Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 74, 1954
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D< 3V~ ,.<'* I BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 BY HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 1 7 fa A iillINU «r^- H SEVENTY-FOURTH SEASON 1954-1955 Constitution Hall, Washington Boston Symphony Orchestra (Seventy-fourth Season, 1954-1955) CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director RICHARD BURGIN, Associate Conductor PERSONNEL Violins Violas Bassoons Richard Burgin, Joseph de Pasquale Sherman Walt Concert-master Jean Cauhap6 Ernst Panenka Alfred Krips Eugen Lehner Theodore Brewster George Zazofsky Albert Bernard Rolland Tapley George Humphrey Contra-Bassoon Norbert Lauga Jerome Lipson Richard Plaster Vladimir Resnikoff Robert Karol Harry Dickson Louis Artieres Horns Gottfried Wilfinger Reuben Green James Stagliano Einar Hansen Bernard Kadinoff Charles Yancich Joseph Leibovici Vincent Mauricci Harry Shapiro Emil Kornsand John Fiasca Harold Meek Roger Shermont Paul Keaney Violoncellos Osbourne McConathy Paul Fedorovsky Samuel Mayes Walter Macdonald Carlos Pinfield Alfred Zighera Minot Beale Langendoen Trumpets Herman Silberman Jacobus Mischa Nieland Roger Voisin Stanley Benson Marcel Lafosse Karl Zeise Leo Panasevich Armando Ghitalla Josef Zimbler Sheldon Rotenberg Gerard Goguen Bernard Parronchi Fredy Ostrovsky Leon Marjollet Trombones Martin Hoherman Clarence Knudson Raichman Louis Berger Jacob Pierre Mayer William Moyer Manuel Zung Kahila Flutes Kauko Samuel Diamond Josef Orosz Doriot Anthony Dwyer Victor Manusevitch Pappoutsakis James Nagy James Phillip Kaplan Tuba Melvin Bryant K. Vinal Smith Raphael Del Sordo Piccolo Lloyd Stonestreet George Madsen Harps Saverio Messina Oboes Bernard Zighera William Waterhouse Ralph Gomberg Olivia Luetcke William Marshall Jean Devergie Leonard Moss John Holmes Timpani Jesse Ceci English Horn Roman Szulc Basses Everett Firth Louis Speyer Georges Moleux Willis Page Clarinets Percussion Charles Smith Ludwig Juht Gino Cioffi Irving Frankel Manuel Valerio Harold Farberman Harold Thompson Henry Freeman Pasquale Cardillo Henry Portnoi E\) Clarinet Librarians Gaston Dufresne Henri Girard Bass Clarinet Leslie Rogers John Barwicki Rosario Mazzeo Victor Alpert, Ass't Constitution Hall, Washington SEVENTY-FOURTH SEASON, 1954-1955 Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor Concert Bulletin of the First Concert THURSDAY EVENING, November 18 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 Talcott M. Banks, Jr. C. D. Jackson John Nicholas Brown Michael T. Kelleher Theodore P. Ferris Palfrey Perkins Alvan T. Fuller Charles H. Stockton Francis W. Hatch Edward A. Taft Harold D. Hodgkinson Raymond S. Wilkins Oliver Wolcott TRUSTEES EMERITUS Philip R. Allen M. A. DeWolfe Howe N. Penrose Hallowell Lewis Perry Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Manager G. W. Rector ) Assistant J. J. Brosnahan, Assistant Treasurer N. S. Shirk \ Managers Rosario Mazzeo, Personnel Manager in BOXHOLDERS Season 1954-1955 Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss The Ambassador of France and Madame Bonnet Mr. A. Marvin Braverman Mr. and Mrs. Darwin C. Brown Mr. and Mrs. Earl Campbell Miss Gertrude S. Carraway Mr. and Mrs. William R. Castle Mr. and Mrs. Henry P. Caulfield Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Chaite Mrs. William Croziei The Minister of Luxembourg and Madame Le Gallais Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Grew Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Hechinger The Ambassador of Cambodia and Madame Nong Kimny Mr. Roy Leifflen Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Meyer Dr. and Mrs. Howard Mitchell Mr. and Mrs. Charles Munch Mrs. George Hewitt Myers Judge and Mrs. George D. Neilson Mrs. Andrew J. Snow Mrs. Edwin M. Watson PATRONS AND PATRONESSES Mrs. Samuel Anderson Mrs. John W. Auchincloss Mr. Jennings Bailey Mrs. Truxton Beale Mrs. H. A. Berliner Mrs. Leonard Carmichael Gen. and Mrs. Lawton Collins Mrs. William Eustis Mrs. Chandler Hale Mrs. Christian Heurich Mrs. Milton King Admiral and Mrs. Emory Land Mr. A. H. Lawson Mrs. H. A. Monat Mrs. Vera Petschek Mrs. John Farr Simmons Mrs. Peter Vischer [*] Constitution Hall, Washington Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director FIRST CONCERT THURSDAY EVENING, November 18, at 8:30 o'clock Program Gluck Overture to "Alceste" Honegger Symphony No. 5 I. Grave II. Allegretto III. Allegro marcato INTERMISSION Berlioz Fantastic Symphony, Op. 14A I. Reveries, Passions Largo: Allegro agitato e appassionato assai II. A Ball Waltz: Allegro non troppo III. Scene in the Meadows Adagio IV. March to the Scaffold Allegretto non troppo V. Dream of a Witches' Sabbath Larghetto: Allegro Concerts by this orchestra in Boston will be broadcast on Saturdays 8:30-9:30 E.S.T. on the NBC Network. BALDWIN PIANO RCA VICTOR RECORDS [3] . Well pay you or the hospital . to substantially reduce the cost of your room and board . and certain other hospital expenses. This