Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes

Hale, Philip, 1854-1934Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 840K words
Chapters: 84

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes by Philip HaleAuthor: Hale, Philip, 1854-1934,Language: English, Class: MT: Music: Musical instruction and study, Composition, Release Date: Dec 20, 2017

Editor's review

This book collects Philip Hale's programme notes for Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts, a classic example of music-appreciation writing. A longtime music critic, Hale combines historical information with listening guidance: he sets out each work's compositional background, textual history and performance record, and points listeners to the themes, orchestration and structural landmarks to watch for as the movements unfold. For Chinese readers its value lies less in specific repertoire knowledge than in offering a model of how to turn a programme note into readable prose, which can be set against the way concert annotations are written in China today. It need not be read cover to cover; look up the entries for whatever you are currently listening to and read along with the music. Note that the original is in English and dates from an earlier era, so some aesthetic judgments bear the marks of their time and are best treated as reference rather than verdict.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Classical music lovers who want to prepare before concerts and follow form and orchestration
Writers of concert programmes and programme notes seeking models of explanatory prose
Students of music criticism and music history who need to know the early programme-note genre
English-capable listeners accustomed to checking original sources

Not a good fit for

Readers with no English who are unwilling to use reference tools for the original
Beginners seeking a systematic course in theory or harmony
Casual readers who want only general Chinese-language music books

Reading tips

Begin with entries for works you know well, then check each listening cue against a recording, passage by passage.
Use the notes as pre-concert preparation, reading only two or three relevant entries before each concert rather than skimming broadly.
Jot down unfamiliar work titles as you go and look up composers and backgrounds in batches, building your own repertoire notebook.
Compare a few entries with contemporary Chinese programme notes to see how information is selected and omitted.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no music theory background?

It can be read, but with limited gain. Hale's notes focus on background and listening cues, and technical terms are not dense, so the gist is accessible without theory; passages on form and orchestration, however, assume some familiarity. Start with works you know, listen along with the cues, and expand gradually.

Can the programme notes be used directly as concert annotations?

They can be consulted but not copied outright. Written in the early twentieth century, they reflect different editions, performance practices and aesthetic standards, and some judgments are limited by their era. What remains useful is their structure and approach to guiding listening; facts and evaluations should be checked against current sources.

How difficult is the original English?

It is critical prose written for concert audiences: sentences tend to be long but not obscure, with vocabulary drawn from common musical and literary usage. Readers with college-level English and basic music terminology will manage. To grasp the content, start with entries for familiar works rather than reading straight through.

Comments

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About the author

Hale, Philip, 1854-1934 Author

Philip Hale (1854–1934) was an American music critic. His name and dates appear in reference sources, but publicly available information about his life is limited. His work in the field of program notes for the Boston Symphony Orchestra was collected in Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes, the only one of his works recorded here. Program notes of this kind introduce listeners to a work before performance, explaining its background, the composer's intentions and its musical structure; they must be accurate yet concise and readable, and thus form a genre between criticism and guided listening. Hale's writing is noted for its solid knowledge and careful judgment, and for placing works within their musical tradition to help general listeners understand large instrumental forms such as symphonies and concertos. Though written for practical purposes, such notes show the close link between music criticism and public music education, and offer a useful model for later program-note writing.