PRINTED AT THE Country Life Press, GARDEN CITY, N. Y., U. S. A.

COPYRIGHT, 1935
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION

EDITOR’S NOTE

This book, assembling the musical writings of Philip Hale, draws principally upon the programme books for which he wrote descriptive notes for thirty-two years of concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since the notes were addressed to audiences approaching the music with, presumably, open minds, the writer judiciously withheld his individual opinion. This opinion he freely expressed in his newspaper reviews of the same concerts, extending over an even longer period, and it has seemed advisable, by combining the two, to bring together the critic and the historian. The editor has found, in the newspaper files, pertinent critical paragraphs which are here used to introduce the programme notes about each particular work. The transition from criticism to descriptive note is indicated by a typographical ornament.

In going through the scrapbooks in the Allen A. Brown Room of the Boston Public Library, wherein the newspaper criticisms of Philip Hale’s forty active years are carefully preserved, the editor came across this observation by him, in the Boston Herald of March 13, 1912: “In 1945 some student in the Brown Room of the Public Library will doubtless be amused by opinions expressed by us all, of works first heard in 1912. Some of us will not then be disturbed by his laughter or by quotations ornamented with exclamation marks of contempt or wonder.”

There is cause for wonder, to a student at a time ten years short of the year Mr. Hale mentioned; wonder, however, at his quick perception of essential values upon first hearing what time has since proved a masterpiece, or considerably less than a masterpiece, as the case may be. Few indeed are the professional judges of music who are not glad to leave undisturbed in the dust of the newspaper files some skeletons of their past—appalling errors of denunciation or proclamation. Again and again, when his fellow critics of another day wrote laughably of a then new tone poem of Richard Strauss or pastel of Claude Debussy, Philip Hale delivered a sane and still quotable judgment.

No attempt has been made to modify by omissions Mr. Hale’s frank expressions of personal preferences among the composers. This writer never spoke as a major prophet, but as one who might be discussing a favorite subject over a demi-tasse. Anyone is privileged to disagree, and those insisting upon their eternal verities are referred to any one of a hundred books where the musical monuments are enshrined in ringing platitudes of praise. When this critic wrote, with the very opposite of solemnity, about Bach, or Brahms, or Wagner, his ridicule was always directed against a certain snobbish element in his public—a genus which sat at the feet of these composers. “There is, it is true, a gospel of Johannes Brahms,” he wrote as long ago as 1896, “but Brahms, to use an old New England phrase, is often a painful preacher of the word.—Brahms is a safe play in Boston. Let me not be unthankful; let me be duly appreciative of my educational opportunities in this town.”

It is a joyful privilege to be the agent of bringing the treasure of Philip Hale’s musical knowledge and commentary within the permanence and general accessibility of two covers. It was at first hoped that the author could assist in the compilation, but, failing in health, he was unable to give more than his whole-hearted assent to the project. His death, November 30, 1934, came before the book was far under way.

The material drawn upon is of vast proportions. From the autumn of 1901 through the spring of 1933, Philip Hale contributed programme notes for everything played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its regular concerts—upward of a thousand works. As music critic, Mr. Hale commented upon these and many more. He wrote for the Boston Home Journal from 1889 to 1891; the Boston Journal (like the other publication, long since extinct), from 1891 to 1903; and from then until his retirement in 1933 for the Boston Herald. There were also the editorials on various musical topics which he contributed anonymously to the New Music Review for many years. Acknowledgment is due for the quotations made from all of these publications; in particular the Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Bulletins, which have provided the bulk of this book, and the Boston Herald, from which by far the larger number of critical paragraphs are drawn. To these should be added the innumerable writers to whom Mr. Hale himself has referred in the course of his programme notes. The helpful advice of Mrs. Philip Hale in the choice of the frontispiece is gratefully acknowledged.

