupiter"), (No. 41, K. 551) I. Allegro vivace III. Menuetto: Allegro II. Andante cantabile IV. Molto allegro Open Letter to Dr. Serge Koussevitzky By DR. HUGO LEICHTENTRITT Dear Dr. Koussevitzky: You are about to conduct a series of Mozart's works at the Auditorium, in those beautiful, peaceful, idyllic surroundings of the Berkshire district. To this scenery nothing is more congenial than Mozart's music, and nowhere in America could one find a place better suited to the genius of Mozart's art. I take this tribute to Mozart's genius as a precious present to all lovers of Mozart offered by you on the occasion of your seventieth birthday. In the old world there was one locality sacred to Mozart — Salzburg, the city where he was born, where he grew up, the place from which his fame spread all over Europe. Can the Salzburg Mozart Festivals, now, alas, no more existing, be revived in this continent that has now become the heir of the ruined mid-European music? If this were at all possible, where could these festivals be more appropriately revived than at Tanglewood? Your intuition, dear Dr. Koussevitzky, has guided you ad- mirably in the idea that Tanglewood should take the place of the Salzburg festivals, and that also the art of Mozart should find a permanent home at Tanglewood. There a periodically returning Mozart Festival might become a unique and ideal feature of the musical life of America, and Tanglewood might become a place of artistic worship to which the most devoted lovers of music would come, like in ancient Greece one made a pilgrimage to the Delphic plays, the Pan-Athenaean or Olympic festivals. In these troubled times of war Mozart's music, if performed with that per- fection that we may justly expect at Tanglewood, will act, more than any other music, as a consoling, healing, purifying power beyond comparison. No other of the great masters can compete with Mozart in this power of rejuvenation of the soul, because his music is the idealization of youth. At the age of 35 years Mozart had come to the close of his earthly career. His entire life was spent in the first half of those seven decades considered by the psalmist as the normal span of human life. Though cares and dis- appointments were not absent in his last years, yet he took all these adversities with the light mind of youth, with his innate optimism and confidence in a good outcome. The music of Bach and Handel with its religious intensity, its character of manly strength and its superior mental powers yet does not exhale that fascination of youth- ful ardor radiating from Mozart. Even Haydn, so similar to Mozart in many respects, strikes us as possessing manly vigor rather than youthful exaltation. Beethoven's pathetic, heroic, majestic and grandiose manner is essentially different from Mozart, and the romantic turbulence of a Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Wagner likewise lacks that peculiar Mozartean atmosphere of youthful candor. In view of this striking and unique feature of Mozart's art it seems appropriate to analyze the source of this central energy, pervading and animating all his music. Grace, vivacity, joyfulness, purity and a gentle melancholy are the main at- tributes of Mozart's music, attributes that are the outcome of a youthful temperament. Though these qualities belong to youth in general they acquire their artistic signifi- cance in the case of Mozart by their abnormal intensity. They thus gain a strength, durability and impressiveness far beyond the power of Mozart's less gifted contempo- raries. The prevailing mental attitude of the time around 1770, when Mozart com- menced his career, favored the unhampered and natural expression of these youthful traits much more than the preceding epoch of baroque mentality intent on pompous gravity, powerful structure, complicated contrapuntal design. Mozart had not been brought up on the involved polyphony of Bach. His education was based on Italian opera, on the refinements of the already vanishing French rococo culture, dominating the middle of the 18th century also in Germany, and on that new style of popular simplicity and directness seen in the symphonies of the then famous Mannheim school and in Haydn's early symphonies and quartets. Mozart's instrumental music in a way combines the refined elegance and grace of the aristocratic rococo art with the new popular tunefulness of the Mannheim style. But by his superior gifts Mozart far surpassed his early models both of the rococo and the popular type. The already exhausted and artificial rococo grace he rejuvenated by an infusion of fresh, healthy blood from the popular German tunes, and at the same time he gave to the rather plain and unpretentious bourgeois music of Mannheim a new interest for more exacting listeners, by a fascinating wealth of invention and art, in form, harmony, orchestral color and soulful melody. This new mixture of grace, vivacity, joyfulness and gentle melancholy resulted in a never surpassed and rarely equalled purity of form, in a capti- vating beauty of sound and in an incomparable expressiveness of the emotions of a youthful soul. On account of the perfection of its musical organism this Mozartean apotheosis of youth has become a cherished possession of art-loving humanity and has acquired universal validity. As long as men will continue to long for youth, a youth already past and lost, they will find in Mozart's music the final and ever valid expression of that longing. To the already mentioned earlier models of Mozart must be added the Italian tradition, of prime importance for Mozart's operas. Though the present festival does not include a Mozart opera yet two little known opera overtures are to be performed. The Idomeneo overture of 1780 introduces the earliest one of Mozart's mature operas, and the "Titus" overture of 1791 belongs to the close of his career. The Idomeneo Overture will surprise many a listener by its breadth and grandeur. Mozart had not been long back from his journey to Paris, when he was commissioned to write an " opera seria" for the carnival festivities at the Munich court, in 1781. In the Idomeneo Overture we can see that Mozart had paid much attention to Gluck's heroic operas, which then created a great sensation at Paris. It was an influence later rejected by Mozart, whose nature led him to the Italian opera buffa rather than to the opera seria, beginning to get antiquated already at that time. Mozart himself, by his incomparably brilliant later operas, helped con- siderably to relegate to oblivion the stiff, formal pattern of the older opera seria. Yet he had to turn to this genre a second time, when he was chosen to write the opera "Titus" for the coronation festivities of the Emperor Leopold II. Like " Idomeneo" also, this real " court" opera has never achieved a popular success, though it contains much fine music and shows Mozart's mastery on every page, also in the brilliant and festive overture. Mozart's Divertimenti and Serenades, a type very popular in 18th century Austria, are not written for the concert hall but for performance on the street or in a private house, at special occasions.