05-29 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 5/18/15 4:12 PM Page 1 Friday Evening, May 29, 2015, at 8:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Stage Conductor’s Notes Q&A with Leon Botstein at 7:00 presents American Variations: Perle at 100 LEON BOTSTEIN, Conductor GEORGE PERLE Adagio WILLIAM SCHUMAN New England Triptych Be Glad Then, America When Jesus Wept Chester AARON COPLAND Orchestral Variations Intermission GEORGE PERLE Transcendental Modulations LUKAS FOSS Baroque Variations This evening’s concert will run approximately two hours and five minutes including one 20-minute intermission. American Symphony Orchestra welcomes the many organizations who participate in our Community Access Program, which provides free and low-cost tickets to underserved groups in New York’s five boroughs. For information on how you can support this program, please call (212) 868-9276. PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. 05-29 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 5/18/15 4:12 PM Page 2 ASO’S 2015–16 SEASON AT CARNEGIE HALL Friday, October 16, 2015 Mimesis: Musical Representations with Tracy Silverman, electric violin Art, poetry, philosophy, and even the stars—as represented in music. Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Paul Klee, and others inspired MARTIN CHERRY MARTIN these works. Gunther Schuller – 7 Studies on Themes of Paul Klee Henri Dutilleux – Correspondances Nico Muhly – Seeing is Believing Richard Strauss – Also sprach Zarathustra Thursday, December 17, 2015 Russia’s Jewish Composers with István Várdai, cello These Russian Jews exploded ethnic stereotypes by refusing PILVAX STUDIO PILVAX to be known only as Jewish composers. These works iden- tified them more with their homeland than their ethnicity. Aleksandr Krein – The Rose and the Cross (N.Y. Premiere) Anton Rubinstein – Cello Concerto No. 2 Mikhail Gnesin – From Shelley (U.S. Premiere) Maximilian Steinberg – Symphony No. 1 (U.S. Premiere) Thursday, March 17, 2016 Giant in the Shadows with Peter Serkin, piano The reputation of Max Reger today belies his dominant presence in music during his lifetime and the legacy he left. KATHY CHAPMAN KATHY Here we celebrate two of his works, and one by his friend and contemporary, Adolf Busch. Adolf Busch – Three Études for Orchestra Max Reger – Piano Concerto Max Reger – Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J.A. Hiller Tuesday, April 5, 2016 A Mass of Life with the Bard Festival Chorale Delius was a fervid follower of Nietzsche, and here he set pas- sages from the philosopher’s book Also sprach Zarathustra to music, creating a grand and compelling work celebrating life at its highest. Frederick Delius – A Mass of Life SUBSCRIBE TO ASO Subscriptions for the 2015–16 season are now on sale at AmericanSymphony.org/subscribe and (212) 868-9ASO (9276). Just choose three or four concerts, and all seats in all locations are just $25. 05-29 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 5/18/15 4:12 PM Page 3 FROM THE Music Director George Perle at 100 nationalism. But he also did not imitate by Leon Botstein or adopt Schoenberg’s technique of “ser- ial” composition. He was not a twelve- George Perle was a unique figure within tone serial composer. He developed his the world of 20th-century American own version of how to use a 12-note classical music. He was part of a “sec- series, primarily as a basis of harmony ond” generation that followed the pio- and counterpoint, and not as a source for neers of the 1920s, which included musical motives. Using “cycle sets” he Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, Carl crafted a modern musical language that Ruggles, Roy Harris, Edgard Varèse, was translucent, expressive, and lyrical. and Henry Cowell. With the exception There is an elegance and eloquence in his of Cowell and Ruggles, the others were music that never fails to reach the listener all linked closely to European influ- on first hearing. Perle also kept his dis- ences; they either trained in Europe or tance from a more abstract, dense, and studied in America under the tutelage often brutal anti-expressive characteristic of European masters. But one of the of mid-20th-century avant-garde mod- ambitions of this first generation of ern music. As a result his music has a post-World War I American composers warmth, intensity, and beauty evocative was to create a distinctly American of Classical and Romantic practice, with- voice. On today’s program the work by out any hint of a sentimental nostalgia. William Schuman powerfully repre- sents that goal. Perle was, in addition, a scholar whose pioneering work on Alban Berg will At the same time, these American com- remain as the foundation of all subse- posers and their successors sought to quent writing on Berg. Indeed Berg’s take their rightful place within a mod- own adaptation of Schoenberg’s 12- ernist movement whose aesthetics were tone strategy was Perle’s inspiration. free of clear markers of the national. Like Berg, Perle found the means to Copland’s 1930 Orchestral Variations, write music that communicated emo- originally for piano and presented here tion and meaning in a manner