The problem of selecting from the vast accumulation of Philip Hale’s writings became somewhat less formidable when a large number of works now forgotten, and others still current but of lesser importance, were eliminated. One hundred and twenty-five works have been chosen, with the aim of including those most often encountered upon symphony programmes. The works of recent composers were necessarily limited to those which had been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and therefore described in its programmes, up to April, 1933. They are still further limited by the exigencies of space. The quoted reviews have been kept clear, for the sake of continuity, of dates and sources; documentation in the programme notes has been minimized. These notes are given in the form in which they most recently appeared. Their partial curtailment is justified by the readiness of their author to adjust them to the space of the programme in hand. To have used each note in its fullest form would have reduced the number of works which the book could contain. As regards the newspaper quotations, they are largely of recent years, and in any case represent the writer’s reconsidered opinion. A disproportion in the space given to a certain composer or certain work may be set down to the fact that in a few instances Mr. Hale did not happen at any time to write one of his inimitable essays in miniature which could be detached from the discussion of the occasion and the performance.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Editor’s Note v

Introduction by Lawrence Gilman xvii

BACH, JOHANN SEBASTIAN

The Brandenburg Concertos 2

The Concertos for Pianoforte 4

The Orchestral Suites 5

BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN

Symphony No. 1, in C major 7

Symphony No. 2, in D major 10

Symphony No. 3, in E flat major 13

Symphony No. 4, in B flat major 18

Symphony No. 5, in C minor 22

Symphony No. 6, in F major 26

Symphony No. 7, in A major 29

Symphony No. 8, in F major 34

Symphony No. 9, in D minor 38

Overture to Leonore No. 3 44

Overture to Egmont 47

Overture to Coriolanus 49

Concerto for Pianoforte, No. 4, in G major 51

Concerto for Pianoforte, No. 5, in E flat major 52

Concerto for Violin, in D major 54

BERLIOZ, HECTOR

Symphonie Fantastique, in C major 57

Overture, The Roman Carnival 64

BLOCH, ERNEST

Schelomo, Hebrew Rhapsody for Violoncello and Orchestra 66

BORODIN, ALEXANDER

Symphony No. 2, in B minor 70

BRAHMS, JOHANNES

Symphony No. 1, in C minor 77

Symphony No. 2, in D major 80

Symphony No. 3, in F major 83

Symphony No. 4, in E minor 86

Variations on a Theme by Josef Haydn 88

Tragic Overture 90

Academic Festival Overture 91

Concerto for Pianoforte, No. 1, in D minor 94

Concerto No. 2, in B flat major, for Pianoforte 95

Concerto for Violin, in D major 97

BRUCKNER, ANTON

Symphony No. 7, in E major 102

Symphony No. 8, in C minor 106

CARPENTER, JOHN ALDEN

Adventures in a Perambulator, Suite 114

DEBUSSY, CLAUDE ACHILLE

Prélude à l’Après-Midi d’un Faune 119

Nocturnes 122

La Mer 124

Ibéria: “Images” for Orchestra, No. 2 127

DVOŘÁK, ANTON

Symphony No. 5, in E minor 131

ELGAR, EDWARD

Variations on an Original Theme, Enigma 135

DE FALLA, MANUEL

Ballet-Pantomime: El Amor Brujo 140

Three Dances from El Sombrero de Tres Picos 142

FRANCK, CÉSAR

Symphony in D minor 146

HANDEL, GEORG FRIDERIC

Twelve Concerti Grossi, for String Orchestra 151

HAYDN, FRANZ JOSEF

(London Symphonies)

Symphony No. 104, in D major (B. & H. No. 2) 155

Symphony No. 94, in G major (“Surprise”) (B. & H. No. 6) 157

(Paris Symphonies)

