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The Romantic Symphony Carlo Giorgio Garofalo
Contemporary Reviews of First Performance in U.S. (1915) Musical Courier (February 24, 1915) ST. LOUIS ORCHESTRAL AND OTHER ATTRACTIONS . . .The Symphony Tea Lecture at Cicardi's Winter Garden last
Thursday afternoon was delivered by Rev. Z.B.T. Phillips. He analyzed and
explained the new Garofalo symphony and his talk was illustrated at the piano. A
very large audience was present.
From St. Louis Globe Democrat GAROFALO'S SYMPHONY GREAT MUSIC, BUT ALL FOR ORGAN Rusty Pipes and Hoarse Tone of Odeon Instrument
Handicap By Richard Spamer (St. Louis, Saturday, Feb. 13, 1915) To give credit where it is due, it should be said that the best part of yesterday’s St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert under Max Zach’s direction was not the presentation of Garofalo’s Sinfonia Romantica, but the work of its preparation for orchestral use. In the first place, let us consider that the work is in manuscript; that not all of the parts for the different instruments had been copied out when the composition was placed in Mr. Zach’s keeping; that much of what arrived was in need of correction and revision and that rehearsals were few. This represents what might be called the material drawbacks of the first instance. Others developed at the last moment and could not be overcome. Chief among these was the Odeon organ, the pipes of which as dusty and the tone of which is hoarse. All the deft manipulation of Charles Galloway (q.v. below) in manuals and pedals availed not. There was no modulation in the voice with which that recalcitrant instrument responded to the player’s touch. And this brings us to the main theme. Garofalo, Organist Carol Giorgio Garofalo, the young Italian composer’s “Romantic” Symphony, consciously or otherwise, has been constructed with a view either of assigning the organ a permanent place in the most modern orchestral scheme of things or, in Garofalo’s estimation, the orchestra is henceforth to be merely an accompanimental apparatus for the organ. If neither of these postulates will bear analysis, then we must conclude that Garofalo, being first and foremost an organist, a student of Palestrina, he is unable to think or to write musically away from the organ cadence. In the work under consideration, the passages for strings in unison sound like the organ. There is no doubt whatever that the woodwind score is organ-like, pure and simple; even the brasses, in their several sustained sentences have the organ tone value. The organ is the leading instrument in each of the four movements. Garofalo is so jealous of the opportunities of his favorite instrument that even in the lightsome and dancing scherzo the organ must have something to sing. In the ponderous ensembles, when all the individual instruments and the organ contribute together, again it is the organ that sounds in a tempo of its own; and here another thing can be said. Truly Garofalo’s middle name should not be Giorgio. It should be counterpoint—he introduces and reintroduces these familiar organ figures so persistently. A Great Composition But as against all the preceding, it must be freely acknowledged that the “Romantic” Symphony is big. It is great music. It is rich in permanent forms, poetic and inspiring. There are sentences in the scherzo which will take their place among the most effective movements of this class. The andante is made bright with a judicious use of that more or less dangerous thing called the celeste whose drowsy tinklings often smack of cheap invention. The largo is a bit assertive, but the finale is of powerful appeal, grandiose, almost stately with a cathedral-like inclusiveness. The work’s philosophy is religious through and through, never for an instant worldly. As to the larger fact of yesterday’s first-time presentation of this symphony—it is found in the masterly work of Director Zach, who emerge triumphantly from the most difficult and self-imposed tests. The wonder is not that he could do so well, but that he could do at all. The result more than indicates it fairly proves our orchestra has arrived at an efficiency high enough to warrant the greatest expectations in the near future. Zach Works Wonders No deep understanding of music was needed to understand Mr. Zach yesterday afternoon Was striving intelligently, courageously and in great artistic temper to make a success of an undertaking fraught with all manner of difficulties. Our director never before bore himself half so (___) nor were his efforts ever responded to more willingly by the orchestra. To-night [sic] should be a vast improvement in the presentation of this young maestro Garofalo’s essay.
