PARSONS THEATRE HARTFORD Thirty-fifth Season. 1915-1916 Dr. KARL MUCK. Conductor WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES BY PHILIP HALE MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 27 AT 8.15 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY C. A.-ELLIS PUBLISHED BY C. A. ELLIS, MANAGER €i Yes, It's a Steinway" ISN'T there supreme satisfaction in being able to say that of the piano in your home? Would you have the same feeling about any other piano? " It's a Steinway." Nothing more need be said. Everybody knows you have chosen wisely; you have given to your home the very best that money can buy. You will never even think of changing this piano for any other. As the years go by the words "It's a Steinway" will mean more and more to you, and thousands of times, as you continue to enjoy through life the com- panionship of that noble instrument, absolutely without a peer, you will say to yourself: "How glad I am I paid the few extra dollars and got a Steinway." STEINWAY HALL 107-109 East 14th Street, New York Subway Express Station at the Door Represented by the Foremost Dealers Everywhere Thirty-fifth Season, 1915-1916 Dr. KARL MUCK, Conductor PERSONNEL Violins. Witek, A. Roth, O. Hoffmann, J. Rissland, K. Concert-master. Koessler, M. Schmidt, E. Theodorowicz, J. Noack, S. Mahn, F. Bak, A. Traupe, W. Goldstein, H. Tak, E. Ribarsch, A. Baraniecki, A. Sauvlet. H. Habenicht, W. Fiedler, B. Berger, H. Goldstein, S. Fiumara, P. Spoor, S. Siilzen, H. Fiedler, A. Griinberg, M. Pinfield, C. Gerardi, A. Kurth, R. Gunderson, R. Gewirtz J Violas. Ferir, E. Werner, H. Gietzen, A. v.Veen, H. Wittmann, F. Schwerley, P. Berlin, W. Kautzenbach, W. Van Wynbergen, C. Blumenau, W. v Violoncellos. Warnke, H. Keller, J. Barth, C. Belinski, M. Steinke, B. Malkin, J. Nagel, R. Nast, L. Folgmann, E. Warnke, J. Basses. Kunze, M. Agnesy, K. Seydel, T. Ludwig, O. Gerhardt, G. Jaeger, A. Huber, E. Schurig, R. Flutes. Oboes. Clarinets. Bassoons. Maquarre, A. Longy, G. Sand, A. Sadony, P. Brooke, A. Lenom, C. Mimart, P. Mueller, E. de Mailly, C. Stanislaus, H. Vannini, A Fuhrmann, M. Battles, A. English Horn. Bass Clarinet. Contra-Bassoon. * Mueller, F. Stumpf, K. Mosbach, J. Horns. Horns. Trumpets. Trombones. Wendler, G. Jaenicke, B. Heim, G. Alloo,M. Lorbeer, H. Miersch, E. Mann, J. Belgiorno, S. Hain, F. Hess, M. Nappi, G. Mausebach, A. Resch, A. Hiibner, E. Kloepfel, L. Kenfield, L. Tuba. Harps. Tympani. Percussion. Mattersteig, P. Holy, A. Neumann, S. Zahn, F. Gardner, C Cella, T. Kandler, F. Burkhardt, H. Organ. Librarian. Assistant Librarian. Marshall, J. P. Sauerquell, J. Rogers, L. J. 3 '*?/ From Bowstring to Pianoforte When the melodious twang of a taut bow- string first tickled the ear of some skin-clad huntsman of the Stone Age, an immortal musical tradition had its ignoble birth. Through these many thousand years this musical tradition has marvelously developed, from primitive Grecian lyre to the many- stringed harp of the mediaeval minstrels, from clavichord to spinet, from harpsichord to pianoforte, until it finds today its supreme expression in the •<5&pttl & tawi Chickering & Sons, Boston Division of American Piano Co. For Sale by The C. L. Pierce & Co., 269 Asylum St., Hartford 1 1 ^9^L j>*^ji*JtjiJ ill jL± PARSONS THEATRE HARTFORD Forty-eighth Concert in Hartford pM© Thirty-fifth Season, 1915-1916 Dr. KARL MUCK, Conductor THIRD CONCERT MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 27 AT 8.15 WAGNER PROGRAMME Overture to "The Flying Dutchman" "A Siegfried Idyl" Selections from "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" (Intro- duction to Act III.; Dance of the Apprentices; Entrance of the Mastersingers; Homage to Hans Sachs) Prelude to "Lohengrin" The Good Friday Spell from "Parsifal" Overture to "Tannhauser' There will be an intermission of ten minutes between the third and fourth numbers Ovbrturb to "Th^^vino Dutchman* ' .... Richard Wagner (Born at keipsic, May 22, 1813; died at Venice, February 13, 1883.) The overture is scored for one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, one English horn, two clarinets, four horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, one bass tuba, kettledrums, harp, strings. It was sketched at Meudon near Paris in September, 1841, and com- pleted and scored at Paris in November of that year. In 1852 Wagner changed the ending. In i860 he wrote another ending for the Paris concerts. It opens Allegro con brio in D minor, 6-4, with an empty fifth, against which horns and bassoons give out the Flying Dutchman motive. There is a stormy development, through which this motive is kept sounding in the brass. There is a hint at the first theme of the main body of the overture, an arpeggio figure in the strings, taken from the accompaniment of one of the