Symphony No. 88, in G major (B. & H. No. 13) 158

HINDEMITH, PAUL

Konzertmusik for String and Brass Instruments 161

HONEGGER, ARTHUR

Pacific 231, Orchestral Movement 164

D’INDY, VINCENT

Symphony No. 2, in B flat major 166

Istar, Symphonic Variations 170

LISZT, FRANZ

A Faust Symphony 175

Symphonic Poem, No. 3, Les Préludes 181

Pianoforte Concerto, No. 1, in E flat 182

LOEFFLER, CHARLES MARTIN

A Pagan Poem 184

MacDOWELL, EDWARD

Orchestral Suite, No. 2, in E minor, Indian 186

MAHLER, GUSTAV

The Symphonies 190

Symphony No. 5, in C sharp minor 192

MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, FELIX

Symphony in A major, “Italian” 195

Overture and Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream 199

Concert Overture, The Hebrides, or Fingal’s Cave 201

Concerto for Violin, in E minor 203

MOUSSORGSKY, MODESTE

A Night on Bald Mountain 206

MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS

Symphony in E flat major (Koechel No. 543) 211

Symphony in G minor (Koechel No. 550) 212

Symphony in C major (“Jupiter”) (Koechel No. 551) 212

Overture to The Marriage of Figaro 217

Overture to The Magic Flute 219

The Concertos for Violin 221

Mozart as Pianist 222

PROKOFIEFF, SERGE

Scythian Suite 225

Classical Symphony 227

RACHMANINOFF, SERGEI

Symphony No. 2 in E minor 229

Concerto No. 2 in C minor, for Pianoforte 232

RAVEL, MAURICE

Ma Mère l’Oye: Five Children’s Pieces 234

Daphnis et Chloé, Ballet (Second Series) 237

Bolero 239

RESPIGHI, OTTERINO

Symphonic Poem, Pines of Rome 241

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, NICOLAS

Symphonic Suite, Scheherazade 244

Caprice on Spanish Themes 250

SAINT-SAËNS, CHARLES CAMILLE

Symphony No. 3, in C minor (with organ) 255

SCHOENBERG, ARNOLD

Verklärte Nacht, Arranged for String Orchestra 259

SCHUBERT, FRANZ

Symphony No. 8, in B minor (“Unfinished”) 265

Symphony No. 7, in C major 267

SCHUMANN, ROBERT

Symphony No. 1, in B flat major 272

Symphony No. 2, in C major 275

Symphony No. 3, in E flat major 278

Symphony No. 4, in D minor 282

Concerto in A minor, for Pianoforte 285

SCRIABIN, ALEXANDER

The Poem of Ecstasy (Le Poème de l’Extase) 288

SIBELIUS, JEAN

Symphony No. 1, in E minor 292

Symphony No. 2, in D major 295

Symphony No. 4, in A minor 298

Symphony No. 5, in E flat major 300

Symphony No. 7 301

Finlandia, Symphonic Poem 303

The Swan of Tuonela, Symphonic Poem 305

STRAUSS, RICHARD

Don Juan, Tone Poem 308

Tod und Verklärung, Death and Transfiguration, Tone Poem 310

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Tone Poem 313

Thus Spake Zarathustra, Tone Poem 316

Don Quixote, Variations 320

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), Tone Poem 327

STRAVINSKY, IGOR

Suite from L’Oiseau de Feu (The Fire-Bird) 331

Suite from Petrouchka 333

Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) Pictures of Pagan Russia 336

