"" ©BT©N Mozart Academy of Music, Bymphomy y mm][i OllOHMSTIlA SEASON OF 1890. ARTHUR NIKISCH, Conductor. UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE MOZART ASSOCIATION. First Concert, k Friday Evening, May 2, 1890, At 8.30 o'clock. I PROGRAMME. Weber ______ Overture, " Euryanthe Weber - - - - - -Aria, from " Freischuetz Mme. STEINBACH-JAHNS. Rubinstein _______" Bal Costume " Berger et Bergere. Pecheur Napolitain et Napolitaine. Toreadore et Andalouse. Songs with Piano. (a) Liszt - - - - - - - " Liebeslust (b) Brahms -----__'_ "Lullaby" (c) Goldmark - - - - - - - " Die Quelle Mme. STEINBACH-JAHNS. M&ndelssohn __•__._ Symphony in A (Italian) Allegro vivace. Andante con moto. Con moto moderate Saltarello. Soloist, Mme. STEINBACH-JAHNS. THE PIANOFORTE USED IS A CHICKERING. Historical and Analytical Notes prepared by G. H. WILSON. Overture, " Euryanthe." "Weber. " The great success of Der Freischiitz," in 182 1, turned the attention of leading opera managers to Weber, who agreed, with Dominico Barbaja, to write a second opera. Barbaja, it may be said, operated extensively in Southern Europe, but particularly at the Karnthnerthor Theatre, Vienna. After much trouble, Weber accepted a libretto at the hands of Wilhelmine: von Chezy, a blue-stocking from Dresden (whom Hanslick once called witty). This eccentric person laid before him a sketch made from a Ger- man translation of an old French romance, " Histoire de Gerard de Nevers, j et de la belle et vertueuse Euryanthe, sa mie." The opera failed, chiefly because of the utterly meaningless libretto of the Von Chezy, of whom it is " related that, on the night of the first performance of Euryanthe," Oct. 25, 1825, in the Karnthnerthor Theatre, Vienna, coming in rather late, when the aisles were filled, she tried to find her way to the front over the crowd, " exclaiming : Make room, make room for me, I say ! I tell you I am the " poetess ! the poetess ! The opera was mostly written in the summer of 1822, in Hosterlitz, where Weber and his wife and infant son were staying. During that sum- mer, Sir Julius Benedict was Weber's pupil, and he writes thus of the work " ' in hand : Watching the progress of his Euryanthe ' from the first note to its completion, I had the best opportunity of observing his system of composing. Many a time might he be seen early in the morning, some closely written pages in his hand, which he stood still to read, and then wandered on through forest and glen, muttering to himself. He was learn, ing by heart the words of ' Euryanthe,' which he studied until he made them a portion of himself, — his own creation, as it were. His genius would sometimes lie dormant during his frequent repetition of the words, and then the idea of a whole musical piece would flash upon his mind like the bursting of light into darkness. It would then remain there uneffaced, gradually assuming a perfect shape ; and not till this process was attained would he put it down on paper. His first transcriptions were usually penned on the return from his solitary walks. He then noted down the voices fully, and only marked here and there the harmonies or the places where particular instruments were to be introduced. Sometimes he indi- cated by signs, known only to himself, his most characteristic orchestral (2) effects ; then he would play to his wife or to me, from these incomplete sketches, the most striking pieces of the opera, invariably in the form they afterwards maintained. The whole was so thoroughly developed in his brain that his instrumentation was little more than the labor of a copyist * and the notes flowed to his pen with the marks of all the shading of expres- sion, as if copperplated on the paper. The scoring of the opera of 'Euryanthe ' from his sketches occupied only sixty days." Following his usual practice, Weber drew upon the themes of the opera for the subjects of its prelude. " Both the first and second motives come from the music of the hero, Adolar, the first — immediately follow- ing the brilliant and very Weberesque exordium — being connected with an expression of trust in Euryanthe's faithfulness when exposed to the same temptation as that which assails Shakspere's Cymbeline. The second sub- ject — a very beautiful and characteristic melody stated by the violins — expresses the confidence and. joy with which Adolar anticipates reunion with his beloved. These themes are worked into a regular form of an overture, save that two important episodes come together between the development of the second subject and the recapitulation, occupying, there- fore, the place of a 'working out.' The first episode, largo, given to muted violins in eight parts accompanied by the violas, trem., has direct reference to that part of the drama in which Euryanthe conveys to the wicked Eg- lantine a secret