Concert Notes
William Schuman, Symphony No. 3
Born August 4, 1910, in New York City Died February 15, 1992, in New York City Composed in 1941 Premiered on October 17, 1941, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky Performance Time: Approximately 31 minutes When William Schuman completed his Symphony No. 3 in 1941, he had an illustrious advocate: Boston Symphony…
Read MoreWhitman and Democracy
Among the most arguably difficult of literary enterprises is the art of translation. Vladimir Nabokov was obsessed about the matter; his complicated and controversial views on the processes of transferring the sensibilities evoked by one language to another have themselves inspired volumes of commentary. The challenge resides in an irresolvable paradox: if the translator aims…
Read MoreOthmar Schoeck, Trommelschläge
Born September 1, 1886, in Brunnen, Switzerland Died March 8, 1957, in Zürich, Switzerland Composed in 1915 Premiered on March 5, 1916 at Tonhalle, Zürich, with the Tonhalle-Orchester Performance Time: Approximately 5 minutes The horrors of the First World War intruded upon the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck personally: the only manuscript copy of one of…
Read MoreKurt Weill, Four Walt Whitman Songs
Born March 2, 1900, in Dessau, Germany Died April 3, 1950, in New York City Composed in 1942–47 Premiered in 1947 for Concert Hall Records, with tenor William Horne and pianist Adam Garner Performance Time: Approximately 18 minutes Unlike some émigrés who fled Europe ahead of the Nazi menace, Kurt Weill never indulged in backward…
Read MoreFranz Schreker, Vom ewigen Leben (From Eternal Life)
Born March 23, 1878, in Monaco Died March 21, 1934, in Berlin, Germany Composed in 1923 Premiered in 1929 Performance Time: Approximately 20 minutes Franz Schreker was celebrated principally as a dramatic composer during his lifetime: his first success came in 1908 with a pantomime, Der Geburtstag der Infantin, based on The Birthday of the…
Read MoreRalph Vaughan Williams, A Sea Symphony
Born October 10, 1872, in Down Ampney, England Died August 26, 1958, in London Composed in 1903–09 Premiered on October 12, 1910 at the Leeds Festival, England Performance Time: Approximately 70 minutes In 1892, Bertrand Russell recommended Walt Whitman’s poetry to a fellow undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge: the aspiring young composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.…
Read MoreIntolerance
It would be hard to imagine a work more pertinent to our times than Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960. It is a work of musical theater that tells the story of an emigrant worker who encounters prejudice, injustice, incarceration, and violence. It assumes a political context in Europe of the threat of a return to fascism. Intolleranza…
Read MoreLuigi Nono, Intolleranza 1960
Born January 29, 1924, in Venice Died May 8, 1990, in Venice Composed in 1960–61 Premiered on April 13, 1961, at Teatro della Fenice in Venice with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bruno Maderna Performance Time: Approximately 75 minutes Fifteen years after the end of World War II, the wounds of Europe were far…
Read MoreThe Courage of Friendship: The Composer as Jew in the Soviet Union
The historical thread running through this concert program is the presence and persecution of the Jews of Poland and Soviet Russia in the mid-twentieth century. The nearly total annihilation of the Jews that began in 1939 with the Nazi invasion of Poland and proceeded with increased intensity after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in…
Read MoreMieczysław Weinberg, Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes
Born December 8, 1919, in Warsaw, Poland Died February 26, 1996, in Moscow, Russia Composed in 1949 Premiered on November 30, 1949, in Moscow by the All-Union Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Gauk Performance Time: Approximately 12 minutes During the last decade or so, a true Mieczysław Weinberg renaissance has begun in the concert…
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