03-17 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 3/3/16 9:40 AM Page 1 Thursday Evening, March 17, 2016, at 8:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Stage Conductor’s Notes Q&A with Leon Botstein at 7:00 presents Giant in the Shadows LEON BOTSTEIN, Conductor ADOLF BUSCH Three Études for Orchestra, Op. 55 For Intonation: Lento ed espressivo For Precision: Vivace (ma non troppo presto) For Change of Tempo and Meter: Comodo e scherzando MAX REGER Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 114 Allegro moderato Largo con gran espressione Allegretto con spirito PETER SERKIN, Piano Intermission MAX REGER Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J.A. Hiller, Op. 100 Theme: Andante grazioso Variation 1: Più andante Variation 2: Allegretto con grazia Variation 3: Vivace Variation 4: Poco vivace Variation 5: Andante sostenuto Variation 6: Tempo di Minuetto Variation 7: Presto Variation 8: Andante con moto Variation 9: Allegro con spirito Variation 10: Allegro appassionato Variation 11: Andante con moto Fugue: Allegro moderato PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. 03-17 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 3/3/16 9:40 AM Page 2 This evening’s concert will run approximately two hours and 30 minutes including one 20-minute intermission. American Symphony Orchestra welcomes the many organizations who participate in our Community Access Program, which provides free and low-cost tickets to underserved groups in New York’s five boroughs. For information on how you can support this program, please call (212) 868-9276. FROM THE Music Director The Crucial Missing Link: Max Reger novel harmonic language, a brilliant by Leon Botstein use of chromaticism that could easily be heard as an extension of Wagnerian The untimely death of Max Reger a practice. Although he shied away from century ago in 1916, during World War the narrative drama audible in Mahler’s I when he was only 43, explains in part symphonies or more explicitly in Strauss’ his unique place in music history. His is orchestral music, Reger’s sound world a name always cited respectfully in was comparably lush and luxuriant. accounts of music history that begin Reger applied sonority densely to his with Brahms and end with Schoenberg. musical canvas in an unmistakably dis- Indeed, in the span of two decades, tinct manner, one that bears a family from the mid-1890s until his death, resemblance not only to the fin-de-siècle Reger produced an astonishingly large music of Mahler and Strauss, but also number of compositions. With these to his contemporaries Franz Schreker widely performed and discussed works, and Alexander Zemlinsky. Reger rose to striking prominence in German musical life. He was regarded Reger’s favorite keyboard instrument by many as the best hope for the future (he was primarily a pianist) was the of music in Germany, the next in line organ, an instrument also dear to the after his famous and somewhat older heart of his protégé, Adolf Busch. But contemporaries, Richard Strauss and unlike Bruckner, who transferred the Gustav Mahler. monumental scale of the sound of the late 19th-century organ to his orches- Reger’s music was also controversial. trations and underscored the organ’s There were those who found it too unique and wide range of distinct con- advanced and demanding on listeners. trasting choirs, Reger was inspired by He was hard to categorize and label. how the organ can blend contrasting On the one hand, Reger’s ambition was sounds, registers, and pitches and can in orchestral, chamber, vocal, and generate long meandering lines and choral music. His lack of interest in diverse streams of sound, which is why music for the theater suggested that he it has persistently been an ideal vehicle was a worthy successor to Brahms, for improvisation. worthy of bringing new life into a clas- sical-romantic tradition. At the same Reger quickly found his voice and fash- time, however, Reger’s music was ioned a musical aesthetic in which fan- marked consistently by an advanced tasy and narrative spontaneity—a musical 03-17 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 3/3/16 9:40 AM Page 3 legacy of the early romanticism of non-theatrical approach to instrumen- Schumann and Liszt—are integrated tal composition that foregrounded synthetically with the imaginative music’s autonomous formal power, extension of the classical, formal logic were vital sources of an authentic and we associate with Viennese classicism— rigorous contemporary music. Berg’s Mozart and Beethoven, for example— use of formal structures in Wozzeck and later, Mendelssohn and Brahms. (1914–22), for example, owes a debt to This idiosyncratic achievement marks Reger’s conviction that classical prac- Reger’s music, defines its originality, and tices such as variation and imitative renders it immediately