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» fW *<? BOSTON SYAPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 DY HENRY L. HIGGINSON FIFTY-SIXTH k SEASON teai- 1936-1937 [24] BEETHOVEN AND HIS EIGHTH SYMPHONY The delicacy of the work of recording this symphony has caused revisions of technique and expenditure of enormous effort. It has finally been captured by the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY CONDUCTOR This latest recording made less than two months ago in Symphony Hall on Higher Fidelity Records touches a new peak of excellence. Koussevitzky himself concurs. Boston Music Co. 9 116 Boylston Street Chas. W. Homeyer Co., 498 Boylston St. M. Steinert & Sons, 162 Boylston Street SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Telephone, Commonwealth 1492 FIFTY-SIXTH SEASON, 1936-1937 CONCERT BULLETIN of the Boston Symphony Orchestra . SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Assistant Conductor with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk COPYRIGHT, 1937, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. The OFFICERS and TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Bentley W. Warren .... President Henry B. Sawyer Vice-President Ernest B. Dane Treasurer Allston Burr M. A. De Wolfe Howe Henry B. Cabot Roger I. Lee Ernest B. Dane Richard C. Paine Alvan T. Fuller Henry B. Sawyer N. Penrose Hallowell Edward A. Taft Bentley W. Warren G. E. Judd, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [1181] . Old Colony Trust Company 17 COURT STREET, BOSTON Th e principal business of this company is 1 Investment offunds and management of property for living persons. 2. Carrying out the provisions of the last will and testament of deceased persons. Our officers would welcome a chance to dis- cuss with you either form of service. ^Allied with The First National Bank of Boston [1182] ARTHUR FOOTE 1853-1937 By OLIN DOWNES (New York Times, April 18, 1937 — quoted in part) Independence, quality, unfailing taste and fineness of workmanship character- ized his pages. Because of his simplicity, sincerity and melodic frankness, they have stood up amazingly through the years and generations. His music never conspicuously changed in character, or owned to a special influence, which is more than can be said of perhaps any other of the leading American com- posers of Foote's generation. Thus, MacDowell the tone-poet was plainly affected by Liszt and Raff. Chadwick, the most fertile of that group, was not oblivious or wholly in- dependent, in his later days, of modern French and other derivations. These sat poorly upon a man whose sentiment and wit in his art, when naturally expressed, • This lighting fixture and other allied him with American writers like hand-made glass; also unusual and Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Mark Twain. Horatio Parker, whose "Hora attractive Wedding Gifts can be Novissima" would in itself have en- obtained in our Gallery at 77 New- titled him to a lasting and high position bury Street. in early American music, could have been English organist. an • Paintings by John Dix—April 14th Foote was the oldest member of this to May 1st. group. He was born in 1853, Chadwick in 1854, Parker in 1863. The New Eng- land line was continued by Henry Gil- MRS. WM. FAVERSHAM, Jr bert, 1868-1928, by Frederick S. Con- verse and Henry Hadley, both living, MR. JOSEPH HELLING and both born in 1871. Foote lived to MR. GEORGE R. SHAW, see and to watch with great interest, if 2nd not invariably with approval, the wholly different manifestations of a rising generation. DESIGNERS OF INTERIORS He was of fairly advanced age before such words as "radio," "propaganda" CONSULTANT DECORATORS and the like were in use, and when a GALLERY GIFTS World War was an amusing fantasy of a young man named H. G. Wells. For all that, and to the very end, he was abreast of and keenly interested in everything. He stood, as we have indi- cated, singularly firm, singularly inte- grated, as a creative artist, and was BELL & FLETCHER, Ltd. never hesitant, on any musical question, 654 Madison Avenue 77 Newbury Street of stating where he stood, but knew NEW YORK CITY BOSTON very well the fallibility of human Regent 4-5670 Commonwealth 1425 opinion. Foote cultivated his own garden, [ll83 3 — musically as horticulturally. In an astonishing manner he found things to say completely, simply, durably his own. His style did not change, but refined WetakeTime and strengthened. It was a remarkable demonstration of the power of sincerity and taste. His scores were never to take Qare clogged with notes, nor was he tempted by a trick of someone else's style or an effect of someone else's instrumen- Sometimes we lose business. Es- tation. Miss Rosalie Housman, the" pecially if the owner of a lovely composer of this city and