Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 93, 1973-1974

THE COMMUNITY CONCERT ASSOCIATION Season 1973-74 presents BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SEIJI OZAWA, Music Director and Conductor JOSEPH SILVERSTEIN, Violinist COMMUNITY CONCERTS a division of COLUMBIA ARTISTS Management Inc. 165 West 57th Street. New York, N.Y. 10019 PROGRAM Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36 Schoenberg Poco allegro Andante grazioso—Adagio Finale: Allegro alia Marcia Joseph Silverstein INTERMISSION Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Tchaikovsky i 'Pathetique', Op. 74 Adagio—allegro non troppo Allegro con grazia Allegro molto vivace Finale: Adagio lamentoso PROGRAM NOTES Violin Concerto, Op. 36 Arnold Schoenberg Born on Sept. 13, 1874 in Vienna; died in Los Angeles on July 13, 1951. The Violin Concerto, Op. 36, was one of the first works to be completed by Arnold Schoenberg in this country. He had arrived here in October, 1933, to accept a position on the staff of the Malkin Conserva- tory in Boston. (It was in that city that he made his American conduc- ting debut, on March 16, 1934, in a performance of his symphonic poem Pelleas and Melisande with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. ) He began work on his only vioUn concerto during the summer of 1934 and completed it in 1936 in Los Angeles, where he had meanwhile settled, having found the climate of the Northeast uncongenial to his health. Dedicated to Anton Webern, his friend and one-time pupil, the concerto was first performed on December 6, 1940, by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Louis Krasner was the soloist and Leopold Stokowski the conductor. The concerto and the Fourth String Quartet, Op. 37, were both completed at about the same time, and to Rene Leibowitz, author of Schoen- berg and His School, these works are the "culmination of Schoenberg's twelve-tone style"—an ^valuation shared by many commentators, par- "ticularly as it applies to the concerto. This work has become one of the most widely used pedagogical examples of Schoenberg's celebrated "method of composing with twelve tones related only to each other." Despite the concerto's far-reaching influence, it has been slow to enter the repertory of artists and orchestras. Sad as that neglect is—for the concerto is surely one of Schoenberg's finest works—there is an easily understood reason for it: Op. 36 poses unusual difficulties for the listener, extraordinary ones for the soloist and orchestra. To deal with the latter problem first, it should be noted that the composer himself once remarked that the executant really needs six fingers on his left hand—^not an unseemly exaggeration in view of the fact that this is one of the most difficult concertos in the literature of the violin. It demands a technique that encompasses a virtuosic mastery unparalled in any previous concerto. Yet this virtuosity is never separable from the musical logic of the total work. Though the soloist is given many breath- taking display opportunities, he may never indulge himself the liberty of isolated musical flights. If the concerto is to make its musical point, the soloist must at every moment keep an ear to the orchestra sounds, for he must participate in the most subtly conceived ensemble effects, all the time preserving his dominance as soloist. As for the orchestra players, they too have their share of difficulties. Not so much in terms of agility as in terms of precision—precision of coordination, of dynamics, of intonation and timbre. The writing is quite exposed and there is little duplication of parts. The extent to which each player is "on his own" is unprecedented. The extent to which this concerto is "difficult" for the listener will depend largely on the kind of expectations he brings to the music. Op. 36 owes but Uttle to classical organizational schemes, though there is in- deed the traditional concerto format of two fast movements surrounding a slow movement, the first of which resembles sonata-allegro form, the second an ABA structure and the third a rondo. But the listener who expects to follow this work strictly by means of thematic and rhythmic repetitions and similarities will be disappointed. To be sure, there are examples of such organization. The opening figure of the solo violin, for instance, occurs also at the end of the first movement and in the cadenza near the conclusion of the finale. But Schoenberg's basic arch- itectural scheme, which is based on tone-rows and their permutations, will not be apparent to the average listener. Nor does it need to be. To paraphrase a remark of Alban Berg, one of Schoenberg's pupils, such technalities are concerns of the composer and of the performers. They need not affect the listener. Taken on its own terms, the Violin Concerto offers an amazing