movements in the Dutchman's first air in act i. This storm section over, there is an episodic Andante in F major in which wind instruments give out phrases from Senta's ballad of the Flying Dutchman (act ii.). The episode leads directly to the main body of the overture, Allegro con brio in D minor, 6-4, which begins with the first theme. This theme is developed at great length with chromatic passages taken from Senta's ballad. The Flying Dutch- man theme comes in episodically in the brass from time to time. The subsidiary theme in F major is taken from the sailors' chorus, "Steuer- mann, lass' die Wacht!" (act iii.). The second theme, the phrase from Senta's ballad already heard in the Andante episode, enters f in the full orchestra, F major, and is worked up brilliantly with fragments of the first theme. The Flying Dutchman motive reappears jf in the trombones. The coda begins in D major, 2-2. A few rising arpeggio measures in the violins lead to the second theme, proclaimed with the FOOT GUARD HALL Friday Evening, April 14, 1916 80 MALE VOICES RALPH L. BALDWIN, Conductor NINTH SEASON SECOND CONCERT Soloist, KATHLEEN PARLOW, Violinist Reserved seats and further particulars at Gallup & Alfred's Music Store full force of the orchestra. The theme is now in the shape found in the Allegro peroration of Senta's ballad, and it is worked up with great energy. * Wagner wrote in "A Communication to my Friends" that before he began to work on the whole opera "The Flying Dutchman" he drafted the words and the music of Senta's ballad. Mr. Ellis says that he wrote this ballad while he was in the thick of the composition of "Rienzi." The ballad is the thematic germ of the whole opera, and it should be remembered that Wagner felt inclined to call the opera itself a dramatic ballad. "Der fliegende Hollander," opera in three acts, was performed for the first time at the Court Opera House, Dresden, January 2, 1843. The cast was as follows: Senta, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient ; the Dutch- man, Michael Wachter; Daland, Karl Risse; Erik, Reinhold; Mary, Mrs. Wachter; the steersman, Bielezizky. Wagner conducted. The first performance in America was in Italian, "II Vascello Fan- tasma," at Philadelphia, November 8, 1876, by Mme. Pappenheim's Company. The first performance in Boston was in English at the Globe Theatre, March 14, 1877: Senta, Clara Louise Kellogg; Eric, Joseph Maas; Daland, George A. Conly; the steersman, C. H. Turner; Mary, Marie Lancaster; Vanderdecken, the Dutchman, William Carleton. * * * It was undoubtedly due to the dramatic genius of Mme. Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient (1804-60) that a poor performance was turned the first night into an apparent triumph. It is said that in the part of Senta she surpassed herself in originality; but Wagner wrote to Fischer in 1852 that this performance was a bad one. "When I recall AN AMERICAN AUTHOR AN AMERICAN COMPOSER AND TWO AMERICAN MUSIC MOTIVES One of the greatest examples of American Music has just been published. Words by the great American author Music by the well-known American WALT WHITMAN H. T. BURLEIGH Dedicated to and Sung by the American Basso of the Metropolitan Opera Co. Mr. HERBERT WITHERSPOON >., 14 East 43rd Street, NEW YORK ' what an extremely clumsy and wooden setting of 'The Flying Dutcfc man ' the imaginative Dresden machinist Hanel gave on his magnificerj stage, I am seized even now with an after-attack of rage. Messr; Wachter's and Risse's genial and energetic efforts are also faithfull stored up in my memory. ' Wagner wished Senta to be portrayed as "an altogether robus Northern maid, thoroughly naive in her apparent sentimentality." He wrote: "Only in the heart of an entirely naive girl surrounde by the idiosyncrasies of Northern nature could impressions such a those of the ballad of the 'Flying Dutchman' and the picture of th pallid seaman call forth so wondrous strong a bent as the impuls to redeem the doomed: with her this takes the outward form of a active monomania such, indeed, as can only be found in quite naiv natures. We have been told of Norwegian maids of such a force c feeling that death has come upon them through a sudden rigor of th heart. Much in this wise may it go, with the seeming 'morbidness of pallid Senta." Wagner revised the score in 1852. "Only where it was purel; superfluous have I struck out some of the brass, here and there give] a somewhat more human tone, and only thoroughly overhauled th coda of the overture. I remember that it was just this coda whicl always annoyed me at the performances; now I think it will answe We are showing the complete line of UPRIGHTS $500 $600 $750 GRANDS $750 $800 $900 $1000 $1250 STEINWAY PIANOLAS $1250 and $2100 Sole agents for Steinway Pianos in Central Connecticut.