Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 71, 1951-1952

oil -tmrp (f^') ^} '' BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN I88I BY HENRY LEE HIGGINSON iv m 4 • '7 \Q m ,v^l, !A] if/ ^y^/'^ ^ H SEVENTY -FIRST SEASON 1951-1952 Academy of Music, Brooklyn Under the auspices of the Buooki.yn Institute or Arts and Sciences and fhe Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn 1951—1952 BROOKLYN COMMITTEE FOR The Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerts Mr. Adrian Van Sinderen Mrs. H. Haughton liell Honorary Chairman Chairman Mrs. Edward C. Blum Mrs. William H. Good Mrs. Henry J. Davenport Vice-Chairman Vice-Chairman Vice-Chairman Mrs. William G. James Mrs. Carroll J. Dickson Mrs. Irving G. Idler Chairman Membership Vice-Chairman Chairman Boxes Mrs. Thomas K. Ware Chairman Junior Cotnmittee Dr. Joseph Dana Allen Mrs. William B. Greenman Mis. Charles E. Perkins Mrs. Elias J. Audi Mrs. James H. GrifiBn Mr. Charles Pratt Mrs. Charles L. Babcock, Jr. Mrs. Arthur C. Hallan Mrs. Stewart M. Pratt Mrs. John R. Bartels Mrs. J. Morton Halstead Mrs. Benjamin Prince Hon. William R. Bayes Mrs. William P. Hamilton Mrs. Valentine K. Raymond Miss Elsa Behr Mr. and Miss Agnes Ritchie Mrs. Walter Hammitt Mrs. George M. Billings Mrs. Frederick H. Rohlfs Mr. Frank R. Hancock Mr. and Mrs. Donald Ross Mrs. Robert E. Blum Mrs. James M. Hills Mrs. Irving J. Sands Mrs. Irving L. Cabot Mrs. Raymond V. Ingersoll Mrs. F. R. Schepmoes Mrs. Otis Swan Carroll Mrs. Henry A. Ingrnham Mrs. Frank E. Simmons Mrs. Oliver G. Carter Mrs. Robert F. Ives Mrs. Donald G. C. Sinclair Mrs. Francis T. Christy Mrs. Charles Jaffa Mrs. Ainsworth L. Smith Mrs. Russell V. Cruikshank Mrs. Miles Kastendieck Miss Arietta H. Smith Mrs. Sidney W. Davidson Mrs. Warner King Mrs. Harry H. Spencer Mrs. Berton Delmhorst Mrs. Almet R. Latson, J. Jr. Mrs. Lauson Stone Mrs. Mary C. Draper Mrs. Edith Lincoln Mrs. E. A. Sunde Mrs. Mrs. Eugene R. Marzullo Remick C. Eckardt Mrs. Hollis K. Thayer Mrs. Merrill N. Foote Mrs. Carleton D. Mason Mr. Carl H. Tollefsen Mrs. Lewis W. Francis Mrs. Edwin P. Maynard, Jr. Franklin B. Tuttle Mrs. Richard Maynard Mrs. Mrs. Edward M. Fuller Miss Helen McWilliams Mrs. Adrian Van Sinderen Mr. and Mrs. Leonard P. Moore Mrs. Carl T. Washburn Mrs. George H. Gartlan Mrs. Alfred E. Mudge Mrs. Walter F. Watton Mrs. Edwin L. Garvin Mr. and Miss Emma Jessie Ogg Mrs. Walter F. Wells Mrs. Andrew L. 6omory Mrs. William M. Parke Mrs. George N. Whittlesey Mrs. R. Whitney Gosnell Mrs. William B. Parker Mrs. Maude B. Wood Mrs. Percy R. Gray Mrs. Frank H. Parsons Miss Elizabeth Wright Academy of Music, Brooklyn SEVENTY-FIRST SEASON, 1951-1952 Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor Concert Bulletin of the Fourth Concert FRIDAY EVENING, February 15 with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Henry B. Cabot . President Jacob J. Kaplan . Vice-President Richard C. Paine . Treasurer Philip R. Allen M. A. De Wolfe Howe John Nicholas Brown Charles D. Jackson Theodore P. Ferris Lewis Perry Alvan T. Fuller Edward A. Taft N. Penrose Hallowell . Raymond S. Wilkins Francis W. Hatch Oliver Wolcott George E. Judd, Manager T. D. Perry, Jr. N. S. Shirk, Assistant Managers [i] THE FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR BY THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA The Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Charles Munch, will make its European debut at the Paris Opera House on May 6. The orchestra will play for the month-long Exposition of the Arts sponsored by The Congress For Cultural Freedom (Nicholas Nabokov, General Secre- tary) , whose theme is the vitality of intellectual and artistic achievements by free men in the past fifty years in the fields of music, ballet, painting and other art forms. The Exposition Committee of the Congress's American affiliate, headed by Julius Fleischmann of Cincinnati, is providing funds from private philanthropy to send the 104-member musical aggregation abroad. Other American participants in the Paris Exposition will be the New York City Ballet Company and conductors Igor Stravinsky and Bruno Walter. While final details of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's tour await clarifica- tion from abroad, visits are planned to thirteen cities in six countries. Charles Munch, the Musical Director, now recovering from a long illness, is expected back with his orchestra in March, and will share the conducting assignments with his friend and colleague, Pierre Monteux, conductor of this orchestra in the seasons 1919-1924. The Orchestra will complete its Boston season on Saturday evening, April 26, and sail on the He de France on April 28. Mr. Munch, Alsatian-born conductor who became director of The Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1949, will lead the symphony in its initial concert abroad on May 6 at the Paris Opera House. This event will be honored by the presence of President Vincent Auriol, state, diplomatic, civic and social leaders, with the National