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.

For the convenience of concertgoers the Garden Cafe remains

open for light refreshments until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

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-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,785th Concert

Diane Walsh, pianist

May 2, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Variations in F Minor, Hob. xvil:6 (1793)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Sonata in A Minor, op. 143, D. 784 (1823)

Allegro giusto

Andante

Allegro vivace

INTERMISSION

Francois Couperin (1668-1733) 

Passecaille (from Huitieme Ordre) (1713)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Le Tombeau do Couperin (1919)

Prelude

Fugue

Forlane

Rigaudon

Menuet

Toccata

The Musician

With a reputation as a performer of “romantic sweep and arching lyricism”

(The New York Times) and “a pianist with superb technique” (The Boston

Globe), Diane Walsh has created an international career of distinction. In

recital, chamber music, and concerto performances, she has brought a clear

vision and superlative skill to a broad range ofrepertoire from Bach to Berg.

In addition, her recent work on the theater stage in Moises Kaufman’s play

jj Variations has further illuminated the ingenuity of her musical gifts.

Walsh has given recitals at the 92nd Street Y, Merkin Concert Hall, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Miller Theater in New York City;

the Kennedy Center in Washington; and Orchestra Hall in Chicago. Outside

the United States, she has appeared at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam,

Dvorak Hall in Prague, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Philharmonic Hall in

Leningrad, and Wigmore Hall in London, among many other venues. She 

has appeared as concerto soloist with the Austin, Delaware, Indianapolis,

San Francisco, St. Louis, and Syracuse Symphony orchestras; the American

Symphony Orchestra in New York; and the radio symphony orchestras of

Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart.

In demand as a chamber musician, Walsh is a member ofthe WalshDrucker-Cooper Trio and La Fenice, an ensemble comprised ofpiano, string

trio, and oboe. She has performed at numerous festivals, among them the

Bard, Eastern Shore, Marlboro, and Santa Fe Music Festivals as well as the

International Musician’s Seminar in Cornwall, England, and Strings in the

Mountains in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She has served as artistic director

ofthe Skaneateles Festival in upstate New York. A prize winner ofthe Concert

Artists Guild International Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, she also won top prizes at the Munich ard and Salzburg 

Mozart Competitions and the Van Clibum International Piano Competition.

A Steinway artist, Diane Walsh is a member ofthe piano faculty at

Mannes College The New School for Music in New York City. She appears at 

the National Gallery by arrangement with Jonathan Wentworth Associates,

Ltd., of Mount Vernon, New York.

3
Program Notes

Joseph Haydn wrote his Variations in F Minor in 1793 and later redded it Un

piccolo Divertimento. His close friend Marianne von Genzinger had died that

year, and some scholars have suggested that the work may have been written in

her memory. The variations are unusual in that they are double variations with

two themes—the first in F minor and the second in F major. Each theme is

given two variations, which alternate between minor and major. The contrast of

mood between the major and minor variations is more striking than it would

be in a sonata movement, since they are presented without transition. It is as if

the composer were struggling to conquer sadness and at the same time mourn

someone by remembering happier times.

The stark opening of Franz Schubert’s A Minor Sonata—an unharmonized melody in halfnotes—seems to create a barren landscape, a terrain

also explored in many ofhis most despairing songs. Although the sonata is

compact and less discursive than many of Schubert’s piano works, it offers a

broad scope of emotion, drama, sharp contrasts, and a wide dynamic range.

In the development ofthe first movement, for example, the whispering theme

suddenly opens up into powerful chords in the right hand, accompanied by

brilliant octaves in the left hand. The slow movement, which begins modestly

and lyrically, also empts in violent outbursts. The mood throughout the work 

is mostly tragic, but there are a few moments of consolation. In particular, the

last movement’s closing theme introduces a lullaby-like melody accompanied

by a rocking motion in the bass. The sonata was written in 1823 and published

by Anton Diabelli in 1828, with a dedication to Felix Mendelssohn.

4

Born into an influential family ofmusicians who dominated the

French music world for two centuries, Francois Couperin—known by his

contemporaries as Couperin “le grand,” to distinguish him from other

famous musicians from the same family—became a master ofmusic for

the harpsichord (clavecin) and published twenty-seven keyboard suites,

which he called Ordres. The Passecaille on this program is from the eighth

Ordre. Written in the serious key of B minor, it features an eight-bar repeated

passacaglia theme and eight heavily-ornamented episodes that seem to

comment on the theme. Consistent with the seventeenth-century origins

ofthe genre—variations played between verses ofmournful songs—the

mood is one ofreserved sorrow and dignified grace.

Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin (Memorial to Couperin) is a

nostalgic nod to the vanished world of eighteenth-century France and the age

of Louis xiv, as well as Ravel’s tribute to the losses incurred by the French

population in World War I. The work was written during the early years of

the war, and each movement is dedicated to a friend ofRavel who was killed 

during that conflict. The first performance ofthe piece was given in 1919 by

pianist Marguerite Long, the widow ofCaptain Joseph de Marliave, to whom

the Toccata movement is dedicated. Despite its mournful dedications, the

suite is elegant and elegiac rather than tragic in mood. When asked about this

seeming anomaly, Ravel is said to have replied, “The dead are sad enough, in

their eternal silence.”

The Prelude is an incessant swirl ofright-hand figuration (which became

a virtuoso turn for the oboist in Ravel’s later version for orchestra). The

Fugue is rather bleak in tone; the limping theme is accented to emphasize its

syncopations, and baroque techniques such as stretto (overlapping theme

entrances) and inversion (turning the theme upside down) are also used. The

Forlane is the emotional highpoint ofthe suite. The main theme alternates

5
with contrasting episodes, and the dance rhythm and piquant dissonances

create an unusual effect ofbaroque grace combined with modernity. Except

for the final episode in E major, where the mood brightens somewhat, the

mood is melancholy and wistful. Rigaudon begins and ends rambunctiously,

but the contours ofthe melody in the middle section have an exotic flavor,

reminiscent ofmusic played by a snake-charmer. The Menuet is also in

three-part form. Its gracefulness is accented by some surprising harmonic

modulations, including a detour into a distant key before it returns to G major. 

The final Toccata is a tour-de-force for the pianist. The theme is a perpetual

motion figure created with rapid repeated notes, played by changing fingers

on one note, or by alternating between the two hands. The movement gradually builds to a powerful and brilliant conclusion.

Program notes by Diane Walsh

6

Next Week at the National Gallery of Art

Paul Neubauer, violist

Anne McDermott, pianist

Music by Alan Paul and Dmitri Shostakovich

May 9, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court