As the shortest of the six movements in this quartet, the second

{Presto) lasts a mere two minutes. In the key of B-flat minor, its ethereal

eeriness provides a contrasting intervening period of illusory proportion.

The third movement {Andante con moto, ma non troppo), has a

melody that partakes of the breadth of melodies of Schubert or even

Mahler. Again quoting Johnson: “[The Andante] is an enchanting

movement. [It is] filled with ideas and melodies that crowd in upon one

another lavishly...and remind us that Beethoven was only fifty-five when

he wrote this ‘late’ quartet, not an old man by any standard.... And yet,

in the midst of this full-throated singing, there lurks an undefinable sense

of mocking contempt that unites this movement with the two that

precede it.”

The fourth movement {Alla danza tedesca: Allegro assai) is, as

the title indicates, a German dance. It was intended originally as part of

Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132 (“Heiliger Dankgesang”).

Beethoven found it more suitable to this quartet and, after withdrawing it

from Op. 132, changed the key signature from A major to G major,

allowing it to interface smoothly with the third and fifth movements of

Op. 130.

The fifth movement {Cavatina: Adagio molto espressivo), the

crowning jewel of the quartet, is remarkable for its profoundly emotional

utterance and intimacy. Beloved by Mendelssohn, who purportedly once

owned the manuscript, the Cavatina is considered a perfect coalescence 

of classical and romantic music. The melody is presented by the first

violin and confines itself to the instrument’s middle range. The Cavatina

has the ABA song form, with a contrasting B section that calls for an

acerbic interjection, following the composer’s indication of beklemmt

(anguished). The A section returns, assuaging the mood and ending the

movement on a sanguine note.

The sixth movement (Finale: Allegro) is a sonata-rondo that

replaced the Grosse Fuge. Unlike the fugue it replaced, it is neither

lengthy nor profound but a bucolic dance filled with rhythmic vitality and

gaiety. It gained almost immediate acceptance as a gratifying conclusion

for a quartet that has, in the previous movements, challenged the listener 

in many ways.

Programs notes by Elmer Booze

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

L. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2463d Concert

NATIONAL GALLERY CHAMBER PLAYERS

STRING QUARTET

GEORGE MANOS, artistic director

CLAUDIA CHUDACOFF, violin REGINO MADRID, violin

ERIC deWAARDT, viola DIANA FISH, cello

Sunday Evening, 15 June 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Charles T. Griffes

(1884-1920)

Leos Janacek

(1854-1928)

Lento e mesto

Allegro giocoso

Two Sketches on Indian Themes

for String Quartet (1919)

String Quartet No. 1

(After Tolstoy: The Kreutzer Sonata)

(1923)

Adagio con moto

Vivace

Andante; con moto

Adagio

Intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major

(1770-1827) Op. 130 (1825-1826)

Adagio ma non troppo; allegro

Presto

Andante con moto, ma non troppo

Alla danza tedesca: Allegro assai

Cavatina: Adagio molto espressivo

Finale: Allegro

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 p.m.

The Musicians

The National Gallery Chamber Players String Quartet is composed

of members of the National Gallery Orchestra and appears as a regular

feature of each season of concerts at the Gallery. Under the guidance of

Gallery music director George Manos, the quartet has acquired a

splendid ensemble reputation since its debut performance in 1995. In

addition to performing the standard quartet literature, the National

Gallery Chamber Players String Quartet surveys and performs rarely

heard masterpieces of chamber music.

A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, violinist Claudia

Chudacoff has among her credits several solo appearances with the

National Gallery Orchestra under George Manos, including a recent

performance of Brahms’ Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra.

Other guest orchestral appearances have been with the Toledo

Symphony, the Louisville Ballet, and the Ann Arbor Symphony. She has

been first violinist of the National Gallery Chamber Players String

Quartet since its inception.

