SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Telephone, Commonwealth 1492 FIFTY-NINTH SEASON, 1939-1940 CONCERT BULLETIN of the Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Richard Burgin, Assistant Conductor with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk COPYRIGHT, 194O, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, ltlt. The OFFICERS and TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Ernest B. Dane President Henry B. Sawyer .... Vice-President Ernest B. Dane Treasurer Henry B. Cabot M. A. De Wolfe Howe Ernest B. Dane Roger I. Lee Alvan T. Fuller Richard C. Paine Jerome D. Greene Henry B. Sawyer N. Penrose Hallowell Edward A. Taft Bentley W. Warren G. E. Judd, Manager C. W. Spalding, Assistant Manager [769] Old Colony Trust Company 17 COURT STREET, BOSTON Member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Investment and Management of Property Income Collection Tax Accounting Do you realize the small cost of having us shoulder these burdens for you? Conferences with our officers entail no obligation. AGENT * TRUSTEE * GUARDIAN * EXECUTOR ^Allied with The First National Bank of Boston [770] FIFTY-NINTH SEASON • NINETEEN HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE AND FORTY Seventeenth Programme FRIDAY AFTERNOON, March i, at 2:30 o'clock SATURDAY EVENING, March 2, at 8:15 o'clock Mahler Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor Part 1 (1) Trauermarsch (2) Sturmisch bewegt Part II (3) Scherzo Part III (4) Adagietto (5) Rondo Finale intermission Szymanowski Symphonie Concertante for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 60 I. Moderato II. Andante molto sostenuto III. Allegro non troppo (First performances in Boston) SOLOIST JAN SMETERLIN steinway piano This programme will end about 4:20 on Friday Afternoon. 10:05 o'clock on Saturday Evening [771 1 Treasures from rare old volumes! ENGLISH SPORTING PRINTS Golfing, fishing, coaching scenes . hunting, steeplechasing — a dramatic collection out of the last century, gathered in small, choice groups abroad, uncovered in fine old books broken up for this event! Included are rare plates — early 1800 publish- ings — Aiken, Rowlandson, Barenger — loot of a vanished era for you at SAVINGS! Single plates $2.50 to $6.00 Sets of two to six $7.00 to $18.00 Views of Old London $4.25 Bartletfc's American scenes in color .59 Hundreds of bird, flower or sporting prints from rare old books !5c to $3.00 BOOK SHOP — STREET FLOOR — ANNEX [772 1 SYMPHONY NO. 5, in C-sharp minor By Gustav Mahler Born at Kalischt in Bohemia, on July 7, i860; died at Vienna on May 18, 1911 Mahler completed his Fifth Symphony in 1902. It was first performed at a Gtirzenicht concert in Cologne, October 18, 1904, under his own direction. The first performance in the United States was by the Cincinnati Orchestra under Frank von der Stucken, March 25, 1905. The first performance in Boston was by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, February 2, 1906. Wilhelm Gericke, who con- ducted, gave the work its first New York hearing on February 15, and repeated it in Boston on February 23. The symphony was performed here under Dr. Muck's direction April 18, 1913, November 21, 1913, and February 27, 1914. Dr. Koussevitzky revived it October 22, 1937, and repeated it March 4 of the same season. The Symphony is scored for four flutes and piccolo, three oboes and English horn, three clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contra-bassoon, six horns, four trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, tam-tam, harp and strings. It was published in 1904. /^i ustav Mahler composed his Fourth Symphony at Maiernigg on ^7 the Worthersee in the summer of 1 900. During the two summers following, at his little cottage in this idyllic spot of Carinthia which has inspired great music at other times, he worked upon his Fifth FEATURING AMERICAN COMPOSERS-IV Selections for Two Pianos, Four Hands Net ERNEST HARRY ADAMS: Arab Dance. 75 Rondo Mignon 75 CHARLES DENN£E: Op. 9, No. 1. Danse Moderne 60 Op. 16, No. 1. Russian Dance 75 Mrs. M. H. GULESIAN: In a Hong Kong Garden 75 EDWARD MacDOWELL: Op. 17, No. 2. Witches' Dance 1.00 Op. 21, Moon Pictures 1.00 Op. 42, No. 4. Forest Elves ("Waldgeister") 1.50 Op. 49, No. 2. Rigaudon 75 Op. 51, No. 2. Will-o'-the-Wisp 60 Op. 59, Finale from Keltic Sonata 1.50 Arrangements by American Composers F. CHOPIN: Op. 73, Rondo (Ed. by Lee Pattison) 1.25 C. M. von WEBER: Finale from Concerto, Op. 11 (Arr. by George Pratt Maxim) .75 THE ARTHUR P. SCHMIDT CO., 120 Boylston St. t773l Symphony and likewise set five songs from Ruckert, and two of the "Kindertotenlieder" The Fifth Symphony was completed in the sum- mer of 1902. It was in March of that year that he married Alma Maria Schindler. The Fifth Symphony, in Mahler's own words, marked a new de- parture in his life