Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

November and December 2001

November

25 Judith Ingolfsson, violinist Schoenberg: Phantasy

Ronald Sat, pianist Richard Strauss: Sonata, Op. 18

J. S. Bach: Partita in B Minor

Ravel: Tzigane

December

2 Stefan Vladar, pianist Chopin: Four Ballades

24 Preludes, Op. 28

9 Yale Russian Chorus To be announced

Mark Bailey, artistic director

16 Havard Gimse, pianist Grieg: Norwegian Peasant Dances

Sibelius: Kylliki, Opus 41

Chopin: Nocturne No. 1

Scherzo No. 2

Prokofiev: Sonata No. 8

23 Alessandra Marc, soprano Christmas Concert

30 James Tocco, pianist Brahms: Sonata No. 1

Corigliano: Etude-Fantasy

Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux

For the convenience of concert goers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

Selectionsfrom concerts at the Gallery

can be heard on the second Sunday ofeach month

at 9:00 p.m. on WGMS, 103.5 FM

The Sixtieth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2397th Concert

FREDERIC CHIU, pianist

Sunday Evening, 18 November 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, East Garden Court

Admission free
Felix Mendelssohn 

(1809-1847)

PROGRAM

Sonata in E Major, Op. 6

(1826)

Allegretto con espressione 

Tempo di menuetto 

Adagio e senza tempo 

Molto allegro e vivace

Franz Liszt Apres une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata,

(1811-1886) from “Annees de pelerinage,

deuxieme annee: Italie”

(1837-1849)

INTERMISSION

Frederic Chopin

(1810-1849)

Twelve Etudes, Op. 10

(1829-1832)

No. 1 in C Major 

No. 2 in A Minor 

No. 3 in E Major 

No. 4 in C-sharp Minor 

No. 5 in G-flat Major 

No. 6 in E-flat Minor

No. 7 in C Major 

No. 8 in F Major 

No. 9 in F Minor 

No. 10 in A-flat Major 

No. 11 in E-flat Major 

No. 12 in C Minor

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please he sure that

all electronic devices are turned off.

An American pianist of Chinese heritage and a longtime resident of

France, Frederic Chiu studied piano and computer science at Indiana 

University, followed by further studies in music at the Juilliard School of

Music. Chiu began his performing career in Paris and has become one of

the best-known pianists playing in France. He has performed in many of

the major European cities, including Rome, Milan, Brussels, Antwerp,

Berlin, Frankfurt, The Hague, Warsaw, Prague, and London. He

performs regularly in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Africa. In

North America, Chiu has played in the Mostly Mozart Festival in New

York, at the Ambassador Theatre in Pasadena, and the Place des Arts in

Montreal. He plays regularly at Lincoln Center in New York and is a

regular guest of the acclaimed Newport Music Festival. He has traveled 

across the United States on extended recital tours with community

concerts. A recipient of many prestigious awards, including an Avery

Fisher Career Grant, the Petscheck Award, and an American Pianists

Association Fellowship, Chiu gained international attention when he

failed to win an award in a distinguished international competition. His

elimination before the final round of the 1993 Van Cliburn Competition 

inspired enormous sympathy and protest. Prominent stories in the New

York Times referred to him as the “maverick American pianist.” Le

Monde (Paris) exclaimed: “He has reinvented virtuosity...a phenomenon 

that must be heard.” An exclusive and prolific recording artist for the

Harmonia Mundi label, Chiu has released twenty CDs. They include

Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert’s Schwanengesang, Chopin’s

Mazurkas, Etudes, and Rondeaux, and the entire piano works of

Prokofiev, complete in nine volumes. Chiu recently opened the National

Symphony Orchestra’s season with the Liszt transcription of 

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to a standing ovation. Frederic Chiu

appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Arts Management 

Group, Inc., of New York City.