that was in its orchestral version, is a case in adequate to modernity, yet within a tra- point. The Orchestral Variations may dition that went back to Bach and the be Copland’s most abstract and angular masters of the first Viennese “school” work. It was the piece that young col- of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. And lege student Leonard Bernstein played like Berg (as opposed to Schoenberg), for Copland at a memorable encounter the legacy of late romanticism, particu- that was the starting point of a lasting larly of Mahler, left its mark. close friendship. Not surprisingly, George Perle greatly admired this work. Perle’s writings are, like his music, a model of economy, clarity, and insight. Although influenced by the work of the It was he who unraveled the “secret” Second Viennese School of Arnold program of the Lyric Suite. His two- Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton volume analysis of Wozzeck and Lulu von Webern (Perle studied with Ernst are without peer in terms of clarity, Krenek), Perle charted his own path. detail, and deep original insight. Like- He did not attempt to express a musical wise, his 1962 book on the Viennese 05-29 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 5/18/15 4:12 PM Page 4 school Serial Composition and Atonal- theorist. If that weren’t enough, Perle ity, his 1977 Twelve Tone Tonality, and was himself a fine pianist. Perle was his 1990 volume The Listening Com- among the first composers to be awarded poser are classics. They will long remain a MacArthur “genius” Award. among the most essential readings for musicians, particularly composers. Perle’s In this concert Perle’s place in music writings reflect the significance of his history is framed not only by Copland— career as a teacher. For more than 20 the dominant and consistently gra- years he taught at Queens College of cious “dean” of 20th-century American the City University of New York. music—but also by the contrasting and parallel careers of two contemporaries, Perle represents, therefore, the best of both of whom shared with Perle achieve- American musical modernism. I had the ments apart from composition. Lukas honor and pleasure of getting to know Foss, the startlingly gifted pianist, was him towards the end of his career. Walter distinguished as well as a composer and Trampler, the distinguished violist, conductor. William Schuman was not repeatedly urged me to program Perle’s only a major figure as a composer, but Serenade for viola and chamber orches- an eminent administrator. Schuman tra from 1962. He and his wife, Shirley, served as president of Julliard and subse- a terrific pianist (and lifelong close friend quently as the first president of Lincoln of Leonard Bernstein’s), introduced Center. The music of Foss and Schuman themselves after a Bard Music Festival is quite distinct and different from Perle’s performance of Schumann’s Das Paradies and offers the listener a glimpse of the und die Peri, a work they had known rich, vital, and varied musical culture of about but never heard live. The Perles the American 20th century. and I became friends. They were unfail- ingly curious and generous. In subse- More than in the other arts, in music quent years I had the honor of recording we have developed the bad habit of Transcendental Modulations with the neglecting the achievements of the past. ASO, and performing the 1990 First Too much of great 20th-century music, Piano Concerto with the Bard Conser- particularly American music, has fallen vatory Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall away from the repertory. Some com- (with Melvin Chen as soloist). posers were strikingly prolific (one thinks of Martinu˚ and Milhaud, for example). The pianist Arthur Rubinstein once Perle’s output may have been restrained quipped about Bernstein (who admired in quantity, but it is rigorously consis- Perle as a musician and a man) that he tent in refinement and quality. His was the “greatest pianist among con- music—the orchestral music, the music ductors, the greatest conductor among for piano, for the voice, for solo instru- composers, [and] the greatest composer ments, and the chamber music— among pianists.” The same could be deserves to prevail in the 21st century said about Perle using his trio of accom- alongside his remarkable contributions plishments as composer, scholar, and to music history and music theory. 05-29 ASO_Carnegie Hall Rental 5/18/15 4:12 PM Page 5 THE Program by Richard Wilson George Perle Born May 6, 1915, in Bayonne, New Jersey Died January 23, 2009, in New York City Adagio Composed in 1992, commissioned by Carnegie Hall Premiered April 13, 1993, in New York City by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Zinman Performance Time: Approximately 9 minutes Instruments for this performance: 2 flutes, 2 piccolos, 3 oboes, 1 English horn, 3 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 1 tuba, timpani, 1 celesta, 1 harp, 22 violins, 8 violas, 8 cellos, and 6 double basses George Perle’s Adagio is wistful in tone, especially favors the interval of the minor direct in expression, and free of rhythmic third as well as chords constructed from it.