BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC The Little Orchestra Society THOMAS SCHERMAN, Music Director HERBERT BARRETT, Manager SUBSCRIPTIO SERIES-SEASON 1969-70 Third Concert- Sunday January 25, 1970 at 2:30P.M. THOMAS SCHERMAN, Conductor EDWIN LEVY, Stage Director Ralph Vaughan Williams RIDERS TO THE SEA (From the play by John M. Synge) Maurya ....................................... Jean Sanders Nora . ....................... Kate Hurney Cathleen ....................................... Molly Stark Bartley . ....... ... .................. Thomas Jamerson A Woman ........................................ Ruth Ray Villagers and off-stage voices: Betty Baisch, Dori Barne , Suzanne Cogan, Paula Gladwell, DeNice Jen en, Corinne Jensen, Ruth Ray and Carole Walters Intermission Gustav Holst AT THE BOAR'S HEAD (From Henry IV by Shakespeare) Falstaff ..................................... Guus Hockman Doll Tearsheet . ............................ Jean Sanders Prince Hal ..................... ............. William Lewis Pistol . ...... ............ Emile Renan Hostess ............ .. ........................ Molly Stark Bardolph ................................ Raymond Murcell Poins ...... .................................... J. B. Davis Peto . ....................... Jonathan Rigg Gadshill .................................. Thomas Jamerson Pi tors Companions ............. John Ostendorf. Peter Schlosser Co tume Supervi ion: Betty Williams Costume Designs: by Fred Voelpel The alternate for Mr. Hocl-.man. Mi Sanders and Mr. Lewi are: J. B. Davis, Ruth Ray and Donald Saunders Baldwin Piano Herbert Barrett, Manager Thomas Matthew , A sociate Manager Marks Levine. Consultant The Little Orchestra Society, 1860 Broadway, New York. N.Y. 10023 PL 7-3460 NOTES ON THE PROGRAM by THOMAS MATTHEWS Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst The Little Orchestra Society's programming of Riders to the Sea and At the Boar's Head is of special interest. Vaughan Williams' thirty-minute opera has, despite its few hearings, been hailed as a masterpiece and Holst's one-act setting of the tavern scenes from Shakespeare's Henry IV is recognized as a thoroughly original and uncompromising work by a first-rank English composer. Both Vaughan Williams and Holst were seriously devoted to and concerned about the often-thankless mu ical area-native opera. They were also devoted friends for almost forty years. Their mutually influential relationship established itself at their first meeting in 1895 and developed into a friendship that allowed them many occasions to constructively discuss all of their individual works. They also studied and shared composition ideas together. Vaughan Williams once said that 'Holst and I showed each other almost everything we wrote. I say almost because I could not face his absolute integrity of vision-I hid some of my worst crimes from him. I regret now that I did not face even his disapproval.' In addition to Holst, one of the composers that Vaughan Williams most admired throughout his long creative life (he completed his 9th Symphony at the age of 85) was Jean Sibelius. He dedicated his 5th Symphony to the Finnish composer. It is easy to understand the reasons for his admiration. Both musicians were proponents of a sincere nationalism that was interestingly devoid of isolationism. Ralph Vaughan William ( 1872-1958) was born in Gloucestershire, England. In 1896, after his college studies, he became the organist of South Lambeth Church in London. The position allowed him time to travel and he eventuall y worked with Max Bruch at the Akademie der Kuenst in Berlin. Later he studied with Maurice Ravel. At the time, the English composer was two years older than his celebrated teacher. The first of Vaughan Williams' work to command attention and show his particular individuality were Toward the Unknown Region (1907) and his Sea Symphony ( 191 0). Historians have grouped Vaughan Williams' composition into three periods. The most important of the first include the London Symphony, Hugh the Dro1·er, his Overture to the Wasps and his superb, often-played Academic Festiml Overture. The second produced his ballet Job and the Pastoral Symphony. Vaughan Williams' third period was the time of his stark, adventuresome F minor Symphony and Riders to the Sea. The latter was completed during the years 1925-32 and received its first performance in London, under Malcolm Sargent, in 1937. Riders to the Sea is a sensitively-accurate, word-for-word setting of John M. Synge's drama of a family who resolutely endures the bleak, monotonous Aran fogs, the stubborn island rains and the demanding call of the sea that urrounds them. For the inhabitants of these Irish islands, endurance and faith is the only way of life. They arc bound to their land by indomitable rocks and clifTs. And treacherous tides make their means of livelihood-the fishing trade-incessantly perilous. Maurya, her daughters Nora