Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 65,1945-1946, Trip
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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SIXTY-FIFTH SEASON i945- J 946 Carnegie Hall, New York AIR-SENT TO ALL AMERICA EVERY SATURDAY OVER THE AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANY COAST-TO-COAST THE BOSTON SYMPHONY SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, CONDUCTOR Sponsored for the Third Season by ALLIS-CHALMERS MANUFACTURING COMPANY, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Producers of the World's Largest Line of Major Industrial Equipment—Over 1600 Products for American Industry TUNE IN ¥JZ - 9:30 P. M., E. S. T. i iii i mam < i—itrti Carnegie Hall, New York Sixtieth Season in New York SIXTY-FIFTH SEASON, 1945-1946 Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor Concert Bulletin of the Fifth Concert WEDNESDAY EVENING, April 10 AND THE Fifth Matinee SATURDAY AFTERNOON, April 13 with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Henry B. Cabot . President Henry B. Sawyer . Vice-Tresident Richard C. Paine Treasurer Philip R. Allen M. A. De Wolfe Howe John Nicholas Brown Jacob J. Kaplan Alvan T. Fuller Roger I. Lee Jerome D. Greene Bentley W. Warren N. Penrose Hallowell Raymond S. Wilkins Oliver Wolcott G. E. Judd, Manager [1] Monteil's great perfume and its golden .'. allies . deep and rousing, with all the disturbing joy of a new romance. 4ftj»at#tf/ [«] Carnegie Hall Sixtieth Season in New York Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor FIFTH EVENING CONCERT WEDNESDAY, April 10 Programme Haydn Symphony in G major, No. 88 I. Adagio; Allegro II. Largo III. Menuetto; Trio IV. Finale: Allegro con spirito Copland Suite from the Ballet, "Appalachian Spring" INTERMISSION Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Adagietto grazioso; quasi andantino IV. Allegro con spirito BALDWIN PIANO The music of these programmes is available at the Music Library, 58th Street Branch, The New York Public Library. Each Saturday Evening (9:30-10:30 E.S.T.) the Boston Symphony Orchestra concert is broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company under the sponsorship of the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company I""" I -IU1.B—»I—BW [3] SYMPHONY IN G MAJOR, No. 88 By Joseph Haydn Born at Rohrau, Lower Austria, March 31, 1732; died at Vienna, May 31, 1809 This symphony was composed for performance in Paris in the year 1787. It is scored for one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. It was first performed at concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, November 8, 1889. The name of Haydn first became eminent in Paris when his Stabat Mater was performed there at a Concert Spirituel, in 1781. Purely instrumental music then took a subordinate place in the general esti- mation as compared with opera or choral music. Yet symphonies of Haydn, performed at the Concert Spirituel, and published in the French capital, were enthusiastically received. Haydn was approached at Esterhazy in 1784 by the Concert de la Loge Olympique, a rival organization, for a brace of symphonies. Six were duly forthcoming, and the Symphony in G major, labelled in the London Philharmonic Society catalogue as letter "V," and later numbered by Eusebius Mandyczewski in his chronological listing for Breitkopf and Hartel as 88, is believed to have been written for Paris also. The Concert de la Loge Olympique was a highly fashionable and decidedly exclusive institution. It was affiliated with freemasonry, and its subscribers, admitted only after solemn examination and ritual, gained admission to the concerts by paying two louis d'or a year, and wearing as badge of admission the device of a silver lyre on a sky- blue ground. The concerts succeeded those of the Concert des Ama- teurs, which, founded in 1769, ceased in 1781. The performances of the Concert de la Loge Olympique were given from 1786 in the Salle des Gardes of the Palace of the Tuileries. In the personnel amateurs were mingled with professionals, but it is probable that the amateur players were more rigorously selected than the players of the Concert des Amateurs, which had as many as sixty string players in its ranks. At the concerts of the Loge Olympique, Giovanni Battista Viotti, the eminent violinist and accompanist to the Queen of France, stepped in as leader. The orchestra was placed on an especially erected stage in the Salle des Gardes, and the audience took its place in surrounding tiers of seats. Queen Marie Antoinette, and the Lords and Ladies of her court, attended in numbers. Toilettes of the utmost elaboration were formally required, and the musicians wore brocaded coats, full lace ruffles, swords at