will help to diminish the drain on your pocketbook while you're getting well — provided you've got Employers' Group Hospital insurance. Get in touch with your Employers' Group agent, today. The EMPLOYERS' GROUP Insurance Companies THE EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY ASSURANCE CORP. LTD. 110 MILK ST. AMERICAN EMPLOYERS' INSURANCE CO. THE EMPLOYERS' FIRE INSURANCE CO. BOSTON 7, MASS. For Fire, Casualty and Marine Insurance or Fidelity and Surety Bonds, see your local Employers' Group Agent, The Man With The Plan [4] OVERTURE TO "ALCESTE" By Christoph Willibald Gluck Born July 2, 1714, at Weidenwang in the Upper Palatinate; died November 25, 1787, at Vienna "Alceste, Tragedia per Musica," text by Ranieri di Calzabigi, was first per- formed in Vienna December 16, 1767. It was introduced to Paris October 23, 1776, the text translated into French by Bailli du Roullet. The Overture as here per- formed was edited by Felix Weingartner in 1898, with an ending for concert purposes. The orchestration is as follows: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 2 horns, 3 trombones and strings. " A lceste," following Orfeo ed Eurydice (which had the same t\ librettist) by five years in Vienna, was Gluck's second declara- tion of drastic reform in opera. The subject had been treated before and was treated subsequently by other composers. But the challenge in Gluck's Alceste was his complete adherence, in the drama of Euripides, to the atmosphere of sombre tragedy unrelieved. Gluck had proclaimed that an overture should be a true prepara- tion for the mood of the drama to follow, and in Alceste he was as good as his word. Alfred Einstein, in his invaluable book on Gluck, writes: "Beauty enters with the overture, called an 'intrada' by Gluck, presumably because it leads without a break into the scene. It is the first truly tragic introduction to an opera. The tutti is darkly colored by the trio of trombones, the form not in the least sonata-like and 'dramatic' but heavily charged, neutral, purely a prologue to a gloomy action and especially disconsolate where it becomes gentle and suppli- cating. But Fate is inexorable, like the suspended A in the basses. This piece in D minor is the ancestor of an illustrious line from the Overture to Don Giovanni to the Tragic Overture of Brahms." As the opera opens, King Admetos is mortally ill, and Alceste, his wife, prays in the temple of Apollo for his life. Apollo answers that her husband may be spared only if another victim is found to take his place. Alceste submits herself for this sacrifice. Alceste finds Admetos in Hades and is about to be torn from him in fulfillment of the decree of Apollo, when Heracles rushes in and persuades the implacable god to relent and spare the lives of both. The intervention of Heracles was added by du Roullet in the French version, which differs considerably from the original. Alceste was not at once received with open arms in Paris. Even Rousseau, upon whose worship of "nature" Gluck heavily leaned, had qualms about it: "I know no opera in which the passions are less [5] " varied than in Alceste; almost everything turns on two sentiments: affliction and terror. And the prolonged employment of these two senti- ments must have cost the composer incredible pains to avoid the most lamentable monotony. Generally speaking, the more warmth there is in the situations and expressions, the more prompt and rapid should be their passage. Otherwise the force of the emotion decreases in the hearers; and when the proper limit is passed, the actor strives in vain, for the spectator grows cold and finally impatient." Corancez, a friend of Gluck who was a printer, has related that he found the composer much agitated in the corridor of the opera house at the conclusion of the first performance in Paris. Gluck was incensed by the apparent failure of his opera, which had been too gloomy for the taste of its first Parisian audience. His disappointment was prema- ture, for Alceste was destined to take a strong hold in Paris as it had in Vienna. Gluck, talking to Corancez at the premiere, complained bitterly " 'that I should witness the failure of a piece modelled wholly on the truth of nature, and in which all the passions have their true accent — I admit that this amazes me/ Alceste, he added proudly, 'can displease only now when it is new. It has not yet had time; I say that it will please equally in two hundred years, if the French language does not change, and my reason for saying so is that I have built wholly on nature, which is never subject to changes of fashion.' This remark was in line with the famous preface to Alceste, which was a declaration of creed, a challenge which had rocked the whole opera controversy when the score had been published in 1769. Gluck was a triumphant reformer to the extent that his Rousseau-naturalism inevitably did away with many formalities and artificialities of the opera seria. His prophecy was correct in that he had indeed given a new orientation toward naturalness in opera.