CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Founded by THEODORE THOMAS in 1891 Concert Nos. 2827 and 2828 THE THURSDAY-FRIDAY SERIES iiniiiiiiiiHiiiiimiiiiii* FIFTY-FOURTH SEASON TWENTY-FOURTH PROGRAM MARCH 22 and 23, 1945 ORCHESTRA HALL CHICAGO Œlw ©frustrai Assumiti™ 1944—FIFTY-FOURTH SEASON—1945 OFFICERS EDWARD L. RYERSON, President ARTHUR G. CABLE, Vice-President ALBERT A. SPRAGUE, Vice-President CHARLES H. SWIFT, Vice-President CHALKLEY J. HAMBLETON, Secretary FRANCIS M. KNIGHT, Treasurer HONORARY TRUSTEES Charles H. Swift Russell Tyson TRUSTEES Terms Expire 1945 Terms Expire 1946 Terms Expire 1947 Daniel H. Burnham Charles B. Goodspeed Cyrus H. Adams Ralph H. Norton Arthur B. Hall Arthur G. Cable Eric Oldberg Chalkley J. Hambleton Alfred T. Carton J. Sanford Otis Edward L. Ryerson Harry S. Gradle John P. Welling Albert A. Sprague Francis M. Knight EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Edward L. Ryerson, Chairman Cyrus H. Adams (Counsel) Chalkley J. Hambleton Albert A. Sprague Arthur G. Cable Francis M. Knight John P. Welling Charles B. Goodspeed Ralph H. Norton Charles H. Swift and Russell Tyson, Honorary Trustees, ex-officio Alfred T. Carton, Chairman Finance Committee, ex-officio MEMBERS Cuthbert C. Adams Charles B. Goodspeed J. Sanford Otis Cyrus H. Adams Harry S. Gradle Walter P. Paepcke ★Richard Bentley Arthur B. Hall Ralph H. Poole Bruce Borland Chalkley J. Hambleton Theodore W. Robinson Daniel H. Burnham Denison B. Hull Edward L. Ryerson Arthur G. Cable George Roberts Jones Charles Ward Seabury John Alden Carpenter Gwethalyn Jones Durand Smith Mrs. Clyde M. Carr Francis M. Knight Albert Aj Sprague Alfred T. Carton ★Earl Kribben ★Edgar Stanton, Jr. ★William B. Cudahy Mrs. Telfer MacArthur Charles H. Swift Paul H. Davis Chauncey McCormick Robert J. Thorne ★Edison Dick Leeds Mitchell Russell Tyson ★Gaylord Donnelley Charles H. Morse Mrs. Thomas I. Underwood Percy B. Eckhart Howell W. Murray Mrs. Frederic W. Upham Albert D. Farwell Ralph H. Norton John P. Welling Marshall Field Eric Oldberg Ernest B. Zeisler ★In service with the armed forces of the United States. FINANCE COMMITTEE: Alfred T. Carton, Chairman Chalkley J. Hambleton Francis M. Knight J. Sanford Otis Edward L. Ryerson WOMEN’S COMMITTEE: Mrs. Telfer MacArthur, Chairman OFFICES: SIXTH FLOOR, ORCHESTRA BUILDING 220 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago 4 GEORGE A. KUYPER, Business Manager RUTH H. CARROLL, Assistant Secretary CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA DÉSIRÉ DEF AUW... .Musical Director and Conductor HANS LANGE...........................Conductor The Thursday-Friday Concerts TWENTY-FOURTH PROGRAM March 22, at 8:15 — March 23, at 2:15 1945 Conductor: DÉSIRÉ DEF AUW Soloist: ARTUR RUBINSTEIN OVERTURE, “FingaVs Cave;9 Opus 26........................................... MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY TWO NOCTURNES .................................DEBUSSY Clouds. Festivals. SYMPHONY No. 5, D Major......................... WILLIAMS Preludio. Scherzo. Romanza. Passacaglia. (First performance in Chicago) INTERMISSION PRELUDE TO “PENELOPE”.......................................................... FAURE RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI, For Piano and Orchestra, Opus 43.......................RACHMANINOW The Piano is a Steinway Buy U. S. War Bonds Patrons are not admitted to' the Auditorium during the playing of a composition for the obvious reason that their entrance will disturb their neighbors. For this same reason considerate persons will not leave during the playing. ENCORES NOT PERMITTED Advance Programs on Pages 47, 49 and 51 5 PROGRAM NOTES By FELIX BOROWSKI Overture, “Fingal’s Cave,” Felix Mendel-ssohn-Bartholdy. vpusOnus ¿O.26 DiedBorn NovFeb. 3,5> 1809,]847, at Hamburg.Leipzig Fingal’s Cave, one of the show places that attract visitors to the west coast of Scotland, is situated on the little island StaSa that forms one of the Hebrides group. The cave, of basaltic formation, is some two hundred feet in length and thirty-three in width, the sea forming its floor, with a depth of twenty-three feet of translucent green water at ebb-tide. Mendelssohn visited Scotland in 1829 with his friend Klinge- mann as his fellow-traveler, and they made an expedition to Staffa and its famous basaltic cave in August. Then, as now, the voyage was accomplished by steamer, but the vessel was anchored some distance from the island, and the cave was reached in small boats. Klingemann described this visit in a letter dated August 10, 1829: “We were put out in boats,” he wrote, “and lifted by the hissing sea up the pillar stumps to the celebrated Fingal’s Cave. A greener roar of waves surely never rushed into a stranger cavern—its many pillars making it. look like the inside of an immense organ, black and re­ sounding, and absolutely without purpose, and quité alone, the wide gray sea within and without.” Mendelssohn said little in description