About the FourEtudesfor Ursula, Tobias Picker writes: “In order to

understand something of my attitude toward the Four Etudesfor

Ursula, I would like the listener to know thatI have been compos­

ing piano music for Miss Oppens for twenty-two years. It is just as

thrilling [for me] today to be asked by Ursula Oppens fora piece as

it was whenI wasa very young composer. The first three etudes

were composed in the fall of 1995 and the fourth in the fall of 1996.

Of all the piecesI have given her, these four etudes seem to stand

apart in both our minds. [After her first reading of them, Ursula

said:] ‘With these etudes you’ve madea double portrait ofour long, 

crazy, wild, funny, serious, musical friendship.’ [Those] adjectives

may apply to these little studies, but it isa thing beyond the call of

friendship which drives Ursula Oppens’s intrepid muse into the

outer reaches of technical difficulty and my musical imagination.”

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 21 in E Minor, Opus 90 is imbued with ro­

mantic notions: intimateness, elusiveness, poignancy, gentleness,

and even happiness. The colliding harmonic structure within the

first movement perplexed many ofBeethoven’s intellectual friends.

In trying to explain the work to his patron, Count Lichnowsky,

Beethoven is purported to have said,“This movement isa dispute

between the head and the heart.” In contrast to the compactness

of the first movement, the second is more rambling and episodic,

but its sections are closely allied to one another and never depart

from the prevailing song-like character.

Beethoven’s SonataNo. 28inA Major, Opus 101, the first of the great

five last sonatas, was published in 1816. It may best be described as a Sonata-fantasia, particularly in the light ofthe instructions Beethoven

provides in the score, which call upon the pianist to exercise consid­

erable imagination-“with deeply felt emotion,”“likea lively march,”

“yearning,” and“with determination.” Beethoven goes beyond the

restrictions of sonata form to producea highly contrapuntal work

that never surrenders its lyric elements. He enters intoa new world 

ofexpression, encompassing both the majesty ofthe symphonic ideal 

and the intimacy of chamber music.

-Program notes by Elmer Booze

Concerts at The National Gallery of Art

Under the Direction of George Manos

February 1998 1 National Gallery Orchestra

George Manos, conductor

Mozart:

Mahler:

Korngold:

Symphony No. 41

Adagiettofrom

Symphony No.

5

Suite:uMuch Ado

About Nothing'”

8 Hugh Sung, pianist Clementi:

Ravel:

Mussorgsky:

Sonata in B-flat

Major

Gaspardde la nuit

Pictures at an

Exhibition

15 Kolja Blacher, violinist

Jessica Krash, pianist

Schumann:

Prokofiev:

Brahms:

Ravel:

Sonata inA Minor

Sonata No.1

Sonata inA Major

Oiseaux tristes

from Miroirs

Tzigane

22 Talich String Quartet Beethoven:

Mozart:

Janacek:

Quartet, Opus 131

Quartet in

D Major

String Quartet #1

March 1 National Gallery Orchestra

George Manos, conductor

Delius:

Dvorak:

Schumann:

On Hearing the

First Cuckoo in

Spring

Scherzo capriccioso

Symphony No.

1

The Fifty-sixth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery ofArt

2256th Concert

URSULA OPPENS, pianist

The use ofcameras orrecording equipment

during theperformance is not allowed.

Forthe convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30pm.

Sunday Evening, January 25, 1998

at SevenO’Clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission Free
PROGRAM

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 17 in D Minor

(1770-1827) Opus 31, No. 2 (“Tempest")

(1802)

Largo - Allegro

Adagio

Allegretto

Tobias Picker Four Etudes for Ursula

(b. 1954) (1996)

Washington Premiere Performance

INTERMISSION

Beethoven Sonata No. 27 in E Minor

Opus 90 (1814)

I. Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck

II. Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorzutragen

Beethoven Sonata No. 28 in A Major

Opus 101 (1816)

