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

For events at the Library ofCongress,

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www.loc.gov/concerts

cover: Carl Joseph Begas, Felix Mendelssohn

Bartholdy, 1821, Private Collection

Mendelssohn on the Mall

January 11-February 27, 2009

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of

the birth of Felix Mendelssohn

(February 3,1809-November 4,1847)

Presented by the Library ofCongress,

the National Academy of Sciences, and the

National Gallery ofArt under the gracious patronage

of His Excellency Dr. Klaus Scharioth, Ambassador

of Germany to the United States

Admission isfree
Mendelssohn on the Mall

January n-February 27, 2009

Concerts and Events

JANUARY

11 Ma’alot Wind Quintet

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer

Night's Dream, transcribed for

wind quintet; music by Ligeti,

Barber, and Piazzolla

Preceded at 6:00 pm by a

preconcert lecture: Mendelssohn

and the Visual Arts

SUNDAY, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

18 Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio

with guest artists Amadi Hummings

and Sel Kardan, violas, and Kurt

Muroki, bass

Mendelssohn: Sextetfor Piano

and Strings, op. 87; music by Sheng

and Smetana

Sunday, 3:00 PM

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

18 National Gallery Orchestra,

Kenneth Slowik, guest conductor

Mendelssohn: “Italian” Symphony;

Schubert: Symphony in C Major

(“Great”)

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

25 Fine Arts Quartet

Mendelssohn: Quartets, opp. 12

and 44/1

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and

F. Lammot Belin

National Gallery of Art

2,701st Concert

January 11, 2009

Ma’alot Quintet

Stephanie Winker,flute

Ulf-Guido Schafer, clarinet

Christian Wetzel, oboe

Volker Tessmann, bassoon

Volker Grewel, horn

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Arranged by Ulf-Guido Schafer

Ein Sommemachtstraum (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), op.

Intermezzo

Auftritt der Handwerker (Entrance ofthe Tradesmen) 

Elfenmarsch (March ofthe Elves)

Lied und Elfenchor (Song and Elves’ Chorus)

Marcia funebre (Funeral March)

Scherzo

Notturno

Tanz der Rupel (Dance ofthe Boors)
Gyorgy Sandor Ligeti (1923-2006)

Six Bagatelles

Allegro con spirito 

Rubato; lamentoso

Allegro grazioso 

Presto ruvido

Adagio; mesto

Molto vivace; capriccioso

INTERMISSION

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Summer Music, op. 31 (1956)

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

Arranged by Ulf-Guido Schafer

Suite

Primavera portena (from Estaciones portenas) 

Cafe (from Histoire du tango)

Verano porteno (from Estaciones portenas)

Scott Joplin (c. 1867-1917)

Arranged by Ulf-Guido Schafer

Ragtimes

The Ragtime Dance

Fig Leaf Rag

The Musicians

The Ma’alot Quintet was founded in 1986 and quickly gained international

recognition after winning four first prizes in major music festivals: Deutscher 

Musikrat, Bonn; Jeunesse Musical, Belgrade; Martigny, Switzerland; and the 

Munich ard Competition (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der offentlich-rechtlichen 

Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland). Though its repertoire

ranges from the classics to contemporary material, the Ma’alot Quintet especially champions new music, often in close collaboration with living composers, introducing audiences to new sounds and ideas and thereby expanding 

the chamber music repertoire. In addition, the ensemble also presents

arrangements specially prepared for them by its members Ulf-Guido Schafer

and Volker Grewel. All members ofthe ensemble hold positions in major

German orchestras or serve as professors at German music schools.

The ensemble regularly appears in the major concert halls of Germany 

and has been invited to many of Europe’s capitals, including Amsterdam,

Athens, Belgrade, Berlin, Bern, Dublin, Istanbul, Lisbon, London, and

Vienna. It has made extended tours throughout Austria, Belgium, Cyprus,

Greece, Luxembourg, and Turkey. Recent festival engagements include the 

Beethovenfest Bonn, the Bodensee Festival, Kissinger Sommer, and the 

Kuhmo, Mozartfest Augsburg, and Rheingau music festivals. In North

America, the ensemble has performed in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and

New York City.

The Ma’alot Quintet has made six critically-acclaimed recordings for

Glissando, and now records exclusively for the mdg label. Its CD of chamber

works by Dvorak won the 2005 Echo Klassik prize, and its Piazzolla recording, Tangosfur Blaserquintett, was released in 2006. The Quintet appears at

the National Gallery by arrangement with Shupp Artists Management of

Port Jefferson, New York.

4
The Composers

Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3,1809. With “Mendelssohn on

the Mall,” the Library ofCongress, the National Academy of Sciences, and

the National Gallery ofArt join musical presenters around the world in

celebrating the bicentennial ofthe birth of a composer whose works have

become essential to the Western canon. Art historians and cultural historians

alike are fascinated by Mendelssohn because he was a “Renaissance man”

who developed skills in many areas to a highly sophisticated level, including

drawing and painting, sports, and writing. He was lionized in his own time

as a composer, conductor, and performer, and the world mourned his 

untimely death in 1847 at age 38.