Written one year earlier than Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 106

(“Hammerklavier”), Mendelssohn’s Sonata in E Major, Op. 6, was the

only one of his sonatas that he deemed worthy of publication. It is a

refined work, less stylized and more experimental in its compositional
technique than any other of his piano sonatas. Obvious references to

Beethoven can be seen when one compares this sonata to Beethoven’s

Sonata in A Major, Op. 101. The tonalities of the two works, E major 

and A major, are harmonic next-door neighbors, and their proximity is

emphasized by the predominant plagal character of the Mendelssohn 

work.

The unusual 6/8 meter of the opening movement, with its lilting

rhythm and uncharacteristically reserved tempi, is arresting to the

listener who is familiar with classical piano sonatas. The sudden

reappearance of the principal theme of the first movement toward the

end of the sonata gives both thematic and dramatic unity to the work. This

striking structural technique would find emulation in the works of

Brahms, Liszt, and even Prokofiev. The experimental third movement 

sets this work apart in the genre of the piano sonata. Instead of the

customary slow movement, Mendelssohn incorporates an ornate

recitative, dramatically intensified by its fugal presentation in five

voices. Written without barlines, this movement (.Adagio e senza tempo)

nevertheless contains a rhythmic pulse that is dictated by the harmonic

progression. It is vaguely reminiscent of the Adagio espressivo section in

the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 109. Unexpected 

transitions take the music through short, choralelike passages that

alternate with a brief reference to the first movement. At its close, the

Adagio leads headlong into the finale.

The Dante Sonata, as it is traditionally called, is one of Liszt’s major 

works for the piano and is the final work in Book II of his musical 

travelogue Annees de pelerinage, or Years of Pilgrimage. It is

revolutionary in its severity, its demands on the instrument, and its

emotional scope. This work represents the first step in Liszt’s approach 

towards his monumental Sonata in B minor and his Dante Symphony, in

terms of his experiments in structural organization, the mutation of

themes, and the use of tonal areas with symbolic significance. Liszt’s

ability to transform his life experiences into music was totally 

unimpeded by the time the second version of this musical journey

appeared in 1858.

With very few exceptions, the keyboard studies written prior to those

of Chopin lack both the technical brilliance and aesthetic quality inherent

in his Etudes. Each etude addresses a particular pianistic problem: No. 1

strengthens the right hand in the playing of arpeggios. No. 2 strengthens

the third, fourth, and fifth fingers of the right hand in the playing of

chromatic scales. The melody of No. 3 was copied by the composer of

the popular song, No Other Love, giving it the distinction of being the

only etude ever to have made the “Tin Pan Alley” roster of popular 

music. It is a valued study in the art of hel canto as applied to the piano.

No. 4 is a tour-de-force for both hands, played with great speed and

deftness and concluding with a cyclonic ending that is roguish and

brilliant at the same time. No. 5, known as the “Black Key” Etude, has

the right hand playing entirely on the black keys, a delight to all who can

master the technique. No. 6 is a lugubrious nocturne with imposing

harmonic changes requiring the maximum control of finger weight. No.

7 is a toccata that requires a right wrist of Herculean strength to

manipulate the mixed double notes of thirds and sixths. No. 8 is a

scintillating study in finger dexterity, with special attention focused on

obtaining smoothness of motion when passing the thumb under the

fingers in the right hand. No. 9, with its wide leaps in the left hand, poses

enormous difficulty for the small hand. One of the most sonorous etudes

of this opus, it demands unparalleled virtuosity. No. 11 emphasizes both

hands playing open chords in a harplike fashion. It is an equal contender 

for the nickname “Aeolian” that is applied to the first etude in Op. 25.

No 12, better known as the “Revolutionary” Etude, is a wonderful study

for the left hand, but, as pianist Alexander Uninsky (1910-1972) pointed

out: “There is a storm of passion in this powerful outburst that is

unequaled in [Chopin’s] other etudes. Patriotic pride, defiance, and rage

are given expression in a vividly dramatic fashion. Pedagogic aspects

need not concern us here—to call this work a tone poem for the piano

would be more appropriate.”

Program notes on Liszt and Mendelssohn works

by Frederic Chiu, adapted and edited by Elmer Booze

Program notes on the Chopin Etudes by Elmer Booze