William Schuman (1910-1992)
Symphonies Nos. 4 and 9 • Orchestra Song • Circus Overture
Born on 4th August, 1910, in New York City, William
Schuman centered his first musical studies on the violin,
though a passion for jazz and popular music led him to
teach himself a variety of instruments. On hearing
Arturo Toscanini conduct the New York Philharmonic
in 1930, he withdrew from the School of Commerce at
New York University after a two-year stint there and
embarked upon private studies in harmony with Max
Persin and counterpoint with Charles Haubiel.
Following studies at Columbia University (BA from
Teachers College, 1935) and at Juilliard with Roy Harris
he joined the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College and in
1943 won the first Pulitzer Prize in music for his cantata
A Free Song. Two years later he left academe to assume
dual rôles as director of publications of G. Schirmer,
Inc. and president of the Juilliard School of Music.
From 1962 to 1969 he served as president of Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts.
Balancing multiple careers as teacher and
administrator, Schuman was able to write a large
amount of music. His Second Symphony (1937) caught
the collective attention of the musical world when it was
performed the following year in New York City. His
best-known works are New England Triptych, based on
music written by the eighteenth-century American
composer William Billings, and his orchestration of
Charles Ives’s wittily irreverent Variations on
“America”. He died on 15th February, 1992, in New
York City.
Schuman composed his Symphony No. 4 in 1941,
entrusting its première to the Cleveland Orchestra under
Artur Rodzinski on 22nd January, 1942. A mere month
and a half after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the
new symphony’s essentially positive emotional climate
sounded an optimistic note during a very dark time. The
opening movement begins quietly with solo English
horn intoning a long-spun melody over solo bass, and is
eventually joined by the rest of the wind section. The
bass line functions as a Baroque-style ground bass,
above which textures change kaleidoscopically,
dynamics increase and counter-rhythms contrast with
the steadfast gait of the quarter-note-laden bass part.
This introduction yields to a rhythmically alive section
marked Vigoroso con spirito. Echoes of Copland and
Harris impart a distinctly American accent to the music.
Schuman’s mastery of polyphony is very much in
evidence here. The movement ends with a grand brassfilled
climax.
The second movement, marked Tenderly, simply,
begins quietly in the violins and violas, underscored by
a slow, steady tread generated by pizzicato chords in the
cellos. The mood is melancholy yet infused with
mediating warmth. A sense of intimacy is enhanced by
the violins and violas playing con sordino (with mutes).
Eventually winds and brass enter, but the mood remains
understated until a concluding section marked Fervente
raises the emotional temperature before the solo oboe
passage marked dolce initiates the quiet closing
moments. The Finale begins with an animated dialogue
between strings and winds. The music is energetic,
forward and, again, distinctly American. Sonorous brass
enter, also strongly insistent, before yielding to renewed
conversation, this time between wailing winds and
punching brass. Pizzicatos in the lower strings add to the
impetus. Overall the music conveys élan and optimism.
Section by section more instruments have their say, and
while momentum is sustained contrasting densities of
texture and a jaunty fugato provide contrast. Timpani
punctuate and further animate the music toward the end
of the movement, echoed by increasing power and
dynamics in the rest of the orchestra.
The 1963 Orchestra Song is a deft arrangement for
orchestra of an old Austrian folk-song. André
Kostelanetz led the première with the New York
Philharmonic on 11th April, 1964. Short and catchy, it is
an affectionate take on a very rustic and simple tune in
3/4 time. At times brusque and elsewhere unaffectedly
sweet, the little ditty features a nice trumpet solo,
colourful timbres from the percussion, biting lower brass,
and bow-struck strings. Not inappropriately, it conjures
up sonic images of calliope music.
The Circus Overture dates from 1944. Originally
bearing the title Side Show, it was intended for use in a
musical revue under the title “The Seven Lively Arts”
conceived for the Broadway stage; producer Billy Rose
changed his mind, and the revue was dropped. Shortly
thereafter, Schuman rescored the light-hearted piece for
full orchestra from its original pit-band orchestration.
With its new title Circus Overture received its first
performance in the spring of 1944 under Maurice
Abravanel conducting a theater orchestra in Philadelphia.
Fritz Reiner led the première of the full orchestral version
on 17th December, 1944, with the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra.
The Overture begins with timpani and percussion
leading all forces in an exuberant fanfare mode. The
whole piece suggests preparation for the arrival of the
main event. A very energetic timpani part plays off
barking brasses before the winds enter. Typically for the
composer, Schuman’s rhythmic verve carries the music
forward with relentless drive, even though the mood here
is lightly festive. Adding a sense of piquancy and
whimsy, there is a colourful and droll Fellini-esque
episode in 3/4 time.
In the spring of 1967, Schuman and his wife were in
Rome, intending to visit the Ardeatine Caves, the site of a
horrific Nazi atrocity in 1944, when 335 innocent Italian
men, women and children were murdered in reprisal for
an ambush by the underground in which 32 German
soldiers had been killed. In an effort to hide the slaughter,
the Nazis bombed the bodies. A priest at the nearby
Catacombs heard the reverberations from the explosion,
and when the Nazis left the city, the citizens visited the
caves to see what had transpired. The site eventually
became a shrine known in part for its grand architecture.
In notes Schuman provided for the original
recording of the Ninth Symphony, subtitled Le Fosse
Ardeatine (The Ardeatine Caves), the composer wrote,
“The mood of my symphony, especially in its opening
and closing sections, is directly related to emotions
engendered by this visit. But the middle section, too,
with its various moods of fast music, much of it far from
somber, stems from the fantasies I had of the variety,
promise and aborted lives of the martyrs… The work
does not attempt to depict the event realistically…
“The work is in three parts, played without pause
and developed as a continuum. The Anteludium begins
quietly, with a single melodic line separated by two
octaves, played by the muted violins and cellos… The
music of the Anteludium leads without pause, but with
identifiable transition, to the Offertorium, which forms
the bulk of the work. The moods are varied and range
from the playful to the dramatic…The climax of the
Offertorium is reached with a…faster tempo and a
sonorous climax for full orchestra…The music of the
Postludium at first echoes, in slow tempo, some
elements of the climax just heard. Finally the opening
theme of the symphony is again stated, but in an even
slower tempo than at first… The symphony draws to a
close with a long, freely composed, quiet ending
characterized by an emotional climate that sums up the
work and eventually leads to a final concluding
outburst.”
Eugene Ormandy, long-time music director of the
Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted the première on 10th
January, 1969. A year later, Leonard Bernstein gave the
New York première with the New York Philharmonic.
Steven Lowe
© 2005 Seattle Symphony