F BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 BY HENRY LEE HIGGINSON CARNEGIE HALL NEW YORK \ *&>*& A. *W^ ^^ \/%, ^§ T"' Y;/>il- ^ <£-- # ^sfc^T^--' v EIGHTY-FIRST SEASON 1961-1962 Boston Symphony Orchestra (Eighty-fust Season, 1961-1962) CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director RICHARD BURG1N, Associate Conductor PERSONNEL Violins Cellos Bassoons Richard Burgin Samuel Mayes Sherman Walt Concert-master Alfred Zighera Ernst Panenka Alfred Krips Jacobus Langendoen Matthew Ruggiero George Zazofsky Mischa Nieland Rolland Tapley Karl Zeise Contra Bassoon Martin Joseph Silverstein Hoherman Richard Plaster Vladimir Resnikoff Bernard Parronchi Harry Dickson Richard Kapuscinski Horns Robert Gottfried Wilfinger Ripley James Stagliano Einar Hansen Winifred Winograd Charles Yancich Roger Shermont Louis Berger Harry Shapiro Minot Beale John Sant Ambrogio Harold Meek Herman Silberman Paul Keaney Joseph Leibovici Basses Osbourne McConathy Stanley Benson Georges Moleux Leo Panasevich Henry Freeman Trumpets Sheldon Rotenberg Irving Frankel Roger Voisin Fredy Ostrovsky Henry Portnoi Armando Ghitalla Noah Bielski Henri Girard Andre Come John Barwicki Gerard Goguen Clarence Knudson Pierre Mayer Leslie Martin Ortiz Walton Trombones Manuel Zung Samuel Diamond William Gibson William William Marshall Flutes Moyer Kauko Kahila Leonard Moss Doriot Anthony Dwyer Josef Orosz William Waterhouse James Pappoutsakis Alfred Schneider Phillip Kaplan Tuba Victor Manusevitch K. Vinal Smith Laszlo Nagy Piccolo Ayrton Pinto George Madsen Timpani Michel Sasson Everett Firth Lloyd Stonestreet Harold Farberman Julius Schulman Oboes Raymond Sird Ralph Gomberg Percussion Gerald Gelbloom Jean de Vergie Charles Smith John Holmes Harold Violas Thompson Arthur Press Joseph de Pasquale English Horn Jean Cauhape Louis Speyer Harps Eugen Lehner Bernard Zighera Albert Bernard Clarinets Olivia Luetcke George Humphrey Jerome Lipson Gino Cioffi Manuel Valerio Robert Karol Piano Reuben Green Pasquale Cardillo Bernard Zighera E\) Clarinet Bernard Kadinoff Vincent Mauricci Library Bass Clarinet Earl Hedberg Victor Alpert Joseph Pietropaolo Rosario Mazzeo William Shisler EIGHTY-FIRST SEASON, 1961-1962 Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Music Director Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor CONCERT BULLETIN with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Henry B. Cabot President Talcott M. Banks Vice-President Richard C. Paine Treasurer Abram Berkowitz John T. Noonan Theodore P. Ferris Mrs. James H. Perkins Francis W. Hatch Sidney R. Rabb Harold D. Hodgkinson Charles H. Stockton C. D. Jackson John L. Thorndike E. Morton Jennings, Jr. Raymond S. Wilkins Henry A. Laughlin Oliver Wolcott TRUSTEES EMERITUS Philip R. Allen Lewis Perry Edward A. Taft Palfrey Perkins Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Manager Norman S. Shirk James J. Brosnahan Assistant Manager Business Administrator Leonard Burkat Rosario Mazzeo Music Administrator Personnel Manager SYMPHONY HALL BOSTON 15 (3] Qharles <^Munch Qonducts the Boston Symphony ^Champion of Ravel, Charles Munch reveals a full flowering of the entire "Daphnis and Chloe" score. A sumptuous work with a wealth of sensuous beauty. Dr. Munch also presents the charming, urbane "Concerto in G Minor for Organ, Strings ^and Timpani" by Poulenc; and the witty Stravinsky ballet, "Jeu de Cartes." In Living Stereo and Monaural Hi-Fi. RCA VICTOR THE MOST TRUSTED NAME IN SOUND [4] EIGHTY-FIRST SEASON • NINETEEN HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE -SIXTY-TWO CARNEGIE HALL Seventy-sixth Season in New York Fifth Evening Concert WEDNESDAY, April 4, at 8:30 o'clock ^Program 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 the Witches' Sabbath Larghetto; Allegro INTERMISSION Debussy *"La Mer" (The Sea), Three Symphonic Sketches I. De l'aube a midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea) II. Jeux de vagues (The Play of the Waves) III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea) Ravel *"Daphnis et Chloe," Ballet, Suite No. 2 Lever du jour — Pantomime — Danse generate Music of these programs is available at the Music Library, 58th Street Branch, the New York Public Library. BALDWIN PIANO *RCA VICTOR RECORDS [5] FANTASTIC SYMPHONY (SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE). Op. 14A By Hector Berlioz Born in la Cote-Saint-Andre (Isere), December 11, 1803; died in Paris, March 8, 1869 Berlioz's title, "Episode in the Life of an Artist," Op. 14, includes two works: the Fantastic Symphony and Lelio; or, The Return to Life, a lyric monodrama. The Symphony, composed in 1830, had its first performance December 5 ot that year at the Conservatoire in Paris, Habeneck conducting. The first performance in the United States was at a concert of the Philharmonic Society of New York, Carl Bergmann conducting, January 