concerning some unfortunate lovers who make a spectral appearance. The lovers and their apparitions are of Weber's own devising. On this account, he thought a great deal of them, and at first intended that the curtain should rise with the beginning of the largo, and show a tableau of the incident. On reflection, he abandoned the idea, as tending to divert regard from very mysterious and cunningly devised music. The second episode is contrapuntal, and consists of imitative treatment of a subject which doubtless had a special significance in the composer's mind ; but what it was cannot now be ascertained." CARL MARIA VON WEBER. Weber's life-story makes one of the most pathetic pages in the biography of musicians. Passing over the period of his youth, in which the important influences were a vain, ill-balanced parent (whose inordinate desire to make of his infant son a prodigy, like Mozart, endowed the boy with a poor physique), and a confusion of knowledge, the reflection of countless teachers representing all grades of ignorance and excellence,— a period, too, in which the careless society of the father dulled the youth's moral sense or failed to protect it, — the season of his manhood, from the time of his mar- riage to his death, stands almost unparalleled in its persistent conflict with fate. Occupied at some court opera, either at Prague, Dresden, Berlin, or Vienna, incessantly active in a routine often onerous and humiliating, the (3) — fine spirit of the man, his generous confidence, his loyalty to the men of his guild, which was seldom reciprocated and more often scorned, grew and developed in his music until in " Der Freischiitz " he gave Germany a national opera and founded a school which " Tannhauser " and " Lohen- grin " distinctly echo. Through years of the most imbittering intrigue, jealousy, and disappointment, Weber walked unswervingly. His gradually developing style, his reforms in the manner of producing opera, and his introduction of some of the works of Mehul and Isouard in the place of the tinkling Italian operas in vogue won him many friends and created bitter enemies. But almost from his rise before the public Weber was beloved by the German people. Court intrigues conditioned his promotion and withheld from him the insignia of royal favor, but he held the popular heart. Weber's intimate circle was always refined and cultivated. His home life was ideal, and there exists no more tender picture of sacrifice than his decision to take the journey to London to produce "Oberon," the result of which would provide a maintenance for hs wife and children, while in his exhausted physical state it surely would lose him his life Weber never returned from London. Ballet Music, " Bal Costume." Rubinstein. Rubinstein's " Bal Costume," music consisting of a set of historical dances with an introduction, originally appeared as a pianoforte duet (Op. 103). In their orchestral dress, the several movements form a characteristic example of their composer's vigorous and fascinating use of the instruments. The Rubinstein jubilee has brought out many tributes to the fine character of the composer. It is said that thousands of pounds sterling have passed through his hands of late years into those of indigent artists, poverty-stricken students, struggling musicians, to whom his encouragement has ever been as the warm winds of autumn to the leaf- less oak. He now occupies the post of president of the Imperial Academy of Music of St. Petersburg, and is in receipt of a considerable yearly salary, every copeck of which goes to relieve the needs of young artists rich in nothing but rare artistic gifts. He is, consequently, as poor as Lazarus, nay, poorer still ; and his financial condition is in such a plight that the pension of three thousand roubles, which the Emperor of Russia has just allowed him, was, people say, the most useful form which recognition of his merits could have assumed under the circumstances. Symphony in A, "Italian." Mendelssohn. Allegro vivace. Andante con moto. Con moto moderato. Saltarell (presto). The name of " Italian," by which this delightful work is known, is due to Mendelssohn himself. He composed it during his stay in Italy in 1831, !! and repeatedly refers to it under that title in his charming letters home, to distinguish it from the "Walpurgis Night," which in joke he calls the " Saxon symphony," and the " Hebrides " overture, which he also wrote at the same time, as well as from the '• Scotch " symphony, which he planned and made some progress with during that period of astonishing activity. The opening and closing movements appear to have been composed in Rome itself. At any rate, writing from Rome on the 2 2d February, 183 1, after he had been there four months, he tells his sisters that the " Italian symphony is making great progress.