Allegro ma non troppo

Vivace alia marcia

Adagio, ma non troppo, con affetto

Allegro

NewYork City native URSULA OPPENS first studied piano with

her mother, Edith Oppens, and went on to study with Leonard

Shure and Guido Agosti. A distinguished alumna of Radcliffe College (where she earned the bachelor’s degree in English literature

and economics) Miss Oppens went on to become the first woman

Chief Marshall at Harvard’s 1990 commencement exercises. She

completed her master’s degree at the Juilliard School of Music,

where she studied with Felix Galimir and Rosina Lhevinne. Under

the auspices of The Young Concert Artists Guild, she made her

NewYork debut in 1969 at Carnegie Recital Hall. Among her many

awards are the first prize at the 1969 Busoni International Piano

Competition; the 1970 Diploma d’Honore of the Accademia

Chigiana; and an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1976. She received

the 1979 Record World Award for her recording of Rzewski’s The

People United WillNever Be Defeated, which was released in 1993 by

Vanguard Classics and subsequently received a Grammy nomination.

Miss Oppens has appeared as soloist with some of the nation’s

leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Los

Angeles Philharmonic, and the symphonies of Baltimore and Seattle, to name only a few. She has presented recitals in NewYork’s

Town Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Orchestra Hall in

Chicago, and the Kennedy Center, and played at the National Gallery in 1974 and 1991. On the latter occasion, she substituted on

short notice, with great success, for pianist John Browning. Miss

Oppens has also been heard in recital and concerto performances

in many ofEurope’s major music centers, including the BBC Broadcasting House and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Theatre

des Champs-Elysees in Paris, and in Stockholm, Brussels, Geneva,

Bonn, Vienna, and Barcelona. She has won equal acclaim as an 

interpreter of the standard repertoire and as a champion of contemporary music. Her performances are marked by a powerful grasp 

ofthe composer’s musical intentions and an equally powerful command of the keyboard. Miss Oppens’ discography reflects her

dedication to music of differing styles and periods. Her most recent record awards are for her Music and Arts recording ofAmerican

Piano MusicofOur Time, a two-CD set featuringJohn Adams’ Phrygian

Gates, Elliot Carter’s Night Fantasies, and works by Julius Hemphill

and Conlon Nancarrow. Miss Oppens currently holds the position

ofJohn Evans Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern

University in Evanston, Illinois. A Steinway artist, she appears at

the National Gallery by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management of New York City.

Beethoven completed his seventeenth piano sonata in the spring

of 1802, during a stay at Heiligenstadt, nearVienna. That year was

a fateful one for him, with the onslaught of increasing deafness.

The mental and emotional strain almost prevented him from continuing his life’s work. Nevertheless, during this same period of

intense frustration he embarked on a new creative path, beginning

with the Sonata, Opus31. The upheavals (“tempests") ofthe opening movement are expressed in wide melodic skips and sudden

changes oftempo. However, the sonata’s salient feature is its compactness. The Largo - Allegro movement begins with a conversation between the high and low registers, with pithy whispers heard

through the caterwaul of the wind. The emotional pitch of the

music gradually escalates to a storm, but the movement closes with a

recitative that is cloaked in affliction. The Adagio (the apogee ofthe

sonata) luxuriates in rich and profound emotion and can be seen as

the most significant movement ofits type that Beethoven wrote up

to that point. The mood ofthe Finale, with its constant use of chromatic harmony, is tragic, with an oscillating sixteenth-note figure creating a driving sensation in the manner of aperpetuum mobile.

Composer and pianist Tobias Picker gained his first experience at

the keyboard as a teenager, when he was pianist for the Martha

Graham School ofContemporary Dance. As a young adult, he studied composition with Charles Wuorinen at the Manhattan School 

of Music, receiving his bachelor of arts degree in 1976. He completed his masters degree under Elliot Garter at the Juilliard School 

of Music. Mr. Picker, writing in almost every musical genre, has

contributed greatly to the contemporary musical literature, which

in turn has garnered him a well-deserved place among the leading

American composers. “A genuine creator with a fertile, unforced

vein of invention...and one of the most gifted, individual, and

unschematic ofour young composers,” wrote Andrew Porter in the

New Yorker. His long list of compositions includes, among others,

three piano concertos, three symphonies, concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, a melodrama entitled The Encantadas, song

cycles, and several orchestral tone poems. Picker’s recently composed opera, Emmeline, was given its world premiere by the Santa

Fe Opera to sold-out houses, prolonged standing ovations, and international critical acclaim. Emmeline was broadcast as part of PBS’

Great Performances Series on April 2, 1997, and will receive its

NewYork premiere at the NewYorkCity Opera on March 31,1998.