w- <zr\ ^€w\ N\ BOSTON \\ SYMPHONY I ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 BY HENRY LEE HIGGINSON Jlv/J //-, %///// ///f I /: WW'- WW'/" /WW--. w" ^ /"'» w%2, WW /lw%W> 2$®*, ^r'W K -Z.^*r \ ^^-^ "'r^- XJ --<:, '" J/ :|&" S*^ , V \ ,..-—"""' """'''iSi,','^ : \;i VETERANS MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM, PROVIDENCE EIGHTY-SEVENTH SEASON 1967-1968 TWO MAGNIFICENT RECORDING ACHIEVEMENTS B THE BOSTON SYMPHONY UNDER ERICH LEINSDOR , BOSTON NILSSON I Rf Wagner SYMPH()NY £* § otAttti?m CHOOKASIAN \Zr l\\h\Jl)LrM LEINSDORF BERGONZI Pn Musi' .Vohcnqrin ^JU^IZU** FLAGELLO I Complete Boston Symphony Qrchestra/Leinsdorf Konya • Amara Gorr Dooley • Hines Marsh Boston Chorus Pro Musica • Patterson rca Victor DYTrtSHOOVt The first absolutely complete Verdi Requiem featuri Lohengrin on records. four celebrated soloist rca Victor r**)The most trusted name in sound EIGHTY-SEVENTH SEASON 1967-1968 BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ERICH LEINSDORF Music Director CHARLES WILSON Assistant Conductor THE TRUSTEES OF THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC. HENRY B. CABOT President TALCOTT M. BANKS Vice-President JOHN L. THORNDIKE Treasurer PHILIP K. ALLEN E. MORTON JENNINGS JR ABRAM BERKOWITZ HENRY A. LAUGHLIN THEODORE P. FERRIS EDWARD G. MURRAY ROBERT H. GARDINER JOHN T. NOONAN FRANCIS W. HATCH MRS JAMES H. PERKINS ANDREW HEISKELL SIDNEY R. RABB HAROLD D. HODGKINSON RAYMOND S. WILKINS TRUSTEES EMERITUS PALFREY PERKINS LEWIS PERRY EDWARD A. TAFT THOMAS D. PERRY JR Manai NORMAN S. SHIRK JAMES J. BROSNAHAN Assistant Manager Business Administrator SANFORD R. SISTARE HARRY J. KRAUT Press and Publicity Assistant to the Manager to ANDREW RAEBURN MARY H. SMITH Program Editor Executive Assistant Copyright 1967 by Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc. SYMPHONY HALL BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS STEINWAY EI Concert programs show that the Steinway is, a Steinway without exception, the choice of pianists playinj America's leading orchestras. Small wonder. Steinway has the tonal range, the response and official | artists rely on for their most expressive perform Only the Steinway sounds like a Steinway, he piano of Then in your home. The Instrument of the Immortal pianists Orel] You are invited to see and hear our new Steinway Grands and Consoles. 8 ore Established 1924 Exclusive Steinway Piano Representative for All This Territory 256 Weybosset Street 421-1434 EIGHTY-SEVENTH SEASON 1967-1968 1 . Three hundred and ninety-first concert in Providence • • 1 I First Program . 1 1 Thursday evening 5 October at 8.30 1 WAGNER Der fliegende Hollander - Overture PROKOFIEV Scenes from 'Romeo and Juliet' op. 64 Introduction Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio masked Dance of the knights Interlude Funeral for Juliet Death of the lovers INTERMISSION TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony no. 6 in B minor op. 74 Pathetique 2 Adagio; allegro non troppo «j Allegro con grazia Allegro molto vivace r i Finale: Adagio lamentoso m M There are recordings of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony by the at Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Monteux and Charles Munch. By order of the Chief of the Providence Fire Department, smoking is ' allowed only in the ticket lobby and the lower lobby of the auditorium. "* BALDWIN PIANO RCA VICTOR RECORDS 5 *» Program Notes RICHARD WAGNER Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman) - Overture by Conrad L. Osborne Wagner was born in Leipzig on 22 May 1813, and died in Venice on 13 February 1883. The Overture was first played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on 4 April 1890 with Arthur Nikisch conducting. The instrumentation: 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes and english horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba, harp, timpani and strings. There are excellent grounds for the assertion that Der fliegende Hol- lander marked Wagner's emergence as an artist. He himself felt it: "From here begins my career as a poet," he remarks, "and my farewell to the mere concocter of operatic texts." The dramatic nature of this step can be appreciated by a consideration of Rienzi, which preceded Flying Dutchman by only a year. Rienzi has passages of beauty and grandeur, but it is indeed a "concoction" — a putting- together of certain historical-drama elements with an entirely conventional love story, cast in a framework of grand opera which would find a comfortable spot in the Spontini-to-Meyerbeer line. The essence of Der fliegende Hollander is poetic: the composer, seized by the expressive possibilities of a subject — its atmosphere, its central statement — seeks to cast it in the most direct way, rejecting as irrele- vant anything which does not contribute to that atmosphere and statement. If he is yet some distance from the goal, the decisive step has been taken — it is leagues from the five incident-packed acts of Rienzi to the single act (though usually not performed as such) and single essential action of Der fliegende Hollander. Wagner saw his Dutchman as a folk-derived blend of Ulysses and The Wandering Jew, and he saw this tortured, restless figure's potential salvation in the unquestioning love of a quintessential woman. It is Wagner's first expression of the notion of redemption through the intuitive feminine spirit — a notion to which he returns, with increas- ingly mature and subtle perceptions, throughout the remainder of his career. Though Wagner had been interested in the subject as early as 1838, he actually wrote the opera, in a very short time, in 1841. It received its premiere on 2 January 1843 at Dresden, with the composer con- ducting. The famous overture is almost a precis of the opera itself, expressing in alternate and combined thematic development the tor- ment and obsession of the Dutchman, the redeeming commitment of Senta, and the pervading presence of the northern seas and the men who work on them. © Conrad L. Osborne Free parking is provided for patrons of these concerts at the STATE OFFICE BUILDING LOT. SERGE PROKOFIEV Scenes from 'Romeo and Juliet' op. 64 by Donald T. Gammons Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, Russia on 23 April 1891 and died near Moscow on 4 March 1953. The ballet score was composed in 1935 for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It was first performed at Brno in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Before the '•**- ballet as such was introduced, Prokofiev compiled two suites from this music; in 1947 he compiled a third. The instrumentation: 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes and english horn, 2 clarinets £uJuR >c and bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 6 horns, 3 trumpets SB98 **% and cornet, 3 trombones and tuba, timpani, tambourine, snare drum, triangle, hiH bass drum, cymbals, 2 harps, piano and strings. TOT KSS* WMP& It is often said that the external circumstances of a composer's life Kflkd V v-- have little bearing on the creative periods of his career. Whether t [9 a person writes in Paris, in New York, or elsewhere would seem to m make little difference to his sense of musical aesthetics. However, it does seem that in the case of Prokofiev, an abrupt change occurred when he returned from his long visit in Paris to his native Russia, where, in 1935, he became a Soviet citizen. In Paris, much of his music was full of a certain amount of grotesqueness and sarcasm, with bit- terly dissonant harmonies. When he returned to Russia, whether influenced by party lines or not, he seems to have sought for a much simpler and more lyrical mode of musical expression. This was already evident in the music for Lieutenant Kije and in the music for Egyptian • furniture • carpeting • lamps • accessories • interior planning contemporary furniture NEW INTERIORS 724-5050 X-\ north main street at providence-pawtucket line nl mm m H Nights, which was a concoction drawn from Shaw's Caesar and Cleo- patra, Pushkin's Egyptian Nights and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Already Prokofiev was acquainted with several of the Shakesperian dramas. At this very time Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear had been given in the Soviet theatres. It was therefore with a great deal of excitement that Prokofiev received a suggestion from the Leningrad Theatre of Opera and Ballet that he write a ballet on the theme of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In the spring of 1935 he spent many hours with the director Radlov, carefully working out the scenario of the future ballet. 'When I am asked to write music for a ballet or film, I rarely consent immediately, even if I know the text of the work, for it takes me from five to ten days to "see" it, that is, to visualize the characters, their emotions, and their actions in terms of music' This was written by Prokofiev himself in 1936. When the ballet was completed, it was not accepted for production immediately. The dancers found the rhythms intricate, and those who heard the music seemed to be dismayed. One listener remarked, 'there is no tale of greater woe than Prokofiev's music for Romeo! Because of the failure to produce the work as a ballet at that time, Prokofiev arranged two suites for orchestra from the music, as well as a set of ten pieces for piano based on the same text. In 1947 he was to produce a third suite which incorporated music not heard in the previous two. The first two suites were heard before the full stage production of the ballet, which took place in Brno in Czechoslovakia in 1938. The first performance in Russia was given on 11 January 1940 by the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, with Ulanova dancing the role of Juliet. Dear Customers and Consumers: Before your next visit to California please contact Ben MedofT, 246 Walnut St., Newtonville, Mass. Tel. 527-2880. He would like you to be his guest at the Beringer Brothers Winery in Napa Valley, California.