For the convenience of concertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

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.

Please note that late entry or reentry after 6:30 pm 

is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-third Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,539th Concert

Carlos Cesar Rodriguez, pianist

June 12, 2005

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)

Sonatina no.3 (1949)

Allegretto 

Adagio amoroso

Presto

Bela Bartok (1881-1945)

Sonata (1926)

Allegro moderato

Sostenutoe pesante

Allegro molto

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Vaises nobles et sentimentales (1911)

Modere 

Assez lent

Modere 

Assez anime

Presque lent

Vif

Moins vif

Epilogue: Lent

INTERMISSION

Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)

El Albaidn

From Iberia Book hi (1907)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Valse: La plus que lente (1910)

Ondine from Preludes Book 11 (1913)

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Suite from El amor brujo (1915)

Pantomima

Danza del terror

Circulo magico

Danza ritual del fuego
Featured Musician

Carlos Cesar Rodriguez has gained recognition as a virtuoso pianist

who not only generates unusual excitement in the Hispanic and Spanish 

repertoire but also displays an extraordinary flair for Mozart and for the 

romantic and avant-garde composers. An expert on early instruments, he 

enjoys entree to the Smithsonian Institution’s collection ofrare keyboard

instruments and was chosen to perform in its Piano 300 exhibition. His

varied career has included musical directorship of Mozart operas, Spanish 

zarzuelas, ballets, and Latin jazz/pop presentations.

Rodriguez made his recital debut in his native Venezuela at age five and 

played his first concerto with an orchestra at age eleven. He was a finalist

in the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Competition and played his

Weill Recital Hall debut at age twenty-one. He has also performed at Merkin

Hall and the Americas Center in New York City and at the Kennedy Center,

the White House, and the Corcoran Gallery ofArt in Washington. As a

collaborative pianist and chamber musician, he has worked with Jessye

Norman, Denyce Graves, and Placido Domingo as well as with various artists

at the Garth Newel Chamber Music Festival in Warm Springs, Virginia.

Among Rodriguez’s recordings to date, his CD on the Brioso label,

Espana en el corazon, has won high critical acclaim. He has also recorded for

the Omicron label. A graduate ofthe North Carolina School ofthe Arts

and the Juilliard School of Music, Rodriguez earned the doctor of musical

arts degree from the University of Maryland, where his teacher was Thomas 

Schumacher. Outstanding European pianists with whom he has worked

include Alfons Kontarsky, Peter Feuchtwanger, and Hartmut Holl. Rodriguez

is a member ofthe piano faculty at the Levine School of Music and guest

artist and coach for the Domingo/Cafritz Young Artist Program ofthe 

Washington National Opera.

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Program Notes

Carlos Guastavino, born in Santa Fe, Argentina, was a leading South 

American composer of the twentieth century. He wrote more than two

hundred works, most of them for the piano or for piano and voice. An

accomplished pianist with an immense gift for melody, Guastavino wrote 

effectively for his instrument, mastering not only its brilliant virtuoso 

aspect but also its intimate and poetic side. His style, always tonal and

lusciously romantic, takes its intensity from Argentine folk music. Firmly

rooted in the late nineteenth-century romantic tradition, he remained

completely removed from the modern musical milieu of Argentina. His

stylistic isolation is evident when his works are compared with those of

his contemporary, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983).

Bela Bartok often played the first few public performances of his piano

works himself, as his contemporaries were slow to develop enthusiasm

for his music. In spite ofthe fact that he was often in ill health and wrote

works that require extreme power and endurance from the performer, he

measured up to their demands when he presented them in concert. The 

first movement of his Sonata (1926) features accented dissonant chords that

function as musical slaps. Pistonlike rhythms and frequent alternations

between violent outbursts and playful dance interludes give the movement

unrelenting energy. The second movement explores the expressive potential

ofsteely dissonances and stark repetitions, neither of which seem at first

to have any such potential. Bartok nevertheless develops surprising eloquence in this movement, heightened by the long, slow crescendo in the

middle register. The movement ends abruptly with an accented E-flat. The

final movement corresponds loosely to the rondo form, but the standard

single recurring theme is replaced by three. The first may remind the

listener ofthe medieval carol Good King Wenceslas. It is typical ofthe motifs 

Bartok derived from the folk music he collected throughout his life. The

5
second theme begins in a similar vein and leads through a rapid acceleration to the third, which consists of violent outward leaps in both hands.