and Cathleen, and Bartley, too, arc typical of the island people. They have blended into the gray of the seasons that never change. Laughter is rarely heard in their small house. They arc rc igncd and ) ct almost eagerly inqui itivc of the unending loneliness. They have obviously learned to accept the constant struggle for survival and the insistent nearness of death. J. B. Yeats aptly described Synge's works as 'Poetry in unlimited sadness'. And ~ad ne ss hangs over Riders to the Sea like a web of fish nets caught in the pull of the sea ttdcs. Synge himself wrote of the Aran Islands: 'the sense of s?litude was i~mense. I could not see or realize my own body, and I seemed to exist merely 111 my perceptiOn of the waves and of the crying birds, and of the swell of the sea weed.' Although Synge, like Vaughan Williams. could be considered a predominantly national­ istic creator. he and all his plays adamantlv refused to ideali;:.e the Irish peasants. It was a refusal that made him m.m] enemies. the patriotic Nationalists demanded idealization of their people. C'onscqucnth. practicallv all of S> ngc's works were stormed against with violent protest. All except Riders to the Sea. Odd!] enough it is one of the most stark of his plays. And yet it alone escaped critical and public condemnation during Synge's lifetime. Riden is a perfect example of his ability to protray the Irish peasant vividly and plainly. Maurya and her family arc drawn with an honesty that allows no bias. In setting the play to music, Vaughan Williams has done a remarkable and unselfish job. He allows the characters to declaim in a st> lc that is comparable-in the finest sense of the word­ to Moussorgsky. In several passages the vocal line comes close to the starkness of Schocn­ bcrgian sprcchstimmc. More accurately, Riders glows among the half dozen greatest achievements of the English composer. Some have called it the I nglish Pelleas et A1eliwnde. It is. in fact. based on the Debussyian principle (although on a necessarily lesser scale) that music must be subordinated to the inflection and rhythms of the characters' speech. Riders also resembles Pel/ea.\ in another way; the music slowly and carefully takes control in such a way that the listener feels, when the performance is over, that he has been absorbed in one long, beautiful, unending melody. The orchestra which consists of strings, 2 flutes, oboe, English horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, tympani and bass drum, is delicate and extremely subtle. It reacts as a kind of emotional dimension to the character's actions and as a reminder of the never-silent sea that hovers in the background. Much of the music for Riders to the Sea is built on close-knit themcc; derived from the short orchestral prelude to the oper.1 that immediately establishes the atmosphere of the sea and the might of the clements which shape the lives of the characters in Synge's pl.1y. 1 he natural speech of the singing-actor-. is occasion.tll] given support by a chord or fragments of woodvvind phrases. And the mu-.ic takes full command only at strong reference-. to God and the sea. Mauna io; comparable to a figure from CJreek tr.1gcd>. She is a woman of strength who has lost her husband and four -.ons to the sea. She alone dominates the action. Vaughan Williams' empathy for the woman allow-. her music to expand ao, her strength and her role grows. One of the many compelling moments in the opera occurs a<, Maurya describes the vision she has just had. She has <,een Bartley ridin6 toward-. the sea. She .already knows that her last two sons arc dead. Another memorable musico-dramatic utterance is heard in the plaintive passage of plainsong with which the old woman blesses the departed. Here the music bursts radiantly into E major as she prays for God's blessing on the lil·ing. It is an example of Vaughan William\ uncanny understanding of the people and the play. The truth of the drama is described in a wonderful switch from minor to major. It is also a noble musical and spiritual affirmation of the triumph of life over death. Maurya's words: 'No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied' arc the closing words of Riders to the Sea. Synge's play was first produced in January of 1903; the same year that Miss A. E. F. Hornimann of London gave a sizeable sum of money to establish the now legendary Abbey Theatre. As an opera it received its first professional performance in C leveland in 1950. Gustav H olst ( 1874-1934) was born in Cheltenham, England. Despite the Swedish and Russian ancestry of his family he is distinctly an English com poser. His father had wanted him to be a concert pianist but from the earliest days of his music studies he showed a strong preference for composition. D uring his years at the Royal College of Music a case of neuritis in his hand curtailed his piano and organ classes and even made it necessary for him to employ a musical amanuensis.