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 of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Judith Leyster, Young Flute Player, c. 1635,

National-museum Stockholm

PAGE 10: Judith Leyster, Leyster, Self-Portrait, c. 1632-1633,

National Gallery of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss

The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,741st Concert

Carmina

Vera Kochanowsky, director and virginal

Anne-Marielce Evers, mezzo-soprano

William Simms, lute

Presented in honor of

Judith Leyster, 1609-1660

October 21, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)

More palatino

Anonymous

Onan ofTanneken

Nicolas Vallet (c. 1583 -c. 1642)

Mai Simmes bal anglois

Vallet

Slaep soete slaep

Robert Jones (fl. 1597-1615)

Farewell, Dear Love

Cornelis de Leeuw (1613-c. 1665)

Wanneer ick slaep

Adriaen Valerius (c. 1570-1625)

Almachtig Godt!

Sweelinck

Psalm 26: Seigneur, garde mon droit

Psalm 96: Chantez a Dieu

Sweelinck

Psalm 5: Verhoort 0 Godt

Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687)

Psalm 42: Quare tristis es

Psalm 30: Domine Deus mens clamavi
Anonymous air de cour (1597)

En m’en revenant

Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

The Italian Ground

Joachim van den Hove (1567-1620)

Pavana melancolia from Delitiae musicae (1612)

Comelis Thymanszoon Padbrue (c. 1592-1670)

Wat is de min?

Alma ajflitta, chefai?

Giulio Caccini (1551-1618)

Amarilli, mia bella

Peter Philips (c. 1560-1628)

Amarilli di Julio Romano

Jacobus Clemens non Papa (c. 1510-c. 1555)

De lustelijcke Mey

Psalm jy. Waerom wilt ghi ons verlaten

Anonymous (Livre septieme, 1644)

De Mey koomt ons seer lieflijck aen

Valerius

Heere! keere van ons af

John Dowland (1563-1626)

The Frog Galliard

Now, O Now I Needs Must Part

The Musicians

CARMINA

Carmina (Latin for “poetry” or “songs”) is a chamber choir devoted to exploring the diverse musical styles ofthe Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the 

Baroque. Now in its twelfth season, the group continues to perform regularly in the Washington area and has made appearances at Anderson House, 

the German Embassy, the National Cathedral, and National Presbyterian 

Church. Carmina often collaborates with period instrument ensembles and 

has presented concerts jointly with Armonia Nova, the Bach Sinfonia, Ensemble Gaudior, and the Washington Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble. Carmina

has been praised by the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, which noted

the group’s “gorgeous tonal balance.” Since 2004 Carmina has regularly 

presented concerts as part ofthe Washington Early Music Festival. Carmina’s two CDs, A Carmina Sampler and The Son ofGetron, were released in 

2007. More information about Carmina is available at www.carmina.org.

VERA KOCHANOWSKY

Carmina director and harpsichordist Vera Kochanowsky is a graduate ofthe

Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory.

She holds the doctor ofmusical arts degree from Stanford University,

where she specialized in the performance practices ofthe seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. Kochanowsky was also the recipient of a Fulbright 

grant for harpsichord and early music studies in Europe. Her teachers have

included Alan Curtis, John Gibbons, Arthur Haas, George Houle, and Gordon

Murray. Active as a harpsichord soloist, chamber musician, and private

teacher, Kochanowsky has performed with numerous Washington area ensembles, including the Bach Sinfonia, the Mount Vernon Orchestra, the Washington Kantorei, and La Menestrandise. She has also appeared at the Montpelier

Cultural Arts Center as winner ofthe 1995 and 2002 recitalist competitions. 

Kochanowsky founded Carmina in 1997 and has served as its director since

then. In 2006 she founded a second choral group, the women’s vocal

ensemble Illuminare.

5
ANNE-MARIEKE EVERS

Dutch mezzo-soprano Anne-Marieke Evers began her studies at the Conservatory ofAmsterdam, after which she attended the Schola Cantorum

Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, focusing on music ofthe Middle Ages and

Renaissance. Evers founded the ensemble Grand Desir with recorder player

Anita Orme Della-Marta. Specializing in late medieval and contemporary

music, Grand Desir made its debut at the Early Music Festival Utrecht, and

has performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Young International

Artist Presentation in Antwerp, and the Melbourne Early Music Festival.

Evers has sung in opera productions, including Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas,

and in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortileges, as well as numerous oratorios. In April

2009 she directed and sang in a production of Dutch music for children at 

the National Gallery ofArt, which was presented in honor of Pride ofPlace:

Dutch Cityscapes ofthe Golden Age.

WILLIAM SIMMS

William Simms, lute and theorbo, performs regularly with Apollo’s Fire, the

Bach Sinfonia, Harmonious Blacksmith, Opera Lafayette, and the Washington Bach Consort. In demand as a continuo player, he has performed numerous operas, oratorios and cantatas, including performances with American

Opera Theater, Cleveland Opera, Opera Vivente, Washington National Opera,

and WolfTrap Opera Company. He serves on the faculties of Mount St. Mary’s

University, Towson University, and Hood College, where he is founder and

director ofthe Hood College Early Music Ensemble. Simms holds degrees

from The College ofWooster and the Peabody Conservatory. He has recorded

for the Centaur, Dorian, and Electra labels.

