Ravinia 2022, Issue 4

assistance from Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, both of whom enjoyed successful careers ar- ranging and orchestrating for stage and film. Divertimento for Orchestra Scored for three flutes and two piccolos, two oboes and English horn, two B-flat, one E-flat, and one bass clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba (doubling baritone euphonium), timpani, four snare drums, bass drum, cymbals, large cymbals, suspended cymbal, tam-tam, triangle, tambourine, wood block, two Cuban cowbells, sandpaper blocks, three bongos, two conga drums, four temple blocks, trap set, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, chimes, piano, harp, and strings Boston was not only the hometown of Leo (later, Leonard) Bernstein, it was the city where the sickly firstborn son of a successful fashion wig maker blossomed into Ameri- ca’s most beloved musician. Bernstein began his musical training rather late and, initially, against his father’s wishes. Insatiable curiosity and extraordinary musical talent quickly sep- arated Lenny from his classmates at Boston Latin School and Harvard University, where his teachers included Arthur Tillman Merritt and Walter Piston. After deciding to pursue orchestral conducting, Bernstein entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 1939 to study with Fritz Reiner. Nonetheless, the pivotal training experience came at the first summer conduct- ing course at the newly founded Berkshire Festival at Tanglewood, where he studied un- der Serge Koussevitzky, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Musical life in the Boston area remained of en- during importance to Bernstein. With his fa- ther, Lenny heard his first symphonic concert in May 1932—a Boston Pops program in Sym- phonyHall, conducted by Arthur Fiedler—and soon after attended his first classical piano re- cital, given by Serge Rachmaninoff. Bernstein’s own professional debut as a pianist came on October 31, 1937, when he played Ravel’s jazzy Piano Concerto in G major (a work commis- sioned for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1932) with the State Sym- phony Orchestra in nearby Cambridge, MA. He made his professional conducting debut on July 11, 1941, leading the Boston Pops in a performance of Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meis- tersinger von Nürnberg . Bernstein conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions, and the orchestra gave two world premieres of his orchestral compositions: the Symphony No. 2 ( The Age of Anxiety ) on April 8, 1949, under Serge Koussevitzky, and the Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront at Tanglewood on August 11, 1955, under the composer’s direction. Bernstein made his last conducting appearance before his death at a Boston Symphony Koussevitzky Memorial Concert at Tanglewood on August 19, 1990. When approached with a commission for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s centennial season, Bernstein recognized his dual Boston heritage with the Divertimento for Orchestra, “an expression of his love affair with the city of his youth and its symphony orchestra,” as described in the preface to the published score by Jack Gottlieb, Bernstein’s music edi- tor. This suite of eight dances is unified by a two-pitch musical motto (B and C), which stand for “Boston Centennial.” Bernstein em- bedded fragmentary reminiscences of his own Boston musical experiences into the Divertimento. Bernstein conceived Sennets and Tuckets as a self-sufficient composition, borrowing its title from a Shakespearian stage direc- tion calling for fanfares to be played. The rhythmically asymmetrical string-ensemble Waltz serves as counterpart to the limping waltz movement of Tchaikovsky’s Sympho- ny No. 6 (“Pathétique”). Mazurka , scored for double-reed instruments and harp, partly recalls the piano music of Chopin, but with a lithe oboe melody derived from the star- tling first-movement cadenza in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Fiedler’s Boston Pops sound mingles with Bernstein’s jazzy style in Sam- ba . Turkey Trot —originally composed for the incomplete film score to Francis Ford Coppo- la’s Tucker —adopts the orchestral “American” sound of Bernstein’s friend Aaron Copland. Sphinxes undoubtedly refers to the enigmat- ic movement bearing the same name from Schumann’s solo piano cycle Carnaval . This movement proceeds directly into the slow- drag Blues . Bernstein memorialized “beloved conductors and orchestra members of the BSO who are no longer with us” in the in- troduction to his finale, an In Memoriam for flutes and piccolo in the style of Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question . A march—“The BSO Forever”—amusingly employs Strauss’s Radetzky March in a brilliant conclusion. Seiji Ozawa conducted the premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall, Boston, on September 25, 1980—the gala opening concert of the orchestra’s cen- tennial season. Leonard Bernstein GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898–1937) Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture (Arranged by Robert Russell Bennett) Scored for three flutes and one piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two B-flat clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, two alto saxophones, tenor saxophone, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, xylophone, bells, chimes, triangle, drums, cymbals, wood block, celeste, banjo, two harps, and strings Few works merit immediate “classic” sta- tus, but the opera Porgy and Bess is surely one. This work obliterated barriers between American musical theater and opera, popular and formal musical styles, social classes, and races. Its composer, George Gershwin, wrote: “However, because Porgy and Bess deals with Negro life in America, it brings to the oper- atic form elements that have never appeared in opera, and I have adapted my method to utilize the drama, the humor, the supersti- tion, the religious fervor, the dancing, and the irrepressible high spirits of the race. If, in doing this, I have created a new form, which combines opera with theatre, this new form has come quite naturally out of the material.” Gershwin had long dreamed of composing a full-scale opera on an ethnic theme. His Blue Monday, Opera Ala Afro-American (revived as 135th Street ) was a one-act jazz opera for George White’s Scandals of 1922 . The seri- ous treatment of Black characters and the depressing ending proved too severe for the vaudeville audience, and White removed Blue Monday after one performance. In 1928, financier and opera lover Otto Kahn invited Gershwin to compose an opera, Dyb- buk , for the Metropolitan Opera. Dybbuk was a Yiddish play by S.A. Ansky (pseudonym for Solomon Rappaport) based on Central Euro- pean Jewish folklore. Unfortunately, musical rights had been granted to the Italian com- poser Lodovico Rocca for an opera at La Sca- la. The Met withdrew its offer. Unfazed, Gershwin set his sights on the best-selling novel Porgy by Southern writer DuBose Heyward. Heyward portrayed life among the Gullah Blacks of Charleston, NC. (“Gullah” is dialect for Angola, the African nation where they were enslaved.) The basis of Heyward’s novel was a series of Charleston newspaper reports about the crippled Samuel Smalls, who was drawn by a goat through the impoverished Cabbage Row district on a cart. Heyward named his tragic hero Porgo (even- tually Porgy) and changed the setting to the fictitious Catfish Row. Realizing the dramatic qualities of Porgy , Heyward’s wife Dorothy adapted the novel to the stage. The play, produced by the The- atre Guild, opened on October 10, 1927. Ad- ditional offers for a motion picture and an opera, starring Al Jolson, were proposed to Heyward, but neither materialized. The final transformation of his novel was Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess , for which Heyward wrote the libretto. Heyward wrote the lyrics with Ira Gershwin, the composer’s brother. After a series of delays, Gershwin threw himself whole-heartedly into the project. He spent several weeks during June and July 1934 in a crude cottage on Folly Island (outside Charleston) among the Gullahs, immersing himself in their dialect and their spirituals, and even attending a prayer meeting. Heyward recalled his musical colleague’s firsthand involvement: “The Gullah Negro prides himself on what he calls ‘shouting.’ This is a complicated rhythmic pattern beaten out by feet and hands as an accompaniment to the spirituals and is indubitably an African survival. I shall never forget the night when at a Negro meeting on a remote sea-island George started ‘shouting’ with them. And eventually to their huge delight stole the show from their champion ‘shouter.’ I think that he is probably the only white man in America who could have done it.” Gershwin finished orchestrating his folk opera on September 2, 1935, eight days be- fore the tryout at Boston’s Colonial Theatre. An abridged Porgy and Bess opened at New York’s Alvin Theatre on October 10, 1935. This Theatre Guild production was directed by Rouben Mamoulian and conducted by Alex- ander Smallens. The run of 124 performances was disappointingly short for a musical, but quite impressive for an opera. Critical re- sponse was mixed. The three-act Porgy and Bess takes place mainly on Catfish Row. A craps game is under way when the cripple Porgy enters. Crown, the brutish partner of Bess, kills Robbins in a drunken brawl and flees the scene. Months later, Porgy has fallen in love with Bess and arranges for her divorce from Crown, only to find they had never married. Bess encoun- ters Crown once again while picnicking on Kitiwah Island, where he has been in hiding. When Bess returns to Catfish Row days later, she is weak from illness. Porgy takes care of her. A hurricane strikes the seacoast, blowing Crown in with it. Crown finds Bess in Porgy’s George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and Ira Gershwin RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 25