Guard of Honor of the Republic of France in attendance. This and a second Exposition concert which Mr. Monteux will conduct at Paris' Theatre des Champs-Elysees on May 8 will be devoted to Twentieth Century European apd American music. Mr. Monteux's program will witness an historical re-creation: a performance of Igor Stravinsky's "Sacre du Printemps" (Rite of Spring) almost 39 years after he introduced this epoch-making work in the same theatre. The next day the Orchestra entrains for The Hague, Holland, where Mr. Munch will conduct on May 10. On May 11, under Mr. Monteux, who often has led the celebrated Amsterdam Concertgebouw, it will perform in Amsterdam. On May 17, the Boston Symphony will visit Strasbourg, Mr. Munch's birth- place. There the conductor served as violinist in the Strasbourg Orchestra, and taught at the Strasbourg Conservatory. The concert in that city will be at the Free Europe University In Exile, and will be broadcast by arrange- ment with Radio Free Europe, and through Voice of American facilities to Russia and its satellite countries. Several performances are planned in Germany, for German civilians and U. S. troops stationed abroad. Brussels, Belgium; Turin, Italy; and Lille, France are also included. The tour will conclude with the Orchestra's first appearance in London, at the Festival Hall on May 26, following which the Orchestra will sail for New York from Southampton aboard the He de France on May 27. The Boston Symphony, which from its broadcasts and recordings holds a European reputation second to none, will join in Paris such other of the free world's celebrated musical organizations as the Halle Orchestra from England, Sir John B^rbiroUi, conductor; the Orchestra and Chorus dell'Accademia della Santa Cecilia, Rome; the R.I.A.S. (Radio) Orchestra, Berlin, Ferenc Fricsay conductor; I'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Geneva, Ernest Anser- met conducting; the Paris Conservatory and the French National Radio Orchestras. IM Academy of Music, Brooklyn Boston Symphony Orchestra SEVENTY-FIRST SEASON, 1951-1952 CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director FOURTH CONCERT FRIDAY EVENING, February 15, at 8:30 o'clock Program ERNEST ANSERMET Conducting * Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36 I. Adagio molto; Allegro con brio II. Larghetto III. Scherzo IV. Allegro molto Mozart Violin Concerto in G major, K. 216 I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Rondeau: Allegro INTERMISSION Bartok Concerto for Orchestra I. Andante non troppo; allegro vivace II. Allegro scherzando III. Elegy: Andante non troppo IV. Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto V. Finale: Presto SOLOIST ARTHUR GRUMIAUX BALDWIN PIANO RCA VICTOR RECORDS [3] SYMPHONY NO. 2, IN D MAJOR, Op. 3b By LuDwiG VAN Beethoven Born at Bonn, December i6(?), 1770; died at Vienna, March 26, 1827 The Second Symphony, composed in 1802, was first performed April 5, 1803, at the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna. Dedicated to Prince Carl Lichnowsky, the symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. LOOKING down from the Kahlenberg "towards Vienna in the bright, i sweet springtime," Thayer found the countryside where Beethoven worked out so much of his greatest music indescribably lovely. "Con- spicuous are the villages, Dobling, hard by the city Nussdorfer line, and Heiligenstadt, divided from Dobling by a ridge of higher land in a deep gorge." Among these landmarks of Beethoven, now probably obliterated by population and habitation, there stood forth most no- tably the once idyllic Heiligenstadt, Beethoven's favorite haunt when music was in process of birth. There in the year 1802, **Dr. Schmidt having enjoined upon Bee- thoven to spare his hearing as much as possible, he removed for the summer. There is much and good reason to believe that his rooms were in a large peasant house still standing, on the elevated plain beyond the village on the road to Nussdorf, now with many neat cottages near, but then quite solitary. In those years, there was from his windows an unbroken view across fields, the Danube and the Marchfeld, to the Carpathian Mountains that line the horizon. A few minutes' walk citywards brought him to the baths of Heiligenstadt; or, in the opposite direction, to the secluded valley in which, at an- other period, he composed the 'Pastoral' Symphony." At Heiligenstadt in 1802, almost simultaneously Beethoven ex- pressed himself in two startlingly different ways. In October he wrote the famous "Heiligenstadt testament," pouring out his grief at the full realization that his deafness was incurable, into a document carefully sealed and labelled "to be read and executed after my death." Before this and after, working intensively, making long drafts and redrafts, he composed the serene and joyous Second Symphony. Writers have constantly wondered at the coincidence of the agonized "testament" and the carefree Symphony in D major.

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