Film Music in Concert

The Boston Pops Orchestra was the first orchestra of its kind in the USA: founded in 1885 from the ranks of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, its remit was to offer concerts of light symphonic music. Over the years, and in particular during the fifty-year tenure of its most famous conductor, Arthur Fiedler, the Pops established itself as the premier US orchestra specialising in bridging the fields of 'art music' and 'popular music'. When the Hollywood composer John Williams was assigned the conductorship of the orchestra in 1980, he energetically advocated for the inclusion of film-music repertoire, changing Fiedler's approach significantly. This Element offers a historical survey of the pioneering agency that the Boston Pops had under Williams's tenure in the legitimisation of film music as a viable repertoire for concert programmes. The case study is complemented with more general discussions on the aesthetic of film music in concert.

John Ferrillo

John Ferrillo joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as principal oboe in 2001. From 1986 to 2001, he was principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In this chapter, he discusses his early career, auditions, breathing for wind playing, and the relationship of teaching and playing. He also reminisces about his experiences at the Curtis Institute of Music with John de Lancie and about his most memorable performances.

Great Oboists on Music and Musicianship

This volume contains interviews with twenty-six of the most prominent oboists from around the world. The chapters are in prose format and highlight different aspects of each musician’s career, focusing on musicianship and pedagogy in ways that are applicable to all musicians. The interviews contain topics such as creating musical interpretations and shaping phrases, the relationship of vocal to instrumental music, taking orchestral auditions, and being a good ensemble player/colleague. The subjects describe their pedagogy and their thoughts on breathing and support on wind instruments, developing finger technique, and creating a useful warm-up routine. The oboists discuss their ideals in reed making, articulation, and vibrato. They also share stories from their lives and careers. The oboists and English hornists profiled from North America are Pedro Diaz, Elaine Douvas, and Nathan Hughes (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra); John Ferrillo (Boston Symphony Orchestra); Carolyn Hove (Los Angeles Philharmonic); Richard Killmer (Eastman School); Nancy Ambrose King (University of Michigan); Frank Rosenwein and Robert Walters (Cleveland Orchestra); Humbert Lucarelli (soloist); Grover Schiltz (formerly Chicago Symphony); Eugene Izotov (San Francisco Symphony, originally from Russia); Allan Vogel (Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra retired); David Weiss (formerly Los Angeles Philharmonic); Randall Wolfgang (New York City Ballet and formerly Orpheus Chamber Orchestra); Alex Klein (Brazil, formerly Chicago Symphony and currently Calgary, Canada); and Sarah Jeffrey, Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The performers based in Europe are Neil Black, Nicholas Daniel, and Gordon Hunt (England); Maurice Bourgue and David Walter (France); Thomas Indermühle (Switzerland); László Hadady (Hungary and France); and Omar Zoboli (Italy). From Australia is Diana Doherty of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The Ford Foundation, Matching Grants, and Endowment Building

This chapter examines the Ford Foundation’s predominantly economics- and finance-based expertise, and the way it sustained the country’s largest and most expensive performing arts institutions: orchestras, operas, and conservatories. Ford accomplished its goals primarily through matching grants and endowments, hoping with matching requirements to diversify organizations’ funding sources and expand the public’s commitment to local arts. Based on the expert advice of economists and administrators, Ford intended endowments to be a permanent source of income for orchestras and conservatories, if they managed the invested principal properly. In practice, however, wealthy individuals on boards of trustees for institutions such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Juilliard School solidified their personal, social connections to elicit five-, six-, and sometimes seven-figure gifts. In general, ordinary citizens and the local community did not participate, and as a result, broad-based support never materialized. Orchestras and conservatories came back knocking on the foundation’s door again and again.

Taking the German Muse out of Music: The Chronicle and US Musical Opinion in World War I

The case of conductor Karl Muck and the Boston Symphony Orchestra during World War I is notorious for its combination of nationalist patriotism and opposition to international influence on US concert organizations. Although it seemed on the surface to be a spontaneous uprising against a foreign musician who refused to play “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the public outcry against Muck was part of a larger campaign orchestrated by a shadowy propaganda magazine named The Chronicle, published in New York from March 1917 to November 1918. This journal was marketed to the United States’ wealthy elite and was available to subscribers by invitation only. By strategic publication of fake news stories and xenophobic opinion pieces, editor Richard Fletcher spread fear and suspicion through the most rarefied strata of US society. The journal was instrumental in blacklisting suspicious arts organizations and fomenting prejudice against enemy aliens. This article examines for the first time the role of this magazine in the banning of German-language operas at the Met, the internment of Muck, and the near-elimination of German repertoire from US orchestral programs.

Searches

In Rome, Barber attended a Gregorian Mass sung by Benedictine monks at St. Anselmo church and was inspired to write a grand-scaled religious work, Prayers of Kierkegaard, for orchestra, mixed chorus, a soprano solo written with Leontyne Price’s voice in mind, and incidental contralto and tenor solos. It was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Charles Munch, with Price as soloist. Barber wrote about the music to his beloved mentor and uncle, Sidney Homer, who at the time was coming toward the end of his life. Homer’s guidance was unwavering, and he encouraged Barber to listen to his inner voice and follow his instincts. As a result, his Roman-inspired pieces were performed throughout Europe. In America, a commission from the Detroit Chamber Music Society led to Barber’s composing the woodwind quintet Summer Music, a collaboration with the New York Woodwind Quintet.

Composer as Conductor

With an offer from the London FFRR label to conduct and record his works, including the Medea Suite and the Cello Concerto with Zara Nelsova, Barber studied conducting with Nicolai Malko in Denmark. He bravely took the challenge and was well accepted. Rehearsals proceeded well, and eventually he was invited to Berlin to conduct his Violin Concerto with Charles Turner as soloist. After answering an invitation by Charles Munch to conduct his Second Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Barber decided he was “tired of rehearsing his own music.” He believed that good composers did not make good conductors, and he decided to devote all his energy toward his primary creative passion: composing music.

Middle Years

After his discharge from the Army, Barber continued work with the Office of War Information but was able to work at home. He received a commission from John Nicholas Brown for a Cello Concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Written to include the strengths and predilections of cellist Raya Garbousova, the concerto is considered one of the most challenging contemporary works of the genre and won Barber the Fifth Annual Award of the Music Critics Circle of New York. Reputedly one of the most promising American composers of his time, Barber also composed music for Martha Graham’s ballet about Medea, Cave of the Heart. In 1947, under the shadow of his father’s deteriorating health and Louise Homer’s impending death, Barber composed his most “American work,” Knoxville: Summer of 1915, for voice and orchestra. It is set to a nostalgic prose-poem by James Agee and was premiered by the Boston Symphony with Eleanor Steber as soloist. Following this, Barber composed a piano sonata for Vladimir Horowitz, a work that had the most stunning impact on the American musical world.

Moral Masquerades

Chapter 3 drops in on a variety of “blind” auditions, commonly upheld as a gold standard in appraisals of musical excellence. Using screens and anonymizing apparatus, judges evaluate auditionees on sound alone, thereby doing right by the music they love. But a hidden cost of such auditions, whether for the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the reality show The Voice, is the wholesale severing of musicianship from human identity at large. With auditionees out of sight, the conceits of impartiality and meritocracy enable all parties to avoid talking about issues of discrimination altogether—that is, why anonymity is desirable or necessary to begin with. A short case study ventures outside the United States to consider the illustrious, nearly all-white and all-male Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Tellingly, however, criticisms of this orchestra have come overwhelmingly from the United States, with music lovers exporting American brands of feminism and social justice to protest the ensemble’s discriminatory hiring practices.