for many dress wants us to use undue haste years his pupil, remembers well his in cleansing. counsels. He congratulated her, as he For we know after one hundred congratulated himself, upon her choice years of cleansing just what can of a life work. He said: "The way is be done safely, and what cannot. long and hard. It doesn't matter." He We know definitely when there are criticized severely her prosody in the no safe shortcuts ... no speedy expedients that justify the danger first song she brought him. "Good dic- of damage. So we say "No" and tion is good diction; bad diction is lose some business. malediction." He was the stanchest of But out of this has come the friends and a firebrand of inspiration. reward of reputation — a reputa- tion for reliability. And to our- selves we have attracted thousands The moral of all this is clear. What who respect us for taking time to is better than the moral is the quality take care. of Arthur Foote's music. It is genuine, If you want cleansing well done unmistakable art. ... if you want safe, dependable We need not claim service always ... if you like that Foote will figure in American painstaking care, individualized music as significantly as Chadwick, of care, may we suggest that you call his generation, or, possibly, John Alden Lewandos. Carpenter, his junior. And yet — how Lewandos, as you probably will they all stand, as figures of a pre- know, cleanses — and ANYTHING liminary period in American composi- anything that Lewandos cleanses tion, fifty years from now? is well cleansed. This is certain, as Koussevitzky and For we take time to take care — with your things. the Boston Symphony Orchestra have shown repeatedly in late seasons, that such works as the Suite in E major for strings — which Foote himself consid- ered one of his best-written scores, sound remarkably well, interesting and beautiful, in the midst of a perfectly modern program. This is accomplished without a harmony of Debussy or even You Can Rely on Strauss, to say nothing of Stravinsky. The same thing holds true of the modest and perfectly charming "Night- Piece" for flute and orchestra, origi- Lewanaosd, nally composed for the San Francisco Chamber Music Society, of which Elias -:- Cleansers Launderers Hecht was flutist and founder. The work Dyers -:- Fur Storage was composed some time between 1911 and 1914 in its original form, and later For Service-At-Your-Door orchestrated. In this form it stands, con- Telephone tained, assured, distinguished in its ex- MIDDLESEX 57OO pression, as its composer stood through the years as man and artist. * * [n84] Arthur Foote composed music in all forms — for church services, for men's and women's choruses, for his piano pupils, for festival organizations and the like, for orchestra. "The Irish Folk- Kranich & Bach song" and "Lad o' the Leal" were among the most popular of the songs. They, and the "Road to Kew," are Celtic in sentiment — a sophisticate might say of some measures, senti- mental. The orchestral suites, the choral works of the older type, "The Skeleton in Armor," the "Wreck of the Hes- perus," the piano suite inspired by poems of the Rubaiyat; the piano quintet in C ; two other piano suites and Five Poems, Op. 41 ; other songs, such as "The Lake of Innisfree," "Memnon," and duets, including "Songs from the Persian," and much organ music, repre- sented him well. Priced from $ He not only was without illusion as 675 to the importance of his art, but re- freshingly and excessively modest about Makers of the world's finest it. He said he "didn't mind" the "Hes- small grand, mastercraftsmen perus" ; that "you could take your choice" of some of the organ music; have been building the Kranich that one of the songs was a "good um- & Bach since 1864 and it is one brella song," which meant an unusually of the few pianos still manufac- popular last group melody or one used tured by members of the origi- as an encore. nal families who founded the company. The exquisite tone quality and There was no one like him, even unusual of the among his colleagues, no one so simply volume Kranich and unaffectedly absorbed in his task. & Bach baby grand are an He was happy and proud that the re- achievement of modern science. turns of some of his songs went far toward the purchase of his house. He In reconditioned grands we never coveted gain, or huge rewards, offer Steinways, Chickerings, and lived economically, modestly, ab- Ivers & Pond, Knabe, C. C. sorbed in work. There was something of Thoreau's philosophy about him, Harvey, Charles S. Norris, though he never indulged in a hut on Hazelton. Priced from $150. Walden Pond, and loved to go to Lon- don, and always remembered the thrill Small uprights and grandi of the opening season of Baireuth in rented at low rates.

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