BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDED IN 1881 BY HENRY LEE HIGGINSON VETERANS MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM, PROVIDENCE NINETY-FIRST SEASON 1971-1972 STEIN WAY The artist's choice... the piano for your home Most of the world's great artists choose the Steinway to enhance their performance. The Steinway's superior tone and long life also make it the ideal piano for the home. We invite you to select your piano as the artists do, from our large selection of beautiful Steinway Consoles and Grands. rfv&ttf "Ptcuta DIVISION OF GLADDINGS Exclusive Steinway Piano, Hammond Organ and Fisher Stereo for This Territory 256 Weybosset Street Open Monday and Thursday Evenings BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA WILLIAM STEINBERG Music Director MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS Associate Conductor NINETY-FIRST SEASON 1971-1972 THE TRUSTEES OF THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC. TALCOTT M. BANKS President FRANCIS W. HATCH PHILIP K. ALLEN Vice-President HAROLD D. HODGKINSON ROBERT H. GARDINER Vice-President E. MORTON JENNINGS JR JOHN L. THORNDIKE Treasurer EDWARD M. KENNEDY ALLEN G. BARRY HENRY A. LAUGHLIN ERWIN D. CANHAM EDWARD G. MURRAY RICHARD P. CHAPMAN JOHN T. NOONAN ABRAM T. COLLIER MRS JAMES H. PERKINS MRS HARRIS FAHNESTOCK IRVING W. RABB THEODORE P. FERRIS PAUL C. REARDON SIDNEY STONEMAN TRUSTEES EMERITUS HENRY B. CABOT PALFREY PERKINS EDWARD A. TAFT ADMINISTRATION OF THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA THOMAS D. PERRY JR Manager Assistant Managers THOMAS W. MORRIS DAVID ROCKEFELLER JR Business Affairs Audience and Public Affairs MARY H. SMITH Concerts and Artists FORRESTER C. SMITH DANIEL R. GUSTIN Director of Development Administrator of Educational Affairs DONALD W. MACKENZIE JAMES F. KILEY Operations Manager, Operations Manager, Symphony Hall Tanglewood RICHARD C WHITE Assistant to the Manager program copyright © 1971 by Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc. SYMPHONY HALL BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS 3 RHODE ISLAND PHILHARMONIC Francis Madeira, Music Director Saturday Concerts, Veterans Auditorium, 8:30 PM. 8 Saturday Eve Concerts October 23, 1971 March 4, 1972 Garrick Paul Ohlsson Vermel Pianist Guest Conductor November 20, 1971 April 8, 1972 Ronald LEONARD, cello La Norma AUZIN, violin BOhSITI© Brahms' puccini Double Concerto <Q Aprj | 2 t 1972 December 18,1971 Stephen Christmas Manes Pianist George Kent, conductor January 29, 1972 May 20 Chamber Pops Orchestra George Kent, conductor Phone 831-3123 Good seats still available Rhode Island Philharmonic for all concerts 39 The Arcade, Providence Tickets $4.50 - $3.00 also Axelrod, Avery, Ladd's Music JOIN THE PHILHARMONIC REGULARS NINETY- FIRST SEASON 1971-1972 THIRD PROGRAM Four hundred and eleventh concert in Providence Thursday evening December 16 1971 at 8.30 ALDO CECCATO conductor CORELLI Concerto grosso in G minor op. 6 no. 8 'Christmas' Vivace - grave - allegro Adagio - allegro - adagio Vivace Allegro Pastorale CONCERTINO JOSEPH SILVERSTEIN violin MAX HOBART violin JULES ESKIN cello CONTINUO ROBERT LEVIN harpsichord MENDELSSOHN Symphony no. 1 in C minor op. 11 Allegro di molto Andante Menuetto: allegro molto Allegro con fuoco first performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra intermission *DVORAK Symphony no. 9 in E minor op. 95 'New World' Adagio - allegro molto Largo Scherzo: molto vivace Allegro con fuoco By order of the Chief of the Providence Fire Department, smoking is allowed only in the ticket lobby and lower lobby of the auditorium The Boston Symphony Orchestra is a member of Arts Rhode Island The Boston Symphony Orchestra records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon BALDWIN PIANO DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON AND *RCA RECORDS ARCANGELO CORELLI Concerto grosso in G minor op. 6 no. 8 'Christmas' Program note by John N. Burk Corelli was born in Fusignano (Imola), Italy, on February 17 1653; he died in Rome on January 8 1713. The score of this Concerto grosso, which is super- scribed 'Fatto per la notte di natale' ('composed for the night of the nativity'), is one of a set of twelve published, according to Alfred Einstein, a year after the composer's death by Roger of Amsterdam. The first performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra was given on October 16 1925, when Serge Koussevitzky conducted. The instrumentation: a concertino group of two violins and cello, a ripieno group of violins, violas, cellos and basses, with string and keyboard continuo. Corelli was a personage of widespread fame in his day. The particulars of his career are largely fabulous, and little is known of his early life. Various anecdotes about him have been handed down, each always quoted with an appendage of doubt as to its authenticity. Certain it is that he was the prime spirit in the development of music by bowed instruments when instrumental music found its first full flowering in seventeenth-century