Program Notes:
Boston Classical Orchestra/Boston Public Schools
Youth Concert Repertoire
June 2nd, 2006

Beethoven (1770-1827)'s Fifth Symphony established Beethoven as a musical revolutionary, breaking the molds of early Classical symphonic form. The first movement of this symphony is one of the most recognizable pieces of classical music, all of it based on the famous opening four notes.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) worked principally as a church musician, composing cantatas, motets, chorales, masses, and other works for liturgical use during church services. He also wrote instrumental and vocal music for concert halls and private homes, including many concertos for solo instruments or groups of instruments (such as the Brandenburg Concertos).

William Billings worked in Boston as a tanner (tanning animal hides to make leather), but later became America's first professional musician, writing choral works, establishing singing schools, and publishing music. Chester was in the running to be our national anthem.
William Schuman (1910-1992) served as president of The Juilliard School of Music in New York, and wrote many original compositions for orchestra, chorus, opera, and chamber groups. He chose three William Billings anthems as the basis for his work New England Triptych, from which Chester is drawn.

Simple Gifts is a traditional Shaker song. The Shakers were a religious and spiritual community in early America that valued simplicity (in dress, architecture, furniture, and music) and living close to the land (farming and livestock).
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and established a new, clear voice of American composition. He used his orchestral variations as part of a ballet called Appalachian Spring.

John Henry is a traditional ballad about a free African-American man who works laying railroad track across America at the time of the invention of the steam drill. The drill is expected to work better and faster than a crew of men, thus putting many men out of work. John Henry challenges the machine to a contest, and wins, though his great heart bursts in the effort.
In Aaron Copland's orchestral treatment of this tune, you can hear the hammers striking the spikes, and the trains and steam drills going faster and faster.

Lowell Mason (1792-1872) was America's first public school teacher. In 1838 he persuaded the Boston Public Schools to include singing as an essential part of the regular curriculum.

Mendelssohn (1809-1847)'s "Italian" Symphony is a musical depiction of the composer's impressions of sunny Italy (he lived in Germany, where it was cloudier, rainier, and colder). The Saltarello is the finale of this symphony, and suggests a wild folk dance.

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and studied composition with Aaron Copland. His groundbreaking work for musical theater, West Side Story, is a retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story, updated to 1950s New York.

Aaron Copland's Hoedown is taken from his ballet Rodeo, one of three so-called "cowboy" ballets that Copland set in the midwest of America in the 1800s.

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