Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 58,1938-1939, Trip
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Aratonuj of Mixbxc • Irooklgn Friday Evening, March 31 Under the auspices of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn Boston Symphony Orchestra [Fifty-eighth Season, 1938-1939] SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Personnel Violins BURGIN, R. ELCUS, G. LAUGA, N. SAUVLET, H. RESNIKOFF, V Concert-master GUNDERSEN, R. KASSMAN, N. CHERKASSKY, P. EISLER, D. THEODOROWICZ, J. HANSEN, E. MARIOTTI, V. FEDOROVSKY, P. TAPLEY, R. P. LEIBOVIO, J. PINFIELD, C. LEVEEN, KRIPS, A. KNUDSON, C. ZUNG, M. BEALE, M. GORODETZKY, L. MAYER, P. DIAMOND, S. del sordo, r. FIEDLER, B. BRYANT, M. STONESTREET, L. messina, s. DICKSON, H. MURRAY, J. ERKELENS, H. seiniger, s. Violas LEFRANC, J. FOUREL, G. bernard, a. GROVER, H. H. ARTIERES, L. CAUHAPE, J. van wynbergen, c. WERNER, AVIERINO, N. JACOB, R. GERHARDT, S. HUMPHREY, G. Violoncellos FABRIZIO, E. BEDETTI, J. LANGENDOEN, J. chardon, y. STOCKBRIDGE, C. L. ZIGHERA, A. TORTELIER, P. droeghmans, h. WARNKE, J. MARJOLLET, ZIMBLER, J. Basses KUNZE, M. LEMAIRE, J. frankel, i. girard, h. delescluse, p. vondrak, a. MOLEUX, G. juht, l. dufresne, g. barwicki, j. Flutes Oboes Clarinets Bassoons laurent, c. GILLET, F. polatschek, v. ALLARD, R. RATEAU, R. DEVERGIE, J. valerio, m. PANENKA, E. pappoutsaws, j. LUKATSKY, J MAZZEO, R. LAUS, A. Eb Clarinet Piccolo English Horn Bass Clarinet Contra-Bassoon MADSEN, G. SPEYER, L. mimart, p. PILLER, B. Horns Horns Trumpets Trombones valkenier, w. singer, j. MAGER, G. raichman, j. macdonald, w. lannoye, m. LAFOSSE, M. hansotte, l. SINGER, J. shapiro, h. VOISIN, R. L. lilleback, w. gebhardt, w. KEANEY, P. VOISIN, R. SMITH, V. Tuba Harps Timpani Percussion ADAM, E. zighera, b. szulc, R. sternburg, s. caughey, e. POLSTER, M. WHITE, L. ARCIERI, e. Piano Librarian sanromX, j. rogers, l. j. Aratomg of Mnmt " Irnokhjn FIFTY-EIGHTH SEASON, 1938-1939 Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Assistant Conductor Concert Bulletin of the Fifth Concert FRIDAY EVENING, March 31 with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The OFFICERS and TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Ernest B. Dane President Henry B. Sawyer Vice-President Ernest B. Dane . ... Treasurer Henry B. Cabot M. A. De Wolfe Howe Ernest B. Dane Roger I. Lee Alvan T. Fuller Richard C. Paine Jerome D. Greene Henry B. Sawyer N. Penrose Hallowell Edward A. Taft Bentley W. Warrf\ G. E. Jldd, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [1] THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Announcing the Sixth Annual Berkshire Symphonic Festival The Time August 3, 5, and 6 — Series A. August 10, 12, and 13 — Series B. The Place I*1 tne new music shed at "Tanglewood" on Motor Route 183 between Stockbridge and Lenox, Massachusetts. How to Get There From New York by train to Stockbridge, Lenox or Pittsfield; Boston, by train to Pittsfield; Albany and points West by train to Pittsfield; Montreal by train, via Albany to Pittsfield. By motor, excellent roads lead to Stockbridge and Lenox where you will join Route 183 leading directly to "Tangle- wood." Accommodations First class hotels in Stockbridge, Lenox, Great Barrington, Pittsfield and surrounding towns. The Cost Subscription tickets (reserved seat) for each series of three concerts $3.00 and $4.50 rear section — $6.00 and I7.50 front section. Boxes seating six $75.00 for each series of three concerts. Programs for 1939 FJr. Koussevitzky will make the programs from the following list: the Second and Third Sym- phonies of Beethoven, the First and Third of Brahms, Symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, the Fourth of Tchaikovsky, the Second and Fifth of Sibelius, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade," Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun," Ravel's "La Valse," Wagnerian excerpts, Walter Piston's "Concerto for Orchestra" and others to be announced. History The Berkshire Symphonic Festival was estab- lished in 1934 by summer and permanent resi- dents of the Berkshires, not for monetary profit, but to bring joy and beauty, to promote the cause of music, to establish a great festival center in America. Here in 1938 before a capacity audience, the Berk- shire Symphonic Festival dedicated its music shed with a superb con- cert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Koussevitzky. The music shed, seating approximately 6,000, is unique in America. Its utter utilitarian simplicity only emphasizes the beauty of its design. An opinion from the far Pacific coast: "The great success . has permanently established this project as a summer music center for the United States." — The Portland Oregonian. Subscription blanks may be secured by writing to the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, Inc., Stockbridge, Mass. [*] &cabemj> of Mu&it • ifrookljm Boston Symphony Orchestra