SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Telephone, Commonwealth 6-1492 SIXTY-NINTH SEASON, 1949-1950 CONCERT BULLETIN of the Boston Symphony Orchestra CHARLES MUNCH, Conductor Richard Burgin, Associate Conductor with historical and descriptive notes by John N. Burk COPYRIGHT, I95O, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, ItlC. The TRUSTEES of the BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. Henry B. Cabot . President Jacob J. Kaplan, . Vice-President Richard C. Paine . Treasurer Philip R. Allen M. A. De Wolfe Howe John Nicholas Brown Charles D. Jackson Theodore P. Ferris Lewis Perry Alvan T. Fuller Edward A. Taft N. Penrose Hallowell Raymond S. Wilkins Francis W. Hatch Oliver Wolcott George E. Judd, Manager T. D. Perry, Jr. N. S. Shirk, Assistant Managers [953] ^©@@©#®©#^#^@@#©###@##@©#@#@#@© ssssa..... to "onservi "« Vo. going r °Perty What's LOW t-Osr happen to Property?! Your c/««; *W^fa*t»UMt Sh^mmBank JLhis booklet shows how the Personal Trust Department of the Shawmut Bank can help you in the management of your property during your own lifetime, as well as providing for its future conser- vation. One important section explains the "When and Why" of the "Living Trust", and other Shawmut aids in property management and super- vision are also reviewed. Whether your resources are large or small, you should know the facts set forth in this booklet. Call at any of our 28 convenient offices, write or telephone LA 3-6800 for our booklet: ^Conserving Your Property at Low Cost" The V^ational Shawmut Bank 40 Water Street, Boston Member Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Capital and Surplus $30,000,000 "Outstanding Strength"for 114 Years m % ® $>&* 954] SYMPHONIANA The St. John Passion by Bach and by Schiitz CJiandlancuer s Marko Rothmuller Tremont and West Streets THE ST. JOHN PASSION BY BACH AND BY SCHUTZ Charles Munch will conduct the Bach St. John Passion at the subscription con- certs in Symphony Hall on Good Friday and Saturday, April 7 and 8, with a small chorus from the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society. The same singers will perform the Schiitz St. John Passion at the Annual Harvard- Radcliffe Concert in Sanders Theater on Thursday and Friday evenings, March 16 and 17. G. Wallace Wood- worth, who is preparing the chorus for the two Passions, has kindly written for this program book a comparison of the treatments by Schiitz and Bach: The St. John Passion of Heinrich Schiitz, written in his eightieth year, a half century before Bach's Passions, is a landmark in a long history. The singing of the Passions, like the Christ- mas story, as part of the liturgy is a tradition reaching far back into the his- tory of the mediaeval church. The presentation was always semi-dramatic, with the principal protagonists divided among the priest, deacon, and sub-dea- con. In the sixteenth century there are Veil-softened choral settings of the words of the multi- tude, the Turba, but the narrative of the crisp sailors Evangelist, and the words of the main characters, — Jesus, Pilate, Peter, — are still set in plain chant. Spring . and a sailor Johann Walther, friend and "musical with your suit or short expert" for Martin Luther, wrote the coat! Spring . and a first Protestant Passion in 1530. At the sailor, crisp and young, end of the sixteenth century Bartholo- maus Gesius introduced for the first yet delicately, romanti- time non-Biblical elements into the text cally veiled. Chandler's of the Passion, a practice which led ulti- shows many versions at mately to the hybrid librettos of Bach's this moment. period, in which the Bible narrative is repeatedly interrupted by meditations of two sorts, — traditional chorales sung MILLINERY SALON by the congregation, and contemporary SECOND FLOOR poetry in the form of ariosos and arias. As in the parallel history of the church C955] cantata, instruments were introduced, Schutz, like Palestrina in Rome and and an operatic style came to dominate Bach in Leipzig, wrote for choirs of not only the arias but even the recita- "chamber music" size. The engraving tive setting of the sacred narrative itself. from his pupil Christoph Bernhard's Schutz, writing his Passions at the Geistliches Gesang-Buch (1676) shows end of a long life, turned his back on Schutz as an old man surrounded by all this "progressive" tendency. He had his singers in the Court Chapel in Dres- forty years earlier written the first Ger- den. The choir of 26 is probably an man opera, Daphne, and one or two unusually