Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Born June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany Died September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany Guntram, Op. 25 Composed 1887–1893; rev. 1939 Premiered on May 10, 1894 at the Grossherzoglichen Hoftheater in Weimar, conducted by Richard Strauss Performance Time: Approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes Richard Strauss’s operatic legacy of 14 operas in the 20th century is unequaled by any other composer. From Feuersnot (1901) to Capriccio (1941),…

The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is honored and pleased to be able to mount this concert performance of Richard Strauss’s first opera, Guntram, which the composer completed in 1893. I am particularly delighted that Bryan Gilliam, who, in my opinion, is the finest Strauss scholar working today, has written the program notes for this performance. I recommend to all Gilliam’s terrific 2018 book on the operas of Strauss, Rounding Wagner’s…

Today’s concert is a public foray into how the passage of time in history can be perceived subjectively. The music performed today was written approximately a century ago. A concert of music that might have been performed in 1925, made up of music from the 1820s would have struck the audience in 1925 as welcome, but quite old fashioned and historic. Beethoven, Schubert, and Carl Maria von Weber, for example,…

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951) Born February 28, 1876, in Park Ridge, Illinois Died April 26, 1951, in Chicago Skyscrapers: A Ballet of Modern American Life Composed 1923-24 Premiered on February 19, 1926 in New York, New York at the Metropolitan Opera House conducted by Louis Hasselmans featuring dance soloists Albert Troy, Rita de Leporte, and Roger Dodge Performance Time: Approximately 21 minutes Few composers in the 1920s walked a finer…

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) was perhaps the most famous, respected, and original composer from the Protestant north of German Europe during the later eighteenth century, a worthy equal and rival of two composers whose posthumous reputation and place in the repertory far exceeds his own—Haydn, 18 years younger and a Catholic subject of the Habsburg Empire—and Mozart, also a Catholic Austrian, who, although more than 40 years younger than C.P.E. Bach…

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) Born March 8, 1714, in Weimar, Germany Died December 14, 1788, in Hamburg, Germany Heilig, H.775 Composed 1776 Premiered premiered during Michaelmas in 1776 Conducted by C.P.E. Bach Performance Time: Approximately 8 minutes Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, H.777 Composed 1774-78 Premiered March 18, 1778 Conducted by C.P.E. Bach Performance Time: Approximately 73 minutes Des Rufs partheyische Posaune, O Bach! ist für Dein Lob zu klein; Dein…

Scott Joplin Overture to Treemonisha Born November 24, 1868 in Texarkana, TX Died April 1, 1917 in New York, New York Composed 1911 Premiered on January 28, 1972 in Atlanta, Georgia Conducted by Robert Shaw Performance Time: Approximately 8 minutes While all the composers on this program worked in a variety of genres and styles, Scott Joplin’s (1868- 1917) success almost entirely came from his compositions for piano, in particular…

This concert program tries to put a dent—so to speak—in a prejudice (if prejudices had metal surfaces like cars) too many of us still share: that there is a fundamental tension between popular music and classical “art” music, particularly in America. There is none; great music thrives in all genres from Taylor Swift to John Cage. Indeed, the historical record—the facts—tell a different story. In North America, part of our…

Tonight the American Symphony Orchestra, along with the Bard Festival Chorus and soloists, presents one of the most remarkable works of the early 20th century, Gurre-Lieder, a “grand cantata” scored for more than 200 musicians and voices. The connection between the ASO and this largest work by Arnold Schoenberg is important; their founding conductor, Leopold Stokowski, conducted the US premiere on April 8, 1932 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and recorded…

Bryan Gilliam, in his elegant and expert notes for this performance of Gurre-Lieder, observes that Schoenberg’s belief in the “historical obligation of musical style” has “lost all meaning” in our current century. What Schoenberg understood as the “historical obligation” was actually an ethical imperative. Any style adopted by composers of music had to match and confront the distinct circumstances and unique challenges of the contemporary historical moment. Music was not…

As distinguished scholar Michael Beckerman—in his very fine notes to this performance—observes, there was no “specific reason” on Antonín Dvořák’s part for composing his Requiem. What Beckerman was referring to was some personal or perhaps public reason to honor the dead with a major monumental choral and orchestral work. The reason Dvořák wrote the work was a commission from the Birmingham Festival in England. Although 19th-century England was often derided…

Premiere: October 9, 1891 in Birmingham, England at the Birmingham Music Festival conducted by Antonín Dvořák with soloists Anna Williams, Hilda Wilson, Iver McKay, Watkin Mills, and the Birmingham Festival Chorus Instruments for this performance: 2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, timpani, percussion (tam-tam, bells), 1 harp, organ, 18…

Seven years after Handel’s death, one of his Coronation Anthems—possibly Zadok the Priest—was performed by a massed chorus and orchestra at the rededication of the Grand Synagogue on Duke’s Place in London on August 29, 1766. The London Chronicle reported that this event was presided over by “the Chief and other eminent Rabbis belonging to the Portuguese Jewish nation” and prayers in English were offered for the Royal Family. One…

When tonight’s performance of one of G. F. Handel’s more famous oratorios was scheduled a year ago, the intent of the ASO was to offer a friendly and reassuring program fit for the season, but one that was not entirely conventional. Handel’s Judas Maccabeus is hardly obscure though it is not the Messiah in terms of the frequency of performances. We, as citizens and residents of the greater New York…

The period around World War I, from about 1910 to the late 1920s, was arguably the most consequential one for Western music, in general, and for the American musical scene, in particular. The belief that the dominant Romantic tradition had reached an irreversible crisis point was widely shared among many young composers. In what became the most turbulent time in music history – stylistically and aesthetically – this quest for…

Welcome to our season-opening concert, one that celebrates an extremely creative moment in the history of American music. The composers on this program were selected on account of their originality and their commitment to writing music that properly mirrored the American experience. Classical and concert music in America, until the first decade of the twentieth century, was largely dominated by European models, particularly German, Russian, and French. A younger generation…

Richard Strauss Born June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany Died September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany An den Baum Daphne (Epilogue from Daphne) Composed in 1943 Text by Joseph Gregor (1888-1960) Premiered on January 5, 1947 in Vienna, Austria by the Vienna State Opera Chorus with the Vienna Boys’ Choir conducted by Felix Prohaska. Performance Time: Approximately 16 minutes Daphne: Bukolische Tragödie in einem Aufzug (Bucolic Tragedy in One Act),…

The myth of Daphne has come down to us from a myriad of ancient Greek and Roman sources. The most well-known perhaps is the version in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In all its variants, however, three central issues animate the Daphne myth.  First, is beauty and its consequences. Daphne is so uncommonly beautiful and so mesmerizing that she becomes Apollo’s obsession and his object of pursuit. Of the Olympians, Apollo was himself…

It is a pleasure to welcome the audience to this concert of the American Symphony Orchestra at St. Bartholomew’s. St. Bartholomew’s has a rich and noble history as a venue for concerts, particularly concerts that utilize its spectacular and legendary Aeolian-Skinner organ. Although the present organ dates from 1918, it incorporates much of the previous organ by Hutchings and Odell. The organ has been meticulously maintained. Its current configuration dates…

Camille Saint-Saëns Born October 9, 1835, in Paris, France Died December 16, 1921, in Algiers, Algeria Symphony No. 3, Op. 78, 1886 Composed 1886 Premiered on May 19, 1886, in London, U.K., Conducted by Camille Saint-Saëns Performance Time: Approximately 36 minutes In 1878, Camille Saint-Saëns endured a double tragedy. On May 28, his young son André died when he fell from the window of the family apartment onto the courtyard…