musical motif known as an ostinato,

a short musical pattern that is

repeated several times. The use of themes borrowed from the first two

movements gives the entire worka cyclical unity. Ysaye imitates

Kreisler’s unique brand of violin virtuosity in this movement, making it

not unlike one of Kreisler’s own violin miniatures, such as the

Tambourin chinois.

The three violin sonatas that comprise Beethoven

’s op.3 were

dedicated to Czar AlexanderI of Russia. Unlike its companions, the

Sonata inC Minor, op. 3, no. 2, is quite dramatic. The opening

movement (Allegro con brio) provides tension that begins innocently in

the first measure and escalates soon thereafter intoa highly tempestuous 

and fervid statement that is unlike anything Beethoven had written

before. This unusual drama unfolds within the sonata-allegro format:

exposition, development, and recapitulation. The second movement 

(Adagio cantabile),a radiantly expressed dialogue between the two

instruments, is nothing short of angelic. As cited by Bruce F. Hart,“[The

second movement] is one of the great lyric expressions in the duet sonata

literature.

” The third movement (Scherzo: Allegro) is in song form witha

trio (ABA) and is the shortest of the four movements, lastinga little over 

three minutes. It sparkles with rhythmic vitality and overall joviality that

is enhanced by prickly szforzandi and spicy musical ornaments in the

form of grace notes. Its trio section featuresa canon in strict imitation

between the violin and piano. The fourth movement (Finale: Allegro) isa

brisk sonata-rondo that is full of emotional tension rivaling that of the

opening movement, with an exciting coda, marked presto, that brings the

sonata toa brilliant and satisfying conclusion.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

The use ofcameras 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 ofconcert goers

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

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2480th Concert

JENNIFER KOH, violinist

BENJAMIN HOCHMAN,/J/7w/sf

Sunday Evening, 11 January 2004

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Franz Schubert

(1797-1828)

Sonatina in A Minor for Violin and Piano

D. 385 (1816)

Allegro moderato 

Andante

Menuetto: Allegro

Allegro

Anton Webern

(1883-1945)

Four Pieces for Violin and Piano

op. 7 (1910, revised 1914)

Sehr langsam

Rasch

Sehr langsam

Bewegt

Claude Debussy

(1862-1918)

Allegro vivo

Intermede: Fantasque et leger

Finale: Tres anime

Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Piano

(1916-1917)

Eugene Ysaye

(1858-1931)

Intermission

Sonata No. 4 in E Minor for Solo Violin

op. 27 (1924)

Allemande: Lento maestoso 

Sarabande: Quasi lento

Finale: Presto ma non troppo

Ludwig van Beethoven

(1770-1827)

Sonata No. 7 in C Minor for Violin and Piano

op. 30, no. 2 (1801-1802)

Allegro con brio

Adagio cantabile

Scherzo: Allegro

Finale: Allegro

The Musicians

Violinist Jennifer Koh is an exhilarating performer who captures

audiences with an artistry and virtuosity that are beyond her years. The

string magazine The Strad enthusiastically wrote: “Jennifer Koh is a risktaking, high-octane player of the kind who grabs the listener by the ears

and refuses to let go...a scorching talent that should on no account be

missed.” Her repertoire ranges from Bach to Elliott Carter, Ornette

Coleman, and Steve Reich, among others. An indefatigable recitalist,

Koh appears frequently at major music centers and festivals, including

Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Mostly Mozart Festival.

Born in Chicago of Korean parents, Jennifer Koh received a

bachelor’s degree in English literature from Oberlin College and a

performance diploma from the Oberlin Conservatory. In 2002 she also

received a performance diploma from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia,

where she worked with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir. Her uniquely

personal education program, “Jennifer Koh’s Music Messenger,”

introduces children to music and encourages music making as a means of

self-expression that transcends the boundaries of culture, language, race,

and economic background.

This concert marks Jennifer Koh’s second appearance at the

National Gallery. She acknowledges with gratitude the generous loan by

a private patron of the 1727 Stradivarius violin (ex-Grumiaux, exGeneral Dupont) that she uses in performance. She appears at the Gallery

by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management, Inc., of New York

City.