TAYLOR, DEEMS

Through the Looking Glass, Suite 339

TCHAIKOVSKY, PETER

Symphony No. 4, in F minor 344

Symphony No. 5, in E minor 346

Symphony No. 6, in B minor, Pathétique 350

Romeo and Juliet, Overture Fantasia 354

Concerto for Pianoforte, No. 1, in B flat minor 356

Concerto for Violin, in D major 359

WAGNER, RICHARD

Overture to Rienzi 365

Overture to Der Fliegende Holländer 366

Overture to Tannhäuser 367

Prelude to Lohengrin 368

Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde 370

Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 371

A Siegfried Idyl 373

“The Ride of the Valkyries,” from Die Walküre 375

Prelude to Parsifal 376

Good Friday Spell, from Parsifal 379

WEBER, CARL MARIA VON

Overture to Oberon 381

Overture to Der Freischütz 382

Overture to Euryanthe 385

WILLIAMS, RALPH VAUGHAN

A London Symphony 389

Index 395

INTRODUCTION

Some day an inquisitive musicologist will consider the part played in the history of musical education and musical taste by that seemingly indispensable adjunct of the symphonic concert room, the Programme Note. When that time comes, the contributions made by Philip Hale to the musical civilization of his time will appear in their true proportions. For more than a generation, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the fifth year of the Great Depression, Hale provided programme notes for everything played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its regular concerts—“upward of a thousand works”, as Mr. Burk informs us in his valuable note to the present collection. The annual issue by the Boston Symphony Orchestra of the bound volumes containing Philip Hale’s annotations was an event in the musical world of America that exceeded in importance and interest the appearance of the average new symphonic work upon the Orchestra’s programmes. A decade ago, in commenting upon the issue of one of those momentous and liberal tomes (sometimes they included more than two thousand pages), I remarked that it provided a musical education in one volume. Those famous annotations—modestly indicated on the title-page, in small and light-faced type, as “historical and descriptive notes by Philip Hale”—constitute a library of musical information the like of which is not to be found elsewhere on this sufficiently book-congested sphere.

Though Hale was a New Englander by birth, he had not the normal New England suspicion of entertainment as an educational ingredient; and he did not scruple to amuse. He was almost indecently readable. He never hesitated to lighten musical instruction with diversion and with wit. He knew much besides music; and he was able to peptonize for the reader his vast and curious erudition. He could tell you about the maceration of Oriental women, and what action is described by the word “tutupomponeyer”, and who invented the first chess-playing automaton, and how locomotive engines are classified, and what Pliny said concerning the bird called penelope. He knew all about the various editions of the singular Commentaires sur les epistres d’Ovide by Claude Gaspar Bachet, Sieur de Meziriac, in which the parentage of Ulysses is discussed. He could tell you why the river Ebro bears that name; and what Louis XIV ate for supper—which, you may like to be reminded, often consisted of four plates of different soups, the whole of a pheasant, a partridge, a heaped-up plate of salad, two huge slices of ham, mutton stewed with garlic, and a plate of pastries topped off with fruit and hard-boiled eggs. As for all the other things that Hale knew, you must turn to his writings if you would appreciate their range and number.

And all this fantastically varied learning—which not only seemed boundless in extent, but which was also incredibly exact and circumstantial—adorned a general culture that was nourishing and humane, and a specifically musical culture which conceived no relevant fact as inconsiderable, no anecdote unimportant, no human aspect unrevealing. The average programme note is a deadly and a stifling thing; but these amazing annotations, traversing all history and the ceaseless tragi-comedy of life, assure us that a programme note may sometimes, if an artist has contrived it, be more rewarding than the music that occasioned it.

Philip Hale transformed the writing of programme notes from an arid and depressing form of musical pedagogy into an exhilarating variety of literary art. The formidable weight of learning which he bore was employed with an ease and finesse, a lightness of touch, a charm of manner, a wit and conciseness and flexibility, which belong among the achievements of distinguished letters. His predecessor as annotator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s programmes, the accomplished William Foster Apthorp, had prepared the way for Hale’s achievement. Apthorp’s notes, written between 1892 and 1901, surpassed in brilliance and acumen anything that had come out of Europe or America. But Philip Hale, by reason of his exceptional width of intellectual range, and the well of knowledge which he drew upon, and his insatiable, devouring, delighted curiosity, established himself almost at once as the master of an enlivened order of creative musical scholarship which was a new thing under the tonal sun.

One might justly say of him, as critic, commentator, analyst, what Sir George Grove said of Schubert—a saying that Hale himself was fond of quoting: “There never has been one like him, and there never will be another.” Lawrence Gilman.

PHILIP HALE’S BOSTON SYMPHONY PROGRAMME NOTES

JOHANN SEBASTIAN
BACH

(Born at Eisenach on March 21, 1685; died at Leipsic on July 28, 1750)

No matter how well old music may be performed by chorus, orchestra, virtuoso, many audiences are bored by it today. There is one exception: the music of Bach. “He is the forerunner, the prophet that foresaw our epoch and our tastes.” This speech is often heard, as is the remark: “There is not one ultra-modern harmonic thought that is not to be found somewhere in Bach’s music.” Bach is one of the great fetishes in music. The late John S. Dwight really believed in the plenary inspiration of the indefatigable weaver of counterpoint. No matter how formal, how dull a page of music looked or sounded, Mr. Dwight was in ecstasy the moment he was told the page was signed with Bach’s name.