6

Program Notes

The National Gallery’s exhibition Judith Leyster, i6og-i66o, mounted in celebration ofthe 400th anniversary ofthe artist’s birth, offers a unique look at 

her art, times, and milieu. Leyster enjoyed a successful early career in Haarlem, where she became one of only two women admitted into that city’s

professional artist organization, the Guild of St. Luke. Many of Leyster’s paintings, like those of Frans Hals (who may have been her teacher) and those of

her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer, portray scenes of contemporary life in

which music-making is a part.

Jacob van Eyck’s (c. 1590-1657) Der Fluyten Lust-Hofis the largest collection ofmusic for solo recorder ever published, containing one-hundredfifty variations based on one-hundred-twenty popular tunes. Settings ofseven

tunes from van Eyck’s collection provide the framework for this program.

Most ofthe melodies van Eyck selected for Der Fluyten Lust-Hofwere of

foreign, rather than Dutch, origin. This trend is also seen in other contemporary Dutch musical collections. The keyboard variations by Sweelinck that

open today’s program are based on the popular German drinking song More

palatino, first published in 1597 as a French tune. The tune quickly spread to

other countries, including Italy. This may be how English composer Orlando

Gibbons came to title his variation on the tune The Italian Ground.

Onan ofTanneken, a song of probable English origin, was known in

the Netherlands by 1622. A page bearing the title “Tanneken-Jacob van Eyck”

appears in a 1684 painting by Dutch artist Evert Collier. The origin of Mai

Simmes bal anglois, an arrangement ofwhich is found in the first volume

of Nicolas Vallet’s lute collection Le Secret de muses (Amsterdam, 1615), is

unknown. It has no associated text and may have been an instrumental

dance tune.

Robert Jones’ Farewell, Dear Love (First Booke of Songes and Ayres, 1600) 

was adapted by Shakespeare as a song for Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night

(1601). The tune may have been introduced to the continent by traveling

theatrical troupes, and it quickly became popular in the Netherlands. Carmina

sings the text Wanneer ick slaep, which was known in The Netherlands as

7
early as 1605, using Cornells de Leeuw’s three-part arrangement of 1648.

Vallefs version for lute appears in his second volume of Le Secret de muses

(1616) and it bears the title Slaep soete slaep.

Newly composed lyrics for popular tunes could also be sacred. “Almachtig

Godt” and “Heere! Keere,” based on John Dowland’s Now, O Now I Needs Must

Part, both come from Nederlandtsche Gedenck-Clanck, a collection by Adriaen 

Valerius, published in Haarlem in 1626. Valerius, a magistrate and lawyer as

well as a poet, refers in the latter song to Spanish oppression during the 

eighty-year war between Spain and The Netherlands (1568-1648).

Roman-born Giulio Caccini introduced the world to a new expressive

style with his published collection ofmonodies for solo voice and continuo

titled Le nuove musiche (1601), which contains the song Amarilli, mia Bella.

The keyboard intabulation Amarilli di Julio Romano by English organist and

composer Peter Philips appears in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (compiled

by 1619). The psalm settings of Huygens, who was distantly related to Jacob

van Eyck and to whom van Eyck dedicated Der Fluyten Lust-FIof, are clearly

inspired by Caccini’s monodic style. In Sweelinck’s touching lute rendition

of Psalm 5, the psalm melody is set plainly in the uppermost voice, where it

provides a framework for instrumental figuration.

Kusjes, a collection ofsecular vocal works, was composed by Leyster’s

Haarlem contemporary, Comelis Thymanszoon Padbrue, and published in

1631. Updated in 1641, it contains rare examples ofmadrigals in Dutch, such

as Wat is de min. Something of an oddity in this particular context is the 

Italian poem Alma afflitta, chefai, which was probably written by a Dutchman.

The only van Eyck tune of Dutch origin on today’s program is De lustelijcke

Mey (The Delightful Month of May), a melody that maintained its popularity 

for over a century. Clemens non Papa composed two settings, one secular in

four parts, and another sacred in three parts, using the psalm text Waerom

wilt ghi ons verlaten (Why Have You Forsaken Us). De Mey koomt ons seer

liejlijck aen (May Comes to Us So Lovely), is another version ofthe same tune.

John Dowland, the finest English lutenist and songwriter of his day, was

continually frustrated in his efforts to secure a position at the English court.

He therefore went abroad to seek his fortune, ultimately securing long-term

employment with King Christian iv of Denmark. Dowland’s music was well

known and admired throughout Europe. Dowland’s song Now, O Now I Needs

Must Part (from the First Book of Songes or Ayres, 1597) was also known in the 

Netherlands as The Frog Galliard.

Program notes by Vera Kochanowsky, with special thanks to Anne-Marieke Evers

and Ruth Van Baak Grijfoen, author of]acob van Eyck’s Der Fluyten Lust-Hof,

1644-c. 1655.

9
Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Emma Kirkby, soprano

Jakob Lindberg, lutenist

Music by Dowland and Purcell

October 25, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Masques

Music by Couperin and Rameau

October 28, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Presented in honor of

Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings

from the National Gallery ofArt, 1500-1800