Italy. If his was not a profoundly original talent, he gave a great impetus to the art of violin playing by his example as virtu- oso, and to solo and concerted music by his compositions, published and widely circulated in his time. Of his earlier years little is known, save that he studied violin with Giovanni Benvenuti at Bologna, composition with Matteo Simonelli at Rome. He became a player in the Capranica Theatre Orchestra in Rome as a youth of eighteen. It is said that in the ensuing years he exhibited his skill before the Elector of Bavaria at Munich, the Elector George at Hanover; the tale is told that when he visited Paris the jealous Lully stirred up so much talk against him that he was obliged to leave (this was denied by Fetis). In 1682 he settled at Rome, and as first musician to the Cardinal Ottoboni became forthwith the shining light of musical culture in that capital. A celebrity who held a similar position at the court of Naples was the elder Scarlatti. Dr Burney relates an anecdote which he learned from 'a very particular and intelligent friend', who had it from Geminiani, who many years before had been Corelli's pupil. Burney's roundabout information is to the effect that Corelli, visiting the Neapolitan court, made a glaring error in performance in which Ales- sandro Scarlatti had to set him straight. That, in the midst of a perform- ance of one of his last adagios, 'the king, being tired, quitted the room to the great mortification of Corelli'. Returning to Rome, he found his fame somewhat supplanted by an upstart musician by the name of Valentini, and was thrown into 'such a state of melancholy and chagrin as was thought,' said Geminiani, 'to have hastened his death'. Dying a wealthy man, Corelli made the grand gesture of bequeathing his entire fortune, which has been variously named as the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars and three hundred thousand dollars, together with a fine collection of paintings, to his patron. The Cardinal saw his Christian duty, and handed the 'saint-seducing gold' to Corelli's poor relatives. The pictures his conscience permitted him to retain. Corelli has been described as 'modest, amiable, simple in his ways of life, almost shabbily dressed, always going on foot instead of taking a carriage'. But there is no lack of extravagant praise from his contem- poraries. One of his countrymen called him '// virtuosissimo di violino e vero Orfeo di nostri tempi', and Johann Mattheson, in Germany, named him 'the prince of all musicians'. His pupil, Geminiani, issued a more considered judgment: 'His merit was not depth of learning like that of Alessandro Scarlatti, nor great fancy or rich invention in melody or harmony, but a nice ear and most delicate taste which led him to select the most pleasing harmonies and melodies, and to construct the parts so as to produce the most delightful effect upon the ear.' Even though Corelli's Concerti grossi were published posthumously, there can be no doubt that he composed them, or some of them, far earlier, in the full prime of his career. We have the statement of Georg Muffat in his preface to his own collection of Concerti grossi published at the end of the century, that he had experienced 'great pleasure and wonder in hearing a Concerto grosso of Corelli for the first time'. Muffat heard Corelli conduct them in Rome, so he reports, in 1682. Corelli neither originated the form, nor was he alone in developing it in his day, but he gave the Concerto grosso its first great impulse by the coherence, power, and fine workmanship he brought to it. His pupil Geminiani carried the gospel of the Concerto grosso to England. Another pupil, Locatelli, did the same in Holland. Corelli offered an inspiring pattern for his younger compatriot Vivaldi. Handel, who heard and admired his playing, was to write his own twelve Concerti grossi for a similar group and with a similar succession of short movements. Even Bach surely owed something to Corelli in his Brandenburg concertos, however much he refined and altered the Corellian model. The plan of the Concerto grosso is first found in vocal music with con- certed instrumental accompaniment and so derives from the operas of an earlier period where the main group of instrumentalists, called 'Ripieno' ('full'), is contrasted and alternated with a small group set apart, called the 'Concertino', thjs group supporting the singer. The operas of Alessandro Scarlatti are outstanding in this usage. Sonatas such as Corelli's Opus 5 were to become a pattern for the later solo virtuoso type of concerto. But at this period of instrumental develop- ment even those composers who wrote primarily for the violin, of which Corelli was one, inclined toward music for balanced groups. The first use of the term 'Concerto grosso' is traced to Malvezzi's 'Inter- medii et Concerti' in 1591. The Concerti 'per voci e stromenti' of the still earlier Venetian masters Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli favored a balanced division of choral and instrumental groups.