of his experiences at Staffa, but what he said was full of import. “In order to make you understand how extraordinarily the Hebrides affected me, the following came into my mind there.” And Mendelssohn, writing to his family in Germany, set down twenty-one measures of the overture, the opening portion of which occurred to him and was written down in the cave itself. Ferdinand Hiller was 7 VICTOR RECORDS Enrich your record library with Rubinstein’s masterful interpretations of Chopin, of Grieg, Brahms, Schubert and the rest. Come in and listen to them tomorrow—or order by telephone—from the nearest Lyon 86 Healy store. Concerto in A Minor (Grieg). Rubin­ Romance in F Sharp Major (Schu­ stein with Philadelphia Symphony Or­ mann) .................................. 14946 $1.05 chestra ...............................M 900 $3.70 Mazurkas. (Chopin) Op. 24, No. 4; Rhapsody in G Minor (Brahms) Op. 33, No. 3; Op. 30, No. 4; Op. 63, 14946 $1.05 No. 1; Op. 33, No. 2; Op. 33, No. 4; Op. 41, No. 7; Op. 41, No. 3; Op. 62, Sonata No. 26, in A Flat Major (Bee­ No. 3; Op. 50, No. 1; Op. 63, No. 2; thoven) Rubinstein and Heifetz Op. 50, No. 2; Op. 50, No. 3; Op. 56, M 858 $2.65 No. 1.....................................M 656 $5.80 Trio No. 1, in B Major (Brahms). Prelude in C Sharp Minor (Rachman­ Rubinstein, Heifetz, violin and Feuer- inoff) .................................. 14276 $1.05 mann, ’cello........................M 883 $4.75 Trio No. 1, in B Flat Major bert) Rubinstein, Heifetz, and mann .....................................M 923 Oak Park: 123 N. Marion Evanston: 613 Davis St. PROGRAM NOTES—Continued told by Mendelssohn that the “Fingal’s Cave” overture had its general form and color suggested by the sight of the cavern, and Hiller narrated the following incident, which occurred the evening of Mendelssohn’s return from StafEa: “The same eve­ ning he and his friend Klingemann paid a visit to a Scotch family. There was a piano in the drawing room, but it being Sunday, music was utterly out of the question, and Mendelssohn had to employ all his diplomacy to get the instrument opened for a single minute, so that he and Klingemann might hear the theme which forms the germ of that original and masterly over­ ture, which, however, was not completed until some years later at *Düsseldorf. Some of the overture Mendelssohn composed at Coed Du, the residence of John Taylor, a wealthy mineowner, near Mold, in Flintshire, Wales. Mendelssohn had met him in London. “Mr. Mendelssohn,” wrote one of the three daughters of Mr. Tay­ lor, “came down there to spend a little time with us in the course of a tour in England and Scotland. My father and mother received him kindly, as they did everybody; but his arrival created no particular sensation, as many strangers came to our house to see the mines under my father’s management, and foreigners were often welcomed there. Soon, however, we began to feel that a most accomplished mind had come among us, quick to observe, delicate to distinguish. We knew little about his music, but the wonder of it grew upon us; and I remember one night, when my two sisters and I went to our room, how we began say­ ing to each other: ‘Surely this must be a man of genius ... we can’t be mistaken about this music; never did we ever hear any one play so before. Yet we know the best London musicians. Surely by-and-by we shall hear that Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is a great name in the world.’ ” During his Italian travels in 1830 Mendelssohn worked assiduously at the “Fingal’s Cave” overture. On December 10 he writes to his father that he intends to finish the work next day as a birthday present to him, but the MS. score bore the date “December 16, 1830, at Rome.” Although the last note had been set down, Mendelssohn was not satisfied. “The middle portion,” he wrote from Paris, January 12, 1832, “is too stu­ pid, and the whole working out smacks more of counterpoint than of train oil, sea gulls and salt fish, and must be altered.” * Hiller was in error. The overture was finished at Rome. PROGRAM NOTES—Continued On May 14 of the same year the revised overture was brought out at a Philharmonic concert in London, this having been almost certainly its first production. The work, still in manuscript, was entitled on the program, “Overture to the Isles of Fingal.”* As showing that critics differed, even in the earlier days of criticism, it may be mentioned that the reviewer for the Harmonicon (the principal musical journal of that time in England) discovered that “Whatever a vivid imagination could suggest, and great musical knowledge supply, has contributed to this, the latest work of M. Mendelssohn, one of the finest and most original geniuses of the age.” The critic of the Athenaeum was not pleased. The “burthen” of the composition strongly reminded him of Beethoven, and he was moved to declare that “as descriptive music it was decidedly a failure.” Richard Wagner was of a different opinion.