recognizable. counterpoint were not obsolete. Reger’s special modernism, born out of a Another composer who emerged in the synthesis of disparate influences and cast 1920s and sustained a lifelong admira- in traditional genres, also earned him a tion of Reger was Paul Hindemith. Like good deal of criticism. Like the music of Schoenberg, Hindemith construed his Strauss from the 1890s and most of mission—particularly in his later years— Mahler’s works, Reger’s music was often as extending a line of musical composi- pilloried. This led the composer—who tion that was directly connected to the was intense, witty, hard-drinking, and great tradition of musical history (par- also deeply empathetic— famously to ticularly the German musical heritage) write to one critic that he was reading but in neither a reactionary nor a nos- the critic’s review while seated “in the talgic manner. It was by explicit design smallest room” in his house, and he that Hindemith’s 1958 “Pittsburgh” wanted to assure the critic that the Symphony was premiered on a program review would soon be “behind him.” that included Reger’s Hiller Variations. The number of Reger’s works and the Indeed, Reger was a staunch German consistency of their quality are aston- political nationalist (and like Schoenberg, ishing. However, the intersection of his a cultural chauvinist). This in part death and the political and social trans- explains his choice of a theme by formation wreaked by World War I Johann Adam Hiller (1728–1804), one profoundly influenced Reger’s posthu- of the first conductors of the Leipzig mous reputation. There were those who Gewandhaus and a well-known and never lost faith in the power of his highly regarded composer who is per- music and fought against its gradual haps most often cited for his advocacy slide into obscurity. Many modernists of a specifically German form of musi- in the 1920s, including Alban Berg and cal theater: the Singspiel, a combination Arnold Schoenberg, expressed admira- of music and spoken theater, of which tion for Reger’s work. His music vindi- Mozart’s The Magic Flute is probably the cated their notion that the over-cited best known example in today’s repertory. so-called “Brahms-Wagner” conflict between apparent conservatives (Brahm- Among the most ardent Reger champi- sians) and futurists (Wagnerians), which ons since 1916 have been the several dated from the mid-19th century, was a generations of fabulous musicians con- thing of the past. Reger demonstrated nected to the family of Adolf Busch. how Brahms could be an inspiration for Busch, one of the greatest violinists and progressive contemporary composers finest musicians of his generation, was and how classical procedures of the- devoted to Reger and his memory. He matic development and variation, the was Arturo Toscanini’s favorite violin 03-17 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 3/3/16 9:40 AM Page 4 soloist. He also founded what became a The work on this concert program not legendary quartet and helped establish only illuminates Busch’s craft, but his refined and superb chamber music as a good nature. The three études are defined centerpiece of modern concert life. All by a commonplace but also affectionate of today’s many fine chamber music sense of superiority on the part of cham- groups, concert series, and festivals in ber musicians and soloists towards the the United States owe a debt to Busch, pitfalls inherent in basic orchestral who was instrumental in founding Marl- practice. They are written to highlight boro. Rudolf Serkin, Busch’s son-in-law, the challenges of orchestral intonation continued to perform Reger’s music created by the scale and variety of after World War II in solo recitals and instruments involved, the difficulties in occasionally with George Szell (a Reger achieving precision in ensemble, and pupil). And now the mantle of advo- getting orchestras to alter tempo and cacy for Max Reger has passed to negotiate shifting meters. Rudolf Serkin’s son, Peter, my esteemed colleague at Bard College. The ASO has had a long tradition of pro- gramming Reger. The list of works it has Adolf Busch, like many of the great per- performed includes his Variation and formers of his generation, not only rel- Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132 ished playing new music but also was (1914); Variations and Fugue on a himself a composer. The work on this Theme by Beethoven, Op. 86 (1904); program comes from Busch’s later Four Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin, years, after he had fled to the United Op. 128 (1913); and Psalm 100, Op. 106 States. Busch’s emigration (and that of (1909); as well as orchestral songs and his brother, the great conductor Fritz) shorter works. We believe Reger to be was a rare act of conscience. The Busch a great original voice from the turn of family was not Jewish.