their sides, and plumed hats which they were allowed to place beside them on the benches while they played. When the drums of the French Revo- lution sounded in Paris in 1789, the Concert de la Loge Olympique came to a sudden end. The Adagio introduction, with its short but full-sounding chords, brings in complete contrast the sprightly opening subject, stated softly by the strings. The second subject, chromatic and suave, duly comes in in the dominant D major. The composer begins his development with light play upon a rippling string figure which has accompanied the first statement for full orchestra of the main subject. This figure, [4] It Opens Your Eyes and Helps You Sleep It's a plan . for you and your family. It's an analysis of what you should do to protect your home, income and savings from the whims of nature and man. Without charge we analyze your present insurance, study your needs, and give you a plan ... a complete, compact personal analysis that lists and explains all your fire and casualty insurance and offers helpful sug- gestions for improvement. Write to us today to find out how you can get this plan. the employers' group man is The Man with the Plan The Employers' Group SURETYSHIP • INSURANCE One Liberty Sq., Boston 7, Mass, m leaping about from key to key, sometimes in the minor, appearing in each part of the orchestra, gracefully setting off the theme itself, becomes the principal fabric of the development. The Largo, in D major, develops from a graceful and songful theme which brings three times an impassioned fortissimo outburst by the full orchestra. This Largo gives more than one premonition of the early slow movements of Beethoven. The Minuet, with little ornamental flourishes, is more courtly than some of Haydn's symphonic minuets. But in the Trio true peasant Gemutlichkeit is suggested by the droning bass in open fifths under the flowing theme. As soon as the delightful subject of the finale has made its first appearance, one knows that a strict rondo is in order, so that it may make as many "happy returns" as possible. It does so duly, sometimes enhanced by suspensive preparation (again a hint for Beethoven's later uses). One's lingering impression of the symphony is an abundance of little felicities in dynamic contrast, color variety and modulation, an inexhaustible store of adroitness masquerading as naivete. [copyrighted! SUITE FROM. THE BALLET, "APPALACHIAN SPRING" By Aaron Copland Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., November 14, 1900 Aaron Copland began to compose the music of his ballet in Hollywood in June, 1943, and completed it just a year later in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He wrote the ballet for Miss Martha Graham on a commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. The ballet was first performed by Miss Graham and her company at the Coolidge Festival in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., October 30, 1944. The principal parts were danced by Miss Graham, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham and May O'Donnell. Isamu Noguchi designed the architectural setting; Edith Guilfond, the costumes. Louis Horst conducted. Miss Graham and her company introduced "Appalachian Spring" to Boston during her engagement at Jordan Hall, January 26-27, 1 945* The original score called for a chamber ensemble of thirteen instruments. The present arrangement for symphony orchestra was made by the composer last spring. It requires woodwinds in twos, horns, trumpets and trombones in twos, piano, harp, percussion and strings. The score is dedicated to Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. n 1945 "Appalachian Spring," subtitled "Ballet for Martha," re- I ceived the Pulitzer Prize for music, as well as the award of the Music Critics' Circle of New York for the outstanding theatrical work of the season 1944-1945- The action of the ballet, as described by Edwin Denby in the New York Herald-Tribune, May 15, 1945, is concerned with "a pioneer celebration in the spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and appre- hensive, their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house." [6] Mr. Copland has supplied the following information about "Ap- palachian Spring": "The music of the ballet takes as its point of departure the per- sonality of Martha Graham. I have long been an admirer of Miss Graham's work. She, in turn, must have felt a certain affinity for my music because in 1931 she chose my Piano Variations as background for a dance composition entitled 'Dithyramb.' I remember my astonish- ment, after playing the Variations for the first time at a concert of the League of Composers, when Miss Graham told me she intended to use the composition for dance treatment.