Each ofthe themes returns several times, appearing upside-down, in a different register, or accompanied by birdlilce twitters. The athletic leaping 

chords of the third theme, which call to mind a frenzied peasant dance,

bring the sonata to a brilliant close.

Ravel's Vaises nobles et sentimentales received its premiere performance

under unusual circumstances. The identity ofthe composers ofthe works

on the program was kept secret from the audience. At the end ofthe concert,

the listeners were invited to guess who had written each work. For the Vaises

nobles, the registered guesses were evenly divided among Ravel, Erik Satie,

and Zoltan Kodaly. Ravel placed a prefix in the original score that reveals the 

extent to which he was influenced by the symbolist poets and the bohemian

eccentricity of his hero, Satie: “Le plaisir delicieux et toujours nouveau dune

occupation inutile” (the delightful and always novel pleasure of a useless 

occupation). Satie, always ready to enter into witty repartee, soon published

a work of his own entitled Trois valses distinguees du precieux degoute (Three

Distinguished Waltzes of a Jaded Dandy), a gentle poke at Ravel’s reputation

for fussiness in dress and grooming and at Satie’s own habit ofwearing

fine clothes in a disheveled condition.

The suite oftwelve characteristic pieces entitled Iberia is the magnum

opus ofthe Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz. Each movement is inspired by

a place in Spain or by a traditional Spanish dance. El Albaicin is the gypsy

quarter of Granada, where mournful guitar and violin music is heard wafting

out of many doorways. The pianist Albeniz, though raised in a different part 

of Spain (Catalonia), was in a unique position to capture in piano music the 

spirit ofthis exotic neighborhood.

Valse: La plus que lente and Ondine, even though both are late works,

bear the hallmarks of Claude Debussy’s early style. The waltz rounds out 

the composer’s forays into old dance forms (already in 1890 he had completed a minuet, a saraband, and a passepied). It is unique among his

works in that it has a tempo marking as its title (“as slow as possible”). By

the time he compiled his second book of preludes in 1913, Debussy was

ready to summarize his output as a composer by means of a collection of

representative pieces. Ondine is drawn from the world oflegends and fairy

tales, one of his favorite sources ofinspiration. The capricious rhythm

evokes the underwater antics ofthe famed sea sprite ofthe same name.

Manuel de Falla’s El amor brujo was originally conceived as a ballet in

pantomime, with a libretto based on an Andalusian folk tale. A young girl,

Candelas, is tormented by the memory of a fascinating Gypsy, now dead,

who had been her lover (el amor brujo, the sorcerer lover ofthe title).

Believing that the Gypsy has cast a spell on her, she is unable to respond

to the advances of a new suitor, Carmelo. He comes up with a solution that

involves persuading a Gypsy girl of irresistible charms, Lucia, to flirt with

the ghost ofthe sorcerer. She does this with complete success, driving the 

ghost to madness and eventually flight. Freed from her curse, Candelas is

finally able to fall in love with Carmelo. The suite that closes this program 

contains four movements from the ballet, which explore the confusion, 

terror, awe, and ecstasy that are experienced by the characters in the story.

Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

There will be no Sunday concerts in July, August, and September. On Friday

evenings from Memorial Day through Labor Day, visitors to the Sculpture 

Garden can enjoy live jazz performed by an eclectic mix oftop Washingtonarea artists. Please check the Gallery’s bimonthly Calendar of Events

for details.

Sunday concerts will resume on October 2, 2005, at 6:30 pm, with a

concert by the National Gallery Orchestra, Christopher Kendall, guest

conductor. The program will feature music by Elgar, Wagner, Stravinsky,

and Schoenfield, with solo violinist Nicolas Kendall.