Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

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Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,499th Concert

Mischa Maisky, cellist

6 June 2004

Sunday Evening, 7:00 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones, pagers,

and other electronic devices are turned off.

For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 pm.

2,499th Concert

6 June 2004, 7:00 pm

Music for Solo Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major

BWV IOO7 (1720)

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Menuett 1

Menuett 11

Gigue

Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major

bwv 1009 (1720)

Prelude 

Allemande 

Courante 

Bourree 1

Bourree 11

Gigue

Intermission

Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor

bwv ion (1720)

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gavotte 1

Gavotte 11

Gigue
The Musician

MISCHA MAISKY

Mischa Maisky has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to

have studied with both Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky. 

Rostropovich has lauded him as “one ofthe most outstanding talents of

[his] generation. His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with

great temperament and brilliant technique.” Mischa Maisky has been

enthusiastically received in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York, and

Tokyo, to mention only a few ofthe major music centers ofthe world. After

winning the prestigious Gasper Cassado International Cello Competition

in Florence, Italy, Maisky made his debut at Carnegie Hall in November

1973 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under William Steinberg.

In 1974 he was awarded an America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship for study with Gregor Piatigorsky, becoming his last student. At the

Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris, Maisky was awarded the special

prize for his interpretation ofthe commissioned work.

Mischa Maisky began his studies in his native Riga, Latvia, and continued in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad), where he won the All-Russian

Cello Competition at age seventeen. A year later he won a prize at the

International Tchaikovsky Competition, which led to studies with Mstislav 

Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory. While still a student, Maisky

launched an active concert career throughout the Soviet Union. In 1972

Maisky emigrated to Israel, where he soon established himself as one ofthe

leading European cellists of his generation. His love for chamber music

led him to Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival, where he is a regular guest

and performs with pianists Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, Peter Serkin, 

Malcolm Frager, and Nelson Freire.

Maisky’s recording debut on Deutsche Grammophon was Brahms’

Double Concertofor Violin and Cello with Gidon Kremer, accompanied by

the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein. Maisky’s

recordings have enjoyed worldwide critical acclaim and have twice been

awarded the Record Academy Prize in Tokyo as well as the coveted Grand

Prix du Disque in Paris. Mischa Maisky appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Columbia Artists Management, llc, of New York City.

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Program Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote all six of his suites for unaccompanied violoncello around 1720. He composed them with the cellist Christian Bernard

Linike (1673-1751) in mind. Until 1717 principal cellist ofthe Hofkapelle in

Berlin, Linike was hired that year by Prince Leopold ofAnhalt-Cothen, who

at the same time placed Bach in charge of his court musicians as kapellmeister. The suites are secular in nature, even though they were intended to be

played during communion services in the court chapel. The genesis ofthe 

suite form lies in the idea ofjoining different types of dances together to provide artistic balance and contrast. The resulting dance movements in Bach’s

suites bear little resemblance to the simple eighteenth-century dance tunes

that were actually used to accompany dancers.

Suite No. 1 in G Major, bwv 1007, makes liberal use ofthe open strings

ofthe cello. There are pedal points on the open A and D strings throughout

the opening Prelude, and the constant presence ofsixteenth notes in the 

movement suggests improvisation. The Allemande ofthis suite is somewhat

unusual in having been written in cut time (2/2) instead ofthe customary

4/4 meter, and it is typically performed slightly faster than the Allemande

movements in the other suites. The Courante is in Italian style and, like the 

Prelude, is characterized by running sixteenth notes. The Sarabande makes 

frequent use of double and triple stops, calling on the performer to play two

or three notes at once. By means ofthis device, Bach implies intricacies in

the contrapuntal lines that the listener’s ears may fill in. This is followed by

two light and charming minuets. The final movement, the Gigue, is full of

rhythmic and harmonic subtleties that are not immediately apparent in

what seems to be a simply conceived movement.

The opening movement ofthe Suite No. 3 in C Major, bwv 1009, the 

Prelude, begins with a series oftoccatalike running passages that soon narrow to a rocking movement. This episode gradually expands and reaches 

a climax in a magnificent passage over a pedal point on the open G string.

4

The rocking figures and scale passages return, leading to a coda ofimpressive broken chords. The Allemande also presents rapid rhythmic figures and

scales, arabesque figurations that almost obscure the slow quadruple pulse 

ofthe movement. Here the melodic ideas are not vocal in quality but present

many figurations, leaps, and plunges in the line, in the manner ofinstrumental music. The Courante flows in an unbroken stream of eighth notes in

rapid triple meter. The Sarabande, always the slowest movement in a dance 

suite, is also the most melodic in this case. The large, resonant chords serve

as pivots around which the melodies revolve and from which they receive

their driving power. Both Bouree 1 and Bouree 11 move in a moderate alia breve

tempo. The first ofthe pair, in C major, is contrasted by the second in C

minor. These are perhaps the most celebrated pieces Bach ever wrote for the 

cello. The Gigue gives the feeling of a cheerful, wayward piece with its awkward high notes that plunge to double-stopped unisons, and its frenzied 

scurrying ofsixteenth notes. The pedal point idea is again used, but over two

pedals instead of one, creating the musical effect known as a drone.

Suite No. j in C Minor, bwv 1011, begins with a two-part Prelude modeled 

after a baroque French overture, followed by a rapid fugue. This section,

containing no polyphony, obtains its formal organization by the use ofthematic expositions and divertimentos, very much like the fugues of Bach’s

violin sonatas. Following a solemn Allemande and a rigorous Courante, the 

Sarabande displays Bach’s masterful melodic control by offering a single-line

approach and using no double stops. The pair of Gavottes that follows eases

the tension established by the previous movements. Both rely on rhythmic 

structures: the first Gavotte features an initial rhythmic idea that is continued

and developed throughout the piece, and the second is distinguished by its

triplet motion. The work ends with a light and compact Gigue.

Program notes copyright Columbia Artists Management, llc

Used by permission

Edited and adapted by Elmer Booze