as an artist. Experienced as he was in the technical handling of an orchestra through his conducting and through the magnificent scores he had already written, the Fifth seemed to require a reconstitution of his instrumental forces. He was not satisfied with it, and wrote as late as 1911 of changes he had made in the orches- tration. It seemed to him "as if a totally new message demanded a new technique." The Mahler enthusiasts may well have looked for an elucidation of the Fifth Symphony when it appeared. The introductory "funeral march" had a character and suggestion obviously far different from some outward ceremonial; the scherzo, with its wild abandon and the affecting adagietto, seemed to have some definite motivation. Bruno Walter, than whom no one has had a more intimate com- prehension of Mahler the artist, warns us quite specifically in his personal and revealing monograph on Gustav Mahler* against look- ing for any programme in the Fifth Symphony or the two that follow. * Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., London, 1937. [774] BERKSHIRE SYMPHONIC FESTIVAL OF 1940 at "Tanglewood" (Between Stockbridge and Lenox, Mass.) Bostons Symphony Orchestra-: SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor Nine Concerts on Thursday and Saturday Eves., and Sunday Afts. Scries A: August 1, 3, 4 The First Symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann and Sibelius. The C major Symphony of Schubert, the Second Sym- phony of Brahms, and the Third of Roy Harris. Other works include Bach's Passacaglia (orchestrated by Respighi), Faure's Suite "Pelleas et Melisande," Stravinsky's "Capriccio" (Soloist J. M. Sanroma, Piano), Prokofieff's "Classical" Symphony, and Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe" (Second Suite). Series B: August 8, 10, 11 A TCHAIKOVSKY FESTIVAL (Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth) The Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies. The Violin Concerto (Albert Spalding, Soloist). The Overture "Romeo and Juliet," Serenade for Strings, Second Suite and other works to be announced. Artur Rodzinski will conduct one of the three programmes. Series C: August 15, 17, 18 The Third ("Eroica") Symphony of Beethoven, the First of Brahms, and a Symphony of Haydn. Other works include Wagner excerpts, Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler," arias by Dorothy Maynor and BACH'S MASS IN B MINOR with the Festival Chorus of the Berkshire Music Center and Soloists to be announced Subscription blanks may be secured at the Symphony Hall Box Office or by applying to the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, Inc., Stockbridge, Mass. [775] He finds each of these more than anything else "a further intensifica- tion of the symphonic idea." The first four symphonies had each had their text or their pictorial images. Taking up the Fifth, Mahler showed a marked change in the course of his musical thinking. "He has- had enough now of struggling with weapons of music for a philos- ophy of life. Feeling strong and equal to life, he is now aiming to write music as a musician. "Thus the Fifth Symphony is born, a work of strength and sound self-reliance, its face turned squarely towards life, and its basic mood one of optimism. A mighty funeral march, followed by a violently agitated first movement, a scherzo of considerable dimensions, an adagietto, and a rondo-fugue, form the movements. Nothing in any of my conversations with Mahler and not a single note point to the influence of extra-musical thoughts or emotions upon the composi- tion of the Fifth. It is music, passionate, wild, pathetic, buoyant, solemn, tender, full of all the sentiments of which the human heart is capable, but still 'only' music, and no metaphysical questioning, not even from very far off, interferes with its purely musical course. On the other hand, the musician was all the more diligently striving to increase his symphonic ability and to create a new and higher type." MILADY CHOOSES LACE —AN IMPORTANT PEAK-OF-SEASON COLLECTION OF FESTIVE GOWNS—STRESSING DELICATE LACES IN UNUSUAL COMBINATIONS OF COLORS—TO BE WORN BY BOSTON'S MOST CHARMING WOMEN AT THE OPERA, AT THEATER PARTIES, AND IN THE DRAWING ROOMS OF STATELY HOMES— [776] ITS BEST IDEAS ARE STILL UMOPIED! HPHE style of Lincoln-Zephyr has put ger and luggage space this year, are its stamp on a nation's cars. But to truss-built with body and frame a think of Lincoln-Zephyr just as style single unit... another Lincoln-Zephyr is not to know the car at all ! Its new exclusive. Its unique floating ride... its lines were new only because the car remarkable ease of handling for a car beneath was so new! And it still is. so big, the untiring way it takes driver Lincoln-Zephyr's best ideas are still and passengers alike through the Lincoln-Zephyr's alone. Its great 12- longest trip ..