wealth of expressive richness, an endless flood of musical invention, all of which serves to confirm Schoenberg's state- ment that it was his intent to write twelve-tone music, not twelve-tone music. Symphony No. 6 Peter Hitch Tchaikovsky in B minor, 'Pathetique', Op. 74 Born on May 7, 1840, at Kamsko-Votinsk; died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. Talking with his brother Modeste on the day after the first performance of the Sixth symphony, Tchaikovsky discussed the problem of a title, for he was about to send the score to the publisher. He had thought of calling it 'A program symphony' and had written to his nephew, Vladimir Davidov, of this intention, adding, 'This program is penetrated by subjective sentiment. The program is of a kind which remains an enigma to all—let them guess it who can.' And he said to Modeste when the question of a title was under discussion, 'What does "program symphony" mean when I will give it no pragram?' In other words, he foresaw that to give it such a name would at the same time explain nothing and invite from every side a question which he could not answer. He ac- cepted Modeste's suggestion of 'Pathetique' but thought better of it after the score had been shipped to Jurgenson, and wrote his preference for the number and nothing else. But the symphony was published as the 'Pathetique'; Jurgenson had evidently insisted upon what was a good selling title. We can only conclude from these circumstances that there was some sort of program in Tchaikovsky's mind but that the 'subjective' sentiment of which he spoke was more than he could explain. Plainly, too, the word 'Pathetique', while giving the general character of the music, fell short of conveying the program. Modeste's title 'Pathetique' was an obvious first thought, and an apt one, because the symphony has all the habilments of melancholy—the stressing of the minor mood, the sinking chromatic melodies, the poign- ant dissonances, the exploration of the darkest depths and coloring of the orchestra, the upsweeping attack upon a theme, the outbursts of defiance. But these are not mere devices as Tchaikovsky used them. If they were, the symphony would be no better than a mass of mediocre music in the affecting style then in vogue. They were externals useful to his expressive purpose, but no more basic than the physical spasm which is the outward sign of an inward impulse. There is a deeper motivation to the Symphony—a motivation which is eloquent and unmistakable in the music itself and which the word 'Pathetique' serves only vaguely to indicate. There have always been those who assume that the more melancholy music of Tchaikovsky is a sort of confession of his personal troubles as if music were not a work of art, and, like all the narrative arts a structure of the artist's fantasy. The symphony, of course, is colored by the character of the artist himself, but it does not mirror the Tchaikovsky one meets in his letters and diaries. The neurotic fears, the mental and physical miseries as found in the diaries have simply nothing to do with musical matters. Tones to Tchaikovsky were pure sensous delight, his salvation when life threatened to become insupportable. And he was neither the first nor the last to resort to pathos for the release of music's most affecting and luxuriant expression. The fact that he was subject to periodical depressions and elations (he showed every sign of elation while at work upon this symphony) may well have attuned him to nostalgic music moods. But the general romantic trend of his time certainly had a good deal more to do with it. His generation revelled in the depiction of sorrow. The pathos of the jilted Tatiana of Pushkin actually moved Tchaikovsky to tears and to some of his most dramatic music. But Tchaikovsky enjoyed nothing more than to be moved to tears—as did his admirers, from Nadejda von Meek down. 'While composing the [Sixth] symphony in my mind, 'Tchaikovsky had written to his nephew, 'I frequently shed tears.' There can be no denying that the emotional message of the 'Pathetique' must have in some way emanated from the inmost nature of its composer. But the subtle alchemy by which the artist's emotional nature, conditioned by his experience, is transformed into the realm of tone patterns is a process too deep-lying to be perceived, and it will be understood least of all by the artist himself. Tchaikovsky, addicted like other Russians to self-examination, sometimes tried to explain his deeper feelings, especially as expressed in his music, but invariably he found himself groping in the dark, talking in high-sounding but inade- quate generalities. At such times he accused himself of 'insincerity'; perhaps we could better call it attitudinizing to cover his own vague understanding.

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