Pianist Benjamin Hochman is a recent graduate of the Curtis

Institute of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank. Already an

experienced performer at age twenty-one, he has appeared as soloist and

chamber musician in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Israel. The

Curtis piano faculty presented him with the Festorazzi Award for

outstanding piano student of 2002. In 1998 the State of Israel awarded

him the Partos prize for the best performance of an Israeli composition.

In 1997, while still a student at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, he won

first prizes at the academy’s national piano competition and the Maljers
Competition of the Negev. He is the pianist of the Mediterraneo Piano

Trio, which took second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber 

Music Competition in 1999. Hochman is currently enrolled at Mannes

School of Music, where he is studying with Richard Goode. Since 1992

he has enjoyed the support of the Chagall Foundation and the America 

Israel Cultural Foundation.

Program Notes

The Sonatina No. 2 in A Minor, op. 137, is one of three sonatinas for

violin and piano that Schubert wrote toward the end of his tenure as a

schoolmaster. These sonatinas have the same format and characteristics 

as classical sonatas, but on a smaller scale. According to writer Sidney

Finkelstein, the music “suggests a stimulus from Beethoven, perhaps the

violin-piano sonata in C minor, op. 30, no. 2 [the last work on tonight’s

program], as well as the piano style of Schubert’s song, Erlkonig.” The

prominent German-bom American musicologist Alfred Einstein (1880-

1952) conjectured that all three works in op. 137 are “occasional” pieces.

He refers to them as eighteenth-century “sonatas,” with a linkage to

Mozart or the pre-Mozartean period in “the artless and conversational

relationship” that they create between the violin and the piano and in “the

terseness of form.” The first movement (Allegro moderato) gives the

melodious first theme to the violin and the second theme to the piano.

The second movement (Andante), in the key of F major, begins with the

piano playing the opening theme, after which the two instruments

alternately share the theme with harmonically expressive and highly

refined results. The shortest movement of the four, the Menuetto,

features an enchanting trio that ends with the obligatory return of the

opening theme. The fourth movement (Allegro) is a sprightly rondo with

a hint of folk music in its themes that brings the sonatina to a decisive

close in the key of A minor.

Robert Kraft (b. 1923), one of the world’s leading authorities on

the music of the early twentieth century, writes: “All Webern’s music is

short; but [his] Opera 7-12 are short even for Webern. But Webern’s

brevity must not be thought of as mere reaction to late-romantic length.

His time scale is the unit in each case of a single complete musical idea,

or rather a musical object, because these tiny crystals are static. Webern

is expressing, as Schonberg put it, ‘a whole novel in a single sigh.’” In

his notes for a recorded version of Webern’s Four Pieces, op. 7, the

critic, pianist, and scholar Richard Grayson wrote: “Although there is no

trace of twelve-tone techniques [or] the intricate imitative counterpoint 

so characteristic of his later work, there is no mistaking the sound, and

the moods its evokes, as being ‘pure’ Webern. Using the tiniest bits of

tone and some of the most expressive silences ever created, Webern

fabricates a private universe in miniature.”

Debussy had plans to compose six sonatas for six small groups of

chamber instruments. However, only three of the six were completed,

due to the composer’s failing health toward the end of his life.

Fortunately for violinists, one of the three that he did complete was the

Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Piano. The first movement (Allegro

vivo) features a contrast between the first and second subjects. This

movement was initially rejected by Debussy, but he later relented and

allowed it to remain in the sonata. The second movement (Intermede:

Fantasque et leger) has been described by Edward Lockspeiser, a British

critic and musicologist, as “a harlequinesque interlude, a sort of ironic

serenade with many touches of a tender, benign melancholy in which the

violin seems to make fun of its natural lyrical character.” The third

movement (Finale: Tres anime) opens with a hint of theme from the first

movement before adopting the rondo form in a rambunctious manner.

It was a performance in the early 1920s of a Bach sonata by the

eminent Hungarian-born American violinist Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973)

that inspired Eugene Ysaye to write his own set of solo sonatas. His Six

Sonatas for Solo Violin are, in the words of music critic Richard Freed,

“works [that] not only exploit the resources of the violin most eloquently,

but [also] express the great-hearted artist’s specific admiration and

affection for six of his distinguished younger colleagues.” Ysaye

dedicated the fourth sonata to the inimitable Austrian-born American

violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962). Within its three short movements

are two baroque dances: the allemande and the sarabande, two of the

dances basic to the typical baroque solo suite. The Finale centers on a