Until the late nineteenth century, it was a tradition to arrange operas 

and symphonies for wind ensembles. This so-called Harmoniemusik made

the music from large productions available to a wider audience. Mendelssohn 

composed incidental music for an 1843 production ofWilliam Shakespeare's

A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a full pit orchestra in mind. In this arrangement for woodwind quintet, Ulf-Guido Schafer recreates the old tradition of

reducing the original orchestration to an ensemble offive wind players. The 

character and virtuosity ofthe woodwinds convey the atmosphere of a fantastic midsummer night’s dream even more effectively than the full orchestra 

does. The arrangement does not include Mendelssohn’s original overture, 

wedding march, or finale, and the order ofmovements differs from the 

original. The work takes the form of a serenade that immediately carries the

listener into the affairs ofthe fairy kingdom.

5

Born in Transylvania to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents, Gyorgy

Sandor Ligeti was educated at the Kolozsvar Conservatory. After enduring

severe hardships during World War 11, including the death of his father and

brother in concentration camps, he went on, like his countrymen Bartok

and Kodaly before him, to pursue research in folk music, particularly that

of Romania. He is considered to be one ofthe outstanding avant-garde composers ofthe twentieth century.

Ligeti composed a set of eleven bagatelles (trifles) for piano solo in 1951.

Two years later, he re-orchestrated six ofthem for wind quintet. In 1956 the 

Hungarian government banned a complete premiere ofthe opus, claiming 

that the chromaticism was dangerous to the public. Minimalistic yet intense

would be the best way to describe these six short pieces. Most are no longer

than two minutes in duration, and the longest is just over three minutes.

Ligeti also paid homage to Bartok in these pieces, dedicating number five

to him.

Samuel Barber was not a prolific composer of chamber music, and this 

single-movement work is his only wind quintet. Much of Barber’s music—

Knoxville: Summer of1915, for example—evokes a certain nostalgia, a longing for a past that cannot be relived, and Summer Music is one ofthese

pieces. At times lackadaisical and drowsy, and at others full of energy and 

activity, it can be seen as a recollection of Barber’s adolescent days in the 

suburbs of Philadelphia.

Piazzolla’s Estaciones portehas is a composition depicting the four seasons in Buenos Aires. The pieces were originally composed as individual 

works, with relatively large spaces oftime separating the composition of one 

from the next. In addition to the version for piano by Piazzolla himself and

various arrangements, there is a version that he wrote for his own quintet

6
for the bandoneon, violin, guitar, piano, and double bass. The arrangement

for wind quintet follows the lead ofthese animated and passionate Piazzolla

documents: the spring with its tempestuous animation and the oppressive

humidity in the summer. In contrast to the Estaciones portehas, Histoire du

Tango is a work for a set instrumentation. Originally composed for flute and

guitar, it offers a highly atmospheric overview ofthe development ofthe tango. 

In Cafe, which revives the tango ofthe 1930s, the music conveys unfulfilled

yearnings and a melancholy world-weariness.

Scott Joplin, the “King of Ragtime,” is best known for being the first

composer to develop the genre. Born in Texas and raised there and in the

Midwest, Joplin showed a talent for playing the piano at a young age. After 

years ofstudying piano, harmony, and theory, he found his niche playing

in dance halls and brothels. He combined elements of European classical 

music with African rhythms and Creole sounds to make his piano rags

uniquely American.

Program notes on Mendelssohn and Piazzolla by UlfGuido Schafer

Program notes on Ligeti, Barber, and Joplin by Danielle DeSwert

7

For the convenience of concertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:00 pm.

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.
FEBRUARY

Exhibition ofMendelssohn manuscripts, letters, watercolors, and the

Mendelssohn family scrapbook

THROUGHOUT FEBRUARY 2OO9

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

i Ulrich Urban, pianist

Mendelssohn: Fantasies and Caprices,

op. 16; selected Songs without Words;

Variations serieuses, op. 54

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

6 Cypress Quartet

Mendelssohn: Quartet, op. 13;

music by Beethoven and Puts

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

8 JosefFeigelson, cellist

Peep Lassmann, pianist 

Mendelssohn’s complete works

for cello and piano

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

10 Mira Trio

Hensel: Piano Trio in D minor, op. 11;

Mendelssohn and Hensel: Songs

without Words; Mendelssohn:

Piano Trio no. 2 in C minor, op. 66

Preceded at 6:15 pm by a

preconcert lecture by Susan 

Clermont, Music Division, Library

ofCongress

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

13 Atrium Quartet

Mendelssohn: Quartet, op. 80;

music by Shostakovich and Borodin

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

library of congress

15 University ofAkron Concert Choir,

Samuel Gordon, conductor 

Mendelssohn: Wie der Flirsch schreit,

op. 42; Chorale Cantata: O Haupt

voll Blut und Wunden; hymn: Hor

mein bitten

SUNDAY, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

18 Trio con Brio Copenhagen 

Mendelssohn: Piano Quartet in

B Minor, op. 3; Beethoven:

“Archduke” Trio

WEDNESDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY of congress

19 Lecture by R. Larry Todd,

Duke University

Reflections on the Mendelssohn

Bicentenary

THURSDAY, y.OO PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

22 Mendelssohn Piano Trio

Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in D Minor,

op. 49; music by Beethoven

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

27 Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, 

Betsy Burleigh, director 

Mendelssohn: Psalm 55; Sechs

Spruche, op. 79; music by Handel, 

Haydn, and Mozart

Friday, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS