Roger Sessions, Symphony No. 2
Born December 28, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York Died March 16, 1985 in Princeton, New Jersey Composed in 1944–46 Premiered on January 9, 1947 by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Monteaux Performance Time: Approximately 26 minutes Roger Huntington Sessions was born in Brooklyn and raised in Hadley, Massachusetts. His ancestors included Samuel Huntington, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the Rt. Rev. Dan…
Leonard Bernstein, Symphony No. 3, Kaddish
Born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts Died October 14, 1990, in New York City Composed in 1961–63; Revised in 1977 Premiered on December 10, 1963 in Tel Aviv by the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein with mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel Performance Time: Approximately 41 minutes As Leonard Bernstein’s biographer Humphrey Burton notes, “Between 1957 and 1971, the year of the Mass, [Bernstein] completed only two works: the Kaddish Symphony (No….
Religion and Music in England at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Edward Elgar’s two monumental masterpieces for chorus and orchestra, The Dream of Gerontius and The Apostles, mirror the tensions and contradictions that surrounded religion at the end of the Victorian era. Elgar, a Catholic, had experienced isolation and prejudice, particularly in his younger years. But he also witnessed a Catholic revival in England, the rise to prominence of John Henry Cardinal Newman as an influential English voice (Newman was the…
Elgar’s The Apostles
In the usual narrative of Edward Elgar’s career, the composer sprang overnight from provincial obscurity to international fame with the 1899 premiere of his Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, now known as the Enigma Variations. Unsurprisingly, the truth is more complicated: Elgar was already becoming well known through a series of acclaimed choral works, such as The Black Knight, Op. 25 (1892), Scenes from the Saga of King…
AFTER DVOŘÁK AND SMETANA: CZECH MUSIC IN THE 20th CENTURY
The four composers on this ASO program were major twentieth-century figures in the musical tradition of a region in Central Europe: the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia, famed for contributions to European culture, particularly in music. The historic capital of Bohemia, Prague is now the capital of the Czech Republic. Before this, it was the capital of a nation spliced together after the end of World War I—Czechoslovakia—which existed…
Vítězslav Novák, In the Tatras
Born December 5, 1870, in Kamenice nad Lipou, Southern Bohemia Died July 18, 1949, in Skuteč, Czech Republic Composed in 1902 Premiered on November 25, 1902 in Prague by the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Oskar Nedbal Performance Time: Approximately 25 minutes Vítězslav Novák was a gifted and prolific composer who was at the core of Czech musical life in the first decades of the 20th century. Composing in virtually every…
Bohuslav Martinů, Symphony No. 3
Born December 8, 1890, in Polička, Czechoslovakia Died August 28, 1959, in Liestal, Switzerland Composed in 1944 Premiered on October 12, 1945 in Boston by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitsky Performance Time: Approximately 30 minutes Before coming to New York City in 1941 as a political refugee, Czechoslovak composer Bohuslav Martinů obtained recognition internationally in a variety of musical genres and styles. Until his American residency, however, Josef…
Josef Suk, Scherzo fantastique
Born January 4, 1874, in Křečovice, Czechoslovakia Died May 29, 1935, in Benešov, Czechoslovakia Composed in 1903 Premiered on April 18, 1905 in the Rudolfinum, Prague Performance Time: Approximately 15 minutes Canonic figures like Felix Mendelssohn (Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture from 1826), Hector Berlioz (Queen Mab from the 1839 choral symphony Roméo et Juliette), and Paul Dukas (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from 1897) assisted in bringing the concert hall genre known…
Erwin Schulhoff, Symphony No. 5
by Michael Beckerman Born June 8, 1894, in Prague Died August 18, 1942, in Würzburg, Germany Composed in 1938–9 Premiered on March 5th, 1965 in Weimar by the Weimar State Orchestra conducted by Gerhardt Pfluger Performance Time: Approximately 36 minutes There is no style shift more dramatic than that undergone by Erwin Schulhoff after his “conversion” to Communism in the early 1930s. Beginning his career as an apostle of the avant-garde,…
Friends and Colleagues: Bernstein, Brandeis, and the 1950s