Regino Madrid, a native of Los Angeles, received the bachelor 

of music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1998. He is

currently a member of the “President’s Own’’ United States Marine Band

and plays regularly at the White House. He has played with the

Cleveland Orchestra, the Erie Philharmonic, and the Canton Symphony

in Ohio. He has participated in numerous music festivals, including

Holland Music Sessions, the Santa Barbara Music Academy of the West,

Musicorda, and the professional studies program at Soundfest with the

Colorado Quartet in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Violist Eric deWaardt, a native of Delft, Holland, studied the

viola with Ramon Scavelli, William Lincer, and the Cleveland Quartet’s

Atar Arad. He has performed as principal violist with the Spoleto

Festival Orchestra, the Heidelberg Festival Orchestra, and the Columbus

(Ohio) Symphony Orchestra. An active recitalist and chamber musician,

he has presented recitals in Holland and in many Washington venues,

including The Jewish Community Center of Rockville, Maryland, the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Embassy of The

Netherlands.
Cellist Diana Fish came to Washington in 1994 as a member of

the Chamber Orchestra of the “President’s Own” United States Marine

Band. She graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she

studied with Orlando Cole, and continued her studies at the graduate

level at Indiana University, where her teacher was Janos Starker. Diana

Fish is the principal cellist of Concert Artists of Baltimore and the

Alexandria (Virginia) Symphony Orchestra. A founding member of the

Whitney Trio, she has performed with that ensemble throughout the

United States.

Program Notes

After spending four years studying and composing music in Germany

(1903-1907), Charles Tomlinson Griffes returned to America, where he

taught privately and studied music on his own. It was at that time that he

became enamored with the music of the French impressionist composers

and the Russian school and began experimenting with the harmonic

possibilities of oriental scales. Combining a unique degree of

inventiveness with inherent tenacity, Griffes earned for himself a place in

the pantheon of American composers. Although his compositional output

is comparatively small, his identity is undeniable. He wrote primarily for

piano, voice, and orchestra. His original chamber music consists of just

two works: Three Tone Pictures for double quintet and piano and Two

Sketches on Indian Themes for String Quartet. The latter work was

published posthumously and edited by Adolfo Betti of the Dlozaley

Quartet. The printed score identifies the Native American source as “a

farewell song of the Chippewa Indians.” The theme of the first sketch is

funereal and lugubrious. The mood of the movement is enhanced by

Griffes’ indication in the score that the cellist should imitate the sound of

Indian drums, using the technique known as pizzicato.

Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata, a novella that deals

passionately with the subjects of infidelity and betrayal, was the

inspiration for Janacek’s First String Quartet. The novella was in turn

inspired by Beethoven’s eponymic Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major, Op.

47 (“Kreutzer”), which was written for and dedicated to the violinist

Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831). The plot of the novella centers on a

failing marriage that ends in the brutal death of a wife who has been

accused by her husband of infidelity with her partner in a violin-piano

duo. In the narrative, it is the passionate performance of Beethoven’s

Kreutzer Sonata by the two musicians that causes the husband to become

suspicious of their alleged romantic relationship. In depicting this saga in

his String Quartet No. 1, Janacek presents a unique sonority by

combining harmonic freedom, complex rhythms, and astounding

expressive intensity with elements drawn from Moravian folklore: 

unexpected exorbitant disparity, lively speech inflections, and striking

reiterations.

When Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op.

130, was given its premiere on 21 March 1826 by the Schuppanzigh

Quartet, it had as its finale an extended fugue that eventually became

known as The Great Fugue. According to Norbert Stich (Ludwig van

Beethoven, Bicentennial Edition, 1770—1970): “The Great Fugue caused

the performers and listeners such difficulties that [the publisher] Matthias

Artaria suggested to Beethoven...that he should compose a new Finale

and publish the fugue as an independent work.” Beethoven acquiesced to

his publisher, extracted The Great Fugue, or Grosse Fuge, as it is known

in German, and had it published separately as Opus 133. The Finale that

is heard in tonight’s performance was composed and added to the quartet

in 1826.

Almost ten minutes in length, the opening movement (Adagio ma

non troppo; allegro) is the longest of any in Beethoven’s sixteen string

quartets (the seventeenth is the separately published fugue). The Adagio

segment, which appears to be an introduction, is actually an episode that

returns after the exposition and again at the end of the recapitulation. It is

an integral part of the movement, as opposed to the model established by

Haydn, where the adagio is used as a preparatory statement before the

opening allegro in the sonata-allegro format. Noting the cyclic use of the

adagio in this movement, writer David Johnson viewed it as “a struggle

for supremacy [that] takes place between the philosophical calm 

[projected by the] Adagio and the nervous, busy Allegro, with its double

motif of running sixteenths and jabbing quarters and eighths.”