ZACH WINS OVATION PLAYING NEW WORK Director Entitled to most of Applause Elicited by Beauties Of “Romantic Symphony.” He men also get praise. Garofalo’s Big composition is “Three Ring Circus” and full of “Business” by Louis Dodge (St. Louis Republic) (q.v. “Louis Dodge – A Forgotten Iowa Author” by Philip D. Jordan (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/Bai/jordan.htm) Things happened quite out of the ordinary at the Odeon yesterday afternoon in connection with the Symphony concert. For one thing, Max Zach received an ovation—a regular, full-fledged ovation. This was after the Garofalo “Romantic Symphony” had been played. The audience liked it very much indeed: but there was clearly much beside admiration of the composition in that unusually strong and prolonged applause. It was for Mr. Zach as much as for the composition. It was offered as proof of respect for the masterful manner in which the director steered his course through the dangerous waters of an extraordinarily ambitious piece of music. There were more than the usual number of opportunities for something to go wrong and Mr. Zach was determined that nothing should. Nothing did. There was the organ way over to the left and at the back of the director and—be it explained here—the organ has a part in Sig. Garofalo’s symphony. Had Much Ground to Cover Thus it came to pass that when the director set about watching and controlling the brass section and giving Mr. Galloway (at the organ) his hints and instructions, he had to cover a great deal of ground, even as the crow flies. Mr. Zach directed so cleverly that there was the effect of his right hand not knowing what his left hand did, as if her were doing a good deed—which, in fact, he was. The statement that the organ was employed in the symphony serves also to explain how things happened out of the ordinary. But there were other aspects of the occasion which were new. For example, there was a little instrument which looked like a miniature upright piano just in front of the director’s desk. This proved to be a celeste—a French instrument consisting of glass bells and a keyboard attachment. During the playing of the symphony, a member of the orchestra—Max Gottschalk—took his place at this instrument and struck the keyboard as if he were playing a piano—and the most delicious sounds were the result. The celeste, by the way, is rarely used, though it is kept at hand for its part in a few compositions, such as the “Nutcracker Suite” by Tschaikowski [sic]. The Musicians’ Revel Finally, there is to be noted that the central number on the afternoon’s program was played from manuscript. The “Romantic Symphony” has never been published and it never was heard in the United States until it was played here. In form the work is a symphony, of course, but the layman might more readily refer to it as a musician’s revel or festival, it is so overflowing with musical “business,” to borrow a word from the vocabulary of the theater. It is so “full of a number of things” [sic] that the untrained ear fails to catch half of it. It may be called the three-ringed circus of the musical world. The composer is a several-sided man. He is an organist—or has been—and so his symphony has an aural aspect for those interested in the organ. He also is a trained musician on other instruments and so his symphony supplies opportunity for outstanding work for sections and choirs in the orchestra. The work is rather more sentimental than any of he symphonies which have come to us from the German composers, for example. Much of it is in the romantic, rather than the classic style, which is only to say that the work is essentially Italian. Overweighted with Merit Finally, it is overweighted [sic] with merit and music. Despite its bigness, which assumes the proportions of an affection, almost, Mr. Zach brought it forth as a fine, integral thing, with a beautiful body and a soaring spirit.
From Musical America ZACH OFFERS NEW WORK St. Louis, Sunday, Feb. 14 [1915] – The eleventh pair of St. Louis Symphony concerts served a big purpose, in presenting for the first time in this country a new symphony by a young Italian composer, Giorgio Garofalo. This young man spent about two years in Boston where he was organist at the Church of the Immaculate Conception. This new work is called the “Romantic” Symphony and is extremely melodious. The score calls for organ besides a large orchestral complement. The first movement is broadly melodious, but a weak ending somewhat spoils its effect. The Andante movement was especially pleasing, but the theme is rather over-elaborated. The work, as a whole, is very ambitious and well done. –H.W.C.
from St. Louis Times SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA GIVES GAROFALO A TRIAL Friday was a lucky day for young Carlo Giorgio Garofalo of Rome. Still in his 20s, the Italian organist and composer had his first symphony given a most careful and sympathetic interpretation by Mr. Zach and the members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, the small but select coterie of matinee subscribers seemed hugely to enjoy the grand manner in which the composer delivered his message. The first hearing of a symphony gives little more than a general impression of the work. Really, to know an orchestral composition of this character requires some study of the score, or at least repeated hearings. Therefore, it is scarcely just to young Garofalo to sit in judgment upon his “Romantic Symphony” at this time. He seems convincingly the master of counterpoint and works his themes elaborately and skillfully. The themes themselves are agreeable, if not important. One is not disposed to quarrel with the melodic phrase of the composition, not especially the harmonic treatment. (No author given)
from a German newspaper in St. Louis February 12 & 13, 1915 (In part) “In the symphony by Garofalo, the organ has a very important role, that has the effect of transporting the listener and which we noticed yesterday despite the poor condition of the organ at the Odeon Theater1. In fact, the weaknesses of the instrument were very obvious, especially in the most important sections of the composition, though Charles Galloway2 was doing his utmost to give the best possible accompaniment with the organ. Similarly, Maestro Max Zach deserves special praise for his presentation of Garofalo’s Symphony and we hope that he will give the citizens of St. Louis another opportunity, as soon as possible, to get to know the work better and so appreciate its unique beauty.” (Author and translator unknown)