large company, and the in- ballets. He had studied in Italy. He was strumentalists in the galleries were not a master of vocal counterpoint, and of an used in the Passions. expressive and ornate singing style. He We have no exact evidence as to had made extensive, varied and original whether Schutz actually performed the use of the orchestra. He was in command Passion himself, but he left instructions of all the Baroque apparatus or emo- for similar works, recommending that tional and dramatic "affects." the Evangelist and the other partici- Yet when he came to write his Pas- pants should be in different parts of the sions, he put all this behind him, as if church, and that the performance "would to show what intense and devout emo- have more effect if the Evangelist alone tion could be achieved through complete were to be seen, and if the other partici- simplicity. He renounced not only the pants were all to be hidden." The Har- orchestra but even the organ accom- vard- Radcliffe performance will follow paniment for the recitatives. He re- Schiitz's instructions for the separation jected every element that might suggest of the participants, the choir at the back, the operatic or the secular. For the last Jesus and Pilate on one side, and the time in the history of the Passion, he Evangelist on the other, intoning his gave his allegiance to the old tradition narrative from the lectern. that the music of Holy Week be severe Fifty-seven years after the Schutz and unadorned. And in so doing he St. John Passion, Bach, in anticipation wrought a miracle, for, as Dr. Alfred of his first responsibilities for Lenten Einstein has said, he had reached that music at Leipzig, wrote his Passion level of greatness in art where he no According to St. John. It was performed longer needed to be complicated in at his first Good Friday Service in St. order to be profound. Within the frame- Thomas' Church, 1724. No musicological work of the austere plain song narrative comparisons of the two "St. John's" and the simple old-style choruses, he could be half as pertinent as the oppor- spoke, in the words of Beethoven, "from tunity to hear both works in living the heart to the heart." sound. The text of the Passion is entirely that of the Gospel of St. John (the MARKO ROTHMULLER entire 18th chapter and the first 30 Marko Rothmiiller was born in verses of chapter 19), except for the Trnjani, Yugoslavia, studied at Zagreb opening and closing choruses. The In- and later in Vienna. He made his debut troit simply announces the title of the at the Hamburg Opera in 1932. After work, and the Epilogue is a brief motet the war he became a member of the made on the 8th stanza of the chorale Vienna State Opera, also singing with "Christus der uns selig macht," words the New London Opera Company and and melody by Michael Weisse, 1531. at Covent Garden (notably as Jokanaan Bach used the same chorale twice in his in Strauss's Salome). Coming to this St. John Passion, stanza 1 at the opening country in December, 1948, he joined of Part II, and stanza 8 just before the the New York City Center Opera with body of Christ is taken down from the which he has sung a number of leading cross. parts, [956] . S°'>H,E • V.N« NT MONrt s *»;o cettf1 *DRUN f'^" • H4T1II REINER • (;4RK kC!E . (ais-siu;^* . 5U; RICE ilene's french shops Nettie Rosenstein with her flair for quiet dramatics, tosses a double capelet over the shoulder of a trim, tapered wool town dress — fresh, young outlook for your new spring costume. 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Jefferson Coolidge, Chairman^ Trust Committee Robert Cutler, President Allied with The First National Bank of Boston [958] SIXTY-NINTH SEASON • NINETEEN HUNDRED FORTY-NINE AND FIFTY Eighteenth Program FRIDAY AFTERNOON, March 10, at 2:30 o'clock SATURDAY EVENING, March 11 at 8:30 o'clock Mozart Overture to "The Marriage of Figaro" Mozart Symphony in G minor, No. 40 (K. 550) 1. Molto allegro II. Andante III. Menuetto: Allegretto IV. Allegro assai Foss "Song of Anguish," First Biblical Solo Cantata, for Baritone and Orchestra (Text from Isaiah) (First performance; conducted by the composer) INTERMISSION Berlioz Excerpts from "Romeo and Juliet," Dramatic Symphony, Op. 17 Love Scene: Serene Night — The Capulets' Garden silent and deserted Queen Mab, the Fairy of Dreams Romeo alone — Melancholy — Concert and Ball — Great Feast at the Capulets' SOLOIST MARKO ROTHMULLER BALDWIN PIANO RCA VICTOR RECORDS This program will end about 4:20 o'clock on Friday Afternoon, 10:20 on Saturday Evening.