FIFTY-EIGHTH SEASON, 1938-1939 SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor FIFTH CONCERT FRIDAY EVENING, March 31 Programme Schumann Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 I. Andante; Allegro II. Romanza III. j Scherzo IV. \ Largo; Finale (Played without pause) Debussy "Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un Faune" (Eclogue of S. Mallarme) Ravel "La Valse," Choreographic Poem INTERMISSION Moussorgsky "Pictures at an Exhibition," Pianoforte Pieces arranged for Orchestra by Maurice Ravel Promenade — Gnomus — II Vecchio Castello — Tuileries — Bydlo — Ballet of Chicks in their Shells — Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle — Limoges: The Marketplace — Catacombs (Con mortuis in lingua mortua) — The Hut on Fowls' Legs — The Great Gate at Kiev [3] SYMPHONY IN D MINOR, No. 4, Op. 120 By Robert Schumann Born at Zwickau, June 8, 1810; died at Endenich, July 29, 1856 Composed in 1841, at Leipzig, this symphony was first performed at a Gewand- haus concert on December 6 of the same year. Schumann made a new orchestration in December, 1851, at Diisseldorf, and the revision was performed there on March 3, 1853, at the Spring Festival of the lower Rhine. It was published in December, 1853, as his Fourth Symphony. The orchestration includes two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. The most recent performance at the Boston Symphony concerts was on January 29, 1938. Schumann wrote this symphony a few months after the completion of his First Symphony in B-flat. The D minor Symphony was numbered four only because he revised it ten years later and did not publish it until 1853, after his three others had been written and published (the Second in 1846, the Third in 1850). This symphony, then, was the second in order of composition. It belongs to a year notable in Schumann's development. He and Clara were married in the autumn of 1840, and this event seems to have stirred in him a new and significant creative impulse: 1840 became a year of songs in sudden and rich profusion, while in 1841 he sensed for the first time in full degree the mastery of symphonic forms. He had written two years before to Heinrich Dorn, once his teacher in composition: "I often feel tempted to crush my piano — it is too narrow for my thoughts. I really have very little practice in orchestral music now; still I hope to master it." The products of 1841 show that he worked as well as dreamed toward that end. As Mr. W. J. Henderson has well described this moment of his life: "The tumult of young love lifted him from the piano to the voice. The consummation of his manhood, in the union with a woman of noble heart and commanding intellect, led him to the orchestra. In 1841 he rushed into the symphonic field, and * composed no less than three of his orchestral works." ' These works were the First, the "Spring" Symphony, which he began in January 1841, four months after his marriage, and completed in a few weeks; the "Overture, Scherzo and Finale" of April and May, and the D minor Symphony, which occupied the summer months. There might also be mentioned the "phantasie" in A minor, composed in the same summer, which was later to become the first movement of the piano concerto. But the two symphonies, of course, were the trium- * "Preludes and Studies."—W. J. Henderson. Ul pliant scores of the year. The D minor Symphony, no less than its mate, is music of tender jubilation, intimately bound with the first full spring of Schumann's life — like the other a nuptial symphony, instinct with the fresh realization of symphonic power. The manuscript of the symphony bears the date June 7, 1841, and at the end — "finished at Leipzig, September 9, 1841." Clara observed still earlier creative stirrings, for she recorded in her diary under the date of May 31: "Robert began yesterday another symphony, which will be in one movement, and yet contain an adagio and a finale. I have heard nothing about it, yet I see Robert's bustle, and I hear the D minor sounding wildly from a distance, so that I know in advance that another work will be fashioned in the depths of his soul. Heaven is kindly disposed toward us: Robert cannot be happier in the com- position than I am when he shows me such a work." On September 13, which was Clara's birthday, and when also their first child, Marie, then twelve days old, was baptized, Robert presented the young mother with the completed score of the symphony. And the composer wrote modestly in the diary: "One thing makes me happy — the consciousness of being still far from my goal and obliged to keep doing better, and then the feeling that I have the strength to reach it." The first performance was at a Gewandhaus concert on December 6, Ferdinand David conducting. It was a friendly event, Clara Schumann playing piano solos by their colleagues Mendelssohn, Chopin, Stern- dale Bennett. She appeared jointly with Liszt, in his "Hexameron" for two pianos.