BIG HOUSE PLEASED WITH REPETITION OF GAROFALO SYMPHONY Organ Score in Young Italian’s Work Shown to be Superflous By Richard Spamer A second hearing of Garofalo’s romantic [sic] symphony, played by Max Zach and the St. Louis Symphony at the Odeon last night, rather confirms the impression produced by the first. The young Italian asserted a wealth of symphonic material before putting together this work, but exercised little discrimination in assembly. The third and more especially the last movement are overwrought. Several repetitions of sentences good enough in themselves do not forward the continuity of the musical thought the composer aims to express. Interchanges, here and there, give the work the quality of a tonal mosaic, phrases nicely pieced together, but having no relation one to the other. Nor is there any good reason to modify what has been said about the preponderance of the organ score over the rest of the work. Garofalo most likely had to write as he did because from the naïve point of view, it was the only way. Italians have, from the first, excelled in two forms of music, the ecclesiastical and the operatic. The symphony is a North of Europe invention brought to highest perfection by men of German blood. Garofalo shows that he has a worthy ambition in his Romantic Symphony. He wishes to see his country symphonically represented and he uses towards that worthy end the means of which he is master, namely his knowledge of the organ and its capacity for producing ecclesiastic glamour. The organ is the voice of things not of this world and we are living in the matter-of-fact twentieth century. In the symphony, as written by the German masters, we have an evangel for the modern man who needs, [thinking on the art songs] (?), nothing quite so much as intellectual music for his self-revelation. Garofalo’s use of the organ in the symphony runs counter to this trend. It superimposes one of the last remnants of medievalism upon the rapidly developing music-form of our day. Organ and Orchestra Just as the organ is the most mechanical of musical instruments, the most inflexible, it is the most impersonal. The orchestra, per contra, is the highest development of musical expression, the most personal and of illimitable possibilities. In this sense, therefore, a composer who aims to write a so-called symphony in which the first voice is that of the organ is working, not along a composite, but an innately incongruous plan. Furthermore—and this seems to determine the matter—there is not a sound, a combination of sounds, a tone color, a tempo or anything inherent in the art of music, as such, that the orchestra is not capable of giving forth immeasurably better than the organ. Wherefore, a symphony with the organ assigned to the first voice is in the nature of superfluity. The real test of all the foregoing, then, would seem to be this: Is Garofalo’s romantic Symphony a great work without the organ score? The answer unequivocally is yes. The next time toe young, poetic, earnest, striving maestro essays to give us a symphony, let him elide this organ. He may then do for symphonic writing what his illustrious compatriot Mascagni accomplished for the short opera—create a masterpiece. Great Applause Follows At the concert last night the orchestra and Mr. Zach were accorded an ovation at the conclusion of the Garofalo. After three recalls the dirigent returned to his place at the desk and bade the men arise in acknowledgement of the applause. It was an inspiring moment. The audience was large and representative of the best music culture in the city.
From Österreich Zeitung Vienna, Dec. 27, 1948--Once more, Carlo Zecchi3 has appeared before a Vienna audience and again he has shown the level of his musical stature, before which we bow. He has brought us two novelties of his compatriots. We heard an Adagio by Garofalo from his “Romantic” Symphony, a work replete with melodic inspiration and intimate warmth. Zecchi’s presentation left us all with a strong desire to hear the entire symphony. This remarkable success was extended to Brahms’ first symphony, which we have never heard built with such a constructive line and momentum. Surely Zecchi is the Latin conductor whose approach is closest to the German repertoire. (Translator’s name unknown)
Reviews of First Performance in Europe (1994) From Musical Life (October 1994) by Lev Ginsburg An event occurred in Moscow that is worthy of public attention. After the close of the musical season, a really exceptional première took place on 6th June 1994 in the Bolshoi Hall of Moscow Conservatory. The American composer and conductor Joel Spiegelman, who has regularly appeared in Moscow over the last several years, introduced us to the Romantic Symphony of a completely forgotten Italian composer, Carlo Giorgio Garofalo. His case is unique. Buried in oblivion, even the name of this musician was forgotten, ignored by all the better known music dictionaries and encyclopedias. The question arises as to whether this neglect was justified. Occasionally things like this do happen, and many musical forgeries by the world’s amateurs have found a permanent place in the archives. With Garofalo this is not the case. His music fully deserved attention and to be performed. Carlo Giorgio Garofalo was born on 5th August 1886 in Rome, where he studied composition, organ, and other disciplines with Stanislao Falchi, Cesare de Sanctis, Remigio Renzi, and Salvatore Saija with the last of whom he shared a position as organist in the main synagogue in Rome for 22 years. Immediately after his graduation from the conservatory, he spent two years in the United States, working as the music director of one of Boston’s cathedrals. Like many of his Italian contemporaries, Garofalo directed his efforts mainly to composing sacred music for both choir and organ. His Masses were performed in the principal cathedrals of Rome, Milan, Bergamo, Monza and other Italian cities, but apart from that he left a considerable body of work composed in all secular musical genres. The circumstances of his life, however, did not permit him to reach either a wide audience, or the attention of the critics. Before the present performance the greatest of Garofalo’s orchestral works, the Romantic Symphony, had been heard in its entirety only once, in 1915, performed by the St Louis Symphony, with Max Zach conducting. Because of the disturbed times resulting from the First World War, he could not travel to the première, and thus never heard the whole symphony performed. In Rome, the renowned Tulio Serafin gave only two of its movements, the Andante and Scherzo, at one of his concerts. The symphony was highly acclaimed on both sides of the ocean, and the great conductors, Arturo Toscanini and Arthur Nikisch were ardent admirers of Garofalo’s work. They were prevented, however, from performing his music, each for different reasons. Since then, the music of Garofalo, with the exception of his sacred music, has remained unknown to the public. Only a few performances o |