Tonight’s concert gives voice to a web of interconnections. All five composers on the program knew one another and were, at one time or another, friends. The most active and close period of their engagement took place relatively early in Leonard Bernstein’s meteoric career—between his college days and 1957, the year West Side Story opened. Four of them (Wernick is the exception) studied at Harvard with Walter Piston, three as…
Leonard Bernstein, Overture to Candide
Born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts Died October 14, 1990, in New York City Composed in 1956 Concert premiere on January 26, 1957 at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bernstein Performance Time: Approximately 4 minutes Despite its distinguished roster of collaborators, including Lillian Hellman and Richard Wilbur, among others, Leonard Bernstein’s Candide has always posed a conundrum for those seeking to produce it. Candide, based on…
Arthur Berger, Ideas of Order
Born May 15, 1912, in New York City Died October 7, 2003, in Boston, Massachusetts Composed in 1952, on commission from Dimitri Mitropoulos Premiered on April 11, 1953 at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Mitropoulos Performance Time: Approximately 11 minutes Reviewing a concert of Arthur Berger’s music in 1973, New York Times critic Donal Henahan characterized it as a “time capsule report” on the “postwar American…
Harold Shapero, Symphony for Classical Orchestra
Born April 29, 1920, in Lynn, Massachusetts Died May 17, 2013, in Cambridge, Massachusetts Composed in 1947 in Boston on commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation Premiered on January 30, 1948 in Boston by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein Performance Time: Approximately 45 minutes Harold Shapero was a precocious composer who enjoyed enormous success throughout his twenties. He matriculated at Harvard where his principal teacher was Walter Piston….
Richard Wernick, . . . and a time for peace
Born January 16, 1934, in Boston Composed in 1995 in Boston Premiered on June 18, 1995 by the Orchestra Filarmonica Della Scala conducted by Riccardo Muti with mezzo-soprano Freda Herseth Performance Time: Approximately 20 minutes The distinguished American composer Richard Wernick was born in Boston and began piano lessons at the age of eleven. He studied at Brandeis University with Irving Fine, Harold Shapero, and Arthur Berger. In the summers…
Irving Fine, Symphony (1962)
Born December 3, 1914, in Boston Died August 23, 1962, in Boston Composed in 1962 in Boston on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra Premiered on March 23, 1962 in Boston by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch Performance Time: Approximately 22 minutes Irving Fine was born, educated, taught, and died in Boston. His childhood was miserable on a Mahlerian scale: his parents were an ill-matched and quarrelsome…
Opera and Politics: Krenek and Strauss
by Leon Botstein We routinely invoke history as a means to understand the present. This is at one and the same time a noble and illusory enterprise. History is written with some notion of the present moment in mind, however submerged. Therefore, despite all of our disciplined efforts to render a construction of the past truthfully and objectively, the concerns of the present give an inevitably selective shape to a…
Ernst Krenek, Der Diktator and Richard Strauss, Friedenstag
by Bryan Gilliam Ernst Krenek Born August 23, 1900, in Vienna Died December 23, 1991, in Palm Springs, CA Der Diktator Composed in 1926, in Austria Premiered on May 6, 1928, at the Staatstheater in Wiesbaden, Germany by the State Opera conducted by Joseph Rosenstock Performance Time: Approximately 30 minutes Instruments for this performance: 2 flutes, 2 piccolos, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 1 French horn, 1 trumpet, 1…
A Mass of Life
by Leon Botstein The life and work of Frederick Delius defy both characterization and comparison. His music is distinctive in the sense that its individuality is unmistakable and its style reveals influences only obliquely. Delius was born a British subject, and we have become used to associating him with an “English” sensibility, but Delius suggests little of what sounds English in the music of Elgar, for example. In fact there…
Frederick Delius, A Mass of Life
by Byron Adams Born January 29, 1862, in Bradford, England Died June 10, 1934, in Grez-sur-Loing, France Composed in 1904–05 Part II premiered on June 4, 1908, in Munich by the Hofkapelle München and the Munich Choral Society conducted by Ludwig Hess Complete work premiered on June 7, 1909, in London at the Queen’s Hall by Beecham Orchestra and the North Staffordshire District Choral Society conducted by Thomas Beecham Performance…