Mme Wanda Landowska (in Musique ancienne) says entertainingly: “The idea that the Cantor of Eisenach, though dedicating his music to Frederick the Great and princes of his period, composed it solely with a view to a Châtelet audience is so consecrated a commonplace that I hardly dare to dream of combating it.” Von Bülow and others have declared that Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy is an anticipation of modern romanticism; but the composers hinted at in this piece are more modern than Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann. Frescobaldi, Buxtehude, Couperin, and the writers for the lute are more modern because they are less known. And Bach not only knew their works but followed them rather than the advanced ideas of his own epoch; for Bach was a conservative rather than a radical.

THE BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS

No. 1 in F, for two horns, three oboes and bassoon, with strings

No. 2 in F, for violin, flute, oboe, trumpet, with strings

No. 3 in G, for three string orchestras

No. 4 in G, for violin and two flutes, with strings

No. 5 in D, for pianoforte, flute, and violin, with strings

No. 6 in B, for two viole da braccia, two viole da gamba, violoncello, and bass

The six Brandenburg Concertos, completed on March 24, 1721, were written in answer to the wish of a Prussian prince, Christian Ludwig, Margraf of Brandenburg, the youngest son of the Great Elector by a second wife. This prince was provost of the Cathedral at Halberstadt. He was a bachelor, living now at Berlin and now on his estate at Malchow. Fond of music, and not in an idle way, he was extravagant in his tastes and mode of life, and often went beyond his income of nearly fifty thousand thalers. In May, 1718, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, at whose court Bach was Kapellmeister, journeyed to Carlsbad to drink the waters. He took with him Bach and a quintet from his orchestra; also his clavicembalo with three “servants to care for it”; he was also thus attended when he visited Carlsbad in 1720. The Margraf may have been at Carlsbad, and as he was very fond of music and had his own orchestra, he undoubtedly attended Leopold’s musical parties. At any rate, he gave Bach a commission. It was on March 24, 1721, that Bach—possibly someone at the Court—wrote a dedication in French:

“A son altesse royale, Monseigneur Crétien Louis, Margraf de Brandenbourg, etc., etc., etc.

“Monseigneur,

“Two years ago, when I had the honor of playing before your Royal Highness, I experienced your condescending interest in the insignificant musical talents with which heaven has gifted me, and understood your Royal Highness’s gracious willingness to accept some pieces of my composition. In accordance with that condescending command, I take the liberty to present my most humble duty to your Royal Highness in these Concerti for various instruments, begging your Highness not to judge them by the standards of your own refined and delicate taste, but to seek in them rather the expression of my profound respect and obedience. In conclusion, Monseigneur, I most respectfully beg your Royal Highness to continue your gracious favor toward me, and to be assured that there is nothing I so much desire as to employ myself more worthily in your service.

“With the utmost fervor, Monseigneur, I subscribe myself,

“Your Royal Highness’s most humble and most obedient servant,

“Jean Sebastian Bach.

“Coethen, 24 March, 1721.”[1]

These concertos—“Concerts avec plusieurs instruments”—were intended as a gift for the Margraf’s birthday in March. Nothing is known about the reception in Berlin, nor is it positively known whether they were ever played at the palace of the Margraf. “The condition of the autograph suggests that, like the parts of the ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Gloria’ of the B minor Mass at Dresden, it was never performed by the recipient.” It was the Margraf’s habit to catalogue his library. The name of Bach was not found in the list, although the names of Vivaldi, Venturini, Valentiri, Brescianello, and other writers of concertos were recorded. After the death of the Margraf in 1734, Bach’s score was put for sale with other manuscripts in a “job lot.” The Brandenburg Concertos came into the possession of J. P. Kirnberger. They were later owned by the Princess Amalie, sister of Frederick the Great and a pupil of Kirnberger. Their next and final home was the Royal Library, Berlin, No. 78 in the Amalienbibliothek. They were edited by S. W. Dehn and published by Peters, Leipsic, in 1850.

THE CONCERTOS FOR PIANOFORTE

D minor (with strings)

E major (with strings)

D major (with strings)

A major (with strings)

F minor (with strings)

G minor (with strings)

F major (with two flutes and strings)

A minor (with flute, violin and strings)

D major (with flute, violin and strings)

Little is known about these concertos. It is supposed that the seven were formed by putting together various separate movements, or were arrangements or transcriptions for the clavier. “In all the concertos for clavier, whether for one instrument or many, there are passages for the solo instrument unaccompanied which anticipate the procedure of modern concertos, with considerable use of arpeggios, and even occasional cadenza passages. Bach follows the Italian types in the general scheme and easy style of the quick movements, and they are rather homophonic in feeling, with the exception of the last movement of the double concerto in C major, which is a fugue of the most vivacious description.... Bach clearly enjoyed writing in the concerto form and found it congenial. It would be even natural to infer that he found opportunities for performing the works, as in many cases the same concertos appear in versions both for violin and clavier.”[2]

Parry also says: “When Bach writes slow movements for the clavier, he makes them serve as phases of contrast to the quick movements, in which some rather abstract melody is discussed with a certain aloofness of manner, or treated with elaborate ornamentation, such as was more suited to the instrument than passages of sustained melody pure and simple. The alternative presented in the admirable concerto for the clavier in D minor is to give a Siciliano in place of the central slow movement, a course which provides a type of melody well adapted to the limited sustaining power of the harpsichord.... The finest of them [the concertos] is that in D minor, above mentioned, which from its style would appear to have been written at Cöthen.”

It is supposed that there was use of the general bass in these concertos. A second clavier was usually employed; but there is reason to believe that a portable organ, or lutes, theorbos, and the like were also used in accompaniment. Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote in his J. S. Bach (Leipsic, 1905): “The seven concertos for clavier are in effect, and with one exception only, transcriptions made at Leipsic after 1730 at a time when Bach saw himself obliged to write concertos for the performances of the Telemann Society, which he began to conduct in 1729, and for the little family concerts at his own home. These transcriptions are of unequal worth. Some were made carefully and with art, while others betray impatience in the accomplishment of an uninteresting task. Only one of the pianoforte concertos is not derived from a violin concerto.”

THE ORCHESTRAL SUITES

No. 1. Suite in C (for two oboes, and bassoon, with strings)

No. 2. Suite in B minor (for flute with strings)

No. 3. Suite in D (for two oboes, three trumpets, and drums, with strings)

No. 4. Suite in D (for three oboes, bassoon, three trumpets, and drums, with strings)

The term “suite” was not given by Bach to the four compositions that now are so named—the suites in C major, B minor, and two in D major. He used the word “ouverture.” The original parts of these overtures were handed over in 1854 by the Singakademie of Berlin to the Royal (now Stadt) Library of that city.

Bach probably composed the four suites during his stay at Cöthen (1717-23), as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. The prince was then nearly twenty-four years old, an amiable, well-educated young man, who had traveled and was fond of books and pictures. He played the violin, the viol da gamba, and the harpsichord. Furthermore, he had an agreeable bass voice and was more than an ordinary singer. Bach said of him, “He loved music, he was well acquainted with it, he understood it.” The music at the Court was chiefly chamber music, and here Bach passed happy years.

Under the reign of Leopold’s puritanical father there was no Court orchestra, but in 1707 Gisela, Leopold’s wife, set up to please her husband an establishment of three musicians. When Leopold returned from his grand tour he expanded the orchestra. In 1714 he appointed Augustinus Reinhard Stricker Kapellmeister, and Stricker’s wife Catherine soprano and lutanist. In 1716 the orchestra numbered eighteen players who, “with some omissions and additions,” constituted its membership under Bach. Stricker and his wife retired in August, 1717. Leopold offered the post of Kapellmeister to Bach, “who was known to him since his sister’s wedding at Nienburg in the previous year.” This orchestra, reinforced by visiting players, probably played the Brandenburg music before it was performed elsewhere.