27, 1866. The Symphony was first performed in Boston by the Harvard Musical Association, February 12, 1880, and first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, December 19, 1885. It is scored for 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets and E-flat clarinet, 4 bassoons, 2 cornets-d-pistons, 2 trumpets, 4 horns, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, 2 harps, and strings. The score is dedicated to Nicholas I. of Russia. npHERE have been many attempts to explain the Symphonie Fantas- *- tique. Berlioz himself was explicit, writing of the "Episode in the Life of an Artist" as "the history of my love for Miss Smithson, my anguish and my distressing dreams." This in his Memoirs; but he also wrote there: "It was while I was still strongly under the influence of Goethe's poem [Faust] that I wrote my Symphonie Fantastique" Yet the "Episode" cannot be put down simply as a sort of lover's confession in music, nor its first part as a "Faust" symphony. In 1830, Berlioz had never talked to Miss Smithson. He was what would now be called a "fan" of the famous Irish actress, for she scarcely knew of the existence of the obscure and perhaps crazy young French composer who did not even speak her language. Her image was blended in the thoughts of the entranced artist with the parts in which he beheld her on the boards — Ophelia or Juliet — as Berlioz shows in his excited letters to his friend Ferrand at the time. Can that image be reconciled with the "courtesan" of the last movement, who turned to scorn all that was tender and noble in the beloved theme, the idee fixe? The Berlioz specialists have been at pains to explain the "affreuses veritesf' with which Berlioz charged her in his letter to Ferrand (April 30, 1830). These truths, unexplained, may have been nothing more frightful than his realization that Miss Smithson was less a goddess than a flesh and blood human being who, also, was losing her vogue. The poet's "ven- geance" makes no sense, except that illogic is the stuff of dreams. It would also be an over-simplification to say that Berlioz merely wanted to use a witches' sabbath in his score and altered his story accordingly. Berlioz did indeed decide at last to omit the story from his programs (for performances of the Symphony without the companion piece [6] Lelio*). He no doubt realized that the wild story made lor distraction and prejudice, while the bare titles allowed the music to speak persua- sively in its own medium. At first, when he drafted and re-drafted the story, he cannot be acquitted of having tried to draw the attention of Paris to his music, and it is equally plain that to put a well-known stage figure into his story would have helped his purpose. The sensational character of the music could also have been intended to capture public attention — which it did. But Berlioz has been too often hauled up for judgment for inconsistencies in what he wrote, said, and did. His critics (and Adolphe Boschot is the worst offender in this) have been too ready to charge him with insincerity or pose. His music often contradicts such charges, or makes them inconsequential. It would be absurd to deny that some kind of wild phantasmagoria involving the composer's experiences of love, literature, the stage, and much else must have had a good deal to do with the motivation of the Symphony. Jacques Barzunf brilliantly demonstrates that through Chateaubriand Berlioz well knew the affecting story of Paul and Vir- ginia, of the fates of Dido and of Phedre, of the execution of Chenier. E. T. A. Hoffmann's Tales filled him with the fascination of the super- natural and De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, in de Musset's translation, may well have contributed. But who in this age, so remote from the literary aesthetic of that one, will attempt to "understand" Berlioz in the light of all these influences, or reconcile them with a "love affair" which existed purely in his own imagination? * Lelio was intended to follow the Symphony. The "composer of music" speaks, in front of the stage, addressing "friends," "pupils," "brigands," and "spectres" behind it. He has recovered from his opium dreams and speculates on music and life in general, after the manner of Hamlet, which play he also discusses. t Berlioz and the Romantic Century, 1950. LES TUIILERIES 370 Commonwealth Ave. PARIS \H BOSTON (Corner of Mass. Ave.) Going to Paris LUNCH 11:30 to 2:30 Lunch? J for DINNER are if 6:00 to You you're going 9:00 j| to Les Tuileries, Bos- SATURDAY f. 6:00 to 9:30 ? * ton's famous corner of SUNDAY Paris. 5:30 to 9:30 Find light-hearted ele- Private Party gance of Paris with true Room Available All BEAUCHAMP French cuisine, amid Call CO 6-0423 99 Mt. Vernon St. life-like Parisian murals: m The motivation of the simplest music is not to be penetrated — let alone this one.